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Faculty Friday Spotlight: August 2022

Adding to the Booklist

Professor of classics and director of the Center for Teaching and Learning Megan O. Drinkwater’s work on Ovid’s “Heroides” will be published by the University of Wisconsin Press at the end of summer 2022. Drinkwater illustrates how Ovid used innovations of literary form to articulate an expression of the crisis of civic identity in Rome at a time of extreme and permanent political change. 

Learn more: https://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/6008.htm.


Associate professor of history Robin Morris’ timely work on conservative women in the Republican party will be published by the University of Georgia Press in her upcoming book, “Goldwater Girls to Reagan Women: Gender, Georgia, and the Growth of the New Right.” Professor Morris’s research centers around gender and political realignment in post-1945 Georgia. She teaches courses in 20th century United States history, Southern history, and public history. The book’s anticipated release date is October 1. 

Learn more: https://ugapress.org/book/9780820360676/goldwater-girls-to-reagan-women/


Associate professor of international relations and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies Mona Tajali’s book, “Women’s Political Representation in Iran and Turkey: Demanding a Seat at the Table,” was published from Edinburgh University Press in June. Based on her doctoral dissertation, the work provides a comparative study of women’s political participation and representation in contemporary Iran and Turkey. It focuses on the intersections of political and institutional structures, religious and cultural norms and values, and voter behavior in terms of women’s political representation and the quality of democracy in Muslim contexts. 

Learn more: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-women-s-political-representation-in-iran-and-turkey.html.


Ocasio Recognized Again for Work

Rafael Ocasio

Charles A. Dana Professor of Spanish Rafael Ocasio’s book The Dissidence of Reinaldo Arenas: Queering Literature, Politics, and Activist Curriculum has won an honorable mention from the International Latino Book Awards for Best Biography. The new release is Ocasio’s eighth book, and the second one he’s written about Reinaldo Arenas, following his pattern of highlighting little-known figures, often queer, artists, writers, and activists, in Cuban and Puerto Rican history. Ricardo L. Ortiz, author of “Latinx Literature Now: Between Evanescence and Event,” described the book as “a thoroughly unique, productively innovative critical and scholarly approach to understanding one of twentieth-century literature’s most misunderstood and misread giants. This book models powerfully alternative ways to think not only about Arenas but also about ourselves, as writers, as teachers, and as activists.”

View a discussion about The Dissidence of Reinaldo Arenas: Queering Literature, Politics, and the Activist Curriculum by Rafael Ocasio, Angela L. Willis, and Sandro R. Barros hosted Charis and Agnes Scott College.


A Tribute to a Life of Wit

The Swedish-American pop artist Claes Oldenburg recently passed away at 93 years old. Oldenburg was primarily famous for his oversize soft sculptures of everyday objects and food items, but equally important were his collaborative on-site public works that often blurred the lines between art and architecture.

Among those bidding this iconic artist farewell is Katherine Smith, professor of art history, whose primary focus is Oldenburg’s work. Smith’s book, “The Accidental Possibilities of the City: Claes Oldenburg’s Urbanism in Postwar America,” was published by The University of California Press in 2021.

Read more about Professor Smith’s connection to Oldenburg in for an interview with Lane Porter `22.

Finally, check out Smith’s conversation with Susanneh Bieber, hosted by our bookstore and campus partner, Charis Books & More.

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