Andrew Logan ’18Bill Herbst, the John Monroe Van Vleck Professor of Astronomy, and James Greenwood, assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences, co-authored an article published in the planetary science journal Icarus. Their article, “A New Mechanism for Chondrule Formation: Radiative Heating by Hot Planetesimals” grew out of research seminars from the recently introduced Planetary Science graduate concentration and minor at Wesleyan. Their work focused on chondrules, or tiny spheres of molten rock that permeate primitive meteorites and date to very close to the beginning of the solar system. For decades, the existence of chondrules has puzzled astrophysicists and cosmochemists as no…
Lauren RubensteinProfessor of Psychology Scott Plous has been elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He was inducted on Feb. 13 during a ceremony in Washington, D.C., part of the association's annual meeting. Plous was one of eight fellows newly elected to the Psychology section of the AAAS this year. He was chosen "for distinguished contributions to social psychology, particularly understanding decision-making and prejudice, and for communication of psychology science to the public." Founded in 1848, the AAAS is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing science for the benefit of all people. Fellows are…
Cynthia Rockwell“The objects in Cameron Rowland’s remarkable show at Artists Space offer a history lesson and an aesthetic experience, intricately fused,” wrote New York Times art critic Roberta Smith in a Jan. 28 article. “Accompanied by terse explanatory captions, they expose some of the troubling inequities in American society, especially concerning its prisons and their use of compulsory inmate labor. The process of grasping the meaning of this work equally involves looking, reading and feeling but its subject is one of the most urgent of our time." In his current show, titled "91020000,” Rowland '11 carefully placed items in the space that were…
Olivia DrakeWESU, one of the oldest college radio stations in the country, kicked off its new spring season this week with new and old shows, hosted and produced by more than 100 dedicated community members and Wesleyan students. This season, the station will host several events for the community, including the annual Spring Record Fair in April. WESU also is celebrating many birthdays this year: “Caffe Italia,” which plays Italian music, news and culture, is turning 10 this year and airs from 7 to 8 a.m. every Saturday. Also, “The Vault,” featuring techno music with DJ Anton Banks, is turning 20 this year and is airing every from 9:30 to…
Jack of the Red Hearts, a film by director and executive producer Janet Grillo ’80, depicts a family raising a child with autism, as did her first feature, Fly Away. This new work features Famke Janssen (of Taken and X-Men) and AnnaSophia Robb (Carrie Diaries and Soul Surfer). Jack of the Red Hearts has garnered 11 festival awards both in the United States and abroad including the jury award at the inaugural Bentonville Film Festival, co-founded by activist/actor Geena Davis, to promote women and diversity in filmmaking. Jack of the Red Hearts will open in limited theatrical release on Feb. 26, in 25…
Ann Cvetkovich of the University of Texas–Austin will deliver the 28th annual Diane Weiss '80 Memorial Lecture on Feb. 25. Her talk, titled, "Archival Turns and Queer Affective Methods," will be held at 7 p.m. in PAC 001. Cvetkovich is the Ellen Clayton Garwood Centennial Professor of English and professor of women’s and gender studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of Mixed Feelings: Feminism, Mass Culture, and Victorian Sensationalism (Rutgers, 1992); An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality, and Lesbian Public Cultures (Duke, 2003); and Depression: A Public Feeling (Duke, 2012). She co-edited (with Ann Pellegrini) “Public Sentiments,” a special issue of The…
This month, the Association for Asian Studies honored Phillip Wagoner, professor of art history, professor of archaeology, with the Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy Book Prize. Wagoner and his co-author Richard Easton received the award for their book, Power, Memory, Architecture: Contested Sites on India’s Deccan Plateau, 1300-1600, published by Oxford University Press in 2014. The Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy Book Prize honors a distinguished work of scholarship in South Asian Studies that promises to define or redefine the understanding of whole subject areas. The book's subject matter must deal with South Asia (India, Pakistan, Nepal, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh). Power, Memory, Architecture is the first comprehensive exploration of history…
The exhibition, Line Dance—The Art of Fly Fishing by Peter Corbin ’68, is now on view at the National Sporting Library and Museum (NSLM), Middleburg, Va., through July 3, 2016. Sporting artist Corbin, who majored in art at Wesleyan and graduated with high honors, notes that he considers himself first a landscape painter, with the sporting matter as a part of the scene. The 15 large paintings—spanning nearly four decades of creativity—are on loan to the NSLM from collectors. Initially an abstract sculptor, Corbin notes that now, as a representational painter, he is still exploring some of the same principals that…
Assistant Professor of Government Erika Franklin Fowler and her collaborators on the Wesleyan Media Project are the authors of a new book, Political Advertising in the United States, published in February by Westview Press. The book is edited by Ada Fung '06. Fowler's co-authors are Michael Franz of Bowdoin College and Travis Ridout of Washington State University. Political Advertising in the United States is a comprehensive survey of the political advertising landscape and its influence on voters. The authors draw from the latest data to analyze how campaign finance laws have affected the sponsorship and content of political advertising, how "big data" has…
Barbara Fields, professor of history at Columbia University, will deliver the third annual Richard Slotkin American Studies Lecture Series from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Feb. 17 in Russell House. Fields' lecture will draw on the intellectually transformative book she published with her sister, Karen Elise Fields, titled Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life (Verso, 2012). "Her lecture—her thinking about how the forms of racecraft and how racecraft is pulled off—could not be more timely and urgent," said Joel Pfister, the Olin Professor of American Studies and English, chair of the American Studies Department. “Her work on the category of ‘race’ offers…
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Frederic Wills '19Chabad at Wesleyan, an organization dedicated to allowing students to gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of their Jewish heritage, hosted a Challah braiding event on Feb. 6 in Usdan University Center. Students from all religious and spiritual beliefs were welcome. While there are a few explanations to the importance of braiding Challah, the three braids are thought to be in accordance with the commands that appear in the Ten Commandments: one for “Zachor,” remember; another for “Shamor,” guard; and the third, “b’Dibbur Echad,” which represents the words “guard” and “remember” together as one unit. Rabbi Levi Schectman coordinated the event and leads…