Elizabeth Schlatter, Deputy Director and Curator of Exhibitions and Kenta Murakami (’15, art history major), a student curatorial assistant for the University of Richmond Museums discuss the art exhibition, Anti-Grand: Contemporary Perspectives on Landscape. The exhibition features 24 contemporary, international artists, artists’ collectives and game developers who examine, challenge, and re-define the concept of landscape while simultaneously drawing attention to humanity’s hubristic attempts to relate to, preserve, and manage the natural environment. Anti-Grand includes 33 works of art, with video, installation, video games, and traditional two- and three-dimensional work.
Dr. Miriam McCormick, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Philosophy, Politics, Economics and Law discusses her new book, Believing Against the Evidence: Agency and the Ethics of Belief published recently by Routledge. In this book, Dr. McCormick argues that the standards used to evaluate beliefs are not isolated from other evaluative domains. The ultimate criteria for assessing beliefs are the same as those for assessing action because beliefs and actions are both products of agency.
Kristin Bezio, Assistant Professor Of Leadership Studies discusses “Friends & Rivals: Loyalty, Ethics, and Leadership in Dragon Age II,” a chapter in the 2014 book, Identity and Leadership in Virtual Communities: Establishing Credibility and Influence. Dr. Bezio’s teaching and research focuses on the ways in which literature, drama, film, and video games have influenced society and the way people think about issues of leadership and followership. Her chapter explores how video game players can influence their understanding of ethics in terms of human emotion and interaction.
Dr. Thomas Bonfiglio, Professor of Literature and Linguistics in the Department of Modern Literatures and Cultures discusses his new book, Why is English Literature? Language and Letters for the Twenty-First Century, published recently by Palgrave. Dr. Bonfiglio examines why English colonized literature after World War II and non-English literatures became configured as “foreign language .”
Amy Howard, executive director of the Bonner Center for
Civic Engagement and associated faculty in American studies, discusses her new book, More Than Shelter: Activism and Community in San Francisco Public Housing, published recently by the University of Minnesota Press. Her research and book looks closely at three public housing projects in San Francisco and brings to light the dramatic measures tenants have taken to create communities that mattered to them.
David Kitchen, Associate Dean of Strategic Planning
and Summer Programs in the School of Professional & Continuing Studies discusses his new book, Global Climate Change : Turning Knowledge into Action, published recently by Prentice-Hall. Taking a cross-disciplinary approach, Dr. Kitchen examines not only the physical science, but the social, economic, political, energy, and environmental issues surrounding climate change. His goal is to turn knowledge into action, equipping students with the knowledge and critical skills to make informed decisions, and participate in the public debate.
Dr. Elizabeth Baughan, Associate Professor of Classics and Archaeology, discusses her new book, Couched in Death: Klinai and Identity in Anatolia and Beyond, published recently by the University of Wisconsin Press. In this book, Dr. Baughan offers the first comprehensive look at the earliest funeral couches in the ancient Mediterranean world. Bringing a diverse body of understudied and unpublished material together for the first time, she investigates the origins and cultural significance of burials on couches and charts their development and distribution throughout Anatolia.
Dr. Sheila Carapico, Professor of Political Science and International Studies, discusses her new book, Political Aid and Arab Activism: Democracy Promotion, Justice, and Representation, published recently by Cambridge University Press. In this book, Dr. Carapcio examines what it means to promote “transitions to democracy” in the Middle East. Have North American, European, and multilateral projects advanced human rights, authoritarian retrenchment, or Western domination?
Dr. Eric Yellin, Associate Professor of History and American
Studies discusses his new book, Racism in the Nation’s Service: Government Workers and the Color Line in Woodrow Wilson’s America, published recently by the University of North Carolina Press. In this book, Dr. Yellin argues that President Wilson’s administration successfully segregated the federal government in the age of progressive politics. He investigates how the enactment of the segregation policy imposed a color line on American opportunity and implicated Washington in the economic limitation of African Americans for decades to come.
Dr. Yucel Yanikdag, Associate Professor of History
discusses his new book, Healing the Nation: Prisoners of War, Medicine and Nationalism in Turkey, 1914-1939, published recently by Edinburgh University Press. In this book, he explores how Ottoman prisoners of war and military doctors of the First World War discursively constructed their nation as a community, and at the same time attempted to exclude certain groups from that nation. Yanikdag aims to broaden the discussion of nationalism to explore how ideological and biological factors influenced each other.