Faculty – Page 2

Each year at Commencement, Wesleyan University recognizes three outstanding faculty members with the awarding of the Binswanger Prizes for Excellence in Teaching. The University is delighted to announce that this year’s recipients are Abigail S. Hornstein, Woodhouse/Sysco Professor of Economics; Michelle Aaron Murolo, professor of the practice in molecular biology and biochemistry; and Rashida Z. Shaw McMahon, associate professor of English. Underscoring Wesleyan’s commitment to its scholar-teachers, these annual prizes are made possible by gifts from the family of the late Frank G. Binswanger Sr., Hon ’85. Recipients are chosen each spring by a committee composed of faculty and members…

By Rose Chen ’26 Fellowships, Research, and Grants Jennifer Tucker, professor of technology, law, and visual culture and founding director of the Center for the Study of Guns and Society, and Stephen Hargarten, professor of Emergency Medicine at Medical College of Wisconsin, received a grant from The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for their research into the ways manufacturers have improved firearm and ammunition safety since the 1750s. Tucker published “Gundamentalism” in Modern American History in May of 2023, an essay on the role of guns in American society through history. She also published “Home on the (Firing) Range:…

A Wesleyan University faculty member and alumnus were two of 188 newly announced Guggenheim Fellows, according to the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation on April 11. Hari Krishnan, professor of Dance, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Global South Asian studies, received a fellowship for his work in choreography. Tavia Nyong’o ’95, William Lampson Professor of Theater and Performance Studies, American Studies, and African American Studies at Yale University, received one for Theatre Arts & Performance Studies. “It means everything to me. It’s a recognition of the work I do, the breadth of my eclectic choreography for over 30 years,” Krishnan said. “This recognition from Guggenheim is also a recognition…

Since the 2016 presidential election of Donald Trump, legal scholars, political pundits, professors of history, and others have debated whether the United States has taken a turn from democracy toward fascism. Some say it has. Others argue it has not. The very uncertainty about what has or has not happened gave rise to Assistant Professor of History Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins’ new book, “Did it Happen Here? Perspectives on Fascism and America.” It’s an anthology of texts from thought leaders from certain periods in the 20th and 21st centuries who take positions on the state of fascism in America. Many of the…

By Anya Kisicki ’22 Dante, dinosaurs, and geopolitics mingled at the opening of Assistant Professor of Art Tammy Nguyen’s newest art exhibition, A Comedy for Mortals: Purgatorio, at the Lehmann Maupin’s London gallery on March 12. Nguyen, a 2023 Guggenheim Fellow in fine arts, masterfully weaves disparate concepts together to create a new world of meaning that plays out on massive canvases, works on paper, and the intricate pages of her artbooks. A Comedy for Mortals is the second installment in an ongoing trilogy of exhibitions by Nguyen. Each iteration of A Comedy for Mortals maps geopolitical themes onto Dante’s…

Khalilah Brown-Dean, award-winning scholar and author dedicated to community building and access, is Wesleyan University’s new executive director of the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life and university professor. “I am a community-engaged scholar and academic leader who creates spaces for collaboration and understanding. I’m passionate about confronting grand societal challenges like threats to democracy,” Brown-Dean said. “This role affords me the opportunity to tackle some of the global conflicts that we all have to contend with, while leveraging the resources of higher education.” The Allbritton Center is the nucleus of civic life at Wesleyan and is where…

The climate change Earth is experiencing today is similar to that during a period of rapid and intense global warming it experienced some 56 million years ago. Understanding the similarities can help scientists evaluate what is happening in today’s warming world, according to Ellen Thomas, Harold T. Stearns Professor of Integrative Sciences, Emerita. Key to that understanding is figuring out how much oxygen was dissolved in large swaths of the oceans during that period of rapid warming, called the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum or PETM, when average temperatures increased by 5-8o Celsius or 9-14o Fahrenheit in a few thousand years, Thomas…

President Michael S. Roth ’78 wrote an op-ed for Inside Higher Ed on his recent letters to state representatives calling for them to redouble their efforts to bring peace in the Middle East and to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza. “Silence at a time of humanitarian catastrophe isn’t neutrality; it’s either cowardice or collaboration. We don’t need institution-speak, but we do need leaders of academic and cultural institutions to call on our government and our fellow citizens to address this crisis.” Roth joined the Yale University Press Podcast to talk about his book the history of the student, current crises…

Elizabeth Bobrick, visiting scholar in classical studies, wrote a piece for Salon on the parallels between Athenian playwright Sophocles’ “Antigone” and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s initial refusal to let the country’s public mourn the death of political enemy Alexei Navalny or his family hold a public funeral. “Navalny’s mother and widow join Antigone in prodding us to remember that the treatment of the dead has consequences for the living—not for Putin, necessarily, but for everyone who gets in his way,” Bobrick wrote. Wesleyan President Michael S. Roth ’78 appeared on WNPR’s “Disrupted” on Feb. 7 to talk about his role…

Herbert A. Arnold, Professor of German and Letters, Emeritus, passed away on January 7 at the age of 88. Herb completed his studies in Germany and the US, receiving his PhD from the University of Würzburg. He arrived at Wesleyan in 1962, and taught in the German studies department and the College of Letters for 41 years until his retirement in 2003. “Trained as a historian, Herb also had a spectacularly broad and deep knowledge of European literature and Western philosophy,” recalled Krishna Winston, Marcus L. Taft Professor of German Language and Literature, Emerita, “which made him a perfect fit for both…

Assistant Professor of Education Studies Alisha Butler will launch a new study exploring the ways that families and young people can (and don’t) influence school and citywide education-related decision-making processes. “How is it that non-system policy actors are attempting to include the decisions that affect what happens day-to-day in school?” Butler said. Butler’s study, a collaborative effort with Kristin Sinclair, Assistant Teaching Professor of Education Advocacy and Policy in the Education Transformation Program at Georgetown University, is funded through a Spencer Foundation Small Grant, a program that supports “rigorous, intellectually ambitious and technically sound research that is relevant to the…

Wesleyan’s faculty has been hard-at-work in 2023 sharing their scholarship with the world. Here are some of the books written by Wesleyan’s faculty over the past year. Homesick Blues: Politics, Protest, and Musical Storytelling in Modern Japan by Scott Aalgaard Assistant Professor of East Asian Studies Scott Aalgaard explores how people in Japan have used “musical storytelling” as a means of expressing themselves in their everyday life and as a political practice from the late 1940s to 2018. Within the book, he challenges assertions that political upheavals in the 1960s and 70s in Japan were the climax and end of…

2024 Binswanger Prizes for Excellence in Teaching Announced

Faculty Achievements in Academic Year 2023-24

Wesleyan Faculty, Alumnus Awarded Guggenheim Fellowships in Choreography, Theatre

Did It Happen Here?

Wesleyan Professor’s Art on Display in London Gallery

Khalilah Brown-Dean to Lead the Allbritton Center

New Research Suggests Ocean May Increase in Oxygen During Warming

Wesleyan in the News: March 2024

Wesleyan in the News: February 2024

Herbert A. Arnold, Professor of German and Letters, Emeritus, Dies

Grant to Fund Study on School Decision Making Processes

Wesleyan Faculty Publications 2023