From national and international recognitions and important books and papers to explorations and performances that benefitted the Maine community and beyond in myriad ways, Bowdoin faculty enriched campus life this spring through a wide array of scholarly and artistic pursuits that extended well beyond the classroom.
Students from the Fall 2024 Introduction to Hispanic Literature: Poetry and Theater course, led by Visiting Assistant Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures Yoel Castillo Botello, won multiple recognitions in the latest edition of "Our New Gold," an international digital storytelling festival.
Henry Winkley Professor of Latin and Greek Barbara Weiden Boyd was invited to present "Myth Transformed: Ovid's Metamorphoses, from Antiquity to the Present," a three-part series of lectures for Roundtable, an outreach program of courses presented by New York's renowned 92nd Street Y.
Associate Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures Margaret Boyle’s Sabor Judío: The Jewish Mexican Cookbook (University of North Carolina Press, 2024), coauthored by Amherst professor Ilan Stavans, was named a Jewish Book Award finalist for the Jane and Stuart Weitzman Family Award in the food writing and cookbooks category.
Assistant Professor of Theater Design German Cardenas was the scenic designer for La Clemenza di Tito by W. A. Mozart at Friedberg Hall for The Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University.
Aviva Briefel, Edward Little Professor of the English Language and Literature and Cinema Studies, was interviewed by the New Books Network about her new book, Ghosts and Things: The Material Culture of Nineteenth-Century Spiritualism.
Associate Professor of Africana Studies and English Tess Chakkalakal's new biography of Charles W. Chesnutt was praised by The New York Times and included in its “Seven New Books We Recommend” list. Chakkalakal spoke about the book on NPR station WUNC.
Chakkalakal also spoke with Connie Morgan of the Free Black Thought podcast about the biography.
Research by Assistant Professor of Music Ireri Chávez-Bárcenas informs the CaronAntica 2025 concert "Voices from the New World,” a musical exploration to rediscover sacred chants from Baroque Latin America.
Professor of History and Environmental Studies Connie Chiang is the editor and contributor of Nature Unfurled: Asian American Environmental Histories (University of Washington Press), a collection of essays exploring the many intersections of Asian American and environmental history.
Professor of Art History Pamela Fletcher’s new book, The Victorian Painting of Modern Life, traces the history of the immensely popular mid-century modern life subject in Britain, and argues that these paintings engage modernity by exploring the effects of new technologies, financial and political systems, and rhythms of urban life on people’s private lives and intimate relationships, asking their viewers to reflect on the question: What does modern life feel like?
Students in Senior Lecturer in Environmental Studies Eileen Johnson’s Applied GIS and Remote Sensing class used their GIS skills to help the Town of Topsham plan for a healthier, greener future by updating its conservation plan.
Working with student research assistants, Johnson also completed a NOAA Sea Grant Social Resilience Project examining the impact of 2024 storms on Lincoln County, Maine, residents through focus groups, interviews, and community meetings.
VoxEU published a column on Assistant Professor of Economics Mahdi Kahou’s research paper, "Spooky Boundaries at a Distance: Inductive Bias, Dynamic Models, and Behavioural Macro," establishing how machine learning methods align with rationality in sequential decision-making processes in economics.
Assistant Professor of Digital Music Badie Khaleghian received Chamber Music America's 2025 Interdisciplinary Collaboration of the Year Award for "Meeting of Minds." This honor is shared with Musiqa, composer Anthony Brandt, NobleMotion Dance, and the University of Houston Brain-Machine Interface Systems Team.
Professor of Theater Abigail Killeen performed in Like Flies by Maggie Kearnan at Portland Stage's 36th Annual Little Festival of the Unexpected.
Killeen also performed some of Brock Clarke's work at Portland Stage's Maine Writer's Series, Love/Not Love.
It’s not enough for students merely to know how to use AI tools, writes Assistant Professor of Psychology Abhilasha Kumar. They should attain what she calls “AI literacy,” no matter their area of study. Kumar shared her insights in a Bangor Daily News opinion piece.
Music instructor Gulimina Mahamuti was nominated to be the Music Teachers National Association’s vice president of representation and advocacy.
Lecturer in Hispanic Studies Christian Puma Ninacuri coauthored the paper "Ecuadorians in NYC: Language and Cultural Practices of a Community in the Diaspora,” which has been published in the book, Spanish in the US: A Sociolinguistic Approach, a special issue celebrating the resilience and adaptability of Spanish in the United States.
Associate Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience Erika Nyhus published an article in Imaging Neuroscience with Syanah Wynn on changing neural oscillations and memory.
Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures Gustavo Faverón Patriau’s third novel, Minimosca, is a finalist for the Finestres Award, one of the biggest prizes in Spanish language fiction.
Assistant Professor of Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies Irina Popescu curated the Bowdoin College Museum of Art exhibition Reimagining Our Américas: Empathy and Activism Beyond Borders with students from her fall 2024 first-year writing seminar.
Associate Professor of German Jill Smith’s book, The Afterlives of Weimar Berlin: Twenty-First-Century Literature, Media, and Visual Culture (Rochester: Camden House, 2024), tracks the resurgent interest in the history and culture of the Weimar Republic (1918–1933) over the last ten to fifteen years in Germany and shows how this interest is represented in the mainstream press and in popular novels and visual media.
The album Give Way is the debut collaboration between Kate Campbell Strauss, music lecturer and director of jazz ensembles, and Emily Mikesell. The result is a series of lush, original soundscapes landing in the space between big band and contemporary classical music.
George Taylor Files Professor of Modern Languages and Professor of German Birgit Tautz has been awarded a Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researchers Re-Invitation Grant by the Alexander von Humboldt foundation allowing for a three-month stay at Humboldt University in Berlin.
Visiting Assistant Professor of Digital and Computational Studies Gomezgil Yaspik and Ari Bersch ’25 represented Bowdoin across multiple academic venues in Peru, presenting cutting-edge research and establishing important connections between the College and leading South American institutions.
