HFA News
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Alumni News
Zac Bissonette '11 in The Washington Post
Zac Bissonette '11, Art History alum and author of two books, the latest being "How to be Richer, Smarter, and Better-Looking Than Your Parents." His latest book has been selected as the Color of Money Book Club selection for May and was recently reviewed by a national business columnist. Read the article here.
Heather Christle '09G wins The Believer's 2nd Annual Poetry Award
MFA Program for Poets & Writers alum, Heather Christle '09G has been awarded The Believer Poetry Award for 2012 for her newest collection of poetry The Trees The Trees. The Believer says her poetry creates "powerful, living experiences —poems that echo everywhere with the skittery pulse of contemporary life." More...
Dr. Trimiko Melancon '05G awarded Woodrow Wilson Fellowship
Dr. Trimiko Melancon '05G, Afro-American Studies, has been awarded a prestigious 2012 Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation Career Enhancement Fellowship. This fellowship provides her with a year-long sabbatical as well as a fall retreat, mentoring, and financial support. More...
Anita Mannur '02G, Comparative Literature, awarded Early Career Award
Anita Mannur who graduated in 2002 with a Ph.D in Comparative Literature has been awarded the Association for Asian American Studies' inaugural Early Career Award. The award will be presented in Washington, D.C. in April at the annual meeting of the Association of Asian American Studies. More...
Music Alum Named Distinguished Teacher
Music alum, David Pope '95, has been named Distinguished Teacher of the College of Visual and Performing Arts at James Madison University for 2012-2013. He has been on faculty at JMU since 2000 and he recently presented a recital at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.
Michael Braidman in The Gazette
Michael Braidman, an alum of the English department, recently had an article titled "A Teacher's Voice" published in The Gazette. He teaches at Hampshire Regional High School and is a teacher-consultant with the Western Massachusetts Writing Project. In it, he talks about running his high school's drama company and the opportunities it has brought to both the participants and the coach. More...
MFA Alums in The Valley Advocate
Two alums of the MFA Program for Poets & Writers were recently featured in The Valley Advocate. James Grinwis '00G has two books of poetry forthcoming, The City from Nome and Exhibit of Forking Paths. His poems "zing with surprise, with slantwise looks at the everyday..." according to this article in The Valley Advocate. Corwin Ericson '00G has a novel forthcoming from Dark Coast Press titled Swell which will be released Dec. 11th. The Valley Advocate says, "...it's Ericson's off-kilter prose that propels the novel and makes the whole thing fall nicely through the cracks of easy expectation." Read the full review here.
Faculty News
8 Named Lilly Teaching Fellows
Congratulations to the HFA faculty who received the 2012-2013 Lilly Teaching Fellowships! Out of the 8 fellows, 3 are from the College of Humanities & Fine Arts: Assistant Professor of Afro-American Studies Britt Rusert, Assistant Professor of Music Felipe Salles and Assistant Professor of Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies Angela Willey. More...
Linguistics Professor Comments on Language in Nature
Professor Thomas Roeper of the Linguistics department comments in a story about a debate underway on understanding the language of a small group of people in the Amazon. The difficulty is that much of the information about this language comes from one person, and another scientist is now disputing some of that person’s findings. More...
Angelika Kratzer Selected As 2012-2013 Radcliffe Institute Fellow
Professor of Linguistics, Angelika Kratzer has been selected to be a Radcliffe Institute Fellow for 2012-2013. She is among only 5 percent of applicants who were accepted to pursue independent projects in the humanities, sciences, arts, and social sciences at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. More...
Stephen R. Platt in the New York Times
Professor Stephen R. Platt, History, writes about how the turmoil created by the beginning of the Civil War in the United States played out for Americans living in China at a time when that country was undergoing its own massive civil war in the Opinionator. Read the article here.
Jewish cultural history in ten volumes
Professor James E. Young, English and Judaic and Near Eastern studies, is the editor-in-chief of a new 10-volume anthology that covers more than 3,000 years of Jewish cultural artifacts, texts and paintings. It is being published by Yale University Press and the Posen Foundation and will be called the Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization. It will start at the end with Volume 10 coming out in November. More...
A Day of Dance at UMass' University Museum of Contemporary Art
More than three-dozen Springfield high school students enjoyed a sampling of the arts at the University Museum of Contemporary Art on April 26. The Museum's Curator of Education Eva Fierst and dance professor Billbob Brown were among the faculty members who helped students gain first-hand experience in areas such as photography and dance. The students were from the High School of Commerce and the High School of Science and Technology. More...
University Museum of Contemporary Art Awarded National Endowment for the Arts grant
The University Museum of Contemporary Art, housed in the Fine Arts Center, has been awarded an NEA grant of $100,000 in support of the exhibition Du Bois in Our Time, to take place in fall of 2013. This is the maxiumum amount awarded by the NEA to any one museum and the largest in the University Museum's history. Du Bois in Our Time will be the landmark exhibition project, focusing on an exploration of the intersection of art and the major causes and values promoted by W.E.B. Du Bois.
College of Humanities & Fine Arts Receive 2 of this year's Faculty & Staff Campaign Awards
The College of Humanities & Fine Arts is tied with the School of Nursing for Second Highest Participation for a School or College with a 26% Participation rate. CHFA's English Department received the award for Highest Participation for a Department or Area with Greater than 100 Employees with a 35% Participation Rate. The Faculty & Staff Campaign Celebration will be held on Wednesday, April 25th at the Renaissance Center. Congrats!
Professor Berkman on the career of Bill Baird, Crusader for Birth Control and Abortion Rights
Professor of History, Joyce Berkman, was quoted in an article by the Associated Press about the career of Bill Baird, the crusader for birth control and abortion rights beginning in the 1960s in Massachussetts. She says there were few men who championed the women’s movement in the 1960s and says having Baird as an advocate for women’s sexuality made many women suspicious. In 2008 Berkman had some of her students put on an original theater production based on Baird’s activism. More...
Assistant Professor of Dance awarded Distinguished Teaching Award
Assistant Professor Thomas Vacanti of the Dance department has been awarded the Distinguished Teaching Award from UMass Amherst for 2012. This highly competitive award recognizes his tremendous impact on students at the university and his contributions in teaching.
Assistant Professor of Music, Eric Berlin in the news
Assistant Professor Eric Berlin of the Music department is also the principal trumpet player of the Albany Symphony Orchestra. In tribute to Professor Berlin's trumpet playing, the Albany Symphony Orchestra had commissioned their composer-in-residence to write a new trumpet concerto, True Colors, which Berlin premiered the weekend of March 24th in two concerts. Read about his story in The Saratogian and the timesunion.com.
Associate Professor of History Receives a Starred Review
Stephen R. Platt, Associate Professor of History, received a starred review from Publishers Weekly for his book Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: china, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War. Publishers Weekly calls it a "splendid account" and a "superb history of a 19th-century China faced with internal disorder and predatory Western intrusions." More...
Read The New York Times review here!
Read The San Antonio Express-News review here!
Read The Daily Beast review here!
Staff News
College of Humanities & Fine Arts Receive 2 of this year's Faculty & Staff Campaign Awards
The College of Humanities & Fine Arts is tied with the School of Nursing for Second Highest Participation for a School or College with a 26% Participation rate. CHFA's English Department received the award for Highest Participation for a Department or Area with Greater than 100 Employees with a 35% Participation Rate. The Faculty & Staff Campaign Celebration will be held on Wednesday, April 25th at the Renaissance Center. Congrats!
2010-2011 Staff Award Recipients
Congratulations to all award recipients and thanks to the CHFA community for sharing in the celebration of our colleague's accomplishments!
Distinguished Staff Service Award: Jean Ball, History
Student News
Congratulations to the 2012 CHFA Scholarship Awards Recipients!
College of Humanities & Fine Arts Achievement Award
Elizabeth Adewale, English & Psychology
Rachel Aylward, Marketing & Dance
Shamiram Barooshian, English & History
Gregory Blair, Music
Julie DiGiusto, Accounting & Theater
Robin Garabedian, English
Nathan Hoffman, History
Timothy Katz, History & Legal Studies
Elana Kleiman, History & Psychology
Ilia Kurenkov, Linguistics
Rachel Levine, Communications & Theater
Melissa Mahoney, English
Alissa Mesibov, Theater & Journalism
Michaela Miragliotta, Political Science & Spanish
Nicole Mitchell, English
Lindsay Ormond, English
Kara Rancourt, Linguistics
Alyssa Stenson, Middle Eastern Studies & Political Science
Anna Sternfeld, Psychology & Spanish
Tylar Anne Suckau, English
Clara Wool, Environmental Design & Middle Eastern Studies
Daniel Yuan, Math & Philosophy
Zachary Zuber, History & International Affairs, Security & Diplomacy
Frank Prentice Rand Scholarship
Julie DiGiusto, Accounting & Theater
Michah Maurio, Music
Rachel Levine, Communications & Theater
Ellsworth and Mary Barnard Scholarship
Clara Wool, Environmental Design & Middle Eastern Studies
Humanities & Fine Arts Opportunity Award
Shamiram Barooshian, English & History
Henry & Jean Hall Humanities & Fine Arts Scholarship
Rachel Aylward, Marketing & Dance
Alyssa Stenson, Middle Eastern Studies & Political Science
Nicole Mitchell, English
Luise Bronner Scholarship
Anna Sternfeld, Psychology & Spanish
Class of 1933 Scholarship
Michaela Miragliotta, Political Science & Spanish
Class of 1940 Creative Writing Award
Justine DeCamillis, Fiction
Allison Burnett, Poetry
Class of 1945 Merit Scholarship
Gregory Blair, Music
Class of 1976 Humanities Scholarship
Daniel McDonald, History & Political Science
Robert D. and Nancy M. Gordon Scholarship in the Fine Arts
Luke Egan
Sumner Greenfield Memorial Scholarship
William Kearney
Oxford Summer Program Scholarship
Donna Boles
Caryne Fernandez
Rebecca Griffing
Alexandra Haslett
Annelise Nielsen
Declamation Day 2012
Congratulations to this year's Declamation Day winners! Christian Tyler Hoots won First place with "The Curtains Are Waving and People Walk Through The Afternoon Here and In Berlin and In New York City and In Mexico" by Charles Bukowski and Colin MacDonald won Second as well as the Audience Choice Award with "Like Lilly Like Wilson" by Taylor Mali. You can check out the list of this year's entries here and see photos here!
The Domestic Sphere Goes Pop
April 4, 2012 - May 6, 2012
A new exhibition at the University Museum of Contemporary Art investigates what happens to unremarkable objects when they are elevated to the status of art. The Domestic Sphere Goes Pop examines works on paper from the 1960s and 1970s and focuses particularly on the ways artists manipulate color, form, scale, context, and technique to defamiliarize the everyday. This exhibition is co-curated by Rebecca Bernard and Kristen Rudy, Masters in Art History candidates, 2012 as the culmination of their Curatorial Fellowship. You can read an article about the process here!
Congrats to the University Chorale!
The University Chorale were finalists in WGBY’s “Together in Song” competition. This competition celebrates the choral traditions of western New England. The Chorale was selected as the best choir in the collegiate category and performed in both the semifinal and final performances at The Paramount Theater in Springfield. More…
UMass Minuteman Marching Band To Perform at 2013 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
The award-winning University of Massachusetts Minuteman Marching Band has been chosen to perform in the 2013 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, a nationally televised event that draws more than 50 million viewers and 3.5 million live spectators. At a special meeting held April 3 at the George N. Parks Band Building at UMass Amherst, officials from the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade surprised band members with the news of their selection to play in the annual holiday spectacular. The band’s high-profile appearance in the parade comes as UMass Amherst celebrates its sesquicentennial next year. “Being selected for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is a great honor for the Minuteman Marching Band,” said Timothy Todd Anderson, director of the 350-strong ensemble. More...
History Grad Student Honored At White House
Beth Behn '12G, a Lieutenant Colonel in the army and History Ph.D. student was recently honored at the White House for her contribution in serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation New Dawn. In this interview, she talks about the support she received from her family and friends in Iowa as well as the high points of her military career so far. More...
MFA Student Wins Award for Best Graduate Film
Congratulations to MFA student, Charissa Owens, English, who won the award for Best Graduate Film at the 2012 Five College Student Film and Video Festival for her film "Don't Blink." It will be screened along with the other winners on Wednesday, April 4th at the Pleasant Street Theater in Northampton.
Linguistics Undergrad Wins Honors Grant
Undergraduate student Christopher Garry '13 has received a $1000 research grant from the University of Massachusetts Amherst's Commonwealth Honors College for building a system to record vertical movement of the larynx during speech. Chris is a computer engineering major who came to the Phonetics Lab last spring with an interest in getting practical research experience. He will present the results of this project at the Undergraduate Research Conference later this spring. Linguistics Professor John Kingston is his mentor in this research project. More...
Two Music Students Chosen to Participate in the Mentor Program of the Jazz Education Network
Jeffrey Schneider and Micah Maurio have been selected to participate in the Mentor Program of the Jazz Education Network (JEN). This new initiative, starting in 2012, is designed for aspiring student jazz artists nation-wide. The JEN Mentor Program will pair worthy college/university jazz students who are on a serious track toward a career in music performance, education or the business of music & the arts with experts in their chosen field. The resulting mentor/student relationship will provide the student with an advisor and sounding board for one year.
Both students are taking a Master of Music in Jazz Composition and Arranging in the Jazz & African-American Music Studies Program of the Department of Music & Dance. Jeffrey Schneider is in his first year and Micah Maurio is in his second year of the degree program.