by :
Linda B. Glaser
,
Arts & Sciences Communications
Migration is one of the major forces shaping the world today, with more than 60 million displaced people.“Never in history have we seen this many simultaneous displacements across the globe and these people are not going home any time soon,” says Mostafa Minawi, assistant professor of history and Himan Brown Sesquicentennial Faculty Fellow. “This is a global population redistribution and it will hit us whether we like it or not.”
by :
Linda B. Glaser
,
Arts & Sciences Communications
Artists today engage with a world very different from that of their predecessors: globally connected, technologically advanced and highly diverse. In the last fifty years the Western canon has been displaced as the benchmark for “good” and worthwhile art, opening the door to works intended to challenge viewers, rather than simply to aesthetically please.
Cornell University’s Department of Music, under the artistic direction of pianists Xak Bjerken and Miri Yampolsky, will present its ninth springtime festival of world-class chamber music in Ithaca May 20–24. Mayfest will offer six intimate concerts in four inspiring locations: Cornell’s Barnes Hall, Klarman Hall, Lab of Ornithology, and the Carriage House Café.
Katja C. Nowack, assistant professor of physics in Cornell’s College of Arts and Sciences, has been selected by the Department of Energy (DOE) to receive $750,000 for research over five years as part of DOE’s Early Career Research Program for her research project, “Magnetic Imaging of Topological Phases of Matter.”
The Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future (ACSF) has announced 10 faculty-in-residence fellows in the social sciences, humanities and arts for 2016-17.
Cornell astrophysicists Saul Teukolsky and Lawrence Kidder have earned a share in the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics – a $3 million award – that recognizes those who helped create the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and its ability to find gravitational waves. The discovery announced in February provided strong confirmation of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity.
Students presented their research in the humanities and social sciences — ranging from the role of religion in society to how video game players perceive their characters — at the Humanities Showcase in Klarman Hall May 4, as reported by The Cornell Daily Sun.
Once a popular pastime, bee hunting involves capturing and feeding wild bees, then releasing and following them back to their hive.The practice is little-known today, but bee expert Thomas D. Seeley – the Horace White Professor in Biology in the College of Arts and Sciences and author of several books on honeybees – has just published a book that offers insights into the history and science of bee hunting.
"The Search for a Faun"My poem is called, “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun.” A famous title I am sure most of you will recognize. The fame is one of the reasons why I am self-conscious about what I am about to do in this reflection, which partly amounts to betraying the naïveté of my youth.
A conspicuous miniature wagon is parked in Willard Straight Hall’s browsing library. In the vintage Straight interior surrounded by sculptures, paintings and scale-model ships, the antique-looking wooden wagon might seem like a part of an exposition on rural life in 18th-century Britain. But the wagon is no exhibition piece; it’s the home of a student-founded, self-funded independent community book exchange.
by :
Linda B. Glaser
,
Arts & Sciences Communications
Isabel Hull has received a Certificate of Merit from the American Society of International Law for her book, “A Scrap of Paper: Breaking and Making International Law During the Great War” (Cornell, 2014). The award, for “a preeminent contribution to creative scholarship,” was presented at the ASIL’s annual conference in Washington, D.C. in March.
by :
Linda B. Glaser
,
Arts & Sciences Communications
N’Dri Assié-Lumumba, professor of Africana, recently co-edited a special issue of the International Review of Education-Journal of Lifelong Learning (IRE) titled, “Rediscovering the Ubuntu Paradigm in Education," Birgit Brock-Utne (University of Oslo) and Dr. joan.Osa Oviawe (visiting scholar at Cornell) were co–editors.
Following the April 2015 Nepal earthquake that killed more than 8,000 people, Maya Devi Neupane, president of the United Women’s Savings and Credit Cooperative, said her Kaule community on the Phyukhri Ridge “felt orphaned, abandoned.”She continued, “The earthquake destroyed our homes and our [Women’s Cooperative] building. We had to take shelter in the plastic greenhouse ‘tunnels’ where we had begun a tomato-growing project.”
Noliwe Rooks, associate professor of Africana studies and feminist, gender and sexuality studies, and director of graduate studies at theAfricana Studies and Research Center, and Bryan Duff, senior lecturer in education, received the
Jim can feel the eyes of his classmates. He stays up nights reading his law books. He knows the information. None of that matters now. What matters is he’s the only black man in a classroom of white eyes and it consumes him. He feels branded.He starts to talk. His voice trembles. He stutters. His mind goes blank. He fails, again. He can’t exactly explain why.
Members of the Cornell community are invited to explore issues of race in America during six simultaneous small-group discussions of the Ta-Nehisi Coates book “Between the World and Me” Thursday, April 28.The discussions, set for 12:20-1:10 p.m., will take place at locations across campus and are part of the College of Arts and Sciences’ New Century for the Humanities celebration.
Chad Coates, assistant dean of admissions and advising in the College of Arts and Sciences, was voted Cornell’s 14th employee-elected trustee in an election held April 11-13. More than 1,300 staff members participated in the election.Succeeding Alan Mittman, Coates will begin his four-year term July 1.
Four Cornell faculty members. including two from the College of Arts & Sciences, are among 213 national and international scholars, artists, philanthropists and business leaders elected new fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
At the Central New York THAT (The Humanities and Technology) Camp held in Olin Library, there were no official presenters, while participants voted on workshop topics and met in collaborative sessions.The informal structure suited the subject matter, since digital humanities is a relatively new and rapidly evolving field.
by :
Linda B. Glaser
,
Arts & Sciences Communications
Jennifer Maclaughlin has been named the new Assistant Dean and Director of Arts & Sciences Career Development. In her role, she will design and implement strategies to support the career development of A&S undergraduates at all stages in their education: as they engage in career planning, obtain experiential learning, consider and pursue graduate school options, and conduct job searches.
Cornell University and the University of Notre Dame have announced Georgette Kelly as the winner of the new “Hope on Stage” international playwriting contest. Her play "I Carry Your Heart" was selected from among 800 submissions. Kelly will receive a $10,000 cash prize, and her play will be presented at both the Hangar Theatre in Ithaca, N.Y. (April 27–30, 2017), and at the Bootleg Theater in Los Angeles (May 18–20, 2017).
Highly educated, high-income immigrants to the United States are changing the look and feel of American suburbs by tearing down older homes built just after World War II and building sprawling new houses, pejoratively called “McMansions.” But the changes are not always welcome by long-time neighborhood residents, said Suzanne Lanyi Charles, assistant professor in city and regional planning.
María Cristina García, the Howard A. Newman Professor in American Studies at Cornell, is the recipient of a 2016 Andrew Carnegie Fellowship, the Carnegie Corporation of New York has announced.
The Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies has announced two new international faculty fellows for 2016-19:Rachel Bezner Kerr, associate professor of development sociology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and Thomas Pepinsky, associate professor of government in the College of Arts and Sc
Since the Affordable Care Act (ACA or ObamaCare) became law in 2010, Americans have remained deeply divided in their overall assessments of the law and whether it should continue.
Alejandro L. Madrid, associate professor of music, has won the 2016 Humanities Book Award from the Mexico Section of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) for his most recent book, In Search of Julián Carrillo and Sonido 13 (Oxford University Press, 2015). The prize is awarded annually to an outstanding and original contribution to the study of Mexico in book-length academic monographs and works published during the previous year.
by :
Linda B. Glaser
,
Arts & Sciences Communications
Historian Mary Beth Norton has been nominated for president-elect of the American Historical Association, the principal umbrella organization for the profession. If elected, she would serve as president beginning in January 2018, for one year. The results of the on-line election are expected in July.
So long, good Samaritans.In the first study of its kind, Cornell sociologists have found that people who have a medical emergency in a public place can’t necessarily rely on the kindness of strangers. Only 2.5 percent of people, or 1 in 39, got help from strangers before emergency medical personnel arrived, in research published April 14 in the American Journal of Public Health.
It takes more than just hard work to turn an idea for advancing social justice into a successful reality. It also takes inspiration, a strong network and a lot of support, encouragement and advice.
There are many words and phrases used to describe the relationship between blacks and Jews in America in the 20th century: golden age, strained, coalition, collaborative, adversarial, contentious, allies.
by :
Melissa Ferguson
,
Scientific American, The Conversation
Professor of Psychology Melissa J. Ferguson discusses the election in an article published in Scientific American. She analyzes the question: Can presidential candidates get a second chance to make a first impression?
