Digital Commons Network^™

The Faculty Notebook, April 2025, Provost's Office

Faculty Notebook

The Faculty Notebook is published periodically by the Office of the Provost at Gettysburg College to bring to the attention of the campus community accomplishments and activities of academic interest. Faculty are encouraged to submit materials for consideration for publication to the Associate Provost for Faculty Development. Copies of this publication are available at the Office of the Provost.

The Faculty Notebook, September 2024, Provost's Office

Faculty Notebook

The Faculty Notebook is published periodically by the Office of the Provost at Gettysburg College to bring to the attention of the campus community accomplishments and activities of academic interest. Faculty are encouraged to submit materials for consideration for publication to the Associate Provost for Faculty Development. Copies of this publication are available at the Office of the Provost.

The Faculty Notebook, April 2024, Provost's Office

Faculty Notebook

The Faculty Notebook is published periodically by the Office of the Provost at Gettysburg College to bring to the attention of the campus community accomplishments and activities of academic interest. Faculty are encouraged to submit materials for consideration for publication to the Associate Provost for Faculty Development. Copies of this publication are available at the Office of the Provost.

Mackie, Martin, And Inus In The Morning: Explaining Mackie’S Inus Conditions Through The Humor Of Demetri Martin, Steven Gimbel

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Distinguishing necessary and sufficient conditions can be challenging to undergraduate logic and critical thinking students. Explaining J. L. Mackie’s notion of INUS conditions—insufficient but necessary parts of unnecessary but sufficient conditions—is an even more difficult concept to understand. It is helpful to have memorable examples that not only clarify the concept, but make it easy to remember. Law student turned stand-up comedian Demetri Martin uses necessary, sufficient, and INUS conditions to construct absurdist jokes. These jokes provide effective tools for making Mackie’s notion understandable and memorable.

The Faculty Notebook, September 2023, Provost's Office

Faculty Notebook

The Faculty Notebook is published periodically by the Office of the Provost at Gettysburg College to bring to the attention of the campus community accomplishments and activities of academic interest. Faculty are encouraged to submit materials for consideration for publication to the Associate Provost for Faculty Development. Copies of this publication are available at the Office of the Provost.

The Faculty Notebook, April 2023, Provost's Office

Faculty Notebook

The Faculty Notebook is published periodically by the Office of the Provost at Gettysburg College to bring to the attention of the campus community accomplishments and activities of academic interest. Faculty are encouraged to submit materials for consideration for publication to the Associate Provost for Faculty Development. Copies of this publication are available at the Office of the Provost.

Philosophers Of Catastrophe: Early 20th Century Jewish Proponents And Opponents Of Objectivity In Science, Steven Gimbel, Stephen J. Stern

Philosophy Faculty Publications

The Second World War ended with the exposure of the Nazi death camps and the threat of global nuclear annihilation. The former disclosed the depths of human depravity and the latter warned us about the severity of the consequences that could await us as a result. The grimness of each, much less both, had the effect of shielding from our collective consciousness the equally dire warnings from the First World War that had occurred only a couple of decades earlier. [excerpt]

The Faculty Notebook, September 2022, Provost's Office

Faculty Notebook

The Faculty Notebook is published periodically by the Office of the Provost at Gettysburg College to bring to the attention of the campus community accomplishments and activities of academic interest. Faculty are encouraged to submit materials for consideration for publication to the Associate Provost for Faculty Development. Copies of this publication are available at the Office of the Provost.

Digital German-Jewish Futures: Experiential Learning, Activism, And Entertainment., Kerry Wallach

German Studies Faculty Publications

The future of the German-Jewish past is, in a word, digital, and not only in the sense of digital humanities or digital history. Future generations of scholars, students, and the general public will engage with the past online in the same ways—and for many of the same reasons—that they engage with everything else. There needs to be something redeeming, enjoyable, or at least memorable about studying history for people to feel that it is worthwhile. For many, the act of learning about the past serves as a kind of virtual travel, even an escape, to another time and place. Learning …

The Jewish Vamp Of Berlin: Actress Maria Orska, Typecasting, And Jewish Women, Kerry Wallach

German Studies Faculty Publications

“Maria Orska, she is simply the actual embodiment of the human beast.... here, again, she is the man-beguiling Lulu, so vivid in her performance that one can almost hear her words.” With these lines in his review of Die Bestie im Menschen (1920/21), critic Fritz Olimsky describes Orska as she was widely regarded: a femme fatale Lulu or vamp type known for her tragic, expressive performances, who was often cast in psychologically complex roles involving dramatic love affairs. Orska, like her Hollywood contemporary Theda Bara, rarely moved beyond her reputation for playing this type of character. In addition to exploring …

Visual Weimar: The Iconography Of Social And Political Identities, Kerry Wallach

German Studies Faculty Publications

In the Weimar Republic, images were perceived to be as unreliable as they were powerful. They helped create and codify difference while simultaneously blurring lines within the categories of gender and race. Visual culture provided a wild playground for discourses about gender presentation and sexuality that encompassed veterans, athletes, criminals, the New Woman, and androgynous figures. Despite the growing prominence of images in race science, it was widely held that images could not be trusted to convey accurate information about race. The propagandistic use of images for political purposes had the potential to be equally ambiguous. It was ultimately up …

Our Monuments, Our History, Temma F. Berg

English Faculty Publications

Beginning with Toni Morrison's concept of "rememory" and the recent completion of the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers on the University of Virginia campus, this essay explores the current monuments controversy by focusing on four Viennese monuments which have much to tell us about how new memorials might contextualize and reframe history. The first Viennese monument, a celebration of a series of fifteenth-century pogroms, was built into the wall of a house opposite the Judenplatz, a square in the center of what was once a thriving Jewish community. Four hundred years later, from 1998 to 2008, three additional memorials were built …

You've Gotta Read This: Summer Reading At Musselman Library (2020), Musselman Library

You’ve Gotta Read This: Summer Reading at Musselman Library

Each year, Musselman Library asks Gettysburg College faculty, staff, and administrators to help create a suggested summer reading list. We hope to inspire students and the rest of our community to take time in the summer to sit back, relax, and read or watch a memorable film.

With the 2020 collection, 110 employees offer 215 recommendations of favorite books, films, and television programs. These selections touch on everything from living in the Alaskan wilderness to the human experience of being wrong.

The columns featured in this year's booklet are for Reading Without Walls and Fighting for Political Power: Women’s Inclusion …

Scholarly Communications Report On Activities 2019-20, Janelle L. Wertzberger, Mary R. Elmquist, Sarah Appedu

All Musselman Library Staff Works

2019-20 annual report for Scholarly Communications work at Musselman Library, including Gettysburg College's institutional repository, The Cupola: Scholarship at Gettysburg College. Covers June 2019-May 2020.

The Faculty Notebook, April 2020, Provost's Office

Faculty Notebook

The Faculty Notebook is published periodically by the Office of the Provost at Gettysburg College to bring to the attention of the campus community accomplishments and activities of academic interest. Faculty are encouraged to submit materials for consideration for publication to the Associate Provost for Faculty Development. Copies of this publication are available at the Office of the Provost.

Who Builds The Motherland?, Benjamin D. Goldman

Georges Lieber Essay Contest on Resistance

I was born in 2002 into a middle-class Jewish family, in a very Jewish town. The town was our Zion, our Mini-Israel, our bubble. It prided itself on being a sleepy town where any American can feel safe and comfortable. At the best of times, the town felt like a family; everyone knew your name and many children born in the town decided to live the rest of their adult lives there. It was a place where the support of Israel was of utmost importance. Although everyone prided themselves on the security, there was always this unease that our human …

Holding On To History, Jesse A. Cromer

Georges Lieber Essay Contest on Resistance

When I searched for the story of Georges Lieber, the very man whose drive to resist inspired the concept for this essay, I could not find it. The only trace of him was his record on the Yad Vashem database which merely states that he was a student and that he was transported from Lyon, France to Auschwitz in 1944. His story, along with much of Holocaust history, remains unknown or misunderstood for many people, both from my generation and those before us. As a long-term student of history and an aspiring educator, I have chosen to resist the sliding …

Resisting The Tradition Of Sexism, Tobi N. Farbstein

Georges Lieber Essay Contest on Resistance

I stood there, or rather wobbled, standing on a plastic chair, peering over the division of a wall. Three feet away, I saw a boy reading from the Torah. There were men embracing, women cheering from across the wall, and rounds of applause on both sides. I stepped down from the chair and glanced at the sky. In my view, a large barrier towered over me, piercing the blue-- the Western Wall. My haze was then suddenly interrupted by a woman frantically mounting the chair I had previously been standing on. She was desperate to get a view of the …

Pajamas For Change, Alexander R. Kohn

Georges Lieber Essay Contest on Resistance

I created a protest called the "Where Are the Children Project" to bring attention to the immigrant children held in detention centers. Throughout the project I was able to see how much others cared about helping these children gain better living conditions, and I was able to learn about leadership and resistance. My values helped drive me into action, and the importance of what I was working towards helped me become more confident. After months of protests, the Homestead Detention Center where reports of maltreatment had been especially high was closed, but my work to improve the rights of immigrants …

Resistance Against Assimilation: The Irony Of The Melting Pot, Vismaya Paul Mohindra

Georges Lieber Essay Contest on Resistance

The video on the large, flat-screen T.V. plays and shows a small, brown baby lying helpless in the arms of her mother, concealed in a thick and colorful shawl. Sneeze after sneeze seems to come from the newborn, as the room fills with the strong scent of smoke, the result of a glowing fire set in the middle of the room. The small bell rings and rings until there is ringing in everyone’s ears, the sounds vibrating their skull and very being. The chanting seems to fill the small apartment, and everyone wonders in the back of their minds when …

Something To Do With A Girl Named Marla: Eros And Gender In David Fincher’S Fight Club, Vernon W. Cisney

Interdisciplinary Studies Faculty Publications

David Fincher’s 1999 film, Fight Club, has been characterized in many ways: as a romantic comedy, an exploration of white, middle-class male angst, an existentialist search for meaning amidst the moral ruins of late capitalism, an anarchist manifesto, and so on. But common to nearly every reading of the film, critical and laudatory alike, is the assumption that Fight Club is indisputably a celebration of misogynistic, masculinist virility and violence. On its face, this assumption appears so overwhelmingly obvious as to render superfluous any argumentation in support thereof, and absurd any opposing argumentation. Consider the ubiquitous homoerotic adulation of the …

You've Gotta Read This: Summer Reading At Musselman Library (2019), Musselman Library

You’ve Gotta Read This: Summer Reading at Musselman Library

Each year, Musselman Library asks Gettysburg College faculty, staff, and administrators to help create a suggested summer reading list. The result is You’ve Gotta Read This!—a booklet filled with fiction, nonfiction and film recommendations that we hope will offer a reading and viewing go-to list for the summer and beyond.

The 2019 collection has suggestions from 173 employees who offer 258 recommendations of favorite books, films, and television programs that will satisfy a wide range in reading and viewing tastes and genres.

This year’s booklet includes several special features. Two of our regular columnists return once again: James Udden …

Fearless Friday: Hannah Lebovitz, Hannah M. Labovitz

SURGE

This week, we recognize the work of Hannah Labovitz ’21. Hannah is currently pursuing a history major, a Spanish and Public History double minor, and a teaching certification. She is from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and has been very involved in the Jewish community here at Gettysburg. She is the secretary and communications chair of Hillel, works as an assistant to Stephen Stern in the Judaic Studies Department, serves on the Judaic Studies committee, acts as co-President of Democracy Matters. She also participates in Alpha Phi Omega, College Democrats, and Dance Ensemble. [excerpt]

Diversity & Inclusion Update - Fall 2018, Office Of Diversity & Inclusion

Diversity & Inclusion Update

This Fall 2018 newsletter discusses ongoing campus initiatives to facilitate diversity and inclusion efforts on campus. Topics discussed include continued campus changes inspired by the January 2016 Town Hall meeting, such as the expansion of the Office of Multicultural Engagement/Mosaic House, and programming held over the previous semester to raise multicultural awareness by organizing events like LincCon Comic and Gaming Convention, workshops during the Disability Awareness Month, visit of Anthony Ray Hinton, etc.

Review Of Golem: Modern Wars And Their Monsters By Maya Barzilai, Temma F. Berg

English Faculty Publications

The golem crosses many borders. A popular culture icon and an enduring image of creative power, its hybridity contributes to its elusive nature. What it is and what it means shifts over time. Maya Barzilai's Golem: Modern Wars and Their Monsters takes a unique approach. Deeply interdisciplinary, as one must be to explore such a complex and paradoxical figure, and drawing on religious, literary, cinematic, and historical contexts, Barzilai weaves a rich tapestry of golem narratives. All the while, Barzilai keeps a clear eye on the golem's ongoing association with war, seeing its birth in the clay trenches of World …

The Faculty Notebook, September 2018, Provost's Office

Faculty Notebook

The Faculty Notebook is published periodically by the Office of the Provost at Gettysburg College to bring to the attention of the campus community accomplishments and activities of academic interest. Faculty are encouraged to submit materials for consideration for publication to the Associate Provost for Faculty Development. Copies of this publication are available at the Office of the Provost.

Gettysburg: Our College's Magazine Fall 2016, Communications & Marketing

Gettysburg: Our College’s Magazine

From the President (Janet Morgan Riggs '77)

Table of Contents

Senior Year Saved Zach Warner '16, Geoff Jackson '91

Prof Notes: Emelio Betances, Sociology and Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies (Professor Emelio Betances)

All in a Year's Work Raven Waters '19

The 411: Joe Biernat '75 (Joe Biernet '75)

Making it Work: Founder & CEO Peter Kratsios '11

From the Battlefield to the Big Leagues Matt Laux '15

Gettysburgreat: The Campaign for our College

Voice of Experience: Life-Changing Lessons from Studying Abroad (Will Essigs '17)

Media Notes: New & Noteworthy

Conversations

Bullets Build Cross-Cultural Bridges Cam Stewart '18, Mateus …

You've Gotta Read This: Summer Reading At Musselman Library (2016), Musselman Library

You’ve Gotta Read This: Summer Reading at Musselman Library

Each year, Musselman Library asks Gettysburg College faculty, staff, and administrators to help create a suggested summer reading list. Our goal is to inspire students and the rest of our community to take time in the summer to sit back, relax, and read.

With the 2016 collection, we again bring together recommendations from across our campus—the books, movies, TV shows, and even musicals that have meant something special to us over the past year. 124 faculty, administrators and staff offer up a record number of 226 recommendations.

We include five special features this year. Two of our regular columnists are …

Gettysburg: Our College's Magazine Spring 2016, Communications & Marketing

Gettysburg: Our College’s Magazine

From the President Janet Morgan Riggs '77

Table of Contents

Scholarships Ensure Students a Broader, Global View (Craig Disher ’66)

Jack Ryan: Vice Provost and Dean of Arts & Humanities Professor Jack Ryan

From Father to Son to Sunderman (Frank Arbogast ’16)

The 411: Suzanne Hermann Williams ’62 (Suzanne Hermann Williams ’62)

Paying it Forward (Jack Duffy ’79)

Making it Work: Public Archaeology (Paige Phillips ’12)

The Writer's Prompt was a Class Reunion

Gettysburgreat: The Campaign for Our College

Funds Sought for Music Tours (Joe ’75 and Susan Biernat ’77)

Move-In Day is Memorable Shawna Sherrell

Conversations

Olympic-Sized Dreams (Andre …

Not My Favorite Memory, Isabelle Punchatz

The Mercury

No abstract provided.