Seven Receive Tenure

During its December 2013 and March 2014 meetings on campus, Oberlin’s Board of Trustees approved recommendations to reappoint with continuous tenure seven assistant professors and promote them to the rank of associate professor. The newly tenured associate professors are:

• Zeinab Abul-Magd, History / Middle East and North Africa Studies
• Richard Baldoz, Sociology
• Corey Barnes, Religion
• David Bowlin, Strings
• Erika Hoffmann, Anthropology
• Wendy Hyman, English
• Tom Wexler, Computer Science

Zeinab Abul-Magd

A commanding presence in the classroom, Zeinab Abul-Magd’s courses include 100-level surveys of the history of the Middle East and North Africa, intermediate-level courses on women and gender in Islamic law or U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and North Africa, and advanced courses on Islam and politics or the Arab spring. As a scholar, Abul-Magd has published journal articles on the history of revolution in Egypt and evaluations of the role of the military in contemporary Egypt. Her 2013 monograph, Imagined Empires: A History of Revolt in Egypt, is a study of revolt focused on the Qina Province in the Upper Nile. She is currently engaged in researching a book on the role of the military in shaping the Egyptian state.

Richard Baldoz

Rick Baldoz has taught courses addressing a wide range of topics, including introduction to sociology, racial and ethnic relations, the sociology of globalization, examinations of social inequalities using the lenses of race, class, and gender, and the sociology of popular culture. Baldoz is an active scholar, having published peer-reviewed articles in the general area of Asian American studies and, in 2011, published a monograph, The Third Asiatic Invasion: Empire and Migration in Filipino America 1989-1946, which won the Distinguished Book Prize from the American Sociological Association’s Asia and Asian American Section and earned the Asia Pacific American Award for Literature best nonfiction book prize from the American Library Association. One of the research projects he has underway—an examination of the impact of the 1965 Immigration Act—received a Moody Research Grant from the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library.

Corey Barnes

A gifted teacher and widely respected scholar of medieval Christianity, Corey Barnes arrived in Oberlin in the fall of 2007 on a visiting appointment. Barnes teaches introductory courses on the roots of religion in the Mediterranean world and Christianity in the medieval world, and intermediate to advanced courses on medieval Christianity and philosophy of religion. A compelling lecturer, he is also a highly productive scholar. During his time at Oberlin, Barnes has published five refereed journal articles, two invited essays, and a monograph on Thomas Aquinas, and he is moving ahead on a new book project on medieval philosophy and theology and on essays intended for scholarly journals.

David Bowlin

David Bowlin embodies the highest standards of Oberlin, says Dean of the Conservatory Andrea Kalyn. Recognized among his peers as one of the foremost young violinists active today, Bowlin is a tremendously gifted and sensitive artist, remarkable for his technical and artistic range and flexibility across styles and genres. He maintains a vibrant and varied performance schedule, and contributes significantly to Oberlin’s reputation with his impressive performance profile. David’s work as a teacher is equally impressive; his students flourish under his guidance, and the quality of his teaching is reflected in the regular acceptance of his students into top festivals and graduate programs. In the area of service to the institution, David stands out as a tremendous colleague whose voice and perspective are valued throughout the Conservatory of Music.

Erika Hoffmann-Dilloway

Erika Hoffmann-Dilloway first joined the Department of Anthropology as a Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow in 2008 and was subsequently appointed assistant professor in fall 2009. A linguistic anthropologist, she regularly teaches an introduction to linguistic anthropology and courses on embodiment and literacies. Hoffmann-Dilloway has a strong record of scholarship. She has published six peer-reviewed research articles on sign languages and d/Deaf communities, particularly on the emergence of systems of writing for sign languages, in prestigious anthropology and linguistics journals. She continues to explore new areas of research on sign languages, computer-mediated communities, and studies of different types of literacies, and she is well underway on a book project analyzing systems of writing for sign languages.

Wendy Hyman

Wendy Hyman teaches a popular first-year seminar that examines literary instances of inanimate objects coming to life; challenging intermediate-level courses on Shakespeare and 16- and 17-century literature; and scholarly and demanding advanced-level courses on Renaissance erotic poetry, visuality and materiality in Renaissance literature, and literary theory. She is widely recognized by students as an engaging lecturer, a professor who pushes students to achieve their best, and a mentor who helps students explore the paths they will follow after Oberlin. Since arriving at Oberlin, Hyman has published five essays and edited a volume of essays that appeared in print in 2011, won several teaching grants and research fellowships, and has given invited talks from New Orleans to Neuchâtel, Switzerland. She is currently finishing a book project examining embodiment, knowledge, and representation in erotic carpe diem poetry.

Tom Wexler

Students praise Tom Wexler’s ability to present complex information clearly and creatively, whether in the rigorous introduction to computer science for majors course or in upper-level game theory courses. Wexler also has effectively incorporated group-project work into his classes, endeavoring to provide students with the experience they need to succeed in the field beyond Oberlin, where working in groups or teams is the norm. His research is in the area of algorithmic game theory, in which researchers use formal algorithms to model the decision processes in game theory and attempt to relate the outcomes to properties of the algorithms. Wexler published six papers in journals in his four years at Oberlin, and he has an active program with local and off-campus collaborators that has already led to presentations at international conferences.