Quietly Sitting Under a Tree…
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January 1999 CLASCLAS Vol. 13 The University of Florida College of Liberalnotesnotes Arts and Sciences No. 1 The Dean’s Musings Quietly sitting under a tree… Buddhism must be experienced says CLAS professor The Biological Imperative “Studying Buddhism with a professor can be In big-time science, much of the ac- boring,” admits Tanya Storch. She should tion today is in biology. Let me hasten know—she got her PhD in the subject. “Forc- to concede that the natural and math- ing religion into a Western discourse type ematical sciences offer many other ex- of course kills the essence of the material,” citing areas, but the molecular aspects explains Storch, who joined the CLAS faculty of biology seem to be the high flyers, in 1997 as an assistant professor of Chinese the attention grabbers (e.g., Nobels). religion. “Buddhism must be experienced. Thus, the provost’s new initiative in What Buddha did to arrive at [what we now molecular biology and genetics takes call] Buddhism,” she continues, “was to just on particular importance and interest sit under a tree. So how do you teach some- to UF and CLAS. thing that is to be perceived, conceived of and actually practiced, such as quiet sitting under a tree?” No rich history of molecular biology You do it, according to the Russian-born is to be found in CLAS. To be sure, scholar, by teaching performatively, mean- our departments of zoology and botany ing that students must physically participate Religion professor Tanya Storch. have, over the years, carved out impor- in the religious practices. “If a specialist in tant areas of the biological sciences chemistry had never gone to the chemistry for which they are well known, but labs,” she points out, “what would we say biology at the molecular level has not of his expertise? It’s incomplete, right? So been a strength. And the department of students who have the theoretical part of Bud- chemistry, until more recently, had no dhism but who’ve never sat in any meditation, never tried a single asana to see what happens significant component of biochemistry, A representation of Tanya Storch medi- to their consciousness, never tried the effects although that is rapidly changing. tating, from her book Chinese Scrolls. of the mudras or never drawn a single man- dala…their experience, their knowledge, is The fact that we were molecular- incomplete.” and I am you…we are both everything that biology challenged has its pluses and Storch gives students plenty of theoretical we are not—the self is never cut off from minuses. On the one hand, we have not discourse, but she commits herself to mak- everything else. All your thoughts came yet developed a broad reputation in the ing 30-50% of class time (depending on the from somewhere and all your cells also came field that attracts attention to UF, but group) experiential. She teaches them breath- from somewhere, so we are recycled beings by the same token, we also do not find ing exercises, meditations and how to think in this sense, made out of the other.” ourselves heavily invested in outdated of others with love and compassion. Her On the research side of things, Storch is programs and personnel. There is an students keep journals of their experiences, fighting to bring materials into her discipline opportunity to survey the field(s), seek and after three months of practicing these that have been overlooked for a long time. exercises three times a week, many students “We, as the academy, have certain prejudices counsel from the experts, and plot a make them a permanent part of their rou- against scholarship coming from nonwest- course to excellence. tines. “It’s proven to be very helpful to them ern traditions like Buddhism,” she explains. as human beings,” she says, “and for some In other words, the Western academy tends The Tigert plan, which is only in it has even provided better results in other only to read, discuss and value select reli- its early stages of implementation, classes…they can be much more peaceful gious and philosophical texts—mostly the has been much discussed, but little about learning.” translations of the canons and commentar- publicized. Not surprisingly, it centers Buddhist philosophy also helps students ies. “Our weakness is in part that we would around resources, including such com- experience less trauma in their relationships, not dare to write our own commentaries on ponents as a central core facility, a mo- says Storch. “Your higher or ‘real’ self can the Buddhist religious texts, because we lecular sciences and genetics institute, never be completely detached from the ‘other- don’t feel that we are on the same foot with ness’ around it,” she explains. “You are me the Buddhist tradition.” This weakness, ac- See Musings, page 12 See Storch, page 10 This month’s focus: Religion Around the College DEPARTMENTS CLASSICS Lewis Sussman gave a guest lecture in November at Florida State CLAS Holiday Party Held University on “Roman Aqueducts and Public Health.” The event was the second this year in a new program of exchange lectures in New Faculty Center between the two Classics programs. COMMUNICATION SCIENCES & DISORDERS Geralyn Schulz gave a workshop on December 11 to the Georgia Speech, Language and Hearing Association entitled: “Adult Neu- rogenic Speech Disorders: Research and Treatment Programs” held in Atlanta, Georgia. ENGLISH Brandon Kershner has been elected to the Board of Trustees of the International James Joyce Foundation for a six-year term. He will be one of nine North American scholars on the board. William Logan’s Vain Empires and Padgett Powell’s Aliens of Affection were both listed as Notable Books of the Year in the New York Times Book Review. On December 9, CLAS held its annual Holiday party in the recently opened Keene Faculty Center. The gathering Mark A. Reid has been appointed to the Editorial Advisory Board was the first official College-wide event in the new facility. The African American Almanac of , 8th Edition (Gale Research). A trombone quartet serenaded guests from the balcony. During July, Reid will co-direct “Black Film Studies: Integrating African American Cinema into the Arts and Humanities Curricu- lum,” a 1999 NEH Summer Institute for College and University Teachers (University of Central Florida). Departments, continued HISTORY L’Association Francophone de City University of New York, Bertram Wyatt-Brown, presented papers at the Tucker Society, the PhD Program in French at CUNY, and the French Embassy the IPSA Conference in St. Petersburg, the Southern Historical (Cultural Services). She chaired a panel and read excerpts from Association, and Wofford College, Spartanburg, this spring, sum- Glissant’s work in a special session. mer and fall on Edgar Allen Poe, Twentieth-Century Southern Writers and the traumas of Confederate defeat. He was selected SOCIOLOGY to be Vice-President, 1999-2000, and President, 2000-2001, of At the invitation of the Department of Sociology and Social Psy- the Southern Historical Association. On sabbatical leave, he is chology, Tampere University, Finland, Jay Gubrium conducted currently the Henry Luce Foundation Fellow at the National Hu- a day-long workshop on empirical studies at the intersection of manities Center, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. culture, narrative and social interaction. LINGUISTICS Anne Wyatt-Brown gave a paper at the IPSA Conference, St. CLAS Awards Petersburg on novelist Henry Roth, and two papers in November at the Philadelphia meeting of the Gerontological Society of Bob Zieger (History) was awarded a special recognition plaque America: “Critical Gerontology, Post-Modernism, and Litera- by the North Central Florida Central Labor Council at the Coun- ture,” and “The Ethics of Autobiography.” On sabbatical leave, cil’s annual dinner on December 14. Recognition was extended she is Research Scholar at the University of North Carolina, for his work in a variety of labor-oriented community-university Chapel Hill. projects this past year and for being “a force in the struggle for social justice.” ROMANCE LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES Bernadette Callier was invited this fall to chair a session on the As part of the Fatherhood Data Team of the Federal Interagency Martiniquan Novel at an International Conference on Caribbean Forum on Child and Family Statistics, Bill Marsiglio (Sociology) Literatures (The College of the Bahamas, Nassau––Purdue Uni- recently received the Hammer Award given by Vice President versity Calumet, Indiana, Morehouse College-Atlanta, Georgia). Gore’s National Performance Review to those who best serve She was also invited to participate in an international confer- the cause of reinventing government. ence on Edouard Glissant in New York (Dec 3-4) organized by 2 Around the College TIP and PEP Awards The 1998 legislature appropriated to the State University System $2,100,000 for the Teaching Incentive Pro- gram (TIP) and $2,100,000 for the Professional Excellence Program (PEP). Each award provides recipients with a $5,000 increase in base salary rate, whether on a nine- or twelve-month appointment, retroactive to the beginning of the recipients’ 1998-99 employment contracts. Twenty-eight CLAS faculty members received PEPs while 50 received TIPs. Faculty Member Award Dept. Faculty Member Award Dept. Earnest Adams PEP PHY Anthony Oliver-Smith TIP ANT Avraham Balaban PEP AALL James Paxson TIP ENG Rodney Bartlett PEP CHE Michael Perfit PEP GLY Russell Bernard PEP ANT David Pharies PEP RLL Karen Bjorndal TIP ZOO Murali Rao PEP MAT Sylvia Blum TIP RLL Kellie Roberts