Kate CarlisleStory moved to: https://newsletter.blogs.wesleyan.edu/2014/04/18/rothchance/
Assistant professor of music Paula Matthusen has won a prestigious Rome Prize from the American Academy, which will allow her to spend the next year in the Eternal City working on the compelling compositions that distinguish her career. Matthusen is a composer of acoustic and electronic music who, among other things, teaches Laptop Ensemble at Wesleyan, and records sound in historic structures and architecture. The resulting work reflects the character of these spaces, which include the Old Croton Aqueduct in New York. As an American Academy fellow, she will visit the paths of the Roman aqueducts. “I’m elated,” Matthusen said.…
Lauren RubensteinGrowing up, Associate Professor of History Erik Grimmer-Solem heard many family stories of his grandfather, a member of the Norwegian resistance movement during World War II. Little did he know then that he would go on to uncover new truths about a celebrated German general, and ignite a public debate over the general’s place in history. Grimmer-Solem’s grandfather, Dr. Odd Solem, was arrested by the Gestapo along with two other Norwegians during the German occupation of Norway in the summer of 1940. He was sentenced to death by a German military tribunal, but had his sentence reduced to a prison…
Natalie Robichaud ’14Marty Gilmore, associate professor of earth and environmental studies, will present her work with the MARS Rover missions on Tuesday, April 8 at the final Science of Screen of the year. The monthly Science on Screen events pair local scientists with screenings of popular movies. Gilmore’s presentation of her research will begin at 7 p.m. and will be followed by a screening of Mission to Mars. Gilmore’s primary research involves using images of the surface of Mars and Venus to interpret geological processes and history. For example, her research includes searching for clues regarding where and when there might have…
Olivia DrakeOn March 6, Gina Athena Ulysse, associate professor of anthropology, presented "Why Haiti Needs a Higher Love I," a performative meditation on representation, ripostes and self-making at Central Connecticut State University's Center for Africana Studies 20th Anniversary Conference. On March 10, Ulysse and Jungian analyst and author Craig Stephenson participated in a public dialogue titled "Possession and Inspiration – Between the Psyche and the Spirits: A Conversation about Therapy and Vodou" at the CUNY Grad Center in New York City.
Susanne Fusso, professor of Russian, East European and Eurasian studies, delivered a paper at a symposium on "Dostoevsky beyond Dostoevsky," held at Brown University, March 15-16. Merging Darwinian theory, Romantic poetry and the complexities of human morality, the Dostoevsky symposium offered multiple perspectives on novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky's work. Fusso's paper was titled "Prelude to a Collaboration: Dostoevsky's Aesthetic Polemic with Mikhail Katkov." The conference was attended by scholars from Yale, Columbia, Duke, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, St. Petersburg State University, Brandeis, University of California - San Diego, and other institutions.
Professor of Economics Richard Grossman is the author of an op-ed titled, "The Monetary Cosmopolitans," published March 27 on Project Syndicate, a website that publishes commentary "by global leaders and thinkers." Grossman expresses support for a new trend toward countries appointing foreigners, and those with considerable foreign experience, to what is widely considered a country's second most important post: that of the head of the central bank. "This represents a major departure from the tradition of filling central banks' top leadership positions with people who have spent most of their careers there—a tradition that, over time, allowed central banks to…
J. Kehaulani Kauanui, associate professor of American studies, associate professor of anthropology, was a distinguished guest panelist at the 2014 Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship Program in the Humanities Conference at the University of California - Los Angles on March 7. She spoke on “Hawaiian Indigeneity, (Same-Sex) Marriage, and the Racial Politics of Colonial Modernity." She also spoke on “Till death Do Us Part? Settler Colonialism and (Same Sex) Marriage in Hawaii,” at the Women’s Studies and Consortium for Critical Interdisciplinary Studies on Feb. 20 and “New Directions in American Studies: Settler Colonialism and Critical Indigenous Studies,” at the Circuits of Influence: U.S. Israel, and Palestine Symposium…
Mike SembosDavid Westmoreland, associate professor of chemistry, and chemistry graduate student Breanna Craft presented a paper titled, “pH-Dependent Mechanisms of 1H Relaxivity in a Series of Structurally Related Mn(II) Cyclen Derivatives” at the 245th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society held in New Orleans, La. in April 2013. Westmoreland, Craft and chemistry graduate student Sarah Hensiek also presented a paper titled, “Solution Dynamics of Transition Metal Complexes of Cyclen Based Ligands Containing Amide and Carboxylate Functional Groups."
Eirene Visvardi, assistant professor of classical studies, gave three talks in 2013 including “Afraid, They Judge. Afraid, They Act: Collective Fear in Greek Tragedy and Democratic Politics," at Texas Tech University on May 6; "Emotional Acts: The Case of Pity," at Yale University on Sept. 28; and "Teaching Euripides' Medea," at Columbia University on Oct. 13.
Michael Roberts, chair and professor of classical studies, spoke about “Pompatic Poetics: Claudian’s Epithalamium for Honorius and Maria and Some Features of Late Latin Poetry," at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign on March 21. He also presented a paper titled “Venantius Fortunatus on Poetry and Song,” at the annual meeting of the International Society for Late Antique Literary Studies at Brown University, Oct. 31-Nov. 2, 2013. Roberts also is the Robert Rich Professor of Latin and professor of medieval studies.
Bill Firshein, the Daniel Ayers Professor of Biology, emeritus, is the author of the book, The Infectious Microbe, published by Oxford University Press in January 2014. Firshein is the founding faculty member of the Molecular Biology and Biochemistry Department. In The Infectious Microbe, Firshein uses six different critical diseases to illustrate how viruses and bacteria are spread. He discusses the relationship between man and virus, and how to defeat viruses. The book will help non-scientific readers better understand the issues surrounding the spread of disease. Thomas Broker '66, professor of biochemistry at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, described the book as an “engaging journey…