Faculty Accomplishments

Professor of Art Véronique Plesch will deliver a lecture titled "Le Grand Siècle: Art at the court of the Sun King" as part of the Blue Hill Bach festival. Plesch's lecture on Friday, July 15, at 1 p.m., will discuss "the magnificent painting, sculpture, architecture, and landscaping of 17th- and early 18th-century France."

The New Yorker has published the poem "A Theory of Human Origin," written by poet Marianne Boruch, the 2022 Jennifer Jahrling Forese Writer-in-Residence at Colby College. "Though she knew no English, / or only little, I could put my small hand into / her leather glove to read," the opening stanza reads.

Assistant Professor of English Dyani Johns Taff wrote a guest blog post titled "Europa into the Waves: John Dee and Meandering Research" for the The Collation, Folger Shakespeare Library's blog. "Research feels nonlinear, like tracing a spiral, or a meandering river, or possibly like following ants’ pheromone trails, squiggly lines that crisscross each other and yet create a navigable chaos central to the ants’ communication," Taff's opening lines read. Taff was the Omohundro Institute-Folger Shakespeare Library Fellow for 2021-2022.

Professor of Art Véronique Plesch contributed an essay titled “Plein Air and Beyond” to the 2022 summer issue of the Maine Arts Journal: UMVA Quarterly, in which she "considers the tension between faithful rendering of a vista and artistic practice and license and, along with it, the motivations for capturing a particular landscape." Plesch also wrote the introduction to this issue, "Beyond Plein Air," making a point to discuss every contributor in the issue.

Tanya Sheehan, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Art, will deliver a virtual Wyeth Day lecture organized by the Farnsworth Art Museum. She will speak about the exhibition Andrew Wyeth: Life and Death, which she curated and is currently on view at the Colby Museum of Art. "Sheehan will discuss objects in the exhibition with her insights into how the exhibition evolved, exploring ideas of life, mortality, and self-portraiture in this period of work," the Farnsworth said in a release.

In celebration of Juneteenth, the Los Angeles Lakers will donate 125 copies of Biddy Mason Speaks Up, a book by Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing Arisa White, to the Crete Academy in the Crenshaw District of Los Angeles. "We are absolutely in love with [the] treatment of Biddy Mason in Biddy Mason Speaks Up," a spokesperson for the Lakers said. "The Lakers Juneteenth planning committee all agree that there is no better person to highlight this year than Biddy Mason," a former slave turned civil rights activist.

In separate news, White  will be the artist in residence at Indigo Arts Alliance in Portland, Maine, in July.

A paper by Associate Professor of French Mouhamedoul Niang was published recently in the journal Research in African Literatures, the premier journal in African literary studies. His paper, "Biocentrism as Magic Realism, Realism, and Hybrid Transculturation: Fatou Diome's Innovative Fictionalization of Biocentric Characterization through Transnational Testimonials in Kétala" examines Diome's "enriching renewal of literary creativity ... that transcends continental borders."

Assistant Professor of Biology Josh Martin coauthored a paper recently published in the journal Frontiers in Neural Circuits. The paper, "The Role of Central Complex Neurons in Prey Detection and Tracking in the Freely Moving Praying Mantis (Tenodera sinensis)," reports on the "crucial importance of the CX [central complex] to prey-capture behavior in predatory insects like the praying mantis and, hence, further emphasize[s] its role in behaviorally and ecologically relevant contexts."

Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Alison Bates has been awarded a federal grant through the Northeast Sea Grant Consortium titled "Community Engagement and Stakeholder Perceptions of Floating Offshore Wind.” Their multi-year project aims to promote equitable solutions for offshore wind to co-exist with other ocean users and marine-dependent communities in Maine. This award is funded through a partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy and NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center. Bates is joined by colleague Loren McClenachan, Colby's Elizabeth and Lee Ainslie Associate Professor of Environmental Studies, and by partners at the Maine Division of Marine Resources and Marine Ocean Training & Technology LLC. On-campus work is currently supported by the Colby College Mule Works Innovation Lab, Assistant Professor of Computer Science Stacy Doore’s INSITE Lab, and students Chloe Shader ’24, Michelle Phan ’25, and Izge Bayyurt ’22.

Political Science Quarterly published a new paper led by Nick Jacobs, assistant professor of government. In the article, "State Building in Crisis Governance: Donald Trump and COVID-19," Jacobs details how, under cover of the pandemic and the powers it has bestowed, the Trump administration advanced the most controversial features of its Make America Great program. It sheds new light on how an emergent form of presidential partisanship weakened institutions that traditionally shared responsibility for emergency management, such as Congress and the states. Trump’s emergency actions will therefore leave a lasting imprint—if not redefine—politics and government in the United States.