Professor Basak Kus organized a conference in cooperation with scholars from Freie University in Berlin on the topic of green political economy. Throughout the three-day conference, panelists from various universities worldwide engaged in discussions on theories of degrowth and post-growth, green new deals, the politics of decarbonization, and the involvement of governments, labor, and business…
Academics
Sign up for Power of Language Week 2023
Power of Language is back for 2023! This year, in lieu of having Power of Language be a sole conference, we will be launching a week of events in honor of the Bengali Language Movement, and this year’s themes for POL are: self determination to preserve one’s mother tongue and the protection of critical languages.…
Digging Beneath Translated Philosophy: Two of this semester’s CLACs
“Living a Good Life” is a large, team-taught philosophy course in which students read, debate, and put into practice the ideas of ancient philosophers about how to live well. All the readings for the class are in English, but most of them were originally written in Ancient Greek or Classical Chinese. In order to give…
Cultures and Languages Across the Curriculum (CLAC) Classes Being offered in the spring
What is CLAC? Wesleyan University’s CLAC program is administered out of the Fries Center for Global Studies, and aims to provide students and faculty across the campus with opportunities to deepen their engagement with their subjects through the use and further development of their language and intercultural skills. CLAC courses at Wesleyan can be linked to…
Meet Iddrisu Saaka, Assistant Professor of Dance
Introducing Iddi Iddi Saaka is a dancer, choreographer, drummer, dance teacher, and performer from Ghana. He earned his diploma at the University of Ghana, then came to the United States to attend UCLA for his Master’s in Fine Arts. In 2008, Iddi applied and gained the position of West African Dance professor at Wesleyan. In…
Meet Teresita Padilla-Benavides, Assistant Professor of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry
A globally-engaged researcher, collaborator, and scientist, Teresita (Tere) Padilla-Benavides is an Assistant Professor of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry committed to increasing access to the sciences and centering culturally diverse research. Tere conducts biochemistry research at the Hall-Atwater building, but her outreach spreads far beyond the lab, campus, and borders of the US to increase access…
Meet Anita Deeg-Carlin, our new Associate Director of Intercultural Learning, and learn about the Global Engagement Minor!
Like many American college students, I could not decide what to focus on in college! My parents were born in Germany during World War II and immigrated to the US as adults. My father had an engineering degree from Germany, but as a refugee, my mother only managed to complete an eighth-grade education. I was born in…
Spotlight on Pedro Pascual Villanueva, our new Assistant Professor of American Sign Language
The Fries Center for Global Studies and Department of Less Commonly Taught Languages is pleased to welcome Assistant Professor of American Sign Language, Pedro Pascual Villanueva! A teacher at heart, Pascual’s lifelong career focuses on sign language teaching, as both L1 and L2. Pascual strives to keep abreast of the best practices in teaching languages…
What is constantly starstruck, surrounded by entomologists, and full of ants? Me, at the Insects to Feed the World Conference.
Megan Levan, Environmental Studies and South Asia Studies in a Global Context, Class of ’22 This summer, I got the opportunity to attend the Insects to Feed the World Conference in Quebec City, Canada, to continue my journey with entomophagy. Entomophagy is the practice of eating insects. There are currently over 2,000 species of insects…
Fulbright Spotlight: Interview with David Vizgan (’21), Astronomy Researcher in Denmark
Exploring Denmark… and the Earliest Origins of the UniverseBlog post prepared by Shiven Sankalia (’24), Fellowships Assistant, Spring 2022, with additions and edits by Dr. Erica Kowsz, Assistant Director for Fellowships at the Fries Center for Global Studies David Vizgan is a Wesleyan alum currently on a Fulbright Scholarship in Denmark. David graduated in 2021…