News & Events 03/2012

By William Sweet

A century and a half ago, a member of the Amherst College Class of 1863 followed his chemistry professor into this country’s bloodiest conflict and returned in a coffin. After the body of Frazar Stearns—the son of the college’s fourth president, William Augustus Stearns—came back to Amherst, so did a cannon that he had helped reclaim from Confederate forces. It was a pale substitute for a 21-year-old with a promising future, but the “Amherst Cannon” would become a boon for historians.

February 21, 2012                                          

AMHERST, Mass. – On March 1 and March 14 at 4:30 p.m., the Department of Religion at Amherst College is hosting two Campus Challenge Lecture Series discussions titled “Religion, Politics and Poverty:  Defining Relationships” and “Greed as a Form of Violence,” respectively.

February 21, 2012                                                                           

AMHERST, Mass. – On Friday and Saturday, March 2-3, Amherst College will host a conference titled “The Future of the Humanities and the Problem of Instrumental Reason” at the school’s Alumni House.

March 22, 2012

AMHERST, Mass.—Alan Hájek, a philosophy professor at Australian National University (ANU), will discuss “Blaise and Bayes” in a talk at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 29, in Pruyne Lecture Hall of Amherst College’s Fayerweather Hall. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, is the final event in the 2011–2012 Forry and Micken Lecture Series.

March 23, 2012

AMHERST, Mass.—This March and April, Amherst College’s Archives and Special Collections and the Emily Dickinson Museum will commemorate the 150^th anniversary of the March 1862 death of Frazar Stearns, son of college president William Augustus Stearns, with a special exhibition, panel discussion and “living history” encampment. The events are free and open to the public.