David LowJay Geller ’75 is the author of The Other Jewish Question: Identifying the Jew and Making Sense of Modernity (Fordham University Press). Geller considers how modernizing German-speaking cultures, undergoing their own processes of identification, responded to the narcissistic threat posed by the continued persistence of Judentum (Judaism, Jewry, Jewishness) by representing “the Jew”’s body—or rather parts of that body and the techniques performed upon them. Such fetish-producing practices reveal the question of German-identified modernity to be inseparable from the Jewish Question. Jewish-identified individuals, immersed in the phantasmagoria of such figurations—in the gutter and garret salon, medical treatise and dirty joke,…
Bill HolderPresident Michael S. Roth announced Wesleyan’s 2012 honorary degree recipients as follows: I’m pleased to announce that U.S. Senator Michael Bennet ’87, a leading advocate for education reforms that support great teaching, will deliver the commencement address at the university’s 180th Commencement in May. Our other honorary degree recipients at Commencement are also in the Wesleyan family: Glenn Ligon ’82, a multi-talented, nationally recognized artist; and Cecile Richards P’13, whose leadership of Planned Parenthood has helped to make the world safer and healthier. Michael F. Bennet ’87 Michael F. Bennet was elected to his first full term as U.S. Senator…
Olivia Drake(more…)
Paul Weitz ’88 is the director of the film Being Flynn (Focus Features), which he adapted from an acclaimed memoir by Nick Flynn and which opened in theaters on March 2. The movie drama deals with a young, self-destructive writer (played by Paul Dano) who works in a homeless shelter where he reconnects after 18 years with his alcoholic father (played by Robert De Niro), also a writer, who comes to stay at the shelter. The film also stars Julianne Moore and Olivia Thirlby. Weitz’s film had a long journey to the screen and along the way, the director wrote…
Dr. Halley Faust MA ’05 is co-editor (with Paul Menzel) of Prevention vs. Treatment: What’s the Right Balance? (Oxford University Press). In the West, prevention is usually underfunded while treatment receives greater priority. This book explores this observation by examining the actual spending on prevention, the history of health policies and structural features that affect prevention's apparent relative lack of emphasis, the values that may justify priority for treatment or for prevention, and the religious and cultural traditions that have shaped the moral relationship between these two types of care. The publication helps clarify the nature of the empirical and…
Ethan de Siefe ’95 has written an entertaining new book, Tashlinesque: The Hollywood Comedies of Frank Tashlin (Wesleyan University Press). In the preface of his study, de Siefe writes: “Director Frank Tashlin left an indelible impression on American and global film comedy. His films are some of the funniest, most visually inventive comedies ever made, and they feature landmark performances by some of the greatest comedians in American film history, a list that includes not only Bob Hope and Jerry Lewis, but Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, and Bugs Bunny.” Tashlin (1913–1972) was a supremely gifted satirist and visual stylist yet…
In his new work The Color of Citizenship (Oxford University Press), Diego Von Vacano ’93 suggests that the tradition of Latin American and Hispanic political thought which has long considered the place of mixed-race peoples throughout the Americas, is uniquely well-positioned to provide useful ways of thinking about the connections between race and citizenship. He argues that debates in the United States about multiracial identity, the possibility of a post-racial world in the aftermath of Barack Obama, and demographic changes owed to the age of mass migration will inevitably have to confront the intellectual tradition related to racial admixture that…
The Wall Street Journal first attempted illustrating the news using the stipple drawing known as the hedcut with news maker portrait made from a series of dots and lines that modeled on currency engravings. Rutherford Chang ’02 now has transformed these illustrations into an art project called “The Class of 2008,” on display at the White Space Gallery in Beijing through March 18. He has reduced the Journal’s news coverage of 2008 to just the hedcuts and rearranged them, yearbook-style, in alphabetical order. “The Class of 2008” is “typical of his past works,” according to RedBox Studio, which promotes contemporary…
In Share, Retweet, Repeat (Prentiss Hall Press), John Hlinko ‘89 shows readers how to take their ideas, causes, and products, and craft marketing campaigns around them that create buzz—in a quick and cost effective way. In the world of constant communication using new technologies, the average consumers of information have become micro publishers of information as well. Hlinko has been involved in the realm of viral marketing for most of the last 20 years, working with a range of Fortune 500 companies and helping lead MoveOn.org and DraftObama.org. In his book, he shares his expertise on how to create spreadable…
What do Osama Bin Laden’s death, April’s deadly tornados in the southern US, the “Arab Spring,” and recent comments from the US Coast Guard and others about the Deepwater Disaster all have in common? They all are examples of what leaders can learn from Consilience Leadership (Inflection Point Press), a new book by Gary Cook ’64, which demonstrates how lessons learned from Highly Reliable Organization theory, behavioral economics, neuroscience, and other disciplines are helping us understand how to better deal with terrorism and Katrina-like disasters, and better anticipate and avoid political and other disasters. Read more about the book Cook,…
In his book The Buddha Walks Into a Bar …: A Guide to Life for a New Generation (Shambhala), Lodro Rinzler ’05 shows how Buddhist teachings can have a positive impact on every little nook and cranny of your life—whether you’re interested in being a Buddhist or not. These teachings can help inspire individuals to make a difference in themselves and in the world. The book explores the four dignities of Shambhala (the tiger, lion, garuda, and dragon) and the three yanas, or vehicles, of traditional Tibetan Buddhism. Rinzler writes in his book's introduction that the volume is “about taking…
Ariel Rubissow Okamoto ’81 is co-author (with Kathleen M. Wong) of the fascinating Natural History of San Francisco Bay (University of California Press), which also explores its human history and how each affects the other. While the bay is home to healthy eelgrass beds, young Dungeness crabs and sharks, and millions of waterbirds, it also is marked by oil tankers, laced with pollutants, and crowded with 46 cities. The guide explores a number of subjects relating to this unique body of water—including fish, birds and other wildlife, geography and geology, the history of human changes, ocean and climate cycles, endangered…