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The Hamilton College Performing Arts partners with Hamilton’s Diversity and Social Justice Project and the Department of Theater to open the Contemporary Voices and Visions Series with selections from Anna Deavere Smith’s play Let Me Down Easy on Friday, Sept. 7, at 7:30 p.m. at Wellin Hall in the Schambach Center for Music and the Performing Arts. Let Me Down Easy — a play about the resilience and fragility of the human body — is the latest installment in Smith's ongoing series of one woman shows, On The Road: A Search For American Character.

Hamilton is presenting a conversation about the 2006 and 2008 elections with Hamilton alumni Alicia Davis '97, and Marc Elias '90. Davis was regional political director at the Republican National Committee before joining Targetpoint Consulting, and Elias is a partner in the Perkins Coie law firm who served as general counsel for the Kerry-Edwards campaign and counsel for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. The event, which is free and open to the public, will be held in the Chapel on Sunday, Sept. 9, at 7:30 p.m.

William Cowles ’09 took his history major into new territory this summer when he turned to the little-studied Robben Island hunger strikes. Cowles was interested in researching South Africa and subsequently applied for and was awarded an Emerson grant to investigate and build a timeline for the evolution of the Robben Island hunger strikes as a method of political resistance.

Associate Professor of English Doran Larson's story, "Samba," appears in the currrent issue of Alaska Quarterly Review. He has also recently delivered papers at two international conferences: "Writing the Prison: Reflections on a Creative Writing Course Taught at Attica Correctional Facility," at the New Directions in the Humanities Conference in Paris; and, "Fantastic Sexualities: Djuna Barnes and James Baldwin Imagining the Third Sex," at the International Association for the Study of the Fantastic in the Arts Conference, Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.

While some Hamilton students did their internships in business offices this summer, it was all hands-on for senior Megan Brousseau who returned to her home in Heidelberg, Germany, to work in a U.S. Army hospital. During her summer at the hospital, Brousseau worked in the emergency room and the orthopedic clinic, at everything from data entry to surgery.

In an article titled “Grade inflation traced to Vietnam War” in Boulder, Colorado’s Daily Camera, Maurice Isserman, James L. Ferguson Professor of History, was quoted on what he views as a possible “tenuous connection” between grade inflation to the Vietnam War.

Hamilton staff and faculty from a number of offices met with Adeleri Onisegun, director of the psychology program at Paine College, for a workshop titled "Overcoming Barriers to Inclusiveness: From Theory to Practice" on June 20. Onisegun led 20 participants from the dean's office, the admission office, several additional administrative offices and a dozen academic departments in a discussion of ways in which Hamilton can most effectively attract and retain faculty and students from underrepresented groups.

Associate Professors of Economics Ann Owen and Steve Wu published "Is trade good for your health?" in the Review of International Economics. The article investigates the link between increased openness to international trade and health outcomes such as life expectancy and infant mortality.

Visiting Professor of Art History Scott MacDonald's "Testing Your Patience: An Interview with James Benning" has been published in the September issue of Artforum. MacDonald briefly reviews Benning's long career, then talks with Benning about several recent films including 13 Lakes (2004), which Benning presented during last spring’s F.I.L.M. Series at Hamilton; Ten Skies (2004), RR (as in "railroad," 2007) and casting a glance (2007), Benning's newest film, about Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty.

In "The Eighteenth Century: An Entire Other World," Professor of French John C. O'Neal recounts his experience in the field of eighteenth-century studies research, tracing the threads that have tied together his scholarship over the past three decades. Solicited by the editor of the volume, Carol Blum, this article appears in Etre dix-huitiémiste II, published by the Centre International d'Etude du XVIII Siècle in Ferney-Voltaire, France in 2007.