For the Record

Article by UDaily staff August 09, 2019

University community reports recent presentations, publications

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

Recent presentations and publications include the following:

Presentations

Suzanne Burton, interim associate dean for the arts and professor of music education, presented a session entitled, "What’s Improv Got to Do with It? Facilitating Music Literacy with Improvisation” at the Gordon Institute for Music Learning International Conference, held July 30-Aug. 1, in Chicago, Illinois.

David R. Wunsch, state geologist and director of the Delaware Geological Survey, was invited to serve on a panel for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for the 2018-19 Science and Technology Policy Fellows Year-end Summit. His presentation focused on state government. Wunsch is an alumnus of the program, having served as a Congressional Science Fellow in 1998-99.

UD alumna Adrienne Harding, who is currently the music admissions coordinator for the Department of Music, was invited to present her research, “Incorporating Dance into College Music Pedagogy,” at the International College Music Society Conference, held in July in Brussels, Belgium. Her research stemmed from her two-year experience as a Fulbright recipient in Salzburg, Austria; her career as a professional flutist; and her training as an amateur competitive ballroom dancer. Harding received her bachelor of music and master of music degrees in flute performance in 1999 and 2001, respectively, at UD.

Publications

'Machiavelli: Political, Historical and Literary Writings' was coedited by Meredith K. Ray.

Meredith K. Ray, professor of Italian and incoming interim chair of the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, published a translation of selected works by Machiavelli, coedited with Mark Jurdjevic. Machiavelli: Political, Historical and Literary Writings (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019) highlights aspects of the writer's psyche, politics and life that are little known outside of specialist circles—particularly his optimism and idealism, his warmth and humor, his capacity for affection and loyalty, and his stubborn, enduring republicanism.

Rudi Matthee, John and Dorothy Munroe Distinguished Professor of History, published “Confessions of an Armenian Convert: The I‘tirafnama of Abkar (‘Ali Akbar) Armani,” in Hani Khafipour, ed., Empires of the Near East and India Source Studies of the Safavid, Ottoman, and Mughal Literate Communities, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 11-31.

The Intercultural Group of ISSEI (International Society for the Study of European Ideas, Fuerstenberg, Germany), chaired by Heinz-Uwe Haus, professor of theatre, had its first North American meeting at Rivenoak, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, July 27-30, 2019. One of the sessions focused on Haus' recent publication Heinz-Uwe Haus on Culture and Politics, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, UK, 2018. The book provides a unique narrative of the context before German unification, unification itself and the aftermath of unification across the decades since. He explores the difficulties on the way, from the perspective of an insider. Haus then widens the context from post-unification Germany to encompass issues or broader current relevance, such as Europe, the U.S. and Islam. Theatre provides the conceptual framework for this wide-ranging debate. In an article “Heinz-Uwe Haus and the salt of contradiction” in Consciousness, Literature and the Arts, vol. 19, number 2/3, final issue 2018/19, Guenter Ruether, of the University of Bonn, commented: " Haus is always wary not to drift into the trivial waterway of mainstream and populism. He confronts the reader with pointed insights and positions. They are never comfortable. Lukewarm is not his preferred bath temperature. He invites to join argument and contradiction. ... His new book is an appeal to call things as they are, and to bluntly pronounce them in public discourse.”.

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