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Dr. Alice D. Dreger, from the Department of Humanities and Bioethics at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, spoke at Hamilton on September 11 and 12. Her lecture on Monday, “The Role of Doctors in the Future of Normal,” focused on the medical community’s ideas about and treatment of individuals born with “socially-challenging bodies.” Dreger’s research has focused on such conditions as intersex, conjoined twins and cleft lip.

Professor of Chinese Hong Gang Jin was recently elected as vice president of National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages (NCOLCTL), a national organization for languages which are less commonly taught in the U.S. Jin also organized an International Conference on Chinese Language Education in July, co-sponsored by Hamilton College and Duke University and held at Beijing Capital Normal University, Beijing, China.

Elena Filekova ’08 spent her summer in New York City interning with the ING Funds of Funds Group. Filekova’s internship was one of 13 funded by a Hamilton grant this summer. While pursuing internships is an increasingly popular move for students, the realities pose certain problems. Most of the available positions are unpaid, requiring students to fund their own housing and living expenses as well as working for free, all in pursuit of the elusive resume-booster “work experience.”

Armando Bayolo, visiting assistant professor of music, has recently been commissioned by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., to compose a work for the National Gallery Vocal Arts Ensemble and the Great Noise Ensemble. The work will be a tribute to artist Mark Rothko and will use his rarely seen Harvard Murals as inspiration. The work will be performed at the National Gallery at the end of the 2007-2008 concert season.

On Monday September 11, Hamilton hosted a panel discussion, "Debating China’s Future: Two Contrasting Perspectives" presented by the Edwin Lee Fund and the Levitt Center. Two authorities on China, Minxin Pei and James Sasser, spoke, debated, and answered the questions of faculty and students on China’s current and possible future economic and social status in front of a full audience in the Science Center auditorium.

Debra Boutin, associate professor of mathematics, has published a research article in the Electronic Journal of Combinatorics. In the article "Identifying Graph Automorphisms Using Determining Sets," Boutin introduces a new tool for studying graph symmetry. This tool allows each symmetry to be studied by its action on a (small) subset of the graph rather than requiring knowledge of the symmetry's action on the entire graph.

“It is not every day that you wake up and find lion tracks all throughout your camp,” begins one of Caitlin Jacobs’ ’07 updates on her summer research. “But out here in the bush of South Africa, I have been lucky enough to have these experiences on a regular basis.” Jacobs spent her summer interning and learning at the Makalali Game Reserve in South Africa in South Africa, thanks to Hamilton’s Joseph F. Anderson Internship Fund.

Visiting Professor of Communication John Adams was interviewed for a Tampa Tribune article "Words of the War," (9/10/06) concerning buzzwords from 9/11 that have found their way into everyday language. In the article Adams said that "Much of the lexicon people use to describe the tragedies of five years ago is intended to lessen the pain." The article continues: "He says acronyms such as WMDs and IEDs, for instance, are easier to comprehend as abbreviations. 'Acronyms shield us from pain, and so they allow us to move ideas more quickly and concisely,' he says. 'And if we have events unfolding we need to talk about, we find ways to euphemize them so we can live though what we don’t want to be reminded of.'”

Professor of Comparative Literature Carol Schreier Rupprecht participated in the 8th World Shakespeare Conference in Brisbane, Australia, in July.   Her paper, “Othello in Other Words,” compared the Italian novella by Giraldi Cinthio, which was the primary source for Shakespeare’s “Othello, The Moor of Venice,” with the Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito for Verdi’s opera, “Otello.” The comparison, applying translation theory, was traced through Boito’s reliance on a French translation of Cinthio by Chappuys and of Shakespeare by François-Victor Hugo as well as Verdi’s reliance on three Italian translations of Shakespeare, including one in prose.

Jamie King, head coach of women's tennis, has published a book chapter, "Language, Gender, and Sport: A Review of the Research," co-authored with Jeffrey O. Segrave (Skidmore College) and Katherine L. McDonald (SUNY Buffalo School of Law) in the book Sport, Rhetoric, and Gender (2006) by Palgrave MacMillan.