Hamilton in the News

In in the wake of an exam boycott recently at Johns Hopkins University, InsideHigherEd reported on a different boycott 25 years earlier on Hamilton's campus.  "Game of Theories," the story of Eugene M. Tobin Distinguished Professor of Sociology Dan Chambliss’ challenge to students in his introductory sociology courses and how first-year student John Werner '92 successfully  met it, was retold on Feb. 22.

Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies S. Brent Plate says, “This year's Oscar line-up is once again rife with religious references, and the entertainment industry may be overtaking religious institutions as the prime mythmakers and ritual producers in a society where the 'nones' are on the rise.”

 “MAD, ILL-EQUIPPED AND ADMIRABLE: EVEREST 1962,” an article written by Publius Virgilius Rogers Professor of American History Maurice Isserman appearing in Alpinist magazine, tells the story of an American-Swiss team of four climbers who attempted to climb Mt. Everest from the north side.  Isserman wrote about the climbers’ adventures, from their initial planning to their illegal entry into Tibet and their near-fatal accidents which ultimately caused them to turn back.

An All Things Considered report on National Public Radio that focused on the upside of Iowa’s drought last summer included an interview with Ann Owen, the Henry Platt Bristol Professor of Economics. In “The Silver Lining In Drought: 5 Upsides To Rain-Free Weather,” Owen discussed the study, “Heat Waves, Droughts, and Preferences for Environmental Policy,” that she co-authored with Assistant Professor of Economics Emily Conover, Associate Professor of Economics Julio Videras and Professor of Economics Stephen Wu.

The New York Times published a letter written by Visiting Assistant Professor of History John Ragosta in response to an article that recently appeared in that paper about a new clinic at Stanford Law School enlisting students to oppose restrictions on the free expression of religion. Ragosta, who is the author of the forthcoming book, Religious Freedom: Jefferson’s Legacy, America’s Creed, referenced the words of 18th century evangelists who played a crucial role in religious freedom’s development.

In an opinion piece appearing in the Cleveland Plain Dealer on the eve of the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Lolita Buckner Inniss, the Elihu Root Peace Fund Visiting Professor of Women's Studies, wrote that, “along with other aspects of the discourse on reproductive rights, [Roe v. Wade] forms part of a broader contemporary cultural battle.”

An opinion piece titled “Something to Celebrate on Religious Freedom Day” and written by Visiting Assistant Professor of History John Ragosta appeared on the Washington Post website as well as the Religious News Service. The essay was published on Religious Freedom Day, Jan. 16, which is defined as a day to celebrate the adoption of Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Establishing Religious Freedom.

Research conducted on a 57-day expedition along the Antarctic Peninsula in 2010 led by Eugene Domack, the J.W. Johnson Family Professor of Geosciences, was the focus of a Dec. 12 article in the journal Nature. “Polar research: Trouble bares its claws” provided an overview of the changing ecological balance in the waters off Antarctica due to warming waters, highlighting Domack’s measurement of temperature changes during the last three decades.

Ann Owen, the Henry Platt Bristol Professor of Economics, was quoted on American Public Media’s  Marketplace Morning Report broadcast on Tuesday, Dec. 11, in a segment titled “Fed expected to continue ‘QE3’.” Speaking in advance of the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee today and tomorrow, Owen responded to whether or not quantitative easing was working.

In a Huffington Post opinion piece appearing on the site’s “Republican Party” homepage, James S. Sherman Professor of Government Philip Klinkner pointed out similarities in arguments and predictions among Republicans in the aftermath of Mitt Romney's loss to Barack Obama and after Gerald Ford lost to Jimmy Carter in 1976. Klinkner warned of “the danger of over-interpreting election results,” in the Nov. 19 “Back to the Future for the GOP?” blog.