HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY – Stephanie Barczewski and Michael Silvestri began three-year terms as joint Executive Secretaries of the North American Conference on British Studies (NACBS). The NACBS is a scholarly society dedicated to all aspects of the study of British civilization. The NACBS sponsors a scholarly journal, the Journal of British Studies, online publications, an annual conference, as well as several academic prizes, graduate fellowships, and undergraduate essay contests. While the largest single group of its members teach British history in colleges and universities in the United States and Canada, the NACBS has significant representation among specialists in literature, art history, politics, law, sociology, and economics. Its membership also includes many teachers at universities in countries outside North America, secondary school teachers, and independent scholars.
PERFORMIG ARTS — During Fall 2020, Becky Becker was named to Minot State University’s Academic Hall of Fame, but due to COVID-19 protocols, she will not be inducted until Fall 2021. (Read the press release here.) Becker earned a B.S.Ed. in Communication Arts with an emphasis in Theatre Arts, and a B.A. in English from MSU in 1992. In addition to this unexpected honor from her undergraduate institution, Becker recently published “Performing ‘Digital Citizenship’ in the Era of the Blind Spot” in the peer-reviewed journal, Theatre Symposium: A Publication of the Southeastern Theatre Conference.
COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE, ARTS AND HUMANITIES – James Burns’ recent article, “Comparing Historical Cinema Cultures: The Case of the British West Indies, 1900-1945,” was published in the Journal of Media History. The article can be read here.
HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY — Vernon Burton was interviewed by Brittany Gibson and quoted in an article on Jamie Harrison for the American Prospect which appeared Nov. 4. See the article here. On Nov. 13, Burton was part of a webinar, “Symbols of the Confederacy and White Supremacy: Removing Monuments to Hate in the Public Square.” The webinar was sponsored by the Board of Directors of the National Consortium on Racial and Ethnic Fairness in the Courts.
LANGUAGES — Jody Cripps was invited to speak at a Nov. 23 virtual forum titled “International Inclusive Early Childhood Education Forum (IIECEF 2020): Building a Global Movement to Promote National Sign Languages in the Early Years,” held in Ghana, West Africa. He and his colleague, Kara McBride from World Learning, presented “Signed Language and Performing Arts: Then and Now,” and they talked about how the emergence of signed languages and their history are reflected in the performing arts within signed language communities and promoted future goals with providing signed language literacy and literary works to deaf children around the world.
ART — Rachel de Cuba recently presented via Zoom as a part of the Virginia Tech’s Virginia Dares Conference for Decolonizing Media. The presentation, “I Hope I Thank you Enough,” focused on the use of studio practices to investigate the influences of colonization within familial histories. De Cuba’s film work “A Dwelling Growth” was also an official selection of the Virginia Dares Cinematic Arts Awards and was featured during the virtual conference on Nov. 13. De Cuba has also been recently appointed to the College of Art Association’s Committee on Diversity Practices. The committee promotes artistic, curatorial, scholarly, and institutional practices that deepen appreciation of political and cultural heterogeneity as educational and professional values.
LANGUAGES – Stephen Fitzmaurice published an article, “Educational interpreters and the Dunning-Kruger effect,” in the Journal of Interpretation. This research found the least skilled educational interpreters overestimate their interpreting skills whereas better educational interpreters underestimate their abilities. These findings raise important questions about equitable educational access for Deaf students and whether educational interpreters are able to adhere to codes of professional conduct by only accepting interpreting work for which they qualified.
PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION — Elizabeth Jemison published her first book, “Christian Citizens: Reading the Bible in Black and White in the Postemancipation South” (University of North Carolina Press). The book received advance praise from Publishers Weekly (“A thorough exploration of how Black and white Christians drew on their faith in the aftermath of the Civil War to make radically divergent claims about an ideal political order”) and the Library Journal (“This well-researched and well-written book offers a corrective to certain of the popular myths about race relations in the pre-Civil War South, and of postemancipation relations; it also has a good deal to teach us about race relations today.”)
ARCHITECTURE — Anjali Joseph, Director of the Center for Health Facilities Design and Testing (CHFDT) and the CHFDT research team published an article Nov. 5 in the British Journal of Anaesthesia: “Observational Study of Anaesthesia Workflow to Evaluate Physical Workspace Design and Layout.” Joseph also served as a co-author on a paper recently published in Paediatric Anaesthesia: “Perioperative Anxiety in Pediatric Surgery: Induction Room vs. Operating Room.” In addition, Joseph and Ellen Taylor, the latter from the Center for Health Design, are editing a special issue of the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (IJERPH) titled “Improving Patient and Staff Safety through Evidence-Based Healthcare Design.” The deadline for manuscript submissions is March 31, 2021.
PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION — Claire Kirwin presented her paper “The First-Person Perspective for Moral Philosophers” via Zoom at a “Meet the Researcher” seminar at Cambridge University. At the same event, she also spoke to Ph.D. and master’s students about her experiences in the profession and gave advice on professional development.
HISTORIC PRESERVATION — Amalia Leifeste was honored at the Association of Preservation Technology’s award ceremony where she and her co-author Brent Fortenberry earned the Martin Weaver Award for the most outstanding article demonstrating excellence in the category of history of technology, training and education in historic preservation published in the APT Bulletin during 2020. The article is titled “Querying the Products of Two Recording Techniques: Analog and Digital” and can be found in the good company of previous winning articles here. Jon Marcoux has published a chapter in a new edited volume, “The Historical Turn in Southeastern Archaeology,” which focuses on the archaeology of Native American communities in the southeastern United States. In the chapter, Marcoux uses archaeology to document the ways Native American groups survived the chaos of the early colonial period. Marcoux and colleagues also published an article in the Journal of African Diaspora Archaeology and Heritage documenting 18th century pottery fragments found in South Carolina that bear decorations likely made by enslaved potters who learned their craft in Africa. The article can be viewed here.
LANGUAGES – Jae DiBello Takeuchi’s article “スピーチスタイルとネイティブスピーカーバイアス：在日L2話者から学べること” (“Speech Styles and Native Speaker Bias: What We Can Learn from L2 Speakers in Japan”) was published in the proceedings of the 28th Central Association of Teachers of Japanese (CATJ) Conference.
ENGLISH — Rhondda Robinson Thomas gave a talk about her recently released book “Call My Name, Clemson: Documenting the Black Experience in An American University Community” via Zoom on Nov. 30. The book is a part of the Humanities and Public Life series at the University of Iowa Press. Joining her were three of the project’s collaborators: Eric Young, a descendant of Thomas and Frances Fruster, enslaved persons who labored on the Fort Hill Plantation, and Clemson alumnus; Thomas Marshall, Clemson alumnus and Educational Policy Fellow of Color at the Intercultural Development Research Association in San Antonio; and Monica Williams-Hudgens, a community organizer, scholar of domestic violence, and the granddaughter of South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond. The conversation was facilitated by Hilary Green, Associate Professor of History in the Department of Gender and Race Studies, director of the Hallowed Grounds Project: Race, Slavery, and Memory, and co-program director of the African American Studies program at the University of Alabama. This event was hosted by the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, the University of Iowa Press, and Clemson University College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities.
LANGUAGES — Graciela Tissera presented a research paper, “From Literature to Film: The Eidetic Imagery in Michelangelo Antonioni and Damiano Damiani,” at the Southeast Coastal Virtual Conference on Languages & Literatures, organized by Georgia Southern University.
ART – Valerie Zimany’s artwork is featured in the 2020 Taiwan Ceramics Biennale, an international juried competition on view at the New Taipei Yingge Ceramic Museum in Taiwan from Nov. 20, 2020 – May 9, 2021. Zimany is one of only 10 other prominent U.S. artists selected for this prestigious museum exhibition. A total of 104 artists from around the world were selected from approximately 1,000 submissions. The international jury panel included: Chang, Ching-Yuan (Taiwan), Chair of the Graduate Institute of Applied Arts of the Tainan National University of the Arts; Liao, Hsin-Tian (Taiwan), the 14th General-Director of the National Museum of History and Professor of National Taiwan University of Arts; Yulin Lee (Taiwan), Director of Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan; Martin Smith (UK), Ceramic artist and Senior Research Fellow of Royal College of Art; Sandra Benadretti-Pellard (France), Commissioner General of the International Ceramics Biennale of Valluris and Chief Curator at the Musée de la Céramique de Vallauris; Toshio Matsui (Japan), Director of The Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park and Professor of Kyoto University of Art and Design; and Arief Yudi (Indonesia), Founder and Director of Jatiwangi art Factory and curator of the 5th Indonesia Contemporary Ceramics Biennale 2019. More information on the exhibition is available here.