Alumni – Page 30

Laura Walker ’79, P'21, president and CEO of New York Public Radio, was named to Crain’s Most Powerful Women list for 2017. “Presiding over the largest public radio station group in the U.S., Laura Walker reaches 26 million listeners every month through the eight stations in her WNYC portfolio,” Crain’s Matthew Flamm wrote. “Dependent on grants and listener contributions—Walker has grown revenue by 68% over the past decade—WNYC has the freedom to explore sensitive issues on air and on demand.” (more…)

(By K Alshanetsky '17) Brooklyn rapper Latasha Alcindor ’10, also informally known as LA, is following up the release of her debut album B(LA)K. with her newest project, Teen Nite at Empire. The project is named for the Empire Rolling Skating Center, a former nightlife venue in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood, which closed its doors in 2007 due to increasing gentrification in the area. As described on her Bandcamp––where audiences can listen to and purchase the album––it is dedicated to "the around the way ones, 2 for $5 bootlegs and realizing freedom.” Having grown up frequenting and coming of age…

(By K Alshanetsky '17) Renowned conceptual artist Glenn Ligon ’82 recently curated an exhibition titled Blue Black for the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St. Louis, Missouri. The group show, which had its opening day on June 9, was inspired by the Pulitzer’s permanent installation of Blue Black, a wall sculpture by Ellsworth Kelly. In Ligon’s take on the variety of meanings and uses of these two colors, he explores the combination as a means to raise nuanced questions about race, history, identity and memory. Choosing works that respond to the theme of the blues in open-ended ways, he draws numerous points…

Joshua Dubler ’97, assistant professor of religion at the University of Rochester, is one of 33 national recipients of a 2016 Carnegie Award. With this fellowship, Dubler is studying prison abolition. His book manuscript, Break Every Yoke: Religion, Justice, and the End of Mass Incarceration, presents abolitionist logic to make the case. Co-authored with Vincent Lloyd, it explores the ways that religion has underwritten and sustained mass incarceration. Currently under peer review, it has an expected publication date of 2018. While an advocate of both ending mass incarceration and offering educational programs for those imprisoned, Dubler is seeking something further…

On June 12, Bowery Residents’ Committee (BRC), one of New York City’s largest providers of housing and services for homeless adults, honored longtime BRC board member Richard Swanson ’77 at the organization’s seventh annual gala. Swanson, a trustee of BRC, is managing director and the general counsel of York Capital Management, as well as a member of the firm’s executive, operating and valuation committees. On the BRC website, Swanson explains his decision to join the board as his effort “to be able to give something back to the City of New York, which has treated me so well over my…

(By K Alshanetsky '17) Multimedia artists Aditi Natasha Kini ’13 MALS '16 and Hanna Edizel ’14 recently premiered the music video for "Park Slope," a song from rapper, producer and 2010 Wesleyan alumnus OHYUNG. The co-directors were joined by cinematographer Neo Sora ’14 and actor Stephen Acerra ’12 in creating an absurdist accompaniment to OHYUNG’s record, which parodies Brooklyn gentrification and the “lifestyle” it sponsors for white gentrifiers. Focusing on Park Slope, one of New York City’s most affluent neighborhoods, OHYUNG and his collaborators enter into a larger citywide and national dialogue about the ever-growing problem of gentrification. As Kini…

(By K Alshanetsky '17) Suki Hawley ’91, director and editor for the award-winning independent film studio RUMUR, is debuting the collaborative’s latest film in New York this week. The documentary, titled All the Rage, chronicles the work of renowned physician Dr. John Sarno and his radical methods for treating chronic pain. It will debut at Cinema Village in New York on Friday, June 23. A Q&A with directors and special guests will follow after every screening Friday (June 23), Saturday (June 24) and Sunday (June 25). All the Rage comes at a critical time, when the epidemic of chronic pain is afflicting over…

(By K Alshanetsky '17) Jazz pianist, band leader and composer Darius Brubeck ’69 recently toured in Israel with his renowned Darius Brubeck Quartet as part of the Hot Jazz Series. The quartet performed seven shows across the country from June 3 to 10, presenting compositions written by Brubeck and his late father, a legendary jazz pianist best known for his album Time Out. Before returning to a career as a touring musician, Brubeck spent many years at the University of Natal in Durban, South Africa, where he founded the Centre for Jazz and Popular Music. Both an artist and an…

(By K Alshanetsky '17) Since publishing her latest book, The Argonauts, winner of the 2016 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism, author Maggie Nelson ’94 has received attention from more mainstream outlets and audiences. As her popularity grows beyond academic circles, her earlier works, including The Red Parts and Bluets, are gaining in visibility. A recent article from The Telegraph discusses Nelson’s books of nonfiction published between 2005 and 2015, and draws connections between them, focusing on the similarities in content and form that tie these works together: More than anything, Nelson’s project [is]: to behave as though the land of…

Karen Ocorr PhD '83, a professor at the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute in La Jolla, Calif., is using fruit flies to investigate how long-term weightlessness might affect the cardiovascular health of astronauts. Ocorr’s research team packed 400 adult fruit flies and 2,000 eggs in a capsule, which will be launched by a rocket in June and return to Earth after spending a month docked in space. In a New York Times article published on June 2, titled “Fruit Flies and Mice to Get New Home on Space Station, at Least Temporarily,” Ocorr explains that although the structure of a…

This March, Jon Berk ’72 began selling off his collection of comicbooks and comic art. It is no ordinary collection: The Jon Berk Art and Comic Collection, as it is known, consists of more than 18,000 items that span the history of comics in America. And it is no ordinary sale—ComicConnect is handing the sale, with the auction preview at the Metropolis Gallery in New York City until June 2nd, with online auctions offered in five sessions from June 12 though 16. Asked how he began collecting comics, Berk notes that "collecting" is much different from "reading and acquiring," which is…

Only two years out of Wesleyan where they met, Hana Elion ’15 and JJ Mitchell ’15, the duo who are Overcoats, have enjoyed several markers of success this spring. While both Elion and Mitchell describe the formation of the band as something that “just sort of happened,” Elion adds that a career in music seemed like “a faraway dream that I didn’t expect to happen in reality.” But it is. Their debut album, Young, released on April 21, 2017, is what they consider work-in-progress since their graduation, The title, they say, reflects the album's emotional content: the confusion and wonder of the recent college…

Walker ’79, P’21, WNYC CEO, Named to Crain’s Most Powerful Women List

Rapper Latasha Alcindor ’10 Releases New Album

Ligon ’82 Curates Pulitzer Exhibition

Dubler ’97 Awarded Carnegie to Research, Write on Prison Abolition

Wesleyan Presence Celebrates BRC Success at The Way Home Gala; Swanson ’77 Honored

Kini ’13 and Edizel ’14 Direct Music Video about White Privilege

Hawley ’91 Debuts Documentary Film

Brubeck ’69 Takes His Jazz Quartet on Tour

Author Nelson ’94 Continues to Receive Critical Acclaim

Ocorr PhD ’83 Sends Fruit Flies into Space for Cardiovascular Research

Berk ’72 Puts Rare Comic and Art Collection Up for Auction

Elion ’15, Mitchell ’15 of the Overcoats Release Album