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Hamilton alumnus and glass artist Josh Simpson '72 will be featured in a PBS special, "Where the Earth Meets the Sky: The Glasswork of Josh Simpson," beginning on Nov. 11. Check your local PBS affiliate for schedule. Simpson will also be exhibiting his glass at craft shows in Philadelphia, Washington and New York.

Dr. Karuti Kanyinga, senior research fellow, Institute for Development Studies,Univ. of Nairobi, Kenya will present a lecture, "Political Change and Democracy in Africa," on Thursday, Nov. 8 at 8 p.m. in KJ Auditorium. As U.S. policy-makers increasingly talk about engineering the creation of a new government in Afghanistan, we can learn much about previous efforts to do the same. Over the last decade, the U.S. has actively pursued an agenda of "promoting democracy and human rights" across Africa. Dr. Kanyinga will address the complexities and contradictions of fundamental political change and the U.S.'s role in it.

Elizabeth Siegel Watkins, an historian and author of On the Pill, a social history of oral contraception, will present a lecture, "Birth Control and Controlling Birth: Struggles Over Reproductive Rights in the 20th Century," on Thursday, Nov. 15, at 8 p.m. in Kirner-Johnson Auditorium, Hamilton College. The lecture is free and open to the public.

In a study conducted for USA Today, Hamilton College Government Professor Philip Klinkner found that ballot design and race were the crucial factors in accounting for spoiled ballots in the Florida 2000 election. Klinkner’s analysis finds that when you control for various factors, non-straight ballots (butterfly ballots, two-page ballots, multiple column ballots, etc.) had a spoilage rate of approximately three times that of straight ballots (one page, one column) --2.4% vs. 7.5%.

On Nov. 5, Matthieu Dalle, visiting instructor of French, participated in a roundtable titled, "Naissance et éclosion des radios libres, de 1977 à 1981," ("Birth and Development of Free Radio [in France] from 1977 to 1981") at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris.

The November issue of Jazz Times mentions Hamilton's Jazz Archive in Nat Hentoff's column, "Final Chorus." In a column about Jo Jones, Hentoff writes, "Locke spoke of Jo, and his own life in jazz, for the Hamilton College Jazz Archive, directed by Monk Rowe. The Archive's hundreds of oral histories range from Doc Cheatham to Bill Charlap."

Government Professor Cheng Li spoke to the U.S. National Committee for Asian Pacific Security on Friday. He discussed U.S.-China relations in light of President Bush's recent APEC visit.

Ann Frechette, Luce Junior Professor of Asian Studies and assistant professor of anthropology, conducted a two-day workshop on Chinese culture for 120 families who are adopting children from China. She gave five lectures: 4000 Years of Chinese Civilization; China's Modern History; The Chinese Language; Language, Nation, and Ethnic Relations; and Families, Festivals, and Food. She also showed the movie "To Live." She organized the workshop in conjunction with China Adoption with Love, one of the largest China-US adoption agencies in the country, with whom she is also collaborating on her second book project, "The Invisible Red Thread: Concepts of the Family in an Interconnected World."

Government Professor Cheng Li presented a paper on "Avant-Garde Artists in Shanghai: Transcending Old Boundaries and Seeking New Identities" (co-authored with Lynn White at Princeton) at a conference on "Political Culture and Political Experimentation in Modern Shanghai." The conference was held Nov. 3-5 at the Fairbank Center of Harvard University.

Lavinia Limon, interim executive director of Immigration and Refugee Services of America (IRSA) and the U.S. Committee for Refugees (USCR) spoke at the Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center at Hamilton College during a luncheon on Nov. 2.