Williams College Welcomes 2008-09 Visiting Professors
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass - Williams College welcomes the following faculty as visiting professors in 2008-09:Timothy Benton, the Robert Sterling Clark Visiting Professor of Art History for the spring semester, joins the college from Open University in Milton Keynes, England. He specializes in the history of architecture and design between the Wars, particularly the Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier. Benton is the author of several books in English and French, including "The Villas of Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret 1920-1930" and "The Modernist Home." He has made curatorial contributions to numerous exhibitions, including two major exhibitions at London's Victoria & Albert Museum.
John Gager, the Croghan Bicentennial Visiting Professor in Biblical and Early Christian Studies in the fall semester, is the William H. Danforth Professor of Religion, emeritus, at Princeton University. His research focuses on religions of late antiquity, especially early Christianity and Judaism. Some of his most celebrated works are "Reinventing Paul," "Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World," and "The Origins of Anti-Semitism: Attitudes towards Judaism in Pagan and Christian Antiquity." He received his B.A. from Yale College and his Ph.D. from Harvard University.
James Hanson, visiting professor of economics, for the spring semester, will work with the Center for Development Economics. He was a professor at Brown University for 14 years before joining the World Bank in 1981. He has worked in most Latin American countries on debt, macro and privatization issues, and taught at a number of Latin American universities. He received his Ph.D. from Yale University.
Michael Hunt, the Stanley Kaplan Visiting Professor of American Foreign Policy in the fall semester, is the Everett H. Emerson Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He teaches U.S. foreign relations, Cold War Asia, the Vietnam War, and contemporary global history, especially post-1945. The most recent of his nine books is titled "The American Ascendancy: How the U.S. Gained and Wielded Global Dominance." He received his B.Sc. from Georgetown University and his Ph.D. from Yale University.
Wilberforce Kisamba-Mugerwa, Class of 1955 Visiting Professor of International Studies, for the spring semester. Chair of the National Planning Authority in Uganda and a research associate with Makerere Institute of Social Research, from 2004 to 2007, he served as the division director of the International Service of National Agricultural Research under the International Food Policy Research Institute. He received his Ph.D. from Makerere University.
Richard Repp, the Bennett Boskey Distinguished Visiting Professor of History in the fall semester, graduated from Williams College in 1957. A prominent scholar of Ottoman history, he taught Turkish history at University of Oxford before retiring in 2003. At Oxford, he also held a number of administrative roles, including master of St. Cross College. Repp is the author of "The Mufti of Istanbul: a Study in the Development of the Ottoman Learned Hierarchy." In addition to his B.A. from Williams, he received a second B.A. and his Ph.D. from University of Oxford. The college awarded Repp a bicentennial medal in 2004.
Emmanuel Theophilus, Class of 1946 Visiting Associate Professor of Environmental Studies in the fall semester, is project director for the Himalayan Region and chief executive of the Foundation for Ecological Security. He lives on a farm in a remote part of the Kumaon Himalaya and has engaged with forest dependent communities on issues related to forests, conservation action and political ecology.
Binyavanga Wainaina, Brown Visiting Professor of Africana Studies in the fall semester, was educated at the University of Transkei in South Africa and the University of East Anglia in the U.K. He is the author of "Discovering Home," winner of The Caine Prize of African Writing 2002 and many pieces of short fiction and essays. He is the founding editor and executive director of Kwaini?, Africa's leading creative writing journal.
Alan Wallach, the Robert Sterling Clark Visiting Professor of Art History in the fall semester, has served at the College of William and Mary since 1989. His research interests lie with the history of American art, the Hudson River School of landscape painting, and American art institutions. Among his publications are "Exhibiting Contradiction: Essays on the Art Museum in the United States" and "Thomas Cole and the Aristocracy." Wallach was awarded the College Art Association's Distinguished Teaching Award in 2007. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University.
