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Upcoming Events
February 5, 2018
Lunch Colloquium
Sidney Perkowitz and
Eddy von Mueller
February 19, 2018 Lunch Colloquium Dwight A. McBride
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find out about a travel destination or find other EUEC members who would like to travel with you, send an email to:
Find other members to get together for shared interests, whether it is forming a book club or a photography club, or getting together to take a hike. Send email to the following link to contact member who would like the same activity!
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This issue of our newsletter is sent to members and friends of the Emory University Emeritus College (EUEC). I hope the newsletter will help keep you informed about our activities and help you feel connected with our members throughout the U.S. On the left are links to our website and links to contact either me or the EUEC office.
With best wishes,
Gray
Gray F. Crouse Director, EUEC
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 Message from the Director
There are three Frankenstein events on campus in this next week! EUEC Member Sidney Perkowitz and Eddy von Mueller will be doing a book signing at the bookstore on Wednesday and then will give our Lunch Colloquium next Monday. If that is not enough Frankenstein for you, there is also a talk tomorrow by Kimberly Wallace-Sanders. You can read about all three activities below. I anticipate that there will be a lot of demand for the Lunch Colloquium, so please be sure to register. We will try to accommodate as many people as we can, but we can only fit in so many chairs in the room.
Our Lunch Colloquiums got off to a great start with the presentations last week by Jessica Thompson and Kendra Ann Sirak. If you missed it, or would like a review, thanks to Marianne Skeen you can read about it below. A recording of it will also be posted on our website soon. I am behind in posting the recordings of our last few Lunch Colloquiums because of some technical problems. There are some processing steps involved in taking the raw recordings of our Lunch Colloquiums and getting them on YouTube, and one of the steps was causing a significant loss in quality. I think the problem is now mostly solved; if any of you are video file experts, I would appreciate a consultation!
Below there is also a link to the latest newsletter from AROHE, which has a lot of promotional information about our upcoming Conference. It is always a pleasure as well to welcome new members.
I am very grateful to John Bugge, Herb Benario, and Gretchen Schulz for help with proofing and editing.
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New Members
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AROHE Matters January Issue
AROHE Matters is the newsletter of the national AROHE organization. The January issue has just been published and has extensive information on next fall's national conference, which EUEC is hosting. In addition, there is information from several emeritus colleges in the U.S., all of whom will have representatives at the Conference. The AROHE Matters issue can be read by clicking here.
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Faculty Activities
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If you want more Frankenstein than that provided in our Lunch Colloquium next Monday, and by Sidney and Eddy's book signing this Wednesday (see Faculty Activities), you might be interested in this event tomorrow (Tuesday, January 30):
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Walking the Campus with Dianne
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Lunch Colloquium February 5
Frankenstein: How A Monster Became an Icon
Sidney Perkowitz, Candler Professor of Physics Emeritus, and Eddy von Mueller, Former Senior Lecturer, Department of Film and Media Studies In the new book that shares the title of their presentation today, Sidney and Eddy have brought together scholars, scientists, artists, and directors (including Mel Brooks) to celebrate the bicentenary of Mary Shelley's marvelous creation and its indelible impact on art and culture. And given that the two hundred years since the novel's publication have brought scientists closer to actually doing now what Shelley's scientist supposedly did then, consideration of the ethical issues involved in the creation of life such as the novel prompts has never been more timely. It's no wonder Emory itself has declared this "the year of Frankenstein." And this Colloquium is our way to honor that designation. About Sidney Perkowitz Sidney Perkowitz is that rare blend of scientist and artist--a whole-brain thinker. As the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Physics at Emory University, he pursued research on the properties of matter and has produced more than 100 scientific papers and books. He has been funded by most major governmental agencies and has served as a consultant to industry and to the US and foreign governments. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1990, Sidney's interests turned to presenting science to non-scientists via books and articles, the media, lectures, museum exhibits, and stage works. His popular science books Empire of Light, Universal Foam, and Digital People have been translated into six languages and Braille. His book Hollywood Science was published in Fall 2007, and his latest volume, Slow Light: Invisibility, Teleportation, and Other Mysteries of Light, was published in 2011. [He spoke at an EUEC Colloquium on the subjects of that volume at the time.] Sidney has also written for The Sciences, Technology Review, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, Encyclopedia Britannica, and others. Media appearances and lectures include CNN, NPR, the BBC, and other European radio and TV, the Smithsonian Institution, the Tribeca Film Festival, and the NASA Space Flight Center, among others. He is the author of the performance-dance piece Albert and Isadora and the plays Friedmann's Balloon and Glory Enough, all produced on stage. He recently completed his first screenplay. Sidney Perkowitz was born in Brooklyn, NY, and was educated at Polytechnic University, New York, and the University of Pennsylvania. About Eddy von Mueller Eddy received an undergraduate degree from the University of Colorado in Denver and a PhD in Liberal Arts from Emory in 2006. He was a Visiting Instructor at Georgia State from 1998 to 2006 and a Lecturer in Filmmaking and Film & Media Studies at Emory from 2007 to 2011 and a Lecturer in Film and Television Studies and filmmaker at Emory from 2007 to 2017. During his time at Emory, he states "I taught a variety of courses in both film and video production and film and media studies. Administratively, I co-founded and helped develop and supervise the Film and Media Management Concentration, a groundbreaking program providing pre-professional training for business and film students interested in pursuing careers in the motion picture, television, and media industries."
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Lunch Colloquium January 22
The Vanished People of Northern Malawi: Ancient DNA and Hunter-Gatherer Lifeways in Prehistoric Africa
Jessica Thompson, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, and Kendra Ann Sirak, PhD Candidate, Department of Anthropology How did hunter-gatherers in south central Africa live? How did environmental fluctuations influence cultural behavior? Are there any remnants of these ancient hunter-gatherer populations in current populations? And what's up with all the ostrich-egg shell fragments found in ancient sites in this area where ostriches no longer live--and perhaps never did??? We were treated to an overview of these issues by Assistant Professor of Anthropology Jessica Thompson and Kendra Sirak, who is finishing her PhD work in Anthropology. Their enthusiasm for their work is truly infectious. They are doing fieldwork in Malawi, a small country in southeastern Africa that lies south of the more extensively studied archeological areas in Tanzania and Kenya and north of such archeological study areas in South Africa. Although a site on Mt. Hora in Malawi was excavated by J. Desmond Clark in 1950, yielding two human skeletons, techniques for dating the skeletal material were not available at the time and little more was done in the area. Interestingly, Clark is Jessica's academic "grandfather," having served as mentor to her PhD advisor. Clark made several predictions based on his limited ability to analyze his material at the time, but they are largely being validated by current work. The skeletons that Clark discovered have now been dated to about 8100 years ago, the oldest found in Africa. Malawi provides fertile ground for newer studies with modern techniques, and Jessica and her team are finding new sites to excavate and new bones to analyze.
Techniques have evolved both in fieldwork and in subsequent laboratory analysis. Digging procedures are less intrusive and more refined, sieves are finer, and more undergraduate labor can be recruited to sort through material captured in the sieves. In the lab, carbon dating can establish the age of artifacts, pollen analysis can provide insight into vegetation changes, differing oxygen isotopes can indicate wet and dry conditions, and strontium isotopes found in teeth and shells can help indicate whether these items were from local areas or arrived through migration or trade. J essica and her team are using these modern techniques at the Mt. Hora site, as well as at newer excavation areas in Malawi, to examine how hunter-gathers lived in these environments, how environmental changes such as droughts and vegetation changes affected population movements, and whether artifacts that they find are from local sources or from interactions with other human populations. This is where the ostriches come in. They no longer live in Malawi, but ostrich shell fragments have been found in multiple excavation sites and at different depths. Were the birds once part of the ecosystem or were their shells traded? Ostrich shells are still used in local populations as vessels, so they may have been trade items in the distant past. Human teeth can also be examined for strontium isotopes that can indicate geographic regions where people originated. Kendra's PhD research focuses on ancient DNA analysis with the objective of reconstructing African population structure prior to the introduction of food production. Ancient DNA is a hot topic these days, but Kendra talked about some of the challenges in this field. Much of the DNA from ancient sites has already degraded. It's also important to guard against even minor contamination from modern sources. She has developed techniques for collecting samples from petrous bone in the inner ear--which is the best source for analysis--by carefully drilling into ancient skulls without damaging the skull that is so important for other studies. She uses tools that can be bought at any hardware store and proceeds VERY carefully! Her results show that the hunter-gatherer population in Malawi was stable over about 5,000 years, but that this population was replaced when pastoralists and agriculturalists moved in; its traces can no longer be detected in the modern population of Malawi.
Although there are some hunter-gather populations remaining in areas both north and south of Malawi, none can now be found in Malawi itself. Future studies will help us to understand how they lived and interacted there in the past and what happened to them. This team from Emory is now seeking grants that will enable them to travel back for more fieldwork next summer. During last summer's season, they found more human remains and some rare rock art that usually does not persist on the unstable rock formations in the area. Such exciting finds--and such exciting conclusions as analysis of these and previous finds has substantiated--should help them win the grant support they seek.
Jessica says that she regrets that there was no time for questions at the end of the lunch talk, but that she would welcome inquiries at jessica.thompson@emory.edu. A recent article in eScienceCommons gives some additional background: http://esciencecommons.blogspot.com/2017/09/malawi-yields-oldest-known-dna-from.html
--Marianne Skeen
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New Members
New members are the lifeblood of any organization. Please make a special effort to welcome them to EUEC!
Carole L. Hahn, EdD, Charles Howard Candler Professor Emerita of Educational Studies
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Faculty Activities
Sidney Perkowitz
Candler Professor of Physics Emeritus
At the Emory Bookstore on Wednesday, January 31, 7:00 - 8:00 p.m., Sidney and Eddy will be doing a book signing and talk about their new book:
Faculty Author Event - Frankenstein
Please join us as we welcome authors Sidney Perkowitz and Eddy von Mueller. They will be discussing how Frankenstein has become an indelible part of pop culture and signing copies of their new book, Frankenstein: How A Monster Became an Icon: The Science and Enduring Allure of Mary Shelley's Creation.
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Walking the Campus with Dianne
Our last photo was correctly identified by Herbert Benario as the front window of the new section of the hospital looking out onto Clifton. The silver balls are part of an art installation titled "Zephyr" by Danielle Roney. Created in 2017, the piece is made up of over 5,300 hollow spheres and 991 cables spanning 250 ft. Roney created this beautiful art to visualize a whisper or a breath.
I've included a photo of the information board displayed in the hospital, giving you more information on the piece itself. You will also find below a couple of photos of the exterior of the new section of hospital.
I highly recommend taking a walk through this building to get a closer look at this most extraordinary work.
Where to next? Let's go outside and take a look at a small (actually not that small) detail on one of our campus buildings. The next photo was taken on a sunny day, which created lots of shadows, but I think you can still get a good look at the building "detail" in question.
Where will you find this on the Emory campus?
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Emory University Emeritus College The Luce Center
825 Houston Mill Road NE #206 Atlanta, GA 30329 |
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