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In a National Public Radio segment titled "Obama Scapegoat Fears," James S. Sherman Associate Professor of Government Philip Klinkner spoke about how the senator's candidacy brings out some conflicted feelings among African-Americans. "The concern expressed by African-Americans reminds me of after 1928. Al Smith was the first Catholic to run for president and lost. I'm sure a lot of Catholics after the crash, the Depression, said thank God he lost over Hoover, otherwise they'd blame us for it," said Klinkner.

"I've always found immigration really intriguing," says Meaghan LaVangie, a rising senior from South Portland, Maine. "Maybe because it's so controversial, that's why I'm drawn to it." LaVangie will spend this summer working on a project funded by an Emerson Foundation grant, in collaboration with Visiting Assistant Professor of Government Shelley McConnell. LaVangie will investigate the relationship between civil society and democracy by studying Border Angels and No More Deaths, two non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that give humanitarian aid to illegal immigrants on the Mexican border.

Assistant Professor of Japanese Kyoko Omori presented a paper at the "Modernist Magazines and Politics, 1900-1939" Conference at Université of Maine in France on June 8. The talk was titled "Japanese Vernacular Modernism and New Youth Magazine." The paper discussed the Japanese magazine New Youth and its promotion of "vernacular modernism" among the emerging Japanese middle class. Through their advancement of modanizumu (or modernism) in the absurdist stories that portrayed mysteries found in urban everyday life, New Youth sought to intervene productively in the ongoing political debates of the time.

Sarah E. Schwartz '99 received a 2007-08 Fulbright grant at the University of South Carolina to conduct international research. The Hamilton graduate is among a USC record eight students who received such grants.  

Sometimes being active in your college and also in your home community isn't as difficult as you might think. For Rachel Bigelow '10, it's the same thing this summer. The Ilion native, funded by the Levitt Community Service Fellowship, has taken up the reins of the Utica Refugee Community Garden, located at the F.X. Matt Apartments, a public housing unit in Utica. Bigelow is working with Judith Owens-Manley, associate director for community research at the Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center. Her project was started last year by Jenney Stringer '08, who also received funding from a Levitt Center grant. Stringer negotiated with the Utica Municipal Housing Authority (UMHA) to receive permission to start the garden, and then worked with volunteers and residents to get the project off the ground.

Selections from a forthcoming collection of poetry, Metsaka's Kente of Words, by Professor of English Vincent Odamtten was published in the national newspaper of Ghana, the Daily Graphic on June 7, 2008. The publication was part of a collaboration between the Daily Graphic and the Mbaasem Foundation to promote literature and arts in the West African nation. Odamtten has been researching the life of Togbui Sri II, a Paramount Chief of the Anlos in Southeastern Ghana, as well as the written literatures of Ghana.

The Hamilton College Wall Street Association will host a panel discussion of the U.S. economy with experts from private equity, real estate, commodities and academia on Thursday, June 26, at 6 p.m. at the Racquet and Tennis Club in Manhattan. Greg Hoogkamp '82, a Hamilton College trustee and a managing director at Goldman Sachs & Co., will moderate the discussion with panelists Robert V. Delaney, Jr. '79, partner with Crestview Partners; Adam I. Popper '87, managing director at Beacon Capital Partners; J. Robert Collins Jr., founder and managing partner of the 1.618 Group and former president of the New York Mercantile Exchange; and James Bradfield, the Hamilton College Elias W. Leavenworth Professor of Economics.

James L. Ferguson Professor of HistoryHistory Maurice Isserman contributed an essay titled"Will the Left Ever Learn to Communicate Across Generations" to the Chronicle of Higher Education (6/20/08). It is featured in The Chronicle Review in the special section "The Surprising Legacies of the 60s." In the piece, Isserman, a preeminent historian of the American left and expert on reform and radical movements, recounts the meeting between social activist Michael Harrington with then 20-year-old student Tom Hayden. Harrington unsuccessfully tried to recruit Hayden into the Young People's Socialist League, the youth affiliate of the Socialist Party, of which Harrington was a leader. Hayden went on to write the Port Huron Statement, the founding document of Students for a Democratic Society.

Many disciplines contain two seemingly opposed halves. Physics has its quantum theory and general relativity. Chemistry can be organic and inorganic. Late night television offers either David Letterman or Jay Leno. Similarly, in a Levitt Center summer research project, Andrew Miller '10 is working with Professor Christophre Georges on a computer program for a simplified economy that accurately simulates both microeconomic and macroeconomic phenomena. Microeconomics is the study of individual market behavior, while macroeconomics is concerned with a broader picture of the economy as a whole. As Miller explains, the program "shows that realistic macroeconomic fluctuations can be generated from idiosyncratic, microeconomic interactions between firms and workers." In other words, the program has produced movements in things such as the interest rate by starting with the production and trade of individual companies as a building block.

Allen Mellen '58, who celebrated his 50th reunion on the Hill two weekends ago, has posted an essay about his deeply personal experience of Reunions '08 on his blog "Morningsider."