Author Archives: Amy Arnold

Meet Dr. Shahrokhi

Posted by Amy Arnold

Biography

Dr. Sholeh Shahrokhi (she/her) received her Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley in 2008.  In the same year, she began teaching at Butler in the Department of History and Anthropology, and across interdisciplinary programs such as Race Gender and Sexuality Studies; Peace Studies; International Studies; and Global and Historical Studies. Her scholarship focuses on explorations of power as manifested in an intersectional and discursive expressions of gender, race, body, age, religion and ethnicity, urbanity, as socio-cultural frames of differences.

Her research projects in Iran, France, the UK, and the United States have focused on the formation of gendered norms, ideas about sexuality, and most recently on the “crisis” of refugees in Europe and the political north. She has conducted research on art of/by refugees, creativity and aesthetics in political protest in Iran and across the Middle East; a gendered reading of visual politics of the body emerging from contemporary Iranian protest scene; alternative sexualities and lifestyles among young Iranians in the US; spatial claims to the city, the notion of trespass as resistance to urban violence among a category called “runaway daughters” in Tehran; contemporary trends in cosmetic surgeries, shifting ideals of masculinities, femininities, and beauty in Tehran. Her writing on Iran aims to diversify representation of the people, while remaining critical of strategies that exclude “others”.

Book Chapters

Gender and Sexuality: An Anthropological Approach (2017), in Ethnology, Ethnography and Cultural Anthropology, [Eds. Paolo Barbaro], in Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), Developed under the Auspices of the UNESCO, Eolss Publishers, Oxford, UK, [http://www.eolss.net]

Iranian War Cinema: The Art of RememberingPain, in the Iranian War Cinema: National Identity, Ethnic Diversity, and Gender Issues, (2012). Edited book by P. Khosronejad. S. K. Publishing, Oxford:UK.

Beyond “tragedy”: A Cultural Critique of SexTrafficking of Young Iranian Women, in Sex Trafficking, Human Rights, andSocial Justice, (2010). Edited volume by T. Zheng. Routledge, NY.

Current and Upcoming Butler Courses

Dr. Shahrokhi is an interdisciplinary professor. Her classes can be found in Butler’s Core and the Anthropology department.

  • SW 215: Being Human: An Introduction to Anthropology (Social Justice Diversity approved)
  • SW 233: Political Islam in Paris
  • GHS 207: Global Women: Rights and Resistance (Cross-listed: Gender Women Sexuality Studies, Social Justice Diversity approved)
  • GHS 211: Modern Middle East and North Africa (Social Justice Diversity approved)
  • PCA 215: Art Across Borders: Refugees in Political North
  • AN 311: Trespass: Anthropology of Power & Difference (Cross-listed: Peace and Conflict Studies, International Studies)
  • AN 315: Gender and Colonialism (Cross-listed: GWSS)
  • AN 320: Gender and Sexuality Through Globalization (Cross-listed: GWSS)
  • AN 326: Youth and Global Cinema (cross-listed: IS and PACS)
  • AN 328: Popular Culture: Michael Jackson
  • AN 340: Non-western Art: Ethnographic Art
  • AN 345: Conflict Resolution Through Art (Cross-listed: PACS, IS)
  • AN 352: Anthropological Method: Ethnography (Writing: WAC)
  • AN 368: Coming of Age in the Middle East (Cross-listed: PACS)
  • AN 390: Anthropological Theory

Meet Dr. Paradis

Posted by Amy Arnold

Biography

Born and raised in northern Connecticut, Dr. Thomas (Tom) Paradis obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Geography at the Pennsylvania State University (1992), and his Masters (1994) and Ph.D. (1997) degrees in Geography: Urban & Rural Development from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He continued moving west to Flagstaff, Arizona in 1997 as faculty at Northern Arizona University (NAU), where he was recognized in 2011 and 2014 as a President’s Distinguished Teaching Fellow. He further served as the Chair of the Department of Geography, Planning & Recreation and as the university’s Director of Academic Assessment. As a professor of geography and community planning here at Butler, he is also an affiliate faculty member in Butler’s Science, Technology & Environmental Studies (STES) program. Having originally majored in meteorology at Penn State, he ended up teaching weather and climate at the U. of Illinois and later at NAU. He has thus recently developed a new course at Butler for the Natural Worlds block of the Core Curriculum called Weather, Climate & Society (NW 265). Beyond the fun of academics, Tom enjoys traveling, photography, railroad history and modeling, playing basketball, and was once an avid trumpet player in high school and the Penn State Blue Band (Go State!).

Teaching and Scholarship

Dr. Paradis’ areas of teaching and research encompass the topics of urban and cultural geography, downtown redevelopment, historic preservation, urban design, heritage tourism, Italy, the American Southwest, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. Having led several study-abroad programs in Viterbo and Siena, Italy to explore livable cities and walkable design, Dr. Paradis is the author of several books, including Living the Palio: A Story of Community and Public Life in Siena, Italy (3rd edition 2020), and the Illustrated Encyclopedia of American Landmarks (2012), among earlier works. His recent follow-up book is Unbridled Spirit: The Untold Story of the 2018 Extraordinary Palio in Siena, Italy (Feb. 2020). He is now turning his sights to Singapore as he investigates the history of tourism development and tourist spaces there.

Happy Hunger Games!

Dr. Paradis offers a creative First-Year Seminar (FYS) course focused on Unpacking the Hunger Games, an interdisciplinary approach to understanding our world through Suzanne Collins’ dystopian series. His latest book (fall, 2021) is A Place Called District 12: Appalachian Geography and Music in the Hunger Games (McFarland Press).

Current and Upcoming Butler Courses

  • FYS 101: Unpacking the Hunger Games, Part 1 (every fall)
  • NW 265-ENV: Weather, Climate & Society (every fall, summer 2022)
  • ENV 315 (STES Program): Designing for Livable Cities (fall 2021)
  • FYS 102: Unpacking the Hunger Games, Part 2 (every spring)
  • HST 305 (Topics Course): American Architecture and Preservation (spring 2022)
  • HST 347: U.S. Urban History (fall 2022)
  • HST 346: American Historical Geography (spring 2023)

Meet Dr. Bungard

Posted by Amy Arnold

Photo of Dr. BungardBiography

Dr. Bungard (he/him) hails from the Buckeye State, having earned a BA from Denison University in Granville, Ohio before moving westwards down I-70 to Ohio State University where he earned both an MA and a PhD. He has continued his travel westwards down I-70, landing here at Butler University, where he has taught since 2008.

Areas of Research

Dr. Bungard’s research looks broadly at humor and theatre from the ancient world. He has published on laughter in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes as well as several articles in English and Italian on the role of clever slaves in the comedies of the 2nd century BCE playwright Plautus. He is also interested in the ways that ancient theatre continues to speak to the modern world whether in the classroom or the enduring themes of Medea’s story, connecting her experience with music in the modern world.

Dr. Bungard has also turned his hand to translating various plays of Plautus. His translation of Truculentus has been performed by an all-female cast at Butler as well as an international cast in Toronto.

In an effort to help expand the love of ancient Roman theatre, Dr. Bungard is currently working on a series of Latin novellae for Bolchazy-Carducci. The non-fiction pre-reader, Explore Latin: Ludi Scaenici, is currently out. These novellae will provide tiered readings in Latin about a working-class family on the Aventine Hill who love to go watch Plautus’ plays during the Ludi Megalenses.

Dr. Bungard’s interest in humor stems from humor’s ability to encourage us to think about gaps in a world that we may think is perfectly whole. Humor exposes our values and prejudices, and it allows us to find alternatives when discussions founder along the lines of beliefs that may seem ‘natural’ and ‘normal’.

Current and Upcoming Butler Courses

Dr. Bungard teaches intermediate and advanced Latin courses on authors as broad ranging as Caesar, Vergil, Seneca, and Plautus. He also teaches upper level courses in translation on Ancient Drama, Ancient Law, and Epic Poetry. A grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, led him to teach a First Year Seminar entitled “Why Is It Funny?”.

In addition, Dr. Bungard regularly takes students to Rome and the Bay of Naples for summer study courses on Roman literature, exploring the intersections of texts and physical sites. As part of this course, students develop short digital stories imagining what it would have been like to live near Mt. Vesuvius on the fateful day of the eruption in 79 CE.

  • CLA 261: Etymology: Word Power
  • CLA 303: Drama on the Ancient Stage
  • CLA 324: Law and Orator

Meet Dr. Hunter

Posted by Amy Arnold

Biography

Antwain K. Hunter is a U.S. historian working on slavery and emancipation in the Antebellum South. He is a native of Leominster, Massachusetts and earned his B.A. in History at Westfield State College before heading to the University of Connecticut for his M.A., also in History. Dr. Hunter earned his Ph.D. in the Richards Civil War Era Center at the Pennsylvania State University. He teaches courses that cover topics and eras in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including Colonial America, the American Revolution, American Slavery, the U.S. South, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Transatlantic World. When he’s not working, Dr. Hunter likes engaging Butler students as a Faculty in Residence, fishing from his kayak, playing the guitar, watching college sports, playing hurling and Gaelic football with the Indianapolis Gaelic Athletic Association, cooking, and traveling to new places.

Areas of Research and Scholarship

Dr. Hunter’s current book project examines the legal and community dynamics of black North Carolinians’ firearm use in the colonial and antebellum eras. His recent publications include, “‘A nuisance requiring correction’: Firearm Laws, Black Mobility, and White Property in Antebellum Eastern North Carolina” in the North Carolina Historical Review; “‘In the Exercise of a Sound Discretion, Who, of This Class of Persons, Shall Have a Right to the License…’: Family, Race, and Firearms in Antebellum North Carolina” in the Journal of Family History; and “‘Patriots,’ ‘Cowards,’ and‘Men Disloyal at Heart:’ Labor and Politics at the Springfield Armory,1861-1865” in the Journal of Military History. He was also an on-screen contributing historian for America: Facts vs. Fiction’s episode on the Civil War (aired March 4, 2017 on AHC) and on the President Benjamin Harrison documentary “A President at the Crossroads” (aired October 19, 2017 on PBS/WFYI).

Upcoming and Current Butler Courses

  • GHS 210: Freedom and Movement
  • TI 204/HST 205: Slavery Abolition and Freedom
  • HST 331: Colonial America
  • HST 332: American Revolution
  • HST 333: The Early American Republic
  • HST 335: Civil War
  • HST 336: Reconstruction Era America
  • Teaches regularly with the Global Adventures in Liberal Arts (GALA)

Dr. Hunter in Other News

Q&A with Dr. Antwain Hunter, 2021 February 21, Butler Stories