Spring 2019 Faculty Updates

Visiting Assistant Professor of Writing and Writing Fellow Eli Anders presented "Feeding Convalescent Bodies: Nutrition Science and the Art of Cookery in Late Victorian England" at the American Association for the History of Medicine meeting in Columbus, Ohio.

Assistant Professor of Economics Carola Binder was an invited speaker at the Annual Research Conference of the National Bank of Ukraine, where she presented "Central Bank Communications: From Mystery to Transparency." While in Kyiv, she also gave a lecture at the Institute of International Relations at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. Additionally, her paper "Inequality and the Inflation Tax" was published in the Journal of Macroeconomics.

Associate Professor of Political Science Craig Borowiak co-authored the article “Commoning and the Politics of Solidarity: Transformational Responses to Poverty” in Geoforum. Borowiak also co-authored “Taxi Co-ops versus Uber: Struggles for Workplace Democracy in the Sharing Economy” in the Journal of Labor and Society and published “Poverty in Transit: Uber, Taxi Coops, and the Struggle over Philadelphia's Transportation Economy” in Antipode: a Radical Journal of Geography.

Professor Emeritus of Spanish and Comparative Literature Israel Burshatin read his paper "'Took up the habit of man'— The Céspedes Case, from the Inquisition to A/O, by Cabello/Carceller" at the colloquium “Bonded Labor, Bonded World: Slavery and Gender in the Early Modern Age” held at Rutgers-New Brunswick. He presented another paper, "Gendered Spaces and the Discontents of Early Modern Biopower in Cervantes, 'El celoso extremeño'" at the annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, held in Toronto.

Assistant Professor of Linguistics Jane Chandlee had a presentation at the 42nd Generative Linguistics in the Old World (GLOW) conference, “Learning with Locality Across Speech and Sign,” co-authored with Jonathan Rawski of Stony Brook University, at the Rules and Learning Strategies in the Acquisition of Signed and Spoken Phonologies workshop. She co-authored with Adam Jardine the paper “Autosegmental input strictly local functions,” published in the journal Transactions of the Association for Computational Linguistics.

Associate Professor Lou Charkoudian '03 published a manuscript, "Tracking Carrier Protein Motions with Raman Spectroscopy," in Nature Communications with Professor Casey Londergan and Haverford graduates Sam Epstein '19 and Emily Winesett '16. Charkoudian also gave invited talks at the 2019 Frontiers at the Chemistry Biology Interface symposium, the National Institutes of Health, the University of the Sciences, and Emory University. She co-led the 2019 Failure as a part of Learning: a Mindset Education network "FLAMEnet" workshop in Atlanta, Georgia.

Ruth Marshall Magill Professor of Music Curt Cacioppo was showcased on a WRTI-FM 90.1 Performance Studio broadcast, hosted by Debra Lew Harder. Several of Cacioppo’s compositions were performed at festivals in Bari and Lecce, Italy; in Long Beach, Calif.,  in conjunction with the Cole Conservatory at CSULB; at Lehigh University; and as part of Haverford’s Music & Conversation series; in Memphis, Tenn., by the University of Memphis Symphony Orchestra; on Lyric Fest concerts at Haverford and in New York City; and on Carnegie Hall’s “Migrations” festival series. His Premieres & Encores retrospective program at the College contained six works, including world premieres of Faust Narrative No. 2, which he performed with Italian violin virtuoso Francesco D’Orazio, and Trio for Violin, Horn and Cello, which he performed with D’Orazio and Philadelphia Orchestra principal horn emeritus David Wetherill. The renowned American baritone William Sharp and pianist Wan-Chi Su gave the Philadelphia premiere of Cacioppo’s Walt Whitman setting (I, madly struggling, cry) on this same program. As composer, Cacioppo has been invited by the Tchaikovsky Center for Musical Culture in St. Petersburg, Russia, to compose a new piece for the upcoming Tchaikovsky Festival. As pianist, he received the dedication of a new solo work, Le barche oscure, by award-winning Italian composer Roberto de Mattia. Cacioppo also produced two new YouTube videos, of his Whitman setting Red Jacket/Yonnondio at and his synaesthetic collaboration Ombre allungate with composer Franco Cavallone and artist Lia Laterza. He also offered a masterclass on his music at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University.

Associate Professor of Spanish Aurelia Gómez Unamuno has been organizing the colloquium “Ink and Fire: The Testimonies of Former Guerrilla Women in Mexico’s 1970s,” which was held at Center of Interdisciplinary Research in Sciences and Humanities (CEIICH) of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). The participants, including scholars and former guerrilla women, discussed the overlooked women’s role in Mexico's armed struggle in the 1970’s, the emergence of female testimonies after 2001, as well as the possibility that a gender approach could provide for revisiting memory and dismantling a hegemonic narrative of the past. This is the first event in Mexico where scholars and former guerrilla women held a conversation about Marxism, armed struggle, and feminism. She was also invited by historian Eugenia Allier-Montaño to deliver the talk “Emergent Memories: The Testimonies of Guerrilla Women in Mexico’s 1970s”, as part of the activities of the Seminar of History of the Present Time. Professor Rodolfo Gamiño (of Universidad Iberoamericana) acted as discussant, and it was held at the Social Sciences Research Institute (IIS) of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy Daniel Grin attended the April APS meeting in Denver, Colo., where he gave a talk on long-wavelength modulations of the cosmic microwave background (the afterglow of the big bang) due to spatial fluctuations in fundamental "constants" and variations in the primordial ratio of dark to ordinary matter.

Assistant Professor of Biology Roshan Jain presented his lab's current research, featuring the senior thesis work of Graham Peet '19, in invited talks at North Carolina State University, the Champalimaud Center for the Unknown (Lisbon, Portugal), the 5th Paris Zebrafish Neuroscience Meeting at the Sorbonne University, the 8th Strategic Conference of Zebrafish Investigators (Pacific Grove, CA), and the 21st Annual Genes, Brain, & Behavior Meeting (Edinburgh, UK). He also served as a panelist at a career development workshop in the latter conference.

Professor of Physics and Astronomy Suzanne Amador Kane published two papers: “How conspicuous are peacock and other colorful feathers in the eyes of mammalian predators?” in PLOS ONE, with Yuchao Wang ’20, Rui Fang ’18, Yabin Lu ’18, and “Making physics courses accessible to blind students: strategies for course administration, class meetings and course materials” in The Physics Teacher, with Megan Holt '14 and Daniel Gillen ’17. Kane, along with research students Rebeckah Fussell ’19 and Ayesha Bhikha ’20, presented a poster on pattern formation and, with research student Daniel Van Beveren ’20, a poster on the biomechanics of feather crests at the 2019 American Physical Society March Meeting in Boston.

Associate Professor of History Alexander Kitroeff published his book The Greeks and the Making of Modern Egypt (The American University in Cairo Press, 2019).

Visiting Assistant Professor Nimisha Ladva appeared on the PBS show Stories from the Stage. (Her segment begins at 1:28.)

Professor Emeritus of History Emma Lapsansky-Werner published her essay “Quaker Life and Communities at the Turn of the Eighteenth Century,” in The Quakers, 1656-1723: The Evolution of an Alternative Community, edited by Rosemary Moore and Richard Allen (Penn State U Press, 2019). She also published a review of Lisa A. Lindsay’s book Atlantic Bonds: A Nineteenth-Century Odyssey from America to Africa in Journal of American History. She delivered public lectures on Quaker topics for Radnor Library, Kennett Square Underground Railroad group, and Kendal Retirement home. Additionally, she served on the Advisory Board of the Mid-Atlantic Center for Early American Studies and is serving as a guest editor for the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography fall 2020 issue. Similarly, she served on the grant-advisory board of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society and on the School Board of Lansdowne Friends' School.

Assistant Professor of Linguistics Brook Lillehaugen received a Digital Extension Grant for $149,922.26 from the American Council of Learned Societies for her project “Ticha: advancing community-engaged digital scholarship.” She also received Haverford’s Innovation in Teaching Award. She published her essay “Tweeting in Zapotec: social media as a tool for language activists” in Indigenous Interfaces: Spaces, Technology, and Social Networks in Mexico and Central America, edited by Jennifer Carolina Gómez Menjívar and Gloria E. Chacón (University of Arizona Press, 2019). She gave an interview in Compact Nation Podcast GlobalSL Series Episode 1: “Talking Dictionaries and Language Advocacy.” She was on the panel “Designing ADRELA: The Alliance for Digital Research on Early Latin America” and she co-presented the talk “Zapotec digital collections, connections through Twitter, and undergraduate classrooms” with Xóchitl Flores-Marcial for the panel “Digital Pedagogy & Colonial Latin-Luso America,” both at the annual meeting of the Latin American Society of America (LASA) in Boston. With co-presenters Felipe H. Lopez ’18 and Sabea K. Evans ’18, she presented “Dizhsa Nabani— Lengua Viva—Living Language: language representation as an intervention” at the 7th Annual Screening Scholarship Media Festival in Philadelphia. She gave two invited talks: “Resisting threats to linguistic diversity: lessons from Zapotec language activism” at the annual meeting of the National Council on Interpreting in Health Care in Philadelphia, and “The Ticha Project & engaged digital scholarship” for the DH Working Group in the Department of History at the University of Pennsylvania. She and Felipe. H. Lopez gave the invited talk “Engaged digital scholarship: the Ticha Project and Zapotec language archival texts” at the John Carter Brown Library in Providence. She, Lopez, and Evans gave the keynote address “Language, Identity, and Engaged Scholarship” for the Lynton Colloquium at their Eastern Region Campus Compact Conference in Providence.

Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy Karen Masters was re-elected as spokesperson of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) for a term that will run until the end of December 2020. Masters traveled to Oxford in early April to attend the collaboration meeting of the “MaNGA” Project (Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory, which is part of SDSS-IV). While at Oxford, she also gave a public lecture on “Mapping the Universe.” She also supported Professor Willie Williams with his latest photographic exhibit, which opened on May 31.

T. Wistar Brown Professor of Philosophy Danielle Macbeth published her essay “Wittgenstein and Brandom on Normativity and Sociality" in the journal Disputatio: Philosophical Research Bulletin. She also presented some of her research under the title "Teaching Logic Historically" at the 19th Brazilian Logic Conference of the Sociedade Brasileira de Logica in Joao Pessoa, Brazil.

Associate Professor of Political Science Barak Mendelsohn published his article “The Battle for Algeria: Explaining Organizational Interaction Among Armed Non-State Actors” in the journal Studies in Conflict and Terrorism. He also presented the papers “Dancing with Jihadis: Syria’s Cooperation with al-Qaeda After 2003” and “Looking Beyond the Framework of State-Sponsored Terrorism: Understanding States’ Relations with Armed Nonstate Actors” at the annual convention of the International Studies Association (ISA).

Associate Professor and Chair of Classics Bret Mulligan delivered his lecture, "Pathography and Paradox: Disease as a Tool of Social Exclusion and Cohesion in Antiquity" at the Tri-Co Medical Humanities Conference at Swarthmore College.

Professor of Chemistry Alexander Norquist co-authored a paper, “Templated vanadium tellurites: identifying the effects of low density attractions on inorganic layer topology," in the Journal of Solid State Chemistry with Xiwen Jia ’19 and Jessica Dixon ’16.

Visiting Professor of Independent College Programs and Health Studies Carol Schilling presented her talk “Humanities in a Biomedical Key” at the Tri-Co Medical Humanities Network’s Symposium at Swarthmore College.

Assistant Professor of East Asian Languages & Cultures Erin Schoneveld published the article “Naomi Kawase’s Cinema of Place” for a special issue of Arts Journal on Japanese Transnational Cinema.

Associate Professor of English Asali Solomon published her story short story “Delandria” in McSweeney's Quarterly, issue 55. She also published her essay “Microaggressions and Conversations with the Spirit World” in the anthology How We Fight White Supremacy: A Field Guide to Resistance (Bold Type Books), edited by Akiba Solomon and Kenrya Rankin. Solomon was the opening speaker of the Philadelphia Writers’ Conference in June.

Associate Professor of Peace, Justice, and Human Rights Jill Stauffer gave an invited talk, “‘Truth is in multiple times’: Levinas, skepticism, and decolonizing reason,” at Swarthmore for their philosophy colloquium. She presented the paper “‘You people talk from paper’: Indigenous law, western legalism, and the cultural variability of law’s materials” at the Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. She gave the keynote address, “Mis/understanding in community: time, skepticism, and settler colonial subjects,” for the Greater Philadelphia Philosophy Consortium at Villanova University. She was also interviewed on the podcast New Books in Philosophy on the New Books Network about her book Ethical Loneliness.

Steere Professor of Quaker Studies David Harrington Watt gave a lecture on “The Quaker Peace Testimony in the 20th Century” at the Friend Historical Library in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.

Assistant Professor of Biology Kristen Whalen published a study, "Bacterial alkylquinolone signaling contributes to structuring microbial communities in the ocean," in the journal Microbiome. Student co-authors on this work include Anna Schrecengost ’18, Yongjie Gao ’20, and Nicole Giannetti ’18.

Associate Professor of Chemistry and Environmental Studies Helen White published a research paper, “Examining inputs of biogenic and oil-derived hydrocarbons in surface waters following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill,” in the journal ACS Earth and Space Chemistry with Charlie Marx ’20 and collaborators from WHOI and UCSB. At Drexel University’s Biodiversity, Earth & Environmental Science Research Seminar, White presented research on “Developing techniques for rapid characterization of oil residues in the marine environment.” For the past two years, she has worked as part of a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine study writing a report examining and synthesizing what has been learned about the use of chemical dispersants since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The report was just released to the public and Science published an article about the study.

Audrey A. and John L. Dusseau Professor in the Humanities and  Professor of Fine Arts William Williams had two photographs included in the exhibit AAMP on Paper: Selections from the Permanent Collection  at the African American Museum of Philadelphia.

Associate Professor of Political Science Susanna Wing presented her paper “Regional and Local Actors in the Sahel: Navigating Multiple Security Crises” at the Mass Migration in Africa Open Forum for NATO in Naples Italy, and her paper “Constitutionalism Constrained: The constitutional court and defense of human rights in Benin,” co-authored with Alice Kang (U. of Nebraska), at the Law and Society Association Annual Meeting. Wing also presented at the United Nations as part of a joint initiative of the Security Sector Reform Unit (SSRU) of the Office of Rule of Law and Security Institutions (OROLSI) in the UN Department of Peace Operations (DPO), United Nations Peacekeeping Mission to Mali (MINUSMA) and the Conflict Prevention and Peace Forum (CPPF) of the Social Science Research Council. Wing was also interviewed by the BBC and appeared on The Debate on France 24 television to discuss recent events in Mali and Benin.

Assistant Professor of Music and Director of Choral and Vocal Studies Nathan Zullinger was awarded a faculty grant for an upcoming choral recording project in January 2020. Zullinger published a review of a new audio recording by the Kinnara Ensemble in the Choral Journal. He also conducted a workshop for the choirs at Abington Friends High School.

Associate Professor of English Christina Zwarg published her article “Temporal Effects: Trauma, Margaret Fuller and ‘Graphicality’ in Poe” in The Oxford Handbook of Edgar Allan Poe (Oxford UP, 2019), edited by J. Gerald Kennedy and Scott Peeples. She also presented her paper "Glimpsing Goethe's Corpse: Translating the "Now" in Fuller's Eckermann" at the American Literature Association Conference in Boston.

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