Category: Faculty & Staff

Problematic Art and Agonistic Space

Posted on

Evergood Mural, Kalamazoo CollegeAssociate Professor of Art History Christine Hahn published an article, “Maintaining Problematic Art: A Case Study of Philip Evergood’s The Bridge of Life (1942) at Kalamazoo College.” The article was published in Public Art Dialogue (6:1, 116-130) on May 27, 2016.

The piece is particularly interesting for any alumni familiar with the mural (see above) in Old Welles Hall. It covers the history of controversy inspired by the work since it’s unveiling (1942), including specific calls (in 1966 and in 2010) for some redress for iconography deemed offensive to and by some individuals and groups. Detailing the call-and-response to the criticism voiced in 2010, Christina ultimately suggests “that problematic public art has the unique potential to produce positive social change by staying in place.”

The article reveals much about K’s history, including Evergood’s time on campus as an artist and a teacher as well as his bona fides as an ardent social radical. Christina also introduces (from Lewis Hyde, author of Common as Air) a concept of “freedom of listening.” In his book Hyde cites Benjamin Franklin’s creation of a lecture hall where “people were free to give lectures on whatever they wanted.” In that space (Christina quotes Hyde): “Individual speakers present singular views; individual listeners entertain plurality….The hall was thus built to serve the eighteenth-century idea of replacing the partial self with a plural or public self, one who is host to many voices, even those otherwise at odds with the singular being you thought you were when you first walked in the door….If we take free listening to be the true end of free speech, then freedom itself takes on a different aspect…intelligence arises in the common world, where many voices can be heard; it belongs to collectivity, not privacy, and is available especially to those who can master the difficult art of plural listening.”

Christina invokes Hyde’s notion of “agonistic listening amongst equals in conflict” (a notion that is at the heart of the academy and a direct contrast to “antagonism, where opponents try to silence or destroy the other”) to describe College and student responses to the controversy implicit and explicit in the work, particularly the responses that took place or were considered between 2010 and 2015. She writes: “The building Benjamin Franklin built that embraced such agonistic pluralism eventually became the Philadelphia Academy, which in turn became the University of Pennsylvania. This transformation of space, built to house agonistic conflict among equals, is a particularly fitting symbol of how physical space can potentially create a space for inquiry, conflict and debate. This type of site is necessary and important. Indeed, as Lewis Hyde argues, it is agonistic spaces such as these that are the foundations of democracy.”

The presence of the mural, Christina continues, has provided the intellectual and emotive space for agonistic listening, “has allowed these twenty-first-century conversations on race, class dynamics and elite educations to take place….[M]aintaining problematic public art in an agonistic space helps keep our understanding of the past and our vision of the future firmly in view.” A fascinating article, well worth the time to read it.

Kalamazoo College Inaugurates its 18th President

Posted on
Kalamazoo College President Jorge Gonzalez
Kalamazoo College President Jorge Gonzalez emphasized technological change, globalization, diversity and urbanization as important new drivers for a liberal arts education. Gonzalez was inaugurated Saturday, Nov. 5, 2016, at Stetson Chapel.

Kalamazoo College inaugurated its 18th president, Jorge G. Gonzalez, in a celebration Saturday, Nov. 5, 2016, at Stetson Chapel. Dozens of colleges and universities from across the country sent representatives to the ceremony to join college trustees, alumni, students, faculty, staff, family and friends in the festivities.

“My grandfather and father could never have imagined a Mexican would have a chance to be a president somewhere such as K,” Gonzalez said during his inaugural address.  A native of Monterrey, Mexico, Gonzalez earned his master’s degree and Ph.D. in economics at Michigan State. His wife, Suzie, is a 1983 Kalamazoo College alumna. “It is an honor and a privilege to lead an institution that has a 183-year history.”

Charlotte Hall, the chair of the college’s Board of Trustees, said one of the board’s most important roles is to select the right leader at the right time. “We looked at his long and distinguished career as an economics scholar, brilliant teacher and inspired leader,” she said. “I know his visionary leadership will make K stronger and better, more exciting, more humane, more true to our mission.”

Gonzalez said immersion in the liberal arts at a school like Kalamazoo College is the most powerful and life-enriching form of undergraduate education, especially when students have opportunities to apply their academic work. He emphasized technological change, globalization, diversity and urbanization as important new drivers for such an education.

“What you need to learn is not today’s reality; you need to learn how to learn, and this is exactly what a liberal arts education at K can provide,” Gonzalez said. “It will teach you to look at problems from a variety of perspectives, and deal with uncertainty and complexity.”

Gonzalez began his presidency at Kalamazoo College on July 1, 2016. He succeeded Eileen B. Wilson-Oyelaran, who announced her retirement in April 2015. Gonzalez arrived from Occidental College, where he served as vice president for academic affairs and dean of the college, and created and supported experiential learning programs, allowing students to engage the world in ways that draw upon their liberal arts education. He also has worked at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, where he served as a professor of economics and special assistant to the president.

Kalamazoo College, founded in Kalamazoo, Mich., in 1833, is a nationally recognized liberal arts and sciences college. It created the K-Plan, which emphasizes rigorous scholarship, experiential learning, leadership development, and international and intercultural engagement. Kalamazoo College does more in four years so students can do more in a lifetime.

“Without Borders” Conference Imagines World Where All Life May Thrive

Posted on

Without Borders ConferenceThe tension between what is politically possible under the world’s current political and economic systems and what is ecologically necessary exposes an urgent need for change, said journalist and activist Naomi Klein, keynote speaker for the conference, “Without Borders, Post-Oppression Imaginaries and Decolonized Futures.” The conference was sponsored by the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership at Kalamazoo College and attracted several hundred activists and social justice experts from across the country.

According to Klein, even though the recent Paris climate change agreement looked like the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era, the treaty is neither legally binding nor sufficient in its goals to avert ecological disaster.

“Fossil fuel frontiers have to be closed if we have any hope of a future,” said Klein. “Politicians have absolutely no plan to do this.”

Adequately addressing climate change has failed since the late 1980s, emasculated by a neoliberalist interpretation of capitalism that promotes privatization, fiscal austerity, deregulation, free trade and reductions in government spending to enhance the public sector. Such policies have created in people a profound sense of hopelessness about climate change, said Klein.

“We are told that selfishness and short-sightedness is part of human nature, which prevents us acting,” said Klein. “This is not true and it steers us away from an analysis of our system. In fact, the fight for survival is human nature.”

Many local, grassroots groups are advocating steps to address climate change because they see the issue’s connection to an unjust economic system that is failing for a vast majority of people all over the planet, she added.

Klein challenged the audience to work for “climate justice” by reversing the “extractivist” point of view of the Earth and promoting the “caretaking” of one another, an ethos that indigenous people advocate.

“It’s not just ‘energy democracy’ but ‘energy justice’ that we need,” said Klein. “This leads to clean energy projects and jobs.”

She also emphasized that service work like nursing, child care, public interest media should be redefined as climate work that sets out to create a “caring and repairing economy.”

“We need to embed justice in every aspect of our lives,” said Klein. “The people are hungry for transformational change, and we have to go for it on all fronts.”

The conference focused on four related themes: Afrofuturism, Decolonized Knowledge, Sustainable Futures, and Next Systems.

Text by Olga Bonfiglio; conference photo by Susan Andress

SCORE Shows Scores Matter

Posted on

K Psychology Professor Siu-Lan TanThe world premier of a documentary that prominently features Kalamazoo College Professor of Psychology Siu-Lan Tan occurred at the Hamptons International Film Festival. For SCORE: A Film Music Documentary Siu-Lan was one of some 60 live interviews compiled for the film, including conversations with the top living film composers in United States and the United Kingdom (Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman, Randy Newman,  Howard Shaw, Trent Reznor, Alexandre Desplat, among others), film directors like James Cameron, producers like Quincy Jones, and several film scholars.

Last Saturday’s world premier will be quickly followed by this Thursday’s showing of Score as the Closing Night Film at the Tacoma Film Festival in Washington. That is quite an honor! Each year TFF receives more than 1,000 submissions, whittled down to 100 films. Of those, one is chosen the Opening Night Film, the other for Closing Night Film. Both draw the largest audiences.

Siu-Lan appears five times in the film, and she has its final soundbite, finishing a sentence begum by director James Cameron. Kalamazoo College is mentioned every time Siu-Lan appears, and K is thanked in the end credits along with the filming location of Dalton Theater. Siu-Lan not only has the last word in the film; she has the last word in the film’s first review (by Sheri Linden of The Hollywood Reporter).

If you get a chance, see Score; it’s likely to be the best film you’ve ever heard, or at least reveal why your favorite movie has as much to do with your ears as your eyes.

Physics Professor Honored with Teaching Award

Posted on
Statistical physicists Jan Tobochnik
Statistical physicists like Jan Tobochnik rely heavily on computers to explore anything and everything that has lots of parts.

Jan Tobochnik, the Dow Distinguished Professor in Natural Sciences,  has been named as the 2017 recipient of the prestigious Hans Christian Oersted Medal, presented by the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT). The Oersted Medal recognizes outstanding, widespread, and lasting impact on the teaching of physics. In connection with the award, Tobochnik will deliver a talk on “The Changing Face of Physics and the Students Who Take Physics” at the 2017 AAPT winter meeting in Atlanta, Georgia. Past winners include Carl E. Sagan, Edward Purcell and Richard Feynman, among others.

Jan’s research interest fall in the area of statistical physics, the  development of computer models that predict behaviors, not only of physical phenomena (like earthquakes and nucleation) but also social situations, such as wealth distribution patterns and traffic jams. Because Jan incorporates his research into his teaching, students get a better sense of what science is all about. “Without my research,” he says, “my examples would be stodgy.” In fact, the award specifically cites Jan’s “lasting impact on the teaching of physics through his contributions to the use of computer simulations to motivate active learning.”

Jan is well known for his series of texts (six) written with Harvey Gould. They cover computer simulation methods at the introductory level and statistical and thermal physics at the intermediate level. In the early 1990’s he was a practitioner of active learning methods, long before it became fashionable, and was busy developing software to assist student learning. Jan’s fluency in computational methods especially in the service of advanced thermal and statistical physics research has informed dozens of publications in refereed journals. He served as the editor for the American Journal of Physics from 2001 to 2011.

Jan was born and reared in Philadelphia, and he remains an only occasionally wavering Phillies fan. He graduated summa cum laude from Amherst College in 1975 with a major in physics. He then went to Cornell University and earned a Ph.D. in physics (1980).

Jan came to K in 1985. In addition to teaching in the physics department he has served as acting provost and interim provost. And every year, in the spirit of the liberal arts advocate that he is, Jan leads discussions on the year’s Summer Common Reading selection, none of which, as yet, have been about physics.

K Professor and Students Use Grant to Breathe Life Into Oral History

Posted on
Oral History Researchers Noriko Sugimori (left) and senior Christa Scheck
Noriko Sugimori (left) and senior Christa Scheck, who is majoring in studio art and earning a minor in Japanese

Assistant Professor of Japanese Noriko Sugimori will use a three-year grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to contribute her research to the Oral History in the Liberal Arts (OHLA), a project of the Great Lakes Colleges Association (GLCA). In a collaboration that also involves the Japanese department at Albion College, Sugimori and her K students are producing the world’s first bilingual (Japanese and English) synchronizations of interviews Sugimori conducted that focus on the World War II memories of various Japanese individuals.

The origins of those interviews trace back to Sugimori’s doctoral work. She researched the relationship between imperial honorifics and the concept of lèse-majesté (the crime of violating the dignity of a reigning sovereign or state) in Japan prior and during World War II. For that work she talked with several score of Japanese civilians born before 1932. The interviews were powerful, and the people with whom she spoke often deeply wanted to share their stories.

After completing her doctorate Sugimori began an oral history project that focused on war memories. Audiotaping was the cutting edge technology when Sugimori first starting interviewing subjects. Later she adopted digital videotaping. And in 2010 she became aware of Oral History Metadata Synchronizer technology, which provides a platform to show simultaneous English translation of video recordings in Japanese.

“That changed everything,” said Sugimori. “I am videotaping people who were teenagers during the war who are giving untold accounts of their experiences. These tapes can convey a whole different message to future generations about the war, and this is considered a unique contribution to the linguistics field.”

The videos and simultaneous translations have pedagogical implications for K students of Japanese. “They get to see the interviewee’s facial expressions,” said Sugimori, “which provide much more information about what is being said in a cultural context. This goes way beyond trying to learn the language from only grammar exercises.”

Because simultaneous translation allows for a more flesh-and-blood and nuanced entry into a recorded interview, students gain a more comprehensive understanding of history. “Students learn much more than political history,” said Sugimori. “They also see, as well as hear, how people were affected by the political actors.”

Today, digital technologies are making oral histories very popular among the general public. Sugimori and K students are among the pioneers helping to make that happen.

Text and photo by Olga Bonfiglio

Professor Lance, an Honored Writer, Dies at 93

Posted on

Betty LanceBetty Rita Gómez Lance, professor emeritus of Romance languages and literatures, died on September 18, 2016. She was 93. Her career at Kalamazoo College spanned 27 years (1961-1988). Before coming to K she taught at Washington University in St. Louis and at the University of Illinois.

Betty was born in San Jose, Costa Rica. Her father had migrated to that country from Spain. In Costa Rica he worked as a shoemaker to support his wife and their four daughters. Betty’s mother was the staunch advocate of education for her four daughters. Betty came to the United States in 1942 to study science and earned her bachelor’s degree (physical sciences) at Central Missouri State University and her master’s degree (agricultural chemistry) at the University of Missouri. But literature was her great passion, and she earned her Ph.D. in Romance languages and literatures at Washington University in St. Louis. Betty was fluent in Spanish and English and proficient in French, Italian, Portuguese, and German. She loved her native country and believed that Costa Rica’s commitment to democracy and freedom to dissent had much to teach the world.

In addition to her teaching duties at K, Betty directed Puerta de Oportunidad, a project to teach English as a foreign language to Spanish speaking people in the Kalamazoo area. She was a prolific scholar, whose works include a book on Spanish novelist Juan Antonio de Zunzunegui. She also authored books on Peruvian writer Enrique Lopez Albujar and El Salvador poet Claudia Lars, and she published a work of literary criticism on the picaresque tradition in the 20th-century literature of Spain.

Betty was a short story writer and poet. Her volumes of poetry include Vivencias (Lifeways), Vendimia del Tiempo (Harvest of Time), Alas en el Alba (Wings in the Dawn), Bebiendo Luna (Sipping Moon), and Siete Cuerdas (Seven Chords). Her short story collection was titled Hoy Hacen Corro Las Ardillas (Today the Squirrels are Holding a Pow-Wow). She also published poems and stories in many Spanish-English literary journals. She had a style of concrete imagery often drawn from nature and a writing regimen reminiscent of the late U.S. Poet Laureate William Stafford, making poems every day, or, in Betty’s case, every night. “I work on images [and] it is night when I write poetry,” she said. “Sometimes they come and come and come. I’ll do three to five poems.” In 1993 Betty was inducted into the Academia Iberoamericana de Poesía de Madrid (Iberoamerican Academy of Poetry), whose honorees also include Nobel Laureates Vicente Alexandre and Pablo Neruda. Betty had previously been inducted into the Asociación Prometeo de Poesía (The Prometheus Association of Poetry) in Madrid, Spain.

Betty was active in many organizations, including Friends of the Library, the Kalamazoo Institute Arts, the Kalamazoo Nature Center, and the Environmental Concerns Committee in Kalamazoo. She was a member of Poets and Writers America, American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese, the Asociación De Escritores Costarricenses, the aforementioned Asociación Prometeo De Poesía and Asociación Iberoamericana De Poesía, and many others.

In addition to writing, Betty loved to hike and knit. After her retirement she established an award in Latin American Studies that had been awarded anonymously until her passing.  The fund now bears her name The Betty R. Gomez Lance Award in Latin American Studies. She is survived by two sons, Edward (a graduate of K) and Harold, and the many students (surrogate “sons” and “daughters” in a way) whom she inspired to become teachers of Spanish and Latin American and Spanish literatures. A campus memorial service is being planned for December. More information on the service will be forthcoming.

“I write to give vent to my joys, my sorrows, my feelings, my thoughts,” she once wrote. “I write for personal solace; and when I receive praise for my writings that connection to another soul, the vivencias of another human being, surprises me. It is very comforting to know that they too have these feelings and that we’re all part of the universal human soul.”

Decolonization is a Medical Necessity

Posted on
Associate Professor of Anthropology Adriana Garriga-Lopez
Associate Professor of Anthropology Adriana Garriga-Lopez addresses a plenary at the 20th United States Conference on AIDS

Adriana Garriga-Lopez, associate professor of anthropology, attended the 20th United States Conference on AIDS where she was interviewed by MD Magazine on the response to HIV/AIDS in Puerto Rico.

That response has long been the focus of her research. Specifically she studies the social ramifications of epidemics and how those ramifications influence the public health system in Puerto Rico. Although she finds much to criticize about the public health response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic on the island where she was born and raised until the age of 16, she is quick to note the debilitating influence on that response of the mitigating circumstance of the unjust power dynamic between the United States and its “unincorporated territory” of Puerto Rico.

Her work also studies the responses of the marginalized communities most affected by the epidemic, and there is much in those responses that have overcome the challenges presented by the inadequate public health response and, despite those challenges, been highly effective.

Garriga-Lopez’s interview was divided into four chapters: What is the Focus of Your Research?; Did Your Heritage Influence Your Decision to Pursue Anthropology? (which explores how colonialism manifests every day and an approach to decolonizing public health); What Challenges Do You Face? (which includes a focus on States, Bodies, and Epidemics [the title of a class Garriga-Lopez teaches at Kalamazoo College] and the fact that because social injustice affects everyone, everyone has a responsibility to understand and address it; for example, an effective response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic begins with understanding that it is in fact comprised of multiple epidemics; and What Are Your Thoughts on Some Researchers Considering Zika as the New STD?, in which Garriga-Lopez articulates the need to inextricably link public health and a social justice conscience. The former must go much further than emergency management and act on the complex issues of the latter, such as lack of access to basic rights and basic needs as well as an unbalanced power structure that denies democratic participation in distribution of resources to persons in greatest need of those resources.