David PesciThe candidate for issue’s "5 Questions with..." is Mary Alice Haddad, assistant professor of government, assistant professor of East Asian studies. She provides some insight into the recent, dramatic change in the Japanese government. Q: What are your primary areas of study and research? MAH: My primary area of research has been on civil society and democracy with a focus on Japan. I am beginning a new research project on environmental politics in East Asia. I am particularly interested in the ways that local politics around environmental issues can lead toward greater citizen participation in democratic as well as nondemocratic…
Jed Hoyer '96 has been named general manager of the San Diego Padres. According to a piece in The San Diego Union Tribune, Hoyer, who had been the assistant general manager of the Boston Red Sox, impressed the ownership of the MLB team immediately during his initial interview. In a separate story in the Union Tribune, Mark Woodworth '94, Wesleyan's baseball coach and former teammate of Hoyer, is quoted at length about what Hoyer brings to the Padres. At the ceremony, the Padres owner gave Hoyer a Padres shirt with 11, the number Hoyer wore for Wesleyan, on the back.…
Claire Potter, professor of history, professor of American studies, is quoted through her blog in a piece from The Week on President Obama's all male basketball games. Potter says who the president plays pick-up basketball with has nothing to do with women or women's issues and castigates The New York Times for legitimizing this issue by doing a story on it.
Mary Jane Rubenstein, assistant professor of religion, assistant professor of feminist, gender and sexuality studies, discusses some of varying attitudes among Episcopalians regarding the Vatican's recent offer to join the Roman Catholic Church. Episcopalian have been fractured by their church's recent acceptance of women and gays into leadership positions, with some dioceses reacting by splitting off and forming the Anglican Church of North America.
Edward Moran, chair and associate professor of astronomy, director of the Van Vleck Observatory, took time to explain what black holes are - and are not - on WNPR's Colin McEnroe Show.
"Emergency Response Studio" a mobile exhibit constructed in response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster in 2006 by Paul Villinski, reviewed recently by The New York Times, is on display outside the Ezra and Cecille Zilkha Gallery until Nov. 8. The exhibit began as a mobile studio that would allow Villinski to create art in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans. It became a de facto piece of performance art in itself as Villinski's built an environmentally friendly mobile living space for the same price as the mobile emergency trailers FEMA provided, and with none of the toxic side effects.
Jeanine Basinger, chair and Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies, curator Cinema Archives, is quoted at length in a story in the Vancouver Sun about film roles that take actresses outside of Hollywood stereotypes.
This semester, Wesleyan has begun offering a linked major program for Environmental Studies. Barry Chernoff, the Robert Schumann Professor of Environmental Studies, Professor of Earth & Environmental Sciences, professor of biology and director of the Environmental Studies Certificate Program, explained the new major to interested students during a recent campus event. The linked major program is the second major to a primary major. Students must complete all the requirements for graduation from their primary major in addition to those of ENVS as their second major. The basic information about the program can be found here.
In USA Today, Elvin Lim, assistant professor of government, discusses the dynamic between President Obama and Afghan forces commander General McChrystal regarding adjusting troop levels.
Versed, a new poetry collection by Rae Armantrout published by Wesleyan University Press, is a National Book Award Finalist. There will be a reading of the Finalists' work on Nov. 17 at The New School in New York City. On the following day, the winners will be announced at the annual awards ceremony.
WNPR News featured a story on Jessica Posner '09, Wesleyan Writing Fellow, and Kennedy Odede '11 and the school for girls they built over the summer in Kibera, Kenya. The school, which the two students built using a Projects for Peace Grant, is up and running.
Wesleyan students involved in The Humanitarian Free and Open Source Software (HFOSS) project have teamed with students from other institutions to create disaster management software for several volunteer agencies, including The American Red Cross, The Salvation Army and Catholic Charities USA. The free software provides a virtual emergency response center that these organizations can use immediately after a disaster to help manage aid and logistics. The Wesleyan HFOSS group, along with analogous groups from Trinity College and Connecticut College, also received part of an $1.3 million grant to create more software of this type. Wesleyan's HFOSS group is supervised by…