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Michael Barton
Over the past several years, Prof. Michael Barton and his American Studies graduate students have been editing the McCormick Family papers at the Historical Society of Dauphin County in Harrisburg. Their most recent publication from this project is Citizen Extraordinaire: The Diplomatic Diaries of Vance McCormick in London and Paris, 1917-1919, With Other Documents from a High-Minded American Life (Stackpole, 2004).
Prof. Barton and his students have also developed a website for the McCormick papers, as well as two other websites for their research on Harrisburg's Old Eighth Ward (old8thward.com) and their editing of the 19th century diaries of Harrisburg attorney and anti-slavery activist Charles Rawn (rawnjournal.com).
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John Haddad
John Haddad, Assistant Professor of American Studies and Literature, is interested in the cultural contacts between China and the United States. In his recently published book, The Romance of China: Excursions to China in U.S. Culture, 1776-1876 (Columbia University Press, 2006), he examines popular ways that Americans learned about China in the 19th century: Chinese museums, trade objects, panoramas, missionary accounts, ethnographic displays of Chinese people, travelogues, and international expositions. The book can be accessed electronically at http://www.gutenberg-e.org/.
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Jen Hirt
Jen Hirt, Instructor of English, edited the book Mediums: Fact or Fiction? (Greenhaven Press, 2006). The book is aimed at high school students and is part of the Opposing Viewpoints series. The book explores the pop culture phenomena of mediums through ten different viewpoints written by ten different authors. Topics include Jon Edward of “Crossing Over” fame, the religion of spiritualism, scientific studies, cases of fraud, and even the linguistic patterns of purported mediums.
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Patricia Johnson
Patricia Johnson’s Hidden Hands: Working-Class Women and Victorian Social-Problem Fiction (Ohio University Press, 2001) examines representations of working-class women, especially British factory workers, in texts ranging from Charles Dickens’s Hard Times and Frances Hodgson Burnett’s That Lass ‘O Lowries to autobiographies by working-class women published in the twentieth century.
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Glen Mazis
Glen Mazis, Professor of Humanities and Philosophy, explores the necessary connections between human beings, animals, and the earth, as well as the “dis-eases” that occur when we deny our connectedness in Earthbodies: Rediscovering Our Planetary Senses (Albany, N. Y.: State University of New York Press, 2002).
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Troy Thomas
Troy Thomas, Associate Professor of Humanities and Art History, will publish a 59-page manuscript, “An Augustinian Interpretation of Caravaggio's Calling of St. Matthew, ” in the refereed journal Studies in Iconography in 2006. In Caravaggio’s painting (see illustration) he sees a sudden, undeserved grace received by St. Matthew from Christ, representative of an Augustinian approach by the artist. He discusses other paintings by Caravaggio and his connections with Augustinianism in the Rome of his time.
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Robin Veder
Richard Loederer, "Mirrors Advantageously Placed for Studying the Body and for Facilitating Accurate Performance of the Exercises.,"The Mensendieck System of Functional Exercises (Portland, Me.: The Southworth-Anthoensen Press, 1937) vol. 1, frontispiece.Robin Veder, Assistant Professor of Humanities and Art History/Visual Culture, is currently investigating how exercise and dance contributed to the aesthetics of modern art. This project, Embodied Modernism: American Art, Exercise, and Dance, 1880-1940, takes the philosophy, art, and influence of Arthur B. Davies -- American artist, curator of the 1913 Armory Show, collector, and collections advisor -- as the locus for exploring how philhellenic body cultures shaped artistic modernism in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Dr. Veder has been awarded a senior fellowship at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. to pursue this research in fall 2008. The Palmer Museum of Art on Penn State’s University Park campus will mount the related exhibit Breathing Motions: Figure Studies by Arthur B. Davies from February 2 through May 2, 2009.
Richard Loederer, “Mirrors Advantageously Placed for Studying the Body and and for Facilitating Accurate Performance of the Exercises.” The Mensendieck System of Functional Exercises (Portland, Me.: The Southworth-Anthoensen Press, 1937) vol. 1, frontispiece.