External Posts
Associate Professor of Music Natalie Zelensky published an article in the Musical Quarterly titled "Peaceful Coexistence: Nicolas Slonimsky’s 1962 USSR Tour and 'Outside Insider' Cold War Music Diplomacy." The article looks at why Slonimsky (1894–1995), a Russian-born American lexicographer, musicologist, and composer, traveled to the USSR "mere days after President John F. Kennedy’s announcement of the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba," Zelensky says in the article's opening. Among the most compelling reasons, Zelensky argues, was Slonimsky's participation in a "cultural exchange tour, organized and implemented by the U.S. Department of State." To understand the "complex picture" of his trip, Zelensky "examines the intersection of three distinct spheres: U.S. Cold War diplomacy, music’s role in this diplomacy, and the involvement of political exiles from the former Russian Empire in these efforts."
Associate Professor of English, Creative Writing Arisa White has won the Airlie Press Prize from Airlie Press, an Oregon-based nonprofit dedicated to "cultivating and sustaining fine contemporary poetry and to promoting poets from the Pacific Northwest—and beyond." White won the prize for her forthcoming manuscript A Trusted Spectacle in a World of Incomplete Sunshine. The manuscript, which received a book workshop grant from Colby's Humanities Division, will be published in 2027.
Catherine Besteman, the Francis F. Bartlett and Ruth K. Bartlett Professor of Anthropology, was quoted in a recent article in the Portland Press Herald titled "These Mainers are collecting and sharing stories about incarceration." The story highlights a digital archive created by Freedom & Captivity, a collective of Mainers who advocate for people impacted by the criminal legal system and incarceration. A group of those Mainers will bring the archive to life with a performance that will tour the state in November. “People who are in prisons and people who have loved ones in prisons, their voices are never really heard,” said Besteman, who has played a key role in the project over the years. “It felt very important to have this archive to bring the voices to the surface of what the experience of mass incarceration is doing to us as a society.” The archive is held at the Colby College Digital Libraries and Maine Historical Society.
Véronique Plesch, the James M. Gillespie Professor of Art, was a guest on Is It? The Art Mystery Podcast to discuss a work by 17th-century painter Georges de La Tour. Each episode of this podcast, which debuted in September 2025, considers an artwork that has divided and confounded scholars, sometimes for centuries. To solve this mystery, podcast creator and host Noah Charney ’02 brings in a guest expert on the artist in question as well as an expert in AI authentication from the Swiss firm Art Recognition who reports on the results of the AI analysis of the painting in question, which is revealed in the episode’s final part.
CNBC’s Breaking Point interviewed Assistant Professor of Economics Ben Scharadin for an article about SNAP cuts and food waste following a tumultuous week for families that rely on the benefits.
BBC Future featured comments from Amanda Gallinat, lecturer of environmental studies, for an article about why leaves change color in the fall.
Véronique Plesch, the James M. Gillespie Professor of Art, was a guest on Is It? The Art Mystery Podcast, created and hosted by Noah Charney ’02, discussing a work by a 17th-century painter. The production uses experts and artificial intelligence to answer art history mysteries.
Associate Professor and Chair of Biology Dave Angelini was interviewed on the public radio program The World for his expertise in evolutionary biology after French researchers discovered a new type of ant capable of giving birth to an entirely different species.
Assistant Professor of Education Pei Pei Liu has won an Early Career Research Award from the American Psychological Association's Division of Educational Psychology, Division 15. The award comes with grant money that will fund Liu's research project "Teachers’ Conceptual Change About Supporting Student Motivation." Liu is one of three recipients for the 2025 awards.
The Colby College Museum of Art was included in a Boston Globe article about how the work of museums throughout the Northeast continues to reveal and celebrate "the dynamic, diverse, fraught evolution of American culture." The piece highlighted the museum's Gertrude Abercrombie: The Whole World Is a Mystery retrospective, on view in Waterville through January.