Lauren RubensteinIn this issue of The Wesleyan Connection, we ask “5 Questions” of Urip Maeny, artist in residence in dance. She she has taught at Wesleyan since 1972, and will retire this year. Q: Please tell us when and how you first began studying Javanese dance. A: I began studying Javanese dance informally when I was still in elementary school in my hometown of Pekalongan in Central Java, Indonesia in the early 1960s. In 1961, I studied at the gamelan conservatory (high school level) in Surakarta. The school allowed me to focus my study on dance—especially Javanese dance, but also Balinese…
Olivia Drake(Story contributed by Jim H. Smith) In this issue of The Wesleyan Connection, we ask “5 Questions” of Ashraf Rushdy, professor of English, professor of African American Studies and chair of the African American Studies Program. Rushdy is the author of American Lynching, a meticulously researched interpretive history of how lynching became a uniquely American phenomenon and how it has endured, evolved and changed over the course of three centuries. The book was published by Yale University Press in October 2012. Q: Scholars have been writing about lynching for more than a century now. There is a significant body of extant…
In this edition of The Wesleyan Connection, we ask "5 Questions" of Richard "Rick" Elphick, professor of history and co-chair of the College of Social Studies. Elphick is the author of The Equality of Believers: Protestant Missionaries and the Racial Politics of South Africa, published by the University of Virginia Press in September 2012. Q: What do you think is the main message, or the main achievement, of your new book? A: For decades, historians of South Africa have struggled to trace how a white minority, starting in the 1650s, established a system of stark inequality among the races in the…
In this issue of The Wesleyan Connection, we ask “5 Questions” of Michael Dorsey, visiting professor of environmental studies. In September, he was reappointed to the Environmental Protection Agency's National Advisory Committee. Q: Professor Dorsey, you're a visiting professor of environmental studies and a fellow in the College of the Environment's Think Tank. What is the 2012-13 Think Tank theme, and what is your role in the year-long exploration? A: The 2012-2013 College of the Environment's Think Tank theme is: environmental justice and global health. Despite growing awareness of the problems of environmental injustice and related impacts on health and sustainability,…
David PesciIn this issue of The Wesleyan Connection, we ask “5 Questions” of William "Vijay" Pinch, professor of history. Pinch spent five weeks this summer interacting with maritime scholars and working in the archives and library at Mystic Seaport. Q: What were you studying at Mystic Seaport this summer? A: From June 25 to to July 27, I was privileged to be a student in a "summer institute" at Mystic Seaport, focused on "The American Maritime People." The institute is usually pitched to graduate students, but every few years it is offered to college and university faculty with support from the National…
David LowIn this issue of The Wesleyan Connection, we ask “5 Questions” of Lisa Cohen, assistant professor of English and faculty fellow in the Center for the Humanities. Cohen is the author of All We Know: Three Lives, an engrossing biographical triptych about three complicated, glamorous, independent, and influential women of the last century (published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in July 2012). In a review of her new book in Businessweek, Craig Seligman writes: “ ‘All We Know’ is really much more about reflecting on lives … than about chronicling them. Experimental biography, if such a genre can be said to exist,…
In this issue of The Wesleyan Connection, we ask "5 Questions" of Professor of Economics Richard Grossman. In July, Grossman spoke to the Canadian news magazine Maclean's about the Libor scandal rocking the global financial industry. Grossman's 2010 book, Unsettled Account: The Evolution of Banking in the Industrialized World since 1800, reviews banking crises over the past 200 years in North America, Europe and other regions, and considers how they speak to today's financial crises around the world. He blogs at Unsettledaccount.com. Q: Professor Grossman, what is the Libor, and what is this scandal all about? A: “Libor” is the London InterBank…
Q: Professor Pringle, you joined Wesleyan's Chemistry Department as an assistant professor in 1968. How have times changed? A: I started here before there were female students. Wesleyan had NO COMPUTER at all, and Ph.D. programs were just starting. At the time, we had 11 faculty in the department: Al Fry, Gill Burford, John Sease, Jose Gomez-Ibanez, Peter Leermakers, Julia Tan, Don Sebera and Larry Faller were here, and two faculty came here when I did--Paul Haake from UCLA and Peter Wharton from Wisconsin. Of this group, Al Fry is the only one still working in the department. The department…
In this issue of The Wesleyan Connection, we ask 5 Questions of Giulio Gallarotti, professor of government and author of several books and scholarly articles, including The Power Curse: Influence and Illusion in World Politics. Lately he has turned his attention to the U.S.-China relationship and its place in the geo-political world. Q: Your recent work has taken you to the transition in much of the world from a Cold War stance to the coming “cold co-existence” between the U.S. and China. How would you define “cold co-existence”? A: The future U.S. relations with China will be far different than…
In this issue of The Wesleyan Connection, we ask 5 Questions of Sarah Croucher, assistant professor of anthropology, assistant professor of archaeology, assistant professor of feminist, gender, and sexuality studies. Croucher will lead an archaeological dig on the site of the Beman Triangle in Middletown on April 28-29. The public is welcome to attend. To view photos of the dig on April 14-15 click here. Q: Professor Croucher, what exactly is the Beman Triangle and what is its significance to the history of Middletown? A: The Beman Triangle is the land between Vine Street, Cross Street, and Knowles Ave., where…
In this issue of The Wesleyan Connection, we ask 5 Questions of Laura Stark, assistant professor of sociology, assistant professor of science in society, assistant professor of environmental studies. Stark recently published a new book, Behind Closed Doors: IRBs and the Making of Ethical Research. Q: Professor Stark, what inspired you to study institutional review boards (IRBs), which regulate research on human subjects? A: I first became interested in this project in 2002 because of a great coincidence of scholarship. At the time, I was reading historical works that explained why the Nuremberg Code after World War II had so…
In this issue of The Wesleyan Connection we ask 5 Questions of Daniel Long, assistant professor of sociology. Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy has made education reform a major priority this year. He has proposed a sweeping package of reforms, including overhauling teacher tenure, increasing Education Cost Sharing grants to struggling districts, funding more preschool slots for low-income children, and requiring districts to contribute additional money for students to attend charter schools. Q: Connecticut suffers from the highest black/white and poor/non-poor achievement gap in the country. What can be done to address this? A: In Connecticut—as well as nationwide—longitudinal studies have shown…