Jennifer Barry, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, was invited to give a book talk at Temple University on November 14, 2019. Barry presented to the audience material from her recent publication with the University of California Press, Bishops in Flight: Exile and Displacement in Late Antiquity. Barry’s monograph was published in April, 2019 and is published in both print form and is also available via open access through the Luminos Series.
Research By Farnsworth and Jeremy Engel ’20 Presented at Academic Conference
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 Center for Leadership and Media Studies, and Jeremy Engel ’20, a senior political science major and a research associate at the center, are co-authors of a recently research paper, “The Politics of Late Night Humor: Framing Presidential Candidate Character in the Age of Trump,” which was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Southwestern Social Science Association in San Diego, California.
Dr. Farnsworth has also been quoted in several regional and national news stories:
Virginia’s Legislature Will Tackle Gerrymandering In The New Year (WAMU)
Sondland to Testify at Impeachment Inquiry (CTV News Channel)
“Millionaires Surtax” Considered as Federal Budget Balancer (WVTF)
Suburban voters in Virginia defeated the NRA this fall. Next stop: Texas (Daily Kos)
Disarming the NRA: How Guns Flipped Virginia Blue (Mother Jones)
COMMENTARY: Changes in 28th District doomed GOP candidate (The Free Lance-Star)
Bonds Co-authors Op-Ed on Climate Change for The Free Lance-Star
Associate Professor of Sociology Eric Bonds
Associate Professor of Sociology Eric Bonds and Rebecca Rubin, president and CEO of Marstel-Day, an environmental consulting firm, published an op-ed in The Free Lance-Star on what the Fredericksburg area can do to combat climate change:
Marstel-Day President and CEO Rebecca Rubin
YOU can regularly see it in the news reported in the Free Lance-Star and other newspapers: climate change is remaking our world. Fredericksburg urgently needs to develop a climate plan in response.
This effort should include a plan that would both reduce our city’s carbon emissions (which help propel global warming) and enable adaption to impacts that are inevitable—such as lethal heat, and air- and water-borne diseases—given that a certain amount of warming is already locked into our climate system.
Such a strategy would both respond to climate change risks and prevent them from worsening. Read more.
Cooperman Comments on Kentucky Governor-Elect
Associate Professor of Political Science Rosalyn Cooperman
Associate Professor of Political Science Rosalyn Cooperman commented on Kentucky Governor-Elect Andy Beshear’s decision to select for his transition team longtime supporters of his family’s political campaigns.
According to the article, “The most active and involved Democrats are oftentimes most likely to be giving money to support their candidate, said Rosalyn Cooperman, associate professor of political science at the University of Mary Washington.
‘This is intuitive,’ she said. ‘The electoral context is that Democrats – or any party – are strategic actors if they want to win.’
And money is critical to win in a high-profile, competitive race, Cooperman said.” Read more.
Richardson Column in The Free Lance-Star
UMW College of Business Dean Lynne Richardson
College of Business Dean Lynne Richardson’s weekly column in The Free Lance-Star tackles how to have tactful conversations with students and employees about body odor and other smells in the workplace. Read DISTRACTING ODORS.
In the space of one week, I had the following experiences:
While walking on campus one morning, I was behind a woman who must have bathed in perfume. The smell was distinctive and strong.
Another day, I was passed by a young man who reeked of food.
Two days later, a person near me had either not bathed recently or was wearing his clothing for the umpteenth day. His body odor was unpleasant, to say the least.
It made me think about having conversations with both students (who are about to enter the workplace) and employees about the way we smell.
Lorentzen Presents Paper on Dickens and American Popular Culture
Eric Lorentzen, Professor of English
Eric G. Lorentzen, Professor of English, contributed a paper, “21st-Century ‘American Notes’: Charles Dickens and Popular American Culture” at the annual Victorians Institute conference this November in Charleston, SC. This year’s conference theme was Transatlantic Influence, and Lorentzen’s talk first surveyed quickly the multitude of modern-day Christmas festivals that are grounded in Dickens’ text across this country, before he turned to visual media. He made brief connections with some of the cultural manifestations that obtain on screen, from the fairly obvious A Muppet Christmas Carol, to the far more esoteric connections to be made with seemingly non-holiday fare such as films like The Game, Groundhog Day, and the more recent Disney blockbuster film, Christopher Robin. These connections led to a discussion of the ways in which Dickens’ somewhat Wordsworthian ideas of the crucial formative years of childhood, and the necessary project of philanthropy for social justice in A Christmas Carol, germinate into more fully-articulated and mature philosophies in latter novels like David Copperfield and Bleak House. The objective was to demonstrate how thoroughly (and extremely) these Dickensian archetypal tropes have permeated our own American zeitgeist in “texts” of popular culture that could not seem further away from the literary in general, or Charles Dickens specifically. To that end, the final text Lorentzen took up for analysis was the once hugely “popular” teen soap/drama of the early 2000s, The O.C., a series which depended upon, admittedly in the most unlikely of ways, multiple Dickensian archetypes for its thematic (and didactic?!?) backbone. Amidst the oversexed bikini-clad angst of Southern California, the Victorian dude of serial fiction abides, and our postmodern cultural studies theoretical methodologies can help us discover why the recognition of such an arcane connection remains crucially important, in terms of both individual and collective agency.
Farnsworth Comments in the Regional and National News
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, has been quoted in several regional and national news stories:
How Much is Too Much for Virginia’s New Democratic Majority? (WVTF)
Maloney: Trump’s 2nd Phone Call Not Relevant (CTV News Channel)
This Week in Richmond: Elections 2019 Review (VPM NPR)
Public impeachment hearings will ‘harden’ rift (cp24.com)
Diplomats Testify in Trump Impeachment Inquiry (CTV News Channel)
After defeating Miles, Davenport plans to scrap reforms (Chesterfield Observer)
Cox wins reelection but loses speakership (Chesterfield Observer)
Cooperman Talks Cost of Virginia General Assembly Elections
Associate Professor of Political Science Rosalyn Cooperman
Associate Professor of Political Science Rosalyn Cooperman was recently interviewed for a story on WAMU on how even extremely well-funded campaigns lost in the Virginia General Assembly elections last week.
According to the story, “Virginia is one of only a few states to hold elections in off-off years, and both parties saw this year’s vote as a bellwether for the 2020 presidential race. Virginia had already drawn national attention after Democrats shrank the majority in the House of Delegates in 2017 by flipping 15 seats, political scientist Rosalyn Cooperman at the University of Mary Washington noted.”
“‘You’ve immediately raised the stakes for the next election because Democrats came within a whisker of taking both the House of Delegates and the state Senate,’ Cooperman said. ‘You’re coming into an election cycle that’s going to raise the profile of these races.'” Read more.
Richardson Column in The Free Lance-Star
UMW College of Business Dean Lynne Richardson
College of Business Dean Lynne Richardson’s weekly column in The Free Lance-Star discusses how organizations can support those working behind the scenes. Read INVISIBLE WORKERS.
WHILE MANY people may think senior executives are the most important employees in any organization, I know better.
It’s the staff. It’s especially the staff who are the lowest paid, but spend more time at their jobs than perhaps the executives do.
Do you see these employees? Or are they just part of your surroundings? Read more.
Gentry Study on At-Home and Commuting Workers
Lance Gentry, Professor, College of Business
The Free Lance-Star newspaper highlighted a new study by College of Business Professor Lance Gentry. According to the article, Gentry discovered that “the two fastest-growing trends in the region appear on to be somewhat contradictory: A growing number of area residents are working from home (now over 5 percent) or commuting 90 minutes or more one way to get to their places of employment (now over 10 percent).” Read more.