Articles

Generations of alumnae have been leaders in the study of monkeys and apes, revealing surprising truths about primate society, parenthood, and decision-making.

The Pluralism Initiative grew from a conversation Associate Professor of Art Liza Oliver had with an alumna several years ago about the campus climate and viewpoint diversity.

“I was wrong” is one of the most difficult things for a human being to say. Imagine saying it when you have been a conservative public intellectual and expert on public education for decades. Yet that is exactly what Diane Silvers Ravitch ’60 does in her engaging new memoir, An Education: How I Changed My Mind About Schools and Almost Everything Else.

While Bernie for Burlington: The Rise of the People’s Politician is a very different kind of work from Dan Chiasson’s previous five books—all collections of poetry—as soon as you hear Chiasson discuss it, you know that he was destined to write this book.

“Because I grew up in Dhaka, in Bangladesh, right in the middle of the smoggy, light-polluted city, I do not remember seeing any star,” says Lamiya Mowla ’13, assistant professor of astronomy. That changed when she arrived at Wellesley.

In August, Claudia Joskowicz, a video artist and associate professor of art at Wellesley, found herself in a bind. She was supposed to be wrapping up shooting on a new project set in Bolivia’s Andean salt flats. Instead, she was grounded on the opposite side of the country—without any footage to show for her efforts. On the eve of national elections, Bolivia faced a nationwide gas crisis, and the production bill for her project suddenly quintupled.

In the College’s new Narrative Lab, students look deeply into how narratives are constructed and the ways they create meaning.

For 50 years, researchers at what is now the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) have conducted groundbreaking interdisciplinary studies on social issues such as the effects of placing children in child care, gender equity in education, and the role of social media in adolescents’ lives. From the beginning, its mission has been to deploy rigorous academic research to address real-world problems.

Do plants “belong” in a particular place? Why are some considered “native” and others “invasive”? Why do they have Latin names? Are they really “male” and “female”? These are some of the wide-ranging questions at the heart of the new book Botany of Empire: Plant Worlds and the Scientific Legacies of Colonialism by Banu Subramaniam, the Luella LaMer Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies.