Aspiring HR professional Maddie Fellner seeks to understand the motivations behind human behaviors.
School of Arts & Sciences Dean’s Annual Report
Art & Art History: Frames of Reference Series
Kevin Jerome Everson
November 6 & 7, 7 p.m. | Jepson Hall 118
Join the Department of Art & Art History for the Frames of Reference series, an annual program of artists’ films and videos. The event is programmed and organized by Jeremy Drummond, associate professor in visual and media arts practice.
Frames of Reference showcases some of the most creative, challenging, thoughtful, and visionary artists working in film, video, and alternative media today. Programs feature artists and artworks that resist conventions and ideologies of mainstream media; explore creative, innovative approaches to narrative and experiments in time-based media; and embrace unique viewpoints, perspectives, or frames of reference.
The Black Ceiling: How Race Still Matters in the Elite Workplace
Tuesday, November 12, 5-6:30 p.m. | Humanities Commons
Law Professor Kevin Woodson will share insights from his book, The Black Ceiling: How Race Still Matters in the Elite Workplace. Based on interviews with more than 100 Black attorneys, investment bankers, and management consultants, the book identifies new obstacles to equity and inclusion that undermine the careers of many Black professionals and workers from other marginalized groups. Woodson will explain these problems and discuss some of the steps that workers, allies, and employers can take to help address them.
Film Studies: Alumni Showcase
Conversations with Film Professionals, Caroline Keene
Thursday, Nov. 14, 7 p.m. | Ukrop Auditorium, Robins School of Business
Join the Film Studies Program for a film screening of Merry Good Enough and Q&A with Caroline Keene, ‘08, received an M.F.A. in screenwriting from the University of Texas at Austin. Her biopic script, My Name is Lorena Weeks, was a top finalist for the Academy Awards Nicholls Fellowship. Merry Good Enough, a dark comedy written and co-directed by Keene, and starring Mad Men’s Joel Murray and Raye Spielberg in her breakout role, debuts in the U.K. this coming holiday season. Described as “deliciously gritty” by Film Threat, the movie won the best NH Feature at The New Hampshire Film Festival. Originally from Massachusetts, Caroline now lives in Los Angeles. She currently has two features in development.
2024-20245 Tucker Boatwright Festival of Literature & the Arts
The Nature of Representation
The Nature of Representation asks how our understandings of “nature” have been shaped by representational practices in both the aesthetic and political senses, exploring how the current climate catastrophe is inextricable from colonialism and anthropocentric worldviews. The festival features contemporary writers, artists, and thinkers who don’t take for granted that language is merely human, that there are other “natural” languages, and that attuning to those other languages allows us to tell stories that disrupt the violence of Man.
Susan Stryker, "Changing Gender: A Conversation with Susan Stryker."
Wednesday, November 13, 4:30 p.m. | Humanities Commons
Susan Stryker is one of the founders of trans studies, author of many award-winning books including the almost canonical Transgender History, as well as many influential essays across four decades, some collected in the just-published When Monsters Speak: A Susan Stryker Reader, edited by Mckenzie Wark. One of the most visible and influential trans scholars, she has appeared widely in national and international media. She was co-editor of the Transgender Studies Reader’s two editions, and co-founder of the journal TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly.
Hosted by the Department of English.
Meet the 2024-25 Beckman Scholars
A&S students Marcos Hendler, of Rye, New York, and Aine MacDermott, of Lexington, Virginia, have each been awarded a prestigious Beckman Foundation Scholarship to support faculty-mentored student research in the sciences.
Beckman Scholars are selected among undergraduate biology and chemistry students based on commitment to research, strong academics, and potential to become scientific leaders. UR has had 26 Beckman Scholars since 2006.
Hendler, a chemistry major, is studying computational chemistry focused on molecules related to anticancer, which has implications in possible treatments. Hendler’s faculty mentor is chemistry professor Carol Parish. MacDermott, a biochemistry & molecular biology major, is researching ancient DNA under the mentorship of biology professor Melinda Yang. MacDermott is focused on the evolution of the alcohol metabolism gene ADH1B in present-day and ancient East Asian humans.
Humanities Center
2024-2025: How (And Why) Do We Represent Nature?
This question invites us to consider “representation” in both its political and aesthetic meaning. “Nature” is represented in paintings, poems, scripture, music, dancing, novels, laws, regulations, equations, activisms, advertising campaigns. This question asks how environments — and often their relations to human concerns — are represented across media, geographic and cultural contexts, and different historical moments.
Events
Faculty Expertise
Do you envision college as a place where your professor’s office hours are spent in deep conversation about topics beyond this week’s assignment? Where you can work side-by-side with a faculty member on cutting-edge research that is published in a professional journal?
In A&S, our faculty are experts on the cutting edge of their fields. While they could work in some of the top research institutions in the world, our faculty chose Richmond because they believe in educating tomorrow's leaders and are passionate about mentoring and sharing their knowledge with students.
A&S Faculty Highlights
Kyle Redican, teaching faculty of geography, environment, & sustainability and director of the Spatial Analysis Lab, along with undergraduate Shaoting (Tim) Wen, ‘24, and Carlos Hurtado, assistant professor of economics, published “A New Urban Center/Subcenters Identification Approach Based on Open Street Map in Polycentric Urban Landscapes in the US” in the Journal of Transactions in GIS.
View BioMiles Johnson, associate professor of chemistry, received a 2024 Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award from the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation.
View BioJack Singal, associate professor of physics, published "Redshift Prediction with Images for Cosmology using a Bayesian Convolutional Neural Network with Conformal Predictions" in The Astrophysical Journal.
View BioMariela Méndez, associate professor of Latin American, Latino, and Iberian Studies, published the chapter "A imprensa 'para mulheres': Possível roteiro de leitura" in Por uma história feminista da literatura brasileira, the first volume of the Feminist History of Brazilian Literature.
View BioPatricia Herrera, professor of theatre and dance, was elected president of the American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR) for a three-year term.
View BioChiles Wade Downey, professor of chemistry and Clarence E. Denoon Jr. Chair in Natural Sciences, along with undergraduate students Helen L. Xia, ’24, Eric Zhou, ’27, and Bianca Bicalho, ’22, published "Friedel-Crafts alkylations of indoles, furans, and thiophenes with arylmethyl acetates promoted by trimethylsilyl trifluoromethanesulfonate" in Synthetic Communications.
View BioRhiannon Graybill, Marcus M. and Carole M. Weinstein & Gilbert M. and Fannie S. Rosenthal Chair of Jewish Studies, published Narrating Rape: Shifting Perspectives in Biblical Literature and Popular Culture by SCM Press.
View BioMichelle Kahn, associate professor of history, published Foreign in Two Homelands: Racism, Return Migration, and Turkish-German History by Cambridge University Press.
View Bio