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Jay G. Williams '54, the Walcott-Bartlett Professor of Religious Studies, published an article, "Who Were the Magi?," on the Bible and Interpretation Web site. It is an attempt to connect the gospel of Matthew and the precession of the equinoxes.

Professor of Physics Emeritus Philip Pearle has been named an Outstanding Referee of the Physical Review and Physical Review Letters journals for 2010. The award is given to scientists who have been exceptionally helpful in providing peer reviews of manuscripts submitted for publication in American Physical Society journals.

When he traveled to Berlin in 1987, President Ronald Reagan said famously, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” And while the United States certainly played an important role in the end of the Cold War, there were other (arguably more significant) factors at work. In his book The Year that Changed the World: The Untold Story of the Fall of the Berlin Wall (Simon & Schuster, 9/09), author Michael Meyer ’74 contends that domestic resistance movements and certain key figures within the USSR at the time – in particular Hungarian Prime Minister Miklós Németh – were the true impetuses behind the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. In so doing, Meyer rejects the “common knowledge” interpretation of Cold War history and uncovers hitherto-undervalued people, events, and perspectives.

Eleven students from Hamilton’s Model European Union team and faculty advisor Alan Cafruny, the Henry Platt Bristol Professor of International Affairs, attended the 23rd annual EuroSim conference in Antwerp, Belgium, on Jan. 5-10. The topic of this year’s conference was Russia-EU relations and Hamilton students took on a variety of roles, including members of the delegation from the Czech Republic, the Justice Minister of Ireland, and several members of Parliament.

A collection of jewelry by Allie Pohl '07 is featured in an Orlando Sentinel article titled “‘Ideal Woman’ necklace protests unrealistic view of beauty” (1/20/10). Pohl’s jewelry pieces – colorful pendants in the shape of a curvy female torso – symbolize the real woman and are designed to challenge the unattainable (and highly Photoshopped) images of beauty that saturate the media today. Pohl majored in communication and art at Hamilton.

Assistant Professor of Hispanic Studies Jessica Burke chaired a session and presented a paper at the 8th Annual Hawaii International Conference on Arts & Humanities held on Jan. 13-16.

Associate Professor of Mathematics Debra Boutin gave a talk "Thickness and Chromatic Numbers of Inflated Graphs" at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in San Francisco in January. In her talk Boutin described the current state of work she's done with Michael Albertson of Smith College and Ellen Gethner of University of Colorado, Denver, on r-inflated networks. A network is r-inflated by replacing each vertex in by a set of r mutually connected vertices and replacing each edge between a pair of vertices with all edges between the associated 2r vertices.

The Hamilton College Performing Arts Series opens the spring semester on Friday, Jan. 22, at 8 p.m. in Wellin Hall on the Hamilton College campus when banjoist Jayme Stone and Malian kora master Yacouba Sissoko build a boundary-crossing musical bridge in their groundbreaking new collaboration, Africa to Appalachia.

A concert honoring the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., and featuring Montreal-based musicians Eliza Moore and Jeremy Greene, will take place on Thursday, Jan. 21, at 8 p.m. in the Hamilton College Chapel. It is free and open to the public.

A production of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, by August Wilson, played to a sold-out house in the Fillius Events Barn on Monday through Wednesday, January 18 -20, as part of Hamilton’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Day celebration. The show is directed by Mark Cryer of Hamilton’s Theatre Department. The production will be staged at Union College on Friday, Jan. 22, at 7 p.m.