faculty

FIREBUGS Alights

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Three students rehearse for "The Firebugs"
Mikey Wecht ’14 (left, Chorus Leader), Madison Donoho ’17 (center, Eisenring) and Jack Massion ’14 (Biedermann) in a scene from THE FIREBUGS. Costumes by Elaine Kauffman. Photo by Emily Salswedel, ’17

Festival Playhouse of Kalamazoo College presents Max Frisch’s The Firebugs on Thursday, February 27, through Sunday, March 2, at the Nelda K. Balch Playhouse. The reprise (the play was originally staged and directed by K theatre arts professor Nelda Balch in 1964) celebrates the 50th anniversary of Festival Playhouse, which was founded by Balch.

The Firebugs is a satirical comedy that tells the story of Biedermann, a man who foolishly allows two arsonists into his home. Fearful of offending of them, he goes out of his way to accommodate their outrageous requests, much to his own—and others’—detriment.

A comedy that Frisch himself described as “a learning play without a lesson,” Firebugs nevertheless delivers a serious and timely message. Dramaturg Belinda McCauley ’16 says, “It has been speculated for decades that Biedermann’s dilemma throughout the play is allegorical to the way humans unintentionally allow evil into their lives, most specifically how the Nazis worked their way into the lives of average German citizens.”

Director Nora Hauk ’04, currently working on her doctoral dissertation in sociocultural anthropology at the University of Michigan, emphasizes that Biedermann chooses political correctness over what he knows to be true and right—with dire consequences. “The Firebugs is a play about the trouble that people can get into as they try to maintain the status quo and their own social standing in the face of major challenges,” explains Hauk. “Despite all the warning signs, Biedermann fails to take a stand.”

“There are many messages one could possibly take away from The Firebugs,” says McCauley, “but perhaps the one to be concerned with is the way words are used. What do your words say about you? Do your words start fires? Or do your words save lives?”

The production’s design team includes Professor of Theatre Arts Lanny Potts (scenery), Elaine Kauffman (costumes), Lydia Strini ’14 (lights) and Lindsay Worthington ’16 (sound).

The show opens Thursday, February 27 (pay what you can), at 7:30 PM. Friday (February 28) and Saturday (February 28) performances begin at 8 PM. Curtain rises for Sunday’s performance (March 2) at 2 PM. For all performances except Thursday’s tickets are $5 for students, $10 for seniors, and $15 for other adults. Tickets may be purchased at the door. For more information about these and the remainder of Festival Playhouse’s golden anniversary season (including Peer Gynt) call 269.337.7333 or visit the Festival Playhouse website.

Professor Emeritus of Sociology Richard Means Dies

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Richard L. Means dressed in commencement attireRichard L. Means ’52, professor emeritus of sociology, died on February 15, 2014. He came to K as an undergraduate student in 1948, when he transferred from the University of Toledo. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy. At K he won the Hodge Prize in philosophy and was president of the student body. He was also a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He and fellow K graduate, Joyce Allen, married in 1953.

Means earned a bachelor’s degree in divinity from Colgate Rochester Divinity School (1956) and an M.A. and Ph.D. (sociology) from Cornell University (1959 and 1964, respectively). He served as a chaplain at Cornell (1956-59) and was ordained as an Associate Minster of the First Congregational Church (1957). He returned to K in 1961, where he received tenure (1964) and was promoted to full professor (1972). He retired from K in 1993, having served the College for 32 years.

Among the qualities that made him exceptional, wrote his colleague and friend, Dean of the Chapel Robert Dewey, on the occasion of Mean’s 25th service anniversary with the College, were his “command of a discipline, intellectual curiosity beyond that discipline, stimulating conversation, collegial support, a sense of humor, a broad range of interests and an impressive knowledge of each, a passionate concern for the vitality and quality of the College and for the problems confronting society, the nation, and the world.” His research and teaching interests were broad and deep and included the family, criminology, mental health institutions, the sociology of religion, race relations, alcohol and drug abuse, the environment, and social gerontology. Citing the breadth of his colleague’s intellectual interests Dewey likened Means to “a man in a conning tower rotating his periscope across the wide horizon to see and grasp what he finds there.” Means wrote numerous journal articles on various topics in sociology and religion, and he was the author of the book The Ethical Imperative: The Value Crisis in America, which was used in college classes at Grinnell and Carleton, among others.

After he retired from K, Means served as interim minster of the First Congregational Church of Kalamazoo. He then served as interim minster of the First Congregational Church of Coloma, Michigan.

He is survived by Joyce, his wife of 60 years, their three children, three grandchildren, and many nieces and nephews. A memorial service will be held at 2 PM on Thursday, February 20, at First Congregational Church, 129 S. Park Street. Friends and family will have the opportunity to gather for a time of remembrance and fellowship on Friday, February 21, beginning at 3:30 in the Kiva at Friendship Village, 1700 N. Drake Road.

Award for Japanese Speech a K First

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Megan Davis and Katherine Ballew with Professor SugimoriSenior Megan Davis and first-year Katherine Ballew participated in the Michigan Japanese Speech Contest (held at Hinoki International School, Livonia, Mich.). The title of Megan’s speech was “A Moment in Which I Made a new Realization About the World.” Katherine’s speech, “Heading Toward a World Without Racism” was awarded an Honorary Mention. It was the first time a Kalamazoo College student has won award in the Japanese speech contest. The students attended the contest with Noriko Akimoto Sugimori, assistant professor of Japanese language. Pictured at left are (l-r): Megan, Katherine, and Professor Sugimori.

Gail Griffin, Iris Parker, and Keeney Swearer ’13 Display Their Creativity This Weekend

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Iris Parker
Iris Parker displays this and other photos from her “Zulu Marriage Rituals” exhibit during the Feb. 7 Art Hop from 5-8pm at the Black Arts & Cultural Center in the Epic Center, 359 S. Kalamazoo Mall in downtown Kalamazoo.

Professor Emerita of English Gail Griffin has written a 10-minute play that will receive its first public reading on Sat. Feb. 8 at 2pm during the Theatre Kalamazoo New Play Festival at the Epic Theatre in the Epic Center, 359 S. Kalamazoo Mall in downtown Kalamazoo.

During the Friday Feb. 7 Art Hop, ACSJL Visiting Fellow Iris Dawn Parker will exhibit her photos of Zulu marriage rituals in South Africa from 5-9pm at the Black Arts and Cultural Center in the Epic Center, Suite 202, 359 S. Kalamazoo Mall.

Also during the Feb. 7 Art Hop, Keeney Swearer ’13 will display his newest artwork from 6-9pm at the Kalamazoo Book Arts Center in the Park Trades Center, Suite 103A, 326 W. Kalamazoo Ave.

The Art Hop and the New Play Festival are free and open to the public.

Sound Affects DOOM

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Sound off or sound on?

Turns out that music makes better DOOM–or, more precisely, players of that first-person video shooter game score a lot higher with the sound (music and effects) on … at least according to one study.

Associate Professor of Psychology Siu-Lan Tan joined renowned video game composer Sascha Dikiciyan (Sonic Mayhem) to give an interview on the psychological effects of video game music. The interview occurred on the blog Consequence of Sound, a.k.a. CoS. That interview went live a couple days ago and is nearing 1,500 views on YouTube.

In order to tell the rest of the science behind the story, Professor Tan used her Psychology Today blog to post a related piece: “Video Games: Do you play better with sound on or off?”

Turns out the science is complicated. The results of the aforementioned DOOM study were seemingly contradicted by a study of Ridge Racer V, which found that gamers with the fastest lap times had the music off.

And it gets more complicated than that. Professor Tan’s K research (a collaboration with her SIP student John Baxa ’09) studied gamers playing Twilight Princess-Legend of Zelda (ya gotta love these names!). In the Twilight study, the worst performers played with both music and sound effects off. And the study found that the more the game’s audio was incrementally added, the more performance improved. And yet (in another wrinkle) the best performances occurred to background music UNRELATED TO THE GAME (!) … think boom box across the room. A closer examination suggested more nuances based on game familiarity and gaming skill. Turns out that average skill level newbies tune out the audio to focus exclusively on visual cues when first navigating the game. Not so for high skill level players, new to the game or not. These players are skilled, in part, because they pay attention–and effectively integrate–auditory and visual cues, both of which provide feedback for the best moves.

Tan writes: “I’m also reminded of what a participant in our study expressed so well: ’There’s more to a game than just high scores. It’s also about being transported and immersed in another world, and music and sound effects are what bring you there.’”

Indeed, writes Tan, “When you have a great soundtrack, music can be the soul of a game.”  NOTE: Tan and Baxa (along with Matt Sprackman) published their music/video game research in 2010 and 2012. Baxa said it aided his entrance to graduate school for study on video games. He is currently a Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon University.

FREE BEER Among the BEST

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Kalamazoo College Writer in Residence Di SeussWriter in Residence Di Seuss’s poem “Free Beer,” originally published in the Missouri Review, was selected by Terrance Hayes for the Best American Poetry anthology, which is due out in September of this year. When the poem appeared in Missouri Review, Di included an author’s note. “As I child,” she wrote, “I lured adults to my puppet show by offering free beer.  We didn’t have the money for beer or puppets.  I wasn’t lying; I was imagining, which is a form of hope.” Di’s second book of poems, Wolf Lake, White Gown Blown Open, received the Juniper Prize for Poetry. Her third book, Four-Legged Girl, is forthcoming from Graywolf Press.

K Writers Publish Essays and Poems

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Writer in Residence Diane Seuss has new work published, and so also has her good friend and former colleague, Professor Emerita of English Gail Griffin.

DianeDi’s “Gyre,” an essay/prose poem, appears in Brevity, a great magazine of brief nonfiction. Several poems from a series she wrote on still life paintings were accepted by Missouri Review, which will publish them this spring. Those poems were finalists for that magazine’s poetry prize. Her poem “Wal-Mart Parking Lot” won the Indiana Review’s 1/2K Prize. In other news, Di received a residency at Hedgebrook, a writing retreat for women writers located on Whidbey Island, near Seattle. Di will spend some time there this summer.

Gail’s essay, “The Messenger,” appears in the the new issue of the Chattahoochie Review, in its special issue on animals. The piece “centers on the night my cat brought a live owl into the house,” says Gail. “And then it gets stranger.” Another of her essays, “Out of the Woods,” is published in a collection called Southern Sin, published by the magazine Creative Nonfiction. That essay is subtitled “Women Behaving Badly” and provides an account of Gail’s time in graduate school at the University of Virginia. “I think my piece isn’t nearly as racy or eyebrow-raising as some of the others,” she says. “It’s more a reflection on the intersections of race and gender in me and in the south.” Southern Sin isn’t out yet, but may be pre-ordered at Amazon or the Creative Nonfiction website.

Kalamazoo College Faculty News

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Some recent news about Kalamazoo College professors:

PUBLICATIONS and EXHIBITS
Carol Anderson (Religion) published “The Possibility of a Postcolonial Buddhist Ethic of Wealth,” an article in Buddhist-Christian Studies…Rose Bundy (Japanese Language and Literature) published “Beneath the Moss,” a set of translations by Fujiwara Shunzei, in the new translation journal Transference…Henry Cohen (Romance Languages) published “The Eldorado Episodes of Voltaire’s Candide as an Intertext of Augusto Roa Bastos’ Yo El Supremo: A Utopia/Dystopia Relationship” in Revista De Estudios Hispanicos…Kiran Cunningham ’83 (Anthropology and Sociology) published “Structured Reflection for Transforming Learning: Linking Home and Away,” in the Salzburg Global Seminar’s Creating Sites of Global Citizenship…Péter Érdi (Luce Professor of Complex Systems Studies) co-authored three papers: “The Past, Present, and Future of Cybernetics and Systems Research” in the journal Systems; “An Integrated Theory of Budgetary Politics and Some Empirical Tests: The U.S. National Budget, 1791-2010” in the American Journal of Political Science; and “Anxiolytic Drugs and Altered Hippocampal Theta Rhythms: The Quantitative Systems Pharmacological Approach” in Network: Computation in Neural Systems…Jim Langeland ’86 (Biology) and Blaine Moore (Biology) are co-authors of a paper accepted for publication in Molecular Biology and Evolution that contributes to the understanding of Alzheimer’s disease. The project was partially funded by a GLCA New Directions Initiative and had four Kalamazoo College students or alumni as co-authors (see a recent K News & Events article about this here.)…Amy Lane (Anthropology and Sociology) published “Religion is not a Monolith: Religious Experience at a Midwestern Liberal Arts College,” an article in Journal of College and Character…Sarah Lindley (Art) exhibited her sculptures in shows at Eastern Michigan University, Alma College, and Hope College…Bruce Mills (English) published An Archaeology of Yearning, a book by the Etruscan Press…Siu-Lan Tan (Psychology) co-authored three chapters and served as primary editor for the book, The Psychology of Music in Multimedia (Oxford University Press, 2013).

AWARDS and GRANTS
Kiran Cunningham ’83 (Anthropology and Sociology) has been awarded the 2014 Dr. Winthrop S. and Lois A. Hudson Award, awarded biannually for the purpose of honoring outstanding K faculty members…John Fink (Mathematics) has been awarded the Lucasse Lectureship for Outstanding Teaching at K…Alison Geist (Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Institute for Civic Engagement) was awarded one of the first Kalamazoo County Spirit of Health Equity awards…Binney Girdler (Biology and Environmental Studies) has been awarded grants from the Michigan Botanical Foundation and from the Central Michigan University Institute for Great Lakes Research…Bruce Mills (English) has been awarded a GLCA New Directions Initiative grant for his work on building a civil rights oral history archive…Lanny Potts (Theatre Arts) was awarded the 2013 Wilde Award for “Best Lighting Designer of the Year” in the state of Michigan for his work on “The Light in the Piazza” at Farmer’s Alley Theatre…Regina Stevens-Truss (Chemistry) has received funding from the GLCA Expanding Collaboration Initiative to study digital resources for learning experimental science.

NEW POSITIONS
Alyce Brady (Mathematics and Computer Science) is an Arcus Center Faculty Fellow. She will work collaboratively with universities in Sierra Leone to develop sustainable open-source academic record-keeping software…Reid Gómez is Mellon Visiting Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies, focusing on campus climate, faculty development, and curriculum development…Starting July 1, 2014, Mike Sosulski (German and Media Studies) will serve as Associate Provost and Paul Sotherland (Biology) will be the inaugural Coordinator of Teaching, Learning, and Educational Effectiveness.

ENDOWED CHAIRS
The following Kalamazoo College faculty members are the recipients of newly endowed chairs: R. Amy Elman, William Weber Professor in Social Science…Laura Lowe Furge, Roger F. and Harriet G. Varney Professor of Chemistry…Gary S. Gregg, Ann V. and Donald R. Parfet Distinguished Professor of Psychology…Ahmed M. Hussen, Edward and Virginia Van Dalson Professor of Economics and Business…Richard Koenig, Genevieve U. Gilmore Professor of Art…Amy MacMillan, L. Lee Stryker Assistant Professor of Business Management…Ed Menta, James B. Stone College Professor of Theatre Arts…Taylor G. Petrey, Lucinda Hinsdale Stone Assistant Professor of Religion.

Social Justice Artist

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Iris Dawn Parker
Iris Dawn Parker

Documentary photographer and teacher Iris Dawn Parker will serve as the winter term, 2014, Visiting Fellow at the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership. Her art work and teaching focus on culture, identity formation, gender, and community.

During her fellowship Parker will present two exhibitions: “Mouride Muslims” (Wednesday, January 22, 4:30 PM, Hicks Center Student Development Gallery) and “Zulu Marriage Rituals” (Friday, February 7, 4 P.M., Epic Center on the Kalamazoo mall). The latter event will be presented in collaboration with the Black Arts and Cultural Center as part of the Kalamazoo Arts Council’s Art Hop. Parker also will participate in a Leadership Dinner and discussion linking her experiences as an artist to African identity, photography, and voice. That event, titled “We Wish to Tell Our Own Stories NOW,” will take place on January 29, at 6 PM in the Hicks Banquet Room.

Parker taught at the world renowned Market Theater Foundation and held artist residencies at the University of Witwatersrand, University of Cape Town, and Rhodes University. She is currently based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Africa, and she has created exhibitions in South Africa and the U.S. Among the latter was a Chicago exhibition titled “Mandela: Man of the People” that featured the photographs of Peter Magubane. Parker is currently at work on an endeavor titled Apartheid Book Project.

Of Bears and Babies

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Associate Professor of Psychology Siu-Lan Tan writes a blog for the magazine Psychology Today under the topic heading “What Shapes Film? Elements of the Cinematic Experience.” That assignment keeps her eye on YouTube videos that go viral. For example, recently, some 4 million viewers have had the “cinematic experience” of watching a three-month old polar bear take his first wobbly steps at the Toronto Zoo. Where most of us may see a bear only, Tan sees human beings as well. Her recent blog post notes that both share a phenomenon of physical development known as the cephalocaudal principle, which means that bear and baby’s first movements tend to be in reverse. The blog is a fun, informative read with some pretty cute video illustrations. Part of the fun derives from the fact that both species are subject to a lot of individual variation when it comes to learning self-locomotion. Crawlers, rollers, and scooters, oh my!

Tan is a popular blogger on other academic topics.  One of her posts on singing and emotional contagion was named #4 of Oxford University Press Blog’s Top 10 Posts of the Year 2013.  That post was also selected as #22 of Psychology Today’s Top 25 Posts of the Year 2013, out of a total of about 14,000 annual posts.

In other news, Tan’s article titled “Visual Representations of Music in Three Cultures: UK, Japan, and Papua New Guinea” was published in December in the Empirical Musicology Review. Her blog is also posted at Oxford University Press.