Martha-Elizabeth Baylor, assistant professor of physics, gave an invited talk entitled "A Random Walk into Optical Signal Processing and Integrated Optofluidics" on April 14 as part of the American Physical Society April Meeting session on "Doing Science, Improving Diversity: Strategies for Minority Physicists." Her discussion traced her career path from her dreams of being a paleontologist and to the pursuit of a career in applied physics. Baylor also discussed her research in the areas of opto-electronic blind source separation and holographic photopolymers, as well as the non-linear path that has gotten her to this point.

Danya Leebaw, reference and instruction librarian for social sciences, Kristin Partlo, reference and instruction librarian for social sciences and data, and Heather Tompkins, reference and instruction librarian for humanities and government publications, presented a paper at the Association of College and Research Libraries conference in Indianapolis on April 12. The paper, “'How is this different from critical thinking?': The risks and rewards of deepening faculty involvement in an information literacy rubric," discussed a library assessment project in which librarians and faculty used a rubric to evaluate students' information literacy habits of mind.

Ruth Weiner, Class of 1944 Professor of Theater and the Liberal Arts Professor of English, delivered a paper entitled, "The Oresteia in Production," at the Comparative Drama Conference on April 6 in Baltimore. Her paper was based on the production of Oresteia at Carleton in spring 2012 and discussed many of the themes incorporated into the performance. The production came out of a collaboration between several departments: Classics, Cinema and Media Studies, Theater, and Dance.  

Kara Sage, visiting assistant professor of psychology, received an APA Division 7 Early Career Research Grant to launch a new research project entitled "iLearn: Can utilizing tablet technology reduce the 2D deficit effect in children’s learning?" Studies have shown that children learn better from live people than most 2D media, but the learning potential from tablet technology has not been well investigated in terms of its learning potential. The grant will go towards launching a research study investigating tablet learning in children ages 2-6. The research hopes to shed light on the effectiveness of tablet learning and their incorporation into classrooms. Sage will conduct her research at Hamilton College.

Kathy Evertz, director of the Academic Support Center, and Renata Fitzpatrick, assistant director of the Writing Center and coordinator of Second Language Writing, co-led a workshop with Andrew Chael '13 (Albuquerque) and Debbie Wong '13 (Singapore) at the International Writing Centers Association conference in San Diego. The conference brings together people who work in writing centers from all over the U.S. and encourages scholarship between writing center-related fields. The workshop facilitated interactive activities in which participants from several institutions reviewed and recreated the names, slogans, and images that represent their writing centers.  The conference met in San Diego last October.

Andrew Flory, assistant professor of music, delivered a lecture entitled "Locating the Motown Sound" as part of the Musicology and Ethnomusicology Division Colloquia series in the School of Music at the University of Maryland, College Park. Flory’s talk looked to show how consistent business and creative structures helped to foster a discernable style in Motown's most popular music during the mid-1960s. The discussion continued with an analysis of the ways in which a single production team worked to create distinct sonic and textual identities for two very different groups, the Supremes and the Four Tops.

Louis Newman, John M. and Elizabeth W. Musser Professor of Religious Studies, recently gave two invited lectures at Northeastern University and the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University. The first talk, "Brave New World:  Judaism and Genetic Technology," focused on the issue of genetic engineering. The lecture explored how Jewish values deal with the obligation to heal versus the obligation to not remake God’s work and offered listeners different ways to analyze Jewish values to find a balanced approach to these controversial issues.

The second lecture was titled, "To Forgive is Human: Reflections on the Meaning and Practice of Forgiveness in Judaism." The discussion considered the Jewish thought surrounding forgiveness, specifically the contrasting ideas of conditional forgiveness and unconditional forgiveness. Newman analyzed the theological roots of the two moral views, and ended with the possibility that the two may be complimentary, rather than contradictory.

Renata Fitzpatrick, assistant director of the writing center and coordinator of second language writing, delivered a talk, "Multilingual Writers in the Writing Center" at the Minnesota Writing and English Conference on April 5. Fitzpatrick’s discussion focused on the barriers to effective writing center use and emphasized the ways that Carleton faculty and staff work to support ESOL writers and facilitate positive referrals to the writing center.

Adriana Estill, associate professor of American Studies and English, delivered a paper entitled, “‘A prettier white’: The Role of Beauty in Who Would Have Thought It” at the 1st Biennial U.S. Latina/o Literary Theory and Criticism Conference in New York. The conference hosted a range of literary critics and theorists to discuss how U.S. Latina/o literary scholarship offers new dimensions to the study of “American” literature.

Estill’s talk focused on Maria Amparo Ruiz’s 19^th century novel, Who Would Have Thought It, which told the story of a young Mexican girl named Lola. The story raises a number of questions about the ways in which Hispanic women were seen in the 19^th century and how their beauty was judged. Estill argues that the meanings of race are unstable, and that beauty also embodies an unstable set of categories. Together, the two become an important site of political and moral meaning and knowledge.

Justin London, professor of music, gave the Keynote Address, “Toward a Global Understanding of Musical Metre,” at the Musical Metre in Comparative Perspective conference, which took place March 4 through 6.  The conference was dedicated to Professor London’s work on cross-cultural models of musical rhythm and meter, and featured respondents and scholars from North America, Scandinavia, and the European Union.  London also presented a second paper, “Stravinsky’s Hiccups: Cognitive and Aesthetic Aspects of Metric Ambiguity,” in addition to his keynote.

Baird Jarman, associate professor of art history, presented "The Melodramatic Mode of Reportage: Thomas Nast as a Civil War Illustrator” at the Midwest Art History Society’s annual conference in Columbus, Ohio on March 21. During his panel presentation, Jarman discussed the work of Thomas Nast, the leading American political caricaturist of the Reconstruction Era. As Jarman explained, Thomas Nast attained fame with his highly satirical drawings, which portrayed the class between the stereotyped northern heroes and southern villains.

Laska Jimsen, assistant professor of cinema and media studies, was invited to premiere her film, Beaver Creek Yard, at the Ann Arbor Film Festival in March 2013. Each year, the festival showcases avant-garde and experimental, story-based narratives, and documentaries and is internationally recognized as a premiere forum for independent filmmakers. Jimsen’s film premiered on opening night of the festival and told the story of a Christmas tree processing facility on Beaver Creek Road. The film looks at the human impulse to control, exploit, and profit from the natural world.