Media contact: Noelle Lemoine, communications assistant; tele: (413) 597-4277; email: [email protected]
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., June 27, 2012 – On Monday, July 16 at 7 p.m. in Paresky Auditorium, Williams College will present the newest installment of the lecture series Williams Thinking. The night will feature three short talks by college faculty members, offering the community insight into the research and thinking that happens on campus. The speakers are Denise Buell, Ronadh Cox, and Jim Shepard. They will discuss, respectively, ghost stories, shifting boulder formations, and the creative process. Hosted by Dean of the Faculty and Professor of English Peter Murphy, Williams Thinking is free and open to the public. Reservations are not required, but seating is limited, so guests should arrive early.
Williams Thinking features faculty members from the college’s three academic divisions: the humanities, social sciences, and science and mathematics. Each talk, about 18 minutes long, highlights the robust research and academic pursuits of the college’s faculty in a manner that is accessible and appealing to a wide audience. The speakers will explore ideas of time and development, from shifting geographic formations and the role of fact and history in the creative process to renewed interpretations of familiar religious stories.
Denise Buell, chair and professor of religion, will present “This is Not a Ghost Story: Rethinking Resurrection.” Her research interests include early Christian history, feminist biblical interpretation, religion and cultures of the Roman Imperial period, and ethnicity and critical race theory. She has published two books, Why This New Race: Ethnic Reasoning in Early Christianity, in 2005, and Making Christians: Clement of Alexandria and the Rhetoric of Legitimacy, in 1999. She received her B.A. from Princeton University, her M.Div. from Harvard Divinity School, and her Ph.D. from Harvard University.
Ronadh Cox, professor of geosciences and chair of the Maritime Studies Program, will present “Boulder Thoughts: Decoding the World through Geoscience.” Her research interests include sedimentary geology and planetary
geology. She studied the migration of massive boulders on Ireland’s Aran Islands, determining that their recent movement has been caused by storm waves and not tsunamis, as previously thought. Her research appeared in the Journal of Geology and was covered in Forbes in May 2012. She received her B.Sc. from the University College Dublin and her Ph.D. in geology from Stanford University.
Acclaimed novelist Jim Shepard, the J. Leland Miller Professor of American History, Literature, and Eloquence, will present “The Percheron in the Tunnel.” He teaches film and fiction writing courses at Williams, and is the author of six novels, including most recently Project X, and four story collections, including most recently You Think That’s Bad, released in 2011, and 2007’s Like You’d Understand, Anyway, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. His stories have been included in the Best American, PEN/O. Henry, and Pushcart prize anthologies. He received his B.A. from Trinity College and his M.F.A. from Brown University.
Williams Thinking is presented by the Office of Communications and the Office of Information Technology. The talks are filmed before a live audience and later presented online at williams.edu/williamsthinking.
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For building locations on the Williams campus, please consult the map outside the driveway entrance to the Security Office located in Hopkins Hall on Main Street (Rte. 2), next to the Thompson Memorial Chapel, or call the Office of Communications (413) 597-4277. The map can also be found on the web at www.williams.edu/map
To visit the college on the Internet: www.williams.edu Williams College can also be found on Facebook: www.facebook.com/williamscollege and Twitter: twitter.com/williamscollege
Published June 27, 2012
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