Faculty News

“PANORAMA: Three Ecocinematic Territories,” an essay by Visiting Professor of Art History Scott MacDonald, appears as a chapter in the Handbook of Ecocriticism and Cultural Ecology. Edited by Hubert Zapf, the book was recently published by De Gruyter, a German publishing house.

A fund established by 1964 Hamilton graduate Daniel W. Dietrich II, who died last year, has provided the college with a $6 million gift to establish The Daniel W. Dietrich ’64 Fund for Innovation in the Arts and The Daniel W. Dietrich ’64 Arts Museum Programming  Fund. These two funds will significantly expand the College’s already robust arts programming for its faculty, students and community.

“You can ask just one simple question to find out whether someone likes Donald Trump more than Hillary Clinton: Is Barack Obama a Muslim? If the answer is yes, 89 percent of the time that person will have a higher opinion of Trump than Clinton.” So began an analysis of results from the 2016 American National Election Study (ANES) pilot survey by James S. Sherman Professor of Government Philip Klinkner published by Vox on June 2.

Dan Chambliss,  the Eugene M. Tobin Distinguished Professor of Sociology, and Christopher Takacs ’05 were recently keynote speakers at the “NoName Facilities Conference” held at the University of Maryland, where they spoke on “How College Works for Students: And How Architecture Makes It Better or Worse.” The conference was a gathering of architects, campus planners and higher education facilities managers. 

Barbara Gold, the Edward North Professor of Classics, presented a paper titled “Were Female Martyrs Transgendered? Perpetua Between Genders” at the seventh triennial Feminism and Classics conference in Seattle on May 20.

Two Hamilton faculty members were approved for tenure by the College’s Board of Trustees during a recent meeting. The board granted tenure to Russell Marcus, philosophy, and Benjamin Widiss, literature and creative writing.

With a well-known commencement speaker who holds controversial views, Hamilton may have anticipated a bit more national media attention to the event than in past years. What was not expected was additional focus on the dean of faculty.

Associate Professor of Africana Studies Nigel Westmaas presented a paper on the topic “The Historical and Contemporary Contours of Guyanese Philosophy” in Georgetown, Guyana, on May 23.

Roberta Krueger, the Burgess Professor of French, presented a paper titled “Other Bodies, Other Rooms: Moving Forward with Feminism in Medieval French Studies” at the International Congress for Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University on May 12. 

The Hamilton College Chapter of Sigma Xi, the scientific research society, initiated 13 members of the Class of 2016 to associate membership before the annual dinner in the Taylor Science Center Atrium on May 20. Family members in attendance enjoyed a program of observations by mentors about the students, their research and student plans to continue in research.