Faculty Accomplishments

Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Gail Carlson coauthored a paper in the Maine Policy Review titled "Roles for Maine’s Physicians in the Climate Crisis."  Carlson and Megan Anderson surveyed 108 Maine physicians about climate change and health, reporting that "78 percent believe that climate change poses a threat to the health of their patients, particularly for asthma, vector-borne diseases, heat-related illnesses, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and mental health problems."

Tanya Sheehan, the Ellerton M. and Edith K. Jetté Professor of Art, and Professor Suzanne Hudson (University of Southern California) coedited a new transnational history of modernist art that connects discourses on art as therapy to questions of gender, disability, race, and the politics of care. Modernism, Art, Therapy (Yale University Press) is a born-digital collection of 16 original essays that explores relationships between clinically derived art therapies and the modernisms that developed transnationally in visual arts across the 20th century. Through sites of practice such as hospitals, clinics, and prisons—but also schools, art museums, and galleries—the book puts art history into conversation with critical medical and health humanities, disability studies, critical race studies, and gender and sexuality studies. Committed to exploring questions of agency and social justice, contributors to the book attend to traditionally marginalized subjects and makers, from children and the incarcerated to women artists, therapists, and care workers. The volume thus aims not only to expand the category of masterworks that art historians deem meaningful but also to expose the limitations of dominant narratives about modernism. Modernism, Art, Therapy was supported in part by the Margaret T. McFadden Fund for Humanistic Inquiry at Colby College.

On May 15 Professor of Art Véronique Plesch gave a lecture at the Baxter Society in Portland. She spoke on “The Many Paradoxes of Tom Phillips’s A Humument,” discussing the project that British artist Tom Phillips (1937–2022) carried for fifty years, altering W.H. Mallock’s Victorian novel. Founded in 1983, the Baxter Society is the Bibliophilic Fellowship of Northern New England, whose objectives are to advance the quality and diversity of private and public libraries; promote excellence in the arts pertaining to the history, design, and production of books; and provide a supportive environment for those interested in the creation, preservation, and collection of books.

Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Stacy-ann Robinson has published an article titled "Equity and Justice in Loss and Damage Finance: A Narrative Review of Catalysts and Obstacles" in the journal Current Climate Change Reports. It overviews the history of loss and damage finance, suggests five criteria that could make the Loss and Damage Fund just, and discusses four potential catalysts for just loss and damage finance: ecological and climatic impacts, institutional developments outside the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Global South leadership on debt justice, and legal developments.

Photographer and Professor of Art Gary Green held an interview with About Photography, a monthly newsletter from the Czech Republic, and discussed his iconic photographs of the punk rock scene in New York City in the late 1970s. When asked to reflect on the punk scene's lasting impact on music and culture, he answered, "That era remains a touchstone for a lot of the DIY world, including a plethora of zines, self-produced music and books, and a whole range of indie bands that all owe a debt to the raw energy of The Ramones, Patti Smith, The Velvets, The New York Dolls, The Sex Pistols, The Clash and so on. I think a lot of those bands demystified putting together a band and making records."

Raffael Scheck, the John J. and Cornelia V. Gibson Chair in History, has published his seventh book. The book is titled Spring 1940: How People in Europe Experienced the Western Campaign (Hoffmann & Campe, Hamburg, 2024) and is written in German, Scheck's mother tongue.  The book builds on diaries and letters from German, Belgian, and French soldiers and civilians, as well as records from the British soldiers deployed in France and Belgium. Its central argument is that most contemporaries experienced the defeat of France and its allies in May-June 1940 as the decision and conclusion of World War I. Much of the fighting (and, for the British and French, the preparations during the phony war) took place on the old World War I battlefields and near the giant cemeteries. For Germans, their victory seemed to give meaning to the two million dead German soldiers of 1914-18, and they were extremely thankful to Hitler for providing this (apparent) closure. For the Nazi regime, the presence of Black soldiers in the French army bolstered its racist narrative that a "racially purified" Germany had defeated a "degenerate" France, and the Nazis used the victory as a "proof" for their racial theories. Millions of Belgian and French civilians, driven from their homes by fearful memories of German occupation in World War I, accepted that this campaign had decided World War I and that they would live in a German-dominated Europe. German moderation, even friendliness, toward civilians and European soldiers (but not toward African prisoners of war) eased this transition. For only a few, the campaign in western Europe did not only conclude World War I, but also really started World War II.

Professor of Mathematics Scott Taylor received a  $5,700 grant to support Sum Camp, a day camp in Waterville that uses the arts and math games to build numeracy. This new support for Sum Camp is provided by the Mathematical Association of America and the John and Mary Neff Foundation. Taylor will use the grant to implement a program called “Multiply the Math,” which will help him infuse mathematical conversations into every aspect of the camp, tying together mathematical themes that occur organically across the camp day.

The latest collection of poetry by Professor of English and Creative Writing Adrian Blevins, Status Pending, is a finalist for the Maine Literary Awards, presented by the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Status Pending (Four Way Books, 2023) is Blevins four collection of poems, hailed by critics as "a magical book" that "finds uncommon delight in common words, vernacular syntax and a range of playful poetic forms."

Tanya Sheehan, the Ellerton M. and Edith K. Jetté Professor of Art, delivered an invited lecture at Kenyon College's Gund Gallery in Gambier, Ohio, April 8, 2024. Titled “Public Art, Public Health: Jacob Lawrence and the Murals of Harlem Hospital,” her presentation examined representations of race, medicine, and health in Harlem between the 1930s and '50s. Sheehan explores this subject in depth in her current book project, which focuses on the art of Lawrence, his mentor Charles Alston, and the team of muralists Alston supervised at Harlem Hospital in 1936-40. Click here for an image of Sheehan lecturing in the Gund Gallery.