Faculty Accomplishments

An essay titled "Graffiti, Margins, and Palimpsests" by Véronique Plesch, the Ellerton M. and Edith K. Jetté Professor of Art, is included in the newly published book Graffiti in Medieval and Early Modern Societies: Italy and Beyond (Ed. Marco Mostert and Carlo Tedeschi. Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy. Turnhout: Brepols, 2026. 1–29). Her piece challenges the traditional art-historical view of graffiti on historical artworks as mere "visual noise" or vandalism, arguing instead that they endow the artwork with "temporal density." Using the rich corpus of northern Italian frescoes (such as those at Arborio) and theories of the "palimpsest," the essay explores how the physical act of incising a wall—literally scratching (sgraffiare) into the plaster—is a performative "action writing" (écrit d’action). Much like the skin, which psychoanalyst Didier Anzieu theorizes as a paradoxical interface that is both a protective boundary and a site of porous exchange, the frescoed wall becomes a dynamic contact zone. Ultimately, the essay demonstrates how graffiti-carved paintings reconcile the tension between figure and ground, transforming the flat margin of an artwork into a deep, material repository of community memory, devotion, and historical survival.

An essay by Véronique Plesch, the Ellerton M. and Edith K. Jetté Professor of Art, is in the recently released book Katahdin: Perspectives From the Knife Edge (Rockport: Two Ponds Press, 2026. 10-13). “Mapping Memories: Stephen Hannock’s Katahdin,” which was written during her recent sabbatical, is part of the book's focus on tracing "the creative journey of artist Stephen Hannock," who painted Luminous Lakes Below The Knife Edge, Mt. Katahdin, Maine (2020), now in the Farnsworth Art Museum's collection.

“Naming and Seeing Graffiti,” an essay by Véronique Plesch, the Ellerton M. and Edith K. Jetté Professor of Art, is included the book An Archaeology of Text and Image: Sedimentation, just released by Brill (2026, 20–34). "Graffiti scholarship displays a striking taxonomic drive. The choice of terminology has profoundly significant implications on the perception of such marks as they are rooted in a desire to vilify or legitimize," according to the essay's abstract. "Language thus acts as a tool to establish borders, separate what is worthy of study and preservation from the reprehensible and even criminal. In fact, naming has even more fundamental implications as it can determine whether one actually sees graffiti—so to the tension between a positive and a negative perception should be added a more basic one: to see or not to see." The book gathers essays from the 13th International IAWIS/AIERTI Conference, Sedimentation: Toward an Archaeology of Word and Image, held in August 2023 in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. 

Jack Cosgrove, the Dick McGee Head Coach for Colby Football, will be the sixth person inducted into the University of Maine football's prestigious Ring of Honor. Cosgrove, who joined Colby's football program in 2018, "spent 36 years with the University of Maine’s football program as a player, assistant coach, and head coach before serving as a senior associate director of athletics," according to the Bangor Daily News. Cosgrove's induction is a “fitting tribute to one of the most influential figures in the history of our program. The standard of attitude, effort, and discipline that he established continues to shape Maine Football today,” said current UMaine head coach Jordan Stevens.

Véronique Plesch, the Ellerton M. and Edith K. Jetté Professor of Art, edited the summer issue of the Maine Arts Journal dedicated to the theme of Light. Plesch authored both the introduction and a new installment of her Art Historical Musings column titled “Solar Musings.” The impetus for this issue was the L.C. Bates Museum summer exhibition on that theme, which was curated by Colby students Lucy Preston '26 and Winnie Ulland '28. Preston and Ulland contributed a transcript of the PechaKucha presentation they delivered this past April at the Strand Theatre in Rockland. Additionally, Victor Sabbatini '28 authored an essay exploring the work of fellow student Alex Reitman '26 ("Alex Reitman's Divine Light"), whose paintings at the 2026 Colby College Senior Art Show recently earned the President’s Prize for Excellence in the Studio Art Major. Rounding out this cross-generational Colby participation, the issue also features an essay by alumnus Michael Branca '96 ("Some Light Thoughts").

James Fleming, the Charles A. Dana Professor of Science, Technology, and Society, Emeritus, was a guest on WeatherWorld PSU, a program from the Penn State Department of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science. The program's host, Jon Nese, spoke with Fleming about his interest in astronomy and meteorological history.

Véronique Plesch, the James M. Gillespie Professor of Art, presented a paper at the international conference Épigraphie et latinité au Moyen Âge (Epigraphy and Latinity in the Middle Ages), held in Poitiers, France, May 18-23, 2026. Her paper, “Graffiti et Multigraphisme / Graffiti and Multigraphism,” was featured as part of a set of sessions on medieval graffiti. The conference brought together international scholars to explore medieval inscriptions within the broader context of Latin culture and its geographical and cultural margins. Moving beyond traditional historiographical reviews to look at cutting-edge applications in medieval epigraphy, the overarching goal was to assess the deep significance of written expression in shaping historical and cultural identities. The conference, organized by the Centre d’études supérieures de civilisation médiévale—France's premier research institution dedicated to the Middle Ages—served as the conclusion to two major European research initiatives: the ERC GRAPH-EAST and IUF CARMECA projects.

James R. Fleming, Charles A. Dana Professor of Science, Technology, and Society, Emeritus, was an expert panelist on a special American Meteorological Society webinar discussing the science behind the film Pressure. The webinar was a forum to discuss weather, history, filmmaking, and the remarkable story behind the film, which tells the story of James Stagg, the UK Met Office meteorologist who served as chief meteorological advisor for the D-Day invasion, and the creation of the weather forecast that helped shape history. Fleming was one of four panelists, joining the film's director and two technical advisors for the film. The webinar was recorded and is available online.

A new book by Adam Howard, the Charles A. Dana Professor of Education, is newly released. Privileged Brotherhoods: Becoming Men at Elite All-Boys Schools (Polity Books, 2026) "offers an unprecedented look inside the hidden world of elite all-boys schools in the United States. These institutions have long shaped the nation's most powerful men but have largely escaped critical scrutiny," according to the publisher. "Drawing on extensive and immersive fieldwork, Adam Howard reveals how these schools function as incubators of elite masculinity, instilling in their students a sense of entitlement, competitive drive, and loyalty to powerful male networks. At the heart of this process are 'brotherhoods': informal institutions molding boys into men prepared to defend privilege and resist challenges to traditional power structures."

Professor of Art Gary Green has a new exhibition of photography on view at the Maine Jewish Museum in Portland. Titled "Drawn by Nature: New Photographs," the exhibition shows Green's take on tall, vertical panoramas, which he first introduced in Colby's last faculty show, even though he began the series with experiments in 2006 when he was an artist in residence at Southern Maine Community College. "The new pieces I have since made in 2025 and 2026 have a more ominous spirit to me," said Green. "They are darker (some are printed as negatives, one a double exposure) and they represent, for me, the dark tangled masses of lies we find ourselves trying to penetrate and understand. On another level, this somewhat abstract look at nature represents one meaning of the title." Green said that the other meaning of the work is his "own being drawn to nature as a subject. My interest in photography is indeed the collaboration of nature, light, film, chemistry, and my own guiding the process through technical and aesthetic issues to complete the process." The exhibition will be on view May 7-June 25, 2026.