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Allen-Head Lecturer Discusses U.S.
Political Culture
Author and theologian Mark Lewis Taylor
presented Austin College’s 2008 Allen-Head Lecture, “The Future
of the Christian Right in U.S. Political Culture,” April 9,
followed by a book signing.
Taylor is Maxwell M. Upson Professor of
Theology and Culture at Princeton Theological Seminary. His most
recent book is Religion, Politics, and the Christian Right:
Post 9-11 Politics and American Empire. He speaks on themes
of post-9-11 culture, the politics of empire, and ways white
racism pervades U.S. interests in empire and religious practice
within the U.S. and globally.
Taylor also wrote The Executed God: The Way
of the Cross in Lockdown America, theologically addressing
issues of the contemporary prison-industrial complex, police
brutality, and the death penalty. The book won Best General
Interest Award from the American Theological Association. He is
the author of Remembering Esperanza: A Cultural-Political
Theology for North American Praxis; and Paul Tillich:
Theologian of the Boundaries; as well as co-author of
Reconstructing Christian Theology.
The Allen-Head Lectures, established at Austin
College by a gift from Mr. and Mrs. E.T. Allen, Jr., and Mr. and
Mrs. R.B. Head, Jr., of Whitesboro, Texas, feature nationally
prominent speakers in the areas of religion, philosophy,
psychology, history, and literature made available to the local
community
Columbia University Philosopher
Offers Lecture
John Collins, associate professor of
philosophy at Columbia University, visited Austin College in
March to present the lecture, “Scams, Hustles, and Confidence
Tricks: Elements of Anti-Social Epistemology.”
Campus Amnesty International Program
Raises Awareness of Refugee Stories
The Austin College Amnesty International
organization hosted its annual awareness dinner March 31,
designed to raised awareness of refugees and displaced people
around the world. The 2008 event, Forced Out, included two
refugee guest speakers: John Chol, a Lost Boy of Sudan, and Asli
Parker, president of Somali Community Outreach Center in Dallas.
Asia Week Brings Speakers, Cultural
Experiences
Austin College’s annual Asia Week, March
31-April 3, included several opportunities to share Asian
culture through demonstrations of mandalas, origami, and
calligraphy, as well as to hear lectures from experts.
Junhua Wang, M.D., of the University of Texas
Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas spoke on “Severe
Immunodeficiency Disease in Navajo and Apache Indians: The
Responsible Gene and Its Function.” Wang, a native of mainland
China, endured the Cultural Revolution and came to the U.S. in
recent years to continue his gene research.
Ban Wang, professor of Chinese literature and
film at Stanford University, presented a lecture, “Where Are All
The Villages Gone?: Landscape and Home in Chinese Literature and
Film.” He also introduced the film, Postman in the Mountains,
and led a discussion afterward.
AIDS Quilt Display Returns to Campus
Austin College hosted its annual AIDS Quilt
Program April 10 with AIDS quilts from the Grayson County Home
Hospice on display. The program included poetry readings,
prayers in various languages, and discussions about some of the
issues surrounding AIDS, as well as remembrances of those who
have died from the disease. A raffle at the event raised funds
in support of the Simbaradenga Children’s AIDS Orphanage in
Zimbabwe.
Roger Platizky,
professor of English, coordinates the annual campus event.
Lecture Addresses Biblical
Archeology and Faith
Milton C. Moreland
presented the lecture “Raiding the Tomb of Jesus: Biblical
Archaeology, Conspiracy Theories, and the Consequences for
Faith” April 15 on campus, sponsored by Austin College’s
Humanities Division.
Specializing in
archaeology and the origins of Christianity, Moreland is
associate professor of religious studies at Rhodes College in
Memphis, Tennessee. Since 1993, he has served as a senior staff
member and field archaeologist at the Sepphoris excavation in
Galilee. He also has traveled and led student groups to Greece,
Israel, Turkey, Jordan, Italy, and Germany.
Moreland is
co-director of the archaeology program at Rhodes, where he also
directs the Institute for Regional Studies. In these capacities,
he heads research projects to sites extending from the historic
plantations of west Tennessee to ancient Palestine. Moreland is
particularly interested in the theories archaeologists use to
interpret data and how those shape present reconstructions of
past societies.
Moreland co-directed
a project on the “James Ossuary,” that surfaced in 2002. The
James Ossuary is a sepulchral, limestone box for containing
bones, claimed to have held the bones of James, the brother of
Jesus. Moreland’s project has focused on the scholarly,
commercial, and religious aspects of the phenomena related to
the box and the media coverage it received. The Israel
Antiquities Authority assess it as a modern forgery, but some
scholars maintain its historical authenticity.
Educator Proposes “Darwin Loves You”
in Austin College Lecture
Educator George Levine presented “Darwin Loves
You: Natural Selection and the Re-Enchantment of the World”
April 17 during a campus lecture funded by a grant from the Keck
Foundation.
Levine’s lecture title comes from his 2006
book by the same title. The book has been described as an
exploration of Darwinism’s implications for moral and spiritual
values, proposing that Darwin and scientific theory are not
dehumanizing or amoral, and that it is possible to be a
Darwinist and still believe that the world has meaning.
Professor emeritus of English at
Rutgers University, Levine is the author of The Boundaries of
Fiction: Carlyle, Macaulay, Newman, The Realistic Imagination:
English Fiction from Frankenstein to Lady Chatterley, Darwin and
the Novelists: Patterns of Science in Victorian Fiction,
Lifebirds, Dying to Know: Scientific Epistemology and Narrative
in Victorian England, and Darwin
Loves You: Natural Selection and the Re-enchantment of the
World.
Levine received his master’s degree at the
University of Minnesota, served two years in the army, and then
returned to the University of Minnesota to earn his doctorate in
Victorian literature. He taught Victorian literature at the
University of Indiana from 1959 until he joined the faculty at
Rutgers College in 1968, where he taught for almost 40 years in
many capacities from chair to associate provost. In 1986, he
became co-founder and Director of the Center for the Critical
Analysis of Contemporary Culture, a program that focuses on
making intellectual connections, especially between humanities
and the sciences.
Art History Students Hear from
Expert
Cheryl Snay, associate curator of prints and
drawings at the University of Texas Blanton Museum of Art, spoke
to students on “The Pantheon in Paris: Art and Politics in 19th
Century France” on April 17.
Undergraduate Conference Examines
“Transformation and Translation”
The fifth annual Austin College Undergraduate
Conference in the Humanities and Social Sciences,
“Transformation and Translation,” was held on campus April
25-26. The topic related ideas of translating and transforming,
as from thought to word, from word to image, from one language
to another, from one genre/medium to another (e.g., literature
to film), from script to performance, from male to female (and
vice versa), from values to action, from data to policy, from
one economic/business paradigm to another (e.g., going green),
from one political party or system to another, or from theory to
practice.
Plenary speakers included:
- Carmen Perez Romero, translator,
emerita professor of English literature at Universidad
de Extremadura, and author of the only full translation of
Shakespeare’s sonnets into Spanish, presented “Translating
Shakespeare’s Sonnets.”
- Philip Boehm, translator, playwright, and
director, presented “Challenges of Translating Drama,”
addressing the problems of translating plays from one
language to another and from page to stage.
- Bioethicist, barrister, and Penn State
Professor of Law Jonathan Marks presented “’False Friends’
and Uncertain Enemies: The Transformation of U.S.
Interrogation Policy and Law in the War on Terror.”
- Tricia Sheffield, a theorist of
gender and sexuality and a Lilly Visiting Professor in
religious studies at Austin College, offered “Performing
Jesus: A Queer Counternarrative of Embodied Transgression,”
discussing the Chalcedonian Creed’s relevance to
transgendered people.
Julie Hempel,
associate professor of Spanish, and Alex Garganigo,
assistant professor of English, co-directed this year’s
conference, with the assistance of several students, including
Szende Szabo ’08, chair of the student committee.
Gender Studies Lecture Explores
Networking Phenomenon
Dr. Tim Dean, professor of comparative
literature at State University of New York at Buffalo, presented
a lecture, “Breeding Culture: Barebacking, Bugchasing,
Giftgiving,” on campus April 28. The lecture examined a recent
gay male subcultural phenomenon: viral transmission as the basis
for creating new kinship networks. The lecture was funded by
Austin College Gender Studies.
Alumna Janell Watson Offers Lecture
The Austin College Humanities Division
presented an alumna lecture, “Psychoanalysis, Philosophy,
Politics,” by Janell Watson ’82 on April 30.
Watson is an assistant professor of French at
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in
Blacksburg, Virginia. She is the university’s coordinator of the
master’s program in Area Studies and has taught women’s studies
courses as well.
Her teaching interests are the French
language, 19th – 21st century French literature, cultural
studies, gender studies, globalization, and French film. Watson
earned her doctorate in French from Duke University.
Watson’s book, Literature and Material
Culture from Balzac to Proust: The Collection and Consumption of
Curiosities, was released in 1999 and she has written for
several journals and professional publications.
“Can a Chosen People Have a True
Politics?”
Kenneth Surin, professor of literature at Duke
University, spoke at Austin College on May 1, presenting “Can a
Chosen People Have a True Politics?”
Surin, born in Malaysia and educated in
Britain, taught in city schools in and around Cambridge,
England, for seven years before taking his first academic job at
the University of Gloucestershire.
In 1987, he took a position in the Department
of Religion at Duke, moving to the program in literature in
1992. He is professor and chair of the program in literature,
with a joint appointment in the Department of Religion and an
adjunct appointment in the German Studies doctoral program. He
is director of Undergraduate Studies and previously served as
director of the Duke Center for European Studies.
Founder of the journal Modern Theology,
Surin is the author of two books, editor of another, and has
written many journal articles for publication.
Sherman
Symphony Offers Opera Arias and Guest
Lectures
The Sherman Symphony Orchestra gave its final
concert for the 2007-2008 season May 3, presenting “Opera Arias,
Choruses, and Overtures” with guest soloists Emily Newton,
Lawrence Harris, Wayne Crannell, and the Austin College
choirs performing selected scenes from Verdi’s Rigolleto
and Don Carlo, Gounod’s Faust, and Puccini’s
Turandot. Daniel Dominick, music director and
conductor of the orchestra since 1992, is an Austin College
associate professor of music. He also conducts internationally
and has arranged several pieces of music for orchestra.
Crannell, tenor, is associate professor of
music at Austin College and chair of the Music Department, and
director of vocal/choral music. He teaches studio voice, choral
literature and techniques, conducting, vocal pedagogy, and music
appreciation. He has appeared with the Milwaukee Symphony
Orchestra, Des Moines Symphony, Des Moines Metro Opera,
Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra, Milwaukee Civic Orchestra, and
other orchestras, opera companies, and churches throughout the
Midwest and in Texas.
Guest vocalists Emily Newton, soprano, and
Lawrence Harris, baritone, spoke with students and community
members in two special lectures on campus. Newton shared
thoughts on music as vocation in “The Path to the Profession: A
Singer’s Journey from a Small Town to New York City.” A native
of Lake Jackson, Texas, Newton now lives in New York City and
has performed widely on the opera and concert stage in numerous
operatic roles. Harris offered “A Master Class in Voice” for
students. A Sherman native, Harris made his debut in the title
role of Rigoletto at Philadelphia's Kimmel Center.
Response to that performance established him as an important new
Verdi baritone.
Institutional Advancement Staff
Members Win Publication Award
Staff of the Institutional Advancement
division earned a Grand/Gold Award for the brochure “Science
Matters” at the Council for the Advancement and Support of
Education (CASE) District IV conference in Little Rock,
Arkansas, in April. The brochure also earned a Bronze Award in
the CASE Circle of Excellence International Awards.
Leadership Students Host World
Health Week Education
The Posey Leadership Institute’s Global Issues
special interest group sponsored a series of education
initiatives for World Health Week in April. The students’
efforts focused on global diseases still prevalent in the world,
distributing information and different-colored ribbons
representing each disease. Students also held a small health
pandemic simulation in Wright Campus Center in which they
quizzed students on a particular disease’s symptoms. Claire
Balani ’10, a coordinator of the effort, said that next year
the group hopes to involve the Pre-Medical Society and create a
larger impact on campus.
Students Host Peace Week
Austin College’s second Peace Week, sponsored
by the Religious Life staff and students, began with a talk-back
dinner following the Sunday chapel service April 13. Patrick
Coffman ’07 discussed the Ulster Project and its efforts to
unite Protestant and Catholic youth in northern Ireland.
Later in the week, a discussion on terrorism
and Jihad and a campus lecture, “Muslim Resources for Peace and
Interfaith Dialogue,” were presented by Yahya Hendi,
Muslim chaplain at Georgetown University. Georgetown is the
first American university to hire a full-time Muslim chaplain.
Hendi also is the Imam of the Islamic Society of Frederick, and
is the Muslim Chaplain at the National Naval Medical Center in
Bethesda, Maryland. He serves as a member and the spokesperson
of the Islamic Jurisprudence Council of North America and is an
adjunct faculty member for John Hopkins University, Office of
Professional Development, and the Fordham University.
In addition, musician, activist, and Rotary
Peace Fellow David LaMotte shared stories and
conversation around the question of how one individual can have
a positive impact on the larger world.
The week ended with a communion service and
Earth Day focus, “Peace on Earth Requires Peace with Earth.”
Organizations Focus on Earth Day
Events
The Environmentally Concerned Organization of
Students (ECOS) sponsored several events for Earth Day, April
22, showing an episode of Planet Earth and co-hosting,
with the Center for Environmental Studies, a representative of
Re-Energize Texas, who spoke on campus solutions for climate
change and the organization’s focus on college campuses
committing to reducing CO2 emission year-by-year.
In addition, the group sponsored an Earth
Festival, which showcased live music from Austin College
students and offered free drinks to those students with reusable
containers. Several campus organizations hosted booth activities
and offerings, including leaf rubbings, go green ideas, free
seeds, and vegetarian and vegan recipes.
Video Production Students Screen
Films
Students in the Digital Video Production II
course offered a film screening May 11 of three narrative
fiction short projects that they wrote, cast, shot, and edited
by students. The students spend the entire term working on this
single video project, starting from the germ of an idea and
working it through script, storyboard, and footage captured on
location into a final cut that includes soundtrack and visual
effects. The three titles and students who created the work are
Ezekiel by Raif Smith ’10 and Deepa
Shridhar ’09, How the West Was Lost by Sam
Maclin ’10 and Daniel Phipps ’09, and
Waiting for Alexis by Austin Tooley ’09and
Shane Gannaway ’10.
“The casts included nearly a dozen Austin
College student volunteers, some of whom are regulars on the
stage, but also some who have not acted before, and almost none
who have acted for the camera,” explained Brett Boessen,
assistant professor of communication studies, who led the course
designed to provide students knowledge in storytelling and
screenwriting, preproduction planning, casting, location
production, photography, and non-linear editing.
Senior Art Exhibits Provide Campus
Color
The 2008 Juried Senior Art Invitational
featured work selected by art faculty members. Works in the
2008 exhibit were created by Carl Antonowicz, Kristen
Bagnall, Katie Burgoon, Kathryn Cantrell, Christine Cunningham,
Claire Gardner, Shannon Graves, Ashley Ledbetter, Krista Miller,
Karena Rogers, Nicole Ruano, Anna Sebesta, Beth Shaw-Meadow,
Dianne Smith, Sherry Spangler, Richard Talabay, Matthew
Whitenack, Rachel Wilkes, and Mary Anne Woolley. All
art majors also present individual senior exhibits during the
year.
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Henry Winkler, actor, director, producer, and
author, will present Austin College’s Opening of School
Convocation address Monday, September 1, at 7 p.m. in Wynne
Chapel. Winkler remains best known as the television icon “The
Fonz” on the 1970s sitcom Happy Days, though he has since
added many television, film, and Broadway acting and directing
projects to his credits. He also has emerged as a distinguished
speaker, humanitarian, author, and advocate of young people and
education. 
