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Cheng Li, the William R. Kenan Professor of Government, was interviewed by Agence France-Presse about the death of Zhao Ziyang, the former Communist Party chief.  Zhao had been under house arrest and was stripped of all his positions in 1989 for refusing to support the military crackdown on democracy protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. According to the article Li predicts Zhao's death would not lead to instability. "The intellectuals and public of China are not in the mood for revolution,"he said. "They believe that incremental reform is in the best interest of China." Li was also quoted in the London Times article "China cautious, but Zhao death not seen triggering protests."

The Hamilton College Performing Arts series opens the spring semester with the Bang on a Can All-Stars on Friday, Jan. 21, at 8 p.m. at Wellin Hall in the Schambach Center for Music and the Performing Arts.

Cheng Li, the William R. Kenan Professor of Government, was interviewed on the CBC radio show "As it Happens," on Jan 17. Li commented on the death of Zhao Ziyang.

Cheng Li, the William R. Kenan Professor of Government, was quoted in the Newsweek article "Mourning Zhao." According to the article party elites are sensitive to persistent demands to pursue Zhao's path of reform and to overturn the verdict on Zhao and Tiananmen. "Most worrisome of all for those in power is the possibility those looming questions could divide them," says Li. So they are reacting somewhat more nimbly than in the past to show "they will not allow any of this to happen," he says. "They don't want to be so incompetent as to provoke a backlash."

Professor of Comparative Literature Peter Rabinowitz gave a paper in December at the Modern Language Association Convention during a panel devoted to Gerald Graff's recent book, Clueless in Academe. The paper, "Professor Plum in the Garage with a Paintbrush: The Limits of Academic Argument," tested Graff's analysis of academic culture by looking at it in the context of Hamilton College. While endorsing most of the book's recommendations, Rabinowitz showed how his experiences in cross-divisional sophomore seminars led him to question some of Graff's assumptions about what's central to academia. He then went on to talk about Susan Rosenberg's residency, arguing that the effects of external pressure on the College cast doubt on some of Graff's optimistic claims about the powers of rational argument.

The Hamilton College community will commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day with an on-campus dinner, featuring discussion and music on Monday, Jan. 17, at 7 p.m. in the Annex. Speakers will include Hamilton President Joan Stewart, Dean of the Faculty David Paris, College Chaplain Jeff McArn and Hamilton faculty members. Music will be provided by the Doc Woods Jazz Quintet and the Hamilton College Gospel Choir. The dinner is open to the campus community. Contact Roxanne Bellamy-Campbell for more information, 859-4021. 

Professor of Classics Barbara Gold gave an invited lecture on the presidential panel at the American Philological Association annual meeting held in Boston in January. The talk was titled "Classics, the Atom Bomb, and the Environment: Team-Teaching Interdisciplinary Courses from a Classical Point of View." The lecture was about Gold's various team-taught courses at Hamilton, including two sophomore seminars.  

Hamilton student and Sri Lanka native Malcolm "Freddie" Dias '05 offered to assist emergency management specialist Dr. Tom Phelan, a member of the IBM Crisis Response Team, following the December 26, 2004, tsunami. Phelan is the husband of Hamilton Communication Professor Catherine Waite Phelan. More than 300 volunteer undergraduates at the University of Moratuwa are being trained to collect tsunami victim data for the Sri Lankan government through the Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka. 

Associate Professsor of History Shoshana Keller has been invited to participate on the editorial board of the Journal of Central Asia and the Caucasus. This is a new journal published by the International Strategic Research Organization, a non-profit NGO based in Ankara, Turkey. Keller also organized a panel for the annual American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies conference in December. The panel's topic was education and the formation of national identity in the former Soviet Union, and her paper was titled "Writing Uzbek History in Post-War School Textbooks."

Cheng Li, the William R. Kenan Professor of Government, provided commentary in three radio interviews on Tuesday, Jan. 11. Li was interviewed by the BBC World Service on the forecast of political changes in China in 2005; discussed the provincial leadership change in China with Radio Asia; and commented on Shanghai's role in regional economic development in a VOA interview.