News & Events 04/2007

April 25, 2007
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AMHERST, Mass.—Ute Brandes, a professor of German at Amherst College, has just published the first of a two-volume edition of Anna Seghers’s short stories from 1958 to 1966, in the 25-volume Werkausgabe of Seghers’s literary works (35€, 480 pp., Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 2007).

Anna Seghers was one of the great figures of German modernism and a leading intellectual voice among émigré and postwar writers. As a leftist author and German Jew, she went into exile in 1933, first to France, later to Mexico. In 1942 her antifascist novel, The Seventh Cross, was a bestseller in America. After the war, she was widely read in German-speaking countries, and her works were translated into more than 40 languages. Her short stories, newly presented in Brandes’s edition, were written at the height of the Cold War in East Germany, a period notorious for censorship and self-censorship. Brandes’s editing and critical essays focus on restoring the original features of the texts and their variants, on their reception in East and West, and on the aesthetic and political implications of certain narrative strategies which make Seghers’s works richly original.

The 12 stories in this edition include “Brot und Salz,” “Vierzig Jahre der Margarete Wolf,” “Das Licht auf dem Galgen,” the story cycle “Die Kraft der Schwachen” and the posthumous novella “Der gerechte Richter,” first published in 1990.

A member of the Amherst faculty since 1982, Brandes is the author of Günter Grass (1998), Anna Seghers (1992), Zwischen Gestern und Morgen: Schriftstellerinnen der DDR aus amerikanischer Sicht (1992) and Zitat und Montage in der neueren DDR-Prosa (1984). Brandes received a Ph.D. degree from Harvard University in 1982 and a B.A. from the University of New Hampshire in 1972.

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April 26, 2007
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AMHERST, Mass.—Three secondary school teachers who challenged, inspired and moved members of the Class of 2007 will receive the Phebe and Zephaniah Swift Moore Teaching Awards at Amherst College’s 186th Commencement Exercises at 10 a.m. on Sunday, May 27, at the college. The teachers are Jim Cortez, from The Bolles School in Jacksonville, Fla.; Bob Fenster, from Hillsborough High School in Hillsborough, N.J.; and Joanne McClelland, from Chapel Hill High School in Chapel Hill, N.C.

“American colleges and universities must recognize that the secondary schools matter,” says Anthony W. Marx, the president of Amherst. “Education is the best tool we have for improving the world. Teachers who are willing to take the time to help their students achieve are making a difference in many lives.”

The Phebe and Zephaniah Swift Moore Teaching Awards recognize teachers who have been important in the careers of Amherst students.

Jim Cortez, a chemistry teacher from The Bolles School in Jacksonville, Fla., was nominated by Alexander Bridges of Ponte Vedra, Fla. Bridges admits that Cortez “puzzled and confounded me more than all of my other teachers combined.” He describes Cortez’s classroom as “a three-dimensional habitat for his courses,” and says his teaching style made students “digest the material and struggle with it personally.” Bridges is grateful for this teacher’s influence, to which he attributes his “deepest academic motivations.” “He encouraged me to take personal responsibility for my work, kindling a deeper commitment to my studies and a profound respect for academia.…He taught me that I could study hard and still laugh at myself and stop once in a while to enjoy the ride.”

Bob Fenster, a U.S. history teacher from Hillsborough High School in Hillsborough, N.J., was nominated by Thomas Chen. Chen calls Fenster a “a teacher who opens his students’ minds to multicultural history, a teacher for whose students reading and writing go beyond textbooks and into film, music and the Internet,” and praises his unique multimedia presentation style that employed “PowerPoint, video, music and text all in one class period. With carefully crafted media presentations, Fenster showed the horrors of Nazi Germany, the historical view of hip hop and the reigning power of the Beatles and Bob Dylan.” This history teacher inspired Chen to switch his own career path from law to teaching, in order to follow Fenster’s example of training lawyers and activists. “Fenster embodies the noblest aims of teaching—providing the tools to understand the past and the present, and as a way to make a better future,” Chen said.

Joanne McClelland, an English teacher of AP literature at Chapel Hill High School in Chapel Hill, N.C., was nominated by Samuel Guzzardi. Guzzardi recognizes the profound influence that McClelland has exerted on his life—“Her ‘tough love’ style of sharp commentary delivered with stern but supportive eyes immediately won me over,” he said. “Her message to me was simple and unwavering: with privilege comes responsibility.” Born in a housing project, McClelland used her own success against prejudice to found and lead AVID, the Advancement Via Individual Determination, a program that provides guidance and academic support to first-generation college students. Her unconventional approach to literature through the lens of personal experience has led Guzzardi to create his own interdisciplinary major, Experiential Justice Studies, at Amherst. And McClelland’s motto, “with privilege comes responsibility,” inspired Guzzardi to accept a position with Teach for America to work with fifth-grade Latino students in the Bronx. Guzzardi noted that McClelland’s “tireless insistence that I always do my best has fueled me with the unrelenting sense of dedication and focus to which I attribute my success at Amherst.”

This is the 11th year that Amherst College has presented the award, with which it expresses its appreciation for the profession of teaching. The recipients are chosen by a committee of seniors, faculty and staff from nominations submitted by graduating seniors.

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April 19, 2007
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AMHERST, Mass.—Molly Mead, a professor of urban studies and founding director of the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University, has been named the first director of the new Center for Community Engagement at Amherst College. Her appointment is effective July 1.

Mead joined the faculty of Tufts’ department of urban and environmental policy in 1990 and was named founding director of the Tisch College in 1999. She taught in the center for human services at the University of Massachusetts at Boston from 1984 through 1989. Mead also directed several community-based organizations in Massachusetts and has served as an independent trainer for a wide range of service agencies since the mid-1970s. Mead earned an A.B. degree in history and government from Cornell University, an MBA from Simmons College and an Ed.D. from the University of Massachusetts.

The Center for Community Engagement was created last year at Amherst College by a philanthropic investment of more than $13 million from the Argosy Foundation, a family philanthropy established by John E. Abele, a 1959 graduate of Amherst College. Abele was the founding chairman of Boston Scientific Corporation, a pioneer in the less-invasive medical device. “The focus of the center—connecting students to communities through public service so they can better understand life’s circumstances and act on their ability to bring about positive change—is in keeping with the vision of the Argosy Foundation,” says Abele.

As the founding director of Amherst College’s Center for Community Engagement, Mead will build on the strengths of the college’s existing outreach and public service programs to make substantive and exciting opportunities for service available to all Amherst students, including those who cannot afford to volunteer without pay. Mead and her staff will expand and deepen Amherst’s partnerships with community-based organizations in the Amherst area and will also seek to forge new partnerships regionally, nationally and globally. The center will provide robust training, mentoring and reflection programs for outreach participants to ensure that their service is generally helpful to the community and that these experiences are meaningful in the context of students’ broader education. The center will also offer support and resources to Amherst faculty members wishing to develop courses that employ community-based learning pedagogies. An advisory board made up of faculty, staff, students, alumni and community partners will guide the center’s ongoing work. The center will officially open in newly renovated space in the Keefe Campus Center with a college-wide celebration at the start of the 2007-08 academic year.

Each year, one in four Amherst students volunteers time locally as mentors or tutors to children in area public schools, at domestic-violence prevention programs, hospitals and other valuable community organizations. Groups of Amherst students also have traveled to New York City and Washington, D.C. during the January Interterm to teach in underserved urban schools, assist in pro bono legal work and talk with Amherst alumni who have chosen careers in public service.

Founded in 1821 for “the education of indigent young men of piety and talents,” Amherst College is now widely regarded as the premier liberal arts college in the nation, enrolling a diverse group of approximately 1,600 young men and women. Well known for its academic excellence, Amherst is also consistently ranked among the very best schools in the country in terms of accessibility: The college’s financial aid packages are consistently the most generous in the U.S., and among its peer universities and colleges Amherst has the greatest economic diversity. Diversity, in its broadest sense, is fundamental to Amherst’s mission. The college enrolls students from every state and more than 40 countries, and for the past several years more than 35 percent of Amherst’s students have been students of color. Amherst offers the B.A. degree in 33 fields of study.

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April 19, 2007
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AMHERST, Mass.—The Amherst College Men's Glee Club will present its annual Senior Concert at 8 p.m. on Saturday, April 28, in Buckley Recital Hall in the Arms Music Building on the Amherst College campus. The Glee Club is directed by Mallorie Chernin; Katie Vogele, a 2006 graduate of Mount Holyoke College, is assistant director. The concert is free and open to the public.

The music for the Senior Concert is chosen by the seniors, who pick favorite songs from their four years of participation in the Glee Club. The singers will perform sacred and secular music, songs of other nations and spirituals, including music by Jacob Handl, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Kurt Knecht, William Dawson and many more. The concert will end with the traditional “Senior Song” by James S. Hamilton of the Amherst College class of 1906 and the passing of the historic senior chalice. Further information is available from Mallorie Chernin at 413/542-2484 or by e-mail at mchernin@amherst.edu.

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April 19, 2007
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AMHERST, Mass.—The Amherst College Orchestra will celebrate the Class of 2007 in its annual senior concert at 8 p.m. on Saturday, April 21, in Buckley Recital Hall in the Arms Music Center at Amherst College. The Amherst College Orchestra will pay tribute to the graduating class in the final concert of the academic year, performing the “Academic Festival Overture,” composed by Johannes Brahms in gratitude for the conferral of an honorary degree, the two-movement “Unfinished” Symphony by Franz Schubert and the rousing Symphony No. 9, “From the New World,” by Antonin Dvorak.

The concert is free and open to the public; refreshments will be served. Black Sheep desserts and coffee will be served at intermission; the concert will be followed by an after-party for the Class of 2007 (admission by ticket stub).

April 19, 2007
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413/542-8417

AMHERST, Mass.—John Hennessy, a poet “without an ounce of pretension—about either his working-class roots or the deftly turned poetry he makes of it,” according to Mary Jo Salter, will read from his new collection, Bridge and Tunnel (2007), at 8 p.m. on Thursday, April 26, at Amherst Books (8 Main Street, Amherst, Mass.). Sponsored by the Creative Writing Center at Amherst College, Hennessy’s reading is free and open to the public.

Salter, poet and Emily Dickinson Senior Lecturer in the Humanities at Mount Holyoke College, praises “Hennessy’s witty mythologizing gift.” Daniel Hall, poet-in-residence at Amherst College, writes of Bridge and Tunnel, a gritty rhapsody to Hennessy’s New Jersey childhood: “Whether he is … grappling with his mother’s bizarre cosmology, or explaining mortality to his young son, Hennessy’s music recalls the wild delirium of a Klezmer band. This startling new voice is really a houseful of voices, sage and seductive, heartbreaking and hilarious by turns.”

Hennessy grew up in New Jersey and received a B.A. degree from Princeton University. He has lived in New York, Amsterdam and Austin, and completed graduate degrees at the University of Texas and the University of Arkansas. His poems have appeared in The New Republic, The Yale Review, New Letters, Ontario Review, Fulcrum Annual, Harvard Review, Salt (UK), Notre Dame Review, Jacket (Australia), The Sewanee Review and Best New Poets 2005.

Hennessy teaches at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

The Amherst College Creative Writing Center sponsors a yearly reading series featuring both emerging and established authors. For more information, see the Creative Writing Center Website or call 413/542-8200.

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April 19, 2007
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AMHERST, Mass.—The third annual Symposium on Transatlantic Visions will take place in the Alumni House at Amherst College on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, April 27, 28 and 29. Titled “Luso-Hispanic Voices: Nation, Language and Identity,” the symposium will feature three keynote addresses that will be free and open to the public.

Ilán Stavans, the Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American and Latino Culture and Five College 40th Anniversary Professor at Amherst College, will speak on “Nebrija’s Children” at 6 p.m. on Friday, April 27.

Barbara Simerka, professor of Hispanic studies at Queens College, will speak on “Distant Refractions: Don Quijote and Postmodern Cinema” at 11:45 a.m. on Saturday, April 28.

Onésimo T. Almeida, senior lecturer in Portuguese and Brazilian studies at Brown University, will speak on “Language, a Window into the World of Identity” at 12 p.m. on Sunday, April 29.

The Symposium on Transatlantic Visions is sponsored by España, Cooperación Cultural Exterior; the Amherst College Department of Spanish; Citizens Bank of Amherst; the Mount Holyoke College Department of Spanish; the Smith College Department of Spanish; The University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Spanish and Portuguese Program, Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures and the office of the Dean of the Graduate School.

See the complete schedule.

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April 18, 2007
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AMHERST, Mass.—On Friday, Mar. 30, in the Sunderland Public Library, the Massachusetts Department of Mental Retardation awarded Laura Stein, an Amherst College junior from Rockport, Maine, a Certificate of Recognition for her work with mentally retarded and developmentally disabled people. The ceremony was part of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities (MR/DD) Awareness month, where the department provides information and support for improving the quality of life of people with developmental disabilities. Deborah Omasta-Mokrzecki, the manager of dining services and student dining in Amherst College Dining Services, was also honored.

The daughter of Robert W. Stein and Sarah Stein of Rockport, Maine, Stein began her work with developmentally disabled individuals at the age of 15, when she created a “Tennis for Fun” program in her hometown to teach tennis to adults with special needs. At Amherst she extended the program, working with Riverside Industries and several Amherst College volunteers to continue to give lessons on campus. Stein dedicated herself wholeheartedly to the program, applying for and receiving a grant to purchase equipment for her lessons and even arranging transportation for many of the participants to and from the lessons. “Stein has single-handedly built this program from the ground up,” said a representative of Riverside Industries, “Riverside praises her tenacity and initiative in offering this service to local adults.”

Last week, Stein also received a Student Community Engagement Leadership Award from the Association of Amherst Students for her work with this program.

The Department of Mental Retardation is dedicated to creating, in partnership with others, innovative and genuine opportunities for individuals with mental retardation to participate fully and meaningfully in, and contribute to, their communities as valued members. For more information, please visit Its Website.

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April 17, 2007
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AMHERST, Mass.—The Amherst College Women’s Chorus will present its annual Spring Concert at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, May 4, in Buckley Recital Hall in the Arms Music Building on the Amherst College campus. The Amherst College Concert Choir will present a concert at 8 p.m. on Saturday, May 5, in Buckley Recital Hall. Both concerts are free and open to the public.

Directed by Mallorie Chernin, the Amherst College Women’s Chorus on Friday will perform sacred music and music from around the world. The chorus will sing in Tamil, French, Latin, Yiddish and Zulu. Katie Vogele, a 2006 graduate of Mount Holyoke College, is the assistant director of the Women’s Chorus and Timothy Cheng Amherst ’06 is the pianist.

On Saturday, May 5, the Amherst College Concert Choir, also under the direction of Mallorie Chernin, will feature Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Serenade to Music” with guest pianist Ludmilla Krasin. Other composers include Lotti, Brahms, Matthew Harris and Percy Hall. Katie Vogele is the assistant director.

Further information is available from Mallorie Chernin at 413/542-2484 or by e-mail at mchernin@amherst.edu.

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April 17, 2007
Director of Media Relations
413/542-8417

AMHERST, Mass.—On Friday, Mar. 30, in the Sunderland Public Library, the Massachusetts Department of Mental Retardation awarded Deborah Omasta-Mokrzecki, the manager of dining services and student dining in Amherst College Dining Services, a Certificate of Recognition for her work with mentally retarded and developmentally disabled people. The ceremony was part of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities (MR/DD) Awareness month, where the department provides information and support for improving the quality of life of people with developmental disabilities. Laura Stein, an Amherst College junior from Rockport, Maine, was also recognized.

A resident of Hadley, Mass., Omasta has for five years worked with her staff and managers at Valentine Hall, the college’s central dining facility, to partner with Riverside Industries to hire food service attendants, food servers, salad servers, dishwashers and meal checkers/cashiers. Omasta-Mokrzecki is consistently praised for her vision and sensitivity in her work with Riverside. “If this was a screening of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ starring Deborah Omasta-Mokrzecki, it would be revealed that she dramatically changed the lives of at least 15 people served by Riverside Industries by giving them a chance to work,” a representative for the company stated. “Deb’s willingness to work in a collaborative style with Riverside is an absolute joy.”

The Department of Mental Retardation is dedicated to creating, in partnership with others, innovative and genuine opportunities for individuals with mental retardation to participate fully and meaningfully in, and contribute to, their communities as valued members. Its Website is at www.mass.gov/dmr/.

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April 10, 2007
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413/542-8417

AMHERST, Mass.—Poet Daniel Hall, a writer-in-residence at Amherst College and the author of a new collection, Under Sleep (2007), will read from his work at 8 p.m. on Monday, April 16, in the Alumni House at Amherst College. Sponsored by the Creative Writing Center at Amherst College, Hall’s reading is free and open to the public.

Hall’s first book, Hermit with Landscape (1990), was chosen by James Merrill for the Yale Series of Younger Poets, and his second, Strange Relation (1996), was selected for The National Poetry Series. Of his newest, Under Sleep, Richard Wilbur praises the collection’s “rich account of consciousness and of the density of any experience,” and Stephen Yenser calls it a “splendid new book, at once so sad, witty and exquisitely made.

Hall, who has taught at Amherst since the spring of 2000, began writing in 1979. He received the Great Lakes College Association New Writer Award in 1990, an Ingram Merrill Foundation grant in 1991, an award from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1995 and the Whiting Foundation Award in 1998-99. He also was awarded a 2002 Fellowship by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Hall’s poems, memoirs and book reviews have been published in the National Poetry Series, the Yale Review, Verse and Parnassus.

The Amherst College Creative Writing Center sponsors a yearly reading series featuring both emerging and established authors. For more information, see their Website at www.amherst.edu/~cwc/ or please call 413/542-8200.

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April 6, 2007
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AMHERST, Mass.—Historian Simon Schama will give a talk titled “Righteous Uproar or Deafening Silence: Remembering the Abolition of the Slave Trade in America and Britain,” at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, April 25, in the Pruyne Lecture Hall (Fayerweather 115) at Amherst College. Sponsored by the Victor S. Johnson Lectureship Fund at Amherst, Schama’s talk is free and open to the public.

Between 1999 and 2002 Schama created the 15-part A History of Britain for BBC Television and the History Channel. He was nominated for an Emmy for the series in 2003. Three volumes of A History of Britain connected with the series (At the Edge of the World, The British Wars and The Fate of Empire) were published between 1999 and 2002. Schama is currently at work on a book about the Anglo-American relationship and an eight-part television series for the BBC, The Power of Art. An art critic for the New Yorker, he also writes frequently for The New Republic, The New York Review of Books and The Guardian.

A university professor at Columbia University, Simon Schama last month received the National Book Critics Award for Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution. An expert in European cultural and environmental history and the history of art, he received his degrees from Cambridge in 1966 and 1969. His books include Patriots and Liberators: Revolution in the Netherlands, 1780–1813 (1977), Two Rothschilds and the Land of Israel (1978), The Embarrassment of Riches: an Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age (1987), Citizens: a Chronicle of the French Revolution (1989), Dead Certainties: Unwarranted Speculations (1991), Landscape and Memory (1995), Rembrandt’s Eyes (1999) and Hang-Ups : A Collection of Essays on Art (2004).

The Victor S. Johnson Lectureship Fund was established in memory of Victor S. Johnson (1882-1943) by his sons for the purpose of “bringing to the campus each year a stimulating individual worthy of the lectureship’s purpose of serving the best tradition of the liberal arts and individual freedom.”

April 6, 2007
Director of Media Relations
413/542-8417

AMHERST, Mass.—Bernard E. Harcourt, the Julius Kreeger Professor of Law and Criminology and the director of the Center for Studies in Criminal Justice at the University of Chicago, will give a talk titled “Flipping a Coin, Throwing the Dice: Miscarriages of Justice and the Sentencing Lottery” at 4:30 p.m. on Monday, April 16, in the Babbott Room in the Octagon at Amherst College. Sponsored by the Croxton Lectureship, Harcourt’s talk will be free and open to the public.

Harcourt’s scholarship focuses on issues of crime and punishment from an empirical and social theoretic perspective. He is the author of Against Prediction: Profiling, Policing and Punishing in an Actuarial Age (2007), Language of the Gun: Youth, Crime, and Public Policy (2005) and Illusion of Order: The False Promise of Broken-Windows Policing (2001). He is also the editor of a collection of essays on Guns, Crime and Punishment in America (2003) and of the journal The Carceral Notebooks. Harcourt received a B.A. in political theory from Princeton University, a law degree from Harvard Law School, and a Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University.

The Croxton Lectureship was established in 1988 by William M. Croxton ’36 in memory of his parents, Ruth L. and Hugh W. Croxton, to bring to campus well-known speakers who focus on topical issues.

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April 4, 2007
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AMHERST, Mass.—The Emily Dickinson Museum’s celebration of National Poetry Month, appropriately named after Dickinson’s poem “A little Madness in the Spring,” takes over Amherst on Saturday, April 28, and Sunday, April 29, with a range of lectures, programs and outdoor events that will inspire even the most canine of poetry fans.

“This year, we’re paying special tribute to the poet’s dog Carlo. Carlo became a fixture in the poet’s life from 1850 to his death in 1866 and was a source of constant companionship for Dickinson,” said Jane Wald, executive director of the Emily Dickinson Museum. “To that end, we’ve created a program on Sunday that even dogs can enjoy.”

The weekend opens on Saturday with an 11 a.m. talk by writer Jeanne Braham and artist Barry Moser at the Amherst Women’s Club. Together, Braham and Moser collaborated on a recently released book, The Light within the Light: Portraits of Donald Hall, Richard Wilbur, Maxine Kumin and Stanley Kunitz, which examines portraiture created with both words and art. Former U.S. poet laureate, Richard Wilbur will introduce the program with some of his own poetic portraits. A reception and book signing will follow the program.

On Saturday afternoon, the sometimes silly, sometimes serious program focuses on the landscape of both Dickinson homes. Landscape consultant Marta McDowell, author of Emily Dickinson’s Gardens, will give a lecture on Dickinson’s herbarium at 2 p.m. at the Amherst Women’s Club. Following the lecture, participants can choose between two hands-on workshops at the Homestead at 3:30 p.m., one on establishing an herbarium garden and another on planting a container conservatory much like the one Dickinson kept.

At 3:15 p.m. on Saturday, poet Mary Jo Salter will launch the museum’s new landscape audio tour, “Grounds of Memory,” with a short reading on the museum grounds. The tour, which was funded in part by the Institute for Museum and Library Services, was recorded with the help of WFCR 88.5FM and features the voices of Richard Wilbur, Mary Jo Salter, John Martin, Jane Wald, Marta McDowell and Walter Carroll. The tour includes 18 stops significant to the poet’s family and is free throughout the weekend on a first-come, first-served basis.

“Emily Dickinson’s poetry celebrates the landscape and natural world with such depth and nuance. The landscape was so meaningful to each member of her family in his or her own way,” said Wald. “We’re so excited to be able to help visitors make meaningful connections with the land as well as the two Dickinson family homes.”

Two Juniper Literary Festival lectures will take place on Saturday, April 28, at the Emily Dickinson Museum in conjunction with “A little Madness in the Spring.” Weird War: The Politics of Whimsy will investigate contemporary world events and the literary responses to them at 2:15 p.m. in the Homestead Tour Center. In the same location at 3:30 p.m., Going Viral: The Internet and New Literary Criticism will explore the intersection of the literary Website with traditional media.

On Sunday afternoon, “A little Madness in the Spring” goes to the dogs with an outdoor celebration of the poet’s dog Carlo that begins at 12:30 p.m. on the museum grounds. Visitors are invited to bring their dogs out for a number of 19th-century dog amusements and a dog parade in honor of the poet’s walks with Carlo. A real “Carlo” will meet and greet guests. All canine guests are required to be on short leashes, and for children in want of a four-legged friend, stuffed animals are also welcome. Owners are encouraged to register their pets in advance by calling 413/542-2034.

For dog’s best friend, a lecture by professor and author Katherine C. Grier titled “The Dog is the noblest work of Art” will take place at 3 p.m. at the Amherst Women’s Club. Grier is the author of the recently published book Pets in America and a professor in the Office of Academic Programs at the Winterthur Museum. She will give a history of the domesticated dog in the United States. A book signing will follow.

All “Madness” events are free and open to the general public, with the exception of the gardening workshops, which require pre-registration and a materials fee. To register, call 413/542-2034 or e-mail nfischlein@emilydickinsonmuseum.org. For a full schedule of events, visit www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/events.html.

“A little Madness in the Spring” is made possible by the generous support of the Valley Advocate, WFCR 88.5FM, NPR News and Music for Western New England, Jones Town & Country Realty, The Lord Jeffery Inn, Tiger Press and the Amherst College Department of English.

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