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Muggles in the village of Clinton will have the rare opportunity to brandish their wands Oct. 24-25 while they tour the majestic Hogwarts Castle, brought to life by students at Hamilton College. "Hogwarts at Hamilton," an event sponsored by the College and organized by student actors and actresses, transforms Emerson Hall into a magical place of spells and potions. Admission is free to the public; however, any donations the club receives directly support the Kirkland Town Library.  For more information e-mail hogwarts@hamilton.edu.

Jay Williams, the Walcott-Bartlett Professor of Religion, published an essay, "What is Wrong With The Church," on the Bible and Interpretation (bibleinterp.com) Web site. It is a radical restatement of what obedience to Jesus really teaches.

Visiting artist Catherine Murphy began her lecture Wednesday night by posing a series of rhetorical questions regarding abstraction and reality — in art, is one technique more prevalent than the other? Is it possible to separate the two? Do they even exist in the first place? 

Barbara Gold, the Edward North Professor of Classics, recently attended the annual meeting in Princeton of the Classical Association of the Atlantic States, of which she is a past president. She co-presided over a session on "Celebration and Sorrow in Greek Literary Texts," in which her Hamilton colleague James Wells presented a paper. Gold also led a session on "Integrating the Blackwell Companion to Catullus into Secondary and College Classrooms," and read a speech in Latin (an ovatio) honoring a friend and colleague for his service to the Classics profession.

S. Brent Rodriguez Plate, visiting associate professor of religious studies, recently returned from the International Society for Religion, Literature and Culture biennial conference, held this year at the University of Aarhus, Denmark. He is on the international advisory board, and has been coordinating sessions in religion and film for the past four conferences. Plate worked with religious studies and films studies scholars throughout Europe, the UK and North America to develop four full sessions on the topic.

Students from Economics 346 - Monetary Policy attended a seminar at the New York Federal Reserve Bank on Tuesday, Oct. 14, with Associate Professor of Economics Ann Owen. Students heard presentations by Federal Reserve officials on current economic conditions, the economics of the Federal Reserve's new lending facilities, the subprime crisis and the labor market.

An article titled "Private colleges try to counteract economy" in USA Today addressed the various strategies colleges and universities are employing in addressing the economic struggles students and families are experiencing. Hamilton was highlighted in the Oct. 22 article as having "poured $1 million more into its financial aid endowment and last week mailed prospective students a letter promising to meet demonstrated financial need for all admitted students."

Five Hamilton students working on Oneida Lake research with Eugene Domack, the J. W. Johnson Family Professor of Environmental Studies, attended the 2008 Oneida Lake Watershed Conference on Oct. 21 at the Lake Shore Yacht and Country Club in Cicero. The students included Sander Doucette '09, Megan Fung '10, Mike Hannan '09, Julia Houlden '09 and Allie Mandel '09. Domack, who is on the Watershed Advisory Council Board of Directors, spoke at the conference on Natural Variability and Recent Trends in Sediment Transport in Eastern Oneida Lake

Christopher Hill, visiting assistant professor of history, chaired a panel on religious history at the South East World History Association Conference in Little Rockin October. He introduced and commented upon a set of papers that dealt with incorporating aspects of local culture into larger studies in Islam. At the conference, Hill also presented a paper titled, "The Letter of the Law; Undergraduate Studies in Legal History," discussing how to use elements of world history in the teaching of Western legal development.

Cheryl Morgan, associate professor of French, delivered a talk at the 34th annual 19th century French Studies Colloquium held Oct. 16-18 at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Morgan was one of three presenters on the panel, "Bringing the Exotic Back Home: Women Re-write the Other." Her paper "Tragic Muse? Delphine Gay de Girardin Re-writes Judith and Cleopatra" examines the ways in which this quintessential Parisian woman used these stories of foreign, passionate and murderous women. The paper examines the stakes in play when Girardin turned to tragedy within the context of French Romantic exoticism and "egyptomania."