All News

Visiting Professor of Film History and F.I.L.M. director, Scott MacDonald, was interviewed in the current issue of Cinema Scope, the international film magazine published in Toronto.  The subject of the article, titled "Interviewing the Interviewer: Scott MacDonald's Critical Cinema," is MacDonald's series of books A Critical Cinema, published by the University of California Press. The Cinema Scope interviewer, Michael Sicinski, called it "a cornerstone in the struggle to preserve the achievements of experimental media-makers for future generations..."

Craig Latrell, associate professor of theatre and chair of the department, is quoted and his work cited in a new book, Culture and Customs of Indonesia (Greenwood, 2006). Latrell, whose expertise is in Asian theatre, has travelled extensively in Southeast Asia to study the role of performance in various cultures there. His work is cited in the bibliography and suggested readings of Culture and Customs of Indonesia.

Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature Melek Su Ortabasi is co-editor of a new book, The Modern Murasaki: Writing by Women of Meiji Japan (Columbia University Press). Co-editor is Rebecca Copeland, professor of Japanese literature at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo. According to the publisher's Web site, "The first anthology of its kind, The Modern Murasaki brings the vibrancy and rich imagination of women's writing from the Meiji period to English-language readers. Along with traditional prose, the editors have chosen and carefully translated short stories, plays, poetry, speeches, essays, and personal journal entries."

Hamilton College will host a program providing participants with a deeper understanding of the realities of poverty through a poverty simulation to be held Wednesday, Oct. 11, from 7 to 9:30 p.m., in the Annex of the Beinecke Student Village.

Nine members of Hamilton's class of 2007 were elected this month to the Epsilon chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, the nation's oldest honor society. They are: Katherine Victoria Bell, Daniel Robert Griffith, Caitlin Elizabeth Jacobs, Yubo Lu, James Henry McConnell, Heather Christina Michael, Rebecca Rosenberg Parkhurst, Patrick Michael Ridall and Dongyue Zhang.

Jordan Shedlock '06 published a poem titled "Narkomu Pakhomovu," in the journal The Birch: A Journal of Eastern European and Eurasian Culture (Spring 2006, p. 26), a publication of Columbia University. The poem was dedicated to a cruise liner named after a People's Commissar of the 1920s. Shedlock's was one of the only works published in Russian.  The poem was inspired during his 04-05 year in Russia, when he studied on the Bard College/Smolny Academic Year Program in St. Petersburg. Shedlock finished his degree in Russian Studies (with honors) last spring.

Professor of Religious Studies Richard Seager presented a paper, "Dharma and Identity in Western / American Buddhism," at the 2006 New York Conference on Asian Studies at Saint Lawrence University, Oct. 6-7. His paper reflects his current research into the different uses of Buddhist images in immigrant and convert practice communities and among avant-garde performance and installation artists in New York and San Francisco.

The results of a study by Edward Deci ’64, a psychologist at the University of Rochester, were summarized in a September 5 USA Today editorial titled “A damaging lesson for college-bound kids: Good deeds require a payoff.” The editorial is about teenagers working on community service projects for the sole purpose of adding it to their college applications. Deci’s study “investigated ‘What happens when you pay people for an activity they enjoy?’  

Images by Lecturer in Art Sylvia de Swaan are included in a contemporary art exhibition, “In Transition,” in Limassol, Cyprus, in October. Sponsored by the Independent Museum of Contemporary Art and the Evagoras and Kathleen Lanitis Foundation, the exhibition focuses on immigration and displacement while “…searching for a contemporary perception of the realities and dilemmas which confront displaced people.”

Cheng Li, the William R. Kenan Professor of Government, is among eight Chinese Americans invited to join the Committee of 100, a national organization of prominent Chinese American leaders.  Among those who are joining the Committee of 100 with Li are Wing T. Chao, vice chairman-Asian development for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts; Leroy Chiao, an astronaut and entrepreneur; Wei Christianson, CEO and managing director of Morgan Stanley China; and Kai-Fu Lee, vice president at Google.