“Cosmo” Comes Out for Foust (Northern Va. Times.Com)
Aminrazavi Featured on the Cover of St. Joseph’s College Magazine
Medhi Aminrazavi, professor of classics, philosophy and religion on the cover of St. Joseph’s College Magazine
Mehdi Aminrazavi, professor of classics, philosophy and religion, was featured on the cover of St. Joseph’s College Magazine after serving as the Khatib Chair in Comparative Religious Studies at St. Joseph College for the past year. As part of this position, Aminrazavi gave a weekly lecture series on Shi’ism in Iran with two keynote presentations.
Jen Chiang Presents at ICM, Publishes Article
Yuan-Jen Chiang, Professor of Mathematics, presented a research paper “On Exponential Harmonic Maps” at the 2014 International Congress of Mathematicians (held every 4 years) in Seoul, South Korea. This paper has been accepted by Acta Mathematica Sinica.
She also published a joint research article “Remarks of Transversally f-Biharmonic Maps” (refereed) by the Society of Balkan Geometry in Europe.
Department of Chemistry Hosts Tech Tour
Top left: A student looks at a chemiluminescent reaction. Bottom right: Tonic water fluorescence.
Approximately 40 students and teachers from Chancellor and Courtland High Schools visited the UMW Department of Chemistry on Wednesday Oct. 10, 2014 as part of the Tech Tour sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce’s STEM 16 group. Associate Professor Leanna Giancarlo and Professor Kelli Slunt introduced the students to background information on fluorescence and forensics. The students toured the chemistry department laboratory spaces and conducted experiments on the fluorescence of household items and on the reaction of luminol with bleach.
Honors Students Explore Washington, D.C. Architecture
Honors scholars in front of Union Station during the fall 14 field trip.
In August, incoming UMW Honors Scholars participated in a common reading experience, reading the book “The Devil in the White City” by Eric Larson. To expand on the theme of the planning and architecture of the Chicago’s World’s Fair, Andrea Smith, Department of Historic Preservation, led the fall field for the honors program on Saturday Oct. 4. Twenty six honors students, Professor of Economics Steve Greenlaw, Professor of Chemistry Kelli Slunt, and Assistant Professor of Environmental Science Melanie Szulczewski enjoyed learning about the urban planning and contributions of Daniel Burnham (one of the main characters in “The Devil in the White City”) while exploring Union Station, The National Mall, and the National Building Museum.
Virginia’s 3rd District Must Be Redrawn, Judges Say (WAMU 88.5)
Court Declares Virginia’s Congressional Map Unconstitutional (The Washington Post)
Gupta Publishes Co-Authored Research Paper
Surupa Gupta, associate professor of Political Science and International Affairs, co-authored a research paper titled ” Indian foreign policy and coexistence: continuity and change in the post-cold war era.” This was recently published in de Coning, Mandrup and Odgaard (eds.), The BRICS and Coexistence: An Alternative Vision of World Order. Her co-author is Shibashis Chatterjee, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India.
Foss Presents Paper at International Conference on Romanticism
Figure talking about Kasiprasad Ghosh
On Saturday, Sept. 27, Professor of English Chris Foss presented a paper at the annual meeting of the International Conference on Romanticism, held this year in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His talk was entitled “The (Western?) Mirror and(/or?) the (Eastern?) Lamp: Romantic Reflection, Rejection, and Revision in Kasiprasad Ghosh’s The Sháïr and Other Poems.” After begging forgiveness re: his embarrassing weakness for parentheses and question marks in titles, Foss argued that Ghosh’s Sháïr (1830), as the very first volume of English-language poems published by a Hindu writer, is an absolutely essential text to be accounted for within any full consideration of the international aspects of Romanticism in general and/or the question of Romantic reflections in particular. Along the way, he teased out some of the various possibilities whereby one may position Ghosh as uncritically reflecting back the British orientalist version of Indian poetry, carefully revising and subtly transforming orientalist poetics into a new hybrid expression, and/or ultimately rejecting orientalism in favor of a distinctly transgressive and properly Indian poetics of resistance. The theme of this year’s conference in the Land of Sky-Blue Waters (and, more particularly, in the Twin Cities) was, appropriately enough, “Romantic Reflections: Twins, Echoes, and Appropriations.”