by :
Linda B. Glaser
,
Arts & Sciences Communications
Visiting Professor of Anthropology Terence Sheldon Turner, emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago, died Nov. 7 at Cayuga Medical Center of a brain hemorrhage. He was 79.
N'Dri T. Assié-Lumumba, professor of Africana Studies, together with Nathan Andrews (University of Alberta, Canada) and Nene Ernest Khalema (Human Sciences Research Council, South Africa), has released the edited volume "Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Retrospect: Africa's Development Beyond 2015" (Springer, 2015).
Anthropology professor P. Steven Sangren has been awarded the Boyer Prize from the Society for Psychological Anthropology (SPA). The award, which includes a $500 cash prize, will be announced at the AAA’s Annual Meeting in Denver, Colorado, on November 20.
In the 1994 Rwandan genocide, neighbors killed lifelong neighbors, husbands killed wives and parents killed children. It was an intimate conflict, according to Philip Gourevitch ’86, staff writer for The New Yorker and an experienced reporter on the Rwandan genocide.
“India has 26 official languages, but when I teach Indian literature, students can only access a very few works in English translation,” laments Anindita Banerjee, associate professor of comparative literature in the College of Arts and Sciences. “There are reams of other excellent literature I haven’t been able to teach because it’s not translated.
Travis Gosa, assistant professor of Africana Studies, together with Erik Nielson (University of Richmond) will release their new edited volume “The Hip Hop & Obama Reader” (Oxford University
When Samantha Sheppard, assistant professor in the Department of Performing and Media Arts, contemplated the movies she would include in a fall film and speaker series on Black cinema, she had a tough time choosing only five.
On a recent trip to Budapest, Malcolm Bilson, the Frederick J. Whiton Professor of Music Emeritus, received The Order of the Hungarian Gold Cross, an award given each year to seven or eight foreigners who are distinguished artists, scientists, writers and others for their contribution to Hungarian intellectual and cultural life.
With tens of thousands of migrants entering Slovenia this last week, Europe is scrambling for a solution. The European Commission called for a mini-summit on Sunday, but Cornell University sociologist Mabel Berezin says that despite the effort to bring states together, the crisis might be the last nail in the European Union’s coffin.
Andrew Willford, associate professor of anthropology, is a faculty member who led a group of seven Cornell students who studied and worked at the Nilgiris Field Learning Center in Tamil Nadu in southern India as part of a brand-new semester abroad program, which includes indigenous communities in the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve.
Travis Gosa is an Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at Cornell University, and is affiliated with the Cornell Center for the Study of Inequality.
During his time at Cornell, Udai Tambar '97 conducted research on nutritional science, played intramural sports and majored in both chemistry and Asian studies. Today, he plays an instrumental role in shaping New York City’s public policies as chief of staff to the deputy mayor for health and human services.
Professor Emeritus of Music Marice Wilbur Stith, who as director of bands conducted the Cornell University Wind Ensemble and Symphonic Band over his 23-year Cornell career, died Oct. 7 at Cayuga Medical Center after a long illness. He was 89.
From last Wednesday to Dec. 8, the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS), also known affectionately as the “world’s coolest microscope” by CHESS Director Prof. Joel Brock, applied and engineering physics, will be holding a scheduled x-ray run for users around the nation.
Three young Cornell researchers have won National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s New Innovator Awards. Part of the NIH’s High-Risk, High-Reward Research Program, the awards provide up to $1.5 million over five years for innovative, high-impact projects.
The USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archives is an unparalleled resource of some 53,000 individual testimonies of survivors of the Nazi Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, the Nanjing massacre and the Armenian genocide. Cornell will mark the launch of its access to the archive Tuesday, Nov. 3, with a talk by noted New Yorker columnist and Rwandan genocide expert Philip Gourevitch ’86.
As a graduate student Peter Wittich, associate professor of physics, worked at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO), located in an active nickel mine in Ontario, Canada. The observatory is deep underground to block out background radiation from other particles.
American poet Robert Frost was not above toying with his friends, or his readers. And one of his best-known works may be his grandest joke of all, as detailed in a new book by David Orr, “The Road Not Taken: Finding America in the Poem Everyone Loves and Almost Everyone Gets Wrong” (Penguin).
This piece by David H. Holmberg and Kathryn S. March, both professors of anthropology, reflects on the Nepali earthquakes and their impact in north central Nepal.
An interdisciplinary collaboration between Cornell University and the University of Notre Dame has awarded nearly $2 million to 18 projects in five countries to examine the theoretical, empirical and practical dimensions of hope and optimism.
In a surprising move, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy dropped out of the race for Speaker following John Boehner’s resignation. Elizabeth Sanders, an election expert and professor of government, says McCarthy’s exit could make it harder for the GOP to find a presidential candidate and message they can rally behind.Sanders says:
Prof. Jonathan Culler, English and comparative literature, spoke Wednesday about his new book The Theory of the Lyric as part of Cornell University Library’s Chats in the Stacks book talk program.
James R. Houck, a noted astronomer in the field of infrared spectroscopy for astrophysics, died in Ithaca Sept. 18 at age 74 from complications of Alzheimer's Disease.Houck received his Ph.D. from Cornell in condensed matter physics in 1967, then switched fields to astronomy. After post-doctorate work at the Naval Research Laboratory, he worked at Cornell until he retired as the Kenneth A. Wallace Professor of Astronomy in 2012.
Joseph Margulies, civil rights attorney and professor of government and law, comments on the Justice Department’s decision to release 6,000 inmates. He says the move is a step in the right direction, but adds that it does not solve the problem of mass incarceration in America. Margulies says:
Holly Case, associate professor of history, writes this piece in Dissent Magazine about Hungarian thinker and former statesman, István Bibó.Case is the author of Between States: The Transylvanian Question and the European Idea During World War II (Stanford University Press, 2009).
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
