All News

Abraham Lincoln is one of this country's most popular presidents, standing out in the middle of the nineteenth century -- not a good period for memorable presidents, said Jerome Noel '09 (Carmel, Ind.), who has a Levitt Fellowship this summer to research Lincoln's rhetoric. The history major hopes to prove that it was Lincoln's extraordinary gift with words which made our 16th president one of our most famous.

"I prefer to call them gender performers," said Jessica Goldberg '08 (Pittsburgh, Pa.) of the male and female artists who make masculinity or femininity part of their act. Sociology major Goldberg has an Emerson grant this summer in collaboration with Assistant Professor of Sociology Yvonne Zylan, to research female lesbian drag king culture from a sociological and feminist perspective.

David Hamilton ’09 (Middleton, Mass.) is working on a collaborative project with Ian Rosenstein, associate professor of chemistry, and Camille Jones, assistant professor of chemistry. Professor Jones had previously been studying propylene oxide, a molecule she uses as a guest in hydrate inclusion compounds, with quasi-elastic neutron scattering. Due to the presence of three different hydrogen atoms in propylene oxide, however, she obtained confusing results from this analysis. Hamilton is spending his summer synthesizing derivatives of the guest molecule.

Internships are taking Hamilton students far afield this year, from urban India to rural Hardwick, Vermont, where Emma Stewart '09 (Colchester, Vt.) works as an intern for Vermont Soy and Vermont Natural Coatings, two local ventures based in Hardwick.

John C. O'Neal, professor of French, presented a paper in French on the question of the soul in the writings of Rousseau and the philosophes at the biennial meeting of the Rousseau association in Lyon, France in June. This was the same colloquium O'Neal hosted at Hamilton in June of 2005. One of the highlights of the France meeting was an excursion to Chambery and the home of Mme de Warens, who had a tremendous influence on Rousseau's life. Rousseau spent some of his happiest moments at Les Charmettes in Chambéry with Mme de Warens, which he describes in detail in his Confessions.

The discoveries made during three Antarctic expeditions led by Eugene Domack, Joel W. Johnson Professor of Geosciences, in 2004, 2005 and 2006 were highlighted in the National Science Foundation’s online Discoveries publication in July. The Web site features major discoveries in NSF-funded research areas. The article on Domack’s findings was one of only two included in the Arctic and Antarctic research area on the site in 2007.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Music Armando Bayolo conducted the Great Noise Ensemble in three performances during the second annual Capital Fringe Festival in Washington, D.C. in July. The Great Noise Ensemble, founded by Bayolo in 2005, is a group of 18 musicians specializing in contemporary music. The performances included previews of Bayolo's Chamber Symphony, "Illusory Airs," a work which he wrote while in residence at Hamilton in the fall of 2006 and inspired, in part, by research conducted during his fall, 2006, class on the history of the symphony. The Chamber Symphony, which will also have preview performances this fall in Syracuse and Clinton by the Society for New Music, will have its official premiere in May, 2008, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

Michael Singer '09 was half way around the world when most of his classmates were still recovering from spring semester. In late May Singer, who has an Emerson grant to study globalization, headed to Singapore, Bangkok, and Eastern Malaysia with his advisor, Associate Professor of Theater Craig Latrell. Singer was featured earlier this summer on this Web site in a short article which dealt with his project. Now, seven weeks later, we catch up with him again as he puts together his final product and reflects on his experiences in Asia.

 Famous psychologist and Hamilton alumnus B.F. Skinner once said, “The future of scientific research does not rest in the crowded halls of the professional scientist, but in the minds and hopeful projects of the young.” Skinner’s vision of the impact of undergraduate research rang in the voices of the 10 Hamilton College student researchers in chemistry who presented their summer work at Colgate University on July 27.  Hamilton student participants were: David Brown ’10, Janes Greisler ’10, David Hamilton ’09, Thomas Irvin ’09, Amy Klockowski ’09, Elijah LaChance ’10, Kurtis Magee ’08, Phil Milner ’10, Ben Saccomano ’09, and Evan Savage ’08. The students joined seven fellow researchers from Colgate in the 8th annual Colgate Hamilton Organic Group (CHOG) presentation session, together with Silas D. Childs Professor of Chemistry Robin Kinnel, Associate Professor of Chemistry Ian Rosenstein and Assistant Professor of Chemistry Nicole Snyder.

Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature Melek Ortabasi presented at the annual meeting of the Yanagita Kunio no kai (Yanagita Kunio Study Group), held at Otani University in Kyoto, Japan, on July 28. This is a society of scholars who are experts on Yanagita Kunio (1875-1962), the founder of "native ethnology" and folklore studies in Japan. She gave a talk titled “Yanagita Kunio to Nihon no kindaika: _Tôno monogatari_ kara sengo no kyôkasho made” (Yanagita Kunio and Japanese Modernity: from _Tales of Tôno_ to Post-WWII Textbooks), which presented the general outline of her book manuscript on this topic.