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Associate Professor of Theatre Mark Cryer appears in a production of Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor. Also, he recently recently attended the True Acting program at Willamette University.

De Bao Xu, the Leonard C. Ferguson Professor of East Asian Languages and Literatures, presented an invited talk at ICICE 2013, the International Conference on Internet Chinese Education, held July 11-14 in Pasadena, Calif.

The economic crisis that began in 2007 triggered a sense of financial insecurity among big and small institutions as well as individual investors.  The housing bubble, subprime lending and deregulation were all thought to contribute to market instability.  Ru Jun Han ’14 believes another, more technological, component was also responsible.

Poet Agha Shahid Ali taught at Hamilton for only five years, but in that short time he established lasting connections and friendships at the college. For this reason, the Agha Shahid Ali Literary Trust donated his collection of manuscripts, letters, and other writings to Hamilton after his death in 2001. This summer, Will Newman ’14 is working with Burke Library’s Special Collections to organize the materials so that they are accessible to scholars, ensuring that Shahid’s legacy at Hamilton lives on.

No one could doubt that James Anesta ’14 is dedicated to theater. In addition to appearing in a number of productions over his time at Hamilton, he took the time last summer to write his own play, “Hell the Musical,” which he will also direct. He's using an Emerson Foundation grant this summer to gain some scope as director. In his project, “Portrayals of the Afterlife in Popular Culture,” he is exploring different artistic representations of heaven and hell.

Assistant Professor of Africana Studies Nigel Westmaas published an article in the first issue of Studio Cee, a new London-based magazine of the arts. The article "'The organic scribe: The range, depth and humanity in the printed work of Eusi Kwayana" examines the published work of Eusi Kwayana, a Guyanese polymath and politician.

Some Americans misunderstand the role of lobbying and its contribution to the political process.  The practice benefits advocacy groups, large and small, that want to inform and to have their opinions heard by government representatives. Nick Solano ’14 is working for Williams & Jensen PLLC, a government affairs law firm in Washington, D.C, and learning about that firm’s lobbying efforts.

This summer, through an Emerson Foundation Grant, Sarah Sgro ’14 is studying writing that, in her words, “confronts the realities of family and romantic life through a grotesque lens.” In her project, “Family Gone Bizarre: The Domestic Grotesque in Contemporary Fiction and Poetry,” Sgro is exploring how authors approach themes of domestic life in dark and bizarre ways. She’ll then be examining those themes in her own writing.

Associate Professor of Africana Studies Heather Merrill presented a paper titled “Black Spatialities: Technologies of Invisibility in Europe’s Border Regimes” at the Nordic Geographers’ Meeting, held June 11-14 in Reykjavik, Iceland.

Despite living so close to Utica, the majority of Hamilton students spend little time there. Wynn Van Dusen ’15, however, has developed an interest in the city’s history. Through her Emerson Foundation project, “Remembering ‘The City that God Forgot’: A Study of Pop Culture and Art in Utica, Post World War II,” she is trying to gain a sense of what living in Utica in the era of its decline felt like. Van Dusen is working with Margaret Bundy Scott Professor of Theatre Carole Bellini-Sharp.