HISTORY – Professor Vernon Burton had two articles published: “Confronting the Lost Cause Memorialization in South Carolina” in Grappling with Monuments of Oppression: Moving from Analysis to Activism, part of the Restorative Justice in Heritage Studies and Archaeology book series (Routledge Press, 2025) and “Jimmy Carter’s Day-to-Day Life as President: The White House Diary,” in The Literary Legacy of Jimmy Carter: Essays on the President’s Books (Rowman & Littlefield, 2025). On Jan. 5, at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association Burton presented a paper at a session on “Historians and the Courts.” On Jan 13, he spoke on “Lincoln, Liberty, Reconstruction, and the Constitution” to a group at the Clemson University Emeritus College; on Jan. 23, at the Charleston Library Society, he moderated a discussion on Professor Ben Parten’s new book, Somewhere Toward Freedom; and on Jan. 15 he spoke at the 10th anniversary celebration of the Modjeska Simkins School in Columbia.
ENGLISH – Assistant Professor Su Cho was one of 35 writers selected to receive a 2025 Creative Writing Fellowship of $25,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts. This year’s fellowships are in poetry and enable the recipients to set aside time for writing, research, travel, and general career development. Fellows are selected through an anonymous review process and are judged on the basis of artistic excellence of the work sample they provided. These fellowships are highly competitive, with more than 2,000 eligible applications received for FY 2025.
ENGLISH – Assistant Professor of English and World Cinema Maziyar Faridi presented an article at the “Thinking Out of the Box” symposium in Paris in December 2024. Commemorating the 35th anniversary of the Paris Program in Critical Theory, the symposium gathered a group of affiliated theorists and philosophers to reflect on the future of critical theory. Maziyar presented parts of his film-essay on “Khora” and memory.
PHILOSOPHY – On Jan. 15 Assistant Professor Quinn Hiroshi Gibson gave a talk entitled “Foundation and Conceptual Issues in Medicine and Mind Science” in the Clemson University School of Health Research (CUSHR) Clemson Health Advancement Talk (CHAT) series. In the talk, he outlined three major strands in my research program: foundational questions in philosophy of medicine, the modelling of disordered psychological conditions, and the bioethics and political philosophy of medicalized conditions.
PERFORMING ARTS – Lillian Utsey Harder, Brooks Center director emerita and artistic director of the Utsey Chamber Music Series, secured five broadcasts on American Public Media’s Performance Today: Goldstein-Peled-Fiterstein Trio’s broadcast of Joachim Stutschewsky’ s Hassidic Fantasy on December 26 from their concert on February 9, 2023; guitarist Jason Vieaux’s broadcast on December 27 of Agustin Barrios’ Waltz in G Major, Op. 8, No. 3 from his concert on September 14, 2024; Sphinx Virtuosi’s broadcast on January 1 of Michael Dudley’s Prayer for our Times from their concert on March 30, 2023; pianist Maxim Lando’s broadcast on January 9 of Nikolai Kapustin’s Variations, Op. 41 from his concert on September 15, 2022; and Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society’s broadcast on January 14 of Howard Ferguson’s Octet for Winds and Strings, Op. 4 from their concert on October 18, 2021.
PHILOSOPHY – Professor Charlie Kurth published a review of Debra Hawhee’s, A Sense of Urgency: How the Climate Crisis is Changing Rhetoric, in the journal Metascience. Drawing on his experiences living in Asheville, NC through Hurricane Helene and its aftermath, he argues that Hawhee’s book projects a misplaced optimism.
LANGUAGES – Three faculty members of the Department of Languages presented in panels related to American Sign Language (ASL) and Deaf Studies at the 2025 Modern Languages Association conference in New Orleans. Professor Joseph Mai and Associate Professor Stephen Fitzmaurice co-presented on a discussion panel related to Disability and Hiring: Access, Accommodation, Belonging, and Retention titled “Moving (Slowly) Forward: Reshaping Campus Accessibility for the ASL Community.” Associate Professor Jody Cripps co-presented with Pamela Witcher, Vancouver Community College, and JB Begue, Towson University, on a discussion panel related to Deaf Performance, Language, and Art addressing “Signed Music and its Applications.”
ENGLISH – Professor Lee Morrissey was invited to publish a blog post for the Cambridge University Press about his new book, Milton’s Ireland, which the press published in December 2024.
