UW News » Profiles http://www.washington.edu/news Mon, 23 Oct 2017 14:11:34 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.3.11 A dean looks back: Harry Bruce reflects on UW ‘iSchool’ past, future http://www.washington.edu/news/2017/08/24/a-dean-looks-back-harry-bruce-reflects-on-uw-ischool-past-future/ http://www.washington.edu/news/2017/08/24/a-dean-looks-back-harry-bruce-reflects-on-uw-ischool-past-future/#comments Thu, 24 Aug 2017 16:29:06 +0000 http://www.washington.edu/news/?p=54531 UW Information School Dean Harry Bruce

UW Information School Dean Harry BruceDennis Wise / UW Photo

Harry Bruce has been a professor with the University of Washington Information School since he was recruited in 1998 by former dean Mike Eisenberg. Bruce was named dean in 2005 and reappointed to the position in 2012. As he looks forward to stepping down from the deanship in September, he answered a few questions about his work and the “iSchool.”

As you end your tenure as dean of the UW Information School, of what achievements are you most proud?

I feel proud that I have played some role in leading and modeling values for a school that is welcoming to all and celebrates diversity — where all members of the community feel joy, belonging and deep satisfaction as they work and learn together.

There is a wonderful sense of shared purpose and commitment underpinning the growth, success and impact of the iSchool. Our faculty, staff, students and external supporters feel a strong bond with one another because they are certain about the importance of our work together and its capacity to produce positive change in the lives of people. I am extremely proud of what we have achieved together.

Prof. Anind Dey, of Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science, has been chosen as the next permanent iSchool dean. What strengths do you think he will bring to that challenging role?

I am very excited about the appointment of Professor Dey as the next dean of the UW iSchool. A number of my colleagues who are long-serving deans of iSchools around the world have commented to me that it is a testament to the quality of the UW iSchool that the deanship would attract a candidate with Professor Dey’s credentials.

He currently leads Carnegie Mellon’s Human Computer Interaction (HCI) Institute. HCI is one of several signatures of excellence in the UW iSchool. The UW is world-renowned in this field because we have faculty and student researchers from numerous schools, departments and colleges working together as the Design Use Build (DUB) group. The HCI world sat up and took notice when it was announced that Professor Dey was appointed dean of the UW iSchool, and would be joining the UW HCI team.

Professor Dey has experience in leading a multidisciplinary faculty and he will bring this background to his deanship of the iSchool. One of the iSchool’s core values is that we are a “School of One.” This relates in part to the shared sense of purpose and commitment that I spoke of earlier in this interview. Beyond that, it refers to the quality of the interactions occurring between iSchool researchers and instructors who confront scientific and professional problems from a broad range of different theoretical and methodological perspectives.

Our faculty are drawn to work more deeply on their research because they do so in partnership with their colleagues who challenge them to develop solutions from alternative ways of thinking and knowing. Professor Dey is well-equipped to lead such a community and to facilitate and support its capacity for important and high impact work.

The UW is seen as among the world leaders in the information school movement, which dates back to the exponential growth of information in the 1980s. You were among the leaders in this movement through a caucus of deans nationwide. What is the movement and what has its effect been on higher education?

The iSchool movement began in the United States when a number of schools that were offering degrees in the library and information sciences realized that their teaching and research programs had capacity to reach a broader audience of students and to prepare professionals for work beyond libraries.

The term “information professional” was being used to describe people who were working in settings that were emerging from the growing information, technology and knowledge economy. The need for research related to the increasing role that information was playing in the lives of people, communities and institutions was also apparent.

The original schools in the information school (iSchool) movement predicted an increasing need for schools that could respond to these research needs and to changes in society and the workplace. They began hiring additional faculty with relevant expertise and developing new academic and research programs. The UW was at the forefront of this phenomenon.

Indeed, the need for a school of this type was outlined by a UW Futures Committee in 1997 and what resulted (the UW iSchool) can be described as a great strategic success for our campus. We developed the brand iSchool here at the UW and the term “iSchool” is now used to describe schools and colleges like ours on campuses around the world.

From a small group of schools in the U.S. this movement now includes over 80 schools from all parts of the world. In all regions of the world, researchers in iSchools are focusing their attention on enhancing the lives of people, the productivity of companies, the innovation cycles of industries, the design of technologies, the policies that govern technology and information use, information services to communities, and much more. I am extremely grateful that I have been blessed to play a leadership role in this movement and that the UW iSchool has become a role model for other iSchools around the world.

A recent iSchool tweet showed you entertaining children at a summer reading camp. You look pretty comfortable with a guitar — what might you have done had you not become an academic?

I would have loved a career with music – performance, composition, or production. Music has been an avocation for me all my life. I am deeply moved by music and I am inspired by musicians. I love sharing music with my family and friends. I will continue pursuing my passion for music for the rest of my life.

  • Learn more about the UW Information School at its website.
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‘Documents that Changed the Way We Live’: Podcast by UW’s Joe Janes now a book http://www.washington.edu/news/2017/06/05/documents-that-changed-the-way-we-live-podcast-by-uws-joe-janes-now-a-book/ http://www.washington.edu/news/2017/06/05/documents-that-changed-the-way-we-live-podcast-by-uws-joe-janes-now-a-book/#comments Mon, 05 Jun 2017 19:31:30 +0000 http://www.washington.edu/news/?p=53652 "Documents that Changed the Way we Live" by UW Information School associate professor Joe Janes, was published this month by Rowman & Littlefield.

“Documents that Changed the Way We Live” by UW Information School associate professor Joe Janes, was published this month by Rowman & Littlefield.

A popular podcast by Joe Janes of the University of Washington Information School is now a book. “Documents that Changed the Way We Live” is being published this month by Rowman & Littlefield.

Since 2012 Janes, an iSchool associate professor, has written and produced episodes of a podcast about the origin and often evolving meaning of documents. The podcast, “Documents that Changed the World,” has prompted about 350,000 iTunes downloads.

In the podcasts, Janes explored documents as disparate as the Rosetta Stone, the AIDS Quilt, Florida’s hanging ballot chads, Webster’s first dictionary, Alfred Nobel’s last will and testament and President Barack Obama’s only birth certificate. His inquiries go back to 2300 BCE and are as recent as Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation, in 2013.

“What will you learn here?” Janes asks in his introduction. “Who can say, though I can tell you what you’ll find.” Readers will discover, as Janes did in his research:

  • Why we use Roman numerals for Super Bowls, royalty and Olympiads
  • Why every kitchen store sells measuring cups and spoons
  • Why an attempt to help people vote more easily in one community may have altered the entire history of a nation
  • Why about 5 percent of all the research projects you hear about aren’t what they seem to be.

“There is evil here, too,” he adds, “lurking forever in the shadows of the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion‘ and Joseph McCarthy’s list of communists in U.S. government” — the latter being an example of a life-changing document that never actually existed.

Janes is clear that he approaches his topics as an educator, librarian and information scientist — but not as a trained historian or journalist.

“I know about documents. I swim in them daily,” Janes writes in the introduction. “I look at the world through information-colored glasses.

“So while most people would see the Rosetta Stone as a monumental object that has survived the centuries to represent its culture, I want to know what it says, how it got written and what happened to it.”

A main motivation for the book, he writes, is “to help people understand the breadth and reach of what documents are and can be and are becoming, and the power they have in our lives individually and as communities and societies.”

Janes answered a few questions about the book, its origins and mission.

How did Documents that Changed the World, the podcast series on which this is based, come about?

Joseph Janes of the Information School, author of Documents that Changed the Way We Live

Joe JanesMary Levin

This is a great example of an idea that was probably swimming around in my head for a couple of decades before it finally emerged whole a few years ago. I’ve long had an interest in the forms and genres of information, how they change, evolve, emerge and fade away, and the podcast (an intriguing documentary form in and of itself) seemed a great medium for telling those stories in an engaging and accessible way.

You expand the definitions of a “document” here, to include such items as the famous 1963 Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination or even the 1987 AIDS Quilt. Why do you see these, too, as documents?

As someone trained both as a professional librarian and as an information scientist, I’m used to thinking very broadly about what a “document” is, or can be, but not everybody does.  Say “document” to most people and they’ll think something grandiose like the Bill of Rights or Magna Carta, or something everyday like a memo or contract. All of which is true, but there are lots of things that “document” something, either intentionally or unintentionally, and those all form part of the record of us individually and collectively.

So yes, the Zapruder film and the AIDS quilt, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the sketch of the Space Needle that everybody knows about but nobody seems to have, or even Joseph McCarthy’s “list” — that never existed — of communists in the State Department; they’re all part of the document story.

How far do you think the definition of a “document” reaches — or may reach — here in the digital age?

The idea of what a document is or can be continues to change with technology, as we moved from clay to papyrus to print to film and vinyl and magnetic media and now progressively digital. So many of the documentary forms I cover in the book began as analog (the X-ray, the scholarly journal, the dictionary, maps, letters, telegrams, checks and so on) and most if not all of those now have digital versions which are superior and increasingly frequently used.

And yet many things persist in print.  Alfred Nobel’s will, Barack Obama’s birth certificate, Catherine Brewer’s diploma, are all physical objects, and it’s difficult, so far, to comfortably think of those kinds of things being digital-only, for reasons legal, sentimental, and otherwise.

Of all the episodes that became chapters in your book, what are some favorites, and why?

Who can pick a favorite? Well, hard as it is, there are some I’m particularly proud of.  The not-real “letters of transit” from “Casablanca,” not only because I’m a classic film fan, but also the rich history of travel documents I got to dig into. The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, for her surprising backstory, and because I used my grandmother’s 1906 second edition as inspiration. The “We Can Do It!” poster, universally assumed to be Rosie the Riveter, but she isn’t — except she now is.  And perhaps the one that stays with me more than others is the very first, the oldest one: the Exaltation of Inanna, a 4300-year-old Sumerian hymn composed by the high priestess Enheduanna, who is widely considered the first known author; a breathtaking concept.

What has been the listener reaction to the podcast since you started in 2012?

Very positive; I love hearing from people who discover these and then start binge-listening.  I’m struck by the ones that have become the most popular, “The Star-Spangled Banner” and the Book of Mormon, and also by the one which freshmen students voted for in two different seminars as the one they most wanted to dive into:  the 18 ½-minute gap from the Watergate tapes.  Maybe they were onto something.

What do you know now that you didn’t know before you started this project five years ago?

Besides how to record and edit a sound file, and compose digital music, and make something I do in my office at home sound terrific? After exploring several dozen of these documents and forms, some patterns emerged:  the importance of individual people (who gave us Robert’s Rules and the Richter scale and the 1854 cholera map and the year 2000 “butterfly” ballot) for their persistence and vision and occasional mistakes which profoundly changed so many parts of our lives.

Each of these documents is created or used for some reason, to fulfill some social role, to exert some kind of power, and that shoots through all of human history in ways large and small, every minute of every day.

What would you hope readers will take away from this book?

I hope people come away feeling that they learned something important and valuable – and enjoyed themselves. I’ve been trying to achieve that in my teaching for over 30 years, and this project feels like yet another way to do that.

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For more information about “Documents that Changed the Way We Live,” contact Janes at jwj@uw.edu.

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Seattle Art Museum to exhibit work by UW art professor Denzil Hurley http://www.washington.edu/news/2017/05/10/seattle-art-museum-to-exhibit-work-by-uw-art-professor-denzil-hurley/ http://www.washington.edu/news/2017/05/10/seattle-art-museum-to-exhibit-work-by-uw-art-professor-denzil-hurley/#comments Wed, 10 May 2017 17:51:32 +0000 http://www.washington.edu/news/?p=53178 "3 Panel Glyph #2," oil on canvas on panel and sticks, by UW professor Denzil Hurley, courtesy of the artist and CANADA Gallery, New York. Part of an exhibit titled "Disclosures" at the Seattle Art Museum May 20 through November. The pieces depicted are black placard-like objects affixed to handle-like broomsticks.

“3 Panel Glyph #2,” oil on canvas on panel and sticks, by UW professor Denzil Hurley, courtesy of the artist and CANADA Gallery, New York. Part of an exhibit titled “Disclosures” at the Seattle Art Museum May 20 through November.Phil Grauer

The Seattle Art Museum will feature work by abstract artist and University of Washington art professor Denzil Hurley. The exhibit, titled “Disclosures,” will be on display from May 20 through November.

Hurley is a professor of painting and drawing in the UW School of Art + Art History + Design whose works have been exhibited and praised nationally.  The exhibit makes a fitting tribute, as Hurley will retire from the UW at the end of the school year after 23 years of teaching.

“Hurley is dedicated to abstraction,” SAM curators write, “and his work has centered on the tension between formal elements — either a series of elements within a single painting — or the relationships between paintings and their surrounding architecture in a constellation.”

Prof. Hurley answered a few questions about his work and retirement plans.

Asked once if you considered yourself a minimal artist, you replied no, that you work reductively. For us non-art-majors, what’s the difference? 

DH: Minimalism can be construed as a practice with particular reference points in history.  To work reductively is really about individual experience and deductive reasoning that might lie outside those reference points.

Some say your monochromatic pieces recall Kazimir Malevich’s historic 1915 painting “Black Square.” A writer for the Tate gallery called Malevich’s square “a grand refusal, repudiating nature in favor of abstraction.” In comparing your work to his, are they on the right track?

DH: As far as Tate comment is concerned, my work is about conjunctions of similarities and differences that configure differently in order to include history, the present and my perception.

Finally, what’s next for you — and your art — after retirement from the UW?

DH: I plan to stay here and work as I am scheduled for a 25-year survey exhibition at Tacoma Art Museum in 2019. We will also travel. You may go to CANADA Gallery to find information on my recent exhibit there. And the White Columns Gallery in New York, where I was part of the gallery’s 11th annual “Looking Back” exhibit.

The exhibit will include paintings from Hurley’s “Glyph” series, a glyph being a Greek term for a symbol conveying information nonverbally. They resemble the sort of placards people carry at rallies and demonstrations.

SAM curators explain: “As most of Hurley’s paintings with this title are densely painted in black — while one work frames the blank white wall — these particular glyphs don’t carry images or slogans. Instead they become abstract and point to their form and function. In the absence of words or symbols, these signs disclose no allegiance to any cause.”

Denzil Hurley

Denzil Hurley

Hurley was born in Barbados, West Indies, and studied at the Portland Museum Art School and the Yale School of Art, where he earned an MFA in 1979. Has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, among others. His work has been included in many group exhibitions, including at the UW’s Henry Art Gallery. His art was previously was shown at SAM in 2003-2004 in an International Abstraction exhibit.

In a 2006 Seattle Times article, arts writer Matthew Kangas wrote that artists like Hurley “present a gift to the willing viewer: the pure pleasure of paint on canvas. No muss, no fuss, just enjoyable looking, feeling and thinking.

“Taking months (or years) to complete, each painting consists of numerous layers of oil paint slowly built up, rubbed out or scraped down and corrected to create subtle variations of tone and hue within the solid-color surface. This gives each painting a quietly throbbing appearance that is only perceived by long and slow looking.”

Asked by blogger McClain Johnson to describe his work, Hurley said, “I would describe it as rigorous, clearly abstract; about structuring imagery, color and surfaces. I want my work to seem available and open while maintaining its density.” He named Picasso, Matisse, daVinci and Pollock as influences — as well as the UW’s own Jacob Lawrence.

Hurley had several suggestions when asked for advice to aspiring artists.

“Talk to each other; community is important,” he said. “See as much work as you can. Learn to be at one with your own work. Be curious about your choices. Work in many mediums and be open to the demands of process. Realize that it is OK to be alone with your work and yourself. Read history. See something of the country and the world. Talk to your teachers. Have other interests as well. Be lucky!”

He added, “Get good training. Go to museums. Draw, draw, draw!”

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For more information about Hurley and his work, contact him at dh1@uw.edu 

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Remembering Ernest Henley, physicist and UW College of Arts & Sciences dean emeritus http://www.washington.edu/news/2017/04/17/remembering-ernest-henley-physicist-and-uw-college-of-arts-sciences-dean-emeritus/ http://www.washington.edu/news/2017/04/17/remembering-ernest-henley-physicist-and-uw-college-of-arts-sciences-dean-emeritus/#comments Mon, 17 Apr 2017 17:12:00 +0000 http://www.washington.edu/news/?p=52836 WinterCampus_17-X3

Katherine B. Turner/University of Washington

Ernest Mark Henley, a celebrated nuclear physicist and University of Washington administrator, died on March 27, 2017, at age 92.

Henley’s research career began in the postwar era as physicists sought to understand how the universe’s fundamental particles interact with one another. Through a combination of his theoretical work and rigorous experiments, his research helped physicists assemble the Standard Model, today’s framework of fundamental particles and forces.

Parallel to his research life, Henley was a leader and administrator at the UW, culminating in eight years of service as dean of the College of Arts & Sciences from 1979 to 1987.

“Ernest Henley was a brilliant physicist and also a man of great intellectual and cultural range, who was seriously knowledgeable about everything from nuclear physics to art to literature,” said Dean Robert Stacey. “He was a great dean, who laid the foundations for the College of Arts & Sciences as we know it today.”

Henley was born in Germany on June 10, 1924. He earned his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from the City College of New York in 1944 and a doctoral degree in physics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1952.

Ernest M. Henley

Ernest M. Henley

After short stints as a research associate at Stanford University and lecturer at Columbia University, Henley joined the UW faculty in 1954 as an assistant professor. He was promoted to associate professor in 1957 and full professor in 1961. Before becoming dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, Henley served as chair of the UW Faculty Senate from 1971 to 1972 and chair of the Department of Physics from 1973 to 1976. Along with Wick Haxton, he was a central force in building the UW Institute for Nuclear Theory and served as its inaugural director from 1990 to 1991. Henley became a professor emeritus in 1995.

“Ernest Henley was universally respected throughout the field of physics as a man of creativity, honesty and great common sense,” said UW physics professor Gerald Miller, one of Henley’s longtime colleagues. “And around the UW campus, he was known and celebrated for his warmth and integrity.”

Over the course of his research career, Henley studied “symmetries” in nuclear physics. Symmetries are patterns in the theories regarding the fundamental, physical interactions of our universe. Henley and his contemporaries investigated the properties of subatomic particles to understand when they behave consistently with a given symmetry and when they do not.

Henley’s work largely focused on three types of symmetry: time-reversal, whether forces are the same forward and backward in time; parity, whether a force or interaction is the same as its mirror image; and isospin, how forces and masses of the particles vary with their charges. Experiments suggested by Henley and performed by colleagues at the UW Nuclear Physics Laboratory — now the Center for Experimental Nuclear Physics and Astrophysics — revealed new details about symmetries, and uncovered conditions when subatomic particles deviated from symmetry.

“These deviations and differences, no matter how small, were critical for understanding the fundamental forces at work in the nucleus,” said Miller. “As we like to say, there are no accidents in physics. Every bit of information is informative. And his work was so informative that it brought the UW physics department worldwide attention.”

Based on his findings, Henley proposed new experiments. His theories and ideas later helped scientists assemble the Standard Model, the framework for fundamental forces and particles that is still in use today.

In 1989 the American Physical Society awarded Henley the Tom W. Bonner Prize in Nuclear Physics, “for the decisive and creative role which he has played in using the nucleus as a laboratory for the study of fundamental interactions,” noting that, “his seminal studies of time-reversal invariance, parity nonconservation and charge symmetry breaking have motivated a generation of important experiments.” In addition to this honor, Henley was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1979 and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 1995.

Henley also wrote five books on physics. Outside of the office, he was a passionate supporter of the UW’s Transition Program and Early Entrance Program at the Robinson Center for Young Scholars, and taught physics there for almost two decades until he retired at age 90. Henley also played the piano and supported the arts. He was a founding board member of the UW World Series, now the Meany Center for the Performing Arts.

Survivors include his widow, Elaine Henley, a UW clinical professor of medicine in metabolism, endocrinology and nutrition; a daughter, Karen Henley, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Boston University and a psychiatrist at Boston Medical Center and the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program; a son, Brad Henley, a UW professor of orthopedics and sports medicine; and four grandchildren.

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Gifts in memory of Ernest Henley may be made to the Ernest M. & Elaine D. Henley Endowed Fellowship at the University of Washington, which supports graduate student fellowships in the Department of Physics. Donations by check should be mailed to:

University of Washington Foundation
UW Tower, Box 359505
4333 Brooklyn Ave NE
Seattle, WA 98195-9504

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Hans Dehmelt — Nobel laureate and UW professor emeritus — has died at age 94 http://www.washington.edu/news/2017/03/21/hans-dehmelt-nobel-laureate-and-uw-professor-emeritus-has-died-at-age-94/ http://www.washington.edu/news/2017/03/21/hans-dehmelt-nobel-laureate-and-uw-professor-emeritus-has-died-at-age-94/#comments Tue, 21 Mar 2017 15:40:52 +0000 http://www.washington.edu/news/?p=52502 Hans Dehmelt in 1989.

Hans Dehmelt with one of his early traps.Davis Freeman/University of Washington

Hans Georg Dehmelt, Nobel physics laureate and professor emeritus at the University of Washington, died in Seattle on March 7, 2017, after a long illness. He was 94 years old.

Dehmelt was a celebrated scientist who, in a research career spanning more than half a century, developed methods to isolate atoms and subatomic particles and measure their fundamental properties with high accuracy.

For these endeavors, Dehmelt shared the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physics with Wolfgang Paul at the University of Bonn and Norman Ramsey of Harvard University. That announcement, which came hours before sunrise in Seattle on the morning of Oct. 12, 1989, made Dehmelt the UW’s first Nobel laureate. He celebrated by telephoning local physician Diana Dundore, whom he had been dating for several years, to ask her a question.

“He called me up in the middle of the night and asked, ‘Will you marry me?'” said Dundore. “We’d had a joke that we would get married if he won the Nobel Prize, and that was his way of delivering the news.”

Dundore and Dehmelt wed shortly thereafter and remained together the rest of his life.

The 1989 Nobel Prize honored Dehmelt and his co-recipients for precision. They had each developed highly accurate techniques to study atoms and subatomic particles. Dehmelt had built the first Penning trap, a type of “ion trap” to isolate particles and hold them in place using an array of electrical and magnetic fields. The Penning trap was first used to study charged atoms — called ions — and later subatomic particles like the electron.

Once a particle or ion was captured by the trap, Dehmelt and other physicists could observe the behavior of a particle in near isolation, without any interfering forces from nearby particles. That way, they could make detailed measurements of a particle’s various properties. The trap also let scientists observe and measure the minute, discrete changes to an atom or subatomic particle due to quantum mechanics, the complex array of probabilistic rules governing all matter.

Hans Dehmelt in 1989

Hans Dehmelt.Davis Freeman/University of Washington

“Hans Dehmelt put the UW Department of Physics on the map as a nationally competitive, top tier department,” said UW professor Blayne Heckel, chair of the Department of Physics. “His legacy of table-top, high-precision, fundamental physics experimentation remains a strength within the department. The electron trap technology developed by Professor Dehmelt is currently being employed at UW by a new generation of researchers in an experiment to measure the mass of the electron neutrino.”

Among other achievements, these methods allowed Dehmelt and his collaborators to observe “quantum jump” events where an isolated atom changes energy states; measure the magnetic properties of a single electron to the accuracy of 2 parts per 10 billion; and hold an electron in suspension for several years. Today, researchers continue to apply Dehmelt’s methods and discoveries in efforts to develop quantum computers.

He worked closely with UW colleagues, such as physics professor emeritus Robert Van Dyck, and mentored young scientists such as 2012 Nobel laureate David Wineland, who was a postdoctoral researcher in Dehmelt’s UW laboratory in the 1970s.

“Hans Dehmelt is well remembered for proposing that it would be possible to isolate a single elementary electron and to measure its magnetism,” said Van Dyck. “He was also fond of reminding us that a few very wise and prominent physicists said this was impossible. Not only did we succeed, even well beyond our own expectations, but this work produced at that time the best level of agreement between any research measurement and the theory that predicted the given result.”

A career spent reaping the rewards of precision began with a childhood love of tinkering. Dehmelt was born on Sept. 9, 1922, in Goerlitz, Germany, and raised in Berlin. He attended the Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster. As a child, Dehmelt was fascinated with radios, and he earned his doctoral degree in physics at University of Goettingen in Germany in 1950.

In 1952, Dehmelt immigrated to the United States to work as a postdoctoral researcher at Duke University. In 1955, he came to the UW as a visiting assistant professor. Two years later he joined the faculty as an associate professor and was promoted to full professor in 1961. Dehmelt was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1977 and to the National Academy of Sciences in 1978. In 1995, he received the National Medal of Science from President Bill Clinton. Dehmelt remained at the UW until his retirement in 2002.

Outside of the laboratory, Dehmelt enjoyed attending ballet performances. He and Dundore met at a reception for the Pacific Northwest Ballet. Dehmelt also loved classical music, particularly works by Beethoven and Stravinsky. For years, he practiced yoga to relax, and in retirement he and Dundore took daily walks around Seattle.

Dehmelt was preceded in death by his first wife, Irmgard Lassow; his son Gerd; his sister Brigitte and brother Bernard. In addition to Dundore, who lives in Seattle, survivors include his grandson Leif Dehmelt, who is a cell biologist in Germany; and a great-granddaughter.

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New from author David Shields: ‘Other People: Takes & Mistakes’ http://www.washington.edu/news/2017/03/13/new-from-author-david-shields-other-people-takes-mistakes/ http://www.washington.edu/news/2017/03/13/new-from-author-david-shields-other-people-takes-mistakes/#comments Mon, 13 Mar 2017 22:35:42 +0000 http://www.washington.edu/news/?p=52443 "Other People: Takes & Mistakes," by UW English professor David Shields, was published by Knopf in February.

“Other People: Takes & Mistakes,” by UW English professor David Shields, was published by Knopf in February.

University of Washington English professor and New York Times best-selling author David Shields has a new book out and — perhaps unsurprisingly — it’s getting excellent reviews. “Other People: Takes & Mistakes” was published in February by Knopf.

Shields, who is the Milliman Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at the UW, is on a multi-city book tour and has two Seattle-area author events scheduled in coming weeks. He will read from and discuss the book from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. March 15 at the Seward Park location of Third Place Books, 5041 Wilson Ave. S. He will also speak at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, May 26, at Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave.

In a review of the book in the New York Times Book Review, writer Clancy Martin says Shields “is fearless about making himself vulnerable to the reader; so fearless he is willing to say, over and over in this triumphantly humane book, that he is a coward … He’s our elusive, humorous ironist, something like a 21st-century Socrates. Shields is a master stylist — and has been for a long time, on the evidence of these pieces from throughout his career. The book’s collective tone is … strikingly generous. amiable and above all unpretentious. It almost reads like a conversation with a highly intelligent friend who, after two beers but before three, decides to chat away about genuinely interesting subjects he’s really thought about.

“All good writers make us feel less alone,” Martin adds. “But Shields makes us feel better. He takes some of the bad of our everyday life and our culture and the whole inescapable mess of being human and sends it back to us as good.”

Booklist called the book “wise, surprising, and relentless.” The Buffalo News called the book “brilliant and joyously readable,” adding that Shields is “one of America’s most accomplished and best writers.”

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Meany Center joins visiting Step Afrika! dance troupe to honor 100th anniversary of artist Jacob Lawrence’s birth http://www.washington.edu/news/2017/01/27/meany-center-joins-visiting-step-afrika-dance-troupe-to-honor-100th-anniversary-of-artist-jacob-lawrences-birth/ http://www.washington.edu/news/2017/01/27/meany-center-joins-visiting-step-afrika-dance-troupe-to-honor-100th-anniversary-of-artist-jacob-lawrences-birth/#comments Fri, 27 Jan 2017 22:52:08 +0000 http://www.washington.edu/news/?p=51797 A still from the dance troupe Step Afrika!'s production of "The Migration: Reflections on Jacob Lawrence," to be performed Feb. 16-18 at Meany Hall.

A still from the dance troupe Step Afrika!’s production of “The Migration: Reflections on Jacob Lawrence,” to be performed Feb. 16-18 at Meany Hall.Step Afrika!

 

The University of Washington Meany Center for Performing Arts will host the Washington, D.C.-based dance troupe Step Afrika! Feb. 16-18 in Meany Hall. Teri Mumme, director of marketing and communications director for Meany Center, conducted an interview with Michelle Witt, the center’s executive director, about the production, the center’s ongoing mission — and the importance of honoring artist Jacob Lawrence in the 100th year since his birth.

Why is this project important for Meany Center to undertake now?

Michelle Witt, executive/artistic director for the Meany Center for the Performing Arts. Story is about visiting Step Afrika! dance troup and the celebration of 100 years since UW-related artist Jacob Lawrence was born.

Michelle Witt, executive/artistic director for the Meany Center for the Performing Arts.Mary Levin

I was approached by the dance company, Step Afrika!, with an opportunity to co-commission the remounting of a performance work “The Migration: Reflections on Jacob Lawrence,” based on the painter Jacob Lawrence’s 60-panel Migration Series – which portrays the movement of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North throughout the 20th century.

The co-commission and presentation of Step Afrika!’s “The Migration” was to coincide with the celebration of the 100th anniversary of Lawrence’s birth, in 2017. Already an exciting project, it was even more compelling because Lawrence had moved to Seattle in 1971 to teach at (what was then) the UW’s art department, and made a home in Seattle until his death in 2000. His influence at the UW and in the city of Seattle was enormous; there are many of his works on campus, including a mural created specifically for the lobby of Meany Hall.

The UW celebrates
Jacob Lawrence:

  • Coming to the Henry Art Gallery: Lawrence’s “Eight Studies for the Book of Genesis” will be displayed at the Henry April 8 to Oct. 1, featuring a suite of silkscreen prints that tell the Genesis narrative of creation through the artist’s recollected memories of time spent witnessing sermons in the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem.
  • The School of Art + Art History + Design presents:Utopia Neighborhood Club,” an ongoing series of exhibitions to generate ideas about the potential and future mission of the UW’s Jacob Lawrence Gallery. Now in its second phase, “A Student’s Response,” through Jan. 28.
  • Coming to the Jacob Lawrence Gallery: Lawrence’s “The Legend of John Brown + Other Works,” Feb. 1 to March 17. “John Brown” is a 22-part series depicting the life and contributions of the important abolitionist and more. Opening reception 5 to 8 p.m. Jan. 31, in the gallery. (See images here.)

Jacob Lawrence at the Seattle Art Museum:

Also: Historylink article about Jacob Lawrence and Gwendolyn Knight.

My colleague Jamie Walker, director of the UW School of Art + Art History + Design, recounts that Lawrence was deeply drawn to the UW — and that his dedication as an inspired educator was central to who he was. This project is important to undertake now, not only as part of the 100th anniversary of Lawrence’s birth, but also as part of the UW’s participation in the vitally important conversations about African-American identity taking place across the country and the current migrations happening around the world, that are such a focus of contemporary national and international politics.

How does it support the new mission of Meany Center?

Meany Center endeavors to be a national model of innovative performance, public engagement, learning and creative research in the arts. Artistic excellence is a pillar of our mission and Jacob Lawrence and Step Afrika! demonstrate original, innovative and courageously realized examples of human creativity and expression.

The new mission of Meany Center is to nurture a culture of shared discovery through advancing interdisciplinary creative research — here as a supporter of the commission and the remounting of Step Afrika!’s important interdisciplinary work. Meany Center also forges powerful arts engagement and learning experiences by connecting diverse audiences and artists, and bold approaches to audience and student engagement. Step Afrika! will be engaging in a variety of campus and community activities throughout their residency, including a performance at SAM amidst the 60-panel Migration Series itself, where they are on display.

Meany Center is a national model of innovative performance, public engagement, learning and creative research in the arts. Artistic excellence is at the core of our mission and Step Afrika!’s use of Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series to create a new work is a perfect example of how one artist’s legacy inspires the next generation.

One of the goals of Meany Center is to nurture a culture of shared discovery by advancing creative research — here as a co-commissioner of the remounting of Step Afrika!’s important interdisciplinary work. We are also connecting audiences and artists in powerful arts engagement and learning experiences. Step Afrika! will be in residence at the UW, engaging in a variety of campus and community activities, including a performance at SAM, where the panels are currently on display.

The Jacob Lawrence Gallery is also presenting a series of exhibitions and programs in honor of the Lawrence centenary, and the Henry Art Gallery will present an exhibition of Lawrence’s silkscreen prints “Eight Studies for the Book of Genesis.”

What is the production’s connection to the Seattle Art Museum’s exhibition of the Migration Series in February?

The connection to the Seattle Art Museum happened very organically. Chiyo Ishikawa, the deputy director for art at SAM and I happened to be on the same plane returning from Madrid in summer of 2015; I mentioned that we had just secured the co-commission and performance of Step Afrika!’s “The Migration: Reflections on Jacob Lawrence” and would love to collaborate somehow. The 60-panel series of paintings — jointly owned by the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Phillips Collection, a museum of modern art in Washington, D.C. — was on display at MOMA at that time.

The Phillips Collection was willing to explore the possibility of lending four or five panels from their half of Lawrence’s Migration Series to interested project partners, provided their facilities meet approved museum standards for adequate display parameters, which Meany’s did not.  I suggested to Chiyo that SAM explore this possibility as well as other types of collaborations that we might engage in.

Chiyo not only loved the idea, but shared that SAM’s American Curator, Patty Junker, had already been thinking about the Migration Series, and that they were going to see if they could borrow the entire series. It was our hope together that the timing could coincide with our presentation of Step Afrika!’s “The Migration.” After much back and forth with MOMA and The Phillips Collection, Chiyo confirmed that they could bring the entire series to Seattle for display.

Tell us a little about Step Afrika! and how they will be engaging dance in the exploration of this subject?

Step Afrika! is the first professional company in the world dedicated to the tradition of stepping. Stepping in the United States grew out of song and dance rituals practiced by historically African-American fraternities and sororities, beginning in the early 1900s. In addition to step shows and competitions on college campuses, today stepping can also be found in schools, churches and community organizations around the country. Step Afrika! takes this tradition and combines it with African foot dances such as gumboot, originally conceived by miners in South Africa as an alternative to drumming, which was banned by authorities.

In Step Afrika!’s “Migration,” dance and visual art come together, and the painted images — which are projected onto the stage — in essence come alive. The intention was to make the dancers seem to emerge directly from the panels that Lawrence painted. Step Afrika!’s artistic director, Brian Williams, did extensive research into not only Lawrence’s panels and methods, but also the Migration itself, for the troupe’s first mounting of the production in 2011.

Meany Center for the Performing Arts celebrates artist Jacob Lawrence with the dance troupe Step Afrika! in February.

Meany Center for the Performing Arts celebrates artist Jacob Lawrence with the dance troupe Step Afrika! in February.Meany Center

Lawrence wanted the series to transcend the specifics of time and place and to express a timeless relevance and ultimately a sense of hopefulness. It is a very interdisciplinary work and in a sense it is a nod to the idea of a very wide range of art forms that influenced Lawrence and even of his use of color and rhythm in his painting. Step Afrika!’s “The Migration” starts by depicting an experience in the South and moves toward the North, but is not chronological. The idea of the train is central to the troupe’s interpretation, as it was the key mode of transportation throughout the Great Migration.

In stepping, there is a movement called Alpha Train, which is specific to one fraternity, and the step basically imitates the sound of the train. In addition, the history of stepping actually parallels the story of the migration — as people from the South coming to the North trying to get better educational opportunities started stepping in the black fraternities and sororities.

I just finished reading Isabel Wilkerson’s “The Warmth of Other Suns,” an epic nonfiction rendering of the Great Migration which tells so many stories of black Americans fleeing the oppressive Jim Crow laws of the South, toward what they hoped was a better life with the promise of more stable working conditions, greater equity and the ability for their children to become educated. Of course what they found in their new communities was far from what what they had so desperately hoped and struggled for. I feel very moved being able to present this work at such an influential public university as the UW, which has provided a better life for many generations of struggling individuals and families.

I cannot think of a better way to honor the intention of Lawrence’s work as we celebrate his life and legacy.

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For more information about the Meany Center for the Performing Arts or Step Afrika!’s performance, visit MeanyCenter.org.

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Practical, personal thoughts on storytelling in Charles Johnson’s latest book, ‘The Way of the Writer’ http://www.washington.edu/news/2016/12/12/practical-personal-thoughts-on-storytelling-in-charles-johnsons-latest-book-the-way-of-the-writer/ http://www.washington.edu/news/2016/12/12/practical-personal-thoughts-on-storytelling-in-charles-johnsons-latest-book-the-way-of-the-writer/#comments Mon, 12 Dec 2016 22:01:24 +0000 http://www.washington.edu/news/?p=50958 "The Way of the Writer: Reflectioins on the Art and Craft of Storytelling," by Charles Johnson, UW professor emeritus of English, was published by Scribner.

“The Way of the Writer: Reflections on the Art and Craft of Storytelling,” by Charles Johnson, UW professor emeritus of English, was published this fall by Scribner.Crystal Wiley-Brown

Charles Johnson is the S. Wilson and Grace M. Pollock Endowed Professor of Writing, now emeritus, at the University of Washington. He is the author of 22 books over a five-decade career and the recipient of numerous other awards and honorary degrees, including the 1990 National Book Award for his novel “Middle Passage.”

Johnson’s latest book, published this fall by Scribner, is “The Way of the Writer: Reflections on the Art and Craft of Storytelling.” A review in the New York Times praised the book, saying, “There is winning sanity here. Johnson wants his students to be ‘raconteurs always ready to tell an engaging tale,’ not self-preoccupied neurotics.'”

This book arose from extensive interviews with scholar E. Ethelbert Miller. Why did you decide to cull it from that wide-ranging discussion to make it a separate book?

Several people, among them Ethelbert Miller and Dr. Joseph Scott, who is a UW professor emeritus and former chair of the Department of American Ethnic Studies, read the 672-page tome “The Words and Wisdom of Charles Johnson (Dzanc Books, 2015), in which I answered 218 questions (out of 400) that Miller asked me about every subject under the sun in 2011, and they said my short essays on literary craft could stand by themselves as a manual of instruction. Joe Scott, who tells me he never took a course in writing, told me the craft essays helped him a great deal so this book is dedicated to him.

You write that “a body of work should deliver both theory and practice.” Would you explain a bit?

It’s important for a writer (or any artist) to have a vision of their entire body of work or oeuvre. They need to understand how each book they publish is uniquely bringing something to the table of literary culture that we have never seen before and that enriches this culture.

In my case, every novel, essay, scholarly article, short story, drawing or political cartoon or my 1970 PBS series “Charlie’s Pad,” screenplay, book review, newspaper op-ed, etc. should be seen as a brick in the larger building of art that I’ve been creating for 51 years since 1965 when I began publishing at age 17.

Theory complements and explains practice. So, for example, Richard Wright published his classic essay “A Blueprint for Negro Writing” in 1937, John Gardner published his manifesto “On Moral Fiction, and I published my dissertation “Being and Race: Black Writing Since 1970 (1988) as way to clarify our creative practice. One isn’t just writing blindly from one book to the next with no general vision in mind.

As an early exercise, you write, you copied by hand a chapter of your mentor John Gardner’s writing, to “plunge” into his meter and rhythm. The young Jack London similarly copied Rudyard Kipling stories, and a fledgling Hunter S. Thompson typed out all of “The Great Gatsby” for practice. What is the value of this sort of exercise?

I’d forgotten those stories about London, who was a truly gifted storyteller (but sadly, a paleo-racist who hated boxer Jack Johnson), and Thompson. But I love stories like that. The exercise is useful because copying a work forces a writer to more closely and carefully experience the music of another writer’s prose. In the new book, I discuss this important and necessary unity of music and meaning, sound and sense in every sentence and paragraph, which I view as being units of energy to be released on the page.

Recalling Gardner once saying that “teaching creative writing is a joke,” you write that you work against that by making your writing workshops rigorous and demanding. How much of creative writing can truly be taught?

You can teach the basics of storytelling — for a garden variety novel or short story — in a 10-week academic term. I did that for 33 years. The fundamental tools in one’s toolbox aren’t many: characters, description, narration, plot, dialogue and scene construction. That’s all you need for what I call industrial fiction. But for original, perception-liberating storytelling, you obviously need much more than just the basics.

What do you hope a writer seeking improvement might take away from this book?

There are numerous writing exercises, creative tips, and lots of discussion of literary technique in “The Way of the Writer.” But what’s really important is that an aspiring writer needs to understand that those things are just in the service of that most deceptively simple and yet difficult of achievements — delivering undamaged a whopping good, imaginative and original story — and that being an artist is a total Way — a daily Way — of being-in-the-world.

Back, briefly, to “Middle Passage”: You describe writing 3,000 pages over several years to finally arrive at the 250-page book. What guided you as to what to keep and what to cut?”

What guided me was the logic of the story itself. I wrote the first draft of “Middle Passage” too quickly, in two years. As I’ve explained often and elsewhere, the second half of that first version of the novel differs radically from the version published 26 years ago. It more resembles “Gulliver’s Travels.” In fact, for six years my working title for the novel was “Rutherford’s Travels”and the adaptation by Pegasus Theater just performed in Chicago uses that earlier title.

When I rewrote and rethought the novel during the last four years of its composition, I added a second mutiny to the one by the slaves (by the crew of the Republic), kept the entire story on the sea right through to the end so the threat of dying by drowning never ends, and I brought Rutherford Calhoun (my Odysseus) and Isadora Bailey (my Penelope) together again, which allowed the book to start off as a picaresque, turn into an epic at the middle of the story, and come to rest finally as a romance.

A review by the Chicago Tribune called Pegasus Theatre’s “Rutherford’s Travels” production “as arresting and vivid as the best sea tales.” What were your thoughts or concerns seeing your most famous work being adapted to for the stage? Might Seattle audiences get a chance one day to see the play? 

The production by Pegasus Theatre received unanimously rave reviews, and for good reason: The play is a fantastic, powerful experience. I saw two performances in November. The Chicago production ended Dec. 4, but writer/producers David Barr III and Ilesa Duncan are receiving requests from regional theaters to do the show. I think the plan will be like the one my friend, the late playwright August Wilson, followed — staging the play around the country in regional theaters, then taking it to Broadway. So Seattle should be somewhere in that game plan or playbook.

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For more information about Johnson and his work, contact him at CChasjohn@aol.com.

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The many worlds of UW astronomer — and astrobiologist — Woody Sullivan http://www.washington.edu/news/2016/12/01/the-many-worlds-of-uw-astronomer-and-astrobiologist-woody-sullivan/ http://www.washington.edu/news/2016/12/01/the-many-worlds-of-uw-astronomer-and-astrobiologist-woody-sullivan/#comments Thu, 01 Dec 2016 22:27:18 +0000 http://www.washington.edu/news/?p=50807 Woodruff T. ("Woody") T. Sullivan III, professor emeritus of astronomy.

Woodruff T. (“Woody”) T. Sullivan III, professor emeritus of astronomy and co-founder of the UW Astrobiology Program.Dennis Wise


Woodruff T. Sullivan III
— “Woody” for short — is a University of Washington professor emeritus of astronomy and co-founder of the UW Astrobiology Program. He sat down with UW Today for a wide-ranging talk about the search for life beyond Earth, his plan to pen a historical biography — and “the world’s first working sundial tattoo.” It’s all part of a multifaceted career that is changing gears, but far from winding down.

Would you describe your recent work with UW astronomy alumnus Adam Frank? It was covered by the New York Times under the headline, “Yes, there have been aliens.” 

Well, scientists don’t like to use the term “aliens,” but that is a decent summary. In SETI — the search for extraterrestrial intelligence — one normally thinks about the actual problem of communication. And so you want to know how many are simultaneously existing.

We are saying that the Kepler mission, which has discovered so many exoplanets around other stars, allowed us to nail down several factors in the Drake Equation so that we could ask a different question: how many technological species like us have ever existed. We now can reliably estimate, for example, that in our Milky Way alone there are about 60 billion habitable planets.

It’s a philosophical thing to be concerned about how many past civilizations have occurred. You could think of it as a sort of cosmic archaeology. If you could travel around to planets not just in our own galaxy but in other galaxies – like an archaeologist goes around the world looking for evidence – we’re saying that it seems likely that you’d find evidence of these guys all over. And wouldn’t that be interesting?

We can now estimate how many habitable planets there are in the universe. But we don’t know, given a habitable planet, how often life begins and evolves to technology. Now if you want to posit that there’s never been a second such civilization in our entire universe, how pessimistic must you be? The answer is that you have to think that, given a habitable planet, the odds of a technological species emerging are worse than one chance in 10 billion trillion. That’s only one chance in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000!

This shows the degree of pessimism that you must have to say that we are unique over the entire 13 billion year history of the universe.

Is there more work ahead for you and Adam Frank?

William Herschel and his sister Caroline polish a telescope lens (probably a mirror) in this 1896 Lithograph. Caroline Herschel was an astronomer in her own right -- the first woman to discover a comet.

William Herschel and his sister Caroline polish a telescope lens (probably a mirror) in this 1896 lithograph. Caroline Herschel was an astronomer in her own right — the first woman to discover a comet.Wikipedia

No, we’re still talking but I am not looking to do any more research on that. He will continue with his modeling work, which uses mathematical models to ask what ways we can imagine technological civilizations changing over millions of years.

You are writing a biography of astronomer William Herschel (1738-1822). Why a biography, and why Herschel?

I’ve done much research and teaching in the history of astronomy over the decades, but never a biography, so that’s part of the fascination, to do something new. And Herschel has so many aspects — he was certainly one of a handful of the greatest observers of all time — discovered the planet Uranus, mapped out the Milky Way, discovered infrared radiation, and on and on.

He was a musician until he was age 40, but not just a player; he composed 20 symphonies and concertos and so forth. There have been many biographies of Herschel, even in the last 10 years, but they all focus on the astronomy and give half a chapter to the music. I’m not going to make that mistake. I’m collaborating with a musicologist who was a physics undergraduate. We are just beginning. And the key thing is, can we find connections between his science and his music and the way he thought about music and composing?

Another aspect is the technology — when he flipped to being an astronomer, Herschel learned how to make telescopes. And these were the world’s largest telescopes, mirrors made out of polished metal; you couldn’t make large glass mirrors in that era. His largest was 4 feet in diameter. He had a foundry in his basement! All self taught — just an amazing guy.

Yet another aspect is his interest in extraterrestrial life. He was convinced that all the planets were inhabited by intelligent beings — and even the sun.

The sun as well?

The sun as well, which is why everyone goes ho ho ho! But, it was a very rational thing — the sun was a cold solid with a hot upper atmosphere — just the grandest of all the inhabited planets.

Let’s move to your great interest in sundials — you have created or consulted on the design of many, including even one on the Mars Rovers. What sparked that interest, and when?

My sundial interest began very specifically in 1991. I got interested because three years before we moved in to the new Physics-Astronomy Building in 1994, the architects asked, what do you want? I’m thinking of my interest in history of science and art and design, so I casually said, “A sundial would be nice.” Since then, it’s hard to believe — like getting married — that there’s a phase in my life before that.

Any sundial projects now underway?

I am working with the University of California, San Diego, and a Seattle architect, for a sundial that’s going up on a new building there this winter. It’s a wall dial, but a different design in many ways than the UW one. It will be 50 feet above the ground with a very asymmetric design.

That’s my current public sundial project. Then there is the sundial tattoo, which I call a private sundial project.

A sundial tattoo? What’s the story behind that?

This started with a paleontologist graduate student in the astrobiology program. She likes sundials and we got talking and over the last couple of years we designed it. The idea was for her to have it, but she now has her degree and has since left town.

Meanwhile I said to myself, dammit – that would be pretty neat. In April I gave a talk to the British Sundial Society about the technical details and showed the decal I’d made for my inner forearm. I’m going to write it up for their publication. The world’s first working sundial tattoo!

UW astronomer Woody Sullivan's "world's first working sundial tattoo" operates with a bracelet Sullivan designed.

UW astronomer Woody Sullivan’s “world’s first working sundial tattoo” operates with a bracelet Sullivan designed.Dennis Wise

Will you get the sundial tattoo decal permanently inked?  

My daughter asks, “Are you going to want it five years from now?” But it would be on the inside of my arm, not obvious. I’m seriously thinking about it, but haven’t made the final decision — I already have the required bracelet.

A cliché question but: Is there a discovery you wish you had made that didn’t happen — a “one that got away”?

(Laughs.) I think I have been very fortunate in being able to work on things I found satisfying. I do also want to write a book called “Astronomy and Culture,” looking at the many aspects of how astronomy bears on the broader culture. I’ve written a couple of chapters.

One other thing — and it’s much larger than me — is that I hope, before I “shuffle off this mortal coil,” that we do find strong evidence for extraterrestrial life. Microbial life is the most likely.

If we found life somewhere down deep on Mars, should we dig it up and study it? Or protect the planet as is, on the theory that we are the invading “virus”?

There are different points of view even among scientists — many are gung-ho to terraform Mars — turn it into something like Earth. I’m very much against this. I wrote a paper on what I call “planetocentric ethics” and said we have the unique chance to not screw up environmentally other planets and moons, like we have on Earth.

Our technological civilization has avoided screwing up the Antarctic through a treaty that’s now 60 years old. A main reason why it has worked there is probably the lack of resources that are economically worthwhile — but it worked. Could we do the same for Mars?

Which brings us to astrobiology — the field has come a long way toward acceptance since you and others founded the UW Astrobiology Program in the late 1990s.

Oh absolutely. It’s been a real sea change. It’s entirely different now. It’s a key part of the Astronomy Department and others such as Earth and Space Sciences.

I’ve been involved with SETI since the late ’70s – and it was then very radical, an odd thing. There were a few key people involved, Frank Drake and Carl Sagan – but most astronomers really looked askance at it. And that has come around entirely.

Astrobiology takes a much broader view than just SETI, which was always focused on getting a radio signal. But astrobiology looks at the origin of life, and its evolution, and the nature of life. I got more and more fascinated with that. And now it has become an accepted field, and our Program one of the best in the world.

Did anyone ever say, “This is all fine, but find us at least one other example of life in the universe …” ?

 Asked by architects in the 1990s what he'd like adorning the then-new Physics-Astronomy Building, Sullivan, whose interests combine art, science and design, replied, "A sundial would be nice." A lifelong interest was born.

Asked by architects in the 1990s what he’d like adorning the then-new Physics-Astronomy Building, Sullivan, whose interests combine art, science and design, replied, “A sundial would be nice.” A lifelong interest was born.Dennis Wise

Well, that’s the standard comeback. They say, “Astrobiology is the only science that has yet to prove that its subject matter exists.”

But the point is, astrobiology is not just about extraterrestrial life, though that’s a key motivator. It’s about thinking about life in a cosmic context. And about the origin and evolution of life. Is anything inevitable about the evolution of life? For example, does it have to undergo something like a Cambrian Explosion?

Even if you only care about Earth life, Astrobiology is a viable — fundamental, I would say — interdisciplinary science that thrives independently of the existence of extraterrestrial life.

It’s a way of thinking, a way of thinking about our own biosphere. And then hoping we can find other biospheres — or biomes, as they may not be spherical, it might be just a little patch somewhere 500 meters deep in a certain location on Mars. It’s a really tough problem, to find that second one.

It’s been delightful over my career to see that shift. Because I have had eclectic interests, and astrobiology has supplied a much more complete look at things than just being a radio astronomer, which I was trained to be.

Do you suspect that life is in fact common in the universe?

Yes! That’s one reason why the study of astrobiology has flourished — because the more we look into the nature and origin of life, we don’t see anything special. You’ve got to have the right chemical ingredients — but they are not special, these ingredients. From biology and astronomy we know that.

You also need time and energy, but there are many sources of energy around, and billions of years to play with. And so, it seems that life of some sort must get going at many times and at many places.

Now, once it gets started, does it evolve at all like Earth? That’s a fascinating open question. Does it stay at the microbial stage forever? I mean, we stayed in the microbial stage for three billion years! We just don’t know for the cases of possible extraterrestrial life — that’s what motivates us to press on with research and exploration.

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For more information about Sullivan and his work, contact him at woody@astro.washington.edu.

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Devin Naar’s book ‘Jewish Salonica’ tells of city’s transition from Ottoman Empire to Greece http://www.washington.edu/news/2016/11/02/devin-naars-book-jewish-salonica-tells-of-citys-transition-from-ottoman-empire-to-greece/ http://www.washington.edu/news/2016/11/02/devin-naars-book-jewish-salonica-tells-of-citys-transition-from-ottoman-empire-to-greece/#comments Wed, 02 Nov 2016 21:28:26 +0000 http://www.washington.edu/news/?p=50444

Devin Naar is the Isaac Alhadeff Professor of Sephardic Studies in the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies — part of the University of Washington’s Jackson School of International Studies — and an associate professor in the Department of History. He is the author of “Jewish Salonica: Between the Ottoman Empire and Modern Greece,” published in September by Stanford University Press.

“Jewish Salonica”
book launch
7 – 8:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 3
Prof. Naar will explore the fate of Salonica’s Jews and offer behind-the-scenes insight into how he uncovered the previously lost sources necessary to tell the story.
UW Tower Auditorium
4333 Brooklyn Ave. NE
Presented by the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies and the Sephardic Studies Program.
Registration and more information here.

What is the book about?

A few years ago, The New York Times ran a piece about the city of Salonica (also known as Thessaloniki), the subject of my book. The headline read: “Greek youth remake the ‘Seattle of the Balkans.’” What makes a relatively obscure city on the Aegean coast in northern Greece seem like Seattle? The article explains that Salonica’s “growing appeal as a youthful city with an intriguing multiethnic history and an arty counterculture is turning it into something of a Seattle of the Balkans.” Suddenly, a place so distant strikes very close to home for us at the University of Washington.

My book is preoccupied with the “intriguing multiethnic history” that once characterized Salonica but was radically transformed and ultimately erased due to the pressures and upheavals of the 20th century: war, population movements, imperial collapse, rising nationalism, urbanization, and, ultimately, genocide.

The book tells this story from the perspective of Salonica’s Jews. Part of the predominantly Muslim Ottoman Empire for more than four centuries and now part of predominantly Orthodox Christian Greece, Salonica was long-defined by one of its more unusual features: Until the start of the 20th century, half of its multiethnic population was composed of Judeo-Spanish (Ladino)-speaking Sephardic Jews. Expelled from Spain in 1492, Sephardic Jews fled across the Mediterranean, settling in what was then the Ottoman Empire, and continuing to speak their language and practice their religion. The imprint of Jews on Salonica became so significant that, into the twentieth century, the markets closed every Saturday in observance of the Jewish Sabbath. For Jews in Salonica, their city became the “Jerusalem of the Balkans.”

"Jewish Salonica: Between the Ottoman Empire and Modern Greece" was published in September by Stanford University Press.

“Jewish Salonica: Between the Ottoman Empire and Modern Greece” was published in September by Stanford University Press.

The book charts how the end of the Ottoman Empire and the incorporation of Salonica into Greece impacted the city’s Jews. It was a challenging transition. As an important part of a multicultural empire, Jews in Salonica suddenly became a minority in Greece: they observed a different religion and spoke a different language from the majority of the country’s citizens. The book focuses on the strategies that the city’s Jews developed to bridge the gap between their Ottoman past and their Greek future, to figure out ways for them to be Jews while also becoming Greeks. Would such a transformation even be possible?

As a clue as to how the story ends, one of the features that makes Salonica today a “youthful city,” as The New York Times suggests, is that it is home to the largest university in Greece and the Balkans. What is lesser known — often taboo to discuss — is that nearly all of the campus was built atop Salonica’s vast Jewish cemetery, which was once the largest Jewish burial ground in Europe. Destroyed at the initiative of the local authorities, but under the cover of the Nazi occupation during World War II, the cemetery and its disappearance from the urban fabric—with few traces left behind—symbolize the fate of Salonica’s Jews and their erasure from the city’s public memory.

How did Jews in Salonica try to bridge the gap between the Ottoman Empire and modern Greece?

One of the ways that Salonican Jewish leaders sought to re-anchor themselves in the wake of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and in the new context of Greece was to emphasize their connection to their city and their status as Salonicans. Rather than tying themselves to a country or a religion, these Jewish leaders saw their primarily connection as being to their city. Even if their new neighbors did not see them as members of the Greek nation, Jews’ longstanding roots in the city could not be refuted — or at least they hoped. They even proposed transforming Salonica into an independent city-state as an alternative to continued imperial control or the incorporation of the city into a new nation.

Although the plan for the city-state failed, Salonica’s Jewish leaders continued to believe that by seeing themselves as fundamentally Salonican, they could also become legitimate members of the national community. The experiment — both in local Salonican patriotism and in transforming the last generation of Ottoman Jews into Greek Jews — was ultimately cut short by the Holocaust, during which the Nazis tragically deported the city’s nearly 50,000 Jews to their deaths at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

What was the research process like for the book?

In conducting my research, I felt like I was living out a historian’s fantasy: the discovery of a dusty trove of previously unstudied archival documents in some obscure basement. That’s literally what happened.

The research for this book took more than a decade, required travel to six countries, and knowledge of six languages. As I wanted to tell the story of Salonica’s Jews through their own voices, I needed access to local sources written by Jews themselves. Until recently, the limited but growing scholarship about Salonica has relied on sources from outsiders, like foreign travelers or European consuls. Since the city had experienced such devastation as a result of fires, wars, and the deportation of the Salonica’s Jews, access to local sources was not easily attained.

During the Second World War, the Nazis had confiscated the libraries and archives of the Jewish community of Salonica.  It was long thought that these records had all been destroyed. But, sleuthing in American military records, I discovered that much of the archive had been preserved and dispersed across the globe. After the war, the Soviets found some of the archives and deposited them in Moscow. Only after the collapse of the USSR did their existence become known. Other materials, found by the Americans in Germany at the end of World War II, wound up in New York and another section was returned to Greece. Some of that material was later sent to Jerusalem for safekeeping. In Salonica itself, in 2005, I miraculously found another portion of those returned archives in the basement of an old Jewish communal building, transferred them to the new Jewish museum, and spent a year organizing and studying them.

In combination with local newspapers preserved abroad, the thousands of documents from the scattered archives of the Jewish community of Salonica became the primary sources through which I tried to restore the long-forgotten voices of Salonica’s Jews and to tell their story through their own words.

This scholarly work was also a personal project in many ways – could you tell about that?

My paternal grandfather was born in Salonica and immigrated to the United States in 1924. His brother, who stayed in Greece, was ultimately deported with his wife and two children to their deaths at Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1943 along with the vast majority of Salonica’s Jews. Their world always intrigued me: enchanting stories recalling interactions between Muslims, Christians, and Jews; the question of whether our family were “Spanish Jews” or “Greek Jews” or something else; and the tragic fate of the relatives who perished in the Nazi camps. I decided at a certain point that I wanted to know more and was surprised to discover how little information was available. The quest to address that absence and to understand the world from which my family came inspired my career as a historian and the subject of my book.

As the first person in my immediate family to step foot in Salonica since 1924 — I first visited in 2004 — I experienced powerful, but mixed, emotions. “Returning” to my family’s city — a city where my ancestors lived for four centuries — I found few traces of their longstanding presence. When I enrolled in Greek language classes at the university, I could not help but lament the fact that generations of my own ancestors had been buried under the campus — beneath the very classroom in which I sat. Their eternal resting place had been destroyed and their very existence was unknown to my classmates. At the same time, I made many dear friends and found many allies in my pursuit of the city’s history. Salonica has changed since I began my research: now, certain segments of society are more interested in the city’s “intriguing multiethnic history” and are reclaiming it as their own.

When I arrived in Seattle in 2011, I was pleasantly surprised to encounter echoes of the world of Jewish Salonica in the Pacific Northwest. Among the many communities that comprise Seattle’s diverse population is one of the country’s largest contingents of Sephardic Jews. A handful of these families come from Salonica — primarily Auschwitz survivors and their descendants. Many have shared their memories with me and participate in our Sephardic Studies program.

I was also pleasantly surprised to learn that one the most important figures in the history of the Seattle Sephardic community was from Salonica. He was a journalist, poet, and educator. His great-granddaughter became a student of mine at UW and dedicated more than three years of independent studies with me to uncover the writings of her great-grandfather, translate them into English, write her own original Judeo-Spanish poems, and compile a marvelous online digital exhibition. How fitting: echoes of the “intriguing multiethnic history” of the Seattle of the Balkans continue to resonate in Seattle itself.

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For more information, contact Naar at 206-616-6202 or denaar@uw.edu.

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