“The Academic Minute” radio program airs daily on 70 stations across the country, delving into topics from the serious to the light-hearted and keeping listeners abreast of what's new and exciting in higher education.

The program is hosted by Lynn Pasquerella, president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities. 

Programs from the week of Dec. 7 featured five faculty members from Cornell’s College of Arts and Sciences sharing insights from their research:

• Naminata Diabate, associate professor of comparative literature, explored how women are using their bodies to send a different kind of protest message In “Naked Agency.” A scholar of African and African diaspora studies, Diabate’s research focuses on questions of sexuality and gender studies.

• Daniel Gallagher, senior lecturer of classics, makes the case that Latin is a living language in “Latin Alive!” Having served as Latin Secretary to Popes Benedict XVI and Francis at the Vatican, Gallagher dedicates himself to passing on the language in a “living” way that involves speaking, listening, and writing to enhance reading fluency.

• Derrick R. Spires, associate professor of Literatures in English, illuminated how Black intellectuals engaged each other through pseudonyms in mid-19th-century Black newspapers in “Antebellum Social Media.” Spires specializes in early African American and American print culture, citizenship studies, and African American intellectual history.

• Erik Born, assistant professor of German studies, explored the history behind the ubiquitous wireless sign in “Wi-Fi Signal Icon.” Born’s work brings insights from contemporary German media theory to bear on diverse historical contexts.

• Andrew Campana, assistant professor of Asian studies, explained how communities of blind and low-vision video game players stay in the game in “Taking the ‘Video’ Out of ‘Video Games.’” Campana’s research focuses on modern and contemporary Japanese literature; his current book project on Japanese poetry across media.

Read the story in the Cornell Chronicle.