Olivia DrakeWesleyan boasts yet another 2011 Dell Social Innovation Competition semifinalist. The group Bitone Troupe, led by Branco Sekalegga MA '11, Allana Kembabazi '11 and AhDream Smith '12, will work with the Bitone Children's Center in Kampala, Uganda this summer on a project titled "Enlightenment Uganda: Disease Control and Prevention." The troupe, made up of young adult performers, represent the promise and potential of Uganda’s youth, 2.5 million of whom are orphans of HIV/AIDS, civil war and acute poverty. According to the group's project description, the lack of knowledge on disease control and prevention has negatively impacted Ugandan communities, mostly children and pregnant…
Khachig Tölölyan, Typhaine Leservot, Ashraf Rushdy and Indira Karamcheti were invited to speak at a conference hosted by the Universite Paul Valery, Montpellier III June 20-23. The event is titled "Diasporas and Cultures of Mobility." Rushdy and Karamcheti are invited visiting professors. Tölölyan, professor of letters, professor of English, editor/founder of Diaspora will be the keynote speaker. He will speak on "Twenty Years of Diaspora Studies: Success through Confusion." Typhaine Leservot, associate professor of letters, associate professor of romance languages and literatures, will speak on ""Maghrebo-Quebecois and Franco-Maghrebi: towards Distinct Identities?" Ashraf Rushdy, professor of English, professor of African American…
Gary Yohe, the Huffington Foundation Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies, and a faculty fellow in the College of the Environment, and was named a vice chair of the National Climate Assessment Development and Advisory Committee by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Jerry Melillo '65 was named chair of the committee. Melillo is a distinguished scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass As a vice chair, Yohe will lead the advisory committee that will produce the next National Climate Assessment. The Global Change Research Act of 1990 requires a National Climate Assessment at least every…
Stephen Angle, professor of philosophy, professor of East Asian studies, tutor in the College of Social Studies, participated in a one-day Book Symposium on his book, Sagehood: The Contemporary Significance of Neo-Confucian Philosophy (Oxford, 2009), at the Institute for Chinese Philosophy and Culture, Academia Sinica, in Taipei, Taiwan, in early June. Altogether, nine papers were delivered by Taiwan-based philosophers, roughly half in English and half in Chinese. Angle had an opportunity to respond and participated in a general discussion. The symposium was timed to coincide with an intensive, two-week class that he's been teaching at Taipei's Soochow University, also on the…
A study by Wesleyan's Department of Psychology is mentioned in a May 23 Business Wire article. Mattel, Inc. announced it will fund four university research projects focused on the impact of play in children’s early development through Mattel’s Philanthropy Programs. Anna Shusterman, assistant professor of psychology; Hilary Barth, assistant professor of psychology, assistant professor of neuroscience and behavior; and Emily Slusser, a postdoctoral fellow in psychology, received one of the grants worth $25,000. Their study is titled "Understanding the Power of Play: Study will focus on assessing the cognitive benefits of independent, self-directed play with toys." More information on the…
Eric GershonIn a lengthy Q&A in the June 7 issue of Current Biology, Professor of Biology Fred Cohan talks about the evolution of bacteria, his favorite course at Wesleyan – and the legendary 1965 baseball game that impressed upon him the power and possibility of data. For the full Q&A, click here.
David LowThis year’s Tony Awards ceremony televised on CBS on June 12 ended with a comedic rap number, performed by host Neal Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother), which summarized the show’s events in less than three minutes. The rap number was written by Lin-Manuel Miranda ’02 , the Tony Award-winning composer of musical In the Heights, and Thomas Kail ’99, the Tony Award-nominated director of that show. The duo came up with the rhymes while watching the show in the basement of Manhattan’s Beacon Theater, where the ceremony was held. Miranda called the closing number the “Tony speed-through.” To…
Strauss Zelnick ’79, chairman and CEO of video game maker Take-Two Interactive Software, was interviewed this month by the Hollywood Reporter and talked about 3D, his company's digital future, and the rising cost of hiring talent. Take-Two recently released L.A. Noire, a crime drama that uses face-recognition technology, motion capture, and 200 actors. The video game was well-received, which adds another hit to the company’s roster, which includes the successful Grand Theft Auto franchise and Red Dead Redemption. When asked when 3D will become a key contributor in gaming, Zelnick said: “It’s a little complex because you've got the glasses…
Cynthia RockwellThe Hon. Rachel A. Ruane ’97 was appointed Immigration Judge, Los Angeles Immigration Court, by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder in December 2010. Previously, she was affiliated with the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in the Office of the Chief Counsel in Los Angeles, Calif. serving in a number of different roles, most recently as deputy chief counsel. At Wesleyan, she double-majored in government and American studies, with Professor of Government John Finn and Professor of American Studies Claire Potter as her advisors. She earned her juris doctorate from Emory University and was a judicial law clerk for the Executive Office for Immigration Review,…
Johnny Temple ’88, owner and publisher of Akashic Books, has published Adam Mansbach’s Go the F—k to Sleep, a children’s book parody for parents which debuted at No. 1 on the New York Times best seller list for advice books on June 19. The book has nursery rhyme style text with illustrations by Ricardo Cortes. According to an article in Hollywood Reporter, after Temple acquired the title, he first sent a PDF of the book to independent bookstores in February, and the PDF “went viral, passed from knowing parent to knowing parent, and propelling the book to No. 1 on…
Melissa Myozen Blacker ’76 is co-editor (with James Ishmael Ford) of The Book of MU: Essential Writings on Zen’s Most Important Koan (Wisdom Publications, 2011). The word “mu” is one ancient Zen teacher’s response to the earnest question of whether even a dog has “buddha nature”—and discovering for ourselves the meaning of the master’s response is the urgent work of each of us who yearns to be free and at peace. “Practicing Mu” is synonymous with practicing Zen, and “sitting with Mu” is an apt description for all Zen meditation. It has been said that thousands and thousands of koans…
From 1741 until Alaska was sold to the United States in 1867, the Russian empire claimed territory and peoples in North America. In his new book, Russian America: An Overseas Colony of a Continental Empire, 1804–1867 (Oxford University Press), Ilya Vinkovetsky ’88, an assistant professor of history at Simon Fraser University, examines how Russia governed its only overseas colony. Russian America was effectively transformed from a remote extension of Russia's Siberian frontier penetrated mainly by Siberianized Russians into an ostensibly modern overseas colony operated by Europeanized Russians. Under the rule of the Russian-American Company, the colony was governed on different…