David LowF.D. Reeve, professor of letters, emeritus, is the author of Nathaniel Purple, published by Voyage in 2012. A feud, a fire, an affair. Cows in the pasture, men at the lunch counter, violets in an old cream bottle. This is Vermont—passionate, pastoral, pungent, which forms a rich, vivid canvas for an intimate portrayal of village life. But human nature is a bit out of joint. Years of living on the “bony” land has led the village people to jealousies and forbidden couplings. Reeve draws us into his world through the sharp eyes of Nathaniel Purple, who, as the town’s librarian,…
Olivia DrakeWesleyan contractors put the finishing touches on the remodeled squash building and faculty are moving in. The new building will re-open as the Career Center, Art History Department and College of Letters. A grand opening ceremony will be held Feb. 24. Read more about the squash renovation in this October 2011 Wesleyan Connection story. (Photos by Olivia Drake and Bill Tyner '13)
Khachig Tölölyan, Typhaine Leservot, Ashraf Rushdy and Indira Karamcheti were invited to speak at a conference hosted by the Universite Paul Valery, Montpellier III June 20-23. The event is titled "Diasporas and Cultures of Mobility." Rushdy and Karamcheti are invited visiting professors. Tölölyan, professor of letters, professor of English, editor/founder of Diaspora will be the keynote speaker. He will speak on "Twenty Years of Diaspora Studies: Success through Confusion." Typhaine Leservot, associate professor of letters, associate professor of romance languages and literatures, will speak on ""Maghrebo-Quebecois and Franco-Maghrebi: towards Distinct Identities?" Ashraf Rushdy, professor of English, professor of African American…
Ethan Kleinberg, associate professor of history, associate professor of letters is spending the year as director of the Vassar-Wesleyan Paris Program and an invited scholar at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. During the Fall 2010 semester, Kleinberg delivered two lectures based on his current book project, The Myth of Emmanuel Levinas. Levinas is a French Jewish philosopher who turned to the use of Jewish (more…)
Laurie Nussdorfer, professor of history, professor of letters, is the author of Brokers of Public Trust: Notaries in Early Modern Rome, published by The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009. A fast—growing legal system and economy in medieval and early modern Rome saw a rapid increase in the need for written documents. Brokers of Public Trust examines the emergence of the modern notarial profession -- free market scribes responsible for producing original legal documents and their copies.
Ethan Kleinberg, associate professor of history, associate professor of letters, is the author of “Freud and Levinas: Talmud and Psychoanalysis Before the Letter,” published in The Jewish World of Sigmund Freud, 2010.
A book by Laurie Nussdorfer, professor of history and letters, will be discussed Dec. 16 in Rome. Her book, Brokers of Public Trust: Notaries in Early Modern Rome (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009), examines the emergence of the modern notarial profession -- free market scribes responsible for producing original legal documents and their copies. Nussdorfer chronicles the training of professional notaries and the construction of public archives, explaining why notarial documents exist, who made them, and how they came to be regarded as authoritative evidence. In doing so, she describes a profession of crucial importance to the people and government of the time,…
Khachig Tölölyan, professor of letters, professor of English, founder and editor of Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, was interviewed by the French weekly publication L’Express about Thomas Pynchon on Oct. 6. The article is online, in French.
Khachig Tölölyan, professor of letters, professor of English, editor of "Diaspora," was one of two keynote speakers at a conference on “Diaspora as a resource: Comparative Studies in Strategies, Networks and Urban Space.” The international event was held in Hamburg, Germany June 4-6. Tölölyan’s interests include diasporas, transnationalism, the world/globe polarity and the Armenian diaspora.
Corrina KerrFor this issue, we queried Laurie Nussdorfer, professor of history, letters and medieval studies and author of Brokers of Public Trust: Notaries in Early Modern Rome (published by The Johns Hopkins University Press in 2009). She supplied her answers in writing, of course. Q: How did the idea for the book begin? A: Daniel Rosenberg ’88 wrote a senior honors thesis in the History Department about the historiography of literacy (how historians had interpreted and investigated the ability of people to read in the past). I was one of the readers of this fascinating thesis, and it occurred to me…
Berel Lang, visiting professor of letters, visiting professor of philosophy, is the author of the book Philosophical Witnessing: The Holocaust as Presence published by the University Press of New England, the fifth in a series of books by him on the Holocaust. The 260-paged book brings the perspective of philosophical analysis to bear on issues related to the Holocaust. Setting out from a conception of philosophical “witnessing” that expands and illuminates the standard view of the witness, he confronts the question of what philosophy can add to the views of the Holocaust provided in other disciplines. Drawing on the philosophical…