Faculty members Sarah J. Lauro, Assistant Professor of English and Aaron Walker, Associate Professor of Film, Animation and New Media were instrumental in arranging for UT to serve as a screening partner for the Southern Circuit of Independent Filmmakers Series for 2018-2019. As part of this program, a total of six films will be presented connecting audiences and filmmakers in a communal experience. This format allows for a question and answer session with the filmmakers that provides the viewer an opportunity to discuss theme, meaning and content, as well as the efforts and process of the filmmaker, or their work and experiences in the industry. The films to be presented are: The Unafraid; Las Sandinistas!; Farmsteaders; Don’t Get Trouble In Your Mind: The Carolina Chocolate Drops’ Story; Bathtubs Over Broadway ; and This Is Home . The Southern Circuit Series is being sponsored by the UT Board of Fellows. Please contact Sarah Juliet Lauro ( [email protected]) or Aaron Walker ( [email protected]) for more information.

This fall marks the beginning of a partnership that will highlight our students in performance on the first Wednesday of the month during our 2018-2019 academic year at the Tampa Museum of Art. According to CAL Dean David Gudelunas, these performances will be “… a nice chance for additional exposure of our talented student artists, and it is an important strategic relationship for the university and the college.” This new Performing Arts Series will occur at noon on the first Wednesday of every month at the Tampa Museum of Art and will provide UT the opportunity to reach a varied audience within the downtown business and arts community. Next up in November: A preview of the Fall musical "Pirates of Penzance."

Faculty around CAL regularly make connections with professional artists and introduce students in the College to professional opportunities. It is what makes studying the Arts at UT so special.

In mid-September, the Film, Animation and New Media Department (FMX) premiered 10 new videoart and visual music pieces by internationally recognized artists in the Vaughn Center’s Reeves Theater. The Videoarts Festival was presented in a total of eleven cities throughout ten countries in Europe, Latin America and the US: Brazil, Portugal, UK, France, Sweden, Mexico, Chile, Italy, Uruguay and Tampa. The Videoarts Festival is directed by Brazilian electroacoustic musician and percussionist Antenor Ferreira, with the curatorial and organizational help of Alejandro Casales (MX), Loreto Ledezma (CL), Roberto Musanti (IT), Massimiliano Viel (IT), Dave Payling (UK) and Santiago Echeverry, Associate Professor of Film, Media and New Animation (who premiered his latest piece SHAMANS). For more information on the venues, artists and pieces  – click here.

A hearty congratulations to our colleagues on their recent successes.

Grigorios Zamparas, Associate Professor of Music; Director, Piano Studies has been invited to perform the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto no. 1 this coming November with the Tampa Bay Symphony. He also performed in Vienna, Austria this past May and at the Portoheli International Festival for the Arts in Greece, in August.

Marcus Arvan, Chair and Associate Professor of Philosophy contributed a chapter, “Human and Hosts in Westworld: What’s the Difference?” to Wiley-Blackwell’s Westworld and Philosophy book.

Sarah J. Lauro, Assistant Professor of English had her recently edited collection  Zombie Theory  nominated by the University of Minnesota Press for the SCMS (Society for Cinema and Media Studies) award of best edited collection of the year. Sarah also gave the keynote address at Pitt's graduate conference on September 29, 2018. Her presentation was titled "No More Room in Hell: A half century of Undead Media."  Check out the keynote address here.

Two faculty members in the Communication Department, Stephanie Tripp, Chair/Associate Professor of Communication and David Wheeler , Assistant Professor of Journalism appeared on Midpoint, a WMNF live talk show, on Sept. 13. Tripp and Wheeler joined host Rochelle Reback in a discussion of an anonymous op-ed piece recently published in The New York Times that was reportedly written by a senior White House official. Listen to it here.

Daniel C. Wollenberg, Assistant Professor of English had his book,  Medieval Imagery in Today’s Politics,  published by Arc Medieval Press in Spring 2018. He also published “The Breaking Point: Alain de Benoist’s Critique of Medieval Nominalism” in the edited collection  Studies in Medievalism XXVII: Authenticity, Medievalism, Music  (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2018. pp. 65-83).

Steven Geisz, Professor of Philosophy published an article on Chinese yoga (i.e., qigong) and its relevance to philosophy in May 2018 in a peer-reviewed academic newsletter of the American Philosophical Association: Geisz, Steven. “Traditional Chinese Body Practice and Philosophical Inquiry.”  American Philosophical Association Newsletter for Asian and Asian-American Philosophers and Philosophies 17, no. 2 (Spring 2018): 5 - 9. 

Ryan Hebert, Associate Professor of Music; Director, of Choral Studies; and University Organist organized the first annual Voices United choral workshop at UT in September 2018. This year’s workshop was open to students throughout Hillsborough County and featured a nationally-known choral clinician.

Daniel Dooghan, Associate Professor of English had his essay “Lu Xun’s Indigenous Modernity: Philology and Resistance in Old Tales Retold” published in the collection  History, Imperialism, Critique: New Essays in World Literature, edited by Asher Ghaffar. Routledge, 2018, pp. 95-112.  

John Capouya, Professor of Journalism was featured in an episode of WEDU Arts Plus that aired on Sept. 13. The episode focused on Capouya’s award-winning book Florida Soul, which was published in 2017. Check out the video here.

Sarah Iker, Assistant Professor of Music was the featured woman in music theory for the Society for Music Theory in May 2018. Check it out here.

Gregg Bachman, Professor of Communication had his brief personal essay entitled “The Choice” accepted for inclusion into the book entitled  Daily Reflections to be published by Library Partners Press at Wake Forest University, edited by Mary Dalton.

Kyle Mcintosh, Assistant Professor of English, had his co-authored chapter “Language Testing and Assessment” published in the  Palgrave Handbook of Applied Linguistics Research Methodology. Ginther, A. & McIntosh, K. (2018). 

Senior Writing Major Mina Buzzek had her multi-genre piece “Little Love Circles” published in  The Rumpus,  an online literary journal, in September. 

Check out the piece here.

Senior English Major Adeline Davis will present “The Birth of New Identities” at the American Conference for Irish Studies West in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, November 11-13, 2018. She will also present her paper “Behind the Mask” at the South Atlantic Modern Language Association conference in Birmingham, Alabama on November 4. 2018. 

Tess Sheets (Journalism major/Communication minor ’17) has been hired as a full-time reporter with the Orlando Sentinel. Among her recent stories was a multimedia package on an Orlando firefighter who was a paramedic in New York City during the September 11 attacks and who has dedicated his life to community service since that time.

Check out the story here. 

Kavin "Sam" Alderman (Music, '19) participated in the 52 ^nd International Organ Festival in Haarlem, Netherlands where he studied Bach and Improvisation.

Catherine Chapman (Music Performance, ’19) was a participant in the Eastman School of Music in Paris Program - Theory of Contemporary Music & IRCAM ManiFeste 2018 Conference (Paris, France June 3 to July 1 2018). 

Liane Houde (Musical Theatre, ’18) is serving as Musical Director for the PowerStories' Theater Company Production of "Raising 12 on a Nickel and a Prayer" Performances are November 29-December 16, 2018.

Chase Parker (Music, ’19) wrote an orchestral suite for a horror-themed video game, Machiavillain which was completed May 22, 2018. Listen to it here.