Olivia DrakeKevin Flaherty, a postdoctoral researcher working with Meredith Hughes, assistant professor of astronomy, will speak on "Dusty Debris as a Window into New Planetary Systems" during the American Association for the Advancement of Science's (AAAS) 2016 Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., Feb. 13. Flaherty is one of three symposium speakers who will discuss the theme "Planet Formation Seen with Radio Eyes." Scientists are now probing how, where, and when planets form and are analyzing the links between planetary system architecture and the properties of the parent circumstellar disk. Though the relationship of planetary to stellar masses remains obscure, it is clear that most…
Tom Morgan, the Foss Professor of Physics, recently attended an Atomic Molecular Optical International Workshop held in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Morgan presented two invited talks, one on highly excited unusual electronic configurations of molecular hydrogen produced by laser excitation and another on laser interactions at the interface between water and air. These topics elicit novel dynamics and provide a different perspective on H2 and H2O behavior. He also took the opportunity to reconnect with a Mexican colleague, Professor Carmen Cisneros, Institute of Physics, University of Mexico, organizer of the workshop, with whom Morgan has collaborated in the past.
Recognize the Wesleyan faculty who had an enduring impact on your academic and personal development by nominating them for the 2016 Binswanger Prize for Excellence in Teaching. Nominations are now open! The Binswanger Prize for Excellence in Teaching was inaugurated in 1993 as an institutional recognition of outstanding faculty members. One to three Binswanger Prizes are presented each year and are made possible by the generosity of the family of Frank G. Binswanger Sr., Hon. ’85. Recent alumni up to 10 years out, seniors, juniors, and graduate students (including Graduate Liberal Studies) can nominate up to three professors for the award. Current faculty…
Lauren RubensteinProfessor of Religion Elizabeth McAlister is the author of a new paper, "The Militarization of Prayer in America: White and Native American Spiritual Warfare" published Jan. 4 in the Journal of Religious and Political Practice. In the article, McAlister examines how militarism has come to be one of the generative forces of the prayer practices of millions of Christians across the globe. She focuses on the articulation between militarization and aggressive forms of prayer, especially the evangelical warfare prayer developed by North Americans since the 1980s. Against the backdrop of the rise in military spending and neoliberal economic policies, spiritual warfare evangelicals…
On the release of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's latest dietary guidelines, The Washington Post looks back at the man responsible for starting it all: William Olin Atwater, Class of 1865 and later a chemistry professor at Wesleyan, who authored the very first dietary guidelines in 1894. According to the Post, at that time, the U.S. government provided basically no funding into nutritional research, and good nutrition meant simply getting enough to eat. But Atwater was a firm believer that nutrition was about more than simply staving off hunger. He framed the effort to figure out what foods are good for you as a moral…
Jon Barlow, professor of music, emeritus, died Dec. 15 at the age of 73. Barlow arrived at Wesleyan in 1966 after receiving his BA and MA from Cornell University. He arrived as the Music Department began its visionary phase and taught in the department for 34 years. Grounded in “Western” music history, Barlow expanded his horizons geographically and conceptually, constantly creating innovative courses, which attracted serious students. Many of his students went on to become established composers, performers, musicologists and ethnomusicologists. (more…)
Richard Grossman, professor of economics, and Masami Imai, professor and chair of economics, professor of East Asian studies, are the authors of an article published January 2016 in Explorations in Economic History. The article is titled "Taking the lord's name in vain: The impact of connected directors on 19th century British banks." Grossman and Imai considered the appointment of prominent, well-connected individuals (former members of Parliament and lords) to the boards of directors of banks in pre-World War I Britain, and investigated whether their presence enhanced equity value for bank shareholders. Surprisingly, they found that these individuals actually had negative effects on bank equity returns. The…
Gary Yohe, the Huffington Foundation Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies, appeared on the RT show "Boom Bust" to discuss the impact of climate change on business and the economy. (Yohe's interview begins at 3:45). He was asked what sectors of the economy are being affected the most by the forces of climate change. "Agriculture comes to mind. It's not just hurricanes and extreme precipitation events—although that seems to be happening along the East Coast. Any [real estate or] infrastructure that's located near the coast line or near a river, for that matter, is in increasing vulnerability. But it's more than that. It's [...] agriculture,…
A hundred years ago, Christmas in Russia looked a lot like Christmas in America, with trees, presents and twinkling lights. All that changed with the Russian revolution, Assistant Professor of History Victoria Smolkin-Rothrock told NPR in an interview about the history of the Yolka, or New Year's tree. "The tree comes to be seen as a symbol of both the bourgeois order, which is one kind of class enemy, and of religion in particular, which is another kind of class enemy," explains Smolkin-Rothrock. "There are very explicit statements that essentially unmask the Christmas tree for the class symbol that it is. It becomes clear that one does not…
The campaign season so far has seen a significant increase in the volume of GOP presidential ads, and an explosion in advertising by super PACs and other outside groups. Outside groups sponsored 81 percent of ads between January 1–December 9, 2015—a 71 percent increase over 2011, and 12,000 percent increase over 2007. This was the finding of an analysis by the Wesleyan Media Project, its first of the 2016 election cycle. The "remarkable growth in campaign activity by independent groups" it found was covered by The Washington Post, NPR, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, USA Today, Vox and others. Notably, the report found little…
The historic global deal on climate change reached by 190 countries in Paris will help the economy, not hurt it as critics argue, writes Huffington Foundation Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies Gary Yohe in an op-ed in The Hartford Courant. "The evidence in the peer-reviewed economic literature, as well as real experience around the world and in the United States, shows that climate action not only protects public health by reducing pollution, but also protects the economy from extreme weather shocks and other complications that have and will arise from a changing climate. The sooner we act, the more money…
David LowJeanine Basinger, Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies, was recently featured in a Hollywood Reporter article “The Professor of Hollywood,” by film historian and best-selling author Sam Wasson ’03, who studied with Basinger at Wesleyan. The magazine brought together 33 of her former pupils who work prominently in the film industry for “an A-list class reunion” photo—and several of them talk about how Basinger inspired them, encouraging their self-expression while also sharing with them her love for the medium. In the article, Basinger discusses how and why she came to devote her life to the study of film and how working…