Why should 21st-century readers bother with a big book about the residents of a small country town in 19th-century England?<\/p>\n
To Julie Pfeiffer, associate professor of English, Middlemarch<\/em>, by George Eliot, \u201cis a brilliant novel, one that still has a lot to teach us about our own lives.\u201d She and her partner in this summer\u2019s Middlemarch Project, Martha Park M.F.A. \u201915 (creative writing), talk about what those lessons are in \u201cMiddlemarch<\/em> Madness<\/a>\u201d<\/strong> (by Jeff Hodges M.A.L.S. \u201911)\u2014and about how devoting a summer to a leisurely reading of one of literature\u2019s great works can be rewarding on many levels.<\/p>\n Dana Caspersen M.F.A. \u201908 (dance) inspires us with her move from the world of professional dance to conflict management. She has discovered a surprising number of parallels between the two very different fields, as Sarah Achenbach \u201988 explains in her profile, \u201cPlace of Possibility<\/a>.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n In his romantic and eloquent remembrance of renowned children\u2019s book author Margaret Wise Brown \u201932, James S. Rockefeller Jr. recalls a magical time he and his then-fianc\u00e9e spent on two islands: his family home on Cumberland Island, Georgia, and Brown\u2019s \u201cOnly House\u201d off the coast of Maine. \u201cThe Bunny and the Warlock<\/a>\u201d<\/strong> is the foreword to a new biography of Brown by Amy Gary.<\/p>\n Susan Henry\u2019s book Anonymous in Their Own Names<\/em> profiles three extraordinary women who lived in the early 20th<\/sup> century and who were instrumental (and often unheralded) in their husbands\u2019 success. One of them was writer and feminist Ruth Hale, who with her husband, Heywood Broun, helped found the Algonquin Round Table. \u201cThe Clinging Oak and the Study Vine<\/a>\u201d<\/strong> presents a passage from Henry\u2019s book that captures both personalities in a few vivid paragraphs.<\/p>\n Of course, what is summer at Hollins without reunion? This year we celebrated graduates from the years ending in 5 and 10\u2014and the two-years-out-graduates. Relive the fun through the photos here<\/a> and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n