Author: saideek

HISTORY — Humanities Hub director James Burns was an invited presenter at the symposium, “Colorful Threads: Bridging Oceans Through Artistic Narratives of the Indian Ocean Rim,” held at the Africa Institute in the United Arab Emirates in December. His presentation, “Movie-mad Island: Cinema and Public Leisure in Colonial Mauritius, 1897-1968,” featured an ARC-GIS Storymap that was developed with the assistance of Digital History Ph.D. student Addison Horton and staff at the Clemson University Geospatial Institute. All conference papers will be published in the Duke University Press Journal, “Monsoon: Journal of the Indian Ocean Rim.”

HISTORY — Professor Vernon Burton spoke on the “Two South Carolina Reconstructions and how Briggs v. Elliot became Brown v. Board” at the Horry County Museum on December 2 as part of the South Carolina Humanities series, “Just Sharing: Building Community Through Stories of Our Past.” On December 4, Burton’s discussion with David Rubenstein of the New York Historical Society on “Justice Deferred: Race and the Supreme Court” aired on the “For the Ages: A History Podcast.” On December 7, Burton appeared as a guest alongside Maricopa County, Arizona, Supervisor Bill Gates on NPR’s “The Middle with Jeremy Hobson” to discuss how democracy is at stake in the 2024 election. On December 17, Burton lectured on African Americans and the American Revolution for the keynote of the Charleston Victory Day commemoration for Revolutionary Charleston America 250.

ENGLISH — Pearce Professor of Professional Communication Jordan Frith’s newest book, Barcode, has been mentioned on CNN, The Conversation and in The Atlantic. The book is an engaging exploration of the cultural history of the barcode that examines how this taken-for-granted 50-year-old technology significantly shaped the global economy and became maybe the most recognizable icon of contemporary capitalism. The book covers the early history of the barcode. It analyzes how the barcode somehow ended up playing a significant role in sci-fi dystopias, biblical prophecies, consumer protests, labor movements and a presidential election.

PERFORMING ARTS — Brooks Center Director Emerita Lillian Utsey Harder, artistic director of the Utsey Chamber Music Series, secured one broadcast on America Public Media’s “Performance Today” in December with a broadcast on December 11 of Joachim Stutschewsky’s “Hassidic Fantasy” by the Goldstein-Peled-Fiterstein Trio from their concert on February 9, 2023.

LANGUAGES — Department of Languages chair Joseph Mai’s in-depth review of Martin O’Shaughnessy’s recent work, “Looking Beyond Neoliberalism: French and Francophone Belgian Cinema and the Crisis,” in “SubStance.”

GLOBAL BLACK STUDIES — New assistant professor Vincent Ogoti co-authored an article with Reginold A. Royston titled “Voicing Afro-Modernity: How Black Atlantic Audiobooks Speak Back.” The piece published in the “Journal of African Cultural Studies” examines the evolving world of audiobooks and how they breathe new life into critical works of Black Atlantic literature. The authors explore how audiobooks like Zora Neale Hurston’s “Barracoon” and Yaa Gyasi’s “Homegoing” resonate with listeners, offering a fresh perspective on these profound narratives. The article highlights how sound studies scholars and literary critics alike can reconsider the importance of the “talking book” as a critical form of oral literature. Ogoti and Royston offer a method of “close listening,” drawing on the tactics of reading in sonic literary studies and suggest, through engagement with the work of scholars such as Ato Quayson, Tsitsi Jaji and others, an interdiscursive approach toward “binaural” voices in African and Afro-descendant cultural production.

LANGUAGES — Professor Eric Touya published “Liberal Arts Approaches to Teaching Women Entrepreneurship in Senegal: Narratives, Ethics, Empathy” in “The Entrepreneurial Humanities: The Crucial Role of the Humanities in Enterprise and the Economy.” He also published a review of “Gender and the Spatiality of Blackness in Contemporary Afro-French Narratives” by Polo B. Moji in “French Review, 97.2” and of “Misère de l’homme sans Dieu: Michel Houellebecq et la question de la foi” by Caroline Julliot et Agathe Novak-Lechevalier in “French Review, 97.1.”

HISTORY – Professor Vernon Burton was interviewed on the Phoenix Riot and quoted in the Greenwood Index-Journal on November 8. He is participating in a documentary being filmed on the race riot. On November 3, Burton keynoted the conference honoring the retirement of Dr. Kenneth Noe, the Draughon Professor of Southern History at Auburn University. On November 11, he responded to the Southern Historical Association annual meeting plenary panel featuring his co-authored book, “Justice Deferred: Race and the Supreme Court.” On November 15, Burton taught a Liberty Fund seminar over Zoom titled “Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War: the Gettysburg Address.” On November 17, he gave a lecture on Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address at the University of Illinois.

ENGLISH – Director of First Year Composition Sarah E.S. Carter presented “Post-Pandemic Adjusted Pedagogies: Flexible Peer Discussion and Other Low Stakes Assignments” at the South Atlantic Modern Language Association conference on November 11. She also published “Inviting Literacy Narratives for National Day on Writing” for the National Council of Teachers of English on October 18.

HISTORY – Associate Professor Caroline Dunn presented “Erudite Elite Women: The Education, Devotional Practices and Literary Culture of Medieval English Ladies-in-Waiting” at the annual meeting of the North American Conference on British Studies in Baltimore from November 9-12.

ENGLISH – Associate Professor Jonathan Beecher Field appeared on the Thanksgiving episode of the “Hand in the Dirt” podcast to talk about gravy and sausage dressing in the context of his Substack, “Sausage Season.”

PERFORMING ARTS – Brooks Center Director Emerita Lillian Utsey Harder, artistic director of the Utsey Chamber Music Series, secured three broadcasts on America Public Media’s “Performance Today” during November. This included a broadcast on November 24 of Michael Dudley’s “Prayer for our Times” by Sphinx Virtuosi from their concert on March 30; a broadcast on November 7,of Robert Schumann’s “Fantasiestucke” by pianist Alon Goldstein and clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein from their concert on February 9; and broadcast on November 16 of Henry Purcell’s Chacony in G minor for String Quartet, performed by members of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (violinist Stella Chen, violinist Cho-Liang Lin, violist Matthew Lipman and cellist Sihao) from their concert on October 18, 2021.

PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION – Associate Professor Elizabeth Jemison was a keynote speaker at Facing History and Ourselves 2023 Southeast Benefit on November 30. Facing History works with secondary education teachers and students to explore histories of intolerance, bigotry and stories of courageous upstanders who created change. She spoke on the importance of teaching robust accounts of the past, connecting her teaching at Clemson to her experiences as a Facing History student years ago.

PERFORMING ARTS – Assistant Professor Lisa Sain Odom authored a cover article, “Trauma-Informed Voice Care,” published in the November/December 2023 issue of “Classical Singer” magazine. She interviewed leading researchers in the field of trauma-informed voice care and shared with readers how they can incorporate these practices into their own voice studios to create a learning environment that feels safer for all students.

LANGUAGES – Professor Salvador Oropesa published the book chapter “El Tánger internacional en la novela española. Dos visiones olvidadas, Salvador González Anaya y Tomás Salvador” in “Marruecos y América Latina en la cartografía transhispánica: abordjaes y desvelos actuales,” 2023, 153-76. The book is a collaboration between the Université Abdelmalek Essaâdi in Tangier, Morocco, and the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California in Mexicali Mexico. It was also written by Mehdi Mesmoudi, Marta Piña Zentella y Randa Jebrouni, coords.

PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION – Assistant Professor John Thames delivered a talk titled “Ritual, Textualization and the Festivals from Emar” at the national meeting of Biblical Literature in San Antonio, which was held November 18-21.

ENGLISH – Professor Susanna Ashton authored a review of Tara A. Bynum’s book, Reading Pleasures: Everyday Black Living in Early America (University of Illinois Press, 2023). The review was published in the November 2023 edition of History of Education Quarterly.

HISTORY – Professor Amit Bein presented a paper on “Turkey, Islam, and the Middle East in the Interwar Period” at an international conference at Columbia University in New York City.

HISTORY – Professor Vernon Burton authored a foreword to Ashton Davies’ book on significant Supreme Court cases, A Movement in Words (California, 2023). As part of its Dialogue Nights collection, the Atlantic Institute presented “Alexander v. SC NAACP, part II: Amicus Briefs as ‘Voices’ part of the dialogue” with scholars including Burton. On October 10, Episode 1 of Clemson University historian Otis Pickett’s podcast series “Purpose that Prevails” on the American South featured Burton and Professor Rhondda Thomas in conversation. On October 19, Burton gave the opening remarks for the South Carolina Awards in the Humanities luncheon and awards Ceremony in Columbia. He was part of the program and had a dialogue with Cecil Williams at the Clemson University 2023 Joseph and Mattie De Laine Lecture at the Madren Center. On October 31, Burton was interviewed by reporter Kamilah Williams and appeared on a Macon, Georgia, news station on a redistricting case and the closing of polling places.

ENGLISH – Director of First Year Composition Sarah E.S. Carter published “Inviting Literacy Narratives for National Day on Writing” for the National Council of Teachers on October 18.

HISTORY – Assistant Professor Joshua Catalano participated in a roundtable discussion, “Indigenous Peoples and Land-Grant Universities in the United States,” at the American Society for Ethnohistory conference in Tallahassee, Florida, on November 3, 2023. He also published a review of Elizabeth Rule’s Guide to Indigenous DC in Reviews in Digital Humanities.

LANGUAGES – Assistant Professor of American Sign Language Jody Cripps had two articles published in October. The first article with his colleagues was “Student Experiences and Outcomes in Flipped L2/Ln American Sign Language Classrooms: A Replication Study,” and it was published in Language Learning. The second one is “The Past, the Present, and the Future for American Sign Language,” published in The Endeavor. Along with this publication, he also gave this presentation at the American Society for Deaf Children’s Literacy Conference in Charleston. He gave a presentation titled “Experiences of a Researcher-Participant in Two Signed

Music Cases: The Black Drum and the Resonance Project” at the Society of Ethnomusicology conference in Ottawa, Canada. He also put on a musical performance called “Stars and Anchors” and was one of the panelists for the signed music concert called “Play It By Eye: An Introduction to Signed Music.”

ENGLISH – Lecturer Stevie Edwards’ third poetry book, Quiet Armor, was released from Northwestern University Press’ Curbstone Imprint on October 15. Edwards has recently done promotional readings for the book, including presenting on a panel at the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, Tennessee, as well as book release events at Deep Vellum Bookstore in Dallas, Texas, and locally at The Pendleton Bookshop in Pendleton, South Carolina.

ENGLISH – Pearce Professor of Professional Communication Jordan Frith’s newest book, Barcode, was just published as part of the Object Lessons series. The book is an engaging exploration of the cultural history of the barcode that examines how this taken-for-granted 50-year-old technology significantly shaped the global economy and became maybe the most recognizable icon of contemporary capitalism. The book covers the early history of the barcode and analyzes how the barcode somehow ended up playing a big role in sci-fi dystopias, biblical prophecies, consumer protests, labor movements and a presidential election. Frith also published an article in Slate titled, “A Complex History of Things That Never Happened,” which traces the complicated roots of a recent conspiracy theory that linked together 5G networks, the Emergency Alert System and a zombie apocalypse.

PERFORMING ARTS – Brooks Center Director Emerita Lillian Utsey Harder, artistic director of the Utsey Chamber Music Series, secured a broadcast on October 25, 2023, on America Public Media’s Performance Today of Beethoven’s Sonata No. 9 in A Major (arr. by Ruben Renge) performed by Sphinx Virtuosi on March 30, 2023.

ENGLISH – Associate Dean Michael LeMahieu attended the Modernist Studies Association conference in Brooklyn, New York, where he presented a paper, “Apparently Slight Things: The Civil War’s Many Names,” as part of a special session on “Naming and Memorialization.”

ENGLISH – Professor Rhondda Robinson Thomas, Calhoun Lemon Professor of Literature, was invited to be a participant for the “The Invisible Campus Comes to Light” panel during the 4th Annual Global Women’s Conference on October 18 at Agnes Scott College. It explored the themes of visibility, social mobility and success. She presented the concept for a digital humanities project titled “Contextualizing John C. Calhoun’s Fort Hill Plantation South Carolina Backcountry: Interconnected Communities of Enslaved Persons” at the Digitizing and Decolonizing Collections: The Sandbach Tinne Virtual Conference hosted by the University of Bristol and Bristol Digital Futures Institute.

INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES – David Blakesley, professor of Rhetorics, Communication, and Information Design, published two book chapters: “Elaborate Rhetorics” in Writing Spaces 5: Readings for Writers, and  “Illuminating Kenneth Burke, Engaging Publics” in In the Classsroom with Kenneth Burke, edited by Ann George and M. Elizabeth Weiser. Parlor Press, 2023, pp. 73–103.

ENGLISH – Sarah E.S. Carter, director of First-Year Composition, and Marley Bickley, assistant director of First-Year Composition, gave a presentation at Feminisms and Rhetorics (Sept. 30^th—Oct. 3^rd) titled “Re-Vamping FYC Professional Development to include Training Initiatives to Promote Diverse Student Populations.”

LANGUAGES – Assistant Professor Jody Cripps provided a presentation titled American Sign Language Acquisition: Building Blocks to South Carolina Hands and Voices’ Building Bridges Family Conference in Columbia on September 16, 2023. He was also a moderator for a panel on the topic of signed language delay and disorders at the Saffran Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience and Rehabilitation of Communication Disorders in Philadelphia on September 30, 2023. As an editor for the Society for American Sign Language Journal, he is pleased to announce that the special issue titled Deaf Women: Agents of Change (Volume 6, Issue 2) has been published in September 2023.

PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION – Assistant Professor Quinn Hiroshi Gibson published a paper,with Adam Bradley of Lingnan University, Hong Kong, in The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science entitled ‘Monothematic Delusions and the Limits of Rationality.’ The paper argues that existing accounts of monothematic delusions in the philosophical literature over-rationalize them, likely because it is assumed that a rationalistic model is the only way to make sense of them. He argues that this is a mistake and that delusional cognition can be rendered intelligible if instead it is modeled on empathically traceable but non-rational forms of thought

PERFORMING ARTS – Brooks Center Director Emerita Lillian Utsey Harder, artistic director of the Utsey Chamber Music Series, secured seven broadcasts on America Public Media’s Performance Today during August and September: a broadcast on August 4 of pianist Alon Goldstein and clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein performing Robert Schumann’s Fantasiestucke from their concert at the Brooks Center on February 9, 2023; a broadcast on August 14 of violinists Stella Chen and Cho-Liang Lin, violist Matthew Lipman, and cellist Sihao He of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln performing Henry Purcell’s Chacony in G minor for String Quartet from their concert on October 18, 2021; a broadcast on August 17  of Sphinx Virtuosi performing Ricardo Herz’s Sisofo na Cidade Grande, a broadcast on August 31 performing Valerie Coleman’s Tracing Visions; a broadcast on September 12 of Sphinx Virtuosi performing Heitor Villa-Lobos’ Bachianas Brasilieras No. 9 from their March 30, 2023 concert; a broadcast on September 15 of cellist Amit Peled and pianist Alon Goldstein performing Ernest Bloch’s From Jewish Life from their concert on February 9, 2023; and a broadcast of pianist David Fung and the Verona Quartet performing Grazyna Bacewicz’s Piano Quintet No. 1 on September 27 from their concert on November 1, 2022. The seven broadcasts reached an 1,820,000 listeners.

ENGLISH – Associate Dean Michael LeMahieu presented a paper, “Ordinary Logic, Generic Racism,” at a conference on “Logic and Modern Literature” at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland.

LANGUAGES – Professor and Chair Joseph Mai published “Ordinary Ghosts: Care, Attention, and Media Critique in Cerno, une anti-enquête” in Contemporary French Civilization (Volume 48, Number 2, 2023, pp. 115-131). The article examines a creative use of podcasting media through the lens of ordinary language and care philosophies. Mai was also named to the editorial board of the same journal.

HISTORY – Professors J. Brent Morris and Vernon Burton’s co-edited Reconstruction Beyond 150:  Reassessing the New Birth of Freedom was published by the University of Virginia Press. He served as a political analyst about race and politics with Karthik Ramswayamy on the Political Lens podcast. Burton was the first signature, responsible for obtaining other historians’ signatures, and one of the two historians who advised the attorneys preparing an amicus brief for Alexander v. SC NAACP to the US Supreme Court, upholding the federal judge decision in support of creating a second viable congressional district for minority voters to elect a candidate of choice. On September 12, he spoke at the premiere of SCETV “The World of Cecil” at the Nickelodeon in Columbia.  On September 15, he was in conversation with former Clemson student Bob Elder on “Where History, Memory and Place Collide: John C. Calhoun and Clemson University” in the Self Auditorium at the Strom Thurman Institute. On September 25, Burton gave the College of Charleston’s Constitution Day Lecture, “Justice (Still?) Deferred: Race, Voting Rights, and the U.S. Supreme Court.” The next day,he spoke at the International African American Museum on the plaintiffs in the Briggs v. Elliot case from Clarendon SC, commonly known as Brown v. Board of Education (1954).  On September 28, he was honored at Lander University in a program “A Celebration of Vernon Burton” a video of which can be seen here. Lastly, on September 20, Burton spoke at Penn Center on the Civil Rights movement.

ENGLISH – Assistant Professor Clare Mullaney published an article titled “Extra Consciousness, Extra Fingers: Automatic Writing and Disabled Authorship” in American Literature‘s Fall issue.

ENGLISH – Associate Professor Angela Naimou presented a paper on international law and Adania Shibli’s novel Minor Detail at the Association of Postcolonial Thought’s second annual symposium at the University of Michigan—Ann Arbor. She also participated, with a fellow Clemson ECAR chapter colleague, in the second annual Every Campus a Refuge national conference, held at Wake Forest University. Every Campus a Refuge is a national higher education initiative that envisions colleges and universities as key partners in refugee resettlement and integration. The Clemson chapter offers programs and services to support resettled residents while deepening significant place-based learning for students of any major.

LANGUAGES – Professor Johannes Schmidt presented at the biennial conference of the International Herder Society. This year’s meeting took place in the historic town of Bückburg (Lower Saxony, Germany) where Herder lived and work from 1771 to 1776. Herder is one of the city’s main historical figures, and the city welcomed the society with open arms and a full program of events, including a rare performance — on historical instruments — of the oratorio “Lazarus,” a collaboration of J. Chr. Fr. Bach and Herder. Schmidt’s presentation was entitled “Herder’s (Re-?)Orientation during the Bückeburg Years 1771–1776—Becoming Maverick, Dissenter, and Individualist.”

PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION – Associate Professor Ben White published a chapter entitled “Paul and His Diverse Champions” in the Cambridge History of Ancient Christianity.

ENGLISH — Professor Susanna Ashton published “Capturing the Civil War” in JSTOR Daily in a collection review on archived stationery during the Civil War from Grand Valley State University’s Civil War and Slavery Collection. Her upcoming book, “A Plausible Man: The True Story of the Escaped Slave Who Inspired Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” is available for pre-order ahead of its release date on August 6.

HISTORY — Professor of History Vernon Burton moderated a session at Clemson University’s Upstate Symposium on April 4. That afternoon, he and Professor J. Brent Morris participated in a program on Clemson history and the politics of the South for the inaugural spring symposium of the student-published “The Aurantiaco,” Clemson’s journal for the humanities and social sciences. 

On April 7, Burton and writer Fergus Bordewich did a Zoom session on Reconstruction in South Carolina for the Modjeska Simkins School. That same day, Burton and Morris spoke about the latter’s book, “Dismal Freedom.” Burton and Harvard Law Professor Kenneth Mack were guests on NPR’s “Throughline” podcast that aired on April 11. On April 15, Burton was one of four historians who filed an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court defending the existence of a private right of action. 

Burton participated in three panels throughout the state about voting on April 17 (Clemson), April 18 (Orangeburg) and April 25 (Aiken). On April 20, Burton spoke about Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation as the keynote speaker for the Institute for the Study of the Reconstruction Era’s conference titled, “Breathing Democracy into Spaces: First South Carolina Volunteers of African Descent,” at the University of South Carolina-Beaufort.

LANGUAGES — Assistant Professor of American Sign Language Jody Cripps and his Creative Inquiry students — Brie Moose, Cassie Fisher, Stacy Lawrence, Allsion Rambo and Tariq Copeland — were interviewed by MV Signs Then and Now producer Lynn Thorp. The video, “MV Signs Then and Now: What’s Happening on Martha’s Vineyard Now?” talks about what Cripps and his students have done to support the Martha’s Vineyard community on and off the island.

ENGLISH — In Spring 2024, Assistant Professor Maziyar Faridi received a National Endowment for the Humanities Faculty Fellowship (2024-2025). In January, he participated in the invited roundtable “Comparative Modernisms in West Asia” at the Modern Language Association annual meeting in Philadelphia. Faridi also presented an article titled “Crip Rhythms: Bodies in Pain and the Crises of Colonial Modernity in the Middle East” at the American Comparative Literature Association in Montréal in March. His research was awarded a Clemson Faculty SUCCEEDS grant in April. And in May, Faridi was a recipient of the Clemson University Research, Scholarship, and Artistic Achievement Award (URSAAA).

PERFORMING ARTS — Brooks Center Director Emerita Lillian Utsey Harder, artistic director of the Utsey Chamber Music Series,was awarded the Order of the Palmetto by South Carolina State House Rep. Jerry Carter (R-Pickens). This is the highest civilian honor in the state.

She also secured three broadcasts on American Public Media’s “Performance Today” broadcast on April 8 of Escher String Quartet’s performance of Haydn’s String Quarter in B-flat Major, Op. 76, No. 4, from their concert on September 14, 2021; a broadcast on April 16 of Brahms’ Clarinet in A-minor, Op. 114, by pianist Anna Polonsky, clarinetist David Shifrin and cellist Peter Wiley from their concert on November 4, 2019; and a broadcast on April 22 of Sphinx Virtuosi’s performance of Beethoven’s Sonata No. 9 in A-major, arranged by Ruben Rengel, from their concert on March 30, 2023.

ENGLISH — Disability Rhetorics Assistant Professor Clare Mullaney had two publications this month: “Cripistemologies of Memory: Dementia, Disappearance and Mourning” in the Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies and; a short piece for a Post-45 clustered on contemporary literature from the classroom called “Bodies’ Return to Physical Books: Teaching through and alongside BookTok and Bookstagram.”

LANGUAGES — Professor of Spanish Salvador A. Oropesa read the paper, “Definición del género miniseries en España: ‘Antidisturbios (2020)’ de Rodrigo Sorogoyen,” at the XX Congreso de novela y cine negro: El largo adios.” Universidad de Salamanca, Spain, on May 14.

ENGLISH — Associate Professor Elizabeth Rivlin presented a paper titled “The Book-of-the-Month Club’s Shakespeare Editions: Readability, Prestige, and the Creation of Value” in the “Early Modern Book History: The State of the Field” seminar at the Shakespeare Association of America Annual Meeting, held April 10-13 in Portland, OR.

HISTORY — Professor of History Vernon Burton and Peter Eisenstadt coauthored “The Voting Rights in Georgia: A Short History” was published in “Southern Cultures.” On March 4, Burton was quoted on the 14th Amendment Colorado ballot initiative Supreme Court decision on NPR Morning Edition SCETV radio. Burton was one of four historians to appear on a news webinar entitled “Historians Weigh in on SCOTUS Trump v. Anderson Colorado ballot ruling.” He was mentioned in an article on “The Guardian” about the webinar. On March 6, Burton presented the Black History Month lecture on his book, “Penn Center: A History Preserved,” at Greenville Technical College. From March 14-16, Burton participated in the annual SHOES (Southern History of Education Society) meeting and chaired a session on Reconstruction. On March 29, Burton was one of three historians who participated in the first Southern Historical Association virtual history discussion on the significance of historian C. Vann Woodward. On April 11, Burton was a guest on NPR’s “Throughline” podcast.

ENGLISH — Sarah E.S. Carter, director of First-Year Composition, presented at the Veterans in Society Conference on March 15. Her presentation entitled, “Operation Nightingale: Digging Band of Brothers,” focused on veteran archaeological initiatives taking place in the United Kingdom.”

ENGLISH — Assistant Professor Jonathan Correa-Reyes reports that the third season of “The Multicultural Middle Ages Podcast” launched in March. The anthology-style podcast, sponsored by The Medieval Academy of America, seeks to reframe conversations about medieval history and culture by expanding our understanding about the multicultural reality of the medieval world and celebrating the plurality of voices that make up medieval studies. The podcast’s goal is to bridge the gap between the knowledge produced by scholars and the wider world in a free and accessible manner. This is available wherever you listen to podcasts.

PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION — Assistant Professor Quinn Hiroshi Gibson published a paper entitled “Philosophy’s Role in Theorizing Psychopathology” in “Philosophy, Psychiatry and Psychology.” In the journal paper, Gibson argues philosophy is an indispensable tool for investigating mental disorder. The paper can be found by doi here. The journal also published invited commentaries on the feature article, as well as Gibson’s reply entitled “Understanding, the Manifest Image and ‘Postmodernism’ in Philosophy of Psychiatry.” The response can be found by doi here.

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” broadcast on March 4 of Sphinx Virtuoso’s performance on March 30, 2023, of Sisifo na Cidade Grande by Ricardo Herz.

ENGLISH — Associate Dean for Undergraduate and Graduate Studies Michael LeMahieu contributed a paper entitled, “Inherently Unequal: Race, Rhetoric and the Law” at a symposium on judicial rhetoric hosted by the University of Virginia Law School in early April.

ENGLISH — Principal Lecturer Amy Monaghan presented her paper entitled, “Mark Wahlberg, Stochastic Terrorist: Patriots Day’s Mean Images of the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing,” on March 15 at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies’ annual convention in Boston.

ENGLISH — Disability Rhetorics Assistant Professor Clare Mullaney presented a paper titled, “‘Colored Editress’: Uplift, Anti-Black Violence and the Ends of Print,” at C19: The Society for 19th Century Americanists’ bi-annual conference on March 14-16 in Pasadena, California. She also participated in a seminar entitled, “Unfolding Editorship.”

ENGLISH — Senior Lecturer Kathleen Nalley participated in the “Visual and Verse” exhibit in coordination with Greenville Poet Laureate Glenis Redmond at the Metropolitan Arts Council (MAC) in March. The program asked 15 poets to respond to artworks created by 15 artists. Poets read their works at an opening reception. “Visual and Verse” is on exhibit at MAC through April. TOWN Magazine covered the opening reception.

LANGUAGES — Professor of Spanish Salvador A. Oropesa, alongside five other university professors, contributed to evaluating the diverse programs offered at Bentley University’s College of Arts and Sciences in Waltham, Massachusetts, on March 25-27. Tasked with overseeing the Department of Languages, Oropesa brought his knowledge and experience to the assessment process. The effort was a comprehensive review of the language department’s curriculum, faculty and overall effectiveness within the university’s academic framework.

HISTORY — Assistant Professor Amanda Regan gave a talk entitled, “Mapping the Margins: Gay Travel Guides and the Promise of Digital History,” as part of Villanova University’s Digital Seed Speaker series. The talk focused on her digital history project called “Mapping the Gay Guides” and how digital methods allow historians to ask new questions of historical travel guides.

PERFORMING ARTS — Assisting Visitor Professor of Music and Director of Orchestra Kimberly Souther has been appointed festival director for the Heifetz International Music Institute this summer. The Clemson University Symphony Orchestra presented a celebratory concert for the Brooks Center for the Performing Arts on April 16. The concert featured the winners of the Clemson University Concerto Competition, Elise Bloom (violin) and Ansley Hollingsworth (soprano). The orchestra’s current focus on enhanced engagement through real-time program notes, pre-concert talks, supertitles and interactions with musicians and composers resulted in a successful evening of shared music with the community.

ENGLISH — Calhoun Lemon Professor of Literature Rhondda Robinson Thomas accepted an invitation to visit the Reynolds’ Homestead (Rock Spring Plantation) and Virginia Tech on March 11-13. She was joined by several members of the Woodland Cemetery team including Marjorie Campbell, Sara Collini and Deborah Robinson to give two lectures and meet with faculty, staff, descendants of the enslaved community and local leaders for a series of discussions about documenting campus and community histories with a legacy of slavery based on public humanities strategies drawn from her Call My Name project and the cemetery project.

ARCHITECTURE – Anjali Joseph and David Allison, both with the Center for Health Facilities Design & Testing (CHFDT), presented “Patient Room Design: Engaging Clinical Teams Through Simulation-Based Evaluation and Design,” during a Center for Health Design webinar. The presentation reviewed the background of the project, timeline, methodology and various phases. The CHFDT team is working with Indiana University Health (IU Health) to design rooms that better meet the needs of and improve safety for both patients and staff. The project evaluated physical mock-ups at four different stages of design refinement, obtained extensive clinician input through simulated patient care scenarios and employed other testing and feedback methodologies, which enabled the team to identify design refinements that mock-ups alone might miss.  IU Health is the largest network of physicians in the state of Indiana, offering a unique partnership with Indiana University School of Medicine, one of the nation’s leading medical schools.

ARCHITECTURE – Anjali Joseph and David Allison, both with the Center for Health Facilities Design & Testing (CHFDT), presented “Operating Room Design: Using an Evidence-Based Design Approach,” during an American Institute of Architects, Academy of Architecture for Health webinar. The presentation reviewed the background of the project, timeline, findings, outcomes, design and post-occupancy evaluation. The CHFDT team engaged with health systems and architecture firms as part of a multi-year federally funded patient safety learning lab to design a safer and more ergonomic operating room. The webinar shared how the CHFDT team collaborated with health systems and design professionals to develop concepts for flexible and safe operating room layouts. Findings from this project were implemented in real-world settings at the Medical University of South Carolina and the Emory Musculoskeletal Institute.

ARCHITECTURE – Associate Professor Sallie Hambright-Belue’s and Assistant Professor Berrin Terim’s co-authored article, “Beginning Design Pedagogy: An Ars Oblivionalis,” is selected to be published in the journal for Design Communications Associations (DCA) entitled Representations. This journal is published biannually and acknowledges the papers from the previous DCA Conference that were selected by the DCA Journal Editorial Board to be elevated to include in the Journal.

ARCHITECTURE – Professor Anjali Joseph and doctoral student Devi Soman, both with the Center for Health Facilities Design and Testing (CHFDT), coauthored an article published in the Health Environments Research & Design Journal titled, Influence of the Physical Environment on Maternal Care for Culturally Diverse Women: A Narrative Review. The review found that most studies focus on maternal or culturally sensitive care settings outside the United States. Since the maternal care environment is an important aspect of their culturally sensitive care experience, further studies exploring the needs and perspectives of racially and ethnically diverse women within maternal care settings in the United States are necessary. Such research can help future healthcare designers contribute toward addressing the ongoing maternal health crisis within the country.

ARCHITECTURE – Professor Anjali Joseph, Director of the Center for Health Facilities Design and Testing (CHFDT), and colleagues presented “Pediatric Patient Care Pathways in the Emergency Department and Their Effect on Mental and Behavioral Health Patients” at the Healthcare Systems Process Improvement Conference in Atlanta, GA. The group reviewed recent work from the Realizing Improved Patient Care through Human-centered Design for Pediatric mental and behavioral health in the Emergency Department (RIPCHD.PED) project.

ARCHITECTURE – Professor Anjali Joseph, Director of the Center for Health Facilities Design and Testing (CHFDT), shared her healthcare design experience in an article published in a Special Edition of Construction & Design. In the article titled “To Optimize OR Design, Put People First,“ Joseph discussed lessons learned over decades of researching, testing and helping to implement healthcare design solutions. She also shared her healthcare design guiding principle that human-centered elements that focus on patients and staff lead to safer spaces and better outcomes.

ARCHITECTURE – Associate Professor Peter Laurence edited the new book Histories of Architecture Education in the United States, a collection of twenty essays by twenty-two contributors, published by Routledge in late 2023. The publication, which began as a conference at University of Pennsylvania’s Weitzman School of Design, was celebrated with a book launch and talks by Laurence and a number of contributors at Penn in March. The lecture highlighted chapters and themes from the book, as well as speculations about the future of architecture education. 

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE –  Professor Mary G. Padua presented her peer-reviewed work that falls within the realm of transdisciplinary and emancipatory research entitled, “Urban Landscapes of Trauma: the Filipino Diaspora and Collective Memory of the World War II Battle [for the liberation] of Manila”, at the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture on March 21^st in St. Louis. In late March, Padua was appointed the Dean’s special advisor and member of a steering committee on the Resilient Urban Landscapes postgraduate curriculum initiative at the Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University’s Design School, Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, P.R.C.

CONSTRUCTION SCIENCE AND MANAGEMENT – Assistant Professor Jong Han Yoon has been named the winner of the 2024 Pennel Center Research Grant competition. Yoon’s research proposal aims to develop an IoT (Internet of Things) and BIM (Building Information Modeling) -enabled simulation of building evacuation plans against school shootings with the goal of creating a game-based evacuation training system for students using the simulation model. 

ENGLISH — Lecturer Peter Cullen Bryan has signed a contract with University Press of Mississippi for his second book entitled, “Sonja: The She-Devil with a Sword as Pulp Hero and Brand Icon.” The book is scheduled for an early 2025 publication. This is the first full-length scholarly examination of a classic barbarian hero, emphasizing her creation as a response to Second Wave Feminism in the 1970s and later adaptations under various authors, including Wendy Pini and Gail Simone, parallel to the development of Third Wave Feminism. This book will explore how the character influenced comics, pulp art and larger cultural movements over the past 50 years, with an emphasis on the role of fans as creators and how that allowed for more transgressive takes on femineity.

HISTORY — Professor of History Vernon Burton’s article “Edgefield, South Carolina: Home to Dave the Potter/Dave Drake” was published in “The Words and Wares of David Drake: Revisiting ‘I made This Jar’ and the Legacy of Edgefield Pottery.” Edited by Jill Beute Koverman and Jane Przybysz. On February 2, Burton appeared on a webcast with other historians who signed an amicus brief drafted by Professor Allan Lichtman and Burton on the 14th Amendment Supreme Court case Trump v. Colorado. On February 4, E.J. Dione Jr. cited the brief in explaining “Why I changed my mind and think Trump should be thrown off the ballot” in the Washington Post.

On February 12, he led a seminar for the Liberty Fund on Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation. On the same day, the New York Historical Society broadcast an episode of “For the Ages: A History Podcast” on Burton’s book titled “The Age of Lincoln” with David Rubenstein interviewing Burton. On February 13, Burton discussed “Justice Deferred” with the League of Women Voters and the Detroit Public Library.

On February 14, Sydney Blumenthal cited the brief in The Guardian. Burton held a series of class visits and lectures at Michigan State University over February 5-6, which included a discussion of “Justice Deferred: Race and the Supreme Court” at the Michigan State Law School.  Less than a week later, Burton had a conversation on the state of African American history in South Carolina with Walter Edgar for the keynote at the South Carolina African American Heritage Commission’s annual conference in Columbia.

PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION — Assistant Professor of Philosophy Quinn Gibson published a paper titled “Interventionism and Intelligibility: Why depression is not (always) a brain disease” in the “Journal of Medicine and Philosophy.” Gibson argues against the prominent idea that clinical depression — as it is conceived in the most recent Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Disorders (DSM-5) as Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) — is always a disease of the brain.

PERFORMING ARTS — Brooks Center Director Emerita Lillian Utsey Harder, artistic director of the Utsey Chamber Music Series, secured three broadcasts in March by Sphinx Virtuosi’s concert on March 30 on America Public Media’s “Performance Today;” a broadcast on February 14 of Carlos Simons’ “Between Worlds” performed by violinist Hannah White; a broadcast on February 27 of Michael Dudley’s “Prayer for our Time;” and Valerie Coleman’s “Tracing Visions” on February 28.

WORLD CINEMA — Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies Aga Skrodzka’s article titled, “Dubai-gate and the libidinal operations of nation-making in ‘Girls from Dubai,’” was published in the Journal of Contemporary Iraq and the Arab World.

ENGLISH — Calhoun Lemon Professor of Literature Rhondda Robinson Thomas gave the presentation, “‘Slavery a Positive Good?’: Resistance within the Enslaved Community at John C. Calhoun’s Fort Hill Plantation,” on a panel for “Just Sharing: Building Community through Stories of Our Past” on February 11 at Drayton Hall in Charleston. This is a partnership project between South Carolina Humanities, Clemson University and the University of South Carolina.

LANGUAGES — Professor of French Eric Touya published an article entitled, “Women’s Leadership in Senegal: Pedagogical and Feminist Perspectives,” (Oxford Women’s Leadership Symposium) in the “Journal of Academic Perspectives” (Issue 2, 2024, p. 159-167). He also published a book review of “La totalité littéraire. Théorie et enjeux de la littérature mondiale,” in “French Review” (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2023). He also gave a lecture entitled, “Emplaced Humanities, Beauvoir’s ‘Situatedness’ and Bourdieu’s ‘Habitus,’” at the Modern Language Association of America Conference in Philadelphia.

PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION — Kathryn and Calhoun Lemon Professor of Philosophy Daniel Wueste presented “Integrity: Three Frames and the Architecture of Roles: at the 33rd Annual International Conference of the Association for the Practical and Professional Ethics in Cincinnati from February 22-25. He was also a judge in the quarterfinal and semifinal rounds of the National Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl that was held in conjunction with the conference on February 25.

HISTORY — Professor Vernon Burton was highlighted as one of the keynote speakers for the Feb. 22 conference of the South Carolina African American Heritage Commission. On January 9, Burton spoke with the World Community Magazine LIFE with Edward McQueen and April Garner on the “Supreme Court Decisions: Past, Present and Future” program. On January 24, Burton keynoted at the University of California Santa Barbara in “Picturing Justice: Race and the Supreme Court” and spoke at a fireside chat the following day. On Jan. 25 he spoke at the San Diego Supercomputing Center on “History of Computing in the Humanities and Social Sciences before the Digital Age.”

From January 29 through February 1, Burton and Joshua Catalano hosted two representatives from the Library of Congress (LOC) who work with the Veterans Project and worked with the Clemson Creative Inquiry Veterans Project. On January 31, he conducted an oral history workshop for the campus. On January 31, the “Lansing City Pulse” p. 14 featured an article on Burton and his coauthor’s “Justice Deferred: Race and the Supreme Court.”

In late January, attorneys filed an amicus brief drafted by Professor Allan Lichtman of American University and Burton, which was signed by 23 more historians on the Colorado Ballot Supreme Court case Trump v. Anderson. The historians explained the origins of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment and what the stakeholders and policymakers at that time intended for Section 3 to cover and whom. Their work was covered in media outlets including the Guardian, New York Times, MSNBC, The Daily Beast, Huffington Post and Law and Crime.

LANGUAGES — American Sign Language associate professor Stephen Fitzmaurice published an article with Meri Faulkner addressing ASL-English Interpreters and Anxiety in the Journal of Interpretation. The research investigates coping strategies used by ASL-English interpreters with Generalized Anxiety Disorder and issues including professional stigma.

PERFORMING ARTS — Brooks Center Director Emerita Lillian Utsey Harder, artistic director of the Utsey Chamber Music Series, secured two broadcasts on America Public Media’s “Performance Today” in January with a broadcast on January 12 of Brahms’ Clarinet Trio in A minor, Op. 114 by Anna Polonsky, piano; David Shifrin, clarinet; and Peter Wiley, cello, from their concert on February 9. The second broadcast happened January 24 and was of Capricci by Sergio Assad, commissioned for the 35th anniversary season of the Utsey series and performed by the Escher String Quarter and guitarist Jason Vieaux from their concert on September 14, 2021.

ENGLISH — Alumni Distinguished Professor Lee Morrissey’s essay, “From Ireland to Barbados: architecture of extraction in British colonies” was published in “Architecture and Extraction in the Atlantic World, 1500-1850,” edited by Luis Gordo Palaez and Paul O’Neill (Routledge, 2024), 91-105.

ENGLISH — Associate Professor Angela Naimou co-organized two linked sessions on dispossession for the 2024 Modern Language Association in Philadelphia, January 4-7, in her role as Postcolonial Studies Executive Committee chair. The journal she edits, “Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development,” joined the Project MUSE Subscribe to Open (S20), among the largest humanities open-access initiative for scholarly journals, which is set to launch current content as open-access for 2025.

PERFORMING ARTS — Assistant Professor of Music Lisa Sain Odom presented a session, “When Worlds Collide: Faculty collaboration in musical theatre and agriculture” with Clemson Agriculture professor Kirby Player at the January 2024 Musical Theatre Educator’s Alliance conference in Atlanta, Georgia. On January 7, she performed two art songs, “Allerseelen” by Richard Strauss and “For You There Is No Song” by Leslie Adams with Clemson collaborative pianist Grace Berardo in New York City. This was part of the National Association of Teachers of Singing Winter Workshop. She was also selected to speak on a panel “Easy Does It…?” alongside world-renowned pianist and coach Warren Jones to speak about how to motivate students to deeply engage with their work when the research process has become so much easier. Her article was published on January 27 in the winter edition of the print magazine “ClassicalSinger”on “Trauma Informed Voice Care.”

LANGUAGES — Professor of German Johannes Schmidt published “Herder und die Oper: Pluralität der Sinne” in a volume entitled “Kunst kommt von Können oder von Kennen her” Künste und Ästhetik bei Johann Gottfried Herder. This wasedited by Stefan Greif.