The
University of Kansas 
An Official Employee
Publication From the Office of University Relations
Edith Clowes, professor of Slavic languages
and literatures, will have her new book, Fiction’s Overcoat:
Russian Literary Culture and the Question of Philosophy, published
by Cornell University Press.
Marc L. Greenberg, professor and chair of
Slavic languages and literatures, gave an invited talk on “Balto-Slavic
Tonogenesis: the Development of the ‘Acute’ Tone” April
2 at the EU-sponsored workshop “Typology of Tone and Intonation”
in Cascais, Portugal.
Max Fiskin, professor of microbiology, molecular
genetics and immunology, presented “Xanthine Metabolism in Cryptococcus
gatti Virulence” in competition for the Thomas C. Walsh Mycology
Award at the 14th Focus on Fungus meetings in New Orleans. Fiskin completed
the work at the MHC Mycology Laboratories, University of Adelaide, South
Australia, in February and March.
The annual Mid-American Regional Astrophysics Conference was held April
16-17 at the Linda Hall Library in Kansas City, Mo. The following KU faculty
presented at the conference: Adrian Melott,
professor of physics and astronomy, “Did a Gamma-Ray Burst Cause
a Terrestrial Mass Extinction?”; Mikhail Medvedev,
professor of physics and astronomy, “Physical Principles of Gamma-Ray
Burst Shock Waves”; and Claude Laird,
courtesy assistant professor of astronomy and physics, “Stratospheric
Ozone and Odd Nitrogen Perturbations by Supernovae and Gamma-Ray Bursts.”
These presentations and a talk from Larry Martin
constituted a mini-symposium on identifying extraterrestrial causes for
mass extinctions. Other presentations were made by: Thomas
Cravens, “The Jovian X-Ray Aurora”; Stephen Shawl,
“On the Use of a Student Response System and Peer Tutors in Team
Learning at the University of Kansas”; Ina
Robertson, “X-Ray Emissions from Charge Exchange in the Heliosphere”;
and Bruce Twarog, professor of physics and
astronomy, “The ULTRA Project: An Ultra-Lightweight Telescope for
Research in Astronomy.”
Eric Rath, assistant professor of history,
has had his book, The Ethos of Noh: Actors and Their Art, published
by the Harvard University Asia Center.