Natalie Robichaud ’14The president of the Federal Republic of Germany has conferred upon Adolf Grünbaum ’44 the Bundesverdienstkreuz 1. Klasse, or the Federal Cross of Merit, First Class and the faculty of the University of Cologne gave him the title of Ehrendoktorwürde, or the Honorary Doctorate of Philosophy. After graduating from Wesleyan with a bachelor of arts with high distinction in both philosophy and mathematics, Grünbaum went on to build the Philosophy, History and the Philosophy of Science departments at the University of Pittsburgh, where he taught until 2003. Oxford University Press recently published the first of three volumes of Grünbaum’s Collected…
Bill FisherIn this video, travel writer, editor, and radio host Pauline Frommer '88 talks about growing up in the travel industry, and reveals how her Wesleyan education changed her mind about her career. Frommer majored in intellectual history at Wesleyan. "I thought I was going to be a theater major, and then I started taking a lot of history and philosophy classes and they blew my mind." Watch this video and many more on the Video @ Wesleyan website. [youtube width="640" height="420"]http://youtu.be/5i0KNtIZFcA[/youtube]
David LowLiz Garcia ’99 is the director, screenwriter, and co-producer of The Lifeguard (Focus World and Screen Media), in which a young woman (Kristen Bell, Veronica Mars) nearing 30 quits her Associated Press reporting job in New York and returns to her childhood home in Connecticut. She gets work as a lifeguard and has an affair with a troubled teenager (David Lambert), the son of a co-worker. The film’s also stars Mamie Gummer, Martin Starr, Alex Shaffer, Adam LeFevre and Joshua Harto, who also is a co-producer (and Garcia’s husband). The Lifeguard premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last January and…
Olivia Drake
Kate CarlisleWhether you’re a serious student of Joss Whedon’s oeuvre or your inner geek has just really, really wanted to see Buffy’s scythe close up, an exhibit on view in the Cinema Archives’ Nicita Gallery should satisfy every fan of the prolific ’87 Wes alumnus. “Joss Whedon: From Buffy to the Bard” is an intimate and charming retrospective of Whedon’s career, starting with a picture of Whedon shooting a student film at Wesleyan, continuing through souvenirs of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and winding up with a poster from his latest film, "Much Ado About Nothing," which he previewed during Reunion &…
As part of the Connecticut NPR affiliate WPKT’s program, Where We Live, Daniel Sterner ’97, author of a book about historic downtown Hartford, recently discussed historic buildings that have disappeared and what has taken their place. Program host John Dankosky, observed, “Every city changes over time. But Hartford’s downtown seems to be slowly disappearing.” Sterner points out that all cities are always in flux; older buildings are always being replaced by newer ones. He describes any typical city block, even the one on Trumbull Street from which the program was broadcast, as “layered:” Some buildings date back to the 1800s,…
Writer and performer Leila Buck ’99 shared the latest exploration of her play, "HKEELEE (Talk to Me)," a work-in-progress, at New York City’s Culture Project on Monday, July 29 as part of the Women Center Stage Festival. The solo, personalized play resonated with the audience members who stayed for an in-depth discussion after the show. In the piece, Buck ties together moments that are specific to her life in the context of universal themes. She addresses her Lebanese grandmother’s memory loss; French and Arabic; music and dance as sometimes competing, sometimes complimentary markers of her Lebanese heritage and its complex…
Back on campus for Reunion & Commencement weekend in May, in this video, alumni of class years from 1953 to 2008 share stories of how Wesleyan shaped their lives. [youtube width="640" height="420"]http://youtu.be/E18u2RBSKEc[/youtube]
William Klaber ’67 is the author of a new novel, The Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell, published by Greenleaf Book Group Press. This fictional memoir is based on the real-life Lucy Ann Lobdell who, in 1855, decided to live the rest of her life as a man. She was involved in what may have been the first same-sex marriage in America when she married Marie Perry and made history when she was put on trial in Minnesota for wearing men’s clothes. While Lobdell promised to write her own memoir about her adventures in male attire, her account was never found, and…
Cynthia RockwellJoshua Horwitz ’91, a student at Wilkes University’s graduate creative writing program was awarded the 2013 Beverly Blakeslee Hiscox ’58 Scholarship. The scholarship was established by Hiscox's children to honor their mother's service to Wilkes University as a trustee from 1986-2003, and first preference is given to a non-traditional student with family responsibilities. Horwitz is pursuing his master of arts in creative nonfiction, studying memoir under his mentor Beverly Donofrio ’78, author of Riding In Cars With Boys (1992) and, most recently, Astonished: A Story of Evil, Blessings, Grace, and Solace (2013). Horwitz’s work-in-progress, titled Once Upon a Mania, explores a…
In his new collection Cut These Words into My Stone: Ancient Greek Epitaphs (Johns Hopkins University Press), Michael Wolfe ’68 brings together his English translations of ancient Greek epitaphs, with a foreword by Richard Martin, a classics professor at Stanford University. Greek epitaphs, considered by some scholars to be the earliest artful writing in Western Europe, are short celebrations of the lives of a rich cross section of society that help form a vivid portrait of an ancient era. Wolfe divides his book into five chronological sections spanning 1,000 years, beginning with the Late Archaic and Classical periods and ending…
If anyone can appreciate humankind’s connection to the Earth, it’s a farmer. Essel Bailey ’66 grew up on farms in the South and Michigan, his early years shaped by the rhythms of planting and harvesting and his father’s careful stewardship of the land. The lessons of his farming boyhood stay with Bailey, a lawyer and executive in Ann Arbor, Mich., in his work with the Nature Conservancy and other groups, and informed, in part, his gift to Wesleyan’s College of the Environment. The nearly $3 million commitment from Bailey and his wife, Menakka, will endow a visiting professorship and bring…