Olivia DrakeIn the sparsely populated, mountainous region of Ladakh, India, elderly Buddhist nuns are suffering from isolation, illiteracy and lack of respect from their communities. These women, who spent their lives serving their family or working as laborers, have rarely had the opportunity to become ordained or to worship in a monastery like the highly regarded male monks. "These women have been devalued from the beginning," says Jan Willis, professor of religion, professor of East Asian studies. "All they've ever wanted to do is serve the dharma and study, but instead, they've become servants of their community, or helpers for the…
The Spring 2009 Distinguished Writers Series features a short story author, New York Times Magazine writer, student poets and a Pulitzer Prize winning author. Amy Bloom ’75, the 2009 Jacob Julien Visiting Writer, will speak at 8 p.m. Feb. 18 in Russell House. Bloom is the author of the novel Love Invents Us, the short story collection A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You, and the nonfiction work Normal. Her most recent novel, Away, was a New York Times bestseller, and she has received the National Magazine Award and been nominated for the National Book Award and…
Dick Miller, the Woodhouse/Sysco Professor of Economics, emeritus, is the author of “The Weighted Cost of Capital is not Quite Right” and “The Weighted Cost of Capital is Not Quite Right: Reply to M Pierru," published in the Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, 2009.
Masami Imai, assistant professor of economics, assistant professor of East Asian studies, is the author of "Political Influence and Declarations of Bank Insolvency in Japan," published in the Journal of Money Credit, and Banking, 2009.
Joyce Lowrie, professor of romance languages and literatures, emerita, is the author of Sightings: Mirrors in Texts - Texts in Mirrors, published by Rodopi in December 2008. This book analyzes mirror imagery, scenes, and characters in French prose texts, in chronological order, from the 17th to the 20th centuries. It does so in light of literal, metaphoric and rhetorical structures. Works analyzed in the traditional French canon, written by such writers as Laclos, Lafayette, and Balzac, are extended by studies of texts composed by Barbey d'Aurevilly, Georges Rodenbach, Jean Lorrain and Pieyre de Mandiargues. This work offers appeal to readers…
Jolee West, director of academic computing services, director of digital projects, was chosen to participate in the 2009 Frye Leadership Institute for library and information professionals. The intensive summer program takes place at Emory University from May 31 to June 11. Following the two week session at Emory, each participant works on a year-long practicum at their institution, and the classes remain in contact through e-mail groups and subsequent conferences. Ganesan "Ravi" Ravishanker, associate vice president for Information Technology Services, nominated West for the Leadership Institute. The nationally competitive application process selects around 45 participants from an average of 200-250…
Rob Rosenthal, professor of sociology, spoke at a conference titled "Celebrating Seattle's Striking History," sponsored by the University of Washington Department of History. The conference was held Feb. 6 at the Seattle Labor Temple to commemorating the 90th anniversary of the Seattle General Strike of 1919. Rosenthal spoke about the strike, and also about a rock opera he wrote and recorded in 1986 with his band, The Fuse, about the strike. The Seattle Labor Chorus sung two songs from the album. In addition, Rosenthal was interviewed about his song on the NPR station in Portland, KBOO, and the NPR station in Seattle, KUOW.
Krishna Winston, the Marcus L. Taft Professor of German Language and Literature, dean of the Arts and Humanities and coordinator of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, participated in a meeting with Nobel Prize-winning author Günter Grass Jan. 18-24 in Luebeck, Germany. She is the English-language translator for Grass's work and one of 16 people working on translations of his new, semi-autobiographical novel, The Box, for publication worldwide.
The Chicago Tribune reviewed Look, What I Don't Understand, a solo-performance by Anthony Nikolchev ’08, co-directed by the Assistant Professor of Theater Yuriy Kordonskiy, lighting design by Anna Martin ’09. The production was originally developed as a student show at Wesleyan and moved to its four-week professional run at the Chicago Athenaeum Theatre in January 2009. This one-man drama draws upon historical narratives experienced by Nikolchev's family during their 1960s escape from the totalitarian hostility of communist Bulgaria to detainment in America, challenging himself and audiences to comprehend the experience of past generations through the perspective of present generations. Other…
Ellen Thomas, research professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, attended the 'Climate and Biota of the Early Paleogene' meeting in New Zealand in January. She was on the organizing committee for this meeting, and presented an invited talk during the 'Greenhouse Earth Symposium,' an event presenting the highlights of relevant research to the general public. Thomas also was the co-author on two other talks, which she presented with her Ph.D students from Utrecht University in the Netherlands and Leuven University in Belgium. She also co-authored a poster Laia Alegret from Zaragoza University in Spain. Alegret spent two…
For 37 years, John Paoletti has explored the ideas and histories that produced both well-known and not so well-known works of Renaissance and modern art with thousands of Wesleyan students. This May, Paoletti will retire from Wesleyan's Art and Art History Department, ending a longtime career of teaching artists such as Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Donatello, and Michelangelo as well as the patronage of the Medici family. "I will really miss working with the Wesleyan students and faculty colleagues across the curriculum," Paoletti says from his office in the Davison Art Center. "Both have always been keenly critical of the…
Gary Yohe, the Woodhouse/Sysco Professor of Economics, has been appointed to the Adaptation Subcommittee of the Connecticut Governor’s Steering Committee on Climate Change, 2008-2010. He also has been selected to be a member of the National Research Council Committee on America’s Climate Choices: Panel on Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change, 2008-2011. The panel will host a Climate Summit in DC at the end of March and provide Congress and the Administration a review of the panel’s "Choices" by the end of the year. A synthetic blueprint will then be created by an umbrella panel. Yohe also helped organize…