Winter 2011 Faculty Updates

Professor of French Koffi Anyinefa gave a talk called“L'Illisible chez Kossi Efoui” at a conference on“Texte africain francophone et modernité,” October 7-9 at the Université Laval, Québec.

Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow Farid Azfar presented a paper entitled“The Active Mind in 1730s England” at the North East Conference on British Studies, September 24-26 in Burlington, Vt.

The work of Associate Professor of Fine Arts Markus Baenziger is featured in the exhibition“Outsight Inn, 28 Solo Projects” which runs October 23-February 12 at Rupert Ravens Contemporary in Newark, New Jersey.

Visiting Assistant Professor of German Imke Brust was a presenter on the panel“New Reflections on the Wall: Exploring Post-Wall Germany Through the Holes in the Fence” and a commentator on the panel“Activists, Groupies, Victims, and Heroes: Gender Constellations in Contemporary Films on Terrorism” at the German Studies Association 34th Annual Conference, October 7-10 in Oakland, Calif.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology Hilary Dick was the co-organizer, chair, and discussant for a panel entitled“Interpellation across Borders” at the Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association, November 18-21 in New Orleans.

Assistant Professor of History Andrew Friedman presented a paper entitled“Covert Capital: The CIA Headquarters and the Restructuring of Metropolitan Washington,” on a panel he organized called“Cultural Landscapes of American Empire” at the Urban History Association Biennial Conference, October 20-23 in Las Vegas. Friedman also delivered a paper called“U.S. Imperial Tehran in Exile: Reza Pahlavi in the CIA's Northern Virginia Suburbs” on the panel“Stories That Don't End” at the American Studies Association Annual Meeting, November 17-21 in San Antonio, Texas.

Professor of Anthropology Laurie Kain Hart presented a paper entitled“Bringing the Neighborhood Down: Ethnographic Notes on ‘Hypersegregation' in North Philadelphia” at the Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association, November 17-21 in New Orleans.

Visiting Instructor of Religion Jennifer Heckart presented two papers at the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, October 29-November 1, in Atlanta, Ga. The first,“What's Justice Got to Do With It?: Truth, Reconciliation, and Rene Girard in South Africa,” was presented to the Colloquium on Religion and Violence. The second, for the Bonhoeffer: Theology and Social Analysis Group, was entitled“'God Gathers Up Again With Us Our Past': Memory and Time in Bonhoeffer's Letters and Papers from Prison.”

Assistant Professor of Biology Rachel Hoang presented a research poster entitled“Evolution of the folded gastrulation gene” co-authored with Haverford students Kim Dao '09, Mitra Eghbal '08, Tovah Tripp'08, and Rutwik Kharkar '10 at a meeting of the Society For Developmental Biology, June 4-6 in Baltimore. She also served as a judge of post-doc and graduate student presentations for the“Best Presentation” prizes.

Associate Professor of Religion Tracey Hucks was announced as the new Program Unit Co-Chair for the Womanist Approaches to Religion and Society Group at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion, October 29-November 2 in Atlanta, Ga.

Associate Professor of History Alexander Kitroeff served on a doctoral dissertation examination committee and gave a workshop on Greek American studies to faculty and graduate students at the University of Crete in Rethymno, Crete, October 7-8.

Professor Emeritus of History Emma Lapsansky-Werner presented a paper called“Benjamin Coates and the Quaker Dream of African Redemption” at a conference entitled“Back to Africa: Diaspora Communities and Ideologies,” November 15-16 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

An article co-authored by Associate Professor of Chemistry Alex Norquist and Elizabeth Kaufman '11 titled“A slow leak synthetic route to organically templated gallium sulfates” was published in the journal Crystal Growth and Design, Vol. 10. In November, Norquist was also awarded a Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, which recognizes“accomplishment in scholarly research with undergraduates, as well as a compelling commitment to teaching,” and includes an unrestricted research grant of $60,000.

Assistant Professor of Political Science Zachary Oberfield gave a talk called“Socialization or Self-Selection? How Police Officers Develop Their Views About Using Force” at the meeting of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, November 5-6 in Boston. Assistant Professor of Economics David Owens gave a talk entitled“An Unlucky Feeling: Overconfidence and Noisy Feedback” at both the University of Delaware Economic Department's seminar series on October 26 and the 2010 North American ESA Conference, November 11-13 in Tucson, Ariz.

Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature Deborah Roberts presented a paper called“A Girl who was Raped Away: Persephone's Fate in Myth Books for Children” at the Classical Association of the Atlantic States fall meeting, October 7-9 in Newark, N.J. She also contributed chapters to two books:“Water-Jug and Plover's Feather: Rudyard Kipling's India in Rosemary Sutcliff's Roman Britain,” in E. Hall and P. Vasunia, eds., India, Greece, and Rome 1757-2007 (London: Institute of Classical Studies 2010); and“Reading Antigone in Translation: Text, Paratext, Intertext,” in S.E. Wilmer and A. Zukauskaite, eds., Interrogating Antigone in Postmodern Criticism and Performance (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2010).

An article by Associate Professor of German Ulrich Schonherr entitled“Out of Tune: Music, Postwar Politics, and Edgar Reitz's ‘Die Zweite Heimat'” was published in the journal New German Critique, Vol. 110, Summer 2010, 107-124.

Assistant Professor of Chemistry Joshua Schrier gave a chemistry seminar talk at Bryn Mawr College entitled“Improving graphene with scissors and a hole-punch” on November 13.

Assistant Professor of Anthropology Jesse Weaver Shipley was the Special Guest Editor of and contributor to the Summer 2010 issue of Anthropological Quarterly entitled“Ethics of Scale: Relocating Politics After Liberation.”  He also gave an invited lecture at University of Vermont for the Department of Religion on October 12 entitled“Hip Hop Ontologies: The production of value in the technological circulation of African popular music.” He organized a panel called“Oratorical Practice: Voice, Politics, Poetics,” and presented two research papers—“The Fame of Ghana: Value Transformations and the Executioner's Words” and“Speaking Freedom: Kwame Nkrumah from Speaking Agent to Musical Icon”—at the Annual Meetings of the American Anthropology Association, November 17-21 in New Orleans.

Carol Solomon, Visiting Associate Professor of Art History, Independent College Programs, gave a lecture entitled“Crossings: Art and Identity in a Global Society” as an invited speaker in the Bryn Mawr Visual Studies Colloquium on September 15.  She was also an invited speaker at the Festival international de l'art contemporain, which took place at the Museé National d'Art Moderne et Contemporain in Algiers, Algeria from December 1- 5.  Her paper was entitled“L'identité, l'artiste transnational, et la nouvelle avant-garde.”

Assistant Professor of English Theresa Tensuan presented a paper entitled“Graphic Illustrations of People in the Missionary Position! (or, representations of conversion narratives from The Book of Genesis, Illustrated to A.D.: After the Deluge)” at the Ohio State University Festival of Cartoon Art: Humor, Play and Identity in Comics - Academic Perspectives, October 14-17 at Ohio State University in Columbus.

Assistant Professor of Chemistry Helen White gave a talk called“Examining the distribution of organic contaminants in different size fractions in sediments” at City University of Hong Kong as part of the 6th International Conference on Marine Pollution and Ecotoxicology, May 31-June 3. She also presented a paper entitled“Isotopic Constraints on the origin and fate of natural & anthropogenic organic compounds in marine sediments” at Hong Kong University on June 4. In addition, she gave a talk called“Investigating oil in the marine environment” at Reed College in Oregon on October 14.

Professor of Fine Arts William Williams led a discussion panel on the role of photograph collections at colleges and university museums at the Oracle Annual Conference of Photography Curators, November 9-16 at Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

Assistant Professor of Political Science Susanna Wing presented a paper entitled“On Regendering the State: Tradition, Modernity and Family Law in Sub-Saharan Africa” at the African Studies Association Annual Meeting, November 17-21 in San Francisco. She also co-authored a paper called“Comparative Assessment of Decentralization in Africa,” which was published in December by the United States Agency for International Development.

Assistant Professor of Religion Travis Zadeh was a participant in an invitation only symposium on the study of the Qur'an and delivered a paper called“'Safe in the Language of His Own People': Isfarā'Ä«nÄ«'s Tāj al-tarājim and the Rise of Persian Commentaries of the Qur'an” at the American Academy of Religion / IIS Qur'anic Studies Symposium, October 29 and 31 in Atlanta, Ga.

Associate Professor of English Christina Zwarg was a member of the Institute Faculty at the“Futures of American Studies Conference” at Dartmouth College in Hanover N.H., June 21-27. She gave a plenary talk entitled“The State of Crisis, The Crisis of State: Rethinking Affect in Douglass and Du Bois.” In October her essay“Vigorous Currents, Painful Archives: The Production of Affect and History in Poe's ‘Tale of the Ragged Mountains'” was published in Poe Studies: History, Theory, Interpretation, 43:1 (October 2010), 3-33.