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In late May 2020, Michele Moody-Adams ’78 went for a walk, hoping to clear her head during a particularly busy season in her life. Instead the Joseph Straus Professor of Political Philosophy and Legal Theory at Columbia, stumbled upon a protest—and the inspiration for her next book.

Newhouse Visiting Professor of Creative Writing Lauren Holmes ’07 teaches Writing for Television. The course dissects TV pilots and web series. “I’m looking for the clearest examples of character building, story building, and the story engine,” she says.

Mingwei Song, professor of Chinese, was a child in China when he discovered a stash of books in the factory where his mother worked. He recalls reading fairy tales and, before long, works by Dickens, Hugo, Balzac, and others. Perhaps his early readings provided a key to the future.

Learn about five recently hired professors and their passions—from 19th-century travel and French literature to the impacts of social media use on health.

Philip L. Kohl, professor of anthropology and Kathryn Wasserman Davis Professor of Slavic Studies emeritus, served on the Wellesley faculty for 42 years before retiring in 2016. He was a founding member of the College’s anthropology department. Over his years of service, including for more than a decade as chair, Phil helped establish a vision of the anthropology department as the most broadly conceived of social sciences, stretching from the ancient past to our imagined collective future.

Professor of American Studies Paul Fisher has spent the last decade in the company of artist John Singer Sargent and his circle. His new biography, The Grand Affair: John Singer Sargent in His World , was just published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Through the efforts of Brenna Greer, associate professor of history, and Ruth Rogers, curator of special collections, the College has acquired a significant collection of 1950s Jet magazines covering the murder of Emmett Till and its aftermath.

In September, the Camilla Chandler Frost ’47 Center for the Environment hosted the 2022 Project Handprint Symposium, which focused on the theme of health and environmental justice.

On a frosty night in January, 90 students made the trek across campus to gather in the largest lecture hall in the Science Complex, H101. They were there for ES 125H/PEAC 125H: The Climate Crisis, a class that embodies one of the goals in the College’s strategic plan: “We will renew the structure of our academic program and draw the greatest possible value from finite resources by reducing the siloing of our academic departments and prioritizing interdisciplinary collaboration.”