TEACHING
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"Silva To Agriculture in the Torrid Zone" by th e Ven ezuelan Andres Bello . Kerson, who retired two years ago, has had no trouble keeping occupied. He has b een busy attending th e annual congresses of the international associations of N eo-Latin Studies, Hispanists, and Enlightenmen t scholars. He also has lectured and is working on a book about three Latin humanists of lS'h century New Spain, Rafael Landivar, Francisco Alegre, and D iego J ose Abad. John J. McCook Professor of M odern Languages, Em eritus Gustave W. Andrian '40, who taught at Trinity from 1946 un til his retirement in 1987, recently completed the sixth edition of his college textbook Modern Spanish Prose with a Selection of Poetry, w hich was published by Prentice Hall. T h e first edition came out in 1964 . "Over the past 35 years, the book as been adopted by hundreds of colleges and universities, as well as by many private and public secondary schools," Andrian no tes. "Given the average life of 10 years or less for this kind of language book , it is surprising to me th at it continues to be used in many sch ools today." In th e five years since Professor of Modern Languages, Emeritus Donald D . Hook retired, he has written a b ook of poems, seen a book originally published in 1976 come out in 1996 in its th ird printing, and publish ed 32 articles and essays. " In recent years I have concentrated on theolinguistics, a new subfield oflinguistics that I pioneered . My articles have appeared in su ch maj or j ournals as, among oth ers, Scottish Journal of Theology, Worship, Faith and Phi-
EXCELLENCE
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or Professor of Sociology, Emeritus Norman Miller, 77, of Brookline, MA, cyberspace is clearly mokem toyre, or, in Yiddish terms, a place
of learning. Miller has been sharing his passion for the Yiddish language and Yiddish literature through "Mendele," a free, moderated mailing list dedicated to the exchange of views, information, and Yiddish-related news. Named for Mendele Mokher Sforim (Sholem-Yankev Abramovitsh), who is generally regarded as the father of Yiddish literature, the forum began in 1991 as a small mailing list aimed mainly at academics. Miller became the first shames, or moderator, of the moderated mailing list following his retirement three years earlier. "The very first subscriber was and is one of the most distinguished Yiddish scholars in the world," Miller notes. "He in turn recommended Mendele to other Yiddishists and linguists and in short order we began to grow; in fact we outgrew the then-existing facilities at Trinity and moved the mailing operation to Yale in 1993, at which time Victor Bers, who teaches classics there, became co-list owner." While most of the subscribers were (and are) U.S. residents, Mendele quickly picked up subscribers in Canada, Israel and France. After the Internet became widely available, the site be路 gan to attract many non-academics from every part of the world, including Japan, Russia, South Africa, Mexico, Germany, Argentina and, most recently, Italy. Mendele subscribers now number 2,000 strong. "Mendele has always been what's called a 'moderated' list; i.e., not everything that is received is sent out to the subscribers," Miller explains. "As moderator, I initially tried to run Mendele pretty much the way I imagined The New York Times' Letters to the Editor was run, but I soon took on the job of Op-Ed Page editor as well. That involved weeding out some things, correct路 ing for grammar and spelling, negotiating with writers, and so forth . It kept me pretty busy for six years, after which time I was able to persuade losef Vaisman, a multi-talented Yiddishist from Ukraine now at Chapel Hill, to take over the job of moderator while I retired to run Mendele's web site." At about the same time, Miller and his colleagues also launched a sister publication, The Mendele Review (TMR), which runs longer scholarly articles, translations, and occasionally book reviews. It is edited by Leonard Prager of Haifa University. Miller, like many other retired Trinity faculty members, always planned to continue his schol路 ady pursuits. He says his involvement with Mendele has not only allowed him to continue to learn about the Yiddish language, but also has introduced him to dozens of people with whom he has formed close friendships . To learn more about what has captured Miller's post-retiremen~ interest, click on http://www2.trincoll.edu/-mendele/. To subscribe, contact: mendele@lists.yale.edu .
losophy, IT L: R eview of Applied Linguistics, Catholic World Report, New Oxford Review, Fellowship of Catholic Scho lars Quarterly, and English Today. In addition, Hook is editing a book on the American Foreign Service w ritten by a long-time close friend and a colleague w ho are both
former foreign service officers. " I am sure I am just on e of a number of persons still cranking out research," he exclaims. Professor ofPsych ology, Em eritus Charles B . Schultz and his w ife, R uth , have continu ed their w ork on p olitical repression and produced a
second volume of oral histories fro m people recounting their experiences with p olitical repression. T h e work, entitled The Price of Dissent: Testimonies to Political Repression in A merica, is scheduled to be publish ed by the U niversity of California Press . T hree social movements are repre-