The Black Power movement of the 1960s and '70s is often described as essentially rhetorical. But as assistant professor of history Russell Rickford explains in his new book, “We Are an African People: Independent Education, Black Power, and the Radical Imagination,” the movement was galvanized by complex political and cultural ideas that found their expression in black national and Pan-African…
Students and scholars can now freely search a new database of Latin and Greek authors that provides links to online versions of their works.The database, the Classical Works Knowledge Base (CWKB), contains metadata about 5,200 works by 1,500 ancient authors, allowing users with a limited knowledge of the classics’ canonical citation system to simply link to passages of digital texts.“Let’s say…
… Faculty has issued a call for nominations for the three fellowships , which will be awarded in January 2017. This … Article Body … Aquadro, Harrington, Nicholson win Weiss fellowships …
Building on nearly two decades’ worth of research, a multidisciplinary team at Cornell has blazed a new trail by creating a self-assembled, three-dimensional gyroidal superconductor.Ulrich Wiesner, the Spencer T. Olin Professor of Engineering, led the group, which included researchers in engineering, chemistry and physics.The group’s findings are detailed in a paper published in Science Advances,…
“How many of you have cried today? How many of you cried yesterday? … How many of you haven’t cried in a year?”Asking an audience of more than 100 to answer these questions by a show of hands, Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo ’08, a Cornell doctoral student in the field of science and technology studies, opened the ninth annual Soup & Hope series Jan. 21 by describing her personal journey toward…
Good filmmakers know intuitively that close-ups can be much briefer than longer-distance shots and still maintain their power. A Cornell psychologist has explained why.It takes less time to read an actor’s expression when her face fills up the frame and there’s nothing else in the shot to distract from it. And conversely, the further away the shot, the longer it takes the viewer to wade through…
Thanks to nearly 300 solar panels installed on both buildings in mid-December, the sun’s rays hitting the roof on Cornell’s Human Ecology Building and Klarman Hall now produce energy.More than 228 solar panels installed on the roof of the Human Ecology Building – a certified LEED Platinum structure – will produce about 70 kilowatts daily on sunny days. On the Arts Quad, the new Klarman Hall…
Courtney A. Roby, classics, has an unusual background. She’s a longtime math lover and a former electrical engineer, who turned to the ancient world.
As an electrical engineering PhD student, Roby was dissatisfied. She had some big context questions about technology and engineering: “Why do we use a particular set of practices in developing new technologies? How do an engineer’s priorities…
Starting in February, the College of Arts and Sciences is launching a semester-long celebration of the arts and humanities with marquee events, a series of speaker presentations and panel discussions, all culminating in the grand opening celebration for its new humanities building, Klarman Hall, on May 26.“The New Century for the Humanities events will showcase the important work that our arts…
The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS), the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Hotel Administration and the College of Human Ecology welcome fresh faces to campus this week, as the university’s first group of spring first-year students arrives.Hailing from places like Florida, California, Kentucky and New York, Australia, Singapore, China, Thailand, Korea and Hong Kong, 115…
Enclosed in glass and welcoming the campus community into a large central atrium leading to Goldwin Smith Hall and the Arts Quad, Klarman Hall is the brand-new showpiece of Cornell’s central campus.The building at 232 East Ave. also is the new home of three units in the College of Arts and Sciences. Faculty and staff in the Department of Romance Studies finished moving from Morrill Hall into…
Capitalism has shaped our world, from slave-fueled plantations to Wall Street banks, from state-owned factories to oil pipelines.
A new History of Capitalism initiative from Cornell’s College of Arts & Sciences and the ILR School brings together scholars from across the university to examine the nature of capitalism, its relationship with democracy and other forms of politics, and its…
When Jocelyn Vega ’17, Anthony Halmon ’17 and Mary Khalaf ’17 arrived here three years ago as members of Cornell’s first Posse Scholar class in 2013, they knew they would become role models for groups of students to come.They didn’t realize, however, how important they would become to each other or how much their backgrounds and experiences would shape what they would decide to study.Today, all…
Professor Emeritus of Musicology Don M. Randel was named an honorary member of the American Musicological Society (AMS) during its recent annual meeting in Louisville. This award is to given to scholars “who have made outstanding contributions to furthering the Society’s mission and whom the Society wishes to honor.”The award was presented to Randel in honor of his scholarly writings and his…
Iftikhar Dadi, associate professor in the Department of History of Art and Visual Studies, is the editor and a contributor to the recently-released “Anwar Jalal Shemza” (Ridinghouse, 2015).The book surveys the life and career of Shemza, an artist born in 1928 in India and known for layering postwar geometric abstraction alongside Arabic calligraphic forms.The volume includes more than 120…
Paul Mutolo ’94 harnesses the hydrogen future, bringing it to bear on the carbon present: For his TEDx Chemung River talk in November, Mutolo, director of external partnerships at Cornell’s Energy Materials Center, imagined a world where cars no longer use oil. “There would be no smog in our cities. There would be no wars over oil-rich regions. There would be no oil spills to clean up,” he said…
Since its start in 2010, the Grants Program for Digital Collections in Arts and Sciences has helped to digitize a range of Cornell collections, from Nepali texts to images of gems and amulets to glacial photography.College of Arts and Sciences faculty are invited to submit new proposals to digitize Cornell collections to make hidden treasures freely available around the world. This year, for the…
The Arts & Sciences Student Ambassadors share their thoughts on everything from roomates to coffee to the best classes in the Student Ambassador Blog, which is updated frequently with new columns. Here, sophomore MItchell Lee talks about the classes and people that make Cornell one of his favorite places to be. Read the blog weekly on the A&S website.When I was accepted to Cornell, my…
Devon McMahon '15Major: College Scholar, Biological Sciences, Asian StudiesHometown: New York, NYWhy did you choose Cornell?I was originally unsure about Cornell, given its large size. However, during Cornell Days I was awed by the myriad of research and academic opportunities available to undergraduates. I also fell in love with our beautiful Ithaca campus, and have not looked back since. What…
Emma Borden '15Major: College ScholarHometown: Ithaca, NYWhy did you choose Cornell?I chose Cornell because of its size and its scope. I was not entirely sure of what I wanted to study, and I knew that regardless of what I chose I would be able to thrive at Cornell. In addition, I knew that I wanted the people around me to be studying all different subjects and disciplines so that they could…
Simon Levin, adjunct professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Center for Applied Mathematics, and George M. Moffett Professor of Biology and professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton University, will receive a National Medal of Science, the nation's highest scientific honor. Levin will be honored at a White House ceremony in early 2016 along with eight…
Jeremiah Grant '17
Major: Africana Studies with a concentration on the Caribbean.
Hometown: Queens, NY
Why did you choose Cornell?
It just felt right. You’re looking at colleges and wondering which one would be the best fit for you. And there came a time when everyone who was entering my life had some connection to Cornell and the people I met here were just genuinely nice and willing…
Nate Floro ’15 faces a tough task every day — teaching English to a class of 100 Moroccan college students of varying abilities. Some of them can understand what he’s saying, but many have no clue. And he has no teaching assistants and no real ability for in-class speaking practice because of the large class.So Floro, a Fulbright teaching assistant, offers as many office hours as possible,…
When Alex Gruhin '11 and Ariel Reid '09, MMH '10, needed to hire a director for their new entertainment venture, the choice was an obvious one -- their favorite theater professor, Bruce Levitt."Nightcap Riot" – which runs Jan. 15 to Feb. 14 at Magick City, 37 Box St., Brooklyn – is the first in what Gruhin and Reed say will be a series of events offering an evening of new music, theater and some…
We’ve all seen the Febreze air fresheners, which employ a derivative of corn starch to trap invisible air pollutants in the home and remove unwanted odors.A team of Cornell researchers has used the same material found in Febreze, cyclodextrin, to develop a technique that could revolutionize the water-purification industry.The team is led by Will Dichtel, associate professor of chemistry and…
… to an endowment in Caplan’s honor. Annual travel fellowships from that endowment – the Caplan Travel Fellowships – are awarded to students who share his … academic projects or focused tourism. “The Caplan Travel Fellowships have been key to the careers of many Cornell …
As a pre-med student, Kasey Han ’18 knows the mental and physical benefits of a good workout. Han’s favorite workouts are a bit out of the ordinary, though, as they usually take place three stories up in the air.Han has been a fan of circus arts since she tried out the flying trapeze as a middle-schooler during a family vacation. And she’s kept up her craft, now working out and teaching children…
This semester, the College of Arts & Sciences, together with the Office of Academic Diversity Initiatives (OADI) welcomed the third cohort of Posse Program students to Cornell.And for the first time, OADI sponsored visits for First Year Parents Weekend, welcoming parents of this freshman group to visit their children, meet with other Posse families and explore Ithaca.“Posse is providing him…
Pianist Yujin "Stacy" Joo '16 won the 12th annual Cornell Concerto Competition Dec. 13 for her performance of Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Major, Op. 26, Mvt. 1, accompanied by Blaise Bryski. A chemistry and biology major in the College of Arts and Sciences, Joo has played piano for ensembles including the orchestra, wind symphony and a cover band.She was one of four finalists chosen by…
Benedict Anderson, a Cornell professor emeritus in government who wrote “Imagined Communities,” the book that set the pace for the academic study of nationalism, died Dec. 13 in East Java, Indonesia. He was 79.Anderson, the Aaron L. Binenkorb Emeritus Professor of International Studies, taught at Cornell from 1967 to 2002.In his 1983 book, “Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and…
From the locomotive-like roar of Clubfest to the calm stillness of a midnight walk across the suspension bridge, a class of students has created a blog offering an audio tour of Cornell sounds.Members of Professor Kim Haines-Eitzen’s “Sound, Silence and the Sacred” class in the Department of Near Eastern Studies spent the semester using texts, recordings, videos and performances to explore the…
When Martha Austen ’13 used to say she was fixin’ to eat supper, she wondered why her Cornell friends would raise their eyebrows a bit in her direction.Now, she’s made the study of sociophonetics — the study of sound and how speech varies based on different social factors — her focus as a graduate student at Ohio State University.And she’s using Twitter as a way to gain access to a mountain of…
A group of sleepy students tumbled out of bed early one Saturday morning in April 2015 to board a bus with me from Ithaca to New York City’s renowned Lincoln Center Theatre. There, thanks to funding from the Southeast Asia Program (SEAP) and the history department’s Polenberg fund, we attended a matinee performance of the famous Rogers and Hammerstein musical, The King and I. Afterwards, the…
Chiara Formichi, assistant professor of Asian studies, is celebrating the release of her new book, “Shi’ism in South East Asia” (Hurst & Co./Oxford University Press; co-edited with R. Michael Feener, 2015).
This edited volume is the first book available in any language that approaches Sunni and Shi’a Muslims’ devotion in Southeast Asia as forms of ‘Alid piety, discussing their modern…
Irving Goh PhD ’12, was recently awarded the named the Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for French and Francophone Literary from the Modern Language Association for his book, “The Reject: Community, Politics, And Religion After The Subject.”The prize is awarded annually for an outstanding scholarly work in its field — a literary or linguistic study, a critical edition of an important work, or a…
Hundreds of students, faculty and community members braved a foggy, rainy night Dec. 2 for a behind-the-scenes look at the New Horizons mission to Pluto, given by mission scientists Cathy Olkin and Ann Harch in the Schwartz Auditorium in Rockefeller Hall.“New Horizons represents a particular milestone because it is the completion of mankind’s initial exploration of the solar system,” said Phil…
Patrick Braga ’17 spent a little more than a year working on his chamber opera, “La Tricotea (Opus 25),” which will premiere Dec. 3 with 16 student vocalists and instrumentalists.“This was a project out of my own passion for composition and to convince people that opera doesn’t have to be a boring ordeal,” said Braga, who was inspired by a music history course with Professor Judith Peraino and a…
“Why is your music important to you? How much time do you spend listening to music per day? How many songs per day do you listen to? How important is your music to you?”Ron Hoy, Mersamer Professor of Neurobiology and Behavior, quizzed a group of 35 students on those questions and more when they gathered Nov. 11 for a Bethe Ansatz after-dinner conversation, “Building a life worth living.” Hoy…
Scientific explanations can at times feel dull and impenetrable, a frustration shared by anyone who has sat through a high school science lecture. But a group of Cornell alumni thinks communicating the joys of science can be exciting, and they've launched a YouTube series with the conviction that science can be edgy, informative and far from boring.Created by Molly Edwards '12 (CALS), Silviana…
In the summer of 1998, Henry Korn '68 got a phone call from a young lawyer and fellow Cornellian that changed his life."You won't believe what I'm seeing here," Korn recalls being told by Jonathan Rauchway '94, an associate at Donovan, Leisure, Newton & Irvine, an old-line New York law firm founded in 1929. "I'm seeing an enormous collection of bound and unbound papers that were the late…
Say you’ve got some money to invest and you’re trying to figure out if the stock market will go up or down. Should you ask one expert’s advice? Or should you ask lots of people what they think?Although it may seem counterintuitive, you’ll likely get the best estimate of stock market volatility by asking many investors rather than one trusted financial adviser. Research shows that averaging the…
… Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship. A total of 86 fellowships were awarded this year. The fellowship supports … Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship. A total of 86 fellowships were awarded this year. … Imported Article Body … …
From Bronze Age traditions of mortuary ritual and divination to current controversies over flag pins and Predator drones, a new book by anthropology professor Adam Smith sheds light on how material goods authorize and defend political order.In “The Political Machine” (Princeton University Press), Smith demonstrates that beyond assemblies of people, polities are just as importantly assemblages of…
Heroine, cold-blooded murderer or victim?About the year 1000, Norse explorers were the first Europeans to reach North America. Two versions of this Norse discovery were written down some 200-300 years later, with both sagas telling of a woman named Freydis – but the versions differ starkly.In “The Greenlanders’ Saga,” Freydis is a mass murderer, stirring up strife between two factions, then…
Griffin Smith-Nichols ’19 spent three nights last week cowering on a set of lounge chairs in the Schwartz Center’s Black Box Theatre. The Arts and Sciences student played the slightly mad, mostly murderous and often humorous Orestes in this semester’s Department of Classics production of the Euripides play.The play, filled with maniacal rants, lots of fake swords and sabers and a few Southern…
No matter how neglected the child, there’s still hope – at least for prairie voles.That’s the message of a new study from a Cornell psychologist that could have implications for human health and well-being. And the same researcher working with prairie voles, has shed light on why some animals behave differently from their peers in social contexts.In the first study, a lack of social interaction…
If your kids ever brought home some Oobleck from school, you had a glimpse of a long-standing scientific controversy. Next time, you can just have fun with it, knowing that the argument is over. Cornell physicists have finally explained what makes Oobleck so weird.Oobleck – named by the creators of the popular grade-school project for a gooey substance that fell from the sky in a Dr. Seuss story …
“Fiction can transform a particular history into art of universal significance,” author and Kappa Alpha Professor of English Robert Morgan said Nov. 19 in “History and Fiction: The Growth of an Artist – Harper Lee’s ‘Go Set A Watchman’,” a talk in Goldwin Smith Hall.Prior to its publication this year, “Go Set a Watchman,” written in 1957, was promoted as a sequel to Lee’s beloved “To Kill a…
