Olivia DrakeRex Pratt, the Beach Professor of Chemistry, received a grant for $414,750 from the National Institute of Health and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The continuation grant was awarded July 30. Pratt's research is titled "Beta-Lactamases & DD-Peptidases: Active site Chemistry."
Elizabeth McAlister, associate professor of religion, associate professor of African American studies, and Gina Ulysse, associate professor of anthropology, associate professor of African American studies, associate professor of feminist gender and sexuality studies, were featured guests on the Sept. 11 Colin McEnroe Show on WNPR. The 49-minute show titled "CMS: Hatian Vodou and Zombies Too!" focused on the practices of Vodou and how it affects so many aspects of Haitian culture.
My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer, edited by Peter Gizzi and Kevin Killian, published by the Wesleyan University Press, is one of the winners of the 30th annual American Book Awards for 2009. The awards are presented by the Before Columbus Foundation and will be formally award on Sunday, Oct. 11 in New York, N.Y.
Biology Ph.D candidate Kate Miller treks through a wildflower-lined trail alongside Middletown's Coginchaug River. She approaches a plastic garbage bin and a PCV pipe protruding from the ground. "That's my bat echolocation recorder," she says. “It’s old but I’m not complaining. It was free and it works.” Miller credits Scott Reynolds, Ph.D, of North East Ecological Services in Concord, N.H. for the loan of the equipment. Inside the crude setup is a 12-volt battery, an echolocation call recorder and lap-top computer. Every 1.5 seconds, the equipment translates the information into a graph and stores it as a data file on the…
If you want to study the life and work of Elia Kazan, "you come to Wesleyan." That's what Jeanine Basinger, chair and the Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies, curator of the Cinema Archives, suggests to students or film fanatics in the community. For more than two decades, screenwriter/director Kazan (1909-2003) had ties with Wesleyan, and donated photographs, scripts, personal letters, and other life documents to the university. To celebrate and honor Kazan on what would be his 100th birthday, the Film Studies Department is hosting the Elia Kazan Centennial. The semester-long retrospective includes 11 Kazan film screenings with introductions, a…
Wesleyan Writing Programs begin Sept. 23 with a faculty readings and multiple guest speakers. Lisa Cohen, assistant professor of English; Deb Olin Unferth, assistant professor of English and Elizabeth Willis, the Shapiro-Silverberg Associate Professor of Creative Writing, will read from their work at 8 p.m. Sept. 23 in the Russell House. Cohen's poetry and nonfiction have appeared in numerous journals, including Ploughshares, Lit, Barrow Street, GLQ, Fashion Theory, Bookforum, The Boston Review, and Voice Literary Supplement. She is currently completing a group biography of three early 20th century figures—the fashion professional Madge Garland, the fan and collector Mercedes de Acosta, and…
Matthew Weiner ’87, the creator of the TV series "Mad Men" won two Emmy awards at The Emmy Awards ceremony Sept. 20. Weiner won for best drama and writing. According to a Sept. 21 New York Times article, Weiner attributed the success of his show to the lack of interference from the businessmen who finance it. (AMC, a cable channel, only recently began scheduling original series.) “I may be the only person in this room who has complete creative freedom,” he said in accepting the award.
During the summer recess, amateur gardeners Sierra Bintliff ’12 and Nat Lichten ’09 seeded rows, weeded, irrigated, and tended fruits, vegetables and livestock at a small organic farm near St. Joseph's College in Standish, Maine. A bulk of the bounty was harvested for St. Joseph's dining services, managed by Bon Appétit Management Company, the same business that oversees Wesleyan dining. "I was thrilled at the opportunity to work for a company whose mission statement embodies the ideal combination of my two passions: sustainability and food," says Bintliff, who works as a Bon Appétit catering employee at Wesleyan. "While working on…