All News

Ernest Williams, the Leonard C. Ferguson Professor of Biology, is the author of a new book, The Nature Handbook: A Guide to Observing the Great Outdoors, (Oxford University Press). The book has a field guide format but is a guide to explain patterns and observations in nature, not to identify species, Williams explains. More than 500 color photos show 227 patterns and the book offers concise, scientifically current explanations for the reasons behind these patterns.

Professor of Music Samuel Pellman's Selected Planets was presented at the China Conservatory in Beijing in January. The piece "Neptune Flyby" from Selected Planets, a suite of compositions for recorded digital instruments, was also presented in February at the SPARK Festival of Electronic Music and Art at the University of Minnesota. Further information about Selected Planets can be found at: http://www.borg.com/~spellman/Selected.html

NASA astronaut Dr. James F. Reilly presented his perspective as a geologist and an astronaut in a lecture titled “Mars Exploration: Rovers to Human Geophysical Crews – A (Fun) Work in Progress” at Hamilton on May 1. Dr. Reilly discussed exploration of the Moon and on Mars; his lecture was complemented by an extensive power point presentation complete with photos and video of space exploration.

Associate Professor of English Catherine Kodat gave an invited talk on April 27 at the University of Debrecen in Debrecen, Hungary. The talk was titled "Posting Yoknapatawpha," and was drawn from an essay by Kodat that will appear in the annual special Faulkner issue of Mississippi Quarterly scheduled this year for the Fall 2005 issue. The essay explores what might be called the literary erotics involved in the production of Yoknapatawpha, Faulkner's fictional "little postage stamp of native soil" and the setting for most of his novels.

Richard W. Couper '44 and his sister, Kay Couper Watrous, were awarded Binghamton University's highest honor, the University Medal, in a ceremony on May 2. Couper and Watrous, the son and daughter of Edgar and Esther Couper, received the honor in recognition of their abiding interest in and steadfast support of their parents' legacy. Richard Couper is a life trustee of Hamilton.

Four Hamilton students participated in the fourth annual First-Year Russian Language "Olympics," held in the Christian Johnson building on Saturday, April 16. Mary Beth Day '07, Chelsea Graham '08, Katharine Hottenstein '08 and Stephen Orlando '08 joined undergraduates from Hobart-William Smith, SUNY-Binghamton, Syracuse University, Union College and the U.S. Military Academy to compete in various Russian language activities.

Assistant Professor of Japanese Language and Literature Kyoko Omori and 16 Hamilton students attended an international symposium on Hiroshima/Nagasaki at Tufts University April 22-24. The group consisted of 15 students from her “Japanese/Comparative Literature 239: War and Modernity in Japanese Literature,” and Aletha Asay, a Senior Fellow. She is completing her senior thesis on a group of literary works called “atomic bomb literature,” which emerged from ordinary people’s experience in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.

Kurt Schmoke, dean of the Howard University School of Law and former mayor of Baltimore, will deliver the Commencement address at Hamilton College on Sunday, May 22, at 10:30 a.m. Hamilton’s commencement ceremony will take place on the Main Quadrangle, or in the event of inclement weather, in the Margaret Bundy Scott Field House.

William J. Tyler, Associate Professor of East Asian Languages and Literatures at Ohio State University, gave a lecture on April 28 titled "Writing the Language of Tomorrow: Ishikawa Jun's Invention of Ashitago. His lecture discussed the works of Japanese modernist writer Ishikawa Jun, some of which Tyler has translated into English, which deal with modern life and war in Japan. Ishikawa wrote works of resistance to Japan's Fifteen Year War from 1931-1945, and later wrote about the nation's postwar issues.

The Hamilton College Orchestra will present a concert on Saturday, April 30, at 8 p.m. in Wellin Hall. Heather Buchman will conduct the program, featuring Beethoven Pastorale Symphony, Mozart Concerto No. 3 in G Major with Yubo Lu on violin, and Copland Billy the Kid Suite. Free and open to the public.