Eileen Cleere, assistant professor of English, had a very successful Brown semester and summer. Her book (based on her dissertation), "Avuncularism: Capitalism, Patriarchy, and Nineteenth-Century English Culture," is under contract with Stanford University Press, and she completed a final set of revisions to the manuscript. The book argues that the famously "nuclear" family of nineteenth-century literature and culture is far more fractured and contradictory than twentieth-century interpretive paradigms have assumed. Instead, it isolates an alternative paradigm of the "avunculate," suggesting that a widespread and profound interest in uncles rather than fathers marks an important preoccupation with the increasingly theorized and embattled directives of a new political economy. She also finished revising a nugget from her new project on Victorian Aesthetics. The article, "Victorian Dust Traps," will appear next year in a cultural studies anthology from Minnesota entitled "Filth." In August, Cleere delivered an invited lecture on Dickens's "The Old Curiosity Shop" at the Dickens Universe in Santa Cruz, Calif. The talk, "Implicit Faith in the Deception: Misanthropy, Curiosity, and Natural History," has been solicited for publication in "Dickens Studies Annual."

Edward L. Kain, professor of sociology, served as chair of the section on teaching and learning in sociology at this year's meeting of the American Sociological Association in Atlanta, Aug. 16-20. In addition, he met with the national Task Force on the Undergraduate Major, which is writing new national guidelines for the major in sociology, to be published in 2004.

Christine E. Kiesinger, associate professor of communication studies, recently presented "Full Circle: The Narratives that Death Evoke," at the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction Annual Conference in Atlanta, Ga. Her paper was presented as part of a panel titled "Family Memoirs," and is part of a larger project that highlights communication practices as they relate to death and dying.

Tim O'Neill, professor of political science, has published a review of Peter H. Schuck's book "Diversity in America: Keeping Government at a Safe Distance" (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003) in the August edition of the "Law and Politics Book Review."

Victoria Star Varner, professor of art, is exhibiting two drawings in "Mark Making: A Drawing Show" at the Arlington Museum of Art, Arlington, from Sept. 12 (reception from 6-9 p.m.) through Oct. 25. The exhibition is curated by Ms. Anne Allen, director of the museum.

Rachel Wagner, visiting assistant professor of religion, was interviewed, along with Frances Flannery Dailey of Hendrix College, by Rafael Kenski of "Super Interessante," a Brazilian journal, about their work on "The Matrix" and religion, for the May 2003 edition. Wagner and Dailey also have two articles in upcoming anthologies of works by academics about "The Matrix" trilogy, including the official Warner Brothers anthology of philosophical interpretations of the films. Wagner and Dailey were also interviewed about religious perspectives in "The Matrix" by Dave Rutherford of the Corus Radio Company of Canada in June of this year.

August 21, 2003

Suzanne Fox Buchele, assistant professor of mathematics and computer science, presented a paper titled "Three-Dimensional Halfspace Constructive Solid Geometry Tree Construction from Implicit Boundary Representations" at the 8th ACM Symposium on Solid Modeling and Applications in Seattle, Wash., in June. The paper was one of six papers nominated for the conference Best Paper award and subsequently has been invited to be considered for publication in the journal "Computer Aided Design."

Bruce Cain, associate professor of music, performed two concerts in Chicago at the Ravinia Festival in Gordon Bennett Hall on July 27 and Aug. 9. Both concerts included premiers of songs that were commissioned by the Ruth Page Foundation and Concert Dance, Inc. The programs were a combination of Art Song recital and Modern Dance concert. Cain also performed in two pops concerts with the Wheaton Symphony in Wheaton, Ill., on Aug. 1-2.

Ken Roberts, professor of economics, was invited to discuss the "Social and Health Consequences of Migration in China," at a special workshop on "Urban Studies and Demography in China," held in Minneapolis in May. This workshop preceded the annual meetings of the Population Association of America, where his co-author, Rachel Connelly of Bowdoin College, presented a paper, "The Impact of Migration on the Status of Women in Rural China." This paper is part of their ongoing research on migrant women in China, funded by the Ford Foundation.

David Tabb Stewart, assistant professor of religion and philosophy, facilitated a faculty seminar on Euripides' "The Bacchae" for the Religion and Violence Group at the annual conference of the Society for Values in Higher Education on Aug. 1 at the University of Maine at Farmington. In addition, he presented a paper, "The Branch Davidians and the Bacchae," at the same conference. Both pieces developed out of his work coordinating the 2003 Fleming Lectures in Religion, "Waco: Ten Years After," and the course he taught last spring, "Dystopia, Utopia, and Apocalypse." The Fleming Lectures, Stewart's paper and student responses to the Fleming Lectures will appear this fall in SU's Brown Working Papers series.

June 13, 2003

Elizabeth Green Musselman, assistant professor of history, has been invited by the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Cape Town to give a talk in their weekly seminar series. Her talk is entitled, "Plant Knowledge in the Early Nineteenth Century Cape: A Cross-Civilizational Excavation." Green-Musselman will return from Cape Town in early July.

Michael Saenger, assistant professor of English, has been invited to chair an international panel of scholars at the Renaissance Society of America meeting in New York. The speakers will address Renaissance texts and readers, a topic of his past and continuing research. Saenger also had a paper accepted for presentation at a panel at the Modern Language Association of America in San Diego on Shakespeare's collaborative playwriting.

Patrick Veerkamp, professor of art, will exhibit a selection of his pottery at the Waco Art Center. This four-person invitational exhibition will be on display until July 25th. You can find more information on the exhibition, gallery hours, and directions to the WAC at the following web-site: www.artcenterwaco.org.

The Austin Critics Table has awarded the "Outstanding Choral Concert" to Southwestern University Chorale's and Chorus Austin's performance of "Boris Godunov" The Critics Table nominations recognized exceptional work in local theatre, dance, classical music and visual art from May 1, 2002 to Apr. 30, 2003. Professor of Music Kenny Sheppard directed the choral performance.

Also nominated for awards included:

Best Musical Production, "Grease," Southwestern University
Best Director of a musical production, Rick Roemer for "Grease"
Best Actor of a musical, senior Christopher Hudson Myers for "Cabaret"
Best Supporting Actress of a musical, Sarah McComas for "Cabaret"
Best Female Singer, Southwestern alumna Virginia Dupuy, "Emily Dickinson in Song"

May 2, 2003

Mark Bottorff, assistant professor of physics, has just been informed that a recently approved NASA grant includes him as one of the three co-investigators of a grant which will investigate the anomalous behavior line emission of ionized helium (HeII) in Active Galactic Nuclei. Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) are active supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies. Because the mysterious behavior of these lines are important but very vexing to astronomers, the grant has the (some what) humorous but apt title "HeII in AGN: Where Theory Hits the Fan?" The grant is a three-year grant and will be managed by Jack Baldwin at Michigan State University. The grant also will fund the work of a Ph.D. student at Michigan State University. The principle investigator and his students will reanalyze 1700 archival spectra taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and the International Ultraviolet Explorer. As co-investigator, Bottorff will assist in analytical modeling of the newly analyzed data.

Teena Gabrielson, assistant professor of political science, presented a paper titled "The Structure of Partisan Ideology and its Relationship to Ideological Change" at the Southwestern Political Science Association annual meeting this past April.

Alisa Gaunder, assistant professor of political science, presented a paper titled "The Importance of Leadership in Japan: Campaign Finance and Anti-Monopoly Legislation under Prime Minister Miki Takeo" at the Southwestern Political Science Association meeting in San Antonio on Apr. 19.

Thom McClendon, assistant professor of history, had an article accepted for publication in the "Journal of Southern African Studies." The piece, titled "The Man Who Would Be Inkosi: Civilising Missions in Shepstone's Early Career," is a revised version of the Brown Working Paper McClendon presented in March. It will appear in the journal early next year.