The TapBrandeis initiative has been granted $25,000 by The Brandeis Sustainability Fund to install hydration stations throughout campus.
TapBrandeis started as a Greening The Ivory Tower project in Environmental Studies last semester by Alina Pokhrel, Emma Balmuth-Loris, Jamie Garuti, Jeremy Goodman, Sara Taylor. This semester the group is continuing on with the project with the help of the BSF fund to install new hydration stations and encourage a behavioral shift away from the purchase of bottled-water and towards students carrying their own refillable bottle. Another fabulous step towards making Brandeis a more sustainable campus!
February 27th, 2013
The 18th annual Tillie K Lubin Symposium will be held on Thursday, March 7th at 5pm.
“Who Owns the World?: Gender, Wealth and Inequality” will have a panel discussion featuring Srimati Basu, Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies, University of Kentucky; Mariko Chang, Independent Consultant and Author of Shortchanged; and Thomas Shapiro, Pokross Professor of Law and Social Policy, Director of the Institute on Assets and Social Policy at the Heller School.
Sponsored by Women’s and Gender Studies.
February 26th, 2013
Sharon Feiman-Nemser, Mandel Professor of Jewish Education, gave the Distinguished Educator Lecture for the Association of Teacher Educators at their annual meeting in Georgia on Feb. 2013. Her talk was on “Learning about Teacher Learning: A Personal and Scholarly Journey.”
February 26th, 2013
The Crown Center invites applications for travel, research and study grants for Brandeis undergraduate and graduate students. These grants may be used for summer travel/study or for thesis research during the academic year.
The grant may cover research expenses, study at a Middle East foreign institution, or the study of a Middle Eastern language. Any field of study may be considered if the research is related to the Middle East. The maximum grant awarded is $4,000.
Application Deadline: March 29, 2013
For more details and application information visit: http://www.brandeis.edu/crown/grants/index.html
February 25th, 2013
Brandeis Sociology Professor Sara Shostak‘s new book, Exposed Science: Genes, the Environment, and the Politics of Population Health, was published by University of California Press this month:
We rely on environmental health scientists to document the presence of chemicals where we live, work, and play and to provide an empirical basis for public policy. In the last decades of the 20th century, environmental health scientists began to shift their focus deep within the human body, and to the molecular level, in order to investigate gene-environment interactions.
In Exposed Science, Sara Shostak analyzes the rise of gene-environment interaction in the environmental health sciences and examines its consequences for how we understand and seek to protect population health. Drawing on in-depth interviews and ethnographic observation, Shostak demonstrates that what we know – and what we don’t know – about the vulnerabilities of our bodies to environmental hazards is profoundly shaped by environmental health scientists’ efforts to address the structural vulnerabilities of their field. She then takes up the political effects of this research, both from the perspective of those who seek to establish genomic technologies as a new basis for environmental regulation, and from the perspective of environmental justice activists, who are concerned that that their efforts to redress the social, political, and economical inequalities that put people at risk of environmental exposure will be undermined by molecular explanations of environmental health and illness.
Exposed Science thus offers critically important new ways of understanding and engaging with the emergence of gene-environment interaction as a focal concern of environmental health science, policy-making, and activism.
February 19th, 2013
A Brown Bag Seminar with Dr. Aria Nakissa
Monday, February 25, 2013
12:15-1:45pm, Lurias, Hassenfeld Conference Center
In this talk, Dr. Aria Nakissa will examine the political nature of attempts to define “freedom of religion” in the context of current developments in Egypt. It will argue that while on the one hand Islamist conceptions of freedom of religion have specifically been designed to ensure that non-Islamic forms of religiosity are suppressed, on the other, secular liberal conceptions have a similar purpose, operating to outlaw conventional forms of Islam. As such, this talk will illustrate how, contrary to appearances, discourses on the need to protect “freedom of religion” often function as a strategic means to restrict unwelcome forms of religiosity.
Aria Nakissa is a Junior Research Fellow at the Crown Center. He received his Ph.D. in Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University in 2012. He also holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School and an M.A. in Shari’a Law from the International Islamic University in Malaysia. Drawing on two years of ethnographic fieldwork among religious scholars at Cairo’s al-Azhar University, Nakissa’s research examines how Islamic legal discourses have been transformed by changes in modern educational practice.
February 15th, 2013
Furthermore Grants in Publishing (a program of the J.M. Kaplan Fund) has posted an RFP for its semi-annual grants competition. Furthermore awards small grants (mostly between $2,000 and $6,000) to support the writing and publishing of books in selected areas, as indicated in the posting. The posting states that the deadlines are March 15 and September 15, but on the Furthermore website the deadlines are listed as September 1 and March 1.
Applications formally come from the institution, and the foundation has advised us in the past to submit no more than two applications at a time. If you are interested in applying for the March competition, please send an email to Rick Silberman (rbs@brandeis.edu) with a brief description of the book project and the uses to which you would put a Furthermore grant. Rick will share this information with me, so that we can (if necessary) narrow down the applications to the ones that seem most likely to appeal to the foundation.
If you have any questions about this grant program, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with Rick at rbs@brandeis.edu.
February 13th, 2013
Brandeis will offer one-semester research leaves for tenured faculty in the Schools of Creative Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, available in the fall semester of 2013 or the spring semester of 2014. Each leave will relieve the successful applicant of teaching duties for the semester, though recipients are expected to maintain their normal service and advising duties and to be in residence, except for brief periods for research-related travel. Applicants may request a small fund (up to $3K) for travel or other necessary research support that would be available during the semester leave.
To apply for a senior faculty research leave, please email Hannah Jones (hjones@brandeis.edu) the following items no later than Monday, March 4, 2013:
1) A brief (two to three page) research plan for the semester (please specify spring or fall) describing what you propose to accomplish during your leave. Please make clear the current status of the project and how far you anticipate getting during the leave semester – e.g., is this a new effort that will continue after the leave, a project that is currently underway and will probably reach completion, …
2) A list of courses, if any, that would need to be replaced.
3) An endorsement from the chair of your department of your plan to be on leave.
4) A budget and justification for any additional funding requested.
5) A list of any leaves taken since fall 2007, and the date of your next scheduled sabbatical.
February 12th, 2013
Life After Death Row
Tuesday, Feb. 5, 7-9pm
Rapaporte Treasure Hall, Goldfarb Library
In 1994, at the age of 18, Damien Echols was convicted, along with Jessie Misskelley, Jr. and Jason Baldwin, of the horrific murders of three young boys in West Memphis, Arkansas. Echols, considered the “ring leader” of the “West Memphis Three”, was sentenced to death and spent 18 years on Death Row in Arkansas for a crime many believed he did not commit. While on Death Row, Damien married Lorri Davis, a landscape architect from New York who became convinced of his innocence and moved to Arkansas to be nearer to him while she worked on his case. Johnny Depp, Eddie Vedder and director Peter Jackson were all strong, public supporters of Echols’ innocence. In August of 2011, after DNA evidence was found to be inconsistent with all three defendants, Echols, Miskelley, and Baldwin were released from prison, although have not been legally exonerated. After his release, Echols wrote a memoir, “Life After Death” chronicling his time on Death Row.
Join Brandeis students who investigate wrongful convictions as they lead a discussion with Echols, his wife Lorri Davis, Lonnie Soury, a media expert with a particular expertise in wrongful convictions issues, and Erin Moriarty, a correspondent for CBS’ “48 Hours” who interviewed Echols both on death row and after his release. Video clips from 48 Hours and “West of Memphis,” the documentary produced by Peter Jackson and directed by Amy Berg, will also be screened. Echols’ book will be available for purchase and signing.
February 5th, 2013
We invite you to a very special theatrical event sponsored by the American Studies Program: a full-scale performance of a wonderful documentary play written last spring by the students of Professor Joyce Antler’s Theater As History class, entitled When Rebellion Becomes Revolution: A Play of Protest, Murder, Denial and Atonement. It will be performed again this month as part of ‘DEIS/Impact week: Exploring Social Justice on Campus, in Waltham, and Around the World.
Admission is free, but a full house is expected.
Here are the details:
When Rebellion Becomes Revolution: A Play of Protest, Murder, Denial and Atonement
8 pm, Friday, Feb. 8 and Saturday, Feb.9
3 pm, Sunday, Feb.10 TALK-BACK FOLLOWING THE PERFORMANCE
Schwartz Hall Auditorium
Brandeis Campus, 1970: Students Susan Saxe and Kathy Power catapult to the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List through their anti-Vietnam War actions. Fifteen actors portray 53-plus historical characters in this original documentary play about a critical moment in Brandeis history. The play was written by Brandeis students in Professor Joyce Antler’s “History as Theater” class in 2012.
Sponsored by Free Play Theatre Cooperative, American Studies Program
For more information: Julian Seltzer (julianseltzer@gmail.com)
Some comments on last spring’s reading:
*I was dazzled. Thank you for a magnificent, powerful, intense, unforgettable experience. The play made me even prouder of Brandeis, with all its complexities.
*SPECTACULAR!!! An amazing accomplishment.
*It was one of my favorite Brandeis events ever. A perfect night. So moving and meaningful.
January 31st, 2013
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