Faculty Accomplishments
Debra Spark, the Zacamy Professor of English, won the Editor's Choice Award for Nonfiction from Scoundrel Time for her essay "I Think I Know You." The essay is part of a book Spark is currently working on concerning coincidence stories.
The winter 2025 issue of the Maine Arts Journal is out with contributions by Professor of Art Véronique Plesch. This issue's topic is "Stuck!" Plesch wrote the introduction along with her "Art Historical Musings" column with an essay titled "Where to Go from Here?" in which she discusses a painting in the Colby College Museum of Art collection, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's Laburnum Tree (1912). She also includes a photo of Professor of Art Gary Green leading crits with Colby's studio art seniors during the fall semester capstone course.
Debra Spark, the Zacamy Professor of English, wrote a roundup book review of several books by former Radcliffe fellows for the Radcliffe Quarterly titled "Who Is a Real Indian?" The review covers books by Rahul Bhatia, Anthony Abraham Jack, and Liz Chiarello.
Debra Spark, the Zacamy Professor of English, recently published two pieces, an essay in Rustica and another in Dwell in its series titled "How They Pulled It Off." Spark's piece is "Converting a Medieval Barn Into a Home—Without Breaking Preservation Code" and tells the story of a couple in France who make a "nearly windowless space feel like a loft while steering clear of its thick limestone walls."
Three poems by Professor of English and Creative Writing Adrian Blevins are included in the latest edition of Rustica, a journal of arts and literature rooted in western Maine. Her poem titles are "Almost Sixty," "Song," and "Post-It."
Assistant Professor of English Onnesha Roychoudhuri wrote an essay for the inaugural issue of Pencil Magazine. Her essay, "Time's Pencil," is her contribution to this new printed publication, which features images and text created entirely with graphite pencils on paper.
The lastest book of photographs by Professor of Art Gary Green, Three or Four Hills, has just been published by Dust Collective . The limited-edition book is "a meditative journey through the landscape of Assisi, Italy—renowned as a site of religious pilgrimage—captured through the eyes of photographer Gary Green," according to the publisher. "Rather than focusing on its spiritual significance, Green wandered the landscape guided by light, shadow, and weather." The book debuted at the Elm City Book Fest in Waterville Nov. 16, 2024.
Michael Burke, professor of English and creative writing, emeritus, has a new anthology out. The Art of the Myth: Maine Essays (Alameda Press, 2024) gathers 25 of his previously published nonfiction, all with Maine settings and subjects, from 35 years living in and writing about the state.
On Oct. 22, 2024, Tanya Sheehan, the Ellerton M. and Edith K. Jetté Professor of Art, delivered the Normal L. and Roselea J. Goldberg Lecture in Art History at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Vanderbilt’s Department of History of Art and Architecture has hosted prominent art historians to speak in the Goldberg Lecture series since its inception in 2001. Professor Sheehan’s lecture was titled “Public Art, Public Health: Jacob Lawrence and the Murals of Harlem Hospital.” Her research explores the significant connections between the federally funded murals painted in Harlem Hospital in the late 1930s and the images of health and medicine in Harlem created by artist Jacob Lawrence. It considers how and why a commitment to the publicness of Black care took shape more fully in Lawrence’s private images than on the walls of the municipal hospital.
Assistant Professor of Economics Sanval Nasim '08 coauthored a paper titled "Information and training helps individuals forecast and adapt to air pollution" that appeared on VoxDev, an online platform for discussion about policy issues related to development. "Air pollution causes seven million deaths each year. New evidence from Pakistan shows that improving individuals’ ability to forecast air pollution allows them to adapt better," according to the article.