Joy Castro, Willa Cather Professor of English and ethnic studies and director of the Institute of Ethnic Studies, was quoted in a Jan. 5 Times guest column on HBO’s “And Just Like That,” the reboot of “Sex and the City.” “It’s as if its characters must have been asleep for 20 years and awakened utterly gob-smacked to find themselves encountering such things as Black professors, nonbinary children and queer longings,” she said.
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A new survey study by Kevin B. Smith, Leland J. and Dorothy H. Olson Chair and Professor of political science, was featured in a Jan. 21 Times opinion piece. The 2020 surveys found that about 40% of Americans identified politics as a significant source of stress, mirroring 2017 findings. “What I think is going on is that politics is unavoidable,” Smith said. “It is essentially a permanent part of the background noise of our lives.” The study was also featured in a Jan. 22 Mashable article, and Smith was a guest on the nationally syndicated Michael Medved Show on Jan. 25.
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Jim Lewis, mathematics, was quoted in a Jan. 1 Santa Fe New Mexican article on lessons learned and not learned during the COVID-19 pandemic. Lewis said people want simple answers and “don’t understand percentages, statistics, probability, etc.” If people become ill during a mask mandate or after being vaccinated, some believe that’s proof they don’t work, he said.
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Kwame Dawes, George Holmes Distinguished Professor of English and Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner, is featured on the cover of the January/February issue of The American Poetry Review. Five of his poems are included in the issue.
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The University of Nebraska–Lincoln was highlighted in a Jan. 5 Inside Higher Ed article on colleges and universities tackling inequity. The university has used DFW data to measure the impact of an active learning initiative in the Department of Mathematics. It also has hired a faculty director for undergraduate analytics to support each department in analyzing their DWF data, with a particular focus on equity.
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With help from the ultra-intense lasers at the university’s Extreme Light Laboratory, Husker physicists have experimentally demonstrated just how strangely light can behave when scattering from electrons. By confirming certain light-scattering dynamics proposed a half-century ago, the researchers are casting fresh eyes on the universe-birthing fireworks ignited by the Big Bang nearly 14 billion years ago. Stories on the research have appeared in the York News-Times, the Department of Energy’s Office of Science website and Phys.org.
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Kenneth J. Winkle, history, was interviewed for a Jan. 10 History.com article on how the Union defended Washington, D.C., during the Civil War. “The two capitals (Washington, D.C., and Richmond, Virginia) were so vital that the capture of either one would end the war,” said Winkle, author of “Lincoln’s Citadel: The Civil War in Washington, D.C.”
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Chigozie Obioma’s second novel, “An Orchestra of Minorities,” was highlighted in a Jan. 26 Guardian article titled “Top 10 novels inspired by Greek myths.” “An Orchestra of Minorities” reinterprets “The Odyssey” as a story about a Nigerian farmer. The novel, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2019, explores love and sacrifice, vulnerability and misfortune, and the power of fate. Obioma is the James E. Ryan Associate Professor of English at Nebraska.
Obioma was also quoted in a Jan. 27 Los Angeles Times article on the new anthology “Anonymous Sex.” He contributed a story to the collection. Yahoo! News picked up the article.
