Olivia Drake – Page 34

Kerwin Kaye, associate professor of sociology, is the author of Enforcing Freedom: Drug Courts, Therapeutic Communities, and the Intimacies of the State, published by Columbia University Press in December 2019. According to the publisher: In 1989, the first drug-treatment court was established in Florida, inaugurating an era of state-supervised rehabilitation. Such courts have frequently been seen as a humane alternative to incarceration and the war on drugs. "Enforcing Freedom" offers an ethnographic account of drug courts and mandatory treatment centers as a system of coercion, demonstrating how the state uses notions of rehabilitation as a means of social regulation. Situating…

Justine Quijada, associate professor of religion, is the author of a new book titled Buddhists, Shamans, and Soviets: Rituals of History in Post-Soviet Buryatia, published by Oxford University Press in 2019. The book recently won the first Honorable Mention for the Geertz Prize from the Society for the Anthropology of Religion (SAR). Named in honor of the late Professor Clifford Geertz, the Geertz Prize seeks to encourage excellence in the anthropology of religion by recognizing an outstanding recent book in the field. SAR awards the prize to "foster innovative scholarship, the integration of theory with ethnography, and the connection of…

Gun-related deaths are on the rise in the United States, and following recent mass shootings, gun policy has emerged as an issue in the 2020 election cycle. In the February 2020 issue of Health Affairs, co-authors Erika Franklin Fowler, associate professor of government and director of the Wesleyan Media Project; Laura Baum, project manager in the Government Department; and alumna Sarah Gollust '01 explain how political advertising is an increasingly important tool for candidates seeking office to use to communicate their policy priorities. Over $6 billion was spent on political ads in the 2016 election cycle, and spending in the…

Barbara Juhasz, Jeffrey L. Shames Professor of Civic Engagement and associate professor of psychology and neuroscience and behavior, is the co-author of an article titled "The time course of age-of-acquisition effects on eye movements during reading: Evidence from survival analyses," published in Memory and Cognition, January 2020. According to the paper's abstract: Adults process words that are rated as being learned earlier in life faster than words that are rated as being acquired later in life. This age-of-acquisition (AoA) effect has been observed in a variety of word-recognition tasks when word frequency is controlled. AoA has also previously been found to…

Research conducted by a Wesleyan professor is part of a new space show at the American Museum of Natural History. Martha Gilmore, George I. Seney Professor of Geology and professor of Earth and environmental sciences, worked over the past year developing content for the new Hayden Planetarium Space Show Worlds Beyond Earth. The show opened on Jan. 21 as part of the museum's 150th anniversary celebration. "It’s amazing," Gilmore says. "The images that you see are all realistic. We even contacted some of the engineers for the Magellan spacecraft in order to understand exactly how the spacecraft imaged Venus in…

In celebration of Olin Library's recent acquisition of virtuoso Jin Hi Kim's scores for Living Tones, the Music Library and Music Department hosted a day of musical and sonic exploration on Feb. 1 titled Hidden Volumes and Living Tones. Jin Hi Kim, adjunct assistant professor of music, is known for introducing the kŏmungo (a six-stringed Korean zither) into the American contemporary music scene. The Guggenheim Fellow composed a series of compositions for chamber ensemble and orchestra using her "Living Tones" philosophy, which holds that each tone generated is treated with abiding respect. Wesleyan currently owns 16 of her scores, written…

On Jan. 31, the Wesleyan community celebrated the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with a commemoration and program. This year, artist, writer, producer, and activist Bree Newsome delivered the event's keynote address. Newsome drew national attention in 2015 when she climbed the flagpole in front of the South Carolina Capitol building and removed a confederate battle flag. She was arrested for her actions. The flag was originally raised in 1961 as a racist statement of opposition to the Civil Rights movement and lunch counter sit-ins occurring at the time. Newsome’s act of defiance against the culture of white…

Rosemary Ostfeld '10, visiting assistant professor of environmental studies, is developing a smartphone app to re-energize the connection between communities and local farms so people can purchase healthy and sustainable food options. Called "Healthy PlanEat," the app will allow patrons to order food from local organic farms. Ostfeld launched her Kickstarter in January, and she's hoping to raise $40,000 by Feb. 15. The idea has also appeared in The Hartford Courant, The Day, and The Middletown Press.

On Jan. 28, Wesleyan's Olin Library acquired a rare collage created by 20th-century American artist Romare Bearden. Bearden (1911-1988) is best known for his abstract, Cubist-style paintings and photomontage compositions which often make social statements. Bearden also is remembered for supporting young, emerging artists. Titled MR. PICASSO and measuring 27 by 20 centimeters, the piece was gifted to Olin by Barry and JoAnne Scott, antiquarian and rare booksellers from Rhode Island. The Scotts made the donation in honor of Suzy Taraba, director of special collections and archives, with whom they've worked for many years. Bearden himself originally gifted the collage…

Gil Skillman, professor of economics, is the author of “Moseley’s ‘Macro-Monetary’ Reading of Marx’s Capital: Rejoinder and Further Discussion,” published in the Review of Radical Political Economics on Dec. 17, 2019. According to the abstract: Moseley (2018) offers a partial reply to Skillman's review of his Money and Totality, addressing one comment at length while mentioning a second in passing and ignoring the third. In this rejoinder, Skillman responds to his replies and develops the three main arguments of his review in greater detail, with particular focus on the logical consistency of Moseley’s “algebraic summary” of his macro-monetary reading of…

Several Wesleyan undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and alumni attended the 235th American Astronomical Society meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii, Jan. 4–8, 2020. "The meeting was a huge success, and we were thrilled to have such a large contingent of Wesleyan students able to attend and present their research," said Seth Redfield, associate professor and chair of astronomy. Wesleyan McNair Fellow Rachel Marino presented a poster titled “HD106906 Debris Disk Morphology and Origin of an External Perturber." Her advisor is Meredith Hughes, associate professor of astronomy. Hunter Vannier '20 shared his research titled “Mapping the Local Interstellar Medium: Using Hubble to…

Two Wesleyan faculty received a $492,410 Academic Research Enhancement Award (R15) from the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) to support their study titled “Comparing Cognitive Remediation Approaches for Schizophrenia.” R15 awards provide funding for small-scale, new, or ongoing health-related meritorious research projects, enhancing the research environment at eligible institutions and exposing students to research opportunities. The R15 principal investigator Matthew Kurtz, professor of psychology, professor of neuroscience and behavior, and R15 co-investigator Jennifer Rose, professor of the practice and director of the Center for Pedagogical Innovation, will work with a group of Wesleyan undergraduates for the duration of the…

Kaye’s New Book Offers Critical Perspective of Criminal-Justice Reform

Quijada’s Book on Post-Soviet Buryatia Wins Prize from Society for the Anthropology of Religion

Fowler, Baum, Gollust ’01 Co-Author Paper on Gun Coverage in Political Advertising

Juhasz Studies Word Age-of-Acquisition Effects through Eye Movements

Gilmore Works on Planetarium Show at American Museum of Natural History

Hidden Volumes Explored in Olin Library’s Stacks (with videos)

Bree Newsome Leads Wesleyan’s Martin Luther King Celebration

Ostfeld ’10 Fundraising for Organic Farm Food Ordering App via Kickstarter

Olin Library Receives Romare Bearden Donation in Honor of Director of Special Collections

Skillman’s Article Published in the Review of Radical Political Economics

Students, Alumni Attend Meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Hawaii

Kurtz, Rose Receive NIMH Award for Schizophrenia Study