Jeff Harder

To hear Nicholas Whittaker tell it, horror movies are greater than the sum of their terrifying, putrid parts. “[Horror] allows us to sit in that feeling that the world is something you could never fully understand—and that’s also the place where philosophy is born,” says Whittaker, assistant professor of philosophy. “Philosophy happens when you recognize that your ways of making sense of the world—whether with science, with history, with psychology—aren’t cutting it anymore. When it feels like there’s an excess of unintelligibility in the world, that’s [also] where horror thrives.” This semester, Whittaker is digging beneath the gore and the…

Guns are a pervasive, complex feature of modern life. All too often, however, the debate over firearms is reduced to simple, adversarial shouting matches. “If we just think of [the subject of guns] as a tug of war between two groups, that reinforces artificial binarism and both-sides-ism,” says Jennifer Tucker, professor of History and the founding director of the Center for the Study of Guns and Society. On Oct. 18 and 19, Wesleyan’s Center for the Study of Guns and Society (CSGS) will foster a broad, nuanced, and multidisciplinary discussion — encompassing both historical and contemporary perspectives on guns and…

The midday sun beamed through barred windows into a high-ceilinged auditorium at Cheshire Correctional Institution as Andrew “Duke” Dickson ’24 donned a red gown and took to a centerstage pulpit. He was moments from receiving the college degrees he’d earned through Wesleyan’s Center for Prison Education in front of an audience that included his mother, son, professors, other incarcerated individuals, and, seated stage right, President Biden’s education secretary. But first, Dickson reflected on the trials, transformation, and good fortune that led to him and the 18 other incarcerated individuals receiving degrees to this day. “It is not that we are…

When he came to Wesleyan in the 1970s in pursuit of a science education, Michael Greenberg ’76, P’14, Hon.’24 thought he’d discovered a counterpoint to the large public high school he’d attended in Brooklyn. “That was one of the things that drew me to a small college: that I might get a little more attention,” he said to an audience in Woodhead Lounge at Exley Science Center.” His hunch was correct: with the support of a department that “felt like a family,” Greenberg’s time at Wesleyan set in motion what became his career as one of the world’s most distinguished…

When John Bonin first joined Wesleyan’s Department of Economics in 1970, he discovered a down-to-earth leader in President Colin Campbell, and an academic culture that was comparatively unusual. “I learned quickly that faculty at Wesleyan were encouraged to speak out and assert agency unlike what my contemporaries at other institutions were experiencing,” Bonin said. On May 26, Wesleyan’s retiring faculty members—Bonin, Chester D. Hubbard Professor of Economics and Social Science; Bernardo Antonio Gonzalez, professor of Spanish; and Jeffrey Schiff, professor of art—will receive emeritus status at the University’s 192nd Commencement Ceremony. Ahead of the occasion, Bonin, Gonzalez, and Schiff reflected…

To be clear: if you’re a parent worried about what your child is reading, Darin Iraj ’24 doesn’t have a problem with you taking their book away. “Every parent should have the ability to decide for their own child,” says Iraj, an education studies and government double major. “If you don’t want your kid to read a book, you’re losing out, but that’s fine.” However, that’s not what the recent waves of book bans in American public schools are about. As Iraj presents in his thesis "School's Not the Place for The Books: A Case Study of the Politics Behind…

The word “liberalism” is a tricky thing. As The New Yorker magazine staff writer Adam Gopnik discovered while promoting his 2019 book A Thousand Small Sanities: The Moral Adventure of Liberalism, its variants carry different political baggage from one Western country to the next. Its breadth renders it ideologically elusive, encompassing societies with social democracies, free markets, and shades of grey. Lately, its survival has come into question even in places where its future once seemed assured. But last Thursday in front of a near-capacity audience at the Frank Center for Public Affairs, Gopnik spoke passionately of liberalism’s origins, what…

Earlier this year Tracie Potts, a former NBC correspondent and local media expert, paid a casual visit to the Maryland State House and heard a member of the legislature say something jarring: despite thousands of bills working their way toward becoming laws, you’ll rarely find a reporter covering what’s happening in the chambers at the capitol. “These are decisions that are being made for us every day,” Potts said, “and here’s an elected member of a state legislature saying, ‘Nobody’s covering us.’” Potts joined a panel of experts from across the media landscape as part of Wesleyan’s Democracy in Action…

Some trudge, others sprint. Some materialize from otherworldly forces, others from infectious diseases. Some want flesh, others have a more specific taste for brains. Whatever their individual differences, we know zombies when we see them. And from 1932’s White Zombie to 2023’s The Last of Us, we’ve seen these charismatic, cannibalistic humanoids on the screen a lot through the generations. Off-screen, they’ve seeped into our language. (In the business world, a “zombie” lumbers on the edge of insolvency.) And more broadly, as suggested by a recent conspiracy theory that testing the nation’s emergency broadcast system would trigger an outbreak of ghouls,…

The Center for the Study of Guns and Society at Wesleyan brought together historians, museum curators, legal scholars, journalists, filmmakers, and other subject-matter experts for the Center’s second-annual flagship conference, Current Perspectives on the History of Guns and Society, which took place October 13-14. Through panel discussions, a film screening, and other sessions, the conference shed fresh light on the ever-expanding role of history in America’s contemporary gun discourse. [See photos from the event.] “How have the uses and meanings of guns changed over time?” asked Jennifer Tucker, professor of history and the Center’s founding director. “How does historical knowledge…

When Wesleyan’s crew teams journeyed to New Jersey at the end of last season, each found something a little different, meteorologically speaking. At Cooper River on Memorial Day weekend, the women’s squad rowed in near-ideal conditions and water still as glass. By the time the men’s team plunged oars into Mercer Lake a week later, an abundance of wind had replaced race-postponing heat. Weather notwithstanding, both Wesleyan contingents finished the season in the same fashion: by racing a few thousand meters and landing in the record books. The men’s first varsity eight and second varsity eight teams each secured runner-up…

In the last semester of the 1960s—a decade that’s since become a shorthand for a longer era of social, political, and cultural change—385 undergraduates comprising the Class of 1973 matriculated into Wesleyan. Among them were 50 Black and Latinx students, more than double the number of students of color admitted to comparable institutions. Months later in a January 1970 cover story, the New York Times Sunday Magazine chronicled the University’s strides in those early years of affirmative action in higher education with what some say was an undue dose of derision. “We, the Black, white, Latino, Asian, and women alums,…

The Gory Details: Nicholas Whittaker on Philosophy and Black Horror Cinema

Center for the Study of Guns and Society to Host Annual Fall Conference

At Center for Prison Education Commencement, Enduring Change Through Higher Education

Sciences at Wesleyan: An Evolution a Half-Century in the Making

For Wesleyan’s Retiring Faculty, a Moment to Look Back

Wesleyan Senior Studies Texas Book Challenges

Democracy Demands Passionate Defense, Says Adam Gopnik of The New Yorker

With Declines in Local News, Experts Discuss the Implications for Democracy

McAlister Explores Our Undying Attraction to the Undead

Center for the Study of Guns and Society Explores History’s Growing Role in Understanding Firearms

After Record-Setting Performances, Men’s and Women’s Crew Row into a New Season

In “Two Nations Now One,” the Class of ’73 Reflects on a Pivotal Era for Wesleyan