Author: Milton Magazine

Viewing art “involves very close looking, but also being open to a variety of ideas,” author and art critic Jed Perl told students. Mr. Perl was on campus as the Melissa Dilworth Gold visiting artist. He showed students various works by artists such as Picasso, Corot and Mondrian, and he discussed the process of “looking at something with your eyes and then figuring out what you are looking at. There is a back-and-forth between looking at it and making sense of it.” Mr. Perl is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books. He was the art...

The legal distinction of whiteness as a race did not exist anywhere in the world until 1681, when Colonial American lawmakers sought to outlaw marriages between European people and others, the sociologist Jacqueline Battalora told Upper School students. This was, essentially, “the invention of white people,” said Dr. Battalora, who visited Milton as the Henry R. Heyburn guest lecturer. Dr. Battalora is a lawyer and a professor of sociology and criminal justice at Saint Xavier University, and previously worked as a Chicago police officer. She holds a Ph.D. from Northwestern University and has been engaged in anti-racist training since...

Understanding the differences between gender and sex is key to creating a more welcoming and inclusive world, says Dr. Jennifer Bryan, a nationally recognized expert in gender and sexual diversity. Dr. Bryan is the founder and principal of Team Finch Consultants and the author of From the Dress-Up Corner to the Senior Prom: Navigating Gender and Sexual Diversity in PreK–12 Schools. A graduate of both Princeton University and Teachers College, Columbia University, she began her career as a teacher and coach at The Hotchkiss School. Trained as a counseling psychologist, she offers specialized workshops to preK–12 communities across America....

As China grows in economic power, an understanding of history provides context for the cultural, environmental and trade shifts ahead for the world, Michael A. Szonyi, this year’s Hong Kong Distinguished Lecturer, told students. Professor Szonyi is the Frank Wen-Hsiung Wu Memorial Professor of Chinese History and director of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University. He has written, translated or edited seven books, including The Art of Being Governed: Everyday Politics in Late Imperial China (2017), A Companion to Chinese History (2017), and Cold War Island: Quemoy on the Front Line (2008). He is also a...