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Professor of Medieval History Hans Broedel was recently interviewed for an article regarding Halloween and various churches’ responses to the commercialized holiday. Broedel argued that the roots of Halloween’s traditions were not derived from ancient pagan customs; rather, the rituals of Halloween, such as trick-or-treating and carving pumpkins came from medieval Christian traditions. “Efforts to connect [Halloween traditions] to paganism may have been a form of stealth Catholic bashing,” Broedel noted.

Associate Professor of Spanish and Women's Studies Susan Sanchez-Casal, Professor of Comparative Literature Nancy Rabinowitz, who directs the Kirkland Project, and Professor of Biology Jinnie Garrett presented a panel at the American Association of Colleges and Universities Diversity and Learning Conference. Their panel was titled "Multicultural Literacy/Excellence in the Liberal Arts: Transforming a Traditional Liberal Arts College."

Assistant Professor of History Lisa N. Trivedi presented the paper,"Rituals of Time: Khadi Flags and the Nationalist Calendar in India, 1920-1945" to a conference held to honor Romila Thapar, the most eminent historian of ancient India, at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, October 24-26.

Christopher Whitcomb '81, former FBI special agent, appeared on Pat Buchanan's MSNBC show Buchanan and Press on October 21. Whitcomb commented on the investigation of the sniper who has killed 10 people in the D.C. area. About the sniper's letter, Whitcomb said, "He apparently made statements in that note that really disturbed law enforcement; maybe talked about a much-larger slaying, something much worse than we’ve seen before."

Hamilton College Professor and Chair of Chemistry George C. Shields received a grant from the National Science Foundation to build a program that will increase the number of students participating in the sciences who are normally underrepresented in these fields. "The program centers around an intensive summer research program that aims to create an environment that retains women and minority science majors and increases the number of Hamilton College science graduates who go on to graduate programs," Shields said.

Professor of Government Cheng Li was quoted in The Christian Science Monitor about U.S.-China relations and China's President Jiang Zemin's visit to the U.S.

Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature Melek Ortabasi presented a paper, "Sketching Out the Critical Tradition: Yanagita Kunio and the Reappraisal of Realism," at the Association of Japanese Literary Studies Annual Conference, held at Purdue University on October 4-5. She also organized a panel on the topic of "Imag(in)ing the Real Japan: Representations of Japan in Postwar Film" for The New York Conference on Asian Studies (NYCAS) 2002 Annual Meeting, held at Skidmore College on October 25-26. The paper she presented as part of that panel was titled "Miyazaki Hayao’s Spirited Away: Escaping Japan?"

Assistant Professor of History Peter Hinks spoke on a radio show--Conversations with Howard Scott & "Rainy" Faye--in Bridgeport, Conn., about slavery and emancipation in Connecticut.

Professor of Chemistry George Shields, Matthew D. Liptak '03 and Dreyfus Fellow Steve Feldgus presented a poster, "Absolute pKa Determinations for Protonated Nitrogen Compounds," at the Pfizer Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship Program, held in Groton, Conn. In addition, Shields gave a lecture titled "Basic Research and Drug Design: Computational Chemistry at Hamilton College" at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio.

Associate Professor of Spanish and Women's Studies Susan Sanchez-Casal presented a paper at the Puerto Rican Studies Association in Chicago, in early October. The paper was titled "Abraham Rodriguez's Spidertown: Repositioning Race and Gender in the Internal Colony." October 17-20, with her book co-author Amie Macdonald, Sanchez-Casal headed a panel dedicated to critical anthology 21st Century Feminist Classrooms: Pedagogies of Identity and Difference (2002) at the University of Michigan conference "Redefining Identity Politics-Internationalism, Feminism, Multiculturalism." The panel was focused on the theoretical introduction of Sanchez-Casal's book, "The Pedagogical Relevance of Identity." This conference was the fourth in an ongoing series of bicoastal conferences.