A Newsletter for UMW Faculty and Staff
Professor of English Antonio Barrenechea
Professor of English Antonio Barrenechea recently contributed to “Poetics of Persistence in Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of the Dead: Perspectives on the Thirtieth Anniversary,” a special session of the virtual Modern Language Association conference in January 2021. The MLA is the flagship organization for literary studies in the United States.
Stephen Farnsworth, professor of political science and director of the University’s Center for Leadership and Media Studies
Stephen Farnsworth, professor of political science and director of the University’s Center for Leadership and Media Studies, recently delivered an online lecture, “The Electoral College and U.S. Presidential Elections: Continuing Controversies,” to the City of Manassas Museums for its Stories of Preservation and Progress Series. Watch here.
He also offered insight in a number of recent regional, national and international news stories:
Short and … sweet? (Virginia Business)
The challenges ahead of a Biden Presidency (CTV News Channel)
Midlothian supervisor Leslie Haley to run for attorney general (Chesterfield Observer)
President Trump, Impeachment, and the Republican Identity Crisis (CJAD)
Professor Elizabeth Larus Comments on Vietnam News
Elizabeth Freund Larus, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, was a special guest on the Vietnam News talk show “World 360 Degrees” on January 23, 2021. Professor Larus explained that addressing the novel coronavirus would be President Joe Biden’s top domestic priority. She also commented on U.S.-Vietnam relations, analyzing U.S. charges against Vietnam for alleged currency manipulation. Her comments begin 11 minutes and 21 minutes into the program at https://vnews.gov.vn/video/the-gioi-360-do-ngay-23-01-2021-201943.htm
Andrei Tupolev and Joseph Stalin
Associate Professor of European and Modern Russian History Steven E. Harris penned an editorial on Communist dictator Joseph Stalin and and Soviet aircraft engineer Andrei Tupolev in advance of his Great Lives lecture on Thursday Jan. 28, at 7:30 pm on Zoom, as part of UMW’s “Great Lives” series. It can be accessed at umw.edu/greatlives.
THE UNITED States had William Boeing. Germany, Hugo Junkers. And Great Britain, Geoffrey de Havilland. From travel to warfare, the airplanes these designers produced transformed the world and made them household names.
In the Soviet Union, the most famous aviation designer was Andrei Nikolaevich Tupolev (1888-1972), whose aircraft also made him a household name. From gliders to strategic bombers and a supersonic passenger plane, Tupolev and his design bureau helped make the Soviet Union an aviation superpower.
His incredible career spanned Russia’s tumultuous 20th century, from the reign of its last tsar, Nicholas II, and Stalin’s regime to the twilight of the Soviet experiment under Leonid Brezhnev. Read more.
Süleyman the Magnificent
Professor of History and Middle Eastern Studies Nabil Al-Tikriti penned an editorial on Ottoman Empire Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent in advance of his Great Lives lecture on Tuesday Jan. 26, at 7:30 pm on Zoom, as part of UMW’s “Great Lives” series. It can be accessed at umw.edu/greatlives.
IN 2011, Turkish television launched a new series, entitled “Magnificent Century / Mühteşim Yüzyıl.” An instant hit, this flashy soap opera offered a highly dramatized version of Sultan Süleyman’s palace personna, family drama, and harem dynamics.
Over four seasons this bodice ripper, centered largely on the rivalry between his wife, Hürrem, and his earlier prime concubine, Mahidevran, was screened by over 200 million viewers in over 50 countries.
Why were so many hooked on a fanciful dramatization of this celebrated sultan who died over 450 years ago?
The real Süleyman (d. 1566) ruled over the Ottoman Empire during what most consider the peak of its power. Even though the empire continued to expand for several decades after his death, and remained the most powerful force in Europe for well over another century, when denizens of Western civilization consider this empire at all, it is usually in the same breath as they contemplate the reign of its most famous ruler. Read more.
UMW College of Business Dean Lynne Richardson
College of Business Dean Lynne Richardson’s column in The Free Lance-Star is entitled, “WHY IS THE ANSWER ALWAYS NO?”
YOU APPROACH a colleague with a request to do something in a new way. Your colleague responds immediately: “No. That’s not possible.”
Of course, it may not be possible, but perhaps it is, and your colleague just doesn’t want to investigate how it might be done. They want to keep doing it “the way it’s always been done.”
I have worked in four public institutions, each in a different state. While there are some state rules, along with some protocols from the governing groups for each state, many of the rules are just ingrained practices that each institution created. Read more.
Prof. Al-Tikriti and Mr. Emil Shakir Uluu
From 11 December 2020 to 16 January 2021, Middle East History Professor Nabil Al-Tikriti served as a Long Term Observer (LTO) for the Organization of Security & Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Shymkent, Kazakhstan.
In the course of this five week deployment, Prof. Al-Tikriti interviewed local leaders of all five recognized Kazakh parties; met with civil society activists; discussed election administration with government officials at the rayon (district), oblast (province), and city levels; and administered fuel and financial logistics for his five person team. In addition, he was able to visit the Otyrar ruins (the first city destroyed by Çingiz Khan’s Mongol army in their westward drive), the Ahmed Yesevi shrine,and the Ahmet Yesevi Turkish-Kazakh International University (TÜRTEP) in Turkistan city.
Together with his senior LTO partner, Mr. Emil Shakir Uluu of Issyk Kul, Kyrgyzstan, Prof. Al-Tikriti completed several weekly reports, election observation forms, spot rally reports, and other observation requirements mandated by the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). Mr. Shakir Uluu and Prof. Al-Tikriti’s work contributed to ODIHR’s interim report, and final report, which will be released in a few weeks.
Prof. Al-Tikriti thanks the colleagues who served with him in Shymkent, as well as all the wonderful Kazakh officials, activists, and election colleagues whom he was fortunate enough to meet in the course of this election observation.
Michael Spencer, associate professor and director for the Center for Historic Preservation
Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Historic Preservation Michael Spencer joined Historic Fredericksburg Foundation President David James on “Town Talk with Ted Schubel” to talk about some of the issues being debated in the city over preserving history. Listen here.
Associate Professor of English Colin Rafferty’s forthcoming essay collection, Execute the Office: Essays with Presidents, will be released by Baobab Press in Reno, Nevada.
Execute the Office uses lyric prose and formal invention to explore the humanity, or lack thereof, in each of the forty-five American presidents. Whether these powerful individuals have been remembered for infamous deeds or heroism, or they have been forgotten as placeholders in the annals of America, too often presidents are commemorated by the sterility of simple fact. Execute the Office builds upon factual accuracy with essays that are equally invested in lyrical writing and experimental forms. To balance these factions, Execute the Office uses constraint, metaphor, allusion, and epiphany to explore not just the facts and artifacts of history, but describe the connections between those facts and human nature in thought-provoking and inventive ways. These essays discuss the modes in which we remember. Through screenplays, death songs, footnotes, infinite rooms, evacuation routes, and nomenclatures, to name a few examples, these diverse essays engage with history from fresh perspectives. Execute the Office contains histories in and of unusual objects. While unfamiliar at first, they soon become distinct, unforgettable, profound, human.
Stephen Farnsworth, professor of political science and director of the University’s Center for Leadership and Media Studies, and Kate Seltzer, a UMW senior double majoring in political science and communication, are co-authors of a research paper, “Late Night Political Humor and the 2020 Presidential Nomination Campaign: A Democratic Field Competes with Donald Trump,” which was delivered (online) at the Annual Meeting of the Southern Political Science Association earlier this month. The paper is an update of Professor Farnsworth’s recent co-authored book, Late Night With Trump: Political Humor and the American Presidency.
Farnsworth also recently delivered an online lecture, “Reviewing the 2020 U.S. Election: The Challenges of Democracy in Practice,” to the University of Malaysia, Sabah. Professor Farnsworth was a Fulbright Specialist at Methodist College Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, during Summer 2019.
He also offered insight in a number of recent regional, national and international news stories:
Taking a Look at What to Expect from the 2021 General Assembly Session (WVTF)
U.S. Capitol on Lockdown (CTV News Channel)
Divide deepens in Virginia GOP as Democrats renew calls for Trump’s early ouster (Virginia Mercury)
Democrats Unveil Articles of Impeachment (CTV News Channel)
Trump Faces Second Impeachment (CTV News Channel)
Can President Trump issue pardons while impeached? Experts at odds (ctvnews.ca)
McAuliffe announces huge fundraising numbers (Virginia Scope; Henrico Citizen)
Saturday Night Live seeks fresh Biden as political comedy faces new era (The Guardian)
Viewpoints with Todd Vanderheyden (iheart.com)
3 Prince William Supervisors Walked Out Of Unconscious Bias Training In Protest (dcist.com)