David LowIn her first novel, Among the Wonderful (Steerforth Press), Stacy Carlson ’96 brings to life 1840s New York City, a time when Phineas T. Barnum is a young man, freshly arrived to the area and still unknown to the world. Barnum transforms a dusty natural history museum into a place of human wonders and an extraordinary live animal menagerie, which will become not only the nation's most popular attraction, but also a catalyst that ushers America out of a culture of glassed-in exhibits and into the modern age of entertainment. In this kaleidoscopic setting, Carlson focuses on two compelling characters.…
Mike White ’92 has created (with actress Laura Dern) a new comedy-drama for HBO, Enlightened, which premiered on HBO in early October. White also wrote all 10 episodes for the first season, and directed two of them. Other directors include co-executive producer Miguel Arteta ’89, Jonathan Demme, Phil Morrison, and Nicole Holofcener. Enlightened tells the story of Amy Jellicoe, played by Dern, a self-destructive executive at a large company who has a hugely dramatic meltdown in her office and is sent to a New Age treatment center in Hawaii, where she swims with sea turtles and heals. She returns to…
Cynthia RockwellJan Eliasberg ’74 of Aquinnah Films directs the episode of N.C.I.S.-Los Angeles that airs on Nov. 8 on CBS at 9 p.m. The episode, entitled “Greed,” marks the second time Eliasberg has been tapped to put her directorial perspective on the dramatic action series featuring a Naval Criminal Investigative squad working in conjunction with local Southern California law enforcement. Eliasberg, a theater major at Wesleyan who earned her graduate degree in directing at the Yale School of Drama and studied in London, says that she enjoyed directing plays by Bertolt Brecht and Shakespeare for “the large-scale themes, examining where the…
"The secret to writing is knowing interesting people," playwright Willy Holtzman ’74 told the Portland (Maine) Press Herald. His play, The Morini Strad, opened the 2011-12 season for the Portland Stage, receiving rave reviews. It is slated to open in New York City in March. The “interesting person” he is refering to is his friend since Wesleyan days, Brian Skarstad ’73, now an artist who crafts high-end violins. "Brian called me one day with this story," Holtzman continues. Skarstad had received a request from an aging violinist, Erica Morini, asking him to help sell her Stradivarius. He found her to be unpleasant and demanding—and…
Jim Drummond ’69 has written a new collection of quirky, funny, and sometimes disturbing short stories, The Coyotes Forgive You (Mongrel Empire Press). His sardonic tales take place in a world where the unexpected is a sure deal, strangers and acquaintances are often more reliable than family, and nothing is ever quite what it seems. Themes, settings, and characters from the author’s past and present adventures appear throughout the stories, which contain elements of science fiction, surrealism, and dystopian writing. Drummond says, “Earlier days as a tank driver, drover in a cattle sale barn, murderer of mesquite trees with chainsaws…
The Jewish Museum (Fifth Avenue and 92nd Street, 212-423-3200, www.thejewishmuseum.org) in New York City will present Jem Cohen: NYC Weights and Measures, a video installation, from Nov. 4 to March 25, 2012 in the museum’s Barbara and E. Robert Goodkind Media Center. In his 2006 video (6 minutes, 15 seconds long), Jem Cohen ’84 captures the noise and bustle as well as the beauty and tranquility of city life. His work incorporates an intricate soundscape and juxtaposes such moments as a ticker-tape parade, subway riders’ daily commute, and a man pausing for a cigarette. Cohen says, “Sometimes I just wander…
Photographer Stephen Gorman ’82 (www.stephengorman.com) has published Arctic Visions: Encounters at the Top of the World, a lavish and memorable tribute to the land, sea, wildlife, and people of Canada’s North. Gorman traveled throughout the Canadian Arctic and the Northwest Passage aboard the expedition ship Lyubov Orlova for four seasons, giving him an unprecedented opportunity to take pictures of some of our planet’s most spectacular landscapes and wildlife populations. The book’s stunning images and lively text offer a true sense of the spirit and being of this vast, awesome, and historic region. The publication received the 2011 Benjamin Franklin Award…
Olivia DrakeScott Plous, professor of psychology, was elected to a three-year term as a council member of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI). The council is the governing board of the Society. Founded in 1936, SPSSI is a group of over 3,000 scientists from psychology and related fields and others who share a common interest in research on the psychological aspects of important social and policy issues. In various ways, SPSSI seeks to bring theory and practice into focus on human problems of the group, the community, and nations, as well as the increasingly important problems that…
Tasmiha Khan '12 and her group, Brighter Dawns, were featured in the Oct. 24 edition of The Middletown Press. In the article, Khan explains how she became interested in helping poor families - and her own family - in Bangladesh. “There’s a stark dynamic between the rich and the poor,” Khan says in the article. “I wanted to see how these people live, but I really had to push my family. They were scared of me getting raped or even murdered. There was no running water. Seven to eight people of extended family, living under one roof. Words aren’t enough…
David PesciCraig Malamut '12 is the primary author of "High-Resolution Imaging of the 2010 Total Solar Eclipse at Easter Island," which will be published in the Coronal Courant, an on-line journal for students maintained by the Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical Society (AAS). The article describes some results from experiments done during the 2010 total solar eclipse, for which he traveled to Easter Island. Malamut is also a co-author of "Structure and Dynamics of the 2010 Jully 11 Eclipse White-Light Corona," which was published by The Astrophysical Journal in its June 20 issue. Malamut was supported by the Keck Northeast…
Peter Mark, professor of art history, is the co-author of the book The Forgotten Diaspora: Jewish Communities in West Africa and the Making of the Atlantic World, published by Cambridge University Press, 2011. This study traces the history of early 17th-century Portuguese Sephardic traders who settled in two communities on Senegal's Petite Côte. There, they lived as public Jews, under the spiritual guidance of a rabbi sent to them by the newly established Portuguese Jewish community in Amsterdam. In Senegal, the Jews were protected from agents of the Inquisition by local Muslim rulers. The Petite Côte communities included several Jews…
Sally Bachner, assistant professor of English, is the author of The Prestige of Violence: American Fiction. 1962-2007, published by the University of Georgia Press in 2011. In The Prestige of Violence, Bachner argues that, starting in the 1960s, American fiction laid claim to the status of serious literature by placing violence at the heart of its mission and then insisting that this violence could not be represented. Bachner demonstrates how many of the most influential novels of this period are united by the dramatic opposition they draw between a debased and untrustworthy conventional language, on the one hand, and a…