Celebrating Scholarship 2024


Celebrating Scholarship 2024 is produced by:

Jenn Buch, Research Services Specialist ✦ Diana Daigle, Resource Sharing Specialist ✦ Mike Horn, Administrative Services Assistant ✦ Kelly Miller, Senior Instructional Designer ✦ Ryan Nadeau, Student Success Librarian ✦ Lisa Stillwell, Associate Librarian for Research Services

Welcome to an online celebration of the scholarly and creative works produced by the faculty and professional staff (FPS) at Franklin & Marshall College in 2023. Works appear below alphabetically by FPS author, along with a 2023 Bibliography. The menu at the top right offers the content from previous years, and documentation of those years appears in the College Library's Digital Collections

BOLD = F&M Student, Faculty, Staff Contributor     |     🔓  = Open Access Material     

Rachel Anderson-Rabern

Rachel Anderson-Rabern

Associate Professor of Theatre

Creative Work: An immersive ritual: part play, part concert, part summer camp, exploring togetherness, memory, and Camp in every sense. 

"Camp," directed by Rachel Anderson-Rabern, and collectively created/performed by Anderson-Rabern's company Three Sheets (experimental performance group), and Featherburn (music group). January 2023 

Nick Baeth

Nick Baeth

Professor of Mathematics

Article: The notion of primeness is the key to the phenomenon of unique factorization. In particular, when unique factorization in a monoid fails, the arithmetic of that monoid is determined by the irreducible elements which are not prime. We illustrate this with examples of easy-to-understand monoids which are, for the most part, multiplicative submonoids of the natural numbers. Through these examples, we examine the ω-invariant, which offers a quantification of both primeness and nonunique factorization. We close by shifting gears and illustrating the same concepts in noncommutative semigroups, again by using relatively simple constructions involving positive integers. 

Baeth, Nicholas R. and Chapman, Scott T., The importance of being prime, a nontrivial generalization for nonunique factorizations. Amer. Math. Monthly 130 (2023), no.10, 893–914.  https://doi.org/10.1080/00029890.2023.2251352 

Nick and Scott completed this paper shortly before Nick got sick in the fall of 2021.  The paper "is dedicated to the memory of Nick Baeth. It reflects not only the mathematics that he loved, but also his passion for working with undergraduates." 

Chapter: We introduce a new class of commutative cancellative monoids which we call complement-finite ideals. Submonoids of free abelian monoids, these abstract monoids generalize the multiplicative structure of numerical monoids and are also closely related to monoids of zero-sum sequences and certain affine monoids. Here we provide a first general study of this more general construction. Specifically, we study the algebraic and arithmetic properties of complement-finite ideals and provide examples to illustrate their connections to other objects readily found in the literature. 

N. Baeth, (2023). “Complement-Finite Ideals.” In: Chabert, JL., Fontana, M., Frisch, S., Glaz, S., Johnson, K. (eds) Algebraic, Number Theoretic, and Topological Aspects of Ring Theory. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28847-0_5

The chapter is appended with a tribute to Nick written by mathematicians Scott Chapman and James B. Coykendall.

meredith bashaw

meredith bashaw

Professor of Psychology

Article: Captivity can alter the stress physiology and behaviour of an animal in both the short- and long-term through repetitive exposure to novel stressors and, subsequently, may reduce the success of conservation efforts such as translocation and reintroduction. The Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii) is threatened with extinction from a fatal facial tumour disease which has led to the establishment of an insurance meta-population designed for future reintroductions of disease-free devils. The meta-population is comprised of intensive captive and free-range captive environments; however, no study has yet examined the long-term physiological implications of captivity on devils. We used non-invasive faecal glucocorticoid metabolite (FGM) monitoring to determine if there were any differences in adrenal activity among intensive captive, free-range captive and wild devils. FGM levels were not age or sex dependent, and we found that all population types had similar intra-population variability and mean FGMs. In conclusion, both types of captive environment appear to maintain stress profiles similar to wild devils. 

Florent, S.N., Clarke, J., Bashaw, M.J., Hamede, R., Jones, M.E., & Cameron, E.Z. (2023).” Faecal glucocorticoid metabolite levels of intensive captive, free-range captive, and wild Tasmanian devils.” Journal of Zoology, 320, 282-291. https://doi.org/10.1111/jzo.13072 🔓 

Chapter: Captive animal welfare has benefited from various new technologies and a new generation of welfare-minded and better-informed individuals adopting more welfare-oriented practices. However, for captive reptiles, there remain many aspects that are grounded in and reflect a long history of arbitrary or folklore husbandry and advice, and reptile-keeping continues to be compromised by practices that benefit the keeper rather than the animal that is kept. This second edition of Health and Welfare of Captive Reptiles, like the first volume, contains a diversity of primary classical subjects, each hopefully constituting an advancement in our understanding of reptilian biology and meeting the associated needs of these animals in captivity. Some subjects, comprise miscellaneous considerations that, directly or indirectly, will have a significant bearing on reptile health and welfare. It is these factors that form the basis of this chapter. It is hoped that, at the very least, their inclusion may create or stimulate an awareness of other potential issues that may affect the well-being of captive reptiles. 

Arena, P.C., Bashaw, M.J., Grant, R., Howell, T., Martinez-Silvestre, A., & Warwick, C. (2023). “Miscellaneous factors.” In C. Warwick, P.C. Arena, G. & Burghardt (Eds.) Health and Welfare of Captive Reptiles (2nd Ed, pp. 561-582). New York: Springer Nature.

Conference Presentations:

Bashaw, M.J., Whitehead, J., & Davidow, S. (2023, September). All the small things: Using learning to improve snake welfare.  Presented at the national conference of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, Columbus, OH. 

Frank, S., Dollen, S., & Bashaw, M.J. (2023, September). Call me maybe? Using videoconferencing in enrichment assessment and approval. Poster presented at the national conference of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, Columbus, OH. 

Carlota Batres

carlota batres

Assistant Professor of Psychology

Article: Facial cosmetics have powerful effects on person perception, such as increasing perceived attractiveness and competence. One specific aspect of facial appearance affected by makeup is apparent skin evenness. Here, we tested the notion that makeup makes facial skin look more homogeneous in part because of changes made not to the skin, but to the facial features. 

Batres, C., Russell, R., & Workowski, M. 2023. “Makeup applied to facial features increases perceived skin evenness.” Vision Research 202: 108144. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.visres.2022.108144 🔓 

meredith bielaska

meredith bielaska

Assistant Rowing Coach 

Dissertation: The study explores the experiences of resiliency of transgender students who have joined gender-based student organizations (i.e., fraternities and sororities). This research investigates two main research questions: (a) What is the story of resilience for transgender students who are members of gender-based organizations at colleges in the United States? and (b) To what extent does transgender students’ involvement in gender-based organizations contribute to their resiliency in college? 

Bielaska, M. (2023). Finding Family: The Experiences of Transgender Students on Gender-Based Membership and Resiliency in College. Kent State University College of Education, Health, and Human Services. https://www.proquest.com/openview/78beb54635fe85d0b288d2dd6efcabb4/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y

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Zachary Biles

Professor of Classics

Article: An unnoticed allusion to Homer’s Iliad in Catullus c. 37 contributes to the poem’s recognized military theme by providing a clearer correspondence between figures from epic and those in Catullus’ poem, while also establishing a new framework for analyzing the dynamics of the poet’s verbal attack on his rivals that ultimately implicates him in his own mockery. 

Zachary P. Biles and Thérėse M. Watkins. “Epic boasts and empty threats: A Homeric allusion in Catullus c. 37.” Mnemosyne 2023: 1–12.

Article: Aristophanic parabases regularly pose an interpretive challenge due to the competing objectives of historical inquiry and literary sensitivity, with the former often taking precedence. This article seeks a more balanced analysis in appraising Aristophanes’ representation of his early career in the parabases of Knights, Clouds, and Wasps. 

Zachary P. Biles, “Facts as fiction in the early career of Aristophanes.” Classical Philology 118 (2023): 419–39.

alexis castor

alexis castor

Shirley Watkins Steinman Professor of Classics

Chapter: Luxurious dress and jewelry were important in public self-representation in Perso-Anatolian and Etruscan cultures. What distinguishes jewelry use in these societies is that jewelry was equally significant for elite males as it was for females. In fact, most of the visual evidence for jewelry in the East comes from ornaments worn by soldiers, court officials, and kings. Persian, Anatolian, and Lydian women are rarely represented in the surviving art, making it unusually difficult to reconstruct the jewelry styles and types they favored. Etruscan men, too, showed themselves with rings, bracelets and armbands, necklaces, and earrings. This chapter examines the male adoption of jewelry and explores the meanings of personal ornaments in both cultures. 

Castor, Alexis Q. "Male Necklaces in the East and West," in Baughan EP, Pieraccini LC, eds. Etruria and Anatolia: Material Connections and Artistic Exchange. Cambridge University Press; 2023, pp. 318-332. https://doi-org.proxy.library.upenn.edu/10.1017/9781009151016

Jessie Cox

Jessie Cox

Associate Professor of Spanish and Linguistics

Article: The COVID-19 pandemic exposed multiple disparities; racial and ethnic minority groups experienced higher proportions of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. However, racial and ethnic minority populations are often underrepresented in traditional survey research. In a survey of the social and economic impacts of COVID-19 in a local area, we developed three distinct academic-community partnerships. We report these partnerships with particular focus on the partnership that promoted the inclusion of racially and ethnically minoritized multicultural populations in the survey. We describe each stage of the partnership, including survey design, translation, outreach and recruitment, results, and dissemination of results, and share the lessons learned, both in terms of academic-community partnerships and in surveying multicultural populations.

Cox, J., González Cervera, B.D., Al Fayadh, A., & Okatch, H. “Lessons learned and possibilities recognized: An academic-community partnership to engage multicultural populations during a pandemic.” Journal of Community Engagement and Scholarship, 16(1), 10. doi: 10.54656/jces.v16i1.532 🔓 

Article: Digital divides mean that marginalized groups such as adults who speak English as a second or other language (ESOL) are less likely to have access to online instruction. Higher levels of English proficiency are associated with better health and employment; therefore, access to ESOL classes is essential. We investigated how sociodemographics and English proficiency relate to adult learners' preferences for, and barriers to, online instruction of ESOL during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Cox, J., Chen, L. Y., & Okatch, H. “Interest in and barriers to online ESOL instruction for adults during and beyond COVID-19: Exploring relationships with sociodemographics and English proficiency.” TESOL Journal. doi: 10.1002/tesj.778 🔓 

fronefield crawford

fronefield crawford

Charles A. Dana Professor of Physics and Astronomy

Article: We report two low-frequency measurements of the power-law index for the amplitudes of giant radio pulses from the Crab pulsar. The two observations were taken with the Arecibo and Green Bank radio telescopes at center frequencies of 327 MHz and 350 MHz, respectively. We find best-fit values for the differential power-law index β (where dNdSµ Sb and S is the pulse amplitude) of −2.63 ± 0.05 and −3.6 ± 0.5 from the Arecibo and Green Bank data sets, respectively. Both values are broadly consistent with other values previously measured for the Crab pulsar at low radio frequencies. These reported values may be useful in future giant pulse studies of the Crab pulsar. 

F. Crawford, T. J. W. Lazio, A. McEwen, J. S. Deneva, J. M. Cordes, L. Spitler, & R. F. Trainor, "Measurements of the Crab Pulsar's Giant Radio Pulse Amplitude Power-Law Index Using Low-Frequency Arecibo and Green Bank Telescope Observations." Astrophysical Journal, 948, 46 (2023) DOI 10.3847/1538-4357/acca7f 🔓 

Article: We report multiple lines of evidence for a stochastic signal that is correlated among 67 pulsars from the 15 yr pulsar timing data set collected by the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves. The correlations follow the Hellings–Downs pattern expected for a stochastic gravitational-wave background. 

G. Agazie, A. Anumarlapudi, A. M. Archibald, Z. Arzoumanian, P. T. Baker, B. Becsy, L. Blecha, A. Brazier, P. R. Brook, S. Burke-Spolaor, R. Burnette, R. Case, M. Charisi, S. Chatterjee, K. Chatziioannou, B. D. Cheeseboro, S. Chen, T. Cohen, J. M. Cordes, N. J. Cornish, F. Crawford, H. T. Cromartie, K. Crowter, C. J. Cutler, M. E. DeCesar, D. DeGan, P. B. Demorest, H. Deng, T. Dolch, B. Drachler, J. A. Ellis, E. C. Ferrara, W. Fiore, E. Fonseca, G. E. Freedman, N. Garver-Daniels, P. A. Gentile, K. A. Gersbach, J. Glaser, D. C. Good, K. Gultekin, J. S. Hazboun, S. Hourihane, K. Islo, R. J. Jennings, A. D. Johnson, M. L. Jones, A. R. Kaiser, D. L. Kaplan, L. Z. Kelley, M. Kerr, J. S. Key, T. C. Klein, N. Laal, M. T. Lam, W. G. Lamb, T. J. W. Lazio, N. Lewandowska, T. B. Littenberg, T. Liu, A. Lommen, D. R. Lorimer, J. Luo, R. S. Lynch, C.-P. Ma, D. R. Madison, M. A. Mattson, A. McEwen, J. W. McKee, M. A. McLaughlin, N. McMann, B. W. Meyers, P. M. Meyers, C. M. F. Mingarelli, A. Mitridate, P. Natarajan, C. Ng, D. J. Nice, S. K. Ocker, K. D. Olum, T. T. Pennucci, B. B. P. Perera, P. Petrov, N. S. Pol, H. A. Radovan, S. M. Ransom, P. S. Ray, J. D. Romano, S. C. Sardesai, A. Schmiedekamp, C. Schmiedekamp, K. Schmitz, L. Schult, B. J. Shapiro-Albert, X. Siemens, J. Simon, M. S. Siwek, I. H. Stairs, D. R. Stinebring, K. Stovall, J. P. Sun, A. Susobhanan, J. K. Swiggum, J. Taylor, S. R. Taylor, J. E. Turner, C. Unal, M. Vallisneri, R. van Haasteren, S. J. Vigeland, H. M. Wahl, Q. Wang, C. A. Witt, O. Young. “The NANOGrav 15 yr Data Set: Evidence for a Gravitational-wave Background.” Astrophysical Journal Letters, 951, L8 (2023) DOI 10.3847/2041-8213/acdac6 🔓 

Article: The International Pulsar Timing Array 2nd data release is the combination of data sets from worldwide collaborations. In this study, we search for continuous waves: gravitational wave signals produced by individual supermassive black hole binaries in the local universe. 

"Searching for Continuous Gravitational Waves in the Second Data Release of the International Pulsar Timing Array" by M. Falxa, S. Babak, A. Chalumeau, S. Chen, B. Becsy, P. T. Baker, P. R. Brook, Z. Chen, N. J. Cornish, T. Dolch, L. Guillemot, J. S. Hazboun, C. M. F. Mingarelli, A. Parthasarathy, A. Petiteau, N. S. Pol, A. Sesana, S. B. Spolaor, S. R. Taylor, G. Theureau, M. Vallisneri, S. J. Vigeland, C. A. Witt, X. Zhu, J. Antoniadis, Z. Arzoumanian, M. Bailes, N. D. R. Bhat, L. Blecha, A. Brazier, N. Caballero, A. D. Cameron, J. A. Casey-Clyde, D. Champion, M. Charisi, S. Chatterjee, I. Cognard, J. M. Cordes, F. Crawford, H. T. Cromartie, K. Crowter, S. Dai, M. E. DeCesar, P. B. Demorest, G. Desvignes, B. Drachler, Y. Feng, E. C. Ferrara, W. Fiore, E. Fonseca, N. Garver-Daniels, J. Glaser, B. Goncharov, D. C. Good, J. Griessmeier, Y. J. Guo, K. Gultekin, G. Hobbs, H. Hu, K. Islo, J. Jang, R. J. Jennings, A. D. Johnson, M. L. Jones, J. Kaczmarek, A. R. Kaiser, D. L. Kaplan, M. Keith, L. Z. Kelley, M. Kerr, J. S. Key, N. Laal, M. T. Lam, W. G. Lamb, T. J. W. Lazio, T. Liu, J. Luo, R. S. Lynch, D. R. Madison, R. Main, R. Manchester, A. McEwen, J. McKee, M. A. McLaughlin, C. Ng, D. J. Nice, S. Ocker, K. Olum, S. Oslowski, T. T. Pennucci, B. Perera, B. B. P. Perera, D. Perrodin, N. Porayko, A. Possenti, H. Quelquejay-Leclere, S. M. Ransom, P. S. Ray, D. J. Reardon, C. J. Russell, A. Samajdar, J. Sarkissian, L. Schult, G. Shaifullah, R. M. Shannon, B. J. Shapiro-Albert, X. Siemens, J. J. Simon, M. Siwek, T. L. Smith, L. Speri, R. Spiewak, I. H. Stairs, B. Stappers, D. R. Stinebring, J. K. Swiggum, C. Tiburzi, J. Turner, A. Vecchio, J. Verbiest, H. Wahl, S. Q. Wang, J. Wang, J. Wang, Z. Wu, L. Zhang, & S. Zhang, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 521, 5077 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad812 🔓

Article: We present observations and timing analyses of 68 millisecond pulsars (MSPs) comprising the 15 yr data set of the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav). NANOGrav is a pulsar timing array (PTA) experiment that is sensitive to low-frequency gravitational waves (GWs). This is NANOGrav's fifth public data release, including both "narrowband" and "wideband" time-of-arrival (TOA) measurements and corresponding pulsar timing models. 

"The NANOGrav 15 yr Data Set: Observations and Timing of 68 Millisecond Pulsars" by G. Agazie, M. F. Alam, A. Anumarlapudi, A. M. Archibald, Z. Arzoumanian, P. T. Baker, L. Blecha, V. Bonidie, A. Brazier, P. R. Brook, S. Burke-Spolaor, B. Becsy, C. Chapman, M. Charisi, S. Chatterjee, T. Cohen, J. M. Cordes, N. J. Cornish, F. Crawford, H. T. Cromartie, K. Crowter, M. E. DeCesar, P. B. Demorest, T. Dolch, B. Drachler, E. C. Ferrara, W. Fiore, E. Fonseca, G. E. Freedman, N. Garver-Daniels, P. A. Gentile, J. Glaser, D. C. Good, K. Gultekin, J. S. Hazboun, R. J. Jennings, C. Jessup, A. D. Johnson, M. L. Jones, A. R. Kaiser, D. L. Kaplan, L. Z. Kelley, M. Kerr, J. S. Key, A. Kuske, N. Laal, M. T. Lam, W. G. Lamb, T. J. W. Lazio, N. Lewandowska, Y. Lin, T. Liu, D. R. Lorimer, J. Luo, R. S. Lynch, C.-P. Ma, K. Maraccini, A. McEwen, J. W. McKee, M. A. McLaughlin, N. McMann, B. W. Meyers, C. M. F. Mingarelli, A. Mitridate, C. Ng, D. J. Nice, S. K. Ocker, K. D. Olum, E. Panciu, T. T. Pennucci, B. B. P. Perera, N. S. Pol, H. A. Radovan, S. M. Ransom, P. S. Ray, J. D. Romano, L. Salo, S. C. Sardesai, C. Schmiedekamp, A. Schmiedekamp, K. Schmitz, B. J. Shapiro-Albert, X. Siemens, J. Simon, M. S. Siwek, I. H. Stairs, D. R. Stinebring, K. Stovall, A. Susobhanan, J. K. Swiggum, S. R. Taylor, J. E. Turner, C. Unal, M. Vallisneri, S. J. Vigeland, H. M. Wahl, Q. Wang, C. A. Witt, O. Young, & The NANOGrav Collaboration.  Astrophysical Journal Letters, 951, L9 (2023). https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/acda9a 🔓

Article: Pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) are galactic-scale gravitational wave (GW) detectors. Each individual arm, composed of a millisecond pulsar, a radio telescope, and a kiloparsecs-long path, differs in its properties but, in aggregate, can be used to extract low-frequency GW signals. We present a noise and sensitivity analysis to accompany the NANOGrav 15 yr data release and associated papers, along with an in-depth introduction to PTA noise models. 

"The NANOGrav 15 yr Data Set: Detector Characterization and Noise Budget" by G. Agazie, A. Anumarlapudi, A. M. Archibald, Z. Arzoumanian, P. T. Baker, B. Becsy, L. Blecha, A. Brazier, P. R. Brook, S. Burke-Spolaor, M. Charisi, S. Chatterjee, T. Cohen, J. M. Cordes, N. J. Cornish, F. Crawford, H. T. Cromartie, K. Crowter, M. E. DeCesar, P. B. Demorest, T. Dolch, B. Drachler, E. C. Ferrara, W. Fiore, E. Fonseca, G. E. Freedman, N. Garver-Daniels, P. A. Gentile, J. Glaser, D. C. Good, L. Guertin, K. Gultekin, J. S. Hazboun, R. J. Jennings, A. D. Johnson, M. L. Jones, A. R. Kaiser, D. L. Kaplan, L. Z. Kelley, M. Kerr, J. S. Key, N. Laal, M. T. Lam, W. G. Lamb, T. J. W. Lazio, N. Lewandowska, T. Liu, D. R. Lorimer, J. Luo, R. S. Lynch, C.-P. Ma, D. R. Madison, A. McEwen, J. W. McKee, M. A. McLaughlin, N. McMann, B. W. Meyers, C. M. F. Mingarelli, A. Mitridate, C. Ng, D. J. Nice, S. K. Ocker, K. D. Olum, T. T. Pennucci, B. B. P. Perera, N. S. Pol, H. A. Radovan, S. M. Ransom, P. S. Ray, J. D. Romano, S. C. Sardesai, A. Schmiedekamp, C. Schmiedekamp, K. Schmitz, B. J. Shapiro-Albert, X. Siemens, J. Simon, M. S. Siwek, I. H. Stairs, D. R. Stinebring, K. Stovall, A. Susobhanan, J. K. Swiggum, S. R. Taylor, J. E. Turner, C. Unal, M. Vallisneri, S. J. Vigeland, H. M. Wahl, C. A. Witt, O. Young, & The NANOGrav Collaboration, Astrophysical Journal Letters, 951, L10 (2023) https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/acda88 🔓

Article: The 15 yr pulsar timing data set collected by the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) shows positive evidence for the presence of a low-frequency gravitational-wave (GW) background. In this paper, we investigate potential cosmological interpretations of this signal, specifically cosmic inflation, scalar-induced GWs, first-order phase transitions, cosmic strings, and domain walls. 

"The NANOGrav 15 yr Data Set: Search for Signals from New Physics" by A. Afzal, G. Agazie, A. Anumarlapudi, A. M. Archibald, Z. Arzoumanian, P. T. Baker, B. Becsy, J. J. Blanco-Pillado, L. Blecha, K. K. Boddy, A. Brazier, P. R. Brook, S. Burke-Spolaor, R. Burnette, R. Case, M. Charisi, S. Chatterjee, K. Chatziioannou, B. Cheeseboro, S. Chen, T. Cohen, J. M. Cordes, N. J. Cornish, F. Crawford, H. T. Cromartie, K. Crowter, C. J. Cutler, M. E. DeCesar, D. DeGan, P. B. Demorest, H. Deng, T. Dolch, B. Drachler, R. von Eckardstein, E. C. Ferrara, W. Fiore, E. Fonseca, G. E. Freedman, N. Garver-Daniels, P. A. Gentile, K. A. Gersbach, J. Glaser, D. C. Good, L. Guertin, K. Gultekin, J. S. Hazboun, S. Hourihane, K. Islo, R. J. Jennings, A. D. Johnson, M. L. Jones, A. R. Kaiser, D. L. Kaplan, L. Z. Kelley, M. Kerr, J. S. Key, N. Laal, M. T. Lam, W. G. Lamb, T. J. W. Lazio, V. S. H. Lee, N. Lewandowska, R. R. Lino dos Santos, T. B. Littenberg, T. Liu, D. R. Lorimer, J. Luo, R. S. Lynch, C.-P. Ma, D. R. Madison, A. McEwen, J. W. McKee, M. A. McLaughlin, N. McMann, B. W. Meyers, P. M. Meyers, C. M. F. Mingarelli, A. Mitridate, J. Nay, P. Natarajan, C. Ng, D. J. Nice, S. K. Ocker, K. D. Olum, T. T. Pennucci, B. B. P. Perera, P. Petrov, N. S. Pol, H. A. Radovan, S. M. Ransom, P. S. Ray, J. D. Romano, S. C. Sardesai, A. Schmiedekamp, C. Schmiedekamp, K. Schmitz, T. Schroder, L. Schult, B. J. Shapiro-Albert, X. Siemens, J. Simon, M. S. Siwek, I. H. Stairs, D. R. Stinebring, K. Stovall, P. Stratmann, J. P. Sun, A. Susobhanan, J. K. Swiggum, J. Taylor, S. R. Taylor, T. Trickle, J. E. Turner, C. Unal, M. Vallisneri, S. Verma, S. J. Vigeland, H. M. Wahl, Q. Wang, C. A. Witt, D. Wright, O. Young, K. M. Zurek, & The NANOGrav Collaboration.  Astrophysical Journal Letters, 951, L11 (2023). https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/acdc91 🔓

Article: Pulsar timing array collaborations, such as the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav), are seeking to detect nanohertz gravitational waves emitted by supermassive black hole binaries formed in the aftermath of galaxy mergers. We have searched for continuous waves from individual circular supermassive black hole binaries using NANOGrav's recent 12.5 yr data set. We created new methods to accurately model the uncertainties on pulsar distances in our analysis, and we implemented new techniques to account for a common red-noise process in pulsar timing array data sets while searching for deterministic gravitational wave signals, including continuous waves. 

"The NANOGrav 12.5-year Data Set: Bayesian Limits on Gravitational Waves from Individual Supermassive Black Hole Binaries" by Z. Arzoumanian, P. T. Baker, L. Blecha, H. Blumer, A. Brazier, P. R. Brook, S. Burke-Spolaor, B. Becsy, J. A. Casey-Clyde, M. Charisi , S. Chatterjee, S. Chen, J. M. Cordes, N. J. Cornish, F. Crawford, H. T. Cromartie, M. E. DeCesar, P. B. Demorest, T. Dolch, B. Drachler, J. A. Ellis, E. C. Ferrara, W. Fiore, E. Fonseca, G. E. Freedman, N. Garver-Daniels, P. A. Gentile, J. Glaser, D. C. Good, K. Gultekin, J. S. Hazboun, R. J. Jennings, A. D. Johnson, M. L. Jones, A. R. Kaiser, D. L. Kaplan, L. Z. Kelley, J. S. Key, N. Laal, M. T. Lam, W. G Lamb, T. J. W. Lazio, N. Lewandowska, T. Liu, D. R. Lorimer, J. Luo, R. S. Lynch, D. R. Madison, A. McEwen, M. A. McLaughlin, C. M. F. Mingarelli, C. Ng, D. J. Nice, S. K. Ocker, K. D. Olum, T. T. Pennucci, N. S. Pol, S. M. Ransom, P. S. Ray, J. D. Romano, B. J. Shapiro-Albert, X. Siemens, J. Simon, M. Siwek, R. Spiewak, I. H. Stairs, D. R. Stinebring, K. Stovall, J. K. Swiggum, J. Sydnor, S. R. Taylor, J. E. Turner, M. Vallisneri, S. J. Vigeland, H. M. Wahl, G. Walsh, C. A. Witt, & O. Young, Astrophysical Journal Letters, 951, L28 (2023) 🔓

Article: Evidence for a low-frequency stochastic gravitational-wave background has recently been reported based on analyses of pulsar timing array data. The most likely source of such a background is a population of supermassive black hole binaries, the loudest of which may be individually detected in these data sets. Here we present the search for individual supermassive black hole binaries in the NANOGrav 15 yr data set. We introduce several new techniques, which enhance the efficiency and modeling accuracy of the analysis. 

"The NANOGrav 15 yr Data Set: Bayesian Limits on Gravitational Waves from Individual Supermassive Black Hole Binaries" by G. Agazie, A. Anumarlapudi, A. M. Archibald, Z. Arzoumanian, P. T. Baker, B. Becsy, L. Blecha, A. Brazier, P. R. Brook, S. Burke-Spolaor, R. Case, J. A. Casey-Clyde, M. Charisi, S. Chatterjee, T. Cohen, J. M. Cordes, N. J. Cornish, F. Crawford, H. T. Cromartie, K. Crowter, M. E. DeCesar, P. B. Demorest, M. C. Digman, T. Dolch, B. Drachler, E. C. Ferrara, W. Fiore, E. Fonseca, G. E. Freedman, N. Garver-Daniels, P. A. Gentile, J. Glaser, D. C. Good, K. Gultekin, J. S. Hazboun, S. Hourihane, R. J. Jennings, A. D. Johnson, M. L. Jones, A. R. Kaiser, D. L. Kaplan, L. Z. Kelley, M. Kerr, J. S. Key, N. Laal, M. T. Lam, W. G. Lamb, T. J. W. Lazio, N. Lewandowska, T. Liu, D. R. Lorimer, J. Luo, R. S. Lynch, C.-P. Ma, D. R. Madison, A. McEwen, J. W. McKee, M. A. McLaughlin, N. McMann, B. W. Meyers, P. M. Meyers, C. M. F. Mingarelli, A. Mitridate, C. Ng, D. J. Nice, S. K. Ocker, K. D. Olum, T. T. Pennucci, B. B. P. Perera, P. Petrov, N. S. Pol, H. A. Radovan, S. M. Ransom, P. S. Ray, J. D. Romano, S. C. Sardesai, A. Schmiedekamp, C. Schmiedekamp, K. Schmitz, B. J. Shapiro-Albert, X. Siemens, J. Simon, M. S. Siwek, I. H. Stairs, D. R. Stinebring, K. Stovall, A. Susobhanan, J. K. Swiggum, J. Taylor, S. R. Taylor, J. E. Turner, C. Unal, M. Vallisneri, R. van Haasteren, S. J. Vigeland, H. M. Wahl, C. A. Witt, O. Young, & The NANOGrav Collaboration, Astrophysical Journal Letters, 951, L50 (2023) https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ace18a 🔓

Article: The NANOGrav 15 yr data set shows evidence for the presence of a low-frequency gravitational-wave background (GWB). While many physical processes can source such low-frequency gravitational waves, here we analyze the signal as coming from a population of supermassive black hole (SMBH) binaries distributed throughout the Universe. We show that astrophysically motivated models of SMBH binary populations are able to reproduce both the amplitude and shape of the observed low-frequency gravitational-wave spectrum. 

"The NANOGrav 15 yr Data Set: Constraints on Supermassive Black Hole Binaries from the Gravitational Wave Background" by G. Agazie, A. Anumarlapudi, A. M. Archibald, P. T. Baker, B. Becsy, L. Blecha, A. Bonilla, A. Brazier, P. R. Brook, S. Burke-Spolaor, R. Burnette, R. Case, J. A. Casey-Clyde, M. Charisi, S. Chatterjee, K. Chatziioannou, B. D. Cheeseboro, S. Chen, T. Cohen, J. M. Cordes, N. J. Cornish, F. Crawford, H. T. Cromartie, K. Crowter, C. J. Cutler, D. J. D'Orazio, M. E. DeCesar, D. DeGan, P. B. Demorest, H. Deng, T. Dolch, B. Drachler, E. C. Ferrara, W. Fiore, E. Fonseca, G. E. Freedman, E. Gardiner, N. Garver-Daniels, P. A. Gentile, K. A. Gersbach, J. Glaser, D. C. Good, K. Gultekin, J. S. Hazboun, S. Hourihane, K. Islo, R. J. Jennings, A. D. Johnson, M. L. Jones, A. R. Kaiser, D. L. Kaplan, L. Z. Kelley, M. Kerr, J. S. Key, N. Laal, M. T. Lam, W. G. Lamb, T. J. W. Lazio, N. Lewandowska, T. Littenberg, T. Liu, J. Luo, R. S. Lynch, C.-P. Ma, D. R. Madison, A. McEwen, J. W. McKee, M. A. McLaughlin, N. McMann, B. W. Meyers, P. M. Meyers, C. M. F. Mingarelli, A. Mitridate, P. Natarajan, C. Ng, D. J. Nice, S. K. Ocker, K. D. Olum, T. T. Pennucci, B. B. P. Perera, P. Petrov, N. S. Pol, H. A. Radovan, S. M. Ransom, P. S. Ray, J. D. Romano, J. C. Runnoe, S. C. Sardesai, A. Schmiedekamp, C. Schmiedekamp, K. Schmitz, L. Schult, B. J. Shapiro-Albert, X. Siemens, J. Simon, M. S. Siwek, I. H. Stairs, D. R. Stinebring, K. Stovall, J. P. Sun, A. Susobhanan, J. K. Swiggum, J. Taylor, S. R. Taylor, J. E. Turner, C. Unal, M. Vallisneri, S. J. Vigeland, J. M. Wachter, H. M. Wahl, Q. Wang, C. A. Witt, D. Wright, O. Young, & The NANOGrav Collaboration, Astrophysical Journal Letters, 952, L37 (2023) https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ace18b 🔓

Article: The North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) has reported evidence for the presence of an isotropic nanohertz gravitational-wave background (GWB) in its 15 yr data set. However, if the GWB is produced by a population of inspiraling supermassive black hole binary (SMBHB) systems, then the background is predicted to be anisotropic, depending on the distribution of these systems in the local Universe and the statistical properties of the SMBHB population. In this work, we search for anisotropy in the GWB using multiple methods and bases to describe the distribution of the GWB power on the sky. 

"The NANOGrav-15 year Data Set: Search for Anisotropy in the Gravitational-Wave Background" by G. Agazie, A. Anumarlapudi, A. M. Archibald, Z. Arzoumanian, P. T. Baker, B. Becsy, L. Blecha, A. Brazier, P. R. Brook, S. Burke-Spolaor, J. A. Casey-Clyde, M. Charisi, S. Chatterjee, T. Cohen, J. M. Cordes, N. J. Cornish, F. Crawford, H. T. Cromartie, K. Crowter, M. E. DeCesar, P. B. Demorest, T. Dolch, B. Drachler, E. C. Ferrara, W. Fiore, E. Fonseca, G. E. Freedman, E. Gardiner, N. Garver-Daniels, P. A. Gentile, J. Glaser, D. C. Good, K. Gultekin, J. S. Hazboun, R. J. Jennings, A. D. Johnson, M. L. Jones, A. R. Kaiser, D. L. Kaplan, L. Z. Kelley, M. Kerr, J. S. Key, N. Laal, M. T. Lam, W. G. Lamb, T. J. W. Lazio, N. Lewandowska, T. Liu, D. R. Lorimer, J. Luo, R. S. Lynch, C.-P. Ma, D. R. Madison, A. McEwen, J. W. McKee, M. A. McLaughlin, N. McMann, B. W. Meyers, C. M. F. Mingarelli, A. Mitridate, C. Ng, D. J. Nice, S. K. Ocker, K. D. Olum, T. T. Pennucci, B. B. P. Perera, N. S. Pol, H. A. Radovan, S. M. Ransom, P. S. Ray, J. D. Romano, S. C. Sardesai, A. Schmiedekamp, C. Schmiedekamp, K. Schmitz, L. Schult, B. J. Shapiro-Albert, X. Siemens, J. Simon, M. S. Siwek, I. H. Stairs, D. R. Stinebring, K. Stovall, A. Susobhanan, J. K. Swiggum, S. R. Taylor, J. E. Turner, C. Unal, M. Vallisneri, S. J. Vigeland, H. M. Wahl, C. A. Witt, & O. Young, Astrophysical Journal Letters, 956, L3 (2023) https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/acf4fd 🔓

Article: Analyses of pulsar timing data have provided evidence for a stochastic gravitational wave background in the nanohertz frequency band. The most plausible source of this background is the superposition of signals from millions of supermassive black hole binaries. The standard statistical techniques used to search for this background and assess its significance make several simplifying assumptions, namely (i) Gaussianity, (ii) isotropy, and most often, (iii) a power-law spectrum. However, a stochastic background from a finite collection of binaries does not exactly satisfy any of these assumptions. To understand the effect of these assumptions, we test standard analysis techniques on a large collection of realistic simulated data sets. 

"How to Detect an Astrophysical Nanohertz Gravitational-Wave Background" by B. Becsy, N. J. Cornish, P. M. Meyers, L. Z. Kelley, G. Agazie, A. Anumarlapudi, A. M. Archibald, Z. Arzoumanian, P. T. Baker, L. Blecha, A. Brazier, P. R. Brook, S. Burke-Spolaor, J. A. Casey-Clyde, M. Charisi, S. Chatterjee, K. Chatziioannou, T. Cohen, J. M. Cordes, F. Crawford, H. T. Cromartie, K. Crowter, M. E. DeCesar, P. B. Demorest, T. Dolch, E. C. Ferrara, W. Fiore, E. Fonseca, G. E. Freedman, N. Garver-Daniels, P. A. Gentile, J. Glaser, D. C. Good, K. Gultekin, J. S. Hazboun, S. Hourihane, R. J. Jennings, A. D. Johnson, M. L. Jones, A. R. Kaiser, D. L. Kaplan, M. Kerr, J. S. Key, N. Laal, M. T. Lam, W. G. Lamb, T. J. W. Lazio, N. Lewandowska, T. B. Littenberg, T. Liu, D. R. Lorimer, J. Luo, R. S. Lynch, C.-P. Ma, D. R. Madison, A. McEwen, J. W. McKee, M. A. McLaughlin, N. McMann, B. W. Meyers, C. M. F. Mingarelli, A. Mitridate, C. Ng, D. J. Nice, S. K. Ocker, K. D. Olum, T. T. Pennucci, B. B. P. Perera, N. S. Pol, H. A. Radovan, S. M. Ransom, P. S. Ray, J. D. Romano, S. C. Sardesai, A. Schmiedekamp, C. Schmiedekamp, K. Schmitz, B. J. Shapiro-Albert, X. Siemens, J. Simon, M. S. Siwek, S. V. Sosa Fiscella, I. H. Stairs, D. R. Stinebring, K. Stovall, A. Susobhanan, J. K. Swiggum, S. R. Taylor, J. E. Turner, C. Unal, M. Vallisneri, R. van Haasteren, S. J. Vigeland, H. M. Wahl, C. A. Witt, & O. Young, Astrophysical Journal, 959, 9 (2023) https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ad09e4 🔓 

Press Coverage of Research Findings: 

elena cuffari

elena cuffari

Assistant Professor of Psychology & Scientific and Philosophical Studies of Mind

Article: A fundamental fact about human minds is that they are never truly alone: all minds are steeped in situated interaction. That social interaction matters is recognized by any experimentalist who seeks to exclude its influence by studying individuals in isolation. On this view, interaction complicates cognition. Here, we explore the more radical stance that interaction co-constitutes cognition: that we benefit from looking beyond single minds toward cognition as a process involving interacting minds. 

Mark Dingemanse, Andreas Liesenfeld, Marlou Rasenberg, Saul Albert, Felix K. Ameka, Abeba Birhane, Dimitris Bolis, Justine Cassell, Rebecca Clift, Elena Cuffari, Hanne De Jaegher, Catarina Dutilh Novaes, N. J. Enfield, Riccardo Fusaroli, Eleni Gregoromichelaki, Edwin Hutchins, Ivana Konvalinka, Damian Milton, Joanna Rączaszek-Leonardi, Vasudevi Reddy, Federico Rossano, David Schlangen, Johanna Seibt, Elizabeth Stokoe, Lucy Suchman, Cordula Vesper, Thalia Wheatley, Martina Wiltschko. (2023). “Beyond Single‐Mindedness: A Figure‐Ground Reversal for the Cognitive Sciences.” Cognitive Science 47(1), e13230. https://doi-org.fandm.idm.oclc.org/10.1111/cogs.13230 🔓

Conference Presentations:

Cuffari, E. and Figueiredo, N. “Doing without representations: linguistic enactivism and agential realism.” In Meeting the Mind Sciences Halfway: Enaction and Agential Realism in Dialogue (panel co-organized with Marek McGann). 1st Annual Web Conference of the International Society for the Philosophy of the Sciences of the Mind. 

Cuffari, E. “Dissatisfied, decentered, and determined: Hope and well-being from an enactive perspective.” International Conference on Embodied Cognitive Science ECogs23, OIST, Okinawa, Japan, Nov 13-18. 

Cuffari, E. and Figueiredo, N. “Intentions As Interactional and Interspecies Achievements: Enactivist Contributions to Language Evolution.” Society of Philosophy and Psychology, Annual Meeting, June 20-23, 2023, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA. (peer-reviewed poster)

Prithviraj datta

Prithviraj datta

Assistant Professor of Political Theory

Article: Members of the United States Congress labor under a pressing fundraising imperative. Congresspersons believe that they must raise very large sums of money in order to secure re-election, to help their fellow partisans in Congress get re-elected, and to rise to positions of Congressional and party leadership. This leads members of Congress to accord tremendous importance to fundraising while in office. In this article, I draw on the normative scholarship on domination to offer a novel critique of the Congressional fundraising imperative. 

Datta, Prithviraj. 2023. “Dialing for Dollars, Dialing for Domination: Normatively Evaluating the Congressional Fundraising Imperative.” Society 60: 14–27. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-022-00795-9 🔓

Elizabeth de santo

Elizabeth de santo

Associate Professor of Environmental Studies

Article: This opinion piece argues for a moratorium on deep-sea mining, as suggested by more than twenty countries as well as many businesses and organizations, until clear rules are set by the International Seabed Authority to protect biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction. 

De Santo, E.M. 2023. "Reducing Carbon Emissions Can't Come at the Expense of our Oceans." Opinion piece published in The Hill on 15 October 2023: https://thehill.com/opinion/congress-blog/4257524-reducing-carbon-emissions-cant-come-at-the-expense-of-our-oceans/

Article: This paper examines the penultimate set of UN negotiations surrounding the new treaty to protect ‘Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction’ (BBNJ), held at the end of 2022 (the final agreement came out in 2023). This paper explores the relationships between the pace and content of the emerging treaty on the one hand, and the dynamics of process, interests, power, and ideology, on the other. After an overview of the negotiation format and apparent progress, subsequent sections consider in turn the issue areas of marine genetic resources (MGRs), area-based management tools, including marine protected areas (ABMTs/MPAs), environmental impact assessments (EIAs), and capacity building and transfer of marine technology (CBTMT). Institutional arrangements and cross cutting issues are also highlighted as key areas where obstacles remain. 

Tiller, R., Mendenhall, E., De Santo, E., and Nyman, E. 2023. “Shake It Off: Negotiations suspended, but hope simmering, after a lack of consensus at the fifth intergovernmental conference on biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction.” Marine Policy 148: 105457 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2022.105457 🔓

Conference Presentation: 

MacDonald, B.H., Soomai, S.S., De Santo, E.M., and Wells, P.G. “Understanding Information Pathways for Evidence-Based Policy and Decision Making in Coastal and Ocean Management.” Coastal Zone Canada Conference, (Victoria, B.C., June 2023).

Marco di giulio

Marco di giulio

Associate Professor of Hebrew Language and Literature

Article: This article examines the case of Gizela Kafri, who stood trial for killing her severely disabled three-year-old son in 1964. This case sparked a public debate over mercy killing and eventually contributed to the passage of the “Law for the Treatment of Retarded Persons” in Israel five years later. Placing this event within its broader historical context reveals how competing valuations of disability shaped Israeli society’s understandings of what constituted a meaningful life in the early decades of statehood. Through an analysis of press coverage of Gizela Kafri’s trial and subsequent legislative changes, the article argues that this event revealed a deep-seated ambivalence towards those who were deemed economic liabilities due to their need for extensive care within Israel’s post-Holocaust historical context. 

Di Giulio, Marco. "Killing out of Compassion: Disability, Care, and the Value of Life in the Early Decades of Israeli Statehood." Journal of Modern Jewish Studies (2023): 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1080/14725886.2023.2227611

Conference Presentations: 

Marco Di Giulio. “Contesting the Politics of British Prosthetic Care: Pain, Nativeness, and the Plight of Palestinian Jewish Amputees in WWII.” Online Conference: Histories of Disability and Emotions, Leuven Centre for Health Humanities, organizers Pieter Verstraete, Sara Scalenghe, and Ninon Dubourg (June 13–15, 2023).

Marco Di Giulio. Documentary discussion panelist: “A Life Like This” (dir. James Hollenbaugh, 2023), co-sponsored by the Ware Center and the Millersville University Learning Institute, Ware Center, Lancaster, PA (Fall 2023).

Marco Di Giulio. "Taking the Wheel: Automobility and the Israeli Disabled Veteran Community." Association for Jewish Studies 55th Annual Conference, San Francisco (December 17–19, 2023).

edward E. fenlon

edward E. fenlon

Professor of Chemistry

Article: The regulation of intramolecular vibrational energy redistribution (IVR) to influence energy flow within molecular scaffolds provides a way to steer fundamental processes of chemistry, such as chemical reactivity in proteins and design of molecular diodes. In this work, the mechanisms of IVR were hindered via the introduction of a heavy atom, selenium, into the molecular scaffold. This effectively eliminated the energy transfer pathway and resulted in the dissipation of the energy into the bath and direct dipole–dipole coupling between the two vibrational reporters. By eliminating the energy transfer pathways through isolation of specific vibrational transitions, through-space vibrational coupling between an azido (N3) and a selenocyanato (SeCN) probe is facilitated and observed for the first time. 

Majid Hassani, C. J. Mallon, Judith N. Monzy, Andrew J. Schmitz, Scott H. Brewer, Edward E. Fenlon, Matthew J. Tucker. “Inhibition of vibrational energy flow within an aromatic scaffold via heavy atom effect.” Journal of Chemical Physics 2023, 158, 224201. doi.org/10.1063/5.0153760

janet fischer

janet fischer

Dr. E. Paul & Frances H. Reiff Professor of Biology

Creative Work: Losing Blue is a cinematic poem that delves into the impending loss of some of the most extraordinary blues on Earth—the otherworldly blues of ancient mountain lakes. 

Janet Fischer & Mark Olson. Science Advisors for Losing Blue (Perdre le bleu). Documentary film directed by Leanne Allison 2023. https://mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/losing-blue/

ryan fowler

ryan fowler

Visiting Scholar of Classics

Article: Though the Hippocratic text On the Heart has garnered significant attention in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries from classicists, physicians and historians of medicine alike, no commentary on this important work currently exists. There remain, however, central questions of interpretation concerning a number of important points: in particular, how the author understands the structure and functioning of the heart...This article intends to provide a full commentary on the text by consolidating, and in some cases correcting, previous interpretive attempts to understand an often referenced, and at times misinterpreted, ancient medical treatise. 

Fowler, RC. ”On the Heart of the Hippocratic Corpus: its meaning, context and purpose.” Medical History 2023; 67(3):266-283. doi:10.1017/mdh.2023.22

Lee franklin

Lee franklin

Professor of Philosophy

Article: Plato's Republic X attack on imitative poetry is based in the metaphysics of appearance, since appearances are the objects and products of imitation. I offer a new reading, showing that Plato's account coherently introduces appearances as a new type of item, distinct from Forms and sensible particulars, and applies beyond imitation to a broad range of appearances. 

Franklin, Lee. "The Metaphysics of Appearance in Republic X (596a5–598d7)." Journal of the History of Philosophy 61.1 (2023): 1-24. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/hph.2023.0000

Tamara goeglein

Tamara goeglein

Professor of English

Article: Noah's ark (or thebah) fascinated the Christian Hebraist makers of the Antwerp Polyglot Bible. Their sacred philology interpreted thebah as a singular life-preserving vessel, and their Bible's elegant engravings of thebah insert Christ's crucified body inside it. "Christ's ark," as I call this emblem, figures the life-preserving Resurrection promised in Christ's sacrificial death. I argue that "Christ's ark" informs John Donne's "A Hymne to Christ." In its first stanza, Donne makes a distinctly personal emblem of "Christ's ark," which intersects with the hymn's controversial closing lines. These closing lines express faith in Christ's Resurrection, and, with His Resurrection, Donne's own. 

Tamara A. Goeglein, "Emblematic Arks in John Donne's 'A Hymne to Christ' and the Antwerp Polyglot Bible (1568-73)." ELH 90.4 (2023): 933-953.

shari goldberg

shari goldberg

Associate Professor of English

Article: How do we notice when illness is present amid the ordinary, when illness turns and stretches it, without presuming a rupture must occur? The presented analysis registers mental illness as immersed in depictions of ordinary life, what Beth Blum calls “an undifferentiated part of the atmosphere” (1270). In this manifestation, mental illness hangs back from highlighted recognition. Such an approach puts pressure on the very categories of mental health and illness as distinct from everyday living. As a result, texts involving illness accrue significance less for revealing anomaly than for revealing imbrication. We are challenged, then, to perceive how they still spur formal distinction, when representations of illness are coextensive with representations of everything else. 

Goldberg, Shari. “The Disordered Ordinary.” American Literary History 35. 3 (2023): 1309-1316.

kimberly grey

kimberly grey

Visiting Assistant Professor of English

Book: Ingenious out of necessity, these essays erupt from the exile of the author by her mother. In them, Kimberly Grey harnesses her formidable intellectual and creative resources in an effort to create coherence out of absolute dislocation. To do so, she calls on—beseeches—dozens of brilliant thinkers and artists (among them Etel Adnan, Roland Barthes, John Cage, Anna Freud, Mina Loy, Elaine Scarry, Gertrude Stein, and Simone Weil) to help her survive, if not fully comprehend, her banishment. By thinking her pain rather than feeling it, she becomes an expert witness to her own trauma, pondering motherhood even as her daughterhood has been rescinded. Synthesizing creative writing and theory, A Mother Is an Intellectual Thing is a powerful testament to the essay’s potential to help us persevere. 

Grey, Kimberly. A Mother Is an Intellectual Thing: Essays. Persea Books, NY: 2023.

Bruce Gustafson

bruce gustafson

Charles A. Dana Professor of Music, Emeritus 

Book: Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687) is the most significant French composer of the 17th century, whose influence in Europe was considerable on composers such as Purcell, Bach, and Handel. Together with Molière, he created at the court of Louis XIV. his famous "comédies ballets". His fifteen operas are a retroactive model for French musical theatre up to the 20th century. Among his church musical works, the "Te Deum", the "Miserere" and the "De profundis" stand out. Here is the first historical-critical overall edition. In addition to the orchestral score, which also includes a libretto print, the performance material and a piano score appear. 

Bruce Gustasfon Jean-Baptise Lully: “Les Amants magnifiques (Le Divertissement royal, mêlé de comédie, de musique et d’entrées de ballet).” Critical edition. With Noam Krieger. Œuvres complètes, series 2, vol. 5. Hildesheim: Olms, (Paris: Musica Gallica), 2023. 

dean hammer

dean hammer

The John W. Wetzel Professor of Government

Book: Rome and America provides a timely exploration of the Roman and American founding myths in the cultural imagination. Defying the usual ideological categories, Dean Hammer argues for the exceptional nature of the myths as a journey of Strangers, but also traces the tensions created by the myths in attempts to answer the question of who We are. The wide-ranging chapters reassess both Roman antecedents and American expressions of the myth in some unexpected places: early American travelogues, westerns, bare-knuckle boxing, early American theater, government documents detailing Native American policy, and the writings of Noah Webster, W. E. B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, and Charles Eastman. This innovative volume culminates in an interpretation of the current crisis of democracy as a reversion of the community back to Strangers, with suggestions of how the myth can recast a much-needed discussion of identity and belonging. 

Dean Hammer. Rome and America: Communities of Strangers, Spectacles of Belonging. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009249621

kabi hartman

kabi hartman

Director of the Program in Support of Academic Excellence and Senior Teaching Professor of English

Creative Works

Kabi Hartman "Burnings," Kenyon Review, Volume 45, Number 3, Summer 2023, pp. 158-173.

Kabi Hartman. “Litany for a Year of Early Mornings.” Creative Nonfiction. Hunger Mountain Issue 28.  https://hngrmtn.org/issues/hunger-mountain-28/creative-nonfiction/ 🔓 

Kabi Hartman, "Nipple Day." Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction Volume 25, Number 1, Spring 2023, pp. 34-47.

nadra hebouche

nadra hebouche

Associate Professor of Francophone Studies and French

Article: The condemnation of anthropocentrism as the origin of a damaged nature dominated by humans undeniably constitutes one of the recurring themes in Louis Hamelin’s work. Indeed, as a fierce champion of nature, the author has, in his fictions, continuously drawn attention to the brutality of Man and has lauded the intrinsic value of non-human nature. However, if Autour d’Éva (2016) is no exception, it is with this novel that Hamelin expands his ecological perspective, which until then paid very little attention to the experience of women in the relationship that exists between humans and nature. As the voice of a female protagonist resonates throughout the narrative, the fiction explores the connection between humans and non-human nature by examining the man/nature relationship as a reflection of the man/woman relationship. Thus, this article aims to contemplate Autour d’Éva as the fictionalization of an ecofeminist ethic which will take shape in the deconstruction of the oppressive androcentric conceptual framework at the origin of the joint domination of women and nature. This ecofeminist ethic will also develop through Hamelin’s suggestion of a new integrative reality in which a partnership forms between women, men, and non-human nature.

Hebouche, Nadra. 2023. "D’une éthique écoféministe: Émancipation et partenariat dans Autour d’Éva de Louis Hamelin." Québec Studies 76(1): 89-108. https://doi.org/10.3828/qs.2023.19

bennett helm

bennett helm

Elijah E. Kresge Professor of Philosophy

Article: This chapter aims to understand the role of emotions in our knowledge of social identities. A central concern is to understand how social identities, while being socially constructed, can nonetheless be objective in the sense that we can be right or wrong not only about what social identities a particular person has but also about what social identities there are and how to understand them. 

Helm, Bennett W. (2023). "Emotions and the Contestation of Social Identities". In Emotional Self-Knowledge. Eds.Salice & Montes. (New York: Routledge), 73-102.

Article: This paper argues that hate differs from mere disliking in terms of its “depth,” which is understood via a notion of “othering,” whereby one rejects at least some aspect of the identity of the target of hate, identifying oneself as not being what they are. Fleshing this out reveals important differences between personal hate, which targets a particular individual, and impersonal hate, which targets groups of people. 

Helm, Bennett W. (2023). "Hate, Identification, and Othering". American Philosophical Quarterly 60:289--310.

Article: 

Helm, Bennett W. (2023). "Formy Przyjaźni (Forms of Friendship)". Filozofuj! 8:14--16. https://filozofuj.eu/bennett-w-helm-formy-przyjazni/ 🔓 

Conference Presentations:

Helm, Bennett W. (2023). "Caring about Getting Things Right: Robust Belief and the Complexity of Animal Minds". Colloquium talk given at the University of Miami.

Bennett Helm and Anzhou He (2023), "Resisting the Misconstruction of Social Identities: The Interpersonal Call of the Reactive Attitudes". Talk given for True Blue Weekend.

Helm, Bennett W. (2023). "Reflexive Emotions and Objectivity in Value". Presented at the Workshop on Normativity and Reflexivity in Emotional Experience, Würzburg University.

peter jaros

peter jaros

Associate Professor of English

Article: This article contains a series of essays from health humanities program leaders at Franklin & Marshall College, Lebanon Valley College, and Elizabethtown College.  The information was originally presented at the May 2022 Health Humanities Conference sponsored by Elizabethtown College and Penn State College of Medicine's Department of Humanities. 

Bernice L. Hausman, Peter Jaros, Jon Stone, Kevin Shormer-Johnson, and John Hinshaw. (2023). “Creating Health Humanities Programs at Liberal Arts Colleges: Three Models.” Journal of Medical Humanities 44, 107-116. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-022-09778-7

richard K. kent

Richard K. Kent

Professor of Art History

Creative Works

Richard K Kent. Poem: "Snowman Inflatable." Tar River Poetry, Vol. 63, no. 1 (Fall 2023), 47.

Photographs Selected for Juried Exhibitions:

Richard K Kent. Jadite Gallery, New York, NY: Same but Different 2023, NYC4PA (Juror: Debra Klomp-Ching, gallerist based in Brooklyn, NY; "New Holland & Franklin, 2nd Series, 8X & 9X" selected & recipient of Juror’s Selection Award), April 4-15, 2023. https://www.nyc4pa.com/same-different

Richard K Kent. The 2023 Photo Review International Photography Competition (Juror: Deborah Willis, award winning artist and University Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellow; "Bill at the Pearl River Piano" selected for online Competition Winners gallery: https://photoreview.org/events/competition/2023-competition-winners-gallery/3/?envira_id=19742

Richard K Kent. Firelands Association for the Visual Arts (FAVA), Oberlin, OH: FAVA's Juried Biennial Photography Show 2023 (Juror: Anne E. Young, photographer and multidisciplinary artist & co-owner of KINK Contemporary in Cleveland; "Private Drive, 33X--Diagonal Variant with Dump Truck" selected), June 10-August 20, 2023.

Richard K Kent. Circle Gallery, Maryland Federation of Art, Annapolis, MD: American Landscapes 2023 (Juror: Nora Sturges, Area Head of Painting and Drawing at Towson University; "Psychic, Sunday Night--Hightstown, NJ" selected), August 30-September 23, 2023.

Richard K Kent. Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts, Providence, RI: Interlines, Lifelines, Redlines: Social Markers of Race (Juror: Eric T. Kunsman, photographer and book artist, Assistant Professor, Assistant Professor in the Visual Communications Studies Department at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf; "Nativity Scene and Cars" and "Truck with Message, Route 72, PA" selected), October 19-November 10, 2023. https://www.riphotocenter.org/interlines-lifelines-redlines-social-markers-of-race-class-economics/

Guest Lectures:

Richard K Kent. November 14, 2023. National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan, guest lecture/reading related to my book Seeking Habitat in Prof. Hsu Li-hsin's Writing & Reading, Level 2 Class: "Toward a Resonant Clarity: Letting Images Speak."

Richard K Kent. November 17, 2023. Shih Hsin University, Taipei, Taiwan, guest lecture in Prof. Chen Hsueh-sheng's upper-level photography class: “Layering Time in Lessons in Recursion: What Happens When an Historian of Chinese Art Makes Photographs.”  

alison kibler

Professor of American Studies and Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies

Article: In the mid 1970s Black women, and Black feminists in particular, were increasingly visible on television, as they took positions as broadcast journalists and news anchors; starred in dramas and situation comedies, such as Good Times; and appeared as experts on an array of public affairs programs, including shows developed by Black Power leaders and feminists. This essay examines this rise and the constraints on it by analyzing Black feminists’ television activism and their appearances on three programs in the 1970s: two feminist public affairs programs that both aired on PBS stations, Woman (1973–1977) and Woman Alive! (1974, 1975, 1977); and For You Black Woman (1977–1985). 

Kibler, M. Alison. "Black Feminists on Television." Frontiers: A Journal of Women's Studies vol. 44, no. 1 (2023), pp. 80-109. 

kostis kourelis

kostis kourelis

Associate Professor of Art History

Chapter: The Cambridge Guide to the Architecture of Christianity offers a wide-ranging overview of one of the most important genres of Western architecture, from its origins in the Early Christian era to the present day. Including 103 essays, specially commissioned for these two volumes and written by an international team of scholars, this publication examines a range of themes and issues, including religious building types, siting, regional traditions, ornament, and structure. It also explores how patrons and architects responded to the spiritual needs and cult practices of Christianity as they developed and evolved over the centuries. This publication is richly illustrated with 588 halftones and 70 color plates. 856 additional images, nearly all in color, are available online and are keyed into the text. The most comprehensive and up-to date reference work on this topic, The Cambridge Guide to the Architecture of Christianity will serve as a primary reference resource for scholars, practitioners, and students. 

Kourelis, Kostis. 2023. “Religion in the Byzantine Countryside,” in The Cambridge Guide to the Architecture of Christianity, vol. 1, ed. Richard A. Etlin, Ann Marie Yasin, and Stephen Murray, pp. 159-165, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Chapter: How does the academic teaching of archaeology in the United States respond to the urgent questions surrounding this migration to Europe? The ad hoc urbanism of Greece’s migrant camps offers a rich entry point for the study of contemporary migration and its relationship to historical landscapes. Since its foundation in 1830, modern Greece has experienced continuous episodes of forced migration, emigration, internal displacement, war, economic collapse, destruction, abandonment, and ruination. Its countryside is layered with migrant sites, artifacts, and memories. Starting in the seventeenth century, European intellectuals valorized the Greek landscape as an idyllic Arcadia that was central to Western civilization’s relationship to nature. Representing universal values, Greece’s antiquities stand as foils to the mutability and degeneration of modernity and form the subject of archaeology as a discipline. 

Kourelis, Kostis. 2023. “Archaeology of Forced Migration in Greece: A Layered Pedagogy,” in Migration, Displacement, and Higher Education: Now What? ed. Brittany Murray, Matthew Brill-Carlat, and Maria Höhn, pp. 151-162, Cham Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-12350-4_12  🔓

Chapter: The Greek Revival style in the United States was aesthetically modeled on Greek antiquities and ideologically motivated by the 1821 Greek Revolution. The Greek Revival became the first national style of the United States turning Greece’s material culture into a proxy for universal freedom, including the abolition of slavery at home. When 400,000 Greek immigrants crossed the Atlantic between 1880 and 1921, they encountered a familiar architecture, which they misconstrued along ethnic lines. Stripped of its original abolitionist connotations, the old Greek Revival style could be deployed to argue Greek racial superiority that was denied by the native Anglo-American population. In the United States, Greek communities experimented with diverse architectural options participating in sophisticated conversations of historicism and eclecticism. In contrast, religious architecture in Greece was codified by a state church. The laity could not shape its environment as they could in the diaspora. Greek immigrants conversed with other minorities who also manipulated architectural heritage to construct new public identities. When the Greek Orthodox Church of America endorsed an official Byzantine Revival style in 1959, it displaced the Greek Revival and its associated ideologies. 

Kourelis, Kostis. 2023. “Architecture, Abolition, Revolution: Greek American Revival (1920s) of the American Greek Revival (1820s),” in The Greek Revolution and the Greek Diaspora in the United States, ed. Maria Kaliambou, pp. 38-57, New York: Routledge. 

Chapter:

Kourelis Kostis. 2023. “Αρχιτεκτονική, κατάργηση της δουλείας και Επανάσταση. Η Ελληνική Αναβίωση στην ελληνοαμερικανική κοινότητα στη δεκαετία του 1920,” in Η επανάσταση του 1821 και οι Έλληνες της Αμερικής, ed. Maria Kaliambou, trans. Giorgos Aposkitis, pp. 73-104, Athens: Asine.

Exhibit:

Cassidy, Kyle, Richard Rothaus and Kostis Kourelis. 2023. The Minidoka Barracks Project, the Eleventh Annual Screening Scholarship Media Festival, Collective for Advancing Multimodal Research Arts (CAMRA), University of Pennsylvania, Annenberg School of Communications, Philadelphia, March 31-April 2, 2022.

Conference Presentation:

Kourelis, Kostis. 2023. “Archaeologies of Care: The Refugee Colony of Washingtonia,” Columbia University Seminar in Modern Greek, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Public Humanities Initiative (SNFPHI), New York, March 7, 2023.

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nick kroll

Associate Professor of Philosophy

Chapter: This chapter argues for determinable dispositions. Determinable dispositions are characterized by a certain type of non-specificity. Put roughly, a determinable disposition to M is a disposition to M in some but no particular way. So, if a vase is disposed to break and that disposition is a determinable disposition, then the vase is disposed to break in some but no particular way. The chapter argues that determinable dispositions undermine standard approaches to multi-track dispositions and provide support for a teleological understanding of dispositions. 

Nick Kroll. "Determinable Dispositions." In Powers, Parts and Wholes. Eds. Christopher J. Austin, Anna Marmodoro & Andrea Roselli. Routledge. 2023.

Article: Szabó (Philos Rev 120(2):247–283, 2011) and Santorio (Philos Stud 164(1):41–59, 2013) have revived the case for Fodor’s (The linguistic description of opaque contexts, Ph.D. thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1970) _specific yet opaque_ readings of determiner phrases in intensional constructions. Szabó claims that the existence of such readings gives reason to abandon standard theories of movement. Santorio claims that such readings imply that a quantification analysis of indefinites is false. I’m not so sure. To make my case, I supply a situation semantics for these readings that both respects standard theories of movement and a quantificational analysis of indefinite. 

Nick Kroll. 2023. "Splitting Situations." Linguistics and Philosophy 46 (5), 1051-1074.

carrie landfried

carrie landfried

Associate Professor of French

Chapter: One of the only ways to know what Nathalie Sarraute thought of the work of her contemporaries is to consult her correspondence. Such an analysis helps us discern the degree of literary affinity as well as any feelings of friendship or rivalry they shared or felt. Starting with Michel Butor and Claude Mauriac, who are the most sustained both in friendship and mutual professional admiration, we move on to appreciation without any particular artistic influence as evidenced by the correspondence with Claude Simon and Claude Ollier, and end with a more tense relationship with Alain Robbe-Grillet. 

Carrie Landfried. "Liens affectifs, liens littéraires: les affinités que nous révèle la correspondance de Nathalie Sarraute avec d'autres Nouveaux Romanciers," in Nathalie Sarraute aujourd'hui, Les impensés d'une écriture, sous la dir. d'Ann Jefferson, Rainier Rocchi, Olivier Wagner. Paris: Hermann, 2023, pp. 47-64.

scott lerner

scott lerner

Arthur and Katherine Shadek Professor of Humanities and French and Italian

Article: The Bloomsbury Handbook to Literature and Psychoanalysis provides the most comprehensive examination of the two-way traffic between literature and psychoanalysis to date. It looks at how each defines the other as well as addressing the key thinkers in psychoanalytic theory (Freud, Klein, Lacan, and the schools of thought each of these has generated). It examines the debts that these psychoanalytic traditions have to literature, and offers plentiful case-studies of literature's influence from psychoanalysis.

Lerner, L. Scott. “The Counter-Impulses of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time.” The Bloomsbury Handbook of Literature and Psychoanalysis. Ed. Jeremy Tambling. Bloomsbury, 2023. 231-242.

Article: This article is a review of Annette Aronozicz's book titled, "Self-Portrait with Parents and Footnotes: In and Out of a Postwar Jewish Childhood." 

Lerner, L. Scott. Review of “Annette Aronowicz, Self-Portrait with Parents and Footnotes: In and Out of a Postwar Jewish Childhood.” Journal of Jewish Identities 16.1-2 (2023). 261-263.

alan levine

alan levine

Associate Professor of Mathematics

Article: This article contains excerpts from the complete translation of "Calculus of Probabilities" by A. A. Markov (1900) that I finished in 2022. 

Alan Levine. "A Selection of Problems from A.A. Markov’s Calculus of Probabilities." Convergence (November 2023).  DOI:10.4169/convergence20231101 🔓  

louise lobello

louise lobello 

Digital & Special Collections Librarian

Conference Presentation

Hargrove, S. Hathaway, G. LoBello, L. (2023, August). The Legacy Project: Legacy of Slavery @ F&M [Final presentation]. CIC Public History Institute, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.

Virginia maksymowicz

Virginia maksymowicz

Professor of Art Emerita

Chapter: "The Meditative Eye" is an essay published in the catalog commemorating "Finding the Center: Ron Melhman" a solo exhibition on the grounds at Chesterwood. 

"The Meditative Eye" essay by Virginia Maksymowicz, in exhibition catalogue for "Ron Mehlman at Chesterwood." Additional essays by Michele Cohen and Salvatore Settis, edited by Margaret Cherin, pp. 33-40, Stockbridge, MA: Chesterwood/The National Trust for Historic Preservation, May 2023.

Article: Virginia Maksymowicz writes about seeing work by Thomas Brummett and Blaise Tobia (her husband) in Berlin, then traveling to Amsterdam but not being able to get tickets for the sold-out Vermeer exhibit at the Rijksmuseum, then finding out that the Philadelphia Museum of Art has its own Vermeer, Lady with a Guitar, which we told you about in the News post. 

Virginia Maksymowicz “Philadelphia Artists in Amsterdam and Berlin,” the artblog, Roberta Fallon, editor, Philadelphia, June 1, 2023; https://www.theartblog.org/2023/05/philadelphia-artists-in-amsterdam-and-berlin 🔓

Article: Blog contributors Virginia Maksymowicz and Blaise Tobia report on a recent panel at Moore College of Art and Design devoted to talk about cultural policy in light of the current mayoral election campaigns. 

Virginia Maksymowicz "Moore College Panel Foregrounds Cultural Policy in the Context of the Philadelphia Mayoral Race," coauthored with Blaise Tobia, Philadelphia Artblog, February 22, 2023 https://www.theartblog.org/2023/02/moore-college-panel-foregrounds-cultural-policy-in-the-context-of-the-philadelphia-mayoral-race 🔓

Article: Blaise Tobia and Virginia Maksymowicz visit and report on the Art on Paper Fair in New York presented by Fleisher Ollman Gallery. 

Virginia Maksymowicz "On the Paper Trail at New York's Art on Paper Fair," coauthored with Blaise Tobia, Philadelphia Artblog, September 20, 2023 https://www.theartblog.org/2023/09/on-the-paper-trail-at-new-yorks-art-on-paper-fair 🔓

Creative Works: 

Virginia Maksymowicz "The Lightness of Bearing," solo exhibition, Rowan University Art Gallery, Glassboro, NJ, September 5 - October 28, 2023. https://sites.rowan.edu/artgallery/exhibitions/the-lightness-of-bearing-virginia-maksymowicz.html 

Virginia Maksymowicz. “Perennial Visions V." DaVinci Art Alliance, Philadelphia, PA: December 2 - 17, 2023’

Virginia Maksymowicz. “Depth of Field." PhotoLounge, Philadelphia, PA: August 7 - September 30, 2023

Virginia Maksymowicz. “In Search of Something More." DaVinci Art Alliance, Philadelphia, PA: February 1-19, 2023.

Virginia Maksymowicz.“The Women’s Caucus for Art." Artworks Trenton, NJ: March 14 - April 15, 2023.

Virginia Maksymowicz "The Lightness of Bearing," exhibition catalogue, with essay by Andrea Kirsh, published by Rowan  University, Glassboro, NJ, September, 2023 https://sites.rowan.edu/artgallery/_docs/vm_catalog_final_web-file.pdf 🔓

Virginia Maksymowicz Juror, “Five into One” exhibition, Moore College of Art & Design, Philadelphia, PA, June 3 - September 2, 2023 https://philasculptors.org/23rd-annual-5-into-1-exhibition

Review Committee:

Virginia Maksymowicz Reviewer, Percent for the Art Committee, Office of Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy, Blanche A. Nixon Library, Philadelphia, PA, 2023 https://www.creativephl.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Perecent-for-Art-Rebuild-Blanche-A-Nixon-Cobbs-Creek-Library-Call-for-Artists.pdf

Panelist & Talks:

Virginia Maksymowicz Moderator and panelist, “Art History in Search of a Historian,” College Art Association annual conference, NYC, February 17, 2023 https://www.americansforthearts.org/events/art-history-in-search-of-a-historian?delta

Virginia Maksymowicz Lecture, “Ron Mehlman and the Artist’s Ethic,” with Blaise Tobia, Chesterwood/The National Trust for Historic Preservation, Stockbridge, MA, July 15, 2023 https://www.chesterwood.org/calendar-2023/2023/6/22/ron-mehlman-and-the-artists-ethic

Virginia Maksymowicz Virtual Visiting Artist for ART TALK 2023, University of Maine at Augusta, October 4, 2023. 

david mcmahan

david mcmahan

Charles A. Dana Professor of Religious Studies

Book: Rethinking Meditation provides a new theoretical and historical approach to Buddhist and Buddhist-derived meditative practices. It shows how, rather than coming down to us unchanged from the time of the Buddha, the standard articulation of mindfulness as bare, nonjudgmental attention to the present moment is a distillation of particular strands of classical Buddhist thought that have combined with western ideas to create a unique practice tailored to modern forms of thought and ways of life. 

McMahan, David L. Rethinking Meditation: Buddhist Meditation Practices in Ancient and Modern Worlds. Oxford University Press, 2023.

stephanie mcnulty

stephanie mcnulty

The Honorable & Mrs. John C. Kunkel Professor of Government

Article: Participatory budgeting (PB) is designed to leverage local knowledge about community needs and translate spending preferences into tangible community development action by giving communities control over key budgetary resources. Moreover, PB participants learn about decision-making processes in development policy and can organize to pursue their communities’ interests beyond the PB process by engaging with government and civil society. PB advocates hope that infrastructure, service delivery, and, ultimately, well-being will improve for underserved communities and groups that have been historically excluded from the perspective of representative democracy. This article presents the theoretical logic connecting PB to community development and summarizes the global evidence from studies that test the theoretical propositions above. 

Touchton, M., McNulty, S., & Wampler, B. (2023). Participatory Budgeting and Community Development: A Global Perspective. American Behavioral Scientist, 67(4), 520-536. https://doi.org/10.1177/00027642221086957

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Jorge mena ali

Assistant Dean of Faculty Diversity Initiatives 

Conference Presentation:

Gretchel Hathaway, Jorge Mena-Ali, Christian Perry, “Design and Implementation of the I.D.E.A. Certification Course: Using CDO skills to enhance retention and Campus Climate.” 2023 NADOHE Conference, Baltimore, MD April 12-15, 2023. https://nadohe.memberclicks.net/assets/2023/NADOHE%202023%20Conference%20Program%20-%20pages.pdf


stanley mertzman

stanley mertzman

Dr. Earl D. Stage and Mary E. Stage Professor of Geosciences, Emeritus 

Article: The ~30 Ma to Recent Wrangell Arc (WA), Alaska is an ideal location to study subduction and slab-edge magmatism. However, the WA covers a huge area (~15,000 km2) and ~29% of the WA is covered by glaciers with rugged topography, making bedrock sampling challenging. We addressed these barriers with geochemical and geochronologic analyses on igneous cobbles collected from rivers encircling the WA. Results show that magmatism migrated southward and then northwestward, mirroring bedrock studies. Cobble geochemistry overlaps bedrock results, where calc-alkaline and adakitic cobbles are spatially and temporally ubiquitous in the WA, indicating that subduction and slab melting have been dominant processes. Intra-arc extension-related transitional-tholeiitic cobbles are not found in southwestern WA rivers and are limited in both bedrock and cobble data. The novel tandem cobble method closely matches the bedrock record in geochemical, temporal, and spatial contexts and can be used when bedrock access concerns and/or for characterizing watersheds. 

Matthew Brueseke, Beth K. Morter, Jeffrey A. Benowitz, Jeffrey M. Trop, Stanley A. Mertzman, Carl S. Kirby, and Kailyn Davis.”What lies beneath the ice? Using the geochemistry and geochronology of modern river cobbles to better decipher the evolution of a glaciated volcanic arc (Wrangell Arc, Alaska, U.S.A.).” Volcanica 6(2): 313–329, 2023. https://doi.org/10.30909/vol.06.02.313329

Article: Spectral reflectance properties of nontronite [a phyllosilicate with an ideal formula of Na0.3Fe23+(Si,Al)4O10(OH)2·nH2O] were investigated under simulated Mars surface conditions of atmospheric pressure and composition, and after heating to 110°, 180°, and 300 °C. The data can be used to determine the conditions to which nontronites on the martian surface may have been subjected. The spectral changes documented in this study, as well as a comparison to previous studies, suggest that the absorption features associated with nontronite can be used to place constraints on conditions that nontronite may have been exposed to in the past. This study demonstrates that dehydration as well as dehydroxylation can occur at temperatures <300 °C. 

Nathalie Turenne, Sahejpal Sidhu, Daniel M. Applin, Edward A. Cloutis, Z.U. Wolf, Stanley A. Mertzman, Elisabeth M. Hausrath, Teresa Fornaro, Adrian Brown. “Spectral reflectance properties of nontronite exposed to Mars-like surface conditions and low-temperature heating.” (<300 ◦C).” Icarus 395 (2023). https://doi. org/10.1016/j.icarus.2023.115448

Conference Presentation:

Z. U. Wolf, N. N. Turenne, E. A. Cloutis, D. M. Applin, P. Mann, and S. Mertzman. “LSPC 5. Spectral Reflectance Properties of Mars-Relevant Minerals Subjected to Heating in a Low-Pressure CO2 Environment.”Abstract presented at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference held in Houston, Texas, March 2023.

Jennifer meyer

Jennifer meyer

Associate Professor of Government & Public Health

Article: Impact evaluation (IE) of large infrastructure presents numerous challenges, and investments in urban piped water and sanitation are no exception. Here we present methods for more systematic assessment of the implications of such interventions, discussing tradeoffs between validity, relevance and practicality that arise from alternative approaches.  

Jeuland, M., Orgill-Meyer, J., Morgan, S., Hudner, D., Pucilowski, M., Wyatt, A., et al. (2023). “Impact evaluation of water infrastructure investments: Methods, challenges and demonstration from a large-scale urban improvement in Jordan.” Water Resources Research 59, e2022WR033897. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022WR033897

gretchen meyers

gretchen meyers

Assistant Dean for Strategic Initiatives & Professor of Classics

Chapter: Striking similarities in Etruscan and Anatolian material culture reveal various forms of contact and exchange between these regions on opposite sides of the Mediterranean. This is the first comprehensive investigation of these connections, approaching both cultures as agents of artistic exchange rather than as side characters in a Greek-focused narrative. It synthesizes a wide range of material evidence from c. 800 – 300 BCE, from tomb architecture and furniture to painted vases, terracotta reliefs, and magic amulets. By identifying shared practices, common visual language, and movements of objects and artisans (from both east to west and west to east), it illuminates many varied threads of the interconnected ancient Mediterranean fabric. Rather than trying to account for the similarities with any one, overarching theory, this volume presents multiple, simultaneous modes and implications of connectivity while also recognizing the distinct local identities expressed through shared artistic and cultural traditions. 

Meyers, G. (2023). “Female Assembly on Archaic Etruscan and Anatolian Funerary Monuments.” In E. P. Baughan & L. C. Pieraccini (Eds.), Etruria and Anatolia: Material Connections and Artistic Exchange. (pp. 290–302). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Article: 

Meyers, G. E. (2023). Review of “CHARLOTTE R. POTTS (ED.), ARCHITECTURE IN ANCIENT CENTRAL ITALY: CONNECTIONS IN ETRUSCAN AND EARLY ROMAN BUILDING.” Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2022. Journal of Roman Studies, 113, 225–226. doi:10.1017/S0075435823000606

john modern

john modern

Arthur & Katherine Shadek Professor of Religious Studies

Chapter: In recent years, social scientists have turned their critical lens on the historical roots and contours of their disciplines, including their politics and practices, epistemologies and methods, institutionalization and professionalization, national development and colonial expansion, globalization and local contestations, and public presence and role in society. The Social Sciences in the Looking Glass offers current social scientific perspectives on this reflexive moment. Examining sociology, anthropology, philosophy, political science, legal theory, and religious studies, the volume’s contributors outline the present transformations of the social sciences, explore their connections with critical humanities, analyze the challenges of alternate paradigms, and interrogate recent endeavors to move beyond the human. Throughout, the authors, who belong to half a dozen disciplines, trace how the social sciences are thoroughly entangled in the social facts they analyze and are key to helping us understand the conditions of our world. 

John Modern. “Thinking about Cognitive Scientists Thinking about Religion.” The Social Sciences Through the Looking Glass: Studies in the Production of Knowledge, eds. Didier Fassin and George Steinmetz (Duke University Press, 2023): 328-50. 🔓 

Chapter: 

John Modern. Translation of Neuromatic: Or, a Particular History of Religion and the Brain. (University of Chicago Press, 2021) into Turkish by Ayşe Deniz Temiz as Nöromatik: Maneviyatçılıktan Sibernetik Çağına Beynin, Zihnin ve Dinin Tarihi (Say Yayınları, 2023).

Other:

John Modern. Website: www.machinesinbetween.com 🔓 

Article: 

John Modern. “If I Only Had a Brain.” Response to the Reviewers for Symposium on John Lardas Modern’s Neuromatic, or, A Particular History of Religion and the Brain. Religious Studies Review 49:3 (September 2023): 325-328. 

Other:

John Modern. Series editor of Class 200: New Studies in Religion. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/series/CLA200.html

Public Lectures: 

John Modern Public Lecture. “Religion & Science: A Devolved Manifesto.” Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict. Arizona State University. Tempe, AZ. (February 2023).

John Modern. Public Lecture. “Performing Religion & Science at the End of the World.” University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA. (November 2023)

Conference Presentations: 

John Modern. Presiding and Respondent. Media and the Cultural Politics of Coalition Building. American Historical Association. Philadelphia, PA (January 2023)

John Modern. Presentation. “The Leonard Layer.” Roundtable on Vernacular Religion: Honoring Leonard Norman Primiano. American Society of Church History. Philadelphia, PA (January 2023)

John Modern. Respondent. Author meets Critics session on Donovan Schaefer’s Wild Experiment (Duke UP: 2022). American Academy of Religion. San Antonio, TX (November 2023) 

John Modern Public Interview. Center for Culture, Society, and Religion. Princeton, NJ. Princeton University (March 2023). https://mediacentral.princeton.edu/media/Religion%2C+the+Secular%2C+and+Machines+in+Between+with+John+Modern+%283.27.23%29/1_0iw0t2fb

nicholas montemarano

Nicholas Montemarano

Alumni Professor of Creative Writing and Belles Lettres, Professor of English

Creative Works:

Nicolas Montemarano. Short Story: “Help & Soar.” StoryQuarterly 55 (2023): 71-83. http://www.storyquarterly.org/help--soar.html

Nicolas Montemarano. “Lament.” America: The Jesuit Review (November 2023): 62. https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2023/10/12/lament-poetry-grief-weep-246265

Nicolas Montemarano. "Plague Song" & "Plague Choreography." Diode Poetry Journal 16:3 (2023). http://diodepoetry.com/montemarano_nicholas/

Nicolas Montemarano.  “Visitations.” In Who We Lost: A Portable COVID Memorial. Ed. Martha Greenwald. Cleveland: Belt Publishing, 2023: 43-36.

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barbara nimershiem

Professor of Mathematics

Article: We construct topological triangulations for complements of (−2,3,n)-pretzel knots and links with n≥7. Following a procedure outlined by Futer and Guéritaud, we use a theorem of Casson and Rivin to prove the constructed triangulations are geometric. Futer, Kalfagianni, and Purcell have shown (indirectly) that such braids are hyperbolic. The new result here is a direct proof. 

Barbara Nimershiem. "Geometric triangulations of a family of hyperbolic 3–braids by Algebraic & Geometric Topology 23:9 (2023): 4309–4348 https://msp.org/agt/2023/23-9/p08.xhtml/pc DOI: 10.2140/agt.2023.23.4309 🔓 

brian norcross

brian norcross

Senior Director of Instrumental Music & Conducting Studies and Senior Teaching Professor of Music

Creative Work:

Norcross, Brian. 2023. Guest Conductor. The Pennsylvania Music Educators District 10 Orchestra. Concert included: Dvorak, "Noon Witch;" Linda Robbins Coleman, "The Celebration;" Brahms, "Academic Festival Overture;" and Carter Pann, "Slalom." The Festival was January 26-27. https://www.pmeadistrict10.org/district-10-orchestra.html

lucia parry

lucia parry

Visiting Instructor Psychology

Conference Presentation & Talk:

Parry, L. Q., Davies, P. T., and Sturge-Apple, M. L. (March 2023). Poster presentation:  "Child Temperament as a Moderator of the Association Between Coparenting Discord and Child Adjustment." Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) 2023 Biennial Meeting, Salt Lake City, Utah. https://www.srcd.org/event/srcd-2023-biennial-meeting

Parry, L. Q. (March 2023). Conference flash talk: Child Temperament as an Antecedent of Coparenting Quality.” Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) 2023 Biennial Meeting, Salt Lake City, Utah. 

Michael L. Penn

Michael Penn

Professor of Psychology

Article: This study aimed to investigate the lasting effects of "historical trauma" on the well-being and "social capital" of historically disadvantaged social groups. We examined rates of depressive disorder, as well as employment status and income levels, using the 2020 dataset from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). 

Zongpu, L. & Penn, M.L. (2023). “An empirical study of the enduring impact of historical trauma in 2020.” Journal of Community Medicine & Health Education Vol. 13, Issue 6. https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/an-empirical-study-of-the-enduring-impact-of-historical-trauma-in-2020.pdf 🔓 

Kate plass

Professor of Chemistry

Article: Rational design of elaborate, multicomponent nanomaterials is important for the development of many technologies such as optoelectronic devices, photocatalysts, and ion batteries. Combination of metal chalcogenides with different anions, such as in CdS/CdSe structures, is particularly effective for creating heterojunctions with valence band offsets. Seeded growth, often coupled with cation exchange, is commonly used to create various core/shell, dot-in-rod, or multipod geometries. To augment this library of multichalcogenide structures with new geometries, we have developed a method for postsynthetic transformation of copper sulfide nanorods into several different classes of nanoheterostructures containing both copper sulfide and copper selenide. 

Hole, B.; Luo, Q.; Garcia, R.; Xie, W.; Rudman, E.; Nguyen, C. L. T.; Dhakal, D.; Young, H. L.; Thompson, K. L.; Butterfield, A. G.; Schaak, R. E.; Plass, K. E. Temperature-Dependent Selection of Reaction Pathways, Reactive Species, and Products during Postsynthetic Selenization of Copper Sulfide Nanoparticles. Chem. Mater. 2023, 35 (21), 9073–9085. DOI: 10.1021/acs.chemmater.3c01772. 🔓

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jeffrey podoshen

Professor of Marketing

Article: In this research, we focus on a specific luxury large-scale over 55 community in Florida, the Villages, to explore the various positive and negative aspects that accompany this lifestyle. Through semi-structured interviews with residents and observational netnography, we find several major challenges. These challenges surround the management of political signage, growth, and the equal application of community rules, to be at the center of residents’ critiques of the community. We offer implications and recommendations on how management can handle these challenges. 

Podoshen, J.S., Keech, J., Melkamu, E., & Zheng, S. (2023). “‘It’s always a beautiful day in The Villages’: Management challenges for large-scale retirement communities.” Journal of Aging and Environment. https://doi.org/10.1080/26892618.2023.2217688

Chapter: On Extremity: From Music to Images, Words, and Experiences brings together transdisciplinary scholarship on sounds, images, words, and experiences (human and non-human) to reflect on the polysemic and polymorphic characteristics of extremity and the category of the extreme. The editors and authors aim to contribute to a living, breathing, and expanding definition of extremity that helps us understand what we gain, or lose, when we interact with it, create it, and share it with, or force it upon, others. The volume calls for the emergence of “extremity studies” as an area of perusal to help us navigate our current global condition. 

Podoshen, J.S. (2023). “Pushing the limits of the 'darkest' dark tourism: Dark tourism in the age of extremity.”  In N. Varas-Diaz, N. Scott and B. Bardine (Eds.), On extremity: From music to images, words and experiences. Chapter 14. Lanham, MD: Lexington Press. https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781666905205/On-Extremity-From-Music-to-Images-Words-and-Experiences

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jennifer redmann

Professor of German

Book: Schreiben lernen offers a comprehensive means for learners of German to develop and refine their writing skills. This guide consists of model texts, vocabulary-building exercises, and guided activities to practice writing sentences, paragraphs, and entire texts. Each chapter highlights issues related to writing for specific audiences and purposes. Students learn by analyzing model texts in ten different genres and by engaging with contemporary culture as they explore various modes of communication and creative expression. 

Pennylyn Dykstra-Pruim and Jennifer Redmann. Schreiben lernen: A Writing Guide for Learners of German. Pennylyn Dykstra-Pruim and Jennifer Redmann, 2nd edition, Yale UP, 2023. https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300243543/schreiben-lernen/

wendell ressler

wendell ressler

Professor of Mathematics

Article: In this paper, we establish a one-to-one correspondence between conjugacy classes of any Hecke group and irreducible systems of poles of rational period functions for automorphic integrals on the same group. We use this correspondence to construct irreducible systems of poles and to count poles. We characterize Hecke-conjugation and Hecke-symmetry for poles of rational period functions in terms of the transpose of matrices in conjugacy classes. We construct new rational period functions and families of rational period functions. 

Wendell Ressler. “Conjugacy classes and rational period functions for the Hecke groups.” International Journal of Number Theory 19 (2023), no.4, 757–784. DOI:  10.1142/S1793042123500380

ashley rondini

ashley rondini

Associate Professor of Sociology

Article: Despite disproportionate mortality rates for Black skin cancer patients, medical education and practice guidelines center White bodies and fair skin. How did dark skin become such a deadly dermatological blind spot? Dr. Rodini authored this article along with three F&M students, all Hackman scholars. This interview was posted alongside the article's publication.

Rondini, Ashley C., Rachel H. Kowalsky, Jerry Saunders II, Omar Khan, Shanay Jones, Francesca Testa, and Isaiah Osazuwa. 2023. "Race, Erasure, and Skin Cancer Prevention Guidelines." Contexts: Understanding People in Their Social Worlds 22(4): 22—33. https://doi.org/10.1177/153650422312108 🔓 

Josh Rottman

josh rottman

Associate Professor of Psychology & Scientific and Philosophical Studies of Mind

Article: Moral dilemmas are inescapable in daily life, and people must often choose between two desirable character traits, like being a diligent employee or being a devoted parent. These moral dilemmas arise because people hold competing moral values that sometimes conflict. Furthermore, people differ in which values they prioritize, so we do not always approve of how others resolve moral dilemmas. How are we to think of people who sacrifice one of our most cherished moral values for a value that we consider less important? 

Rottman, J., Foster-Hanson, E., & Bellersen, S. (2023). “One strike and you’re a lout: Cherished values increase the stringency of moral character attributions.” Cognition 239, 105570. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105570

Article: The status of disgust as a sociomoral emotion is debated. We conducted a stringent test of whether social stimuli (specifically, political outgroup members) can elicit physical disgust, as distinct from moral or metaphorical disgust. 

Landy, J., Rottman, J., Batres, C., & Leimgruber, K. (2023). “Disgusting Democrats and repulsive Republicans: Members of political outgroups are considered physically gross.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 49(3), 361–375. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672211065923

Article: To propose a clear psychological definition of morality is no easy task, and Dahl (2023) is to be commended here for not only doing so, but leaving an explicit paper trail of traits deemed desirable for any such proposal. However, while a rationale for calling phenomena “moral” would be useful, is it really as vital for the conduct of research as Dahl presumes? We instead argue that the definition of the term “morality” is not always a task of scientific definition similar to defining “cell” or “attitude”, but rather can be seen as a meta-scientific task for organising research. When morality itself is a construct that figures in theories and hypotheses, this construct usually depends on lay views of whether the moral realm is involved. This insight, in our view, argues for a broader rather than narrower approach to defining morality, which we explain in the final section. 

Giner-Sorolla, R., Myers, S., & Rottman, J. (2023). “Reply to Dahl: Moral content is varied, and premature definitions should not constrain it.” Psychological Inquiry 34(2), 86–90. https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840X.2023.2248862

Article: Developmental psychology, and in particular the study of sociomoral development, is becoming a research area of great significance. Tremendous progress has been made in designing experimental studies that mirror real-life problems to elucidate the underlying mechanisms of cooperation and, more broadly, of morality. Researchers are continuously evolving their methods to include the study of very young children’s helping, collaboration and sharing, both in cross-sectional and in longitudinal research designs. Broesch and Robbins (2023) have done a remarkable job surveying a wide swathe of knowledge and bringing it to bear in ways that could positively inform social policy. We applaud their plea for more research with non-Western samples and, particularly, with indigenous societies. 

Försterling, M., Hepach, R., & Rottman, J. (2023). “Context matters in myriad ways: A reply to ‘Building a cooperative child: Evidence and lessons cross-culturally’ by Tanya Broesch and Erin Robbins.” Global Discourse 13(3–4), 435–441. https://doi.org/10.1332/20437897Y2023D000000015

Article: A growing literature shows that music increases prosocial behavior. Why does this occur? We propose a novel hypothesis, informed by moral psychology: evidence of others’ musicality may promote prosociality by leading us to judge musical individuals as having enhanced moral standing. 

Agrawal, T., Rottman, J., & Schachner, A. (2023). “How musicality changes moral consideration: People judge musical entities as more wrong to harm.” Psychology of Music 51(1), 316–336. https://doi.org/10.1177/03057356221096507

firuzeh shokooh valle

firuzeh shokooh valle

Assistant Professor of Sociology

Book: Including women in the global South as users, producers, consumers, designers, and developers of technology has become a mantra against inequality, prompting movements to train individuals in information and communication technologies and foster the participation and retention of women in science and technology fields. In this book, Firuzeh Shokooh Valle argues that these efforts have given rise to an idealized, female economic figure that combines technological dexterity and keen entrepreneurial instinct with gendered stereotypes of care and selflessness. 

Shokooh Valle, Firuzeh. 2023. In Defense of Solidarity and Pleasure: Feminist Technopolitics from the Global South. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=34851

Conference Presentations:

Shokooh Valle, Firuzeh. 2023. “In Defense of Solidarity & Pleasure: Feminist Technopolitics from the Global South.” Book Talk at Data + Feminism Lab at MIT:Pleasure, Technopolitics, & Development,  (December 8). https://youtu.be/GDAZNJJX4lY?si=2kYe1nxxR8881jBk

Shokooh Valle, Firuzeh. 2023. “In Defense of Solidarity & Pleasure: Feminist Technopolitics from the Global South.” Book talk at Research Lab DigiLabour (November 10).

Shokooh Valle, Firuzeh. 2023.  Presenter: “Interrogating the Gaps, Travels, and Borders of Intersectionality” and Presidential Panel “Gender and Entrepreneurship 2.” Sociologists for Women in Society: Winter Meeting. New Orleans, LA (January 12-15). 

Conference Presentations:

Shokooh Valle, Firuzeh 2023 “Agitating the Imagination: Towards a Feminist Future without Punishment,” moderator invited by the organization Kilómetro Cero (Puerto Rico) (August 10).

Shokooh Valle, Firuzeh. 2023. “In Defense of Solidarity & Pleasure: Feminist Technopolitics from the Global South.” Presenter in online talk invited by the organization We All Count (Canada), as part of the series “Talking Data Equity” (February 17).

anne stachura

anne stachura

Teaching Professor and Coordinator of the Spanish Community Based Learning Program and Community Outreach

Article: Anacristina Rossi’s novels have received critical attention relating to their presentation of pan-Caribbean identity and other challenges to the mythical national identity of the tico. Building on scholarship by Manzari and Kearns, I argue that Limón Reggae presents a representation of the post-national community and that the violent conditions that mark the protagonist’s life not only debunk the national myth of a peaceful Costa Rica, but also comment on the impossibility of belonging in the post-national community. 

Stachura, Anne Marie. "Violence and Post-National Costa Rican Identity in Limón Reggae." Humanities 12.4 (2023):56. https://doi.org/10.3390/h12040056  https://doi.org/10.3390/h12040056 🔓 

grier stephenson

grier stephenson

Emeritus Charles A. Dana Professor of Government 

Journal: Of the hundreds of books about the Supreme Court published in the twentieth century, surely few have been more widely read and referenced than The American Supreme Court by Robert G. McCloskey, professor of government at Harvard University from 1946 until his death in 1969. First published in 1960 by the University of Chicago Press, this compact and elegantly written one-volume interpretive history of the Court has been updated now through six editions by McCloskey's student, Sanford Levinson of the University of Texas. The paragraph that concluded the Epilogue in the initial edition combined a historical overview with what appeared to be an admonition for the Warren Court, ironically just as it was on the eve of an even more activist phase. McCloskey's paragraph illustrates a common goal of many who write about the Court: Highlighting one or more themes that capture the essence of a period of judicial history. 

Grier Stephenson. "The Judicial Bookshelf." Journal of Supreme Court History vol. 48, No. 1 (2023), pp. 113-129.

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louise stevenson

Emerita Professor of History and American Studies

Guest Lecturer:

Stevenson, Louise. "Buchanan's Legacy to Lincoln." Lecture at LancasterHistory, Lancaster, PA. September 28, 2023. https://youtu.be/RUYxn5BSjD8?si=MSisrVKRZRcPXUTI 🔓

sherali tareen

sherali tareen

Associate Professor of Religious Studies

Book: In this groundbreaking book, SherAli Tareen explores how leading South Asian Muslim thinkers imagined and contested the boundaries of Hindu-Muslim friendship from the late eighteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. He argues that often what was at stake in Muslim scholarly discourse and debates on Hindu-Muslim friendship were unresolved tensions and fissures over the place and meaning of Islam in the modern world. Perilous Intimacies considers a range of topics, including Muslim scholarly translations of Hinduism, Hindu-Muslim theological polemics, the question of interreligious friendship in the Qur’an, intra-Muslim debates on cow sacrifice, and debates on emulating Hindu customs and habits. 

Tareen, SherAli. Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship after Empire. Columbia University Press, 2023, Religion, Culture, and Public Life Series. https://cup.columbia.edu/book/perilous-intimacies/9780231210317

Article: The text introduced and translated below represents a fragment from the narration and proceedings of an interreligious polemical festival known as “The Festival of Deciding (or Recognizing) the (True) God” (Melah-e Ḳhudā-shināsī) that was held for two consecutive years in 1875 and 1876 in the village of Chandāpūr in the Shāhjahānpūr district of the United Provinces (UP). More specifically, the translation below presents the discourses of the leading Muslim scholar who participated at this event also featuring major Hindu scholars and Christian missionaries, Muḥammad Qāsim Nānautvī (d. 1877), one of the founders of the prestigious Islamic seminary the Deoband Madrasa, on the questions of prophetic miracles and the normative status of Hindu avatars in Islam. Nānautvī’s discourse on these issues showcases an excellent example of the confluence of Muslim traditionalism and resoundingly modern logics of religion and history. 

Tareen, SherAli. “Historicizing the Miraculous: Muslim Traditionalism and Colonial Modernity,” Journal of Urdu Studies Volume 3, Issue 1-2 (July 2023), 154-167.

roger d.k. thomas

roger d.k. thomas

John Williamson Nevin Professor of Geosciences, Emeritus and Visiting Scholar of Earth & Environment

Chapter: This article provides a description and analysis of Chickies Rock, a rock formation located on the east bank for the Susquehanna River.  It outlines the site's 150 year history of study and observations by geologists and palaentologists.  

Roger D. K. Thomas and Elizabeth L. Driscoll. "Chickies Rock, a striking promontory on the Susquehanna River: the early Cambrian type locality of the trace fossil Skolithos and a model site for structural analysis." Geological Society, London, Special Publications 543, issue 1, 295- https://doi.org/10.1144/SP543-2022-295  🔓 

Conference Presentation: 

Roger D. K. Thomas, Conner P. Minkowitz, and Kerry D. Matt. “Reassessing and adding to the Burgess Shale-type fauna of the Kinzers Formation, early Cambrian of S.E. Pennsylvania.” Poster for the Geological Society of America. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1oQNH2xfnCcJjLpQCQb2esPeAG6y3yGyh78-9IexG7UM/edit#slide=id.p

Joe Thompson

Joe Thompson

Dr. E. Paul & Frances H. Reiff Professor of Biology

Article: Obliquely striated muscles occur in 17+ phyla, likely evolving repeatedly, yet the implications of oblique striation for muscle function are unknown. Contrary to the belief that oblique striation allows high force output over extraordinary length ranges (i.e. superelongation), recent work suggests diversity in operating length ranges and length–force relationships. We hypothesize oblique striation evolved to increase length–force relationship flexibility. We predict that superelongation is not a general characteristic of obliquely striated muscles and instead that length–force relationships vary with operating length range. To test these predictions, we measured length–force relationships of five obliquely striated muscles from inshore longfin squid, Doryteuthis pealeii: tentacle, funnel retractor and head retractor longitudinal fibers, and arm and fin transverse fibers. 

Thompson, J.T., Taylor-Burt, K.R., and Kier, W.M. (2023). “One size does not fit all: diversity of length-force properties of obliquely striated muscles.” Journal of Experimental Biology. 226, jeb244949. doi:10.1242/jeb.244949. 🔓 

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willie wilson

Assistant Professor of Computer Science

Conference Presentation: Tracy was the first author on this short paper that won the Best Paper Award at the AI-HRI Symposium. 

Yang, Y., Langer, A., Howard, L., Marshall, P. J., & Wilson, J. R. (2023). Towards an Ontology for Generating Behaviors for Socially Assistive Robots Helping Young Children. In Proceedings of the AAAI Symposium Series Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 213-218. https://doi.org/10.1609/aaaiss.v2i1.27674 🔓 

phillip D. Zimmerman

phillip D. Zimmerman

Visiting Scholar of History

Book: Using rich archival and genealogical sources, Philip D. Zimmerman brings to light here for the first time an extraordinary array of decorative and fine arts from the collections at the Historic Odessa Foundation. This well-documented group of family objects provides an intimate glimpse into the daily life of members of the Corbit and Wilson families in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and also sheds light on the history of Odessa, Delaware, and the larger region. 

Philip D. Zimmerman. A Storied Past: Collections of Historic Odessa.Odessa, DE: Historic Odessa Foundation, 2023.