faculty research – Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences

Is Denton a suburb? Depends on who you ask

Denton Record-Chronicle Originally Posted: August 3, 2019 When Rolling Stone magazine first wrote about Brave Combo in 1979, the reporter said the genre-bending polka band was from Austin. From there, it was repeated again and again. Almost any media outside of North Texas writing about the group credited Austin as their home, because writers couldn’t conceive that cool music came out of other cities in the state, band founder and lead singer Carl Finch said. And thus began a nearly 40-year tradition of announcing “We’re Brave Combo from Denton, Texas” during sets near and far — as the band resisted any pressure to be lumped in with Dallas or Fort Worth. “I think that we have been so long associated with Denton pride and carrying [...]

By Katherine Nickles| 2019-08-19T08:39:36-07:00 August 20th, 2019|Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, Dedman College Research, Faculty News, Sociology, Sociology (Faculty)|Comments Off

Ancient Marine Fossils Unearthed in Plano

NBC 5 Originally Posted: August 8, 2019 Construction workers in Plano unearthed ancient marine fossils from a time when the city was under the sea. Crews found the fossils while working on the future Plano police substation at McDermott Road and Robinson Road. Steve Stoler, with the city of Plano, said crews only dug about seven feet into the ground before they found the fossils in a single 50-pound rock. "I don't know how many people realize this: in ancient times, this was an ocean. When you dig into the limestone shelf, it's not uncommon to find sea creatures and sea shells," Stoler said. "At the time these rocks were deposited, about 85 million years ago, Plano was submerged under a large inland sea," said [...]

By Katherine Nickles| 2019-08-08T10:35:28-07:00 August 15th, 2019|Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, Dedman College Research, Earth Sciences, Faculty News|Comments Off

Heather DeShon, Dedman, study finds Fort Worth basin wastewater injection increases fault-slip potential

Journal of Petroleum Technology Originally Posted: August 7, 2019 The Barnett Shale might be a play of yesteryear for the US onshore industry, but the examination of a decade’s worth of recorded activity from the birthplace of the shale revolution yields new insight on the seismic impact of wastewater injection. Findings from researchers at the University of Texas (UT), Stanford University, and Southern Methodist University (SMU) reveal that wastewater injection in the Fort Worth Basin (FWB) of North Texas “significantly increases the likelihood for faults to slip” if not managed properly, according to a UT news release. To improve understanding of fault sensitivity, the team mapped 251 faults totaling more than 1,800 miles in combined length in the FWB. Those faults mostly extend from the [...]

By Katherine Nickles| 2019-08-07T14:31:04-07:00 August 9th, 2019|Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, Dedman College Research, Earth Sciences, Faculty News|Comments Off

What We Can Learn From the Failures of Dallas Business Leaders

D Magazine Originally Posted: August 7, 2019 Let’s start with a few discouraging statistics. The federal Small Business Administration says that about 30 percent of all new businesses fail within their first two years. Fifty percent are gone within the first five, and two-thirds don’t make it past their 10th anniversaries. Those numbers make it plain: Failure is an even more integral aspect of business than is success. Beyond that, a rise in the number of failing businesses is counter-intuitively a sign of a healthy economy. “A huge percentage of startups fail, and we should be happy about that,” says Cullum Clark, an economist at Southern Methodist University. Not for the failure of any one, he adds, but for having a system that provides for [...]

By Katherine Nickles| 2019-08-07T14:25:09-07:00 August 7th, 2019|Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, Dedman College Research, Economics, Faculty News|Comments Off

New map outlines seismic faults across DFW region

EurekaAlert Originally Posted: July 24, 2019 DALLAS (SMU) - Scientists from SMU, The University of Texas at Austin and Stanford University found that the majority of faults underlying the Fort Worth Basin are as sensitive to forces that could cause them to slip as those that have hosted earthquakes in the past. The new study, published July 23rd by the journal Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (BSSA), provides the most comprehensive fault information for the region to date. Fault slip potential modeling explores two scenarios: a model based on subsurface stress on the faults prior to high-volume wastewater injection and a model of those forces reflecting increase in fluid pressure due to injection. None of the faults shown to have the highest potential for an [...]

By Katherine Nickles| 2019-07-24T08:21:46-07:00 July 24th, 2019|Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, Dedman College Research, Earth Sciences, Faculty News|Comments Off

Listen: David J. Meltzer, Anthropology, discusses his work on the Meateater podcast

The Meateater Originally Posted: July 23, 2019 Steven Rinella talks to David J. Meltzer and Janis Putelis. Subjects discussed: Understanding radio carbon dates; crossing the Bering Land Bridge; who were the first Americans?; the early human aversion to incest; ecotones, or where a bunch of good shit comes together; glyptodons and 3-ton ground sloths; a big extinction on one fine Tuesday; Rambo; the tidy appeal of the blitzkreig hypothesis; Clovis points; cross examining. Listen

By Katherine Nickles| 2019-07-23T10:41:12-07:00 July 23rd, 2019|Anthropology, Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, Dedman College Research, Faculty News|Comments Off

Supporting Biographies of Nineteenth-Century Publishers and Writers

NEH Originally Posted: July 9, 2019 Throughout Ezra Greenspan’s career, the National Endowment for the Humanities has supported his work on groundbreaking biographies that have brought new perspectives and voices to college and high school classrooms. From his first book on George Palmer Putnam, to his recent biography of William Wells Brown, to his current project, a biography of Frederick Douglass’s family, NEH funding has helped Greenspan illuminate the lives of historical figures and the histories of books and publishing for a broad audience. George Palmer Putnam: Representative American Publisher(2000) explores the life of nineteenth-century America’s most significant publisher, a man whose career and investments gave rise to modern commercial publishing in the United States and fostered the careers of Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and [...]

By Katherine Nickles| 2019-07-10T06:39:26-07:00 July 11th, 2019|Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, Dedman College Research, English|Comments Off

History Professor John Chávez Chairs Panel For World History Association Annual Conference

Dedman College News Originally Posted: July 8, 2019 History Professor John Chávez of SMU organized and chaired a panel for the World History Association’s annual conference held in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on June 29, 2019. Presenting with him were John Mwangi Githigaro of St. Paul’s University, Limuru, Kenya, and Dittmar Schorkowitz of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle/Saale, Germany. The panel, especially Schorkowitz’s paper, briefly compared continental and overseas colonialism together with other forms, such as settler, internal, neo-, and post-colonialism, concepts that have developed into distinct theories within the larger colonial paradigm in world history. Mwangi’s paper investigated the enduring legacies of colonial rule including the related practices, strategies, and mechanisms of political control in Kenya and Rwanda after independence. [...]

By Katherine Nickles| 2019-07-08T06:49:28-07:00 July 8th, 2019|Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, Dedman College Research, Faculty News, History|Comments Off

‘Titans in a Jar’ Possible Answer to Crucial Questions Ahead of 2026 NASA’s Space Exploration

Science Times Originally Posted: July 3, 2019 It may be possible for Southern Methodist University (SMU) researchers to determine if icy moon of Saturn, Titan, has ever been home to life long before NASA completes an exploration visit to its surface by a drone helicopter. In late June, NASA announced that its "Dragonfly" mission would launch toward Saturn's largest moon in 2026 with an expectation to arrive in 2034. The purpose of the mission is to use a rotorcraft to visit dozens of promising locations on Titan to investigate the chemistry, atmospheric, and surface properties that could lead to life. Also in June, SMU got an award of a $195,000 grant to reproduce what is happening on Titan in a laboratory setting. The Houston-based Welch [...]

By Katherine Nickles| 2019-07-04T20:48:44-07:00 July 5th, 2019|Chemistry, Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, Dedman College Research, Faculty News|Comments Off

SMU Tower Center is in Paris talking Global Migration Trends

Event Date: June 24, 2019 Location: Collège de France.11 Place Marcelin Berthelot, 75231 Paris, France For More information: Bora Laci, 214-768-4716 or tower@smu.edu Immigration Policy in an Era of Globalization and Crisis (Paris, France) - SMU scholars will join other academics from various institutions in Paris, France to discuss "Immigration Policy in an Era of Globalization and Crisis," and the effects said policy has on nations around the globe. The event will be a multi-day affair (June 23 - June 25) held at the Collège de France in Paris, co-sponsored by the Tower Center for Political Studies and the Institut Convergences MIGRATIONS. READ MORE Or follow @SMUTowerCenter for live tweet of the conference.

By Katherine Nickles| 2019-06-24T06:52:04-07:00 June 24th, 2019|Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, Political Science, Tower Center|Comments Off