Newsletter Volume 7 Issue 12 February 17, 2021 |
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We have two really interesting and varied talks in the next two weeks, with Oded Borowski speaking about his work on Tell Halif, site of his archaeological dig in Israel, and Stephen Crist speaking about his book on Dave Brubeck’s iconic album Time Out.
Below, we note the deaths of three of our members: Alice Benston, Mary Frances Neff, and Gene Trowbridge.
I am very grateful to Gretchen Schulz, Ann Hartle, and Marge Crouse for help with editing and proofing.
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Save the Date: Sheth Distinguished Lecture--April 26
Robert Franklin
Please scroll to read more below
Lunch Colloquium - Monday, February 22
Oded Borowski
“Sennacherib in Judah: The Archaeology of Destruction”
Please scroll to read more below
Lunch Colloquium - Tuesday, March 2
Stephen Crist
“Dave Brubeck’s Time Out: An Insider’s View of an Iconic Jazz Album”
Please scroll to read more below
Report - Lunch Colloquium - Monday, February 1
John Sitter
“What is Climate Fiction Saying? And Should We Listen?”
Please scroll to read more below
Report - Lunch Colloquium - Monday, February 8
Talea Mayo
“Water Water Everywhere: Numerical Modeling to Simulate the Impact of Climate Change on Hurricane Storm Surge”
Please scroll to read more below
New Members
Tim Bryson and Richard Patterson
Please scroll to read more below
In Memoriam
Alice Benston, Mary Frances Neff, Gene Trowbridge
Please scroll to read more below
Walking the Campus with Dianne
Please scroll to read more below
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Save the Date: Sheth Distinguished Lecture - April 26, 2021 |
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We are extremely pleased to announce that this year's Sheth Distinguished Lecture will be given by Dr. Robert Michael Franklin, Jr., who is the James T. and Berta R. Laney Professor of Moral Leadership at Emory University. Now in his second term at Emory, Franklin is a former Presidential Distinguished Professor of Social Ethics and a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion, both at Emory, and was also the founding director of Candler’s Black Church Studies program from 1989 to 1995.
In addition to his role at Candler, which he began in 2014, Franklin is a senior advisor to the Emory University president, as well as for Community and Diversity at Emory. He was director of the religion department at The Chautauqua Institution from 2014-2017, president of Morehouse College from 2007-2012, and president of the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta from 1997-2002. In 2016, Franklin was named to the Human Rights Campaign’s project council on expanding LGBTQ equality and inclusion efforts at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. He is on the board of Demos and on the Council of Past HBCU Presidents, and a member of several professional organizations, including the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Christian Ethics.
Dr. Franklin earned the master of divinity degree in Christian social ethics and pastoral care in 1978 at the Harvard Divinity School, where he also served as assistant director of Ministry Education. He continued his education at the University of Chicago, earning a doctorate in ethics and society, and religion and the social sciences in 1985. He also undertook international study at the University of Durham, UK, as a 1973 English Speaking Union Scholar. His major fields of study include social ethics, psychology, and African American religion. An insightful educator, Dr. Franklin has served on the faculties of the University of Chicago, Harvard Divinity School, and Colgate-Rochester Divinity School as well as at Emory University's Candler School of Theology. He has received honorary degrees from Bates College, Swarthmore College, Bethune-Cookman University, Centre College, the University of New England, and Hampden-Sydney College.
The Sheth Lecture is made possible by a generous donation from Dr. Jagdish and Mrs. Madhu Sheth.
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Lunch Colloquium - Monday, February 22, 2021 |
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“Sennacherib in Judah: The Archaeology of Destruction”
Oded Borowski
Professor Emeritus of Biblical Archaeology and Hebrew
Zoom Meeting
11:30 am - 1:00 pm
In 701 BCE, King Sennacherib of Assyria attacked the Kingdom of Judah, an event documented in the Bible, in Assyrian literary and artistic sources, and even mentioned by Herodotus. Sennacherib besieged, but did not conquer, Jerusalem; he conquered Lachish, the second most important city in Judah; he claimed to have destroyed 46 towns and villages; he put down the rebellion in all the member countries of the coalition as far as Cyprus; he took away land belonging to Judah and gave it to its neighbors. The widespread destruction left many materials for archaeologists to study and reconstruct what daily life was like in the 8th century BCE. Oded Borowski’s recent archaeological activity has focused on Tell Halif, one of the sites destroyed by Sennacherib. With the completion of the fieldwork he and his staff have been doing, the staff, supported in part by Emory’s Heilbrun and Bianchi/Bugge grants, is busily analyzing the finds, preparing for final publication. Oded’s presentation will briefly touch on the site, its history, the finds, and the work presently being conducted.
About Oded Borowski:
Born in Palestine in 1939, Oded Borowski was a member of Kibbutz Lahav, in the northeastern Negev. While at Lahav, he was engaged in agriculture, growing field crops and fruit trees, and herding sheep and cattle. During that time, Dr. Borowski studied at the Absalom Institute for Homeland Studies in Tel Aviv, an institute dedicated to the study of all aspects of the land including geology, botany, archaeology, history and culture, among other things.
Dr. Borowski continued his studies in Detroit where he received a BHL (Bachelors of Hebrew Letters) from the Midrasha/College of Jewish Studies, and a BA in Anthropology and History from Wayne State University. He received his MA/PHD in Near Eastern Studies from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. His dissertation, which became his first book, deals with agriculture during the Iron Age in Israel.
Dr. Borowski has participated in archaeological excavations since the early 1970s (Gezer, Dan, Ashkelon, Beth Shemesh), and in 1976 helped initiate the Lahav Research Project that is still engaged in excavations and surveys in Tell Halif and its environs. Presently, Dr. Borowski continues to direct the Project and, supported in part by Emory’s Heilbrun and Bianchi/Bugge grants, he and his staff are now analyzing finds and preparing for a final publication, on Phase IV of the Project. Among his most highly regarded earlier publications are Agriculture in Iron Age Israel (1987), Every Living Thing: Daily Use of Animals in Ancient Israel (1998), Daily Life in Biblical Times (2003), and Lahav III: The Iron Age II Cemetery at Tell Halif, Site 72 (2013).
Upon arrival at Emory in 1977, Dr. Borowski joined the Romance Languages Department, where he founded both the Hebrew and Arabic language programs. In 1988 under his direction, Emory created a new department named Near Eastern Studies, which today is Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies (MESAS). Before his retirement in 2018, Dr. Borowski taught classes on the undergraduate and graduate level. His courses included Archaeology and the Bible, Daily Life in Ancient Israel, Archaeology of Jerusalem, Exodus from Egypt and Settlement of Canaan, and Ancient Israel’s Neighbors. In March of 2018, Dr. Borowski’s MESAS colleagues honored him with a special retirement celebration to recognize his accomplishments and to express appreciation for his service at Emory for more than 40 years.
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Lunch Colloquium - Tuesday, March 2, 2021 |
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“Dave Brubeck’s Time Out: An Insider’s View of an Iconic Jazz Album”
Stephen Crist
Professor of Music History, Chair, Department of Music
Zoom Meeting
11:30 am - 1:00 pm
In his newest book, Dave Brubeck’s Time Out, Stephen Crist draws on nearly fifteen years of archival research to offer the most thorough examination to date of this seminal jazz album. Supplementing his research with interviews with key individuals, including Brubeck's widow Iola and daughter Catherine, as well as interviews conducted with Brubeck himself prior to his passing in 2012, Crist paints a complete picture of the album's origins, creation, and legacy. Couching careful analysis of each of the album's seven tracks within historical and cultural contexts, he offers fascinating insights into the composition and development of some of the album's best-known tunes. From Brubeck's 1958 State Department-sponsored tour, during which he first encountered the Turkish aksak rhythms that would form the basis of "Blue Rondo à la Turk," to the backstage jam session that planted the seeds for "Take Five," Crist sheds an exciting new light on one of the most significant albums in jazz history.
About Stephen Crist:
Stephen Crist works largely in European music of the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries, with additional interests in hymnody and jazz. His most recent book on Dave Brubeck’s iconic Time Out album was published by Oxford University Press in 2019. Earlier, he served as contributing editor of Bach in America (University of Illinois Press) and contributing coeditor of Historical Musicology: Sources, Methods, Interpretations (University of Rochester Press). Recent papers include work on the vocal music of J. S. Bach; the music of two of Bach’s most famous students, Johann Ludwig Krebs and Lorenz Mizler; the origins and reception of Lutheran hymnody; and jazz, especially Brubeck and Miles Davis. His publications have appeared in many books and journals, including The Cambridge Companion to Bach, Exploring Christian Song, Bach (the Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute), Bach Perspectives, Notes (the Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association), Understanding Bach, and the Journal of Musicology. He also contributed the entry on “Johann Sebastian Bach” for Oxford Bibliographies Online: Music. He was a Senior Fellow at the Bill and Carol Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry and is a member of the Associated Faculty at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion. He is past president of the American Bach Society and of the Society for Christian Scholarship in Music. He previously served two terms as chair of Emory’s Music Department, and as director of graduate studies; he again assumed the position of chair of the Department in 2020. Dr. Crist received his PhD (in music history) from Brandeis University, after an MM (in music theory) from the University of South Florida and a BA (in English and American literature and language) from Harvard University.
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Lunch Colloquium Report - Monday, February 1, 2021 |
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“What is Climate Fiction Saying? And Should We Listen?”
John Sitter
Charles Howard Candler Professor of English Emeritus, Emory University, Mary Lee Duda Professor of Literature Emeritus, University of Notre Dame
On February 1, John Sitter treated the 70-plus who attended our Zoom Colloquium to a fascinating talk on climate fiction, or “cli-fi,” a twenty-first century, anthropogenic subgenre of environmental literature. In a PowerPoint presentation, he provided a formidable list of such novels, all published between 2000 and 2020, as well as a subset of this list he would address separately. He laid the groundwork for his talk with a nod to economist Robert Heilbroner’s 1995 book (nonfiction), Visions of the Future: The Distant Past, Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. Heilbroner maintains that humans living in the distant past (prehistory to the 17th century) thought of the future as “changeless,” whereas those living “yesterday” (1700-1950) anticipated a “progressive” future. Today, he writes, humans are “apprehensive” about the destruction spawned by capitalism and unbridled growth. “Tomorrow,” he contends, humans must face this challenge with renewed resolve and openness to new ideas, such as transforming capitalism into a force for collective good. John suggested that climate fiction might help us face the challenge Heilbroner describes.
John’s discussion moved then to some general characteristics of the subset of cli-fi novels he had chosen to focus upon. Their authors’ central challenge is to entertain as “good reads” must while providing sufficient exposition for readers without the scientific background to understand climate change and its effects—hence the inclusion of at least one scientist among the characters. While a climatologist per se may not be in evidence, glaciologists, entomologists, dendrologists, and climate biologists do appear. They don’t deliver scientific lectures, however; the focus is on the changes in relatable human reality wrought by climate change. Scientists may have “a moral obligation to warn humanity of any catastrophic threat,” as the authors of “World Scientists Warning of a Climate Emergency” wrote in 2019, but climate fiction must be more nuanced and more un-put-downable than more ostensibly scholarly work would be.
We also learned that a common theme in cli-fi is “eco loss” or “eco grief” (“solastalgia”). In his novel Gun Island, for example, Amitav Ghosh depicts both the natural devastation of Indian coastal areas by rising seas and the subsequent physical and cultural dislocation of the region’s climate refugees. In Flight Behavior, Barbara Kingsolver critiques the media’s role in propagating ignorance and reinforcing resistance to belief in climate change when 15 million monarch butterflies arrive to winter in rural Tennessee rather than in Mexico and face possible extinction. And in what John described as the most ambitious and artistically complex cli-fi novel to date, Richard Powers’ The Overstory, nine distinct protagonists become climate activists as they experience the transcendent power of trees threatened by human actions and seeking to save themselves.
Cli-fi dystopias also address the negative impact of globalization, political inefficacy, and social breakdown on efforts to stem climate change, or merely survive in its wake. In Jenny Offill’s Weather characters wrestle with the challenges of everyday living as environmental apocalypse looms. In Paolo Bacigalupi’s novel The Water Knife, the federal government has become a “polite fiction”; states in the American West compete over dwindling water supplies, and water wars are imminent. In Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway’s novel The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future, set in 2393, scientists and policymakers have failed to prevent climate apocalypse, triggering mass migration and other catastrophic events across the planet.
Climate dystopias rankle New Yorker contributor Jill Lepore, who in a 2017 article complained about the genre’s hopelessness and indulgence of resentments and argued that writing a dystopian novel requires no moral imagination. John took issue with this stance. Cli-fi novels do reflect our current anxiety about climate change, realistically presenting its shattering potential. (John cited Clarissa, Robinson Crusoe, and Tom Jones as evidence that since the novel’s eighteenth-century inception, the realistic portrayal of human experience has been central.) And as John’s PowerPoint demonstrated, a clear correlation exists between socio-economic trends (e.g., population explosion) and ominous earth system trends (e.g., the rapid rise of atmospheric CO2). Yet climate fiction, even at its most dystopian, doesn’t deny the possibility of positive, human-generated change. Cli-fi authors may not embrace Franklin Roosevelt’s mid-20th-century view that the vagaries of human experience mask civilization’s linear progress, but neither are they seeking to make a reader feel hopeless. John would respond to the question “Why is cli-fi so negative?” with three points. First, cli-fi writers are responsible for witnessing, not solving, the climate crisis—i.e., simply making it plausible for readers. Second, they present climate change as a predicament, difficult to solve, but not unsolvable. Third, dystopian futures are not self-fulfilling prophecies; they depict “apotropaic” apocalypses, making projections meant to inform, not paralyze, the reader—projections that may have the power to avert evil outcomes (which, FYI, is what the “apotropaic” can do) by influencing readers to act to do just that.
Citing eighteenth-century writers like Jonathan Swift and William Blake, subjects of much of his scholarly life, John mused in closing that the contemporary cli-fi authors he also studies (and teaches, most recently in an ILA course on Foundations of Sustainability) are neither fortune tellers nor arbiters of the future; their “honest indignation” at the human causes of climate change emerges subtly. Unlike its nonfiction counterparts, often given to unsubtle sermonizing, climate fiction offers simulations and speculations, enticing us into imaginative engagement, tapping into our natural capacity for “futurizing,” and (not so incidentally) raising our consciousness of the power of sustainability. More power to cli-fi.
--Liza Davis
Should anyone wish to read some of the novels on John’s list of significant works of climate fiction, here is that list:
2000 T. C. Boyle, Friend of the Earth
2003 Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake
2004 Amitav Ghosh, The Hungry Tide
Kim Stanley Robinson, Forty Signs of Rain
2005 Robinson, Fifty Degrees Below Zero
2007 Robinson, Sixty Days and Counting
2009 Atwood, The Year of the Flood
Paolo Bacigalupi, The Windup Girl
2010 Ian McEwan, Solar
2011 Boyle, When the Killing’s Done
2012 Barbara Kingsolver, Flight Behavior
2013 Nathaniel Rich, Odds against Tomorrow
2014 Chang-rae Lee, On Such a Full Sea
Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven
2015 Bacigalupi, The Water Knife
2017 Ashley Shelby, South-Pole Station
James Bradley, Clade
Omar El Akkad, American War
Megan Hunter, The End We Start From
Maja Lunde, History of Bees
Robinson, New York 2140
2018 Richard Powers, The Overstory
2019 John Lanchester, The Wall
Ghosh, Gun Island
2020 Jenny Offill, Weather
Lydia Millet, A Children's Bible
Lunde, The End of the Ocean
Robinson, The Ministry of the Future
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Lunch Colloquium Report - Monday, February 8, 2021 |
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“Water Water Everywhere: Numerical Modeling to Simulate the Impact of Climate Change on Hurricane Storm Surge”
Talea Mayo
Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics
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On Monday, February 8th, our February colloquiums stormed in with the outstanding talk delivered by Dr. Talea Mayo, a new member of the Mathematics Department at Emory. Dr. Mayo is a computational mathematician with expertise in the development and application of hydrodynamic models for coastal hazards. Her talk was titled "Climate Change Impacts on Hurricane Storm Surge Risk."
Dr. Mayo began by outlining the dangers of hurricane storm surge. The interaction of wind and water can be devastating. More than 40% of the US population lives in coastal counties. This number is expected to increase by more than 50% by 2050. Thus, a major part of the population, along with more and more structures and natural areas, is at risk from storms.
A storm surge is the height of water above the normal flow of tides. For example, Katrina caused maximum surges of 27.8 feet. This massive surge swamped the city of New Orleans, causing massive damage and loss of life. Besides the risk to life and property, increases to coastal erosion and other damage to the environment are certainly possible.
Dr. Mayo explained the hydrodynamic model, based on partial differential equations. She also explained how the data for the model are gathered. Two somewhat different models were explained. Both used data from numerous finite regions where accurate measurements are possible to feed the models.
Dr. Mayo then went into ways to prepare for increases in surge through risk assessment and long-term planning. Resilience measures include natural ones such as wet areas, natural-based measures such as man made dunes or sediment based levies, structural measures such as walls as well as raised structures, and nonstructural measures such as forcing people to move away from the coast.
She also explained exactly what is meant by a “500-year storm.” This does not mean that such a storm will occur only once in 500 years. It actually means that the probability of a storm of that intensity occurring in any one year is 1/500. Unfortunately, storms of this intensity seem to be increasing. Climate change is tied to this increase.
Statistical methods are used to determine risk from such storms. Estimates of the maximum height of a surge are determined based on the intensity of the storm and the area to be affected. The probability of exceeding that height is also determined. Dr. Mayo then began to describe how climate change affects the outcomes of such risk analysis. With a beautiful series of charts, she showed increases in intensity and in the expected surge levels. Such charts allow consideration of the expected variations based on climate change measurements. This includes noting the subsequent rise in storm surge levels.
One outcome shown was that a 100-year flood level that is expected to create a 3.3 meter surge would increase to create a 3.7 meter surge and that such a storm would happen with increasing probability. The 100-year flood would become a 57-year flood, and eventually a 29-year flood with a 4.3 meter surge level. And the probability of a storm at that frightening level is increasing over time because of climate change, sea level rise, and continuing intensification of such storms.
Unfortunately, there is not enough historical data to rely upon for statistical predictions to be accurate. So synthetic data have been developed, generated by models to supplement historical data. Here thousands of storms can be simulated for study. Once sufficient data have been produced, statistical techniques can be used with confidence. Dr. Mayo’s modeling includes expected sea level rise along with storm surge changes to determine new projected levels of surge. The effects on particular areas of interest can also be studied via these methods.
Projections have been carried out for the rest of the century. Deterministic risk analysis has shown the increases in flood areas expected by the end of the century. For example, data for the Houston area show major increases in surge and in the size of the area affected are to be expected.
In general, we can expect storm surge damage to increase in frequency and intensity, and to impact wider areas. Coastal structures and population will be at ever higher risk, with the level of that risk increasing throughout the century. Anyone who lives on the coast, or perhaps has a second home there, has a problem! And again, as Dr. Mayo noted at the start of this cautionary talk about her cautionary work, it’s already true that more than 40% of us do live in coastal communities, with more moving into those threatened areas every year.
--Ron Gould
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New members are the lifeblood of any organization.
Please make a special effort to welcome them to EUEC!
Tim Bryson, PhD, Subject Librarian for South Asian and Religious Studies at Woodruff Library, retired
My senior year in Lexington (Massachusetts) high school, a teacher offered a class on "Far Eastern" culture. A photograph from a book called "Religions of Man" by the MIT Prof. Huston Smith of a Buddhist monk smiling calmly in meditation captured my imagination. I wanted that monk's smile and that calm. Somehow I got admitted to Harvard where I took courses in anything related to Buddhist philosophy and culture, including Japanese language.
There was no course in Buddhist practices like meditation. But the brilliant Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa visited Harvard for a couple hours, and I was inspired. I tried meditation on my own in fall 1969 and the next spring an art history grad student introduced me to a Japanese Zen teacher who happened to be in Cambridge. The Zenji agreed to teach me meditation. After graduation I became one of his students. We went to Japan to learn in a traditional setting. After a couple years I burnt out from what's commonly diagnosed nowadays in Buddhist circles as excessive striving.
Eventually, I decided I was ready to re-enter the "real world" as an academic. I put together a PhD on the assimilation of Indian religion to the modern West at the University of Chicago where I also picked up some Bengali language for my research. Afterwards, I spent several years unsuccessfully trying to balance my contemplative practice with the demands of academic administration and teaching. I eventually found a more sustainable balance as the first South Asian and Religious Studies librarian at Emory. It was in that capacity that I was able to take a couple years of Hindi, then a couple years of Tibetan language so that I could support those programs assigned to me. That included support for language programs in Sanskrit, Hindi, and Tibetan. For a few of those earlier years I also was an instructor in the Religion Department. In the library I chaired the Digital Librarian Initiative and founded the mindfulness program. For the broader campus, I chaired the University Senate’s Committee on the Environment and oversaw the design of the initial website for that committee. Along the same lines I was a member of the Friends of Emory Forest, organized ivy pulls, and chaired the ad hoc committee to name Emory's perennial streams. More on the fringes, I ran an Emory Cyclists listserv until Bike Emory took over. I'm proud to have been able to build up the library collections from scratch. But I think I enjoyed the language study more than almost anything else. In retirement, I've begun learning Pali, the ancient language of the early Buddhist texts, as well as trying to recover my high school French. I wish I could say I was fluent in many languages, but I've taken too many to be fluent in any of them really.
*****
Richard Patterson, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Ancient Mediterranean Studies
From his emeritus appointment letter:
The university was fortunate to recruit you in 1984. Working primarily in ancient philosophy, you have influenced the future of the field both in the classroom and through publications including Image and Reality in Plato's Metaphysics, which remains a major contribution to Plato scholarship, and through a series of articles in cognitive science. In addition, you served the university as a founding member of the Ancient Mediterranean Studies program and as director of its predecessor, Classical Studies. You further enhanced our campus environment as a founder of the Emory Chamber Players, bringing a lifelong love of the cello to performances at numerous events over the years.
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Alice N. Benston, PhD, Professor Emerita of Theater Studies and Comparative Literature
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Professor Michael Evenden prepared these remarks:
Alice N. Benston, former Associate Dean of the Laney Graduate School and Professor of Theater Studies, has died after a short illness in her Manhattan home on Friday, January 29, 2021. She was 89.
Beloved of colleagues and students, many of whom she kept in close friendship for decades, Dr. Benston was treasured for her broad education, wide-ranging curiosity, and love of art of all kinds. An enthusiastic and influential teacher, she was also a gifted and productive administrator who leaves a lasting influence at Emory.
Raised in New York and educated at Queens College, Alice Benston earned at Emory a Master’s Degree in English (1958) and, through the Institute of Liberal Arts, a PhD in Comparative Literature (1962). She then served on the faculties of Northwestern University (the first female tenured there since 1870), the University of Chicago, the Eastman School of Music, and the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Rochester (where she created the Susan B. Anthony Chair in Women’s Studies), a career highlighted by creative invention and problem-solving in a wide range of administrative roles.
In 1987, she returned to Emory with her husband, Dr. George J. Benston (John H. Harland Professor of Finance, Goizueta Business School), as Associate Dean of the Laney Graduate School, where she provided the founding vision of the Henry L. Luce Seminars and the Graduate School’s innovative program for Teaching Assistant Training and Teaching Opportunity (TATTO). She was an instrumental advocate for the highly-honored Letters of Samuel Beckett, also affiliated with the Graduate School. She taught courses in Theater and in Women’s Studies, and chaired the Department of Theater and Film from 1988-1996, during which time she built the fledgling Theater Studies into an independent department, adding faculty lines and winning resources and support for the establishment of Theater Emory’s distinctive Playwriting Center, and later the Sister City Playwrights, a cross-national support system for new plays. Continuing as a Professor of Theater Studies, Alice taught memorable courses, including rigorous co-taught seminars on Shakespeare, Ibsen, and Chekhov. Students and colleagues treasure memories of end-of-semester dinners at the Benstons’ beautiful home and her animated, respectful conversations there with her students. She received the Cuttino Award in 2005, Emory’s highest teaching award, and a student-voted Crystal Apple for teaching and mentoring. Her husband established in her name the Alice N. Benston Award for academic achievement and promise in the study of dramatic literature, awarded annually to a graduating Theater Studies major. She retired in 2012, at which time her department christened a seminar room in the Rich Building in her honor.
Her published work includes essays on Shakespeare, Ibsen, Strindberg, the Theater of the Absurd, Pinter, and Beckett. Her essay “Portia, The Law, and the Tripartite Structure of The Merchant of Venice” was republished in 1991 in the Routledge Press’s prestigious “Shakespearean Criticism” series as one of the best essays ever written on that play. In addition, during her time in Atlanta, she served as a dramaturg to Theater Emory and the Georgia Shakespeare Festival, was a founding member of the High Museum’s Fine Arts Collector’s Association, and served on the Board of Directors for the Alliance Theatre and the Georgia Humanities Council.
*****
Mary Frances Neff, PhD. Professor Emerita of Mathematics
I am very grateful to David John, who obtained his PhD in 1978 with Mary Frances Neff as his advisor and is currently Professor of Computer Science at Wake Forest University, for much of the information in the following.
Mary Frances Muskoff Neff was born in 1930, in Jacksonville, Florida, and died February 3, 2021, after a long struggle with Alzheimer's disease and a short bout of Covid. She earned a BS in 1951 and an MS in 1952 both at Purdue University. She earned a PhD in mathematics in 1956 at the University of Florida with adviser R. G. Blake; her dissertation was On Lattice-Ordered Rings. At this time in history, it was exceptionally difficult for women to earn a PhD in mathematics and to be awarded permanent faculty positions.
Her husband was John David Neff, born 1926 and died 1998. Both Mary Frances and John earned their PhDs in mathematics in 1956 at the University of Florida. They were married on September 27, 1952, in Jacksonville, FL. In March of 1956, John was contacted by Herman Fulmer, the acting head of the Math Department at Georgia Tech, about a possible position there, but later that month was again contacted with the news that Fulmer had run out of funds. John Neff accepted a research position at Bell Labs and within a couple of years, a faculty position at Case Institute of Technology. Mary Frances Neff took a position at John Carroll University and was the first female faculty member there, ten years before John Carroll went coed. In 1961, Georgia Tech recruited John, and Mary Frances accepted a faculty position at Emory. She retired at the end of August in 1999.
During the 1970s and 1980s, she was the Program Director of the NSF Summer Program for High Ability Secondary School Students. Each summer, she recruited Atlanta area high school students with high abilities and potential in mathematics to participate in a summer program housed in the Department of Mathematics at Emory. Mathematics colleagues and graduate students mentored these students. It was a rewarding experience for students and mentors alike. Ultimately, this program was very successful in bringing excellent mathematics students to both the Emory mathematics’ undergraduate and graduate programs. This program was a precursor to the modern NSF REU program. Michelangelo Grigni, Associate Professor of Computer Science at Emory, recalls that he applied to Emory because he went through her high school program, where she taught him about finite groups, and remembers her fondly.
Mentoring students, in and out of the classroom, was her constant passion. Over her Emory years, she taught and advised many mathematics students. She loved sharing her excitement for mathematics. Numerous master’s students and a PhD student were guided and encouraged by her in their research of various facets of algebra, primarily lattice theory and universal algebra.
The Mathematical Association of America was one of her professional passions. She was very involved with this professional organization, both regionally and nationally. She was elected and served as the Southeast Section Chairman in 1982. In 1987, she was honored by the MAA as the Southeast Region Section Lecturer. She was instrumental in the establishment in 1992 of the MAA Trevor Evans Award to honor authors in Math Horizons.
Mary Frances, known affectionately as “MF” by friends, colleagues, and students, was an avid gardener. Her outside and inside plants received much attention. Her outside Atlanta garden mirrored her Florida childhood surroundings.
MF and John loved to travel. Each summer they spent about a month in Europe, with a significant amount of that time in Switzerland. Each year, some lucky graduate student was invited to house sit, maid service included, and baby sit their much beloved jumbo-sized poodles.
*****
Clarence Gene Trowbridge, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry
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Clarence Gene Trowbridge was born September 14, 1930 and died December 11, 2020 at age 90 at his home where he and his late wife, Nancy, raised their children, Scott (Jane), Sue (Bob) and Sarah (Craig). He is survived by his twin brother, Glenn (Ann) and sister, Alice (Don) and his granddaughter, Maria (Jason) and grandson, Eric (Courtney). He was a loving father, a consummate scientist and a pillar of strength in our family.
EUEC Member Fred Menger commented "I am so sorry to hear of the passing of Gene Trowbridge. He was an excellent teacher, a fine scientist, and a great colleague. Best of all, he treated everyone in the department fairly and kindly."
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Walking the Campus with Dianne |
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The beautiful work of art seen on our last walk isn't in the museum on campus, but close to it...the statue can be found in the entrance lobby of Michael C. Carlos Hall, which is next door to the museum.
Michael C. Carlos Hall was constructed in 1916. It was one of the first two buildings on the Atlanta campus and was home to the law school until 1972. It was renovated in 1985 to house the Department of Art History and the museum collection. It is named in honor of philanthropist and donor of antiquities, Michael C. Carlos.
The building is beautiful inside and out and is one of my favorite places to visit on campus.
I've included a photo of the entrance lobby as well as an exterior of the building below.
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As I'm writing this, it is raining...so let's visit an indoor space that I photographed long ago before the pandemic. I have to admit, I haven't explored much in this building, but what I did see was beautiful, as the window and staircase in the photo reveal. |
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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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