Lori Gruen

Some Summer Works

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Just after Wesleyan’s Commencement, professors Lori Gruen (Philosophy and FGSS) and Kari Weil (COL) hosted another group of scholars whose multi-week residency is sponsored by the Animal Studies Institute. This field has been taking off internationally, and Wesleyan has been recognized as a place where some of the most interesting scholarship is being produced. Lori and Kari have recently co-edited an issue of Hypatia, on the theme of “feminists encountering animals,” which is based on a conference they put together at Wes a few years ago. There has been an online forum responding to the journal here.

I learned today that Ellen Thomas, research professor of Earth and Environmental Studies at Wesleyan, has been awarded the Maurice Ewing Medal from the American Geophysical Union. Prof. Marty Gilmore wrote to let us know that the award recognizes “significant original contributions to the scientific understanding of the processes in the ocean; for the advancement of oceanographic engineering, technology, and instrumentation; and for outstanding service to the marine sciences.” Bravo!

Recently we went to Jacob’s Pillow, one of this country’s great modern dance venues, to see Hari Krishnan perform. Hari, a beloved Wes dance prof, gave one of the standout performances in From the Horse’s Mouth, a celebration of male dancers. The director of the Pillow expressed her admiration for the Wes dance tradition and for Pam Tatge’s efforts in presenting first-rate work all year long. Check out who the CFA has coming this month.

Speaking of performances, I was delighted to learn that recent graduate Samantha Joy Pearlman ’11 is bringing her great senior thesis show, Devotedly, Sincerely Yours: The Story of the USO to the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. I loved the performance I saw on campus, and I am betting the work just keeps getting better. You can help make that happen here.

Who said summer was a quiet time? And I didn’t even tell you about some of those Wesleyan Spirits singing at Nantucket…

 

 

UPDATE on the international scene:

Professor Jack Carr let me know that he and fellow theater professor Yuri Kordonski collaborated on the Russian premiere of Yuri’s adaptation of Crime & Punishment at the Volkhonka Theater in Yekaterinburg, Russia. He’s a spot from Russian TV:  http://www.channel4.ru/content/201207/25/116.volh.html

And professor Joel Pfister wrote to tell me that our colleague J. Kehaulani Kauanui was part of a panel at the United Nations on how indigenous media helps preserve cultures and challenge stereotypes. Kehaulani’s program on WESU can be heard around the world!

Summertime, and the Living is…Scholarly

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How many times do professors hear “how lucky you are to have the entire summer off!” Off? As August has replaced July and the Wesleyan “summer send offs” are well underway, my colleagues and I can hear in the distance the hum of the oncoming semester growing louder and louder. How are we likely to react? Read more, write more, recalibrate that experiment or crunch those numbers! Summer is an essential time for faculty to make progress on the research that often plays a key role in the courses they will be teaching.

Kari and I have been away from campus for a few weeks now, and we often hear from friends how important it is to “take time and relax.” Sure, but we both also have book contracts and spend every day reading and writing (and rewriting!) in hopes of making progress on the manuscripts. She is critically exploring how writers and philosophers have re-framed “the animal” so as to describe what “the human” might be with the goal of reconceptualizing how humans and non-human animals might relate to one another. I am wrestling with how photography has changed the ways we make sense of  the past. Both of us will use the research we are doing now in the classes we will teach this fall.

Intensive summertime research is very common at Wesleyan. Historian Phil Pomper, with whom I studied when I was an undergrad, is in the office daily writing a biography set in the Russian revolutionary period, philosopher Lori Gruen is completing a book on animal morality, while German Professor Krishna Winston (whose translation of Werner Herzog’s memoir was twice recently reviewed in the New York Times) has multiple translation assignments underway. Chemist Stew Novick leads an amazingly prolific team studying “exotic molecules” with microwave spectroscopy that can create super low temperatures.  Having just finished her term as Chair of FGSS, Jennifer Tucker, is putting the finishing touches on a volume about photography and history, while the indefatigable Jeanine Basinger writes a new book on marriage in the movies. Biologist Dave Bodznick can be found at the Cape for a good part of the summer, but that’s because he has a lab at the Marine Biological Laboratory Woods Hole where he studies the electroreceptors in skates. French Professor Andrew Curran has been finishing his book on concepts of race in the 18th century, while sociologist  Alex Dupuy is doing research on parallels and disconnections between key figures in the American and Haitian revolutions. Finally, COL Director Ethan Kleinberg explores the concept of forgiveness in his book about French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas.

I should probably ask forgiveness for leaving out scores of faculty research projects in this tiny sample! But I trust this gives some small idea of how faculty are actively advancing their fields in ways that will come back to inform the classroom.

Ah, the sun will soon be setting on another beautiful summer day…  so I better get back to work!

[tags]summer, Kari Weil, research, professors, Phil Pomper, Lori Gruen, Krishna Winston, Stew Novick, Jennifer Tucker, Jeanine Basinger, Dave Bodznick, Andrew Curran, Alex Dupuy, Ethan Kleinberg[/tags]