News & Events 04/2004

April 29, 2004
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AMHERST, Mass.- In his new translation of The Philosopher and His Poor ($79.95, hardcover, $22.95, paperback, 280 pp., Duke University Press, Durham, N.C., 2004), Andrew Parker, professor of English at Amherst College, brings to an English-speaking readership the work of Jacques Rancière, the French philosopher known for The Nights of Labor: The Workers' Dream in Nineteenth-Century France; The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation; and Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy. Parker will discuss his work and sign copies of his book on Monday, May 3, at 5 p.m. at Amherst Books (8 Main St., Amherst).

Jacques Rancière's The Philosopher and His Poor is a close reading of major texts of Western thought in which the poor have played a leading role-sometimes as the objects of philosophical analysis, sometimes as illustrations of philosophical argument. The history of philosophy-from Plato to Karl Marx to Jean-Paul Sartre to Pierre Bourdieu-is populated by the poor: plebes, men of iron, the demos, artisans, common people, proletarians, the masses. Published in France in 1983 and made available here for the first time in English, Parker's new translation asks what it means for Marx, Sartre and Bourdieu to heed Plato's admonition that workers should do "nothing else" than their own work. A critique of Bourdieu from the left, in terms largely unknown to an English-language readership, The Philosopher and His Poor remains timely 20 years after its initial publication.

Parker, a member of the Amherst faculty since 1982, was educated at the University of Chicago and Princeton University. He previously edited Nationalisms and Sexualities and Performativity and Performance.

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April 29, 2004
Director of Media Relations
413/542-8417

AMHERST, Mass.- The Journal of Japanese Gardening has ranked Yushien Garden, nestled between Webster Center and Kirby Theater at Amherst College, one of the top Japanese gardens in the nation. Designed by Shin Abe, Yushien placed sixteenth on this year's list.

Opened in 2001, Yushien, roughly translated as "Garden of Friendship," is a contemplative garden in the Japanese style that celebrates the strong historical ties between Amherst College and Doshisha University in Japan, founded as a small Christian school in Kyoto in 1875 by Joseph Hardy Neesima, an 1870 graduate of Amherst.

There are more than 300 public Japanese gardens in North America; the annual survey seeks "gardens displaying intimate traits such as subtlety, natural beauty, moderation, and human scale," according to the Journal.

The top ranking in the Journal this year went to Anderson Gardens in Rockford, Ill.

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April 20, 2004
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AMHERST, Mass.-Steve Coll, the managing editor of The Washington Post and author of Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (2004), will speak about "The Secret Hunt for Bin Laden" on Tuesday, April 27, at 7 p.m. in the Amherst Center For Russian Culture (Webster Hall, second floor) at Amherst College. Sponsored by the Office of the President at Amherst College, Coll's talk is free and open to the public.

A foreign correspondent and editor for the Post since 1985, Coll became managing editor in 1998. He previously edited the Washington Post Magazine, wrote features for the Style section and covered finance from Wall Street. Coll received a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism (with David A. Vise) in 1990, for coverage of the Securities and Exchange Commission in the time of corporate takeovers and the 1987 market crash.

As a foreign correspondent, Coll covered India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal in the three years after 1989, becoming the Post's first international projects and investigative correspondent, based in London.

Coll's previous books include The Deal of the Century: The Break Up of AT&T (1986) The Taking of Getty Oil: The Full Story of the Most Spectacular--& Catastrophic--Takeover of All Time (1987), Eagle on the Street: Based on the Pulitzer Prize-Winning Account of the SEC's Battle With Wall Street (with David A. Vise, 1991) and On the Grand Trunk Road: A Journey into South Asia (1993).

Coll has a B.A. degree in English and history from Occidental College in Los Angeles.

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April 16, 2004
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AMHERST, Mass.- Richard Rambuss, a professor of English at Emory University and a leading scholar of the poetry and devotional literature of the English Renaissance, will lecture on "The Passion of the Magdalene" on Thursday, April 22, at 4:30 p.m. in the Babbott Room in the Octagon at Amherst College. The talk, sponsored by the English department, is free and open to the public. A reception will follow.

A 1983 graduate of Amherst College, Rambuss is the author of groundbreaking studies of Spenser, Shakespeare and Milton, as well as essays on religion in art and literature from Chaucer to Chris Ofili. His latest book, Closet Devotions (1998), traces connections between religion and sexuality from the metaphysical poets through the AIDS crisis, and has been especially influential in gay and lesbian studies. His Amherst talk will range from The Da Vinci Code, the best-selling novel by Dan Brown '86, to Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ and the Renaissance lyrics of Richard Crashaw.

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April 14, 2004
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AMHERST, Mass.-The newest dormitories at Amherst, under construction in the southeast corner of campus, will be named King Hall and Wieland Hall. King Hall, the more southerly of the two, will honor Stanley King '03, who served as president of Amherst College from 1932 to 1946. An anonymous donor provided the funding. The north dorm will be named Wieland Hall, in recognition of a gift from John F. Wieland '58, a real estate developer and philanthropist from Atlanta, Ga. The new dorms are scheduled for occupancy in Fall 2004.

The gray granite four-story buildings, designed by William Rawn & Associates of Boston, and built by Barr & Barr Builders of Framingham, Mass., cost a total of approximately $17 million. Architecturally, King and Wieland are reminiscent of the simple Puritan buildings of Amherst's historic College Row and reinforce a long-range view of the newer eastern campus. The relatively small floor plans, with a maximum of 15 single-occupancy rooms on a floor, are designed to encourage community, as are ample common rooms and living areas on the ground level. The dorms will house 115 upper class students.

King and Wieland Halls represent the latest step in Amherst's long-term Residential Master Plan to improve the residential environment in response to current and future needs and preferences in student living. The plan accommodates strategies for programmatic improvement, deferred maintenance, building code requirements and improved accessibility.

Amherst's goal is to house all first-year students together on the historic main quad. To that end, the college has renovated Williston Hall, and is renovating North College, South College and Pratt Geology, which is being converted into a dormitory. James Hall and Stearns Hall will be removed and replaced beginning this summer. Under the Master Plan, the college will renovate the remainder of its residential facilities over the next several years.

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April 14, 2004
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413/542-8417

AMHERST, Mass.- Paul Rieckhoff, a lieutenant in the National Guard who has just returned from a year in war-torn Baghdad, will talk about "Coming Home: An Amherst Alum's Military Service in Iraq" on Tuesday, April 20, at 7 p.m. in the Babbott Room in the Octagon at Amherst College.

Rieckhoff, who appeared in February on CBS TV's 60 Minutes, will discuss his experience in Iraq and his attitude toward the war there. Rieckhoff graduated in 1998 from Amherst College, where he was president of the student government.

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April 12, 2004
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AMHERST, Mass.-Dean Hamer, a geneticist at the National Institutes of Health, will speak on Thursday, April 22, at 8 p.m. in Stirn Auditorium at Amherst College. His lecture, titled "Science of Desire: The Search for the Gay Gene," sponsored by the Amherst College Pride Alliance, is free and open to the public.

Hamer is chief of the section on gene structure and regulation in the biochemistry laboratory at the National Cancer Institute. In Science of Desire: The Search for the Gay Gene and the Biology of Behavior (1994), he discussed his work with molecular genetics and the potential link between genes and sexuality. His research was the first study to conclude that there was a correlation between certain genes and homosexuality in men. This breakthrough study has revolutionized societal views toward homosexuality and shifted the focus of future research in psychological and biological research regarding sexuality.

Hamer's talk is co-sponsored by the Association of Amherst Students, Office of the Dean of Students, Interdepartmental Student Fund, Office of Student Activities / Campus Center, and the departments of biology and women's and gender studies at Amherst College.

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April 12, 2004
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AMHERST, Mass.-Paul M. Smith, the attorney who successfully argued the landmark case of Lawrence v. Texas, involving the constitutionality of Texas sodomy law, before the Supreme Court last year, will speak on "Lawrence v. Texas and the Current Supreme Court" on Monday, April 26, at 7 p.m. in the Cole Assembly Room in Converse Hall at Amherst College. Sponsored by the Amherst College Democrats, Smith's talk is free and open to the public.

Smith, a managing partner at Jenner & Block in Washington, D.C., specializes in the Supreme Court, and media and First Amendment practices. His two decades of active Supreme Court practice include oral arguments in 12 Supreme Court cases. Besides Lawrence, Smith has argued recently in Norton v. Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, involving off-road vehicles and damage to desert wilderness areas, Vieth v. Jubelirer, a congressional redistricting case, and United States v. American Library Ass'n, involving a First Amendment challenge to the Children's Internet Protection Act.

Smith also worked on such First Amendment cases before the Supreme Court as Rubin v. Coors (1995), dealing with restrictions on beer labeling, Reno v. ACLU (1997), involving a challenge to content restrictions for the Internet in the Communications Decency Act, and Masson v. New Yorker Magazine, Inc. (1991), a significant defamation case.

A political science major, Smith graduated from Amherst in 1976 and received a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1979, where he served as editor of the Yale Law Journal. The following year, Smith was a law clerk to United States Court of Appeals Judge James L. Oakes, and, from 1980 to 1981, a clerk to Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr.

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April 12, 2004
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413/542-8417

AMHERST, Mass.-Maggie Gallagher, the author of The Abolition of Marriage, will speak on "Same-Sex Marriage and the Laws" on Tuesday, April 13, at 4 p.m. in the Babbott Room in the Octagon at Amherst College. Free and open to the public, Gallagher's talk is co-sponsored by the Amherst College Republicans and the Student Committee for the American Founding.

A nationally syndicated columnist and a leader in the fight to preserve traditional marriage, Gallagher is the author of The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier and Better Off Financially (co-authored with Linda Waite, 2001), The Abolition of Marriage (1996) and Enemies of Eros: How the Sexual Revolution is Killing Family, Marriage, and Sex and What We Can Do (1989). Her articles have appeared in The New Republic, The Wall Street Journal, National Review, Cosmopolitan and The New York Times, among other publications. A frequent media guest and an affiliate scholar at the Institute for American Values, Gallagher offers an influential younger woman's voice on marriage, family and social policy.

Gallagher graduated from Yale University in 1982.

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April 9, 2004
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AMHERST, Mass.- Sol Urbach, a Holocaust survivor who worked in the factory depicted in the popular movie Schindler's List, will speak about his experiences on Monday, April 19, at 7 p.m. in Johnson Chapel at Amherst College. Urbach's talk, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by Amherst College Hillel, the departments of political science and history, and the college social council. A musical program will precede Urbach's talk, and discussion will follow.

Taken into custody by the Nazis at the age of 15, Urbach survived the Krakow-Plaszow concentration camp. He was one of more than 1000 Polish Jews saved by Oskar Schindler, a former Nazi who turned his factory into a refuge. Urbach now devotes much of his time to visiting schools, colleges and civic groups to talk about his life, the Holocaust, and Schindler's List.

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April 7, 2004
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AMHERST, Mass.-The Amherst College Library will celebrate the addition of the millionth volume to its collections with ceremonies and a symposium on the poet James Merrill '47 on Friday, April 23, and Saturday, April 24. All events are free and open to the public.

The "millionth volume" in the library actually comprises several acquisitions, according to Willis E. Bridegam, Librarian of the College, including printed books, music CDs, film DVDs, databases of electronic images, a periodical index and a rare collection of important letters that will be announced at the ceremony. Bridegam, who is retiring after 29 years at Amherst, says, "Celebrating the library's millionth volume is a very special occasion. It gives us an opportunity to reflect on the importance of the printed word to a liberal arts college and to consider how electronic access to information is supplementing and changing the way we provide information to our users."

A reception for students, featuring music by "AJ junior's fantastical jazz machine," will take place on Friday, April 23, at 2 p.m. in the Friendly Periodical Reading Room at Robert Frost Library. At 3:45 p.m., bell music will be offered from the Stearns Steeple Carillon.

At 4 p.m. Richard Wilbur '42, former Poet Laureate of the U.S. and Robert Frost Library Fellow, who was also present at the dedication of the RobertFrost Library in 1963, will read a poem. Samuel B. Ellenport '65, the Chairman of the Friends of the Amherst College Library, will present the principal millionth acquisition to Bridegam, who will also describe the other acquisitions. William H. Pritchard '53, the Henry Clay Folger Professor of English at Amherst, will also speak. Guests can explore the library's electronic resources in the Barbara and Frederick S. Lane '36 Room (Level A). An exhibition and reception in the Archives and Special Collections will follow.

On Saturday, April 24, at 2 p.m. in Pruyne Lecture Hall (Fayerweather 115), writers and scholars will commemorate the life and work of James Merrill, the poet who graduated from Amherst in 1947. Merrill's nephew, poet and writer Robin Magowan, will speak about the year Merrill taught at Amherst (1955-56) and his novel The Seraglio (1957). Richard Wilbur will recall his friendship with Merrill and life at Amherst College in the 1940s. Jack Hagstrom, Merrill's bibliographer, will speak about the poet's early publications. Merrill's biographer Langdon Hammer will discuss Merrill's life at Amherst. Writer and poet Stephen Yenser, Merrill's literary executor and editor of a forthcoming collection of the poet's letters, will consider Merrill's youthful work, written while he was an undergraduate at Amherst from 1943 to 1947.

Daniel Hall, writer in residence at Amherst and the poet who was the first Merrill Fellow to live and write in the Merrill apartment in Stonington, Conn., will moderate the discussion. Members of the audience, especially those who knew Merrill or know his work, will be encouraged to participate in the discussion.

Saturday's symposium will be followed by a reception in Archives and Special Collections in the Robert Frost Library, where Merrill's books, letters, manuscripts and memorabilia and the works of symposium participants will be on display.

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April 5, 2004
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AMHERST, Mass.- William C. Taubman, the Bertrand Snell Professor of Political Science at Amherst College, has received the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for biography for Khrushchev: The Man and His Era (2003), the first comprehensive biography of the Soviet Communist leader, and the first of any Soviet leader to reflect the full range of sources that have become available since the U.S.S.R. collapsed. "I feel wonderful," Taubman said, "and privileged to be recognized." Tony Marx, the president of the college, noted Amherst's pride in Taubman's achievement, and said, "His great work came out of years of scholarship, and was informed by years of teaching, in the greatest Amherst tradition."

Khrushchev: The Man and His Era tells the story of Khrushchev's personal triumphs and tragedy and those of his country. Drawing on newly opened archives in Russia and Ukraine, Taubman has traveled to places where Khrushchev lived and worked, and interviewed Khrushchev family members, friends and colleagues, to write a biography that combines historical narrative and political and psychological analysis.

Taubman, a member of the Amherst faculty since 1967, was educated at Harvard and Columbia Universities. An associate of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard, chair of the Advisory Committee of the Cold War International History Project at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. and a former International Affairs Fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations with the Department of State, Taubman is the author of many books. He wrote Moscow Spring (1989) with his wife, Jane Taubman, a professor of Russian at Amherst College, Stalin's American Policy (1982), Governing Soviet Cities (1973) and The View from Lenin Hills (1967). He has contributed to The New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times, among many other newspapers, magazines and journals.

Lewis Spratlan, Peter R. Pouncey Professor of Music, received the 2000 Pulitzer Prize in Music for Life is a Dream, Opera in Three Acts: Act II, Concert Version.

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April 5, 2004
Director of Media Relations
413/542-8417

AMHERST, Mass.-Alison Des Forges of Human Rights Watch will speak on "'Enemies Everywhere: 'Self-Defense,' International Inaction and the Genocide in Rwanda" on Monday, April 12, at 7:30 p.m. in the Cole Assembly Room of Converse Hall at Amherst College, and again on Tuesday, April 13, at 8 p.m. in the Neilson Library Browsing Room at Smith College. Both talks are free and open to the public.

A MacArthur Fellow, Des Forges serves as expert witness to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and has provided evidence on the Rwandan genocide to judicial authorities in Belgium, Switzerland, Canada and the U.S., and assisted several international investigations. As co-chair of the 1993 International Commission of Investigation into Human Rights Abuse in Rwanda, Des Forges reported on the massacres that presaged the 1994 genocide, and chaired the 1994 International Commission that investigated slaughter in Burundi.

Trained as a historian at Harvard and Yale universities, Des Forges is the author of Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda (2000), which received the Lemkin Award of the Institute for the Study of Genocide.

Des Forges's lecture at Amherst is supported by the Charles Hamilton Houston Forum for Social Justice and the Amherst College Department of History. Her talk at Smith is sponsored by the African Studies Program and the Departments of Government and History at Smith College. Both talks received support from the Five College Lecture Committee.

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April 5, 2004
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413/542-8417

AMHERST, Mass.-Paul Boghossian, professor and chair of philosophy at New York University, will speak on "Objective Knowledge" on Thursday, April 15, at 4:30 p.m. in the Pruyne Lecture Hall in the Pruyne Lecture Room in Fayerweather Hall. Boghossian's talk, sponsored by the Department of Philosophy at Amherst College and the Forry and Micken Fund in Philosophy and Science is the last of a series on "Ethics, Metaphysics, and Psychology of Belief." The lecture will be free and open to the public.

Boghossian's research interests are in the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of language and epistemology. His many publications have considered color, rule following, eliminativism, naturalism, self-knowledge, a priori knowledge, analytic truth, realism and the aesthetics of music. He is currently at work on a book on the notion of objectivity.

He has held research fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the New York Institute for the Humanities, Magdalen College (Oxford), the School for Advanced Study (University of London) and the Australian National University (Canberra), Boghossian is on the editorial board of Philosophical Studies and Philosophers' Imprint. He has served as a faculty member at an NEH Institute on the Nature of Meaning. Boghossian received a Ph.D. degree from Princeton, and taught there and at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor before coming to NYU.

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April 5, 2004
Director of Media Relations
413/542-8417

AMHERST, Mass.- Wendy Ewald, known for her documentary collections of photographs depicting life in communities all over the world, will deliver this year's Rapaport Lecture in Contemporary Art at Amherst College on Thursday, April 22, at 4:30 in Pruyne Lecture Hall (115 Fayerweather Hall). Titled "Secret Games," Ewald's talk, a reception and a book signing are free and open to the public.

Ewald's projects probe questions of identity and cultural differences. She often encourages her subjects, many of them children, not only to take the photographs themselves but also to join her in working with negatives. Her works challenge the concept of who actually makes an image: who is the photographer and who the subject, who is the observer and who the observed. Over the last 30 years, Ewald has worked in Labrador, Colombia, India, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Holland, Mexico and the United States.

Among Ewald's many honors are a MacArthur Fellowship and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Andy Warhol Foundation and the Fulbright Commission. She has had solo exhibitions at the International Center of Photography in New York, the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, the George Eastman House in Rochester, Nederlands Foto Institute in Rotterdam and the Fotomuseum in Wintherthur, Switzerland. She alsohas published seven books. She is currently artist-in-residence at the John Hope Franklin Center and a senior research associate at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. She is also a senior fellow at the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School.

Ewald's talk is sponsored by the Fine Arts Department, the Office of the Dean of the Faculty,and the Rapaport Lectureship in Contemporary Art Fund. Established in 1999, this fund provides support for an annual lecture by an artist, art writer or art critic on some aspect of contemporary art. The goal of the Rapaport Lectureship is to increase awareness and appreciation of contemporary art among students and the community.

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