Olivia DrakeDavid Beveridge, the Joshua Boger University Professor of the Sciences and Mathematics, professor of chemistry, received a five year graduate student training grant from the National Institutes of Heath (NIH) in support of Wesleyan's interdepartmental program in Molecular Biophysics and Biological Chemistry (MBBC). This program is co-coordinated by Ishita Mukerji, professor of molecular biology and biochemistry, director of graduate studies. The MBBC Program involves 12 faculty members from chemistry, biology, MB&B and physics departments along with both graduate Ph.D. students and undergraduate certificate students. The grant, worth $662,820, is the latest in a series of awards to this program, which…
Ruth Nisse, associate professor of English, associate professor of medieval studies, received a $40,000 fellowship grant from the American Council of Learned Societies for 2011-12. During the fellowship, she will complete her book Jacob’s Shipwreck. The study focuses on the “co-emergence” of Christians and Jews in12th and 13th century England and Northern France. She argues that the the two communities mediated their relations through the reception, translation and rewriting of ancient texts.
David PesciOpEd: The burgeoning U.S. deficit is not the cause of our current economic downturn
David LowHoward Shalwitz ’74, artistic director of the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., recently directed an acclaimed, re-mounted production of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris at the theater this summer. The play was first staged at Woolly Mammoth in 2010. In April, Shalwitz received two Helen Hayes Awards—Outstanding Director and Outstanding Resident Play—for the production. Norris’s two-act play, a provocative look at race, gentrification and real estate, takes place in a Chicago house, with Act 1 set in the 1950s and Act 2 in the 1990s. The work looks back to Lorraine Hansberry’s theater…
In her illuminating new book, Paradise Lust: Searching for the Garden of Eden (Grove Press), Brook Wilensky-Lanford ’99 traces the stories of various men who have sought over time to find the “real” Garden of Eden all over the globe, often in the most unlikely places, despite scientific advances and the advance of Darwin’s theory of evolution. This obsessive quest consumed Mesopotamian archaeologists, German Baptist ministers, British irrigation engineers, and the first president of Boston University, among many others. These relentless Eden seekers all started with the same brief Bible verses, but ended up at different spots on the planet,…
In the Wall Street Journal, Steve Dollar recently wrote a profile of jazz guitarist and composer Mary Halvorson ’02 (www.maryhalvorson.com) as she recorded tracks for her next ensemble album for the independent Firehouse 12 label, founded by cornetist and composer Taylor Ho Bynum ’98 and engineer Nick Lloyd. Dollar praises Halvorson as “one of the most exciting and original guitarists in jazz” and describes her “often mercurial sound. On a given song, Ms. Halvorson may play a clean, precise line with a tone that hovers like a raised eyebrow, then slip into a beguiling phrase with vintage resonance, then veer…
Adjunct Professor of Music Sumarsam discusses the popular, percussion-based band
President Roth discusses short- and long-term economic impact of private universities and colleges
The noted film scholar introduced three classic films at the popular annual Texas-based film festival.
Armed conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan may set up a Georgia-style invasion by Russia
Is deck stacked against Conn. public sector workers pushing back against a Democratic governor?
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