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Volume 5 Issue 1

Spring 2008

Interdisciplinary Studies Office Beering Hall of Liberal Arts and Education Room 1289 100 North University Street West Lafayette, IN 47907-2097

Discovery 3

Learning 4-5

Engagement 6-8

Program News 9-12

Inside this issue:

Looking Backward, Moving Forward

It’s hard to believe that five years have passed since I first stood in the suite of offices in Beering Hall that have become the center of interdisciplinary studies in the College. In the summer of 2003, 1289 Beering contained furniture inherited from the Honors Program, the former occupants of the suite, a few stray paper clips and coat hangers, and dust bunnies.

The challenges were both daunting and exhilarating. Inter-disciplinary studies programs had never had dedicated space or staff, and the need for resources was great, but they neverthe-less had done outstanding work, educating undergraduate and graduate students, organizing lecture series and symposia, and providing an intellectual home for students and faculty eager to integrate insights from multiple analytical perspectives.

The first—and best—decision I made was to hire Delayne Graham, who had experience in the Graduate School and as graduate secretary for History and American Studies and who had demon-strated a flair for designing promotional materials. Delayne became my partner in the Office of Interdisciplinary Studies in the Summer of 2003, and together we decided to focus our work in increasing the visibility of the programs through a web presence, advertising of events, and publi-cations that would trumpet the many accomplishments of the programs. We also established poli-cies and procedures for eleven programs to get support for their endeavors.

Now, five years later, the faculty and students in the IDIS programs not only are more well-supported than ever before but also stand poised to embrace the challenges of the University’s strategic plan—“New Synergies.” What the strategic planners have proposed, College of Liberal Arts interdisciplinary programs have long known—the quest for understanding the human condi-tion entails the integration—the purposeful integration—of multiple disciplinary perspectives.

The interdisciplinary programs in the College of Liberal Arts invite students to mesh historical, literary, linguistic, and artistic knowledge with social and behavioral sciences. The challenge that lies before us is to embrace, as well, insights from the sciences, engineering, health sciences, and business. I am confident that the students and faculty in these programs will rise to the challenge.

On July 1, 2008, Professor JoAnn Miller will assume the responsibilities of Associate Dean for Interdisciplinary Programs and Engagement. She has served as Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and as an affiliate of the Women’s Studies pro-gram. Professor Miller has distinguished herself as a scholar and in community projects. Because of her commitment to the disadvantaged in American society, JoAnn Miller will, I believe, be an effective advocate for interdisciplinary research, teaching, and engagement, and she will effectively lead the programs and engagement endeavors in the College of Liberal Arts into the future.

My thanks to all who have made this work in this position a life-changing experience for me. The foundation has been laid, and the best is yet to come!

Susan Curtis Associate Dean for Interdisciplinary Studies and Engagement

Susan Curtis and Delayne Graham at a celebration in Susan’s honor.

Meet the New Associate Dean for Interdisciplinary Programs & Engagement

On July 1, 2008, Professor JoAnn Miller will assume the duties of Associate Dean for Interdisciplinary Programs and Engagement. Professor Miller brings with her much experience in the area of engagement. She welcomes the challenge to integrate interdisciplinarity with engagement work in ways to address intrigu-ing public policy issues and persistent social problems that affect local and global communities.

JoAnn came to Purdue in 1984, after completing her graduate studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is an affiliated faculty member in Women's Studies. She has worked as a Visiting Scholar at the University of Indo-nesia and a Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Hamburg (Germany). In Purdue's Department of Sociology and Anthropology, JoAnn was the Director of Graduate Studies for four years. She has also been the Director of Undergradu-ate Studies. Currently she is a candidate for President-Elect, the Society for the Study of Social Problems. Her work focuses on law and social problems, especially family abuse and violence, and problem solving courts for persons returning to their homes from state prison.

She sponsors undergraduate students every semester in service learning opportunities in the Greater Lafayette community and she works on a volunteer basis with the City of Lafayette on programs designed to prevent crime and build strong neighborhoods. Her most recent book is Family Abuse and Violence: A Social Problems Perspective. Her peer-reviewed jour-nal articles appear in Violence Against Women, Law and Society Review, and the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. Currently, she and a Superior Court Judge (Donald C. Johnson) have a book under contract with Rowman & Littlefield

It looks to be an exciting time for the office and the programs. Please join us in welcoming JoAnn!

Page 2 INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES

New Interdisciplinary Programs in Asian American Studies and Latin American and Latino Studies The Office of Interdisciplinary Studies welcomes two new IDIS programs. Under the direction of Associate Dean Adriela Fernández, and with the full support of Dean John Contreni, Asian American Studies and Latin American and Latino Studies have been approved as the newest interdisciplinary programs of study in the College of Liberal Arts.

With Asian Americans constituting 4.3% of the United States population, it is no surprise that the number of universities with programs in Asian American Studies has been growing across the country. Asian Americans represent the largest ethnic minority on Purdue’s campus, with nearly 2,000 Asian American undergradu-ate students. Asian American Studies brings academic attention to the complex cultural heritage of Asian Americans. It offers under-graduates a deeper understanding of issues such as ethnicity, gen-der, identity, and racial history, linking the Asian American ex-perience to the development of America and its multicultural con-sciousness.

While the program focuses on the United States, it also provides students with a perspective on the Asian Ameri-can experience within transnational and global contexts. As an interdiscipli-nary minor, it provides students with an opportunity to pursue issues of Asian Americanness within fields in-cluding history, literature, languages, psychology sociology, political sciences and art.

Professor Patsy Schweickart (English and Women’s Studies) will serve as the interim chair of the program in 2008-2009.

Similarly, the Latino presence in the United States has had a profound impact on the economic, political, and cultural landscapes of the country. Latinos now constitute the largest “minority” popula-tion in the U.S., comprising some 44.3 million (documented) inhabitants, or about 14.8% of the total population. The state of Indiana (an increase of 40.5% from 2000-2006) exemplifies this impor-tant demographic shift, as does Tippeca-noe County. The Latino experience in the U.S., of course, is intimately connected to the historical events, socioeconomic cir-cumstances, and cultural heritage of Latin America. Indeed, the dramatic Latin American diaspora has re-shaped the Americas in many ways.

Many universities have discrete, separate programs in either Latin American or Latino studies. But this innovative interdisci-plinary program brings together both areas of study in one cur-ricular offering. It provides a way for students to contemplate transnational connections and to approach the study of Latin American and Latino societies and cultures from a variety of methodological and disciplinary approaches.

The undergraduate minor in Latin American and Latino Stud-ies also embodies Purdue University’s much heralded commit-ment to an educational experience that emphasizes a sense of global awareness and an understanding of diverse cultural ways.

Faculty members who developed the program’s curriculum will select a chair in Fall Semester 2008.

JoAnn Miller New Associate Dean for IDIS & Engagement

Chinatown, New York City

On side tiendita, San Anto-nio, Texas

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Once again, IDIS graduate students were well represented in the competition for Purdue Research Foundations grants for 2008-09. Six students in the four graduate programs were given these awards. The subjects of their projects reflect the range of student discovery in Liberal Arts and share the common goal

of deepening our understanding of the human experi-ence. Jamie Hickner, American Studies, was awarded on her project entitled “The Domestic Consequences of U.S. Foreign Pol-icy During the Cold War: Lu-mumba's Influence on the Black Freedom Movement.” She will work under the direction of Profes-sor Susan Curtis. In Linguistics, Alejandrina Cristia, under the direction of Professor Amanda Seidl, will ex-

plore “Attention to cues and the effect of input on infancy.” Comparative Literature was well represented with Tetyana Lyaskovets and Tatjana Babic Williams. Ms. Lyaskovets will work with Pro-fessor Charles Ross on her pro-ject, “Visual and Temporal Structures in Literary Mod-ernism: Bely, Nabokov, Robbe-Grillet, and Morrison.” Ms. Babic Willaims’s project, “Filling the Gaps of Past and Redefining ‘Italianness’ - Echoes of Colonialism and Strategies of Decolonization in Italian Postcolonial Women Writings,” will be under the direction of Profes-sor Elena Coda. Shannon Nason, Philosophy and Literature, will work with Professor Jacqueline Mariña on his project entitled “Motion, Change and Activity in the Thought of Soren Kierkegaard.” Professor Patricia Curd will guide Octavian Gabor on his project, “Homeric Influences in the Aristotelian Concept of Soul.”

Graduate Student Discovery Supported by Purdue Research Foundation

Jamie Hickner

IDIS Faculty Publish New Books The IDIS faculty have been busy this year publishing new books within their fields. Professor Jacqueline Mariña’s (Religious Studies) book, Transformation of the Self in the Thought of Friedrich Schleiermacher, has appeared this March with Oxford University Press. Robert Adams of Oxford University says, “Jacqueline Mariña’s book is one of the best things I have seen on Schleiermacher, giving a compelling and accessible account of his conception of ethics as a descriptive historical study. It is a major contribution to the study of German philosophy and religious thought in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.” Professor Martin Matuštik (Philosophy and Literature and Religious Studies)

published Radical Evil and the Scarcity of Hope with Indiana University Press.

The Age of Milton and the Scientific Revolution was written by Professor Angelica Duran (Medieval and Renaissance Studies) and published by Duquesne University Press.

Professor Thomas Ohlgren, along with Lister Matheson, wrote Robin Hood: The Early Poems, 1465-1560, which was published by the University of Delaware Press.

Professor Jackson Gandour, in collabo-ration with Purdue auditory electrophysi-ologist Ananthanarayan Ravi Krishnan, Purdue biomedical engineer Thomas Ta-lavage and colleagues from the Indiana University School of Medicine, has been studying the effects of pitch processing on the brainstem. Their research has broken new ground in the area of brainstem stud-ies.

“By studying brain activity at different stages of process-ing pitch patterns in tonal languages, we have found that

early activity in the brainstem is shaped by a person’s lan-guage experience, even while the person is asleep, and con-sequently, we now believe it plays a much greater role in speech perception than we thought before,” says Gandour. The data reveal that melody of speech is processed not just in a single region or hemisphere but in multiple areas involving both hemispheres. Professor Gandour is a professor of Linguistics and Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences. He presented these results at the February 16 annual meeting of the Asso-ciation for Advancement of Science. The research is sup-ported by the National Institutes of Health.

Linguistics Professor Studies Language-sound and Brain Activity

Alejandrina Cristia

Shannon Nason

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2008 Outstanding Senior Chosen from Interdisciplinary Studies Each year the College of Liberal Arts honors outstanding seniors in each of the departments and from interdisciplinary programs. The Office of Interdisciplinary Studies conducts the competition for the selection from all 10 of the programs under its umbrella which have undergraduate students. This year nominations were received from several excellent candidates and after a careful review of these students, Mr. Adrian McClure was chosen as the 2008 IDIS Outstanding Senior. Mr. McClure is a major in Medieval & Renaissance Studies. “He is a brilliant analyst of early culture, shows total devotion to academic endeavor, and exudes great joy in the pursuit of his academic work,” according to Paul White, Director of Medieval & Renaissance Studies. The IDIS Office held a “Celebration of Excellence” on April 10, 2008, to honor not only the IDIS Outstanding Senior and nominees for the award but also those students in IDIS programs with GPAs of 3.5 or higher. The chairs of each individual program presented certificates for the individual students nominated for the Outstanding Senior and Certificates of High Achievement.

Students in Jason Doty’s Digital Film Production course debuted their short films at the Lafayette Theater in front of an audience of around 200 people. “A large majority of these students are looking to work in the industry,” says Doty. “I stress the protocol and guidelines that Hollywood stresses. So if they walk onto a Hollywood set, they would understand the process.” The students work in production groups in which they each handled different roles of writer and director, editor and sound designer, producer and first assistant director, and cinematographer. The films range from 5 to 10 minutes and covered genres from comedy to action, quirky to horror, and everything in between. The films were shot in one 10-hour day. This course is part of the Film/Video Studies program with the specific purpose of exposing students to all phases of production and the variety of different production positions. “Most say they have no idea the time that goes into making a film,” Doty said. Film is ephemeral when you watch it. You don’t know the process of even a 10-minute film until you do it.

15 Short Films Shown at Lafayette Theater

Five students in the Film/Video Studies program and their in-structor, Bill Callison, were invited to film the April 20 concert and papal mass of Pope Benedict XVI at Yankee Stadium in New York City. The students are enrolled in the FVS Internship course un-der Mr. Callison’s di-rection.

As part of their responsibilities, they were involved in many aspects of production, including engineering, building six giant light-emitting diode video screens, operating cam-eras and video graphics computers, and managing.

“This is more than just another gig on their resume. This is about as high-profile and extensive a venue as they will ever get to experience during their careers,” said Callison. “They will learn what it’s like to work in an environment with very strict security issues. This show is about as detailed and as extensive as they come.” The students, William F. Cabral, Aaron Hebda, Tommy Beardmore, Zack Clevenger and Stephanie Mae, also partici-pated in the filming of the Dalai Lama’s visit to Purdue in October 2007 as well as last summer’s Country Music Asso-ciation’s Music Festival in Tennessee. “Such up-close and personal experience with world lumi-naries gives Purdue’s Film/Video Studies students an edge over other graduates throughout the country,” said Patricia Hart, interim chair of Film/Video Studies and a professor of Spanish. “These experiences help our students succeed in professions in the real world.”

Film/Video Studies Students Work the Papal Mass in New York City

FVS Students at Yankee Stadium for the [apal mass.

Professor Patricia Hart (Film/Video Studies) was inducted into the Purdue Teaching Academy and also received the Charles B. Murphy Out-standing Undergraduate Teaching Award in 2007. Professor Hart has been a faculty member of the Spanish section in the Department of For-eign Languages and Literatures since 1987 and was recently named director of the Film/Video Studies program. She has been successful in teaching students Spanish using not only litera-ture and film but through service learning projects in the local community.

Professor Becky Brown (Linguistics) was also inducted into the Teaching Academy and received the Murphy Award for 2008. She is in the French section of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures. Professor Brown feels that sincer-ity and humor foster a connection with the stu-dents. One of her goals is to make sure tolerance and an open mind are learned by her students. She strives to establish an environment that is highly conducive to student participation because an interested student demonstrates an active mind.

Teaching Awards and Academy Inductions for IDIS Faculty

Before departing AASRC, Carolyn Johnson worked with Kevin Brooks and Builders of a New Generation to submit a National Council for Black Studies Community Education and Engagement Grant in the amount of $2,500.00 to support the operating costs for the Rites of Passage (RoP) Mentoring Program. Funds were requested to cover travel expenses, admission costs, and food dur-ing two of four experiential learning activities. Also, funds were used to purchase books and other resource materials which will be used during upcoming program sessions and activities. The two experiential activities involved traveling to an African American museum and receiving a tour, dining for lunch and din-ner at Black-owned Soul Food restaurants, and visiting local Black-owned bookstores. The students went to Cincinnati, Ohio, to visit the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center for their first activity. They received a guided tour of the Freedom Center, reflected on their experience in one of the educational rooms, and bought books/materials from the gift shop. They went on a brief tour of Covington, Kentucky, and Cincinnati, and then had dinner at a Black-owned Soul Food restaurant. For the sec-ond activity, they went to Chicago to visit the DuSable Museum of African American History. They toured DuSable and purchased books/materials from the gift shop. Afterward, they went to a Black-owned bookstore and purchased resource materials to sup-port future programs such as their book reads and discussions. Then, they ate dinner at a Black-owned Soul Food restaurant on the Southside. Builders of a New Generation runs the Rites of Passage (RoP) Mentoring Program each academic year. RoP is a free, seven-month mentoring program, which meets bi-weekly for three hours per session on Saturday mornings at the Black Cultural Center. This unique opportunity seeks to empower and enrich African

American students, grades three through five, in the Greater Lafayette area. The objectives of the program are threefold: 1) to establish mentoring relationships between African American elementary students and Purdue faculty staff, and students; 2) to enhance stu-dents’ knowledge and understanding of Afri-can American history and culture; 3) and to introduce students to postsecondary opportu-nities. RoP mentors provide students with strategies to enhance their cultural, social, and personal development, as well as their classroom performance and academic skills. The program em-braces an Afrocentric philosophy, and the curriculum is linked to the Indiana Department of Education’s academic standards for content in the school setting. Session topics include self-esteem, health and nutrition, communication, decision-making, problem solving, media images and representations, financial literacy, and African American local, state, and regional histories. The program also incorporates four service-learning opportuni-ties to achieve the goals of the Purdue University Strategic Plan, which aims to build “relationships with other educational institu-tions” thus “improving society through civic engagement.” The experiential learning experiences include visits to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center (Cincinnati, OH), the Du-Sable Museum of African American History (Chicago, IL), the Crispus Attucks Museum (Indianapolis, IN), and the Black Holo-caust Museum (Milwaukee, WI). Also, the BCC’s Performing Arts Ensembles offer workshops and instruction in writing, acting, singing, and dancing. Staff members for the National Youth Sports Program (NYSP) provide instruction in physical activity and fitness.

VOLUME 5 ISSUE 1 Page 5

AASRC Supports Rights of Passage Mentoring Program through NCBS Grant

New Fellowships Awarded to IDIS Students Several prestigious fellowships were awarded to incoming and current graduate students in the IDIS programs for the 2008-09 academic year.

♦ Lynn Fellowships Shivohn Garcia (American Studies) Karl Germeck (American Studies) David Weir (American Studies) Whitney Vandiver (Linguistics) Ayman Rashad Yasin (Linguistics) Jason Lotz (Comparative Literature) Sophia Stone (Philosophy & Literature Ph.D.)

♦ Bilsland Dissertation Fellowship Engin Arik, Linguistics Robert King, Philosophy & Lterature (6-month fellowship)

♦ Bilsland Strategic Initiative Heidi Freeman, American Studies for MADCAP (Mommies & Daddies Collective at Purdue). This a new initiative for work-ing parents.

♦ David M. Knox Fellowship Amanda Strickland (Linguistics)

Kevin Brooks

Patricia Hart Becky Brown

Page 6 INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES

In April 2008, The Society of Early Americanists and Purdue University under the leadership of Professor Kristina Bross (Department of English and American Studies) hosted an interdisciplinary scholarly summit on early Native American Studies that featured panel pres-entations, workshops, and keynote sessions that attracted scholars, Native American groups, and local community members. The conference marked the bicentennial of the founding of Prophetstown by Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa (The Shawnee Prophet) in 1808.

The founding of Prophets-town was an important histori-cal moment marking the first significant peaceful gesture on the part of Indigenous North Americans to appropriate and utilize an “Indian” identity as a singular racial force of com-munity and resistance. Pan-racial identification had been imagined and imposed by a series of European conquerors and colonizers for centuries, and pan-Indian identity would

become the driving force be-hind the Jacksonian policy of Indian Removal, enacted as law in 1830. The Shawnee Brothers’ efforts were the first to coalesce and mobilize “Indians” on a continental level to oppose such efforts.

Like most academic con-ferences, Prophetstown Re-visited attracted influential scholars from across the country to share their re-search. But unlike many such meetings, this conference was organized with an explicit commitment to establishing responsible and reciprocal relationships between Native communities and univer-sity-based scholars. Thus, the formats included work-shops as well as scholarly panels, a tour of Historic Prophetstown led by Professor Dawn Marsh (Department of History and American Studies) and featured speakers included distinguished filmmaker, Chris Eyre, and Rick West, founding director of the National Museum of the American Indian.

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Classical Studies Hosts Lectures, Film Showings and Discussions

The Classical Studies Program, under the new leader-ship of Sandor Goodhart, spon-sored numerous talks and film showings during the 2007-08 academic year. The year kicked off in Sep-tember with an Open House which allowed interested stu-dents to connect with faculty and current students. Professor Goodhart gave a

lecture, “Un-harnessing the Classics: The New Ancient Studies,” in which he shared his vision for Classical Stud-ies at Purdue. The next event was a film showing of The Odyssey followed by a discussion by Professor Keith Dickson. In February, Professor Nicholas Rauh led a discussion on Alexander the Great, Director’s Cut which was pre-ceded by showing of the film. The key event for the year was a film showing of Mar-tin Bernals’ Black Athena. The film showing was fol-lowed with a lecture by Professor Martin Bernal, “Black Athena: Afro-Asian Roots of Greek Culture,” and a roundtable discussion on March 21. Professor Bernal’s Black Athena is a landmark work in

the humanities. His thesis is that the roots of Greek civilization derive from ancient North African and Near Eastern cultures, and that nineteenth century philology had a racist and anti-semitic bias. His three volumes have attracted wide-spread interest and controversy in the scholarly fields of classics, lin-guistics, African American studies, history and archeology. He is a Pro-

fessor Emeritus in the Department of Near Eastern Stud-ies at Cornell University. The final event of the year was a lecture by Professor James Redfield entitled, “Reading Sophocles’ Antigone and Neces-sity.” Professor Redfield is the Ed-ward Olson Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Classical Languages and Litera-tures at the University of Chicago. He is the author of Nature and Cul-ture in the Iliad: The Tragedy of Hector and The Locrian Maidens: Love and Death in Greek Italy.

Filmmaker, Chris Eyre

W. Richard West

Ronald Ipock, Patrice Rankine and Director Sandor Goodhart Martin Bernal

James Redfield

VOLUME 5 ISSUE 1 Page 7

“Harlem Renaissance: Aesthetics, Values and Identity” 23rd Annual Symposium on African American Culture & Philosophy

African American Studies held their 23rd Annual Symposium on African American Culture & Philosophy, “Harlem Renaissance: Aesthetics, Val-ues and Identity” on November 1-3, 2007. The keynote speaker was Dr. Arnold Rampersad, Professor of English and the Sara Hart Kimball Professor in the Humanities at Stanford University. His lecture was entitled “Locke and the Har-lem Renaissance”. Dr. Rampersad just

published Ralph Ellison, a biography of the novelist (Knopf, 2007). In addition, he has authored Jackie Robinson: A Biog-raphy (Knopf, 1997), a two-part biography of Harlem Renais-sance poet-playwright Langston Hughes, The Life of Langston Hughes (Oxford University Press, 1986 and 1988), The Art and Imagination of W.E.B. DuBois (Harvard University,

1976), as well as co-authored the Arthur Ashe memoir, Days of Grace: A Memoir (Ballantine Books, 1994). In addition to the keynote address, there were several panel discussions on such top-ics as: art, literature and music, institutions, identity and poli-tics, and Alain Locke. A plenary session was also held featuring Drs. Susan Cur-tis, Anne Knupfer, Bill Mullen, Venetria Patton and Leonard Harris.

Peace Studies Sponsors Anti-war Activist and Iraq Film Project In the past year, the Committee on Peace Studies has shone the spotlight on aspects of the United States’ involvement in Iraq that often remain hidden in the shad-ows, and gave antiwar activist, Cindy Sheehan, an opportunity to share her views with the campus community.

On April 12, 2007, Cindy Shee-han spoke to a packed house on the subject of “Speaking Peace to Power.” Sheehan is perhaps best known for her extended demon-stration near President Bush’s

Texas ranch in 2005, but this event was just the beginning of nearly continuous activism against the war in Iraq.

As a follow-up to Sheehan’s appear-ance, the Committee on Peace Studies sponsored the Iraq Film Project in Sep-tember, which fea-tured two films about the war in Iraq and its consequences, “Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of American Empire” and “Ground Truth.”

Tarajia Project The Tarajia Project was envisioned by Heidi Freeman, a Ph.D. student in American Studies, to help prepare African American high school students for college by providing tutoring, finding academic resources, and tracking the progress of young women hoping for a future in higher education. Based in Jefferson High School in Lafayette, the Tarajia project helps students select a career path based on qualitative and quantitative career assessments, field trips to various industries, and opportunities to meet with professionals in the students’ fields of interest.

According to Ms. Freeman, the past semester “has been one of the brightest and most rewarding the Tarajia Project has experienced thus far.” She plans to make community service a larger part of the objectives of the group and to make field trips to community service agencies to acquaint students with the need for well-educated and devoted students eager to serve the public good.

Ms. Freeman was recognized for this innovative project at the American Studies award ceremony in April 2008 as an exemplary intellectual committed to mentoring, education, and community involve-ment.

Dr. Arnold Rampersad

Cindy Sheehan

Page 8 INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES

During the Fall 2007 semester, the Medie-val and Renaissance Studies program debuted the new Renaissance Brown Bag series. This informal, interdisciplinary reading group met throughout the fall and spring semesters.

The fall series focused on John Hollander’s The Figure of Echo and included readings by Angelica Duran, Charles Ross, Allen Wood, Yonsoo Kim, Clayton Lein and Melinda Zook.

The spring series included the works of Thomas Greene’s The Light in Troy: Imita-

tion and Discovery and Roland Greene’s Un-requited Conquests: Love and Empire. Read-ings were given by Angelica Duran, Lynne Miles-Morillo, Brady Spangenberg, Martina Jauch, Simone Caroti, and Paul White.

The series was very successful and there are plans to continue in the 2008-09 academic year. For more information on the series, please contact Angelica Duran at du-ran0@purdue.edu.

Renaissance Brown Bag Series Debuts

Featured Speakers Highlight Active Year for Religious Studies The Religious Studies program invited several featured speak-ers along with co-sponsoring several events this year. Beginning in November, along with the Aquinas Educa-tional Foundation and the Department of Soci-ology, Margaret Steinfels, co-director of the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture, spoke on “Catholicism’s Many (and Sometimes Con-tentious) Public Faces: A Look at American Catholics Today.” One of the featured speakers for the year was Professor Robert Orsi, Grace Craddock Nagle Chair in Catholic Studies at Northwestern Uni-

versity. Professor Orsi presented “Growing Up Catholic: A Case Study of Catholic Chil-dren in Mid-20th Century America,” on February 8. This was based on research he did for a book on the social and cultural history of 20th-century Catholic child-hoods, which will be published by Harvard University Press. This event was also sponsored by the Aquinas Educational Foundation.

Professor Dyan Elliott of Northwestern University presented “A Marriage Made in Hell: Female Spirituality and the Rise of Witch-craft” on April 9. Professor Elliott is the John Evans Professor of History and fo-cuses on western Europe in the Middle Ages. This event was co-sponsored by the Medieval and Renaissance Studies program and the Department of History. The program also participated in the 2008 Dorothy Day Lecture at the St. Tho-mas Aquinas Center featuring Michael Hovey of the Archdiocese of Detroit. Hovey spoke on “Freedom of Conscience in the Face of Evil: The Interrupted Life and Death of Franz Jaegerstaetter.” In October 2007, Professor Jacqueline Mariña participated in organizing the visit of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet in conjunction with the Tibetan Cultural Center in Bloomington and the College of Liberal Arts. An open house for interested students was also held in Febru-ary. This event allowed students and faculty alike to gain a better understanding of the program and its offerings.

Jewish Studies Awards First Joseph Haberer Book Prize

This year the Jewish Studies program awarded the first annual Joseph Haberer Book Prize to the Outstanding Senior in the program to Joshua Abramsohn. Joshua received a beautiful volume devoted to Jewish Studies scholarship.

The prize honors Professor Emeritus Joseph Haberer, former Director of Jewish Studies and editor of Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies. Professor Haberer was on the faculty of the Department of Political Science when the program in Jewish Studies was founded, and after one year, he accepted the challenge of assembling and writing a newsletter that would include short book reviews, book notes, and mini-articles. That newsletter, Shofar, has grown and expanded into an influential journal since its inception in 1982.

The Joseph Haberer Book Prize is a fitting tribute to a scholar who served as the de facto Jewish Studies librarian at Purdue University. Professor Haberer assessed the university’s holdings, appealed to donors to add volumes to the field, and used the book notes and book review sections of Shofar to add the latest works in the field of Jewish Studies.

In presenting this first award, Professor Haberer continues the impulse that drove the initial founding of Shofar, “the dissemination of knowledge about the Jewish experience in its manifold dimensions.”

Margaret Steinfels

Robert Orsi

Dyan Elliott

VOLUME 5 ISSUE 1 Page 9

IDIS Programs Welcome New Directors Several of the IDIS programs gained new leadership in 2007-08. This infusion of new guidance enhances not only the programs themselves but the overall interdisciplinary initiatives of the College.

In Classical Studies, Professor Sandor Goodhart took over the helm from Profes-sor Patrice Rankine. Under Sandor’s lead-ership, the very successful Classics lecture series gained new life. You have read in an earlier section about the invited speakers.

Professor Patricia Hart began the 2008 year as Interim Chair

for Film/Video Studies and ended the semester with a permanent appoint-ment to the position. The Film/Video Studies program experienced tremen-dous growth and development under the direction of Professor Benjamin Lawton. We fully expect this trend to

continue under Patty’s direction. One of the newest items for the program was the addi-tion of the FVS rubric for courses. This al-lows students to gain credits directly from the program.

Since Ann Astell’s departure last spring, the MARS (Medieval & Renaissance Studies) program has been led by Professor Paul White. Paul continued the successful Medie-

val Monday talks and also began the new series, Renaissance Brown Bag. The MARS program also instituted its own rubric and the steering committee is in the proc-ess of proposing new courses.

In the Philosophy & Literature Ph.D. program, Professor Leonard Harris has been busy with efforts to increase gradu-ate student recruitment. Leonard was appointed as director in the summer of 2007.

Pen and Protest: Intellect and Action: A Symposium in Honor of Berenice Carroll A special symposium in honor of Berenice Carroll was held on November 16-17, 2007. Professor Carroll is a Professor of Political Science and Women’s Studies and was director of the Women’s Stud-ies Program from 1990-2000. The symposium featured an array of distinguished scholars and activists from diverse backgrounds and disciplines who have worked with her over the years in Women’s Studies and Peace Studies. Keynote speakers included: Evelyne Accad, Professor Emerita, French and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Illinois; Blanche Wiesen Cook, Distinguished Professor of History, John Jay College and the Graduate Center, CUNY; Maya Rockeymoore, President and CEO, Global Policy Solutions; and Hilda L. Smith, Professor of History, University of Cincinnati and President of the Midwest British His-tory Association. There was also a banquet speaker, Dianne Pinderhughes, Professor of African Studies and Political Science, University of Notre Dame and President of the American Political Science Asso-ciation.

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In Appreciation of Berenice Carroll

by Professor Susan Curtis In 1976, I began work on a B.A. thesis on the Book of Mormon. I wanted to treat it as a piece of literature instead of scripture, so I asked my favorite professor of literature for advice on U.S. writers in the 1820s and 1830s who would help me situate the Book of Mormon, which begins in North America before the Christian era and ends after the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. The Lamanites, with their shaved heads, breechcloths, and tents, were regarded by early Mormons as the ancestors of then Native Americans, so I especially wanted the names of writers who wrote about Europeans and Na-tives in the first three decades of the 19th century. When my professor insisted that I consult “the boys” of early American literature, I bristled noticeably, and he has-tened to add, “I don’t mean to offend you, but there were no women writing anything of significance at that time.” Thirty years later, the advice would be quite different. Catharine Sedgwick’s Hope Leslie and Lydia Maria Child’s Ho-bomok, both published shortly before the Book of Mormon, would appear high on the list, and the professor might also have noted that these women and such 19th-century contemporaries as Margaret Fuller, Sojourner Truth, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were also important voices of protest against injustice. If Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon to chal-lenge Americans, then part of the work of locating his thought would involve comparing him to other critics of the status quo. The change in awareness of women’s use of writing as a means of protest did not happen over night. It is the result of diligent work and the commitment of scholars like Berenice Carroll. One of the most important contributions of Beren-ice’s scholarship is the recognition of the power of the pen and the need for protest. Indeed, Berenice and other pioneers in the study of women’s history and literature shook up their fields by rewriting master narratives, forced more careful scrutiny of modern institutions, and inspired consciousness, not only about how we were, but how we live today. Throughout her career, Berenice Carroll has been an important voice speaking out clearly and insistently for justice—not just about women’s issues, but about racial and class inequalities, and peace. She has been a scholar, a champion, and an activist in and out of the university. It has been an honor and a privilege to have hear as a colleague at Purdue University.

Sandor Goodhart

Patricia Hart

Paul White

Leonard Harris

Page 10 INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES

AASRC Program News AASRC is gearing up for its 24th annual symposium on African American Culture and Philosophy. This year’s symposium will be held in conjunction with PALARA: Publication of the Afro-Latin/American Research Association. The symposium will be held November 6-8, 2008 and will address the theme, “(Re)Visioning the Black Caribbean: Spaces, Places, & Voices.” The symposium will have an impressive line-up of speakers with author and liter-ary critic Dr. Myriam Chauncy as the keynote speaker. She is the author of novels, Spirit of Haiti and The Scorpion’s Claw. She is also the author of literary criticism, Framing Silence: Revolution-

ary Novels by Haitian Women and Searching for Safe Spaces: Afro-Caribbean Women in Exile. In addition to the keynote address, there is an impressive line-up of plenary speakers to address Anglophone, Francophone, and Hispanophone literature respectively. These speakers are Dr. Carole Boyce-Davies of Cornell University, Dr. Françoise Lionnet of UCLA, and Dr. William Luis of Vanderbilt. We will also have several concurrent panel discussions with professors and gradu-ate students from across the country. We hope you’ll join this exciting discussion.

Activities Under the sponsorship of the Asian Studies Program, Professor Felicia Roberts of the Department of Communications gave a talk on November 1, 2007 entitled “Japanese and American Percep-tions of Trouble in Conversation: The Interaction of Inter-turn Silence and Speech Act.” The audience included undergraduate and graduate students and faculty from English, Foreign Lan-guages and Literatures, Communications, Linguistics, Political Science, and History. Undergraduate students Jamie Borman, Walter Howard, and Je-sie Martinez represented the Asian Studies Program at a reception on October 22, 2007 in connection with the outside evaluation of the IDIS Programs. Our Far-flung Students: Several of our students spent the 2007-2008 academic year in Japan: Joshua Archer at Nanzan University; Kate Nearing and Beth Hamilton at Tsukuba University; and Zschaun Dean at Nei-kai University. Sarah Teagardin spent fall semester 2007 with Semester at Sea.

In the course of her travels, she visited Japan; Qingdao, China, and Hong Kong. Alumni News Adrianne Renberg (2004) has completed requirements for a mas-ter’s degree in Japanese history that will be conferred by Indiana University in the spring graduation. She spent the 2006-2007 academic year in Tokyo working on Japanese language. Shivani Gopalkrishna (2006) is in the second year of a master’s program in International Relations at Waseda University in To-kyo. During February and March, she will have an internship at the Economist. Matthew Kho (2006) is webmaster at Assumption High School in Louisville, Kentucky, where he is involved with the Asian Culture Club. Frederick Chu (Minor, 2007) has put his knowledge of history to work. At the Northbrook Historical Society he created a search-able database of primary source documents. At the Winnetka Historical Society, he has been updating the museum's catalogue.

News from the Asian Studies Program

Victor Raskin Named Distinguished Professor In November 2007, the Board of Trustees named Victor Raskin a Distinguished Professor of English and Linguistics. Professor Raskin has been a faculty member since 1978 in the Department of English. He founded the Program in Linguistics, the Natural Language Processing Laboratory, and most recently, the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Information Security. Victor also served as Interim Director of Interdisciplinary Studies during the 2004-05 academic year. He is the recipient of several departmental Excellence in Teaching Awards and has supervised over one hundred Ph.D. dissertations at Purdue and across the world in Linguistics and related disciplines. He is the founding editor of HUMOR: International Journal of Humor Research and is on the internal advisory board of Purdue’s Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security, of which he is also Associate Director. He is also co-founder and past president of the International Society for Humor Studies. Professor Raskin has authored, co-authored, edited and co-edited 30 books and published over 200 articles on linguistic semantics and its applications to natural language processing, rhetoric and composition, information security and assurance, and humor research. He is co-founder of ontological semantics, an innovative meaning-based approach to natural language processing. His work has been discussed in The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and other major newspapers and magazines as well as numerous TV and radio programs, both in the USA and abroad. Victor earned his bachelor’s degree in structural and computational linguistics from Moscow State University in the former Soviet Union. He also received his master’s and doctoral degrees from Moscow State. He taught at Moscow State, Tel Aviv University in Israel, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the University of Michigan. It is impossible to list all of Professor Raskin’s accomplishments in this short space. He has been a tremendous influence to not only students but colleagues and staff as well.

Page 11 INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES

American Studies Spring Symposium The annual American Studies Spring Symposium was held April 17 & 18, 2008. The theme for this year’s event was “Critical American Studies: Examining the Intersections of Race, Class and Gender.” Keynote speakers for the event included: Dr. Mari Matsuda, John Carroll Research Professor of Law at Georgetown University, who spoke on “The Last Public Place: Critical Race Theory, Public Schools, and Organizing for Social Change;” and Dr. Cheryl Harris, Professor of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles, whose talk focused on “The New Racial Preferences.” Student panels were held throughout the day on Friday with such topics as gender, transnationalism, music, race, literature, poetry, cultural production, sexuality and technology. A plenary session on the 2007 Shanghai Study Abroad course was held along with a roundtable discussion on the job market. American Studies alum, H. Clark Maddux, gave a presentation on “Humanities and Outreach,” which focused on the engagement of American Studies. An awards ceremony was held on Friday evening where the Chester E. Eisinger Prize and Research Awards were announced along with several other awards and honors. Sabine Klein was the recipient of the 2008 Chester E. Eisinger Prize. This annual event culminates the American Studies Lecture Series and Colloquia. The series has included talks from various Purdue American Studies faculty members as well as presentations to assist students entering the job market.

Each year the College of Liberal Arts Alumni Board recognizes the outstanding achievements of its graduates through the Distinguished Alumni Awards program. Recipients of the award have made signifi-cant contributions to society, and their ac-complishments, affiliations, and careers honor the legacy of excellence at Purdue University and the College of Liberal Arts. For 2008, two of the five people honored come from interdisciplinary programs.

David Geeslin (BA, 1989, Linguistics) is the first completely deaf student to earn a bachelor’s in linguistics from Purdue and also the first deaf person to earn a doctoral degree in Indiana. Dr. Geeslin is now the

superintendent and CEO of the Indiana School for the Deaf. He serves as a board member on the State Advisory Council on the Education of Children with Disabilities and was a 2007 member of

the Indianapolis Public School Cultural Audit Task Force.

Dorothy Leland (M.A. 1973, American Studies) is the 10th president of George College & State University and the sec-ond female president in the university’s 115-year history. She oversees a residen-tial liberal arts campus and two graduate centers with a combined enrollment of more than 6,000 students and almost 800 faculty and staff. Dr. Leland serves on multiple state boards, including the Georgia Council on Economic Education, and is also president of the Peach Belt Athletic Conference and chair of the Poli-cies and Purposes Committee of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.

IDIS Program Alums Among 2008 Distinguished Professors

It is now even easier to donate to the Interdisciplinary Studies Programs using Purdue-gift. Purdue-gift makes it simple to make a gift by credit card to Purdue. Go to the following web address:

http://www.purdue.edu/UDO/pages/how_to/egift.html

Click on “Make a Gift”, choose “Other” from a drop-down menu, then type in the program you wish to contribute to, enter some information about yourself, submit your payment information, and the transaction is completed through Purdue’s secure server. Make your gift now in three easy steps. It takes just a few minutes.

Ben Lawton Steps Down as FVS Chair An era has ended. Professor Benjamin Lawton has directed the Film/Video Studies program from its infancy.

Under his supervision, the now growing pro-gram has increased to record numbers of majors and minors and has begun offering courses on the technical side of film/video studies.

At the 2008 IDIS Outstanding Senior recep-tion, Professor Lawton was presented with his very own “Oscar” by Associate Dean Susan Curtis.

Ben will be missed for not only his leadership but his undying support of the students in the FVS program.

David Geeslin Dorothy Leland

Ben Lawton

VOLUME 5 ISSUE 1 Page 12

Faculty Special Recognitions, Promotions and News

♦ Venetria Patton spent the last year focusing on professional service. She served again as a reviewer for the Ford Foundation Diversity Pre-Doctoral Fellowship and has recently joined the board of the National Council for Black Studies. Her contributions to the field of Black Studies were recognized with the presentation of the Paul Robeson and Zora Neale Hurston Award for Leadership in the field of Black Studies a the NCBS national confer-ence. She was also recognized at the Black Graduate Association Awards and Recognition Banquet.

♦ Susan Curtis’ book, Colored Memories: A Biographer’s Quest for the Elusive Lester A. Walton, will be published in May 2008 by the University of Missouri Press.

♦ Leonard Harris will have a new book available in Fall 2008. Alain L. Locke: The Biogra-phy of a Philosopher will be published by The University of Chicago Press.

♦ Congratulations to the following faculty members who were recently promoted.

♦ Janet Afary, Professor of History and Women’s Studies

♦ Tithi Bhattacharya, Associate Professor of History, Asian Studies and Religious Studies

♦ Mia Smith-Bynum, Associate Professor of Psychological Sciences and African American Studies

♦ Elena Coda, Associate Professor of Foreign Languages & Literatures, Italian Studies and Philosophy & Literature Ph.D.

♦ Alexander Francis, Associate Professor of Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences and Linguistics

♦ Wei Hong, Professor of Foreign Languages & Literatures and Asian Studies

♦ Jacqueline Mariña, Professor of Philosophy, Religious Studies and Philosophy & Literature Ph.D.

♦ JoAnn Miller, Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies

Various Student Honors and News ♦ African American Studies Graduate Assistant, Kevin Brooks, received the Youth Ministry award from MinistryOne at the

2008 Men’s Conference on April 5, 2008 in Lafayette. He and Omari Dyson are being honored for their service to the Greater Lafayette Community with the Rites of Passage Mentoring Program.

♦ At the Black Graduate Association Awards program, African American Studies Graduate Assistant, Adrienne Carter-Sowell

received the David Robert Lewis Scholarship Award. The Black Graduate Association Scholarship Award recognizes a stu-dent who persistently strives toward academic excellence.

♦ At the National Council for Black Studies national conference, African American Studies Graduate Assistant, Jamal Ratchford, won first place in the Graduate Stu-dent Essay contest for his paper, “’He is Built for Chasing Greatness’: Tommie Smith, San Jose State, and the Making of a Student Activist.” ♦ American Studies Ph.D. candidate, Sabine Klein, will begin a tenure-track posi-tion at the University of Maine, Farmington, in September 2008.

♦ Sol Neely, Philosophy & Literature Ph.D. student, has been accepted to Cornell University’s School of Criticism and Theory for the Summer 2008. He will study with Eric Cheyfitz on “Just Society,” Native American Phi-losophy, and the Zapatistas, in addition to studying with Daniel Boyarin, William Connolly, Lisa Lowe, Martha Nussbaum, and Gayatri Spivak in the semester’s mini-seminars.

Sabine Klein

Jamal Ratchford