Current News

Dan Reff, Comparative Studies, will present "Narratives of Otherness and the Jesuit-Orchestrated 'Tour' of Europe by Japanese Samurai (1584-85)" in the College of Humanities’ fourth Inaugural Lecture of the academic year, 4:30 pm, February 21, OSU Faculty Club. During the "age of discovery" Europeans often combined texts and real others to convey the strangeness of newfound peoples and lands. (When Columbus returned from his first voyage to the New World he brought seven Taino captives back with him to Spain.) Professor Reff will relate his on-going research on Jesuit narratives of Japan and a Jesuit-orchestrated tour of Europe by Japanese samurai (1584-85). In referring to the Japanese visit to Europe as a "tour," he will emphasize how the four young Japanese converts were ostensibly actors in a conversion drama orchestrated by the Jesuits to impress Europe's Catholic elite and to secure their support of the Jesuit enterprise in Japan. The drama as such featured a Japanese "other" who was paradoxically civilized yet antipodean, who was rendered fully civilized or un-problematically so as a result of conversion to Christianity (the organizing theme of Jesuit literary narratives). RSVP: 292-1882.

The College will host its 9^th annual career-exploration event designed for Humanities majors, 6-8:00 pm, February 23, Faculty Club. Please encourage students at all ranks to attend. Contact: College of Humanities, 292-1882.

James Battersby, English: "Narrativity, Self, and Self-knowledge," Narrative 14:1 (2006): 27-44.

Cynthia Burack, Women’s Studies: "Origin Stories: Same-Sex Sexuality and Christian Right Politics" Culture and Religion 6:3 (2005): 369-92.

Graduate student Stuart Hobbs, History: "The Adena Dumbwaiters: A Glimpse into Jefferson's Executive Mansion?" White House History 17 (Winter 2006): 44-49.

Andrew Hudgins, English: "Andrew Hudgins as Alan Lutiy," The Imaginary Poets, ed. Alan Michael Parker (Dorset, Vermont: Tupelo Press): 61-66; and reprint "Andrew Hudgins as Alan Lutiy (1899-1974)," American Poet: The Journal of the American Academy of Poets (Fall 2005): 21-23.

Lecturer Doug Ramspeck, English-Lima: "Black Tupelo Country," poem, Harpur Palate 5.2 (Winter 2006): 34-35; "The Offering," poem, Louisiana Literature 22.2 (Fall/Winter 2005): 33; and "Speaking of Rivers," poem, The Madison Review 27.1 (Fall 2005): 73.

Healing Identities: Black Feminist Thought and the Politics of Groups, written by Cynthia Burack, Women's Studies, received the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis' Gradiva Award for best book in historical, cultural and literary analysis.

David Cressy, History, received an Arts and Humanities Seed Grant for his proposal " Dangerous Speech in Early Stuart England."

David Hoffmann, History, received an Arts and Humanities Seed Grant for his proposal "Cultivating the Masses: The Modern Social State in Russia and the Soviet Union, 1914-1939."

Mark Rankin, English, has received a Shakespeare Association of America Graduate Student Travel Award to attend the annual meeting of the Association, April 13-15.

Sebastian Knowles, English, presented "Joyce and the Left Posterior Middle Temporal Gyrus" at the 17th Irregular Miami J'yce Conference, Miami, Florida, February 5.

Graduate student Eleni Mavromatidou, English, presented "The Horror of Collective Suffering: The Failure of Representational Discourse: Or the Ways of Informed Maternal Instinct" at the 31st Annual Conference on Literature and Film: "Documenting Trauma, Documenting Terror," Florida State University, February 4.

Graduate student Nicholas Vanover, English, presented "Joyce's New Drama: Ibsen, Joyce, and the Aesthetics of Translation," 17th Irregular Miami J'yce Conference, Miami, Florida, February, 4.

Antonio Luciano Tosta (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) will present "Brazilian Immigration to the United States and the Literature of the Diaspora," 10:30 am, February 17, 185 Mendenhall Lab. Contact: Department of Spanish and Portuguese, 292-4958.

Michael Ralph (Wooster College) will present "’Crimes of History’: Senegalese Soccer and the Forensics of Slavery," 1:00 pm, February 17, 347 University Hall. Contact: Department of African American and African Studies, 292-3700.

Scott DeWitt, English, will present "New Directions: Multimodal Compositions," 3:30 pm, February 17, 56 Hagerty Hall, in the Foreign Language Center Technology Forum. Contact: Foreign Language Center, 292-4361.

Paul Michael Lützeler (Washington University, St. Louis) will present "The US-EU Divide: Problems and Prospects," 3:30 pm, February 20, 120 Mershon Center. Contact: Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, 292-6985.

Robin Cormack (Courtault Institute of Art and the Getty Research Institute) will present "From Zeus to Christ? Inventing the Sared Image in Early Byzantium," 4:00 pm, February 20, Knight House, 104 East 15^th Avenue. Contact: Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities, graff.40@osu.edu.

Fiction/non-fiction writer Kathryn Harrison will give a Reading, 8:00 pm, February 21, Wexner Film/Video Theater. Contact: Creative Writing Program, 292-2242.

Sara Fritz (Faith and Politics Institute) will present "Religious Faith and Partisan Politics," 4:30 pm, February 22, Columbus Museum of Art, in the Public Faith, Public Reason Lecture Series. Co-sponsored with the John Glenn Institute. Contact: Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities, Livingston.28@osu.edu.

Neil Jacobs, Germanic Languages and Literatures, will present "A Code of Many Colors: The Language of Jewish Cabaret," in the Tenth Thomas and Diann Mann Distinguished Symposium Series, Yiddish Culture in Transition, 3:30 pm, February 22, 210 Main Library. Contact: Melton Center for Jewish Studies, 292-0967.

Barbara Groseclose, History of Art, will present "Alice Schille in Her Time: The Idea of Independence," 7:00 pm, February 23, Colulmbus Museum of Art, in conjunction with the "Alice Schille: An Independent Spirit" exhibition. Contact: Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities, lantz.38@osu.edu.

The Center for Folklore Studies will hold its 5^th Professionalization Workshop of the year, 10:00 am, February 24, 308 Dulles Hall. The topic is "Grant Hunting and Gathering" and will be led by Dr. Timothy Lloyd (Executive Director of the American Folklore Society) and Barbara Lloyd (Associate Director of the Center for Folklore Studies). All students are welcome. The Center also invites all faculty, staff, and students to the monthly Final Fridays lunch, immediately following the workshop. Contact: Center for Folklore Studies, 292-1639.

Roland Coloma (Otterbein), Education; Bill Meezan (OSU), Social Work; Debra Moddelmog, Humanities and English; and James Sanders, Art Education, will participate in "Queers in the Academy," a panel discussion about working in higher education as an out and proud gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered person, noon, February 24, 436 Multicultural Center in the Ohio Union. Sponsored by GradQueers and Out in Business. Contact: Sarah at smith.2447@osu.edu.

Walter Rucker, African American and African Studies, will do a book signing for his new book, The River Flows On: Black Resistance, Culture, and Identity Formation in Early America, noon, February 24, 386 University Hall. Contact: Department of African American and African Studies, 292-3700.

Samuel Weber (Northwestern University) will present "Political Theology in America," 12:30 pm, February 24, Knight House, 104 East 15^th Avenue, sponsored by the Department of Comparative Studies and the Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities. Contact: Rick Livingston, Livingston.28@osu.edu.

W. Mark Ormrod (University of York) will present "Jubilee: English Royal Anniversaries in the Fourthteenth Century" in honor of the late Professor Emeritus Frank Pegues, in the Anniversaries Lecture Series, 1:30 pm, February 24, 122 Main Library. Contact: Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 292-7495.