Olivia DrakeThe Wesleyan Open Golf Association donated $1,500 to Even Start, a federally funded program that gives families access to the training and support they need to create a literate home environment and to enhance the academic achievement of their children. About 50 Wesleyan employees, contractors, friends and families participated in the Wes Open Tournament, held July 13 at Banner Country Club in Moodus, Conn. All participants pay an entry fee which includes an 18-hole round, prizes and dinner. A portion of the fee is collected each year for a different charity in Middletown. The funds will support Even Start's Family…
Franklin Reeve, professor of letters, emeritus, passed away on June 28 at the age of 84. He spent four decades at Wesleyan. Lauded for his luminous intelligence, Reeve was not only an estimable academic, but also a noted poet, writer, translator, editor and critic. He was a juror for the National Book Awards, a consultant for Kirkus Reviews, and served on the governing board, as well as the first vice president, of the Poetry Society of America. The author of 31 books, Reeve possessed a passion for teaching the written word, too. A recipient of the Binswanger Prize and a…
Lisa Cohen, assistant professor of English, was recently shortlisted for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography for her book, All We Know: Three Lives. For more than 50 years, the PEN awards have honored many of the most outstanding voices in literature across such diverse fields as fiction, poetry, science writing, essays, sports writing, biography, children's literature, translation and drama. With the help of its partners and supporters, PEN will confer 16 distinct awards, fellowships, grants, and prizes in 2013, awarding nearly $150,000 to writers, editors and translators. The final winners and runners-up will be announced later this summer…
Private lessons instructor and music Ph.D. candidate Bill Carbone MA '07 will cap off a busy summer of music festival performances with a trip to perform at the 24th annual Zappanale Music Festival in Bad Doberan, Germany. The festival invited his trio, The Z3, which performs the music of Frank Zappa rearranged for a trio of Hammond Organ, guitar, and drums (Carbone's instrument), with all three members singing, to headline the second day of the festival and host the jam session on the third day. The festival also features more than a dozen alumni of the bands Zappa led between…
Four Wesleyan faculty and staff members completed the Litchfield Hills Olympic Triathlon held July 14 in New Hartford, Conn. The triathlon featured a 1.5K swim, a 40K bike course, and a scenic, rural back road 10K run. Wesleyan participants included Mike McAlear, associate professor of molecular biology and biochemistry; Tom DiMauro, analyst programmer in ITS; James Taft, assistant director of technology support services in ITS; and Brian Northrop, assistant professor of chemistry. Northrop came in third place overall.
Fred Cohan, professor of biology, professor of environmental studies, spoke on "Origins of ecological diversity in bacteria" during the Bacterial Genetics and Ecology Conference (BAGECO), held in Ljubljana, Slovenia in June.
Ann Burke, professor of biology, spoke on “The origin and evolution of Turtles” during the 10th International Congress of Vertebrate Morphologlogy in Barcelona, Spain July 7- 12. The International Congress of Vertebrate Morphology (ICVM) has emerged as the premier conference for scientists researching the morphology of vertebrate animals at all levels of organization. The Congresses are held typically every three years with the broad goal of providing an opportunity for interaction, integration, and interfacing. Through a mixture of symposia, workshops, and open platform and poster sessions, everyone from senior scholars to students share ideas in an informal and genial setting. More…
Wesleyan University Press publications have received awards and accolades this summer. Three Science Fiction Novellas, translated from the French by Danièle Chatelain and George Slusser, was named a 2013 Science Fiction and Fantasy Translation Award finalist. The SF&F Translation Awards “reward the translation of science fiction, fantasy, and related fiction from other languages into English. They exist both to promote the fiction of non-English-speaking authors and to highlight the valuable work done by translators.” The Connecticut League of History Organizations awarded Ella Grasso: Connecticut’s Pioneering Governor by Jon Purmont with a 2013 Award of Merit. We Modern People: Science Fiction…
Sumarsam, the University Professor of Music, is the author of Javanese Gamelan and the West, published by the University of Rochester Press on July 1. In Javanese Gamelan, Sumarsam examines the meaning, forms and traditions of the Javanese performing arts as they developed and changed through their contact with Western culture. The book traces the adaptations in gamelan art as a result of Western colonialism in 19th century Java, showing how Western musical and dramatic practices were domesticated by Javanese performers creating hybrid Javanese-Western art forms, such as with the introduction of brass bands in gendhing mares court music and West Javanese…
Vera Schwarcz, the Mansfield Freeman Professor of East Asian Studies, professor of history, is the author of Ancestral Intelligence, published by Antrim House Books in 2013. In Ancestral Intelligence, Schwarcz depicts the cultural landscape of contemporary China by creating “renditions” of poems by a mid-20th century dissident poet, Chen Yinke, and by adding a group of her own poems in harmony with Chen Yinke’s. Like his, her poems show a degradation of culture and humanity, in this case through comparison of classic and modern Chinese logographs. In the tragic yet inspiring story of Chen Yinke, Schwarcz finds her own powerful…
Seth Redfield, assistant professor of astronomy, and Katy Wyman MA '11, recently co-authored a paper that will appear in the Aug. 10 Astrophysical Journal, detailing several hundred spectral line measurements out to bright stars within 326 light years of our sun. Wyman is now employed at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The study also appeared in the July 28 edition of Forbes in an article titled "Looking In The Sun's Rear-View Mirror: A New Map Of The Local Interstellar Medium." The first comprehensive map of the local interstellar medium — the gas drifting between the nearest stars — "will not only help theorists…
Behind Wesleyan's historic College Row is a picture of New England college charm. But in the green expanses of lawn, where most see tradition and classic beauty, a group of Wesleyan students saw an environmental affront. For the past three years, a student group known as WILD Wes (Working for Intelligent Landscape Design), has attempted an alternative approach to landscaping. With Wesleyan’s support, WILD Wes has embarked on a bold experiment: ditch the lawn near the West College Courtyard and replace it with a sustainable landscape, based on the principles of permaculture. Permaculture design is meant to mimic natural patterns,…