Tun Myint, Assistant Professor of Political Science, has published a chapter entitled "Roots of Democracy in Burma" in Conversations with Tocqueville: The Global Democratic Revolution in the Twenty-first Century, eds. Aurelian Craiutu and Sheldon Gellar (Lexington, 2009).

Melanie Michailidis, Mellon Post-doctoral Fellow in Art History, presented in March a paper entitled "Pilgrims and Patrons: Ziyarat under the Samanids at Bavandids" at the British Museum at the conference "People of the Prophet's House: Art, Architecture and Shi'ism in the Islamic World." She also recently presented a paper entitled "From Religious Complex to Uzbek National Symbol: The Gur-i Amir in Samarqand" at the Society of Architectural Historians conference in Pasadena.

Neil Lutsky, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Psychology, gave the keynote address to the 13th Annual Meeting of the Northeast Consortium on Quantitative Literacy, held in March at Smith College. His talk was titled "Spreading Activation for Quantitative Reasoning in a College Community: Themes for Variations."

Cherif Keïta, Professor of French, was recently interviewed about his documentary films during the 2009 Pan African Film Festival in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. The interview, titled "Wilcox-Dube: Une histoire américano-sud-africaine à l'écran" can be viewed here.

Roger Jackson, Stephen R. Lewis, Jr. Professor of Religion and the Liberal Arts, has published a book of which he is editor and co-translator, The Crystal Mirror of Philosophical Systems: A Tibetan Study of Asian Religious Thought, by Thuken Losang Chökyi Nyima (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2009). He also recently participated in a symposium on Buddhist education at Maitripa College in Portland, Oregon.

Fred Hagstrom, Professor of Art, recently had artist's books collected by the special collections libraries at Stanford University and the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne Australia.

Andrew Fisher, Assistant Professor of History, had his co-edited book, Imperial Subjects: Race and Identity in Colonial Latin America, published by Duke University Press.

Cam Davidson, Associate Professor of Geology, has been awarded one of eight undergraduate research program grants for the summer of 2009 from the Keck Geology Consortium for his proposal, "Exhumation of the Coast Mountains Batholith during the Greenhouse to Icehouse Transition in Southeast Alaska: A Multidisciplinary Study of the Paleogene Kootznahoo Formation."

Stephanie Cox, Visiting Assistant Professor of French, recently presented a paper entitled "Writing the Internal Seismic Shifts in the Works of Ying Chen" at the 20th and 21st Century French and Francophone Studies International Colloquium in Minneapolis.

Qiguang Zhao, Burton and Lily Levin Professor of Chinese, recently gave a teaching demonstration on China’s most popular TV channel, CCTV-1, reaching hundred of millions of viewers each day. He taught ancient poet Su Shi’s poem “Reflections on the Red Cliff” to students from the Chinese mainland, Taiwan, and all over the world. He combined lecture with discussion and drew illustrations on a blackboard; a teaching method rarely used in a classroom in China.

Shawn VanCour, Visiting Assistant Professor of Cinema and Media Studies, received the Broadcast Education Association Kenneth Harwood Award for Outstanding Ph.D. Dissertation in broadcasting and electronic media. Professor VanCour will be recognized at the BEA2009 Awards Ceremony in Las Vegas in April.

Susan Singer, Laurence McKinley Gould Professor of the Natural Sciences, has been working with the National Academy of Science's Board on Life Sciences and Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources on a consensus study on agriculture education as a study committee member (Committee on a Leadership Summit to Effect Change in Teaching and Learning). The committee's report, a 206 page book, has made it through the review process (after working on this project since 2006). The title is "Transforming Agricultural Education for a Changing World." Full information about the book is available at National Academies Press, found here.