Talk Radio Host Rob Redding

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Rob Redding is the talk show host of the Redding News Review, a syndicated radio program heard Monday through Friday from 4 to 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on the Genesis Communications Network (GCN). On Sundays his program airs between 7 and 10 p.m. on GCN, SiriusXM Satellite Radio Channel 128, and other affiliate radio stations. He also maintains the Redding News Review news web site. He has appeared on Fox News, NPR, and CSpan.

On February 1, he visited Temple University to discuss the presidential elections and his new book Where’s the Change?: Why Neither Obama, nor the GOP Can Solve America’s Problems. Before he spoke in Anderson Hall, he stopped by Paley Library for an interview.

—Fred Rowland

 

Out of Left Field: The Interview

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Professor Rebecca Alpert has had a longstanding interest in baseball since she began following the Brooklyn Dodgers in her youth. As a professor of religion, she has written on topics of modern Judaism and Jewish studies, and on the role of gender and sexuality in religion. When she learned of prominent Jewish booking agents in the Negro Leagues of the 1930s and 1940s, she was able to combine her interests in Jewish studies and baseball. The result is her new book Out of Left Field: Jews and Black Baseball, published in 2011 by Oxford University Press. On February 15, I had the privilege of interviewing Professor Alpert on her new book.

—Fred Rowland

 

Jeffrey Kahn on Chimpanzees in Research

On Tuesday, February 28, Professor Jeffrey Kahn of Johns Hopkins University gave a talk in Gladfelter Hall entitled “Chimpanzees in Research: Ethics, Necessity & Why It Matters”. The context for his talk was a recently released report by an ad hoc committee which he chaired, entitled Chimpanzees in Biomedical and Behavioral Research: Assessing the Necessity, available for free on the National Academies Press web site. The committee was formed by the Institute of Medicine at the request of the National Institutes of Health and a congressional inquiry, with the charge of determining the necessity of using chimpanzees in NIH-funded research and making recommendations for future use. The report’s recommendations were immediately accepted by the NIH (see press release).

Before his talk, he graciously agreed to stop by Paley Library for an interview.

 

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—Fred Rowland

Architects of Piety: The Interview

In 2011 Temple University religion professor Vasiliki Limberis published Architects of Piety: The Cappadocian Fathers and the Cult of the Martyrs (Oxford University Press). In this new work, she provides a novel interpretation of the lives and works of Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus. Though they are mainly known as the principle architects of the Christian Trinitarian doctrine, Professor Limbers shows that the “cult of the martyrs” was central to the theology, worship, practice, and organization of Christianity in fourth century Cappadocia. The Architects of Piety opens up an exciting new line of research into the world of early Christianity. On January 18, Professor Limberis stopped by my office to discuss her new book.

Easier Access to the Chronicle of Higher Ed – on iPads Too

The Chronicle of Higher Education is the primary industry newspaper for the field of higher education. It is regular reading for both faculty and administrators – and graduate students. The Temple University Libraries purchases an annual site license to the Chronicle of Higher Education. That means any member of the Temple University community may access the full-text of every Chronicle article – and has access to the full-text of every archived article. Getting access from remote locations is now even easier. The Chronicle will recognize your Temple University email account and allow full-text access to all the content. In order for this to work you simply need to register as a Chronicle user with your Temple University email account. Once you have an account you should consider registering for the Academe Today daily newsletter that will give you access to the latest Chronicle articles. Please know that if you already have a Chronicle account you can simply add your Temple email to the existing account by editing your profile. Establishing a completely new one is not necessary. If you own an iPad and prefer reading your newspapers and magazines on it, you can now download an app for reading the Chronicle. The app is free to all Temple University community members. If you have any questions about obtaining access to the Chronicle of Higher Education as a member of the Temple University community contact Steven Bell for assistance.

It’s Career Week and Temple Libraries Are Here To Help

Career Week is a series of events that lead up to the Career Fair. It’s an opportunity for juniors, seniors and graduate students to connect with potential employers. This year the Career Fair takes place on Thursday, February 23 at the Student Center. Students should take advantage of every opportunity to prepare themselves so they’ll be ready to impress the employers. A well-designed resume and the right clothes help, but it’s also critical to prepare by gathering the best information available about the company and the industry in which it operates. That’s where the Temple Univesity Libraries can help. We offer dozens of specialized information databases that can make gathering information about companies and industries easier and less time consuming to conduct. For example, Business and Company Resource Center is a great starting point for both public and private companies. You can use Lexis/Nexis to get the latest news about a company by tapping into thousands of newspapers from around the globe. Stop by the Paley Library on Tuesday, February 21 at 2:00 pm to get on-the-spot help with your company research from Adam Shambaugh, our business research specialist. Help is always available at the Paley “Ask Here” Desk or stop by the Science & Engineering Library (SEL) if you are researching companies in the sciences or engineering. Whether it’s Career Week or any week of the year, the information experts at the Temple University Libraries are availalble to help all Temple students be better prepared for a job interview.

Paley’s Vending Machine Offers Basic Office Supplies

On any given day many students will stop at one of the service desks in Paley Library and ask for any of the following: * a pen * a flash drive * a highlighter Unfortunately, we are unable to provide such supplies to all the students who ask for them each day. Fortunately, students in need of these supplies can now conveniently purchase them in Paley Library. Vending machine stocked with office supplies. We have just added an office supplies vending machine that features all of the above items, plus notebooks, headphones, CD-ROM disks, and more – and we’ll be adding some personal items too, such as tissues and aspirin. Since Paley is open most nights until 2 am, there’s a new options for acquiring these supplies when you need them. You will find the vending machine in the corridor between Paley Library and the Tuttleman Center on the main level of Paley Library. If you have any suggestions for items you’d like to see us offering in the vending machine, let us know with a comment.

Do You Know the Top Two Complaints About Paley?

As the library staff member who receives all the suggestions and complaints that come from members of the Temple University community I can answer this question. Perhaps you already knew the answer: 1) Noise 2) Food Despite the efforts of the library staff to create an environment that is welcoming to all students, we are occasionally challenged to meet everyone’s needs. Whether it’s two students talking in one of the quiet zones, students getting a little too loud in the noise-tolerant zones, students talking on cellphones, a food mess left on a study table or a student eating a food truck meal that for one reason or another is distracting to other students, we continue to experience situations that leave someone dissatisfied with their Paley Library experience. In recent months we’ve been asked to create very strict, zero tolerance rules about both noise and food. One student even asked us to hire a security guard to force students to be quiet. We believe that strict rules about food and noise are difficult if not impossible to enforce in a building of Paley’s size, and we want to treat students as responsible adults. Sign stating top two library complaints are noise and food odors, to be respectful of others, and keep the library clean, (linked to larger version).
All that said, we do need to create a better environment in Paley Library, and to do so we need the help of everyone who uses this great community resource. In an effort to remind all those who use Paley Library about the top two complaints we have designed a small card with this information, and have placed these cards throughout the Paley Library. You will see them on desks, carrels and computer workstations. It’s just a reminder. We know the vast majority of those who use the Library are considerate of their fellow library users. Sometimes we could all use a reminder that this is Your Library and together it is Our library. Paley belongs to all of us. Let’s make it the best Library possible so that everyone has a great experience each and every time they are here. If you have any ideas to share about improving Paley Library, be it noise and food issues or any other situation, please leave a comment.

Passing: What is it?

Robin Washington.           Lewis Gordon

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On November 14, 2011, The Center for Afro-Jewish Studies held its 6th Annual Symposium on “Passing”: Religion, Politics & Peoplehood, a topic inspired by the 50th anniversary of the publication of John Howard Griffin’s Black Like Me and Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth.

“Both Griffin and Fanon, though primarily concerned with racism and colonialism, were in dialogue with Jewish history and experience. “Passing”: Religion, Politics & Peoplehood will explore both the impact of their works at their time of publication and the after-effects of the texts’ publication in Jewish and African-American communities in America and Israel.” —from Pre-symposium press release

Press Release      Symposium Program

Before the symposium began, I spoke with two of the day’s participants, Robin Washington, editor of the Duluth News Tribune, and Lewis Gordon, Temple professor of religion and philosophy and director of the Center for Afro-Judaic Studies.

—Fred Rowland

Frederick Ahl on Wordplay in the Aeneid

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On September 30, Professor Frederick Ahl of the Cornell University Classics Department spoke at Temple University about “Wordplay in the Aeneid”. The Zeta Beta Chapter of Eta Sigma Phi invited him to campus for its second annual lecture. Zeta Beta is a group on campus that promotes the teaching, study, and appreciation of Latin, Greek, and the ancient world.

On Saturday morning, Oct. 1, I interviewed Professor Ahl. We discussed wordplay in the Aeneid, the unease with which modern scholars encounter and interpret wordplay, and his love of the plays of Gilbert & Sullivan, on whom he is currently writing a book. Anyone who is interested in wordplay, or in the cultural and intellectual life of the ancient world, will find this interview very interesting.