Where in the World ...?

Where in the world were Grinnell faculty and students this summer?

China, Korea, France,Italy, Poland, Namibia, Romania, to name a few sites of international scholarly activity.

China

Jin Feng, associate professor of Chinese, spent eight weeks in China, where she interviewed web publishers for her research project on web-based popular Chinese literature.

Feng also lectured at Ginling College in Nanjing, which was the topic of her recent book, The Making of a Family Saga: Ginling College (SUNY Press, 2009).

Matthew Johnson, assistant professor of history, presented at a conference in Shanghai devoted to archive and oral testimony-based histories of the Mao years. Johnson presented a paper on cultural reform and propaganda in Beijing, based on archival research he carried out there in 2004–05 as a U.S. Fulbright student fellow at Peking University.

Johnson is currently co-editing a book on post-1949 China which features translated contributions from Chinese scholars, to be used by students and researchers seeking to understand how ordinary people pursued their interests and participated in local politics.

Italy

Craig Quintero, assistant professor of theatre, collaborated with Taiwanese artist Joyce Ho on the sculpture “On My Way Home” that is currently on display at the Fondazione Claudio Buziol at the 54th Venice Biennale.

The sculpture is part of a touring exhibition that will be remounted at the Wereldmuseum (Rotterdam), Today Art Museum (Beijing), and the National Museum of Fine Arts (Taichung).

France

Senior Kate Ferraro’s fluent French first served her well during her spring semester in Aix-en-Provence. This summer, she combined her language skills with MAP research under the direction of Tim Arner, assistant professor of English.

Arner conducted research at the Bibliotheque national de France in Paris, analyzing descriptions of England’s King Henry V in 15th century French chronicles. Ferraro assisted Arner with translation while conducting her own research on French translations of Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

Namibia

Eliza Willis (political science) and Janet Seiz (economics) worked with Namibian interns at the Desert Research Foundation of Namibia (DRFN) to prepare environmental updates for national parliament. The professors also joined a team of DRFN researchers and consultants investigating water and sanitation issues in three Namibian villages.

Both Willis and Seiz intend to incorporate these firsthand observations into courses on economic development during fall semester. Their travel was funded in part by Grinnell’s Center for International Studies.

Korea

Twelve Grinnellians gathered in Seoul, Korea, as guests of trustee Kihwan Kim ’57, where conversation centered on the value of international mobility. Four current students who are interning in Korea this summer, thanks to Kim’s generous coordination, shared their experiences:

• Christa Lee ’12, interning at HSBC in accounting;
• Sammy Huang ’13, interning at Doosan Corporation Electro-Materials;
• Sun Yoo ’12, interning at Kim & Chang law firm; and
• Justin Wedel ’12, interning at Gyeonggi-do Welfare Foundation.

Kim shared his own experiences of coming to Grinnell as an international student in the early ‘50s.

Romania

Tammy Nyden, associate professor of philosophy, traveled to Bucharest to deliver a paper, “From Moral Certainty to More Evidentia: an Epistemological Shift in the Leiden Physics Theatre.” This fall, Camila Barrios Camacho ‘12 will work with Nyden on a MAP on moral certainty.

While in Romania, Nyden also met at the Conference of the International Society for Intellectual History with a co-editor and contributors for an upcoming volume on Cartesian Empiricisms.

Poland

For Daniel Reynolds, associate professor of German, research travel to Eastern Poland will inform his teaching of the Holocaust in multiple courses.

Reynolds travelled to sites of the extermination camps Sobibor and Treblinka as part of his research into Holocaust tourism and its role in Holocaust remembrance.

At right, Reynolds is shown walking along a stone memorial path at Sobibor.

See Global Grinnell for more information about international experiences through Grinnell.