David PesciThis issue, we ask “5 Questions” of William Johnston, professor of history, professor of science in society, professor of East Asian Studies. One of his areas of specialty is the history of disease and epidemics. Q: How did you become interested in the history of diseases, and more specifically, flu outbreaks? A: While in graduate school I examined a number of different fields of history, but was drawn to the history of medicine in Japan because it was in that field that the Japanese first absorbed European scientific ideas and methods. My advisor suggested that I take courses in the…
Eric GershonIn 1786 the American Philosophical Society published a volume of essays and commentaries by its members on natural curiosities: a partridge with two hearts, a horse with a worm in its eye, a slave girl with mottled skin. More than 220 years later, Professor of Art Jeffrey Schiff has transformed these Enlightenment-era accounts into a series of 16 artworks now on display at Wesleyan’s Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery “Double Vision: Transactions of the American Philosophical Society,” runs through Sun., Feb. 27, with a panel discussion scheduled for Feb. 22 at the gallery. “The troubles we continue to have with…
Olivia DrakeThe Center for Faculty Career Development welcomes Wesleyan faculty and staff to Academic (Technology) Roundtable meetings (also known campus-wide as A(T)R meetings), co-sponsored with Olin Library and Information Technology Services. The weekly meetings aim to promote conversation, cooperation, and the sharing of information and resources among Wesleyan’s faculty and staff. This spring, the luncheon topics include pedagogical uses of student-produced podcasts, dyslexia research, teaching evaluations and more. A(T)Rs are held at noon in the Develin Room of Olin Library, and a buffet lunch will be served. The schedule is below: Thursday, Feb. 24; Ad Hoc Committee on “The Evaluation of Nontraditional…
David LowAuthor James Kaplan ’73, the Writing Programs’ 2011 Joan Jakobson Visiting Writer, will speak at 8 p.m. Feb. 9 in the Russell House. Kaplan has been writing about people and ideas in business and popular culture, and also writing fiction, for over three decades. His essays and reviews, as well as more than a hundred major profiles of figures ranging from Madonna to Helen Gurley Brown, Calvin Klein to John Updike, Miles Davis to Meryl Streep, and Arthur Miller to Larry David, have appeared in many magazines, including The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair and Esquire. In November 2010, Kaplan published…
“Education Reform and Youth Empowerment” was the topic of renowned educator Geoffrey Canada, the featured speaker at this year’s Martin Luther King Celebration on Jan. 21 in Memorial Chapel. Canada, who was featured in the recent documentary Waiting for Superman, has dedicated the past 20 years of his life to helping the most impoverished, at-risk youth beat the odds. His idea of educational change is predicated on a simple yet radical idea: to change the lives of inner city kids we must simultaneously change their schools, their families, and their neighborhoods. Through programs such as the Beacon School, Community Pride Initiative, Harlem…
The 2010 campaign season was the most negative in recent years, but, current political rhetoric aside, that actually may not be a bad thing. These are among the findings and conclusions from a recent journal article published by Erika Franklin Fowler, assistant professor of government and director of The Wesleyan Media Project, and her co-researchers in The Forum, a Journal of Applied Research in Contemporary Politics. “Advertising Trends in 2010” by Fowler and Travis Ridout, associate professor at Washington State University and co-director of The Wesleyan Media Project, examined the data and trends in television campaign advertising from all Federal and…
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MacArthur award winner Sarah Ruhl begins a two-day residency at Wesleyan on Feb. 10, the fifth by a playwright in the university’s “Outside the Box” theater series, which brings distinguished playwrights to campus. Ruhl, a two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and author of the widely praised “Euridyce, ” “The Clean House,” and “In the Next Room (or the vibrator play),” among other works, has been described by The New York Times as “among the most acclaimed and accomplished young playwrights on the contemporary scene.” At Wesleyan she will visit an acting class, dine with both playwriting students and faculty…
The Wesleyan community participated in the 2011 Social Justice Leadership Conference (SJLC) Jan. 21-22 on campus. The SJLC provides an opportunity for students, student groups, faculty, staff, alumni and community members to learn about creating change through the application of a variety of skills. Sessions focused on the many manifestations of injustice, leadership skills that may be applied to social movements, and how participants can be involved in creating change. The conference’s keynote speaker was Geoffrey Canada from the Harlem Children’s Zone. Photos of the event will appear in a future issue of The Wesleyan Connection.
This issue, we ask "5 Questions" of Krishna Winston, Marcus L. Taft Professor of German Language and Literature, dean of arts and humanities, on the art of literary translation. Winston has been the principal English-language translator for the works of the Nobel Prize-winning German author Günter Grass since 1990. Here Winston talks about the art of translation and working with a giant of 20th-century literature. Q: How did you come to be the English-language translator of Günter Grass’s books? A: I should explain that from 1960 until his death in 1992, the distinguished literary translator Ralph Manheim was responsible for…
Hosting a symposium to discuss new research findings is a rather common event for universities today. However, the symposium “Rethinking Insurgency” held at Wesleyan this fall was unique in one important way: the vast bulk of research was done by undergraduates. Their research was the final product of an intensive 10-week summer internship held under the auspices of Wesleyan’s Program on Terrorism and Insurgency Research (PTIR), which is directed by Assistant Professor of Government Erica Chenoweth. Chenoweth says that undergraduates are often overlooked in many research institutions, but that Wesleyan’s tradition of embracing undergraduates as participants in active research helped…
Manju Hingorani, associate professor of molecular biology and biochemistry, and Jacob Bricca, adjunct assistant professor of film studies, explained their experimental cross-disciplinary course on science documentary filmmaking at Wesleyan in a December 2010 article published in American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) Today. In the article, Hingorani and Bricca wrote about their course, "Making the Science Documentary," which they co-taught together, starting in 2007. The course was designed to introduce undergraduate students to the life sciences and to documentary filmmaking (more…)