David LowAugust 23, 20114min
Howard Shalwitz ’74, artistic director of the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., recently directed an acclaimed, re-mounted production of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris at the theater this summer. The play was first staged at Woolly Mammoth in 2010. In April, Shalwitz received two Helen Hayes Awards—Outstanding Director and Outstanding Resident Play—for the production. Norris’s two-act play, a provocative look at race, gentrification and real estate, takes place in a Chicago house, with Act 1 set in the 1950s and Act 2 in the 1990s. The work looks back to Lorraine Hansberry’s theater…

David LowAugust 23, 20114min
In her illuminating new book, Paradise Lust: Searching for the Garden of Eden (Grove Press), Brook Wilensky-Lanford ’99 traces the stories of various men who have sought over time to find the “real” Garden of Eden all over the globe, often in the most unlikely places, despite scientific advances and the advance of Darwin’s theory of evolution. This obsessive quest consumed Mesopotamian archaeologists, German Baptist ministers, British irrigation engineers, and the first president of Boston University, among many others. These relentless Eden seekers all started with the same brief Bible verses, but ended up at different spots on the planet,…

David LowAugust 23, 20112min
In the Wall Street Journal, Steve Dollar recently wrote a profile of jazz guitarist and composer Mary Halvorson ’02 (www.maryhalvorson.com) as she recorded tracks for her next ensemble album for the independent Firehouse 12 label, founded by cornetist and composer Taylor Ho Bynum ’98 and engineer Nick Lloyd. Dollar praises Halvorson as “one of the most exciting and original guitarists in jazz” and describes her “often mercurial sound. On a given song, Ms. Halvorson may play a clean, precise line with a tone that hovers like a raised eyebrow, then slip into a beguiling phrase with vintage resonance, then veer…

David PesciJuly 26, 20111min
Hughes Summer Research Program culminates with a poster session in which Hughes Fellows and other summer research undergraduates present their research.  The 2011 poster session is free and open to the public. It will take place between 1 and 3 p.m., Friday, July 29 in the lobby of Exley Science Center. This summer, Wesleyan is hosting 43 Hughes Fellows and approximately 65 Hughes Associates. Hughes Associates are not funded by Hughes, but they participate in Hughes activities. Wesleyan faculty members serve as mentors in the summer program. For more information on the 2011 summer fellows, click here.