Search Results for “ukraine”

President Michael S. Roth ’78 wrote a review of an anthology of the late Hayden White’s works titled The Ethics of Narrative: Essays on History, Literature, and Theory, 1998-2007 for the Los Angeles Review of Books. Roth said White “was a consistently intelligent and engaging postmodern advocate for thinking about history as a form of imaginative reconstruction that could either constrain people or inspire their liberation.” Roth also penned an op-ed in The Boston Globe drawing parallels between education and democracy. “We must be on our guard against those who are afraid of that exploration; we must stand up against…

On August 6, 1945, Toshiko Tanaka was a six-year-old on her way to school in Hiroshima, Japan, when, at 8:15 a.m., she looked up and watched the sky overhead turn blinding white. Tanaka didn’t talk about what happened next for more than 60 years: the burns that rendered her unrecognizable to her own mother, the corpses on the city’s riverbanks, the illnesses that struck down seemingly uninjured survivors, and the once-unimaginable devastation made real after the US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima—the first of two times nuclear weapons have been used in conflict—near the close of World War II.…

Reinhold Blumel, Charlotte Augusta Ayres Professor of Physics, has recently published three papers in the journal Scientific Reports: "Effects of the coupling of dielectric spherical particles on signatures in infrared microspectroscopy;" "Space-resolved chemical information from infrared extinction spectra", and "Domes and Semi-Capsules as Model Systems for Infrared Microspectroscopy of Biological Cells." David Kuenzel, Associate Professor of Economics, published Non-tariff Measures: What's Tariffs Got to Do with It? in the February 2023 issue of the Canadian Journal of Economics. The paper systematically examines the empirical link between various tariff measures and the imposition of non-tariff barriers in WTO member countries. Matthew M. Kurtz, Professor of Psychology, published a piece…

In recognition of a year since the Russian attack on Ukraine, Wesleyan's Dance Department and WesWell co-hosted Ukrainian dance artist Mariia Bakalo, to teach a Contemporary Dance class and a workshop in Ukrainian Dance: Choreotherapy. The Choreotherapeutic approach focuses on the collective dynamic experience of moving together in rhythm and special configurations with other people. Bakalo taught a Bukhovynian dance from the southwestern region of Ukraine. Participants, including students, staff and faculty, children and Middletown community leaders from Community Health Center of Middletown and the Free Center, learned, laughed and sweat together. “The event was a testament to the resilience…

The past year began in uncertainty due to the global pandemic and the ongoing strife happening in our country and throughout the world. However, the Wesleyan University community persevered and thrived. Faculty explored new and innovative ideas, and students grew in ways that they couldn’t have anticipated. Throughout the year the Wesleyan Connection was there to document the life of a place that is always creative, always pushing for a better and more just world. Here’s a small sampling of the stories that mattered this past year: January The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation funded the Carceral Connecticut Project, a multidisciplinary…

(Updated January 4, 2022) Assistant Professor of Theatre Maria-Christina Oliveras joined the cast of "Between Riverside and Crazy" by Stephen Adly Giuirgis as Church Lady. (Broadwayworld) President Michael S. Roth '78 reviews "In Praise of Failure: Four Lessons in Humility," by philosopher Costica Bradatan in the December 28 Washington Post. "(Bradatan) looks at how various thinkers — Seneca, Mohandas Gandhi, Simone Weil, Emil Cioran, Yukio Mishima — detached themselves from an obsessive drive for worldly success by reckoning with failure and death. Bradatan wants us to grasp how striving to succeed prevents us from dealing with our mortality and hence…

In the United States, firearms elicit clashing perceptions. They can be sources of leisure and recreation, of livelihood and profit, of grief and fear. “Guns mean different things to different people,” said Jennifer Tucker, director of the new Center for the Study of Guns and Society at Wesleyan, “and sometimes different things to the same people.” Held over October 14 and 15, the Center’s inaugural conference brought about 150 historians, museum curators, Wesleyan students, and others to campus to explore the historical contexts around one of the most polarizing subjects in modern America. The conference, “Current Perspectives on the History…

(Updated October 31, 2022) Len Bergstein ‘67 passed away October 17th. Bergstein worked as a longtime political consultant to Oregon Governors, Supreme Court Justices, and Commissioners. He is survived by his wife of 38 years, Betsy, two brothers, three children, and four grandchildren. Zachariah Ezer, a 2015 Wesleyan University Olin Fellow was chosen as one of 7 playwrights for Theater J’s Expanding the Canon initiative. The program seeks to correct and broaden the historically limited portrayals of Jewishness on U.S. stages and around the world. Jennifer Finney Boylan ‘80 was interviewed about the book she’s written with Jodi Picoult, “Mad…

(Updated September 28, 2022) President Michael S. Roth '78 published a piece in the September 26 Boston Globe urging educators at all levels to speak out to defend democracy. "We in higher education must energetically cultivate democratic values — including freedom of expression, rights to representation, and the protection of the vulnerable — at home on our campuses. And we must take a stand against the would-be strongmen who threaten these values in our country and beyond. As educators, we should encourage our students and colleagues to join us in fighting for basic democratic rights. And should that fight be lost…

Emotions run high on Arrival Day at Wesleyan. Raw nerves live next to joy. Tears and laughs happen simultaneously. For the Class of 2026, the day is filled with hope, aspiration, and the promise a new year brings. “I’m feeling good. A little bit nervous. In the short term, I am excited to meet new people and make amazing new friends, but then I want to find my passion and explore different academic areas,” said William Liang ’26, whose sister Mia is a member of the Class of 2023. The 745 members of the Class of 2026, who arrived on…

(Updated August 30, 2022) Peter Rutland, professor of government, spoke to Newsweek about Ukrainian efforts to retake the occupied territory of the Kherson province and about Russia’s failed efforts at air supremacy. He also spoke to the Village Voice, giving context about life in Russia currently and attention fatigue on the part of American audiences connected to the war in Ukraine. (August 30) American Artist spoke with science fiction scholar Lou Cornum, a post-doctoral fellow at Wesleyan University, about how the imagining of other worlds is so often born of dissatisfaction with present and past ones in an Art in…

Wesleyan’s intellectually dynamic faculty, students, alumni, staff, and parents frequently serve as expert sources for national media. Others are noted for recent achievements and accolades. (Updated July 29, 2022) Frank G. Binswanger Jr. '50, P '76, '78, GP '13, '15, former member of Wesleyan's Board of Trustees and corporate real executive, has died. Frank and his brother John ’54, P’83, GP’ 06, ’10, ’16 established the Binswanger Prize for Excellence in Teaching in honor of their father. Each year at Commencement members of the Alumni Association Executive Committee choose three faculty as recipients of the prize. (July 28) Carolyn Renzin '95…

Wesleyan in the News: June 2023

Hiroshima Bombing Survivor Toshiko Tanaka Shares Her Story of Tragedy and Resilience

Faculty Achievements: Spring 2023

Dance Department Holds Ukrainian Dance Workshop

Year in Review: 2022

Wesleyan in the News: December 2022

Center for the Study of Guns and Society Explores the Histories of Firearms at Inaugural Conference

Wesleyan in the News, October 2022

Wesleyan in the News, September 2022

Wesleyan Welcomes the Class of 2026

Wesleyan in the News, August 2022

Wesleyan in the News, July 2022