Seven Receive Reassigned Time Awards for Winter Semester

Seven NMU faculty members are taking advantage of reassigned time awards this semester to focus on research, writing and other scholarly activities. The recipients and their projects follow:

Gabriel Brahm (English) is expanding an article he wrote with the help of a previous grant, which has been accepted for publication, into a book titled Re-Orientalism: Edward Said, Postcolonial Theory and the ‘New Anti-Semitism.’

Zac Cogley (Philosophy) is extending his previous analysis of anger to the entire class of blaming emotions (resentment and indignation, in addition to anger). He plans to show that theorizing about moral responsibility is myopic if it focuses on one of the functions of blaming emotions while ignoring the others.

Matthew Gavin Frank (English) will compile and annotate the wealth of research necessary to produce a book-length essay on Newfoundland Reverend Moses Harvey and his 19th-century obsession with the then-mythological giant squid.

Jonathan Hanes (Earth, Environmental and Geographical Sciences) plans to create an edited textbook that will provide the scientific community with a resource that conveys how satellite remote sensing of the earth has been used to study biophysical phenomena.

Linda Lawton (Mathematics and Computer Science) will continue her examination of whether the microfinance institutions’ lending patterns to women are solely a function of institution choice, or whether those decisions are influenced by the economic and social environment in which the institution operates.

Shravan Rajagopal (Art and Design) intends to create a user-friendly interactive digital environment where people can actively learn about the symbolism behind the cosmological yantra diagram. A yantra is a geometrical composition of primordial shapes such as the triangle, circle and square in numerous combinations and permutations that have symbolic significance in meditation and ritual worship. Rajagopal will work with scholars at Sri Srineri Sharada Peetham in southern India.

Alex Ruuska (Sociology and Social Work) will analyze the emergence of the first postal carriers of the Upper Peninsula, who carried the U.S. mail via snowshoes and dogsleds along some of the region’s oldest footpaths. She plans to write an article based on the systemization of data gathered during a two-year grant funded by the National Park Service.