CITY PLANNING AND REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT — Robert Benedict moderated a panel titled “Preservation, Displacement and Gentrification” at Tulane University’s Virtual Preservation Forum. Benedict also presented a paper, “It’s A Great Adaptive Use of the Historic Textile Mill but What About the Mill Village?” at Goucher College’s “Preserving Place in a Rapidly Changing World” Virtual Conference. The paper is a case study of the rehabilitation plans for Union Bleachery and the loss of place attachment among mill villagers following a devastating fire and closure of the mill in 2003.
ENGLISH — David Blakesley began a three-year term as President of the Kenneth Burke Society, an international organization founded in 1986. Blakesley also presented at two conferences and led a webinar: “The Value of (Burkean) Theory in an Age of Activism” at the 11th Triennial Conference of the Kenneth Burke Society (June 25); “The Complicated Legacies of Open Access Publishing: Lessons Learned by a Scholarly Publisher and Journal Editor” at the 2021 Information, Medium, and Society Conference, Nineteenth International Conference on Publishing Studies; and “Driving Student Engagement in an English Class,” Yellowdig webinar (July 14).
PHILOSOPHY — Pascal Brixel presented his paper “Two Faces of Alienated Labor: Why ‘Meaningful Work’ Is Not Enough” virtually at the annual conference of the Marx and Philosophy Society, based in the U.K. He also presented his paper “Incentives Compromise Autonomy” virtually at the Joint Session of the Aristotelian Society and the Mind Association, based in the U.K. And he presented his paper “Equality Is Not Enough: Freedom, Work, and the Limits of Republicanism” virtually at a Workshop on Labor Justice and the Transformation of Work, hosted by the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain.
HISTORY — Vernon Burton’s recent co-authored book, “Justice Deferred: Race and the Supreme Court” received another glowing review: this one in the Progressive magazine. On June 17, the Talking Points Memo excerpted a section from “Justice Deferred,” titled “How the Roberts Court Laid the Groundwork for 2021’s All-Out Assault on Voting Rights.” On June 18, Burton keynoted the groundbreaking in Fayetteville of the Civil War and Reconstruction History Center, the newest North Carolina state museum. On June 23, Burton did a virtual book talk with the celebrated Oxford Mississippi bookstore Square Books for its Crossroads Book Group. On June 24, Burton did a book signing at a reception sponsored by the College of Charleston and others. He also recently discussed “Justice Deferred” at the Charleston College of Law, and on June 28 he signed books at the Blue Bicycle Book Store and did a seminar with the Law School’s Summers Fellows at Charleston Pro Bono Legal Services. The June 28 Princeton Alumni Weekly featured Burton and his co-author Armand Derfner: “Orville Vernon Burton ’76 and Armand Derfner ’60 Examine the Supreme Court’s Record on Race.” On June 30, C-Span released its Historians Survey of Presidential Leadership in which Burton participated. On July 6, Gerardo Marti, Professor of Sociology at Davidson College, included “Justice Deferred” as one of three books he recommended to understand race and the America legal system. On July 8, Burton participated in a panel featuring “Justice Deferred” at the Washington History Seminar sponsored by the National History Center and the Wilson Center. On July 19, Burton gave a lecture at the Penn Center and another on the Supreme Court during Reconstruction via Zoom to public school teachers in the NEH Summer Institutes for “America’s Reconstruction.” Burton was part of a research team of doctors and computer scientists presenting at the ASCO (American Society of Clinical Oncology) annual meeting, June 4-8. Their presentation was titled “Artificial intelligence (AI) comparison of social media-based patient-reported outcomes of PD-1, BRAF, and CTLA-4 inhibitors for melanoma treatment.”
LANGUAGES — In July 2021, the Canadian Cultural Society of the Deaf released a research report on mentorship for the production of “The Black Drum,” the first signed musical. Jody Cripps participated as a researcher/interviewer and some of his work can be seen in the report.
VISUAL ART — Rachel de Cuba was named as the new Co-director of Tiger Strikes Asteroid Greenville, a contemporary art collective curating exhibitions in Greenville, South Carolina. In July, she curated “Placement in Process,” the first exhibition in TSA Greenville’s new gallery space in the West Village of Greenville. The show featured Atlanta-based artists Ana Meza and Katharine Miele. Alongside her curatorial endeavors the artist’s textile work “Nabéga” is featured in the group show “It Feels Like the First Time” at Mana Contemporary Chicago. This survey features work of more than 50 artists connected to the Tiger Strikes Asteroid Network and was curated by Holly Cahill and Teresa Silva. The exhibition runs through September 30.
RHETORICS, COMMUNICATION, AND INFORMATION DESIGN — Cody Hunter presented “A Flash of Light to Blurred Vision: The Rhetoric of the Threat of a Nuclear War The Day After Trinity and in the Year 2020” at the 11th Triennial Conference of the Kenneth Burke Society (June 25).
LANGUAGES — Jason Hurdich participated in a recent podcast panel discussing recent turmoil at the Registry of Interpreters of the Deaf, the only national accreditation body for sign language interpreters. Hurdich reports that most of the board of directors resigned, leaving only one person on the board as of Sept. 1. Hurdich says, “Amid turmoil where the Deaf and interpreting communities have been devolved into issues of racism and audism, there have been opportunities for enlightenment. Thus, the podcast was one of several avenues to educate the members of the Deaf community of what was happening and what needs to occur in the period of transformation.”
PERFORMING ARTS — Kendra Johnson was the professional costume designer for August Wilson’s “How I Learned What I Learned,” starring film and stage actor Tony Todd for the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival. An article about the production can be found here.
ARCHITECTURE — Anjali Joseph, David Allison, Sahar Mihandoust, and doctoral student Swati Goel, along with other researchers from the Center for Health Facilities Design and Testing (CHFDT), recently published an article in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health discussing how operating room layout and surgical table positioning influences flow and disruptions: “Impact of Surgical Table Orientation on Flow Disruptions and Movement Patterns during Pediatric Outpatient Surgeries.” The CHFDT research team also published work in the Health Environments Research & Design Journal discussing how the positioning of equipment, booms and staff impacts safety in a mirrored room design: “Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) Patient Room Design: Identifying Safety Risks in Mirrored Rooms Through a Graphical Systems Analysis.”
PHILOSOPHY — Claire Kirwin presented her paper “Moral Disagreement and Getting Something Right” at the Ethics of Conversation and Disagreement Virtual Workshop. She also presented her paper “Sympathy for the Devil? The Guise of the Good Remastered” virtually at the Aristotelian Society and Mind Association Joint Session, based in the UK.
HISTORY — Pamela Mack advised a team of students who won funding in the Clemson COVID Challenge ’21. This summer’s Creative Inquiry program had teams of students from Clemson and University of South Carolina develop projects on both the science and the impacts of the pandemic. Mack’s team on “Combatting Distrust of COVID Vaccination” investigated the reasons for distrust and proposed preparing social media posts linked to an infographic to answer that distrust. The team was awarded funding of $882.85 for software for the infographic, printing to distribute it as a poster, and paid promotion of the social media posts. The students, who earn no course credit for these summer projects, have agreed to continue to work on this initiative for several more months.
LANGUAGES — Joseph Mai co-edited “Everything Has a Soul: The Cinema of Rithy Panh,” published by Rutgers University Press in July. Sixteen contributors explore the boundless creativity and ethical sensitivity of one of Southeast Asia’s cinematic visionaries in this first book on the Cambodian filmmaker and genocide survivor Rithy Panh. Mai’s own chapter, “Resilience in the Ruins: Artistic Practice in ‘The Burnt Theatre’,” explores architecture, artistic creation, and Cambodian national identity. Mai also published a study of the influence of the philosopher Stanley Cavell on the French filmmaker Arnaud Desplechin: “In Praise of Cinema: Cavell, Arnaud Desplechin, and Telling What Counts in ‘Trois souvenirs de ma jeunesse.’” It can be found in “Movies with Stanley Cavell in Mind,” edited by David LaRocca for Bloomsbury.
ARCHITECTURE — Andreea Mihalache presented the paper “On Foot: Embodied Atmospheres in Public Places” at the 5th Biennial Conference of the International Society for the Philosophy of Architecture (July 2-5, Monte Verita, Switzerland), which this year centered on the topic “Public Space: The Real and the Ideal.” Mihalache also received The Plan Journal 2020 Best Paper Award for her article “Musings on Boredom, Midcentury Architecture, and Public Spaces,” The Plan Journal Vol. 5 (2020) Issue 1 (Spring): 119-138.
PERFORMING ARTS — Lisa Sain Odom was invited to teach in a week-long guest faculty residency with the Art of Song program, part of the three-week Orvieto Musica chamber music festival in Orvieto, Italy. While there, July 4-10, Odom taught a voice masterclass and individual voice coaching sessions to the young artists, preparing them for the two concerts they sang that week. Also while in Italy, Odom sang in concert at the Chiesa di Sant’Andrea in Orvieto. On July 1, Odom began serving in her new role as Vice President of the South Carolina Chapter of the National Association of Teachers of Singing.
LANGUAGES — Kelly Peebles and Gabriella Scarlatta (Professor of French and Interim Provost, University of Michigan-Dearborn) published their co-edited book “Representing the Life and Legacy of Renée de France: From Fille de France to Dowager Duchess” in Palgrave Macmillan’s Queenship and Power series. The volume’s contributors consider the cultural, spiritual, and political influence in sixteenth-century Europe of the youngest daughter of King Louis XII and Anne de Bretagne. Essays draw on a variety of often overlooked sources, including poetry, theater, fine arts, landscape architecture, letters, and ambassadorial reports. Peebles contributed the single-authored chapter, “Renée de France as Dowager Duchess and Epistolary Diplomat,” and co-authored two chapters with Scarlatta, “Introduction: Renée de France’s Life and Legacy,” and “Epilogue: Future Directions for Studying the Life and Legacy of Renée de France.”
CITY PLANNING AND REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT — Luis Enrique Ramos-Santiago had his most recent research accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed journal Case Studies on Transport Policy. This is another solo-authored paper by Ramos-Santiago accepted by a high-ranking journal with an international audience. The paper titled “Towards a better account and understanding of bus/rapid-transit interactions: The case of Los Angeles” reveals the importance of bus network integration and bus service quality for rapid-transit patronage in large polycentric agglomerations and provides generalized linear models of bus/rail transfers at station-level that could be used for sketch-planning purposes. Land use and transportation policy implications are discussed in the paper. A pre-print version of the manuscript is available in the open-access journal Science Direct. Ramos-Santiago’s ongoing research explores the potential role of spatial-interaction models (e.g., cumulative opportunities gravity-based composite index) for improving direct-ridership forecasting equations at station-level. He will be presenting the findings of this most recent study in the upcoming Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning Annual Conference in October 2021.
RHETORICS, COMMUNICATION, AND INFORMATION DESIGN — Jacob Richter presented “Nervously Loquacious at the Edge of an Abyss: Kenneth Burke, Trained Incapacities, and the Vocabularies of Climate Change” at the 11th Triennial Conference of the Kenneth Burke Society (June 25).
ENGLISH — For the World Shakespeare Congress, which took place July 18-24, hosted by Singapore (but in virtual mode), Elizabeth Rivlin organized a paper session titled “Global Shakespeare Publics” and presented a paper as a part of the panel titled “‘To Thine Own Self Be True’: A Women’s Shakespearean Public at Chautauqua.”
LANGUAGES — Johannes Schmidt and Kyle Anderson participated in the Association of American Colleges and Universities’ 2021 National Institute on High-Impact Practices and Student Success. They took part as members of a six-person team created by Bridget Trodgen. Clemson was one of 61 participating universities competitively selected to learn about and discuss the role of high-impact learning experiences for high retention and graduation rates, advance equity, equality and inclusion, improve student engagement and provide learning abroad opportunities at all levels of the university. An action plan was developed and presented to Provost Robert Jones. Read more on Clemson News.
ARCHITECTURE — Kate Schwennsen was elected 2022-23 Secretary of the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) during the College’s recent annual meeting. Following her term as Secretary and upon election by the members of the College, Schwennsen will advance to the office of Vice-Chancellor for 2024, and the year following to Chancellor. The AIA College of Fellows seeks to advance the profession of architecture, mentor young architects, and be of ever-increasing service to society. AIA Fellows are recognized with the AIA’s highest membership honor for their exceptional work and contributions to architecture and society. Only 3 percent of the approximately 90,000 AIA members are Fellows.
LANGUAGES — Eric Touya read a paper titled “Approaches to Teaching French-Speaking Cultures through Business, Economics, and Politics” on the panel “What’s New in French for Specific Purposes?” – held at the 94th Annual AATF Convention in New Orleans on June 15. He also published a book review of Hédi Bouraoui’s “Passerelles. Poésie” (Toronto: Canada Mediterranean Centre Éditions) in Dalhousie French Studies, Revue d’Études Littéraires du Canada Vol. 118, 2021.
PERFORMING ARTS — Bruce Whisler presented a paper titled “Acoustics Study in Audio Curricula: An Overview and Summary” at the Audio Engineering Society International Conference on Audio Education. The conference was held virtually on July 22-24, and the paper is available for download in the Audio Engineering Society archives.
ART — Valerie Zimany’s ceramic artworks are on exhibit in the “Summer 2021 Workshop Artist Showcase,” held May 6-August 19 at Tennessee Tech University’s Appalachian Center for Craft. More information and installation views are available here: https://www.tntech.edu/fine-arts/craftcenter/exhibitions.php. Zimany’s ceramic work was also on view in “Form & Function,” a national juried exhibition at Applied Contemporary Gallery in Oakland, California. The exhibition, which ran from May 8–June 26, was juried by noted artist Christa Assad. More information and an installation video are available via the gallery’s website: https://www.appliedcontemporary.com/current-exhibition.