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Over the past decade, Senior Fellow Kyla Gorman has closely followed the development of narrative structure within video games. As a computer science major and creative writing minor, her growing interest comes as no surprise. "I've played video games since I was little, but I also always wanted to be a novelist," she explains. "Slowly, I realized that the intersection was in video game story design."

S. Brent Rodriguez Plate, visiting associate professor of religious studies, recently published the book, Religion and Film: Cinema and the Re-Creation of the World, with the London-based film studies press, Wallflower (distributed in the U.S. via Columbia UP). The book is one of the first truly interdisciplinary works on the topic, investigating religions via film studies, and film via religious studies.

The Norwegian research group "A l'ombre des Lumières" invited Professor of French John C. O'Neal to speak at a colloquium in Norway, Dec. 4-5. Held at the University of Trondheim, 500 kilometers north of Oslo, the colloquium hosted a group of international scholars on 18th century literature, all of whom made separate presentations in a plenary format. O'Neal made his presentation on the pedagogical writings of Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his uses of the visual.

FibroGen, Inc. has named Hamilton graduate Frank Valone '70 as Chief Medical Officer. At Hamilton, Valone majored in Biology and Chemistry and was a member of the Men's Ice Hockey and Soccer teams.

In an attempt to find another way to communicate with Hamilton alumni, New York City GOLD (Graduates of the Last Decade) Co-chair Zach Kubin '05 recently created a Young Alumni Blog. The blog, aimed to inform Hamilton College Alumni living in NYC of upcoming events, College updates or individual updates, was created so that the region, which has the largest young alumni population in the nation with nearly 900 constituents, has a home page that directly relates to young alumni's interests and needs. The blog will not replace the Hamilton website or HOLAC; rather, it will serve as another venue for GOLD alumni living in NYC to receive information, ask questions, provide feedback in various surveys or simply learn more about the GOLD network in NYC.

Earlier this year Castile Ventures expanded its investment staff by naming Skip Besthoff '92 as a General Partner. Besthoff graduated Hamilton with a BA in Economics and French and was a member of the Men's Rugby team.

Austin Briggs, the Hamilton B. Tompkins Professor of English emeritus, published a review of Joycean Murmoirs: Fritz Senn on James Joyce, Christine O'Neill (ed.), (Dublin: Lilliput Press, 2007) in the October, 2008, issue of James Joyce Broadsheet (University of Leeds, UK).

Roberta L. Krueger, the Burgess Professor of French, contributed an essay, "The Middle Ages and the Renaissance: from Marie de France to Marie de Romieu," in Norman Shapiro, transl., French Women Poets of Nine Centuries: The Distaff and the Pen (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008).

Barbara Gold, the Edward North Professor of Classics, gave an invited lecture at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst on Dec. 4. The title of the talk was "Inhuman She-Wolves and Unhelpful Mothers in Propertius's Elegies: A Consideration of Roman Mothers and Some Remarks on their Colonial American Counterparts." The last segment of the talk arose from an Emerson grant that Gold did last summer with Hamilton senior Casey Green, who is a classics and history major.

A feature article written by Casey Wick, assistant director of custodial services, appears in the November/December issue of Facilities Manager magazine titled "From Here to There: Effectively Managing Organization Change." APPA, an organization of educational facilities professionals that, according to its Web site, "promotes excellence in all phases of educational facilities management, including administration, planning, design, construction, energy/utilities, maintenance, and operations" is the magazine publisher.