Corrina KerrFebruary 13, 20091min
Wesleyan has become the latest institution to join iTunes U, a component of Apple’s iTunes Store that provides free educational audio and video content from the world’s foremost higher education institutions, museums and public media organizations. Wesleyan joins more than 160 higher education institutions who have met Apple’s strict quality control requirements and have been allowed to post educational content on Apple's iTunes U site. The initiative was the result of a joint effort between University Communications and the New Media Lab. The departments worked within the guidelines provided by Apple to create a web-based presence that showcases unique workshops,…

David LowFebruary 13, 20096min
Artist Andrew Witkin ’00 Wins Foster Prize Andrew Witkin ’00 was recently awarded the prestigious Institute of Contemporary Art's 2008 James and Audrey Foster Prize of $25,000. He was one of four finalists whose work went on show at the ICA in Boston in November (the exhibition ends March 1). His art work on display, Untitled, 1990, is an installation of carefully arranged personal effects and impersonal furniture. According to the Boston Globe, the “arrangement reflects aspects of the artist's own life, which is both fervently social (he works at the Barbara Krakow Gallery on Newbury Street and has a…

Olivia DrakeFebruary 13, 20091min
The Spring 2009 Distinguished Writers Series features a short story author, New York Times Magazine writer, student poets and a Pulitzer Prize winning author. Amy Bloom ’75, the 2009 Jacob Julien Visiting Writer, will speak at 8 p.m. Feb. 18 in Russell House. Bloom is the author of the novel Love Invents Us, the short story collection A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You, and the nonfiction work Normal. Her most recent novel, Away, was a New York Times bestseller, and she has received the National Magazine Award and been nominated for the National Book Award and…

Olivia DrakeFebruary 13, 20092min
Joyce Lowrie, professor of romance languages and literatures, emerita, is the author of Sightings: Mirrors in Texts - Texts in Mirrors, published by Rodopi in December 2008. This book analyzes mirror imagery, scenes, and characters in French prose texts, in chronological order, from the 17th to the 20th centuries. It does so in light of literal, metaphoric and rhetorical structures. Works analyzed in the traditional French canon, written by such writers as Laclos, Lafayette, and Balzac, are extended by studies of texts composed by Barbey d'Aurevilly, Georges Rodenbach, Jean Lorrain and Pieyre de Mandiargues. This work offers appeal to readers…

Bill HolderFebruary 13, 20091min
Andrew Seibert ’86 Promoted to President of SmartMoney Andrew Seibert has been named president of SmartMoney, a joint venture between Hearst Corporation and Dow Jones & Co. Seibert will continue in his current position as vice president and publisher of SmartMoney’s Customs Solutions, the venture’s successful custom publishing arm. In his expanded role, Seibert will be responsible for the circulation, advertising and marketing operations of SmartMoney magazine as well as for SmartMoney.com. (more…)

Olivia DrakeFebruary 13, 20092min
Jolee West, director of academic computing services, director of digital projects, was chosen to participate in the 2009 Frye Leadership Institute for library and information professionals. The intensive summer program takes place at Emory University from May 31 to June 11. Following the two week session at Emory, each participant works on a year-long practicum at their institution, and the classes remain in contact through e-mail groups and subsequent conferences. Ganesan "Ravi" Ravishanker, associate vice president for Information Technology Services, nominated West for the Leadership Institute. The nationally competitive application process selects around 45 participants from an average of 200-250…

Olivia DrakeFebruary 13, 20091min
Rob Rosenthal, professor of sociology, spoke at a conference titled "Celebrating Seattle's Striking History," sponsored by the University of Washington Department of History. The conference was held Feb. 6 at the Seattle Labor Temple to commemorating the 90th anniversary of the Seattle General Strike of 1919. Rosenthal spoke about the strike, and also about a rock opera he wrote and recorded in 1986 with his band, The Fuse, about the strike. The Seattle Labor Chorus sung two songs from the album. In addition, Rosenthal was interviewed about his song on the NPR station in Portland, KBOO, and the NPR station in Seattle, KUOW.

Olivia DrakeFebruary 13, 20091min
Krishna Winston, the Marcus L. Taft Professor of German Language and Literature, dean of the Arts and Humanities and coordinator of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, participated in a meeting with Nobel Prize-winning author Günter Grass Jan. 18-24 in Luebeck, Germany. She is the English-language translator for Grass's work and one of 16 people working on translations of his new, semi-autobiographical novel, The Box, for publication worldwide.

Olivia DrakeFebruary 13, 20092min
The Chicago Tribune reviewed Look, What I Don't Understand, a solo-performance by Anthony Nikolchev ’08, co-directed by the Assistant Professor of Theater Yuriy Kordonskiy, lighting design by Anna Martin ’09. The production was originally developed as a student show at Wesleyan and moved to its four-week professional run at the Chicago Athenaeum Theatre in January 2009. This one-man drama draws upon historical narratives experienced by Nikolchev's family during their 1960s escape from the totalitarian hostility of communist Bulgaria to detainment in America, challenging himself and audiences to comprehend the experience of past generations through the perspective of present generations. Other…

Olivia DrakeFebruary 13, 20091min
Ellen Thomas, research professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, attended the 'Climate and Biota of the Early Paleogene' meeting in New Zealand in January. She was on the organizing committee for this meeting, and presented an invited talk during the 'Greenhouse Earth Symposium,' an event presenting the highlights of relevant research to the general public. Thomas also was the co-author on two other talks, which she presented with her Ph.D students from Utrecht University in the Netherlands and Leuven University in Belgium. She also co-authored a poster Laia Alegret from Zaragoza University in Spain. Alegret spent two…