Olivia DrakeMiss You Like Hell is a new musical written by the Shapiro Distinguished Professor of Writing and Theater, Quiara Alegria Hudes. Focusing on what it means to be a family in an ever-changing American society, Hudes’ work follows the story of a “whip-smart, deeply imaginative teenager and her free spirited Latina mother, as they embark on a road trip.” Commissioned by Christopher Ashley, the artistic director at La Jolla Playhouse, in La Jolla, California, the production is a new piece that embraces the idea of changing identities. Ashley states in an a broadwayworld.com article, “this is exactly the right time…
Scott Higgins, chair and professor of film studies, delivered the keynote address during the 2016 SERCIA Conference, held Sept. 8-10 in Paris, France. The topic of his talk was “Benefits of Incoherence: Seriality in the Studio Era," largely based on book, Matinee Melodrama: Playing with Formula in the Sound Serial (Rutgers, 2016). SERCIA, an organization established in France in 1993, encourages teaching and research in English-speaking cinema. During the 22nd annual conference, Higgins joined film scholars from all over the world to explore links between the filmic form and seriality. "I argued that American sound-serials in the 1930s and 1940s, with incoherent…
Randi Alexandra PlakeChris Weaver MALS ’75, CAS ’76, visiting professor in the College of Integrative Sciences at Wesleyan, was appointed co-director of the Video Game Pioneers Archive at the Smithsonian Institute’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation. This one-of-a-kind initiative will record oral-history interviews with first-generation inventors of the video game industry, creating a multimedia archive that will preserve the evolution of the industry in the words of its founders. The archive will offer scholars and the public the opportunity to better understand the personalities, technologies, and social forces that have driven interactive media to become one of the…
Cynthia RockwellA Connecticut dance event offered Associate Professor of Dance Katja Kolcio an additional way to explore her ongoing dance/movement project highlighting the effect of political forces at work in Ukraine. Last summer, Kolcio invited colleague and Associate Professor of Dance Nicole Stanton to join with two other dancers, both with ties to Ukraine, to create a dance. This event, Dance for Peace, was sponsored by Artists for World Peace, an organization founded and led by Wendy Black-Nasta P’07, with music director Robert Nasta MA ’98, P’07. Kolcio, who holds a doctorate in somatics, places the dance they created, “Steppe Land,”…
Michael Weir, professor of biology, professor of integrative sciences, received a grant worth $491,599 from the National Institutes of Health in September. Weir will use the award to better understand how ribosomes — the machines that make proteins — choose sequences in mRNAs (messenger ribonucleic acids) to start protein translation. "This is an ongoing challenge in biology and is of great importance for investigations of cell function," Weir said. Weir is testing the hypothesis that sequences downstream of the translation start codon of mRNAs can form transient base pairs with a conserved sequence in 18S ribosomal RNA (called the 530…
Frederick Cohan, professor of biology, professor of environmental studies, presented his research poster, "Genetic Sweeps by Whisk Brooms and Garage Brooms — the Role of Ecology" at the 16th annual International Symposium on Microbial Ecology, held Aug. 21-26 in Montreal. Cohan presented his models on the origins of bacterial species, in particular that the rate a bacterial group forms new species is determined by the foods it consumes. Microbial ecology is the study of microbes in the environment and their interactions with each other. The International Society for Microbial Ecology is the principle non-profit scientific society for the burgeoning field of microbial ecology and its…
Victoria Pitts-Taylor, chair and professor of feminist, gender and sexuality studies, is the editor of Mattering: Feminism, Science and Materialism published by NYU Press in August 2016. Anthony Hatch, assistant professor of science in society, co-authored a chapter in the collection titled "Prisons Matter: Psychotropics and the Trope of Silence in Technocorrections." Mattering presents contemporary feminist perspectives on the materialist or ‘naturalizing’ turn in feminist theory, and also represents the newest wave of feminist engagement with science. The volume addresses the relationship between human corporeality and subjectivity, questions and redefines the boundaries of human/non-human and nature/culture, elaborates on the entanglements of…
This fall, Wesleyan welcomes 55 new faculty including 15 new tenured and tenure-track faculty, 33 visiting faculty and seven fellows. They come from top PhD programs throughout the country with expertise ranging from private protocols for computer networks to sleep and psychosocial adjustments to intersectionality of body size, race and gender. Three tenure-track faculty also are Wesleyan alumni. The 2016-17 group represents the most diverse class of new faculty to date. (more…)
John Bonin, the Chester D. Hubbard Professor of Economics and Social Science, and his former student Dana Louie ’15, are authors of a new paper published in Journal of Comparative Economics titled, “Did foreign banks stay committed to emerging Europe during recent financial crises?” In the paper, Bonin and Louie investigate the behavior of foreign banks with respect to real loan growth during times of financial crisis for a set of countries where foreign banks dominate the banking sectors. The paper focuses on eight countries that are the most developed in emerging Europe and the behavior of two types of banks:…
Jennifer Tucker, associate professor of history, is organizing a conference titled "Firearms and the Common Law Tradition" to be held at the The Aspen Institute in Washington, D.C., Sept. 14-15. Topics will include "The Uses of Guns," "Laws Regulating Carriage of Guns," "Guns and the Supreme Court: The Influence of History," and "Guns and Constitutional Rights." Focused on the ways in which historical arguments have become important for the judicial debate about guns in America, the discussion will feature Darrell Miller, professor of law at Duke University School of Law and Eugene Volokh, the Gary T. Schwartz Professor of Law at the UCLA…
Lauren RubensteinUniversity Professor of Music Sumarsam and several PhD students and alumni recently presented papers at the 4th Symposium of the International Council for Traditional Music Study Group on the Performing Arts of Southeast Asia (ICTM PASEA). The symposium was hosted by Universiti Sains Malaysia in Penang, Malaysia, from July 31 to Aug. 6. Sumarsam presented a paper titled, "Religiosity in Javanese Wayang Puppet Play," and demonstrated puppet movements. (more…)
This month, the Green Street Teaching and Learning Center is once again hosting its K-8 Math Institute for 29 school teachers from Vernon and Hamden, Conn. The 80-hour program aims to increase teachers' mastery of math concepts as well as their confidence with math. Wesleyan Associate Professor of Mathematics Christopher Rasmussen is teaching the institute along with Sharon Heyman, a mathematics education specialist from the University of Connecticut. This is the fifth time the pair has taught the course together. The institute includes the content-intensive, 80-hour Intel Math course over the summer as a foundation for teachers, several follow-up workshops during the school year…