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According to the predictions of Benjamin Bowser, the African American middle class could completely disappear in as little as 20 years. Bowser, chair of the Department of Sociology and Social Services at California State University, East Bay, spoke on April 10 about his recent book “The Black Middle Class: Social Mobility – and Vulnerability,” in the Kirner-Johnson Red Pit at Hamilton. The former president of the Association of Black Sociologists has written extensively on race, ethnic relations and HIV/AIDS prevention.

Arch-enemies Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson will battle for the right to be called “master debater,” thanks to a bold trio of students from Hamilton College who have successfully goaded debaters from the University of Virginia to face off in the Hamilton-Jefferson Public Speaking Competition. The debate, initiated by seniors Michael Blasie, Scott Iseman and Joshua Agins, will take place on Saturday, April 14, at the University of Virginia’s campus in Charlottesville.

In honor of the 6th annual Jazz Appreciation month, a national event sponsored mainly by the Herb Alpert Foundation, Hamilton is hosting a series of jazz performances.

The Classics Department at Hamilton College is hosting a conference, "Alexander Hamilton and the Classics," on Wednesday, April 11, from 2:30-5:30 p.m. in the Kennedy Auditorium of the Science Center (G027). The event is free and the public is welcome to attend.

Phoebe Potter ’09 published a summary of the event “Moving Toward a Free Cuba” on the American Enterprise Institute’s web site with another intern from the University of Kansas, Gregory Trum Jr. The article summarized speeches regarding Cuba’s future after Fidel Castro dies.

Eric Kuhn ’09 presented a lecture in March in Washington, D.C. to students participating in “Year Up,” a program that provides urban young adults 18-24, with a combination of technical and professional skills, college credits, an educational stipend and corporate apprenticeship opportunities. Kuhn’s presentation was on new media and how the history of journalism has evolved with blogs, YouTube and citizen journalists playing a larger role than ever in effecting the 2008 political campaign. Kuhn integrated real life stories based on his experience working for WHCL 88.7 FM and the Spectator to talk about citizen journalism.

On Wednesday, April 4, Visiting Professor of Film History Scott MacDonald lectured at Colgate University as part of Colgate's Art and Art History Lecture Series. In his talk, "Aspects of a Critical Cinema," MacDonald explored some of the ways in which the varied experiences provided by avant-garde films offer critiques of the conventions of mass culture as these conventions are embodied in commercial media; create revealing avenues into essential elements of the cinematic apparatus (the set of machines and practices that make motion-picture media possible); and retrain perception, instigating new forms of engagement with the spaces and times of everyday experience.

Economics lecturer Nesecan Balkan and Gwyn Kirk, a former Jane Watson Irwin Chair in Women’s Studies (1999 – 2001), traveled in El Salvador during spring break to observe sustainability projects. They are researching sustainable development in Central America with a focus on El Salvador, a country characterized by great inequality, legacies of colonization, militarism and war; environmental devastation; and the privatization of resources, especially water.

Sylvia de Swaan presented a slide talk about her work at Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, N.Y., on Wednesday April 4, as the community service component of her 2006 photography fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts. Her presentation, which was free and open to the public, included selections from her work of the last 15 years. She placed special emphasis on her ongoing project "Sub-version," which on a range of contemporary issues - terror, surveillance, mass media, post millennial anxiety, dual realities, shadowy threats and ominous rumors.

Robin Wong, a candidate for May graduation from Hamilton College, has been awarded a Fulbright Grant to China. She plans to study attitudes toward aging in China to investigate the relationship between age identity, life satisfaction and positive mental health. In her proposal Wong says, "Maintenance of an identity younger than one's actual age has been correlated to positive well-being in the U.S. but may bit hold true for adults in a collectivist culture such as China. Both explicit and implicit measures are necessary for a more complete view of age identity."