humanities & arts magazine, volume 2013, issue 1

Humanities & arts MAGAZINE

The City College of New York

IN THIS ISSUE

Message from the Dean 1

New Faculty Hires 2

2013 HEG Award Winners 4

Students Research at Stanford 5

Theatre Students at LAMDA 6

Faculty Publications 7

Faculty Awards & Grants 8

Faculty Exhibitions/Performances 9

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Welcome to the revival of Di-

visional Notes! With this new-ly designed format, we will

highlight many of the wonder-ful accomplishments of our

faculty, staff, students, and alumni.

The Humanities and Arts have

played a central role at City College since its founding in

the mid-nineteenth century. We rest on a long line of dis-tinguished scholars, public

intellectuals, and creative art-ists. Still today, the City Col-

lege faculty includes many renowned humanists in wide

variety of fields. Alongside the distinction they have reached in the long-established disci-

plines like philosophy, Eng-lish, and music (only exam-

ples! – I could cite many oth-ers), our faculty have worked at the forefront of new forms

MESSAGE FROM THE DEAN

Volume 2013, Issue 1

of knowledge and creativity in fields like the digital arts. In-

creasingly, the scholars and art-ists among us have brought a

global perspective to their teach-ing and creative work. We edu-

cate our students and engage in our scholarly and artistic labors in connection with Harlem and

New York City, and also with our state, country, and the larger

world around us.

So please join with me in cele-brating the accomplishments of

all those connected to the Hu-manities and Arts at City Col-

lege, past, present, and future!

With best regards,

Eric D. Weitz

Dean of

Humanities and Arts and

Professor of History

Divisional Flag in the 2013 Divisional Ceremony (Photo Courtesy Island Pho-tography)


NEW FACULTY HIRES

Abby Kornfeld,

Assistant Professor

Art and Jewish Studies

Abby received her Art History

Ph.D. in 2013 from NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts. She works on Medie-

val Art and Architecture and Jewish Art and History,

especially in medieval Spain. Her dissertation is “Out of the Margins: Toward a Reassessment of the Barcelo-

na Haggadah.”

Cheryl Sterling Associate Professor and Director

of Black Studies

English and Black Studies

Cheryl received her Ph.D. in Afri-can Languages and Literature from

the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 2003. She is

the author of African Roots/Brazilian Rites: Culture and National Identity in Brazil and numerous articles. Cheryl

has been teaching at NYU, and is the founder and edi-

tor of AfroBeat Journal.org

Please welcome our new faculty to the Division of Humanities and Arts at CCNY! The 7 new regular hires mark the first stage of a multi-year effort to expand the number of full time faculty in the Division.

In addition, we have hired one person in a three-year visiting position and one in a seven-year Distin-guished Lectureship. And this year we are launching searches for 9 new full time faculty – one each in Art, History, and Jewish Studies, 3 each in English and Philosophy – plus another three-year visiting po-

sition, this time in Theatre and Speech.


Isabel Estrada

Assistant Professor

Foreign Languages and Litera-

tures

Isabel received her Ph.D. in 2000

in Spanish Peninsular Literature

from Columbia University. She has a book forthcoming, El documental cinematográfico y

televiso contemporáneo and has published numerous

articles and book chapters. She has taught most re-cently at Franklin and Marshall College.

Steve Wilson

Associate Professor

Music

Steve is a renowned jazz musi-cian, composer, and arranger. He

studied at Virginia Common-

wealth University and has taught at Julliard, the Manhattan School of Music, CCNY, and

many other institutions. He has performed widely in

North America and Europe with his own ensembles.

Benjamin Vilhauer

Associate Professor

Philosophy

Benjamin received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 2000.

He works on ethics, the history of

philosophy, and free will theory. He is a specialist on Kant and has published numer-

ous articles in leading philosophy journals.

Amr Kamal

Assistant Professor

Foreign Languages and Literatures

Amr Kamal is receiving his Ph.D. in Comparative Literatures from the

University of Michigan. He has

been hired in our position in French and Arabic. His dissertation is, “Empires and

Emporia: Fictions of the Department Store in the Mod-

ern Mediterranean, from Saint-Simon to Robert Solé.”


Jennifer Tuttle

Assistant Professor

Theatre and Speech

Jennifer received her MFA in Thea-tre/Acting from Wayne State Uni-

versity in 2004. She has acted on

the New York stage as well as in numerous regional theaters. She has taught most re-

cently at Minnesota State University in Moorhead.


NEW FACULTY HIRES (CONTINUED)

Richard Boles

Visiting Assistant Professor

History

Richard received his Ph.D. in 2013 in American History from The

George Washington University. His

dissertation is, “Dividing the Faith: The Rise of Racially Segregated Northern Churches,

1730-1850.” Richard will be teaching courses in colonial

and early American history.

Chantal Akerman

Distinguished Lecturer

Media and Communications Arts

Chantal is a renowned filmmaker with nearly 40 films to her credit.

Her films have been shown at nu-

merous international festivals. Her film, “Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080

Bruxelles,” was ranked No. 36 by the British Film Insti-

tution’s list of the 100 greatest films ever.

All of these appointments will add depth and fresh perspectives to the teaching, research, and creative activity that go on in the Humanities and Arts at CCNY. We look forward to their

many contributions!

FACULTY BOOKS / ESSAYS

Department of Art

Indych-López, Anna. “Mexican Muralism in The Unit-

ed States: The Controversies and Paradoxes of Patron-

age and Reception.” Mexican Muralism: A Critical Histo-

ry. Ed. Alejandro Anreus, Robin A. Greeley, and Leon-

ard Folgarait. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: Universi-

ty of California Press, 2012.

Houser, Craig. “Rachel Whiteread: The Vienna Holo-

caust Memorial.” Theories and Documents of Contempo-

rary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists’ Writings. 2nd ed. Berke-

ley: University of California Press, 2012.

Saltz, Ina and Allan Haley. Typography, Referenced: A

Comprehensive Visual Guide to the Language, History, and

Practice of Typography. Beverly, MA: Rockport Publish-

ers, 2012.

Department of Art (continued)

Saltz, Ina. [Multiple essays] Terragni, Emilia, Alaana

Fitzpatrick, Andrew Roff, and Davina Thackara. The

Phaidon Archive of Graphic Design. London: Phaidon

Press, 2012.

Department of English

Abdoh, Salar. “Fixer Karim.” in Tremors: New Fiction by

Iranian-American Writers. Ed. Persis Karim. Fayetteville,

AR: University of Arkansas Press, 2013.

Abrams, Linsey. (Librettist). Rappaccini’s Daughter.

Composed by, Michael Cohen, 1991. New Jersey: Kean

University, 2013.

Dekel, Mikhal. “Tehran Kids.” The Global and the Inti-

mate: Feminism in Our Time. Ed. Victoria Rosner and

Geraldine Pratt. New York: Columbia University Press,

2012. Continued on Page 8



EIGHT FACULTY AWARDED HUMANITIES ENRICHMENT GRANTS FOR RESEARCH

Thanks to the generosity of the Rifkind Family and the Winston Foundation, which support the Simon H. Rifkind Center for the Humanities and the Arts, the Division has established Humanities Enrichment Grants. The purpose

of the award is to support faculty research and creative activity. We are pleased to announce the 8 grantees for

2013-14.

"Connoisseurship in the Mughal Empire"

Asociate Professor Molly Aitken-Zaidi

Art Department

In preparation for her next book and future art history

courses on art connoisseurship in the Mughal Empire, Prof. Aitken-Zaidi is conducting research at museums

and archives in the United Kingdom and France. She

is also learning Braj Bhasha, the literary vernacular

language of the Rajput rulers.

“Abe Kōbō: The Writing of Community”

Professor Richard Calichman

Foreign Languages and Literatures Department

Prof. Calichman is researching his next monograph, “Abe Kōbō: The Writing of Community,” in libraries

and archives in Japan. He will also interview Abe

scholars in Tokyo. Prof. Calichman focuses on the cen-trality of Abe’s social theory to his literary corpus,

which emphasizes community, society, and intersub-

jectivity.

“Spiritual Citizens: Central Asian Muslims and the Politics of Patronage in the Ottoman Empire, 1869-

1914”

Assistant Professor Lale Can

History Department

For her book, “Spiritual Citizens: Central Asian Mus-

lims and the Politics of Patronage in the Ottoman Em-pire, 1869-1914,” Professor Can is conducting research

in the Ottoman archives in Istanbul. Her book manu-

script is the first full-length study of social and politi-cal interactions between Central Asian pilgrims and

Ottoman state and society. The project is also an inno-

vative exploration of the tensions resulting from Otto-

man attempts to create a secular, imperial form of citi-zenship and, at the same time, to promote the extra-

territorial authority of the sultan among Muslim sub-

jects of foreign empires.

“Islam and the European Nation-State: Balkan Mus-

lims between Mosque and the State, 1908-1949”

Associate Professor Emily Greble

History Department

Prof. Greble is working in the remote archives of Novi

Pazar, Serbia and surrounding towns to complete re-

search on various occupation and local fascist regimes during World War II. She is striving to make sense of

the complex laws and regulations that shaped Muslim

lives, immigration patterns, education, and political movements for her upcoming book, “Islam and the

European Nation-State: Balkan Muslims between

Mosque and the State, 1908-1949.”

“The Education of Rebecca Rolfe”

Associate Professor Elizabeth Mazzola

English Department

For her upcoming book, “The Education of Rebecca Rolfe,” Prof. Mazzola is traveling to Jamestown settle-

ment in Virginia and the John Carter Brown Library in

Rhode Island to continue her research on the life of Pocahontas, especially her education, after her mar-

riage to John Rolfe.

Continued on Page 6

Outgoing MCA Chair Nancy Tag and some of her graduates at the 2013 Divisional Ceremony (Photo Courtesy Island Photography)


TEN TOP STUDENTS PARTICIPATE IN STANFORD SUMMER RESEARCH PROGRAM

The Division of Humanities and Arts began a new and exciting summer research program in partnership with Stanford University. Ten of our most qualified students who are planning to earn doctoral degrees were selected to

spend eight weeks on Stanford’s campus in Palo Alto, California. Each student was paired with a Stanford faculty

member who mentors his or her individual research project. Students also participate in workshops to help them

prepare for graduate school. Below are introductions of each student and their research topics.

Clara Boothby just gradu-

ated with a BA in English.

Her research focuses on

education and its view and

manifestation in Victorian

England, with expansion

of education to the work-

ing classes.

Erwin Fernandez just

graduated with a BA/MA

in History. His research

focuses on constitutional

law and its affect on priva-

cy and marriage rights,

with a focus on contempo-

rary LGBT issues.

Lucas Corcoran just grad-

uated with a BA in Eng-

lish. His research focuses

on the work of Louis Zu-

kofsky and the philologi-

cal influence from Wil-

liam Shakespeare.

Jonathan Aguirre is a

graduate student earning

an MA in Spanish. His

research focuses on fas-

cism from a transatlantic

perspective through the

literature of Southern

Cone and Spain

Robert Dalva is a senior

earning a BA in Philoso-

phy. His research focuses

on how the brain’s path-

ways affect humans’ ca-

pacities to reason scientifi-

cally and make moral

judgments.

Tamra Lepro is a senior

earning a BA in English

Literature. Her focus is on

the work of James Boswell

and his identities and how

they relate to larger cultur-

al changes in England.

Continued on Page 7



EIGHT FACULTY AWARDED HUMANITIES ENRICHMENT GRANTS FOR RESEARCH (CONTINUED)

“Claiming Sovereignty of Algeria: Health Care, Hu-

manitarianism, and International Organizations”

Assistant Professor Jennifer Johnson Onyedum

History Department

Prof. Onyedum is conducting research in archives in

Algeria and Switzerland on how decolonization tested

the limits of humanitarianism. The research is for her book manuscript, “Claiming Sovereignty of Algeria:

Health Care, Humanitarianism, and International Or-

ganizations.”

“Bones of Contention”

Professor Andrea Weiss

Media and Communications Arts Department

Prof. Weiss is interviewing key individuals for her production of a documentary film exploring the

theme of historical memory in post-Franco Spain, es-

pecially pertaining to Spanish lesbian/gay history and its denial during the long years of dictatorship. While

in Spain, Prof. Weiss will teach in the CCNY Study

Abroad program at the Universidad de La Rioja.

“Ivo Van Hove: A Major Theatre Artist and His

Work.”

Professor David Willinger

Theatre and Speech Department

Prof. Willinger is traveling to Belgium and Holland to

interview the major theatrical personage, Ivo Van

Hove, and to conduct archival research on Van Hove’s use of performance space and stage lighting and his

views on gender. Willinger is writing, “Ivo Van Hove:

A Major Theatre Artist and His Work.”

President Lisa Staiano-Coico addressing graduates in the 2013 Divisional Ceremony (Photo Courtesy Island Photography)

View of the graduates in the 2013 Divisional Ceremony (Photo Courtesy Island Photography)



TEN TOP STUDENTS PARTICIPATE IN STANFORD SUMMER RESEARCH PROGRAM (CONTINUED)

Waylon Smith is a senior

earning a BA in Philoso-

phy. His research focuses

on philosophy and psy-

chology to understand the

nature of love in romantic

and in other personal rela-

tionships.

Ariana Shirivani just grad-

uated with a BA in Art

History. Her research

focuses on Griselda Pol-

lack’s gendering-of-

Impressionist spaces theo-

ry through Modern works

such as Cremorne Gardens.

Samina Sirajuddowla is

a senior earning a BA in

History. Her research

focuses on liberation and

other historical move-

ments in Bangladesh,

with emphasis on cultur-

al identity.

Sameeah Muhammad is a graduate student earn-

ing an MA in English Literature. Her research focuses on medieval lit-erature, and how JRR

Tolkien and CS Lewis’s views comments on it affect the larger literary

canon.

THEATRE STUDENTS STUDY AT LAMDA IN LONDON THIS SUMMER

Maggie Lalley Rachel Baccus

The London Acad-emy of Music and

Dramatic Arts

(LAMDA) is one of the premier theatre

schools in Great

Britain. The Divi-sion of Humanities

and Arts has begun

to forge a close re-lationship with it.

Last January, one of

LAMDA’s faculty

members offered an exciting master

class on Shake-

spearian acting to over 70 Theatre

students and facul-

ty. This summer, thanks to the generosity of alumna Patricia Hill [’76] and the City Col-lege Fund, 3 of our students are spending up to 8 weeks at LAMDA. They will experience

the intense training in Shakespearian drama for which LAMDA is renowned. And the

generosity of the Rifkind Family will enable outgoing Theatre Department Chair Eugene

Nesmith to spend two weeks at LAMDA as an artist-in-residence.

Many thanks to our generous donors!

Darilyn Castillo


Department of English (continued)

Gustafson, Daniel. “Cultural Memory and the Royalist

Political Aesthetic in Aphra Behn’s Later Works.” Restora-

tion 36.2 (Fall 2012): 1-22.

Hinton, Laura. "Motion Picture Studies," "The Day the

World Ends," "Paris in the Springtime" (poetry text with

choreography), "The Slow Boat to China(town)." Esque 1.2

(2012): 10.

Laskin, Pamela. [Poetry collection.] Daring Daughters, Defi-

ant Dreams. Portland, OR: Fly by Night Press, 2012.

Miller, Renata Kobetts. “The Cultural Work of Drama

Criticism in the Early 1890s.” BRANCH: Britain, Representa-

tion and Nineteenth-Century History. Ed. Dino Franco Fellu-

ga. Extension of Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net.

Web. August 12, 2013.

Mirsky, Mark J. Ed. Preface. “The Family Murdered,”

“The Pinsk Yizkor Histories.” The Jews of Pinsk: 1881-1941.

Vol. 2. Berkeley: The Stanford University Press, 2013.

Raboteau, Emily. Searching for Zion. New York: Atlantic

Monthly Press, 2013.

Department of Foreign Language & Literature

Castro McGowan, Regina. “Língua portuguesa ou língua

brasileira? O discurso literário nacionalista e a política

linguística estatal.” Ao Redor do Mundo: Leituras em Portu-

guês. Vol. 2. New York: Atlantico Books, 2013.

Callahan, Laura. “ El español en Estados Unidos: E pluri-

bus unum? Enfoques multidisciplinarios.” Academia Norte-

americana de la Lengua Española. Eds. Domnita Dumitrescu

and Gerardo Piña-Rosales (January 2013): 307-338.

Department of History

Hu, Danian. “In memory of Xu Liangying (1920-2013).”

Newsletter of the History of Science Society, 42.3 (July 2013).

Naddeo, Barbara. “A Cosmopolitan in the Provinces:

Giuseppe Maria Galanti, Geography and Enlightenment

Europe.” Modern Intellectual History, 10.1 (April 2013): 1-26.

Rosenberg, Clifford. "La politique musulmane en métro-

pole dans l'entre-deux-guerres” Histoire de l'Algérie à la

période coloniale, 1830-1962. Eds. Abderrahmane Bouchène,

Jean-Pierre Peyroulou, Ouanassa Siari Tengour et Sylvie

Thénault. Paris and Algiers: Éditions La Découverte e Bar-

zakh, 2012.

FACULTY BOOKS / ESSAYS

Department of History (continued)

Stein, Judith. “The Day After Election Day,” Logos: A Jour-

nal of Modern Society and Culture, 22.4 (2012).

Weitz, Eric D. Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy. 2nd

ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013

Shatterzone of Empires: Coexistence and Violence in the German,

Habsburg, Russian, and Ottoman Borderlands. Ed. Bartov,

Omer, and Eric D. Weitz. Bloomington: Indiana University

Press, 2013.

Department of Philosophy

Marinoff, Lou, and Daisaku Ikeda. The Inner Philosopher: Con-

versations on Philosophy's Transformative Power. Cambridge,

Mass: Dialogue Path Press, 2012.


THE INSPECTOR GENERAL, by Nikolai Gogol Adapted and Directed by Rob Barron, Aaron Davis Hall, Fall 2012

Photographer: Portia Lipscomb


Theatre & Speech Professor Eugene

Nesmith is the first

recipient of CCNY Rifkin Artist-In -

Residence Program to

go to London’s Acade-my of Music and Dra-

matic Arts (LAMDA).

He observed their summer program, and

engaged in dialogue

with faculty, students, and administrators about Ameri-

can training methods, how cultural differences impact upon training, and about possible future collaborations

with CCNY.

LAMDA ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE


FACULTY AWARDS & GRANTS

Department of Art

Associate Professor Becca Albee was awarded the Ellen Battell Stoeckel Fellowship to attend the Norfolk Yale Sum-

mer Art Program.

Assistant Professor Marit Dewhurst was awarded a $18,000 grant through the Institute of Museum and Library

Studies (IMLS) via the Art Education Partnership (AEP) to conduct a literature review of empirical, outcomes-based museum education research.

The 56th Annual New York Emmy®

Award for an Arts: Program Feature/

Segment was awarded to Professor

Jerry W. Carlson (MCA) and CUNY

TV for a segment entitled Nueva York:

Fernando Pérez on April 14, 2013 at the

Marriott Marquis Times Square.


Lecturer Doris Barkin presented, “Cuckolds and Codpiec-es in Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona: Early Mod-

ern Anxieties in Male Potency" at the New Jersey College English Association, 36th Annual Spring Conference enti-tled, “Man to Man/Man to Woman: Masculinity and Gen-dered Relationships in Literature and Culture.”

Professor Laura Hinton was the coordinator for the Louis-

ville Conference on Literature and Culture 2013: “A Trib-ute to Adrienne Rich.”

Professor Elizabeth Mazzola presented, "What Happened

to Rebecca Rolfe" at the University of Miami's Twentieth Annual Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque Symposium.

Department of Foreign Language & Literature

Associate Professor Laura Callahan presented, "Facework

in female to female service encounters between native and non-native speakers of Spanish in the U.S." at the 1st Inter-national Pragmatics Conference of the Americas/ 5th Inter-national Conference on Intercultural Pragmatics (AMPRA) in October 2012.

Assistant Professor Vanessa K. Valdes presented,

“Celebrating Our Fullest Selves: The Diasporic Vision of Ntozake Shange” at Barnard College's Africana Studies Program's 20th Anniversary: The Worlds of Shange Con-ference.

Associate Professor Araceli Tinajero participated in multi-

ple conferences speaking about Latin America and Asia and her book Kokoro: A Mexican Woman in Japan, including at the Embassy of Japan in Mexico.

Department of Media & Communication Arts

Professor Nancy R. Tag formally launched City College’s

new program in Branding + Integrated Communications (BIC) at their first Curriculum Summit in January 2013.

FACULTY CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

FACULTY AWARDS & GRANTS


Professor Carla Cappetti was honored with the Fulbright Scholar Award for 2013-2014 which will allow her to teach,

deliver lectures, and continue her research in Italy.

Assistant Professor Andras Kisery was awarded the 3-year Andrew B. Mellon Fellowship of Scholars in Critical

Bibliography at the Rare Book School of the University of Virginia, which will help him participate in collaborative research projects, visits to the RBS for training, and funds for a conference or symposium to be organized at City Col-lege. Kisery was also named the Francis Bacon Foundation Fellow at the Huntington Library in San Marino, CA.

Department of Media & Communication Arts

Professor David Davidson was honored with the 2013

Pioneer for the Arts award from the Riant / Black Experi-mental Theatre for his 25 years of documentary filmmaking focusing on African - American arts and culture, including "Cissy Houston - Sweet Inspiration", "The Dancing Man - Peg Leg Bates" and "A Place Out of Time - The Bordentown School"

Department of Music

Lecturer Ruth Albert Spencer was awarded her third on-

going grant from the New York Council on the Humanities to help her continue to give her lecture/recitals entitled "Johannes Brahms: His Life, His Loves, and his Music" fo-cusing on some of the women in Brahms' life and how they inspired his music.



Department of Art

Associate Professor Hajoe Moderegger’s work was included in the exhibited entitled, “Free Enterprise: The Art of Citizen Space Exploration ‘The backup tapes from Moon and Mars’ and ‘Buzz Cut’” at the UCR ARTSblock/ the California Museum

of Photography from January—May 2013.

Professor Ina Saltz had eight photographs included in the Signs for Sounds (Harley Gallery touring exhibition) in the United Kingdom during February 2013.

Lecturer Tom Thayer’s work was included in the exhibition entitled, “Baseless Legion of Architects Rent Asunder” at the Eleven Rivington gallery in New York, NY from February—March 2013.

Professor Annette Weintraub’s work was included in the exhibition entitled, “Slide Stories: Brutalism" is a segment of a pro-ject entitled, “AR2View” created and supported by members and programs in the College Art Association. View at http://v1b3.com/?page_id=974


Professor Linsey Abrams is the librettist of Rappaccini's Daughter, an opera composed by Michael Cohen and based on the

short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne. A partial scene and aria, orchestrated for piano, harp, flute and soprano, was per-formed , in a concert entitled , "Sounds of the Angels," at the Enlow Recital Hall at Kean University on March 4, 2013.

FACULTY EXHIBITIONS & PERFORMANCES


FACULTY: To submit your own work to be included future issues, complete the form at:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1twvvYtEjP7df2jITkxrRCIB1Mav2kJMBZQd5ZmCgPMk/viewform

Ady Chng graduated with a BFA in Electronic

Design & Multimedia (Department of Art) in May 2013. His senor thesis focused on

branding & packaging design thé, a new herb-al tea line that promotes eco-friendly, agricul-

ture sustainability, and natural high quality tea. To learn more about his project and view more

images, visit http://www.behance.net/gallery/Branding-Packaging-

Design/9011897

STUDENT THESIS PROJECT HIGHLIGHT

http://v1b3.com/?page_id=974

http://v1b3.com/?page_id=974

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1twvvYtEjP7df2jITkxrRCIB1Mav2kJMBZQd5ZmCgPMk/viewform

http://www.behance.net/gallery/Branding-Packaging-Design/9011897





humanities & arts magazine, volume 2013, issue 1

Documents

time faculty

faculty publications

art history

new york city

city college faculty

jewish art

city college of new

digital arts