Charles Dickens’s Networks: Public Transport and the Novel by Jonathan H. Grossman ’85
Charles Dickens’s Networks: Public Transport and the Novel by Jonathan H. Grossman ’85 Oxford University Press, March 2012 The same week in February 1836 that Charles Dickens was hired to write his first novel, The Pickwick Papers, the first railway line in London opened. Charles Dickens’s Networks explores the rise of the global, high-speed passenger transport network in the 19th century and the indelible impact it made on Dickens’s work. The advent first of stagecoaches, then of railways and transoceanic steamships made round-trip...
read moreintimate geographies: poems by Bo Thorne Niles ’62
intimate geographies: poems by Bo Thorne Niles ’62 Finishing Line Press, 2012 “Although its title may call to mind Elizabeth Bishop, the poems in intimate geographies conjure the alert, lucid spirit of May Swenson as they shape their way toward emotional heights and depths. In this collection, which is also recollection, the poet’s formal and verbal inventiveness is deftly balanced with a tender attention to sensory details. The resulting poems map, and honor really, lives that are dear, vivid, all-too-swiftly passing, and therefore, in...
read moreA Weaving of Cultures
For more than 60 years, Jacquetta Nisbet ’46 has been learning, practicing and teaching the ancient textile traditions of Native American and First Nation cultures. One of North America’s premier weaving artists, she has created works represented in collections around the world, from a 15-foot double-woven light form for Pasadena’s California Design X show, to a ten-footwide wall hanging for Nordstrom. Born in Malaysia and raised in Edinburgh, she emigrated to the United States and now lives in British Columbia. Jacquetta embodies...
read more5 Voices from History
A daily pleasure of mine is listening as students react to the primary texts we read in class. Though the vocabulary of colonial English and the complex sentences of offi cial texts present challenges, students engage. Why did Jefferson blame King George and not Parliament for the abuses listed in the Declaration? Why did the authors of the Constitution set up the electoral college and need urging for the Bill of Rights? Other readers connect with the humanity—sometimes cloaked, sometimes fully expressed—in the words left behind. We use...
read moreA 14-Minute Talk For Seniors: A Reflection on Spending Time
By Lisa Baker Some of the very best moments of my year have been running with Malia. She’s my daughter, 10 years old and coltish, limby and awkward, ankles poking out of her pants, her foot already a women’s size nine. But she’s all-girl, too—breathless and silly, amused by her sister’s potty humor and still willing to snuggle. “Wanna go for a run, honey?” I say to her after school, and she says, “Sure,” every time. Running had become a tedious routine, the washed-up athlete in me needing to hold on to the daily run, an...
read moreTalking It Out in Grade 2
It can start with a simple misunderstanding over whose turn is next. A child whispers to another and someone feels left out. A ball is grabbed playfully, or not so playfully, and there is foot-stamping outrage. Every day in classrooms, hallways and playgrounds, conflicts big and small play out between children of all ages. Equipping them with the tools to manage these conflicts is an important part of early childhood education, particularly in second grade. “Second grade is a big year, socially,” says Sachiyo Unger, Grade 2 teacher in...
read moreStudent Journalism in 2012: Defining the craft, and learning accountability
Milton graduates beginning in the late 1980s remember looking forward to Friday mornings, when The Milton Paper, Milton’s independent student newspaper, was hot off the press. With a dedicated following and a proud staff, the Paper has always been a strong publication. When Adam Beckman ’12 and Cydney Grannan ’12 became editors-in-chief, they decided to define and meet a new level of quality, while print and online publications in the public domain were busy sorting out this issue for themselves. What should “their public,” Cydney...
read moreInsight, Fall 2012
At the Harkness table today, David Smith and his students in Studies in English and American Literature
read moreNOH8
Advanced Photography student Claire Robertson ’13 turned her lens on fellow students to promote a message of tolerance and inclusion. Claire, a board member of the student group GASP! (Gay and Straight People), says the independent project was inspired by the NOH8 Campaign, a photographic silent protest created by celebrity photographer Adam Bouska in response to the passage of Proposition 8 in California. In the official campaign, various celebrities appear posed with duct tape covering their mouths and “NOH8” written on their cheeks....
read moreAnatomy of a 1212 Performance
As the audience filters out of each 1212 performance, the final scene has yet to unfold. Peter Parisi, performing arts department chair and director, gathers the small cast and crew around him. Together, they absorb the evening’s performance before scattering to collect the congratulations. This moment culminates months of work—planning, auditioning, reading, memorizing, staging and rehearsing. The play that Peter and company staged in February 2012 was Love and Intrigue by Friedrich Von Schiller, a German dramatist and major figure in...
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