Katherine R. Lynes, assistant professor of English and Africana studies, presented a paper, “They Held the River’s ‘Tongue Like Words’: Reenvisioning African American Ecopoetics,” at the Modern Languages Association conference in Philadelphia in December.
Robert Hislope, associate professor of political science, recently accepted an invitation from President of Macedonia Gjorge Ivanov to join the Council of Foreign Relations, his highest advisory body. The council membership is composed of prominent politicians and scholars from Macedonia and around the world. There will be two conferences a year, at which members will draft policy recommendations for President Ivanov. Hislope will attend the first conference Feb. 24-March 1.
A second edition of “A Brief History of Brazil” (Facts on File, Inc., New York) by Teresa Meade, the Florence B. Sherwood Professor of History & Culture, and director, Latin American & Caribbean Studies, has just been published. This edition contains changes in more than a third of the original (2004) text as well as new photographs. The demand for the book outside traditional academic circles stems in large part from Brazil's increased prominence on the world economic and political stage. In 2001, Goldman Sachs economic analyst Jim O'Neill posited the “BRIC” thesis – Brazil, Russia, India and China – arguing that by the year 2050 these countries will dominate the world economy. In preparing the book’s second edition, Meade drew on the resources of two former students working in Washington, D.C. Zachary Levey ’04 of the Inter-American Development Bank and Lilly Briger ’08, a research associate for the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (now living in Rio de Janeiro), contributed up-to-date economic analyses.
Meade also co-edited (with Lisa Brock and Conor McGrady) “Taking Sides: The Role of Visual Culture in Situations of War, Occupation and Resistance,” a special issue of Radical History Review (Duke University Press, 2010). It includes a review essay, "Unexpected Concatenations," by David Ogawa, chair of the Department of Visual Arts.