Amherst, along with Bowdoin, Hampshire, Smith and Williams, has formed the New England College Renewable Partnership, a collaborative contract to purchase solar electricity from a solar farm in Farmington, Maine. Starting in 2019, Amherst will annually receive 10,000 Megawatt hours (MWh) from the farm, enough to power around half of its total electricity use and all of its purchased energy.
During the 2017-2018 academic year, the Counseling Center has seen a steady increase in the number of students utilizing its services — the center reports having seen 34 percent of the student body so far, and anticipates this figure to rise to about 36 percent by the end of the semester.
Over the past four years, the number of students who have used the counseling center doubled, increasing from 15 percent in the 2012-2013 academic year, according to Director of the Counseling Center Jackie Alvarez.
Mona Oraby is a visiting professor of law, jurisprudence and social thought. She received her doctorate in political science from Northwestern University.
Q: How would you describe your area of research?
A: I would describe it by saying that I work broadly on comparative law and religion, law and society. I also work on colonial and postcolonial legal regimes. One example of that is how modern states regulate social difference broadly. I happen to be most interested, in this stage of my research, on the regulation of religious difference.
Marion Holmes Katz, a professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University, spoke about the complicated relationship between law, ethics and Islamic studies on Wednesday, April 12.
Katz focused on the complexities between moral and enforceable law and specifically how they fit into the study of Islam and Islamic law. She spoke about domestic work and the questions posed by modern and ancient thinkers on the moral and legal obligations of women when it comes to fulfilling typical domestic duties.
On Thursday, April 20, the AAS will hold elections for Senate (classes of 2018, 2019 and 2020) and Judiciary Council (any class). Below are statements from candidates for these seats. All students who wish to be on the ballot must attend Speech Night on Wednesday, April 19, or send a proxy, for their name to appear on the ballot.
Nikita Dhawan, a professor of political science at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, spoke on the importance of social movements for transnational justice and the role of protest politics in a talk titled “Death of Leviathan: Protest Politics and State Phobia” on Wednesday, April 12.
Manuela Picq introduced Dhawan as a friend and talked about the conversations she and Dhawan frequently have about the state, which is, according to Picq, “something that is growing in the United States in the Trump era.”
Atlantic and Slavery Studies Professor Manuel Barcia gave a talk at the college titled “White Cannibalism in the Slave Trade” on Monday, April 17 in Pruyne Lecture Hall.
Barcia is a Latin American history professor at the University of Leeds in England and current visiting fellow at Yale University’s Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition. Barcia has also written for publications such as Al Jazeera English, The Independent and The Huffington Post. His academic focus is on slave resistance and rebellion in Brazil and Cuba.
