Barry Strauss, military historian, prolific author, and chair of the Department of History at Cornell University, says U.S. military action in Syria carries high risks and shouldn’t be pursued.Strauss says:“The overarching issue in Syria is strategic. Do the United States and its western allies want to intervene militarily and, if so, against whom – the Assad regime or ISIS? – and to what end –…
Grad student Rachel Abbott and undergrads Andy Wong ‘17 and Diamond Oden ‘17 have become experts in identifying various creatures of the Adirondacks – the calanoid copepods that they’re studying, as well as myriad others that were biting them as they spent hours taking water samples in canoes.“It’s very easy to get grumpy up there,” said Abbott, a doctoral student in the field of ecology and…
In an article published by the Huffington Post, Frederic J. Whiton Professor of English Literature Daniel R. Schwarz speaks to parents about what they need to know about the college experience. Here are a few highlights: 1) Your son or daughter is in college as an individual, not as part of the family team. While you want to be supportive and give advice when asked, you are not captain or coach…
The idea of introducing a novel gene into a few individuals that then spreads through an entire population sounds like a premise for science fiction. And yet fiction can be prophetic.Cornell researchers have used mathematical models to illuminate the promises – and potential problems – of a new genome editing mechanism, called a gene drive.The mechanism has been long discussed but only recently…
Jennifer Hanley '06 just began a new position at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona, shifting her attention from Mars to Pluto and a moon of Saturn, but she's still focused on one goal – the search for water.Hanley was one of eight authors of a paper, published in the Sept. 28, 2015 issue of Nature Geoscience, on the discovery that liquid water appears to exist on Mars.As a postdoc at Southwest…
This article about languages includes the research of Morten Christiansen, psychology professor and co-director of Cornell's Cognitive Science Program. He is a co-author of new research finding that language is less arbitrary than assumed: the sounds and shapes of words can reveal aspects of meaning and grammatical function.
To review current astrobiological knowledge and assess the prospects of life beyond Earth, the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space and Technology heard testimony Sept. 29 in Washington, D.C., from Cornell’s Jonathan Lunine and three other space experts on the reasons, ways and means for space exploration’s next steps.“One of the most important outcomes of the last two decades of solar system…
To feed the world’s burgeoning population, producers must grow crops in more challenging terrain – where plant roots must cope with barriers. To that end, Cornell University physicists and Boyce Thompson Institute plant biologists have uncovered a valuable plant root action, in that roots – when their downward path is blocked, as often occurs in rocky soil – display a “grow and switch” behavior,…
Edward E. Baptist, associate professor of history, discussed slavery’s continued legacy in American social and political structures at a Tuesday talk titled “Abolitionism, Modern ‘Anti-Slavery’ and #BlackLivesMatter,” and covered in this Cornell Daily Sun story.Baptist, author of "The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism," challenged audience members to think…
Will Dichtel, Cornell associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry, whose innovations may allow for ample electricity and for detecting trace amounts of explosives, has received a 2015 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. In its announcement today, the foundation called him “a leading figure in chemistry.”Twenty-four awards, the so-called “Genius Awards,” were given this year to scientists,…
In the last few years, Jaz Nsubuga ’11 has become an expert on the following:Men’s shaving habits, Digital and social marketing campaign strategies, Women’s facial cleaning products, Credit card habits of wealthy people, and Coca Cola, among other things.As manager of integrated marketing at MTV, Nsubuga knows that the best way to market a company or product is to understand it inside-out. And,…
When David S. Cohen ’85 was a student at Cornell, he was active in the Peace Studies Program as president of the Cornell Civil Liberties Union. He helped negotiate agreements between Cornell officials and apartheid protestors and stood on the steps of Willard Straight Hall to support ROTC members who had been kicked out of the military because of their sexual orientation.Twenty years later, Cohen…
In light of Pope Francis’ recent visit to the United States, Vincent Ialenti, a National Science Foundation graduate research fellow and a PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology, and Annelise Riles, a professor of anthropology, encouraged people in this NPR column to read the letter he wrote to all of us, Laudato Si.Ialenti and Riles say the letter is “important because it defies the…
Travis Gosa, an assistant professor of Africana Studies, and co-author Erik Nielson, an assistant professor of liberal arts at the University of Richmond, explore the relationship between Obama and hip-hop in the Washington Post article, “Obama and hip-hop: a breakup song.” Gosa and Nielson, whose book “The Hip Hop & Obama Reader” will be published in October, say that Obama's ties to hip…
James Vincenti '15Major: American StudiesHometown: Dumont, NJWhy did you choose Cornell?When I came to visit for Cornell Days, the weather was – shockingly – not great: gray skies, muddy pathways, rain on and off. And yet, despite all that, the campus was alive with students out doing things, seeming to genuinely enjoy their time here. I figured that any school where the students could all be so…
In her new book, The Ethical Dimension of the Decameron, Marilyn Migiel, professor and chair of the Romance Studies department, examines the dialogue about ethical choices that Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron generates for readers.Throughout her book, Migiel keeps the focus on the experience of readers, on the meanings they find in the Decameron, and on the ideological assumptions they have about…
What began as a project for two Cornell students working on an event for Human Rights Month has transformed into a play that will be previewed this weekend in Ithaca before moving to an off-Broadway theatre.The Darfur Compromised by Trevor Stankewicz ’15 and directed by Rudy Gerson ’15 (an alum of our College Scholar program) was a keynote production of Cornell’s Caceres-Neuffer Genocide Action…
When members from the Cornell Glee Club’s 1966 tour of Southeast Asia joined the current singers on stage Sept. 19 at Bailey Hall, passion poured through the music. The audience replied with a standing ovation, making it a Homecoming concert for the ages.During the 1966 spring semester, 41 members of the Glee Club – using musical currency to transcend economic and cultural differences – played a…
Alejandro L. Madrid, associate professor of ethnomusicology in the Department of Music, has released a new book, In search of Julian Carrillo and Sonido 13 (Oxford University Press). Madrid’s research on popular and art music, dance and expressive culture from Mexico, the U.S.-Mexico border, and the circum-Caribbean focuses on the intersection of modernity, tradition, globalization and identity…
Jessica Chen Weiss, associate professor of government, is interviewed in this New York Times Q&A about Chinese President Xi Jinping's brand of nationalism and how that has played out in China.
by :
Lori Sonken
,
Institute for the Social Sciences
An interdisciplinary team of Cornell scholars is collaborating on a new project, The Causes, Consequence and Future of Mass Incarceration in the United States, supported by the Institute for the Social Sciences (ISS) and led by Peter Enns, associate professor of government.“The U.S. now incarcerates a greater proportion of its population than any country in the world. Given the bipartisan…
Governments have been known to lie and while sometimes the lies are small, other times they can be large. As social scientists explore why governments lie, Andrew White, a professor of government, explains in this Boston Globe story that even when the government lies, a proportion of the population believes that information, putting pressure on others who don't.“You might look around and see that…
This story from The Space Reporter focuses on a team of scientists developing a mission to Saturn's moon Enceladus that would return samples from its flowing geysers.Those scientists include Jonathan Lunine, professor of astronomy, who is also principal investigator on another mission to Enceladus, which is searching for life in the geyser's plumes. Photo courtesy NASA/JPL-CalTech
On Monday, Oct. 5, leading human rights lawyers and prison ethnographers will gather for an international symposium to discuss “Carceral Worlds and Human Rights across the Americas” at the Africana Studies and Research Center, 310 Triphammer Road, from 10 a.m. to noon.The symposium will provide a forum for participants to discuss novel mechanisms of human rights delivery for Latin American and…
Ithaca is dotted with buried Native American sites, according to Kurt Jordan, associate professor of anthropology in the College of Arts & Sciences, who also has an appointment with theAmerican Indian Program in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.Yet these sites are incredibly difficult to comprehend because centuries of residential and commercial development has altered the…
When director Sam Gold ’00 thinks about whether he wants to take on a new project, it’s all about the challenge of creating something meaningful.“I want to start with what I believe in and care about, a subject matter that speaks to me or a formal challenge that pushes me as an artist,” he says.Gold has received numerous accolades of late — including the Tony in June as best director for the…
Allen Carlson, associate professor of government, writes in The National Interest that China's major problem is how its government handles its own citizens, not how is handles neighboring countries.
Assistant Professor Kyle Lancaster of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology was recently granted an award from the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program. The prestigious CAREER Program, which was launched in 1996, provides support to junior faculty members and encourages the combining of research and education. Applicants submit a proposal that…
George Paul Hess, professor emeritus of biochemistry in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, College of Arts & Sciences, died on September 9 at home in Ithaca. Friends and colleagues are invited to a memorial service at 2 pm on Saturday, November 7 in the chapel of Annabel Taylor Hall. A reception will follow at 3 pm in the adjoining Founders Lounge.Hess joined the Cornell…
Lecturer Katherine Howe of the American Studies Program released her YA novel "The Appearance of Annie Van Sinderen" Sept. 15.This novel follows her New York Times bestseller novel "The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane," and her YA debut novel "Conversion," which has been published in 25 languages."The Appearance of Annie Van Sinderen" combines Howe’s interests in historical fiction and in visual…
Joseph Margulies, professor of government and law, writes in this column in Verdict about the lack of alternatives to the criminal justice system in the U.S., which he says has gone "horribly awry.""Everyone can point to a host of ways the current system has led us astray," he writes. "For some, the criminal justice system is too big and too expensive, and government has been given far too much…
A new lecture series at California State University Long Beach that brings ethnic U.S. writers to campus will be named after Helena Viramontes, professor and director of creative writing in Cornell’s Department of English. A Chicana and American author, Viramontes has published several novels, short story collections, and essays, including Under the Feet of Jesus and The Moths and Other Stories…
Following her inauguration as Cornell’s 13th president, Elizabeth Garrett moderated a faculty panel on the challenges inequality poses for democratic institutions Sept. 18 in Bailey Hall.“Income inequality has long plagued the developing world, and it is growing at an alarming pace in long-established economies and democracies,” Garrett said. “Income inequality in the U.S. has been increasing…
Kate Manne, assistant professor of philosophy, writes in this New York Times piece about why she uses "trigger warnings" to let her students know when she's about to use content that might be troubling or disturbing for them. "The point is not to enable — let alone encourage — students to skip these readings or our subsequent class discussion (both of which are mandatory in my courses, absent a…
Grant Farred, professor of English and Africana Studies, writes about the motivations for writing his latest book, Martin Heidegger Saved My Life (2015), in this piece on the University of Minnesota Press blog."Heidegger saved me because he gave me the language to write about race in such a way as I’d never written it before," Farred writes. "Heidegger enabled me to write in this way because he…
Listen in as Roald Hoffmann, Nobel Prize winner and emeritus professor of chemistry, joins with other professors and students to discuss the intersection and integration of cross-disciplinary approaches to the subject of water, through community engagement in Greece, and a collaboration between Cornell and Oxford, in this video from Cornell's Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future.
Gretchen Ritter ’83, the Harold Tanner Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, writes about democracy and inequality in this piece in The Cornell Daily Sun. "Apart from this discussion about the nature and meaning of economic inequality in the United States, my own interest in this topic comes from a different concern — namely, what impact inequality is likely to have on American democracy…
By measuring with exquisite precision the tiny wobbles of Saturn’s moon Enceladus – whose cosmic quavers are detectable only in high-resolution images taken by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft – Cornell University researchers have learned that a global ocean lies beneath the moon’s thick icy crust.Cornell planetary scientists have analyzed more than seven years worth of Enceladus images taken by the…
The National Science Foundation has selected the Cornell NanoScale Science and Technology Facility (CNF) to be part of the newly established National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI). Cornell will receive $8 million from the federal agency over five years.Additionally, the Empire State Development Corp., New York state’s economic development arm, has committed to matching the…
A memorial celebration Sept. 12 in Statler Auditorium brought together much of what M.H. “Mike” Abrams cherished – poetry, Elizabethan music, family, friends and colleagues.Abrams, who died in April at 102, was “one of the greatest professors in Cornell’s history and certainly one of its most beloved,” said Jonathan Culler, Abrams’ successor as the Class of 1916 Professor of English.“Mike spent…
The United States is not entering a new Cold War with Russia, but rather a Cold Peace, according to Peter Katzenstein, Cornell’s Walter S. Carpenter Jr. Professor of International Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences.Today’s U.S. Cold War rhetoric comes from both sides of the political spectrum, with the right calling for a militarized foreign policy approach, including direct military…
Students, faculty and staff at the Africana Studies and Research Center have long worked to combine their research and scholarship with activism on issues facing the community, the nation and the world.But this year, the center is making more efforts than ever to offer students the opportunity to “make a difference,” said Gerard Aching, professor of Africana and Romance studies and director of…
The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research – the world’s largest public opinion archive – will move from the University of Connecticut to Ithaca, where it will be known as the Roper Center at Cornell University, and casually as Roper@Cornell, on Nov. 7.Founded in 1947, the Roper Center is a leading archive of social science data from public opinion surveys. The center collects, preserves and…
In an effort to help students who can't afford the expenses of an unpaid internship, the College of Arts and Sciences’ Career Development Center partnered with the Student Assembly this summer to offer the Summer Experience Grant, which offered money for living expenses so that students who can’t afford to take an unpaid internship in another city can have that experience.This year $47,000 was…
Edward Baptist, associate professor of history, writes about his experience teaching college students about slavery, in this piece in the New York Times magazine."Twenty-four decades have passed since the Continental Congress deleted Thomas Jefferson’s criticisms of slavery from his first draft of the Declaration of Independence, and college students today arrive knowing little about the way…
Someone’s asked you a question, and halfway through it, you already know the answer. While you think you’re politely waiting for your chance to respond, new research shows that you’re actually more impatient than you realize.In the vocal equivalent of sitting on the edge of your seat, speakers position their vocal organs (tongues, jaw, lips) for the sounds they’re planning to produce in the near…
As Prof. Derek Chang, history and Asian American studies, sees it, race is at the heart of American society. For Chang, racial tensions underlie problems throughout American history.Focusing on black-white relations in the American south and Chinese-white relations on the West Coast, Chang said he looks for similarities and differences in the way different regions treat race.Read more about his…
Growing inequality and its effect on democracy is one of the most pressing issues facing the world today. A faculty discussion, part of the inauguration celebration for President Elizabeth Garrett, will bring new perspectives to the challenge of inequality for democratic governance. The “Democracy & Inequality” panel will be held Friday, Sept. 18, at 3 p.m. in Bailey Hall. The event is free…
A first-generation science and engineering student while at Cornell, the late Stanford H. Taylor ’50, Chem.Eng. ’51, considered the humanities essential to a well-rounded education.Taylor, who died in 2010, and his wife, Jo Ann, supported humanities initiatives at Cornell including endowing the department chair of the Sage School of Philosophy in 2007. The Taylor family is continuing their legacy…
William Provine, the Andrew H. and James L. Tisch Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at Cornell, died Sept. 1 due to complications from a brain tumor at his home in Horseheads, New York. He was 73.Provine, a professor of the history of biology in the departments of History and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, was born Feb. 19, 1942, in Nashville, Tennessee.He joined Cornell as an…
