Our faculty at the College of the Arts continues to maintain high standards of academic excellence and scholarship. From research studies and chapter contributions to book launches and curriculum resourcing, here is a sampling of faculty accomplishments in 2021.
School of Music
Martin Norgaard, Associate Professor in Music Education
Scientific Reports published a study,“ Functional Network Connectivity During Jazz improvisation.” Dr. Norgaard, along with the interdisciplinary research team Center for Translational Research in Neuroimaging and Data Science (TReNDS) identified how the brain changes when artists are in a state of “flow” and found that simply imagining improvised performances elicits the same flow-like brain states as when musicians are singing. Click here.
Marie Sumner Lott, Associate Professor of Music History
Dr. Sumner Lott contributed the chapter, "So Gleams the Past, The Light of Other Days: Joachim's Hebräische Melodien for Viola and Piano, op. 9 (1853)" in the upcoming new book, "The Creative Worlds of Joseph Joachim" (December 2021). The chapter is an interdisciplinary study that shows how this musical work based on Lord Byron's poetry collection "Hebrew Melodies" expresses a fascination with the distant past common among Romantic artists in different media during the nineteenth century. Some of the musical features of the composition echo techniques used by members of the Nazarene School, a group of German artists interested in recreating the style of the Middle Ages and Renaissance in their paintings. Click here.
In the edited volume of "The Clarinet" (summer 2021), Dr. Sumner Lott wrote “Joining the Conversation: The Clarinet Quintet in Classical and Romantic Chamber Music Culture.” The chapter explores how W. A. Mozart, C. M. von Weber, G. Meyerbeer and J. Brahms collaborated with specific performers they knew to create innovative quintets for the clarinet as its design evolved to take advantage of more nuanced performance and compositional techniques during the 18th and 19th centuries. Click here.
"The Oxford Handbook of Music and Medievalism" (April 2020) included Dr. Sumner Lott’s chapter titled, “From Knight Errant to Family Man: Romantic Medievalism and Domesticity in Brahms’s 15 Romanzen aus L. Tieck’s Schöne Magelone, op. 33 (1865, 1869).” The chapter shows how Brahms used musical features to convey a young knight's first experiences of love and adventure in the first half of the song cycle, which also expresses a fascination with the Middle Ages. The protagonist's increased maturity and his embrace of domestic life in the second half let those Medievalist fantasies fall away to be replaced with more modern social ideals. Click here.
School of Film, Media & Theatre
Tanya Zuk, Instructor
Zuk co-edits the book “Our Blessed Rebel Queen: Essays on Carrie Fisher and Princess Leia” (Oct. 2021), the first full-length exploration of Carrie Fisher’s career as an actress, writer and advocate. Click here.
Seth Wilder, Doctoral Candidate
Wilder wrote the article, “Leftovers in the Time of COVID: A Pandemic and the Retextualization of an HBO Series” for the Quarterly Review of Film and Video journal. Click here.
Ernest G. Welch School of Art & Design
Jeremy Bolen, Assistant Professor, Photography
Bolen co-authored the article, “Born Secret (Cash for Kryptonite): A Field Guide to the Anthropocene Mode of Production” in The Anthropocene Review. The article offers a discursive complement to an audiovisual artwork created by the authors for the cultural program Mississippi. An Anthropocene River. Click here.
Jeff Boortz, Professor of Practice, Graphic Design
In a debut publication "Street Spirits," Boortz shares his unique view of the world. He spots the faces of what he calls Street Spirits in the pavement he walks over, the fauna of suburban Atlanta and the sky above his neighborhood. Boortz coaxes these Street Spirits forth by drawing over the photos taken while on his daily walks. Click here.
Melanie Davenport, Associate Professor, Art Education
Davenport co-authored "Art Education for Older Adults: Rationale, Issues and Strategies," in the International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education: Vol. 3, Article 7. The article asserts that not only can older adults benefit from engaging in art education, but that art education can benefit from engaging with older adults. Rationale, issues and strategies of facilitating art education for older adults are described through several vignettes. Click here.
Grace Harpster, Assistant Professor in Art History
Harper wrote the chapter “The Sacrilege of Soot: Liturgical Decorum and the Black Madonna of Loreto” in the "Contamination and Purity in Early Modern Art and Architecture" pp. 98-128. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021. Click here.
Haper also contributed a chapter, “Sacred Images in Carlo Borromeo’s Instructiones: Between Liturgy and the Antique,” in "Renaissance Religions: Modes and Meanings in History" pp. 155-174. Turnhout: Brepols, 2021. Click here.
Kevin Hsieh, Associate Professor, Art Education
Hsieh, along with current M.A.T students researched and collaborated to develop three curriculum resources for the National Art Education Association AACIG's website:
“Chinese Seal From the Yuan Dynasty: Collagraph Design with Recycled Materials” Click here.
“Examining Materials Culture Through Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-220 A.D.) Bronze Mirrors” Click here.
“Making Sense of the Future: The Oracle Bone and Shang Dynasty Divination” Click here.
Xinran Hu, Associate Professor, Graphic Design
Hu, co-wrote the research article, “Exploratory Discoveries from Eye-Tracking Tests of Wertheimer's Gestalt Patterns” in Leonardo. The authors use novel eye-tracking technology to determine how viewing behavior complies with Wertheimer's descriptions of Gestalt principles of similarity, proximity, continuation and closure. Click here.
Susan Richmond, Associate Professor, Art History
Richmond contributed the essay, “The Craft of Anne Ryan’s Collages” in Art History 44, no.1, pp. 52-77 (February 2021). Revisiting the presupposition of a feminine touch, the essay assesses the collages in light of Ryan's expertise as a sewer. Click here.