David PesciJeanine Basinger, Chair and Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies, discussed in The Los Angeles Times the recent reappearance of gigolo-type characters in feature films and television. Basinger talks about the social and economic implications of such characters and what they may imply about current times.
Gary Yohe, Woodhouse/Sysco Professor of Economics and a lead member of the Nobel Prize-winning United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said in an article in USA Today that impoverished people, especially in underdeveloped nations, will be the hardest hit from global climate change.
Claire Potter, professor of history, professor of American studies, is cited in the on-going discussion that has been churning for a few months in literary circles regarding American Enterprise Institute scholar Christina Hoff Sommers, a frequent critic of academic feminism, who believes, according to The New Yorker, that many feminist scholars are " 'impervious to reasoned criticism' (she thinks they take things way too personally, and, consumed with effrontery, are unable to correct themselves)." This included Sommers’ critique of particular scholar's assertion that abuse began with the fabled founder of Rome, Romulus and a massive digression on whether such a…
The Hartford Courant profiled the ground-breaking stem cell research of Laura Grabel, Lauren B. Dachs Professor of Science in Society, professor of biology, and Janice Naegle, professor of biology, professor neuroscience and behavior, as well as the work of Gloster Aaron, assistant professor of biology, assistant professor of neuroscience and behavior. Wesleyan, along with Yale University and The University of Connecticut, has received grants from the State Stem Cell Initiative, a program that allows scientists to research human stem cell lines. Grabel, Naegele and Aaron are doing research aimed at replicating cells that would ultimately help cure a form a…
Deb Olin Unferth, assistant professor of English, has won the 2009 Cabell First Novelist Award for her book Vacation. The award is presented by Virginia Comonwealth University and was the result of votes by readers as well as members of the Cabell award board.
Peter Rutland, Colin and Nancy Campbell Professor in Global Issues and Democratic Thought, professor of government, discussed for Russia Today TV, some of the issues that have exacerbated the tensions between Russia and Ukraine.
No Quarter, the new book Richard Slotkin, Olin Professor of English Emeritus, recounts a tragic Union blunder during the Civil War at Petersburg, Virginia, that cost the lives of thousands of soldiers. The plan and its execution was damned in part because the Union troops were "incompetently led and ill prepared." Slotkin not only explores the tactics and implementation of the plan, but the broad political implications generated in the wake of its failure. The reviewer in The Boston Globe, Michael Kenney, says the book is among" the first rank of Civil War histories."
Jeanine Basinger, Chair and Cowrin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies, Curator, Cinema Archives, discusses the new film Julie and Julia, which is about the life of famed Chef Julia Child and a writer Julie Powell, who decides to try to cook every recipe in Child's best-selling cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and then blog about her experiences. Among the movie's producers is Lawrence Mark '71.
Kirk Swinehart, assistant professor of history, has a reivew for The Chicago Tribune of Edmund Morgan's latest book, American Heroes: Profiles of Men and Women Who Shaped Early America. Swinehart says: "as so many times before, Morgan proves himself one of our deftest thinkers about race -- what he once called 'the American paradox, the marriage of slavery and freedom.'"
Elizabeth McAlister, professor of religion, associate professor of African American studies, associate professor of American Studies, continues her participation in a round table on Haitian culture in The New Yorker, discussing the music of revolution in Haiti and why it is so important within the culture.
Peter Rutland, Colin and Nancy Campbell Professor in Global Issues and Democratic Thought, professor of government, has co-written an opinion piece for the Moscow Times where he reviews U.S. President Barak Obama's recent trip to Russia.
Ann Burke, associate professor of biology, comments in Science on a new study that examines turtle embryology with an eye to the animal's evolutionary development.