Profiles
Language of Love
First appeared in Illinois Alumni in May 2008
Eyamba Bokamba joined the University of Illinois Department of Linguistics 34 years ago, and since then he’s made it resound with the intonations of a continent. Bokamba has grown the African languages program from one language to five and developed more than 35 African language courses, as well as more...
Charles Simic
First appeared in Council Chronicle: National Council of Teachers of English in March 2008
As a child, poet Charles Simic played in the bombed-out buildings of his Belgrade neighborhood. His earliest memories include being thrown out of bed and across the room by the impact of a bomb, and seeing flames and dust and smoke so thick it was like nighttime at noon. Perhaps...
By the Book
First appeared in Illinois Alumni magazine in February 2008
Tall, slim, and perky, dressed in a turtleneck, tailored pants and sensible shoes, Betty Burch Mohlenbrock ‘62 ED, EDM ‘64, could be a woman who merely lunches with friends, entertains in her home and dotes on her grandchildren. Except for the grandchildren part, the rest couldn’t be more wrong....
The Strengths of Sampson
First appeared in Illinois Alumni magazine in January 2008
The first time Henry T. Sampson Jr., MS ‘65 ENG, PHD ‘67 ENG, lost himself in the microfiche room of the UCLA library, it was to blunt the trauma of his recent divorce. Little did he know that out of that misery would emerge his “passionate obsession,” a decades-long quest...
Rethinking an Axiom
First appeared in Arts & Sciences newsletter of Washington University in St. Louis in December 2007
Physics professor Carl Bender embodies that good old Missouri saying, “show me.” His knack for questioning things often taken for granted has led to exciting results. Quantum physics is formulated in terms of a set of axioms that are physical and have an experimental basis. All axioms, it turns out,...