Olivia DrakeAfter visiting Israel several times to lecture about Chinese and Jewish history, Vera Schwarcz, the Mansfield Freeman Professor of East Asian Studies, professor of history, decided to do something different during her next trip abroad. "I wanted to let go of the 'specialness' of my training and skills and do something more basic, something more grounded and more urgently needed at the moment," she says. On Dec. 16, Schwarcz will begin a two week service trip with “Volunteers for Israel," a 30-year-old program that promotes solidarity and goodwill among Israelis, American Jews, and other friends of Israel. Since 1982, more than 30,000…
Lauren RubensteinHistory major Solomon “Zully” Adler ’11 has been named a Marshall Scholar for 2013-14, an honor that will allow him to study toward a graduate degree at a British university. He is Wesleyan’s eighth Marshall Scholar, and the first since 1996. The Marshall Scholarship was founded in 1953 in honor of U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall to commemorate the humane ideals of the Marshall Plan (the American program to help European economies rebuild after the end of World War II). Each year, up to 40 intellectually distinguished young American scholars are selected to receive full financing of a…
Gabe Rosenberg '16Sara Molyneaux ’77 was recently elected first female chair of the Trustees of the Conservation Law Foundation (CFL), a nonprofit environmental protection agency for New England. Molyneaux, who has served on the board since 1998, succeeds Michael Moskow, chair since 2002, and is only the fifth board chair for the 46-year-old organization. In her new capacity, she will help CFL tackle local environmental challenges, such as the impact of recent storms, reducing transportation emissions and building livable cities, creating sustainable food systems and fisheries, and addressing the issue of water pollution in the region. Molyneaux, described as a “passionate environmental…
David LowJohn Whitmore ’62 has co-edited Sources of Vietnamese Tradition (Columbia University Press), a fascinating guide to 2,000 years of Vietnamese history and a comprehensive overview of the society and state of Vietnam. Well-chosen selections deal with key figures, issues, and events, and they create a thematic portrait of the country’s developing territory, politics, culture and relations with neighbors. The volume explores Vietnam’s remarkable independence in the face of Chinese and other external pressures while it recognizes the complexity of the Vietnamese experience over the years. The anthology begins with selections that cover more than a millennium of Chinese dominance over…
In Musicking Bodies: Gesture and Voice in Hindistani Music (Wesleyan University Press), Matthew Rahaim ’00 studies the role of the body in Indian vocal music. Indian vocalists have long traced intricate shapes with their hands while improvising melody. Although every vocalist has an idiosyncratic gestural style, students inherit ways of shaping melodic space from their teachers, and the motion of the hand and voice are always intimately connected. Musicking Bodies is among the first extended studies of the relationship between gesture and melody. Rahaim draws on years of vocal training, ethnography, and close analysis to examine the ways in which…
(Story contributed by Laignee Johnson ’13) Was Johnny Appleseed a real person? Author and professor Ray Silverman MAT ’67 addresses this question and and many others about the American folk figure in his new book, The Core of Johnny Appleseed: The Unknown Story of a Spiritual Trailblazer (Swedenborg Foundation Press). Silverman’s spiritual biography of Johnny Chapman, the man who came to be known as Johnny Appleseed, seeks to separate reality from legend and find the real man behind all the tall-tale misconceptions. The book depicts Chapman as a businessman full of Christian conviction. Silverman leaves behind portraits of Chapman as…
Cynthia RockwellJohn "Jack" Kuhn ’86 has been named CEO of global insurance for Endurance Specialty Holdings, Ltd., a Bermuda-based specialty provider of property and casualty insurance and reinsurance. Kuhn will be responsible for the company's U.S., Bermuda and international insurance operations. Based in the Bermuda offices of Endurance, his appointment is subject to approval by the Bermuda Department of Immigration. Kuhn, whose 26-year career in insurance began with Chubb, where he ultimately served as chief underwriting officer for Chubb/Executive Protection, has also built and led specialty insurance operations, both in the United States and internationally. Most recently he was affiliated with Axis Insurance, where,…
Hannah Norman '16(more…)
Benjamin TraversWesleyan's Women in Science group hosted a Graduate School Admissions Panel Dec. 3 in the Allbritton Center. Students learned about the various opportunities in graduate studies from representatives in a wide range of disciplines. Panelists included: Richard Zeff, assistant dean of admission at University of Connecticut's School of Medicine; Mary Keefe, director of admission at the Yale School of Public Health; Cheryl-Ann Hagner, director of Graduate Student Services at Wesleyan; Dannika Byrd, assistant director of student affairs in Yale's School of Medicine's Physician Associate Program; Merideth Frey, Ph.D. candidate in Yale's Department of Physics; and Sarah Moustafa BA '11, MA '12, Ph.D. candidate in Yale's…
Anthony Braxton, the John Spencer Camp Professor of Music, received a New Music USA award in the Letters of Distinction category for 2013. This honor has been awarded annually since 1964 and recognizes those who have made a significant contribution to the field of contemporary American music. Braxton is the founder of The Tri-Centric Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that cultivates and inspires the next generation of creative artists to pursue their own visions with the kind of idealism and integrity Braxton has demonstrated throughout his long and distinguished career. The foundation also documents, archives, preserves and disseminates Braxton’s scores, writings, performances…