Publications & Creative Work

In a new co-edited special issue of Amerasia Journal, Associate Professor of History Jane Hong and coauthor call on scholars to reckon with right-wing movements and histories in order to confront broader threats to the radical and emancipatory project of Asian American Studies. Their introduction argues that right-wing movements are not carbon copies of white conservative politics, but are projects indigenous to Asian American communities.

The COVID-19 pandemic, which locked our bodies and minds in our homes, makes us wonder: what did people in the past do when they were confined to the home? In her new article in Artibus Asiae , Assistant Professor of Art History Yurika Wakamatsu investigates how a landscape painting from 19th-century Japan invites the viewer to attune to the sights and sounds of a distant, even unfamiliar, locale.

 

In an article published in a special issue of Eighteenth-Century Studies on Indigeneity, Professor of History Lisa Sousa examines the sociocultural dimensions of labor in indigenous communities in colonial Mexico. She uses Nahuatl-language documents to demonstrate the importance of shared labor obligations in the formation of gender identity, as well as community relations, solidarity, and membership.

Associate Professor of Politics Jennifer Piscopo new article in Journal of Democracy explains why Chilean voters rejected their country’s new constitution. In their analysis, Professor Piscopo and coauthor argue that fake news, fearmongering about the constitution’s likely effects, and disapproval of the sitting government combined to defeat what would have been the world’s first feminist constitution. 

 

In a new article in Third Text, Professor of Global and Transnational Media Katarzyna Marciniak and her co-author focus on the concept of “marginalia” in refugee cinema. “Fugitive Aesthetics: Echoes, Ghost Stories, and Refugee Cinema” analyzes refugee films that feature women protagonists grappling with the traumatic effects of the refugee crisis. Their study offers an intersectional counter-perspective to the dominant media representations of male refugees.

 

Professor of Media Arts and Culture Broderick Fox's latest documentary has enjoyed screen and accolodes across the film festival circuit. Manscapingscreened at festivals in Palm Springs, Tucson, Lisbon, Dublin, Chicago, Copenhagen, Washington D.C., and Atlanta. In Summer 2022, Manscaping enjoyed a hometown West Coast Premiere as part of Outfest, one of the world's oldest, largest, and most acclaimed LGBTQIA+ festivals. Manscaping also screened at the OUTShine LGBTQ+ Fest in Miami, where it was a critic's pick andwon the Jury Honorable Mention - Best Documentary Film. At the Queerscreen Mardi Gras Film Festival in Sydney, Australia, Manscaping was a festival director's pick. At the British Film Institute's esteemed BFI Flare London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival, Senior Programmer Michael Blyth noted "our programmers loved the radical queer reimagining of the barbershop experience that’s depicted in MANSCAPING."

 

Professor of History Maryanne Horowitz contributed an invited book chapter to the edited volume, Platonic Love from Antiquity to the Renaissance. Her chapter, "Marsilio Ficino and Leone Ebreo on Beauty,” diversifies the book's scope of coverage by contrasting the views of Marsilio Ficino -- an early Renaissance Philosopher -- with the work of Leone Ebreo -- the first modern Jewish philosopher.

 

Sharla M. Fett, Professor of History, has two new publications! Her new edited volume, Postcoloniality and Forced Migration: Mobility, Control, Agency (Bristol University Press), brings together historians, political scientists, sociologists, anthropologists, and criminologists to explore how the forces of colonialism and racism shape the experiences of forced migrants in both past and present. The volume offers new insights to refugee and forced migration studies by incorporating case studies from five continents. Professor Fett also coauthored a chapter in the book, which examines the military enlistment of African men ‘liberated’ from illegal slave ships in 19th century Liberia and the British Caribbean. “Slave Trade Refugees and Imperial Agendas” argues that despite the humanitarian rhetoric used to frame military service, governments mostly treated African recaptives as an exploitable resource used to serve colonial ends.

 

Professor Emeritus Robert Richmond Ellis’s new book, Bibliophiles, Murderous Bookmen, and Mad Librarians (University of Toronto Press, 2022), focuses on the practice of bibliophilia in modern Spain, on the representation of books in modern Spanish writing, and on the cultivation of bibliophile and artists’ books. Professor Ellis argues that modern Spanish bibliophiles not only seek personal fulfillment through books and libraries but also use them to engage with politics and affirm linguistic, cultural, and regional and national identities.

 

Resident Professor of Theater and Performance Studies Jamie Angell's new production of The Good, the Bad & the Ugly Duckling enjoyed a summer run by the Occidental Children's Theater. The company performed three original adaptations of traditional tales, plus the title story, "with the unflagging charm that has made this reliable company one of the Southland's -- and the summer's -- most entertaining children's theater offerings," according to the review in Los Angeles Times.

 

Professor of East Asian Studies Xiao-huang Yin has translated an anthology of essays by renowned Chinese political scientist Mingsheng Wang, entitled The History and Logic of Modern Chinese Politics. The anthology explains the social and political forces behind China’s emergence as a new global power and describes the distinctive “China path” that has brought economic growth and modernization to China.

 

Associate Professor of History Alexander (Sasha) Day has a new book chapter out! Professor Day’s chapter “Organizing Rural Society: Disintegrating Rural Governance, Peasant Associations, and the Hailufreng Soviet” analyzes the emergence of the peasantry as a political category. His chapter in Proletarian China: A Century of Chinese Labour shows that the particular socioeconomic context of the early twentieth century created a situation in which Chinese Communist activists saw peasant activism and unrest as forming a historically significant “peasant movement.”

 

Professor of History Lisa Sousa contributed an article titled "Reexamining Malinche's Betrayal" to the catalog of Denver Art Museum's exhibition Traitor, Survivor, Icon: The Legacy of La Malinche. Based on her analysis of sixteenth-century indigenous Nahuatl texts and pictorials, she shows how Nahua historians remembered Malinche as a translator, co-leader of the conquest, and evangelizer, but not a traitor.

 

Associate Professor of History Jane Hong's new article in the Journal of Asian American Studies examines the role of religious organizations in the Asian American Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Applying a religious lens to what is often seen as a wholly secular movement, “The Asian American Movement and the Church” illuminates how people of faith contributed to Asian American activism, community development, and the formation of Asian American Studies as a field.

 

In her "Critical Acts" article for the journal TDR (The Drama Review), Associate Professor of Theater and Performance Studies, Sarah Kozinn, considers the essential nature of liveness in a performance that bills itself as "theater," using her own experience as a performer to unpack what happens to theater's essence when it goes online. Professor Kozinn focuses on the Cornerstorne Theater Company's production of Highland Park is Here--which featured artists from Occidental and the local community--and examined how the production worked to build vital connections and overcome the restrictions of Zoom boxes and build vital connections.

 

In "Living with Absurdity: A Nobleman's Guide," forthcoming in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Associate Professor of Philosophy Ryan Preston-Roedder explores the meaning and absurdity of life. Professor Preston-Roedder uses Leo Tolstoy's memoir A Confession to characterize a form of faith in one’s values, and to argue that such faith offers an appealing response to life’s absurdity.

 

Professor of Art and Art History Mary Beth Heffernan premiered an octet of photograms from her Ashes Series in the four person show, Cosmic Trace. The gelatin silver prints document performances with surrealist art historian Professor of Art and Art History Amy Lyford and her mother's cremated remains. Cosmic Trace was selected as one of Artforum’s “Focus Los Angeles” selections, meaning it was a “must see” exhibit of the week for Feb 14-20, 2022. Listen to a recording of the panel discussion with Professor Heffernan, the curators and the artists here (passcode: yF?k0*ug).

 

Professor Sasha Day (History) has two new articles out! First, Day published a new article in Positions: Asia Critique. “Breaking with the Family Form: Historical Categories, Social Reproduction, and Everyday Life in Late 1950s Rural China” investigates the emergence of a divide between production and the social reproduction of labor in 1950s China, one which transformed and structured rural everyday life. The article argues that the way some Chinese historians have used analytical categories related to everyday life is itself fully implicated in the Maoist political-economic structuring of society. Second, Day's new article in Global Food History looks at the reconstruction of a country tea industry in contemporary China. In the early 2000s, the tea industry reemerged from a period of decline into a new form of capitalist agrarian production, wherein independent tea processors focus on quality, take greater control over their farmers’ labor, and market to the changing tastes of Chinese consumers.

 

Sharla Fett, the Robert Glass Cleland Professor of American History, has contributed an epilogue to the edited volume Medicine and Healing in the Age of Slavery. Professor Fett’s epilogue, entitled “Black Atlantic Healing in the Wake,” provides a meditation on the historical significance of Black healers in the African diaspora. It uses scholar Christina Sharpe's work on "the wake" as a lens through which to reflect on the scholarship contained in the volume and to connect to more recent struggles for health justice among Black healers and activists today.

 

Professor of Practice in Theater and Performance Studies, Jamie Angell, continues working on the writing staff of Netflix’s animated hit show Disenchantment. In addition to his role on the writing staff, Professor Angell scripted two episodes of the currently streaming 4th season: Episode 32, “The Good, the Bad, and the Bum-Bum” and Episode 38, “Spy vs. Spy vs. Spy.”

 

In a new article published in the Journal of Chemical Education, Resident Senior Instructor of Chemistry Anne Yu, Assistant Professor of Chemistry Raul Navarro and co-authors (including Junko Anderson ‘21) describe engaging organic chemistry students in conversations about racism and discrimination in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Professors Yu, Navarro and their team show that inviting students to discuss the documentary “Picture a Science” yields important conversations about justice and equity in STEM fields.

 

In a new article in the Journal of Child Language, Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology Susan Geffen and co-authors find that there are cues in the first two words of sentences that can distinguish statements from questions in infants’ speech. Results from “Utterance-Initial Prosodic Differences Between Statements and Questions in Infant-Directed Speech” show that infants’ sentence-types differ more when the second word was a determiner or pronoun (e.g. the, he) not a noun or verb (e.g. girl,run)

 

In a perspective published in PLOS Biology, Professor of Biology Beth Braker and co-authors argue that understanding tropical biology is important for solving complex problems such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and zoonotic pandemics. The piece, “Integrating Tropical Research into Biology Education is Urgently Needed” makes the case for how tropical research can tackle these issues.

 

Assistant Professor Psychology Patricia Cabral has published two new articles! “E-cigarette Use and Intentions Related to Psychological Distress among Cigarette, E-cigarette, and Cannabis Vape Users During the Start of the COVID-19 pandemic,” published in BMC Psychology, found a relationship between higher psychological distress and cigarette and e-cigarette and cannabis vaping in young adults. “Longitudinal Associations of Parent-Child Communication, Dating Behaviors, Decision-Making Processes, and Sex Initiation Among United States Latina/o Adolescents,” published in Frontiers in Psychology, finds that first-generation Latinas are particularly vulnerable to the influence of early dating behaviors.

 

In a new research article published in the Journal of Organic Chemistry, Assistant Professor of Chemistry Raul Navarro and Occidental undergraduate co-authors Tim McClure ('22), Connor Saludares ('21), Cheyenne Orozco ('20), and Gisela Martinez ('23) developed a new chemical tool to access phthalides. This family of biologically active organic compounds possess a range of therapeutic properties.

 

In a new article in Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence, Assistant Professor of Computer Science Irina Rabkina and co-authors present a new algorithm for goal recognition, the task of recognizing what another agent is doing based on its actions. They compared this algorithm to two popular goal recognition algorithms, and found important trade-offs between them. Their article helps scientists assess the strengths and weaknesses of the different approaches. And, in another new article in Cognitive Science, Assistant Professor of Computer Science Irina Rabkina and coauthor present a computational cognitive model of how children reason during pretend play. The model shows how children apply pretend scenarios to the real world and why they might make errors. “An Analogical Model of Pretense” also makes predictions which may lead to an improved understanding of early childhood development.

 

Humans form multiple representations of the same phenomena, such as multiple theories of illness or multiple explanations for the origins of life. How we navigate and coordinate these representations is the topic of a new volume edited by Professor of Psychology Andrew Shtulman and colleagues. Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Representational Pluralism in Human Cognition (Routledge, 2022) analyzes representational pluralism from psychological, philosophical, and educational perspectives.

Project management techniques are important for the successful completion of large projects. Associate Professor of Economics Daryl Ono’s new article in the Journal of Cost Analysis & Parametrics shows that microeconomic tools can be implemented to improve the probability of success of a project. “A Continuance of Marginal Cost Methodology in Project Change Management” uses statistical analysis to illustrate the effectiveness of this methodology.

 

Professor of Sociology Dolores Trevizo’s new article in Latin American Politics and Society disputes recent studies that find no relationship between homicides and armed vigilantism. With new quantitative evidence, “Mexico’s Armed Vigilante Movements (2012–2015): The Impact of Low State Capacity and Economic Inequality” shows not only that the relationship exists, but also how armed vigilante movements organize to fill a security gap. Together with income inequality, Mexico’s low-capacity state facilitated an armed vigilante movement between 2012 and 2015.

 

Across Latin America, women legislators express more gender-equal attitudes than men legislators, demonstrates Associate Professor of Politics Jennifer Piscopo and coauthors in a new article in Political Research Quarterly. “Opening the Attitudinal Black Box: Three Dimensions of Latin American Elites’ Attitudes about Gender Equality” indicates that women legislators are much more likely than men legislators to model egalitarian attitudes for voters and to express support for policies that support gender equality.

 

Professor Emeritus Robert Gottlieb’s new book, Care-Centered Politics: From the Home to the Planet (MIT Press 2022), presents a framework for creating a more just and equitable care-centered world. Climate change, pandemic events, deep inequalities, gender exploitation, and systemic racism have all underscored the centrality of care in our lives. The book examines how a care economy and care politics can influence and remake health, climate, and environmental policy and develop an ethics of care and a society of cooperation, sharing, and solidarity.

 

In “Organizational Bias in Gender-Based Violence Research,” just published in Social Currents, Assistant Professor of Sociology Ben Weiss and Mahala Shulman (‘23) show that much research on gender-based violence draws data from formal organizations like nonprofits, schools, hospitals, the police. Yet relatively few victims report to them. Professor Weiss and Shulman argue that this methodological bias means researchers are capturing the experiences of victims with more social advantages, and that formal organizations' responses need to be more inclusive.

 

Every year, national and local governments participate in a High Level Policy Forum (HLPF) at the United Nations, where they report on their progress towards implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Associate Professor of Politics Jennifer Piscopo wrote the HLPF report on SDG 5, Gender Equality, for the convening organization United Cities and Local Government. Her report, “From Making Commitments to Realizing Change: Local and Regional Governments’ Progress on Gender Equality,” was presented at the HLPF in July 2022.

Examining the Holy See's participation at the 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) alongside Pope Francis' encyclical Laudato Si’, Professor of Diplomacy & World Affairs Lan T. Chu identifies the Catholic Church as a norm entrepreneur. Her new article “God is Green: The Catholic Church’s Re-Imagination of Environmental Norms,” published in Politics and Religion, assesses the Church’s efforts to change the narrative on the environment toward a shared, global responsibility

Professor of Diplomacy and World Affairs Laura Hebert has a new book! Gender and Human Rights in a Global, Mobile Era(Routledge 2022) delves into feminist debates surrounding human rights through the multifaceted issue of human trafficking. The book explores how a gender analysis illuminates the structures and norms enabling trafficking and simultaneously exposes divisions in feminist politics that have impeded building solidarities across differences and ultimately limited the realization of the human rights of all.

 

In a new article in the Journal of Housing Economics, Assistant Professor of Urban and Environmental Politics Seva Rodnyansky and coauthors find that affordable housing projects increase local property values. This outcome contradicts arguments frequently made by so-called NIMBYers--those who oppose development as “not in their backyard.” Using the case of Cook County, Illinois, they show that these effects hold within a distance of 0.5 miles and regardless of the income or racial makeup of the neighborhood.

 

Unconventional oil and gas extraction has been linked to health and environmental harm for humans and for wildlife. In a new commentary in Bioscience, Associate Professor of Urban and Environmental Politics Bhavna Shamasunder and coauthors analyze the shared evidence but often conflicting policy responses for protecting human health and wildlife. The article takes a One Health approach, arguing for transparency on trade-offs and a prioritization of shared well-being.

 

Molly Greenberg--Project Coordinator of the Moving Forward Network at the Urban and Environmental Policy Institute--and co-authors have a new article in the journal Environmental Justice. They find that across the environmental justice movement, climate justice is ranked among the highest priority issues. Data from over 200 interviews and surveys suggest that environmental justice organizations link local issues to intersectional understandings of the climate crisis, which in turn require disrupting status quo approaches to climate change.

 

Assistant Professor of Economics Jorgen Harris has a new article in Labour Economics! In “Do Wages Fall when Women Enter an Occupation?”, Professor Harris finds that increases in women's work and education in the second half of the 20th century led to big changes in women’s representation in many high-education occupations. The increased representation of women led to declines in wages for both men and women, even after accounting for changes in labor supply. For instance, Professor Harris calculates that a 10-percentage point increase in the proportion of women in a given occupation leads to a 9 percent decrease in men’s average wages over ten years.

 

Solar lanterns serve as substitutes for kerosene as a source of lighting in parts of the developing world, but the uptake of these lanterns has been slow. Using a randomized control trial in India, Assistant Professor of Economics Jason Wong and co-authors find that vouchers of equal value increase household willingness to pay for solar lanterns more than cash transfers and microfinance schemes. “Increasing microsolar technology adoption: Efficacy of vouchers, cash transfers, and microfinance,” published in Energy Economics, demonstrates that affordability is a prime obstacle and supports the use of voucher-like incentive programs to encourage transitional technologies.

 

Professor Movindri Reddy (Diplomacy and World Affairs) has a new article analyzing the repercussions of state capture in South Africa. Published in Indenture Papers: Studies on Girmitiyas, “India’s Political Influence in South Africa” examines how the Gupta Scandal -- a corruption scheme involving an Indian-origin family and the South African government -- exposed class divisions among Indian South Africans, the burgeoning ranks of the poor amongst them, and the measures they have taken to survive in their homeland. The scandal also reveals the weaknesses of the South African post-Apartheid state and its inability to claim sovereign control over the entire country.

 

Professor Peter Dreier (Politics and Urban and Environmental Studies) coauthored a report (with Dan Flaming of the Economic Roundtable), “Hungry At the Table," based on a survey of 10,000 Kroger Co. grocery workers in Southern California, Washington, and Colorado. The survey found that 78% of the workers are food insecure and 14% have been homeless. Meanwhile, Kroger makes over $4 billion in operating profits and pays its CEO over $22 million a year. The report received extensive news coverage, appearing in over 20 stories, including outlets like The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Denver Post, Newsweek, The Guardian, Fortune, Forbes, and Buzz Feed.

 

Assistant Professor of Economics Jesse Mora’s new article in Empirical Economics takes a new approach to defining how country-level exports grow. “Export Growth Drivers and Economic Development” shows that country-level export growth will depend on five growth drivers (comparative advantage changes, product demand growth, country-level growth, global growth, and growth in destinations reached). More importantly, Professor Mora and coauthor demonstrate that the effect of these drivers will depend on the level of economic development.

 

Associate Professor of Politics Jennifer Piscopo published an article in Representation that analyzes U.S. state legislators’ experiences working remotely during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic. In “Policymaking, Constituency Service, and the Pandemic: How Working Remotely Transformed U.S. State Legislators’ Representative Roles,” Professor Piscopo and coauthor find that U.S. state legislators reported more stress and more constituency service, and less policymaking, executive oversight, and deliberation. Their findings suggest that “zoom politics” has negative consequences for the quality of legislative representation.