Olivia DrakePublishers Weekly named Assistant Professor of English Lisa Cohen’s book, All We Know: Three Lives, as one of the "Best Books of 2012." In All We Know, Publishers Weekly says "Cohen ... fully delineates the conventional biographical matters of ancestry, parents, schooling, marriages, affairs, friendships, breakups, work, and death. This well-researched, gossipy, informative, and entertaining biographical triptych is also a thoughtful, three-part inquiry into the meaning of failure, style, and sexual identity." The New York Times also named the book one of the "100 Notable books of 2012." In a book review, the NYT says "Cohen’s own idiosyncratic hybrid doesn’t disappoint. She builds a rich picture…
The Indiana University New Music Ensemble began its Nov. 29 concert with a piece written by composer Paula Matthusen, assistant professor of music. Matthusen's the art of disappearing for chamber orchestra premiered in the Netherlands in 2006. The electroacoustic work is scored for both conventional instruments and fixed media elements, also called tape. The fixed media uses electric guitar sounds, another contemporary influence that Matthusen draws on frequently.
Hannah Norman '16Elizabeth Willis, professor of English, Shapiro-Silverberg professor, was a part of a talk commemorating Joseph Cornell (1903-1972) at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, New York on Nov. 16. Cornell was an American artist, sculptor, and experimental filmmaker. He was also one of the pioneers of an art form known as assemblage, which involves compositions of various 2-D and 3-D objects. In this distinctive event, Willis joined other contemporary poets and filmmakers and shared poetry readings inspired by Cornell’s unique creations.
Gina Athena Ulysse, associate professor of anthropology, associate professor of African-American studies, was invited to perform her avant-garde meditation, "Voodoo Doll, What if Haiti Were a Woman?" at two international conferences in 2013. Ulysse's piece focuses on coercion and consent inspired by Gede, the Haitian Vodou spirit of life and death. She intersperses the story with Haiti’s geopolitical history, statistics, theory and Vodou chants. On Jan. 12-19, Ulysse will attend the 8th Encuentro of the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics at the Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil. There, she will join more than 400 artists, performers, scholars and activists who will…
Lauren RubensteinMagda Teter, the Jeremy Zwelling professor of Jewish studies, professor of history, recently gave a lecture at the Vatican. Delivered Nov. 13, the lecture was titled, "Reti di potere: gli ebrei e l'accesso all a Santa Sede nell'eta modern," or "Networks of Power: Jews and their Access to the Holy See in the Early Modern Period." Teter's talk was part of a lecture series organized in collaboration between the University "La Sapienza" in Rome and the Vatican's Archive of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (Archivio della Congregazione per la Dottrina della Fede), previously called the Holy Office…
Victoria Smolkin-Rothrock, assistant professor of history, assistant professor of Russian and Eastern European studies, tutor in the College of Social Studies, delivered the Sherman Emerging Scholar Lecture titled "A Sacred Space: The Spiritual Life of Soviet Atheism" Oct. 18 at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington. Paul Townsend, chairman of the History Department at N.C. Wilmington, said Smolkin-Rothrock was chosen because her work "explored the connections between art, culture and history." A native of Ukraine, Smolkin-Rothrock studied at Sarah Lawrence College and received her master’s and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California at Berkeley. She has published articles on “scientific atheism” and…
Khachig Tölölyan, professor of letters, professor of English, was appointed by the Social Science Research Council of the U.S. to teach a special seminar jointly with a French professor appointed by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. They taught the topics of "Transnationalism" and "circulation migratoire" to 12 Ph.D candidates--six French and six American--first at the Université de Poitiers, France, from June 11-15, 2012, then in Philadelphia, from Sept. 12-16, 2012. Tölölyan also was the keynote speaker and gave a lecture titled “Claiming diasporas, reclaiming diaspora studies,” at the conference on “Transnationalism and Diaspora,” Centre for Research in International Migration…
John Finn, professor of government, recently finished recording a 12 lecture audio series on the First Amendment for “The Great Courses,” which offers college courses by engaging professors. Finn’s course on “The First Amendment and You: What Everyone Should Know,” is a practical guide to understanding the protections and limitations implied by this fundamental constitutional provision. Finn, an internationally-recognized expert on constitutional law and theory, helps listeners grasp why we have a First Amendment, what and whom it protects, and why it matters. Finn is also an internationally-recognized expert on constitutional law and political violence. His public lectures include testimony…
Jennifer Tucker will serve as interim director of the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life, beginning immediately through the end of the fall 2013 semester. Tucker has accepted this position in order to enable the faculty and the university to formulate a vision for the Allbritton Center that will engage the curriculum and faculty scholarship, and enhance the intellectual life of the university. Her work this year will provide a framework for strategic planning and guide the search for a new director. Tucker is chair and associate professor of feminist, gender and sexuality studies, associate professor of history,…
A book by Margot Weiss, assistant professor of American studies, assistant professor of anthropology, received the 2012 Ruth Benedict Book Prize by the Association for Queer Anthropology. Her book, Techniques of Pleasure: BDSM and the Circuits of Sexuality (Duke University Press, 2011) was honored in the category “Outstanding Monograph." This prize is presented each year at the American Anthropological Association's national meeting to acknowledge excellence in a scholarly book written from an anthropological perspective about a topic that engages issues and theoretical perspectives relevant to LGBTQ studies. Techniques of Pleasure is a vivid portrayal of the San Francisco Bay Area’s pansexual…
Jeanine Basinger, Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies, chair of film studies, was honored in Variety magazine's special feature edition, "Women's Impact Report 2012." In the profile, Basinger discusses her typical work week; the often-underestimated number of hours that college professors dedicate to their jobs; her secret to work-life balance; and why she doesn't carry a cell phone. She says, "My worklife and my personal life are very highly integrated. Students I've taught have now become my friends and are a part of my life. I don't have a problem juggling two lives, my life is coherent and it's only one life. In a…
In an op-ed published Oct. 18 in The Jakarta Post, Ronald Jenkins, professor of theater, writes about a disturbing new documentary in which “gangsters” responsible for mass murders in Indonesia from 1965-66 reenact their crimes as they remember them. "This enables audiences to witness the deaths, not as they happened, but as they are remembered by the killers," he writes. The documentary, "The Act of Killing" by Joshua Oppenheimer, “reveals the links between the human capacity for self-delusion and cinema’s ability to reedit the past into comforting fantasy," writes Jenkins.