All News

Professor of English Patricia O'Neill wrote an article for Cineaction Magazine (Issue 64, 2004). The article, "Where Globalization and Localization Meet," discusses Spike Lee's post 9/11 film The 25th Hour. O'Neill writes: "The coda to the film resists both amnesia for what has happened and nostalgia for a time that never was and never will be. Instead The 25th Hour embraces the difficulties of the present in order that the victims of 9/11 will not be forgotten nor have died in vain. The circle of globalization has closed; there is no open frontier."

Cheng Li, the William R. Kenan Professor of Government, was interviewed by VOA radio on Dec. 2 about China's monetary policy and the Chinese leadership's concern for socio-political stability. Li was also interviewed for the Agence France Presse article, "Beijing balks at the political consequences of floating the yuan." According to the article, "Maintaining the growth of the world's fastest growing major economy is crucial to a regime that is pragmatic-minded, but stability comes first." Li said, "Political stability carries more weight than other issues. Any wise leader will do the same. This does not mean that China will not appreciate its currency; it certainly will."

Santa Claus’ schedule can get pretty tight during the holiday months, and although answering the letters of children is a top priority, it’s difficult to respond to millions of letters. Volunteers working through HAVOC hope to help out old Saint Nicholas this season by processing letters from the Hamilton College community.  Members of the Hamilton community are encouraged to send their children’s letters to Santa t Santa Letters c/o Hamilton College, 198 College Hill Road, Clinton, NY 13323.  Every letter received will be answered by one of the 200 volunteers that make up the Santa Letters program at Hamilton. This program is designed for children 11 years old and younger.  Each child will receive a personalized note from Santa, with holiday greetings and good wishes. All letters must be received by December 10 to guarantee a response before Christmas.    

Herbert V. Frey, Ph.D., head of the Geodynamics Branch of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, will speak at Hamilton on Thursday, Dec. 2 at 4:30 p.m. in the Chapel. Dr. Frey's lecture is titled "Mars: Less Than The Earth, More Than The Moon." He will compare and contrast Mars, the Earth and the Moon, and discuss current and future research on Mars, including the possibility of manned exploration. The lecture is sponsored by the Emerson Literary Society.

Vivyan Adair, the 2004 New York State CASE/Carnegie Foundation Professor of the Year, is the feature interview on WRVO (91.9 FM, Utica) radio on Nov. 30. Adair is the Elihu Root Associate Professor of Women's Studies and founder and director of the ACCESS Project at Hamilton College. The interview can be heard online by clicking on the following link.

The Hamilton College Hill Singers, directed by Prof. G. Roberts Kolb, will lead a Christmas Service of Lessons and Carols on Sunday, Dec. 5 at 4 p.m. in the Hamilton College Chapel. The service is free and open to the public. This year clergy from the churches in the village of Clinton — St. Mary’s Catholic Church, St. James Episcopal, Stone Presbyterian, and the Clinton United Methodist Church — are participating in the service. The tradition of the Service of Lessons and Carols dates back to Christmas Eve of 1918 and Cambridge University in England. Planned by the new Dean of King’s College, fresh from his role as army chaplain in World War I, the service has become a tradition for many colleges across the world.

A roundtable discussion examining some of the influences of British colonialism in India and the West Indies through the trope of play and featuring Hamilton faculty and a student, will take place on Thursday, Dec. 2 at 4:30 p.m. in KJ Aud.  Participants are Professor Gita Rajan, Jane Watson Irwin Visiting Associate Professor of Women's Studies, Professor Gillian Gane, Assistant Professor of English, and Kate Caldwell (’05). This event is open to the public, free of charge.

Peter White, professor of classics at the University of Chicago, presented the classics department Winslow Lecture. White presented the lecture "Absence and Risk in the Correspondence of Cicero," on Thursday, Dec. 2.

Professor of History Thomas Wilson delivered a paper titled "Ritual Spaces and Reverent Bodies in the Cult of Confucius" at the panel Ritual and Politics in Late Imperial Shandong, West Coast Association for Asian Studies, at the University of Washington, Seattle, in September. He also organized and served as discussant on a panel titled "Lineage Construction in Chinese Religions" at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion in San Antonio in November.

Michael Granof '63, a professor of accounting at the University of Texas at Austin's McCombs School of Business, wrote an op-ed on high textbook prices for The Chronicle of Higher Education (Nov. 26, 2004). Granof, who is also chairman of the board of the University Cooperative Society, the University of Texas's bookstore, wrote: "Students and their parents and legislators have a legitimate complaint. Textbooks are overpriced. But the causes aren't price gouging by bookstores, unscrupulous professors who force students to buy the texts they wrote, unnecessary and too-frequent revisions, or bundled supplementary materials. Those are all symptoms, not the disease."