PERFORMING ARTS – In July, Professor of Theatre Becky Becker had a chapter, “Walking that Rickety Bridge: Cultural Ambivalence in Tess Onwueme’s What Mama Said,” published in Emerging Perspectives on Tess Onsonye Onwueme: Women, Youth, and Eco-Literature. Onwueme is a Nigerian-born playwright who, as the book cover notes, “has established herself as one of the key voices in Nigerian drama.”
INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES – Rhetorics, Communication and Information Design Professor David Blakesley presented “The Modern Parlor: Co-Creating Knowledge in Online Learning Communities” with Angela Atwell of Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University at “Education 3.0: Yellowdig’s Learning Conference.”
HISTORY – Professor Vernon Burton published an essay and responses to essays titled “Reconstruction Revolution: Did we have a Constitutional Revolution but not Reconstruct the South?” in the Online Liberty Library. In May, The Post and Courier published an op-ed by Burton and co-author Armand Derfner, titled, “Alito is wrong: US Supreme Court needs more scrutiny not less.” Post and Courier Burton’s Creative Inquiry class, The Veterans Project, was also featured in the Post and Courier as well as on WYFF News 4. In June, Burton spoke to the Mellon Teacher Cohort on Voting Rights and civic education at Clemson University and spoke on race and the Supreme Court at the Ware Shoals Lion Club meeting. He also appeared on an episode of the Obehi Podcast, “The Life & Legacy Of Rev Joseph A. Delaine.” In July he was invited to give a keynote at the University of Colorado honoring the retirement of Prof. Myron Guttman. Also in July, as Executive Director of the College of Charleston’s Low Country and Atlantic World (CLAW) program, he hosted the annual meeting of the interdisciplinary St. George Tucker Society.
PERFORMING ARTS – Professor of Music and Director of Percussion Paul Buyer’s new book, World Music: Diversity in Styles, Instruments, and Culture will be published in January 2024 by Kendall Hunt Publishing. This innovative textbook travels to the United States, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, India, Japan, Indonesia, Trinidad and Tobago, Cuba, and Brazil, with a final chapter on Playing for Change. Buyer was also appointed as Acting Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs in the College of Arts and Humanities and will continue teaching percussion in the Department of Performing Arts.
HISTORY – Assistant Professor Joshua Catalano and co-PI, Assistant Professor Aby Sene-Harper (Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management) were awarded a $113,000 grant from the National Park Service to conduct an ethnographic overview and assessment of Congaree National Park. Project team members also include Lecturer Briana Pocratsky (Sociology) and Associate Professor Kaifa Roland (Global Black Studies).
LANGUAGES – Assistant Professor of American Sign Language Jody Cripps co-authored an article, “Visual Translation and the Amazing Broken Telephone Kaleidoscope: A Dialogue,” published in Theatre Research in Canada journal. Also, as the Editor-in-Chief of Society for American Sign Language Journal, he published a special issue on Deaf Women Studies.
ENGLISH – Director of First-Year Composition and Lecturer Sarah E.S. Carter published an interview article for the Journal of Veterans Studies, “Endless Potential for Veteran Research: Forces in Mind Trust Research Centre.”
HISTORY – Associate Professor Caroline Dunn published “Philippa of Hainault” in The Chaucer Encyclopedia, edited by Richard Newhauser et al. She also presented “Elite Service and Noblewomen’s Friendship Networks in Later Medieval England” in July at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds, England.
ENGLISH – Associate Professor Jonathan Beecher Field attended the Society of Early Americanists in College Park, MD, this past June, and shared a presentation titled “Puritan Studies Now: Beyond White-on-White Crime.”
PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION – Assistant Professor Quinn Hiroshi Gibson presented a paper entitled “Philosophy’s Role in Theorizing Psychopathology” at the annual meeting of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, June 21-23. He also presented a paper entitled “Depression, Intelligibility, and Non-Rational Causation” at the 10th Annual International Philosophy of Medicine Roundtable, University of Bologna, June 8-9 and at the annual Canadian Philosophical Association meeting at York University in Toronto, May 29-June 1.
HISTORY – Professor H. Roger Grant authored his 40th academic book, Sunset Cluster: A Shortline Railroad Saga published in July by Indiana University Press.
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 on June 7 of Tracing Visions by Valerie Coleman, performed by the Sphinx Virtuosi at their Brooks Center concert on March 30, 2023. A broadcast of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s performance on October 18, 2021 of Howard Ferguson’s Octet for Winds and Strings, Op. 4 was broadcast on July 28, 2023. Each broadcast reached an estimated 260,000 listeners.
ENGLISH – Professor Tharon Howard’s article, “Focusing on Governance for a Real Client in a Content Strategy Course ” was published in Volume 53, Issue 4 of Journal of Technical Writing and Communication.
PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION – Associate Professor Elizabeth Jemison earned a three-month training fellowship with Sacred Writes, a Henry Luce Foundation-funded program housed by Northeastern University that trains scholars of religion for public-facing work. Jemison took part in a cohort of scholars focused on work in race, justice, and religion with colleagues from universities across the world—Cornell University, American University of Iraq, University of Colorado, Louisiana State University, Villanova University and more.
ENGLISH – Assistant Professor Clare Mullaney attended the First Book Institute at Penn State University, which “features workshops and presentations led by institute faculty aimed at assisting participants in transforming their book projects into ones that promise to make the most significant impact possible on the field and thus land them a publishing contract with a top university press.” In June and July, she was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities summer stipend to continue working on a book manuscript.
ENGLISH – Associate Professor Angela Naimou edited Diaspora and Literary Studies in the Cambridge Critical Concepts series (Cambridge University Press, July 2023).
PERFORMING ARTS – Associate Professor Kerrie Seymour will be directing a reading of William Inge’s Picnic, being performed on Monday, September 18 at 7 p.m. at the Warehouse Theatre in Greenville. This reading is part of the theatre’s 50th anniversary celebration. Additionally, she made her fourth guest appearance on the Inspired Intentions podcast (part of Skyterra Wellness in Brevard, NC), where she discussed acting techniques as they relate to public speaking. She will return to the podcast again in December to discuss the connection between participation in the arts, specifically theatre, and mental health.
PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION — Assistant Professor John Thames gave a lecture entitled “Israelite Ritual and Late Bronze Age Continuity: Observations from Psalms” at the annual meeting of the European Association of Biblical Studies in Siracusa, Sicily.
LANGUAGES – Professor Eric Touya published “‘La France ne se sent pas bien’: fractures, populisme, démocratie et l’élection présidentielle de 2022.” The French Review, Vol. 96. no 4, p. 81-94. He also read a paper entitled “Gilets jaunes, justice sociale, et démocratie en France aujourd’hui: voix littéraires, philosophiques, socio-économiques et politiques” at the 2023 American Association of Teachers of France Conference, Trois-Rivières, Canada.
PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION – Associate Professor Ben White delivered a paper entitled “The Revelation of the Father’s Doxa: Jesus’ Seamless Tunic as Temple Veil in John 19:23-24” at the International Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in Pretoria, South Africa on July 6th.