Mechanical engineering professor Frank Wicks wrote an article, “Plastic Arts,” for the June 2007 issue of Mechanical Engineering magazine. The piece traces the accidental discovery of a plastic called Bakelite by Dr. Leo Baekeland in 1907, from its first use in phonograph records to its eventual marketing as a material with an infinite number of uses. The material spawned the petrochemical industries that now produce billions of pounds of plastics in the United States each year.
Daniel Mosquera, associate professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies, presented a paper titled “Placeres (o)cultos: nuevas miradas al – y desde el – margen en el cine colombiano” as part of a panel he chaired dealing with new Latin American film and the concept of cultural cannibalism. The paper was presented at the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) Congress in Montreal.
David R. Gerhan, professor and reference and instruction librarian, has published an article in College & Undergraduate Libraries (vol. 14, no. 2, 2007), titled “Wanted: One Principal Search Engine for Digital Images.” The paper examines current approaches for retrieving digital images (specifically pictures on the Internet) in support of humanities, historical or cultural research and notes that with the proliferation of online images, effective, systematic retrieval remains haphazard without a form of centralized and consolidated searching.