Faculty and Staff Notes

Associate Professor of Integrated Media Julia Christensen, a LACMA Art + Technology Lab grant recipient, will gave a multimedia presentation at on Wednesday, April 22 about her project and forthcoming book, Upgrade Available (Dancing Foxes Press, Spring 2020), which examines how “upgrade culture” fundamentally impacts our experience of time.

Professor of Jazz Studies and Double Bass Peter Dominguez was named artistic director of the Richard Davis Foundation for Young Bassists Inc annual conference. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the group could not meet in person for its 27th year, but instead created a Virtual Bass Orchestra. Listen to Dominguez's introduction and hear faculty and students play Duke Ellington's "Azure.” 

Visiting Assistant Professor of Writing and Communication Hal Sundt published an essay on quarantine, space, and one of his favorite shows, Frasier, for the American Scholar.

Associate Professor of Integrated Media Julia Christensen was interviewed in the Art Newspaper about her new book and solo exhibition, both titled Upgrade Available.

Professor of Classics Kirk Ormand has been awarded a fellowship at the Université de Strasbourg Institut d'Etudes Avancées / University of Strasbourg Institute for Advanced Study (USIAS) for the fall of 2020, when he will be on leave. Ormand will use his time in Strasbourg to begin a book on archaic Greek invective poetry.

Professor of Hispanic Studies Sebastiaan Faber was interviewed on the Real News Network about efforts in Spain to alleviate the economic blow of COVID-19 with a form of permanent income for the lowest-earning segments of society. 

Assistant Professor of Creative Writing Chanda Feldman published a new poem, "First Winter," in the latest issue of the Image Journal.

Associate Professor of Music Theory Megan Kaes Long was awarded an American Council Of Learned Societies Fellowship for the 2020–2021 academic year to support her research on tonal structure in the music of William Byrd.

Rian Brown-Orso, associate professor of cinema studies, gave video commentary for CAN Journal that included her reflections about teaching art online during the time of COVID-19. 

Associate Professor of Sociology Greggor Mattson published a journal article on his research on small-city gay bars in City & Community, a journal of the American Sociological Association. This research, on which several Oberlin undergraduate research assistants worked, is the first description of the qualities of gay bars outside large-city gay neighborhoods. The paper explores the similarities of 55 lone small‐city gay bars to each other and the challenges they pose to the sexualities and urban literatures.