Amherst College Event Calendar   Academic Year at a Glance

Hour for hour, the majority of the time that your professors spend on you individually – on your personal development as a thinker and writer – is in the form of time spent marking and grading your papers. Are you extracting full value from this individual attention? Or are you simply reading through the written comments for the main idea, passing your eyes over the cryptic marks and scrawls interspersed throughout the text, then tossing the paper aside either because you are satisfied with the grade or because it’s painful to confront the unpleasant picture your professor seems to be painting of your work? In this workshop, we will explore strategies for decoding and understanding particular points of grammar, syntax, usage, style and idea development that your professors may be indicating – but not fully identifying – with lines, arrows, circles and “awks.” We will also investigate the implications of their general comments for revising your argument in its particulars, and for your approach to writing and argumentation in general. Please come to the workshop with at least one commented-upon, three- to five-page recent paper. In the workshop, we will work through participants’ papers, mark by squiggly mark, as we learn to decode, understand and derive full value from this invaluable but too often squandered form of feedback from your professors. Taught by Michael Keezing (writing associate) and Michael Donovan (writing fellow). Preregistration on the Writing Center Web site is required and is limited to 12 students.

Professor Michael Graf of the Department of Physics at Boston College will give a talk on "The Lives and Deaths of Muons: Probing Magnetism in Condensed Matter."

Movies by Wim Wenders, Terry Gilliam and Jacques Tati are featured in a free film series at Fayerweather Hall. The Western Massachusetts American Institute of Architects (WMAIA) is sponsoring the series, titled “Architecture through Film – a Conversation about the Built Environment.” The series grew out of the WMAIA’s mission to educate, inform, and create an ongoing open dialogue with the Pioneer Valley community about architecture and design. The series begins on Oct. 22 with “Play Time” by Jacques Tati and continues on Nov. 12 with “Wings of Desire” by Wim Wenders and on Dec. 3 with Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil.” The series will be moderated by Thom Long, Five College Assistant Professor of Architectural Studies and co-director of the Five College Architectural Studies Program. Each film will also be presented by a guest speaker from the Western Mass Chapter of the American Institute of Architects and the Five College Architectural Studies Program. Series originator and architect Erica Gees says, “Through film’s subjective vision, we gain a poetic interpretation and critical understanding of the active - and passive - role that architecture plays in our lives. By working with perspective, light, acoustic resonance, voice and music, film offers us a critical and artistic tool to understand the power of design.” The film series is a long-held dream for Ms. Gees, who has been instrumental in obtaining grant funding to study sustainable design in the Pioneer Valley and the greater United States, including Hawaii; she is also highly active in the AIA at the national level. The public film series and discussion will seek to answer some of these questions: How do we experience architecture today? What is our built environment telling us about ourselves and how we live as a society? Can film further inform our understanding of the built environment and how it impacts our lives? All film screenings will take place at Pruyne Lecture Hall at 6:30 p.m. All films are free and open to the public. For further information about this film series, please contact: Erica Gees AI, Kuhn Riddle Architects Amherst, MA (413) 259-1630 x17 egees@kuhnriddle.com

Come watch this hilarious comedy that exposes gender and sex stereotypes and skewers "ex-gay" camps.

Poet Brad Leithauser will read from his work.