Month: November 2016

Note from Dean Brown — 11/21/16

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Hey 2017’ers,

 As we get started on this Thanksgiving Break week, I wanted to remind you about a number of things:

1)  The last day of Adjustment is Tuesday, November 22 at 5 p.m.  Make sure to submit ranked enrollment requests for courses you want, and check your credit analysis to make sure that you will not be oversubscribed and will meet graduation requirements by the end of the spring semester.

2) The last day to withdraw from a semester or second-quarter is Friday, December 2, which is the Friday after classes resume. 

Consult with your profs about where you are in each course and talk with your faculty advisor if you are thinking about a withdrawal.  Make sure that it will not put you in an untenable credit situation or jeopardize you completing your major. 

 You can pick up a withdrawal form from my office or the Registrar’s or print one out from the Student Affairs website under Useful Forms.  Get the signature of your instructor and faculty advisor before mine (the class dean signs last). 

 3)  The last day of classes is Friday, December 9, followed by the reading period, with exams beginning Tuesday, December 13 at 7 p.m. and ending on Saturday, December 17.  (Hard to believe you will have finished with your last fall semester as an undergrad at Wesleyan!)

 4)  Housing closes at noon on Sunday, December 18.  ResLife says:

 Seniors living in woodframes:  If you would like to stay in your wood frame house at any point during the break, you must      register by Saturday, December 17, with Residential Life.

 Seniors in apartments or non-woodframe residences:  Students who are approved to remain on-campus are international students, approved winter athletes, or have valid on-campus employment or special circumstances. The only students approved to return for research are seniors working on their thesis, and the application for early return was due on Friday, November 18, 2016.

 5)  Plan now for the last two weeks of classes and finals, and carve out some time over break for reconnection and rejuvenation.  You will need to be ready to go when classes resume on November 28.  After three years of fall semesters, you know how these last few weeks fly by!

 Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions or concerns, and know that I am always happy to meet with you.

 Have a good Thanksgiving!  Best, Dean Brown 

 

 

Women’s Bandura Ensemble — Sat., 11/19, 6 p.m.

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Go to the Memorial Chapel on Saturday  at 6:00PM for the premier performance of the

Women’s Bandura Ensemble of North America.

It will be an extraordinary and moving concert of singing and instrumental music.

The bandura has long been the voice and soul of Ukraine, its strings echoing the nation’s turbulent history.

Structurally, the bandura is similar to the lute and the harp, and usually has around 60 strings.  Please join us!

Common Moment for an Uncommon Time — Today, 4 p.m.

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A COMMON MOMENT FOR AN UNCOMMON TIME

Connecting body, spirit and well being.

DAC COURTYARD in the CFA, 4pm Friday.

As our diverse campus community in a multitude of ways processes the election results, we wanted to offer students, faculty and staff an opportunity to come together for contemplation and healing. We intend to share embodied and mindful practices from the worlds of dance, movement, and music. All are welcome.

New Course: PSYC341–Psychology of Learning and Memory

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PSYC 341:  Psychology of Learning and Memory

Instructor: Dr. Kyungmi Kim, Department of Psychology

Class meetings: F 1:20 – 4:10PM, Location TBA

How is holding in our mind a seldom-­used phone number just long enough to dial it different from our memory for our own birthday parties in the past? Why and how do our memories sometimes get lost? How do our emotions affect what/how we learn and remember? How do culture and language shape our memory for our own past?

If any of above questions interest you or if memory was one of your favorite topics in any of the Psychology classes and you want to more about it, this new course would be a great match.

This course is designed to orient students to the fascinating world of human memory.  Students will gain an in-­depth understanding of the psychological and neural processes underlying human learning and memory. Topics to be covered include, but not limited to, different memory systems and frameworks (e.g., working memory, episodic memory), remembering and forgetting (e.g., phenomenal experience of remembering, various mechanisms of forgetting), reality/source monitoring (e.g., true and false memories), and the influence of emotional and social factors on learning and memory (e.g., social remembering).  Students will explore these topics through critical reading/discussion of theoretical and empirical research articles in the fields of cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience.

Course requirements include weekly reaction papers on assigned readings, class presentation and discussion and a final paper (a research proposal or a review paper).

If you are interested in taking this course in the coming Spring, please do not hesitate to communicate your interests to Dr. Kyungmi Kim via email (kkim01@wesleyan.edu).

 

New Course! Intro to Linguistics

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NEW COURSE: CGST210

Q:  What is linguistics?

A: It’s the study of language, its structures, and the way it works.

We’re pleased to be re-introducing into the Wesleyan curriculum an introductory course on Linguistics, to be taught by Prof. Louise Neary in Spring 2017.  This course will introduce students to some of the principal areas like phonology  (the study of the sounds of language), morphology (the structure of words), syntax (the structure of sentences) and semantics (the meaning of language).

This course has no prerequisites and will be interesting for anyone curious about how and why humans make the sounds we make.

Check out Wesmaps for more info. Offered M & W—2:50-4:10 p.m.

Book Talk and -Signing: “The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem: Intergenerational Tension, Forbidden Love & Questions of Identity in 20th Century Israel –11/7 at 8 p.m.

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The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem: Intergenerational Tension, Forbidden Love and Questions of Identity in 20th Century Israel will conclude the series Contemporary Israeli Voices, 2016. Sarit Yisha-Levi’s first novel The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem, became a best seller in Israel, received the Publisher’s Association’s Gold and Platinum Prizes in 2014 as well as the Steimatzky Prize for the best-selling book of the year (2014). Recently, it was also made into a feature film. The author’s Sephardic family living in Jerusalem for seven generations, inspired this novel.

Here is a short description taken from the Institute for the translation of Hebrew Literature. http://www.ithl.org.il/page_15448

This Israeli bestseller is a multi-generational saga of Jerusalem, extending from the early 20th century when the Turks ruled Palestine, through the years of the British Mandate and the establishment of the State of Israel, to the early 1970s. It is the story of the Ermoza family, respected Sephardic Jews who own a delicatessen in the Jerusalem market. The narrator is Gabriela, the wild, rebellious daughter of Luna, known as “The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem.” Gabriela gradually reveals the family secrets and lies, but mainly the inner strengths that family members have to summon in order to overcome the ups and downs of life along the way.

The novel received enthusiastic reviews such as:

Exquisitely rich in history and detail… Poignant and intriguing book.  Historical Novel Society

Fans of Gabriel Garcia Marquez will find much to love in “The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem.”  The narrative is lush and rife with scandalous secrets of a passionately opinionated family that might find it easier to free themselves from the clutches of war, than from the Ermoza curse inflicted upon them. The Jewish Journal

Passion and the grand sweep of history permeate this dazzling you-cannot-put-it-down novel about four generations of astonishing women–and the men in their family who just might be cursed by love. So rich and vibrant, that every page seems to virtually breathe.  Author Caroline Leavitt 

The event will take place on Monday, November 7 at 8PM at Russell House. All are welcome. A reception and book signing will follow.

Sponsored by the Center for Jewish Studies