News

In fall 2020, CCS Professor of Humanities Dr. Gioia Woods embarked on an ambitious initiative, the NAU Plague Project, to bring students, faculty, and community together to read Albert Camus' 1947 novel The Plague and to participate in a wide variety of events, including panel presentations with local health professionals, collaborative reading and discussion between university students and area high schools, an interfaith panel discussion, and a workshop on how to collect pandemic stories to record and express life during…

Study abroad with CCS Professor of Humanities Dr. Gioia Woods this summer in Italy! Learn more about the program and apply here.

Study abroad in France next summer with CCS Faculty Affiliate and oral historian Dr. Steven Smith! Learn more about the program and apply here.

Congratulations to CCS alum Abigail Paternina (Art History emphasis, 2021) on her new position at the Montclair Art Museum in New Jersey!  Abigail is working closely with local New York and New Jersey artists as the Special Events Associate with the museum in preparation for an upcoming art auction in December. She will also be working with the curatorial department on programming.

Congratulations to Professor of Art History and Asian Studies Dr. Zsuzsanna Gulácsi on her recent publication, “A Latin Pictorial Witness to Tatian’s Diatessaron" in Vigiliae Christianae 75 in October 2021! Dr. Gulácsi examines the unsuspected Syriac Christian ties of a famous set of illustrations in a 6th-century Latin gospel book in England in the article. A sacred treasure of the Anglican Church, the book is the oldest surviving illustrated Latin gospel book and one of the oldest European books in existence. …

Congratulations to Lecturer Dr. Diana Coleman who presented on Monday, October 4th, at the 7th World Parliament of Science, Religion, and Philosophy hosted virtually by the MIT World Peace University in Pune, India. She was part of a panel titled “The Right to Peace- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” Her talk put the aspirational UDHR and the treaties and human rights laws it has inspired-the Core Human Rights Instruments-in tension with the human cost and transgressions of the US…

Regents' Professor and CCS Professor in the Comparative Study of Religions Dr. Björn Krondorfer will lead the Arizona Jewish Historical Society virtual seminar German Family History and "Ordinary" Antisemitism on Oct. 1 from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. MST (Arizona). The question of "ordinary antisemitism" will be explored through a personal story about the effects of the Holocaust and war memories in German society after 1945, especially as they are passed on generationally. Dr. Krondorfer's parents were 18 years old…

Professor of Art History Dr. Alexandra Carpino joined the Ithaca Bound Podcast in July to discuss the Etruscans, an ancient civilization on the Italian Peninsula. The Ithaca Bound Podcast is a daily podcast that explores history and mythology in the Mediterranean Basin and hosted by Andrew Schiestel. The podcast can be streamed here and on the podcast apps for Apple, Spotify, and Amazon Music.

Congratulations to Assistant Professor of the Comparative Study of Religions Dr. Dunja Jelesijevic on her recent publication, “Dangerous’ Beauty: Imagining the Other in the Noh Play Sesshōseki,” in Narratives Crossing Borders: Cultural Perspectives (2021, Dalarna University, Sweden)!

CCS alumni Gibran Villalobos (BA Art History, BS Public Relations 2007) was featured in the spring 2021 issue of  Pine Magazine, the alumni magazine for NAU, for his recognition as one of 14 inaugural Leaders for a New Chicago by the Field Foundation of Illinois in 2019. The award, granted in collaboration with the MacArthur Foundation, recognizes a range of established and emerging leaders who help build an equitable community and play a major role in shaping the future of the city.…

Congratulations to CCS alumni Holly Filsinger on her recent success in procuring funding from the Illinois State University's Office of Research and Graduate Studies for a university sponsored lecture series focused on photography. The presentations will focus on the global impact of photography today and will feature speakers from a broad range of disciplines. Holly Filsinger graduated from NAU with a B.A. degree in Comparative Cultural Studies with an emphasis in Art History and a minor in Arts and Cultural…

The Association of Midwest Museums recently awarded Melissa a fellowship to work on the IMLS Funded Digital Empowerment Project. As part of the fellowship, Melissa will work in Live Broadcast Support Services and Online Forum Moderation Services as part of a larger project to organize capacity-building digital media and technology training programs as well as online resource libraries for small museums by the Association of Midwest Museums in partnership with the Council of Regional Associations. 

Adriana's project resulted from research developed through a Hooper Undergraduate Research Award (HURA). Adriana worked closely with CCS Lecturer in the Comparative Study of Religions Dr. Diana Murtaugh Coleman to apply for the award and during her research. Learn more about her project in the abstract below. Adriana is pursuing a major in Physics and Astrophysics with a minor in Mathematics at NAU.   Abstract: Before COVID, a collegiate-level introduction to world religions course would often be taught in large…

Please join us in congratulating CCS Professor Björn Krondorfer, who is now an esteemed Regents' Professor at NAU! Regents' professors have been awarded to less than 3% of the faculty at NAU at any one time and must be full professors recognized internationally and nationally for their work and demonstrate a record of exceptional achievements. Dr. Krondorfer is also the director of the Martin-Springer Institute and studies religion, gender and culture and post-Holocaust reconciliation; his scholarship helped define the field…

Professor of the Comparative Study of Religions and Director of the Martin-Springer Institute at NAU Dr. Björn Krondorfer was invited to write an epilogue on the issue of "empathy" for History, Trauma and Shame: Engaging the Past through Second Generation Dialogue, a book created by a team of German, Jewish, and South African psychotherapists and analysts and published in 2021. Dr. Krondorfer had been part of this team when conceiving the contour of this publication, in which all contributors reflect on…

Lecturer in the Comparative Study of Religions Dr. Diana Murtaugh Coleman gave a presentation, "Righteousness, Resentment, and Religion in this Time of Plague," on her research on state violence at the 2021 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion, Western Region conference in March in the panel "American Religion and Racial Justice." Abstract: Drawing on literatures that address the historical and contemporary impact of state violence deployed against BIPOC and their communities,  I will analyze the strategies of resistance and…

Attention all CCS Jacks! Be sure to submit your application for one of the four scholarships offered by CCS soon! We offer 4 scholarships in CCS The Louise Kellogg Duncan Humanities Scholarship for students in the Public Humanities emphasis. Award: up to $800 The Lakeview United Methodist Scholarship for students in the Comparative Studies of Religions emphasis. Award: up to $1000 The Dennis H. Atkin Humanities Scholarship for juniors or seniors in CCS whose studies emphasize the arts, cultures, and/or…

CCS Lecturer in Public Humanities & Museum Studies Dr. Becky Pratt-Sturges is one of four faculty members recently recognized for exceptional teaching, research, and service contributions at NAU. Learn more about Dr. Pratt and the 3 other featured faculty here.  

Attention all CCS Jacks! Be sure to submit your application for one of the four scholarships offered by CCS soon! We offer 4 scholarships in CCS The Louise Kellogg Duncan Humanities Scholarship for students in the Public Humanities emphasis. Award: up to $800 The Lakeview United Methodist Scholarship for students in the Comparative Studies of Religions emphasis. Award: up to $1000 The Dennis H. Atkin Humanities Scholarship for juniors or seniors in CCS whose studies emphasize the arts, cultures, and/or…

April is National Poetry Month, and CCS wants your help in honoring Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Submit video or audio of yourself reading a Ferlinghetti poem or one of the works he published, translated or inspired. CCS Professor Dr. Gioia Woods is one of the coordinators of the project. Learn more here. Call for Participants On February 22, 2021, poet and publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti died at age 101. As a public intellectual of enormous influence, Ferlinghetti’s impact on freedom of expression, avant…

Professor of the Comparative Study of Religions and Director of the Martin-Springer Institute at NAU Dr. Björn Krondorfer recently published the article, "Hunger: Testing Testimonial Limits in the Gray Zone" in the journal Humanities in the special issue The Literary Response to the Holocaust in January 2021.  Abstract: Literary descriptions of the multitude of experiences during the Holocaust and World War II face the dilemma of the (non)representability of extreme duress. This article delves into the testimonial remnants of two men in the…

On March 5, 5 PM [EST] - so 3 PM here in Arizona), Professor of Art History Dr. Alexandra Carpino will give a Zoom talk on the Etruscans' motherhood myths for the AIA's Baltimore Society - you are welcome to join! The link is available here: https://www.archaeological.org/.../lecture-5-tba-baltimore/  Normative concepts about gender were communicated in the Etruscan domestic sphere, specifically in aristocratic households, through narratives that decorated the reverses of engraved bronze mirrors. These artifacts were more than just expensive luxury…

Congratulations to Dr. Jen McLerran, Associate Professor of Art History, on her $86,000 grant from the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative to plan an exhibition of Navajo weaving for the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. ! Dr. McLerran, Navajo weaver D. Y. Begay, NMAI Curator Cecile Ganteaume, and conservator/curator Jeanne Brako will curate the exhibition. Launched by the Smithsonian Institute in 2018, the American Women’s History Initiative aims to research, educate, collect and disseminate the historical…

Congratulations to Dr. Gioia Woods, Professor of Humanities, on her AZ Humanities micro-grant to support the storytelling workshop Humanities in Action: Pandemic Stories! The micro-grant, awarded during the fall semester, supported a storytelling workshop designed to train community members to record one another's "pandemic stories." Panel participants included an archivist, a Navajo elder and storyteller, a journalist, and an historian. Through the workshop, the audience learned how to collect stories from their fellow community members--health care professionals, teachers, students, elders,…

Faculty News: CCS Professor Dr. Zsuzsanna Gulácsi will present the online lecture, Sideways-Oriented Images of Manichaean and Armenian Liturgical Books, on January 29, 2021. The event will be hosted by East of Byzantium, which is is a partnership between the Arthur H. Dadian and Ara Oztemel Chair of Armenian Art at Tufts University and the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture at Hellenic College Holy Cross in Brookline, MA. This lecture will take place live on ZOOM, followed by…

Join the College of Arts & Letters for a conference exploring the impact of the pandemic in April 2021.   Resilience, Resistance, Renovation, and Rebirth Virtual Conference April 22, 23, 29, 30, 2021   What a year? SARS CoV-2 has hit us hard and forced us into a new normal. What is this normal now in the sciences, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics? What has happened to your work, research, and lives that would not have happened without the interruption…

Art History Professor Dr. Alexandra Carpino will present her research in Etruscan iconography at the Archaeological Institute of America's Annual Meeting on January 5, 2021. Her presentation, "Not a Taboo: Maternal Undress in Late Classical Etruscan Mirror Iconography," is part of the Nudity, Costume, and Gender in Etruscan Art Colloquium. Learn more about her presentation in the abstract below. The seminal work of Larissa Bonfante established that nudity not only signified a wide range of concepts in Etruscan iconography –…

Congratulations to Dr. Becky Pratt-Sturges on her chapter, "Visualizing the Medieval Park: Real Spaces and Imagined Places in Le livre de chasse," published this past fall in Reading the Natural World in the Middle Ages and Renaissance: Perceptions of the Environment and Ecology (Brepols). From the publisher: From the late 600s to the early 1600s, medieval and early modern people engaged with nature in ways that shaped their sense of place, religion, literature, art, and more. Contributors to this volume…

Please join us in congratulating senior Megan Yurk on her award of Outstanding Senior for Fall 2020 for the department of Comparative Cultural Studies. Megan will graduate with an emphasis in Asian Studies and minors in Art History and the Comparative Cultural Study of Religions and served as a teaching assistant for REL 150 World Religions for several semesters. She was also previously awarded two departmental scholarships and received the Junior Book Prize for the Comparative Study of Religions and…

Please join CCS in congratulating Dr. Björn Krondorfer on the publication of his recent book, Unsettling Empathy: Working with Groups in Conflict, published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers in October. From the publisher: This book is an in-depth reflection and analysis on why and how unsettling empathy is a crucial component in reconciliatory processes. Located at the intersection of memory studies, reconciliation studies, and trauma studies, the book is at its core transdisciplinary, presenting a fresh perspective on how to…

In 2016, a box of photographs and memorabilia was donated to the Martin-Springer Institute of Northern Arizona University (NAU). The cluttered collection contained over 400 photographs and material items related to World War II in Europe. They belonged to U.S. Medical Corp. soldier, James P. Kuykendall. With little information about the contents of the collection and the photographer himself, the Institute created, funded, and supervised a team of NAU students to research and archive the collection.  Comparative Cultural Studies alumni…

During normal circumstances, our Outstanding Senior would be recognized at a banquet hosted by the College of Arts & Letters. We encourage you to recognize Emma's achievements on the CCS Facebook page since we cannot honor Emma at the annual banquet. We are very proud of Emma and all her accomplishments! The Public Humanities faculty nominated CCS major (emphasis in Public Humanities) Emma Parish for the CCS Outstanding Senior award for spring 2020. Dr. Gioia Woods writes "Emma exemplifies what…

Under normal circumstances, the department of Comparative Cultural Studies honors its scholarship recipients and winners of the Junior Book Prize in a ceremony during the spring semester. We are incredibly proud of our students and invite you to congratulate them on their awards on our department Facebook page. Dominic Counihan CCS major (emphasis Comparative Study of Religions) Dominic Counihan will receive the Lakeview United Methodist Scholarship. He is from Tehachapi in California and is also pursuing a major in Military…

Humanities West in San Francisco invited Dr. Carpino to speak at their 2020 series Etruscan Italy: Life and Afterlife. An internationally recognized expert in Etruscan art, Dr. Carpino will present "Quintessentially Etruscan: Art and Architecture from the Villanovan to the Etrusco-Roman Period" on February 29, 2020. Her talk will explore how analysis of Etruscan art reveals a remarkable Mediterranean culture. From the 9th century on, Etruscan and immigrant artists and craftsmen created temples, tombs, vases, jewelry and more for individuals eager to communicate…

It is never too early to decide to advance your degree progress by taking summer courses offered by Comparative Cultural Studies!

The NAU Aspirations website features the hopes, dreams, and goals of Lumberjack students, faculty, and staff. Comparative Cultural Studies Professor of the Comparative Study of Religions and director of the Martin Springer Institute Björn Krondorfer frequently provides students with opportunities to participate in public humanities projects focused on original research. During spring 2020, undergraduate and graduate students began archiving a box of World War II photos donated to the Martin Spring Institute under the direction of Dr. Krondorfer. Learn more…

It is never too early to decide to advance your degree progress by taking summer courses offered by Comparative Cultural Studies!       

Congratulations to CCS Art History alum Margaret Sheble, recipient of the 2020-2021 Helen Ann Mins Robbins Fellowship in Medieval Studies at Rochester University! Margaret Sheble is a Ph.D. candidate in English at Purdue University. Her dissertation project, “Arthurian Women and the Autonomy of Suicide,” argues that suicides in “Arthurian texts reflect wider concerns of ideal heteronormativity, gender roles, and one’s faithfulness to the Arthurian community.” Her investigation of medieval attitudes toward suicide incorporates texts and images from the English, French,…

Lecturer Dr. Becky Pratt-Sturges will be speaking at Arizona State University on October 8 on different kinds of careers for art historians as part of an invited alumni speaking series hosted by the School of Art in Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts.

Congratulations to Comparative Study of Religions Lecturer Dr. Diana Coleman on her recent article, "El Sur También Existe: Imagining futures" in Cultural Dynamics Volume 31 Issue 4!   Abstract: Guantánamo is infamous as a site of extra-legal detention in the wake of 9/11; more than a single site, it is part of a web of the United States’ militarization operating in the Global South. An area of the military base is now being revitalized as a new camp for climate…

Congratulations to Public Humanities Lecturer Dr. Patrick Pynes! He received the Arizona Forward 2018 Crescordia Award for Environmental Excellence for his collaborative work with the Northern Arizona Pollinator Habitat Initiative (NAPHI). NAPHI won the award for Site Development and Landscape for their innovative work in support of endangered pollinators, such as monarch butterflies, native bees, and honeybees. NAU staff, students, and faculty worked together for two years to support NAPHI's commitment to create, protect, and register pollinator habitats across northern…

Congratulations to art historian Dr. Tara Kohn! She received an honorable mention award for her Fall 2018 essay, "Elevated: Along the Fringes of 291 Fifth Avenue", in the Journal of the Association of Historians of American Art Panorama  in the competition for the Director's Essay Prize at the National Portrait Gallery.    

Congratulations to Public Humanities Professor Gioia Woods on her recent publication Left in the West: Literature, Culture, and Progressive Politics in the American West (University of Nevada Press, 2018)! In this edited collection, Dr. Gioia Woods and her contributors bring together histories, biographies, close readings, and theories about the literary and cultural Left in the American West—as it is distinct from the more often-theorized literary left in major eastern metropolitan centers. Left in the West expands our understanding of what constitutes the literary…