Ali Akhtar, assistant professor of religious studies and of classical and medieval Studies. Photograph by Michael Bradley/Bates College.

Six new tenure-track members of the faculty began teaching at Bates College in autumn 2012, representing the fields of dance, economics, German, neuroscience and psychology, religious studies, and classical and medieval studies.

All beginning their Bates careers as assistant professors, they are:

Ali Humayun Akhtar, religious studies and and classical and medieval studies;

Rachel Boggia, dance;

Jason Castro, psychology and neuroscience;

Raluca Cernahoschi and Jakub Kazecki, who were hired in a joint appointment to the German faculty;

and Paul Shea, economics.

(Bates has also engaged biologist Larissa Williams, who starts at Bates during winter 2013, and historian Lydia Barnett, who begins teaching at Bates in autumn 2013.)

Ali Humayun Akhtar

Read a profile of Akhtar.

Assistant Professor of Dance Rachel Boggia. Photograph by Michael Bradley/Bates College.

Appointed assistant professor of religious studies and of classical and medieval studies at Bates, Akhtar studies the complex interactions among political, religious and intellectual establishments in Europe and the Islamic world in medieval and early modern times.

Akhtar is a native of New Jersey. Prior to Bates, he taught at Bard College and at New York University, where he received his doctorate in both history and Middle Eastern studies. He completed his bachelor’s degree at Cornell in 2004.

Rachel Boggia

Read a profile of Boggia.

Appointed assistant professor of dance at Bates in 2012 after two years at the college as a visiting faculty member, Boggia employs sophisticated technology in her art and teaching.

Boggia served as acting director of the Bates dance program in 2010-11 after teaching at Wesleyan University and at Connecticut and Dickinson colleges. She earned her MFA in dance from The Ohio State University in 2003 and a bachelor of science degree in neurobiology at Cornell in 2000.

Jason Castro, assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

Jason Castro

Read a profile of Castro.

Analyzing neural electrical patterns and chemical imaging that reveals cellular activity, Castro, assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience, investigates the relationships between the properties of neurons and sensory capabilities, such as the ability to distinguish between odors.

Castro came to Bates from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, where he had been a postdoctoral fellow since 2008, the year he received his doctorate in neuroscience at Pittsburgh. In addition to a 2002 liberal arts diploma from the European College of Liberal Arts, Berlin, Germany, Castro earned bachelor’s degrees in biology and English literature at the University of Rochester.

Raluca Cernahoschi

Read a profile of Cernahoschi.

Assistant Professor of German Raluca Cernahoschi. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

Cernahoschi, who has been a visiting professor at Bates the past two years, is a native of Romania. But her Romanian education never introduced her to one of her primary academic interests: the literature produced by that nation’s German minority.

Instead, it wasn’t until her graduate studies at the University of British Columbia that she discovered this literature. “I happened to be taught by one of the only North American experts on this literature,” Cernahoschi explains — Peter Stenberg, now professor emeritus of German at UBC.

She taught previously at Central Connecticut State University, McMaster University and UBC. She earned a bachelor’s degree in German studies and English at Mount Holyoke College.

Jakub Kazecki

Read a profile of Kazecki.

Kazecki has done considerable research on the connection between war and humor, as evidenced by his book Laughter in the Trenches: Humour and Front Experience in German First World War Narratives, released in July 2012 (Cambridge Scholars Publishing).

Assistant Professor of German Jakub Kazecki. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

A native of Poland, Kazecki taught at Central Connecticut State University for four years prior to Bates, and previously taught at McMaster University in Ontario and the University of British Columbia, where he received a doctorate in Germanic studies.

He earned master’s degrees at Adam-Mickiewicz-University in Poznan, Poland, and at Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S.

Paul Shea

Read a profile of Shea.

People’s expectations influence the economy, which makes the accurate prediction of expectations important to economists. That’s an aspect of the field that interests Shea, a macroeconomist and econometrician who develops mathematical models for such predictions.

Working with algorithms that simulate various factors affecting economic behavior, he aims to model expectations such that the agents — the theoretical people in his models — “are just about as smart as the people who actually make decisions in the economy.”

Paul Shea, assistant professor of economics. Photograph by Michael Bradley/Bates College. Photograph by Michael Bradley/Bates College.

As part of a series exploring the impacts of social and technological progress on concepts of race, Alondra Nelson visits Bates to deliver the lecture Roots Revelations: Genetic Ancestry Tracing and the YouTube Generation at 7:15 p.m. Thursday, March 3, in Pettengill Hall’s Keck Classroom (G52), 4 Andrews Road.

Nelson’s lecture is part of the series Race in a Post-Human World, which explores the collapse of social categories caused by advances in technology.  Sponsored by the Bates College Lectures Committee, all of the series’ events are open to the public at no cost.  For more information, please contact dbegin@bates.edu.

Post-humanism is a term expressing what many believe is our current condition as human beings. Thanks to technological advances — such as medical interventions like smart prosthetics and implanted defibrillators, and human-emulating capabilities such as artificial intelligence — the old boundaries between animal and machine are increasingly blurred.

Similarly, post-humanism challenges long-held notions of other categorizations of humanity such as gender, race and species — making post-humanism a concept that is highly controversial, but extremely idea-rich across a wide range of academic disciplines.

Associate professor of sociology at Columbia University, Nelson also holds an appointment in the Institute for Research on Women and Gender and specializes in race and ethnicity in the U.S.; gender and kinship; sociohistorical studies of medicine, science and technology; and social and cultural theory.

Before joining the Columbia faculty in July 2009, Nelson taught in the departments of sociology and African American studies at Yale University, and served as a visiting scholar at BIOS: Centre for the Study of Bioscience, Biomedicine, Biotechnology and Society at the London School of Economics; the International Center for Advanced Studies at New York University; and the Bayerische Amerika-Akademie in Munich, Germany.

Nelson has also had several books and essays published, including Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Politics of Health and Race (forthcoming, University of Minnesota Press), “Bio Science: Genetic Ancestry Testing and the Pursuit of African Ancestry” (in the journal Social Studies of Science), and “The Factness of Diaspora” (in the edited volume Revisiting Race in a Genomics Age).  Her publications include articles on race and digital culture, “scientism” in Black Power politics, and the use of racial categories in medicine.

Race in a Post-Human World, which began in November, concludes with a performance by acting director and assistant professor of dance at Bates, Rachel Boggia. Her performance, “In the Very Eye of the Night,” will take place in May (date TBA) and is conceived and directed by Marlon Barrios Solano, a Venezuelan dance and new media artist, teacher and researcher.

Boggia, who has been on faculty at Wesleyan University, Dickinson College and Ohio State University, specializes in multidisciplinary collaboration with scientists, dance documentaries and multimedia performance.

Works by noted choreographers Monica Bill Barnes and Niles Ford are featured in Bates College Modern Dance Company performances at 5 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 13; 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 14; and 7:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 15, in Schaeffer Theatre, 305 College St.

Tickets are $6 general admission and $3 for seniors and students, and can be purchased at www.batestickets.com. For more information, please call 207-786-8294.

In addition to dances by Ford and Barnes, the program includes pieces created by Bates faculty members Rachel Boggia and Debi Irons for students in repertory dance courses. Finally, Annie Kloppenberg, a new member of the Colby College dance faculty, presents one of her dances in a performance by her professional company.

Barnes and Ford each spent two weeks working with students to choreograph pieces for the “Repertory Performance” course. Offered every two years, the course gives students experience with renowned choreographers in a professional environment.

“It is truly amazing to see how much the students have grown as dancers and as a community over the semester,” says Boggia, visiting dance professor and acting director of the Bates dance program.

“They all know how to focus deeply despite the demands of their college career. They have physical evidence that hard work brings change. And they’ve learned something about choreography from very different artists. I’m very proud of them.”

In Barnes’ humorous Standing in a Line, the student dancers strive to keep themselves together in a ladylike manner while falling apart at the seams. Assistant Professor of Theater Christine McDowell designed the costumes for the piece.

A rising star in the contemporary dance firmament, Barnes has brought her company to Jacob’s Pillow and the American Dance Festival, in addition to their appearance last summer at the Bates Dance Festival. Barnes’ choreography has been performed at more than 20 New York City venues, including Danspace Project and Symphony Space. Her work has been presented in 30 cities in the U.S. and abroad.

During his Bates residency, Ford asked students to use dance to explore their personal perspectives on political action.

Ford founded and is the artistic director of the Urban Dance Collective, which deals with social issues through art, spoken word and music as well as dance. A 1993 Bessie award recipient in 1993, he has performed with the Boston Ballet, Philadanco, the Rod Rodgers Dance Company and the Dance Theatre of Harlem and with such distinguished figures as Bill T. Jones.

While Boggia created choreography, animation and video design for her piece Somebody, Home, she nevertheless describes the dance as a “deep collaboration.” She worked with students to assemble movement and texts to meld with original music by Portland composer Shamou.

The piece centers on nostalgia for a partly remembered, partly imagined “home.” It was funded in part by the Harward Center for Community Engagement, which coordinates collaborations between Bates College and the community.

A dancer and video artist, Boggia holds a master’s in choreography and technology from Ohio State University. Her collaborations include work with physicist Nandini Trivedi and biologists Susan Fisher and Michael Singer. She has also authored experimental documentation on the artistic process of artists such as Meredith Monk.

Shamou has created original scores for dance companies and choreographers across the U.S., and is known for his collaborations with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Mark Morris Dance Group and the San Francisco Ballet, among others. A native of Iran, Shamou began his formal training in Tehran and completed it at Berklee College of Music.

Irons, a highly respected member of Maine’s dance community, is a prolific choreographer who works with Bates students in jazz-dance technique and advanced jazz repertory. Her students will perform a flirty take on bossa nova and works set to music by T.O.K., Adele, Outkast and Stevie Wonder.

Kloppenberg‘s company will perform a 2005 dance called The Waters at Whose Edge We Stand. Her choreography has been presented at such venues as the Judson Church, Green Street Studios and the Dancespace Center. She performs and teaches nationally as a member of the improvisational ensemble Like You Mean It.

“It’s really exciting to have Annie perform here,” says Boggia. “There are new dance faculty at Bowdoin and Colby colleges this year, and we’re very happy to be establishing exchanges with them.”

The Bates College Modern Dance Company introduces audiences to the college’s vibrant dance community with short performances at noon Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 9-10, in the college’s Schaeffer Theatre, 305 College St.

Taking place during the college’s annual Parents & Family Weekend, the performances are open to the public at no cost and will each last about an hour. For more information, please call 207-786-8294.

This year’s edition of the traditional Parents & Family Weekend concert is a fun, informal and audience-friendly event offering diverse kinesthetic styles from hip hop to ballroom to Bollywood.

The Modern Dance Company will perform work by nationally renowned choreographer Monica Bill Barnes; the college’s acting director of dance, Rachel Boggia; and prominent Maine dancer Debi Irons.

Performers also include such Bates student groups as the Ballroom Dance Club, Step Club and Bollywood Dance Club.

Barnes is in residence at Bates until Oct. 7, creating new work for students and teaching classes. A rising star in U.S. dance, she’s known for highly physical, humorous choreography. “There’s a reason comedy and dance are rarely paired,” wrote a reviewer for San Diego Arts. “But Barnes is the mistress of such mischief and has the technical dance ability to make it all work. She breaks all the rules, but also tempers the clowning around with enough darkness and pity to make us care.”

A headliner at the 2010 Bates Dance Festival, Barnes and company also recently appeared at the American Dance Festival, Jacobs Pillow and other top-drawer venues.

Irons is a dancer and choreographer with more than 20 years’ experience in all aspects of the dance world. She is the founder and artistic director of Art Moves Dance in Norway, which features improvisation and choreography in blues, modern and jazz dance forms.

She has collaborated with local, national and international dancers including Daielma Santos, Karen Montanaro, Josie Conte and Nancy Salmon; has been a soloist for Esduardo Mariscal Dance Theatre; jazzed it up with Danny Buraczeski and Katiti King; and gone modern with Doug Varone at the Bates Dance Festival.

Boggia, visiting assistant professor in dance and acting director of dance during this academic year, has been on faculty at Wesleyan University, Dickinson College and The Ohio State University. She specializes in multidisciplinary collaboration with scientists, multimedia performance and documentary films about dance. She has performed professionally in the work of New York choreographers Risa Jaroslow, Vanessa Justice and Marlon Barrios Solano.