Current News

Valerie Lee, English, was awarded the Faculty Award for Distinguished University Service and Lee Martin, English, and Geoffrey Parker, History, were awarded the Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching.

The College of Humanities will host the 2^nd annual Meet Me at the Oval Alumni Reunion, 8:30 am, April 22, Hagerty Hall. The event is open to faculty, staff and students. An RSVP is required. Contact: College of Humanities, 292-1882, or visit: http://humanities.osu.edu/alumni/default.cfm.

The University now has a Museum of Classical Archaeology, joining other major universities such as Harvard, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Illinois in providing a place for students and the general public to view archaeological objects from the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome. Located in 028 Dulles Hall, the Museum is jointly operated by the Departments of Greek and Latin, History, and History of Art; the outfitting of the space was supported by an Arts and Humanities Grant from the OSU Office of Research. Objects in the collection, which range from ca. 5000 BC to the present, were donated by private individuals to the University. The artifacts on display are representative of every-day "pots and pans" from the ancient world, along with fragments from buildings, transport vessels, and examples of writing in various media and provide a limited, but valuable, look into the way that people lived in the past. The Museum is open to the public, but its main function is educational, providing information and "hands-on" collections for students in a variety of OSU classes. The Museum will give OSU graduate students and faculty research opportunities, since the objects in the collection have never been studied or published. The Museum also welcomes visits from schools throughout Ohio and is developing an educational program for that purpose. A key element of the Museum is its close relationship to the OSU Excavations at Isthmia, in Greece, a longstanding University project in which many students and faculty have participated throughout the years. Although Greek law does not allow the export of objects from archaeological projects, and so there are presently no artifacts from Isthmia on display, the Museum has a wealth of digital objects, videos, plans and records from Isthmia, and plans are underway to provide a live video link between OSU researchers at the site and the Museum. The Museum opens at 9:00 am Monday through Thursday during the spring quarter; it can also be opened by appointment for groups. If you wish to schedule a class visit to the Museum or discuss the educational program, contact Matt Baummann at 247-4470 or Timothy Gregory, gregory.4@osu.edu. The Museum is also supported financially by the Society of Friends of the OSU Museum of Classical Archaeology, which offers a fine souvenir T-shirt (a real excavation-quality T-shirt, in various sizes) to commemorate the opening of the Museum in 2006. Membership in the Society of Friends is open to anyone who wants to promote this new undertaking and support its goals of research, teaching, and outreach.

Nominations are invited for the 2006 Dean's Outstanding Staff Award. Nominees must have held a regular staff appointment for three years of continuous service in the College and have demonstrated excellence in overall job performance, initiative and creativity in the performance of duties, and sustained exemplary service to the unit and to the College. Nomination forms are available in the College Office and on the Web on our Faculty and Staff pages. Submit the completed nomination form, a letter of nomination, and supporting letters as one packet to: Michelle Brown, Department of Philosophy, 350 University Hall, by April 10.

Frederick Luis Aldama, English: Spilling the Beans in Chicanolandia: Conversations with Writers and Artists. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006).

Richard Dutton, English: "Shakespearean Origins," Shakespeare, Marlowe, Jonson: New Directions in Biography, eds. Takashi Kozuka and J. R. Mulryne (Ashgate, 2006): 69-83.

Mark Grimsley, History: "'Remorseless, Revolutionary Struggle': A People's War," Struggle for a Vast Future: The American Civil War, ed. Aaron Sheehan-Dean (Osprey, 2006).

Michelle Herman, English: Dog, paperback edition (San Francisco: MacAdam/Cage, 2006); "Reading in Stacks," The Online Companion to the Southeast Review (Bedside Table column) 24.1-2 (2006): http://www.southeastreview.org/onlineissue1/herman.php.

Lee Martin, English: "Dumber Than" (reprint), The Truth of the Matter: Art and Craft in Creative Nonfiction, ed. Dinty W. Moore (New York: Pearson Longman, 2006): 107-108.

Graduate student Kyle Minor, English: "Lay Me Down in the Blue Grass," a personal essay, Mid-American Review 26:2 (Spring 2006).

Dorothy Noyes, English: "Waiting for Mr. Marshall: Spanish American Dreams," The Americanization of Europe: Culture, Diplomacy, and Anti-Americanism after 1945, ed. Alexander Stephan (Oxford: Berghahn, 2006): 307-334.

James Phelan, English: with Peter J. Rabinowitz, eds, A Companion to Narrative Theory (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005); "Rhetoric, Politics, and Ethics in Sandra Cisneros's Caramelo," What Democracy Looks Like: A New Critical Realism for a Post-Seattle World, eds. Amy Schrager Lang and Cecilia Tichi (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2006): 114-22; "Narrative Judgments and the Rhetorical Theory of Narrative: Ian McEwan's Atonement," A Companion to Narrative Theory (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005): 322-37; and with Peter J. Rabinowitz, "Introduction: Tradition and Innovation in Contemporary Narrative Theory," A Companion to Narrative Theory (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005): 1-16.

Graduate student Tonya Adams, Women's Studies, was awarded a College of Humanities Graduate Research Small Grant to present "Reading All the Signs: 'Black Power' and 'Black Strength' Appeals in Get Out the Vote Campaign Messages" with Wendy Smooth at the National Conference of Black Political Scientists, Atlanta, March 22-26.

Nick Breyfogle, History, was awarded an ACLS/SSRC/NEH International and Area Studies Fellowship for his project, "Baikal: the Great Lake and its People."

Graduate student Annelieke Dirks, History, won the CGS Ray Travel Award for Scholarship and Service to present "Using Oral History in the Classroom: Interpreting Politicized Memories of Japanese American Internment" at the European Social Science History Conference, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, March 22-25.

Graduate student Glenn Kranking, History, has been awarded a fellowship from the American-Scandinavian Foundation for dissertation research in Sweden next academic year 2006-07.

Susan Williams, English, has received a 2006 Summer Stipend from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Her project, "James Redpath and the Promotion of Social Justice in America," has been designated a "We the People" project by the NEH.

Judy Wu, History, received a TELR (Technology Enhanced Learning and Research) Professional Development Grant from Ohio State University to support her conference travels.

Valerie Lee, English, was quoted in "Hearing the Voices of Black Women," an article in The Columbus Dispatch that featured her new book, The Prentice Hall Anthology of African American Women's Literature (February 26).

Daniel Avorgbedor, African American and African Studies and Music, moderated a panel and presented "Multimedia and the Spectacular: Visual and Usual Aesthetics and the Challenges of Teaching Black Musical Traditions" for the Center for Black Music Research (Chicago) at its joint meeting with the Society of American Music in Chicago, March 15-19. He was also an invited speaker representing Ethnomusicology during an international symposium on "African Diaspora Studies and the Disciplines," Madison, Wisconsin, March 23-26 [Wisconsin http://africa.wisc.edu/diaspora/symposium-2006/].

Catherine Braun and Ben McCorkle, English-Marion, and Senior Lecturer Amie Wolfe, co-presenters, English, presented "Give the Basic Writers Some: Incorporating Digital Media into a Basic Writing Curriculum," Conference on College Composition and Communication, Chicago, March 26.

Richard Dutton, English, presented "What Text is There in This Class?," talk to the Drama Group, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, March 13.

David Cressy, History, presented "Early Modern Space Travel: England's Lunar Moment and the Man in the Moon," the Plenary Address at the Pacific Coast Conference on British Studies at Irvine, California, March 24. He gave an earlier version of this paper at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, on March 14.

Tanya Erzen, Comparative Studies, presented "Media and Policy Implications of the Ex-Gay Movement," an invited lecture, at the Annenberg School of Communication at University of Southern California, March 22; and "The Christian Right and Sexuality Research," as an invited participant, in the Social Science Research Council Capstone Conference on "States of Sexuality Research," Albuquerque, New Mexico, March 25.

C. Magbaily Fyle, African American and African Studies, presented "African, African Descent, and Teaching about Africa: Content and Meaning in African Studies" at the National Association of African American Studies annual meeting at Baton Rouge in February.

Timothy Gregory, History, presented "Local History in the Pre-Modern Eastern Mediterranean: Some Thoughts on Small Places and How Things 'Really Were,'" the Robert Wilkins Memorial Lecture, at the University of North Dakota in March.

Donna Guy, History, presented "Feminists, Philanthropists, Rise of the Modern Welfare State and Child Welfare Policies," the inaugural speech at the Northern Arizona University Conference on Women and Gender at Flagstaff University on March 9. She also commented on the panel entitled "In Cradle, Court, Conflict and Across Borders: Historical Approaches to Gendering Childhood" at the Latin American Studies Association, San Juan, Puerto Rico, March 14.

Hannibal Hamlin, English, organized three sessions on English Renaissance History Plays at the Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, San Francisco, March 23-25; he chaired the Judging Panel for the William Nelson Prize 2005, awarded by the Renaissance Society of America for the best article published in Renaissance Quarterly; and presented "Creative Anachronism: Biblical Allusion and Roman History in Antony and Cleopatra," Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting, San Francisco, March 24.

Susan Hartmann, History, presented "Gender and the Political Realignment in the U.S," at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, as part of the OAH Distinguished Lectureship program, March 17.

Pranav Jani, English, presented "United We Stand? 9/11 and the Impact on Racial Minorities," as an invited panelist, Indian American Association, Islamic Law Students Association, American Civil Liberties Union, International Socialist Organization, Ohio State University, Columbus, March 8.

Hasan Kwame Jeffries, History, presented "Crazy Negroes and Out-of-Control Crackers: Toward an Understanding of the Civil Rights-Black Power Divide," and "No Kennedy, No King, No Movement: The Value of Local Studies," at Local Studies, A National Movement: Toward a Historiography of the Black Freedom Movement, Geneseo College, State University of New York, Geneseo, New York, March 24-26.

Lee Martin, English, presented "People Always Going To," a short story, Prairie Schooner 80th xAnniversary Reading and Celebration, Associated Writing Programs Conference, Austin, Texas, March 10.

Ben McCorkle, English-Marion, presented "Reading New Media," Workshop Coordinators Anne Wysocki, Scott Dewitt, et al., March 24, and "Theoretically Prepared: From the Job Market Through the First Years as an Assistant Professor Administrator," Workshop Coordinator Melissa Ianetta, Conference on College Composition and Communication, Chicago, March 24.

Erin McGraw, English, presented "The Art of Teaching Fiction," as a panel participant, March 9, and "Attack of the 50-Foot Narrator," as a panel participant, Associated Writing Programs Annual Conference, Austin, Texas, March 11. She gave a fiction reading at the University of Evansville, Evansville, Indiana, March 16, and presented "The Craft of Fiction," an invited lecture for The Mercantile Library Craft of Writing Lecture Series, Cincinnati, March 27.

Graduate student Kyle Minor, English, was a panelist on "The Art of Teaching Fiction" and "Two Angles: The Writer as Editor and Editor as Writer" at the Associate Writing Programs Annual Conference, Austin, Texas, March 8 and 11; and served as a judge for storySouth's Million Writers Award, the annual award for best short fiction published online.

Dave Staley, History, presented "The Multisensory Classroom" at the Educause Midwest Regional Conference, Chicago, March 15.

Dale Van Kley, History, presented "Religion and the Age of Patriot Revolutions" at the Institute for Research in the Humanities, University of Wisconsin-Madison, September 27, and presented "Classical Republicanism in Clerical Clothes: Gallican Histories of the Early Church, 1719-1791," the plenary address, at the International Conference on Radicalism and the History of the Book, Princeton University, March 3.

Susan William, English, has been appointed to the university's search committee for the dean of the Graduate School.

Judy Tzu-Chun Wu, History, attended the European Social Science History Association Conference held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, March 22-25, as part of a team of eight OSU undergraduate and graduate students and faculty who gave presentations at the conference based on their involvement with the Japanese American oral history/documentary project sponsored by the OSU Asian American Studies Program during winter 2005. She chaired a panel entitled, "Remembering Japanese American Internment: The Challenges of Interpretation and Translation," which featured academic talks that incorporated multi-media materials from the documentary project by Annelieke Dirks (graduate student in History), Wan-Hui Su (a senior in Accounting), and Genna Duberstein (a junior honors student in Spanish and Art History). Wu also chaired and served as a discussant for a panel on "Asian Labour Migration." She also gave talks on her new book project, Revolutionary Travelers: Third World Internationalism and American Orientalism during the Era of the Vietnam War, at Yale University, February 21, as part of the Program in Ethnicity, Race, and Migration Lecture Series and at Cornell University on March 7 as part of their Speaker Series on "Mixing and Matching: Sex, Race, and Miscegenation." She also participated as a panel member at an "Asian American Studies Teach-In," sponsored by the Japanese American Service Committee, Chicago, March 5.

Author-filmmaker Ayse Polat and Gregor Hens, Germanic Languages and Literatures, will present "A Conversation on Writing," 4:00 pm, April 3, Max Kade German House, 141 West 11^th Avenue. Contact: Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, 292-6985.

Barbara Weinstein (University of Maryland) will present "The Amazon Awakens: A Modern(ization) Fairy Tale," 3:30 pm, April 6, 102 Honors House. Contact: http://cirit.osu.edu/clustertwo/calendar2.html.

Amy Horowitz, International Studies, will present the BETHA Jerusalem Project Report at 9:30 am, April 6, Knight House, 104 East 15th Avenue, for the Cultures in Disputed Territory Working Group. Contact: Amy Shuman, shuman.1@osu.edu.

A.C. Spearing (University of Virginia) will present "Marguerite Porete: Transcendence and Courtliness in the Mirror of Simple Souls," 1:30 pm, April 7, 122 Main Library, in honor of Christian Zacher (English) in the Anniversaries Lecture Series. Contact: Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 292-7495.

Gary Hatfield (University of Pennsylvania) will present "On Perceptual Constancy and Visual Space," 3:30 pm, April 7, 347 University Hall, as part of the Philosophy Department Spring 2006 Colloquia. Contact: Department of Philosophy, 292-7914.

Cindy Burack (Women's Studies), Rick Livingston (Comparative Studies), and Ileana Rodriguez (Spanish and Portuguese) will present "Cultures, Nations, Differences: The Paradoxical Fantasies of Liberalism," 1:00 pm, April 7, Knight House, 104 East 15th Avenue, for the Cultural Difference and Democracy Working Group. Contact: Barry Shank, shank.46@osu.edu.

Melani McAlister (George Washington University) will present "The Global Visions of American Evangelicals," 4:30 pm, April 10, George Wells Knight House, 104 East 15th Avenue, in the 2006 Davis Lecture in Christianity Studies. Contact: Department of Comparative Studies, 292-2559.

Carola Hilfrich (Hebrew University) will present "Beside Oneself: On Subject Ex/Positions in Autoethnographic Fiction," 1:30 pm, April 10, 311 Denney Hall. Contact: Amy Shuman, shuman.1@osu.edu; http://cirit.osu.edu/clustertwo/calendar2.html

Pekka Tammi (University of Tampere) will present two lectures: "Crossing the Borderlines: The Most Typical (Comic) Book in World Literature," 3:30 pm, April 10, 311 Denney Hall; Jared Gardner, English, will serve as commentator; contact: Michelle Herman, herman.145@osu.edu ; and "Exploring Terra Incognita Probing the Borderlines of Free Indirect Discourse: Two Case Studies from Nabokov," 4:30 pm, April 11, 406 Hagerty Hall. Contact: http://cirit.osu.edu/clustertwo/calendar2.html

Anne Bower, English-Marion, will present "Exploring Food and Culture: Cookbooks, Thin Ice, Movies, and Cultural Identity," 6:30 pm, April 11, Mershon Center, 1501 Neil Avenue, for the Center for Folklore Studies Spring Quarter Dinner/Lecture. All members of the OSU community are welcome, but space for the dinner is limited to 50 people. RSVP: Sheila Bock, bock.42@osu.edu by April 5.

Charlie Webber (Smithsonian Institution) will lead a discussion on "Jerusalem: Gates to the City," 9:30 am, April 13, Knight House, 104 East 15th Avenue, for the Cultures in Disputed Territory Working Group. Contact: Amy Shuman, shuman.1@osu.edu.

John Murray (University of Toledo) will present "The Role of Parents in Literacy Acquisition: Historical Evidence," 4:00 pm, April 13, Knight House, 104 East 15^th Avenue, for the Literacy Studies Working Group. Contact: Harvey Graff, graff.40@osu.edu.

The 4^th Annual Graduate Colloquium Identity, "Identity and Identifications: Cultural Politics in the Ancient World," is scheduled from 7:00 am to 6:00 pm, April 15, Knight House, 104 East 15^th Avenue. Co-sponsored with the Department of Greek and Latin. Contact: peterson.402@osu.edu or buchholz.21@osu.edu.

John Broome (University of Oxford) will present "Are the Requirements of Rationality Normative?," 3:30 pm, April 17, 347 University Hall, as part of the Philosophy Department Spring 2006 Colloquia. Contact: Department of Philosophy, 292-7914.

Barbara Hanawalt, King George III Professor of British History, will present "Telling Stories in Medieval English Courts: Whose Voices Do We Hear?" in the University Distinguished Lecture, 4:30 pm, April 18, Wexner Center Film/Video Theatre. Contact: Office of Academic Affairs, 292-5881.

The 4^th Annual CIRIT Gender & Ethnicity across Divides Symposium, Beyond the Language of Truth: Testimony, History, Fiction, begins at 4:00 pm, April 20, Mershon Center, 1501 Neil Avenue. Ileana Rodriguez, Spanish and Portuguese, will chair the event. The speaker is Nora Strejilevich (San Diego State University. Panelists include: Wendy Hesford, Theresa Kulbaga, and James Phelan, English, and Rebecca Wanzo, Women's Studies and African & African American Studies. The Sponsors are: Women in Development, Center for Latin American Studies, and the Departments of English, Spanish and Portuguese, and Women's Studies. Contact: http://cirit.osu.edu/clustertwo/calendar2.html.

The Ethnic Studies Research Group will meet at 2:00 pm, April 21, Knight House, 104 East 15^th Avenue. Contact: Maurice Stevens, stevens.368@osu.edu.

Wendy Hesford, English, will present "Staging Terror: Human Rights and Humanitarian Appeals," and Tanya Erzen, Comparative Studies, and Rebecca Wanzo, African-American and African Studies, will respond, 1:00 pm, April 28, Knight House, 104 East 15^th Avenue, for the Cultural Difference and Democracy Working Group. Contact: Barry Shank, shank.46@osu.edu.

Tom Priestly (The University of Alberta) will present "From Phonological Analysis at My Desk to Linguistic Activism with Slovene in the Austrian Alps," 3:30 pm, April 28, Faculty Club, for the Ninth Annual Kenneth E. Naylor Memorial Lecture in South Slavic Linguistics. Contact: Karen Nielsen, Nielsen.57@osu.edu; Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures, 292-6733; or Brian Joseph, 292-4981, joseph.1@osu.edu.