Cynthia RockwellIn his role as 2013 Distinguished Teaching Fellow, Andy Szegedy-Maszak, professor of classical studies and the Jane A. Seney Professor of Greek, brought a slice of Wesleyan to members of the Wesleyan community—alumni, parents, admitted students—living in select cities on the West Coast. The Distinguished Teaching Fellowship—of which Szegedy-Maszak is the first recipient—offers the professor the opportunity to teach a course outside of his/her usual departmental offerings. Szegedy-Maszak is teaching a course through the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life on photography and its effect on social movements. It was this topic he explored in his WESeminar on the Road,…
Olivia DrakeJoyce Jacobsen, the Andrews Professor of Economics, will become dean of the Division of Social Sciences and Interdisciplinary Programs beginning July 1 for three years. Jacobsen brings to this role substantial experience in Wesleyan's faculty governance process, having served as chair of the faculty, chair of the Educational Policy Committee, chair of the Economics Department, co-chair of the College of Social Studies, vice-chair of the Review and Appeals Board, and on the governing board of the Center for the Study of Public Life. A scholar of the economics of gender and employment, she is author, co-author, and editor of three…
Gina Ulysse made a 13-minute presentation during "Untapped," the fourth annual TEDxUofM ideas convention at the University of Michigan on April 5. Ulysse is associate professor of African American studies, associate professor of anthropology and director of the Center for African American Studies. Ulysse, a University of Michigan alumna, was one of 20 speakers at the event. More than 1,300 guests attended. Ulysse focused her talk on untapped creativity and why she is turning to performance work at this stage of her life. "With a broad range of topics ranging from NASA funding, creativity, brain cancer research, philanthropy, a food cart…
Professor of Economics Richard Grossman was an invited discussant at a conference on “Understanding the Capital Structures of Non-Financial and Financial Corporations,” sponsored by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The conference took place in Cambridge, Mass. on April 5-6. Grossman discussed a paper titled “Short-Term Debt and Financial Crises: What can we Learn from Treasury Supply,” by Arvind Krishnamurthy and Annette Vissing-Jorgensen, both of Northwestern University. For more information see the conference's website.
Ellen Alexander '14, Professor Joop Varekamp and graduate student Lauren Camfield recently returned from Argentina where they studied the eruptive products of the Copahue volcano March 7-March 19. Varekamp, the Harold T. Stearns Professor of Earth Science, professor of environmental studies, has studied the volcano since 1997. It erupted in 2000 and again in December 2012. "Many Wesleyan students have done their senior theses and grad theses on Copahue. It's exciting stuff for us volcanology types," Varekamp said. Camfield sampled the products of the most recent eruption of Copahue, which included ash, pumice and volcanic bombs. She will analyze her samples…
The Wesleyan Board of Trustees reviews tenure cases three times each year during its meetings on campus, scheduled as the cases arise. At the most recent meeting in March, the Board awarded tenure — effective July 1, 2013 — to these faculty members: Elijah Huge, associate professor of art, has taught at Wesleyan since 2006. A licensed architect, his work includes private commissions and award-winning competition entries for the High Line (New York, N.Y.), the Bourne Bridge|Park (Bourne, Mass.), and the Tangshan Earthquake Memorial (Tangshan, China). His writing and design work have been featured in Praxis, Thresholds, Perspecta, Architectural Record, Landscape Architecture, Dwell, Journal of Architectural Education, and Competitions. His current scholarly…
Sumarsam, the University Professor of Music, discussed Indonesian puppetry during the Playwriting, Puppets and Dramaturgy Symposium March 9 at the University of Connecticut Puppet Arts Complex. The symposium brought together playwrights, puppeteers, dramaturgs, students and puppetry enthusiasts to share ideas and experiences about the practice, theory, and history of puppetry’s uses of text in performance. Experts discussed ways the visual dramaturgy of puppetry’s sculpture in motion works in tandem with dramatic and narrative texts. Sumarsam and symposium organizer John Bell, director of the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut, spoke on “Puppets and Texts: Global…
Kate CarlisleDavid Nelson, artist in residence at Wesleyan and accomplished musician specializing in Indian music, has been honored with the title of Kala Seva Mani by a prestigious music festival. The Cleveland Aradhana, said to be the largest annual Carnatic music festival outside India, bestowed the title on Nelson during the festival March 27-April 7. The Aradhana describes the title on its web site: "The title of Kala Seva Mani is bestowed upon individuals who have made a lasting contribution to the Carnatic arts through their propagation and demonstration in the United States and Canada." Nelson, who has performed internationally and…
Seth Redfield, assistant professor of astronomy, spoke on "Properties of the Interstellar Medium Surrounding the Sun and Nearby Stars" during a conference held March 11-15 in the Physikzentrum in Bad Honnef, Germany. The conference, which was 527th in a series, was sponsored by the Wilhelm und Else Heraeus Stiftung, a German foundation that supports scientific research and education. The topic of the conference was "Plasma and Radiation Environment in Astrospheres and Implications for the Habitability of Extrasolar Planets."
David Schorr, professor of art, and director of the Art Studio Program for the Art and Art History Department, will have artwork on exhibition at the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, Mass. The exhibit, Secrets, Loss, Memory and Courage: Works by Male Gay Artists, will be on display April 27-July 31. The show honors gay rights activist, author and poet Paul Monette (1945-1995), who received an honorary degree from Wesleyan in 1993. Schorr and Monette collaborated on three books.
Lauren RubensteinIn the wake of a recent scandal in which horse meat was discovered in meat products labeled as beef in the United Kingdom, University Professor of Letters Kari Weil wrote an op-ed in The Boston Globe about a debate in 19th century France over the morality of eating horse meat. Hippophagy, or the eating of horse meat, was not legalized until the late 19th century in France, and only after a “public campaign to override objections very like the ones Americans have today.” “…the fact that it took so much persuasion to convince the French to consider eating horse—in a…
Associate Professor Jennifer Tucker has been selected for a Fulbright-U.S. Scholar Award, through which she will spend eight months at the University of York in England. Tucker is a historian of British science, technology and medicine, specializing in the study of the connections among British science, photography and the visual arts from 1850 to 1920. At the University of York, she will complete work on her second book, tentatively titled, Facing Facts: The Tichborne Cause Célèbre and the Rise of Modern Visual Evidence. She also plans to begin preliminary research toward her next book project, which will trace the social…