Faculty and Staff Notes

Kara Yoo Leaman, assistant professor of music theory and aural skills, gave a public video lecture for the Center for Ballet and the Arts at New York University. 

Associate Professor of Politics Kristina Mani was featured in a WOLA Podcast on Latin American civil-military relations. In the podcast, "Civil-Military Relations at a Crossroads in the Americas," Mani is interviewed by WOLA's Adam Isacson, discussing how Latin American militaries have been called to a range of non-defense roles, most recently in the COVID-19 emergency, and what this can mean for state and society in the region.

Assistant Professor of Art History Matthew Rarey's essay, "'And the Jet Would be Invaluable': Blackness, Bondage, and The Beloved" was published in the September 2020 issue of The Art Bulletin.

Professor of Politics Stephen Crowley wrote "The Factory Joins the Square: Putin’s Nightmare Unfolds in Belarus" in The Nation, and "Global Cities versus Rustbelt Realities: The Dilemmas of Urban Development in Russia" in Slavic Review.  

Assistant Professor of Dance Al Evangelista presented "Animating and Embodying Collaboration" at the Association for Theatre in Higher Education's annual conference. This conference presentation discussed both The Loneliness Project and Virginia Tech’s Advancing the Human Condition Symposium. The Loneliness Project theatricalized ethnographic research about intergenerational loneliness in Chicago's LGBTQIA+ populations and, in so doing, raised generative questions about the challenges of developing place-based ethnographic performance in multiple locales.

Evangelista also taught "Choreographing Memory" at Ugnayan, a virtual intensive of Filipina/o/x choreographers and dancers. Nikaio Thomashow '18 helped organize and also taught at the virtual intensive.

Anne Salsich, Associate Archivist, was appointed to the editorial board for Archival Issues, the journal of the Midwest Archives Conference for a three-year term. Archival Issues is published twice each year and has an international readership. The journal is one of the premier outlets for archival literature, and its scope extends well beyond the Midwest.

Assistant Professor of Economics Evan Kresch's paper "The Buck Stops Where? Federalism, Uncertainty, and Investment in the Brazilian Water and Sanitation Sector" was published recently in the American Economic Journal.

Jody L. Kerchner, Professor of Music Education and Director of the PACE Division, was re-elected to her second term (2020-22) as Board Member of the International Society for Music Education (ISME).

Len Podis, Emeritus Professor of Rhetoric and Composition, published the essay "Literary Lions: Chinua Achebe and Ongoing Dialogues in Modern African Literature" in the journal Research in African Literatures. 

Professor Podis dedicated the piece to the memory of his longtime colleague, co-teacher, and coauthor, Yakubu Saaka, Professor of Africana Studies, who passed away in 2008.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies Matthew Berkman’s dissertation won an award from the American Political Science Association. Berkman’s dissertation, "Coercive Consensus: Jewish Federations, Ethnic Representation, and the Roots of American Pro-Israel Politics" is the winner of the association’s Walter Dean Burnham Dissertation Prize. “Coercive Consensus” sets out to answer the question of how complete identification with the state of Israel came to characterize every major national Jewish organization in the highly consequential period following the Six Day War.