BGSU Zoom News

Monday, February 8, 2016

Diehl book challenges views on addiction | Black Issues Conference features Rosa Clemente

Heath Diehl at home in his study

DIEHL'S 'WASTED' BOOK IS PERSONAL

Addiction. The term is often aligned with waste. Dr. Heath Diehl, a lecturer in English and Honors, takes that wasted metaphor to task in his first published book, "Wasted: Performing Addiction in America."

As a self–described addict, having smoked for 12 years, Diehl is fascinated with the rhetoric associated with addiction: "Addicts are a waste. Addicts are thrown away in jail. And 'wasted' often is used to describe the life of a person impacted by alcohol or drugs," he said.

And yet, people with addictions are not defined simply by their "habits," Diehl said.

Though the idea to write about addiction in today's culture had been in the back of his mind for a long time, the 2011 and 2012 deaths of Amy Winehouse and Whitney Houston propelled the idea to book status for Diehl.

BLACK ISSUES CONFERENCE FEATURES ROSA CLEMENTE

Rosa Clemente

Rosa Clemente, the 2008 Green party vice presidential candidate, will be the keynote speaker for the 17th annual Black Issues Conference at BGSU.

The conference, which features a wide range of research and creative presentations by students, faculty and staff, will start at 9 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 27, in the Bowen–Thompson Student Union. Presentations will include visual and performing arts and critical analyses of contemporary black society and culture from across the academic spectrum. Special emphasis is placed on current social and political movements, such as #BlackLivesMatter, and the issues of importance to black communities as we look ahead to the 2016 election cycle.

'CLASSICAL COUPLES' ON WGTE-FM

Check out BGSU musical arts faculty on WGTE–FM's "New Music from Bowling Green." The "Classical Couples" episode features Distinguished Artist Professors Marilyn Shrude, music composition, and John Sampen, music performance studies (saxophone); Emily Freeman Brown, music performance studies, and her husband, composer Samuel Adler; and Christopher Dietz, music composition, and his wife, horn player Emily Price Dietz.

Listen online.

IN BRIEF

Contemporary art in Trinidad and Tobago will be the topic of Dr. Rebecca Skinner Green's talk Thursday (Feb. 11). She is a fellow this semester at the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society.

The Fahle Family Fund will support an undergraduate majoring in education to conduct research.

Find out more In Brief.