Faculty Accomplishments
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Sculptor and Associate Professor of Art Bradley Borthwick has a new piece that will be included in the exhibition Antiquity & America: The Ancient Mediterranean in the United States, on view at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art March 31, 2022-Feb. 5, 2023. The exhibition "uncovers a new history of curious and related phenomenon: the intensity and passion with which Mediterranean antiquities have long been collected by Americans, and the prominent role the ancient Mediterranean has played in the history of American cultural and political life," according to the museum's website.
Associate Professor of Anthropology Winifred Tate was lead author of the newly released report "A Better Path for Maine: The Case for Decriminalizing Drugs." Cowritten with Meagan Sway from the ACLU and James Mydall from the Maine Center for Economic Policy, the report details the "enormous toll that drug laws take on our communities," both from an economic and a social perspective. In the report, Tate used research done by the Maine Drug Policy Lab, which she directs, as well as additional research. "The report illustrates the harm that criminalization does to individuals and their families and how much money the state has spent to do so," the introduction to the report states. "Our recommendations will not only help people who use drugs, but will mean wiser investments of public funds." The full report is available by clicking here.
Perry World House, the University of Pennsylvania’s hub for global affairs, has announced that Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Stacy-ann Robinson will be its 2022-23 Lightning Scholar. Since 2018 Perry World House’s Lightning Scholars Program has brought exceptional junior scholars to Penn to engage with a globally minded, interdisciplinary community of faculty, students, scholars, and policy experts. Robinson will spend her sabbatical year in residence, working on major research output. Alongside her research, she will connect with Perry World House’s diverse and vibrant community of scholars and practitioners. Already an important member of the Perry World House community, Robinson is currently a 2021-22 visiting scholar and will participate in their forthcoming Spring Colloquium on the climate crisis.
Associate Professor of German Arne Koch authored the article "The paradoxical reality of racism: German soccer and the irreversibility of multiculturalism" published in the journal Soccer & Society. The paper analyzes "three domains of German soccer and their role within debates about multiculturalism and race," and reveals that "German soccer at once presents itself as a harmonious multicultural microcosm while failing to grasp enduring challenges of racism. But it suggests also that despite claims of a failure of multiculturalism, German soccer may in fact be at the fore of showing German multiculturalism as an irrevocable, if highly contested reality."
Associate Professor of Art Marta Ameri has published the chapter "Women, Seals, and Power in Prehistoric Iran and Central Asia" in the newly published volume Gender and Status Competition in Pre-Modern Societies. This volume, published by Brepols, offers a unique exploration of how gender and status competition have intersected across different periods and places. The contributions focus on the role of women and the practice of masculinity in settings as varied as ancient Rome, China, Iran, and Arabia, medieval and early modern England, and early modern Italy, France, and Scandinavia. Ameri's chapter explores the ways in which seals buried with women at third-millennium BC sites in Iran and Central Asia can be viewed not only as markers of social status but also as evidence of women's economic power.
Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Stacy-ann Robinson has coauthored a paper titled "A new framework for rapidly assessing national adaptation policies: an application to small island developing states in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans." Published in the journal Regional Environmental Change, the paper finds that countries are mostly successful in identifying climate and climate-related vulnerabilities and linking associated risks to other national development priorities such as poverty reduction. It also finds that countries struggle with establishing and maintaining systems to review and improve adaptation interventions, which is not entirely unique to them or their circumstances.
Makaylah Cowan '22 (environmental computation major) and Julia Cantor '23 (biology major) will join Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Alison Bates and collaborators to present the results of their research, "Clean, Green, and Just? Community Perspectives on the Renewable Energy Transition in a New England City," at the Society for Applied Anthropology's annual conference in March 22-26, 2022. Their research shares the results of a study conducted in collaboration with organizations in the environmental justice community of Holyoke, Mass., (Nueva Esperanza and Neighbor to Neighbor Holyoke) and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The study centers the perspectives of community members on issues of energy access and use and on how the transition to a low-carbon renewable energy system could affect their community. Cowan and Cantor joined Bates and the research team to facilitate qualitative and ethnographic data collection in-person with low- and middle-income residents of Holyoke during summer 2021. Both students contributed substantively to the data collection and analysis as coauthors.
The highly interdisciplinary team has also been invited to share their work in Europe during 2022. This work was funded in part by Colby College Interdisciplinary Studies Division, the Colby College Department of Environmental Studies, and the Colby College Provost’s Office Summer Research Assistant program; and also through the UMass Amherst Institute for Diversity Sciences, and the UMass Amherst ELEVATE program (NSF GCR #202888).
Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Stacy-ann Robinson was quoted in the Atmos article "IPCC Report: The Climate Crisis Requires Solutions That Do It All." Robinson spoke to the global nature of the climate problem, but she emphasized the unequal impacts, especially for small island developing states. Atmos is a nonprofit biannual magazine and digital platform curated by a global ecosystem of artists, activists, and writers devoted to ecological and social justice, creative storytelling, and re-enchantment with the natural world. The article can be accessed here.
Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Stacy-ann Robinson, whose research focuses on climate change adaptation in small island developing states and on climate justice, was cited across nine chapters and one cross-chapter paper in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report that was released Feb. 28. 2022. The report covers climate impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability. Of special note is that an article Robinson coauthored with Caroline Wren '20 on human system adaptation in the Caribbean was cited in Chapter 8 (Poverty, livelihoods and sustainable development) and Chapter 17 (Decision-making options for managing risk). And another article Robinson coauthored with D'Arcy Carlson '21 on climate compatible development in practice was cited in Chapter 18 (Climate-resilient development pathways). The full report may be downloaded here.
Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Stacy-ann Robinson is one of the contributing authors to Chapter 15 (Small Islands) in Working Group II's contribution to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report that was released Feb. 28, 2022. The report focuses on climate impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability. Robinson synthesized the academic literature on adaptation limits, risk transfer mechanisms, and adaptation finance flows to small islands, particularly those in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans and the Caribbean. The chapter, which can be accessed here, expressed high confidence in the reduced habitability of small islands, their vulnerability, and loss and damage resulting from tropical cyclones and sea-level rise.