David Castro, Department of Music
I plan to use my upcoming sabbatical as an opportunity to return my attention to research and publication. The first goal I have for myself is to complete a long-standing project, which is an article called “Collage Technique in Arvo Pärt’s Symphony No. 2.” In this article I examine Pärt’s Second Symphony (1966) in detail, revealing the systems employed in the composition of this music. This article also provides insight into a cultural divide between the Soviet Union and “the West,” which resulted in the composition of very different music under the same rubric. In addition, I intend to work on a second article, one that examines the Renaissance Plagal cadence as a cultural touchstone. This cadence became a highly elaborate structure in the works of composers like Palestrina, Lassus, and Victoria, and my project would be to delve into these cadences, showing how they are almost an emergent property of the rules of Renaissance counterpoint. I’m also eager to trace the history of these cadences and to identify vestiges of these cadences in music of later composers. I will treat the plagal cadence of the Renaissance not as a stable object, but as a dynamic cultural point of reference, able to carry a variety of meanings over the span of hundreds of years.
Karen Cherewatuk, Department of English
Grief and Mourning in Malory’s Morte Darthur
I will complete a draft of a monograph, Grief and Mourning in Malory’s Morte Darthur, which examines Sir Thomas Malory’s depiction of the emotional experience of loss. In an introduction and five chapters, this study locates Malory’s death rituals in historic fifteenth-century practice and illustrates how those scenes trigger memories of loss among today’s readers. It thus theorizes the transfer of emotions from characters within the text—in particular, King Arthur, Queen Guenivere, Sir Gawain, and Sir Launcelot—to readers. Malory gathers characters, audience, and himself in a community that shares the experience of grief and mourning. This book offers an interpretive model for literary scholars addressing mortality in narrative and to general readers seeking solace for personal loss.
Christopher L. Chiappari, Department of Sociology and Anthropology
During my sabbatical I propose to complete a book manuscript titled From Ánimas to Animism: Subjectivity and Power in Maya Spirituality and Protestantism in Highland Guatemala. Based on ethnographic research conducted over more than two decades, the book consists of an analysis of Maya spirituality and evangelical Protestantism as distinct spiritual-religious systems of practices, beliefs and discourses, but which have been in dialogue and conflict for over a century in Guatemalan society and culture. My approach to understanding each and both within the larger social, cultural, political and economic context of Guatemala is informed by the theoretical perspectives of animism and relations between human and nonhuman beings, subjectivity and the processes of subject formation, and the anthropology of the body and embodiment.
Louis Epstein, Department of Music
I propose to spend the 2020-21 academic year in Paris, where I will finish researching and writing my first book, The New Patronage: Funding Modernist Music in France, 1918-1939. My book traces the shifts in private and public patronage that influenced the sounds and meanings of interwar French classical music. Studying the collaborative relationships that composers like Igor Stravinsky, Maurice Ravel, Erik Satie, and Germaine Tailleferre forged with aristocratic patrons, government ministries, and ballet impresarios illuminates links between musical style and the broader social conditions that shaped both music and music patronage. Though my book explains how shifts in funding transformed French music nearly a century ago, its insights and conclusions will resonate with readers interested in other times, places, and forms of patronage.
Steve Hahn, Department of History
I will complete a monograph investigating the lives of 209 mariners accused of piracy who accepted a pardon from the British crown in the Bahamas in 1718, focusing intensively upon what happened to them after the pardon. By reconstructing their lives, I deconstruct the monolithic image of pirates as unredeemable criminals, demonstrating that a vast majority of them were ordinary seamen whose involvement in crime was opportunistic and fleeting, and who resumed legal trading after their pardons. I argue that class, age, and regional divisions beset the pirate community, and that the pardon was most attractive to mariners possessing greater social and economic capital. By doing so, I reclaim the humanity of these men, connect the story of piracy at sea with the land-based communities that supported it, and illuminate the entangled histories of far-flung places in the Atlantic world.
Joan Hepburn, Department of English
Any survey of books on black child entertainers in the United States reveals a chronic need for attention to this subject. Who were they in the 1950s or 1960s, much less before? Where could they perform in the Jim Crow south or segregated north? Under what conditions could blacks perform? How especially did black children fare “on the road” or on sets, not just racially but also in the context of child labor laws then? Blacks given so little coverage, how did my brother appear on and off-Broadway, in film, and, on radio and television? If he was so much in demand what happened to him? Why did he disappear? My project enables me to retrace his steps, discover his whereabouts, and my research involves travel to senior artists with whom he worked but also to collections, and to wherever the search for Phil leads me.
Kim Kandl, Department of Biology
I will undertake three projects during my sabbatical. Two of these projects, both in collaboration with other faculty in the biology department, will further my work on developing linked lab experiences for students in the genetics and cell biology laboratories. I will publish one of our linked lab projects as a pedagogical innovation, and I will move the second linked lab project from proof-of-concept to implementation. The third project is to bring my research on the SUMO proteases to the point of publication. Since 2016, I have worked with several students to design tools to overexpress, knockdown, and tag the SUMO proteases in Tetrahymena. With these tools in hand, we will answer the genetic and cell biology questions that we have sought to answer. During my sabbatical, I will finish the experiments that will bring the SUMO protease project to a conclusion, and I will write this research for publication.
Donna McMillan, Department of Psychology
“Investigations in Psychological Well-Being”
This sabbatical project focuses on research and application of positive psychology. Self-determination theory asserts and provides ample evidence that human well-being is enhanced when motivations are relatively autonomous (specifically referred to as intrinsic, integrated, and identified motivations), rather than externally controlled. I am doing a series of studies to investigate whether a simple cognitive manipulation, a change in “inner speech” about daily activities, can shift motivation into a more autonomous range and also increase sense of gratitude. A second focus of my work during sabbatical is how experience of time relates to well-being, and I am focusing on time poverty/ time affluence, the roles of past, present, and future in psychological well-being, and effects of the “slow” movement. Finally, I am continuing to explore ways in which culture relates to well-being, as well as avenues for application of positive psychology interventions.
Linda Mokdad, Department of English
Hijacking History: Post-9/11 Hollywood Cinema
This book project examines a cycle of post-9/11 Hollywood films that spans a twenty year period, while privileging a historical and geopolitical framework to address America’s encounters and confrontations with the Middle East. At one level, these films map the 9/11 terrorist attacks onto various sites and histories that signify a contentious relationship between the Middle East and the United States (including Islamic fundamentalism, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the struggle over oil). In doing so they incorporate and absorb elements from other media (the Internet, television, journalism) to augment and authorize film’s signifying capacities. At another level, and in tension with this dispersal or historical sprawl, these post-9/11 films manage and contain their histories through the generic and narrative mechanisms of the action, conspiracy and combat film. Focusing primarily on post-9/11 American intelligence and military narratives, this study explores what is at stake in the cinematic struggle to accommodate, but ultimately, recast history in light of U.S.-Middle East relations.
Nancy Paddleford, Department of Music
My sabbatical leave will focus on improving my performance and coaching of chamber music under the guidance of Gordon Back, internationally known chamber pianist. In London, Mr. Back will coach the violinist Erika Klemperer and me as we prepare two major recitals. Also, I will be observing many examples of excellent chamber music in London and will consider what might be incorporated into my own repertoire. Upon my return to St. Olaf, I will give a master class about the performance of chamber music and perform with a St. Olaf colleague. In addition, I will compose a handout for my students and for prospective students, about the importance of chamber music in the field of music performance, including on the impact solo performance.
Jessica Petok, Department of Psychology
The ability to learn new skills and transfer that knowledge is essential at all ages, but especially among older adults who must continually adapt to new people, environments and technologies. My program of research seeks to characterize how and why such cognitive processes change with age. First, I will complete data analyses and write empirical articles for scholarly journals to report my research on the effects of genetics on cognitive processes in younger and older adults. My research reveals that genetic polymorphisms contribute to individual differences in learning and generalization of reward-based associations across the lifespan, accounting for important individual differences in vulnerability to cognitive decline. Second, I will generate a comprehensive plan to develop future research projects for my return from sabbatical, and will prepare an extramural grant proposal to support such efforts.
Jamie A. Schillinger, Department of Religion
‘The Most Noble Among You’: Virtuous Disagreement in Christian-Muslim Dialogue
This scholarly project is focused on comparing Christian and Islamic construals of intellectual virtues that can be revised by Christians and Muslims today. Building on previous work on humility, these two articles take up additional intellectual virtues. The first article compares the thought and example of Martin Luther with that of Ibn Taymiyya with respect to the way that a certain kind of polemical boldness can be defended on the basis of scriptural reasoning. The second article compares the thought and example of Thomas Aquinas and Ibn Rushd with respect to the way that proportioning one’s belief to the evidence helps to structure the correct relation between faith and reason. Each article also attends to the ways that these virtues are (and are not) exemplified in current interreligious dialogue. The teaching project is focused on new opportunities for the college to collaborate with local prison populations.
Nancy M. Thompson, Department of Art and Art History
My book project, Friars, Florentines, and Fire: Understanding the 14th-century Stained Glass of Santa Croce in Florence, focuses on the networks of materials, artists, and viewers that brought the 14th-century stained-glass of Santa Croce to life. My study is informed by theories of materiality, actor-network theory, and technical art history, all of which have changed the field and brought a new kind of focus on the object to the fore in medieval art history. These theories are especially fruitful for the study of stained-glass windows, which are complex objects, made of many parts and by many hands. Ultimately, my book will explore how and why Santa Croce’s stained glass windows came to be and the ways in which the windows shaped and changed human experience of the church’s interior.
Maria Vendetti, Department of Romance Languages – French
During my sabbatical, I intend to complete the first full draft of my book manuscript, Put to the Question: The Productive Instability of Memory in Francophone Narratives of Torture. The book brings together 20th- and 21st- century francophone texts from diverse literary traditions and genres to show how authors often write about torture in deliberately indirect ways. These works in French add to an ongoing, transnational dialogue about how literature can meaningfully describe the experience of surviving torture, and reinforce the collective memory of state-sponsored violence. My work to date has primarily focused on novels by Algerian women: during 2020-21 I will significantly expand my research to include politically engaged crime fictions and legislative and archival documents.
Additionally, I will expand a recent project on Tunisian film and literature of clandestine immigration to include recent novels and the question of doubles. This work connects to my pedagogical interests around immigration and North African literature, and adds to the body of research around portrayals of the ongoing Mediterranean migrant crisis.
Mary Walczak, Department of Chemistry
I plan to use my sabbatical year to apply statistical methods of data analysis to questions in higher education. Building on my collaborative work using transcript data to understand St. Olaf student’s pathways through STEM, we will explore discipline-specific questions about persistence, placement, and academic preparation. In addition, I will examine the factors that lead to faculty remaining Associate Professors at St. Olaf for extended periods of time. Finally, I will spend part of my sabbatical preparing to return to full-time teaching following my time as Associate Dean.
Ying Zhou, Department of Asian Studies
Language and Power in China: A Comparative Study
This research project aims to examine the power relationships and the results of language contact through studying the linguistic landscape in two Chinese cities: Beijing and Hong Kong. The two cities are politically and linguistically distinct. The proposed research questions will lead to insights about current linguistic realities across China, and answer the questions of how power and ideology impact languages used in public signs in the two cities. Data collection includes photographing the linguistic signs in the two cities. This project hopes to provide an up-to-date picture of how diversity, equity, and identity reflected through language use in China.
Kathryn Ziegler-Graham, Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science
I propose work on two projects over the course of my academic year sabbatical. The first is to advance my collaborative research at The Mayo Clinic. A starting point for this project is investigating outcomes on an instrument intended to develop understanding of the Receiver Operation Characteristic (ROC) curve among statistics learners. The second project is to continue my on-campus collaboration investigating student course taking patterns using transcript data. Motivated by assessment of externally awarded grants and internal programmatic practices, this research uses transcript and student demographic data to answer questions relevant to STEM and STEM-related courses at St Olaf. Two possible directions in which we plan to further this approach of using transcript data is to explore discipline specific questions relative to placement and first courses within programs at St Olaf and propensity score analysis to adjust for baseline variation in comparison groups.