Stonehill Faculty Focus 2008
Woodrow Wilson Fellow Leads Middle East Debate
One of the highlights of the yearlong series on war was the arrival of Stonehill's first Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow, Richard Norton, professor of International Relations and Anthropology at Boston University and an authority on the Middle East.
The Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellows program sends highly regarded, accomplished scholars to colleges across the country for a week of residency. At Stonehill, Norton led numerous discussions on Middle East issues. In particular, he provided in-depth perspectives on Islamic culture, society and religion. Spending a week on campus, he also visited classes in biology/environmental studies, history, political science, and religious studies.
"The Woodrow Wilson Program is great because the faculty members don't just parachute in, give a talk, and leave," Ubertaccio observes. "They're around to immerse themselves in campus life, to talk with students, with faculty and staff, discussing their areas of expertise." Prof. Norton dined with department chairs and all new faculty members, and led a seminar at the Center for Teaching and Learning.
"His visit was a success and he drew rave reviews for the ways in which he facilitated debate on a complicated, pressing topic," says Ubertaccio.
The war series concluded with a two-day conference, The Music of War: An Interdisciplinary Conference, that explored the diverse musical responses to war. The event drew scholars from political science, history, music, and other fields who discussed the role of music in war, ranging from the various types of traditional war protest music to the music of soldiers and comrades-in-arms, to patriotic and nationalistic music from a global perspective.