Rhodes College Research Articles

Contesting the American Scripture: The Qur'an as a Critical Foundation of the Liberal Arts in the 21st Century

ABSTRACTThis article focuses on recent changes in Rhodes College's Foundations in the Liberal Arts curriculum that were motivated by a desire to help students become competent and engaged debaters of meaning and value in the trying times of the 21st century. I focus on how my own two foundational liberal arts classes—“The Bible* and Nationalism” and “The Bible* and Comparative Ethics”—sought to widen the category of scripture for college students in their value discussions, as well as the benefits and potential limitations of moving away from the Bible as the sole source of moral formation in the American classroom.

Back in business! Professional German(s) at Rhodes College

Back in business! Professional German(s) at Rhodes College

Tennessee Academy of ScienceDistinguished Secondary School Science Teacher Award 2022

Tennessee Academy of ScienceDistinguished Secondary School Science Teacher Award 2022

Taking Account

Taking Account

6 - Political Science and African Political Epistemologies: The Dialectics of Developmentalist vs. Emancipatory Approaches


 
 
 The premise of this article is that there has been a dialectical duality to the political science study of Africa, in terms of scholars and focus. The duality of scholars is represented by African scholars both on the continent and in the diaspora, on one hand, and Africanist scholars (non-African scholars who study Africa), on the other. Much of the political study of Africa has focused on the problematic of development. This political science research focus on the problematic of development gives epistemological priority to generating empirical political knowledge research. In contrast, research emphasis on the problematic of emancipation from oppression and exploitation prioritises an epistemological conception of knowledge that facilitates radical change as it grapples with evaluative moral-ethical issues. The purpose of the article is to examine the dialectical nexus of development- and emancipatory-focused political study of Africa, and the impact and relevance of the corpus of political science epistemologies thus generated. The central argument is that the relevance and implications of political science epistemologies generated via normative and critical approaches have been more profound than those generated via strictly positivist and empirical approaches.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Shadrack Wanjala Nasong’o, Professor of International Studies, Rhodes College, Memphis, Tennessee, USA. Email: nasongos@rhodes.edu
 
 

Tennessee Academy of Science Executive Committee Meeting Minutes, November 2021

Tennessee Academy of Science Executive Committee Meeting Minutes, November 2021

How to Rename a Campus Building in Just A Quarter Century: Benjamin Morgan Palmer, Rhodes College, and Palmer Hall

Benjamin Morgan Palmer (1818–1902) was one of the leading voices in the Southern Presbyterian Church between the 1850s and his death in 1902. Part of Palmer’s “principal legacy” was his career-long commitment to interpreting Genesis 9–11 in a way that endorsed racial hierarchy and Black subordination. Nevertheless, it has been far from easy to repudiate Palmer’s legacy in the institutions that honor him.

African Freedom: How Africa Responded to Independence by Phyllis Taoua

Reviewed by: African Freedom: How Africa Responded to Independence by Phyllis Taoua Abou-Bakar Mamah African Freedom: How Africa Responded to Independence BY PHYLLIS TAOUA Cambridge UP, 2018. xii + 321 pp. ISBN 9781108427418 cloth. Phyllis Taoua’s African Freedom: How Africa Responded to Independence questions perceptions of freedom and independence by individuals and African nations after independence. The author discusses the stark contrast of being independent and not enjoying freedom based on human experience: “My book is an attempt to capture what is most essential in an evolving conversation about the ongoing struggle to achieve meaningful freedom in Africa after national liberation” (15). This quest for a new definition of freedom, sixty years after most African nations gained independence, lies in the historical assumption by researchers and experts in the field that political and economic independence existed in name only. Taoua does not make her claim lightly: she draws on the Pan-African movement, championed by Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, and well-known African historical figures of the anticolonialist struggle, such as Patrice Lumumba of the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as the anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela, to make her case for how Africans are and should keep fighting to bring about meaningful freedom. As a seasoned scholar who has traveled all over Africa, shaping her research through the lenses of what she calls the “Formule Ricard” (14), Taoua goes to great lengths to illustrate, in a manner reminiscent of the imprisonment or exile that authors such as Wole Soyinka of Nigeria and Mongo Beti of Cameroun have endured, how the illusory freedom of Africa affects individuals as well as nations. The density of the book resides in its geographical scope, which spans from North to western and southern Africa with a focus on a vast array of works by contemporary African writers and filmmakers in global Africa, where “multinationals make [End Page 213] billions in profit, while the people who live on the land are trapped in endemic poverty and often traumatized by armed conflict” (217). Her analysis covers both Francophone and Anglophone Africa with an extensive exploration of the works and thought of authors in the canon of African letters, such as Sony Labou Tansi and Ayi Kwei Armah, that scrutinize the ways colonial heritage dashed the hope of African people for “meaningful freedom” under the authority of new African leaders who were bound to safeguard the interests of the former colonizer. Women’s freedom, based on Taoua’s own experience as the wife of a Tuareg man, cannot be dissociated from the narrative of meaningful freedom. Existential issues that women face in African society, including the right to education, personal finances, and the choice of their own spouses, is a leitmotif of African feminism underpinned in the works of Malian director Cheick Oumar Sissoko and writers such as Mariama Bâ of Senegal and Assia Djebar of Algeria. Taoua skillfully frames Africans’ ongoing sociopolitical and economic struggles in the era of democracy, as depicted in the works of contemporary African writers and filmmakers, under the concept of meaningful freedom. Democracy is not holding ground on the continent, since it was not imagined by Africans for themselves in relation to their own social, cultural, political, and economic realities. African democracy is a Western construction that must yet adapt to Africans’ way of life and their expectations. In that sense, Taoua’s quest is a wake-up call that echoes Achille Mbembe’s claim: “Decolonization without democracy is a very poor, fictitious form of repossession of self. But, if Africans want democracy, it’s up to them to imagine its forms and pay the price. No one will pay it for them. They won’t get it on credit either” (29). In her approach to ongoing African struggles, Taoua identifies three types of freedom that become, with the exception of the last chapter, the footprint to the conclusion of each chapter in her book: instrumental, substantive, and existential, the sum of which equals what she coins “meaningful freedom.” Abou-Bakar Mamah Rhodes College mamaha@rhodes.edu WORKS CITED Mbembe, Achille. Sortir de la grande nuit: Essai sur l’Afrique décolonisée. La Découverte, 2010. Google Scholar...

Undergraduate women empowering women in computational chemistry: Three perspectives

AbstractThe undergraduate computational chemistry research group headed by Mauricio Cafiero at Rhodes College has a history of including, promoting, and supporting women in this predominantly male field. Alums of this research group from 2004 to 2019 include nine M.Ds, two science researchers, two Ph.D.s, one secondary teacher, two pharmacists, a physical therapist, two nurses, six current medical school students, and five current science graduate students. They have produced 18 peer‐reviewed publications with female undergraduate first authors and over 100 conference presentations, including 9 international conference presentations. While Professor Cafiero does all he can to support these students, he attributes the continuous success of the group in recruiting, retaining, and supporting these women to the students themselves. The students' success and visibility on campus helps to recruit new students. The heavy presence of women in this group provides a strong support system for women who may otherwise feel isolated in a male‐dominated field; and these support groups provide models and support for women to overcome common obstacles that women in science face. We will profile three recent graduates who will discuss how the above points affected them during their time in the research group and discuss their experience in the context of some literature on women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

Introduction

Introduction MELVIN I. UROFSKV We go to press just a few weeks after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who in her nearly three decades on the high court was a good friend of the Society and of the Journal. We will have tributes to her in our next issue. This issue is notable in that we have two articles on the same subject, Justice Willis Van Devanter, as well as two articles by the Journal’ s family, as it were. Clare Cushman had been the managing editor of the Journal even before I became editor in the early 1990s, and the high quality of its production is entirely due to her. But Clare is also an officer of the Society, in that she is Director of Publications, as well as a practicing historian. In fact, one of her many titles is Resident Historian at the Society. Her contribution to this issue is “Sons of Ohio: William Rufus Day, Nepotism and his Law Clerks.” The practice of Supreme Court justices hiring young men (and they were all men until the 1940s) as clerks, or as they were of­ ten called, “secretaries,” began in the 1870s, although it would be many years before all justices had clerks. Day, whom Theodore Roosevelt appointed to the bench in 1903, had four sons, and he hired three of them as his clerks. Not only would this nepotism be frowned upon today, but so would the fact that at least one of them kept up an active private law practice while working for the Justice. Timothy S. Huebner’s day job is As­ sociate Provost and Sternberg Professor of History at Rhodes College in Memphis. But he also puts in great effort as the associate editor of the Journal. His Liberty and Union: The Civil War Era and American Constitu­ tionalism (2016) is now considered one ofthe leading studies of that subject. Tim’s article discusses a phenomenon that very few of us knew about, or even that it existed, “Black Constitutionalism.” As he shows, there was an articulate constitu­ tional thought within the African-American community well before the Civil War, as people of color, even if free in Northern states, tried to develop a theory of how they—and their enslaved brethren—fit into the American constitutional scheme. When the Taney Court handed down its decision in Dred Scott, they now had to respond to the Chief Justice’s opinion that blacks could not be citizens. We have two articles on Justice Willis Van Devanter, remembered primarily as one of the Four Horsemen who tried to scuttle reform legislation in the 1920s and then 214 JOURNAL OF SUPREME COURT HISTORY the New Deal in the 1930s. Because he did not write as many opinions as most of his brethren, Van Devanter often shows up on lists of “forgotten justices.” However, Louis D. Brandeis thought highly ofhim, and often sought “Van’s” thoughts on his majority opinions before circulating them. He told Felix Frankfurter that Van Devanter was like a Jesuit, quietly exerting great influence. Both Robert Post, Sterling Professor of Law and former dean ofthe Yale Law School, and Mark Tushnet, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law emeritus at Harvard Law School, are past contributors to the Journal. Moreover, both articles are adopted from the volumes they are writing for the Holmes Devise, Post for that on the Taft Court, and Tushnet for the one on the Hughes Court. It is a usual practice for the authors ofthe Holmes Devise to write biographical sketches of the men who served on that Court. Tushnet is here looking at the man behind the robes, while Post is looking at the unique role Van Devanter played on the Taft Court. Berea College v. Kentucky (1908) is one of the main pillars of the Supreme Court’s ratification of Jim Crow apartheid. Ronald S. Rauchberg is a retired litigation partner at Proskauer Rose, and he writes here about a little known aspect of that case, how the justices adopted scientific racism in deciding that case. Scientific racism was certainly no stranger to Americans in the early decades of the 20th century, and it did not go...

About the Authors

Previous article FreeAbout the AuthorsPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreEliza Butler is a core lecturer in art history at Columbia University, where she received her Ph.D. Her research centers on the intersections of landscape, natural history, and material culture in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century North America. Her writing has also recently appeared in Winterthur Portfolio.Maggie M. Cao is the David G. Frey Assistant Professor of art history at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She is the author of The End of Landscape in Nineteenth-Century America (2018). Her research focuses on the intersections of art with histories of technology, natural science, and economics in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.Sophie Cras is a maître de conferences (assistant professor) in contemporary art history at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon–Sorbonne, with a special interest in intersections between art and economics. Her first book, The Artist as Economist: Art and Capitalism in the 1960s, will appear in an English translation from Yale University Press in 2019.Michael D’Alessandro is an assistant professor of English at Duke University. His articles have appeared in The New England Quarterly, Studies in American Naturalism, Mississippi Quarterly, and J19: The Journal of Nineteenth-Century Americanists. Currently, he is working on a book project titled “Staged Readings: Contesting Class in Popular American Literature and Theatre, 1835–1875.”Chris Dingwall is a lecturer at Oakland University and author of Selling Slavery: Race and the Industry of American Culture (forthcoming). He recently co-curated African American Designers in Chicago: Art, Commerce, and the Politics of Race, an exhibition held at Chicago Cultural Center.Diana Seave Greenwald is assistant curator of the collection at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. She completed her doctorate at the University of Oxford, where she also earned an M.Phil. in economic and social history. Her book Painting by Numbers: Economic Histories of Nineteenth Century Art is forthcoming from Princeton University Press.Diana L. Linden is an independent scholar. Her book Ben Shahn’s New Deal Murals: Jewish Identity in the American Scene (2015) was selected as a finalist by the National Jewish Book Awards. She was the co-editor of The Social and the Real: Political Art of the 1930s in the Western Hemisphere (2006). Her work has also appeared in Prospects and American Jewish History.David McCarthy is a professor of art history at Rhodes College. He is the author of The Nude in American Painting, 1950–1980 (1998); Pop Art (2000); H. C. Westermann at War: Art and Manhood in Cold War America (2004); American Artists against War, 1935–2010 (2015); and numerous essays about American art of the mid-twentieth century.John Ott is a professor of art history at James Madison University and author of Manufacturing the Modern Patron in Victorian California: Cultural Philanthropy, Industrial Capital, and Social Authority (2014). His current book project is “Mixed Media: The Visual Cultures of Racial Integration, 1931–1954.”Alex J. Taylor is an assistant professor and academic curator in the history of art and architecture at the University of Pittsburgh. From 2014 to 2016, he was the Terra Foundation Research Fellow in American Art at Tate. He is currently completing a history of corporate art patronage in the 1960s.Anne Verplanck is an associate professor of American studies at Penn State, Harrisburg. She is writing “The Business of Art: Transforming the Graphic Arts in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” which explores such areas as entrepreneurship, innovation, and marketing to more fully understand the interplay of economics, social forces, and art.Alan Wallach is the Ralph H. Wark Professor Emeritus of art and art history and professor emeritus of American studies at the College of William and Mary. His publications include studies of Thomas Cole, the Hudson River School, and art museums in the United States. Previous article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Art Volume 33, Number 3Fall 2019 Sponsored by the Smithsonian American Art Museum Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/707480 © 2019 by Smithsonian Institution. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Contact, Conflict, and Crisis in Eastern Christianity

Abstract In this issue of Canadian-American Slavic Studies, eight authors explore Eastern Christian communities from the sixteenth to the twenty-first centuries. Originating as papers presented at the sixth biennial conference of the Association for the Study of Eastern Christian History and Culture (http://easternchristianity.org) at Rhodes College in 2015, these articles have been carefully selected for their original contributions and revised for publication. From disputes over monastic landholding in the sixteenth century to the vicious persecutions of the Soviet period, Eastern Christians have responded creatively to historical crises, even as they have faced both internal and external conflicts. These thought-provoking essays provide significant analyses of these responses and offer penetrating insights into Eastern Christianity.

Design of antibody‐blocking monobodies: A novel therapeutic approach for autoimmune kidney disease

Autoimmune diseases arise when antibodies erroneously attack healthy cells. Primary membranous nephropathy (PMN) is a kidney specific autoimmune disease affecting 10–12 million individuals worldwide. Currently non‐specific immunosuppressants which weaken the body's entire immune system are used to treat many autoimmune disorders. These non‐specific treatments decrease the patient's ability to fend off basic infections. Thus, there is a need for more targeted approaches to autoimmune diseases therapies. Therefore the goal of this project is the development of an antigen specific approach for autoimmune disease, through the design of protein monobodies capable of preventing autoantibody binding to the antigen. The PMN antigen, thrombospondin type‐1 domain‐containing 7a (THSD7A), was used as a target for cap development. Epitope sites were identified using an in silico homology model for the THSD7A antigen. The work here focuses on targeting two of the 17 extracellular domains which were identified to contain epitope sites, (specifically domains 9 and 10). In silico mutagenesis to the 3QHT monobody template was performed using Chimera and Phyre2 programs. Interface scores measured in Rosetta energy units (REU) were improved from −3.129 (3QHT template) to −3.927 in the 3QHT‐015‐AG cap. Data shows that introduction of hydrophobic residues enhanced binding. Introduction of a Phe residue, creating the 3QHT‐023‐AG mutant, permitted a cation‐pi interaction to domain 9 of THSD7A resulting in an increased binding score of −6.617 REU. Currently protein expression and purification is underway to allow for ELISA assays and further evaluation of these epitope caps binding to domain 9 of the THSD7A antigen. Through the development of antigen specific blocking monobodies, successful caps could provide a much safer and accurate treatment for autoimmune diseases.Support or Funding InformationFaculty Development Endowment Grant, Rhodes CollegeThis abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.

Editorial introductions

Editorial introductions

Conceptual size ensembles cannot be predicted by individual item size representations

Presentation by Sneha Suresh ('19) delivered at the Rhodes College Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity Symposium (URCAS).

“Is there a bubble to burst?”-college students’ spatial perception of campus and the city, a case study of rhodes college in memphis, TN

ABSTRACTThis paper builds on the study of student geography by critically examining college students’ perceived space of a university campus and the surrounding urban space. Rhodes College is a liberal arts college situated in the city of Memphis. As a campus with a majority white population located in a predominately black city, Rhodes College exists within but often separate from the city. It serves as a perfect case study to investigate how the college students build relationships with the environment within and beyond the campus. By using mental mapping and focus groups, this research unpacks four spatialities that shape college students’ perception of the urban space: (in)activity space, (im)mobility, boundaries, and center. This research demonstrates that student geography can be gendered, classed and racialized. The perceived space is socially constructed, and is reinforced by the lived and material space. Finally, this paper provides implications to facilitate deeper connections between students, the campus, and the city.

Computational Insights into the Structure and Epitope locations for Two Idiopathic Membranous Nephropathy Antigens: Phospholipase A2 Receptor and the Thrombospondin Type‐1 Containing Domain 7A and Design of Antigen Binding Proteins

The use of non‐specific treatment options in autoimmune therapy today unfortunately causes patients to be prone to other infections. This non‐specific therapy suppresses the entire patient's immunes system also making it harder to fight of basic infections. Thus therapies need to be developed which can accurately target only the aberrant portion of the immune system that contributes to the autoimmune disorder (AD) specific to the individual. In the AD idiopathic membranous nephropathy (IMN) two antigens have been determined to produce an immune response. The work here focuses was performed to aid in the design of antigen specific binding proteins (ABP) as a targeted means to treat AD, and specifically IMN. In this work a homology model of the thrombospondin type‐1 containing domain 7A (THSD7A), was successfully developed, and epitope regions were predicted using Epitopia. In silico mutagenesis was utilized to develop ABP for both THSD7A and phospholipase A2 receptor (PLA2R). Using Rosetta protein‐protein docking simulations evaluate for maximum binding efficiency against the ricin and the CTLD2 epitopes present on theTHSD7A and PLA2R antigens. Our results show that THSD7A has 22 domains and 12 domains have potential to contain epitope sites. It was determined that there were two possible epitope locations in CTLD1 domain and three epitope locations in CTLD7 domain of the PLA2R antigen. Our results show improved binding scores and selectivity of ABP against the PLA2R. Initial binding energy, measured in rosetta energy unit (REU), were −2.863 and −2.633 for the SH13 template and ySMB‐1 ABP templates respectively against the PLA2R antigen. The M005 mutation designed of the SH13 improved binding scores to −5.32 REU. Mutations to the ySMB‐1 template were shown to be able to enhance scores to −6.907 REU. Molecular interactions leading to enhanced potency have also being evaluated. ABP candidates for the THSD7A antigen have also been designed. A total of fifteen ABP candidates have been selected for expression which was performed in E. coli followed by subsequent purification using affinity chromatography for experimental verification of computational results is using ELISA. This work has implications for new antigen specific approach to AD therapy.Support or Funding InformationFaculty Development Endowment Grant, Rhodes CollegeThis abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.

Profile of Lora V. Hooper

Lora Hooper, a professor of immunology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, describes her career as “a random walk in science.” Her pursuit of science was aided by inspirational mentors who pointed her in directions she might not otherwise have taken. These unexpected turns ultimately led her to study the microbiome: the community of microorganisms that reside in and on multicellular organisms, including humans. When she began her studies, the microbiome was poorly understood and received little attention, but it has increasingly become apparent that the microbiome is essential for human health. In recognition of her work, particularly on how the microbiome manages to safely coexist with its host, Hooper was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2015. Image courtesy of David Arellano (photographer). Hooper describes her upbringing in Nashville, Tennessee, as artistic: Her father was a graphic artist, and her mother was a church organist. Given this background, an early interest in science might not be expected. However, when Hooper was about eight or nine years old, she happened upon a National Geographic book on astronomy. “It was beautifully illustrated,” she recalls. “The photographs were just stunning pictures of the stars, and I became fascinated with the idea of these other worlds out there.” It was through astronomy that her interest in science developed. Hooper pursued her love of astronomy through junior high school and high school by subscribing to astronomy magazines and building a telescope with her father’s help. She used the telescope to observe the surface of the moon and the rings of Saturn. Hooper also credits her high school chemistry teacher, Jackie Turner, for furthering her interest in science. Given her interest in astronomy from an early age, Hooper naturally considered a career in astronomy. At Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee, her …

Nominations sought for Southern Chemist Award

The ACS Memphis Section is soliciting nominations for the 2017 Southern Chemist Award to recognize distinguished service to the chemical profession in the southern U.S. Nominees should be U.S. citizens, have worked in the South for at least 10 years, and have at least a 10-year record of accomplishment. In addition, nominees must have actively participated in ACS events and have brought recognition to the South through their work. Nominations should consist of a letter containing biographical details and a brief account of the nominee’s technical accomplishments, a curriculum vitae, a list of publications and patents, a list of ACS activities, and two seconding letters from individuals who are not at the nominee’s place of employment. E-mail PDF files by July 31 to Mauricio Cafiero at cafierom@rhodes.edu. Nominators wishing to send their application by mail should send six copies of all materials to Mauricio Cafiero, Department of Chemistry, Rhodes College,

Development of Phospholipase A2 Receptor Antigen Binding Monobodies for the Inhibition of the Idiopathic Membranous Glomerulonephritis Auto‐antibody Binding

The use of non‐specific treatment options in autoimmune therapy today unfortunately causes patients to be prone to other infections. This non‐specific therapy suppresses the entire patient's immunes system also making it harder to fight of basic infections. Thus therapies need to be developed which can accurately target only the aberrant portion of the immune system that contributes to the autoimmune disorder (AD) specific to the individual. The work here focuses on design of antigen specific binding monobodies as a targeted means to treat AD, and specifically idiopathic membranous glomerulonephritis. Sixty monobodies were designed and optimized using in silico mutagenesis. Protein‐protein docking simulations were performed using Rosetta to evaluate for maximum binding efficiency against the ricin and the CTLD2 epitopes present on the PLA2R antigen. Our results show improved binding scores and selectivity of monobodies against the phospholipase A2 receptor (PLA2R) antigens. Initial binding energy, measured in rosetta energy units (REU), were −2.863 and −2.633 for the SH13 template and ySMB‐1 templates respectively. The M005 mutation designed in the SH13 improved binding scores to −5.32 REU. The M006 ySMB‐1 mutant showed the most in silico selectivity between the two epitope regions on the PLA2R antigen having a score of −2.966 REU against the CTLD2 epitope and a better score of −3.736 against the ricin epitope. The SH13 M005 mutant showed the greatest binding efficiency having a score of −5.319 REU. However, this mutant also binds the CTLD2 epitope (binding energy score produced was −5.32 REU), suggesting that it will not have selectivity. Several molecular interactions were identified that facilitated increased binding of the monobodies to the epitope regions compared to the original template monobodies. Molecular interactions leading to selectivity are also being evaluated. Seven monobody candidates were selected for expression which was performed in E. coli followed by subsequent purification using affinity chromatography for experimental verification of computational results is using ELISA. This work has implications for new antigen specific approach to AD therapy.Support or Funding InformationWilliam Randolph Hearst Foundation and Rhodes College Department of Chemistry