For the Record provides information about recent professional activities and achievements of University of Delaware faculty, staff, students and alumni.

Recent honors, presentations and publications include the following:

Publications

David Shearer, Thomas Muncy Keith Professor of History, recently published an article,"Отражение гражданской войне в политике Сталина. Уроки и предубеждения. (The Civil War as Origin of Stalinist Politics: Lessons and Templates)" in Уроки Октября и практики советской системы, 1920-1950-е годы (Lessons of October and the Practice of the Soviet System, 1920 to the 1950s), Н. А. Волынчик et. al, eds. (Москва, 2018, 11-23.)

John McNutt, professor in the School of Public Policy and Administration is the author of “Technology picks up its sword in the service of social justice,” published Oct. 21 on the OUPblog of Oxford University Press.

The Delaware Geological Survey has released a new technical report titled “Southern New Castle – Northern Kent Counties Groundwater Monitoring Project: Results of Subsurface Exploration and Hydrogeological Studies,” prepared by A. Scott Andres, Thomas McKenna and Changming He of the Survey, and former DGS employee Zachary Coppa. It documents the development of a detailed study of subsurface hydrogeology and geologic features, and interactions between aquifers and streams. The work was funded by the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control. The report documents detailed observations and analyses made as a result of drilling and installing 22 new monitoring wells at eight locations, drilling of continuously cored test borings at five locations, downhole geophysical surveys at 15 sites, geotechnical and geochemical testing of sediment samples and collection of several million water-level measurements. The new monitoring wells have been incorporated into the Delaware Groundwater Monitoring Network and will be used for assessment of groundwater conditions for decades

Presentations

Nancy Boyer, affiliated assistant professor in the Department of Geography, presented “Building Democracy and Leading a Revolution in Culture: Helen Hoy Greeley, Organizer and Orator of Campaigns for Woman Suffrage in California, Oregon, New Jersey and New York, 1911-1919” at the annual meeting of the Peace and Justice Studies Association on Sept. 29, 2018. The Peace and Justice Studies Association is a binational, professional organization which, as stated on its website, “is dedicated to bringing together academics, educators and activists to explore alternatives to violence and share visions and strategies for peacebuilding, social justice and social change.” The paper was presented as a case study in principled nonviolence.

Rudi Matthee, John and Dorothy Munroe Distinguished Professor of History, attended the official opening of the Yarshater Center of Iranian Studies at Columbia University in New York City on Oct. 25, 2018. He did so in his capacity as the president of the Persian Heritage Foundation, which enabled the creation of this academic center with a gift of $10 million. Two days later, on Oct. 27, Matthee presented “The Idea of Iran in the Safavid Period: Dynastic Preeminence and Urban Pride,” at a seminar on the “Idea of Iran: The Safavid Period,” at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, U.K.

Leslie Reidel, professor of  theatre, recently completed directing a new adaptation of Norton Juster’s  The Phantom Tollbooth, as the latest production of Philadelphia’s Enchantment Theatre Company. The play had its premiere in Madison, Wisconsin, and is touring the United States through May 2019. The production will perform at Wilmington’s Grand Opera House on Jan. 17. Reidel is co-artistic director of Enchantment Theatre and was coauthor of the Tollbooth adaptation. The production also features original music and songs by Charlie Gilbert, a University of Delaware alumnus and professor of theatre at Philadelphia’s University of the Arts.

Honors

Alexander Selimov, associate professor and graduate studies director in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, represented the United States in October at the XI International Conference of Writers and Artists in Tarija, Bolivia, where he was awarded the title “Universal Ambassador of Culture” by UNESCO and the Bolivian Association of Writers. He is the first American poet and scholar to receive the honor. Also this fall, Selimov won a Victoria Urbano Honorable Mention award for his poetry from the International Association for Gender Studies at its 2018 conference at the University of Illinois.

Theodore E.D. Braun, professor emeritus of languages, literatures and cultures, was honored by the Académie de Montauban of France at a meeting held June 4, 2018, at Pompignan, where he offered two presentations. He was asked to speak, extemporaneously, at the village church just outside the chateau, on the subject of "Jean-Jacques Le Franc de Pompignan's philanthropy in regard to the villagers in the 1760s and 1770s," prior to his formal presentation at the chapel of the chateau, "Mensonges, calomnies, faits alternatifs: Voltaire contre Le Franc de Pompignan (Lies, Calumnies, Alternative Facts: Voltaire Against Le Franc de Pompignan)." Braun is a corresponding member of the Academie de Montauban, with a specialization in 18th century French literature, in particular focusing on Voltaire and on Le Franc de Pompignan. An audience of more than 100 people attended each presentation. In the first, shorter presentation, he related some of the remarkable things that Le Franc had done for the villagers in this time frame: He rebuilt the houses in the commune, at no cost to the residents, who found work during this period of extremely high unemployment, while having all the streets in the town broadened to two wide lanes; he had roads constructed through the village, linking it directly to nearby towns and to major highways leading to Bordeaux and Toulouse and to the road to Paris, partly financed through the province of Quercy; he built a large restaurant and tavern in the town at his expense; he provided a source of drinking water for the villagers more conveniently located for them, sparing them an average of about a kilometer each time they had to seek water; he filled the village church with paintings by celebrated artists of the 16th,17th and 18th centuries from France, Italy and Holland, along with a splendid retable behind the altar, and with numerous vessels destined for church services. In return, five years after Le Franc's death, the villagers refused entry to the revolutionaries who wanted to dismantle the church and to destroy the chateau. In his principal presentation, Braun addressed the many lies, calumnies and alternative facts that Voltaire created in his (successful) attempt to turn Le Franc into an object of ridicule, a tactic he then used on other public figures, whom he designated as his self-chosen enemies because they had criticized his works and thoughts, attacking the man rather than his words. Braun's discourse was based almost entirely on Voltaire's own writings in his correspondence and in his published works. Voltaire depicted Le Franc as an egoist, an insane man, a person of no personal or professional worth. And he succeeded in destroying the reputation of this honorable man. Braun was assisted in this presentation by Claude Sicard, professor emeritus at the University of Toulouse and a member of the Academie de Montauban, who read the many passages cited from Voltaire's writings, which gave the presentation an unusual dramatic dimension.

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