Professoriat

During the presidential campaign, Ross Professor Sheldon Solomon (psychology) was featured in newspapers from Canada to Pakistan, and all over the US, discussing his research on how the fear of death, including reflections on 9/11, can influence political choices.

Solomon says he and his colleagues found that subtly raising people’s awareness of mortality had “whopping effects” on their reaction to three different styles of politician: they were much more likely to prefer a “charismatic” leader—who offers a grand purpose, security, and ethnic or nationalistic pride—rather than more relationship- or task-oriented leaders.

Solomon is the co-author of papers on this research in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (September 2004), Observer (October 2004), and Psychological Science (December 2004).

John Brueggemann (sociology) presented a paper on Cold War labor politics at the annual meetings of the American Sociological Association last fall in San Francisco.

Deb Hall (art) had three works in DPI (Digitally Propelled Ideas) 2004, a national juried exhibition at California State Polytechnic University. She also was a commentator to a discussion summary compiled by the Association Typographique Internationale on type and typography textbooks.

Regina James (English) participated in a panel on theorizing satire at the Third Annual Dublin Symposium on Jonathan Swift in Ireland last fall.

Martha Wiseman, MALS ’03 (English), won the Long Fiction Contest International’s 2004 A. E. Coppard Prize for her story “Double Vision,” which was recently published as a chapbook.

Check up on your favorite faculty
members at www.skidmore.edu/intercom.