Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies S. Brent Plate says, “This year's Oscar line-up is once again rife with religious references, and the entertainment industry may be overtaking religious institutions as the prime mythmakers and ritual producers in a society where the 'nones' are on the rise.”

A book review by Assistant Professor of History John Eldevik has appeared in the latest issue of Speculum, the leading North American journal of medieval studies.

Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies S. Brent Plate recently received grants from the American Philosophical Society and the Central New York Humanities Corridor from an award by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for two projects.

 “MAD, ILL-EQUIPPED AND ADMIRABLE: EVEREST 1962,” an article written by Publius Virgilius Rogers Professor of American History Maurice Isserman appearing in Alpinist magazine, tells the story of an American-Swiss team of four climbers who attempted to climb Mt. Everest from the north side.  Isserman wrote about the climbers’ adventures, from their initial planning to their illegal entry into Tibet and their near-fatal accidents which ultimately caused them to turn back.

Barbara Gold, Edward North Professor of Classics, was the outside examiner on a dissertation for a Ph.D. candidate in University of Toronto classics department.

An All Things Considered report on National Public Radio that focused on the upside of Iowa’s drought last summer included an interview with Ann Owen, the Henry Platt Bristol Professor of Economics. In “The Silver Lining In Drought: 5 Upsides To Rain-Free Weather,” Owen discussed the study, “Heat Waves, Droughts, and Preferences for Environmental Policy,” that she co-authored with Assistant Professor of Economics Emily Conover, Associate Professor of Economics Julio Videras and Professor of Economics Stephen Wu.

An article by Chief Diversity Officer and Professor of Africana Studies Donald Carter was published as a chapter in Africa in Europe: Studies in Transnational Practice in the Long Twentieth Century. “Blackness Over Europe: Meditations on Culture and Belonging” appears in a section titled “Post-colonial Belonging.”

The New York Times published a letter written by Visiting Assistant Professor of History John Ragosta in response to an article that recently appeared in that paper about a new clinic at Stanford Law School enlisting students to oppose restrictions on the free expression of religion. Ragosta, who is the author of the forthcoming book, Religious Freedom: Jefferson’s Legacy, America’s Creed, referenced the words of 18th century evangelists who played a crucial role in religious freedom’s development.

Heidi M. Ravven, professor of religious studies, was an invited participant in a small, intensive seminar on affective neuroscience Dec. 12 – 19 in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

A new book review by Assistant Professor of History John Eldevik has appeared in the most recent issue of the English Historical Review. Eldevik's review discusses "Patterns of Episcopal Power: Bishops in Tenth and Eleventh Century Western Europe," ed. Ludger Körntgen, and Dominik Wassenhoven (Berlin, 2011), a collection of scholarly essays by German and British historians on the role of bishops in early medieval politics and culture.