Deborah O’Dell, associate professor of biology, and her research student Virginia Lyle King attended the Virginia Academy of Science Undergraduate Research Meeting on Oct. 18 at Virginia State University in Petersburg, Virginia. O’Dell assisted in judging student presentations for the VAS Undergraduate Research Grant. King presented her work with Riley Scalzo on “Cell Phone Radiation Induced Gene Expression in Human Glioblastoma Cells.” King and Scalzo were awarded one of the $500 grants to support their work.
Biology Students Awarded Grant, Attend Research Meeting
UMW Research Team Presents at Public Sociology Conference
People’s Climate March, September 21, 2014
Undergraduates Beatrice Ohene-Okae (Environmental Science) and Zakaria Kronemer (Philosophy) presented their research project, “Studying Carbon Violence,” with Assistant Professor of Sociology Eric Bonds at George Mason’s annual public sociology conference, which this year was entitled “(Re)Visions of the Future: Public Sociology, Environmental Justice, and the Crisis of Climate Change.” Beatrice and Zakaria presented some initial findings of their investigation into violence associated with global fossil fuel resource extraction. Their work is part of a larger scholarly project, guided by Dr. Bonds, that is exploring linkages between violence, conceptualized in different ways, and the world’s largest oil, gas, and coal companies.
Rao Presents at Assessment Institute
P. Anand Rao, associate professor of Communication and director of the Speaking Intensive Program and the Speaking Center, presented at the Assessment Institute conference in Indianapolis from Oct. 19-21 on using technology to assess oral communication skills. He discussed how UMW designed and conducted an assessment of oral communication skills over the last decade and provided guidance on best practices for assessment, including tips for using online tools for speech assessment.
Lester Featured on Radio Show
Assistant Professor of Political Science Emile Lester was featured on the State of Belief radio show on Oct. 11 speaking about problematic school curricula. Listen to the show at stateofbelief.com.
Classical Association, Oct. 16-18
The University of Mary Washington will co-host the 94th anniversary meeting of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South, the Southern Section, from Thursday, Oct. 16 to Saturday, Oct. 18. The event will be co-hosted alongside the National Latin Exam.
Friday’s afternoon presentations will take place on the UMW campus in Lee and Trinkle Halls, followed by a reception in the Trinkle Hall rotunda. Both events are free and open to the public.
The rest of the conference will be held at the Hospitality House Hotel and Conference Center in Central Park and will feature presentations and papers on Greek history and culture by national classicists. UMW faculty members Olga R. Arans, JeanAnn Dabb, Liane Houghtalin, Joseph Romero and Angela Pitts and David Ambuel, current UMW student Julie Gavin and UMW alumna Katherine DeCecco are among those presenting work during the anniversary conference.
See http://camws.org/node/282 for more information.
Aminrazavi Publishes Book
SUNY Press recently published “Sufism and American Literary Masters” edited by
Mehdi Aminrazavi, professor of Philosophy and Religion.
Here is the forward by Jacob Needleman:
“This book reveals the rich, but generally unknown, influence of Sufism on nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American literature. The translation of Persian poets such as Hafiz and Sa’di into English and the ongoing popularity of Omar Khayyam offered intriguing new spiritual perspectives to some of the major American literary figures. As editor Mehdi Aminrazavi notes, these Sufi influences have often been subsumed into a notion of “Eastern,” chiefly Indian, thought and not acknowledged as having Islamic roots. This work pays considerable attention to two giants of American literature, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman, who found much inspiration from the Sufi ideas they encountered. Other canonical figures are also discussed, including Mark Twain, Herman Melville, Henry David Thoreau, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, along with literary contemporaries who are lesser known today, such as Paschal Beverly Randolph, Thomas Lake Harris, and Lawrence Oliphant.”
So Long, Mr. Above It All: Warner is a Political Operative After All (Hampton Roads.Com)
Harris Co-Chairs Second World Urbanity Conference in Tallinn, Estonia
Steven E. Harris, associate professor in the Department of History and American Studies, co-chaired the conference, “Circulation, Translation, Transition,” which was held Oct. 10-12 at the Institute of Art History, Estonian Academy of Arts in Tallinn, Estonia. This was the second of three conferences of the Second World Urbanity project, for which Harris and Daria Bocharnikova (Harvard University) are the co-organizers. The conference in Tallinn examined the circulation of ideas and designs about urban architecture and planning throughout the Second World, as well as the fate of socialist cities after 1989/1991. Attendees also enjoyed a tour of Tallinn’s socialist past at the conclusion of the conference. In addition to co-organizing the conference, Harris presented his paper, “Soviet Airports and Second World Urbanity in the Jet Age,” which is based on his research for his current book project on the entangled histories of Aeroflot and Pan Am.