In Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven, the world ends almost quietly. There are no bombs or devastating nuclear holocausts, no alien invasions or apocalyptic meteor crashes, no bizarre and wholly unanticipated environmental disasters, no anthrax or genetically engineered superb ug or villainous ...
In November of 2014, Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) be- gan to wage a price war on American oil producers. Fearing the seemingly inexorable rise of sophisticated and productive North American shale producers, OPEC decided not to temper their ...
It is 10 a.m. the week before the start of school, but a group of students is already focusing intently. Forming a circle on the stage of Wright Memorial Theatre, the students stand with their eyes shut. Over the sound of a loud fan, they listen to each other, waiting for the right moment. Suddenly, ...
Hard sciences might not be the first association most people make with Middlebury College. But the critical thinking and spirit of discovery that the liberal arts curriculum seeks to promote are well in line with the skills needed to operate in a real-world laboratory setting. This summer, many students ...
Spring Awakening is a difficult play: difficult in its dark subject matter and complex textual foundation, difficult in the inherent interplay between reality and expressionism and difficult to review in the context of multiple losses of community members and ensuing discussions of high levels of student ...
The final weekend of “Gaypril,” a month devoted to creating more visibility for LGBTQ groups on campus, was celebrated by the timely premiere of Millennium Approaches, Part I of Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. Written by Tony Kushner, the Pulitzer Prize-winning play explores ...
Dance-making has deep roots, in the experiences of choreographer and dancer alike. For the four senior dance majors whose choreographic work composed “Threshold” this past weekend, their research in various fields deeply informed their pieces. For all of the works, the choreographers engaged in ...
WRMC’s annual spring concert, Sepomana, offered an exciting and eclectic lineup of acts spanning genres and continents. Hosted in the McCullough Student Center’s Wilson Hall, acts made creative use of space, light and sound to create a consistently surprising experience. Opener and student band ...
The sun is shining, trees are blooming and Paul Lewis is returning to Middlebury. This Friday, the Performing Arts Series offers a sell-out concert to bring the season and the school year to a triumphant finale. Lewis will be performing Beethoven’s last three sonatas with the characteristic mastery ...
It is a bit of a break from the norm for this column to talk about a car company, but on April 30 Tesla Motors unveiled a product that transforms the electric car manufacturer to an energy storage company that has the potential to transform the way energy is used fundamentally. Elon Musk, the CEO of ...
In a general way, I think that the saddest stories are the ones that depict injustice against decent people. Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Leviathan does more than this, processing an archetypal Russian film protagonist named Kolya through an almost-comically horrible downfall at the hands of political evil. ...
Melissa MacDonald ’15’s directorial adaptation of Martin Crimp’s play Fewer Emergencies, Emergency 1A, was presented April 23-25 in the Hepburn Zoo. Above all, it is driven by stories. There is no true plot. The characters, in all of their variations, lack a history or true identity. Instead, ...
The second faculty show of the semester, Spring Awakening, will usher in a 19th-century tale of sexuality that proved to be far ahead of its times. Written by German dramatist Frank Wedekind in 1891, the play offers a harrowing perspective of suicide, rape, child abuse, abortion and other difficult ...
In an interview with Vans, Montreal DJ extraordinaire Lunice proclaimed about his own music, “what I’m trying to really build up this year is to really make it very involved, in a sense where it doesn’t need to be turned up, but it definitely needs to be cool,” a statement that could very well ...
On Saturday, April 25, the fifth annual Bach Festival Concert presented a thrilling combination of students, community members and professionals in an enthusiastic display of musical colors to a packed audience in the Kevin P. Mahaney ’84 Center for the Arts Concert Hall. Now celebrating its fifth ...
Few things give me more satisfaction than experiencing peers’ and professors’ work. Sometimes it’s too easy to get lost in the system of Middlebury and forget the passion and purpose driving this college experience. So many students are working on so many incredible things that we often take our ...
Despite the polarization of politics, Republicans and Democrats continue to unite on at least one issue: National Institute of Health, or NIH, funding. I was pleasantly surprised by Newt Gingrich’s Op-Ed, “Double the NIH Budget” in the New York Times last Wednesday, in which he argued in favor ...
In 1980, Billy Joel was established as a global superstar in the music world. He had released a string of remarkably successful albums, starting with 1976’s Turnstiles, which brought him well into the public eye with anthems such as “New York State of Mind.” This popularity exploded the next year ...
Live music is a strange thing on this campus. One can never be quite certain of what will hit or miss, whether people will show up, stick around or ditch a show for the weekend party rounds. There was an undercurrent of excitement, confidence and yes, palpable irony that surrounded the announcement ...
Mental illness is a difficult and messy ordeal. Addressing it can be heartbreaking, controversial and immensely uncomfortable. Next to Normal dared to tackle the complicated issue this past weekend, April 16-18, in a rock-musical that touched on everything from bipolar disorder to electroconvulsive ...