Lauren RubensteinAn essay by Associate Professor of History Jennifer Tucker is included in The Five Photographs that (You Didn’t Know) Changed Everything, a five-part BBC radio series focusing on historically important yet little-known photographs. In her segment, The Tichborne Claimant, Tucker tells the story of how an 1866 photograph of a butcher in Wagga Wagga, Australia, played a central role in a case that gripped Victorian Britain and had an enormous impact on our legal system, raising questions about what photography is for and how it should be used. Says Tucker: “Sometimes even a mundane photograph can have a powerful and…
President Michael S. Roth writes in The Wall Street Journal about the importance of exploring religious feelings and experiences in humanities education, and why these topics make students so uncomfortable.
Peter Rutland, the Colin and Nancy Campbell Professor in Global Issues and Democratic Thoughts, writes in the Mirror (U.K.) about the threat to the West by Russian President Vladimir Putin. He considers the comparison made by British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon to the Islamic State. While "Putin's people are not beheading Christians or burning captives alive," writes Rutland, Russia has nuclear weapons — lots of them. "And is willing to use them if necessary," he writes. "Deterrence only works if both sides see each other as unwilling to risk war. And [Putin] believes the West will not risk nuclear conflict over where to…
Olivia DrakeRichard Grossman, professor of economics, is featured in a radio interview with Share Radio in London Feb. 19. In the interview, Grossman talks about the consequences of the European Central Bank's new quantitative easing (QE) policy, which may stimulate an economy when a standard monetary policy has become ineffective. The ECB's action follows in the footsteps of the central banks of Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, which also have used quantitative easing in the 2000s. A concern that has been raised about the introduction of QE is that persistent low interest rates will lead to another boom-bust…
Early this year, Gary Shteyngart embarked on an experiment for The New York Times: For a week straight, he would "subsist almost entirely on a diet of state-controlled Russian television, piped in from three Apple laptops onto three 55-inch Samsung monitors in a room at the Four Seasons Hotel in Manhattan." Assistant Professor of Art Sasha Rudensky documented this experiment in a series of photographs that accompany the story. Here is Shteyngart lying in bed, feet encased in hotel slippers, while Russian President Vladamir Putin's stern face fills three towering television screens. Here Shteyngart is dining on Wagyu beef slices and sipping pinot noir…
The Hartford Courant and WNPR both featured stories on Wesleyan's "observatory nights," which began this month. Every Wednesday night at 8 p.m. during the Spring semester, the Van Vleck Observatory will open its doors to the public, rain or shine, for viewing of the sky through telescopes and presentations on the latest space-related research. According to the Courant, Research Assistant Professor of Astronomy Roy Kilgard said the department is seeking to supplement its outreach to groups already interested and involved in science with new sessions for people who may not have a high level of knowledge about space and astronomy. "We're really trying…
Giulio Gallarotti, professor of government, professor of environmental studies, tutor in the College of Social Studies, was a guest on the McAlvany Weekly Commentary to discuss his book, The Power Curse: Influence and Illusion in World Politics. Gallarotti discusses how power creates the seeds of its own destruction. The applications are explored both in the context of geo-politics and international finance. Listen to the interview here. Gallarotti's book can be found here.
Professor of Theater Ron Jenkins is part of a growing movement urging Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo to spare the lives of two Australian drug smugglers currently on death row in Indonesia. Their executions are scheduled for later this month. Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were part of a theater workshop Jenkins conducted at the Kerobokan Penitentiary in 2011. That workshop focused on adapting Dante's "Divine Comedy" for the stage. Jenkins is now teaching the same class at a prison in Connecticut through the Yale Divinity School. In connection with that course, on Feb. 7, Jenkins moderated a panel at the Yale Divinity School…
As controversy over the measles vaccine continues to grow, and prominent politicians weigh in with their views, Assistant Professor of Government Erika Franklin Fowler writes in The Washington Post's "Monkey Cage" blog about the dangerous consequences that politicization of vaccine issues in the news media can have on public support for vaccines in general. In an article co-authored with with Sarah Gollust '01, now an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota's School of Public Health, Fowler considers the the 2009 dust-up over mammography screening recommendations, and the 2006-07 debate over whether to require girls to get the HPV vaccine. Though neither started…
President Roth recently spoke to The Washington Post about current level of anxiety over the job-readiness of college grads, and what colleges' roles and responsibilities really are to ensure their students are prepared for the workforce. “The erosion of the middle class,” he said, “has put a lot more pressure on parents and students to make it big in the world or the consequences are dire.” Roth told the Post that he believes universities can do more to prepare students for the job market "without abandoning their traditional role to provide a broad education." He said Wesleyan is investing more in its career services.…
Writing in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Dan Berrett traces the ongoing tension in American between visions of higher education "as a vehicle for intellectual development" and as a simple tool to prepare students for jobs. Citing Wesleyan President Michael S. Roth's book, Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters, Berrett shows how the debate over the value of a liberal education has evolved from the days of the Founding Fathers to W.E.B. Du bois and Booker T. Washington to today. "A farmer reading the classics or an industrial worker quoting Shakespeare was at one time an honorable character. Today’s news stories lament bartenders with…
Bryan Stascavage '18Ron Jenkins ’64, professor of theater, published a review of Lempad of Bali: The Illuminating Line in the Jan. 19 edition of the Jakarta Post. Jenkins had high praise for the book, which contains pictures of the works of Balinese architect and artist I Gusti Nyoman Lempad. Jenkins wrote, "the aptly titled volume illuminates not only the exquisite lines of Lempad’s artwork, but also the intangible elements of Balinese identity that those lines represent." In addition to describing some of the noted works, Jenkins also commended the depth and insightfulness of the essays that accompanied each work. The essays were written by a team of…