Olivia DrakeGina Athena Ulysse, professor of anthropology, is the author of Why Haiti Needs New Narratives: A Post-Quake Chronicle, published by Wesleyan University Press in 2015. In this book, Ulysse, a Haitian-American anthropologist and performance artist, makes sense of her homeland in the wake of the 2010 earthquake. Mainstream news coverage of the catastrophic earthquake of Jan. 12, 2010, reproduced longstanding narratives of Haiti and stereotypes of Haitians. Cognizant that this Haiti, as it exists in the public sphere, is a rhetorically and graphically incarcerated one, Ulysse embarked on a writing spree that lasted more than two years. As an ethnographer and a…
Lauren RubensteinAn international research team headed by Professor of Art History Peter Mark has been awarded a grant for a project titled “African Ivories in the Atlantic World.” The $115,000 three-year grant from the Portuguese Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) will make it possible for the research team to carry out the first laboratory analyses of selected ivories, in order to determine more precisely the age and the provenance of these little-known artworks. In addition, team members will compile the first comprehensive catalogue of “Luso-African ivories” in Portuguese collections, as well as the first thorough study of those carvings that were exported…
The College of East Asian Studies (CEAS) received two major, multi-year grant awards to hire new faculty and improve library resources. The Korea Foundation has awarded the CEAS a $314,330 five-year grant to support the hiring of a tenure-track faculty member in Korean political economy. The mission of The Korea Foundation is to promote better understanding of Korea within the international community and to increase friendship and goodwill between Korea and the rest of the world through various exchange programs. Located in Seoul, the foundation was established in 1991 with the aim to enhance the image of Korea in the…
A paper authored by Assistant Professor of Psychology Clara Wilkins, her former post-doc Joseph Wellman, and Katherine Schad '13, MA '14, was published in August in the journal Group Processes & Intergroup Relations. Titled "Reactions to anti-male sexism claims: The moderating roles of status-legitimizing belief and endorsement and group identification," the paper examines how people react to men who claim to be victims of gender bias, an increasingly common phenomenon. In particular, the researchers considered how status legitimizing beliefs (SLBs), which encompass a set of ideologies that justify existing status hierarchies, and gender identification (GID) moderated men's and women's reactions to a man who claimed…
Ellen Thomas, the University Professor in the College of Integrative Sciences, received a grant in August from the National Science Foundation to support her research on “Evaluating Deep-Sea Ventilation and the Global Carbon Cycle during early Paleocene Hyperthemals.” The $105,000 award is part of a combined $619,000 grant shared with Yale University and the University of Texas at Arlington. Rapid, short-term global warming events in the Early Paleogene (~65-45 million years ago) were caused by massive greenhouse gas release into the ocean-atmosphere system. These warming events, called hyperthermals, had far-reaching effects on the evolution of life on Earth, ecosystems and…
This fall, Wesleyan welcomes 15 new faculty to the university. They are: Francesco Aresu, assistant professor of Italian; Joseph Coolon, assistant professor of biology; Daniel DiCenzo, adjunct associate professor of physical education and head coach of football; Candice Etson, assistant professor of physics; Anthony Hatch, assistant professor of Science in Society; Han Li, assistant professor of mathematics; Jeffrey Naecker, assistant professor of economics; Paula Park, assistant professor of Spanish; Michelle Personick, assistant professor of chemistry; Felipe Ramírez, assistant professor of mathematics; Ben Somera Jr., adjunct associate professor of physical education, head coach of volleyball; Ying Jia Tan, assistant professor of…
Associate Professor of French Catherine Poisson recently participated in a radio series on the French writer and intellectual Simone de Beauvoir. The series aired the week of August 17-21 on the France Culture network; it can be heard online here. Taped in Paris, New York and Chicago, the Grande Traversée (the "great crossover") show sought to reveal another Simone de Beauvoir, considering every stage of her life--from the dutiful daughter to the independent and engaged woman to, finally, breaking the taboo of old age. It showed her as passionate and multi-voiced---intimate and political, unleashed in her youth diaries and love letters, audacious in her…
Professor of Theater Ron Jenkins writes in The Jakarta Post about Wayan Nardayana, a popular and provocative puppet master in Bali who "combines the political insight of a social activist with the spiritual wisdom of a priest and the comic instincts of a master entertainer." Jenkins describes the artist's recent performance at a celebration of the birthday of Indonesia's first president, Sukarno. "The dalang’s ability to make connections between sacred texts, Indonesian history and contemporary reality is at the core of his art," Jenkins writes. Nardayana tells the audience, "Indonesians today can also harness the power of their ancestors to inspire them to…
John Seamon, professor of psychology, emeritus, is the author of a new book, Memory and the Movies, published August 14 by The MIT Press. The book is an outgrowth of a Psychology course, "Memory in the Movies," which Seamon taught at Wesleyan for five years before his retirement in 2013. He is currently preparing a MOOC version of it to run on Coursera next winter. The book examines what films such as Slumdog Millionaire, Memento, and Away From Her can teach us about how human memory works. Seamon explains that memory is actually a diverse collection of independent systems, and uses examples from movies to to…
Writing for Inside Sources, President Michael Roth made the case for a broad, contextual education, in a counterpoint to an essay by Eastern Kentucky University President Michael Benson, arguing for education that provides "a transferable set of skills." Roth writes that the types of contentious debates currently raging over the value of a college education are as old as America itself, something he explores in-depth in his book, Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters. He writes: Several of the Founding Fathers saw education as the road to independence and liberty. A broad commitment to inquiry was part of their dedication…
The Green Street Teaching and Learning Center hosted a Girls in Science Camp Aug. 3-7. Wesleyan faculty members Ruth Johnson, assistant professor of biology (pictured third from left); Erika Taylor, assistant professor of chemistry, assistant professor of environmental studies (pictured at far right); Chris Othon, assistant professor of physics (pictured at left), along with three undergraduate students, worked with the campers on various experiments. Sara MacSorley, director of the GSTLC (second from left), coordinated the activities. Johnson led the campers on a bug hunt through Wesleyan's West College Courtyard garden. There, the girls observed insects while considering insect diets and insect life-cycles. The girls…
Justine Quijada, assistant professor of religion, assistant professor of Russian, Eastern European and Eurasian studies, has co-authored a new article, together with Eric Stephen '13, MA '14 and a colleague at Indiana University, in the journal Problems of Post-Communism. Published July 30, it is titled, "Finding 'Their Own': Revitalizing Buryat Culture Through Shamanic Practices in Ulan-Ude." Research was conducted by Quijada and Kathryn E. Graber of Indiana University on a grant funded by the National Council of Eurasian and East European Research – Indigenous Peoples of Russia Grant, and included collecting survey data at a variety of shamanic ceremonies. Stephen conducted extensive statistical analysis…