Catherine Combelles (Biology) has been awarded an R15 research grant through the National Institutes of Health’s AREA (Academic Research Enhancement Award) program. This grant will support work to determine the effects of endocrine-disrupting compounds on the oocyte and the ovarian follicle, the structure that nurtures the developing oocyte. Because the health of adults, neonates, fetuses, and embryos all depend upon normal oocyte development, the findings will help to provide a foundation for improving not only female reproductive but also adult health. The grant funds research at Middlebury, the University of New Hampshire, and Emory University, including supplies and travel to conferences as well as Catherine’s 15-16 academic leave. At least 15 undergraduates will be involved in this research over the next three years.
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Susan Burch and Tara Affolter awarded AALAC funding
Susan Burch (American Studies) and Tara Affolter (Education Studies), with colleagues from Barnard, Haverford, Macalester, Oberlin, Vassar, and Scripps, have been awarded funding from the AALAC consortium (Alliance for the Advancement of Liberal Arts Colleges), the successor to the Mellon 23 program, for a collaborative workshop that will be held at Barnard in the fall of 2015. The workshop, titled Critical Disability Studies and Universal Design for Learning, will bring together participants from 10 to 13 liberal arts colleges and Columbia University who have varied levels of expertise in these related topics that are so critical to better educating disabled and nondisabled students. Participants will collaborate to pursue four related goals: curricular development, pedagogical development, faculty collaboration with disability support services, and inter-institutional development across and between colleges.
Leticia Arroyo Abad awarded AALAC consortium funding
Leticia Arroyo Abad (Economics) and colleagues from Dennison, Wellesley, Furman, and Williams have been awarded funding from the AALAC consortium (Alliance for the Advancement of Liberal Arts Colleges), the successor to the Mellon 23 program, for a collaborative workshop that will be held at Middlebury in the spring of 2015. The workshop, titled The Economic History of Race, Class, and Gender, will bring together participants from 10-15 institutions to explore recent advances in the economic history of race and ethnicity, gender, class, and other facets of inequality. They plan to take advantage of the interdisciplinary nature of economic history to foster dialogue about these elements of inequality with other disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, political science, philosophy, and history.
Will Pyle receives funding from Russia’s National Research University
Will Pyle (Economics) has received funding from Russia’s National Research University Higher School of Economics’ (HSE) International Center for the Study of Institutions and Development, which will provide support for three years. He will be participating in a research project titled Collective Action in the Business Community and giving a couple of lectures per year to students at the HSE.
Mark Spritzer awarded NIH AREA grant
Mark Spritzer (Biology) has been awarded an R15 research grant through the National Institutes of Health’s AREA (Academic Research Enhancement Award) program. This grant will support work to investigate the effect of testosterone replacement on the spatial working memory of hypogonadal aged male rats. It will fund research equipment, supplies, and travel to conferences and will involve at least 18 undergraduate research assistants over the next three years.
Sujata Moorti awarded residencies at Mt. Holyoke and McGill
Sujata Moorti (Gender, Sexuality, & Feminist Studies) has been awarded residencies at two institutions in support of her 2014-15 leave and her research titled Science and Gender in New Media. During the fall she will be a Research Associate at the Five College Women’s Studies Research Center at Mount Holyoke College, where she will contribute to their focus on Feminist Science and Technology Studies. In January 2015 she will begin a five-month residency as Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies at McGill University in Montreal.
Brett Millier awarded a grant to attend NEH Summer Institute
Brett Millier (English and American Literatures) has been awarded a grant to participate in a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute titled Mortality: Facing Death in Ancient Greece, which is sponsored by the Institute for Humanities Research at the University of California at Santa Cruz in collaboration with the Athens Centre in Athens, Greece where the program will be based. The institute encourages the study of mortality in ancient Greece as the basis for comparative study across cultures, disciplines, and historical periods. During the institute, Brett’s goal is to both enhance her teaching in CMLT 101 and develop a comparative interdisciplinary course on the issues raised in the Institute’s readings and discussions.
Timothy Billings awarded an NEH Enduring Questions grant
Timothy Billings (English & American Literatures, Comparative Literature Program) has been awarded an Enduring Questions grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to support the development of a new course on the topic of “What is lost (& found) in translation?” Students will explore the fundamental philosophical, sociological, and linguistic questions raised by translingual communication such as: How much does language determine how we think? How much of language is culture? What is unique to translating sacred texts, poetry, “exotic” languages, and dead languages? Is anything “untranslatable”? Are translators traitors, drudges, or artists? Can machines translate? Students will survey the history of theoretical writing on translation while comparing multiple translations of coherent sections from major works such as the Bible, Greek & Latin poetry, Tao Te Ching, and One Thousand and One Nights among others. The course will be offered twice during the next two years.
Erik Bleich awarded a Fulbright Scholar research grant
Erik Bleich (Political Science) has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar Program research grant and a fellowship through the European Institutes for Advanced Study (EURIAS) at the Collegium de Lyon (France) in support of his 2014-15 leave project titled Restricting Racist Speech in France: How Courts Draw the Line Between Free Speech and Hate Speech. He will work on a book examining how French courts distinguish between forms of racist speech that are protected and prohibited in this thorny area for liberal democracies. His fellowship in Lyon provides support and a home base for 10 months as he pursues this research. For the Fulbright, he will be affiliated with the Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po) in Paris.
Sandra Carletti awarded a Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation fellowship
Sandra Carletti (Italian) has been awarded a fellowship from the Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation for a project titled The United Tables of Italy: Pellegrino Artusi and the Unification of Italy in the Kitchen. The grant will enable Sandra to travel to Italy during her 2014-15 leave to do research at the Pellegrino Artusi library in Forlimpopoli, Emilia-Romagna, which houses the archives for the iconic cookbook that Artusi published just thirty years after the official unification of Italy. She plans to examine documents and collect materials to enhance her teaching of Italian culture and history and to support creation of a new course on the intersection of literature, food, and language in the representation of Italian identity.