Posted 12/07/07 Singer, composer, historian and honorary degree recipient Bernice Johnson Reagon will be the keynote speaker at an upcoming Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration at Wesleyan. Reagon, who founded the internationally-renowned a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock, will participate in a class, facilitate a lunch discussion and speak at the community wide MLK celebration Jan. 29. The MLK discussion will begin at 4:15 p.m. Jan. 29 in Memorial Chapel. Reagon received an honorary degree recipient from Wesleyan University in 2001. Wesleyan annually honors and celebrates the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., who also received a honorary…

Posted 11/20/07 Peter Gottschalk, associate professor of religion, and Gabriel Greenberg ’04 have written a new book Islamophobia: Making Muslims the Enemy, published by Rowman & Littlefield, 2007. In the 1990s, Gottschalk heard a lecture as a graduate student at the University of Chicago by Professor John Woods about negative images of Muslims and Islam in political cartoons. He used some cartoons when he first began to teach. Following the 9/11 tragedies, Gottschalk started following certain cartoonists daily because of his concern regarding the rising anti-Muslim and anti-Islamic sentiment in the country. Greenberg, a student in one of Gottschalk's classes, got…

Posted 11/20/07 The university has been awarded a TRIO Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program grant from the U.S. Department of Education. The McNair program will provide financial support, mentoring, research opportunities, and academic guidance to eligible students who want pursue Ph.D. study. Laurel F. Appel, visiting associate professor of biology, is the McNair program's director. She's excited that Wesleyan is part of the federal program. It is presently the only Connecticut institution that is part of the program. "This program fits in with the goals of Wesleyan by broadening access to research to all students," Appel says. “The focus…

Posted 11/20/07 Two Wesleyan alumni each have made substantial gifts to create need-based scholarships for former servicemen and women for four years of full-time baccalaureate study. These new gifts will fund as many as 10 scholarships at any given time. One of the donors, Frank Sica '73, hopes he can enable young men and women who have performed a service for the U.S. to attend a premier liberal arts university. "The government-provided college aid and pay scales for enlisted personnel are such that, unless these people received substantial aid, they could not pay the expenses associated with attending a place…

Lori Gruen displays her collection of primate portraits at the Who's Looking exhibit inside Zilkha Gallery. This month, Who's Looking will provide the Wesleyan community with opportunities to explore human's complex relations to chimps through photographs, film, theater and words. Posted 11/20/07 One cannot help but be stirred with emotions upon viewing Who's Looking?Who's Looking? A collaborative, multi-disciplinary investigation of human relations to chimpanzees,” an exhibit at the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery that runs until Dec. 2, explores what chimpanzees see when they look at humans and what humans see when they look at chimpanzees. The exhibit, directed by…

Posted 11/20/07 A new series of films will shine a spotlight on how literary works are translated onto screen. The newly-created Adaptation Series, sponsored by the Center for Film Studies and Olin Library, will begin Nov. 29 with a talk by screenwriter and alumnus Stephen Schiff. Schiff will speak about his screen adaptation of Nabokov’s Lolita, filmed in 1997 by director Adrian Lyne. The talk will be preceded by a screening of the film, starring Jeremy Irons, Melanie Griffith and Dominique Swain. This is the inaugural event of the Adaptation Series, which has been designed by Jeanine Basinger, Corwin-Fuller Professor…

Posted 11/05/07 Wesleyan University will eliminate loans for its neediest undergraduates and replace these with additional grants, President Michael S. Roth has announced. The policy will be part of a new initiative to reduce overall student indebtedness by 35 percent to make Wesleyan even more accessible to students regardless of their financial capacity. "Access to a Wesleyan education for students from all backgrounds has long been one of the core values of this community," Roth says. "It remains one of our highest priorities. As I begin my presidency, I see this new effort as a down payment on our goal…

Nadeem Modan ‘10 and Adina Teibloom ‘10 attended interactive workshops, panel conversations with leading think tanks and foundations at the Interfaith Youth Conference Oct. 28-30 in Chicago, Ill. They are sharing what they have learned with their Wesleyan peers. Posted 11/05/07 Two Wesleyan sophomores met with renowned religious scholars, interfaith activists and peers from around the world recently to promote peaceful relations between different religious groups. Nadeem Modan ‘10, who is Muslim, and Adina Teibloom ‘10, who is Jewish, attended interactive workshops, panel conversations with leading think tanks and foundations, and an interfaith concert at the Interfaith Youth Conference Oct.…

Skye LoGuidice '09 is on the ballot for three Grammy awards. She write songs on life, tackling love, life and loss. Posted 11/05/07 Skye LoGuidice ’09 is working toward graduating with a degree from the College of Letters, but first she may receive a Grammy Award – or two, or even three. LoGuidice, who musically goes by Skye Claire, is listed on the 50th Annual Grammy Awards official ballot in three categories. The singer-songwriter was chosen among thousands of artists and bands nation-wide. “I haven’t told that many people yet, because I don’t know how to react to this, or…

Posted 11/05/07 In the 1930s, Hollywood unveiled a new way of watching film with the introduction of three-color Technicolor. Scott Higgins, left, associate professor of film studies, will speak on the 75-year-old color film process technique during a three-weekend retrospective of Technicolor films at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York City. His lecture, which begins at 2 p.m. Nov. 17, will be held in conjunction with the publication of his book Harnessing the Technicolor Rainbow: Color Design in the 1930s (University of Texas Press). “Filmmakers had already mastered the art of monochrome, of translating stories into a…