Fall 2017 Faculty Notes
Justin Breidenbach, assistant professor of accounting, gave a lecture titled “Has Business Gone to Pot? The Business and Accounting Side of the State Legalized Marijuana Industry” at Lake Erie College in April. Recently, he has been researching how some producers of legal marijuana are unable to deduct many routine expenses from their federal taxes and how they struggle to find banks willing to manage their accounts.
Andrew Busch, assistant professor of health and human kinetics, presented his dissertation on protecting baseball players from upper-extremity injuries at the Ohio High School Baseball Coaches Association annual conference in Columbus in January. He also spoke last fall at the Graham School in Columbus through the Faculty Speaker’s Bureau. He was the first OWU faculty member selected to speak as part of that bureau.
Amy Butcher, assistant professor of English, enjoyed publication of three essays in March. “Bare Necessities” a Harper’s Postcard published on March 8, details what she found in unexpectedly normal Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, the largest and most remote oil field in the United States. “What a Third Grade Geography Lesson Taught Me About Women’s Place in the World” appeared in The Washington Post on March 8, and “How the Depressed Find Solace on Yik Yak, Believe It or Not” appeared in the New York Times opinion section on March 23.
David Caplan, Charles M. Weis Professor of English, associate director of creative writing, and poet, edited the book On Rhyme (Liege Press, 2017), which includes essays exploring rhyme throughout history by scholars in the United States and Britain. The book highlights rhyme’s complexity, suggesting new avenues for research and methodologies. Caplan has twice served as Fulbright Lecturer in American Literature at the University of Liège, where the press is housed. The press also published a French edition of his book Questions of Possibility: Contemporary Poetry and Poetic Form (2016). Caplan also appeared on the March 3 edition of the national “Academic Minute” radio program, in which he shared his thoughts on “Is Hip-Hop Poetry?” The segment is available at academicminute.org.
Cynthia Cetlin, professor of fine arts, and Wyatt Hall ’17 were among the artists selected to exhibit works in the Ohio Designer Craftsmen “Best of 2017” showcase in May and June at the Ohio Craft Museum in Columbus and through Sept. 9 at the Southern Ohio Museum in Portsmouth. The event showcases works in clay, glass, fiber, wood, metal, and mixed media – all created by Ohio Designer Craftsmen artists.
Lee Fratantuono, professor and chair of the Classics Program, is co-editor of Pushing the Boundaries of Historia, the latest title in the Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies series. He collaborated on the new book with Mary English, professor of classics and general humanities at Montclair State University in New Jersey. Fratantuono’s own essay in the volume examines early Roman hero Marcus Furius Camillus and Roman historian Livy.
Bob Gitter, professor of economics, and Rachel Tallmadge ’14 had their article “The Determinants of Human Trafficking in the European Union” accepted for publication by The Journal of Human Trafficking. The work grew out of Tallmadge’s independent study with Gitter. They found that legalizing prostitution increased the level of trafficking in a nation. Gitter also published “Ohio Wage Match Project” in Behavioral Health Trends in Ohio, which examined employment of Ohioans diagnosed with behavioral health issues, and the entry “The Economic Impact of Immigration” in The American Middle Class: An Economic Encyclopedia of Progress and Poverty.
James Franklin, professor of politics and government, was an invited plenary speaker at the first San Diego State University Conference on Social Movements and Protest, held in May. He presented a paper entitled “Protest Waves and Authoritarian Regimes: Repression and Protest Outcomes” from his broader long-term project studying 302 protest waves around the world between 1979 and 2011. The paper focused on 10 protest waves from three separate regions and time periods: Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile in the 1980s; China, Mongolia, and Taiwan from 1989 to 1991; and Serbia (two separate waves), Ukraine, and Belarus from 1996 to 2006.
Jennifer Jolley, assistant professor of music, saw her solo piano piece “Recomposing Scriabin” premiered by Kristofer Rucinski as part of the Scriabin Response Project at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music on Feb. 1. Her new wind ensemble piece “The Eyes of the World Are Upon You” had its world premiere by the University of Texas at Austin Wind Ensemble on March 5. Her new song “Shine a Light on Our Rights”, commissioned by the Canales Project and dedicated to Nadia Bushnaq and Vital Voices, premiered at the House of Sweden as part of Vital Voices program “This I choose…” in Washington, D.C., on March 7. Jolley also presented as part of the Computing in the Arts: Curricular Innovations and Results panel (along with Alan Zaring, professor of math and computer science) at the Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education 2017 conference in Seattle on March 9 and participated in two panel presentations at the 2017 College Band Directors National Association Conference in Kansas City, Mo., in March. Her piano trio “The Lives and Opinions of Literary Cats” was premiered by the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble as part of its “Brahms Through the Looking Glass” concert at the Berkeley Piano Club in March. She presented a lecture on her “Cats” piece at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music on April 21.
Sean Kay, professor of politics and government and chair of the International Studies Program, published the book Rockin’ the Free World!: How the Rock & Roll Revolution Changed America and the World (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016). The book explores how rock music has influenced issues ranging from racial justice and gender equality to political revolution and antiwar activism. It takes readers inside “Bob Dylan’s America” and shows how this vision linked the rock ‘n’ roll revolution to American values of freedom, equality, human rights, and peace while tracing how those values have spread globally. The book is based on dozens of interviews with musicians and journalists and people running the business side of rock music.
Stephanie Merkel, associate professor of comparative literature, presented a lecture in February at the Bexley Public Library on “The Russian Wondertale. A Lecture with Recipes.” It was hosted by librarian Danielle Bernert ’13.
Randolph Quaye, associate professor of black world studies, has been awarded his second Fulbright Scholarship to conduct research into healthcare financing in East Africa and assist Tanzania’s University of Dar Es Salaam with its master’s degree program in public health. In addition, his paper “Assessing the Role of GPs in Nordic Health Care Systems,” published in Leadership in Health Services, was selected by the journal’s editorial team as a highly commended paper in the 2017 Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence.
Anne Sokolsky, associate professor of comparative literature, gave two presentations in the spring: “The Lytton Report and Other Aspects of Sino-Japanese Relations Through the Lens of One American Journalist – George E. Sokolsky,” at the Midwest Japan Seminar at the University of Memphis in February, and “Myths of the Oriental Woman: Stereotypes of Asian Women and the Way They Have Fought Back,” at Mount Mercy College, sponsored by the Asian Network Speakers Bureau, in March. In addition, she has been asked to revise her chapter “Miyamoto Yuriko and Socialist Writers” and write a new chapter, “Hirabayashi Taiko,” for a second edition of The Columbia Companion to Modern East Asian Literature (Columbia University Press). She has also received a TEW grant to do archival research for a book on her grandfather, George E. Sokolsky, a journalist and China specialist whose papers are stored at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.
Shari Stone-Mediatore, professor of philosophy, presented a lecture titled “Colonialism and Mass Incarceration: How America Disguises Its Violence” at Stony Brook University in April. Previously, she has been a guest lecturer at the University of California-Berkeley, Northwestern University, St. Louis University, and the College of Wooster.
Eva París-Huesca (left, in front of Sagrada Familia church) and Glenda Nieto (right), assistant professors of Spanish, took eight students to Barcelona and the Basque-Navarran country in Spain in May, for the Travel-Learning component of Paris’ Spanish crime fiction class. They explored some of the most emblematic sites and spaces narrated and portrayed in 20th and 21st Century Spanish crime fiction.
D. Glen Vanderbilt Jr., professor and chairperson of the Department of Theatre & Dance, directed the main stage production of Androcles and the Lion in February. He also designed and painted the set.
The deadline to submit Class Notes and Faculty Notes for the Winter OWU Magazine is Oct. 5, 2017. Send to: classnotes@owu.edu