Celebrating Scholarship

Mia Mask, The Mary Riepma Ross Professor of Film, is the author of “Black Rodeo: A History of the African American Western” published for 2023 by University of Illinois Press. The new book examines the African American western hero in the broader context of film history by considering how African American westerns evolved and approached various goals.

Dianne Pater, Assistant Professor of Biology, has secured a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to support her project “BRC-BIO: Investigating ecophysiological strategies and drought tolerance of temperate lianas.”

Yumiko Naito, Visiting Instructor in Chinese and Japanese, has secured a grant for Arts and Culture from The Japan Foundation, New York, for her project Taishu Engeki: Discovering “Popular Theater” in Japan. “Taishu Engeki” is a lesser known performing art in Japan.

“Migration, Displacement, and Higher Education: Now What?” was recently published by Palgrave Macmillan, an effort of the numerous Vassar faculty and alumni involved in the Mellon Foundation-funded Consortium on Forced Migration, Displacement, and Education (CFMDE). Maria Höhn, Professor Emerita of History on the Marion Musser Lloyd ’32 Chair; Matthew Brill-Carlat’19, former Coordinator of Research and Pedagogy with CFMDE; and Brittany Murray, former Adjunct Assistant Professor of International Studies and CFMDE program coordinator, are the editors—and amongst the contributors—of this book.

April M. Beisaw, Associate Professor and Chair of Anthropology, is the author of “Taking Our Water for the City: The Archaeology of New York City’s Watershed Communities,” recently published by Berghahn Press.  Over 100 Vassar students contributed to the fieldwork for this book.

Mallory Whiteduck, Assistant Professor of Political Science, was awarded the 2022 Ralph Henry Gabriel prize for “The Rez: Aesthetics of the Everyday in Native American Literature and Visual Culture” (University of Michigan).

Allison Puglisi, Assistant Professor of History, received an honorable mention from the American Studies Association for her dissertation, “Redefining Residency: Black Environmental Thought in New Orleans, 1929-1998” (Harvard University).

David Esteban, Associate Professor of Biology, received one of nine research grants made by the Patient-Led Research Collaborative to fund high-impact projects that seek to understand the causes, diagnostics, and treatments of Long COVID. His funded project, entitled “Microbial metabolites as disease-modifying factors in Long-COVID,” will investigate the production of, and response to, microbially derived AhR ligands in the microbiomes of people with Long COVID.

Paul Kane, Professor of English, was awarded the Order of Australia by the Australian government for “significant service to literature, particularly through the promotion of Australian arts, poetry, and emerging talent.” He also recently published his eighth collection of poems, Earth, Air, Water, Fire, a series of “verse essays.”