Faculty Focus-November 11, 2025
Faculty members put their knowledge into action so students and others are able to benefit from it. Recently, faculty published in prestigious journals and media outlets and presented research at renowned conferences.
Chandreyi Basu
L.M. and G.L. Flint Professor of Fine Arts Chandreyi Basu—a specialist in the art of early Mathura in northern India—recently gave an invited talk at Bard College titled “Mathura’s Goddesses: Many forms, Many meanings,” which provided seminar participants with a visual feast of powerful and versatile goddesses that were worshipped during a formative period in Indian art from first century BC to third century CE.
Appearing as independent figures and in groups, these squatting goddesses take on human and human-animal hybrid forms, cradle and stifle newborn children, and clasp drinking cups, books, and lotus flowers. After discussing the literature on these intriguing figures, Basu shared her own interpretation of their forms and reflected on what they meant to people in Mathura's multi-religious and multi-ethnic landscape.
She drew on 24 years of teaching experience at St. Lawrence to make her research accessible to Bard undergraduates through personal anecdotes and contemporary connections. Basu says she was impressed by the thoughtful connections that students made between her talk and readings they had discussed earlier. She is excited to include a few of these goddesses alongside a variety of contemporary examples in her Spring 2026 First Year Seminar, "Children & Caregivers in Art, Film & Media."
Allison Rowland
Maurer Professor of Performance & Communication Arts Allison Rowland’s website, Speak to Engage, is being featured in a public humanities project sponsored by the Rhetoric Society of America called “Rhetoric for All.” This project was funded by the Maurer Family Foundation.
Speak to Engage offers free, open access resources for instructors across disciplines for integrating speaking skill-building into higher education courses. Using a rhetoric across the curriculum/speaking in the disciplines model, Speak to Engage takes an ecumenical approach to speaking skills, supporting instructors across campus in teaching debate, discussion, deliberation, presentational speaking, listening, and much more.
Rowland coined the term zoerhetorics to describe the persuasive communicative practices that makes lives important or disposable. She is interested in reproductive justice, the rhetoric of the human microbiome, and biocitizenship.
Antun Husinec
James H. Chapin Professor of Geology and Mineralogy Antun Husinec recently published a new study in Elsevier's Sedimentary Geology, titled “Principal component analysis reveals the relationship between carbonate facies, geochemical properties, and diagenetic overprint.”
The article takes a closer look at how ancient carbonate rocks such as limestone and dolomite record the environmental conditions in which they originally formed and how those records are later altered as the rocks are buried and transformed through time.
The research applies a powerful statistical method known as principal component analysis (PCA) to link subtle variations in rock chemistry and texture to their depositional origins and later diagenetic overprinting. By comparing samples from different environments and stages of alteration, the study demonstrates that many of the chemical and structural changes carbonates undergo can be predicted from their original facies, or sedimentary setting.
This work provides a clearer picture of how Earth’s shallow seas and reef systems evolved into the rock record we study today. Beyond improving reconstructions of ancient environments, the findings also have implications for understanding groundwater systems and hydrocarbon reservoirs that are found within carbonate rocks worldwide.
Caroline Breashears
Professor of English Caroline Breashears recently published a review of Randi Weingarten's book Why Fascists Fear Teachers in the national news outlet RealClearEducation.
Breashears’ review critiques Weingarten's refusal to address declining student proficiency in reading, math, and science; her conflation of "fascism, authoritarianism, oligarchy, anti-government extremism, and the far right" to dismiss arguments in favor of more school choice; and her bizarre insinuation that Milton Friedman was a fascist.
Breashears teaches courses in subjects from Jane Austen to dystopian fiction, and she writes about literature, ethics, and economics for both academic and general audiences.
Mert Kartal
Associate Professor of Political Science Mert Kartal, in a recent piece for Good Authority—a prominent political science platform that translates academic research into accessible content for a broader audience—discusses the gap between the aspirations and the reality of new countries joining the European Union (EU).
Both prospective members, such as Ukraine, and EU leaders often speak positively about expansion, but Kartal argues in the essay, titled “The future of E.U. enlargement: dreams vs. Reality,” that real obstacles (such as the need for democratic progress in applicant countries and institutional reforms in the EU as well as the fact that every member country holds a veto) make quick progress very unlikely. EU leaders aim to avoid committing to the next round of enlargement too soon while still keeping candidate countries motivated to carry out the reforms required to join.
If the EU fails to strike this balance, Kartal argues it could either repeat the problems caused by past rushed enlargements or risk pushing hopeful countries toward disappointment and frustration, which may fuel rising anti-EU sentiment and greater authoritarianism in the region.
Kartal serves as a fellow at Good Authority, where he draws on his expertise in European Union politics, good governance, and corruption control to provide in-depth analyses of current events and pressing political issues for the general public.
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