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At a conference titled "Talking Towards Techno-Pedagogy Reunion" at Mount Holyoke College in April, a team from Hamilton College consisting of Kristin Strohmeyer (Burke Library); Janet Simons (Information Technology Services); Colleen Fenity, '02; and Edmund A. LeFevre Professor of English John H. O'Neill reported on the seminar "Jane Austen: Text and Film," which the team developed under a program sponsored by the Mellon Foundation. At the "Collaborating with Technology" conference held at Union College in May, O'Neill was an invited participant in a panel discussion of the use of technology in interdisciplinary courses.

Professor of French John O'Neal published an article, "Parole, désir et savoir: Le récit interpolé chez Diderot dans Jacques le fataliste," in Sciences, musiques, Lumières. Ed. Sylvain Auroux, Pierre Chartier, Ulla Kölving, and Irène Passeron. Ferney-Voltaire: Centre international d'etude du dix-huitième siècle, 2001, pp. 185-94. O'Neal also presented two papers, "The Poetics of Confusion in Diderot's Lettre sur les aveugles," at the International Conference on Diderot in Los Angeles in April, and "La confusion subversive dans La Double Inconstance de Marivaux," at the International Conference on Marivaux in Montpellier, France in March.

Margaret Bundy Scott Professor of Comparative Literature Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz is the editor of a new book, Among Women: From the Homosocial to the Homoerotic in the Ancient World,. The book, co-edited with Lisa Auanger, was published by the University of Texas Press this spring. Rabinowitz wrote the introduction and a substantial article, "Excavating Female Homoeroticism: The Evidence from Greek Vase Painting." Rabinowitz also gave two talks in the spring semester, based on her new work on Greek vase painting and the representation of women. In June, she presented "Women's `Support Groups' on Attic Vase Painting," at the Classics Association of Canada; she gave the Rexine Lecture in Classics at Colage in April, titled "Reading Anachronistically?: Feminist Criticism and Ancient Greek Vase Painting.

Mary V. Rojas, visiting professor in religious studies and a Grinnell Consortium Fellow, has been granted a second year at Hamilton. In April, she gave a lecture to the Regional Academy of American Religion titled, "She Bathes in a Sacred Place: Didactics of Scratching Sticks in Native American Women's Rites of Seclusion." (Session: "Construction of Women's Religious Identity")

On May 17 Levitt Scholar, Rebecca Karb '02 spoke to James Davis’s Clinton High School economics class about the implications of living wage legislation. She explained the effect of regional variations on the cost of living and the impact on employers of raising minimum wage rates. Becky’s presentation was based on her senior thesis in Public Policy with advisor, Associate Professor of Government Gary Wyckoff, for which she was granted honors.

Shauna Sweet '03 described some of her experiences thru-hiking in her Levitt Scholar topic, "The Appalachian Trail as an American Pilgrimage." American narratives come together on the Appalachian trail: an adventurer on a perilous journey, a solitary sojourner into the wilderness, a rugged outdoorsman striking across the countryside. This trek along the east coast provided the basis for a sociological research project, and was also the topic of her presentations to school students. Shauna traveled to high schools in the local area including Mohawk, Waterville and Whitesboro, and gave a presentation during spring break at Gardiner High School back home in Maine. She will make another presentation to a biology class at her alma mater, Hall Dale High School in Farmington, Maine.

Public Policy major Matthew Eng ’02 recently completed a senior thesis titled “Wage Determination in the Local Public Sector.” The project helps academics figure out what factors affect wages (employee characteristics, community demographics, etc.) and helps local communities determine fair wages for their municipal employees. The Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) of Oneida County sponsored the project. However, Matt met on a regular basis with a CCE committee known as the Local Government Education Committee (LGEC). The committee consists of representatives from several local governments and community organizations in Central New York. Matt collected his data through interviews and a survey of municipal workers in Oneida, Herkimer, Madison, and Montgomery Counties. The Executive Summary provides an overview of the theories used, statistical methods applied, and conclusions made in the project.

The Boston Globe (5/29/02) profiled H. Philip West Jr., a 1963 graduate of Hamilton College and executive director of Common Cause in Rhode Island. Dubbed "the godfather of political reform in Rhode Island," by The Providence Journal, while at Hamilton West "began his own activism on a modest scale, working to make campus fraternities less exclusionary and pushing the local Methodist church to undertake community projects."

A book by Associate Professor of English Onno Oerlemans, Romanticism and the Materiality of Nature, was published in March by the University of Toronto Press.

Kirk Pillow, assistant professor of philosophy, published "Versions and Forgeries: A Reply to Kivy" in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 60 (Spring 2002). In April, he was selected to be program chair for next spring's American Society for Aesthetics Eastern Division meeting in Philadelphia. In May, he and Krystyn Schmerbeck '02 presented their summer 2001 Emerson Grant research to an audience of Hamilton alumni in New York City.