The Leading Edge

Events

Monday, Nov. 10

Fall of the Wall Flash Mob — To commemorate the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the German program is organizing flash mob. Students will construct a Wall out of cardboard boxes decorated with messages of change and social justice. Come join us to commemorate this important event. 11:45 a.m. – 12 p.m., Kidder Hall main entrance (library side).

Bawds, Ruffians, and Brothels: Spanish Sex Workers in the New World — A handful of official investigations survive documenting sex work in the first century of the American viceroyalties. Nicole von Germeten of the School of History, Philosophy and Religion will discuss the first century of sex work in Spanish America, as men and women both carried on and reinterpreted Spain’s medieval traditions. 4 p.m., Autzen House / Center for the Humanities.

Approaches to Disability: Redemptionism, Rejectionism, and Historicism — Professor Hector Avalos (Iowa State) will present three approaches from Biblical scholarship on disability: 1) a redemptionist approach, which seeks to portray biblical views of disabilities in a positive light; 2) a rejectionist approach which argues that many biblical views of disability should be rejected; and 3) historicist approach, which studies disabilities in a purely historical mode. 7 p.m., Memorial Union: Journey Room

Tuesday, Nov. 11

University Theatre of the School of Arts and Communication and the School of Writing, Literature, and Film will sponsor a Veteran’s Day Reading of World War I poetry and drama at 4 p.m. in the Moreland Hall lobby.  Faculty, staff, graduate and undergraduate students and members of the community will be reading the poetry of Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, e.e. cummings, and many others as well as excerpts from  O’Casey’s “The Silver Tassie,”  R.C. Sheriff’s “Journey’s End,” and Frank McGuinness’s “Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme.” The event is free and seating is limited.

Wednesday, Nov. 12

Reception for Fairbanks Gallery artist Ralph Pugay, Everything Taste Like Chicken. 4:30-5:30 p.m., Fairbanks Gallery. Portland based painter Ralph Pugay’s paintings are darkly humorous and disquieting. His paintings show scenes drawn from complex aspects of our contemporary lives, which the artist describes as “absurd situational narratives, constructed through the melding of incongruous symbols and ideas, where the mundane and fantastic converge.” Ralph Pugay recently won the Seattle Arts Museum’s prestigious Betty Bowen Award, which honors a Northwest artist for their original, exceptional, and compelling work.

Thursday, Nov. 13

The Past and Future of Forests —  Please join us for an interdisciplinary panel discussion with four scholars whose work explores societal dimensions of science and nature.  There will also be a special exhibit of historical materials from the history of forestry at OSU as well as refreshments. 3-5 p.m., Valley Library, Special Collections and Archive Research Center.

Friday, Nov. 14

Dr. Gregg Walker, Professor in Speech Communication, will present “Collaboration, Communication, and Environmental Conflict: A Pracademic’s Perspective” from 4 – 5 p.m. in Gilkey Hall 113. In this talk, Dr. Walker will discuss two projects—one  conceptual and one empirical.  He draws on his work as a “pracademic,” emphasizing the dual roles of practitioner and academic.

Honeybees – New Writing and Research —  Join us for a celebration of honeybees and the launch of a new book Winged: New Writing on Bees with editors Melissa Resser Poulin and Jill McKenna Reed. The OSU Honeybee Lab will also discuss their work and bring an observation hive and beekeeping equipment to examine. 7:30 p.m., Corvallis Public Library, 645 NW Monroe.

Music à la Carte: OSU Campus Band Fall Concert — Directed by Dr. Robert Brudvig, noon, Memorial Union Lounge, Free.

Fall Choral Concert: Bella Voce and the OSU Meistersingers —  Directed by Dr. Tina Bull and Russ Christensen, 7:30 p.m., First United Methodist Church, 1165 NW Monroe, Corvallis, $8 in advance, $10 at the door, OSU students with ID & youth K-12 free. Advance tickets at tickettomato.com.

News

Laura Rice, Professor Emerita in the School of Writing, Literature and Film, is currently in Tunisia, North Africa, where she is teaching as a visiting professor for one month at the University of Tunis-El Manar. She was invited to teach an intensive short course on Colonial Literature for the graduate program in Inter-Cultural Studies at the Higher Institute of Human Sciences.

History professor Mina Carson’s lastest photography exhibit is currently hanging at Sunnyside-Up (116 NW 3rd St, Corvallis). This new exhibit is a collection of  images taken from daily life in Montmartre (the 18th arrondissement of Paris) and will be hung at Sunnyside-Up through the end of November.

OSU faculty members are invited to nominate graduate students in the humanities or environmental sciences for a writing retreat sponsored by the Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature and the Written Word. The retreat confers exclusive use of the Cabin at Shotpouch Creek for one week during winter break (December 12- January 4) and a stipend of $250 per person. For more information: http://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/centers-and-initiatives/spring-creek-project/programs-and-residencies/shotpouch-cabin/graduate

Current Research, Publications and Creative Activity

Stacey Smith, of the School of  History, Philosophy and Religion recently gave the 14th Annual Joanna Dunlap Cowden Memorial Lecture at California State University, Chico.   Her talk, entitled “Slavery on Free Soil: California’s Unfree Past,” explored how struggles between the unfree and their masters transformed the nation in the decade leading up to the Civil War.

Restoration and History — In the face of rapid environmental and cultural change, orthodox concepts in restoration ecology such as historical fidelity are being challenged.  In this newly published article (Front Ecol Environ 2014; 12(9): 499–506, doi:10.1890/110267) the authors, including OSU Horning Professor Anita Guerrini, re-examine the diverse roles played by historical knowledge in restoration, and argue that these roles remain vitally important. As such, historical knowledge will be critical in shaping restoration ecology in the future.

Ronald Mize, director of the Center for Latino/a Studies, recently published the chapter: “Putting the ‘I’ in CF&I: The Struggle Over Representation, Labor, and Company Town Life on the Edge of Aztlán,” pp. 153-188 in Making an American Workforce: The Rockefellers and the Legacy of Ludlow. Fawn Amber Montoya, ed. University Press of Colorado: Boulder.

Assistant professor of psychology Kathleen Bogart recently published the following: Bogart, K. R., Briegel, W., & Cole, J. (2014). On the consequences of living without facial expression. In C. Muller, A. Cienki, E. Fricke, S. Ladewig, D. McNeil, S. Teßendorf (Eds.), Handbook of Body – Language – Communication: An International Handbook on Multimodality in Human Interaction (pp. 1969-1982). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.