The Leading Edge

Events

Monday, April 27

Revolutionary Readers: Antebellum Narrative Painters and the Radicalization of U.S. Literature – To many art historians, paintings depicting specific scenes in U.S. literature have appeared to reinforce national myths and siphon off discontent. In this talk, Peter Betjemann, Center for the Humanities Research Fellow and faculty in the School of Writing, Literature, and Film, contends that literary paintings, understood as criticism, interpret their sources in incendiary ways, defining for readers a canon of familiar texts deeply engaged with the specters of slavery and envisioning a transnational future. 4 p.m., Autzen House, 811 SW Jefferson Avenue.

Sergeant York (Film Screening) — A hillbilly sharpshooter becomes one of the most celebrated American heroes of WWI when he single-handedly attacks and captures a German position using the same strategy as in turkey shoot.   The film will be followed by discussion and commentary with SHPR faculty Christopher McKnight Nichols, Joseph Orosco, and Courtney Campbell. 7:00 p.m., Owen Hall, Room 103.

Tuesday, April 28

Food Chains Film Screening & Dialogue: Feeding the Nation at Any Cost — Come join us at 6 p.m. in the MU Horizon Room (Room 49) for a Food Chains film screening and dialogue on food justice and farmworker’s rights. One of the producers, Smriti Keshari, will be joining us along with representatives from community organizations (PCUN, First Alternative Co-op, and more) working for a more equitable food system and farmworkers’ rights. Admission is free and the event is open to the public so bring your friends! Join the Facebook event! In this exposé, an intrepid group of Florida farmworkers battle to defeat the $4 trillion global supermarket industry through their ingenious Fair Food program, which partners with growers and retailers to improve working conditions for farm laborers in the United States.

Wednesday, April 29

Visiting Artists & Lecture Series: Friending Big Brother — Artist Hasan Elahi will discuss the new normal of post 9/11 privacy and describe his experience with FBI interrogations and his subsequent creative projects. Elahi has presented his work in numerous exhibitions at venues worldwide, and has spoken at the Tate Modern, the Einstein Forum, and the American Association of Artificial Intelligence, to name a few. He is currently an associate professor of art at the University of Maryland. 7 p.m., The LaSells Stewart Center. A reception precedes the talk at 6 p.m.

Why We Think Nature is Beautiful — This presentation explains how we came to appreciate the beauty of nature in a modern sense. The story involves many developments in the arts, the humanities, and the sciences over many centuries. Eugene C. Hargrove is the founding editor of the journal Environmental Ethic and the author of “Foundations of Environmental Ethics “(Prentice Hall, 1986). As chair of the philosophy department at the University of North Texas, he was instrumental in creating the first environmental philosophy M.A. and Ph.D. programs in the United States. 7:00 p.m., Kelley Engineering Center, Room 1001.

Thursday, April 30

Nature’s Trust: Environmental Law for a New Ecological Age — Mary Christina Wood, the Philip H. Knight Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the school’s Environmental and Natural Resources Law Program at UO, and the author of “Nature’s Trust: Environmental Law for a New Ecological Age,” will speak on the failings of environmental law and the possiblity of transformation based on the public trust doctrine. 7:00 p.m., C&E Auditorium, The LaSells Stewart Center.

OSU Percussion Ensemble — Directed by Robert Brudvig, 7 p.m., Benton Hall Room 202, Free.

Friday, May 1

Environmental Arts & Humanities Research Conference — Join us for the Inaugural Environmental Arts and Humanities Initiative 2015 Research Conference, including a full day of cutting-edge student research and art punctuated by keynote presentations by award winning author Catherine McNeur (Assistanat Professor of History, Portland State University) and Environmental Philosopher Eugene C. Hargrove (University of North Texas). 8 a.m. – 6 p.m., MU 206: Asian/Pacific-American Room.

Music à la Carte: Mom’s Weekend Kickoff with The Julians — Female Vocal Quintet. Noon, OSU Memorial Union Lounge, Free. www.thejuliansmusic.com/

Disability Studies @ OSU — Join a group of OSU community members interested in discussing Disability Studies teaching and research, in general, and the development of a DS curriculum at OSU, in particular. 1 p.m., Milam Hall 301.

The SPP Brownbag Series continues today noon when Dr. Karen Thompson (College of Education) presents “The Effects of Changing Test-Based Policies for Reclassifying English Learners.” The brownbag will be held in Fairbanks 304. The event is free and open to the OSU community.

Anthropology Tan Sack Series — Willamette University Anthropology Professor Peter Wogan, co-author of “Hollywood Blockbusters: The Anthropology of Popular Movies” (2009) will give a lecture on Kalimán, one of the most popular Mexican comic-book heroes of all time. Based on 10 years of fieldwork with the customers and owners of a Mexican-American corner store in Salem, Oregon, Wogan will explore explanations for Kalimán’s appeal. The talk, “Supernaturalism, Science, and the Mexican Superhero” will be in 201 Waldo Hall at noon.

Open House — The School of History, Philosophy and Religion will be holding an Open House for Mom’s Weekend from 3-5 p.m. on the third floor of Milam Hall. Come learn about SHPR’s faculty research, upcoming events, and check out a series of unique ‘Mother’ themed displays.

OSU Night at the Oregon Symphony with Storm Large — Portland’s unforgettable songstress performs American Songbook standards with the orchestra. OSU friends and alumni receive a 20% discount by going to the online purchase page (link below) and typing “beavers” in the promotion code field. 7:30 p.m., Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 Southwest Broadway, Portland. Information: 1-800-228-7343. tickets.orsymphony.org/single/EventDetail.aspx?p=2682.

Saturday, May 2

Open House — The College of Liberal Arts will be holding an open house in Fairbanks Gallery from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in honor of Mom’s Weekend. Come enjoy snacks, a new gallery exhibit, and meet CLA’s ambassadors.

Upcoming Events 

OSU Art: Fairbanks Gallery — May 4–27, 2015; Reception: 12-1 p.m., Tuesday, May 5. Frank Boyden: Oregon Icon, an exhibit of prints by Frank Boyden opens to the public on May 4 in Fairbanks Gallery. From his very first experiments with a series of lithographs depicting fish and bones, Frank Boyden has now pursued printmaking for nearly 30 years. Boyden’s printmaking reveals both his love of nature and his passionate alter ego through skillful and intuitive linear imagery that relays the powerful graphic quality of printmaking.  

News 

The Creative Forest project at Hopkins Demonstration Forest kicked off on Saturday, April 25. A collaborative partnership between CLA, OSU’s Extension Service, and the Hopkins Demonstration Forest, this event brought together students and faculty from 5 School of Arts and Communications courses to spark interdisciplinary creative collaborations, located within and using the forest itself as material, subject, and inspiration. Michael Boonstra, Julia Bradshaw, Elizabeth Helman, Andy Myers, and Dana Reason organized the event, and they and their students took part on Saturday, mixing sculpture, drawing, video art, theater, music composition, and more. The project will continue throughout the term.

Awards and Honors

Joshua Weller (Assistant Professor, Psychology)  was awarded a Visiting International Scholar Award. The award is an annual competition sponsored by the University of Verona, Italy. Dr. Weller will be spending two months in Italy to collaborate with colleagues across the country in order to conduct research on cross-cultural differences in risk-taking and risk perceptions between the United States and Italy.

OSU’s Director of Bands, Chris Chapman was recently elected into the prestigious American Bandmasters Association. A yearlong evaluation process of his performances, clinics, masterclasses, and international profile deemed his work worthy of the honor of membership. Only four band directors in our state’s history have ever been elected. The official induction ceremony takes place in San Lius Obispo, Calif., next March.

Current Research, Publications and Creative Activity

Several CLA faculty recently presented at Oregon State’s Health Iniquities Symposium, including:

Kalilah Hyman, Kelsey Fieldman, and David Kerr of the School of Psychological Science; Dr. Patti Watkins and her research assistant, Madison Gerber; Sharyn Clough and Jonathan Kaplan in Philosophy; and Kathleen Bogart in Psychology, Stephanie Jenkins in Philosophy, Robert Figueroa in Philosophy, and George Estrich in English.

Assistant professor of English Megan Ward recently gave an invited talk at Point Park University’s annual Humanities and Human Sciences Symposium, in Pittsburgh, PA. The title of her talk was, “An Imaginary Archive.”

School of Writing, Literature, and Film Assistant Professor Ehren Helmut Pflugfelder recently published a chapter in the new collection on rhetoric and the work of Bruno Latour: Pflugfelder, Ehren Helmut. “Is No one at the Wheel?: Nonhuman Agency and Agentive Movement” Thinking with Bruno Latour in Rhetoric and Composition. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2015. 176-200.

Joshua Weller (Assistant Professor, Psychology), recently published two papers: The first, titled, “Plasticity of Risky Decision-Making among Maltreated Adolescents: Evidence From a Randomized Controlled Trial,” was written with colleagues from Oregon Social Learning Center (Eugene, OR) and Idaho State University  and will appear in the journal Development and Psychopathology; second, recently published with colleagues from the University of Rome, Sapienza, entitled, “Tolerance of Ambiguity: Empirically robust factors in self-report personality Scales,” will appear in the journal Assessment.

Chris Chapman, OSU’s Director of Bands, spent his spring break conducting the North Dakota All-State Band. All-State ensembles represent the finest performers in their state. This performance also featured a piece composed by Chapman. More recently, he was working with high school bands at Colorado’s state band festival; and presented a clinic at the Nevada Music Educators Association

Dr. Elizabeth Marino, Social Science and Anthropology at Oregon State University — Cascades, organized one of five conference sites for the annual Integrated Network of Social Sustainability conference April 8-10 in Bend, Ore. Other sites included Charlotte, NC; London, U.K.; Lansing, Michigan; and Phoenix Arizona. https://clas-pages.uncc.edu/inss/annual-meetings/2015-meeting/.

• Merino also presented the following: What is Social Sustainability? on the panel titled: “Cross-Disciplinary Investigation of the Social Systems We Need for a Better World;” and “The Social Infrastructure of a Sustainable Campus: Looking forward at OSU-Cascades.”
• Chris Wolsko, Oregon State University – Cascades, Psychology, also presented at the conference: ‘Healthy People, Healthy Place: Merging Ecological and Social Sustainability.” http://clas-pages.uncc.edu/inss/files/2015/04/inss-talk.pdf.

SPS graduate student Amy Bonnett and assistant professor Kathleen Bogart will be presenting a poster entitled “Attitudes toward disability in self and other” at Western Psychological Association in Las Vegas, NV on May 2.

• At the same conference, SPS undergraduate Mariah Estill, graduate student Amy Bonnett, alumna Cassie Colton, and assistant professor Kathleen Bogart will be presenting a poster entitled “A study of disability courses within U.S. undergraduate psychology programs” at Western Psychological Association, Las Vegas, NV on May 1; and
• SPS undergraduates James Gaither, Mariah Estill, Erika Frandrup, graduate student Amy Bonnett, alumna Jessica Cline, and assistant professor Kathleen Bogart will be presenting a poster entitled Look beyond: Raising awareness of facial and expressive differences” at Western Psychological Association, Las Vegas, NV on May 2.