News and notes from faculty across the College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities at Clemson University
PERFORMING ARTS – Professor of Theatre Becky K. Becker published “Two Types of Bullies in Academe” in the January 20, 2023 issue of Inside Higher Ed.
ART – Visiting Assistant Professor Kiley Brandt was selected to be included in the juried WEFT (Women Empowering Fiber Traditions) Exhibition hosted by COCA (Council on Culture & Arts) in Tallahassee, FL. WEFT is a group fiber art exhibition highlighting 20 women artists in the region. Brandt’s artwork entitled “upkeep” 2023 is a photo montage and poem printed on silk. This piece reflects upon the tenderness of maintenance and its felt absence. The exhibition can be viewed in the Tallahassee City Art Gallery from February 2 to April 2, 2023.
HISTORY – Professor Vernon Burton was featured in the documentary “Ku Klux Klan: Secret Society of Terror” which aired on French Network television on BFM avec RMC. On January 8, at the American Historical Association’s annual meeting in Philadelphia, Burton participated in a panel focused on his co-authored book Justice Deferred: Race and the Supreme Court. On January 20, he appeared on the local FoxCarolina news to discuss Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speaking in Greenville in 1967.
On January 23, via zoom, Burton spoke at Auburn University about his book, The Age of Lincoln and digitally conversed with graduate students in a seminar. On January 30, SCETV’s Walter Edgar’s Journal broadcast an interview with Vernon Burton on his edited book Lincoln’s Unfinished Work—the New Birth of Freedom from Generation to Generation which developed out of the conference held at Clemson in 2018. On January 31 Burton gave an in-person “Book Talk” for the Clemson Library on Justice Deferred.
HISTORY – Professor H. Roger Grant contributed a book chapter, “The South Dakota Railroad Experience” to a new history of South Dakota, Old Trails and New Roads in South Dakota History. The work was edited by Jon K. Lauck and published by the Center for Western Studies.
PERFORMING ARTS – Brooks Center Director Emerita Lillian Utsey Harder, artistic director of the Utsey Chamber Music Series, secured a broadcast on America Public Media’s Performance Today of Debussy’s Premiere Rhapsody for Clarinet and Piano performed by David Shifrin and Anna Polonsky at their Brooks Center concert on November 4, 2019. The broadcast on January 17 reached an estimated 260,000 listeners.
ENGLISH – Professor Tharon Howard has earned the honorary rank of Fellow in The Society for Technical Communication. The announcement states that “Fellows is an honor bestowed by the Society upon Associate Fellows who have continued to make exemplary contributions to the arts and science of technical communication, and for sustained and significant service to STC.” Howard has also been elected President of the Council of Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication (CPTSC), for which he will serve a two-year as President until 2024 and then as Past-President until 2026.
ARCHITECTURE — Professor Anjali Joseph, Director of the Center for Health Facilities Design and Testing, was recently quoted in a New York Times story titled, “How Would You Redesign Your Doctor’s Office?” Joseph explains that simply changing the orientation of a doctor’s computer monitor “so they can share information with the patient” can help engage a patient and improve their experience. She also mentioned tailoring artwork in the doctor’s office to not only educate patients, but also provide a positive distraction noting, “Yes, you need education, but it doesn’t have to be gloom and doom.”
Also, Joseph, along with doctoral student Monica Gripko coauthored an article published recently in the Journal of Environmental Psychology titled, “Effects of the physical environment on children and families in hospital-based emergency departments: A systematic literature review.” Several themes emerged from the literature review regarding control, positive distractions, family and social supports, and designing for a safe and comfortable experience that illustrate opportunities for future emergency department design and highlight knowledge gaps and avenues for future research.
PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION – Assistant Professor of Philosophy Claire Kirwin presented her paper “Worlds Collided: Love as Seeing and Seeing-With” at the Arizona Workshop in Normative Ethics. Her paper “Beyond the Birth: Middle and Late Nietzsche on the Value of Tragedy” was published in Inquiry.
ENGLISH – Assistant Professor Clare Mullaney published the article “Reimagining Classroom Participation in the Era of Disability Justice and COVID-19” in the journal Pedagogy.
CITY PLANNING – Assistant Professor Luis Enrique Ramos-Santiago’s most recent paper was accepted for a lectern presentation at the Transportation Research Board 2023 Annual Meeting on January 7-11 in Washington D.C. The paper is titled “The Independent and Combined Influence of Local and Metropolitan Accessibility on Transit Ridership” and was presented in full attendance as part of the session ‘Public Transportation Planning Methods and Considerations.’ Ramos-Santiago investigated the potential influence of local and metropolitan accessibility indicators, and their interaction, for improving station-level direct-demand statistical models. These types of models can be used for the planning of new or existing rapid-transit systems and in Transit-Oriented Development scenario planning. Ramos-Santiago’s current research efforts focus on further exploring the use of accessibility indicators for predicting origin-destination (O-D; station-to-station) passenger flow models.
ENGLISH – Visiting Assistant Professor Kendra Slayton presented a talk at the annual conference of the Southeastern Medieval Association in Birmingham, AL. The talk, “Bodies in the Taas [Heap]: The Violence of Forms in the Knight’s Tale,” focused on a chapter of her current book project on gender, agency and social determinism in the works of Chaucer. Slayton was also elected to serve a three-year term as Executive Council Member for the association.
ENGLISH – Calhoun Lemon Professor of Literature Rhondda R. Thomas was a speaker for the panel “Common Study: Making Public Humanities” at the Modern Language Association Conference in San Francisco on January 5-8, 2023.
LANGUAGES – Professor Eric Touya was invited to speak on “Co-Creating Diversity Equity, Inclusion, and Retention Strategies” at the ADFL Sponsored Roundtable Session on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the Modern Language Association of America Conference in San Francisco. The panel was organized by Araceli Hernández-Laroche, founding director of SC Centro Latino.
ART – Photographs from Associate Professor Anderson Wrangle’s Outer Banks Project are featured in the2023 southXeast: Contemporary Southeastern ArtExhibition, curated by Véronique Côté, at the University Galleries of Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, FL. This is the 6th southXeast contemporary art triennial, which began in 2005. This year’s production highlights an impressive roster of thirty artists selected through referrals from various institutions across the southeastern U.S. The exhibition runs from January 27 through March 11.