Faculty Accomplishments
Leuven University Press published a book of essays co-edited by Associate Professor of Art Daniel Harkett titled Animal Modernities: Images, Objects, Histories. Co-edited with his colleague from Dartmouth, Katie Hornstein, the book is hailed as an "innovative study of animal art histories in modern art" that "challenges the traditional human-centered focus of art history and explores how modern art, visual culture, and modernity itself emerge from relationships between humans and animals." Harkett and Hornstein discussed the book on a blog interview. Other Colby contributions to the book include an essay from Laura Nüffer, assistant professor of East Asian Studies; a symposium at Colby involving all of the contributors, which served as a vital step in the writing/workshopping process; McFadden Grants that subsidized the publication; and an intersection with the "Thinking with Animals" PHIL (Public Humanistic Inquiry Labs) Nüffer and Harkett are leading.
Véronique Plesch, the James M. Gillespie Professor of Art, presented a lecture on the frescoes of the South Solon Meeting House on Aug. 17, 2025. Close to 100 people (artists and people from the art world, scholars, and the general public, both local and from out of town) attended a summer celebration to support this important landmark. Plesch, who sits on the board of the South Solon Historical Society, previously taught a course about the meeting house and oversaw the students who created its now-official website.
A work of nonfiction by Debra Spark, the Zacamy Professor of English, was published in the Cincinnati Review. Titled "Open Secret," the piece is part of a series of essays Spark has written about "life-changing coincidences and their aftermath," which allows her to explore larger social justice, moral, or philosophical issues. "Much of today’s literary nonfiction is memoir-based, exploring important topics, but this piece takes a step back and tells the story of someone else, a woman named Janet, who learns an important story herself, about her mother’s past," said the Review's Managing Editor Lisa Ampleman. "The essay unfolds with careful research and tact, with a mission to challenge what we know about each other and what we keep secret, intentionally or not."
Tanya Sheehan, the Ellerton M. and Edith K. Jetté Professor of Art, has finished 10 years as executive editor of the Smithsonian Institution's Archives of American Art Journal. The journal is the longest-running scholarly periodical dedicated to the history of art in the United States, and Sheehan has been the driving force behind its transformation into a first-rank research periodical. "She cultivated and strategically leveraged an enviable professional network, reaching out each year to hundreds of scholars across related fields and disciplines to identify and solicit contributions," said Liza Kirwin, interim director of the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives. "Tanya also redefined the structure of the journal by introducing new sections for shorter, commissioned contributions from artists and curators. These additions brought fresh voices and diverse perspectives, broadening the journal’s reach and appeal." The journal has also won several design awards during Sheehan's time as editor.
The summer 2025 issue of the Maine Arts Journal is out with contributions from Professor of Art Véronique Plesch. In this issue, with the theme of Encounters, she wrote the introduction along with her "Art Historical Musings" column with an essay titled "Encounters Across Time." The essay, dedicated to Janet Hansen '75 and Bruce Drouin '74, discusses three paintings in the Colby College Museum of Art. Plesch was delighted to invite her Colby colleague Christopher T. Richards, visiting professor of art, to contribute an article, "Encounter: Man Mirror, Medieval Modern," in which Richards writes about works in the Colby Museum.
Professor of Art Véronique Plesch juried and curated the annual Regional Artists: An Open, Juried Show organized by the Ogunquit Art Association, Maine's original artist's group, established in 1928. There were 259 works submitted, and 108 were retained. The exhibition, held at the Barn Gallery, runs from Wednesday, June 25 through Saturday July 26. There will be a gala reception on Saturday, June 28 from 4 to 7 p.m., at which Plesch will offer opening remarks.
Professor of Art Véronique Plesch gave a lecture at the Norridgewock Historical Society titled “Cemeteries: Where History Is Alive," in which she considered the way cemeteries bear witness to history and what we can learn from them. Graveyards hold our memories, both personal and communal, and reveal trends in art, architecture, lettering, and how we want to be remembered. In the course of her talk, she had the occasion to discuss several graves in Norridgewock's Riverview Cemetery.
An essay by Zixiao "Max" Wang '26, titled "'We’d Stumbled Out the Door': Reclaiming Female Subjectivity in Diane Seuss's frank: sonnets," was published in the Bangalore Review. Wang, who is majoring in English with a concentration in creative writing, analyzes the Pulitzer Prize-winning poetry collection and says, "In frank: sonnets, Seuss reshapes female subjectivity through candid exploration of power dynamics, gender, and sexuality, combined with confessions of vulnerability." Wang writes in both English and French and is particularly interested in experimental forms and cross-cultural narratives.
Assistant Professor of Science, Technology, and Society Ashton Wesner published a research article in Osiris, the flagship journal of the History of Science Society. Titled “Making Sturgeon Count: Settler Colonial (De)mobilizations of Fish in the Columbia River,” the article is truly interdisciplinary and deeply critical. Wesner’s work "uses ethnographic data, hatchery archives, scientific reports, and the published testimonies of Yakama and other Indigenous fishers to reveal the relationship between settler colonial cultural and empirical practices of measuring, monitoring, and monetizing sturgeon and their movements from the late 1800s to the present,” according to the paper's abstract.
Associate Professor of Global Studies Nadia El-Shaarawi has had her first book published. Collateral Damages:
Tracing the Debts and Displacements of the Iraq War (University of California Press, 2025) "brings Iraqi stories—which have been systematically excluded from dominant Western narratives of the war—to the fore," more than 20 years after the "U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq," according to the publisher. The book draws on a decade of El-Shaarawi's fieldwork in which she "traces Iraqis' experiences of the 2003 invasion and the violence and displacement that followed."