Olivia DrakeJ. Kehaulani Kauanui, associate professor of American studies, associate professor of anthropology, was appointed an Organization of American Historians (OAH) Distinguished Lecturer by the OAH Distinguished Lectureship Program. In an e-mail to Kauanui, Alan M. Kraut, president-elect of the OAH wrote, "Since 1981, OAH presidents have appointed their most illustrious and dynamic colleagues to our program, making it one of the longest running and most successful efforts of its kind among scholarly associations. It has proven to be an ideal way to reach a broader audience while raising money for the organization's initiatives on behalf of historians." As part of the…
Gabe Rosenberg '16Mateusz Burgunder ’15 returned recently from competing in the 2013 Ski Mountaineering World Championships, where the U.S. National Ski Mountaineering Team finished ninth out of 23 competing teams. This year was Burgunder’s third time competing for the U.S., participating in both the sprint race and the men’s individual race. He placed 51st and 65th, respectively. The U.S. won its first medal in the world championships, with Dartmouth College alumna Nina Silitch taking a silver medal in the sprint race. The Ski Mountaineering World Championships, hosted by the International Ski Mountaineering Federation, were held in Pelvoux, France from Feb. 9–16.
Diana Windemuth, a graduate student in the Astronomy Department, received Honorable Mention as a Chambliss Astronomy Achievement Student Award Recipient at the 221st meeting of the American Astronomical Society held Jan. 6-10 in Long Beach, Calif. The award is given to recognize exemplary research by graduate students who present a poster at the meeting. Diana's poster was titled "Dramatic Evolution of the Disk-Shaped Secondary in the Orion Trapezium Star θ1 Ori B1 (BM Ori): MOST Satellite Observations." Windemuth's advisor is William Herbst, the John Monroe Van Vleck Professor of Astronomy. Her work included results from two former Astronomy graduate students,…
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…
David LowIn 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…
Paul 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…
Wesleyan’s Green Street Arts Center received a $5,000 grant from the Department of Economic and Community Development, Connecticut Office of the Arts, on Jan. 17. The award will support the center’s Arts and Science After School Program through Dec. 31, 2013. The Department of Economic and Community Development, Connecticut Office of the Arts, also receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.