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Assistant Professor of English Steven Yao has been awarded a fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) for his project "Foreign Accents: Chinese American Poetry and the Language of Ethnicity." The abstract explains: "To address the current limitations of Asian American literary criticism, this study discusses works by an exemplary group of poets in and from the U.S. (mostly of specifically Chinese descent), each of whom bears a distinctive relationship to the linguistic and cultural tradition he or she seeks to represent."

Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies Susan Sanchez-Casal is co-author of Chicken Soup for the Latino Soul, with Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen (Health Communications, Inc., August, 2005). The Chicken Soup series features inspirational, motivational and uplifting stories. Since the first Chicken Soup for the Soul book, there have been 80 million copies sold in 65 titles and 37 languages. This book showcases the storytelling traditions of the Latino culture, articulating the joys, struggles and triumphs of the Latino experience.

The Inaugural Couper Phi Beta Kappa Library Lecture was held on Friday, September 9. This annual lecture will honor Hamilton alumnus and trustee Richard “Dick” Couper ’44 for his commitment and contributions to Hamilton College and the Phi Beta Kappa Society, the oldest academic honorary society in America. David Stam, the former Andrew W. Mellon Director of the Research Libraries at the New York Public Library and Syracuse University librarian emeritus was the speaker for this event. His topic was “An Army without Ammunition: Books and the College Library,” about the trials and tribulations of Hamilton and its library in the 19th century.  

The Performing Arts at Hamilton College announces an exciting roster of world-class professional performances for its 2005-06 season. From classical Indian music to multimedia musical spectacle, the Classical Connections and Contemporary Voices and Visions Series have something that everyone will enjoy. All performances are general admission and held at Wellin Hall in the Schambach Center for Music and the Performing Arts on the Hamilton campus at 8 p.m., unless otherwise noted.

Dr. I. James McMullen of Pembroke College, Oxford University gave a lecture titled “Sacrifices to Confucius in Edo Japan” on Thursday, Sept. 8, at Hamilton. A leader in the field of Edo Period Japanese Confucian studies, Dr. McMullen recently returned from a year in Japan researching the “Sekiten” (“Shidian” in Chinese) ritual, associated with Japanese Confucian practices.

Cheng Li, the William R. Kenan Professor of Government, was featured in a London, Financial Times article about Chinese President Hu Jintao. "Hu's strength is not his understanding of the outside world but of the real China - that is, rural China," says the Shanghai-born but New York-based Prof Li. Li was also interviewed by the China News Service, which distributes news to more than 400 Web sites and newspapers in China, and by the BBC and the Voice of America.

Hamilton College opens the faculty concert series on Friday, Sept. 9 with the Fall Faculty Concert at 8 p.m. at Wellin Hall in the Schambach Center for Music and the Performing Arts. Hamilton's faculty artists will perform solo and ensemble pieces that range from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries.

Professor of Anthropology Doug Raybeck was interviewed for an Ottawa Citizen (9/3/05) news story about lawlessness in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In the article, Raybeck was quoted as saying: "It could happen anywhere. It's nothing peculiar to New Orleans. Any urban centre that saw the immediate collapse of its infrastructure would experience the same thing. Normal behaviour only exists in an environment where we are safe from threat and need."

Professor of Religious Studies Heidi Ravven has published a paper, "What Spinoza Can Teach Us About Naturalizing Ethics," in Cognitive, Emotive, and Ethical Aspects of Decision Making in Humans and in AI, Volume IV. Also, in July eight members of the 27-member advisory group to Ravven's Ford Foundation project to write a book Searching for Ethics in a New America met in New York City to advise and confer on the project.

Associate Professor of Chinese De Bao Xu has published two new textbooks, Intermediate Chinese Course I and Intermediate Chinese Course II, in collaboration with Hong Gang Jin and others. The books were published by Beijing University Press as a new textbook series for teaching Chinese as a Second Language in January 2005.