Olivia DrakeNorman Shapiro, the Distinguished Professor of Literary Translation, is the editor and translator of Fables of Town and Country, published by Black Widow Press in October 2017. Fables of Town and Country is the English version of poet-novelist Pierre Coran's Fables des Villes et des Champs. Supported by a grant from the Belgian Ministry of Culture, Fables of Town and Country is the second of three works by Coran that Shapiro is translating. The first was Fables in a Modern Key in 2014, and the third, Rhymamusings is scheduled to appear in 2019. Coran, Shapiro explains, "is a whimsical octogenarian celebrated throughout his native Belgium as a preeminent…
Lauren RubensteinThe Wesleyan Media Project’s research is resonating in our nation’s capital and beyond. Associate Professor of Government Erika Franklin Fowler, together with a team of Wesleyan students and colleagues at several institutions across the United States, conducts research on campaign advertising and health media, which is informing work in government, nonprofits and the private sector. In January, the Bipartisan Policy Center released a major report, The State of Campaign Finance in the U.S., which relied heavily on data and research from the Wesleyan Media Project. The task force that developed the report, led by a Stanford law professor and top…
Wesleyan faculty frequently publish articles based on their scholarship in The Conversation US, a nonprofit news organization with the tagline, "Academic rigor, journalistic flair." Lori Gruen, the William Griffin Professor of Philosophy, has written a piece explaining how philosophers determine what is the right, or ethical, thing to do. Gruen also is professor of feminist, gender and sexuality studies, professor of science in society, and coordinator of animal studies. Read her bio in The Conversation. How should we decide what to do? How many times do we wonder, "What’s the right thing to do?" Most of us are faced with ethical…
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Bill HolderCare to brush up on your French? Learn Japanese? Or perhaps acquire a language that isn’t commonly taught at colleges, such as Danish? Wesleyan is offering alumni and members of the on-campus community free access to the Mango Languages platform, says Antonio Gonzalez, professor of Spanish and director of the Fries Center for Global Studies. The platform provides high-quality online instruction in 72 languages, with an excellent blend of conversational language and cultural study. Gonzalez says that reception of Mango as a teaching and learning tool "has been very positive on campus" and that it is an attractive means for…
On Jan. 27, the Athletic Department hosted its third annual National Girls and Women in Sports Day celebration at the Freeman Athletic Center. As part of the celebration, more than 50 female Wesleyan student-athletes and coaches led a sports clinic for local grade-school children. Seventy-three girls participated in seven sports sessions on softball, field hockey, tennis, lacrosse, crew, volleyball and soccer. (more…)
Laurie KenneyThe Broadway cast recording of the Tony Award–winning musical Dear Evan Hansen won the Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album on Jan. 28. The album was produced by Atlantic Record’s President of A&R (artists and repertoire) Pete Ganbarg ’88, along with music supervisor and orchestrator Alex Lacamoire, creators Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, and Broadway producer Stacey Mindich. “What a great weekend for Wes!" said Ganbarg. "I was so thrilled to be surrounded by so many amazingly talented alums. Got to finally meet Grammy winner Gail Marowitz ’81, be in the room where it happens when Lin-Manuel Miranda ’02 won his latest…
Cynthia Rockwell For two hours every Saturday—and any early morning or late night shift available—Middletown resident Franco Liseo fills the airwaves of WESU 88.1 FM, with Italian music. His specialty is the sounds from the ’60s and ’70s; "Love songs," he says. "When I left Italy, I left with the music”—and he's been doing this for 30 years. The Saturday show is special; he broadcasts with a co-host, Lucilla Caminito, the daughter of a childhood friend, who Skypes in from Melilli. These shows feature contemporary music that Caminito chooses and sends to Liseo (whose DJ name is "Francaccio") via the internet, YouTube,…
"Pattern recognition was a constant in my explorations at Wesleyan—and what I focused on afterwards," says Benjamin Fels ’06, explaining the unity behind a seeming diversity of interests. The Bill and Melinda Gates Organization is interested, also, in what Fels finds intriguing. The company Fels co-founded, macro-eyes, is one of 20 that the foundation selected to be a Grand Challenges Explorations winner. The project that macro-eyes proposed seeks to use their own breed of statistical machine learning, trained on supply chain and immunization data at health facilities in Tanzania. The goal is to maximize the number of children who get vaccinated and minimize vaccine…
Last fall, 19 students enrolled in the Earth and Environmental Sciences 280 course, Introduction to GIS, assisted a local organization while learning data analysis skills. At the start of the semester, the class teamed up with community partner Emma Kravet, education director at the Connecticut Forest & Park Association (CFPA). Kravet expressed a need for a mapping tool that shows the location of schools and other community resources near the CFPA's blue-blazed hiking trail system. If such a map existed, she could facilitate more meaningful connections to schools and organizations near the trails. The class broke into five thematic groups to…
Himeka Curiel Recognize the Wesleyan faculty who have had a lasting impact on your academic and personal development by nominating them for the 2018 Binswanger Prize for Excellence in Teaching! Juniors, seniors, graduate students and Graduates of the Last Decade (GOLD) are invited to nominate up to three professors for 2018 Binswanger Prizes, which will be awarded during Wesleyan's Commencement Ceremony on May 27. The deadline for nominations is Feb. 12, 2018. NOMINATE NOW. The Binswanger Prize is made possible by gifts from the family of the late Frank Binswanger Sr. Hon. ’85 and underscores Wesleyan’s commitment to its scholar-teachers who are responsible for the university’s…
Peter Rutland, the Colin and Nancy Campbell Professor in Global Issues and Democratic Thought, recently spoke on a panel of political economy experts at The Gaidar Forum 2018, held at the Presidential Academy of Economics and Public Administration in Moscow. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev gave the keynote address at the forum. "How can Russia get onto a more knowledge-intensive, non–resource-based economic sustainable growth path? How can it escape from the middle income trap?" asks Rutland in his talk. "You could look across the continent to China," which has been amazingly successful in recent years, he says. Russian companies do not invest at…