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When our group arrived we found out that our visit had two parts, indoor and outdoor.  The latter informed us about the tenements, which are such a part New York City’s history, and also about neighborhoods and people of the Lower East Side. With the cold snap finally over, we had a refreshing, interesting, and informative stroll through a famous part of New York. 

Assistant Professor of Physics Gordon Jones was quoted in a Tampa Tribune article "Unraveling Yo-Yo Basics." Jones said, "Flywheels, used in numerous things from fuel-efficient cars to cutting-edge fusion research, are simply ways to store energy in a spinning disk. For such a simple toy, the yo-yo stores energy in a spinning motion in a remarkably clever way… The yo-yo is a pretty cool toy from a physics point of view."

Professor of Japanese Kyoko Omori has two forthcoming articles in journals on the study of Japanese literature. Her article, "Shinseinen, the Contract and Vernacular Modernism," will appear in <EM>Hermeneutical Strategies – Methods of Interpretation in the Study of Japanese Literature: The Proceedings of the Association for Japanese Literary Studies</EM>, and "The Shanghaied Man" will appear in <EM>Japan Modanizumu Anthology: Modernist Prose from Japan in the 1920s and 1930s</EM>.

Professors of Physics Brian Collett and Phillip Pearle published an article titled "Wavefunction Collapse and Random Walk" in the journal <EM>Foundations of Physics</EM>, Vol. 33, No. 10 in October 2003.

Douglas Raybeck, professor of anthropology, is serving as president of The Society for Cross-Cultural Research for this year. At the annual meeting of this society last February, Raybeck presented two papers, "Cross-Cultural Variation in Memory and Metamemory between American and Malaysian Populations" and "Children's Games and Adult Cognitive Capacities:  A Systems Approach." At The Conference in Honor of Bernd Lambert at Cornell last April, Raybeck presented a paper titled "Dorothy Lee and the Myth of Trobriand Non-Lineality."

In conclusion to the Hamilton College Emerson Art Gallery exhibition, "1968: You Say You Want a Revolution," Ultra Violet, a visual artist, singer, actress and protégé of Andy Warhol, spoke at the college on February 11. Discussing Warhol's art, his impact, and her own personal relationship with him in the 1960s, Ultra Violet presented a Warhol video, as well as Warhol art to an introspective crowd in Wellin Hall for The Doris M. and Ralph E. Hansmann Lecture.

Vivyan Adair, the Elihu Root Assistant Professor of Women's Studies, published a letter to the editor in the Utica Observer-Dispatch (Feb. 6, 2004) about Janet Jackson's breast-baring incident at the Super Bowl. Adair wrote: "The Super Bowl entertainment was obscene and dangerous; not because we were exposed to Jackons's breast, but because we watched and cheered as a man ripped a part of the blouse off of a woman..."

John Adams, visiting professor of rhetoric and communication, was quoted in the Associated Press article "Use of In-Phone Cameras Prompts Bans." Adams calls it "cellphonography," and he's been using 20-second video clips taken on his cell phone to make points in class and also sends them to his wife and daughter when he's on business trips. "I personally have had great fun," he says. But he adds, "You have to find new ways of engaging people's ethical and moral sensibilities so it's not a free-for-all."

Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature Melek Ortabasi was invited to give a talk as part of the Japanese Humanities Lecture Series at the University of Washington in Seattle. Her lecture, given May 23, 2003, was "Ethnology and Dialect: Yanagita Kunio and the Authorship of National Language." Ortabasi also organized a panel on the topic of "Subversive Languages: Writing at the Margins of Modernity in 'Japan,' 1895-1945" for the Modern Languages Association's Annual Conference, held in San Diego in December. The paper she presented as part of that panel was "Yanagita Kunio's Reflections on Snails and the Role of Dialect in Authoring National Language."

Ralph Nader, renowned environmental and consumer advocate, lectured at Hamilton College on February 10 as a part of Hamilton's Levitt Public Affairs Center’s lecture series. The spring 2004 series is titled: "The Environment: Public Policy and Social Responsibility." The series’ title seemed to capture the essence of Nader’s own lecture, as he openly discussed environmental, social, and political concerns and the possible effects of such issues on our world’s future.