All News

Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy Alan Kim presented a paper titled "Function and Symbol in Marburg Philosophy of Science," in June at the International Society for the History of Philosophy Science (HOPOS) seventh international congress in Vancouver, Canada. Kim's paper examined the various senses of the technical term, "function-concept," in Paul Natorp and Ernst Cassirer's analysis of the presuppositions of the exact sciences, especially mathematical physics. Details may be found at: http://sts.arts.ubc.ca/program.html

Sharon Werning Rivera was quoted in an April article in Russian Profile on the future of U.S.-Russian relations under Russia's newly elected president Dmitry Medvedev. Titled "Fighting for Equality," the article surveyed the views of numerous American specialists on Russian politics.

Emily Chamberlain '10 feels she's been thrown into the real world with a vengeance. The rising junior is interning for the Honorable William K. Sessions III, a U.S. district judge for the District of Vermont and vice-chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

Assistant Professor of Art Rebecca Murtaugh is currently showing her work titled "To Mark a Significant Space in the Living Room" in the exhibition "Made in New York 2008" at the Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center in Auburn, N.Y. The show opened on June 21 and runs until August 23. Murtaugh will give a public talk on August 3 at 2 p.m. in the gallery. For more information please visit www.schweinfurthartcenter.org.

Visiting Instructor of Anthropology Nathan Goodale is directing Hamilton's involvement in The Cultural Landscapes of the Irish Coast (CLIC), an interdisciplinary collaborative research and teaching project on the island of InisAirc in County Galway, Ireland. Collaborators on the project include students and faculty from Hamilton, the University of Notre Dame, Trinity College and University College Dublin. Broadly defined, the purpose of the project is to understand rural life-ways during prehistoric and historic times in west-central Ireland's County Galway. 

Richard Werner,  the John Stewart Kennedy Professor of Philosophy, presented "Hope and the Ethics of Belief" at the Third International Conference on Philosophy, June 2-5, in Athens, Greece. The paper argues that when the stakes are high it is rational to hope for and consequently believe in the best outcome as long as that outcome has a nonzero probability of success and even if it is not the most likely or best-supported outcome by the evidence. The argument continues that present world problems present us with high stakes where the likelihood of success is less than optimal but where hope for success is nevertheless rational.

Adrien Brody, best known for his Oscar-winning role as Wladyslaw Szpilman in Roman Polanski's 2002 film The Pianist, has made a major donation to For the Good, Inc., announced president and CEO Cassandra Harris-Lockwood K'74 on June 19. For the Good, Inc., is an independent nonprofit agency that promotes community development in the city of Utica, N.Y.  

Associate Professor of Mathematics Debra Boutin presented a talk titled "Distinguishing Classes" at the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) Conference on Discrete Mathematics held at the University of Vermont, June 16-19. In her talk, Boutin described a set of vertices that can be used to remove all symmetries from a network and presented her results on how surprisingly small these sets of vertices can be in some well-known network families.

Eugene Domack, the J. W. Johnson Family Professor of Environmental Studies, will present "The Polar Regions: Climate of Extremes on a Changing Planet," Monday, June 23, at 6 p.m. at the Uptown Theater in Utica. Domack's presentation is the first of three free events scheduled to raise environmental awareness in the Mohawk Valley.

Europe at Bay: In the Shadow of U.S. Hegemony, co-authored by Henry Platt Bristol Professor of International Affairs Alan Cafruny (with Magnus Ryner of Oxford University), has been shortlisted for the annual book prize of the International Political Economy Group of the British International Studies Association. The winner of the Award will be announced in December 2008. The IPEG Book Prize seeks to identify the best book published in political economy on an annual basis.