Scholars in Residence
Spring 2008

Constance Berman (History) is finishing her book, “The White Nuns: Cistercian Abbeys for Women and their Property in Medieval Europe”, and continuing work on “Medieval European Economic Expansion: Women Work and Men’s Work in the Agricultural, Commercial and Industrial Revolutions or 1000-1350 AD.”

Diana Cates (Religious Studies) completed a draft of her book, “Religious Ethics and Emotion,”this fall, and has sent it off to a publisher. The current semester will be spent readying the book for publication and thinking imaginatively about future directions for research, most likely focusing on the concept of human dignity.  Arts and Humanities Initiative Grant

Carolyn Colvin (Secondary Education Program) is writing an article on ways that school districts can work effectively with parents who are undocumented workers in the USA and have children attending local schools, a project continued from the Fall 2007 Obermann Cmiel Semester on Unregulated Labor.

William Davies (Linguistics) is writing a book on the grammar of the Madurese language. Flexible Load Award and Stanley International Programs Obermann Fellowship

Ed Folsom (English) is writing a biography of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. He is also directing the Walt Whitman Archive (www.whitmanarchive.org).  National Endowment for the Humanities We the People Challenge Grant and Guggenheim Fellowship

Lawrence E. Gelfand (History) is writing a book, “Democracy and Tyrannies: The United States and the Rise of the Modern Dictatorships, 1919-1933,” and an article on “The Problem of the Eastward Movement in U.S. History, 1850-1930.” Emeritus Faculty

Bruce Gronbeck (Communication Studies, POROI) is writing on the 2008 presidential campaign with focus on the candidates, the party conventions, and 2007 candidate uses of the Internet, as well as working on blood themes in speeches and writings of 19th-century Irish patriots.

Carolyn Hartley (Social Work) is working on an experimental design study of a statewide subsidized guardianship program for youth in long-term foster care. She is also examining the effects of sanctions on batterers’ compliance with batterers’ education treatment programs. Iowa Department of Human Services Grant and Centers for Disease Control Grant

Joy Hayes (Communication Studies) is writing on Mexico’s first community radio station and the reform of broadcasting regulations in Mexico and also conducting research on U.S. radio history. Career Development Award

Robin Hemley (English) is completing his book, “Do Over.”

Rex Honey (Geography) is researching vulnerabilities of labor migrants, a project continued from the Fall 2007 Obermann Cmiel Semester on Unregulated Labor.

Ralph Keen (Religious Studies) is completing a book-length project on early-modern Catholicism. Career Development Award

William Jones(Music)is conducting research on Western-Chinese Fusion Concertos. Career Development Award and Stanley International Programs Obermann Fellowship

Johna Leddy (Chemistry) is writing papers related to magnetic modification of electrodes for facilitated electron transfer rates and also proposals on sonoelectrochemistry. Career Development Award

Kevin T. Leicht (Sociology) is writing a book on administration in higher education and is also researching international labor markets, a project continued from the Fall 2007 Obermann Cmiel Semester on Unregulated Labor.  

Roberta Montemorra Marvin (Center for Italian-American Opera Studies, University of  Chicago) is editing volumes in the series The Works of Giuseppe Verdi and directing the Institute for Italian Opera Studies, the Iowa branch of the CIAO.  Roberta Marvin has also just been appointed as editor of a new book series titled "Ashgate Interdisciplinary Studies in Opera." She is also writing an article on the iconography of female opera singers in Victorian London as part of a research network based at the University of Leeds and writing a book titled Verdi and the Victorians. Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Grant

Christopher McKee (Grinnell College Libraries) is writing a book, “Ungentle Goodnights: Life in a Home for Elderly Naval Sailors, 1831-1895.” Grinnell Senior Faculty Status

Kembrew McLeod (Communication Studies) is completing a book on the copyright licensing system for popular media. Career Development Award

Richard Randell (Mathematics) is working on representations of braid groups and the compactifications of moduli spaces of hyperplane arrangements. Career Development Award

Howard Rhodes (Religious Studies) is writing a book, "Virtue and Domination: Religion, Public Law, and Civic Republicanism.”  The book studies the legal enforcement of public morality in relation to a long-standing republican conception of freedom as non-domination.

Catherine Ringen (Linguistics) is researching consonants in Fenno-Swedish, Norwegian, Russian, Hungarian and Turkish. Global Scholar Award

Mark Sidel (Law) is writing a book on comparative constitutional law with an emphasis on Vietnam, completing work on another book manuscript on the impact of anti-terrorism law and policy on civil society in several countries, and continuing research on human trafficking.  He will also continue meeting with the Fall 2007 Obermann Cmiel Semester group on Unregulated labor.  Faculty Scholar Award

Peggie Smith (Law) is working on an employment law student hornbook and also is writing a book on regulating paid domesticity, a project continued from the Fall 2007 Obermann Cmiel Semester on Unregulated Labor.  

Rachel Williams (Art Education) is writing a book on “Arts and Education in Juvenile Facilities,” based on her research project with the Iowa Juvenile Home and the State Training School.   She also will launch a project in collaboration with the US Institute for Peace, “Postcards for Peace: an international Artistic Interpretation of Peace and Security. Career Development Award, Roy and Lucille Carver Foundation grant

You-Kuan Zhang (Geosciences) is conducting research on water pollution control in Huai River of China. Career Development Award

Associates

Michael Chasar (English) is creating an online archive of popular poetry ephemera from the nineteenth- and twentieth-century U.S.

Gigi Durham (Journalism and Mass Communication) is writing a book, “The Lolita Effect: The Spectacle of Girls’ Sexuality in an Era of Globalized Media.”

Sabine I. Gölz (Cinema and Comparative Literature) and
Oleg Timofeyev (Russian) are completing an hour-long documentary video.

John B. Hudson (Independent Scholar) is writing a book, “Creativity and Innovation.”

Dee Morris (English) is working on two projects: a series of audio essays and collages and multimedia websites for her spring courses on digital poetics and also a project on jazz and experimental writing.

Adriana Méndez Rodenas (Spanish and Portuguese) is writing a book, “Transatlantic Pilgrims: Women Travelers to Nineteenth-Century Latin America,” and preparing a research proposal, From Paradise to Diaspora: Natural History in the Latin American Imagination.

Obermann Staff

Jay Semel, Director
Teresa Mangum, Associate Faculty Director
Diana Baculis, Events and Communications Manager
Neda Barrett, Administrator
Karla Tonella, Academic Technologies Specialist
Martin Barrett, Student assistant
David Crean, Student assistant