Faculty Accomplishments

Véronique Plesch, the Ellerton M. and Edith K. Jetté Professor of Art, edited the latest issue of the Maine Arts Journal, which is dedicated to the theme of "Mapping." For this issue, Plesch contributed an introduction as well as an essay titled “The Cartographic Impulse." The issue also celebrates the legacy of Colby emerita Harriett Matthews, who passed away this summer, featuring a collection of tributes by Matthews's colleagues and former students (compiled and introduced by Plesch), along with an article co-authored by Colby emeritus David L. Simon and Plesch, "Harriett Matthews: A Life Mapping Place."

Aaron Hanlon, the NEH/Class of 1940 Distinguished Associate Professor of English, has a preprint available of his forthcoming article titled "LLM Outputs as Stochascript," which will appear in Modern Fiction Studies. The article, which Hanlon co-authored with philosopher Hannah H. Kim at the University of Arizona, "argues that textual large language model (LLM) outputs form an emergent genre, which we call stochascript." Hanlon has also completed his M.Phil. in digital humanities, with a focus in computational text analysis, at the University of Cambridge, ranking first in his class of 72. His master's dissertation is called "What Was Nonfiction Before 'Nonfiction'? A Computational Answer to a Genre Collapse Problem." It offers an empirical definition of nonfiction in the 18th century, before the concept of "nonfiction" was widely used as a genre signal. 

Debra Spark, the Zacamy Professor of English, has published several pieces of writing recently. She's written two essays, “The Hero of the Story,” in The Southern Review, summer 2026, and “I See You,” in Subtropics, September 2026. She conducted an interview with Cheryl Henson for the July/August 2026 Yale Alumni Magazine titled “Where They Are Now: The Soul of the Puppet,” and she wrote an article titled “Outside In” for New England Home/Cape and Islands, May-June 2026. Her book reviews include Stories within Stories Within Stories (Tata by Valérie Perrin, June 23, 2026), Frenchly.com; Still Talking by Lore Segal, Lilith, 2026, no. 1; and a review of Fonseca by Jessica Frances Kane, Yale Alumni Quarterly, May/June 2026.

Zach Peckham, visiting assistant professor of English, has had a productive six months. He published a new chapbook of poems titled Full Denim Gimp Suit (Blush Lit / Illicit Zines) and has launched a new journal of literary criticism, which he is co-editing, called Delicatessen. "Delicatessen is a journal of book reviews and literary criticism, specializing in texts from small, independent, non-profit, and university-affiliated publishers," according to the journal's website. In August, he was interviewed by Cleveland Review of Books about his debut collection of poetry, As If And. Over the summer, several of his poems were published in small journals such as Boxx, Keith LLC, Beth, FOOD, SOLID STATE, and the Amenia Free Review.

James M. Gillespie Professor of Science, Technology, and Society Tanya Sheehan has been awarded two top research fellowships in art history in 2026-27 to complete her current book project, After Harlem Hospital: Modern Medicine and African American Art. As a Clark Fellow, Sheehan was in residence for five weeks in the summer of 2026 at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass. Beginning in December 2026, she will be in residence over three months at the Smithsonian Institution, as the William H. Truettner Senior Fellow at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Sheehan’s After Harlem Hospital explores the subjects of medicine and public health in 20th-century art by African Americans. The book is forthcoming from Yale University Press. 

Bess Welden, senior lecturer of performance, theater, and dance, was a guest on the EOLPodcast sponsored by the End of Life University. Welden was joined by Laura Cleminson, an end-of-life doula and the founder of Pre-Dead Social Club. Together, they have developed the Death Wings Project and Toolkit to invite people to come together in community and foster open conversations about loss and grief. On the podcast, which aired Aug. 31, 2026, they shared how art-making and storytelling are used in their workshops to help people navigate loss together through creativity.

James R. Fleming, the Charles A. Dana Professor of Science, Technology, and Society, Emeritus, will appear on the syndicated radio show Coast to Coast AM to discuss his book Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control on Sept. 16 at midnight Pacific time. He is also an invited speaker at the conference La Quéte de l’Eau Atmosphérique, Historical, philosophical, theological, political, and legal issues at the Collège de France in Paris Oct., 8-9. His presentation is titled "Promises and controversies of weather and climate control projects: The checkered history of atmospheric mastery.” 

An essay titled “Josefina Auslender’s Bodies of Evidence” by Véronique Plesch, the Ellerton M. and Edith K. Jetté Professor of Art, is included in the newly published book Josefina Auslender: Drawing Myself Free (edited by Cassandra Mesick Braun, 73–81. Brunswick, Maine, and New York: Bowdoin College Museum of Art in association with Scala Arts Publishers, Inc., 2026). Plesch's piece focuses on Los Cuerpos (The Bodies), a haunting series of graphite drawings created during Argentina’s "Dirty War" (1976–1983). Grounded in Freudian psychoanalysis and Julia Kristeva’s theory of abjection, the essay examines how these bound, faceless figures emerged as an involuntary visual response to state-sanctioned violence and enforced disappearances (desaparecidos). Contextualizing Auslender alongside artists who bear witness to political trauma, she analyzed the series as a cathartic processing of trauma, a reclamation of corporeal truth (habeas corpus), and a visual counterpart to the maternal activism of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo.

Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Gail Carlson will be at the Blue Hill Public Library Sept. 3 to lead a discussion on "Human Health and the Climate Crisis," a theme selected by the Brooklin Climate Response Committee. Carlson will discuss “how climate change impacts public health, what is at stake, and how to take action,” according to the Penobscot Bay Press. She is the author of Human Health and the Climate Crisis, published in 2022, and directs the Buck Lab for Climate and Environment at Colby.

Véronique Plesch, the Ellerton M. and Edith K. Jetté Professor of Art, participated in the 14th Conference of the International Association of Word and Image Studies ("Word, Image and Social Dynamics"), held Aug. 24–26, 2026, in Amsterdam and Utrecht, The Netherlands. She presented a paper titled “The Shape of Words: Ben Shahn’s Illustrated Books,” which draws on eight book maquettes featuring original art and calligraphy by Ben Shahn in the collection of the Colby College Museum of Art. In the fall of 2024, Plesch taught a course on these works in a Humanities Lab at Colby (see the student-created website). Additionally, she participated in a roundtable at the conference on “Pedagogies of Word and Image,” presenting a paper titled “Teaching Art History in the Age of AI."