Olivia DrakeMarch 25, 20091min
Kit Reed, resident writer in the English Department, is the author of Enclave, published by TOR Books on Feb. 3. In this gripping dystopian satire, ex-marine Sargent Whitmore has a plan to make millions while protecting children from the self-destructing modern world. He turns an old Mediterranean monastery into a combined impenetrable fortress and school, and enrolls 100 filthy-rich children, most of them already well-known for legal troubles, drug problems and paparazzi run-ins. Once there, everyone is cut off from the outside world, fed only canned news stories about wars and natural disasters. When things inevitably go horribly wrong, young…

Olivia DrakeMarch 25, 20091min
Mary-Jane Rubenstein, assistant professor of religion, assistant professor of feminist, gender and sexuality studies, is the author of the book, Strange Wonder: The Closure of Metaphysics and the Opening of Awe, published by Columbia University Press, March 2009. Strange Wonder confronts Western philosophy's ambivalent relationship to the Platonic "wonder" that reveals the strangeness of the everyday. On the one hand, this wonder is said to be the origin of all philosophy. On the other hand, it is associated with a kind of ignorance that ought to be extinguished as swiftly as possible. By endeavoring to resolve wonder's indeterminacy into certainty…

Olivia DrakeMarch 25, 20091min
Vera Schwarcz, the Mansfield Freeman Professor of East Asian Studies, chair of the East Asian Studies Proggram, professor of history, professor of East Asian studies, is the author of Chisel of Remembrance, a new collection of poems that draws from roots in Jewish, Chinese, and other ancient traditions. The 76-page book of poetry was published from Antrim House Books.

Olivia DrakeMarch 25, 20092min
Michael Singer, assistant professor of biology, is the author of “Self-Medication as Adaptive Plasticity: Increased Ingestion of Plant Toxins by Parasitized Caterpillars," published in PLoS ONE, March 2009. PLoS ONE is an open access, online scientific journal from the Public Library of Science. This new article rigorously demonstrates that caterpillars can self-medicate, following up on a previous publication in Nature in 2005. This is the first experimental demonstration of self-medication by an invertebrate animal. This paper also represents the first publication to arise from research funded by a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant awarded to Singer in December 2007. Kevi Mace…

Olivia DrakeMarch 25, 20092min
John Kirn, chair and professor of neuroscience and behavior, professor of biology, director of Graduate Studies, is the co-author of a book chapter titled "Regulation and function of neuronal replacement in the avian song system." The chapter is published inside the book Neuroscience of Birdsong, released in 2009 by Cambridge University Press. The book provides a comprehensive summary of birdsong neurobiology, and identifies the common brain mechanisms underlying this achievement in both birds and humans. Written primarily for advanced graduates and researchers, there is an introductory overview covering song learning, the parallels between language and birdsong and the relationship between…

Olivia DrakeMarch 25, 20091min
The Green Street Arts Center received a grant worth $10,000 from Citizens Bank and the Citizens Bank Foundation to support the Community Mural Project, an 18 month-long art program that will culminate in a large public mural, to be installed in the spring of 2009 on the corner of Main and Green Streets in the North End of Middletown. Led by mural artist Marela Zacarias, the project’s participants are a diverse group of Middletown children, their families, professional artists, Wesleyan students, and other community members.

Olivia DrakeMarch 25, 20091min
Seth Redfield, assistant professor of astronomy, has received funding from NASA for three research grants. From the Space Telescope Science Institute a grant of $138,639 for his research "A SNAPSHOT Survey of the Local Interstellar Medium: New NUV Observations of Stars with Archived FUV Observations", and $50,766 for his research "Probing the Atomic & Molecular Inventory of the Beta-Pic Analog, the young, Edge-On Debris Disk of HD32297." Both awards include new observations with the Hubble Space Telescope. From the JPL Spitzer Program $41,213 for his research of "Interactions of the Cold and Hot ISM: Imaging the Nearest Molecular Clouds in…

Olivia DrakeMarch 25, 20091min
A group of Wesleyan faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, along with three post-docs from the Molecular Biology and Biochemistry and Chemistry departments, attended the 53rd Annual Biophysical Society Meeting in Boston. Several labs contributed posters including those run by David Beveridge, the University Professor of the Sciences and Mathematics, professor of chemistry; Irina Russu, professor of chemistry; Manju Hingorani, associate professor of molecular biology and biochemistry; Don Oliver, the Daniel Ayres Professor of Biology, chair and professor of molecular biology and biochemistry; and Ishita Mukerji, professor of molecular biology and biochemistry. Noah Biro '09 was a co-author on a poster contributed by…

Olivia DrakeMarch 25, 20091min
Jorge Arevalo Mateus, a Ph.D candidate in ethnomusicology, was featured in the March 5 edition of The Middletown Press in an article titled "Global music, culture student in residence at Wesleyan." Mateus, a music archivist, ethnomusicologist, scholar, musician, composer and audio installation artist, is a Grammy-winning producer for Best Historical Recording. In 2008, Mateus won an award for writing from the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award, CD Liner Notes, and he has published many essays, articles and reviews in academic and popular journals, edited volumes, and other publications such as New York Archives Magazine, Ethnomusicology, Journal of Popular Music Studies; and…