Sharon Beverly, director of athletics and professor of physical education, has been named chair of the NCAA's Division III Nominating Committee as of January. The committee coordinates nominations to the Division III Management Council and other associated committees.
In December, Michael Pisani, associate professor of music and chair of the Music Department, received an American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers Deems Taylor Award for his book Imagining Native America in Music (Yale University Press, 2006). An online interview and excerpt from his book were also published at http://www.newmusicbox.org, a newsletter of the American Music Center.
Associate professor of history Nancy Bisaha was invited to attend the workshop "Before Copernicus" at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. Participants discussed the scientific, cultural, and religious influences that shaped Copernican thought.
Of the 35 fellowships recently awarded in New York State by the National Endowment for the Humanities, two were awarded to Vassar professors. Sumita Choudhury, associate professor of history, received a six-month grant to pursue her work on The Cadiere/Girard Affair: Seduction and Heresy in 18th-Century French Political Culture. Visiting associate professor of English and women's studies Karen Robertson received a full-year grant to complete Pocahontas among the Jacobeans.
Giovanna Borradori, associate professor of philosophy, presented two lectures on terrorism last November at the Universidad Pontificia Catolica del Peru in Lima. One lecture, "Philosophy in a Time of Terror Four Years Later," reassessed her book Philosophy in a Time of Terror, now available in 20 languages. She also presented a lecture titled "Beyond the Culture of Terrorism."
Associate professor of religion and Jewish studies Marc Michael Epstein received a grant from the Lucius Littauer Foundation for the publication of his forthcoming work Overthrowing the Idols: A Radical Reappraisal of Jewish Visual Culture, a new study of med-ieval Jewish art.
Seungsook Moon, associate professor of sociology and director of Asian studies, was invited to give a lecture at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. Her talk was published as "Betwixt and between Law and Practices: Korean Women in the Workplace," in Edging toward Full Empowerment: South Korean Women in the Workplace and the Political Arena (Asia Program Special Report, no. 132, Sept. 2006).