People, Papers, Presentations

James Castañeda,
professor of history, Dept. of Hispanic & Classical
Studies, gave a presentation titled “Sor Juana Inés
de la Cruz y la comedia de enredo” as part of the series
“Hispanic Women Writers: Legacies of Our Ancestors”
April 5 at Rice. On April 7 he gave a presentation titled
“Lo universal del quijotismo” at the 2001 Southern
California Cervantes Symposium, U. of Southern California.

Jane Chance,
professor of English, has had her series “The Library
of Medieval Women” singled out by reviewers in recent
issues of Speculum and Mystics Quarterly. She also has been
invited by the classicist Bella Vivante on the basis of
a recommendation by Janet Martin of Princeton to serve as
co-editor of a new history series, “Events that Changed
the World in Antiquity and the Middle Ages” (Greenwood
Press). Chance will represent the Middle Ages.

Walter G.
Chapman, professor, Dept. of Chemical Engineering, was
a visiting professor at the Technical U. of Berlin during
May and June. Chapman taught “Thermodynamics II”
and a short course on molecular modeling. He also delivered
seminars on phase behavior in polymer solutions at TU–Berlin,
the U. of Bologna in Italy (the oldest university in the
world) and the U. of Dortmund in Germany. During July, Chapman
was a visiting scientist at the Technical U. of Denmark.

John L. Margrave,
the E.D. Butcher Professor of Chemistry, attended the April
28-May 2 meeting of the National Academy of Sciences in
Washington, D.C. Also at the National Academy of Sciences,
Margrave and his student, Ivana Chiang, participated
in the Sackler Colloquium on “Nanoscience: Underlying
Physical Concepts and Phenomena” and presented a poster
describing their recent work, “Covalent Sidewall Derivatization
of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes” (co-authors W.E.
Billups, professor, Dept. of Chemistry; Robert H. Hauge,
distinguished faculty fellow in chemistry; and R. Saini,
postdoctoral research associate, Dept. of Chemistry). Margrave
also presented a seminar on “Derivatization of Carbon
Nanotubes” at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory May
21.

Hamid Naficy,
professor of film and media studies, Dept. of Art and Art
History, gave a talk at the Society for Cinema Studies Conference
in Washington, D.C., May 24. It was entitled “Iranian
Art Cinema: A Humanist Genre in Inhumane Times.”

Stephen A.
Zeff, the Herbert S. Autrey Professor of Accounting
and professor of Managerial Studies, Jesse H. Jones Graduate
School of Management, presented seminars or lectures on
international accounting standards to Victoria U. of Wellington,
the U. of Otago, the U. of Canterbury and the U. of Auckland
(all in New Zealand), to the U. of Melbourne in Australia
and to the Wellington Branch of the Institute of Chartered
Accountants of New Zealand. The seminars and lectures took
place May 4-21. He also gave a special seminar on “International
Accounting Standards: The Role of the SEC, Global Competition
and the Implications for National Stock Markets” to
the Future and Innovation Unit of the Dept. of Trade and
Industry, HM Government, London, June 1. He gave a similar
seminar June 6 at the U. of Glasgow.

Entries
for People, Papers, Presentations should be submitted to
the Office of Media Relations and Information by e-mail,
<ricenews@rice.edu>;
fax, (713) 348-6380; or campus mail, MS-300. Entries will
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