“Barack Obama and American Racial Politics,” an essay co-authored by Philip Klinkner, the James S. Sherman Professor of Government, was published in the spring issue of Dædalus, the journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Classics James Wells presented a paper titled “Varieties of Pastoral Experience: The Reception of Vergilian Pastoral in Contemporary American Poetry” at the annual meeting to the Classical Association of the Middle West and South.

Associate Professor of Philosophy A. Todd Franklin chaired a roundtable discussion, “Fragmented Communities: One History, Several Memories,” at a UNESCO conference titled “Philosophical Dialogue between Africa and the Americas” held April 18-21 at Purdue University.

The happiest countries and happiest U.S. states tend to have the highest suicide rates, according to a study co-authored by Associate Professor of Economics Stephen Wu with Professor Andrew Oswald of the University of Warwick and researchers from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Both The New York Times and the Associated Press have released stories on the  research.

Peggy Piesche, visiting instructor of German and Russian studies presented a paper at the Ninth International Conference of the Collegium for African American Research (CAAR) held April 6-9 at the Université Paris Diderot-Paris 7 in France.

Derek Jones, the Irma M. and Robert D. Morris Professor of Economics, has accepted an invitation to serve as a faculty fellow and mentor in the Beyster Professorship, Fellowship, and Related Fellows Program at the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University.

Hong Gang Jin, the William R. Kenan Professor of East Asian Languages and Literature, chaired and co-presented on a panel at the annual conference of National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages (NCOLCTL) held April 8-10 in Madison, Wisc. Jin presented “Teacher Development Programs to Empower LCTL Teachers: Issues and Challenges” with colleagues from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Boston schools.

Assistant Professor of Government Ted Lehmann presented a paper titled “Anglo-American-Dutch Collusive Bargaining against Japanese Oil Autonomy in the post-World War One Era,” at the annual meeting of the Association of Asian Studies in Honolulu on March 31.

Visiting Professor of Film History Scott MacDonald was the lead programmer at this year’s Brakhage Symposium at the Brakhage Center of the University of Colorado in Boulder on March 11-13.

The opening reception for an exhibition of prints by the Atelier Four will be held Sunday, April 10, from 3 – 5 p.m. at the Kirkland Arts Center. The Atelier Four is William R. Kenan Professor of Art Bruce Muirhead, Professor of Art and Curator of the Hamilton Collects Program William Salzillo and artists Amy Georgia Buchholz ’80 and Jake Muirhead ’86. The foursome has worked collaboratively in printmaking for more than 30 years. The exhibition runs through April 27 at the KAC.