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Professor of French John C. O'Neal has edited a volume of essays on Rousseau for  Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century (SVEC), a publication of the Voltaire Foundation in Oxford, England. Titled The Nature of Rousseau's 'Rêveries': physical, human, aesthetic, the volume brings together the work of international specialists to explore new approaches to the defining feature – the 'nature' – of the Rêveries. In essays which range from studies of botany or landscape painting to thematic or stylistic readings, authors re-examine Rousseau's intellectual understanding of and personal relationship with different conceptions of nature.

While working on her first scholarly article as a graduate student at the University of New Hampshire, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich never expected that an article about puritan funeral services would immortalize her on tee-shirts and bumper stickers. The Harvard historian, who lectured at Hamilton on March 5, was exploring a neglected group of quiet and well-behaved puritans who were ignored in favor of more sensational topics such as witches.Yet in describing the services' rituals, Ulrich famously quipped, "Well-behaved women seldom make history." Although the phrase was intended to focus attention on the dutiful puritans, Ulrich reports that her phrase has since been used in an opposite sense that implores women to break out of the mold and challenge authority.

Nancy Felson, professor of classics at the University of Georgia, will give the Winslow Lecture at Hamilton on Thursday, March 6, at 4:10 p.m. in the Science Center's Kennedy Auditorium. Her lecture is titled "Trouble at the Games, Praise and Blame in Homer," and is sponsored by the Classics Department. This event is free and open to the public.

Associate Professor of English Naomi Guttman will give a reading and sign copies of her book of poems, Wet Apples, White Blood, at the Colgate University Bookstore on Thursday, March 6, at 4:30 p.m.

The NCAA announced that Azure Davey '00 (Lowville, NY), NCAA associate director of membership services, will join the Division III governance team. In addition to her new role, she will also manage the Division III provisional and reclassifying membership program, active member education program, and conference contact program.

The Cambridge Friends School in Massachusetts announced that Peter Sommer '76 would be their new head of school starting July 2008. This decision came after an extensive national search; the Board of Trustees ultimately chose Sommer based on his "extensive knowledge and experience in the education of primary and middle school-aged children." Sommer graduated from Hamilton with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Philosophy and Religion. He was an active member of Hillel and the Hamilton College Choir. He went on to receive his Master of Arts degree from Princeton University in 1978.

Margaret Boyse '91, Ingrid Schneider '85 and Andrew Burns'78 hosted a Hamilton Alumni Assciation party at the home of Ingrid Schneider '85 and David Reiger. Of the 114 alumni living in the Triangle-area, nearly 35 guests attended this party, a first for the newly formed Triangle Alumni Association. 

Assistant Professor of Art Rebecca Murtaugh recently completed the installation Swallows for the invitational exhibition "Part Clay. Part Object." at the Brewhouse Space 101 Gallery in Pittsburgh, Pa. The piece is constructed of more than 400 thermoplastic filled porcelain spoons which cascade down a 12-foot tall gallery wall.

The Ohio State University Press series ("Theory and Interpretation of Narrative") that Professor of Comparative Literature Peter J. Rabinowitz co-edits with James Phelan has just published its 25th volume: Richard Walsh's The Rhetoric of Fictionality: Narrative Theory and the Idea of Fiction. A provocative critique of many of narratology's favored assumptions, the book offers radically new ways of thinking about such concepts as narrator, voice, and especially fictionality.

Associate Dean of Faculty and Biology Professor Pat Reynolds is the co-author of a chapter in the new book Phylogeny and Evolution of the Mollusca (University of California Press, March 2008). Co-author Gerhard Steiner is a long-time collaborator of Reynolds' from the University of Vienna, Austria. Their chapter is titled "Scaphopoda."