MHC Experts Weigh In The ongoing election news has dominated the media since the evening of November 7, when Florida was taken on and off the map for Al Gore and George W. Bush. During this torrent of coverage, Mount Holyoke professors Douglas Amy, Daniel Czitrom, and Joseph Ellis weighed in, providing news outlets with political and historical contexts for their stories.

Even before election day, politics professor Douglas Amy’s recent book, Behind the Ballot Box: A Citizen’s Guide to Voting Systems, received extensive play in the East Bay Express, an alternative weekly for areas such as Berkeley and Oakland in the San Francisco Bay area. Running a lengthy article about spoilers and third parties, East Bay made good use of the scholar’s work. In the days following November 7, local outlets turned to Amy, a national expert on voting systems, and he was interviewed on Channel 22 and WFCR. On November 9, he was also quoted in the Daily Hampshire Gazette along with MHC historian Daniel Czitrom. Amy and Czitrom agreed that one possible outcome of the election might be that people will take a closer look at proportional representation as an alternative election system.

On November 13, the Springfield Union-News ran an op-ed by Amy in which he called upon Americans to demand a better voting system. The next day, Amy spoke live with KPFK, a Pacifica radio affiliate in the Los Angeles area. He covered political change, instant runoff voting, and proportional representation in the interview.

On Sunday, November 19, a front-page article in the Springfield Union-News compared this year’s election with the presidential election of 1876. Writing that “as far as elections go, 1876 quickly tumbled into a muddled mess that would not be resolved for months,” the paper next quoted Czitrom’s observation that today’s situation, although historic, is not unique. The next day, the Baltimore Sun gave Czitrom the last word in a technology-section article that provided readers with an overview of the different ways in which counties across the nation vote. In it, Czitrom commented on how current charges of vote fraud echo those of past elections, in particular those of the Gilded Age.

More on the Election On November 13, the Weissman Center for Leadership’s final fall event delved into the election quandary, and coverage of the event included a piece on WFCR that morning and Channel 22 that evening. The next day, the Daily Hampshire Gazette reviewed the evening’s engaging discussion.

Ellis and the Electoral College While noted MHC historian Joseph Ellis has been taking the nation by storm with his new book, Founding Brothers, he was also tapped by the Wall Street Journal to opine on the Electoral College. Published November 15, Ellis’s piece in the prestigious daily challenged critics of the institution, arguing that an effective alternative to the framers’ Electoral College would be difficult to find and establish.

Sacred Music The Klezical Tradition klezmer ensemble, directed by Adrianne Greenbaum, MHC associate professor of music, will be featured in the ABC documentary A Sacred Noise: The New Jewish Music to be aired December 3. (Check local stations for time.) The ensemble’s award-winning album Family Portrait (also featuring their vocalist Paula Parsky, AKA Fraidy Katz, ’69) formed the basis for selection as one of only a few representatives of the klezmer genre of Jewish music. Family Portrait was also included in the recently published Essential Klezmer (Algonquin) written by Seth Rogovoy, as one of twenty “essential” albums to have in one’s klezmer library.

You Can Go Home Again A cover article by MHC English professor Corinne Demas appeared in the “The City” section of the Sunday New York Times November 19. In the article, titled “An Accidental Utopia,” Demas discussed her memories of her childhood in Stuyvesant Town, which is also the focus of her book, Eleven Stories High, Growing Up in Stuyvesant Town, 1948–1968, and her recent trip back to do a book reading. A Times photographer followed Demas around her old haunts, and a photo of her in her old playground appeared with the piece.