Field House Museum

is Middlebury’s Virtual Sports Museum. The exhibits on this site were generated by students in a Winter 2013 course, “Designing a Field House Museum,” in collaboration with faculty, archivists, athletic administrators, and representatives of Sasaki Associates, the architectural firm charged with designing the new Field House. Each exhibit offers a thematic approach to Middlebury sports history. A separate exhibit features interviews with Middlebury coaches and administrators. Finally, we have created a timeline of Middlebury athletics.  Please feel free to comment on any of the exhibits, or contact us directly.

People Holly Allen, Assistant Professor of American Studies Students in WT2013 AMST1007 class

Chekh It Out is your all-purpose interactive guide to Anton Chekhov’s play The Three Sisters.

The text of this play is loaded with links, polls, puns, translation and language notes, photos and videos, all designed to add context and value to your reading experience. We advise you to read through the play at least once before using the site, since discussion questions and intra-textual references may spoil the ending for you.

Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina is a website created by Grace Benz, Ali Hentges, Robert Silverstein.  It presents Leo Tolstoy quotations and images + video clips from various  motion picture adaptations of his book Anna Karenina.

People Grace Benz Ali Hentges Robert Silverstein Thomas R. Beyer, Jr., CV Starr Professor of Russian & East European Studies

Interviewing the Crime and Punishment Characters, a video by Tess Clark, John Montroy, and Eli Mauksch.

The purpose of this video and project was to enhance the reader’s understanding and experience of Crime and Punishment by bringing to life the main characters of Dostoevsky’s novel. We attempted to convey main ideals, personalities, and mannerisms of each of the characters through a more modern lens.

The Dead Souls Demystified project (podcasts, blog, and video) was put together by three students of Professor Thomas Beyer’s Golden Age of Russian Literature course at Middlebury College.  Sam Finkelman contributed the analytical and historical blogposts about “Dead Souls” and the surrounding criticisms and contexts; Nicole Morse filmed the RSAnimate video and compiled the formatted the sound clips; Maddie Li aided in video graphics, WordPress site compilation, and information about Gogol’s life for a podcast.

People Sam Finkelman Nicole Morse Maddie Li Thomas R. Beyer, Jr., CV Starr Professor of Russian & East European Studies

The origins of a general trend in Europe of rising prices between 1520 and 1640, labeled the Price Revolution, have been deeply contested by economic historians since the 1920s. The debate is divided between two major camps, stressing the importance of monetary and ‘real’ factors respectively. My paper provides a general overview of the literature since the 1920s. I identify the influence of parallel developments in economic thought on the debate. Further, using the same qualitative primary sources employed by previous works on the topic I construct a novel explanation for these rising prices, avoiding constraints presented by flawed/restricted data.

People Anil Menon Professor Paul Monod

The isolated Aysén region of Chilean Patagonia currently sits at the front lines of a heated national discussion regarding Chile’s energy future. The massive HidroAysén dam proposal seeks to develop the region’s hydroelectric potential through the creation of five mega-dams across two rivers, the Baker and the Pascua. While the project would provide substantial energy to the mines and cities of the north, it would also irrevocably change the river ecology and alter the lifestyles of local populations. During J-term, I used Mellon Grant funding to travel to Chile and conduct field research on the social and environmental impacts of the proposed dam project. I visited several of the proposed dam sites in Aysén and conducted interviews in both Aysén and Santiago with local residents, HidroAysén employees, politicians, and anti-dam campaigners. My project examines how competing claims over land use and development are addressed in the Chilean post-transitional political system.

Katie Siegner (author) and Kemi Fuentes-George (advisor)

Brazil’s Bolsa Família program is a conditional cash transfer scheme that has been hailed for dramatically reducing poverty and inequality since its launch in 2003. Under the scheme, qualifying families receive a monthly stipend on the condition that they fulfill certain requirements in health and education. Although the Bolsa Família is a federal program, each of Brazil’s 5, 564 municipalities play an important role in its local implementation. Using a combination of regression analysis and four case studies from the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, this study evaluates the impact of local government capacity on beneficiaries’ health and education. I find that municipalities with higher administrative capacity – more developed collaboration across sectors and more competent staff – are likely to be more effective in implementing the BFP, as observed by higher monitoring rates. As a result, the percentage of beneficiaries who comply with the program’s health and education requirements is likely to be higher in these municipalities. The paper concludes that local governments are critical actors in the success of this program and calls for policymakers to build administrative capacity through a combination of incentives and regulations.

People Researcher: Pui Shen Yoong Advisors: Professor Jessica Teets (Political Science), Professor John Maluccio (Economics)