David LowThe Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University recently announced that Visiting Writer in English Adina Hoffman ’89 is one of the inaugural winners of the Windham Campbell Prizes. This new global writer’s award was created with a gift from the late Donald Windham and his partner, Sandy M. Campbell, and is now one of the largest literary prizes in the world. Nine $150,000 prizes were awarded for outstanding achievement in fiction, nonfiction, and drama and recognize writers from all stages of their careers. The recipients range in ages from 33 to 87. Writers were considered from around…
Cynthia RockwellEyal Bar-David '09, Wesleyan psychology major and New York University research assistant in the department of psychology’s Phelps Lab, co-authored a paper asking whether “racial bias affects the way the brain represents information about social groups,” published in the journal Psychological Science. With co-authors Tobias Brosch from the department of psychology at the University of Geneva and Elizabeth Phelps, director of the Phelps Lab at New York University, Bar-David noted in the abstract that their "findings suggest that stronger implicit pro-White bias decreases the similarity of neural representations of Black and White faces." The paper headlined the "This Week in Psychological Science" sent…
In his new nonfiction collection Playing in Time: Essays, Profiles, and Other True Stories (University of Chicago Press), acclaimed journalist Carlo Rotella ’86 explores a variety of characters and settings, His writing has been praised for going beneath the surface of the story as he sympathetically dwells in the lives of the people and places he encounters. The two dozen essays in this volume deal with subjects and obsessions that have characterized his previous writing: boxing, music, writers, and cities. “Playing in time” refers to how people make beauty and meaning while working within the constraints and limits forced on…
Gabe Rosenberg '16Paul Dickson ’61 is the winner of the fifth annual Jerome Holtzman Award for his 2012 book, Bill Veeck: Baseball’s Greatest Maverick. The Holtzman Award, established in 2008, is presented by the Chicago Baseball Museum to the person who “reflects the values and spirit of its Hall of Fame namesake. The honoree is selected by what is deemed to be the most significant contribution to the promotion of Chicago baseball and the preservation of its history and namesake.” The book, collecting information and accounts from primary sources and over one hundred interviews, is an in-depth portrait of a baseball innovator,…
Bill Queen ’86 was recently named president of the Travelers Ocean Marine business unit. Affiliated with Travelers since 1986, he has held a variety of positions in underwriting and sales, as well as marketing and field management. Most recently, Queen served as chief operating officer for Travelers First Party Group and as a key member of the interim management team for the Ocean Marine organization. This group, currently ranked as one of the largest ocean marine insurers in the United States (based on direct written premium) provides highly specialized property and liability insurance products for maritime-oriented exposures including commercial vessels, cargo transport,…
Jonathan Kalb ’81 is the recipient of two national awards for his recent book, Great Lengths: Seven Works of Marathon Theater, published by The University of Michigan Press. Kalb, professor of theater at Hunter College and doctoral faculty member at The City University of New York, won the George Jean Nathan Award for dramatic criticism and the Theatre Library Association’s George Freedley Memorial Award. Great Lengths takes a close look at large-scale theater productions, often running more than five hours in length, which present special challenges to the artists and audiences. Recreating the experience of seeing the works, which include Tony Kushner’s…
Abbie Goldberg ’99 is the author of the new book Gay Dads: Transitions to Adoptive Fatherhood , published by New York University Press, which collects stories and empirical data from interviews with 70 gay men, taking a close look at societal and political issues in gay parenthood. Introducing the book with a vignette of two new adoptive fathers, Carter and Patrick, Goldberg dives into a discussion of the mazes of adoption agencies, couples’ decisions to openly present themselves as gay, the social implications of parenthood, and the changes in career commitment. “Exploration of the experiences of gay adoptive fathers,” Goldberg writes,…
Steve Roslonek ’93, known to families with young children as "SteveSongs" or "Mr. Steve," the co-host of the nationally broadcast PBS KIDS preschool destination, released his eighth album, Orangutan Van, in January. Since its release, "Flat Stanley," the first single from the new album, reached the number one spot on the Sirius/XM Radio Kids Place Live chart; "Song Without a Rhyme" is headed up the chart. The new album and some of its songs have been four years in the making. To celebrate the release of Orangutan Van, SteveSongs will be touring around the country, along with Anand Nayak ’96 on electric…
Cynthia Arnson ’76 is the editor of the book, In The Wake of War: Democratization and Internal Armed Conflict, published by Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Stanford University Press in 2012. The book focuses on the relationship of internal armed conflict to postwar democratization in Latin America, centering on Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua and Peru. In those countries, Arnson writes, the dominant aspect of political life during and after the end of the Cold War was insurgency or counterinsurgency war, a product of political exclusion and reinforced by patterns of socio-economic marginalization. Through its case studies, the book looks…
Olivia DrakeWesleyan alumni helped their communities by participating in the WEServe Week of Service, Jan. 20-26. Alumni all over the country worked side-by-side with fellow alumni, students, families and friends on special projects. WEServe follows the National Day of Service on Jan. 19, and honors Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on Jan. 21. "The concept was uniquely translatable to geographic areas of all sizes; unlike some of our events which require a critical mass to be successful, these community service projects could engage alumni, parents, and students in cities or towns with as few as one or two people from Wesleyan,"…
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In her illuminating new book, Doctoring Freedom (University of North Carolina Press), Gretchen Long ’89 shares the stories of African Americans who fought for access to both medical care and medical education, as she reveals the important relationship between medical practice and political identity. Even before emancipation, African Americans recognized that control of their bodies was an essential battleground in their struggle for autonomy, and they devised strategies to retain some of that control. During her research, Long, an associate professor of history at Williams College, closely studied antebellum medical journals, planters' diaries, agricultural publications, letters from wounded African American…