Message from the Dean
2006-7 has been a active year in CLASS. We've been busy with SACS accreditation business, the National Research Council rankings of our doctoral programs, new program development in units around the college, and our core mission of teaching students and conducting research. Our faculty have excelled with award-winning publications and research, and once again the university teaching awards have gone to more than one CLASS faculty member. Our students and graduates are making an impact in the Houston community and beyond. I hope you will enjoy this newletter, which provides just a taste of all the great things going on in our college this year.
John Antel, Dean
College’s Mitchell Center for the Arts Hosts Composer Philip Glass
The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts presented “Creativity and Collaboration: An Evening with Philip Glass” on February 19. In this multimedia event, Glass used examples from his own career to illustrate how artistic collaborations across genres can influence the development of an artist and can shape a career. The presentation included film clips, discussion and selections performed live at the piano.
“Philip Glass is a legendary collaborator, and this event was a rare opportunity to learn how partnerships with other artists have influenced his work,” said Karen Farber, director of CWMCA. “The Mitchell Center’s mission is to promote collaboration among the performing, literary and visual arts, so we build upon on the legacies of such figures as Glass.”
The Mitchell Center promotes collaboration, experimentation, and innovation in the arts. The Center supports the creation and presentation of new works, sponsors visiting artist residencies, and offers courses, scholarships, lectures, and symposia, all in a creative alliance with the School of Art, Creative Writing Program, Moores School of Music, School of Theatre and Dance, and Blaffer Gallery
Recent Faculty Publications
I poeti sono impossibili [Poets are impossible]
by Professor Alessandro Carrera, Modern and Classical Languages
Alessandro Carrera, Director of Italian Studies received the 2006 Bertolucci Prize for literary criticism with his book I Poeti sono impossibili [Poets Are Impossible]. Rome: Edizioni Il Filo, 2005. The Bertolucci Prize, named after the Italian poet Attilio Bertolucci, is awarded by the City of Parma, Italy. The Academy Award Winner filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci, Attilio’s son, is president of the jury. Says Professor Carrera, “It is rather amusing to win a literary prize with a book that now and then it is rather sarcastic about literary prizes and the poets who crave them, but I suppose that sometimes it pays to be the bad boy.”
Carry Me Back: The Domestic Slave Trade in American Life
by Professor Steven Deyle, Department of History
Professor Deyle’s book, Carry Me Back: The Domestic Slave Trade in American Life, was recently awarded the Bennett H. Wall Award by the Southern Historical Association as the best book on southern business or economic history published in 2004 or 2005. He received this award at the association’s annual meeting in Birmingham, Alabama, in November.
The Inordinate Eye: New World Baroque and Latin American Fiction
by Lois Parkinson Zamora, Department of English
The Inordinate Eye: New World Baroque and Latin American Fiction, by English professor Lois Parkinson Zamora, won the Harry Levin Prize awarded by the American Comparative Literature Association. The Harry Levin Prize is one of this country’s most prestigious book awards in the discipline of comparative literature. The prize was awarded at the ACLA’s annual conference in April.
Students
Theatre MFA Students Performing Around Country
All eight of the second-year MFA actors in the School of Theatre & Dance will be performing leading roles for professional Shakespeare Festivals across the country. They earned spots with these companies against actors auditioning in New York City, Los Angeles, Memphis, and Washington, D.C. Going to the Virginia Shakespeare Festival are Aaron White (to play Romeo in Romeo & Juliet), Matthew Archambault (to play the King in Love’s Labours Lost) and Laura Frye (to play Rosaline in Love’s Labours Lost). Shakespeare Dallas will have Aline Elasmar playing The Prince in Romeo & Juliet. At Texas Shakespeare Festival, William Diggle will play Salieri in Amadeus, Luke Eddy will play Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing, Shelley Wilson will play Van Swieten in Amadeus, and Raven Peters will play Don John in Much Ado About Nothing.
Research and Grants
Folklorist Researches Stories of Hurricane Survivors
Professor Carl Lindahl of the Department of English co-directs the Surviving Katrina and Rita in Houston project, a collaboration of the University of Houston, the Texas Commission on the Arts, and the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.
The project’s goal is “to voice, as intimately as possible, the experiences and reflections of those displaced to Houston by the two major hurricanes that pounded the Gulf Coast in August and September of 2005. Survivors receive training and pay to record fellow survivors’ storm stories, their memories of lost neighborhoods, and their ongoing struggles to build new communities in exile.”
Dr. Lindahl was invited speaker and inducted member of the SSRC’s Katrina Task Force and presented results of his research in New Orleans, October 7. He delivered the keynote address at the Harvard University Conference: Performing Folklore. His work was also featured on National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation and in the Houston Chronicle.
New Initiatives
Health Communications Concentration
Jim Query, associate professor of communication, developed the college’s new Health Communication degree concentration, which offered its first courses to undergraduate communication majors last fall.
Health Communication courses provide students with information and skills for use as health care professionals and consumers. They also help prepare students for many related careers such as patient liaisons and advocates, public relations professionals, health reporters and communication positions at nonprofit organizations, medical institutions and government agencies. The Health Communication degree concentration offers two specializations: Health Care Delivery (HCD) and Public Health Promotion (PHP).
India Studies Program
The College has proposed an India Studies Program to promote teaching and scholarship focused on the history, politics, economics, languages, and culture of India. The first course that will be affiliated with the Program is a Religions of India course inaugurated through the Religious Studies Program in the fall 2006 semester. Future courses include Anthropology and Archaeology of India, beginning in fall semester 2007. This course will be offered by the University of Houston in cooperation with the University of Houston Clear Lake.
Faculty Awards
Political Scientist Wins National Dissertation Award
Paul M. Collins, Jr., Assistant Professor of Political Science, was presented with the nation’s most prestigious honor for dissertations in the social sciences, the Council of Graduate Schools/University Microfilms International Distinguished Dissertation Award, in Washington, D.C on December 8, 2006. The award identifies Collins’ dissertation, completed at Binghamton University, as making an unusually significant contribution to the social sciences, both methodologically and substantively, as judged by a multidisciplinary faculty panel.
Collins’ dissertation on interest group activity in the U.S. Supreme Court, “Friends of the Supreme Court: Examining the Influence of Interest Groups in the U.S. Supreme Court, 1946-2001,” analyzes how organized interests influence the decision making patterns of Supreme Court justices. Incorporating theories from political science, empirical legal studies, and social psychology, Collins finds that pressure groups are effective in their attempts to influence the justices’ decision making. According to Collins, “this research reveals that Supreme Court decision making is more than a function of the justices’ attitudes and values. Indeed, it appears that the justices take persuasion attempts advanced by organized interests very seriously.”
History Professor Wins Award for Work on History of Psychiatry
Hannah Decker was recently presented the Carlson Award from the Department of Psychiatry of the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center/Cornell University Medical College. This award recognizes Professor Decker’s “extraordinary contributions to the history of psychiatry and of Sigmund Freud.
2007-8 New Faculty
The College will welcome over 20 new faculty in Fall 2007, with new hires joining the following Schools and Departments, among others: Communication, Economics, English, History, Music, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, and Theatre & Dance.
SACS Accreditation
The College managed to post 781 instructor CV’s by the end of the 2006-7 school year. In the fall semester, 1995 course syllabi were posted; an additional 1981 syllabi were posted for the spring. Thanks to everyone for cooperating in the effort to fulfill SACS reaccreditation requirements during the past year.
