Faculty News briefs

Julia Ireland, assistant professor of philosophy, has been selected to receive a prestigious National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) summer stipend. Only about 7 percent of applications are funded each year. According to the NEH Web site, “Summer stipends support individuals pursuing advanced research that is of value to humanities scholars, general audiences, or both. Recipients usually produce articles, monographs, books, digital materials, archaeological site reports, translations, editions, or other scholarly resources. Summer Stipends support full-time work on a humanities project for a period of two months, support projects at any stage of development and are awarded to individual scholars” as opposed to organizations.

Professor Ireland will use the $6,000 stipend to support two months of research on the final chapter of her book, titled “To Become German: Heidegger’s Hölderlin.” The chapter is titled “Waiting for the God of Gods,” and it explores the connection between Heidegger’s analysis of the death of the gods and his tendency towards a conception of political messianism. “I am thrilled to have received this award,” Prof. Ireland said. “It’s a tremendous vote of confidence in my book project and on the significance of Heidegger writings on poetry. The strength of the book lies in

Aaron Bobrow-Strain, associate professor of politics, delivered the keynote address for a symposium sponsored by the Melbern G. Glasscock Humanities Center at Texas A&M University on April 8. The talk was titled “Anxiety, Allure, and the Meanings of Industrial Eating,” and it capped off a day of interdisciplinary discussions the topic of “Cultured Sustenance” faculty from departments of English, French, history, geography, archeology and politics.

Skip Molitor, assistant athletics director, has been honored by the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) with its Outstanding Service Award. Molitor, Whitman’s head basketball coach from 1994-2008, was one of three coaches selected to receive the award, which was presented at the NABC annual convention in Houston, April 2. The award has been presented annually since 1997 and is given to coaches whose actions inside and outside the lines of coaching have distinguished them as valuable members of their communities. Read more here.

Helen Knowles, visiting assistant professor of politics, has been awarded two grants, totaling almost $4,000 which will allow her to travel to and attend two research/teaching workshops. The first is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, and will allow Knowles to attend the month-long NEH Summer Seminar for College and University Teachers on The Early American Republic and the Problem of Governance in Philadelphia. The second workshop is the Institute for Humane Studies Workshop on Liberty and the Art of Teaching, a three-day workshop in Fairfax, VA. Also, her article titled “A dialogue on death penalty dignity” has just been published in the British journal Criminology & Criminal Justice. Knowles is also happy to report a personal success, she and her horse Doc, a rescue horse that she has been training for several years, placed in every class they entered at the Clark County Showground on April 2.

Elyse Semerdjian, associate professor of Middle East/Islamic world history, delivered a keynote address titled “Demystifying Sexual Indiscretion and the practice of shari‘a justice, past and present” at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC on March 12, 2011. Semerdjian shared findings regarding the treatment of sexual violations in the shari‘a courts of Ottoman Aleppo, but also discussed these findings in light of the revival of corporal punishment from the late twentieth century to the present. The address marked the end of a conference of the Middle East and Islamic Consortium of BC (MEICON-BC) sponsored the University of BC. The consortium brings together undergraduate and graduate students annually from three neighboring universities with strong Middle East Studies programs: the University of Victoria, Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia.

Penrose Library staff members Julie Carter, Lynne Vieth, Lee Keene and Michael Paulus participated in the biennial conference of the Association of Colleges and Research Libraries, held March 30 – April 2 in Philadelphia. The team delivered a panel presentation titled “(R)evolution in Source Literacy at Whitman College.” The coordinated talks addressed the practical, pedagogical, and theoretical impact on instructional and research services of a recent escalation in student and faculty requests for primary sources. Carter opened the hour-long session with anecdotes from the Reference Desk illustrating the need to better inform students about primary sources. Vieth related a composite version of her experiences teaching first-year students in Encounters classes the difference between primary and secondary sources. Keene explained the rationale behind the creation of the Primary Sources Seminar. Paulus presented an alternative source literacy model that could replace traditional distinctions between primary and secondary sources. Vieth also presented a summary of her paper titled “Borges Envisions the Library’s Future” in a separate session.

Pictured l-r: Julie Carter, Lynne Vieth, Lee Keene, Michael Paulus

Dan Vernon, professor of biology, has received a $40,700 supplemental research grant from the National Science Foundation. This will allow him and Nancy Forsthoefel, research specialist, to continue their work started with a previous NSF grant and extend it to investigate the functions of two previously uncharacterized plant genes identified in their Whitman lab. They also will be able to provide research experiences for three biology and biochemistry, biophysics and molecular biology (BBMB) majors this summer. 

He reports that the genes appear to be involved in plant reproduction, specifically in the development of pollen. The team will use Whitman’s new scanning electron microscope and confocal imaging facilities, both obtained through other NSF grants, to characterize gene “knock-out” mutants in which the genes have been disrupted. “We also hope to modify the genes and reintroduce them into plants, to determine where they are expressed and to see if they are involved in other aspects of plant development,” Vernon said.

Josie Hendrickson, assistant professor of religion, presented a project on Islamic legal thought in 14th-century Granada to the religion department of Reed College on March 14. She also presented, as one of 20 scholars from North America, Europe and North Africa, at Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales, March 24-25 in Madrid, Spain. The conference topic was “The Legal Status of Religious Minorities in the Muslim West in the Middle Ages,” and the paper she presented explored late fifteenth-century Islamic legal rulings on Muslims living under Christian rule in Spain and North Africa.