Faculty News 2006-2007, Vol. 1
Sinan Antoon recently published translations of three poems by young Egyptian poets (Fatima Naoot, Najat `Ali, and Rana al-Tonsi) for a special issue of Banipal, Summer 2006, on “New Writing in Egypt.”
Gene Cittadino’s article, “Ecology and American Social Thought,” was published in Religion and the New Ecology: Environmental Responsibility in a World in Flux, edited by David M. Lodge and Christopher Hamlin (University of Notre Dame Press, May 2006).
Angie Cruz’s novel, Let It Rain Coffee, was published by Simon & Schuster in April 2006. Rigoberto Gonzalez of El Paso Times praised: “Let It Rain Coffee is a stunning sweep of history, memory, and fantasy that demonstrates a talent unmatched by any other young writer.”
Random House recently bought the paperback rights to Stephen Duncombe’s book, The Bobbed Haired Bandit: A True Story of Crime and Celebrity in 1920s New York (coauthored with Andrew Mattson), which was also recently optioned to be made into a movie. Duncombe had two articles published: "Armed and Adorable" (coauthored with Andrew Mattson), New York Times, The City, February 12, 2006; and “Resistance,” in The New Dictionary of the History of Ideas, (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2005). Reprints from Duncombe’s Notes from Underground also recently appeared in The Subcultures Reader and Ordinary Lifestyles: Popular Media, Consumption, and Taste (Open University Press, 2005).
Gregory Erickson’s Music and Literary Modernism: Critical Essays and Comparative Studies (Cambridge Scholars Press, April 2006).
Emily Fragos is editor of a new anthology of poetry, The Dance, published in April 2006 by Everyman's Pocket Library/Knopf. Some of Fragos’ own poems are currently appearing or have recently appeared in The New Yorker, the American Poetry Review, The Threepenny Review, The Cimarron Review, Barrow Street, and Columbia, Journal of Literature & Art.
Lisa Goldfarb’s essay, “A Distinct Flame’: Philosophy and Music in Paul Valéry's Poetics," was published in June 2006 in Fulcrum: An Annual of Poetry and Aesthetics (Number V, 2006).
Maria Hodermarska coauthored a chapter, “Operatic Play: A Drama and Music Therapy Collaboration” for Healing the Inner City Child: Creative Arts Therapies with At-Risk Children (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2006).
Bradley Lewis’ book, Moving Beyond Prozac, DSM, and the New Psychiatry: The Birth of Postpsychiatry was published by University of Michigan Press in February 2006. Professor Lennard J. Davis of the University of Illinois at Chicago said of the book: “[Lewis’] biocultural survey of what he calls ‘post-psychiatry’ is simultaneously educating and inspiring, amounting, in effect, to a call to arms for anyone involved with or interested in the mental health care system.”
David Moore contributed an article, “Workplace Learning and the Micropolitics of Knowledge” to The Learning Potential of the Workplace, edited by Wim J. Nijhof and Loek F.M. Nieuwenhuis (Sense Publishers, 2006).
Kim Phillips-Fein’s dissertation, “Top-Down Revolution: Businessmen, Intellectuals and Politicians against the New Deal, 1945-1964,” won one of two Honorable Mentions for Best Dissertation in 2005 from the journal Labor History; it was also a finalist for the Krooss Prize for the best dissertation in Business History, awarded by the Business History Conference.
Stacy Pies wrote an entry about the poet Allen Grossman in the recently published The Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Poets and Poetry.
SEEN & HEARD
In February 2006, Sinan Antoon recited poetry and participated in a panel on “Iraqi Literary Production in the Second Half of the 20th Century” at the KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin, Germany. In March, he participated at the British Council Conference on Arabic/English Translation, and recited poetry at the October Gallery in London, England and at American University. He then participated in a conversation with Iraqi poet Saadi Youssef on “The Politics of Culture Under Occupation” in Barcelona, Spain in April. In June he delivered a paper, “Reconstruction or Destruction? Public Space in Post-Saddam Baghdad,” at the Second World Congress of Middle East Studies in Amman, Jordan, and he rejoined the ongoing “Contemporary Arab Representations: The Iraqi Equation” project for a poetry reading and a lecture in Seville, Spain.
Stephen Duncombe delivered a talk entitled “Ethical Spectacle: Must Fantasy Lead to Fascism?” at Deutsches Haus at NYU, and also participated in several invited talks in NYC with Andrew Mattson on the subject of “Crime, Celebrity, and Newspapers in 1920s New York,” in the spring of 2006.
Gregory Erickson delivered a paper entitled “In Mina Harker’s Bedroom: Dracula and the Destruction of Modernist Theology” at the American Comparative Literature Association Conference in Princeton, NJ in April 2006.
Sharon Friedman presented a paper on “The Haunted: Re-Visionary Playwrights and Originary Texts” at the Twentieth-Century Literature Conference at the University of Louisville in February 2006. On June 11, 2006 she presented a post-production talk at the Mint Theater on Rachel Crothers' play, Susan and God, as part of the Mint's season dedicated to neglected plays by American women.
Lisa Goldfarb chaired the Wallace Stevens Society Panel, entitled “Wallace Stevens’ Muses: Real and Imagined,” at the American Literature Association Conference in San Francisco, CA in May 2006.
Lanny Harrison performed in the cabaret Particular People in February 2006 and in Theodora Skipitares’ Trilogy in March, both at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in NYC.
Scott Hightower was a featured reader at Wordstock in Portland, OR in April 2006. Hightower was a guest of the Mountain Writers Series along with poets Robert Wrigley, Yusef Komanyakaa, and Ed Hirsch.
In May and June of 2006, Antonio Lauria-Perricelli spent time in the Caribbean, where he attended the annual meeting of the Society for Caribbean Studies in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and then spent two weeks in Barbados doing research to further his understanding of the distribution of social power and benefits on the island.
Clair McPherson delivered a paper, “Gregory the Great and the Demonic” at Harvard University for the Medieval Academy of America in April 2006. The paper is also slated to be included in McPherson’s book on Gregory I.
Bella Mirabella delivered a paper, “The Performance of the Handkerchief and Accessorizing the Public Space,” at the Renaissance Society of America’s conference in San Francisco, CA in March 2006. Mirabella also attended a seminar entitled “Accessorizing the Renaissance” at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC in the spring of 2006.
Kim Phillips-Fein delivered a talk entitled “Backlash Against the New Deal: Business Conservatives and Postwar American Politics” at the Market Culture workshop at Yale University in April 2006. She then delivered a paper, “The Great Utopia: Business Conservatives and the Vision of the Market,” at the Society for Anthropology of North America in NYC that same month.
Stacy Pies moderated a panel on “Postmodernism in American Fiction and Film” on July 10, 2006 for a multinational group of university professors at NYU’s Steinhardt School of Education's Summer Fulbright Institute on the Civilization of the United States.
George Shulman delivered a talk entitled “Race, Prophecy, and Toni Morrison” at Columbia University on April 6, 2006. The event was sponsored by Columbia’s American Studies Program and English Department.
Laura Slatkin delivered the Paddison Lecture on Greek Literature at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in May 2006.
Eliza Slavet organized and participated in an event entitled, “Freud's Foreskin: A Sesquicentennial Celebration of the Most Suggestive Circumcision in History,” on May 10, 2006. Four panelists presented short lectures and a conversation “at the intersection of Jewish identity, psychoanalysis, and minor surgery.” Slavet's presentation was entitled “Circumcised Supremacy: Freud's Final Cut.”
Ella Turenne hosted a workshop on art and activism at the Prison Moratorium Project's Leadership Academy in March 2006. She then delivered a paper, “The Beautiful Side of Ugly: Murals, Social Work, Education and Incarceration—Models for Change,” at the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association Conference in Atlanta, GA in April. Also in April, Turenne served as keynote speaker at the SUNY Albany Haitian Students Association Annual Gala and performed at Barnard College's Scholar & Feminist Conference on "Engendering Justice: Prisons, Activism, and Change.” From March to May, Turenne participated in the Cave Canem regional poetry workshop, “Making the Poem Sing,” in NYC.
Susan Weisser moderated an online book discussion on Jane Eyre for Barnes and Noble in April 2006, and another on Lady Chatterley's Lover in July.
KUDOS
Art Workers News / Art & Artists, the artist-run publication of the Foundation for the Community of Artists has embarked on a restoration project to expand and preserve its place in history; the NYU Fales Library will maintain the journals in their “Downtown Collection.” From 1971 to 1989, Art Workers News / Art & Artists served the world of working artists, giving a voice to many prominent artists, critics, and journalists. Elliott Barowitz was the long-time executive editor of the journal, its main editorialist, and keeper of its archives; Lauren Raiken was a contributing editor and a member of the board of the Foundation for the Community of Artists; Barnaby Ruhe was a frequent contributor.
Gene Cittadino has been awarded a two-year National Science Foundation grant, which began in the summer of 2006. The grant is for his continuing research into the implications of an American boundary dispute involving valuable oil land on science and law, social justice, and environmental policy.
In recognition of his gift of several photographs of the renowned artist Pablo Picasso and family to the Musée Picasso, Paris, Bert Katz was invited to meet with the "directrice" of the Musée Picasso in Paris, France in June 2006.
Kim Phillips-Fein>’sLabor History; it was also a finalist for the Krooss Prize for the best dissertation in Business History, awarded by the Business History Conference.
Meera Nair recently won a MacDowell Fellowship, allowing her to finish writing her novel at the famous MacDowell artists colony in New Hampshire in the summer of 2006.
Laura Slatkin was awarded a fellowship at the Liguria Study Center for the Arts and Humanities in Bogliasco, Italy and a fellowship at Columbia University's Institute for Scholars in Paris, France for the spring of 2007.
Alycia Smith-Howard was selected as a fellow by the Folger Shakespeare Library/Folger Institute in Washington, DC. Smith-Howard’s research project is a study of the life and work of the foremost anti-Shakespearean critic and radical American thinker, Delia Bacon—the originator of the theory that William Shakespeare did not pen the works attributed to him. Smith-Howard will be in residence at the Folger during the spring of 2007.
