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In their newly released book Europe at Bay, Alan Cafruny, Hamilton’s Henry Platt Bristol Professor of International Affairs, and J. Magnus Ryder, professor of international relations at Oxford Brookes University, contend that “Absent the fundamental social and political changes that might engender a positive and coherent regional agency, Europe appears condemned to continuing dependency on the United States’ precarious imperium.”

Barbie Zelizer knows that war is not a happy topic. On August 30, the former journalist thanked students for coming out to the Science Center during the first week of classes to think about heavy issues. Zelizer hoped that thinking about images of war would inspire students beyond her talk.

Professor of Communication Catherine W. Phelan has completed an entry on "museum as communication" for the International Encyclopedia of Communication. The Encyclopedia is a joint project of Blackwell Publishing and the International Communication Association and its content draws on the expertise of scholars worldwide. The Encyclopedia will give more space to areas related to public and mediated communication but include other communication forms and phenomena as well, since they represent basic elements of the human communication processes. The 10 volumes are scheduled to be published in December 2007.

Rising senior Mikhail Bell ’08 (New York, N.Y.) knew that he didn’t want to spend another summer working in an insurance agency. Bell, a major in world politics with a concentration on gender studies and development, wanted experience in a profession related to his academic interests. After some research, Bell applied for and received a position as a volunteer at the Carter Center.

Since declaring its independence from the USSR in 1991, the Republic of Georgia has been working to establish a fully democratic government and educational system. Giorgi Chavleishvili ’08, a native of the Republic of Georgia, had a Levitt Fellowship this summer to investigate the changes in the Georgian education system and how it has been adapted to democracy.

Make a Difference Day, Hamilton’s annual community service day, will take place on Saturday, Sept. 1, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Campus service organization HAVOC, the sponsor of the event, hopes to have about 200 students and staff members volunteer at about a dozen community organizations in Utica. This annual event is aimed at getting students off campus and into the nearby neighborhoods with need.

Daniel José Custódio '00 is team captain of SlamRichmond, Virginia's first team to compete in the PSI National Poetry competition. He led a five-member team to Austin, Texas to compete in the competition, which consists of 75 teams and 300 poets, for the second year in a row.  "Modern-Day Gladiator," a group piece written by Daniel, was featured during the semi-finals. SlamRichmond plans to send a team to the competition next year and hopes that the experience they have gained in the last two will serve them well.  According to Daniel, "We have all the ingredients to win the championship next year."  For more information on SlamRichmond or on Daniel's poetry, please visit www.myspace.com/slamrichmond or www.thepoetdaniel.com. 

Rebecca Murtaugh, assistant professor of art, has photographs of three installations published in the September 2007 issue of Shamenet Magazine in a piece authored by writer and designer Yuval Saar. Shamenet is a Tel Aviv, Israel-based publication of contemporary culture. Works include "To Mark A Significant Space in the Living Room #1" (2007), and "To Mark A Significant Space in the Bedroom, #1" (2003) comprised of rooms covered in Post-it Notes.

Earlier this summer we spoke to Stephen Okin, who has an Emerson grant to research the increasingly shaky relationship between Venezuela and the U.S. With the recent media coverage of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, it seemed timely to catch up with Okin and get an update on his research.

University of Pennsylvania Annenberg School of Communication professor Barbie Zelizer will present "When Reporting War Is More Imagined Than Real," on Thursday, Aug. 30, at 7 p.m. in the Kennedy Auditorium in the Science Center. She is the first presenter in the 2007-08 Levitt Center series, The Age of Information. The lecture is free and open to the public.