The Leading Edge

Events

Monday, April 11

Muslim Jews: A History of Conversion — Though “Muslim Jew” may sound like an oxymoron, in Islamic or Jewish history, hybridized identity was not as uncommon as one might think. In this talk, Jonathan Katz, Center for the Humanities Research Fellow and faculty in OSU’s School of History, Philosophy, and Religion, will consider three historical episodes in which entire Jewish communities converted to Islam. How each group fashioned a response to challenges of exclusion and acceptance offers lessons about the formation of collective identity as well as the limits of tolerance. 4 p.m.,  Autzen House, 811 SW Jefferson Avenue.

Tuesday, April 12

The Gender Pay Differential: Panel Discussion — 4 to 5 p.m., Memorial Union 208 (La Raza Room). Since the late 1970s there have been significant increases in the earnings of women relative to men and yet according to the White House working women earn 77 percent of what their male counterparts earn. Recent surveys suggest that men as well as women see this as a major problem both of equality in the workplace and of opportunity overall. How does this affect students, graduates, faculty, and staff? Panelists, including Sharyn Clough, Rorie Solberg, Todd Pugatch and Anne Gilles will explore the most significant causes and consequences of the gender pay differentials, including drawing on new research surveys of OSU alumni done just for this panel.

Thursday, April 14

Please join us for the Spring-term community meeting of the Oregon State Queer Archives (OSQA).The mission of OSQA is to preserve and share the stories, histories, and experiences of LGBTQ+ people within the OSU and Corvallis communities. At the Spring meeting we’ll be talking about our upcoming Pride Week event and making plans for next year. Everyone is welcome! 4-5 p.m., Native American Longhouse.

Rita Dove Reading and Q&A — Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Rita Dove, the recipient of Oregon State University’s Stone Award for Lifetime Literary Achievement, will be honored this evening in Corvallis. Dove, who served as poet laureate of the United States from 1993 to 1995, is the 2016 recipient of the biennial Stone Award, which recognizes a major American author who has created a body of critically-acclaimed work and mentored young writers. A reading and question-and-answer session with Dove will be held at 7:30 p.m. in the CH2M HILL Alumni Center, 725 S.W. 26th Ave., Corvallis. Dove also will be presented with the Stone Award at the event, which is free and open to the public. A book signing will follow.

Friday, April 15

Anthropology Tan Sack Series — Instructor of Geography at OSU and native of Kolkata, India, Dr. Shireen Hyrapiet, will give a lecture on the conflicts that shroud the hand-pulled rickshaw industry of that city. In spite of the charges against them, the rickshaw pullers have carved a unique niche for themselves within the local community and have negotiated a place for themselves and their trade in Kolkata. The talk, entitled “The Politics of Place and Meaning Making: A Study of the Hand-Pulled Rickshaws of Kolkata, India,” will be in 201 Waldo Hall at noon.

Music à la Carte — Jeff Siegfried, saxophone, and friends. Noon, Memorial Union Lounge, Free.

A Conversation with Rita Dove — This evening OSU will host a reading and conversation with Stone Award for Lifetime Literary Achievement recipient Rita Dove at 7:30 p.m. at the First Congregational United Church of Christ, 1126 S.W. Park Ave., Portland. The event is free and open to the public, and a reception will follow. Karen Holmberg, a poet and associate professor of English and creative writing at OSU, will lead the on-stage conversation with Dove at the Portland event. Dove is a Pulitzer Prize-winner, and served as poet laureate of the United States from 1993 to 1995.

Upcoming Events

SPS Spring Colloquium Series — April 20, 12 – 1 p.m., Reed 111. MAIS candidates Katy Krieger and Christian Sinnott will present their research. Katy’s talk is titled “Words of Well-being;”  Christian’s talk is titled “Investigating Differences Between Rural and Non-rural Students in High Education. Please join us!

The first week in May will see the 30^th annual observance of Holocaust Memorial Week at Oregon State University. As has been the case for many years, the program will deal not only with the Holocaust, but with the theme of comparative genocide. Also in keeping with standard practice, human rights issues will receive a prominent place. Holocaust survivor Eva Mozes Kor will speak in Corvallis on May 2, 7:30 p.m. in the Austin Auditorium of the LaSells Stewart Center. For more information on the program and speakers, visit: http://holocaust.oregonstate.edu.

Current Research, Publications and Creative Activity

Shiao-ling Yu, Associate Professor of Chinese, presented a paper entitled “Politics and Theater in the PRC: A Recent Play Celebrating the Founding of CCP” at the International Conference on Chinese Oral and Performing Literature, held in conjunction with the Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference in Seattle, March 31-April 3, 2016.

Associate Professor of Psychology Patti Watkins will be presenting a paper entitled, “A Fat Studies Class Reduces Stigma among College Students” in the symposium, Challenging Weight Stigma through Critical Education, at the 4^th International Weight Stigma Conference in Vancouver, BC at the end of April. Dr. Watkins also has a chapter entitled, “Inclusion of Fat Studies in a Difference, Power, and Discrimination Curriculum” in a newly published text, The Fat Pedagogy Reader: http://www.peterlang.com/index.cfm?event=cmp.ccc.seitenstruktur.detailseiten&seitentyp=produkt&pk=90071&cid=533&concordeid=312567

Theatre Professor Charlotte Headrick  has published “Where No Kindness Goes Unpunished:’  Declan Hughes’s Dublin,” in The Contemporary Irish Detective Novel, edited by Elizabeth Mannion (Plagrave Macmillan, 2016). She has also published “The Breath of Hope and Tomorrow:  An Examination of John Stephens’s Farewell the Fair Country,” Irish Studies South, Vol. 2, 2016. Additionally, she is presenting a paper “Pre-Revolutionary Ireland? Waking the Feminists, The Case of the Abbey and Irish Women Dramatists,”  at the annual meeting of the American Conference for Irish Studies, South, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia, April 14, 2016.