Beyond the Binary Digital Humanities Today
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Volume 2, Issue 2 Superscript Spring 2012 The Graduate School of Arts & Sciences | Columbia University BEYOND THE BINARY Digital humanities today The Other Side of Remembering Profiles of NSF Alumni Profile: Inequality Vaclav Havel Winners Bel Kaufman Professor Shamus Khan goes Recalling the late Czech Five GSAS students earned The author of Up the Down undercover to investigate the president, playwright, and grants in fields ranging from Staircase looks back, 75 rituals of the 1 percent. dissident’s time on campus anthropology to sequestrial years after earning her as an artist in residence. chemistry. master’s degree. ANNOUNCEMENTS | ALUMNI PROFILE | PUBLICATIONS | LINKS GSAS Alumni Association Board of Directors CONTENTS Dale Turza, President, M.A. ’74, Art History and Archaeology 1 Message from the Dean Louis Parks, Vice President, M.A. ’95, Ancient Studies Inge Reist, Secretary, Ph.D. ’84, Art History & Archaeology 2 Beyond the Binary: Digital Humanities Today Tyler Anbinder, M.A. ’85, M.Phil. ’87, Ph.D. ’90, History 8 The Other Side of Inequality Jillisa Brittan, M.A. ’86, English and Comparative Literature Robert J. Carow, M.Phil. ’94, Ph.D. ’94, Economics and Education 12 Remembering Vaclav Havel Kenneth W. Ciriacks, Ph.D. ’62, Geological Sciences Annette Clear, M.A. ’96, M.Phil. ’97, Ph.D. ’02, Political Science 18 NSF Winners: Profiles Leonard A. Cole, M.A. ’65, Ph.D. ’70, Political Science Michael S. Cornfeld, M.A. ’73, Political Science 30 Alumni News Deborah Gill Hilzinger, Ph.D. ’02, History 32 Alumni Profile David Jackson, M.A. ’76, M.Phil. ’78, Ph.D. ’81, English and Comparative Literature 34 On the Shelf: Faculty Publications Sukhan Kim, M.A. ’78, Political Science Andrew Kotchoubey, M.A. ’61, Ph.D. ’66, Applied Mathematics 36 On the Shelf: Alumni Publications Les B. Levi, M.A. ’76, M.Phil. ’78, Ph.D. ’82, English and Comparative Literature Bridget M. Rowan, M.A. ’80, English and Comparative Literature 38 Dissertations Komal S. Sri-Kumar, Ph.D. ’77, Economics 44 Announcements John Waldes, M.S. ’68, Electrical Engineering, Ph.D. ’71, Plasma Physics Lester Wigler, M.A. ’80, Music 48 Helpful Links Letters to the Editor To share your thoughts about anything you have read in this publication, please e-mail gsaseditor@colum- bia.edu. Unless you note otherwise in your message, any correspondence received by the editor will be considered for future publication. Please be sure to include in your message your name and affiliation to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. SUPERSCRIPT is published three times per year by the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences and the GSAS Alumni Association. Dean: Carlos J. Alonso Editor: Robert Ast Associate Director for Alumni Relations: Ambareen Naqvi Design, Editing, and Production: University Publications Link back to contents page 3 Superscript From the Dean The spring semester is always an espe- the opportunity to be exposed to the rituals and conven- cially busy time of year in the graduate tions of their chosen discipline. These departmental and school. In early January departments program settings are so diverse and self-contained that the undertake the review of the sometimes experiences that arise from them may be felt by the stu- hundreds of applications they receive dents in them to be distinct and sui generis. For instance, for admission to the doctoral programs, a student in the Department of French and Romance Phi- soon to be followed by the review of lology will have a very different existential and intellectual master’s applications. Finalists are invited experience of graduate school than a graduate colleague in to campus so that they may familiarize History, or another in Mathematics. Their paths through themselves with the department, the graduate education at Columbia will be quite distinct, but faculty, the city, and their potential gradu- in the end the substantial majority will go on to graduate ate colleagues in a dance of intellectual and become alumni of GSAS. seduction. Doctoral applicants have until This extensive and welcome variety in student Carlos J. Alonso April 15 to accept or decline an offer of experience is one of the reasons why graduate school is Dean, Graduate School of Arts admission to a Ph.D. program, whereas a particularly exhilarating context. One only has to read and Sciences; Morris A. and Alma master’s admissions are done on a rolling the extraordinary range of titles of dissertations defended Schapiro Professor in the Humani- basis until early June. The remainder and thesis prospectuses now published in each issue of ties; Professor of Latin American and of the semester and the summer will be 109Low to get a sense of this heady mix of research topics Iberian Cultures spent preparing to receive this new cohort and projects—as well as of the parallel existence of myriad of students into their expectant graduate graduate research activities going on in all campuses, from programs. Morningside to the Medical Center to the Lamont-Doherty Additionally, during the spring semester, the dean and Earth Observatory. But if students remain ensconced in the school’s senior staff meet individually with all gradu- their departments and programs they may never be ex- ate departments and programs to assess the health of the posed to this enormously diverse activity going on around unit and to discuss any challenges and concerns about the them, sometimes even unbeknownst to them. This is why graduate operation. This intense activity brings home con- GSAS has secured funding for the creation of a graduate cretely the overarching responsibility that GSAS has to its student center that will serve as a place where students departments and students. Our interviews engage depart- may find their intellectual interlocutors outside their own ments from Anthropology to Italian to Physics, but ... the departments and programs. Located in Philosophy Hall, questions asked are quite similar. How are your current the center will join rooms 301 and 302 to create a multi- students doing and when will the most advanced among purpose space that will allow graduate students from all them finish? What kind of pedagogical training are they over campus to work, meet, relax, and hold student-spon- receiving? How are you preparing them for an increasingly sored lectures and conferences. A café will serve beverages demanding job market? What resources do you need to and light fare throughout the day as well. The center is run the highest quality master’s program? The questions currently scheduled for inauguration in fall 2013. reflect one of the principal charges of the Graduate School: Initiatives such as this graduate center are important to look after the well-being of our students across all because they lead students to realize that they are part of research disciplines and divisions of the university. a larger dimension of this university, one that transcends While at Columbia, the intellectual and social lives of their specific graduate program or department. This will, our graduate students revolve principally around their de- in turn, make visible to them the work that GSAS under- partment or program. Classes, lectures, workshops, social takes for its graduate students year-round, and for which events, colloquia, etc., create in the aggregate a rich context we only ask that they thrive and excel in their chosen for both graduate students and faculty, and for the former intellectual path. Superscript 1 BEYOND THE BINARY Digital Humanities Today by Kristin Balicki n recent years the expansive field of the digital humanities— which entails everything from computer simulations of his- torical environments to GIS mapping of archaeological sites Ito digital analysis of texts, to cite only a few ways in which digital technology is now being employed in the humanities—has gained increasing prominence in academe. But the diversity of the digital humanities is rarely reflected in the discourse surrounding it; instead, the new field is often presented either as the savior of the humanities or the fad du jour. Columbia faculty and students are among those on the vanguard helping to move beyond this reductive binary as they think through—and implement—the use of digital tools methodologically, pedagogically, and professionally. Graham Sack is one such researcher. A Ph.D. student in English and comparative literature, Sack is using textual analysis to study 19th- century British novels. As an undergraduate student in physics and a master’s student in economics, he always had a passion for literature but couldn’t reconcile his interests in quantitative work and culture until he took a literature course as a non-degree student at Colum- bia and read Charles Dickens’ Bleak House, which he notes “con- nects huge numbers of characters in strange and unlikely ways.” Sack decided to quantify the social connections in the novel using CharlesLink Dickens back to contents page 2 Superscript BEYOND THE BINARY Digital Humanities Today Graham Sack Character Network Sociograms Middlemarch (George Eliot)) The Pickwick Papers (Charles Dickens) network analysis, a method more often found in the social sciences. The Ambassadors (Henry James) “Novels can be thought of as imaginary social forums,” he remarks. “One of the functions they serve is as the representation of the social experience…I decided to use social network metrics to look at the levels of connections in Bleak House versus other novels. At first, it was all manual. I went through the text and tried to figure out how everyone was