December 23, 2024

EagleEye

A Newsletter for UMW Faculty and Staff

Farnsworth Comments on Presidential Candidates and Late-Night Comedy

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Stephen Farnsworth

Political Science Professor Stephen Farnsworth

Political Science Professor Stephen Farnsworth was quoted in The Guardian for an article on U.S. elections 2020, “Late-night with Democrats: how going viral may make the difference for 2020.”

“Any Democratic candidate who thinks they can ignore Stephen Colbert might as well not run for president,” said Stephen Farnsworth, director of the Center for Leadership and Media Studies at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia. “Colbert once joked that the road to the White House runs through his show but it’s no joke; it is exactly so.”

Gari Melchers Home and Studio Hosts Film Screening, March 3

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Gari Melchers Home and Studio at Belmont will host a free film screening of the award-winning film, Loving Vincent (94 mins, 2017) on Sunday, March 3 at 2 p.m.  The world’s first fully oil painted feature film brings the artwork of Vincent van Gogh to life in an exploration of the complicated life and controversial death of one of history’s most celebrated artists.

In a story depicted in oil painted animation, a young man comes to the last hometown of painter Vincent van Gogh to deliver the troubled artist’s final letter and ends up investigating his final days there.

Watch the trailer.

Gari Melchers Home and Studio is a 28-acre estate and former residence of the artist Gari Melchers and his wife Corinne. The property, which is operated by the University of Mary Washington, is both a Virginia Historic Landmark and a National Historic Landmark. Located at 224 Washington St. in Falmouth, Virginia, a quarter mile west of the intersection of U.S. 1 and U.S. 17, it is open daily with an admission charge.

For directions and more information, call (540) 654-1015, or visit the museum website at www.GariMelchers.org.

2019 Psi Chi UMW PowerCards on Sale

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The 2019 Psi Chi UMW PowerCards are in and available for purchase.  These cards are available for just $5 each and offer discounts at great Fredericksburg businesses that you can use for the entire calendar year!

You get to save money and help support the great activities of the UMW chapter of Psi Chi, the International Honor Society in Psychology.

The discounts on this year’s PowerCard include 10% off at Greens & Grains, Metro Diner, and Skin + Touch Therapy Spa as well as 15% off at Soup and Taco, Soup and Taco II, Noodles & Company, and Tropical Smoothie Cafe (to name just some of the great deals).

You can purchase a PowerCard for yourself, your club, your team, your friend, your roommate, your neighbor, or anyone else. If you’re interested,  you can purchase a card from a Psi Chi officer or member.

If you don’t know who’s a member/officer, you can contact Mindy Erchull (merchull@umw.edu), their faculty advisor, and she’ll connect you with someone.  You can also contact the chapter directly at psichiumw@gmail.com.

Johnson-Young Publishes Research on Corporate Social Responsibility Campaigns

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Elizabeth Johnson-Young, Assistant Professor of Communication, has published a peer-reviewed research article in Corporate Communications: An International Journal. The article, “The CSR paradox: When a social responsibility campaign can tarnish a brand,” looks at instances when a social campaign can hurt a brand even though it may successfully raise concerns for the campaign issues. The paper presents results of an experiment looking at prevention versus promotion-framed messages in a real-world corporate social responsibility (CSR) campaign to understand differences in concerns for the campaign issues and attitudes towards the sponsoring corporate brand. Results indicated that even when message framing produced strong concerns for the issues, negative effects of the message framing were directed at the brand itself. The publication is now available online and will be in the next printed journal, as well.

Classics, Philosophy, Religion Hosts ‘Madness’ Lecture Series

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The Department of Classics, Philosophy and Religious Studies continues a series of lectures called “Mysterium Hunanum Studies: Madness” during spring semester. This series explores a variety of ways of representing and understanding madness.  As an iteration of Mysterium Humanum Studies, the lectures dwell on topics of central importance to human existence that we ordinarily take for granted, and provides an opportunity to reflect on what we mean by the notion, and how the phenomenon has manifested itself across human history.

The sessions are held on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3:30 to 4:45 p.m. in Room 201 of Trinkle Hall.  See below for the list of upcoming lectures:

Feb. 5:   Unstable Minds, Unstable Beliefs: Heretics in Late Antiquity    Jennifer  Barry (Religious Studies)

Feb. 12:   Are Racists Crazy?    Sander Gilman (Emory University)

Feb. 19:  “The Flag of Imagination”: The Surrealists and artists on the schizophrenia spectrum    Julia DeLancey (Art History) 

Feb. 26:   Love as divine madness (Plato’s Phaedrus)   David  Ambuel (Philosophy) 

March 12:  Divine Madness:  Antinomian Sufis in Islamic Mysticism  Mehdi Aminrazavi (Religious Studies)

March 19:  Musical Interpretations of Love and Madness in the Persian Epic Leili o Majnun​       Theresa Steward (Music

March 26:  Descartes and the Madness Argument    August Gorman

April 2: Crazy Wisdom? Enlightened Iconoclasm in Tibet, Guru Sex Scandals in the West. Daniel Hirshberg (Religious Studies)

April 9:  Psychographics: Graphic Memoirs and Psychiatric Disability     Elizabeth Donaldson (English, New York Institute of Technology) 

April 16:  “They Called Me Crazy”:  The Mad Scientist Trope and Pushing the Boundaries of Knowledge.   Leanna Giancarlo (Chemistry)

April 23:  An Existential Approach to Madness.   Craig Vasey (Philosophy)

 

 

 

 

 

 

McMillan Presents Research at Archaeology Conference

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Lauren McMillan

Lauren McMillan

Lauren McMillan, assistant professor in the Department of Historic Preservation, presented research at the Society for Historical Archaeology conference in St. Charles, MO. McMillan presented a paper entitled “‘…near the side of an Indian field commonly known as the Pipemaker’s field:’ Reanalyzing the Nomini Plantation Midden Assemblage.” This research paper develop from a grant awarded by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources. She was also a panelist in a forum focused on unique and unusual artifacts and served as a member of the Nominations and Elections Committee.

Foss Publishes Article on Ann Yearsley

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Professor of English Chris Foss has published a peer-reviewed article entitled “Ann Yearsley, Earl Goodwin, and the Politics of Romantic Discontent” in the most recent number of Romanticism on the Net.  RoN was one of the pioneering international open access journals when it was founded over thirty years ago now in 1996, and is by now one of the most established venues for scholarship on British Romantic literature. The few substantial critical studies of Ann Yearsley’s tragic drama Earl Goodwin leave unexplored the ways in which Yearsley simultaneously is clarifying and extending her anger at and frustration with the class- and gender-based discrimination she experienced firsthand in the fallout with her mentor Hannah More over the profits from her first book of poetry. This article aims to fill this gap by delineating the many ways in which Earl Goodwin represents, on one level, her ongoing response to the defamation she suffered in the wake of More’s public campaign to ruin her reputation. Documenting the inextricability of the play’s explicit social and political critiques with Yearsley’s ongoing response to the More fiasco reinforces the extent to which her more familiar initial protests about More’s treatment (as published in her second volume of poems) are as fundamentally politically as they are personally motivated.

Physics Professor Makes Quantum Leap to Prestigious Fellowship

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Professor Hai Nguyen is participating in a fellowship with the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Professor Hai Nguyen is participating in a fellowship with the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

UMW Professor of Physics Hai Nguyen knew the odds were against him. Thousands of scientists – the best of the best from across the country – vie each year for fewer than 150 first-time fellowships with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

He estimated his chances of being chosen at .0001 percent; then the phone rang. The scholar who’d solved equation after equation on the way to a Ph.D. and post-doctoral work in atomic physics had gotten one wrong.

In September, Nguyen left his office in Jepson for an AAAS fellowship in Washington, D.C., as a science advisor in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). Instead of for students, he’s breaking complex concepts into digestible information for politicians and top-level executives who influence lawmakers on Capitol Hill. (Read more.)

Young, COE Faculty Featured in The Free Lance-Star

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George Meadows led a class in 3D printing at UMW's Day of Learning.

Professor of Education George Meadows led a class in 3D  design and printing at UMW’s Day of Learning. (Free Lance-Star photo).

Kimberly Young, executive director of Continuing and Professional Studies, was quoted in an article about the University’s Day of Learning for furloughed federal employees, held January 17 at the Stafford Campus.

The daylong event featured a series of workshops taught by UMW faculty and administrators, including the College of Education’s George Meadows and Christy Irish who were featured in photos accompanying the article. Others teaching sessions included Lynne Richardson, Julia DeLancey, Tim O’Donnell, Melissa Wells, Antonio Causarano, John Burrow, Beth Williams, Janine Davis and John Broome.

COE's Christy Irish (pictured here) and Melissa Wells taught a Blackout Poetry class.

COE’s Christy Irish (pictured here) and Melissa Wells taught a Blackout Poetry class. (Free Lance-Star photo)

To read the article, visit  Shutdown Like Vacation Without Any Money for Area Furloughed Federal Workers.