My thanks, once again, to the many contributors to this Newsletter. Without your letters, the chronicler would have no material, and the Stiftung would not be able to pride itself on having supported Canadian scholars that continue to publish, to receive honours and promotions. I hope you understand that your sometimes very lengthy submissions have to be edited for the Newsletter. I can assure you, however, that the full text of your submissions will be forwarded to the Stiftung in Bonn.
My thanks also to the very hard work of the members of the Edmonton chapter who were instrumental in transforming the Humboldt Club into the Humboldt Association. In the 2002 Newsletter I mentioned that the HAC set itself two goals, one, to establish a website and two, to organize conferences. Well, one of the goals has already been fulfilled. Sigi Stiemer (U of British Columbia) has put together a very attractive website. Please see http://www.humboldtcanada.com/hac_home.htm Thanks, Sigi, for creating a cyberspace presence for the Humboldt Association! And the second is about to be fulfilled: plans are underway for a conference in May 2005 in Banff. Details will follow.
And now to individual news:
ASHOK AKLUJKAR (U of British Columbia) has another busy year behind him. He presented papers in Nashville, Austin, Rome, Naples, Helsinki, Miyazaki, Delhi, Nagoya, Tokyo, Hiroshima and Kyoto, and still found time to publish the book Sanskrit: An Easy Introduction to an Enchanting Language as well as an article on "A Different Sociolinguistics for Brahmins, Buddhists and Jains." During May 2003, he was visiting professor in Rome, and from 1 October 2003 to 31 March 2004, he was scholar-in-residence at Kyoto University.
PAUL ARMINJON (U de Montreal) has dedicated himself for the last ten years to the construction, numerical analysis, and application to problems in Aerodynamics and Fluid Dynamics, of Finite Volume Methods for Nonlinear Hyperbolic Systems of Conservation Laws. His most recent co-authored publications in this general area of study are "Nessyahu-Tadmor-type central finite volume methods without predictor for 3D Cartesian and unstructured tetrahedral grids" (2003) and "A central, diamond-staggered dual cell, finite volume method for ideal magnetohydrodynamics" (2004).
IBRAHIM ASSEM (U de Sherbrooke) reports of four co-authored publications with the following titles: "Two-sided gluings of tilted algebras," "Simply connected incidence algebras," "On split by nilpotent extensions," and "Endomorphism algebras of projective modules over laura algebras."
MICHAEL BATTS (U of British Columbia) continues to publish despite official retirement. His latest articles have titles such as "German and Germanic Studies at the University of British Columbia," "Book Collecting at the Time of the First Printed Books," "The Other (Non-Classical) Side of Weimar in Goethe's Time," "The Reading Mania in Eighteenth-century Germany," and "The Persistent Quotation: The Unoriginality of Literary Historians in the Nineteenth Century."
GEORGES BEAUDOIN (U Laval) was re-elected Regional Vice-President North America for the Society for Geology Applied to Mineral Deposits. He carries on with his associate editorship at Mineralium Deposita. He supervises 5 Ph.D. and M.Sc. students, and published several papers including "Implications of the mineralogy and chemical composition of lead beads from Frobisher's assay site, Kodlunarn Island, Canada, Prelude to Bre-X?" and "Geology and geochemistry of the Changba SEDEX deposit, China." He presented several conference papers including two invited lectures at the Jackson School of Geosciences of the University of Texas at Austin.
JÖRG BOHLMANN (U of British Columbia) proudly announces that he has been appointed "UBC Distinguished Junior Scholar." Congratulations! In the reporting period he has had seven co-authored articles published. Sample titles are "Forest tent caterpillars (Malacosoma disstria) induce systemic and diurnal emissions of terpenoid volatiles in hybrid poplar (Populus trichocarpa x deltoides): cDNA cloning, functional characterization, and patterns of gene expression of (-)- germacrene D synthase, PtdTPS1," "Induction of volatile terpene biosynthesis and diurnal emission by methyl jasmonate in foliage of Norway spruce (Picea abies), and "A novel sex-specific and inducible monoterpene synthase activity associated with a pine bark beetle, the pine engraver." In addition, he presented 12 invited lectures in Canada and internationally and contributed to more than 15 conferences.
VIT BUBENIK (Memorial U) published two book chapters with the following titles: "Ablaut and Aspect in Akkadian and Proto-Semitic" and "Prakrits and Apabhramsa." He presented papers in Helsinki, Prague, Copenhagen and Rethymno (Crete). And we can expect another monograph from him next year.
PHIL BUNKER (NRSC Ottawa) was elected a Fellow of the Chemical Institute of Canada. The Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung at present supports his research at the University in Wuppertal where he is co-authoring a book with Professor Jensen.
TUCKER CARRINGTON ((U de Montreal) reports of seven co-authored articles on topics such as "Using Lebedev grids, sine spherical harmonic and monomer contracted basis functions to calculate bending levels of HF trimer," "A contracted basis-Lanczos calculation of the vibrational levels of methane: solving the Schroedinger equation in nine dimensions," and "Semiclassically optimised complex absorbing potentials of polynomial form: II Complex case." In addition, he presented invited papers in Banff, Telluride, Argonne, Montreal, Denver and New Orleans.
CHUNG-WAI CHOW (U of Toronto) co-authored four articles on topics such as "Leukocyte Elastase induces epithelial apoptosis," "Oxidative stress and acute lung injury," and "Measurements of phagocytosis and phagosomal maturation." She received some $ 330,000 in grant money, most notably from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation.
JOHN CONWAY (U of British Columbia) continues to edit the monthly e-mail Newsletter for Contemporary Church Historians. He recently appeared (briefly) in a new film on the life and death of Dietrich Bonhoeffer made by Martin Doblmeier of Journey films, and is showing this film to anyone interested.
BRUCE DAVIS devotes his time managing his company's (Alviva) patent portfolio.
CLAUDE EILERS (McMaster U) will be Professeur invité at the Ecole Normale Supérieur in Paris for June 2004, lecturing on the Greek documents in Josephus' histories.
ISSOUF FOFANA (U de Quebec/Chicoutimi) has had a successful year, publishing five co-authored articles and delivering twelve papers. Some sample titles of his articles are: "Study of insulator flashovers caused by atmospheric ice accumulation," "Experimental study and analysis of corona discharge parameters on an ice surface," and "Drying of transformer insulation using Zeolite." The papers were presented in Boulder, Avignon, Montreal, Bologna, Deft, Chicoutimi, and Varennes. He is also a member of the IEEE Task Force on Icing Performance of Line Insulators.
JEAN GRONDIN (U de Montreal) is delighted to announce that his book Introduction á la Métaphysique has been published early in 2004. In addition, he was guest professor at the Open Society Institute of the European University in Minsk from 7 to 12 July 2003, speaking on the theme "Person, Interpersonality, Communication."
RYAN HAYWARD (U of Alberta) has published the co-authored article "Solving 7x7 Hex: Virtual Connections and Game-State Reduction." He presented papers in Missoula, Banff, Graz, and Oxford.
ALFRED HECHT (Wilfrid Laurier U) spent two months from 1 May to 30 June 2003 as a visiting professor at the Philipps University, Marburg, presenting lectures on the wider field of Canadian Studies. In the fall he organized a conference entitled "Bridges and Borders: What Unites and Divides Europe," the conference taking place at his home university. Among his special administrative tasks he lists "Director of the Viessmann Research Centre on modern Europe" and "Director of Laurier International."
MONICA HELLER (U of Toronto) has published the co-edited book Discours et identités. La francité canadienne entre modernité et mondialisation, which includes chapters by German contributors from the Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität, Frankfurt/Main. She organized a workshop on "Transnationalisme et sociolinguistique," which attracted two speakers from Germany, from Mannheim and Freiburg respectively.
MICHAEL HERREN (York U) received the Konrad Adenauer Prize for 2003. Congratulations! The prize is sponsored by the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung and jointly administered by the Stiftung and the Royal Society of Canada, and allows the recipient to spend up to one year at a research institute in Germany. Dr. Herren has chosen the Institut für Englische Philologie at the University of Munich.
BILL HUTCHISON (U of Toronto) presented papers in Toronto, Philadelphia, and Rome. His grants for various research projects total some $ 350,000, and his research proceeds apace with co-authored publications on topics such as "Involvement of human thalamic neurons in internally- and externally-generated movements," "Somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs) recorded from deep brain stimulation (DBS) electrodes in the thalamus and subthalamic nucleus," and "Cingulotomy for psychiatric disease: microelectrode guidance, a callosal reference system for documenting lesion location, and clinical results."
SIMON LANGLOIS (U Laval) was a visiting scholar at the Zentrum für Umfragen und Methoden in February 2004. He is working along with Dr. Heinz Herbert Noll and Dr. Stefan Weick on a comparison of family budgets in Germany and Canada. He is also coordinator of the research group Comparative Charting of Social Change that publishes its works in a series at McGill-Queens University Press. In 2003 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Congratulations!
WALDEMAR LEHN (U Manitoba) spent the first 6 months of 2003 in Cambridge at the Scott Polar Research Institute. He presented one invited lecture in Ravensburg, and published several articles with titles such as "Hafgerdingar: a mystery from the King's Mirror explained" and ""Bright Superior Mirages," as well as some co-authored articles with the following topics: "Gerrit de Veer's true and perfect description of the Novaya Zemlya Effect" and "Novaya-Zemlya effect and sunsets."
MICHAEL MACKEY (McGill U) spent May 2003 as visiting professor at the Jagellonian and Silesian Universities, and February/March 2004 as a visiting professor in Oxford. He organized a series of monthly public lectures that were held at the Redpath Museum of McGill U as well as a series of public lectures at the Royal Society of Canada meeting in Ottawa (November 2003). With all this, he still had time to publish six co-authored articles. Sample titles are "Cell replication and control," "Oscillations in cyclical neutropenia: new evidence for origins based on mathematical modeling," and "Modeling operon dynamics: the tryptophan and lactose operons as paradigms."
ANTHONY MOFFAT (U de Montreal) reports as the highlight of his year the successful launching of Canada's first astronomical satellite on 30 June 2003 from Plesetsk, Russia. As a part of the eight-member international science team evaluating the data sent from the satellite he expects to be producing a stream of publications of unique science from space over the next number of years. But then, Dr. Moffat has always produced a stream of publications, last year eight co-authored refereed and fifteen co-authored non-refereed articles, not to mention abstracts. Some representative titles of his refereed articles are "An X-ray investigation of the NGC 346 field (20): the field population," "Discovery of highly dynamic matter enhancements along the polar axis and equatorial plane in the LBV binary HD 5980," "The lack of blue supergiants in NGC 7419, a red supergiant rich open-cluster with rapidly rotating stars," and "The unusual 2001 periastron passage in the 'clockwork' colliding-wind binary WR 140." He presented papers in, among others, places such as Minneapolis, Nordenham, Liege, and Toronto.
P. K. MUKHOPPADHYAY (Dalhousie U) has been elected by the Editorial Committee of the American Association of the Petroleum Geologists as an Associate Editor of their Bulletin. In 2003 he spent some time in India, presenting papers in Bombay and Calcutta. And he was invited to deliver a special presentation in Houston, Texas on Deepwater Exploration of Natural Gas and Gas Hydrates.
JANUSZ PAWLISZYN (U Waterloo) proudly reports that he is the recipient of a Canada Research Chair (Chemistry). Congratulations!
DAVID PUGH (Queens U) has published the chapter "Goethe the Dramatist" in The Cambridge Companion to Goethe. He presented a paper on Heine in Halifax, and one on Wieland (not the compiler of the Newsletter!) in Providence, Rhode Island.
JAMES RETALLACK (U Toronto) enjoyed an administrative leave which he took in loco since in 2002 - 2003 he had been visiting professor at Göttingen. He is the co-editor of the book Wilhelminism and its Legacies: German Modernities, Imperialism, and the Meanings of Reform, 1890-1930. Essays for Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann, for which he also wrote the Introduction and the chapter "Ideas to Politics: The Meanings of 'Stasis' in Wilhelmine Germany." He presented papers at Tübingen, Toronto, New Orleans, and invited lectures at Toronto, Göttingen, and Tübingen.
BEV ROBERTSON (Bushwakker Brewing Co) reports of no academic activities, but continues to promote good relations between the University of Regina and the Regina Chamber of Commerce (with the aid of beer?). One should never underestimate the importance of good relations!
GERALD ROMSA (formerly U Windsor) took early retirement as of 31 August 2003. With his wife he moved to Nova Scotia, where they renovated their house and now live on a forty hectare property of woods and meadows. Sounds idyllic! He continues to do some academic work, though. He taught a few geography courses at the Nova Scotia Agricultural College, made a research trip to the Algarve, Portugal, to determine the impact of tourism on that region, completed a comparative research project of the impact of economic policies undertaken by the Republic of Ireland and Nova Scotia, and he began working with Nova Scotia's Planning Committee to ascertain more clearly the reason for the province's slow economic progress. Who says retirement is boring?
THOMAS SALUMETS (U of British Columbia) is editor of the book Jaan Kaplinski: Koik on ime [Reverence for Life] and author of several articles, among them "Jaan Kross: rahvuse rajajoontest [about the margins of nation]" and "Jaan Kaplinski tasakaal [Jaan Kaplinski's equilibrium]." He has been elected President of the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies, and serves on the advisory boards of several Baltic journals.
JAMES SCOTT (Trinity Western U) has just received a SSHRC grant for $ 67,000 to work on the project "The Jewish Roots of Early Christian Chiliasm." He presented two papers, one in Bonn, the other in Atlanta, and he is looking forward to a sabbatical leave for 2004 - 2005.
BRUCE SHAWYER (Memorial U) has just been appointed as Professor Emeritus, which is not an automatic designation at Memorial U. He also reports that the first meeting of the "Humboldtianer at Memorial Society" (HAMS) has taken place, followed by a pot-luck dinner. In good fashion, all male members HAMS had to wear the Humboldt tie to be admitted. And the ladies?
MICHAEL SIDERIS (U Calgary) was elected Vice President of the International Association of Geodesy for the period of 2003 - 2007. He has also been appointed Associate Dean (Engineering) in the Faculty of Graduate Studies for a two-year term. He will be busy for the next while.
ROBERT SINGER (Saint Mary's U) has been promoted to Full Professor and simultaneously has taken on the Chair of the Chemistry Department. Congratulations on the promotion and on the Chair! Or should the second congratulations wait until he has finished his term as Chair?
RICHARD SPARLING (U Manitoba) proudly mentions only one, though a very important, item to be included in the Newsletter: for this past year it has been his honour to serve as President of the Canadian Society of Microbiologists.
TOM SWADDLE (U Calgary) retired in 2002, but like other retirees mentioned in this Newsletter continues to enjoy academic work. In this last year he published five articles, four of them co-authored. Here are some titles: "The decamethylferrocene (+/0) electrode reaction in organic solvents at variable pressure and temperature," "Self-exchange reaction kinetics of metallocenes revisited: insights from the decamethylferrcenium-decamethylferrocene reaction at variable pressure," and "Electrochemistry - High Pressure."
PETR VANICEK (U of New Brunswick) became an honorary member of staff of the Department of Geodesy and Geomatics at K.N. Toosi University in Teheran. He became an Emeritus member of the Explorer's Club in New York, and last September he delivered a graduate course to INEGI in Aguascalientes in Mexico. His co-authored publications for this last year include "Numerical investigation of downward continuation techniques for gravity anomalies," "Far-zone contribution to the topographical effects in the Stokes-Helmert method of geoid determination," and "Truncation of spherical convolution integration with an isotropic kernel." He presented papers in Banff, Sapporo, Moncton, San Francisco, and Montreal.
KARL WEGERT (Bishop's U) has not retired yet, but will do so effective 1 July 2004. Last year he received the William and Nancy Turner Teaching Award for "extraordinary contribution to the education of Bishop's students through teaching." Congratulations!
GERNOT WIELAND (U of British Columbia) continued his contacts with Germany by delivering a paper at the Heinrich-Heine Universität in Düsseldorf in June 2003.
JIE XIAO (Memorial U) is the proud recipient of a NSERC Discovery Grant - Individual. Congratulations! He co-autored three articles with titles such as "Some new tent spaces and duality theorems for fractional Carleson measures and Qa(Rn) (with G. Dafni)," "Strong type estimates for homogeneous Besov capacities" and "Extreme points of spaces between Dirchlet and VMO."
RUI-HUA XIE (Queens U) has recently been invited to serve as an Editorial Member of the Journal of Computational and Theoretical Nanoscience.
Received from Peter Lancaster in Sept.2004:
PETER LANCASTER (U. of Calgary) holds a 3-year Senior Research Fellowship at the U. of Manchester, England, from January 1st, 2004. In this period he plans to spend 3 or 4 months per year in Manchester. Among his other research interests (in matrix analysis and vibrations) this will facilitate his collaboration with ERICH BOHL (U. of Konstanz) on a Markov model for phylogenetic trees. He was recently honoured with a special issue of "Linear Algebra and its Applications" (vol. 385, 2004) on the occasion of his 75th birthday. He delivered the "Hans Schneider Prize" lecture to the International Linear Algebra Society in Coimbra, Portugal, in July , 2004. The topic of the lecture was "Inverse problems for vibrating systems".