faculty Archives - Page 19 of 36

Nights (and Days) in the Museums

Posted on April 8, 2016March 23, 2022

Join an evening of “Exploring Museum Careers with Kalamazoo College Alumni” on Thursday, April 21, at 7:30 p.m. in Dewing Hall Room 103. The discussion and Q&A comes from the inspiration of Professor Emerita of Art History Billie Fischer and Visiting Instructor of Art History Melanie Sympson. Sympson is teaching the spring term course “The Modern Art Museum,” and she has enlisted the three alumni panelists to visit her class in addition to sharing their stories with the general public. The alumni participants are John Cummins Steele ’83, Holly (Rarick) Witchey ’83, and Courtney Tompkins ’08. Each will speak about 10 minutes, sharing their from-there-to-here stories (where “there” is K and “here” is working in museums) and then take questions from the audience. The evening will be a true liberal arts fest, says Sympson, for museums are situated at the intersection of many disciplines. Steele is the director of conservation and conservator of sculpture and decorative arts at the Detroit Institute of Arts. He supervises conservation department staff in the examination, documentation, analysis, scientific research, conservation treatment, preservation, exhibition and interpretation of the DIA’s permanent collection. He earned his M.A. and certificate of advanced studies at Buffalo State College. At K he majored in history and earned a concentration in art history. He studied abroad in Erlangen, Germany.

Witchey is director of the Wade Project at the Western Reserve Historical Society. The Wade Project is a multi-year collaborative effort to create a model for studying individual family histories. She also teaches museum work related courses for Johns Hopkins University. Witchey earned her Ph.D. at Case Western Reserve University. At K she majored in political science and art history. She studied abroad in Muenster, Germany.

Tompkins is assistant to the program of research, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. CASVA is a research institute that fosters study of the production, use, and cultural meaning of art, artifacts, architecture, urbanism, photography, and film worldwide from prehistoric times to the present. Tompkins earned her M.A. at American University. At K she majored in art history, and she studied abroad in Rome, Italy.

Better than a “Night at the Museum” is an evening exploring museum careers with these three distinguished alums. The event is free and open to the public.

The Rosemary K. Brown Professor Chosen

Posted on April 4, 2016August 2, 2023

Kalamazoo College today named Alyce Brady, Ph.D., the Rosemary K. Brown Professor in Mathematics and Computer Science. Alyce has taught in those departments at Kalamazoo College for 22 years. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Bowdoin College and her master’s degree and Ph.D. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She teaches a variety of courses in computer science from introductory classes to advanced courses on programming languages, data structure, dynamic Internet apps and software development in a global context. Her research interests include the application of computer science to social justice (Alyce served as the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership Faculty Fellow from 2013-2015), the development of more effective computer science education exercises and opportunities for students, software design, academic computing applications and human-computer interfaces. In 2007 she co-authored a seminal article in computer science education, “A 2007 model curriculum for a liberal arts degree in computer science,” and in 2010 she co-wrote the article “Case studies of liberal arts computer science programs.”

The professorship was established with an endowed gift by Rosemary Kopel Brown and John Wilford Brown in 2001 as part of the College’s campaign, Enlightened Leadership in the 21st Century. The endowment was strengthened by another gift from the Browns during the recently completed Campaign for Kalamazoo College. Endowed professorships help ensure the presence of great faculty at K, and the faculty-student relationship is the cornerstone of the excellence of the K learning experience. The Rosemary K. Brown professorship funds “the position of an established teacher/scholar with demonstrated achievement and the promise of continued exceptional performance.” Rosemary and John have a deep and enduring connection with Kalamazoo College and Kalamazoo. Both served as trustees of the College. Rosemary is a lifelong mathematics educator who worked in several Kalamazoo Schools. John is the retired president, chief executive officer and chairman of the board of Stryker Corporation in Kalamazoo.

Endowed professorships do great and indispensable things for K. They confer a prestige that helps attract and retain the best faculty. The gifts that are their financial foundation free operational funds that an institution can use for other educational opportunities. And they provide the wherewithal for a great teacher to extend the power of his or her pedagogy and scholarly work. Case in point is the former Rosemary K. Brown Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science, John Fink, who retired in 2015. John used the endowed fund in many ways, to the benefit of students in the United States and abroad. He attended critical workshops and served in the Michigan Section of the Mathematical Association of America; he attended and accompanied students to meetings that allowed students to experience the culture of professional mathematics, he helped develop a middle school math outreach program in Kalamazoo and, with student involvement, sowed the seeds for a similar program in Ecuador. All these efforts, and more, were made possible the endowed professorship. Of K’s work in Ecuador John said, “It’s remarkable! The fewest crumbs of possibility inspire a feast of dreams.” The Rosemary K. Brown professorship allows great teachers to conceive and implement such possibilities and dreams.

Like John, Alyce is committed to projects that foster computer science and social justice together. As the ACSJL faculty fellow she helped launch and maintain a collaborative, social justice project to computerize academic

Kalamazoo College Professor Alyce Brady with colleagues and students — © Chris McGuire Photography.

records for two partner higher educational institutions in Sierra Leone. And she found ways to involve her students in that project. See photo, picturing (l-r): front row–Justin Leatherwood ’13; Jonas Redwood-Sawyerr, vice chancellor and principal, University of Sierra Leone; Alyce Brady;Abu Sesay, vice chancellor and principal Njala University; Ashton Galloway ’13; back row–Chris Clerville ’13; Tendai Mudyiwa ’14; Kayan Hales ’’14; Chirs Cain ’13; and Keaton Adams ’14.

The appointment, announced today, becomes effective September. The College congratulates Alyce Brady, its second Rosemary K. Brown Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science, and the College is honored to have Rosemary’s name associated with Kalamazoo College in perpetuity.

Call for Response to Zika in Puerto Rico

Posted on March 17, 2016March 23, 2022

Associate Professor of Anthropology Adriana Garriga-López is a member of a group of experts that co-authored an essay and call to action titled “Public Statement on Zika Virus in Puerto Rico.” The essay appeared in Savage Minds (15 March 2016) with the Spanish language version forthcoming in a few days. The authors are members of the Society for Medical Anthropology’s Zika Interest Group. Among other courses at K, Garriga-López teaches “Medicine and Society.” She is an expert on the intersection of politics, societies, social justice, disease and epidemics and completed her doctoral work on the confluence of these forces in the HIV epidemic in Puerto Rico.

The essay on the Zika virus notes the influence of water and waste management, church proscriptions, the corporate use and development of experimental insecticides, and U.S. Congressional policy on the advent and future course of the epidemic in Puerto Rico. Zika is a public health emergency, and the essay calls for Zika prevention actions to benefit the people of Puerto Rico. Those actions include: “provide and install window screens in homes and businesses, assist in water systems management, and distribute vector surveillance and control strategies In particular, public health authorities can assist with disposing of any waste that might collect water in order to minimize mosquito populations.

“The CDC has a Dengue station headquarters in San Juan, PR and should use that station as a base to conduct Zika prevention and mosquito mitigation campaigns. All prevention and research activities on the island should follow the principles of open access and collaboration appropriate for a public health emergency. Furthermore, given the strongly suspected association between Zika, microcephaly, and Guillain-Barré syndrome, the CDC should be on high alert for these cases in Puerto Rico and prepared to deal with these diseases as they arise.

“Finally, care and support must be provided to pregnant women and their families who have or will experience Zika infection. Puerto Rico birth outcomes have been worsening since the advent of the economic crisis. The infant mortality rate climbed to 9.5 per 1000 live births for 2012. This burden is exacerbated by the large number of health professionals that have recently emigrated from the island.

“It is imperative that the Medicaid cap be removed for the island and resources mobilized immediately to fight this public health emergency, particularly in terms of prenatal and reproductive health care. Prevention of transmission, expanded medical care, reproductive rights, and long term sustainability of the water infrastructure should be the priorities, beyond the tourist and hotel areas. We call for assistance to local initiatives and support for already existing community structures, and affirm Puerto Rico’s right to defend the health of its population.”

Happy Birthday, Center for Civic Engagement

Posted on March 8, 2016March 23, 2022

The Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement (CCE) turns 15 this year, and its hard to imagine better origins. It began as a joint brainstorming effort between students, faculty and several community partners with the intent on redefining what a liberal arts education was all about. Students were not just de facto city residents while they studied at K; they were community assets as well. Annually, about 600 K students participate in service-learning in some way with the CCE.

From work on sustainability issues to girl’s and women’s empowerment to health and economic equality to food justice, CCE programming engages students in work that promotes social justice, further pushing the College’s mission to create lifelong learners.

“For some of our students, it’s the first time they’ve witnessed first-hand a variety of ‘isms,’” says Alison Geist, CCE’s director. “We put students on the front lines of many societal issues in a way that sitting in a lecture or classroom just can’t.”

Susmitha Daggubati ’16 mentors a second-grader at Woodward Elementary School in Kalamazoo’s Stuart Neighborhood, adjacent to K’s campus. Daggubati, a senior majoring in chemistry and earning a concentration in biochemistry and molecular biology, is in her second year at Woodward and serves as a Civic Engagement Scholar, a kind of on-site leader who mentors other K students working at sites across the community, scheduling their shifts and organizing meetings to brainstorm programming ideas.

Daggubati moved with her family to the Kalamazoo area from their native India ten years ago. Still very much tied to her Indian roots, her time in service-learning has also given her a greater understanding of the complex social issues at play in American society “In many classes, we learn the theories about the roots of so many social problems,” she says. “But I am able to make those connections to the real world when I’m involved. It keeps me rooted in the realities of the world, and it has given me a greater understanding of American culture.”

Tom Thornburg is the managing attorney at Farmworker Legal Services, a non-profit agency based in Bangor, Mich., a small community about 25 miles west of Kalamazoo, in an agricultural area where hundreds of migrant workers flock each year to work in fields and orchards. His agency assists these workers – overwhelmingly Hispanic – with everything from language services to information on their legal rights to informing them of resources available to them. He’s been working with the CCE for almost a decade, and the K students who’ve come through his doors have become an invaluable resource.

“The students from K are some of the brightest, best-equipped and most professional volunteers we get,” Thornburg says. “They come here with a sense of enthusiasm to help, a sense of what to do, an autonomy. They’re excellent, right up there in many ways with the law students we have working here.”

Over the years, hundreds of the nearly 2,000 students Associate Professor of Psychology Karyn Boatwright has taught have participated in service-learning programs, in a diverse group of local agencies, from the Kalamazoo Public Schools to Planned Parenthood to Goodwill Industries.

Through more than 30 different courses at the College designed with community partners, faculty at K have engaged thousands of students, community residents and leaders to create opportunities for experiential learning and impact derived organically and intentionally from service-learning work.

Says Boatwright, “The CCE and their students consistently impress upon us the need for reflection to ensure that we are not only connecting the proverbial dots, but understanding the political and social connections between success and social factors. Civic engagement experiences improve the quality of learning for our students and strengthen our community.”

The College’s solid commitment to developing the next generation of leaders who are observant, lifelong learners intent on crafting solutions to problems plaguing a suffering world is stronger now than ever. Concludes Geist: “The founders of K were always interested in social justice, and our programming is a manifestation of that. It’s the idea that we should be creating a fellowship of learning, not just working in ivory towers tucked away from society.”

(Text by Chris Killian; photo by Keith Mumma)

Colloquium About Blackness to Occur at Kalamazoo College

Posted on February 24, 2016March 23, 2022

Kalamazoo College will present the Physics of Blackness Colloquium on March 31 and April 1. March 31 features a lecture (7 p.m. in Dalton Theatre) by Michelle M. Wright, Professor of African American Studies and Comparative Literary Studies at Northwestern University, and author of The Physics of Blackness: Beyond the Middle Passage Epistemology. Wright’s lecture is titled “Blackness by Other Names: Beyond Linear Histories.” On the next day (April 1, 5 p.m. in the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership) will follow an interactive event developed by the Beyond the Middle Passage Organizers. That group includes Justin Berry, assistant professor of political science; Nakeya Boyles ’16; Quincy Crosby ’17; Reid Gómez, the Mellon visiting assistant professor of ethnic studies; Allia Howard ’17; Bruce Mills, professor of English; and Shanna Salinas, assistant professor of English. “Wright looks at the argument of race, particularly Blackness, and the ways that argument plays out in economic, political and physically embodied ways,” says Gómez. “Her work will help us look at differences within difference and move beyond thinking in categories.”

According to Gómez, the colloquium will stress three themes, all of which relate to one another: horizontal connections instead of vertical frameworks; the inability of temporally linear progress narratives (which often structure the notion of Blackness) alone to realize the broad and complicated truth and meaningfulness of Blackness; and a “See Me-Hear Me” approach during the colloquium that will ask participants to enter each others’ lives in meaningful ways. Wright’s book uses concepts from physics to expand thinking and discussion beyond linearity that makes “it difficult to understand or accept people, places, or event that do not easily fit inside a single narrative,” explains Gómez. Toward that end Gómez has helped facilitate “The Physics of Blackness at Kalamazoo College,” a blog in the form of a mosaic that makes approaching the subject of Blackness nonlinear and dynamic.

Nonlinearity is the true nature of the physical universe, wrote Gómez in a summary of Wright’s book. Such nonlinearity doesn’t preclude all cause and effect, but instead complicates it. Gómez writes that Wright “cautions against cause and effect laws that make history solely the consequence of oppression, where Blackness only appears in terms of resistance to, or the direct result of, that oppression.” The ability to think and discuss freed from such overly narrow restrictions allows us to “reimagine choice and agency in relationship to Blackness,” says Gómez, “the choice to ’notice and wonder’ at what is left out of linear progress narratives, and to conceive of self outside those terms.”

The Beyond the Middle Passage Organizers group invites colloquium participants to help one another prepare for the event by sharing talking points, images and points of entry into Wright’s theory via Instagram _bmp._ and Twitter @_bmpo_.

Festival Playhouse Presents Joshua Harmon’s “Bad Jews”

Posted on February 17, 2016March 23, 2022

Festival Playhouse of Kalamazoo College presents the contemporary comedy Bad Jews, a play that explores what it means to be Jewish in contemporary American society. Written by Joshua Harmon, the play will have four performances in the Dungeon Theatre (Light Fine Arts Building) on Thursday through Sunday (Feb. 25-28). It is part of Festival Playhouse’s 2015-16 season “Theatre and Belonging: Stories of Ethnicity and Racial Identity.”

Staged in the round, with production design by Lanny Potts (professor of theatre arts) and costumes by Elaine Kauffman, the story takes place in an apartment in New York City shortly after the death of the family patriarch, the grandfather of Liam, his younger brother Jonah, and their cousin, Daphna.

Liam is Jewish in name only and chooses to pursue everything that has nothing to do with his heritage. Daphna intentionally embraces all things Jewish. Like Melody, Liam’s shiksa girlfriend, Jonah often seems caught in the middle between the extremes of his cousins. It is not until the end of the play we learn where he stands on the question, “How Jewish are you?” The New York Times praised the play as the best comedy of the season, characterized by ”delectably savage humor.” The subject matter and language are for mature audiences.

K’s production is a collaboration between director Ed Menta (the James A. B. Stone College Professor of Theatre Arts) and Jeffrey Haus (associate professor of history and religion and director of the College’s Jewish Studies Program). Menta and Haus invited Dr. Jonathan Freedman, Jewish studies scholar from the University of Michigan, to speak about the play and its themes on Wednesday, February 24, in the Olmsted Room at 7 p.m.. Freedman and Haus will also lead a talkback following the Thursday performance of the play.

The play opens Thursday, February 25, at 7:30 p.m. Additional evening performances occur Friday and Saturday, February 26 and 27, at 8 p.m., and a matinee concludes the run on Sunday, February 27, at 2 p.m. Tickets are $5 for students, $10 for senior citizens, and $15 for other adults. For reservations call 269.337.7333. For more information, visit the Festival Playhouse website.

Bring Some Friends With Curious Minds

Posted on February 11, 2016March 23, 2022

Assistant Professor of Political Science Justin Berry (and members of his “Voting, Campaigns and Elections” class) knew that the 2016 William Weber Lecture in Government and Society was too big an opportunity not to share widely. The late January event featured Martin Gilens, author and professor of politics at Princeton University, speaking on the subject “Economic Inequality and Political Power in America.” Dr. Berry reached out to the one high school student who attends his class and he, in turn, gathered many of his high school classmates to attend the lecture. After the event, he wrote to Dr. Berry: “I have to say, I really do appreciate your willingness to let a mob of high school kids participate in the event. We spent the next day in class having a heated discussion regarding the topics that were covered within Dr. Gilens’ speech. I believe that I speak for all that attended when I say that it was a very informative and memorable event. Our government teacher was disappointed that he couldn’t attend, but he had prior obligations. I do know that for next year he will try to bring back some of his students to have them sit in on the lecture, making it an annual event.” Well done, Dr. Berry! The photo shows Professor Gilens (third from right) with some of the high school attendees. The William Weber Lecture in Government and Society was founded by Bill Weber, a 1939 graduate of K, and it is administered by the Department of Political Science. Past lecturers have included David Broder, E.J. Dionne, Frances Fox Piven, Van Jones and Joan Mandelle, among others.

CONTRARY MOTION Hits the Right Note

Posted on January 19, 2016March 23, 2022

On a musical instrument, contrary motion refers to a melodic motion in which one series of notes rises in pitch while opposing notes descend. In his debut novel, Contrary Motion, English professor Andy Mozina moves his 38-year-old character, Matthew Grzbc, in opposite directions in most every aspect of his life.

As a harpist living in Chicago, Matthew hopes to land a chair position in a symphony orchestra—but his every day has him playing on demand to dying patients at a hospice and to the sounds of chewing at hotel brunches.

As a just-divorced man, he dates a woman with whom he suffers erectile dysfunction—even while he can’t stop lusting for his ex-wife who is about to become engaged to another man. He’s a devoted and attentive father to his six-year-old daughter—but the girl teeters on the verge of a breakdown after witnessing her father “in flagrante delicto” with her mother while Mom’s boyfriend is out of the house. Adding drama, Matthew’s father suffers a fatal heart attack while listening to a relaxing meditation CD—leaving his son questioning his sanity as well as his mortality.

When a longed-for audition for a harpist in the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra opens career possibilities for Matthew (if only his harp would stop buzzing and twanging), he is pulled once again in opposing directions. To audition or not to audition? And, should he be offered the chair, to move or not to move away from his girlfriend, his ex-wife, his daughter, his life in Chicago?

Matthew’s saving grace, the glue to keep his life from splitting down the middle with all that contrary motion, is his sense of humor. It’s hard not to root for the guy between chuckles. He is as perfectly imperfect as are we all on those days when we take an honest look in the mirror. He is riddled with anxiety when most of his fears are never realized. By end of novel, all that anxiety becomes a tad exhausting—-get it right, Matt! Do it, dude!—-and then he does that, too, hitting the perfect note, humanly well.

Andy Mozina has taught English at Kalamazoo College since 1999. He is the author of the short story collections, The Women Were Leaving the Men, which won the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award, and Quality Snacks, a finalist for the Flannery O’Connor Prize. His fiction has appeared in numerous magazines, and he has received special citations in Best American Short Stories, Pushcart Prize, and New Stories from the Midwest. Mozina is also the author of a book of literary criticism called, Joseph Conrad and the Art of Sacrifice.

“Princess, Prisoner, Queen” is Original Research by a Liberal Arts Agent

Posted on January 4, 2016October 31, 2022

Sara Stack on study abroad in Strasbourg, France

This week Sara Stack ’15 will break from her study of insects (she is working on a master’s degree in entomology at Purdue University) to travel to San Francisco and present a classics paper at the 2016 annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA). From insects to classics!? Therein hangs a liberal arts tale, vintage Kalamazoo College.

Stack’s paper–“Princess, Prisoner, Queen: Searching for Identity and Agency in the Life of Kleopatra Selene”–is one of only four undergraduate research projects selected for presentation at the AIA meeting.

Selection was nation wide and very competitive,” said Senior Instructor in Classics Anne Haeckl. Stack wrote the paper for Professor Haeckl’s Junior Classics Seminar, which provided, said Stack, “an amazing opportunity to explore Selene’s life through the lens of intersectional feminism.”

Kleopatra Selene is one of history’s forgotten women, mentioned only marginally (if at all) in the history- and world-changing story of her famous parents, the Roman general Mark Antony and the last queen of Egypt, Kleopatra VII. Theirs was a story that crowded the stage of the entire Mediterranean world of their time, a story that has inspired countless historical and literary interpretations from Plutarch to Shakespeare to a recent bestseller biography by Stacy Schiff.

“I’ve always been very interested in history, particularly dynamic historical women,” said Stack, who majored in biology and religion. “Kleopatra VII has been a particular favorite of mine since childhood; my favorite book is a 1000-page novel called The Memoirs of Cleopatra. Because I’m so familiar with her mother, I’ve been aware of Selene for a long time, but I started to wonder about her as a historical figure in her own right.

“The most interesting part of my research was how strongly Selene’s political agenda and identity were influenced by the events of her childhood.”

After her parents’ defeat by Octavian (later the Roman emperor Augustus), Selene became Augustus’ prisoner and political pawn. He marched the 10-year-old girl in his Egyptian triumph through the streets of Rome as a symbol of her fallen dynasty and conquered nation. He gave her to his sister to raise and later arranged her marriage to Juba, king of Mauretania (today’s Algeria). “As the queen of Mauretania she very clearly identified herself as a Ptolemy (her mother’s royal house) and a Hellenized Egyptian queen,” said Stack. “She commissioned coins in her own right, not just in conjunction with her husband, and portrayed herself with the imagery and titles of her mother, Kleopatra VII. To me this indicates that she never forgot her heritage or her family, and used her power to maintain their legacy.”

Haeckl had equal praise for Stack’s research paper and for the liberal arts ethos from which it took wing. “At K we value the breadth and depth of academic course work and the Senior Individualized Project. It’s hard to find a more dynamic example of that than Sara, with her curiosity and hard work in biology, religion and classics.”

Stack’s biology SIP studied the effect of the emerald ash borer, an invasive beetle that kills ash trees, on the biodiversity of a family of beetles known as Carabidae. “I really enjoyed my SIP research, and it was ultimately what made me fall in love with entomology and got me into graduate school,” said Stack.

She obviously also enjoyed her classical research. “She unified and analyzed through a feminist lens the scattered corpus of ancient material culture and texts relating to Selene,” praised Haeckl, work that yielded a new and original understanding of Selene’s “increasingly empowered agency and self-identification as a North African queen.”

Haeckl also presented research at the AIA annual meeting. Her work posits a specific identity (the Emperor Caracella) of a painted limestone statuette depicting a falcon-headed human figure in the armor of a Roman imperator. Haeckl’s paper, “Caracalla as Birdman? Proposing an Imperial Identity for the British Museum’s ’Horus in Roman Military Costume,” explicates the iconography of the statue (Horus was the Egyptian falcon-god) in terms of both the public image Caracalla cultivated (as an ordinary Roman soldier and latter day Alexander the Great) and a specific visit Caracalla made to Alexandria in 215.

K Philosopher Writes About Syrian Refugees

Posted on December 4, 2015March 23, 2022

Max Cherem, philosophy, has contributed a thoughtful reflection to a “Philosophers On” segment focused on the Syrian refugees. Since 2011, more than 10 million Syrians have been displaced from their homes, and more 4 million have fled their homeland, seeking refuge from the violence and chaos of the civil war wracking their country. The war has reportedly left between 140,000 and 340,000 dead, including (by some estimates) up to 12,000 children. The situation has been described as “the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today.” Recently, the United States agreed to allow 10,000 Syrian refugees to enter in 2016, but even that modest accommodation was met with political backlash. Two dozen Republican governors announced that their states would no longer accept Syrian refugees. Recent terrorist attacks, no matter how tenuous (or nonexistent) their ties to Syrian refugees, have inflamed political rhetoric, with some politicians suggesting a religious test for refugees.

Max was one of eight philosophers invited to “explore the ways in which philosophers and theorists can add, with their characteristically insightful and careful modes of thinking, to the public conversation” about the Syrian refugees. His piece, titled “Understanding the Structural Issues,” references the Refugee Convention’s definition of a refugee and its signatories’ obligations to provide refugees (as specifically defined) protection from return and new membership (in a state). Those guarantees, Max writes, are gutted by refugee camps (which are nowhere found in the Convention), where the gap between non-return (albeit tenuous) and new membership can stretch to 17 years, and by unilateral extra-territorial migration controls. “Apparently,” writes Max, “political leaders calculate that they can subscribe to the convention in name, defect in practice, and that their publics won’t notice or care. So far, the sloppiness and level of our public discourse hasn’t proven them wrong.” What’s needed, he adds, is a clearer understanding of our responsibilities under the Convention and subsequent informed activism for structural reforms as needed. Both possibilities are obscured by “table-pounding” rhetoric that promulgates a false-dichotomy between compassion and security.

Max is the Marlene Crandell Francis Assistant Professor of Philosophy and one of four persons in the country honored with the prestigious Humanities Writ Large Visiting Faculty Fellowship for the 2015-16 academic year. The Fellowship has him in research residence at Duke University and working in the Kenan Institute for Ethics.