Faculty News

Silas D. Childs Professor of Biology David Gapp and Associate Professor of German and Russian Languages and Literatures Frank Sciacca will appear on the Green Local 175 LIVE Radio & Internet Show, tonight (Tuesday, March 26) from approximately 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., on WPNR 90.7 FM and streaming live audio on the Internet.

William R. Kenan Professor of East Asian Languages and Literature Hong Gang Jin was an invited key speaker on March 16 at the 2nd Annual Chinese Pedagogical Workshop. The event was sponsored by the Department of Asian Studies of Penn State University.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature Janelle A. Schwartz ’97 presented a lecture on March 23 at Counterpath in Denver. The talk, based on her book Worm Work: Recasting Romanticism (2012), incorporated both science and literature in an examination of the world of worms.

Visiting Assistant Professor of History John Ragosta discussed his new book -- Religious Freedom: Jefferson's Legacy, America's Creed -- at the Virginia Festival of the Book in Charlottesville, Va, on March 22.  The Virginia Festival is the largest gathering celebrating writing and reading in the Mid-Atlantic region drawing new and best-selling authors in all genres.

Luce Junior Professor of Asian Studies and Anthropology Chris Vasantkumar is the author of an essay titled "Unmade in China: Reassembling the Ethnic on the Gansu-Tibetan Frontier" that has just been published by Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology.

In a Huffington Post essay titled “The New Washington Economics,” Government Professor P. Gary Wyckoff questioned the financial soundness of the sequester.  In the March 21 posting, he addressed the economic reasons why the sequester may be quite detrimental to the economy while not reducing the deficit significantly.

Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies S. Brent Plate recently presented invited lectures based on his forthcoming book, A History of Religion in 5 1/2 Objects.

Publius Virgilius Rogers Professor of American History Maurice Isserman participated in a panel discussion commemorating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. The discussion, sponsored by the Albert Shanker Institute and the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), took place March 19 at UFT headquarters in New York City.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Government Calin Trenkov-Wermuth ’00 is co-author of a new book, Overcoming Obstacles to Peace: Local Factors in Nation-building, published by RAND in 2013.

In response to an attack on CIA Director John Brennan for taking the oath of office with a hand on George Washington's copy of the Constitution rather than the Bible, Visiting Assistant Professor of History John Ragosta wrote a response in an essay published by The Huffington Post. In “Bravo for Brennan!,” which appeared on the publication’s website on March 14,  Ragosta explained that “The Constitution does not require that a Bible be used for the oath of office.