ENGLISH — David Blakesley is the Founder and Publisher of Parlor Press. The Conference on College Composition and Communication has awarded its annual Outstanding Book Award to the Parlor Press book “Creole Composition: Academic Writing and Rhetoric in the Anglophone Caribbean,” edited by Vivette Milson-Whyte, Raymond A. Oenbring, and Brianne Jaquette. To learn more about this prize and the book, see https://parlorpress.com/blogs/news/mla-prize-for-creole-composition and https://cccc.ncte.org/cccc/awards/oba.
HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY — Vernon Burton and co-author Armand Derfner were interviewed on the Law360 podcast about their new book, “Justice Deferred: Race and the Supreme Court.” The podcast is available for download on iTunes and other podcast apps. On May 1, Library Journal published the second review of “Justice Deferred.” On May 30, Cornell University history Glenn Altschuler published the first full-length review of the book in the Florida Courier. “Justice Deferred” was officially released on May 31.
PERFORMING ARTS — Paul Buyer has been selected to serve as a Leadership Facilitator with the Jeff Janssen Sports Leadership Center. With the program adapted for bands, Buyer is looking forward to helping high school and college band programs work toward excellence, reach their potential, and develop their next generation of leaders. As Janssen’s only licensed Band Leadership Facilitator in the country, Buyer will be presenting unique, in-person Leadership Summits in the Upstate and Charlotte, N.C. areas to develop and improve leadership skills in band members, student leaders, and staff.
HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY — Elizabeth Carney recently present a virtual public lecture, “Eurydice of Macedon: The Power of Memory,” at the University of Marburg in Germany. Carney also wrote the recent book chapter, “The First basilissa: Phila, Daughter of Antipater and Wife of Demetrius Poliorcetes” in “New Directions in the Study of Woman in Antiquity,” edited by Georgia Tsouvala and Ronnie Ancona (Oxford University Press, 2021).
ARCHITECTURE — Joseph Choma is officially the inventor of “Foldable Composite Structures,” U.S. Patent Number 10,994,468. The patent was issued on May 4. See a complete description of the patent here. On May 7, Choma gave a virtual talk (to an audience of 2,800 people) titled “Designing with Mathematics” as part of Notions of India: Shaping a Billion Dreams. On May 24, Choma gave an invited presentation titled “Foldable Structures and Materials” for the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) Conference on Mathematical Aspects of Materials Science (MS21). On May 27, Choma and his collaborators, Jefferson Ellinger and Wesam Al Asali, were selected as one of the 12 shortlisted teams out of 119 entries from 41 countries for the Tallinn Architecture Biennale (TAB) Installation Competition.
LANGUAGES — Stephen Fitzmaurice and Salvador Oropesa published an essay titled “American Sign Language: Innovations in Teaching and Learning in One of the Most Popular Languages in the United States” in the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages (ADFL) Bulletin. This essay showcases how the Clemson University Department of Languages has gained tremendous insight into the ways in which studying ASL provides important linguistic, cultural, and professional opportunities for students of modern languages.
RHETORICS, COMMUNICATION, AND INFORMATION DESIGN — Cynthia Haynes’ essay “Sacred Passages, Rhetorical Passwords” was selected as the lead essay in an important new edited collection from Penn State University Press called “Responding to the Sacred: An Inquiry into the Limits of Rhetoric,” edited by Michael Bernard-Donals and Kyle Jensen. Haynes writes that “the sacred belongs to no category or system of representation. It is beyond what can be communicated, perhaps beyond all knowing. Rhetoric, on the other hand, takes that barrier as its foremost challenge: seeking to permeate the impermeable, to relate to the unrelatable, to unveil so as to enlighten. It is a kind of sacred act. Rhetoric acts within the sacred, in words other than it otherwise would. This chapter aims to examine this unruly character of rhetoric by situating the two in a different kind of relationship, one that forms an organic bond — a passageway through which things come and go, ebb and flow, to and fro. To enter this forgotten passage, one needs passwords…. This chapter intends to weave rhetoric and the sacred into a passing through various forgotten passages and the passwords with which we gain entrance to ‘the answer itself. The one that was waiting for us’ (Cixous), even the one that is unholy.”
ARCHITECTURE — Anjali Joseph, David Allison, Sahar Mihandoust, and graduate students Rutali Joshi and Roxana Jafarifiroozabadi, all with the Center for Health Facilities Design and Testing, presented work online for the 52nd Annual Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA52) Conference — “Just Environments: Transdisciplinary Border Crossings” — held May 19-23. The team’s presentations included: “Comparing the Clinical Team’s Perception of the Surgical Environments Between a High-Fidelity Physical Mock-Up and a Post-Occupancy Evaluation,” “Identifying Flow Disruptions in a Physical Mock-Up of a Pediatric ICU: An Evaluation of a Three-Phased Scenario,” “Designing for Family Engagement in the Neonatal ICU: An In-Depth Look at Single-Family Rooms,” “The Impact of Daylight Versus Window Views on Health Outcomes: A Mixed-Methods Study of Patients with Heart Disease in a Cardiac ICU,” “Exploring the Relationship Between the Surgical Table Orientation in the OR and Flow Disruptions in the Intra-Operative Phase,” “Comparison of Circulating Nurse’s Workflow in Pediatric Operating Rooms Pre and Post Optimization,” “Impact of Workstation Design on Noise Levels and Perceptions of Speech Intelligibility During Emergency Physician Handoffs” and “Understanding Sources of Disruptions to Telemedicine-Based Stroke Care in an Ambulance Using Simulation.”
ARCHITECTURE — The Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA53) Conference Organizing Committee is thrilled to announce EDRA53 Greenville hosted by the Clemson University School of Architecture. The conference will be held in Greenville, South Carolina on June 1-4, 2022. As we emerge from a global pandemic, it has become imperative that environmental designers and researchers consider health — a state of complete physical, social and mental well-being over time — as a critical goal for all design projects. Thus, the theme of the conference is “Health In All Design.” Organizers hope to attract a multidisciplinary community of practitioners, researchers, and students to engage in conversations about the role of built environments in promoting health, equity, sustainability and resilience. Greenville is an excellent example of the conference’s theme and is listed among the 10 most livable cities in the United States.
ARCHITECTURE — Anjali Joseph and David Allison recently published an article in Instituto de Pesquisas Hospitalares (IPH) Magazine: “Design Insights from a Research Initiative on Ambulatory Surgery Operating Rooms in the U.S.” IPH Magazine is an interdisciplinary Brazilian publication designed to disseminate and promote knowledge in Architecture, Engineering, Administration, and other fields that contribute to the improvement of health facilities construction and management.
PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION — Claire Kirwin was the runner-up for the 2021 Marc Sanders Prize in Metaethics for her paper “Value Realism and Idiosyncrasy.” She presented a version of that paper at the Cyprus Metaethics Workshop via Zoom on May 21. She also presented her paper “Sympathy for the Devil?: The Guise of the Good Remastered” via Zoom at the New Mexico – Texas Philosophical Society Annual Meeting on May 26. Finally, she was interviewed about her work on value realism for the ‘Elucidations’ philosophy podcast.
LANGUAGES — Salvador Oropesa delivered a paper virtually, “Bajarse al Sur: ‘El Niño’ (2014) de Daniel Monzón y ‘Bebedores de té’ (2018) de José Manuel Caamaño Sánchez,” at the XVI Congreso de novela y cine negro: (Re)escrituras en negro at the Universidad de Salamanca.
PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION — Mashal Saif was named a Senior Fellow of the American Institute of Pakistan Studies, the funding from which will be used to support research for her new book project.
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE — Thomas Schurch has been elevated to the Council of Fellows of the American Society of Landscape Architects. His ASLA Fellows profile describes his impact in the field: “Thomas Schurch has demonstrated exceptional knowledge-based leadership and significant cross-disciplinary discourse between practice and theory for more than 40 years. Long devoted to advancing landscape architecture and urban design, he has made significant contributions through teaching, research, writing, and community-based learning techniques that have benefited both students and communities. … His many writings on subjects such as urban design, sustainability, and climate change have been lauded by his peers and the public.”
LANGUAGES — Gabriela Stoicea’s monograph “Fictions of Legibility: The Human Face in Modern German Novels from Sophie von La Roche to Alfred Döblin” (Transcript, 2020) has just been reviewed in the official journal of the German Studies Association. Read the review here.
VISUAL ART — Anderson Wrangle’s “Savannah River Watershed” and Clemson graduate Amanda Musick’s “Land Unfolding” projects came together in a recent exhibition, “Topographic & Expressive Landscape Photography: Amanda Musick and Anderson Wrangle,” at the Arts Center of Greenwood. The two projects created a dialogue about the ways a changing landscape is described and documented. Through their distinct processes, the artists offered a glimpse into the state of the landscape around us. The approaches to landscape in this exhibit split along the line of subjectivity and objectivity, but both approaches relied on direct observation, and immersion in the environment. These are not imaginary landscapes. Musick’s landscape constructions refer to her individual sensory experience in the world, and even as her constructions form a view, they refer to moving through the landscape and the perspective of the artist doing so. Wrangle’s landscapes are conceived of from an objective and descriptive position, and in most of the work he has endeavored to take the artist out of the work.
PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION — Dan Wueste was featured prominently in zippia.com’s collection of experts speaking about the job market for recent graduates in philosophy. See his comments here.
VISUAL ART — Valerie Zimany’s ceramic artworks, featuring ceramic 3D printed components and Japanese Kutani enamels, are on view in the group exhibition “Finding Nature” at Blue Spiral 1 gallery in Asheville, N.C. through June 25. Also in the exhibition are Zimany’s graduates Nina Kawar (MFA,’14) and Deighton Abrams (MFA, ’16), as well as Mike Vatalaro, Professor Emeritus. The exhibition presents works “which visually describe the way meaningful interactions with nature can make us feel whole.” More info on the exhibition is available at: https://www.bluespiral1.com/exhibit/313-finding-nature. In addition, Zimany’s artwork was selected for the national juried exhibition “Spring to Life,” which was on view at 311 Gallery in Raleigh, N.C. from May 7-29. The exhibition explored the color and complexity of all things flora and fauna. More info on the exhibition is available at https://www.311artgallery.com/exhibitions/2021/spring-to-life.