Mike SembosSpelman College President Beverly Daniel Tatum ’75 was presented with a national academic leadership award from the Carnegie Corp. of New York in December 2013. She was the first recipient from a historically black college and the first ever in the state of Georgia. Tatum was selected because of her work supporting female students pursuing science, technology, engineering and math at the university. More African-American women earned doctorates at Spelman in those fields between 1997 and 2006 than at Georgia Tech, Duke and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill combined. Tatum was a psychology major at Wesleyan who went…
Since September 2013, Paul Chill ’78 has been presiding as the associate dean for clinical and experimental education at the University of Connecticut School of Law. He first joined the UConn faculty in 1988 and is known for his advocacy on behalf of parents and families. Chill teaches legal ethics, legal interviewing, counseling and negotiation, torts and criminal law and has supervised clinical programs relating to child protection, civil rights, disability, mental health law and mediation. Between his time as a government major at Wesleyan and the present, he has worked with dangerous juvenile offenders, graduated from UConn Law (in…
Laurenellen McCann ’09 is the executive producer of the hour-long, weekly podcast/radio show The Good Fight with Ben Wikler, a program that covers grassroots activism and politics with a humorous edge. Its listener base includes fans of NPR and The Colbert Report. She was formerly the national policy manager at the Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit that calls for heavier government accountability. Time magazine editors and a panel of millennials recognized Larenellen’s achievements by including her on their list of “30 People Under 30 Changing the World.” Follow Larenellen on Twitter @elle_mccann to keep up with her daily activities.
Olivia DrakeBill Craighead, assistant professor of economics, is the co-author of a paper titled, "As the Current Account Turns: Disaggregating the Effects of Current Account Reversals in Industrial Countries," published in the December issue of The World Economy. An abstract is available online here. In the paper, Craighead examines "current account reversals" which occur when a country significantly reduces its international borrowing and its trade deficit. "While there has been quite a bit of study of these episodes in economics, most of it has looked at the impact on the overall economy. What we did was look at how these episodes…
Ethnomusicologist Sumarsam, University Professor of Music, is the author of two new articles published in 2013. “Past and Present Issues of Javanese-European Musical Hybridity," was published in Recollecting Resonances: Indonesian-Dutch Musical Encounters by Leiden: Brill, pages 87-108. Soon after the introduction of European music in Java in the 18th century, Java-European musical hybrids emerged. In his article Sumarsam asks the following questions: how do we explain the incorporation of European sounds into the indigenous gamelan ensemble? Is this incorporation a kind of Javanese-European intercultural sonic dialogue, a subversive act of European authority, or the domestication of an exotic sound? Sumarsam addresses these…
David LowMarc Eisner, the Henry Merritt Wriston Chair in Public Policy, professor of government, professor of environmental studies, is the author of The American Political Economy: Institutional Evolution of Market and State, published by Routledge in 2014. Policy debates are often grounded within the conceptual confines of a state-market dichotomy, as though the two existed in complete isolation. In this innovative text, Eisner portrays the state and the market as inextricably linked, exploring the variety of institutions subsumed by the market and the role that the state plays in creating the institutional foundations of economic activity. Through a historical approach, Eisner situates the study of…
Tony Connor, professor of English, emeritus, is the author of The Empty Air, published by Anvil Press Poetry in 2013. Connor’s 10th collection is framed by military encounters. In the first poem a young man grapples with a malfunctioning machine-gun, while the author grapples with the poem he is making from this event, memory or fantasy. In the surrealistic sequence that ends the book, a strange army invades a country collapsing into societal and semantic dissolution. Connor’s abiding preoccupations continue into his eighties: his own life and the lives around him, passing time and its traps, poetry and its transfiguration…
The historical scholarship of Erik Grimmer-Solem, associate professor of history, was discussed at length by Klaus Wiegrefe in a Dec. 21 issue of Germany's largest-circulation news weekly, Der Spiegel. As reported by the magazine, Grimmer-Solem uncovered evidence that a general currently honored as an anti-Nazi by the German Federal Armed Forces (Bundeswehr) was involved in war crimes and crimes against humanity during the German invasion of the Ukraine in 1941. In an article published in the military history journal Militärgeschichtliche Zeitschrift, Grimmer-Solem revealed the close cooperation between units of the Wehrmacht commanded by General Hans von Sponeck and the SS in atrocities committed against Jews in the southern…
An exhibit curated by Emma Rothberg '15 is on display at the Middlesex County Historical Society in Middletown. In "Juxtaposing Likeness: Fashion Accessories from the Collection of the Middlesex County Historical Society," museum volunteer Rothberg presents about two dozen items from the late 18th century to the early 20th century, including jewelry, hats, spectacles, a silk parasol, fans and a man's leather billfold from just after the American Revolution. The items are displayed in two glass cases inside the museum. Rothberg's exhibit also was featured in a December 2013 issue of The Hartford Courant. Her exhibit statement reads: "Clothing, potentially more than…
Wesleyan students returned from winter recess to blizzard-like conditions on Jan. 14-15. (more…)
For the students, faculty, staff and visitors on campus this winter, it's been a wild weather ride, with temperatures ranging from below zero to the 50s, and precipitation of all varieties. Jan. 15 brought fog. (Photos by Olivia Drake) (more…)
During the 13th annual Shasha Seminar for Human Concerns, Wesleyan faculty, staff, alumni, parents and friends have the opportunity to explore issues of global concern in a small seminar environment. This year's topic is "The Novel." The Shasha Seminar will take place April 5-6 on Wesleyan's campus. Fourteen speakers, including several award-winning novelists and authors, will offer readings from their own work and lead forums on "My First Novel," "Beyond Genre," "The Small Press," "Crime Novels," "The State of Publishing," "Great New Writers" and more. View the full program online here. "This conference on 'The Novel' — in all of…