Over the past year, the research activities of humanities faculty have included many publications, grant awards, and invited presentations which have enhanced the reputation of Kent State University.
At the March 2012 meeting of the Society for History in the Federal Government, Kevin Adams (Department of History) will be awarded the James Madison Prize for his article with Khal Schneider "'Washington is a Long Way Off': The 'Round Valley War' and the Limits of Federal Power on a California Indian Reservation" in the prestigious Pacific Historical Review 80 (2011): 557-96.
Deborah R. Barnbaum (Department of Philosophy) will present “Aesthetics and Artists with Autism” as a returning featured speaker at Kanazawa University (Japan) in March 2012. Barnbaum’s book, The Ethics of Autism, is presently under contract for Japanese translation. In this work she demonstrates how autism’s unique psychological properties lead to complex, and unexpected, ethical conclusions.
In summer 2012, Susanna Fein (Department of English) will co-direct a seminar on Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales designed for American high school teachers. The seminar will be held in London and is supported by a grant ($136,555) from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
In New Essays on Phillis Wheatley, a chapter contributed by Babacar M’Baye (Department of Pan-African Studies) explores the significance of selected poems and letters of Phillis Wheatley in the history of Pan-Africanism and Puritanism. The essay relates Wheatley’s writings to the history of blacks in colonial New England in which the African poet made significant contributions.
The first English-language translation of Legends of Guatemala, prepared by Richard Kelly Washbourne (Department of Modern and Classical Language Studies), was recently published. Washbourne was awarded a $25,000 Translation Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts to prepare a critical translation of this work from the Spanish of Nobel Laureate Miguel Ángel Asturias.
Follow the links to learn more about each department's recent accomplishments: