Faculty and Staff Notes for the Week of March 5, 2001
	Marc Blecher Norman Craig William Friedman David Shengold		China against the Tides, the 1997 book by Marc Blecher, professor of politics and East Asian studies, has been published in Korea in Korean. The book was also published in 1999 in China in Chinese but has since gone out of print there--in fact, it has been banned, says Blecher. Why? "One can never know for sure about such things in China," says Blecher, "but I believe it has to do with two factors: 1) most important, it was the first book by a western author translated into Chinese that provided an analysis of the protests of 1989, which is an extremely sensitive topic; and 2) a hardline leadership took control in late 1998, just after the contract was signed, and they created a political atmosphere hostile to the idea of promoting western analyses of China. When the Chinese edition came out, from no less authoritative a publisher than the Central Communist Party School Press, I was happily surprised that China was proving open enough to entertain a book like mine, which contains some rather controversial material. I was a little less surprised, but much sorrier, when the political tides shifted again, this time against what I had to say and the openness that had allowed me to say it to Chinese readers for a brief few months before it was banned." Norman Craig, Biggs Professor in the Natural Sciences, Emeritus, was the after-dinner speaker at the February 21 meeting of the Cleveland Section of the American Chemical Society. The title of his talk was "History of the Hall-Héroult Process for Refining Aluminum Metal with References to New Developments in Titanium Metallurgy." The abstract for the talk includes this information: "Recently, an electrolysis process for refining titanium metal has been announced. The history of titanium metallurgy is similar to that of aluminum. The new electrolysis process for titanium may revolutionize the use of titanium as electrolysis did for aluminum." His talk was "almost timed to the February 23 discovery date" of the Hall-Héroult process for refining aluminum, Craig notes. William Friedman, professor of psychology, has accepted an invitation to join the American Psychological Association (APA) Task Force on Developmental Psychology and the Child Witness. The Task Force is sponsored by the Child, Youth, and Family Services division of the APA. The goal of the task force is to explore the contributions that basic research in developmental psychology can make to improve forensic interviewing of preschool and school-aged children, both through the application of existing research and through new research directions. "A particularly important issue in forensic interviewing," wrote the APA in its invitation letter, "concerns how to question young children regarding the time and date that events occurred. Your work on children's developing understanding of time could provide important insights for interviewers." Friedman is in New Zealand on research status through August. The lead article for the March issue of Stagebill, program magazine for U.S. theaters, symphonies, dance companies, and performing arts centers, is by David Shengold, visiting instructor in Russian. "Russian Roulette" concerns Sergei Prokofiev's The Gambler, which will receive its Metropolitan Opera premiere under Valery Gergiev March 31. The opening-matinee performance of the opera, which is based on a Dostoevsky novella, will be broadcast internationally.
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