David LowIn the Nov. 16 issue of The New Yorker, staff writer Ariel Levy ’96 looks at two new books: When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present (Little Brown) by Gail Collins, and You’ve Come a Long Way, Maybe: Sarah, Michelle, Hillary and the Shaping of the New American Woman (Palgrave) by Leslie Sanchez. In her essay, titled “Lift and Separate,” Levy discusses not just the content of the two books but also considers how feminism is still so divisive. She discusses some of the triumphs and defeats of the feminist movement and some…
Grant Brenner ’92, Daniel Bush and Joshua Moses are co-editors of Creating Spiritual and Psychological Resilience: Integrating Care in Disaster Relief Work (Routledge), which explores the interface between spiritual and psychological care in the context of disaster recovery work, drawing upon recent disasters including the experiences of Sept. 11, 2001. The book contains three sections structured around the cycle of disaster response and focusing on the relevant phase of disaster recovery work. In each section, selected spiritual and mental health topics are examined with contributions from spiritual care and mental health care providers. This is a useful reference volume for theory…
Steve Lehman ’00 is an alto and soprano jazz saxophonist who continues to receive praise from jazz critics across the country for performing music on the cutting edge. He is one of several graduates who studied jazz at Wesleyan and have gone on to notable music careers. Lehman is currently a doctoral candidate in music composition at Columbia University. Travail, Transformation & Flow (Pi Recordings), his latest CD with his octet, was recently reviewed on NPR’s Fresh Air. NPR describes Lehman as “an explorer in the esoteric compositional realm labeled ‘spectral harmony,’ and perhaps his most ambitious innovation is that…
In No Family History (Rowman and Littlefield, 2009), Sabrina McCormick ’96 offers convincing and compelling evidence of environmental links to breast cancer, ranging from everyday cosmetics to industrial waste. She writes lucidly about the a growing number of experts who argue that we should increase focus on prevention by reducing environmental exposures that have contributed to the sharp increase of breast cancer rates. McCormick also weaves the story of one breast cancer survivor with no family history of the disease into a powerful exploration of the big business of breast cancer—as drugs, pink products, and corporate sponsorships generate enormous revenue…
In early October, the White House press office announced that the President Obama and his family had chosen 45 art works borrowed from several Washington museums to decorate various White House walls, including the text painting Black Like Me No. 2 by Glenn Ligon ’82, which is on loan from the Hirshhorn Musuem. In an article in the Washington Post about the Obamas’ selection of art works, Blake Gopnik described Ligon as “one of the best one of the best African American artists working today, and also one of the smartest and toughest. His loaner work is a tall white…
The hit movie Zombieland marks the directorial debut of Ruben Fleischer ’97 and was number one at the box office when it opened nationwide on October 2. During its opening weekend, the film sold $25 million worth of tickets in the U.S. and Canada and cost Columbia (Sony) Pictures and co-financier Relativity Media only $23.6 million to produce. It has remained in the top 10 films at the box office in the weeks that followed. The film also was notable for ending a recent trend of poor openings for movies with horror elements such as Jennifer's Body and Sorority Row. Zombieland…
In his recent book Pandemonium and Parade: Japanese Monsters and the Culture of Yokai (University of California Press, 2009), Michael Dylan Foster ’87 focuses on Japanese water sprites, mountain goblins, shape-shifting animals, and the monsters known as yokai. He considers the role of these creatures in folklore, encyclopedias, literature, art, science, games, manga, magazines, and movies, and brings attention to an abundance of valuable and previously understudied material. Foster traces yokai over three centuries, from their appearance in 17th-century natural histories to their starring role in 20th-century popular media as he examines the monsters’ meanings within the Japanese cultural imagination.
Celina Su ’99 is the author of Streetwise for Book Smarts: Grassroots Organizing and Education and Reform in the Bronx (Cornell University Press, 2009) in which she explores the efforts of parents and students who sought to improve the quality of education in their local schools by working with grassroots organizations. In these organizations, everyday citizens pursued not only education reform but also democratic accountability and community empowerment. These groups had similar resources and operated in the same political context, yet their strategies and tactics were very different: while some focused on increasing state and city aid to their schools,…
Thomas Kail ’99 is the director of a new play, Broke-ology, by Nathan Louis Jackson, which opened on Oct. 5 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center in New York City. This touching and often humorous play concerns two African-American brothers who care for their ailing widowed father in Kansas City, Kansas, as they face their own responsibilities. Kail elicits first-rate performances from the four-person cast, which includes Wendell Pierce (The Wire), Crystal A. Dickinson, Francois Battiste, and Alano Miller. The play opened to several positive reviews. In his review in The New York Times, Charles Isherwood wrote: …
Documentary filmmaker James Longley ’94 has been awarded the prestigious $500,000 MacArthur grant, along with 23 other recipients. Longley’s low-budget, self-financed films are intimate portraits of people in politically volatile countries in the Middle East. While working on his documentaries, Longley lived among ordinary families and gained access to individuals living in places rarely recorded by Western filmmakers. Two of Longley’s works, Iraq in Fragments (2006) and Sari’s Mother (2006), were nominated for Academy Awards. Iraq in Fragments chronicles life in war-ravaged Iraq through the eyes of an abandoned young boy on the streets of Baghdad, the collective energy and…
Several Wesleyan alumni-related films were part of the recent program on view at the Toronto International Film Festival, which was held Sept. 10–19. The festival has become the launching ground for films from around the world as well as for films that go on to win prominent awards. Among the films shown were Youth in Revolt, directed by Miguel Arteta ’89 (Chuck & Buck, The Good Girl), a very funny comedy based on the cult novels by C. D. Payne about the misadventures of a sex-obsessed 14-year-old Nick Twisp with a French alter-ego who inspires him to misbehave. Michael Cera…
Franklin Sirmans ’91 has been appointed department head and curator of contemporary art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He is currently curator of modern and contemporary art at the Menil Collection in Houston and will move on to his new position in January. AT LACMA, he will oversee a department that focuses on works created since 1968 and will work on strengthening the museum’s publication program. Besides being a curator, Sirmans is a critic, editor and writer. His curatorial credits include organizing NeoHooDoo: Art for a Forgotten Faith, an examination of spirituality in contemporary art that traveled…