Peking Opera by Isabel Wu '21, Digital Painting, created Fall 2020 in Kathy Aoki's ARTS 72: Digital Art & Design Basics. Courtesy of the artist.

Dear College Faculty and Staff,

As this winter quarter finals week draws to a close, I want to wish you a safe and restorative spring break -- please do take some time to rest and recharge!

For this week’s College Notes, I draw your attention to the news that this year the Center for the Arts and Humanities is awarding the inaugural Hoefer Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Writing. This prize, open to students from all disciplines within the College, recognizes outstanding undergraduate writing achievement in two award categories—Student Research Paper and Student-Faculty Co-Authored Paper or Research Project.

Nominations are open through April 16 with student winners receiving $2000 and faculty mentors receiving $1000 in prize money. Faculty and students may submit one nomination each, and must include a brief letter from the faculty mentor or instructor of the course in which the work was produced. There aren’t many such writing prizes out there, so please do encourage your students to participate. I can’t wait to read the winning submissions!

We will be taking a break from College Notes until spring quarter; I look forward to hearing from you (and maybe actually seeing some of you in person) this spring.

Sincerely,

Daniel

Highlights

On March 5th, Brian Beams' (Art & Art History) digital art piece Melt was featured in the San Luis Obispo Museum of Arts (SLOMA) recent virtual exhibit A Digital Art Salon, an "exhibition [that] explores the diversity of digital art being created by contemporary California artists including the myriad of ways in which artists incorporate digital tools into their practice." Brian's piece was selected for 3rd place prize out of a list of over 30 artists who participated in the group show.

Melt is part of a series of work Brian Beams has been developing since 2019. Starting with 3D scans of people and organic material, Digital Bodies depicts human integration with digital materials as a physical reality. These works begin as staged poses which are captured using a handheld 3D scanner and imported into a virtual environment, where it is further modified using virtual reality and procedural surfacing software. Digital forms of clay, metal, stone, and molten lava create shapes of bodies and flora while distinctly digital artifacts permeate each composition.

The Sociology and Anthropology departments will host the 48th Annual Western Anthropology and Sociology Undergraduate Research Conference. The conference is free of charge for undergraduate students at SCU and will take place via Zoom on May 22, 2021. This year’s conference will feature Reuben Jonathan Miller Ph. D., University of Chicago, as the keynote speaker. Professor Miller will discuss his book, Halfway Home: Race, Punishment and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration, and answer audience questions after the talk.

The conference organizing committee would also like to invite undergraduate students from the College of Arts and Science to participate in roundtable discussions that feature (1) findings from students’ research projects; (2) reflections on critical moments in the journey toward becoming a social scientist; (3) reflections on recent events; and (4) ideas regarding the future of social sciences. Other forms of artistic expression will also be considered.

Students who are interested in presenting their work should submit a proposal, containing (1) a working title; (2) an abstract; (3) three keywords; (4) the presenter’s affiliation and graduation year, to anthrosocconf@scu.edu on or before May 1, 2021.

Image: Reuben Jonathan Miller

James Lai (Ethnic Studies) published a peer-reviewed article entitled "Revisiting Panethnicity: Emerging Political Contours in Asian Pacific American Politics" in PS: Political Science & Politics, April 2021, Volume 54:2, 235-37. The article argues for a reframing of panethnicity that has served as a foundation of contemporary, progressive Asian Pacific American politics to understand the emerging political contours taking shape since 1965 to the present that include growing economic disparities, the persistence of transnational identities, and the emerging conservative strands due to social media activism. The article argues that future scholarship must continue to ask research questions that address how these emerging political contours shape contemporary Asian Pacific American politics that can result in competing panethnic coalitions across the entire ideological spectrums around contested issues and policies. The article was part of a colloquium on the 20th Anniversary of the Asian Pacific American Political Caucus.

Image: PS: Political Science & Politics (Cambridge University Press), April 2021 Cover: "Symposium: Reflections on Asian American Politics on the 20th Anniversary of the Asian Pacific American Caucus."

Michelle Bezanson (Anthropology) published a book review in the journal Evolutionary Anthropology. This was not a normal book review, rather it was a graphic book review in the style of a graphic novel. It may be the first graphic book review to appear in a scientific journal. It may not, it is very difficult to figure that out. She reviewed a book about the different kinds of monkeys in North and South America and how they are an example of adaptive radiation that is unmatched in the primate world. We are currently experiencing innovation in the unessay and ungrading, Michelle believes we should also be submitting unarticles to promote more accessible scholarship.

Image: One of the six images in the review.

College of Arts and Sciences Calendar