Spera Archives | Page 5 of 6 | News from Hope College

Where Early Modern British Lit Crosses Paths with Asian Studies

“After college, I taught English in Taiwan, and years later I had the opportunity to teach in the Hope College–Meiji Gakuin University faculty exchange program in Japan. Those experiences ignited my interest in intercultural relationships. I love teaching Shakespeare, especially with a focus on Shakespeare’s view of how society imagines outsiders. Take a play like… Continue Reading →

Confronting a Threat in West Michigan Forests

It’s enough to make a grown man cry. And Dr. K. Greg Murray admits he shed a tear upon discovering that the dreaded hemlock woolly adelgid had been spotted on hemlocks in Michigan. The invasive, destructive insect (pronounced a-DELL-jid), which sucks the sap from North American hemlock trees and dooms many of them, has taken… Continue Reading →

Inheriting the Trauma of la Guerra Civil Española

The war ended 80 years ago, and yet in Spain its wounds feel fresh. That’s what happens when painful memories are held in check until one day the floodgates finally open. “The Spanish Civil War is still alive. We still live it and sense it in the 21st century.” Dr. Berta Carrasco says this with… Continue Reading →

A Poet’s Sojourn in Camden, New Jersey

Most people think of Walt Whitman, if they think of him at all, as that 19th-century poet from high school English Lit who penned Leaves of Grass. However, Dr. William Pannapacker thinks about Whitman a lot. And when he does, his thoughts fill with superlatives. “Walt Whitman is, in many ways, the preeminent literary figure… Continue Reading →

Complexities of the In-Between

Dr. Ernest Cole is a man who doesn’t quite belong anywhere. Cole spent much of 2018 — including a summer trip to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. — researching and writing his third monograph, which explores dislocation, displacement and the trauma of finding oneself in different spaces. In particular, he’s examining the work… Continue Reading →

For All of God’s Good Earth

According to a recent Yale University survey, only 18 percent of American evangelical and born-again Christians believe that caring for the earth is part of their faith. When environmental theologian Dr. Steve Bouma-Prediger hears a statistic like that, he matter-of-factly responds, “I have a lot more work to do.” That work, which he has undertaken… Continue Reading →

What drew me to social psychology

“Psychology was the most interesting subject I studied in college, even though I had only one course in my first three years. I just thought, What more interesting subject could there be than human beings? Faith is part of my identity, and therefore it is natural for me to ask how religious ideas about human… Continue Reading →

Real Systems, Real Clients

For Dr. Ryan McFall, scholarship often takes the form of software. “I work with my students to build real systems for real clients,” says McFall, a professor of computer science. Many of those clients are colleagues from the Hope community. In 2017, Hope’s Physical Plant staff came to McFall with a request: find a more… Continue Reading →

Future of Fitness

More gain, less pain — in America’s fitness-focused society, that’s something everybody can get behind. In summer 2017, Dr. Brian Rider of the Department of Kinesiology tested the effects of wearing compression stockings during exercise. Working with student collaborators, he recruited 10 volunteers between the ages of 18 and 39 to work out on treadmills… Continue Reading →

Kuyper, the Popes — and an Economist

Where economics, morality and political theory intersect, you’ll find Dr. Sarah Estelle. Intrigued by this trio of issues, Estelle recently began to concentrate on economic theory, theological principles and the role of the state, with a focus on the late Nobel Prize-winning Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek. Hayek, who was skeptical of socialism and central planning,… Continue Reading →

College Access as a Health Policy Issue

If college attendance can lead to better health, is access to higher education a healthcare policy issue? That question is at the heart of research that Dr. Temple Smith began in 2017. Drawing from a federal study on adolescent health, she is investigating what influences college students’ physical and mental health, compared to young adults… Continue Reading →

Faith and the Bench

In September 2017, the Senate Judiciary Committee questioned Amy Barrett, a federal appellate-court nominee, about whether her Catholic faith would influence her decision-making as a judge and perhaps disqualify her from a seat on the federal bench. From his office in Lubbers Hall, Dr. David Ryden was paying close attention. Ryden has been studying the… Continue Reading →

Post-WWI Campaign Brought America’s Diversity into Focus

The year was 1918. The United States was in the midst of World War I. Like today, the country was going through a great deal of change, particularly in how people expressed their faith. The war triggered a wave of immigration to the U.S., bringing Catholics — and to a lesser extent, Jews — to… Continue Reading →

Culturally Dislocated?

Is Dr. Rajesh Koothrappali, the winsome astrophysicist played by Kunal Nayyar on the long-running CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory, responsible for the alienation many Indian-Americans experience from mainstream U.S. media? That may be overstating matters a bit — but according to recent research by Dr. Marissa Doshi and a colleague, “Raj” is one of… Continue Reading →

A New View in Japan

It’s an unusual question for a historian: What is it like for a blind person to live in a world dominated by sighted people? But this inquiry, with a particular focus on Japan, is at the heart of Dr. Wayne Tan’s research. Today, Japan is considered one of the most blind-friendly nations in the world,… Continue Reading →

Crafting a Theology of Disability

When his 7-year-old son Benedict was diagnosed with autism at the age of 3, it set Dr. Jared Ortiz on a personal, impassioned research track. Georges Rouault, French, 1871–1958, Ecce DolorPlate eight from the Passion, 1936 “I did a lot of reading, and there are wonderful resources in the Holland area, so we’ve been very… Continue Reading →

Join the Conversation

A sampling of Spring 2018 presentations and performances by Hope College faculty and students through May 19 CULTURE, COMMERCE AND CRITICISM Kruizenga Art Museum With content and presentation developed in collaboration with Dr. Anne Heath and her Art 361 seminar, an exhibition of 50 prints exploring how Western artists have used them to transmit knowledge,… Continue Reading →

Creating New Neural Pathways to Relieve Phantom Pain

Dr. Katharine Polasek’s mission is to improve the daily experiences of people who have undergone amputations by focusing on a very specific — and very perplexing — challenge: phantom limb pain. Individuals with phantom limb pain sense pain in the limb that was amputated, as though it were still there. Researchers aren’t yet certain of… Continue Reading →

Helping Chinese Families Advocate for Children with Special Needs

To understand how four Hope College students found themselves in China training teachers and social workers in summer 2017, you need to trace the story back to Benjamin Feaster’s adoption. Thirteen years have passed since Dennis and Sarah Feaster adopted their son from his native Hong Kong. Adopting and parenting Benjamin, who has Down syndrome,… Continue Reading →

Dance as a Learning Strategy

Imagine a Kandinsky painting coming to life on stage, each impasto brushstroke a carefully choreographed movement. Picture a Warhol screenprint animated by dance, each plane of color made kinetic. What could young audiences learn from such dance performances? The connection between movement and cognition drives Professor Nicki Flinn. It motivates her research, and it inspires… Continue Reading →