Author: Emily Stephens

Clemson English professors David Blakesley and Victor J. Vitanza have been named Fellows of the Rhetoric Society of America. Blakesley has also received the organization’s 2016 George E. Yoos Distinguished Service Award. The awards were presented at the 17th Biennial Rhetoric Society of America Conference on May 29th in Atlanta. The society is the umbrella organization for scholars and teachers in every academic discipline who are interested in rhetoric. In its recognition of Blakesley, the Rhetoric Society of America praised his “distinguished research and publication record, and also his outstanding and formative contributions to the profession, including Parlor Press, his editing of KB Journal and the Rhetorical Philosophy and Theory series at Southern Illinois University Press. In honoring Victor Vitanza, the society writes, “Professor Vitanza is recognized for his singular and trailblazing scholarship, for his founding and decades-long editorship of the journal PRE/TEXT, and for the truly innovative and thoroughly rhetorical Ph.D. programs he has designed at two different institutions.”

Landscape architecture faculty members and instructors presented their peer-reviewed research at the annual Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA) conference held in Raleigh, N.C. May 18^th-21^st. Hyejung Chang gave two presentations: “Sacredness as a Public Value: Home, Habitat, Heaven, and Healing” and “Transformative Forces in Democratic Design: Emancipation, Representation, and Participation.” Matt Powers gave a presentation entitled “Self-Regulated Design Learning: A Framework for Design Teaching and Learning” and was second author to principal investigator, Yang Song who presented “Landscape Manipulatives: A Study of Mathematics Gardens and Learning Outcomes. Jessica Fernandez presented “The Pedestrian-Oriented Campus: A Study of the Effectiveness of Design Transformations on Safety and Aesthetics.” Song and Fernandez are PDBE Ph.D. students who are also instructors of record for the BLA and MLA programs.

Abel Bartley’s (Pan African Studies) book In No Ways Tired: The NAACP’s Struggle to Integrate the Duval County Public School System has received the Stetson Kennedy Award from the Florida Historical Society. The award is given for a book based on investigative research that casts light on historic Florida events in a manner supportive of human rights, traditional cultures or the natural environment. Bartley received the award in May at the 2016 Florida Historical Society Annual Meeting and Symposium in Orlando.

The United States Army Soldiers Chorus performed an original composition by Anthony Bernarducci (performing arts) titled “Veni Creator Spiritus” in Gettysburg, Pa. on May 15th. It was an all-American composer program.

Lucian Ghita (English) presented the paper “Marionette Shakespeare: A Modern Perspective” at the 2016 American Comparative Literature Annual Meeting at Harvard University. He was also invited to Romania to speak on “Gothic Macbeth: The Avant-Garde Return of the Elizabethan Repressed” at the Shakespeare in the World – Shakespeare in Romania International Symposium in Bucharest. Along with Richard St. Peter (performing arts), he participated in the International Shakespeare Festival held in Craiova, Romania, where he gave a talk about the influence of the French theater-maker Antonin Artaud on Andrei Serban’s early stage productions at the La Mamma Experimental Theatre in New York.

Elizabeth Jemison (philosophy and religion) was an invited speaker at a symposium “Memories of a Massacre: Memphis in 1866” hosted by the University of Memphis on the 150th anniversary of one of the most violent events to follow the Civil War. Jemison spoke on the role of African American and white Christianity in the massacre, where a rioting white mob killed dozens of African Americans.

Hala Nassar (landscape architecture) was promoted to full professor this spring. She and Robert Hewitt (landscape architecture) have a chapter titled “The sovereign global city: Omani post-traditional landscape urbanism” in the book “Contemporary Urban Landscapes of the Middle East: Routledge Research in Landscape and Environmental Design.”

Mary G. Padua, ASLA, (landscape architecture) along with Sara Griffin (public health sciences) participated in a workshop on May 12-13 that kicked off a pilot research project for five daycare facilities in Spartanburg County. This new research initiative, in collaboration with N.C. State’s Natural Learning Initiative, is sponsored by a grant from South Carolina’s Department of Health and Environmental Control. Researchers are searching for ways to improve the quality of South Carolina’s childcare outdoor environments to support children’s physical activity and healthy eating through the design and management of outdoor learning environments.

Kate Schwennsen (architecture) spoke at the Leadership Forum on Design Education sponsored by the Design Futures Council in Philadelphia on May 18th. She spoke on “Establishing the Business Case for Women in Architecture” at the annual convention of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in Philadelphia on May 19th. Her mentoring and teaching were recognized with two Clemson University awards this spring. She was recognized as the Outstanding Woman Distinguished Contributor by the President’s Commission on the Status of Women, and she received an Award of Distinction from Clemson’s National Scholars Program for commitment to the intellectual, professional and personal development of Clemson’s National Scholars.

Kerrie Seymour (performing arts) is appearing as Phyllida in The Explorers Club by Nell Benjamin at CentreStage in Greenville, S.C. The production runs until July 2.

Michael Silvestri (history) was interviewed for a short documentary on New Orleans’ connection to the 1916 Irish Rebellion with a focus on the visit by Eamon de Valera to the city in 1920. The feature, funded by the Emigrant Support Programme of Ireland, will be shown at the Irish Cultural Museum of New Orleans as part of the worldwide commemoration marking the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising.

Mark Spede (performing arts) was recently elected Vice President of the College Band Directors National Association (CBDNA). The organization, which is “devoted to teaching, performance, study, and cultivation of music,” is made up of college band directors from around the country. Spede will assist the organization’s president in administering membership activities before eventually assuming the presidency himself in four years. As president, he will appoint committee chairs and members, establish task force committees, and organize and run the national conference in 2021.

Rhondda Robinson Thomas (English) was invited to present “Recovering Jane Edna Hunter Digitally” for the Teaching Recovered Women Writers: Digital Options Roundtable at the American Literature Association Conference in San Francisco on May 27^th.

Kathleen Thum (art) received a quarterly support grant from the South Carolina Arts Commission. She will attend Jentel Artist Residency in Wyoming, May 15-June 13. This residency is competitive and awarded on professional and creative merit.

The Marine Corps awarded Rod Andrew (history) the Legion of Merit for his work as a field historian in the Field History Branch, Marine Corps History Division, Quantico, Virginia, and for his leadership of the Field History Branch as Officer-in-Charge from January 2013 to August 2015.  The Field History Branch is a small unit of just over a dozen officers and senior NCO’s (all Reservists) who play a large role in the collection, preservation and writing of Marine Corps history.  The citation credits Andrew with finding creative ways for his team to collect oral histories in the face of new budgetary constraints, leading the unit in providing the research and the text for 72 display panels in the soon-to-be-opened new wing of the National Museum of the Marine Corps, and in authoring four monographs published or soon to be published by Marine Corps History Division. The Legion of Merit is typically awarded only to generals and colonels for “exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements,” and must be approved by a three-star general or higher.

Vernon Burton (history) spoke on “Reconstructing our History,” as the speaker for the University of South Carolina Society’s 80th annual meeting.  The talk will be published and made available at the annual meeting next year.  He participated in the panel on “Enslaved Lives Matter” at Clemson University on April 5.  On April 14 he appeared on Gus Hutchinson’s The Cow Talk Radio (Until Justice) to discuss race relations. On April 16, Burton was inducted into the South Carolina Academy of Authors. On April 18 he spoke at Midwestern State University on Lincoln’s Civil War. On April 21-22 he participated in the University of South Carolina’s “The Reconstruction Era: History and Public Memory Symposium on Reconstruction. On April 24, he spoke on Governor Benjamin Ryan “Pitchfork Ben” Tillman and the Constitution of 1895 at the Modjeska Simkins School for Human Rights. The talk was sponsored by the S.C. Progressive Network.

Paul Buyer (performing arts) held a clinic called “Percussion from the Podium” for the South Carolina Percussive Arts Society Day of Percussion in Lexington, S.C. on April 9. On March 21, he was guest speaker at the University of South Carolina, lecturing on his book, Working Toward Excellence.

Elizabeth Carney and Caroline Dunn (history) hosted an international conference on the theme of “Dynastic Loyalties” in April at the Clemson ONE building in downtown Greenville. This was the first North American setting for the Royal Studies Network’s annual “Kings and Queens” conference series – the first four gatherings were all in Europe. The conference showcased 57 papers on topics spanning monarchies from the Ancient World of Greece and Rome to Twentieth-Century Britain. Geographically, conference papers covered Nepal in the East to Revolutionary America in the West, although most focused on European dynasties.  Speakers traveled from across the U.S. and Canada. Panels included European delegates from Britain, Finland, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain and speakers from as far away as Australia and New Zealand. Creative Inquiry students and history graduate students helped organize and run the conference. Several Clemson University faculty members (Stephanie Barczewski, Kelly Peebles, Lee Wilson) presented their research at the gathering and many others kindly chaired conference sessions.

Wayne Chapman (English) has published a critical edition of Yeats’s one-act play The Hour-Glass, which was substantially rewritten from 1903 and 1913. Initial typesetting of the book, with instruction on the whys and wherefores of documentary editing, was undertaken as a collaborative project in Chapman’s literary editing course in spring 2015. Larissa Barkley, one of 18 students in the class, continued as an intern in the fall and assisted in the completion of the edition by locating materials for two appendices. As a consequence: W. B. Yeats, Rewriting The Hour-Glass: A Play Written in Prose and Verse Versions, ed. with an introduction by Wayne K. Chapman (Clemson University Press, 2016), xxiv, 113 pp. was vetted by CUP’s overseas partner, Liverpool University Press, and was printed in hardcover in Poland by BookFactory.co.uk in April 2016. The book is Chapman’s tenth since joining the English Department in 1991. Both of his ongoing book projects on Yeats contributed to the making of The Hour-Glass edition.

Kim Dunn (languages) co-authored the peer-reviewed article “Early Reading for Young Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children: Alternative Frameworks” which was published last month in the online journal Psychology.

Christopher Grau (philosophy and religion) published his essay “A Sensible Speciesism?” in the Italian journal Philosophical Inquiries (v.4, n.1). The essay appears as part of a special issue dedicated to the work of the philosopher Bernard Williams. In addition, his co-edited collection Understanding Love: Philosophy, Film, and Fiction (2014, Oxford University Press) was recently reviewed in both the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism and Philosophy in Review.

Steve Katz (Pearce Professor of Professional Communication) organized and conducted the 8^th Writing in the Disciplines (WID) Initiative Workshop on April 7 (with Lesly Temesvari, Alumni Distinguished Professor of Biology).  As a Fellow of the Rutland Institute for Ethics, Steve also served as one of three judges for the J.T. Barton Jr. Ethics Essay Scholarship Competition, with winners announced on April 22. Finally, Steve concluded the year of co-teaching (also with Lesly Temesvari) the Creative Inquiry course in the Department of Biological Sciences in “Popular Science Journalism,” which publishes the Tigra scientifica articles in The Tiger, and a hardcopy and digitalized journal at the end of each semester.

Alex Kudera’s (English) book, Auggie’s Revenge, was published on March 29 by Beating Windward Press. In addition, Fight for Your Long Day was reprinted as a Classroom Edition by Hard Ball Press and now includes essays on the academic novel, contract labor and more.

Eric Lapin presented the paper, “Music and Politics: Using Blues, Jazz, and Rock to Teach Complexity, Context, and Humanity” at the 2016 Humanities Education and Research Association conference in New Orleans in March. He also presented “Music and Politics: Entertainment and Integration at Clemson College” as part of the Greater Clemson Music Festival on April 20 at the Catbus Headquarters in Central, S.C.

Roger Liska (construction science and management) received the Construction Education Recognition National Award from the National Center for Construction Education and Research in Charleston, S.C. last month. This award is given to industry professionals with at least 10 years of service to NCCER who have made significant contributions to construction education and workforce development efforts. One of NCCER’s major initiatives, since its inception, is the development and delivery of one-week construction management academies for field supervisors, project managers, estimators, safety directors and executive managers. The majority of those academies were conducted at Clemson University and, since the beginning, more than 3000 construction industry professionals have attained the academy credential. Liska, working with industry representatives, was instrumental in the design of the academies and taught in most of them, along with other construction educators, consultants and practicing professionals from across the U.S.

Joe Mazer (communication studies) presented “The Validity of the Parental Academic Support Scale: Association’s Among Relational and Family Involvement Outcomes” at the annual meeting of the Central States Communication Association. His paper has received the Top Paper Award from the association’s communication education interest group. Mazer was also recently elected to the resolutions committee of the National Communication Association.

Carnegie Corporation of New York has named Maribel Morey (history) a 2016 Andrew Carnegie Fellow for her research on the role of elite philanthropy in the lives of black Americans. She is one of 33 individuals across the country selected for this honor.

Barton Palmer (Calhoun Lemon Professor of Literature) published “Period of Adjustment and Hack Writing.” Tennessee Williams Annual Review 15 (2016): 87-104.

Shannon Robert (performing arts) is working with Tamilla Woodward (director from the Lark New Play Development Center) to design scenery for the world premiere of Harbur Gate by Kathleen Cahill at the Salt Lake City Acting Company in Utah. She is working with Aurora Theatre and Theatrical Outfit (at The Rialto) for the Atlanta production of Lin Manuel Miranda’s In The Heights (directed by Justin Anderson). She is currently in production with Atlanta’s Actor’s Express for the southeastern premiere of Josh Harmon’s Significant Other (directed by Jessica Holt from The Alliance). Robert will be a guest artist responder at the Hollins New Play Development Festival at Mill Mountain Theatre and will be conducting final graduate portfolio review sessions at Virginia Commonwealth University. She will be the Wildwind Performance Lab’s Faculty Scene Designer this summer at Texas Tech University and will be working with a new initiative in development of new works (created by Mark Charney at TTU) with Gary Garrison and Rich Brown in Marfa, Texas.

Johannes Schmidt (languages) was lead editor for a co-edited volume Herder and Religion. Contributions from the 2010 Conference of the International Herder Society at the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana (Synchron 2016). The volume includes his own contribution “Light of Nature/Light of Reason. Herder’s and Kant’s Religion Essays.” He is also included in another Herder publication with an article entitled  “Johann Gottfried Herder’s Adrastea: History in Relation” (Beate Allert (ed.): Herder: From Cognition to Cultural Science. Synchron 2016).

Michael Silvestri (history) was invited to write a short article for Racecard, the online journal and blog site of the Runnymede Trust, entitled “The Easter Rising was an Inspiration for Anti-colonial Nationalists.” The Runnymede Trust is the leading racial equality think tank in the United Kingdom. Silvestri also presented a paper at the American Conference for Irish Studies Southern Regional Meeting in Atlanta on April 16th.  The paper was titled, “‘Those Dead Heroes Did Not Regret the Sacrifices They Made’: Responses to the Russian Revolution in Revolutionary Ireland, 1917-1921.”

Eric Touya (languages) was invited to give a lecture entitled “The Future of the Humanities: Theory, Praxis, Interdisciplinarity” at the Romance Languages and Literatures Department’s Spring Colloquium Series at University of Georgia in Athens. He also made a conference presentation entitled “‘Un instant de l’autre sans fin’: seuils et passages dans ‘Les Arbres’ d’Yves Bonnefoy” at the Colloque International des Études Françaises et Francophones des XXème et XXIème siècles in Saint Louis.

Jillian Weise (English) protested the Association of Writers and Writing Programs on a panel at the AWP conference in Los Angeles by reading a poem titled “Envoy.” The poem is available here. Millersville University invited Weise to Lancaster, Pennsylvania for National Poetry Month. She read poems and screened videos from her satirical series on YouTube.