ENGLISH – Professor Susanna Ashton was the keynote speaker for the Celebration of Writing: Publication and Public Action, April 24th, a conference held at Coastal Carolina University.
HISTORY & GEOGRAPHY – Assistant Professor Camden Burd’s essay, “Green as a Shade of Blue: Political Rhetoric, the Democratic Party, and the Early Environmental Movement in the Upper Midwest,” was recently published an edited collection from the University of Kansas Press in The Liberal Heartland: A Political History of the Postwar American Midwest. The essay explores how democratic politicians harnessed a language that criticized industrial malpractice, advocated for resource preservation, and demonstrated a commitment to the working class to pass a series of environmental legislation in the 1960s and 1970s. On April 22, 2025, Burd presented research from his first book, The Roots of Flower City: Horticulture, Empire, and the Remaking of Rochester, New York (Cornell University Press, 2024), as part of the Neilly Author Series and the Dr. Matthew E & Ruth Harmon Fairbank Alumni Lecture presented by the River Campus Libraries and the School of Arts and Sciences in partnership with the Local History & Genealogy Division of the Rochester Public Library.
HISTORY & GEOGRAPHY – On April 2-3, Professor Vernon Burton keynoted the premiere of a documentary film on Benjamin E. Mays (in which he was a commentator) and served on a panel to discuss the documentary at Howard University. On April 10, he spoke on emancipation at the Charleston Library Society and discussed the meaning of emancipation with former Clemson M.A. student Ben Parten of Georgia Southern University. On April 22, he participated in a Rutgers History and Literature Departments’ panel discussing “The haunting stereotype of ‘The Old Time Negro’ and Black Storytelling in the Plantation’s Shadow.” On April 24-25, he was the keynote speaker at the 20th anniversary meeting of the SC Liberty Fellowship, speaking on liberty and participating in a panel on arts and society.
PERFORMING ARTS – Assistant Professor of Music Lauren Crosby published a peer-reviewed article, “The Sound of Boba Fett: Star Wars Leitmotifs in Streaming Television,” in a special issue of the French academic journal Emergences: Son, Musique et médias audiovisuels that focuses on new perspectives on the music of John Williams.
ENGLISH – Assistant Professor Stevie Edwards’s poem “My Dear Felicity” was featured in the second issue of the journal Asterales. This poem is from the manuscript-in-progress for her fourth book, Childless Dog Lady.
PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION – Associate Professor Quinn Hiroshi Gibson, together with former Clemson Visiting Assistant Professor Sarah Arnaud, published ‘Neurodiversity, Identity, and Hypostatic Abstraction’ in Philosophical Studies.
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: WindSync’s performance of Mozart’s Serenade for Winds in C Minor, K. 388 (Movt. 2: Andante) on April 2 from their concert on October 29, 2024; Verona Quartet and pianist David Fung’s performance of Grazyna Bacewicz’s Piano Quintet No. l (Movt. 1) on April 3 from their performance on November 1, 2022, and the Verona Quartet’s performance of Duke Ellington’s Cotton Club Stop from their performance on November 1, 2022; violinist Geneva Lewis and pianist Evren Ozel’s performance of Stravinsky’s Divertimento, “The Fairy’s Kiss” (arr. by Samuel Dushkin) on April 10 from their concert on March 28, 2024; and Sphinx Virtuosi’s performance of Michael Dudley’s “Prayer for our Times” on April 16 from their performance on March 30, 2023.
PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION – Professor Charlie Kurth organized the visit of Sara Protasi from the University of Puget Sound on April 10-11. While at Clemson, Protasi gave a public lecture titled “Cultivating Courage in an Age of Fear,” which was attended by over 40 faculty and students. Funding for the events was generously provided by the Department of Philosophy and Religion and the Humanities Hub. Protasi also met with undergraduate philosophy majors and minors for a separate conversation about her work on envy. The visit concluded with a research meeting where Protasi and Kurth talked with Associate Professor Charlie Starkey and Professor Cindy Pury (Psychology) about potential collaborations that would bring together their work on emotion and courage.
PERFORMING ARTS – Professor Linda Li-Bleuel received the 2025 Outstanding Service Award for dedicated service to the Clemson University commissions. This was the result of voluntarily assuming the role of Chair for the Asian Pacific Islander Desi American (APIDA) Committee, an advisory group devoted to promoting appreciation, understanding, and safety for Clemson’s APIDA community. This committee gained recognition for its work and was elevated to the status of the APIDA Commission in 2022, and Li-Bleuel continued as Chair.
ENGLISH – Postdoctoral Writing Fellow Jagadish Paudel presented his paper, “Introducing ‘Image Events’ in the FYC Classroom: Teaching Composition by Combating Racial and Social (In)justice,” at the 2025 Conference on College Composition and Communication, held in Baltimore from April 9–12. In recognition of his conference paper, Paudel also received the prestigious 2025 Chairs’ Memorial Scholarship at the conference.
ENGLISH – Assistant Professor Jon Correa Reyes co-authored the article, “From Chile to Camelot: Reception of the Arthurian Arc of Mampato and Ogú“ in Arthuriana: the Journal of Arthurian Studies. The essay analyzes how the Arthurian arc of the Chilean comic Mampato and Ogú challenges the neocolonial rhetorics that cast Chile as a stagnant country, and how it afforded Chileans an opportunity to participate in a global cultural current of Arthurian adaptations. He also served as the guest editor for this issue of Arthuriana, authoring the introductory essay, “Medieval Studies as a Public Good.”
LANGUAGES – Together with co-editor Rainer Godel, Professor Johannes Schmidt published the Herder Yearbook 17, now for the first time with Mohr Siebeck publishers, one of the oldest in Germany. This is the sixth time Johannes co-edited this academic journal for the International Johnn Gottfried Herder Society. This new venue allows for eBook and Open Access, while continuing the series in print.
PERFORMING ARTS – Associate Professor Kerrie Seymour wrote and acted in the new short film PURPLE, which was screened at both the Maryland International Film Festival and Greenville’s Reedy Reels Film Festival. The film won the Best Film Made in Upstate SC at Reedy Reels. Additionally, she was featured in a commercial for Tekmetric, based out of Texas.
PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION – Associate Professor Charles Starkey co-authored “Memorialization of Courage,” which was presented by author Cynthia Pury (Psychology) at the Memorialization: Theory, Methods, Goals, and Ethics conference at the University of Mississippi.
LANGUAGES – Professor Eric Touya had published an article, “Developing Humanities Perspectives across Disciplines”, in “Public Humanities: Theories and Methods”, Publications of the Modern Language Association, Vol. 140, Issue 1, 2025. Drawing on his experience teaching women in business in the francophone world, Toya considers the value of the humanities in cultivating civic- and community-mindedness in students and preparing them to take humanistic inquiry into their future careers. He seeks to demystify and deconstruct the discourses of the economists most often studied in university courses, whose models are often purportedly grounded in mathematical reasoning. From a public humanities perspective, his critical intervention reexamines the dichotomies of campuses/communities and academy/public and demonstrates how the work within our classrooms is integral to preparing students for engaging with other communities in the ways they bring humanistic inquiry into the world beyond college. Exploring connections between the classroom and the community, in conjunction with humanities-based reflection on issues of race, gender, and class, helps students to understand the complexity and diversity of socioeconomic realities from a non-Western perspective.
PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION – Associate Professor and Chair Ben White’s new book, Counting Paul: Scientificity, Fuzzy Math, and Ideology in Pauline Studies, was released this month with Oxford University Press.
