Steve Abhaya Brooks ’64 has published a new book of poems, The Five-Headed Lizard & The Famous Death of a Firefly: American Zenku (CreateSpace, 2017).
Authors and Artists
Fall 2017
Books
Art
Noga Ashkenazi ’09 is co-writer and director of Saints Rest, a musical drama she shot in summer 2016 in Grinnell, including scenes in the actual Saints Rest coffee shop. Many Grinnellians were involved in the film’s making: Paul McCulley ’79, executive producer; Tyson Stock ’09, co-writer; Brian Cavanagh-Strong ’09, music director; Jaysen Wright ’09, actor; Jon Richardson ’10, actor; Sumana Shankar ’10, actress; Grace Lloyd ’16, makeup artist; Michael Kelley ’16, art department; and Melissa Fandos ’17, second assistant director. See the film’s website to preview a trailer.
Scholarship
John Fisk ’65, professor emeritus at Southern Illinois University and retired pediatric orthopedic surgeon, was lead contributor to The Atlas of Spinal Orthotics (Exceed Worldwide, 2017). The atlas is an open learning (free-to-use) medical textbook covering the history and use of spinal orthotics in the treatment of many disorders and injuries and is a much-needed resource in underserved regions of the world. The textbook is available free online.
Summer 2017
Art
Lee Running, associate professor of art, won a monthlong artist residency at Jentel Arts, a private family foundation in Sheridan County, Wyo. She was one of six people selected from more than 100 applicants.
Books
Robert Vas Dias ’53 authored Black Book: An Assemblage of the Fragmentary (Shearsman Books, 2016) with British artist Julia Farrer. It’s the first major collaboration between a poet and artist reacting to the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II.
David Cook-Martín, professor of sociology, assistant vice president for global education, and senior international officer, won the American Sociological Association’s 2017 Distinguished Scholarly Book Award for his book Culling the Masses: The Demographic Origins of Racist Immigration Policy in the Americas (Harvard University Press, 2014).
This nonfiction children’s book by Caroline Scheaffer Arnold ’66 (Charlesbridge Publishing, 2017) has been named a Junior Library Guild selection. Arnold is both author and photographer of the book.
Scholarship
Laura Ruth Johnson ’92 wrote Community-Based Qualitative Research: Approaches for Education and the Social Sciences (SAGE Publications, Inc., 2017).
A group of Grinnellians attended the annual conference Feb. 3–4, 2017, hosted by the Iowa-Illinois-Nebraska Stem Partnership for Innovation in Research and Education, part of the Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation, at Iowa State University. Alfredo Colina ’18 was recognized with the People’s Choice Award for his research poster, “Bacterial characterization of a hog confinement located in Poweshiek County and a potential source of antibiotic resistance bacteria discovered.” Glorianne Dorce ’17 received second place for best research poster, “Detecting concentrations of steroidal hormones in water samples through optimized SPE/UHPLC/MS method.” Queenster Nartey ’16 was recognized with the Outstanding Alumni Award. Nartey moderated a discussion panel on student STEM identity.
J.R. Osborn ’97 has published a cultural history of the Arabic writing system with a focus on aesthetics and technology (Harvard University Press, 2017). It begins with the formalization of Arabic calligraphic tradition in the 10th century and ends with the encoding of Arabic for digital computing at the end of the 20th century.