ENGLISH – Professor David Blakesley was voted President-Elect of Clemson’s Faculty Senate. His term as President will begin in April 2023. Blakesley also presented “Teaching the Rhetorics of Film: The Case of Absent Now the Dead” and “Festschrift in Honor of RSA Founder Dr. Janice Lauer Rice” at the Rhetoric Society of America Conference in Baltimore on May 28.
HISTORY – Professor Vernon Burton completed a speaking tour in the Boston area with stops at Boston University, Boston College, and Harvard University before presenting a series of lectures and discussions at Phillips Exeter Academy. On May 9, Burton received the Clemson University Alumni Award for Outstanding Achievements in Research, and the following day Furman University News published an essay on his work as a historian, including his book, “Justice Deferred: Race and the Supreme Court.”
On May 12, the podcast series, “U.S. Civil Rights Trail” released the South Carolina portion, “A Legacy of Courage” on which Burton served as a consultant and spoke in two of the three podcasts. On Friday May 13, he was on a panel discussing Peter Wood’s “Black Majority” commemorating the 50th anniversary of the publication of the landmark book at the College of Charleston Carolina Lowcountry and Atlantic World (CLAW) Program’s International TransAtlantic Diasporas conference. On the following night at the keynote, the CLAW Program honored Burton, executive director since 2001, by designating the best conference paper given annually, the Vernon Burton Research Award.
On May 19, Burton spoke to the Beaufort Historical Society on the three Reconstructions and Beaufort county’s role in them. On May 29, his interview on Rob Mellon’s “History Ago Go” podcast was made available.
PERFORMING ARTS – Department Chair and Professor Linda Dzuris’ arrangement was performed as The Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the National Park Service celebrated the Netherlands’ Liberation Day and the completion of the rehabilitation of the Netherlands Carillon in Arlington Ridge Park, Virginia, on May 5. The inaugural “Freedom Concert” solo carillon performance by Edward M. Nassor, the Washington National Cathedral Carillonneur, opened with George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” arranged by Dzuris.
CITY AND REGIONAL PLANNING – Department Chair and Professor John Gaber was nominated by Governor Henry McMaster to the “South Carolina Planning Education Advisory Committee” for a two-year term. This committee is composed of prominent planners chosen by the Governor to advise him and the South Carolina Legislature on matters concerning city and regional planning in South Carolina.
RHETORICS, COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION DESIGN – Professor Cynthia Haynes presented her research at the biennial Rhetoric Society of America Conference in Baltimore, on May 27-29. The title of her paper was “Confined and Consigned: For-giving Rhetorically ‘Unwed’ Mothers.”
ARCHITECTURE – Professor Anjali Joseph, Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System Endowed Chair in Architecture + Health Design, attended the Smart State Program Centers of Economic Excellence Forum in Columbia, SC on May 10 and 11. The South Carolina Smart State Program celebrated the 20th anniversary of the program’s founding. Smart State researchers are working to generate technology that South Carolina companies can use to create new products and improve processes. The Smart State Program fosters an innovative environment in which innovation and technology transfer can lead to new startup companies from university research.
Joseph also co-authored an article that was published in Applied Ergonomics entitled, “A mobile application-based home assessment tool for patients undergoing joint replacement surgery: A qualitative feasibility study.” The paper concluded that in order to increase acceptance and utilization of a mobile application-based home assessment tool that could support transitions home after joint replacement surgeries, it is crucial that residents are made aware of such tools early so they can use them to improve their safety and independence.
She also co-authored an article that was published in LEUKOS: The Journal of the Illuminating Engineering Society entitled, “Window view quality: Why it matters and what we should do.” The position statement outlines the initial steps needed to improve our understanding of the complex relationships among building design, operation and human needs concerning window view quality.
PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION – Assistant Professor of Philosophy Claire Kirwin presented her paper “Normativity from the First-Person Perspective” at a workshop for a new edited collection on normative realism, held at New York University, May 24-26.
HISTORIC PRESERVATION – Associate Professor Jon Marcoux and Associate Professor Amalia Leifeste published an article entitled “Impact of Digital Technologies on Historic Preservation Research at Multiple Scales” in the journal, Technology|Architecture + Design. The paper presents case studies from their work in Charleston highlighting the application of digital technologies to the documentation of the historic built environment at two scales—the individual building and the landscape.
ART – Senior Lecturer Joey Manson was selected to create a sculpture for the “ArtSS in the Open” sculpture competition for the city of Sandy Springs, Georgia’s Art Walk at City Springs. Manson’s sculpture, “Assume” is composed of forged steel, concrete and paint.
ENGLISH – Lecturers Mary Nestor and Caitlin G. Watt published chapters in “The Worlds of John Wick: The Year’s Work at the Continental Hotel,” edited by Watt and Stephen Watt (Indiana University Press). This volume appears in the series “The Year’s Work: Studies in Fan Culture and Cultural Theory.” Nestor’s chapter, “Captain Dead Wick: Grief and the Monstrous in the ‘John Wick’ and ‘Deadpool’ Films,” examines parody in the “John Wick” film franchise as a means of exploring its treatment of grief and comparing it with the self-referential “Deadpool” series. Watt’s chapter, “‘The One You Sent to Kill the Boogeyman’: Folklore and Identity Deconstruction in the ‘John Wick’ Universe” reads the evolution of John Wick’s character through the films’ incorporation of narrative elements from Russian fairy tales.
CITY AND REGIONAL PLANNING – Assistant Professor Luis Enrique Ramos-Santiago was recently selected as the recipient of two grant awards. The first is a CAAH Faculty Research Development Grant, which will be used for visiting and consulting archival collections related to a unique New Deal Town developed early in the 20th century in San Juan City, Puerto Rico. The relevant collections are housed at The National Archives in New York and Philadelphia and at the Special Collections in Cornell University in New York. The second award he received is a Diversity Scholarship by the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) from Portland State University. TREC, and the associated Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation program (IBPI), are the premier centers for research on urban sustainable mobility and active transportation in the US. The scholarship allows Ramos-Santiago to participate in the upcoming annual IBPI Workshop: Comprehensive Bikeway Planning and Design. Finally, Ramos-Santiago’s most recent peer-reviewed paper “Identifying and Understanding Determinants of Regional Differences in Light-Rail Patronage and Performance” is now available in its final format.
GLOBAL BLACK STUDIES – Associate Professor L. Kaifa Roland penned a column for The Greenville News and Spartanburg Herald-Journal: “Celebrating Juneteenth: Metaphors and More”. She also recently joined the Executive Council of the Caribbean Studies Association.
HISTORY – Professor Michael Silvestri’s essay “British Imperial Intelligence and Anticolonial Revolutionaries during and after the Great War” was published in “The Irish Revolution: A Global History” edited by Patrick Mannion and Fearghal McGarry (The Glucksman Irish Diaspora Series, New York University Press).
HISTORY – Associate Professor Lee B. Wilson’s book, “Bonds of Empire: The English Origins of Slave Law in Colonial South Carolina and British Plantation America, 1660-1783,” was named a finalist for the 2021 George C. Rogers J. Award. The award is presented by the South Carolina Historical Society and recognizes the best book of South Carolina history published during the previous year.
ART – Department Chair and Professor Valerie Zimany presented “Back to the Edge: Envisioning Mashiko’s Rebuilding Efforts after the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake” with Japanese artist Shikamaru Takeshita at the 2022 Woodfire NC Conference at STARworks Center for Creative Enterprise in Star, NC from May 27-29. Zimany and Takeshita were introduced through the Mashiko Volunteer Center in 2011 following the earthquake and tsunami that devastated eastern Japan. Takeshita’s kiln and studio suffered significant damage, and Zimany, who lived and worked in Japan for seven years, joined fellow ceramic artists from the area in volunteer efforts to help potters in Mashiko area clean up and begin rebuilding their kilns and studios. In the lecture, the artists revisited the immediate aftermath and the inspiring reconstruction of Takeshita’s kiln and studio in the eleven years since the disaster.