David PesciWesleyan President Michael S. Roth reviews The Battle for America 2008 by Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson. The book chronicles the two years leading up to the 2008 U.S. Presidential election, with heavy emphasis on the candidacies of Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Barack Obama.
Kennedy Odede '12 and Jessica Posner '09 are making progress on the school they are building in Kibera, Kenya. The students received a grant earlier this year to build the school. The school was officially dedicated on Tuesday, August 18.
Deb Olin Unferth, assistant professor of English, has won the 2009 Cabell First Novelist Award for her book Vacation. The award is presented by Virginia Comonwealth University and was the result of votes by readers as well as members of the Cabell award board.
Peter Rutland, Colin and Nancy Campbell Professor in Global Issues and Democratic Thought, professor of government, discussed for Russia Today TV, some of the issues that have exacerbated the tensions between Russia and Ukraine.
No Quarter, the new book Richard Slotkin, Olin Professor of English Emeritus, recounts a tragic Union blunder during the Civil War at Petersburg, Virginia, that cost the lives of thousands of soldiers. The plan and its execution was damned in part because the Union troops were "incompetently led and ill prepared." Slotkin not only explores the tactics and implementation of the plan, but the broad political implications generated in the wake of its failure. The reviewer in The Boston Globe, Michael Kenney, says the book is among" the first rank of Civil War histories."
Stanley Lebergott, the Chester D. Hubbard Professor of Economics and Social Sciences, Emeritus, died July 24 after a long illness. He was 91 years old. Lebergott began his career as a public servant, working for 20 years in the U.S. Department of Labor, the International Labor Office, and the U.S. Bureau of the Budget. He joined the Wesleyan faculty in 1962 as a professor of economics, becoming University Professor in 1970. He was a pivotal scholar in his field, and a prolific author. In addition to more than 50 articles, his books include: Manpower in Economic Growth: The American Record…
Jeanine Basinger, Chair and Cowrin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies, Curator, Cinema Archives, discusses the new film Julie and Julia, which is about the life of famed Chef Julia Child and a writer Julie Powell, who decides to try to cook every recipe in Child's best-selling cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and then blog about her experiences. Among the movie's producers is Lawrence Mark '71.
Marie Mencher '12 and Lindsay Keys were both featured in the lastest Education Life issue of The New York Times. Mencher contributed to the "Your Story" section, which features short first person essays on elements of college life. Mencher's essay is titled "Romance Crushed." Keys was featured in a photo essay titled "College Life."
Kirk Swinehart, assistant professor of history, has a reivew for The Chicago Tribune of Edmund Morgan's latest book, American Heroes: Profiles of Men and Women Who Shaped Early America. Swinehart says: "as so many times before, Morgan proves himself one of our deftest thinkers about race -- what he once called 'the American paradox, the marriage of slavery and freedom.'"
Elizabeth McAlister, professor of religion, associate professor of African American studies, associate professor of American Studies, continues her participation in a round table on Haitian culture in The New Yorker, discussing the music of revolution in Haiti and why it is so important within the culture.
Ann Burke, associate professor of biology, recently received a three-year, $395,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study the development and evolution of the shoulder girdle using transgenic mice, frog and salamander. The mice will be generated in collaboration with a lab at the University of Michigan and will allow Burke and her associates to turn off Hox genes, which are specific patterning genes, in specific sub populations of the embryonic mesoderm that make the musculoskeletal tissues. "Comparing the dynamics of gene expression and cell interactions during the formation of the pectoral region in a variety of embryos…
Wesleyan University has announced the promotion to full professor, effective July 1, 2009, of the following members of the faculty. Stephen Angle, professor of philosophy, came to Wesleyan in 1994. He has served as director of the Mansfield Freeman Center for East Asian Studies, co-directed the NEH summer seminar "Traditions into Dialogue: Confucianism and Contemporary Virtue Ethics" at Wesleyan in 2008, was a Fulbright Research Scholar at Beijing University in 2006-2007, and was awarded Wesleyan's Binswanger prize for excellence in teaching in 2006. His research focuses on neo-Confucian philosophy, and his books include Sagehood: The Contemporary Significance of Neo-Confucian Philosophy…