Brenda Wineapple, the Doris Zemurray Stone Professor in
Modern Literary and Historical Studies, is to receive this week the Boston
Author Club's Julia Ward Howe Prize for her biography Hawthorne: A Life. The Boston Authors Club is the
oldest continuous authors group in the United
States, founded in 1899 by Julia Ward Howe
(“Battle Hymn of the Republic”) and journalists Helen Winslow and
Thomas Higginson. Members have included Mark Twain, Robert Frost, Edward
Everett Hale, Richard Henry Dana, Booth Tarkington, David McCord, Edward
Arlington Robinson, Willa Cather, John McAleer and
three Massachusetts governors.
Other finalists for the Julia Ward Howe Prize were James Carroll (Secret Father, Houghton Mifflin) and
Stephen Puleo (Dark Tide, Beacon
Press).
Prof. Batson signs with book publisher
Charles Batson, assistant professor of French, has signed with Ashgate Publishing for his book, Dance, Desire, and
Anxiety in Early Twentieth-Century French Theater: Playing Identities,
to be published in 2005. This work shows the performing bodies in Paris' dance theaters to carry culturally dense messages of
national, sexual, and gender identity. Batson also recently presented papers on
two other performance pieces: “Panique celtique, ou, Fest-noz in Paname: Manau, Celtic Rap, and Breton Cultural Expression,” at the
International Colloquium on 20th- and 21st-century French
Studies in Tallahassee, Fla., and “Versions of the Image: Yasmina
Reza, Contemporary Theater, and Ambiguous Subjectivity,” at the International
Conference on Women in French in Claremont, Calif.
Prof. Chilcoat presents paper at language conference
Michelle
Chilcoat,
assistant professor of French, organized a panel and presented a paper at the April 2004
Kentucky Foreign Language Conference. The panel, organized with Prof. Martine Delvaux of the University
of Quebec at Montreal,
was called “Porno/Graphic/Violence in Recent French Film and Literature.” In her
paper, titled “How Tasty Was My Little French Woman: Marina
de Van's 'Dans ma peau' (In My Skin),” Chilcoat analyzed this
2002 film's highly original portrayal of auto-cannibalism as a commentary on
corporate consumerism. Chilcoat has also had a paper accepted for the December
2004 Modern Languages Association Convention, to be held this year in Philadelphia.
This paper, “(Post) Feminist (Porno) Graphics, a la Francaise,”
will explore graphic film-making and writing by French and francophone women
from 1970 to the present to consider how such works engage (or not) in the
projects of feminist politics and theory.
Profs. Werner, Sorum publish on College’s undergraduate research program
Tom Werner, the Florence B. Sherwood Professor of Physical Sciences,
and Christie Sorum, the Frank Bailey
Professor of Classics and dean of faculty, have co-authored a chapter, “From
Engineering to English: Encouraging Undergraduate Research Across the Disciplines,”
to appear in a book titled Reinvigorating
the Undergraduate Experience: Successful Models Supported by NSF's AIRE/RAIRE
Program, Linda Kaufman and Janet Stocks, eds. (Council on Undergraduate
Research, 2004). An abridged version of the book will be distributed to all CUR
members. Their chapter traces the history of undergraduate research at Union
with emphasis on the factors that have caused this endeavor to become a focal point
of the Union curriculum. These include the impact of IEF and FRF, Union's
participation in CUR and NCUR, and the establishment of the Steinmetz Symposium
as the high point of the academic
year. Other contributions in the book have come from faculty at Harvey Mudd, Grinnell, Colby, Reed, Occidental, Oberlin, Hope and
Wellesley.
Nott ceiling repair under way
A small section of plaster from
the domed ceiling of the Nott Memorial has fallen, causing the rescheduling of
some events and limited access to the first floor.
Mandeville Gallery and the third
floor study remain open during regular building hours: daily 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
If repairs stay on schedule, the
Nott is expected to be completely reopened before ReUnion Weekend, May 20-23.
The damage, which was discovered
April 27, is believed to be caused by moisture. College Facilities staff used
an infrared camera to find “cool spots” caused by water damage in a
section measuring about three feet by three feet.
Scaffolding was being erected
inside the building this week, and a large lift was being used on Friday to inspect and
repair the roof.