At Brown

Blue Room closing for summer

The Blue Room will be closing for the summer. Beginning June 2, the Campus Market in Lower Faunce will provide coffee and other beverages, bagels, pastries, soup, salad and sandwiches, in addition to the snacks and convenience items that are available at Campus Market year-round. Summer hours will be Mondays through Fridays from 7 a.m. until 3 p.m.

Awards and Honors

Don B. Wilmeth, Asa Messer Professor and professor of theater and English, has received the Association for Theatre in Higher Education’s 2003 Sustained Achievement in Editing Award. In announcing Wilmeth’s award, selection committee chairman Harley Erdman wrote, “Your many seminal editorial works have provided a fundamental orientation and foundation for our field over the past generation, and your example has been an inspiration to many, many colleagues and readers. In both breadth and depth, your editorial achievement represents an immeasurable contribution to theater studies.”

During the past 35 years, Wilmeth has edited the three-volume “Cambridge History of American Theatre,” two editions of the “Cambridge Guide to American Theatre” and 20 volumes of the “Cambridge Studies in American Theatre and Drama” series. He has also served as book review editor for “The Theatre Journal” and as editor/co-editor of several volumes of plays, in addition to serving on editorial boards for New Theatre Quarterly, Theatre History Studies, American Drama” and New England Theatre Journal. The award will be presented at ATHE's 2003 conference in New York City on Aug. 2.

In April, the American Academy of Political and Social Science (AAPSS) recognized its first group of Junior Fellows. Of the 105 Junior Fellows is Brown anthropology student Lisa Lau ’03.

The new Junior Fellowship program aims to encourage young people to devote their professional lives to social sciences. Each Junior Fellow was elected on the basis of nominations from his or her undergraduate department according to three criteria: an outstanding grasp of a discipline's theories and methods, as demonstrated through coursework in the student's major department; an enthusiasm for understanding social issues; and the promise of making substantial contributions to the social sciences in the future.

Lau also was the recipient of one of nine Undergraduate Research Awards. Her winning paper was titled “The Road to the Nanking Massacre: Explaining the Actions of the Japanese.”

For the third consecutive year the Brown Alumni Magazine has won a gold medal for general excellence in its circulation category (College and University General Interest Magazines with a circulation of 75,000 or more) in the annual Circle of Excellence competition sponsored by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE).

The College Hill Independent, a weekly publication produced by students of Brown and RISD, received an award for its antiwar coverage from the Independent Press Association, which each year sponsors the Campus Alternative Journalism Awards. The Independent was cited for “how reflective it was in a time of crisis: along with the obligatory calendar of protest events, foreign policy coverage, and reporting on schisms in anti-war coalitions, the issue carried a broad spectrum of reflections from faculty, students, and campus organizations that ran the gamut from the International Socialist Organization to the College Republicans.”

The Modernist Journals Project, based in Brown’s Department of Modern Culture and Media, has received a two-year grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to complete a digital edition of “The New Age: A Weekly Review of Politics, Literature, and Art,” published in London from 1907 to 1922. The project is directed by Robert Scholes, research professor of modern culture and media.

José Amor y Vásquez, professor emeritus of Hispanic studies, has received the John Carter Brown Library Medal for his service as an adviser, author, editor, translator and long-time supporter of the library. The medal was presented during a ceremony on May 9.

The board awards the medal on an occasional basis to recognize distinguished service to the library or to one of the fields represented in its collection.

Amor is a scholar with a lengthy record of contributions to the field of colonial Latin American studies. He began his education in Spain, where he was born, and later continued in Cuba; he received his Ph.D. from Brown in 1957 and has been associated with the University for more than 50 years. Amor is one of the founders of Brown’s Center for Latin American Studies, and is the author or editor of several books.

Jasmine Foo, a graduate student in applied mathematics, is the recipient of a Computational Science Graduate Fellowship from the Department of Energy. This highly competitive program provides fellows with yearly stipends of $28,000 and payment of all tuition and fees. In return, fellows must complete coursework in a scientific or engineering discipline, computer science, or applied mathematics. Fellows also complete a three-month practicum at a Department of Energy laboratory. Foo is studying computational fluid dynamics under the supervision of Prof. George E. Karniadakis.

Emma Kuby ’03 is the inaugural recipient of the David J. Zucconi ’55 Fellowship for International Study. Kuby, who concentrated in history and gender studies, will spend a year in France and England studying feminist movements in the realm of politics.

The fellowship honors David J. Zucconi, a 1955 graduate of Brown, who served the University for more than four decades as an admission officer, fund-raiser, alumni officer and sports fan. Zucconi died Jan. 22, 2003, of cancer. He is widely recognized by generations of Brown alumni for his remarkable achievements as an alumnus and a Brown University employee. The program acknowledges Zucconi’s exemplary service, his love for his alma mater, and his support for a strong student program at Brown.

The fellowship includes a stipend of $25,000, round-trip travel to the location of study, and fees and tuition, when needed, at a host university abroad.

Off the Shelf

Professor of English and comparative literature Karen Newman, dean of the Graduate School, has translated and edited “The Story of Sapho” by Madeleine de Scudery. The book is the first modern English version of a self-contained section from Scudéry's novel “Artamène ou le Grand Cyrus.” It tells of Sapho, a woman writer modeled on the Greek Sappho, who deems marriage slavery, and it examines the nature of love, the education of women, writing, and proper conduct. The book is to be published by the University of Chicago Press next month.

On the Road

Professors Julio Ortega, Enric Bou, Christopher Conway, Esther Whitfield and Carlos Fuentes traveled to Mexico and Madrid this month to participate in projects affiliated with the TransAtlantic Project at Brown and the University’s Center for Latin American Studies. The academic events included:

• “Latin America without Borders: Literature and Criticism,” held May 6-9 at Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Ortega and Conway presented papers at the meeting that included experts from six countries and 10 universities;

• “Exile and Residence: Transatlantic Spain,” held May 12-14 at Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Ortega presented the inaugural talk; Bou and Whitfield presented papers on Spanish writers in the United States and on Cuban writers in Spain, respectively;

• “Homage to Julio Cortazar (40 Years of ‘Rayuela’),” held in Madrid May 13 with Casa de America and the Catedra Cortazar of the Universidad de Guadalajara, Mexico, include Fuentes as well as other Mexican and Argentinean writers;

• On May 27, Spanish translators and poets will participate in “Poetry and Translation: T.S. Eliot and Wallace Stevens in New Spanish Versions,” in Madrid with Circulo de Lectores.

The TransAtlantic Project is dedicated to advancing research, exchange and forums between faculty and students interested in this area of modern cultural history.

Leonard Lesko, the Wilbour Professor of Egyptology, lectured at the National Museum in Warsaw on May 6 as the guest of the Polish Center of Mediterranean Archaeology, Warsaw University. His topic was his current research on the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Lesko was on a sabbatical research trip to Poland where he examined ancient papyri in Krakow and Warsaw.

People

On May 2-4, the Festival Ballet Providence premiered a new dance work produced collaboratively by Brown faculty members Elaine Bearer and Colleen Cavanaugh. The work, “I Corpi Celesti,” is inspired by the life of Galileo Galilei and the letters of his daughter, Maria Celeste. Bearer, the composer, is associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine. Cavanaugh, choreographer, is a clinical assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology.

Marjorie Thompson, associate dean of biological sciences, has written, recorded and released a new CD titled “Add Some More,” a collection of 11 original songs played in fingerstyle tradition. This is Thompson’s second CD: last year she composed, arranged and produced “Driven to Distraction.”

Brown in the Media

From the Washington Post of May 14: In an article headlined “Drug study promising for heavy drinkers,” Robert Swift, associate professor of psychiatry and human behavior, says that Topiramate, a drug found to reduce the craving of alcohol among heavy drinkers, may be especially effective in easing the symptoms of withdrawal.

From the Chronicle of Education of May 16: In this cover story headlined “The New Scholarship of Comics,” Paul Buhle, lecturer in American civilization, says accumulating research marks a set of scholarly approaches to popular culture as an important facet of American life.

From the Los Angeles Times of May 12: In an article about sleeping aids for kids, Judith Owens, assistant professor of pediatrics, cautions parents not to give over-the-counter medications such as antihistamines and melatonin to children without discussing the sleep problems with a pediatrician. Owens also was featured in a similar article in the May 13 New York Times.

From the New York Times of May 4: Brown political scientist Darrell West was interviewed for an article about Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, whose “positions may not fit the prevailing conservatism among Republicans.” West called Snowe “the best Republican the national party can get out of New England.”

Brown faculty are often quoted in the media. For regular online updates, go to Brown in the News.