2010 Edition of Insights Published

The spring 2010 edition of Insights, the journal that features the best of undergraduate social science research papers at Hamilton, has been published by the Levitt Center. Edited and refereed by students and Associate Professor of Government P. Gary Wyckoff, Insights features articles by J. Max Currier '10, Lauren Howe '13, Richard Maass '12 and Julie Melowsky '11.

Currier won the 2010 Levitt Prize in Social Science Writing for his submission, “The U.S. Mission in Afghanistan: Counterinsurgency and Provincial Reconstruction Teams.” He credits the “invaluable support” of former U.S. Ambassador and Christian A. Johnson Distinguished Professor of Global Political Theory Edward S. Walker ’62. The paper was based on Currier’s research as a 2009 Levitt Fellow.

The three other titles selected by the editorial board were “Hydropolitics of the Nile River: Conflict, Policy and the Future” (Howe), “Nuclear Proliferation and Declining U.S. Hegemony” (Maass), and “Balinese Cosmology and its Role in Agricultural Practices” (Melowsky).

The student editorial board included Catherine Ferrara ’11, David Foster ’10, Cristina Garafola ’11, Kye Lippold ’10, Samantha Rabin ’11 and Olivia Wolfgang-Smith ’11. Sharon Topi, Levitt administrator and service learning coordinator, served as managing editor. With board members studying in Washington, D.C., New Zealand and Australia as well as on the Hamilton campus, coordinating meetings to review and edit submissions was challenging.

Submissions to the journal are accepted from all branches of the social sciences, including anthropology, economics, government, history, public policy, sociology, women’s studies, world politics and the social science aspects of psychology. The journal seeks to appeal to lay readers as well as those who specialize in a particular field.

Wyckoff, Director of Hamilton's Public Policy Program, had long felt that outstanding student work all too often ended up on "some professor's dusty shelf, never to be read again." His belief that work of this quality deserved to be part of the scholarly discussion in the social sciences, to be read, discussed, lauded and critiqued, led him to create Insights.