The UO’s arts and humanities faculty members went on a kind of academic grand tour in 2017, bringing their research and knowledge to prisons, the stage, hospitals and the Brazilian Amazon.
The 10 most-read Around the O stories about the arts and humanities reflect this well-traveled research and a diverse body of work on the human experience. Readers learned about the intersection between Russian literature and incarceration, the world of outsider art, the role of ethics in a hospital and historic preservation in Cairo, among others.
Take your own tour of this globe-spanning work right here. No passport necessary.
UO theater arts professor John Schmor forged a partnership with Oregon author Ursula Le Guin to adapt her most famous novel for the UO stage. Students were able to enjoy the unique experience of watching the work evolve as Schmor and Le Guin spent months bringing the production to life.
Quote: “I think the students probably find it a bit different that the director can just add or cut a line, and that they have some say in why and how! I also think it’s probably going to be very rare in their lives to be dealing with sci-fi/fantasy on stage — this kind of storytelling is most often done in film or television." —John Schmor
UO philosophy professor Nicolae Morar designed an innovative course for students to learn about the ethical issues that surface in a medical setting — by turning a hospital into their classroom. Morar conducted half the class on campus, where he would teach the philosophical portion of clinical ethics, and then students traveled to PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center at Riverbend for the other half, where they shadowed and met with medical professionals to see how they address ethical challenges through their daily work.
Quote: “These questions are long-term questions that any human being will probably have to answer in their lives. Humanities can help us think differently about some of the most important human experiences.” —Nicolae Morar
3. Professor's translation to give critical witness to Islam’s rise
The unexpected, rapid rise of Islam in the seventh century and its affect on global power sparked a long-running debate among scholars. UO religious studies professor Stephen Shoemaker wants to insert critical new information into the conversation by translating an essential text from that era. Boosted by a $220,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Shoemaker will translate “The Capture of Jerusalem by the Persians in 614.”
Quote: “This text is an important piece of the puzzle, but it’s been neglected because it wasn’t available in a European language. A translation of this text will make a crucial source of information available about a critical moment in world history.” —Stephen Shoemaker
4. Professor's new book gets inside the world of outsider art
UO English professor and folklorist Daniel Wojcik is bringing some fresh air to a genre known as “outsider art” with his book “Outsider Art: Visionary Worlds and Trauma.” He challenges conventional thought by bringing his unique academic perspective into a conversation that’s been dominated by the art collectors, critics and dealers who drive demand for these pieces. His research attempts to humanize a group of artists he says are frequently marginalized and disempowered.
Quote: “Many outsider art enthusiasts are romanticizing marginality, deviance and human misery, often because it makes these pieces more desirable. I aim to emphasize their life experiences and the context of their work to provide a more accurate and ethical understanding of these artists.” —Daniel Wojcik
5. Russian lit moves behind bars in UO's Inside-Out program
UO English and classics professor Steve Shankman has spent a decade teaching Russian literature classes at the Oregon State Penitentiary through the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, which integrates university students with incarcerated individuals. His new book, “Turned Inside-Out: Reading the Russian Novel in Prison,” dives into his experience teaching Russian literature to this mix of students.
Quote: “Reading a shared, great literary text creates community. A great text has the potential of eliciting powerful individual responses. In fact, it requires such responses.” —Steve Shankman
6. Architecture professor works to keep history afloat in Cairo
UO architecture professor Brook Muller is working to preserve 1,000-year-old mosques and other historic sites in Cairo that are sinking and becoming damaged due to leaking pipes. Muller, a specialist in ecological infrastructure and water-centric design, thinks cleaning and diverting the water could not only save the mosques, but also transform a state-owned, 10,000-square-foot strip of land — now a garbage dump — into the heart of a thriving, community-based neighborhood.
Quote: “Rising groundwater is a problem affecting antiquities everywhere. We want to both design a park but also show how the way we are dealing with water locally and turning a liability into a resource could be replicated in other cities in Egypt.” —Brook Muller
7. Book award shines a light on the diversity of Jewish culture
Comparative literature and Jewish studies professor Monique Balbuena was recognized by the Jewish Book Council for her most recent work, “Homeless Tongues: Poetry and Languages of the Sephardic Diaspora.” Balbuena’s book examines three different Jewish authors who write in threatened and minor languages by analyzing their texts and observing the way they construct their identities through choices of languages and texts.
Quote: “When we talk about Jewish literature (we need) to really incorporate those other voices and to honor the intradiversity and the multivocality of Jewish writing. There are many languages, there are many accents, there are many differences, and my point, which I try to make in my book, is to reaffirm them, to honor them, and to protect them — to make them known.” —Monique Balbuena
8. Medieval mashup by UO prof inspires new ‘Da Vinci Code’ novel
Assistant professor of voice Craig Phillips collaborated with composer Gregory W. Brown on a piece of music inspired by Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species,” which was heard by novelist Dan Brown, who then incorporated the music into one of his bestselling books. The pair used the traditional musical form of a Roman Catholic Mass for the piece and incorporated some of Darwin’s key theories into the composition.
Quote: “This was not intended to be controversial for controversy’s sake. We wanted to start a conversation.” —Craig Phillips
9. Medical researchers in Africa must learn from the past, prof finds
Historian Melissa Graboyes has identified many ethical questions concerning consent, participation and exploitation that have remained unanswered for decades as she’s examined historical case studies of medical research in East Africa. She recently published “The Experiment Must Continue: Medical Research and Ethics in East Africa, 1940-2014” to compare a number of historical and modern case studies that demonstrate the parallels between the past and present. She wants her research to highlight the continuity of these ethical questions and raise concerns about the lack of progress over the last 75 years.
Quote: “The fact that we don’t have answers to these questions is impossible and unacceptable. My hope is that a careful history of medical research in East Africa will provide useful information to contextualize debates and create more sensitive policy and research programs in the future.” —Melissa Graboyes
10. UO researcher trails an intriguing subject: other researchers
While an international team of scientists researches environmental change in the Brazilian Amazon, geographer Katie Meehan will be investigating a different angle of the project: the researchers themselves. Meehan wants to understand how international partnerships function and how the scientific community could do interdisciplinary research better. To investigate this question, she will examine how scientists from different places and backdrops collaborate on environmental research and how they might be able to more effectively integrate knowledge across borders.
Quote: “We want to understand how different people stitch knowledge together across cultures, backgrounds, borders, disciplines and between people who work on different scales of analysis, from microbiomes to ecosystems.” —Katie Meehan