Lauren RubensteinProfessor of Religion Elizabeth McAlister spoke to The Guardian about the state of the Vodou religion in Haiti today. “Most Americans don’t know that they don’t know what Vodou really is,” said McAlister, who specializes in Haitian Vodou. The article describes the actual practice of Vodou, and discusses its critical place in Haiti's history as the first black republic. And turning to McAlister for her expertise, it addresses Vodou's stance on homosexuality. “Many, many gays and lesbians are valued members of Vodou societies,” explains McAlister, who has devoted years to researching LGBT in Haitian religion. “There is an idea that Vodou spirits that are thought to…
In this News @ Wesleyan story, we speak with Jeffrey Naecker, a new member of Wesleyan's Economics Department. Q: Welcome to Wesleyan, Professor Naecker! Where are you from? A: I grew up in beautiful and sunny Pasadena, Calif. I was also educated in California, first doing my bachelor’s degree at Berkeley and then my Ph.D. at Stanford. Wesleyan is my first job after graduate school, and my first experience living on the East Coast. I’m excited to try out this “winter” thing I’ve been hearing about! Q: And what drew you to Wesleyan’s Economics Department? A: I knew throughout graduate school that…
Olivia Drake#THISISWHY This year, four Wesleyan faculty are coordinating a year-long interdisciplinary project that enables students from an array of majors and academic disciplines to collaborate, create and work together as a learning community under the theme "Renaissance Projects: Reclaiming Memory, Movement and Migration." The Collaborative Clusters Initiative of the Allbritton Center enables faculty from a variety of departments and programs to develop a shared research project with a unifying theme. Cluster courses in 2015-16 provide perspectives from dance, music, English, and African American studies on the ways performance practices have engaged the past and present in the face of great…
Professor of Anthropology Gina Athena Ulysse received the Haitian Studies Association's Excellence in Scholarship award during the organizations' 27th annual conference Oct. 24. The conference centered around the theme "Haiti in the Global Environment: Presence, Representations, Performances" and took place at the Université de Montréal in Québec, Canada. Previous anthropologists awarded this honor include Paul Farmer (2001) and Michel-Rolph Trouillot (2003). While in Québec, Ulysse presented a talk on "Successfully Individuating Within Academia: Thoughts on Rebel Mentoring and Your Voice” at the Emerging Scholars pre-conference. Ulysse also will be recognized by her peers at the American Anthropological Association meeting next month for…
On Oct. 28, as part of its Fall Puppet Forum Series, the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut hosted Javanase musician and scholar Sumarsam for a presentation on "Javanese Puppet Theater and the West." Sumarsam is the University Professor of Music at Wesleyan. Sumarsam's talk included discussion of the complex nature of Javanese wayang kulit shadow theater in the context of his recent research into the history of Javanese gamelan culture. Professor Sumarsam's work analyzes adaptations in gamelan art as a result of Western colonialism in 19th century Java, showing how Western musical and dramatic practices were domesticated…
Breaking news: You may be a pizza-holic. Mike Robinson, professor of psychology, professor of neuroscience and behavior, was called on by CNN to comment on a new study examining which foods can be the most addictive. Topping the list: pizza, French fries, chocolate, chips, cookies, ice cream, cake, soda, bacon and cheese. Although not all foods have the potential to be addictive, "it is critical to understand which ones do," said Robinson, who was not involved in the study, told CNN. "We are all pressed for time, and food is becoming more and more available," but we need to think about…
Joop Varekamp, the Harold T. Stearns Professor of Earth Science, professor of earth and environmental sciences, and Marty Gilmore, the George I. Seney Professor of Geology, professor and chair of professor of earth and environmental sciences, are the co-authors of two book chapters published in Copahue Volcano (Springer Publishers, September 2015) Copahue Volcano is part of Springer Publishers' "Active Volcanos of the World" series. Varekamp is the lead author on a chapter with Jim Zareski MA‘14 and Lauren Camfield MA’15. Gilmore and Tristan Kading MA’11 are co-authors with Varekamp on another chapter dealing with terrestrial environments as analogs for Mars. A third chapter,…
President Michael Roth is the author of an op-ed in The Hartford Courant about the debate raging at Wesleyan over questions of race, oppression and free speech. The controversy was sparked by an op-ed written by a sophomore and published in The Wesleyan Argus in September, which raised questions critical of the Black Lives Matter movement. Many students were upset by the op-ed and called for boycotting the Argus. Roth writes: They made the important point that opinion pieces like these facilitate the ongoing marginalization of a sector of our student population; and they angrily accused the Argus of contributing to that marginalization. I'm very glad these important…
Tom Morgan, Foss Professor of Physics, recently attended the 68th Gaseous Electronics Conference of the American Physical Society in Honolulu, Hawaii and presented a poster dealing with the behavior of giant atoms with an electron far from the nucleus in phase space. Andrew Murphy '11 and Jace Haestad '11 contributed to the study. Phase space is a momentum-velocity space that provides a different perspective on atomic behavior. Looking at atoms from this viewpoint provides a mechanism to uncover new insight into their quantum nature. Morgan also took the opportunity to reconnect with a Japanese colleague, Professor Tomoyuki Murakami, at Seikei University, Tokyo,…
Richard Grossman, professor of economics, and Masami Imai, professor and chair of economics, professor of East Asian studies, are the authors of an op-ed published in The Guardian about House Speaker John Boehner's likely next move when he retires from Congress. The op-ed is titled "Whoever hires John Boehner post-Congress will make a terrible investment." They anticipate that, like most former members of Congress and high ranking members of the executive branch, Boehner is likely to have his pick of lucrative job offers—to become an investment banker, lobbyist or corporate adviser. "But for any of these companies, John Boehner would be…
This election cycle, those presidential candidates who use the simplest language are performing best in the polls, an analysis by The Boston Globe found. "There's no time to explain in modern politics," Elvin Lim, associate professor of government, told the Globe. On the Republican side, front-runner Donald Trump's speeches, with short, simple words and sentence, could be understood by a fourth grader, according to the Flesch-Kincaid readability test. In comparison, Mike Huckabee and Jim Gilmore, who are struggling in the polls, communicate with voters at a 10th grade level. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton's speeches are "just right for eighth graders," while Bernie Sanders…
During the Society for Neuroscience's (SfN) annual meeting Oct. 17-21, Janice Naegele, professor of biology, professor of neuroscience and behavior, received the Louise Hansen Marshall Special Recognition Award. The Louise Hanson Marshall Special Recognition Award honors individuals who have significantly promoted the professional development of women in neuroscience through teaching, organizational leadership, public advocacy and more. Naegele shares the 2015 Louise Hansen Marshall award with Paul Greengard P'77, P'79, GP '08, the Vincent Astor Professor at The Rockefeller University in New York. Naegele began her career studying the characteristics of cortical neurons and more recently has performed pioneering studies of transplantation of inhibitory…