Faculty Notes

Professor of Media Arts Robert Albrecht was recently honored with the Excellence in Teaching Award, presented by the NJCU Chapter of the National Society of Leadership and Success (NSLS).

His article, “Technopoly and the Education of Children: Media Ecology as a Form of Reflection, Praxis, and Resistance,” was published in Explorations in Media Ecology.

During his sabbatical, Professor of English David Blackmore successfully completed an intensive course in advanced Brazilian Portuguese in Rio de Janeiro.

He is now at work on a long-term research project on LGBT literature during the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964-1985).  Blackmore also recently revised a chapter for a Modern Language Association volume titled Approaches to Teaching History of the English Language.

Professor of English Bruce Chadwick recently  completed a book on New York City on the eve of the Civil War for Macmillan. It is due to be published in the spring. He continues to work as an entertainment critic for the History News Network website.

Professor of Media Arts Vera Dika published “Ericka Beckman and the Cinematic Image” in the book Ericka Beckman (Geneva, Switzerland, JRP/Ringier, 2016).

She also had a temporary appointment as an adjunct associate professor to teach an advanced undergraduate seminar titled “Downtown New York Art and Film, 1970s and 1980s” at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts; spring 2016; and presented “Downtown New York, 1970s and 1980s,” a talk and film screening, at Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France.

Associate Professor of English Hilary Englert will contribute 19 entries to The Cambridge Guide to the Eighteenth-Century Novel, 1660-1820 under contract to Cambridge University Press. Edited by April London, University of Ottawa, the guide will provide a comprehensive listing and critical summary of English fiction from 1660-1820, in multi-volume print and fully searchable digital forms.

English Professor Audrey Fisch authored Connecting Across Disciplines: Collaborating with Informational Text (Rowman and Littlefield, 2016) and Using Informational Text to Teach A Raisin in the Sun (Rowman and Littlefield, 2016). She also authored the article “Seizing the Opportunity of Informational Text to Connect Literature to the World,” English Journal, Vol. 105, No. 4 (2016). All three publications were co-written with Susan Chenelle.

In October, Professor of Political Science Fran Moran was a guest on MeTV’s Another Thing with Larry Mendte to discuss the 2016 presidential election. See the video here.

Associate Professor of Special Education Zandile Nkabinde was awarded a Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship to travel to Kenya, East Africa, to work with the University of Kabianga on a curriculum co-development project. She was in Kenya from September through November 2016.

During her time abroad, Nkabinde collaborated with colleagues in the University of Kabianga’s Department of Special Education, to facilitate joint research in special education that will extend into joint programs in education.

The project supports the mission of the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program (CADFP), which is designed to promote mutually beneficial collaborations between African universities and American institutions of higher education.

Associate Professor of English Michael Rotenberg-Schwartz joined the Board of Advisors for the Holocaust and Comparative Genocide Studies Pedagogy Project at Misericordia University.

His essay, “Looking at/in Maus,” was published in Critical Insights: Holocaust Literature, edited by Dorian Stuber (Salem Press, 2016).

Assistant Professor of English Caroline Wilkinson had an article accepted in Bad Ideas about Writing, a collection of rhetoric and composition edited by Drew Loewe and Cheryl Ball (2017).

Her lecture, “Making InequitiesMatter: Student Success as Action in Dual Enrollment Composition and Alternatives,” was presented at the Conference on College Composition and Communication.

Assistant Professor of Psychology Peri Yuksel’s research on endangered languages, “Portraits of Endangered Speakers in New York City” was featured in a Swiss-based French monthly magazine.

Yuksel also gave an interview to a national weekly newspaper, Die Zeit (The Time) in German. The published article, “Die Wörterjäger” (“The Word Hunters”) describes how local languages are displaced by dominant languages, which are less complex and more homogeneous.

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Dittrich Shows His Stuff

The work of Illustration Professor Dennis Dittrich was on proud display at the County College of Morris this past October. The show, “Generations of Genius,” featured the work of world-renowned graphic designers and, as the title suggests, Dittrich was in very good company. Other artists included Milton Glazer, most famous for the “I Love NY” logo; Seymour Chwast, the designer of the McDonald’s Happy Meal box; and Paul Jervis, who was responsible for the iconic advertising campaigns for Volkswagon, United Airlines, Xerox, and Bud Light.

 

Dittrich’s work, engaging, vibrant, and often hilarious, has been featured in Sports Illustrated, Smithsonian, Field and Stream, and the New York Times.

An accomplished speaker and art historian, Dittrich also recently led a discussion at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass. The lecture, “Illustrated Propaganda Posters of World War I,” demonstrated how the Allied and Central powers used graphic arts to win over the hearts and minds of the populace.

White’s Great White Way

Associate Professor of History Tim White was born and raised on the Left Coast, a product of the sleepy California suburbs. When he made the journey east to Columbia University, the vibrancy and kinetic energy of New York City was both unfamiliar and fascinating. “And the more I learned about the city the more fascinated I became,” he gushes.

Digging into the history of NYC soon became a kind of hobby, and his passion for theatre soon made his gaze linger on Times Square. His focus wasn’t on the theatres, exactly, but on the many forgotten mom ‘n’ pop shops that once lived in the shadows of the marquees—whose prosperity relied on The Next Big Show.

These were the costumers, set builders, propmasters, lighting riggers, and the many other craftsmen and women who supplied theatres with what was needed. In the book Blue-Collar Broadway: The Craft and Industry of American Theatre, now in paperback, White explores these unsung artisans and chronicles how their careers evolved over the past century.

His book takes the reader backstage beginning in the late 1800s when props, costumes, and sets were haphazardly created and stored on site to be endlessly recycled from one show to the next. “A dress might be used in a contemporary play and then, a few weeks later, be changed a little bit to be in another play that takes place in ancient Egypt,” he explains. “Historical accuracy wasn’t a priority.” Later, when Broadway entered its “golden age,” more discerning audiences demanded spectacle and authenticity. As a consequence, the independent trades thrived, setting up shops in the small storefronts next to the big theatres, the better to nab new contracts. As the century progressed, however, Broadway lost ground to regional theatres and the once busy shops closed, giving way to the sad and seedy Times Square endemic of the 1960s and ’70s.

Blue-Collar Broadway was a labor of love for White, who began his research for his Ph.D. dissertation and continued to rework the manuscript for five years thereafter. His efforts and passion shows on the page.

Despite the completed publication, White hasn’t quite delivered his last word on The Great White Way. When he isn’t teaching NJCU classes, he is at work on a follow-up volume—a book that chronicles the history of Broadway’s investors and financiers.