Ph.D. Student By Rebekah Tilley
Photos by Mark Cornelison
Culture expresses itself in a myriad of familiar ways – our music, fashion, entertainment, literature. Perhaps less noted is the way that culture impacts our bodies including the very manner we are brought into the world and the food that nourishes us during gout first year of life.
As a graduate student in geography, Rebecca Lane turned to social theory to provide a more in depth understanding of the theoretical structures within her own discipline that inform her research on medical and feminist geography while benefitting from the perspectives of other graduate students and instructors outside her own discipline.
“I needed this type of knowledge,” said Lane when asked how social theory impacted her research portfolio. “
News
University of Kentucky alum James Booth has found a perfect combination in statistics and genetics.
A Blackpool, England native, Booth studied at the University of Leeds before coming to the United States to study in the Bluegrass. He earned his undergraduate degree in mathematics and his master’s degree in statistics at Leeds before looking at Ph.D. programs.
“I decided to go to the United States for my graduate program and I really only looked at three universities,” Booth said. Those three were Florida State University, Cornell University and UK.
UK professor Joe Gani was well-known among math and statistics faculty at Leeds and Booth ultimately headed to Kentucky in January 1982.
Booth landed in New York before heading south. “It was the first time I came to America and
Ph.D. Student
By Rebekah Tilley
Photos by Richie Wireman
Who’s afraid of a little theory? Unfortunately, many of us would rather clean our bathrooms than painfully work through the writings of Derrida and Foucault. Geography doctoral candidate and social theory student James Looney found that for many graduate students, the UK Social Theory Program takes the edge off gaining a solid theoretical foundation in their own academic disciplines.
“Theoretical training tends to be two things in many graduate programs – woefully lacking and threatening,” said Looney. “The Social Theory Program allows a place where one can access and learn about theory. It takes care of the unfamiliarity and the inaccessibility of theory.”
Looney is a cultural and social geographer who focuses his research on cultural landscapes, and much of his work is
by Michelle Ku
photos by Mark Cornelison
As a college student at Michigan State University in the ’60s, Tom Janoski worked on an automotive assembly line at a Chrysler plant in Trenton, Mich.
Janoski was a piston shooter, which happened to be the second hardest job at the plant. He would pick up a piston that was located on a rack above him, compress the rings on it, stick it into a cylinder, place it into a hole in the upside down engine block, and pull a handle that would punch the piston into the engine block.
For the first two weeks on the job, about every 15th piston would get stuck. Most of the time, he would be able to straighten it before the engine block moved to the next person’s station, but about two to three times a day, Janoski couldn’t fix
PhD Student
By Leah Bayens
Photos by Mark Cornelison
Philosophy doctoral candidate Christa Hodapp is sorting out an issue most people superficially acknowledge before returning to business as usual: humans are animals.
“The traditional, neo-Lockean claim is that you’re fundamentally a person, which is a rational, thinking being, and you happen to be related to an animal in some way,” Hodapp explained. Thus, many people imagine that personhood separates us from the likes of dogs, horses, and ants. In the process, they also tend to place humans on a higher rung than our nonhuman counterparts.
Hodapp, however, refuses to split nature and mind in this way. Instead, her dissertation, Personal Identity and the Biological View of Human Persistence, foregrounds the notion that human beings are not simply related to
Cadet Spotlight by Jason Kazee
Keep moving forward. Words such as these can get you through daily challenges, lifelong struggles, or even just around the next corner. Though these words are not found in the United States Army Code of Conduct, soldiers and civilians alike can rely on them. Cadet Battalion Commander Brennan Parker depends on them to carry him through whatever may lie ahead.
Parker recently took part in a 12-cadet relay that carried the game ball from Joker Phillips’ hands in Commonwealth Stadium and delivered it to a team from the University of Louisville’s ROTC program. The team ran 46-miles to a town located mid-way between Lexington and Louisville, Kentucky. The cadets from the University of Louisville took over from mile 46 and delivered the football to Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium. Capped off by Brennan
by Robin Roenker
photos by Jennifer Roberts
The University of Kentucky Philosophy Department welcomed four new faculty members in fall 2010: Tim Sundell, Stefan Bird-Pollan, Meg Wallace, and Natalie Nenadic.
Their interests within the field couldn’t be more diverse—ranging, respectively, from the philosophy of language and linguistics to ethics to contemporary metaphysics (i.e., the nature of reality) and the problem of sexual objectification of women in today’s society.
But while their concentrations differ, each shares a love of philosophy itself, a love, as Wallace puts it, of “turning an argument around in [your] head for a while” until you get at a truth, however large or small, that offers insight into our word, our lives, or ourselves.
At UK, they each feel they
The connections between Leibniz and Kant studied at unique, UK-hosted conference
By Rebekah Tilley
Imagine a famous artist painting a portrait of another artist, long dead, based only on the description of someone who knew the person in life. Then imagine scholars hundreds of years later, attempting to determine the accuracy of the likeness and the origins of the artistic techniques of the portrait.
Now imagine that instead of artists, they are philosophers: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) and Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). In an attempt to work out some of the mysteries of these two philosophers and their relationship to each other, the UK Department of Philosophy, in conjunction with the North American Kant Society, hosted the third annual meeting of the Leibniz Society of North America on September 25-27.
Kant is
<p>Thanks to faculty, staff, alumni and students who helped to make the last week a grand success, from the Distinguished Scholar lecture, to the Hall of Fame ceremony, to our A&S Homecoming festivities.<br />
<br />
Our South Africa Initiative was featured in an article in the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.kentucky.com/2010/10/24/1492155/connecting-south-africa-and-… Herald-Leader</a> on Sunday. The film series has a few more exciting installments to show, including speaker <a target="_blank" href="http://southafrica.as.uky.edu/Guests/EddieDaniels.aspx">Eddie Daniels</a
<p><a target="_blank" href="http://www.as.uky.edu/news_events/events/Pages/HomecomingWeekend2010.as… weekend festivities</a> are on the horizon, and a variety of opportunities to show pride in A&S and UK are coming up. </p>
<p>To begin, on Wednesday, October 20th, Distinguished Professor Ernie Yanarella will be giving a lecture. The following Friday, October 22nd, marks the annual Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, which celebrates the accomplishments of the A&S family.</p>
<p>Finally, A&S is hosting a Tailgate party before the kickoff against the Georgia Bulldogs. Join us for food, fun, and live music as we mark the midpoint of another productive semester.</p>
Craig McIntosh
Cadet Spotlight
Kicking Off a Career of Leadership
by Andrew Batista
Football Time in the Bluegrass never begins until Craig McIntosh feels that the moment is right. While he channels his adrenaline, 68,000 fans in Commonwealth Stadium pause with anticipation each Saturday as McIntosh, a walk-on student athlete and University of Kentucky Army ROTC cadet, kicks away a football and thus begins the Wildcats’ weekly gridiron battles.
“Kicking a football is much more of a mental challenge than a physical performance,” said McIntosh. “When you’re kicking off, you’ve got one shot, and it’s either hit or miss. It’s not like you can hustle on the next play to recuperate mistakes you might have made. Ultimately, in that moment it’s just you and the ball.”
McIntosh takes his exceptional focus and discipline,
<p>I had the honor of introducing the first installment of "Have You Heard From Johannesburg," a seven-part documentary that is showing one installment a week during this semester.</p>
<p>The first installment was called "Road to Resistance." To listen to my speech, <a target="_blank" href="http://southafrica.as.uky.edu/multimedia/podcasts/10-10-05/Kornbluh_Lec… here</a>.</p>
In the time away from her anthropological research, Susan Stonich engages in a familiar and common hobby – “I’m a weaver.”
“The creative part of my life is weaving and textile design, I’m very interested in that,” she said.
But the nature of weaving, interlacing different threads to create a larger, coherent fabric, is integral to understanding Stonich’s career as an anthropological researcher and political ecologist. “I really do research that tends to integrate all those previously diverse fields.”
At the core of both Stonich’s research and pedagogical approach is a belief in the value and necessity of interdisciplinary perspectives. “We have to do a better job from the undergraduate level to the graduate level to train our students to be truly interdisciplinary,” she explained. “Because of the kinds of problems that I look at in my work, an
by Rebekah Tilley
Step into US Army Captain Joey Orr’s office and you can tell his blood runs True Blue. On the wall hangs a large University of Kentucky flag – blue with a large white “K” – that is visibly stained with Iraqi dirt.
“I was representing my school even while in combat,” Orr grinned, pulling out a model of the tank he commanded in Iraq to point out exactly where the flag flew.
After seven years on active duty and a combat tour in Iraq, Orr took up the post of Operations Officer for the UK Army ROTC program. It’s familiar territory for Orr as he himself graduated from the program in 2003.
Orr’s father made the military his career, as did both of his grandfathers. Was Orr’s decision to
University of Kentucky graduate, Col. James “Jim” Crider is currently serving as the G3 for the 3rd Infantry Division/Task Force Marne in Northern Iraq. In this, his third tour in Iraq, Col. Crider is planning, resourcing and synchronizing stability operations there. On September 1, 2010 he began primarily training, advising and assisting the Iraqi Security Forces. But his job includes dealing with other issues as well including regional relationships between the Arabs and the Kurds, securing the boarder, providing provincial reconstruction, and protecting American forces.
Currently nearing the end of his third tour, Col. Crider explains that each of his tours has been different. His first tour was with the 1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division during the initial invasion.
“I was able to witness much of the initial jubilation amongst the Iraqi
The soldiers of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team (BCT) from the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) who are scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan by early March will have a University of Kentucky alum among those leading their mission.
Lieutenant Colonel James Becker, a battalion commander based at Fort Campbell, Ky., will have about 800 soldiers assigned to him as they make their way overseas for a year-long deployment. Becker’s unit will be in charge of ensuring all logistics and medical support is provided for brigade combat team soldiers located in Regional Command-East in Afghanistan.
Among their responsibilities will be organizing maintenance of equipment which includes radio systems, mine-resistant vehicles, and weapons, as well as medical facilities, and all the supply and transport operations for fuel, food and water in the area, according to Becker.
<p>There are going to be a lot of opportunities to foster international understanding this year. "<a target="_blank" href="http://www.as.uky.edu/news_events/events/Pages/Kentucky%20South%20Afric… Africa & Kentucky: Different Lands, Common Ground</a>," will provide the campus community as well as the general public with a closer look at the two societies’ rich histories and present-day conditions. The South Africa and Kentucky program covers topics across disciplines and formats: there will be a series of films shown, book reading groups, lectures and other presentations are slated for the 2010-2011 academic year, in addition to a <a target="_blank" href
<p>I am thrilled to welcome a high caliber class of new faculty to the College this fall. Arts & Sciences is fortunate to have 42 new faculty (professors and lecturers) joining us as the semester starts. Over the next few blogs, I hope to acquaint readers with some new additions to the A&S team.<br />
<br />
Allow me to introduce these new faculty members in the Department of Philosophy.</p>
<p><strong>Professor Timothy Sundell<br />
</strong><br />
Timothy Sundell works primarily in the philosophy of language and linguistics. One recent area of focus has been the nature of "verbal disagreement." Specifically, in what way should individuals distinguish between substantive disagreements and disagreements that
Graduate Student
By Erin Holaday
Photos by Shaun Ring
After a busy day without a lunch break, how many times have you had that extra piece of chocolate cake, or another glass of wine later that night, when you knew, in your heart of hearts that you might not really need it?
"And the next morning, you're beating yourself up about it," said UK psychology graduate student Holly Miller. "It happens to everyone."
But according to a new study headed up by Miller, it's not necessarily your fault. "Without fuel, you can't inhibit the bad behavior," she explained. "It's physiology."
<p>I am thrilled to welcome a high caliber class of new faculty to the College this fall. Arts & Sciences is fortunate to have 42 new faculty (professors and lecturers) joining us as the semester starts. Over the next few blogs, I hope to acquaint readers with some new additions to the A&S team.<br />
<br />
Allow me to introduce these new faculty members in the Departments of Anthropology and Sociology.</p>
<p><strong>Anthropology:</strong></p>
<p><strong>Kristin Monroe</strong></p>
<p>Monroe is a sociocultural anthropologist specializing in Middle East studies and the production of social and spatial inequalities. She pursues a range of interests through her research and teaching including cultural geography, theories of power, and