Trinity College of Arts & Sciences
Spring’s crop of books from Duke authors includes a history of grievance in the United States, an up-close look at the camaraderie at Durham Bulls games, and a guide on understanding sex and gender. Below is a roundup of some of the most recent and upcoming published titles. Many of the books, including new editions of previous titles, can be found on the “Duke Authors” display shelves near the circulation desk in Perkins Library. Some are available as e-books for quick download. Most can also be purchased through the… read more » about Spring Books in Duke Authors: Meditations, Baseball, Rebels and Stomach Pains
DURHAM, N.C. -- Left unchecked, corrosion can rust out cars and pipes, take down buildings and bridges, and eat away at our monuments. Corrosion can also damage devices that could be key to a clean energy future. And now, Duke University researchers have captured extreme close-ups of that process in action. “By studying how and why renewable energy devices break down over time, we might be able to extend their lifetime,” said chemistry professor and senior author Ivan Moreno-Hernandez. In his lab at Duke sits a… read more » about Nanoscale Movies Shed Light on One Barrier to a Clean Energy Future
One of the most important jazz composers in American history. A mentor and outspoken advocate for scholars of race. The preeminent physiologist of the second half of the 20th century. A pioneering model for women. For more than a century, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences has been home to renowned and discipline-defining academics. The research and scholarship foregrounded by these thought leaders influenced their respective fields and created new subfields in areas … read more » about Today’s Faculty Reflect on a Century of Scholars
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick was a bright and beloved academic star who helped bring “queer theory” into the world. Sedgwick’s thoroughly original work put Duke — where she was a professor from 1988 to 1997 — on the map of cutting-edge scholarship in the humanities. For Sedgwick, queer theory was much more than an academic field devoted to thinking about gay and lesbian sexualities. She made it into an imaginatively expansive, welcoming space where thinking itself can live and thrive and move — lovingly, erotically — across the… read more » about Casting New Eyes Onto Queer Theory Through Eve Sedgwick’s White Glasses
The Duke Centennial gives us the opportunity to reflect on people whose scholarship, behavior and reputation have not only shaped Duke as an institution, but have made a profound impact on their field of research. The late Philip Benfey, a world-renowned plant biologist, is certainly deserving of recognition. His pioneering research, leadership in scientific innovation and dedication to fostering the growth of his mentees have had an immeasurable lasting impact on multiple generations of scientists. Before I ever met… read more » about From Cells to Crops, Philip Benfey Found Keys to Success in the Hidden Half of Plants
Next November, the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory will celebrate its 60th anniversary. It's among the longest running university-based nuclear physics laboratories in the U.S. and one of the most successful such laboratories in the world. I already knew of it when I was an undergraduate student at Tsinghua University in China in the 1980s because some of my professors collaborated with TUNL physicists. We have Henry Winston Newson to thank for that legacy. Prof. Henry Winston Newson, an accomplished physical… read more » about Henry Newson Leaves a Legacy of Innovation and Institution Building
Ingrid Daubechies' work on wavelets was a revolution — a tour de force — in the way the information in images and other signals are stored compactly in computers. Image compression can be dramatic: an image could be stored at a minuscule fraction of its original number of bits and visually look the same as the uncompressed image. How is that possible? Imagine an image of a sky with clouds and balloons. There are slight color variations of gray and white within the pixels representing the clouds, slight variations in… read more » about The Images of a Legendary Female Mathematician
I remember first reading Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s book, “Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America,” while I was in graduate school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I was preparing for my comprehensive exam on race and ethnicity. I had been reading a lot over a very short period of time and was losing steam, but his book changed all that. From the very first page, I was transfixed. I finished the book on the very same day, transformed as a scholar… read more » about How Eduardo Bonilla-Silva Changed Our Understanding of Racism
John Hope Franklin’s “From Slavery to Freedom” offered a cogent, comprehensive history of African Americans at a time when most white Americans did not believe that Black people had a history worth telling. First published in 1947, two years after the American victory over German white supremacists in World War II and decades into the Black freedom struggle against American white supremacy, the book did not simply provide a one-volume, “History of Negro Americans,” as the subtitle put it. It constructed a sweeping,… read more » about 75 Years After Publishing His Magnum Opus, John Hope Franklin Is Still an Inspiration
Fredric Jameson, who has been a professor at Duke since 1985, was the founder of the Literature Program and served as its director for decades. He has published dozens of widely influential books and been awarded several prestigious international prizes. I want to focus here on his 1991 book, “Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism,” because it offers an introductory view on the extraordinary breadth of his vision, the originality of his analyses and the impact of his work. In the 1980s and 90s,… read more » about From LA Hotels to Economic Theory, Fredric Jameson’s Multifaceted Analysis of the Present
Knut Schmidt-Nielsen wasn’t just the preeminent physiologist of the second half of the 20th century. He changed the way physiology was taught. When he published “Animal Physiology: Adaptation and Environment” in 1975, physiology courses focused entirely on human physiology. But Schmidt-Nielsen’s textbook tackled the subject from a comparative perspective, taking biology by storm. It went to five editions, was translated into eight languages and became the leading physiology textbook of its time. Every physiology text… read more » about By Studying Extreme Environments, Knut Schmidt-Nielsen Reoriented Biology
Over the nearly quarter century he spent as a professor of Psychology at Duke between 1953 and 1977, Edward “Ned” Jones conducted ground-breaking research focused on understanding how we form impressions of other people. Jones is best known for his research on correspondent inference theory. This theory and associated studies laid the groundwork for the “fundamental attribution error,” a mental bias wherein people overemphasize personality characteristics and underemphasize situational factors when making sense of others… read more » about Ned Jones Changed the Way We Understand Social Stigma
The buzz of the 1970s political cognoscenti was pronouncing that American political parties were about to die. But even at a time when prominent titles included “Is the Party Over?” (1972), John Aldrich was establishing evidence that democracy is hardly conceivable or viable without political parties. Aldrich’s scholarship has been visionary, anticipating developments in American politics that have come to full realization only recently. With the benefit of hindsight, we can fully appreciate Aldrich’s early intellectual… read more » about John Aldrich’s Visionary and Contrarian Analysis of American Politics
Elizabeth A. Clark joined Duke University in 1982. Over the course of her nearly forty-year tenure at our beloved institution, she built the Department of Religious Studies into a renowned center for the study of late ancient religions, histories and cultures. Founder of the Center for Late Ancient Studies, which now bears her name, Clark gathered, organized and coordinated an interdisciplinary group of researchers for lively conversations and in-depth inquiry into the histories, historiographies and theoretical stakes of… read more » about Liz Clark Turned Early Christianity History Into an Entirely Different Field
This is a story about the impact of Duke history on cultural life, of significant and inspirational mentorship, and of a personal reckoning with dynamic people, spaces, organizations and operations working at Duke. It’s also a story of one of the most important musical compositions written by one of the most important jazz composers in America’s history, Mary Lou Williams. It starts in the archive. Even growing up in Henderson, North Carolina, I appreciated the delight of discovery that only an archive could provide,… read more » about A Journey Through the Musical World of Mary Lou Williams
read more » about What Dreamville Fest Means to NC’s Black community, According to Mark Anthony Neal
Trinity College of Arts & Sciences has adopted a new curriculum that will reshape the academic experience of its undergraduate students beginning in Fall 2025, following an April 4 vote by faculty representatives. Approximately 80% of Duke’s undergraduate student body calls Trinity College its intellectual home, and thus will earn degrees through the Arts & Sciences Curriculum. It marks the first comprehensive update since Curriculum 2000 was adopted a generation ago. Trinity… read more » about New Curriculum Approved For Trinity College of Arts & Sciences
Collaboration is key at Duke, and the FOCUS Program has guided interdisciplinary partnerships among our diverse academic units for over 30 years. Recognized by experts such as educational psychologist Howard Gardner as a model of transformational education in the United States [1], FOCUS provides incoming students with experiential learning experiences as they begin their distinctive college paths. FOCUS Then In the late 1980s, Richard A. White, then Dean of Trinity College, was wrestling with an idea… read more » about FOCUS on the First Year
“To me, religion is just brain activity,” said Larissa Carneiro, Ph.D., a religious studies instructor at Duke whose work is at the intersection of religion, neuroscience, and psychedelics. Despite her skepticism about the existence of God and reincarnation, though, Carneiro says she has lived many lives. “I'm 57 years old, and I have had five different lives without dying and being born again,” Carneiro said. Carneiro was born in São Sebastião do Paraíso, Brazil, and started her first life (or two) after moving to… read more » about Duke Scholar Explores A Potent Brew of Religion, Ritual and Psychedelic Drugs
Growing up in Fayetteville, Rashad Raman said he was often the only brown face in his classes. When he arrived at Duke four years ago, Rashad was introduced to the Center for Muslim Life and the Duke Muslim Students Association. There, he found a community. “My family is Muslim so it's really important to us to maintain strong ties with each other, within our faith community and our larger community as well,” said Raman, whose family instilled in him the need to volunteer. Last year, while president of the Duke Muslim… read more » about Biology Student Works for a Stronger Muslim Community at Duke and Beyond
Four Duke University undergraduates have received the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, a federally endowed award that supports students in pursuing careers in the fields of mathematics, the natural sciences and engineering. Ayush Jain, Juliet Jiang, Michelle Si and Marie-Hélène Tomé are among the 508 students nationwide awarded Goldwater Scholarships for the 2024-2025 academic year. The Goldwater Scholars were chosen based on academic merit from a pool of 1,353 natural science… read more » about Four Undergraduates Receive National Goldwater Scholarships
Rohil Watwe cannot remember a time when he didn’t have a deep-rooted passion for healthcare. Drawn to understanding how diseases affect us and the incredible resilience the human body has in overcoming health challenges, his passion intensified in high school as an active member of the Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA) club. “Those invaluable experiences in HOSA introduced me to various facets of healthcare, from hands-on activities to competitions and seminars, and they pushed me to pursue a career dedicated… read more » about Music Brings Innovative Thinking to Healthcare
read more » about The Dunedin Study: World-leading Study to Enter Next Phase as Participants Turn 52
Musical collisions, living monuments, immersive choreography and celebrations of tradition are all part of the performance experience at Duke. The arts and humanities faculty in Trinity College of Arts & Sciences are gifted creatives, as well as respected educators and researchers. This month, several of them have joined with Duke Arts Presents to present four performances across multiple art forms. Aaron Shackelford, the director of programming for Duke Arts says, “Duke Arts Presents brings world-class artists to… read more » about Duke Arts Presents Collaborates with Trinity Faculty for Four Performances in April
