乐播传媒 is known for nurturing student initiative. If you can make a case for your idea, the college will do its best to help you give it life. The 乐播传媒 independent study program epitomizes that ideal.

An independent study may allow a student to dig deeply into a topic central to his or her major, or to explore a related side road. For others, independent studies afford the opportunity to unravel a question that has always tantalized them, but that they’ve never had time to go after.

Short Term, with its single-topic focus, is prime time for independent studies. Forty 乐播传媒 students conducted such projects in 2013, with topics as diverse as the classification of whale songs, coaching college basketball and the history of an Irish battalion that fought the U.S. in the Mexican-American War.

Meet three of those 40 students.

Angeleque Hartt ’14, Bronx, N.Y.

• Project: Synthesis of Ashitabaol A
• Major: Biochemistry
• More about Angelica keiskei:
• Faculty adviser: Jennifer Koviach-C么t茅, chemistry

Native to Japan, ashitaba is a food plant long credited with substantial health benefits. In 2010, researchers discovered ashitabaol A, a compound in ashitaba whose antioxidant properties could be effective against such diseases as diabetes and some cancers. Hartt is working with chemistry professor Koviach-C么t茅 to find a way to synthesize the compound, a process with great pharmaceutical potential. Hartt is building “the foundation of the molecule,” on which other structures will be built, says Koviach-C么t茅. “Honestly, it’s trial and error,” Hartt adds. “You find what works, you stick with that and you try something else to move you to the next step.”

Blake Shafer ’13, Haverford, Pa.

• Project: Independent Study in Business Chinese
• Majors: Chinese and economics

• Resource: Business Chinese For Success: Real Cases from Real Companies (Peking University Press, 2005)
• Faculty adviser: Li-Ping Miao, Chinese

Shafer learned his first Chinese from an aunt who worked for the State Department. But his interest in Chinese languages and culture really ignited through a Fall Semester Abroad program in China. For the independent study, he and classmate Tyler White worked with Business Chinese For Success, based on case studies of international companies active in the Chinese market and Chinese companies successful globally. “I鈥檓 a huge proponent of independent studies,” says Shafer. “It’s all about interest in the topic. Everyone who’s in it is wholly invested.”

Alexandra Desjardin ’14, Auburn, Maine

• Project: Hegemony Cricket: A Feminist Exploration
• Major: Women and gender studies
• URL:
• Faculty adviser: Rebecca Herzig, women and gender studies

Publishing on tumblr, Desjardin runs a social media clearinghouse designed to show the relevance of feminism, gender and justice to all people. She reposts and comments on news or cultural items on topics ranging from drug use at college to the thoughts of a gay Boy Scouts of America employee to the film Bully — topics, she says, “that are not necessarily stereotypical feminist issues. I put justice into the definition of feminism. I think a feminist is a person who seeks justice.”

Clay Baldo ’13 explains a Chinese political poster during the Mount David Summit. Photograph by Michael Bradley/乐播传媒 College College.

It’s common knowledge here in the U.S. that the Chinese government’s involvement in arts and entertainment is, shall we say, much more hands-on than Americans are used to.

Presented during the Mount David Summit by their adviser, Assistant Professor of Chinese Xing Fan, three seniors described thesis projects that illustrated intriguing examples of such state involvement.

Clay Baldo of Santa Fe, N.M., talked about mid-20th century propaganda posters and the communist Chinese government’s shifting intentions for them. Baldo’s focus was the contrast between agitative and integrative propaganda — in musical terms, “Power to the People” vs. “Get Together.”

Of equal concern in mid-century China was the time-honored propaganda technique of holding up scapegoats, such as the Gang of Four, as a way of putting a face on politically odorous tendencies. The “Smash the Gang of Four” campaign in the 1970s, said Baldo, “is my favorite, because I hate the Gang of Four.”

Moving from Mao’s rise to dominance through the Cultural Revolution and beyond, Baldo’s poster gallery segued from scenarios of sanctioned worker violence against class enemies to pictures of harmonious collaboration in attractive landscapes. (Writers in attendance at the presentation were especially gratified by depictions of the pen as a weapon just as efficacious as a spear or shovel.) He noted that while the Chinese government still uses something like propaganda posters, nowadays they are more likely to caution against littering.

Eleanor Anaclerio of Winnetka, Ill., a double major in art and Chinese, talked about the high-profile dissident artist Ai Weiwei. Anaclerio’s own artwork seemed to have some oblique bearing on her presentation: She is also a photographer whose camera obscura images explore notions of public and private space as they seem to bring 乐播传媒 campus scenes into student bedrooms.

Anaclerio argued that in a more liberal social-political context, Ai Weiwei could be doing what he does now and yet would not be seen as a dissident. Instead, the political climate in China has made him a dissident, she said, “but he hasn’t shied away from it at all.”

What impressed her particularly about this intrepid conceptual artist, she said, is his ability to create a community around him wherever he is, whether it was New York in the go-go 1980s or on the Internet today — where Ai Weiwei has pitched his big tent because the Chinese authorities won’t let him leave the country.

Anaclerio pointed to Ai’s 2010-11 Sunflower Seeds exhibition at the Tate Modern, comprising 100 million handmade porcelain “seeds” spread on the gallery floor. “Those seeds individually can’t do much,” she said. “But when there are so many of them together, even when you walk on them, you hardly displace any.”

Maura Maloney of Ellicott City, Md., chose the toughest row to hoe, subjecting herself to hours of dating shows from Chinese television, sans subtitles, to learn about female roles in Chinese society. Maloney studied episodes of the reality shows If You Are the One and Take Me Out, both based on a British show.

The shows are elaborate affairs in which male contestants use videos to make their case to a platoon of women, who can accept or reject the prospects by showing indicator lights. The shows, she said, “reflect the collective anxieties of Chinese singles” — a fraught arena in particular for women, who under Mao Zedong gained a kind of nominal gender equality that, Maloney explained, was more about making political points than advancing women’s real interests.

乐播传媒 economics professor Maggie Maurer-Fazio, a China specialist, asked Maloney about state censorship on the shows, in view of another Chinese program that drew official ire because viewer voting, 脿 la聽American Idol, was deemed too participatory. Censorship exists, Maloney replied, but is less political than moral, responding to women portraying themselves as sexual beings and expressing untoward interest in money.

Agency, Maloney found, is the key to contentment. The women she observed didn’t want to have traditional qualities of character like gentleness and domesticity imposed on them — but were willing to assume those qualities if it was their choice. “I hear the same thing from my students,” said a member of the audience, a professor of women’s studies from Clark University.

Another listener asked if Maloney’s project had inspired her to watch American dating shows. No, said Maloney, who spent much of February watching 16 hours of the Chinese shows. “I think that would kill me.”

A 乐播传媒 senior from Athens, Greece, is one of 40 students across the country to receive a 2012 Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, a prestigious grant that supports a year of independent research abroad.

Romina Istratii, who graduates from 乐播传媒 in May, will use the award to travel to Senegal, Ghana, Ethiopia and Rwanda to research the dynamics of food security, gender bias and the role of women in farming.

The Watson is designed to identify potential leaders and challenge them in ways that foster independence, a global perspective and adaptability to new cultures. It funds research that’s on a topic deeply important to the recipient and is conducted outside academe and the recipient’s home culture.

Video: Romina Istratii ’12 at the Mount David Society Scholarship Luncheon, March 30, 2012:
http://vimeo.com/39840342

Istratii belongs to the 44th class of Watson recipients, drawn from 15 states and seven countries and planning research in 74 countries. Fellows receive $25,000 for 12 months of travel, college loan assistance as needed and an insurance allowance.

Istratii’s research proposal is titled “Meeting the ‘Voiceless’: Understanding How Women Can Transform Food Insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa.” Although women far outnumber men as farm workers in many African countries, gender bias and male dominance of economic and societal institutions constrain women farmers’ opportunities for advancement.

“This situation contributes to persistent food insecurity,” Istratii writes in her Watson proposal. At the same time, while existing research demonstrates the role of gender bias in putting women farmers at a disadvantage, the voices of such women are all but absent in that research, a void that Istratii hopes to address.

She will interview women farmers, academic experts and women’s rights activists. “I am intrigued to hear African women narrate their own stories and share their own perspectives,” she writes.
“The literature shows that women are crucial to food stability, but it fails to project what women think and how they see their role as forces of security and economic growth.

“Do women consider themselves equal to men? Do they feel that more egalitarian circumstances on the farm could increase the welfare of the household and the community more broadly? Do they associate their personal circumstances with food insecurity? What would they say to their governments and the extension agents that work to empower them?”

Istratii selected her destinations on the basis of unique characteristics that will inform her career objective of ameliorating food insecurity in Africa. In Senegal, she will live with a village mayor who will introduce her to the region and to female farmers, and will visit a U.S. Agency for International Development project that aims to increase female producers’ access to markets.

Next stop is Ghana, where female voices are conspicuously absent from the masses of research into food insecurity, and where members of the 乐播传媒 economics faculty have been able to connect her with valuable interviewees.

In Ethiopia, Istratii will study agricultural practices in the relatively egalitarian context of the Oromo people, the nation’s single largest ethnic group. In addition to female farmers, she will interview civil rights activists, women’s empowerment organizations and journalists.

Her last stop is Rwanda, where women have been instrumental in rebuilding the country after the 1994 genocide, and where important reforms that empower women have recently been enacted. Those reforms, Istratii believes, “will have tremendous implications for food insecurity and must be studied while they are still under implementation.”

Romina Istratii of Athens, Greece, shown here speaking during the October 2012 dedication of two academic buildings at 乐播传媒 College, is a 乐播传媒 senior recently awarded the prestigious Watson Fellowship. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College.

Born in Moldova, Istratii immigrated to Greece at age 4. Experiencing poverty early on, her response then and now has been to seek ways to make things better on a community scale. At 乐播传媒, she says, she found not only a responsive forum for her ideas but a community that encouraged action.

“Excellent knowledge, supreme leadership skills and bright minds might provide the world with better ideas,” she says, “but only true personal engagement with other peoples鈥� problems can provide the world with forces of change.”

As head of the Committee on Women’s Rights for the Model United Nations at 乐播传媒, Istratii first learned of the barriers confronting women farmers in Africa. Participating in research by 乐播传媒 and University of Tennessee economists, and supported by a Stangle Family Fund Grant for Research in Economics and Law from 乐播传媒, she laid the groundwork for the Watson project.

Istratii is a triple major in economics, politics and Chinese. Along with Chinese, English and her native languages of Greek and Moldovan, she also speaks French.

The Thomas J. Watson Foundation was created in 1961 as a charitable trust by Mrs. Thomas J. Watson Sr. in honor of her late husband, the founder of International Business Machines (IBM). In 1968, in recognition of their parents’ longstanding interest in education and world affairs, their children decided that the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship Program should constitute a major activity of the foundation.

At least one 乐播传媒 senior received a Watson Fellowship every year from 1985 through 2000. 乐播传媒 students or graduates also received Watsons in 2002-03 and 2006-09.

“The Metropolitan Museum of Art Library (D眉rer),” a 2006 oil painting by Xiaoze Xie.

The 乐播传媒 College Museum of Art continues its leadership in bringing contemporary Chinese and Chinese American art to Maine and beyond with the exhibition Xiaoze Xie: Amplified Moments (1993-2008), opening Monday, Jan. 23.

A native of China and , Xie is a nationally known artist whose work explores cultural memory, time, and social and political manipulations of history.

“This exhibition is unique in that it is the first to look at 15 years of Xiaoze’s work, in all media, and important works from all of the major painting series,” says 乐播传媒 museum director Dan Mills, who curated the exhibition while director of the Samek Gallery at Bucknell University.

Xie, who will be a learning associate at 乐播传媒 this winter, discusses his work at 6 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 26, in Room 104 of the Olin Arts Center, 75 Russell St. The museum, also located in Olin, is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

All museum activities are open to the public at no cost. For more information, please contact 207-786-6158 or museum@bates.edu.

Showing at the museum through the same period is James Ensor: ‘Sc猫nes de la vie du Christ’ and Other Works, including a portfolio of 32 lithographs by the influential Belgian artist.

Amplified Moments

“Xiaoze Xie wants to have it all in his art: He wants meaning as well as beauty, politics as well as humor, and realism as well as abstraction,” wrote Bob Keefer, a reviewer for the Register-Guard in Eugene, Ore., where Amplified Moments appears through December at the .

Xiaoze Xie at work.

A U.S. resident since 1992, Xie was born in 1966, the year that began China’s devastating Cultural Revolution, and attended university in Beijing during the Tiananmen Square protests. If his work is informed by Chinese history, though, this exquisitely skilled artist is more concerned with factors that transcend ideology and nationality.

“What ties all [my] works together is the interest in time, in memory and in history,” Xie told an interviewer at the University of Oregon in November. “There’s always this sense of contemplating time, the passage of time and how changes in history and politics are documented.”

The documentary medium of photography, in particular, is central to Xie’s work — in both his adaptations, in paint or ink, of images from the news media, and his sumptuous renderings in paint of his own photographs of books and newspapers.

In fact, Xie is known particularly for paintings that show stacks of those publications stored in libraries and archives. Those paintings, art scholar Britta Erickson writes in the Amplified Moments catalog, capture a strange duality in human nature: We take the trouble to preserve these representations of the past, yet having preserved them, then largely neglect them.

For the viewer, Keefer wrote, “photographic devices such as narrow depth of field and motion blur, familiar to us from about a billion contemporary journalistic and advertising photographs, are translated into creamy brush strokes. The combination is extraordinary.”

Amplified Moments is also distinguished by Xie’s work in other media, such as ink drawings, videos and installations.

The 1999 installation “Order (The Red Guards)” refers explicitly to the Cultural Revolution. A painted scroll, reaching into the viewer’s floor space, depicts a library whose books have been mutilated and thrown around. A grid of metal squares, painted black and red — a combination frequently seen in Xie’s work — stands between the viewer and the scene of vandalism.

Like a hall of mirrors, Xie’s work invites a complex contemplation of the nature of history and memory, and how media representations both reflect and distort a past that we have in common yet experience alone.

Xiaoze Xie, “May 23, 2003. C.T.,” 2007, ink on rice paper.

Indeed, Xie himself resists simple responses to his work, as he said in a 2010 talk at Bucknell. “I don’t want to give up painting for installation or video; I don’t want to give up the figurative for the abstract; I don’t want to give up the political for the cultural; I don’t want to give up my Chinese-ness for the universal; I would never give up sincerity or beauty for irony.

“I want all of these in my work. For me, a good work of art should be able to generate complex layers of meaning.”

Mills, who is also an artist, first met Xie at Bucknell, where Xie taught before going to Stanford. The two had adjacent studios for eight years. “Dan is most knowledgeable about my working process,” Xie told the University of Oregon interviewer. “He knows about my hesitation, my worries, my struggle. So I’m so glad he put the show together for me.”

The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated 92-page catalog with essays by Erickson, Mills and art scholar Karen Smith, and is supported by a Freeman Foundation Grant.

Professor of Philosophy Mark Okrent gets a close look as board chairman Mike Bonney ’80 (left) and President Nancy Cable do the ribbon cutting. Photograph by Rene Minnis.

The journey of Paul Marks ’83 from 乐播传媒 to China, and from being “a fairly unengaged student” to an international business leader, made an ideal narrative for the ceremonial reopening of Roger Williams and Hedge halls, facilities newly repurposed for the academic exploration of border crossings — borders national, cultural, philosophical, spiritual, disciplinary.

• Video: Paul Marks ’83 and fellow speakers at the dedication

Now based in Shanghai and CEO of the global aerospace technology firm Argosy Inc., Marks was one of 乐播传媒’ first students to graduate with a China-focused history major. His address at the dedication ceremony recounted how a Short Term trip to China in 1981, 30 years ago this year, was the challenge that set him on his life’s path.

Remarks by 乐播传媒 board chair Michael Bonney ’80, college President Nancy Cable and Student Government President Cosmin Ghita ’12 were also on the program for the dedication late Thursday afternoon. Two symbolic acts completed the ceremony, as the faculty and staff who are the buildings’ stakeholders received honorary keys to Hedge and the Bill, and a ribbon-cutting made their reopening official.

Paul Marks ’83 speaks to the dedication audience about his defining experience in China in 1981. Photograph by Rene Minnis.

As Marks recalled, his parents were not thrilled about the notion of his going to China. It took the persuasive powers of Professor of Sociology George Fetter, who had arranged 乐播传媒’ first-ever Short Term expedition to China two years previous, to bring them around.

Fetter had promised Marks that the trip would “change his life.” That prediction came true. During five weeks in China, Marks told his listeners, “I became hooked on China. I wanted to understand this chaotic, totally different world.”

Part of the attraction was a spur to his competitive spirit from the group’s Chinese guide, who insisted that the foreigners couldn’t learn the language. Marks rose to the challenge, betting the guide five bucks that he could indeed learn Mandarin. With his first instructor at 乐播传媒 an adjunct faculty member who was the wife of a local Taiwanese dentist, Marks became 乐播传媒’ first student of the Chinese language, and continued his studies as a postgraduate.

In his welcome, Bonney, CEO of the pharmaceuticals firm Cubist, stated the theme for this celebration of two new academic buildings. “Faculty at 乐播传媒 are helping students [prepare] to live, to work, to think, to lead and ultimately to solve problems in the global society. These two buildings are spaces that foster that kind of learning.”

“The decision to renovate these buildings was not an easy decision, Bonney said, owing to their age and condition after years of hard use as residence halls. “And yet we stand here today with two remarkable buildings that do honor to our history, but also position us beautifully for the future.”

Bonney was the right person to situate the buildings’ symbolic role in the context of time, as his family has been associated with 乐播传媒 for nearly a century, roughly the same amount of time that the Bill and Hedge have been here. (And he and Marks, who were both students during Roger Bill’s heyday as a meeting place for, let’s say, joie de vivre, took the opportunity to point out that a benefit of the renovation was the elimination of the spilled-beer smell.)

Board chair Mike Bonney presents a symbolic key to Roger Williams Hall to Spanish professor Claudia Aburto Guzm谩n. Photograph by Rene Minnis.

“These two academic buildings, and the campus at large, are powered by 乐播传媒 faculty,” Cable told the 175 or so listeners gathered in a tent on Alumni Walk, near the Bill and Hedge. “It is the faculty’s attention to the individual that makes the 乐播传媒 experience so vitally special and distinctive academically.

“Paul’s stories inform our sense of what lasts over time, from the simple connection of a faculty member to a student, the heart of what we do.”

The ceremony began with international students Mustafa Basij-Rasikh ’12 of Kabul, Afghanistan, and Romina Istratii ’12 of Athens, Greece, welcoming the 乐播传媒 community in their native languages (Istratii, anticipating Marks’ subject, also offered a greeting in Chinese, which she is studying at 乐播传媒).

Ghita, of Bucharest, Romania, touched on the chilly dampness of the day in his remarks, bringing the thought neatly around to the ceremony’s theme of global citizenship. “Cultures around the world perceive rain as an omen of good fortune,” he pointed out. “I never would have known that had I not immersed myself in the study of another language.”

From left, Mary Rice-DeFosse, Francisca L贸pez, and Jane Costlow listen as Rhea Cot茅 Robbins reads one of her poems.

It had to be said: Sometimes, “something gets found in translation, too.”

This truth was stated during the opening of Translations: Cross-Cultural Exchange Through Poetry, the second edition of an innovative festival dedicated to the translation of poetry, a creative act every bit as demanding as the making of a new poem.

The speaker was Jane Costlow, professor of environmental studies, who welcomed the listeners filling Chase Lounge late in the afternoon of Oct. 25. If poet Robert Frost felt that poetry gets lost in translation, Costlow said, what gets found is “the beginning of wisdom”: a glimmering of our own places amidst “the vast variety of human creativity.”

Poet Rhea Cot茅 Robbins reads.

The session was the first of five readings during the , which runs through Oct. 29 (and includes a conference on the practice of translation). Most of the poets write in languages other than English, and the festival’s format is the simultaneous presentation of poems in both the author’s voice and English translations, created by 乐播传媒 faculty and students and projected as text on a screen.

Following Costlow’s welcome were readings by poets Rhea Cot茅 Robbins, a Franco-American writer, editor and teacher from Brewer, Maine; and Francisca L贸pez, 乐播传媒 professor of Spanish.

Costlow established a helpful conceptual landscape for the listeners. She situated the festival in the context of the week’s Open to the World: 乐播传媒 Celebrates Unbounded Learning events, marking the renovation of two academic buildings that are, as she said, “devoted to the study of language, culture and our complex ethical relationships to each other and to the more-than-human world.”

And Costlow suggested that the meanings of poetry are not always textual. “I invite you, for at least part of each poet鈥檚 reading, to forget about what it means, and just submerse yourself in the music.”

The music began with Cot茅 Robbins, whose early life in “down the Plains” — a Francophone neighborhood in the Maine mill town of Waterville — resonated through her work. She was one of the festival’s two poets reading in English (the other being 乐播传媒 senior lecturer in English ). Reading quickly and undramatically, she delivered more than 20 poems animated by the tensions of unattainable dreams and of class and gender conflict.

From left, poets Naomi Otsubo and Polina Barskova listen attentively.

In her father’s mill the papermaking machines cook, gas, electrocute and eat the workers. The bosses in her mother’s shirt factory urge the women to work “Faster, Faster, Faster.” Women — Cot茅 herself, Peyton Place author Grace Metalious — negotiate the visceral conflict between creative and family needs.

“We Spread the Dirt” depicts Cot茅 Robbins and family bringing to her parents’ graves soil from France, in lieu of the homeland visit they could never make:

we are priests
without ritual鈥�
Eiffel Tower pink-tinted dirt and rocks
for her
France-on-the-Loire brown
country farmer鈥檚 soil
for him

A native of Andalusia, in southern Spain, L贸pez writes poetry in Spanish. The festival translations of her 13 poems were created by departmental colleague and festival organizer Claudia Aburto Guzm谩n.

Francisca L贸pez speaks with a member of the audience after the reading.

L贸pez described herself as a rational person for whom poetry is a way to address the questions that rationality can’t touch. Where Cot茅’s work was markedly social and political, L贸pez’s poems were more abstract, organic, inward-looking, intimate. Her reading style, too, was softer, closer.

“Jump to the Abyss” was an attempt to make sense of a student’s senseless death:

you greet, joke, toast with someone
in the distance

and get closer . . .
to the wings of glass

for your flight
toward the encounter.

“The Soul’s Rags” could be about the people of our past who become like ghosts: “you lay dozing with me / in the silence of eternity.” “The Kiss” may describe the imbalance of power in a passionate encounter:

You keep the air
the hunger and thirst
the joy and sorrow
the need to move on

A senior from Pomona, Calif., double-majoring in Spanish and in women and gender studies, Jeanette Mariscal was running the Translations slide projection for the second year. Last year, she said, hearing German poet Lothar Quinkenstein gave her a whole new sense of the expressive capability of the German language.

Hearing poetry as opposed to simply taking it off the page, she said, “gives it life. When they read it, you get a better feel for their thinking.”

“In truth, poetry is as much a performance as anything else,” Aburto Guzm谩n remarked after the readings. “All these poets are good at that.”

Professor of Environmental Studies Jane Costlow welcomes Chase Hall listeners. Google Earth presentations showed the poets’ journeys.

French professor Alex Dauge-Roth gestures during the faculty conversation about global citizenship held prior to the dedication of Hedge and Roger Williams halls. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen.

乐播传媒’ global reach has been a driving theme behind , a celebration of new academic spaces including Roger Williams Hall, home to the college’s foreign language programs and Off Campus Study Office.

So the foreign language faculty took an hour or so during the afternoon of Oct. 27, the day the newly renovated Bill and Hedge Hall were dedicated, to present a sampling of courses and projects in their repertoire.

Dedicated to the idea of educating students for global citizenship, here are a few highlights from the presentation in the brand-new Language Resource Center:

• Alex Dauge-Roth, associate professor of French, talked about his course “Border and Disorders in French and Francophone Literature and Films.” An apt choice for a week of 乐播传媒 programming devoted to breaking down borders, the course examines representations of inclusion and exclusion — for example, two opposing political ads that use, in nearly identical ways, the symbol of a black sheep among white ones to support either openness to immigration or rejection of it. “The idea is to complexify for students how they define their borders,” Dauge-Roth said. “You cannot be at home without excluding others.”
• Against a backdrop of Central European images taken last year by Rachel Morrison ’13, Professor of German Craig Decker offered a capsule history of 乐播传媒 Fall Semester Abroad programs in Vienna and Berlin. Noting that all FSA programs, not just the German-language trips, are interdisciplinary by design, he said, “It’s interesting to see how students combine what goes on in the two courses.” It’s a kind of synthesis “that doesn’t always happen on campus.”
• Sarah Strong, professor of Japanese, cut to the heart of cross-cultural exchange in describing her course “The Fantastic in Modern Japan.” Looking at comics, fiction and anime film, the course encourages students to discover what’s common among cultures — but more important, to “encounter what is unfamiliar that they can learn about and bring into their sphere of understanding.” For example, how the young heroine in the manga and film Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind comes to terms with the toxic fungal forest that is consuming a post-apocalyptic world.
• A fascinating translation project undertaken by Professor of Spanish Francisca L贸pez, Lecturer in French Laura Balladur and others: Students in certain foreign-language courses have translated work by the poets participating in the college’s annual international poetry festival (taking place concurrently with the Open to the World events). During the festival, the student translations have been projected on a screen while the poets read them in the original language. For the second part of the course, the students translate into French and Spanish poems written by students in a poetry course taught by Senior Lecturer in English Robert Farnsworth — and all the students, translators and translated, meet to discuss the linguistic and cultural issues that are gained in translation.

George Mitchell, the former U.S. senator who served as President Obama’s special envoy for Middle East peace until last spring, delivers the keynote address during a weeklong celebration of international and interdisciplinary education at 乐播传媒 in October.

Mitchell speaks at 5:15 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 27, in the 乐播传媒 College Chapel, 275 College St. His talk follows the dedication of Hedge and Roger Williams halls, recently renovated by the college into academic facilities that are advancing the 乐播传媒 education still further across national and interdisciplinary boundaries.

Visit the Open to the World website.
More about the Hedge and Roger Williams renovations.
.

During the 4:15 p.m. dedication, Paul Marks ’83, chairman and CEO of the aerospace materials maker Argosy International Inc., offers remarks about living as a global citizen. Mitchell’s talk and the dedication of Hedge and Roger Williams halls culminate Open to the World: 乐播传媒 Celebrates Unbounded Learning, the Oct. 24-28 series of events.

The week’s speakers also include Gary Hirshberg P’13, “CE-Yo” of yogurt maker Stonyfield Farm. The full Open to the World schedule will be announced later in October. For more information, please contact 207-786-6336 or arichard@bates.edu.

Here are events that have been confirmed to date:

Monday, Oct. 24: 乐播传媒 observes United Nations Day.

Tuesday, Oct. 25: opens with a 4 p.m. welcome, readings by international poets at 4:45 accompanied by English translations, and an evening reception at 6, all in Chase Hall Lounge, 56 Campus Ave.

This five-day event includes poets from around the world presenting their work, accompanied by translations created by 乐播传媒 faculty and students; and a conference on the art and practice of translation. For more information, please contact gdumais@bates.edu or 207-786-8293.

Wednesday, Oct. 26: At 6 p.m. is a screening of Food, Inc., the Academy Award-nominated documentary exposing the corporate-controlled, industrialized underside of American food production. Following the screening at 7:30 p.m., Hirshberg, a prominent figure in Robert Kenner’s 2008 film, offers remarks. Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

Thursday, Oct. 27: Hedge and Roger Williams halls are rededicated at 4:30, followed by Mitchell’s keynote. The keynote will be simulcast in Perry Atrium, Pettengill Hall, 4 Andrews Road (Alumni Walk). A reception in the atrium follows Mitchell’s speech.

Friday, Oct. 28: In “Global Possibilities,” five young 乐播传媒 alums discuss their experiences with initiatives that have both local and global consequences; at 4 p.m. in the Keck Classroom (G52), Pettengill Hall.

Peter Marsters ’09 has received a Fulbright U.S. Student Program scholarship for research in China. Marsters, who graduated from 乐播传媒 with a degree in modern Chinese history, has worked as a program assistant for the China Environment Forum at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

“I first became fascinated with the scale of China and believe that China is currently confronting issues that the globe as a whole will eventually have to face,” he says.

His research has focused on energy and climate issues, and he has published articles on electric cars, cooperation between the U.S. and China on clean energy and lake pollution issues in China. Marsters has studied Chinese language and culture at China Normal University in Shanghai and at The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Claudia Aburto Guzm谩n, Associate Professor of Spanish, Agnese Haury Institute for Interpretation, University of Arizona, Scholarship.

William G. Ambrose, Jr., Professor of Biology, Maine Sea Grant Program, Growth and long-term abundance patterns of the bloodworm (Glycera dibranchiate).

Rachel N. Austin, Professor of Chemistry, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Characterizing Hydroxylation Mechanisms of Diiron Enzymes.

Ryan Bavis, Assistant Professor of Biology, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Time-Dependent Changes in Respiratory Control After Perinatal Hyperoxia, and the Maine INBRE (IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence) NIH, Regulation of Carotid Body Development by Hyperoxia.

Lilian Childress, Assistant Professor of Physics, Cottrell College Science Award from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, Manipulation of individual nuclear spins in diamond.

Carol Dilley, Associate Professor of Dance, Artist Residency at the Lock-Up in Newcastle, Australia.

Amy Bradfield Douglass, Associate Professor of Psychology, a Faculty Visiting Research Fellows Award from Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, and the National Science Foundation, The Dynamic Interaction between Investigator and Eyewitness:聽Effects on Memory Reports and Interviewer Behavior.

Holly Ewing, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, the National Science Foundation, Opening Pandora鈥檚 Box with a Biotic Key: Can Cyanobacterial Blooms in Nutrient-Poor Lakes Accelerate Eutrophication?

Robert Feintuch, Senior Lecturer in Art and Visual Culture, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowship for creation of a body of work for his next exhibition at New York鈥檚 CRG Gallery.

Rebecca M. Herzig, Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies, the National Science Foundation, RNAi, Race, and the Domestication of Biotechnology: The Emergence of Cosmetic Genomics.

Beverly J. Johnson, Associate Professor of Geology, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for student monitoring and assessment of the Sprague River salt marsh at 乐播传媒 Morse Mountain Conservation Area, and she and co-PI Will Ambrose, the National Science Foundation for Baseline Conditions in Gulf of Maine Coastal Ecosystems Over the Last 4000 Years.

Nancy Kleckner, Associate Professor of Biology, the National Science Foundation, Characterization of GlutamateReceptors in the Pond Snails, Helisoma trivolvis and Biomphalaria glabrata.

Lynne Y. Lewis, Associate Professor of Economics, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) sub-award from University of Maine, Measuring and Incorporating Stakeholder Values into River-Restoration Decisions: A Socio-Economic Analysis, and Mitchell Center for Environmental and Watershed Research, Water Resources Research Institute, USGS, Incorporating Stakeholder Values into River Restoration Decisions.

Kathryn G. Low, Professor of Psychology, American Association of Colleges & Universities, Bringing Theory to Practice.

Nathan Lundblad, Assistant Professor of Physics, DEPSCoR/Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Condensed Matter Analog Systems with Ultracold Atoms in Novel Optical Lattices.

Margaret Maurer-Fazio, Betty Doran Stangle Professor of Applied Economics, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) visiting research fellowship in Bonn, Germany.

Hiroya Miura, Assistant Professor of Music, Commission: Film score for Junko’s Shamisen, and Commission:聽 Music from Japan.

Joseph Nicoletti, Lecturer in Art and Visual Culture, Maryland Institute College of Art’s Alfred & Trafford Klots Artist鈥檚 residency, Rocheforte-en-Terre, France.

Mary Rice DeFosse, Professor of French, New England Campus Compact, Northern New England Engaged Department Grant.

Michael Sargent, Associate Professor of Psychology, the University of Chicago鈥檚 Arete Institute Defining Wisdom Project, D*A*R*IA: Testing A Model of Principled Reasoning.

Paula J. Schlax, Associate Professor of Chemistry, the Maine INBRE (IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence) NIH, Translational Regulation of Ribosomal Protein and RNA Polymerase Subunit Synthesis in Diverse Bacterial Species.

Bonnie J. Shulman, Associate Professor of Mathematics, sub-award from the Maine Department of Education, the Girls Get It Math-Science Day, part of Developing Teachers鈥� Understanding and Practice of Effective Mathematics Instruction.

Rebecca Sommer, Associate Professor of Biology, the Maine INBRE (IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence) NIH, Dioxin Exposure Impairs Embryonic Heart Development: Comparative and Functional Genomics of Cardiac 脽1-adrenergic Receptors.

Nathan W. Tefft, Assistant Professor of Economics, co-funding from Yale University鈥檚 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant, Evaluating the Effects of 鈥淓asy鈥� State Interventions to Combat Childhood Obesity through Decreasing Soft Drink Consumption: Taxes and Vending Machines.

Thomas J. Wenzel, Charles A. Dana Professor of Chemistry, the National Science Foundation, 聽Collaborative Research: Development of Contextual E-Learning Modules for Analytical Chemistry, and the National Science Foundation, Chiral NMR Shift Reagents.

Peter N. Wong, Professor of Mathematics, the National Science Foundation, Topics in Topological Fixed Point Theory.

Shuhui Yang, Professor of Chinese, Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, Stories to Awaken the World: A Ming Dynasty Collection, Volume III.