Olivia DrakeAn article by Victoria Smolkin-Rothrock received honorable mention for the Distinguished Article Prize from the Association for the Study of Eastern Christian History and Culture. Smolkin-Rothrock is assistant professor of history, assistant professor of Russian, Eastern European and Eurasian studies and tutor in the College of Social Studies. Her article, titled "The Ticket to the Soviet Soul: Science, Religion and the Spiritual Crisis of Late Soviet Atheism," appeared in Volume 73, Issue 2 of The Russian Review and was selected from among 22 entries. The honor comes with a $200 award. Smolkin-Rothrock's article examines the confrontation of Soviet scientific atheism with religion as it played out on the pages and…
A book by Marc Eisner, the Henry Merritt Wriston Chair of Public Policy, was selected as a winner of the Outstanding Academic Titles by Choice in 2014. Eisner's book, The American Political Economy was published in 2014. In this innovative text, he portrays the state and the market as inextricably linked, exploring the variety of institutions subsumed by the market and the role that the state plays in creating the institutional foundations of economic activity. Through a historical approach, Eisner situates the study of American political economy within a larger evolutionary-institutional framework that integrates perspectives in American political development and economic sociology. Eisner also is chair…
Lauren RubensteinProfessor of Economics Richard Grossman recently accepted two new posts. He was appointed to be a research fellow in the Economic History Program of the London-based Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR). Founded in 1983, CEPR's mission is "to enhance the quality of economic policymaking within Europe and beyond, by fostering high quality, policy-relevant economic research, and disseminating it widely to decision-makers in the public and private sectors." Grossman is one of only a few American research fellows at CEPR. He was also recently appointed associate editor for socioeconomics, health policy and law of the journal Neurosurgery. See here for a bio of…
A commentary by Leo Lensing, chair and professor of German studies, professor of film studies, was featured in the Times Literary Supplement in January. The commentary focuses on Austria’s exploitation of Karl Kraus’s great anti-war drama, The Last Days of Mankind, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the First World War. Kraus first published the play in four special issues of his satirical journal Die Fackel (The Torch) in 1918–19. "The red wrappers and the documentary photograph of Wilhelm II used as the frontispiece of the epilogue initially lent it the explosive impact of a revolutionary pamphlet," Lensing writes in the commentary. "Kraus…
Tula Telfair, professor of art, is having a solo exhibition of 21 new monumental oil paintings at the Louisiana Art & Science Museum Jan. 10 through March 15. The opening reception is 6 to 8 p.m. Jan. 29. In a "World of Dreams— New Landscape Paintings," Telfair paints monumental landscapes and epic-scale vistas that act as windows into another world — a dream world — where everything seems familiar yet remains beyond grasp. Drawing upon the long tradition of landscape painting from the backdrops of the Renaissance through the Romanticism of the 19th century, she presents a thoroughly contemporary perspective upon an archaic art form. Instead of documenting…
A poem by Elizabeth Willis, the Shapiro-Silverberg Professor of Creative Writing, professor of English, is published in the Jan. 12 edition of The New Yorker. Willis, a 2012-13 Guggenheim fellow, is the author of Alive: New and Selected Poems, which will be published this spring. She is an expert on 20th century American poetry and poetics, poetry and visual culture, 19th century poetry and poetics, modernism, post-modernism, poetry and political history and the prose poem. The published poem is titled "About the Author."
Four faculty from the History Department participated in the American Historical Association Meeting in New York City Jan. 2-5. The topic was "History and Other Disciplines." Professor of History Ethan Kleinberg presented “Just the Facts: The Fantasy of a Historical Science." Kleinberg also is the director of the Center for the Humanities, professor of letters and executive editor of History and Theory. Assistant Professor of History Victoria Smolkin-Rothrock spoke on “From a Society Free of Religion to Freedom of Conscience: How Toleration Emerged from within Totalitarianism." She also is assistant professor of Russian, Eastern European and Eurasian studies and tutor in the College of…
Priscilla Meyer, chair and professor of Russian, East European and Eurasian studies, is the recipient of a 2014 Excellence in Post-Secondary Teaching award, granted by the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL). AATSEEL exists to advance the study and promote the teaching of Slavic and East European languages, literatures, and cultures on all educational levels. Meyer received her award during the the 2015 AATSEEL Conference Jan. 9 held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The event featured scholarly panels, supplemented by advanced seminars, roundtables, workshops, informal coffee conversations with leading scholars, and other special events, such as poetry…
J. Kehaulani Kauanui, associate professor of anthropology, associate professor of American studies, participated in several conferences and events during the fall semester. She presented on a roundtable, "Indigenous Sovereignty, Conquest Mythology, And Indian Policy: Histories and Futures in New England" at the New England American Studies Association Conference held at Roger Williams University, Oct 17-18. She also was an invited participant for a public panel discussion, "Countering Columbus Day,” held at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum & Research Center on Oct. 25. Kauanui also presented ongoing research on Palestinian solidarity through participation at two events. First, as an invited speaker at Johns Hopkins University for a Gaza teach-in…
Masami Imai, professor of economics, professor of East Asian studies, is the co-author of an article titled "Attribution Error in Economic Voting: Evidence from Trade Shocks," published in the January 2015 edition of Economy Inquiry, Volume 53, Issue 1, pages 258-257. Rosa Hayes '13, currently a research analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, also is one of the paper's co-authors. This article exploits the international transmission of business cycles to examine the prevalence of attribution error in economic voting in a large panel of countries from 1990 to 2009. Masami and his co-authors found that voters, on average, exhibit…
The Washington Post selected President Michael Roth's book, Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters, on its list of top 50 notable works of nonfiction in 2014. A brief summary of the review states: The president of Wesleyan University describes two distinct traditions of a liberal education--one philosophical and "skeptical," the other rhetorical and "reverential"--and argues that both are necessary for educating autonomous individuals who can also participate with others. Beyond the University was originally reviewed in the Post on May 23 by Christopher Nelson, president of St. John's College in Annapolis, Md. In that review, Nelson calls the book "a substantial and lively discussion" as well…
Richard Grossman, professor of economics, delivered a keynote speech at the 10th Chief Risk Officer Assembly in Munich, Germany on Nov. 19. The speech was based on his book, WRONG: Nine Economic Policy Disasters and What We Can Learn from Them (Oxford University Press), and focused the consequences of government policy for economic risk. The CRO Assembly is organized by Geneva Association, an insurance industry think-tank, and the CRO Forum, which is made up of chief risk officers from large (primarily European) multi-national insurance and re-insurance companies. The conference took place at the headquarters of Munich RE, one of the world’s largest…