Vol. XXVIII, No. 2
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Publications
Yasemin Akbaba, Professor of Political Science, with co-author Jonathan Fox, published “Societal Rather than Governmental Change: Religious Discrimination in Muslim-Majority Countries after the Arab Uprisings” in All Azimuth 8.1 (2018): 5–22. This study examines shifts in governmental religion policy and societal discrimination against religious minorities in Muslim-majority states after the Arab Uprisings.
Kathy R. Berenson, Associate Professor of Psychology, with alum co-authors Stella Nicolaou ’19, Sydney F. Goldberg ’22, and Kayley M. Michael ’22, published “Responses to Validating versus Reframing Support Strategies as a Function of Borderline Personality Features and Interpersonal Problems” in Cogent Psychology 10.1 (2023, online). This experiment showed that individuals high in borderline personality features felt significantly more supported when they imagined a friend expressing validation for their negative emotions rather than positively reframing their stressful experiences. These results are consistent with interpersonal circumplex accounts of personality and research on the importance of validation for helping individuals high in borderline features experience the emotional benefits of social support.
Berenson, with alum co-authors Hope Rutter ’21, Cindy Campoverde ’20, Thao Hoang ’20, and Sydney F. Goldberg ’22, published “Self-Compassion and Women's Experience of Social Media Content Portraying Body Positivity and Appearance Ideals” in Psychology of Popular Media (2023, online). Viewing social media content portraying unattainable appearance ideals reduced women’s self-compassion, and this was especially true for women who were already struggling to accept themselves and their bodies. In contrast, viewing body-positive social media content increased women’s self-compassion, by evoking more accepting thoughts about themselves.
Emelio Betances, Professor of Sociology and Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies, published “Auge y caída de la Marcha Verde en la República Dominicana” in Estudios Sociales 45.166 (July–December 2022): 67–98. This article examines the Marcha Verde movement in the Dominican Republic that emerged in 2017 to protest bribery on the part of the Brazilian transnational Odebrecht. It argues that it gathered significant support among the middle classes to denounce corruption and impunity and, as such, it raised awareness of the need to “democratize democracy,” but it failed to create a social base that would enable it to deepen the democratization process.
Betances published “Social Movements, Political Linkages, and the Challenge to Democracy in Mexico" in Latin American Social Movements and Progressive Governments: Creative Tensions between Resistance and Convergence, edited by Steve Ellner, Ronaldo Munck, and Kyla Sankey (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2022). This book chapter examines the linkages between political parties and social movements, positing that the effervescence of social-protest movements catapulted Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of Mexico to center stage and paved the way for his election as president in 2018.
Michael Birkner, Professor of History, published “Bringing Out the Vote: New Hampshire and the Presidential Campaign of 1952” in Historical New Hampshire 75.1–2 (2022): 26–95. This article captures the dynamics of a presidential primary campaign in an era when grassroots campaigning was essential to success. It describes how supporters of Dwight D. Eisenhower worked tirelessly and effectively to win votes for a candidate who was overseas directing NATO forces. It also documents Eisenhower delegates’ participation in the national convention in Chicago in July 1952 and in the subsequent fall campaign.
Birkner, with student colleagues Rachel Main ’23 and Grace Gallagher ’23, edited Democracy's Shield: Voices of World War II (Gettysburg, PA: Musselman Library, 2022). This book explores the experience of servicemen and women during the Second World War. Based on hundreds of oral histories conducted by Birkner and by students in History 300 classes between 1991 and 2015, it provides a ground-level view of the war from its beginning to its successful conclusion.
Meg Blume-Kohout, Assistant Professor of Economics, published “The Affordable Care Act and Women’s Self-Employment in the United States” in Feminist Economics 29.1 (2023): 174–204. The Affordable Care Act improved access to non-employer-based health insurance, reducing the cost of leaving jobs. As a result, from 2015–2018, unmarried women were increasingly drawn to self-employment.
Blume-Kohout published “Incentivizing STEM Participation: Evidence from the SMART Grant Program" in Southern Economic Journal 89.2 (October 2022): 373–405. The US National Science and Mathematics Access to Retain Talent (SMART) Grant program provided up to $8,000 to high-achieving, low-income undergraduates majoring in STEM fields. We find the program significantly increased the probability that first-generation college graduates majored in STEM fields, but this increase was almost entirely offset by affected STEM graduates’ significantly lower STEM workforce retention.
Blume-Kohout published “The Case of the Interrupting Funder: Dynamic Effects of R&D Funding and Patenting in US Universities” in Journal of Technology Transfer (2022, online). This article investigates the effects of changes in funding levels for biomedical sciences research and development (R&D) at US universities on their contributions to innovative medical treatments. Using a novel panel dataset for 16 highly research-intensive universities from 1985 to 2006, I find that receipt of non-federal life sciences R&D funding decreases university-owned patents for drug and medical innovations.
Alice Brawley Newlin, Assistant Professor of Management, published “On the Folly of Introducing A (Time-Based UMV), while Designing for B (Time-Based CMV)” in Applied Psychological Measurement (March 15, 2023, online). I found that splitting a measure (previously known to be one-dimensional) across time points in a research design resulted in two separate dimensions of the measure. These results suggest that “splitting” measures for separate variables over time (e.g., predictors at Time 1, outcomes at Time 2) isn’t as universally helpful as is generally suggested.
Michael Caldwell, Associate Professor of Biology, with alum co-authors Alexandra Yiambilis ’21, Zowie Searcy ’21, and Rachael Pulica ’20, and co-authors Ciara E. Kernan and R.A. Page, published “Mid-Flight Prey Switching in the Fringed-Lipped Bat (Trachops cirrhosus)” in The Science of Nature 109 (August 15, 2022, online): 43. Frog-eating bats en route to attack a frog switch to target new prey if they call nearby. The integration of this new information into foraging decisions has important consequences for the effectiveness of their attacks.
Caldwell, with alum co-authors Kayla Britt ’17, Lilianna Mischke ’21, and Hannah Collins ’16, published “Beyond Sound: Bimodal Acoustic Calls Used in Mate-Choice and Aggression by Red-Eyed Treefrogs” in Journal of Experimental Biology 225.16 (August 2022, online). Frog calls produce both airborne sound and substrate vibrations. These vibrations are important both in attracting mates and in aggressive interactions.
Caldwell, with alum co-author Rachael Pulica ’20, and co-author Ryan P. Dougherty, published “Multi-Night Territorial Behavior, Chorus Attendance, and Mating Success in Red-Eyed Treefrogs” in Ethology 128.8 (August 2022): 608–619. Red-eyed treefrogs defend territories across nights, and this is correlated with how many nights they spend at breeding ponds and mating success.
Suhua Dong, Director of Institutional Analysis, published “The Effects of First-Generation Status on Student Engagement and Outcomes at Liberal Arts Colleges” in The Journal of College Student Development 60.1 (January–February 2019): 17–34. Private, nonsectarian baccalaureate colleges, most of which are liberal arts colleges, enroll a disproportionately large number of first-generation students. Did they experience college differently than continuing-generation students? This study contributes a considerable amount of evidence affirming the multiple successes of private liberal arts colleges in supporting their first-generation students.
Elizabeth Duquette, Professor of English, with Claudia Stokes, co-edited a new edition of The Gates Ajar, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (New York: Penguin, 2019). The Gates Ajar (1868) helped to shape enduring American ideas about Heaven and demonstrated that, for American women, the Civil War didn’t simply end at Appomattox.
Felicia Else, Professor of Art and Art History, published “Spectacles of Fire and Water: Performing the Destructive Forces of Early Modern Naval Battles” in Performance and Spectacle in Early Modern Europe, Arti dello Spettacolo/ Performing Arts Journal (December 2020): 154–162. This is an article on the tradition of naval battles in art and festivals of the sixteenth century, and how they represented the destructive forces of fire and water.
Steve Gimbel, Professor of Philosophy, with faculty co-author Tres Lambert, Assistant Professor of German Studies, published “Bild-ing Science: The Multiplicity of Bild-types in Boltzmann” in Foundations of Science 28 (April 8, 2023, online). Scholars have long debated exactly what Ludwig Boltzmann meant by “Bild,” a term central to his scientific methodology and epistemological writings. Gimbel and Lambert argue that, coming out of the popular use of the term in turn-of-the-century Vienna, Boltzmann is intentionally ambiguous, with “Bild” playing at least six different functional roles in the acquisition of knowledge, some realist and others instrumentalist.
Gimbel published “Philosophers of Catastrophe: Early 20th Century Jewish Proponents and Opponents of Objectivity in Science” in Jews and Science, edited by Sander Gilman (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2022). World War I not only devastated Europe physically and politically, it also challenged the heart of all of Continental ideas. Jewish thinkers at the heart of both the Continental and analytic philosophical traditions wrestled with foundational questions related to the role and nature of science, while trying unsuccessfully to head off the rising tide of Nazism.
Gimbel, with faculty co-author Stephen Stern, Associate Professor of Religious Studies and currently Chair, Department of Judaic Studies, published “Philosophers of Catastrophe: Early Twentieth-Century Jewish Proponents of Objectivity and Subjectivity in Science” in Jews and Science 20 (2022): 21–46. The horrors of World War I had profound effects on Jewish philosophers’ approach to understanding the world. While those who would become major figures in analytic philosophy, like Karl Popper and Hans Reichenbach, thought that avoiding future wars required an objectivity that would undermine socially-constructed mythologies, those who would be important figures in Continental philosophy, like Herbert Marcuse and Franz Rosenzweig, argued that such objectivity removed the humanity from our understanding of the world, and that this dehumanization itself sets the stage for further war.
Gimbel, with faculty co-author Susan Russell, Associate Professor and currently Endowed Adams Professorship Chair, Department of Theatre Arts, and co-author Jennifer Gaffney, former Assistant Professor of Philosophy, published “We’ve Come Through It Again: The Skin of Our Teeth, The Myth of Sisyphus, and Thornton Wilder’s American Existentialism” in New England Theatre Journal 33 (2022): 77–106. Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth came out in the same year as Albert Camus’s The Myth of Sisyphus, both asking what it means to live an authentic human life, and both responding with similar answers that humans must create meaning despite the regular destruction of that meaning by the world. Both should be seen as existentialist masterworks, but where Camus is working in orthodox European existentialism, Wilder is developing a different brand of the view, an “American existentialism” that possesses different presuppositions and stances toward existence.
Luna Goldblatt, Assistant Professor of Management, with co-author Tyler Hull, published “Are California Venture Capitalists the Best Venture Capitalists?” in Cogent Economics & Finance 10.1 (2022): 2150132. We provide empirical evidence that California venture capitalists (VCs) outperform VCs from other states in successfully investing in portfolio companies, especially in supporting early-stage investments and helping their entrepreneurial firms receive future rounds of financing. In addition, VCs from California, Massachusetts, and New York are not only adept at selecting firms to invest in, but they also enhance the value of the firms by means of monitoring their investments.
Matt Kittelberger, Associate Professor Biology, with co-authors Clara Franzini-Armstrong and Simona Boncompagni, published “Ca2+ Entry Units in a Superfast Fish Muscle” in Frontiers in Physiology (October 28, 2022, online). This paper demonstrates the evolutionary conservation, between mammals and fish, of a recently described structure (the calcium entry unit, or CEU) in muscle fibers that helps maintain calcium homeostasis in muscles that are active for long periods, such as during the hours-long courtship vocalizations of midshipman fish (Porichthys notatus). Furthermore, we confirm that CEUs are plastic structures, assembling during prolonged periods of muscle activity, and disassembling rapidly after activity ends.
César Leal, Assistant Professor, Director of Orchestral Activities and Coordinator of Musicology, Sunderman Conservatory of Music, published “Music Publications: Artifacts and Instruments of the Music Industry” in Financing Music in Europe, edited by Etienne Jardin (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepol, 2022). This work explores how the history of art from a new angle, particularly addresses the connections between of creation/dissemination of music and entrepreneurship/philanthropy.
Leal, with Diana Hallman, co-edited America in the French Imaginary 1789–1914: Revolution, Race, and Musical Culture in the Long Nineteenth Century (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell & Brewer, 2022). The seeds of this project took root in long, unbounded conversations in Paris and other locales, enriched by our shared love of France and the United States, our curiosity about cultural interconnections between them and within the Atlantic world, and our deep interest in interrogations of race, gender, and “silent” areas of music historiography. This volume, part of the “Music in Society and Culture” series, has also emerged out of a collective interest in the ways in which early encounters between France and America continue to resonate in today’s geopolitical alliances, national commemorations, and distinct but correlating ideas about transatlantic history.
Rachel Lesser, Assistant Professor of Classics, published Desire in the Iliad: The Force that Moves the Epic and its Audience (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2022). This is the first study to examine desire in the Iliad in a comprehensive way, and to explain its relationship to the epic’s narrative structure and audience reception. I offer a new reading of the poem that shows how the characters’ desires, especially those of the mortal hero Achilleus and the divine king Zeus, motivate plot and keep the audience engaged with the epic until and even beyond its end.
Brian Meier, Professor of Psychology and currently Franklin Chair Professor in the Liberal Arts and Sciences, with co-author Amanda J. Dillard, published “Getting COVID-19: Anticipated Negative Emotions Are Worse than Experienced Negative Emotions” in Social Science and Medicine 320 (March 2023): 115723. In two studies involving 620 participants, we found that participants who predicted their emotions associated with a future COVID-19 infection anticipated more negative emotions (e.g., fear) than participants who recalled their negative emotions associated with a past infection. Also, in both studies, greater negative emotion was significantly associated with being more likely to have been vaccinated as well as higher intentions to get a booster vaccine.
Meier, with student co-authors Samantha Kateman ’23 and Rachel Nori ’23, and alum co-author Allison Romano ’20, published “Less is More: Mindfulness, Portion Size, and Candy Eating Pleasure” in Food Quality and Preference 103 (January 2023): 104703. Eating candy is pleasurable, but eating candy in large quantities is not recommended. We examined mindful eating of a small versus large portion of candy with 301 participants. When eaten mindfully, pleasure was higher for a small versus large portion of candy. Furthermore, when eaten normally, but not when eaten mindfully, guilt was higher for a large versus small portion of candy. Mindful eating enhances the enjoyment of eating a small portion of candy.
Meier, with co-authors Amanda J. Dillard, Adam K. Fetterman, Li-Jun Ji, and Courtney M. Lappas, published “Religiosity and the Naturalness Bias in Drug and Vaccine Choices” in Journal of Religion and Health 62 (2023): 702–719. Three cross-sectional studies (N = 1,399 US participants) were conducted to examine the impact of religiosity on the naturalness bias in the drug and vaccine domains. The results revealed that participants high versus low in religiosity had stronger preferences for natural versus synthetic drugs and vaccines. Furthermore, participants high versus low in religiosity were less likely to have taken the COVID-19 vaccine, and the natural drug bias was a mediator of this effect.
Meier, with co-authors Courtney M. Lappas, Nicholas Coyne, and Amanda J. Dillard, published “Do Physicians Prefer Natural Drugs? The Natural versus Synthetic Drug Bias in Physicians” in European Journal of Health Psychology 30.1 (June 23, 2022): 40–47. Research has shown that people are biased in favoring natural versus synthetic drugs. This bias occurs even when synthetic drugs are described as safer or more effective than natural drugs. In two studies, we found that physicians exhibit a bias for natural drugs, with physicians also demonstrating a bias for prescribing natural drugs.
Meier, with co-authors Martin Sellbom, Jaime L. Anderson, Brandee E. Goodwin, Rebecca M. Kastner, Rachel C. Rock, Alexandria K. Johnson, and Randall T. Salekin, published “Evaluation of the Moderated-Expression and Differential Configuration Hypotheses in the Context of ‘Successful’ or ‘Non-Criminal’ Psychopathy” in Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment 13.5 (2022): 542–556. The concept of “successful” psychopathy has intrigued the field, yet relatively little actual science exists to understand what makes those high in psychopathic traits more or less successful. The current study examined two views of successful psychopathy, the moderated-expression and differential configuration hypotheses.
Meier, with co-authors L-Jun Ji, Courtney M. Lappas, and Xin-qiang Wang, published “The Naturalness Bias Influences Drug and Vaccine Decisions across Cultures” in Medical Decision Making 43.2 (2022): 252–262. We conducted three studies (N = 1,927) to investigate the naturalness bias with drugs and vaccines across cultures with American, Canadian, and Chinese participants. Chinese participants showed a stronger naturalness bias than Americans did when the medical context was focused on vaccination (but not when it was focused on drugs), and safety concerns mediated this effect.
R.C. Miessler, Digital Initiatives Librarian, Musselman Library, with staff co-authors Clinton Baugess, Research, Instruction, and Information Literacy Librarian, Musselman Library, and Kevin Moore, Research, Instruction, and Online Learning Librarian, Musselman Library, and co-authors Courtney Paddick and Carrie Pirmann, published “Bridging Communities of Practice: Cross-Institutional Collaboration for Undergraduate Digital Scholars” in Undergraduate Research and the Academic Librarian: Case Studies and Best Practices, Volume 2, edited by Merinda Kaye Hensley, Hailley Fargo, and Stephanie Davis-Kahl (Association of College and Research Libraries, 2023). This chapter discusses undergraduate digital scholarship experiences at Gettysburg College and Bucknell University, and how the summer research programs at each school attempted to create cross-institutional communities of practice of their student cohorts.
Salma Monani, Professor and currently Chair, Department of Environmental Studies, with Stephen Rust and Sean Cubitt, co-edited Ecocinema Theory and Practice 2 (New York: Routledge Press, 2022). This collection builds on Ecocinema Theory and Practice 1. Fourteen essays organized in three subsections—“Materialities,” “Discourses,” and “Communities”—explore the evolving preoccupations of ecocinema studies scholars in the last ten years. The collection provides a rich snapshot of the vibrant field of ecocinema research.
William O’Hara, Assistant Professor of Music, Sunderman Conservatory of Music, published “The Techne of YouTube Performance: Musical Structure, Extended Techniques, and Custom Instruments in Solo Pop Covers” in Music Theory Online 28.3 (September 2022, online). This article explores several innovative solo performances on YouTube, analyzing them from both music-theoretical and technological perspectives, and demonstrating what music theorists can learn from popular music performances on social media.
Douglas Page, Assistant Professor of Political Science, with alum co-author Taylor Paulin ’22, published “Revisiting the Lavender Vote” in Electoral Studies 80 (2022): 102543. In an analysis of public opinion data from Western Europe, we show that sexual minorities are similar to heterosexuals in support for Far Left, Center Left, Liberal, Center Right, and Far Right parties. We find that Greens draw disproportionate levels of support from sexual minorities when compared to their competition on the left and right, suggestive of Greens’ appeals to LGB communities.
Page, with co-author Phillip Ayoub, published “When Do Opponents of Gay Rights Mobilize? Explaining Political Participation in Times of Backlash against Liberalism” in Political Research Quarterly 73.3 (June 11, 2019, online). We find that individuals who are tolerant of homosexuality are more likely to participate in states with gay-friendly policies in comparison with intolerant individuals. The reverse also holds: individuals with low education levels who are intolerant of homosexuality are more likely to participate in states espousing political homophobia.
Kevin Pham, Assistant Professor of Political Science, published “Violence and Vietnamese Anticolonialism” in New Political Science 44.1 (2022): 42–57. This essay challenges the idea that violence marks the end of politics. Colonial violence may have marked the failure of politics between colonizer and colonized, but, more interestingly, it also inaugurated two new forms of politics among the colonized: an “exploratory” politics and a “committed” politics in Vietnam.
Pham published “To Tighten or Relax Social Bonds? Vietnamese Criticism and Self-Criticism, and Liberal Self-Exploration” in European Journal of Political Theory (November 7, 2022, online). This essay shows how two Vietnamese thinkers—Ho Chi Minh (1872–1969) and Nguyen Manh Tuong (1909–1997)—can help move an intractable debate about collective responsibility and individual freedom beyond statements of principle to a more pragmatic discussion of what should be done to maintain a healthy polity. They present an alternative to the static standoff, arguing that dynamic oscillation between two activities can forge national fraternal solidarity while also respecting individual freedom when the needs arise: “criticism and self-criticism,” which tightens social bonds, and “liberal self-exploration,” which relaxes social bonds.
VoonChin Phua, Professor of Sociology, with alum co-author Keyana Moody ’17, published “Online Dating in Singapore: The Desire to Have Children” in Sexuality and Culture 23 (2019): 494–506. Using a data set that was collected in 2007 and 2015 from a website for Singapore online dating, we examined the factors influencing whether Singaporeans expressed wanting children in their personals.
Stephanie Sellers, Adjunct Professor of English and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, published Daughters Healing from Family Mobbing: Stories and Approaches to Recover from Shunning, Aggression, and Family Violence (Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 2023). This work is a galvanizing call to end family-based anti-female violence, shaming, and shunning and includes stories by women and LGBTQIA2 people from around the world. Internationally distributed by Penguin Random House, the book defines the concept and practices of Family Mobbing globally.
Tim Shannon, Professor of History, edited French and Indian Cruelty: A Modern Critical Edition, by Peter Williamson (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2023). This is the first scholarly edition of Williamson’s autobiographical account of his travels in eighteenth-century North America. Although Williamson fabricated his Indian captivity, other aspects of his odyssey, including his experiences as an indentured servant, soldier, and prisoner of war, were true.
Jim Udden, Professor and currently Chair, Department of Cinema and Media Studies, published “Hsi Hsih: The Beauty of Beauties (1965): The Grand Mirage of Taiwanese Cinema” in 32 New Takes on Taiwan Cinema, edited by Darrell Davis, Lin Wen-chi, and Yeh Yueh-yu (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2022). This chapter is about an economic emigre from Hong Kong, Li Han-hsiang, who left the Shaw Brothers studio there to form a rival new studio in Taiwan. He overextended himself with the first film, another illustration of why Taiwan could never quite compete with Hong Kong despite certain demographic and geographical advantages.
Kerry Wallach, Associate Professor and currently Chair, Department of German Studies, with Aya Elyada, co-edited German-Jewish Studies: Next Generations (New York: Berghahn Books, 2023). This volume focuses on the relevance of German-Jewish Studies for the twenty-first century. It brings together an interdisciplinary range of contributions that demonstrate different approaches within the field of German-Jewish Studies (e.g., family history, Yiddish, translation, antisemitism, colonialism, digital humanities, gender, exile studies, archives, Holocaust memory, music). Wallach also contributed a chapter, “Art without Borders: Artist Rahel Szalit-Marcus and Jewish Visual Culture,” which offers a preview of her monograph (forthcoming in 2024) on this forgotten artist.
Kerry Walters, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, published Faith Matters: Reflections on the Christian Life (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2019) In a day in which Christians too often reduce faith to mere sentimentality and atheists decry it as superstitious nonsense, Fr. Walters offers a series of reflections intended to show that, indeed, faith matters. Drawn from his popular weekly newspaper column “Faith Matters,” these short meditations explore Christian faith from the perspectives of doctrine, spirituality, ethics, politics, art and science, the saints, and the holy seasons that mark the Christian year and set the rhythm of Christian living.
COMMENTARIES, BLOG POSTS, AND GENERAL-AUDIENCE PUBLICATIONS
Mercedes Valmisa, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, posted “We Are Interwoven Beings” at Aeon (November 25, 2022, online). In this public-facing essay, I write about interwoven, collective agency and its social and political implications drawing on Classical Chinese philosophy.
Devin McKinney, Archives Assistant, Musselman Library, posted “Dylan in Winter, Part II” at Critics at Large (December 22, 2022, online), a review-essay on Folk Music: A Bob Dylan Biography in Seven Songs (2022), by Greil Marcus.
McKinney posted “Dylan in Winter, Part I” at Critics at Large (November 21, 2022, online), a review-essay on The Philosophy of Modern Song (2022), by Bob Dylan.
McKinney posted “Seven Doors on One Side, Seven on the Other” at Critics at Large (November 4, 2022), a review-essay on the 2022 box set rerelease of The Beatles’ 1966 Revolver album.
PROFESSIONAL PAPERS AND PRESENTATIONS
Yasemin Akbaba, Professor of Political Science, was a participant in the panel “The Promise and Peril of a Career at a Liberal Arts Institution” at the Annual Convention of the International Studies Association (ISA), Montreal, Quebec, Canada, March 15–18, 2023. This roundtable panel focused on opportunities and challenges of teaching at a liberal arts institution. Participants discussed student/faculty engagement, cooperation, contention, and creativity within the liberal arts teaching context.
Akbaba was a participant in the panel “Saving Compatriots: What States Do to Support and Protect Their Citizens Abroad" at the Annual Convention of the International Studies Association (ISA), Montreal, Quebec, Canada, March 15–18, 2023. For several decades, the international community has been actively engaged in “saving strangers,” referring to the enforcement of humanitarian norms through humanitarian interventions in order “to rescue non-citizens facing the extreme” (Wheeler 2000). At the same time, protecting one’s own citizens residing abroad could be just as relevant an undertaking. Rescue efforts in the context of regime change in Afghanistan or the invasion in the Ukraine, or the return of citizens that had been stranded abroad during Coronavirus pandemic through repatriation flights, are recent cases in point. This panel focused on how China, Egypt, Germany, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Pakistan, Russia, and Turkey engage with their citizens abroad. Prof. Akbaba's presentation concerned Turkey’s diaspora policy.
Akbaba was a presenter and co-chair of the roundtable panel “Lost and Found: Pandemic Pedagogy and the International Studies Classroom,” St. Augustine, FL, October 7, 2022. Many instructors seem to agree that students returning to the live classroom after the Covid-19 pandemic are engaging differently with the learning experience. This panel explored questions related to both the larger debate about pandemic and post-pandemic pedagogy and our individual experiences as teachers. What have we “lost” in the international studies classroom? Are today’s students more engaged and prepared for classes, or less, and why? Conversely, what have we “found” in the post-pandemic international studies classroom?
Akbaba, with colleague Ozgur Ozdamar, presented a paper titled “Role Theory in Middle East and North Africa” at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association (ISA), Toronto, Ontario, Canada, March 29, 2019. This project uses role theory to analyze the regional transformation initiated by the Arab uprisings with a focus on foreign policy roles of the four major regional powers, i.e., Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.
Akbaba served as a participant in the FPA Distinguished Scholar Roundtable, “Celebrating Cooper Drury,” at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association (ISA), Toronto, Ontario, Canada, March 29, 2019. I gave a talk on the professional achievements of Prof. Cooper Drury, recipient of the FPA Distinguished Scholar Award from the International Studies Association.
Akbaba chaired a panel titled “Quantitative Studies in Religion and International Studies 2: Policy” at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association (ISA), Toronto, Ontario, Canada, March 29, 2019.
Akbaba served as a discussant in a panel titled “New Theoretical Insights and Middle East Studies” at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association (ISA), Toronto, Ontario, Canada, March 29, 2019.
Clinton Baugess, Research, Instruction, and Information Literacy Librarian, Musselman Library, with staff colleague Kerri Odess-Harnish, Director of User Services, Musselman Library, delivered a talk titled “Skipping Stones: The Ripple Effect of Collaborating with a Center for Teaching and Learning” at the annual LOEX (formerly Library Orientation Exchange) Conference, Minneapolis, MN, May 10, 2019. This presentation describes how academic libraries can collaborate with their campus teaching and learning center to support faculty pedagogy and develop students’ information literacy skills.
Meg Blume-Kohout, Assistant Professor of Economics, with student colleague Benjamin J. Durham ’24, presented a paper titled “Protective Effects in Introductory STEM Classrooms: Can Female Instructors Help Retain Female Students in Male-Dominated Classrooms?" at the Annual Meeting of the Southern Economic Association (SEA), New Orleans, LA, November 18–20, 2022. We investigate whether same-gender faculty role models in introductory STEM classes improve STEM major persistence for students in opposite-gender-dominated classrooms, controlling for differences in other student characteristics and across STEM disciplines. Overall, we find no significant effect of classroom composition for female students; however, male students who experience majority-female STEM classrooms are more likely to declare STEM majors if their instructor is also male.
Scott Boddery, Associate Professor of Political Science, gave a presentation titled “Preparing Students for 1L: Hitting the Target or Missing the Mark” at the annual conference of the Northeast Association of Pre-Law Advisors (NAPLA), Boston, MA, June 21, 2019. The presentation took place at the Northeastern University School of Law and highlighted the strides Gettysburg College has taken to implement a deliberate pre-law program.
Alice Brawley Newlin, Assistant Professor of Management, presented a paper titled “Why, and So What? The Work Motivations of Rideshare Gig Workers” as the “Fresh Perspective” closing plenary at the 18th Annual River Cities I-O (RCIO) Psychology Conference, Chattanooga, TN, October 15, 2022. After briefly introducing the gig economy (e.g., driving for Uber) and employment classification, I discuss recent research and the associated implications for practice related to gig work from an organizational psychology perspective.
Rachel Lesser, Assistant Professor of Classics, gave an invited lecture titled “More Siren Songs? Voices of Briseis from Ancient Poetry to Modern Fiction” as part of “Visions of Women in Greece and Rome: A Conference in Honor of Prof. Lillian Doherty” at the University of Maryland, College Park, MD, March 3, 2023. This paper analyzes from a feminist perspective the representation of the mythological character Briseis, Achilles’s enslaved concubine, in three texts—Homer’s Iliad, Ovid’s Heroides 3, and Pat Barker’s novel The Silence of the Girls (2018).
Lesser delivered a public lecture titled “Queer and Straight Time in the Iliad and the Odyssey” for the Classics Department, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, January 19, 2023. This paper investigates the temporalities of the Homeric epics from the perspective of queer theorizations about time. It argues that the Iliad, on the one hand, stages the failure of “straight” reproductive futurity, queerly collapsing time in a violent yet ecstatic present and offering the alternative futurity of fame (kleos). The Odyssey, on the other hand, affirms reproductive futurity and links it with kleos, progressing in mostly linear time to the rehabilitation of Odysseus’s threatened patriliny.
VoonChin Phua, Professor of Sociology, with alum colleague Jesse E. Shircliff ’19, presented a paper titled “Singapore’s Cultural Constructions” at the 1st International Conference on Tourism, Culture and Architecture, Safranbolu, Turkey, October 24–27, 2018. In this paper, we examine the narratives of built environment from the perspectives of tourists and locals.
Sarah Principato, Professor and currently Thompson Chair, Department of Environmental Studies, with student colleagues Danielle Kleinberg ’23 and Tessa McDonald ’23, delivered a paper titled “An Investigation of Water Quality in Rock Creek, Adams County, PA: Impact of Treated Wastewater, Agriculture, Urbanization, and Riparian Buffers” at the Joint Southeastern & Northeastern Section Meeting of the Geological Society of America (GSA), Reston, VA, March 18, 2023. This project focuses on the water quality of part of Rock Creek, which flows through Adams County, PA. A variety of factors were measured in the field and in the lab including temperature, pH, electrical conductivity, total dissolved solids, Nitrate-N, phosphate, and ammonia concentrations. Iron, zinc, phosphorus, and arsenic concentrations were measured for select samples using inductively-coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES). Water quality meets EPA standards along at the sites measured.
Principato, McDonald, and Kleinberg, with colleagues Joseph Licciardi, Ívar Örn Benediktsson, Nína Arardóttir, and Skafti Brynjólfsson, presented a paper titled “Application of the Schmidt Hammer relative age dating technique in Iceland” at the Joint Southeastern & Northeastern Section Meeting of the Geological Society of America (GSA), Reston, VA, March 18, 2023. With colleagues from the University of New Hampshire and the University of Iceland, we are trying to understand the glacial history of part of NE Iceland. In this project, we evaluate the effectiveness of the Schmidt Hammer as a relative dating tool. It worked well in distinguishing moraines from the somewhat recent Little Ice Age compared to older moraines in the northeast, likely associated with retreat from the last glacial maximum.
Virginia Schein, Professor Emerita of Management and Psychology, gave an invited talk titled “Women at the Top: From Gender Bias to Gender Balance” at the United Nations’ Twelfth Annual Psychology Day, United Nations Headquarters, New York, NY, April 25, 2019. The theme of the program was “The Time is Now: Psychological Contributions to Global Gender Equ[al]ity.” Schein described her pioneering research on gender stereotyping as a psychological barrier to women’s advancement in management, then considered the implications of this barrier by exploring the question: If we had a more balanced representation of women in positions of power and influence, would it matter?
Megan Adamson Sijapati, Professor of Religious Studies, gave an invited talk titled “Urban Religion and Cosmopolitanism in a Himalayan City: Kathmandu” as part of the Peace, Justice, and Human Rights lecture series at the Harriet Wilkes Honors College of Florida Atlantic University, Jupiter, FL, September 8, 2022. In this talk, I discussed the politics of invisibility and identity performance among Kathmandu’s Muslim and LGBTQ communities, and considered how urban religiosity for non-majority communities is shaped by these two dynamics.
Carolyn S. Snively, Professor Emerita of Classics, delivered a presentation titled “The Episcopal Complex at Golemo Gradište, Konjuh (North Macedonia)” as part of a BEMA online seminar for the Balkan Heritage Foundation, March 4, 2023. The lecture provided a summary of what is known about the anonymous Late Antique city at Golemo Gradište, with emphasis on the evidence for it being the seat of a bishop and on the episcopal complex consisting of a basilica, a residence, and an unidentified square building that connected basilica and residence. A question-and-answer period followed the lecture.
Snively delivered a presentation titled “Archaeological Excavation at Golemo Gradište, Konjuh, North Macedonia, 2018–2022” at the Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA), New Orleans, LA, January 6, 2023. The recent discoveries at the site were summarized; they include the continuing investigation of the episcopal complex and a possible public square on the northern terrace of the site.
Snively delivered a presentation titled “Baptisteries and Baptism in the Prefecture of Eastern Illyricum” as part of a symposium in honor of Blaga Aleksova, “From Late Antique to the Middle Ages: Archaeological Views in Macedonia,” sponsored by the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Skopje, Macedonia, December 5–6, 2022. The reason why the number of baptisteries known in each of the Northern provinces in the Prefecture of Eastern Illyricum varies considerably was considered, as well as architectural features that may point to local customs.
Snively delivered a presentation titled “Roman Provinces on the Territory of the Republic of North Macedonia, and the Problem of their Borders” at the 11th Macedonian-North American Conference on Macedonian Studies (MNACMS), Tempe, AZ, November 4–7, 2022. The Roman and Late Antique provinces that once existed on the territory of modern North Macedonia were identified and located on a map. The evidence for the disputed border between the provinces of Dardania and Dacia Mediterranea was considered.
PROFESSIONAL DISTINCTIONS & AWARDS
VoonChin Phua, Professor of Sociology, with alum colleague Jesse E. Shircliff ’19, received the Best Paper Award at the 1st International Conference on Tourism, Culture and Architecture, Safranbolu, Turkey, October 2018. In our paper, “Singapore’s Cultural Constructions,” we examine the narratives of Singapore’s built environment from the perspectives of tourists and locals.
Carolyn S. Snively, Professor Emerita of Classics, received the Blaže Koneski International Recognition Award from the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Skopje, Macedonia, October 7, 2022. The award, which recognizes special contributions to the development of science, culture, and art in Macedonia, honors Snively’s involvement in archaeology and related fields in Macedonia for fifty years, especially at the sites of Stobi and Golemo Gradište, Konjuh.
ACADEMIC EXTERNAL DIVISION GRANT AWARDS
September 19, 2022 – April 14, 2023
Josef Brandauer, Associate Professor of Health Sciences and currently Director, Johnson Center for Creative Teaching and Learning; Kathy R. Berenson, Associate Professor of Psychology; Kurt Andresen, Professor of Physics; Darren Glass, Associate Provost for Academic Assessment, Dean of Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Computer Science, and Professor of Mathematics; and Alex Trillo, Associate Professor of Biology
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, “IE3 Learning Community Cluster 4: Meaningful Evaluation of Effective and Inclusive Teaching through Changes in Policy, Effective Instructor Development, and Optimal Sources of Evidence” ($493,065)
Jenny Dumont, Associate Professor of Spanish
- Institute of International Education (IIE)/Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES), Fulbright to conduct linguistics research and teaching in Ecuador
Darren Glass; Kate Buettner, Associate Professor of Chemistry; Dan White, Lecturer in Computer Science; and Eric Remy, Director of Educational Technology
- George I. Alden Trust, construction of a Quantitative Resource Center (QRC) on the lower level of Glatfelter Hall ($175,000)