“Art and Psyche,” a book by Ellen Handler Spitz, honors college professor of visual arts, has been translated into Serbian.

Through the book, Spitz explores three principal psychoanalytic approaches to art. The first considers the relations between an artist’s life and work; the second focuses on the work of art itself; and the third encompasses the intricate relations between a work of art and its audience or beholders. To illustrate her discussion, Spitz draws on a variety of art forms, including painting, sculpture, literature, music, and dance.

The book was originally published by Yale university Press, and has previously been translated to Italian.

Professor of the Practice of English Christopher Corbett’s latest essay in Style magazine discusses the complications surrounding recent improvements made to his home.

“They say no jobs were added to our economy last summer but that is just simply wrong. Half my neighborhood was under construction. The other half was thinking about it. And I was doing my part, too. I have the canceled checks to prove it,” he concludes.

The essay, “Home Improvements,” is featured in the November 2011 issue of the magazine.

Corbett was also interviewed by the Associated Press about the 150th anniversary of the transcontinental telegraph. The article can be found here.

Jody Shipka, associate professor of English, is featured in a new work. “Master Hands, A Video Mashup Round Table,” is a unique experiment in digital publishing that is featured in George Mason University’s journal enculturation.

Through the project, scholars created video mashups using the same source footage – a 1936 video entitled Master Hands – and respondents discussed the mashups. Artists had to use footage from Master Hands, could not provide a companion text, had to create a mashup that was no longer than ten minutes and were not permitted to see anyone else’s work until all five were completed. Five respondents will spend the next week discussing the mashups. At the end of the week, the conversation will be closed and the comments will remain as part of this publication.

There is a growing body of research indicating that laughter may improve immune function, help lower blood pressure, boost mood and reduce stress and depression, the Washington Post reported on October 24 in a story entitled “Laughing may help ease blood pressure, boost mood and enrich health in other ways.”

Robert Provine, professor of psychology, agrees. He said that laughter might benefit the body because it is “an energetic, stressful activity that stirs up all of our physiological systems… involving strong vocalization, an increase in heart rate and blood pressure and muscle contractions all over the body.”

Ellen Hemmerly, Executive Director at the bwtech@UMBC Research and Technology Park will receive the 2011 Innovator of the Year Award from The Daily Record on Wednesday, October 26.

Hemmerly, who has been Executive Director at bwtech for more than fifteen years, says that the award is less about her and more about the park’s cybersecurity incubator and the community of cybersecurity companies that have clustered there. The incubator currently has thirteen companies.

While there are about twenty incubators in Maryland, only one other focuses on cybersecurity. The bwtech@UMBC incubator is home to the CyberHive, which Hemmerly says is a unique space dedicated to bringing people in cybersecurity together to network and provides virtual incubator space to companies outside the region.

“I’ve been involved in incubators for twenty years,” says Hemmerly.  “In all my years of working with area incubators, the bwtech@UMBC cyber incubator is the fastest growing and has much potential economic impact.”

That, she says, is due in large part to its relationship to UMBC and to the incubator’s partnerships with both the public and private sectors.*

Public and Private Sector Partners*

• Baltimore County Economic Development
• Northrop Grumman
• Maryland’s Department of Business and Economic Development (DBED)
• Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO)
• Venable
• Whiteford, Taylor, Preston
• SB & Company LLC