Faculty Focus-August 22, 2022
Faculty members put their knowledge into action so students and others are able to benefit from it. Recently, faculty published research articles, presented at conferences, and served as expert panelists and podcast guests.
Yesim Bayar
During the Canadian Sociological Association's annual convention, Assistant Professor of Sociology Yesim Bayar presented her paper titled Citizenship and Recognition of Difference, based on her research on the Armenian community in Canada.
She also presented her paper, Ties That Bind: Accommodation, Difference and Nation Talk, at the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies.
Bayar’s work spans a variety of interrelated issues including nationalism, ethnic and religious minorities, citizenship, constitution-writing, and language policies. Her work has appeared in several journals and her book The Formation of the Turkish Nation-State, 1920-1938, was published in 2014.
Rafael Castillo Bejarano
Visiting Assistant Professor of World Languages, Cultures, and Media and Co-Coordinator of the Caribbean, Latin American, and Latino Studies Rafael Castillo Bejarano published his paper titled ¿Cuál es la edad mejor para el poeta? discursos sobre la edad en tiempos de Cervantes y Lope de Vega, in the journal Revista de Literatura. The work examines the controversies among authors in the Early Modern period about the most appropriate age to write poetry, according to medical doctrines, moral philosophy, and canonical patterns of literary careers. Despite the criticism received from the literary milieu for being too old to write, Cervantes, who wrote his major works at an old age, demonstrated to his younger competitors that the experience and the talent conferred by the years allowed him to undertake the greatest masterpieces of the period.
Castillo Bejarano’s research focuses on medieval and early modern Iberia, early modern subjectivity and transatlantic connections, 16th and 17th Hispanic poetry, theory of the lyric, relations between poetry and music, and courtly culture.
Matt Carotenuto & Michael Wairungu
Hanson Associate Dean of International and Intercultural Studies and Professor of History Matt Carotenuto and Assistant Professor of Student Life and Academics for the Kenya Program Michael Wairungu provided expert analysis of the national elections in Kenya during the "The 2022 Kenya Elections" Brookings panel and as guests on the Voice of America podcast show encounters for a "Kenya Elections Preview."
Carotenuto’s teaching and research interests are rooted in African history and the experience of people of African descent around the world. He teaches survey courses on African history and African studies, upper-division classes on constructions of identity and conflict, and seminars on colonial and urban history.
Wairungu holds a Ph.D. in Linguistic Anthropology from the University of Virginia. Before joining the KSP, he was an Assistant Professor of Swahili at Northwestern University, Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of the South, and a Fulbright FLTA at Stanford University. Wairungu has worked as a curriculum designer and specialist in Swahili at the Diplomatic Language Services in the United States.
Arthur Clark
Professor Emeritus of Education Arthur Clark published a new book, Empathy and Mental Health: An Integral Model for Developing Therapeutic Skills in Counseling and Psychotherapy, featuring a multiple perspective model of empathy in the context of developing a wide range of therapeutic skills in counseling and psychotherapy.
Clark holds a Ph.D. in counseling from Oklahoma State and is the author of five books and over 50 articles and book chapters in the mental health field.
Bob Cowser
Professor of English Bob Cowser published a review of One by One, The Stars, a posthumous collection of essays by Ned Stuckey-French who taught at St. Lawrence University from 1998-99.
Cowser is the author of three nonfiction books, including Green Fields: Crime, Punishment and a Boyhood Between, which won "Best Memoir 2010" from the Adirondack Center for Writers and was cited in the Best American Essays 2012. His research focuses on the essay, Modernism, and film adaptation. At St. Lawrence, Cowser has taught courses in nonfiction writing, film, and American literature since 1998 and has taught abroad in France, England, and Denmark.
Alanna Gillis
Assistant Professor of Sociology Alanna Gillis gave presentations titled "How to Use Extensions to Create a More Inclusive Classroom" and "Race Neutral is Not Race Equal: Unequal Impacts of Restrictive Covid Behavioral Policies on College Students," and served as a pre-conference co-organizer at the American Sociological Association's Teaching and Learning in Bureaucracies of Displacement Preconference in Los, Angeles.
Gillis is the author of several scholarly articles which examine race, class, and gender inequality in higher education and inclusive pedagogy. At St. Lawrence, she teaches Introduction to Sociology, Introduction to Sociology: Inequality, Sociology of Education, and a community-based learning course of Sociology of Family–all of which supported her research on hyflex courses. She holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as well as a B.A. in Sociology from Furman University.
Brook Henkel
Associate Professor of German & Co-Chair of Digital Media and Film Brook Henkel published an article in the journal New German Critique titled Mabuse Returns: Fritz Lang, 1950s Berlin, and the Afterlife of Nazi Television. The article rereads Fritz Lang’s final film The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (1960) as a reflection on transformations in urban space and media technologies after WWII.
Henkel is currently directing St. Lawrence’s off-campus program in New York City, where he is teaching a new film studies course titled “New York: Cinema City.” He holds a Ph.D. in Germanic Languages from Columbia University. His research interests include German film, early and avant-garde cinema, literary modernism, media theory and history, and interrelations between science, literature, and visual culture.
Zachary McGee
Assistant Professor of Government Zachary McGee published a co-authored article addressing the influence of The Federalist Society on the probability of a judicial nominee's confirmation by the United States Senate.
McGee holds a Ph.D. in government at the University of Texas at Austin. His research lies at the intersection of American political parties and the United States Congress with a focus on factionalism. At St. Lawrence, he teaches introductory courses on American politics and upper-division courses on Congress and political parties.
Peter Pettengill
Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Peter Pettengill weighed in on solutions to manage the flow of hikers visiting the High Peaks region as a panelist during an Adirondack Explorer and Adirondack Mountain Club event.
Pettengill has worked for the National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management and conducted fieldwork in Acadia, Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and Zion National Parks. He holds a Ph.D. in Natural Resources from the University of Vermont, an M.S. in Environmental Law from Vermont Law School, and a B.S. in Environmental & Resource Economics from the University of New Hampshire.
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St. Lawrence’s Faculty Focus is a new regular roundup that features noteworthy faculty news.
