Faculty Notes
“A Democratic Destruction”
Jeremy Hartnett ’96
JEREMY HARTNETT’S ONGOING RESEARCH on ancient Pompeii made him a sought-after expert and speaker this fall. In September, the associate professor of Classics and 1996 Wabash graduate was the guest speaker at the media opening of “A Day in Pompeii,” a new exhibit at the Museum of Science in Boston. In October he delivered a lecture at Syracuse University exploring the impact of photography on excavations at the site. Hartnett’s talk at Syracuse centered on Vittorio Spinazzola, an Italian archeologist who excavated Pompeii and was among the first to use photography to scientifically record the unearthing process. In Boston, the Patriot-Ledger newspaper quoted this description by Hartnett of the 250-artifact exhibit at the city’s Museum of Science: “Pompeii was sealed like a time capsule for 1,600 years. “It opens your eyes to people very similar to us and very different.” Hartnett said the destruction of Pompeii was a “democratic destruction”—people of all economic classes were killed.
“A Lesson in Persistence” from a Wabash freshman led to a research project and publication in a professional journal for the student and Professor of Physics Dennis Krause. “Can a String’s Tension Exert a Torque on a Pulley?” by Krause and Yifei Sun ’13 was published in the April 2011 issue of The Physics Teacher. “Yifei was a freshman in my Physics 111 course when he raised a question about an analysis we were using, one that is used in many introductory textbooks,” Krause explains. “In all my years of teaching, no one had ever asked this question. It showed that the idea and the way we were teaching it were inconsistent. “That question turned into a small research project. Yifei did much of the work, prepared the figures, and kept the project moving along to completion.” The paper Krause and Sun submitted to The Physics Teacher was initially rejected. Then it was Krause’s turn A QUESTION
Yifei Sun ’13
to ask the questions. He explained the results and detailed the project to the referee who evaluates the papers and who, in turn, recommended that the journal publish the article. “It was a lesson in persistence,” Krause says. And also a test of a teacher’s willingness to respect a student’s curiosity. “Back in my high school, sometimes teachers weren’t interested in students’ questions,” says Sun. “But I knew Professor Krause would be. He’s a theoretical physicist; he’s always willing to discuss my questions.”
Prestigious Promotions of the previous holders of the LaFollette Chair, I feel a little uncertain about placing my name in that well-regarded group. In recent days, however, I have thought about these individuals and how they have shaped my life and work at the College. In very different positive ways, they have all been great mentors.”
“WHEN I THINK
Theater Professor Dwight Watson, reflecting upon being named LaFollette Distinguished Professor in the Humanities. Watson is the fifth professor to hold the position, following Leslie Day, Bill Placher ’70, Raymond Williams H’68, and Eric Dean H’61.
Dwight Watson
WHETHER IN THE STUDY of religion or corn, whether in Kenya or Mexico, he demonstrates how the liberal arts are an engagement across disciplines, national cultures, and human communities.
Dean of the College Gary Phillips, naming Rick Warner as the seventh Daniel F. Evans Associate Professor in the Social Sciences.
Rick Warner
R E A D I N G R I D D L E S The research that went into the book also serves as the background for much of my teaching in literature and intellectual history. Associate Professor of German Brian Tucker ’98 discussing
Reading Riddles: Rhetorics of Obscurity From Romanticism to Freud, published earlier this year by Bucknell University Press. The book, Tucker explains, “is about how the theory of literature in early German romanticism lays the groundwork for Sigmund Freud’s approach to the psyche.” Tucker is congratulated by President White