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As traders moved back and forth along the Silk Road, they carried more with them than luxury goods. Art, concepts, beliefs changed hands during the trade – but how to track this part of the commerce? Liuhong Fu ’09 (New York City, N.Y.) is willing to try. This rising junior will spend his summer working with Professor of Religion Jay Williams and researching the development and change in early Christianity on the Southeast coast of China.

Associate Professor of History Shoshana Keller has just returned from a two-week intensive workshop on the Arab-Israeli conflict, sponsored by Tel Aviv University. The 19 participants from seven different countries travelled to Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Jewish settlement in the West Bank, the Golan Heights, Haifa, and other locations, listening to people from all parts of the political spectrum and making connections with Israeli and Arab academics.

Austin Briggs, Hamilton B. Tompkins Professor of English, Emeritus, and lecturer in English, attended the North American James Joyce Conference held at the University of Texas at Austin in June. In addition to delivering a paper—“Is Bella Cohen Jewish?—on the panel “Nomen Est Omen: Names and Naming in Joyce” that he organized and chaired, he co-moderated two reading sessions on Ulysses at the conference.

While other folks in tidal regions are eating shellfish this summer, Adele Paquin '07 (Northampton, Mass.) is dissecting hers. Paquin, a biology major specializing in marine biology, has an internship this summer with a graduate student at Sonoma State University in California. She is working on a project which compares the ability of different coastal sites to support populations of mussels and their predator seastars.

A photograph by Visiting Instructor of Art Sylvia de Swaan was selected for “Made in NY 2007,” an annual juried exhibit that features New York state artists. The show, which opened on June 30, includes 84 contemporary works of art by 68 artists. Cornell University’s art department chair Buzz Spector and Michael A. Sickler, who has been a professor of art and art history at Syracuse University for 35 years, were the jurors. The exhibition at the Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center, 205 Genesee St., Auburn, is open through August 25.

Some of the world's most inspired and provocative thinkers, writers, artists, business people, teachers, and leaders are gathered at the third annual Aspen Ideas Festival in Aspen, Colorado from July 2 to July 8. Hamilton’s William R. Kenan Professor of Government Cheng Li, one of the featured festival speakers in the global dynamics track, is joined by more than 250 other speakers who include President Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright, David Gergen, Walter Isaacson, General Colin Powell, U.S. Senator Arlen Specter, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, Jim Lehrer and Karl Rove. Speakers are divided into four program tracks: global dynamics, arts and culture, American experience and media and community.

Thanks to the generous support of its young alumni, Hamilton College is pleased to name Tamim Akiki '08, of Kfardebian, Lebanon, as its fifth GOLD Scholar.

All of us remember learning about recycling in school. We are taught to recycle plastics as much as possible, but how much plastic do scientists give back to the industry? Diana Di Leonardo ’10 (Malverne, N.Y.) asks this question in her research this summer. Concentrating on the recycling of plastic from cell and molecular biology labs, Di Leonardo and her faculty collaborator, Professor of Biology Jinnie Garrett, will research just how much is recycled in the workplaces of those who tell us to recycle.

Preston Hutchings ’78 and his Bermuda crew aboard the new NY42 Morgan’s Ghost finished first in the 30th anniversary Marion to Bermuda Cruising Yacht Race. Morgan’s Ghost is the first Bermuda boat to take line honors since Robert Mulderig’s Starr Trail did the trick in 2003.   

Broadening the Horizon: Critical Introductions to Amma Darko, edited by Professor of English Vincent O. Odamtten, has been published by Ayebia Clarke Publishing Limited, Banbury Oxfordshire, UK. This collection of essays from nearly a dozen respected academics and practitioners in the field brings a number of critical perspectives to focus on the work of Amma Darko, a 21st century Ghanaian writer.