Office Hours

The Amherst Student

In what ways can politics be playful? How do galaxies form in community? What does language and literature tell us about ourselves? Sit in on office hours with Priscilla Lee '25 as she chats with Amherst’s brilliant faculty members to tackle these questions and more. Brought to you by The Amherst Student.

  1. 17/09/2025

    “Let’s Just Sit Together” with Prof. Youssef Ben Ismail

    LJST: Let’s Just Sit Together? In this episode, Briana Bao ’28 and Rita Xing ’28 sit down together with Assistant Professor of Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought Youssef Ben Ismail to discuss his academic journey, language learning, and teaching experience during his first year at Amherst College. He offers insights in his past cultural and legal studies of China and his home country Tunisia, elucidating how the two nations’ history of law helps his work today. Additionally, he offers personal advice on being patient and open-minded while finding your academic passion that balances interest and personal identity.

    37 min

  2. 06/05/2025

    Mothers and Empires: Dr. Francesca Bellei

    How did Greece and Rome come to be seen as the cultural ancestor of western Europe and Anglo-America, when a Roman would have called a Briton a barbarian? In this episode, Center for Humanistic Inquiry Fellow Francesca Bellei sits down with Priscilla Lee ’25 to trace how empires use the figure of the mother to claim hegemonic power. Under a patriarchal and exclusionary view of family, a mother passes power from one generation of men to another without being able to exercise it herself — her role is simply to produce rightful heirs. When Greece is called the mother and nurse of Rome, then, or when the British elite take Grand Tours to the bosom of the “classical” Mediterranean, they are using the metaphor of mothers to relegate another empire to the past while appropriating their cultural prestige. This episode analyzes the Athenian origins of this metaphor, how it has figured in Anglo-American claims to the “classical” legacy, and how Italy and Italian migrants to the United States have responded to and employed it in their self-conception.  Episode Notes and Further Reading: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MT7YNfdl-lkvBe2M-eNFQg35eDlgLn2usUiWEbn4D1A/edit?usp=sharing Edited and produced by Priscilla Lee '25.

    48 min

  3. 05/03/2025

    The Arts of Exchange: Prof. Catherine Infante

    Language is a sign of culture. Objects are a sign of culture. Different languages encounter different objects, creating cultural exchange between the Spanish-speaking Iberian Peninsula and the Arab world of North Africa during the Medieval Ages. How do the image of Virgin Mary, Western colonialism, and Arabic root words influence culture?  In this episode, Briana Bao ’28 and Rita Xing ’28 sit down with Associate Professor of Spanish and Department Chair of Spanish Catherine Infante to discuss her own book projects, learning new languages, and teaching Spanish literature — specifically, how Don Quixote and two coasts of the Mediterranean have led her into the world of academia and other exciting interests like travelling and gardening.

    29 min

  4. 11/12/2024

    Math and Wrath: Prof. Ivan Contreras

    Are you ever confused about the thunderous laughter reverberating through Seeley Mudd? Are your dreams infiltrated by math problems? Do you have math competition trauma? In this episode, Briana Bao ’28 and Rita Xing ’28 sit down with Associate Professor of Mathematics Ivan Contreras to discuss the highs and lows of his “complicated” but ultimately loving relationship with mathematics. The episode features his opinions on how students should position themselves toward math, suggestions for what courses to take as a non-major,  and his various other exciting interests.  Episode notes can be found here.  Edited and produced by Briana Bao ’28 and Rita Xing ’28.

    45 min

  5. 15/04/2024

    Birth Rate Policies: Prof. Alex Jingwei He

    Baby bonuses, enhanced parental leave, and childcare access are public policies aimed at slowing the declining birth rate —  but by themselves, they are unlikely to change anyone’s mind about having children. Faced with an aging population’s need for health care and pensions, how can policymakers realistically intervene? Is the birth rate an effective policy target in the first place? In this episode, Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science Alex Jingwei He joins Host Priscilla Lee ’25 to ask what policies can (and cannot) do to encourage childbirth in their shared home of Hong Kong and East Asia. More broadly, this episode is about the role of public policy — and policy scientists — in complex social issues.   Episode notes and further reading: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-01ey8vXPQz7yW-Artmh2hfN1Z9anlfr745z9XzyBFs/edit?usp=sharing

    35 min

  6. 25/03/2024

    Grafting Trees: Prof. Matthew Westermayer

    Grafting is an essential agricultural technique for making trees bear sweet-tasting fruit. In the ancient Mediterranean, it was the only known way for humans to modify nature. The graft, then, was and continues to be a prompt to rethink our relationship with the nonhuman world. As Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion Mattthew Westermayer asks, “What is nature insofar that a tree is so malleable?” In conversation with host Priscilla Lee ’25, he traces the roots of grafting as metaphor in Greek and Roman literature, and how it grows beyond metaphor to become spiritual practice—particularly, in Ephrem the Syrian’s Christian hymns. Once you see arboricultural practice as a way of understanding the world, Professor Westermayer promises you won’t stop finding it, everywhere you look.  Episode notes and further reading: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Kwl4ek6QJ-4-MbbRdF9IiV4TERgnlRk7unXKd8GCmLk/edit?usp=sharing

    40 min

  7. 27/02/2024

    (Why) Were Romans So Greek?: Prof. Niek Janssen

    When Livius Andronicus put on a play “in the Greek style” and translated the Odyssey into Latin, Roman literature was born — at least, that’s the story later Romans liked to tell themselves. But is this story true? And why did the Romans want to position themselves as the cultural descendants of classical Greece? In this episode, Visiting Assistant Professor of Classics Niek Janssen sits down with Host Priscilla Lee ’25 to break down the history of Greek and Roman interactions, the Greekness of Roman origin myths, and the word-by-word translation choices of the first Latin Odyssey. To use an anachronistic term, they explore how Roman national identity is constructed both in proximity to and against the Greeks, whose culture the Romans seemingly cannot help but imitate, yet mock and push away as foreign.

    46 min

  8. 28/01/2024

    Shared Blackness: Prof. Carol Bailey

    How is Blackness shared? Though it is obviously important to recognize different experiences of Blackness, Professor of Black Studies Carol Bailey believes “there is more to be gained from acknowledging what Black people share.” Beginning with a passage from A Brief History of Seven Killings by Jamaican author Marlon James, Professor Bailey’s conversation with host Priscilla Lee ’25 and Evelyn Chi ’25 spans Toni Morrison novels, Caribbean histories, and Amherst College anecdotes to trace a story of solidarity and community across the diaspora.  Episode notes and further reading: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PruCkhsyOCT1fTPdhATwoQJUTPTw9CO-8ke5aIQ3etM/edit?usp=sharing

    46 min
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In what ways can politics be playful? How do galaxies form in community? What does language and literature tell us about ourselves? Sit in on office hours with Priscilla Lee '25 as she chats with Amherst’s brilliant faculty members to tackle these questions and more. Brought to you by The Amherst Student.

Información

  • Canal
    The Amherst Student
  • Creador
    The Amherst Student
  • Años de actividad
    2022 - 2025
  • Episodios
    18
  • Clasificación
    Explícito
  • Copyright
    © The Amherst Student
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    Office Hours

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