Corrina KerrThe debut of Unexpected: Voices of Incarcerated Women, a new play directed by Professor of Theater Ron Jenkins, was shown to full crowds in the Center for the Arts Hall on Feb. 25 and 26. In Unexpected, stories written by women formerly and presently incarcerated at the York Correctional Institute in Niantic, Conn., were performed by the former prisoners and Wesleyan students who have collaborated with them in Jenkins' service learning course. Jenkins has been leading a theater outreach class at York since 2008, which predates the Center for Prison Education at Wesleyan, founded in 2009. However, through the Center…
This issue, we ask 5 Questions to . . . Katja Kolcio, associate professor of dance, and author of the new Wesleyan University Press book Movable Pillars Organizing Dance, 1956–1978. Q: How did you become involved with the “Branching Out, Oral Histories of the Founders of Six National Dance Organizations" assignment, which led to your book? A: In 2001, I was invited by the American Dance Guild to conduct interviews with founders of six major American dance organizations. Marilynn Danitz and Margot Lehman, past presidents of the Guild, conceived of the project. These organizations were founded in the '50s and '60s,…
Wesleyan President Michael Roth is the author of "Why Photography Matters to the Theory of History," published in History and Theory, 49.1 February 2010.
This issue we ask 5 Questions of...Assistant Professor of Psychology and Assistant Professor of Neuroscience and Behavior Barbara Juhasz. Q. How did you first become interested in psychology? A. I’ve always been fascinated by how the mind works and why people behave the way they do. Since early in high school, I had the idea that I wanted to be a research psychologist. At that time, I really did not know what the field of psychology actually consisted of. Like most people, I believe, I thought psychology meant psychopathology. Once I started studying psychology at the college level, I realized…
Gillian Goslinga has joined the Anthropology Department as an assistant professor of anthropology. She also is an assistant professor of Science in Society. A graduate of the University of California at Santa Cruz doctoral program in the History of Consciousness, Goslinga was attracted to Wesleyan for many reasons, including “the school’s progressive ethos and the ’scholar-teacher’ pedagogical model.” She says teaching is one of her passions. “The anthropology department is committed to cutting edge theory-cum-praxis,” Goslinga says. She says she appreciates the combination of theoretical innovation and creativity and serious intellectual inquiry. “That made an impression,” she explains. “People at…
To determine the difference between a decisive and an indecisive person, follow the movements of their eyes. Andrea Patalano, associate professor of psychology, and Barbara Juhasz, assistant professor of psychology, have collaborated on research examining how decisive and indecisive people differ in their processing of information, which is a little-studied area. Their full findings are scheduled to be published in the near future, and both researchers are excited about what they found. Patalano has spent many years studying decision-making while Juhasz has spent time tracking readers’ eye movements using a device called an eye-tracker. Since the researchers were examining the…
Professor of History Philip Pomper is making history of his own as he plans to retire from Wesleyan after 46 years in May 2010. Pomper came to Wesleyan after graduating from the University of Chicago with a doctoral degree. He had enjoyed the seminar style classes at Chicago and looked forward to teaching seminars at Wesleyan. "I always dreamed of joining the faculty of a small liberal arts institution," Pomper says. Not only did Pomper have an idea for the type of institution he was drawn to, he was compelled to be a professor even in high school. "After the…
Courtney Fullilove has joined the History Department as assistant professor. She specializes in research related to the study the development of technical knowledge in the fields of agriculture, medicine, and manufacturing in the 18th and 19th century United States. A graduate of Columbia University's Ph.D program in history, Fullilove was attracted to Wesleyan for many reasons, among them its historical significance and liberal arts idealism. She says that being a part of a place where "everyone is creative and engaged" is satisfying to her. "I'm a historian, so I like to think about the fact that Wesleyan was founded as…
This issue we feature 5 Questions with... J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, associate professor of American studies, associate professor of anthropology. Q. How did you become interested in your area of study? JKK: My area of study is related to researching the history of U.S. imperialism in the Pacific Islands. Researching indigenous issues in Hawai`i, I found it necessary to study how the U.S. government has treated Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) in light of its U.S. federal policy on American Indians and Alaska Natives. The policy is convoluted. The U.S. government has alternately classified Kanaka Maoli, as well as other Native Pacific…
American history has almost completely edited out Henry Roe Cloud from its story, even though this full-blood Winnebago was one of the most accomplished and celebrated American Indians in the first half of the twentieth century. Joel Pfister's The Yale Indian: The Education of Henry Roe Cloud corrects this omission. Pfister, chair of the English Department and the Kenan Professor of the Humanities, and former chair of the American Studies Program, began exploring American Indian archives when he was a Yale doctoral student in the 1980s and started his research on Yale’s Roe Cloud letters in 1995. Very little has…
Wesleyan's Sociology Department, The Hoy Fund and The Wesleyan Writing Programs sponsored "Martyrdom, Mirth, and Mayhem in Middle-Class Politics: A Conversation with Novelist Jay Cantor and President Michael S. Roth," Nov. 18 in the Shapiro Creative Writing Center. Cantor is the author of Great Neck, The Death of Che Guevara and Krazy Kat, along with two collections of non-fiction essays, The Space Between: Literature and Politics and On Giving Birth to Ones Own Mother. Cantor, a MacArthur Prize Fellow, is professor of English at Tufts University. President Roth and Cantor discussed their mutual admiration for late Norman O. "Nobby" Brown,…
From its beginnings in 1959, Wesleyan’s College of Social Studies (CSS) has grown into a well-respected program and is celebrating its 50th year in 2009. The multidisciplinary program allows students to explore the subjects of government, history, economics and philosophy concurrently. Many attended lectures and celebrations for CSS during Homecoming/Family Weekend last weekend. The first event of the weekend was a CSS Public Lecture by John Goldberg (CSS 1983, professor of Law, Harvard Law School) on Friday, Nov. 6. His talk was titled “John Locke on Tort Reform (Really!): A CSS Parable.” John Goldberg was introduced by Brian Fay, the…