Tag: Spera

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 →

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 →

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 →

For Canadian-born Dr. Deborah Van Duinen, the topic of immigration hits close to home. She is especially attuned to the history and shifting demographics of Hope College’s hometown, Holland, Michigan. “This is an immigrant town,” Van Duinen says. “I think sometimes we forget that.” So when the opportunity arose to collaborate with an English professor… Continue Reading →

Imagine this: You tell a friend something important in confidence, only to have that friend breach your trust and gossip about you with others. It was wrong, and it hurts. A collaborative research project underway at Hope College suggests that your reaction to unsettled conflicts and your ability to forgive those who wronged you may… Continue Reading →

At the center of our Milky Way Galaxy, something’s going on that puzzles astrophysicists. Decades of intense research built expectations about the gamma rays that ought to emanate from that zone. Yet NASA’s Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope picks up levels that exceed expectations. Why? Here’s Dr. Peter Gonthier’s take: Perhaps there’s a population of millisecond… Continue Reading →

For more than 15 years, Hope faculty members have worked alongside students to research Lake Macatawa’s watershed. Decades of agricultural run-off polluted it with nutrients that can kill fish, harm plant life, lead to algal blooms, and trigger high levels of E. coli bacteria. To spark students’ interest in saving local habitats, and to monitor… Continue Reading →

In the evening in some Buenos Aires clubs, guitars and accordions called bandoneons weave syncopated tango rhythms that draw patrons to the dance floor and echo back to the early 20th century. In Mexico City, vivid murals still transform buildings into huge canvasses, sustaining a genre born after World War I when the Mexican muralism… Continue Reading →

Diversity and fresh starts were hallmarks of two of Professor Rich Perez’s 2017 projects. Summer took him to Chicago to direct the UrbanTheatre Company’s production of Richard Montoya’s Water & Power; Perez and Montoya updated the script to shift the gritty drama’s setting from Los Angeles to Chicago, with turns of phrase and cultural references… Continue Reading →

Dr. Andrew “Drew” Le completed his second CD in October 2017, performing all 12 piano études by French composer Claude Debussy, and it was an all-Hope production. The album was recorded — in one day — in the college’s gleaming new Jack H. Miller Center for Musical Arts, performed on the 9-foot Steinway Model D… Continue Reading →

Dr. Heidi Kraus remembers precisely the moment it happened. “When I was a young kid, I traveled to France,” recalls Kraus. “I remember walking into the Grand Gallery in the Louvre, where all the large-format paintings are. There was one painting in particular, ‘The Coronation of Napoleon’ by Jacques-Louis David. It’s basically life-sized and it… Continue Reading →