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(02/21/19 10:59am)
If I am honest with you, the author of this work is everything I’ve ever wanted to be: a smart, paid and recognized writer who addresses issues of race in her writing without being beholden to them (and who has a solid plan B for a career, just in case). In this debut collection of short stories, Nafissa Thompson-Spires draws a broad swath of characters, who also happen to be people of color, who encounter a variety of challenges. There’s the woman who lives for likes on Facebook; the university professor who struggles to assert authority over a shared office space; a woman who has a romantic fetish for amputees; an anime-based cosplayer at a convention; and feuding mothers who attack each others’ children with ongoing epistolary insults. The literary plain is so rich! And the verisimilitude so plausible! In one work alone, Thompson-Spires addresses the sometimes brutal confrontation between the 21st century desire to be well adjusted and to appear well-adjusted on social media; the weight of code-switching many people of color encounter as we/they navigate personal/social circles and professional/educational ones and the general quirks and eccentricities of a people that is as diverse as any other.
I should probably call the author by her first name, “Nafissa,” as we’ve met and occasionally chat on social media. Nafissa and I coincided at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She was shy and (lovingly) awkward in person, her social skill failing to convey what would come next as the United States’ “ideal” protagonists of “success” are often effusively extroverted and take up a good deal of space.
At that time, I didn’t know I was in the company of genius. I also didn’t know that “Nafissa” was also “Dr. Thompson-Spires,” that the book she released would be chosen for Oprah’s Best Books of 2018 or that she would be interviewed regarding her writing on Late Night with Seth Meyers. Since the time we met at a bus stop on Wright Street a handful of years ago, Nafissa has publicly launched a writing career with a strong foundation.
Part of what’s special about her writing is that it both casually and aggressively eschews the use of caricatures and stock characters. Twentieth century consumers of media have certainly encountered enough of those when it comes to representations of African Americans. See “magical Negro,” “mammy,” “Sambo,” et al. There’s an entire Wikipedia page dedicated to the topic: “Stereotypes of African Americans.” She takes characters who are “queer” (in the retro, retro sense of the word) and demonstrates that they, too, exist within communities of color and also experience the crises of identity that have been regularly afforded to the dominant culture. She diversifies diversity, an effort creators and people of color have long wanted to see forwarded.
I listened to this work as an audiobook on go/overdrive/ as, at this point in my life, moments of multitasking allow me to get slightly more done this way. I move through texts faster, but I imagine I retain less. I recommend this work to people with seemingly conflicting identities holed up in one body. For example, if you’re both a ballerina and a boxer or a fitness guru and a junk food fiend. Thompson-Spires’ works explore the less visible personalities that exist among the extremes. For more titles like this one, see Carmen Maria Machado’s “Her Body and Other Parties” (which I have yet to read), “The Ways of White Folks” by Langston Hughes or “The Complete Short Stories” by Zora Neale Hurston.
Literatures & Cultures Librarian Katrina Spencer is liaison to the Anderson Freeman Center, the Arabic Department, the Comparative Literature Program, the Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies (GSFS) Program, the Language Schools, the Linguistics Program and the Department of Luso-Hispanic Studies.
(02/14/19 10:57am)
The life of French impressionist Georges Seurat, and that of his great-great-grandson George, served as the backdrop for a cast of 22 Middlebury College students and members of the Middlebury community to showcase their talents on the stage and behind it in the J-term musical “Sunday in the Park with George,” which ran Friday, Jan. 25 through Monday, Jan. 28.
Now in its fourteenth year, the collaborative production between college students and the Town Hall Theater put on a unique and impressive performance showcasing talented singers and actors enhanced by compelling technological elements.
Playwright James Lapine and composer Stephen Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park with George” tells a fictionalized story of Seurat, his love interest Dot, their daughter Marie and their great-great-grandson George, an artist who works with light and video rather than canvas. The story shines a light on how a devotion to art can isolate the people who create it and depicts men deciding how much they are willing to sacrifice for their work.
“The core of the show is about finding beauty in the most ordinary things and being reminded why we create art,” said Zach Varricchione ’21, who played George.
The J-term musical had its first run in 2004, when Doug Anderson of the Town Hall Theater and Carol Christensen, an affiliate artist with the college, collaborated to allow students to perform musical theater with faculty guidance. In order to involve as many students as possible, Anderson and Christensen choose musicals with large casts and choral numbers.
The musical poses a challenge because of the limited rehearsal time frame — students began rehearsing music with Christensen at the end of the fall semester and staged the show in J-term, giving the performers, directors and stage managers only three weeks to successfully produce a full musical. The particular difficulty of Sondheim musicals made this year’s musical uniquely tricky, but they managed to accomplish it regardless.
“You’re working from the first day as hard as you can. There’s no sitting back; it requires an amazing amount of professionalism from the cast, and we’ve really seen it with this company,” Anderson said. “This is one of the most challenging musicals to do in any situation; to do it in J-term is a challenge that they really rose to.”
The J-term musical provides a unique opportunity for the town and college to come together: in fact, most members of the sold-out audiences at “Sunday in the Park” were community members, not students.
“I feel like we connect with the town through the shows,” said Ashley Fink ’19, who played the role of Dot in half of the performances.
The community responded positively when the musical was first introduced over a decade ago and has continued to show support.
“Students and audiences responded enthusiastically — it’s a great town and gown opportunity — and Doug and I have been committed to doing a musical with historical significance, or which has a strong message, ever since,” Christensen said.
“Sunday in the Park” provided a musical hurdle for the cast to overcome.
“The music is really hard, this show is so unexpected, it’s gorgeous, but it’s really hard work and it takes a lot of diligence and practice,” said Olivia Christie ’19, who also played Dot.
Several other cast members remarked that the music was difficult to learn and required time-consuming effort to master. However, on the stage, the “disjunct melodic lines,” as Christensen put it, didn’t appear to be a challenge to the performers at all. Although the music may have been, as she also noted, difficult to hum on the way out of the theater, audiences were left instead to ponder on the themes of the show and the beautiful, skillful voices of its cast.
“[Sondheim is] a very tricky and even controversial composer because some of his music is so out there and difficult to learn,” said Will Koch ’21, who played Jules, a fellow artist and a condescending critic of Seurat’s work. “That being said, when you do learn it and really get it down, the end result is wonderful, particularly the ensemble numbers.”
This year’s J-term musical also made liberal use of technology to augment the performances, from a visual digital representation of Seurat’s dotted painting and drawing style to a massive projection of “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” before which the characters stood completing the scene, to the “Chromolume” animation created by Kyle Meredith ’19.
The “Chromolume,” an art piece by great-great-grandson George, combined the principles of color from Seurat’s work with modern technology and science about color theory — the animation, Christensen mentioned that Anderson said, was “alone worth the price of admission.”
Over a decade of producing impressive musicals in an even more impressive time span have made Douglas and Christensen spectacular curators of talented performers, evocative shows and community revelry. “Sunday in the Park” proved no different.
And their performers feel the same significance; as Koch noted, “Putting on a show of this caliber is a great feeling, and performing it in front of a sold-out house for every show is really spectacular.”
(01/24/19 10:58am)
At the Scott Center for Spiritual and Religious Life, we applaud the initiative to reduce the amount of meat consumption on campus. Not only is the goal of reducing our consumption by 30% good for the environment, which we heartily support, but it is also a step in the right direction to making food choices at Middlebury more inclusive of a diverse population of students, staff and faculty with different religious and non-religious observances and worldviews.
Many religions, traditions, and worldviews put a limit on the consumption of meat in one way or another. Some people consider their choice to not eat meat or any animal products part of their spiritual or ethical worldview, regardless of their religious or non-religious background, whether for environmental, animal rights, or health reasons. Some Hindus, Buddhists and Jains do not consume meat at all in accordance with their belief in not-harming sentient beings. Some Christians restrict the consumption of meat in their diets at certain times of year like Lent, and some Christian groups like Seventh Day Adventists also lean vegetarian. Muslims and Jews limit their meat consumption to certain kinds of meat, and then even further to meat of the acceptable kind that has been slaughtered in a certain way. Because access to Halal and Kosher meat is not the norm in the dining halls, students observing these dietary restrictions are also vegetarian by default for most of the time they dine at Middlebury.
The increased focus on vegetarian meals will hopefully provide more substantial vegetarian options for those observing these kinds of dietary restrictions. In addition to using the money saved to purchase more sustainably grown meat for when it is served, Dining Services might also consider using some of those savings to provide properly prepared Halal and Kosher meat more frequently.
Religious traditions and philosophical world views have always taught that our food choices reflect our values, and that being mindful of what we eat brings holiness to this everyday act. Thank you to EatReal, the Environmental Affairs Committee, the SGA, and Dining Services for bringing this consciousness to our food at Middlebury.
(01/24/19 10:57am)
WATERBURY — Ben & Jerry’s, every ice cream lover’s guilty pleasure, was sued by the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) on the grounds of false advertising in July of 2018. Anyone who has eaten Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is familiar with the company’s iconic happy cow imagery that evokes a hippie, social justice-oriented and green marketing platform. But what they probably don’t know is that this platform might not be completely warranted.
The OCA recently tested 11 flavors of Ben & Jerry’s most popular ice cream flavors, including Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, The Tonight Dough and Chocolate Fudge Brownie, for an herbicide called glyphosate. Glyphosate is found in Monsanto’s weed killer, Roundup, which has been banned in many countries due to research that has shown it is a “probable human carcinogen.” The results of the study, published by New York Times, showed all 11 flavors except Cherry Garcia tested positive for the herbicide.
While the company avoids implying that the lawsuit unfairly targets them, a recent statement released by Ben & Jerry’s attempts to put the OCA’s results into context. Many other everyday food items and products on the market, including organic whole wheat bread and whole grain oat breakfast cereal, have tested much higher for glyphosate than Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. The page also cites both the Health Research Institute Laboratories’ comment that the amounts of glyphosate found “would seem totally irrelevant,” as well as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s claim that it would take inordinate amounts of glyphosate to affect a child.
The lawsuit also accuses Ben & Jerry’s of overstating their commitment to high animal welfare standards. Such advertising has historically brought in a loyal, niche consumer base. The company’s “Caring Dairy” program that sets standards for the treatment of their cows is commendable in theory. However, in reality — according to the OCA and Regeneration Vermont — only about 25% of the farms from which Ben & Jerry’s receives milk actually adhere to the standards.
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]40 to 79% of the phosphorus and nitrogen pollution in Vermont’s waterways comes from dairy farms. And, almost all of the pesticide pollution comes from these dairies.[/pullquote]
The milk and cream that Ben & Jerry’s uses for their beloved flavors of ice cream are sourced from a co-op in St. Albans City, Vermont that combines milk received from both local organic dairy farms and large factory-style dairy farms. These factory-style dairy farms use Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) that might speed up the process of getting milk, but do not fall in line with the set standards.
Protestors also claim mega-dairies in Vermont that supply large companies like Cabot and Ben & Jerry’s are polluting lakes and streams. Lake Champlain is one of 100 waterways now labeled as “impaired” according to Regeneration Vermont, a non-profit organization based in Walden, Vermont. The organization’s site states that “40 to 79% of the phosphorus and nitrogen pollution in Vermont’s waterways comes from dairy farms. And, almost all of the pesticide pollution comes from these dairies.”
The Middlebury Campus reached out to Ben & Jerry’s, however they declined to comment specifically regarding the lawsuit.
“A lot of people aren’t properly educated about many environmental issues that exist and how severe/important addressing these issues are,” said Hannah Gheller ’22. “Education to the masses and translating that into policy change would be important steps in changing this.”
A Ben & Jerry’s factory tour guide, Noel Cramer, spoke on ways that the company attempts to be as green as possible. He noted the wastewater treatment site in Waterbury, Vermont that uses recycled grey water for the factory’s toilets and the anaerobic digester that uses methane and natural gases to generate heat and electricity. He further stressed the evaporative cooling technologies used to chill the ice cream faster, as well as the research being done on alternative packaging. Ultimately, Cramer brought the focus back to Ben & Jerry’s mission statement claiming that for the company, “it’s not just reducing their footprint, but eliminating it” as best they can.
Michael Colby, a Vermont writer and maple syrup producer, wrote in the VTDigger, “If [Ben & Jerry’s] took the lead ... the entire state could begin a transition away from the kind of industrial, commodity-based dairy system that is wreaking so much havoc with Vermont’s agriculture — and culture.”
Several Middlebury College students, frequent consumers of the frozen treats made by Ben & Jerry’s offered their opinions on the Ben & Jerry’s lawsuit.
“It’s definitely something to address, but if a lot of companies’ products contain glyphosate it’s not fair to target them,” said Anna Saviano ’22. “But if you think of it in terms of media coverage, the attention goes a long way and something like this has to start somewhere.”
Max Taxman ’22 agreed that the lawsuit helps to hold companies accountable to their advertising. “[But] it seems more important to target companies that are more significantly impacting the environment,” he said. “You could argue that all non-vegan farm-related industries are bad for the environment, and say that they should all be targeted.”
Taxman speculated that the lawsuit could have a significant impact on Ben & Jerry’s as the company gains a lot of social capital from their environmentally friendly marketing.
“If the claims in the lawsuit are true, this is a major case of corporate greenwashing,” said Van Barth ’21. Whether the lawsuit will actually create any change in the dairy industry, to their ingredients list or to their marketing platform, well, I guess we’ll just have to see.
(01/24/19 10:54am)
To the disgust of most of my friends, I love hamburgers. If you get me talking about food at all, I will almost surely tell you all about the Elk and Bison burger specialties of home, my dad’s collection of photos of a young me trying to eat burgers twice the size of my head, the poverty of the dining hall’s burgers, the right thickness and juiciness of a burger, the various accoutrements that go best with a burger, and what makes a burger great. I would love to break my vegetarian streak for a good burger but, before doing so, I wanted to find out what people’s problem is with our meat here at Middlebury.
There are a lot of well supported reasons to go vegan or vegetarian. None of these are mine. Yet, as one whose friends fall overwhelmingly in those two categories, I have become familiar with many acceptable reasons to avoid meat. There are moral reasons, for example, not to kill or to exploit animals which can, and have, lead to interesting philosophical discussions of souls, violence, and like. There are often forgotten practical religious reasons for being vegetarian; when starved for kosher and halal options, vegetarian options may become an acceptable alternative. And there are environmental arguments for reducing meat consumption of which I have heard both challenges and impassioned defenses.
My motivation to be a vegetarian, on the other hand, is far from reasonable. Whether it was to prove that I can deny myself meat, to better understand vegetarians, an amusement at my own whims, or perhaps a secret desire to prove that vegetarianism at Middlebury isn’t worth all the complaints it receives, I am not sure. All the same, on January 4, 2019, I gave up meat for a month with the vague thought of a bloody carnivorous celebration on February 1.
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]I have also come to realize that it’s not so difficult to be a vegetarian.[/pullquote]
I quickly came to realize that my friend was right, being vegetarian “for the heck of it” is not the most compelling reason for such an undertaking and one does, in fact, need a good amount of motivation to avoid meat at every meal. Why is it that not one but both entrées at lunch and dinner include meat by default? I had, as I imagine many have, heard ad nauseam the complaint that there are not enough vegetarian options but little did I appreciate that one’s daily meat-free options amount to bad tofu, rice, pasta, salad, or soup. Meanwhile, everyone else is enjoying their steaks, their stews, their hamburgers, their lamb, their gyros, their chicken (in so many different forms!), their salmon and fish, their hot dogs, their pepperoni pizzas, their meat-lovers’ pizzas, their other not-cheese pizzas, their antipasti salads (with chicken, or bacon, or ham, or seafood), and the list goes on. The options for vegans are even more limited: a large amount of the vegetarian options include cheese (in our rice? Really?) or cream. It’s not that vegetarians can’t eat at Middlebury, the problem is that they are subjected to a Spartan dining experience in dining halls ranked #14 on Best Value School’s Best Dining Halls of 2017-2018. That seems ridiculous.
I have also come to realize that it’s not so difficult to be a vegetarian. Admittedly, I’ve taken the easiest possible route. I didn’t start until I left home, so I never had to ask my family to accommodate me. Eating out, I’ve been almost entirely with one or another vegetarian or vegan friend so I know I never have to ask for special consideration with them either. I’m only committed to vegetarianism for a month, making the effort more a postponement rather than a rejection of a meat-based diet. I don’t even advocate for the lifestyle. Try as I might, I have yet to be wholly convinced of the need or even the benefit of being vegan or vegetarian. But, admitting that there may be real health benefits, to ourselves or to our planet, or moral implications or any other benefit of not eating meat once in a while, perhaps it makes sense to hedge out bets and eat a little less meat. Heck! We eat 1.5 times the recommended daily protein per person at this school just via meat.
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]What if our meal plans didn’t require we eat meat?[/pullquote]
This is not a call to be a vegan monk. This is not another recommendation to watch Food Inc., or read such-and-such book about animals. But what if our meal plans didn’t require we eat meat? What if it was an option, like pizza in Ross or ice cream in Proctor? The problem is not about having more vegetarian and vegan options; it’s about making meat and animal products options. We should have the choice to choose not to eat something without sacrificing our dining experience, the diversity of our cuisine, or the ability to routinely enjoy eating on campus. As a meat-lover, wing-Wednesday-devotee, and burger-connoisseur, I, for one, am thrilled to see the new meat mitigation efforts and hope we all, vegans and carnivores alike, can continue to talk about how to have an accessible, productive, and well-crafted dining experience.
(01/17/19 10:57am)
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BURLINGTON — The fifth annual Purrrses for Paws event is set to take place on Thursday, Feb. 7 at the Burlington International Airport. Hosted by the Humane Society of Chittenden County (HSCC), the event aims to raise funds for their animal shelter in South Burlington. New and ‘like-new’ purses, clutches and handbags will be auctioned off at the fundraiser, where ticket-holders can also purchase raffle tickets for a chance to win an emerald ring valued at $8,000. Tickets for the event are on sale for $30 and can be purchased through HSCC’s website, chittendenhumane.org.
Powered by over 200 volunteers and a small staff, HSCC was founded in 1901 by June and Herb Davis and has grown tremendously since. Today, HSCC serves Chittenden and Grand Isle counties, taking in and caring for 974 animals in 2018. The Purrrses for Paws event has reflected the shelter’s growth.
“Our first Purrrses for Paws raised around $18,000,” said Erin Alamed, Director of Volunteer and Community Outreach at HSCC. “In the last two years we have raised between $40,000 and $50,000 at the event. It has grown significantly in the way we’re executing the event, the event’s location and the purse options, and we are honing in on what’s working and what isn’t.”
As a nonprofit organization receiving no city, state or federal funding, HSCC depends entirely on donations from the community.
“We are constantly asking a lot from the community, and most of our donations come from one-on-one donor support,” said Diana Hill, director of development for HSCC. “We have our annual campaign fund that is always requiring gifts, but we also have specific funds that we always want to keep full so that we can do everything we do, both here at the shelter and in the community.”
Though a large percent of HSCC funds go toward veterinary bills, money is also needed to keep facilities in order and to provide food and other amenities for the shelter’s animals. The impact of Purrrses for Paws extends beyond monetary support, however.
“The events we host spread the word about our mission to people attending, people who might not be familiar with what we do,” Alamed said. “We try to incorporate an educational aspect into it and try to tie the event back to our mission.”
Right now, that mission is the accessible education of animal treatment. “If we educate people early on, hopefully we will put ourselves out of business,” said Alamed. “Hopefully we will soon turn into something different, but for now it’s about education and figuring out the best way to care for animals.”
The effects of this mission are seen in HSCC’s army of volunteers. Carrie Prat, a self-proclaimed animal lover, began volunteering in May 2018 after she and her husband adopted two cats from the shelter.
“I felt like working full-time didn’t allow me to express my volunteer self. I really wanted a consistent volunteering opportunity,” said Prat. “I have had such a great experience adopting animals from HSCC, and I wanted to help out even more.”
Volunteering in a facility that services 50 to 75 animals at any given time, Prat quickly observed the commitment of HSCC’s volunteers and staff. “I have learned how dedicated the staff and volunteers are,” she said. “Everyone works so hard to keep things going. It’s a 365-day job; it’s not something that ever stops.”
The importance of volunteers is not exclusive to the shelter’s daily runnings. Purrrses for Paws requires a massive volunteer effort as well.
“We don’t have a large expense for these events,” Alamed explained. “All of the people who will be working Purrrses for Paws are volunteers, except myself. We couldn’t do events like these without our volunteers.”
With the Feb. 7 event quickly approaching, the staff is busy planning the event and preparing the purses. “We have about 300 people come to bid on new and like-new purses,” said Hill. “I just sat through my first purse processing meeting.”
With excitement building as the date draws nearer, the shelter’s staff and volunteers look forward to another interaction with the people who allow HSCC’s goals to become reality. While preparing, however, the staff and volunteers at HSCC will continue to evolve their operation.
“Events have changed, staffing has changed, and [they] will continue to change over the next hundred and twenty years or so,” said Alamed. “We are always learning new things about how to enrich our animals, the processes that are working for some organizations and not for others, demographics, animals we’re taking in, adoption rates, all of that.”
(01/17/19 10:55am)
My mom tells me all the time that I need another jacket like I need a hole in my head.
They’re my favorite item of clothing to wear because they’re stylish, comfortable and can be layered on top of other clothing. Jackets are my weakness. One jacket that I recently brought back to campus is a wine colored, vegan leather, motorcycle jacket that I bought from ASOS last year. I knew I wanted an edgy addition to my wardrobe and after shopping around for a few weeks, I decided on this jacket because of its textiles.
I personally do not believe in wearing clothes made from animals. Therefore, I was excited to find a moto jacket that was vegan. A quick search online showed me that vegan leather is praised by PETA for being animal friendly and indeed made of alternative materials. I read many news articles pushing vegan leather as the new fashion wave that every animal lover should buy.
At the time, I had no clue what vegan leather really meant; what standards a company had to follow, what substitute materials were used and which organization regulated this process were all lost to me. I was simply lured in by the “vegan” label and idea of being a conscientious consumer. I later learned that this was not completely true.
Instead of animal hides, vegan leather is usually made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polyurethane (PU) and other textile-polymers. Chemicals — goody. Vegan leather, or faux leather, is manufactured through a process in which plastic-based synthetics are mixed, burned and pressed before being attached to a fabric backing.
This process releases dioxins, which are extremely dangerous to not only the workers creating these garments but to the environment as well.
Dioxins are chemical compounds classified as persistent organic pollutants. These chemicals are not biodegradable. Because synthetic and mixed fabrics are much more difficult and expensive to recycle, these garments are often being thrown out with the rest of our waste — which further allows these dioxins to enter our environment.
While some designers are using more natural materials to make their vegan leather, many are not.
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]One win for animal protection comes at the expense of human and environmental safety. [/pullquote]
Since I was young, I have noticed the debate around animal use in cosmetics and fashion. But I find it concerning that even though this has been a long-term battle, we still haven’t found a solution. It seems that everything is a compromise and in this case, one win for animal protection comes at the expense of human and environmental safety.
I believe this is another deviation between marketing and consumer knowledge. I am constantly seeing topics such as animal cruelty, social justice and environmentalism incorporated into marketing campaigns. I feel that in today’s society where being “woke” is the cool and honorable thing to do, consumers are more likely to buy whatever labels will help them do so.
I am guilty of this.
I saw “vegan leather” in the product description and instantly got a warm, tingly feeling as I added my the jacket to my online shopping cart. I thought I had done my job as a good human being. It was only after I had explored several articles and gotten past the PETA homepage that I realized there was a serious problem with what the textiles companies were marketing to us.
Over the course of writing The Lookbook, and my shopping addiction, I think I’ve learned a lot about the fashion industry and consumerism. But I’m always surprised at how much I’m still learning.
Being a conscientious consumer is difficult and time-consuming. It is also a process that is not yet perfect. However, what I learned from this purchase was to do your research extensively and not to be lured in by a product description you don’t fully understand.
(11/29/18 11:00am)
As Professor of Computer Science Daniel Scharstein sees it, writing a computer program requires just as much intellectual creativity as writing an English essay or proving a mathematical theorem.
When Scharstein first encountered the discipline as a teenager, “that was the thing that blew me away,” he said. “You have this power — you have this computer that does your bidding.”
“You can concoct whatever you want,” he said.
With boundary-pushing innovations in computer science filling headlines every day, the role of computer science (CS) as a means of bringing about change seems both exciting and endless. And at Middlebury, surging interest in the discipline has caused the department to grow rapidly, and prompted the institution to begin remaking the campus to accommodate it.
On Middlebury’s campus, there are around 160 declared CS majors. This statistic is even more impressive when compared to the previous decade when there was an average of seven graduating CS majors per year. This ranks CS as the second-largest major on campus, after Economics.
Course enrollment has grown tremendously, too. A decade ago, the computer science faculty taught an average of 210 students per year. This past year’s total enrollment rose to over 1000 students, with an additional rise to about 1150 expected by 2020.
Middlebury students and faculty have designed complex computer programs capable of drawing and animating pictures on the screen, solving computational puzzles and detecting dangerous and abnormal crowd behavior using computer vision techniques. But Middlebury faculty also emphasize the basics — Scharstein reasoned that, far from being a vocational field of study, computing is a basic skill, just like reading, writing and arithmetic.
“I honestly think everyone should take an intro to CS class,” said Aiko Hassett ’20, a computer science major. “Technology is becoming such a huge part of our daily lives,” Hassett observed, that simply knowing the basics of computer science can help one gain “some fresh creative insights” and a better understanding of how our society works.
“[Programming] trains your brain in another way of thinking,” Scharstein said. “You learn how to put lines together that put these computations together for you. [Computing] teaches you precision — one missing semicolon and your code won’t run,” he said. “But it’s also an art.” A single code could be written in a hundred different ways, each resulting in a different solution with its own unique pros and cons.
“Coding, for me, is like a completely new language,” said Emely Zeledon ’20. “When I approach a problem, I have to first stop and plan out every single step that I'll have to take to get to the final solution. You have to be methodical yet concise and that's a skill that is valuable in many careers.”
A Molecular Biology and Biochemistry major, Zeledon noted that CS is integral in the field of molecular biology and biochemistry, as it is in many others, because of “its ability to make algorithms, predict patterns and [organize and interpret] data.”
Professor Matthew Dickerson, who has taught in the CS department at Middlebury for almost 30 years, echoed this view.
“[Computing] doesn’t just mean sitting in front of a terminal writing computer programs,” he said.
Students of CS are discovering an exciting field with computational aspects that extend into not only the sciences, but also art, music, history and economics, Dickerson explained.
The data supports this observation, too. In the Fall 2017 Student Profile released by Middlebury’s Office of Assessment and Institutional Research, more than a third of the 101 declared computer science majors also double-majored in another discipline.
Thea Bean ’19 took one of the department’s introductory courses, Computing for the Sciences, because she wanted to become a more well-rounded scientist. She believes that her background in both biology and coding was what had helped her get a job this past summer.
With larger enrollments, however, come changes in dynamics both in the classroom and in the department. In introductory classes, for example, faculty are tasked with accommodating students with vastly different levels of CS experience. Some have taken advanced computing courses in high school, while others have next to no prior exposure to the field.
“The professors somewhat struggled to teach in a way that challenged every level,” Bean said.
Compared to students with previous knowledge and experience in CS, for whom the introductory classes may be only mildly difficult, students without background in the field can find the introductory classes to be quite challenging.
“Success in the class can depend on the student's ability to attend office hours as well as T.A hours,” said Zeledon, citing a common problem faced by students whose packed class and extracurricular schedules get in the way of seeking help outside of the classroom.
Zeledon felt that the level of difficulty in introductory computer science courses has “increased in comparison to past semesters as a function of the spiked interest in CS majors,” reflecting that taking a CS course helped her “feel more comfortable with failure being part of the journey to success.”
The department now has eight full-time faculty on campus, with three joining the team in the past academic year. Even with three new tenure-track lines granted in the last two years, however, the computer science department remains severely short-staffed.
Middlebury’s average faculty to student ratio is one to eight. With more than 1000 students enrolled in CS classes last year and only eight full-time professors on campus to teach those classes, the faculty to student ratio for the CS department is higher than one to 50. Naturally, the department is currently searching for its 11th full-time faculty member.
“We want to serve all the students,” Dickerson said. “But it’s hard with that many students.”
“It’s harder for me to get to know the names of students when there are 30 of them instead of 12,” he admitted. “In a bigger class, there may be students who feel less comfortable asking questions. [During office hours,] if there are 10 students waiting in line for help, one student might not get as much individual help or attention.”
The department employs a full-time Assistant in Instruction, Ruben Gilbert, to aid students — a system that imitates the teaching assistant model commonly found at larger research universities. According to Bean, Gilbert’s help was crucial to her success in the class. “I learned most of what I know from Ruben,” she said.
A larger faculty brings the possibility of offering more electives, and larger student enrollment brings energy to the CS scene at Middlebury, Dickerson said. However, he noted, “it’s easier to create energy when you have a lot of people but harder to create community.”
Student organizations such as Middle Endian and wiCS++, as well as summer research experiences and group projects in classes help build community, Dickerson explained. Middle Endian, whose name is a play on the concept of endianness, the order in which numbers are stored in bytes, aims to foster a sense of community within CS at Middlebury. wiCS++, which stands for women in computer science, aims to create a culture and space for historically underrepresented groups in the field.
The percentage of women CS majors at Middlebury wavers at around 33 percent. Hassett said that the gender distribution in the CS department was better than she originally thought, but noted that “as a woman in STEM, and especially CS, it’s so easy to feel doubtful of your ability,” calling for a community of “females who support, encourage and inspire one another.”
“TIGHT FOR SPACE”
The department’s growth was a major factor behind the construction of the new transitional building on the south side of the parking lot behind Wright Memorial Theater. The new building, expected to be completed in June 2019, will house the CS department and provide office space for other departments, giving the CS department more room to grow and freeing up much-needed lab area for other science departments in McCardell Bicentennial Hall.
“There’s a certain exciting event energy in Bihall,” said Dickerson, but “we are tight for space up there.”
It turns out, however, that this move might bring a couple drawbacks of its own.
“It’ll be a huge blow, as far as I’m concerned,” said Professor of Biology Jeremy Ward of the anticipated relocation.
For Ward, the physical presence of the computer science department in Bihall fosters collaboration between the scientific disciplines.
“I’m not going to see Michael in the elevator again,” he said, referring to Professor Michael Linderman, whose research in genomics overlaps with Ward’s. “Computer science is now fully integrated into every science discipline — I couldn’t do any of the work I do now without computer science,” he said. “But there’s always email.”
Dickerson said he also regrets the move away from colleagues in the sciences. “I will miss the collaborations with other science disciplines and seeing students from other majors in Bihall,” he said. “It’s nice to walk up and down the stairs and see my colleagues in geology or chemistry, and I think it’s nice for students in computer science to interact with other students in other majors.”
A white paper report from the National Academy of Sciences in 2016 suggests that an increase in demand for graduates with quantitative skills is a possible reason for the increase in demand for CS majors.
According to data from the Center for Career and Internships, 11 percent of Middlebury students who graduated in 2017 pursued careers in technology.
“It’s not that there’s ten times as many students who are interested in computer science,” explained Dickerson. “You also get students who do computer science because they think it’ll get them employed.”
But the notion of learning for learning’s sake, a foundational principle of a liberal education, remains alive within the CS department. Dickerson noted that it is not unheard of for students to declare a CS major for practical reasons, only to discover a passion for the discipline further down the line
“I don’t judge their motivations,” Dickerson said. “I’m just here to teach whatever they want to learn.”
(11/29/18 10:58am)
Hirokazu Kore-eda’s 2018 film “Shoplifters” (Manbiki kazoku) illustrates the life of a Japanese family as they navigate life in poverty in contemporary Tokyo. The film was awarded the Palme d’Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival and was screened at the Dana Auditorium as part of the Hirschfield International Series.
As Osamu Shibata (Lily Franky) and his wife Nobuyo (Sakura Ando) have no reliable source of income, the family survives on shoplifting and grandmother Hatsue’s (Kirin Kiki) pension. One evening as Osamu and his son Shota (Kairi Jo) are walking home from the store with their stolen groceries, they discover Juri (Miyu Sasaki), a young girl who they suspect is being abused by her parents. The family proceeds to take Juri in as one of their own.
Every scene is its own concept that presents us with a new palette of rich hues. Shots are long and still, allowing us to take in the many shades unfolding in front of us that shift from cool to warm to reflect changes in mood and atmosphere. Kore-eda’s visuals are so captivating by themselves that merely sitting in the auditorium feels gluttonous.
Equally enchanting is the realism of the film’s set design. The family’s miniscule apartment looks so lived-in that it is difficult to think of it as artificial. Whether it be empty cardboard boxes stacked in the kitchen or the sitting cushions scattered across the floor, the positioning of every piece of clutter seems essential. As the family sits around the low table in their ramshackle living room, the slurping of noodles dominates the soundscape. Conversation is sporadic and loosely scripted. Reminiscent of Hayao Miyazaki’s animations, Kore-eda makes the most mundane of events feel charming. There is nothing excessive here.
Despite its elegant visuals, “Shoplifters” makes no excuses for the family’s outlandishness. Aside from their kleptomaniac tendencies, their internal dynamics are questionable. Shota, Osamu and Nobuyo repeatedly negotiate whether the boy is “ready” to call them his parents. Furthermore, as Aki (Mayu Matsuoka) is pictured comforting clients at her job at a Tokyo sex club, it is clear that her idea of genuine intimacy is skewed. There seems to be little difference in her interactions with the men that pass through the chat room and the way in which she talks to her grandmother. By not explaining these quirks Kore-eda maintains a steady ironic distance between his characters and the audience, thus adding yet another dimension to an already complex film.
It is this obscurity that leads us to consider the film’s central questions. Although we know that Juri has been forcefully taken from her biological parents, it is difficult to convince yourself that she belongs with anyone else. As Nobuyo and Juri compare burn scars on their grimy bathroom floor, the sense of genuine care for one another is undeniable. Blurring the lines between right and wrong, “Shoplifters” makes us step outside conventional definitions and ask ourselves what really defines a family.
Taking into account that Osamu and Nobuyo essentially kidnapped Juri with little apprehension, it should come as no surprise that it is not the only morally questionable act the two have committed. After Shota is caught shoplifting by store clerks and the family’s past is revealed to us, the truth unfolds faster than we can even begin to process it. In contrast to the steady, harmonious scenes that have built our trust in the family over the course of the film, flashes of interrogations, police badges and their empty apartment leave us to fill the gaps in ourselves.
Perhaps this is exactly what makes the film so taxing to follow. Kore-eda repeatedly reminds us that our assumptions and conclusions are of no relevance, and that his film is not intended to be comfortable. “Shoplifters” operates on its own plane and on its own terms. It demands to be seen not as a piece of entertainment, but as a sharp analysis of the most basic unit of society.
Watching “Shoplifters” is as much a cerebral experience as it is a visual one: the film is relentlessly focused and expects nothing less from its audience. With his skilled direction and the poignant questions that the film raises, Kore-eda creates a grip that holds us still for a full two hours.
(11/29/18 10:57am)
Seven women have filed a class action lawsuit alleging that Dartmouth College allowed sexual misconduct by three former professors to continue for over a decade. The $70 million lawsuit, filed in the state on New Hampshire on Nov. 15, involved actions by professors Todd Heatherton, William Kelley and Paul Whalen in Dartmouth’s Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. The plaintiffs argue that professors perpetrated a culture that resembled a “21st Century Animal House.”
Professors are accused of inviting students to late-night hot tub parties at private residences, holding lab meetings at bars and encouraging an atmosphere of heavy drinking. These actions were accompanied by numerous allegations of sexual advances by the three professors towards graduate students who depended upon the professors’ academic support.
[pullquote speaker="ROGER DAI '20" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]I don’t know if the administration buried the accusations, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they did. And that’s deeply troubling.[/pullquote]
According to The Washington Post, Kristina Rapuano, one of the plaintiffs, claims that Whalen sent her a text message one night telling her to come back to his office. Once she arrived, he allegedly turned off the lights and began touching her.
Plaintiffs argue that this was an open secret in the college, in the town of Hanover, and at conferences, and that these three professors had an established reputation as predators. Dartmouth officials released a statement saying they “applaud the courage” displayed by the women who came forward, but asserting that the college disagrees “with the characterizations of Dartmouth’s actions in the complaint”
Middlebury’s current sexual assault policy claims that the college “will take reasonable, prompt and appropriate action” in the event of sexual misconduct. This sexual misconduct is defined as “sexual assault, domestic and dating violence and misconduct, stalking and related retaliation.” Discipline for employees, based on the severity of the actions, includes “discipline for employees such as written reprimands, salary freezes (faculty) or termination of employment.” A criminal investigation may be opened at the complainant’s discretion.
Dartmouth claims adherence to a similar policy, and writes that they are “committed to the safety and wellbeing of every member of our community.” However, the alleged disregard of sexual assault claims on Dartmouth’s campus would speak otherwise.
“I don’t know if the administration buried the accusations, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they did. And that’s deeply troubling,” said Roger Dai ’20, a Middlebury student currently spending a year at Dartmouth.
At the annual Cognitive Neuroscience Society conference in March 2015, Rapuano claims that Kelley raped her after a night of drinking, the New York Times reported. The morning after, Kelley told Rapuano that they had had sex two times, after which Rapuano began panicking. Rapuano has no recollection of leaving the bar.
Rapuano, among others, attempted to gain distance from Kelley by engaging in a fellowship overseas. She says that Kelley started punishing her academically for refusing his advances. Annemarie Brown also claims that Kelley reacted in the same way regarding her advising. Andrea Courtney similarly recounts that Whalen abandoned advising her after she tried to distance herself from him.
The first complaint against one of the three professors, Heatherton, was filed in 2002. The lawsuit alleges that the college has continued to ignore complaints for almost sixteen years.
A months-long Title IX investigation began in 2017 after several complaints were lodged against the professors. Dartmouth allegedly told women who launched complaints to continue to work for the professors for the next four months, warning the women that academic retaliation may result from refusing the professors. In that time, graduate student Vassiki Chaahan, a plaintiff, was sexually assaulted.
In October 2018, a criminal investigation was opened by the New Hampshire Attorney General and is still ongoing.
As the Title IX investigation progressed, Dartmouth instigated the rarely-used process required to fire tenured professors. Before this was put into effect, however, Whalen and Kelley resigned, and Heatherton retired. The three professors are now banned from Dartmouth’s campus and any Dartmouth-sponsored events, and cannot be rehired by the university.
Heatherton’s attorney has denied involvement in the scandal, claiming that the plaintiffs were not his students and were only involved with the other two professors. Heatherton did not participate in any of the parties and did not drink with underage students, he claims, and Heatherton’s lab meetings did not involve alcohol.
The New York Times reported that Sasha Brietzke, one of the plaintiffs, claims that Heatherton pulled her onto his lap at a conference in March 2017 during a karaoke night and asked her about her plans for the night. Brietzke immediately left the establishment in shock.
Heatherton publicly apologized for touching a graduate student while intoxicated in 2017, claiming that the act was not sexual. He also maintains that any hiring for labs was done by a female assistant, focusing on skills and experience instead of appearance.
(11/15/18 10:58am)
This week I am featuring one of my favorite coats. I have had it for a few years now, but I love wearing it every winter. The GUESS coat is all black on the outside with a faux fur lapel and glossy snake print sleeves. The inside of the coat is lined with leopard print. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that it doesn’t keep me very warm during the dead of winter, but it’s stylish and I like it so I wear it anyway. Despite being mostly black, this coat has a lot of textures and patterns that stand out. Faux fur, leopard and snake prints are common trends we see pop in fashion again and again, but it wasn’t until recently that I started to wonder why.
When I went abroad last spring in Cameroon, something my friends and I enjoyed doing was going to the markets and see the different pagnes we could buy. Pagnes are fabrics that are typically vibrant or intricate in design, but there’s more to them than just their aesthetics. I learned that many patterns have significant historical and cultural meanings. Learning this made me curious about the possible historical or cultural significance behind the designs and patterns we have in the United States. So, looking at my black coat, I wanted to explore some of the history behind animal-inspired prints and features.
Leopard print, which is the bold feature hidden inside the coat, has a long history of being incorporated into fashion. Often associated with flashy, promiscuous and/or tacky personalities, leopard print has been a popular and recurring trend. When I was in Cameroon, we learned that people didn’t just wear these sacred prints for fashion, but because the animals and patterns themselves are sacred. While visiting a chefferie (village or kingdom) in Bangoulap, Cameroon, we learned the process by which kings and animals found each other and exchanged powers. Each king would find their own totem that would represent them in life, beginning with a sacred ceremony marking the transition from prince to king. These animals ranged from elephants and cheetahs to snakes and leopards. It was believed that the kings could transform into these animals when necessary and that the animals represented the powers that kings had. Therefore, to wear the hide of an animal was not only a sign of wealth and prestige, it was a sign of great power that only the nobles had. I remember sitting in the throne room with other Middlebury students surrounded by leopard print and leopard items everywhere, since that was the totem of Bapa’s king. Keeping the animal close signifies the animal’s importance to the person and the power it possesses.
So, how did it end up the inside lining of my coat? I find that prints, like many trends in fashion, travel. African cultures aren’t the only ones to associate animal features with nobles or spiritual figures. Greek, Egyptian and Chinese religions and mythologies have all historically used animals when depicting important figures. Fashion trends travel across time and place and change the more they move.
So I am not surprised that what in one place and time of the world was considered sacred is in another simply a polyester material for the inside of my coat. Or the outside of my sleeves. Fashion borrows, steals and appropriates from itself all the time and I find that along the way many things lose their meaning. While animal prints in the United States have had a long life as a fashion staple, the connotations we assign to them are interesting. The animal print that the Bangoulap community saw as a representation of their king, westerners see and think about the Real Housewives of New Jersey. Everytime I put on my coat, I think about what the animal prints on it mean stylistically here at Midd but also what they would have meant had I been wearing them back in Cameroon. One thing I learned from going abroad is that prints can be vibrant ways to express yourself and stand out, but they can also have tremendous significance and shouldn’t be taken lightly.
(11/15/18 10:57am)
CORNWALL — Cheryl and Marc Cesario have been managing their beef cattle farm, Meeting Place Pastures, since 2009. The couple bought their first property and expanded in 2016, both with the help of the Vermont Land Trust. Today, in addition to these two properties, the couple rents land around Middlebury. They graze 35 beef cattle for Middlebury College every year, a portion of the 90 cattle the college purchases annually.
In contrast to the rurality of Vermont, the Cesarios grew up in suburbia. Marc first developed his interest in farming at the University of Massachusetts (UMass), where he studied Environmental Science. He recalled how, at the time, “mainstream environmentalism seemed to sort of take the humans out of the ecosystem.
“It was always an ‘us versus them’ thing, which didn’t meld with my vision,” Marc said.
He wondered if “maybe it would be better if we viewed ourselves as part of the ecosystem.” Rather than seeing farms as inherently bad, Marc wanted to figure out how to make farms part of the solution.
He left UMass after his freshman year and got a job at a vegetable farm in Amherst. “When I took that job, I was a vegetarian,” Marc said. “I ended up being there for about ten years. After about four or five years, I managed everything on the farm that had to do with livestock. So, I was able to start debt-free and rent-free.”
“The debt came later,” Cheryl joked. She explained the challenges that came with starting their own farm.
“The trouble is, when you want to go buy a farm, it’s really difficult if you don’t have a lot of assets,” she said. “Anything that was somewhat decent, with a livable house and a facility that was standing, was off the bat about a half a million dollars.”
For years, she would look online for opportunities. Finally, she found the property that they currently farm. They started as a diversified operation – “meat birds, a lot of pigs, not very many cows.”
About four or five years ago, around the time when their daughter Normandy was born, they shifted their focus exclusively to cows.
“We looked into custom or contract grazing, which is pretty much summer camp for cows,” Marc explained. “We have three or four different clients, who send us cattle… and we get paid per animal per day [to graze them here]. Before, we were trying to sell meat to customers. Now, we’re selling grass to a different customer.”
Cheryl and Marc described how they simulate natural conditions for the cows. The farmers act as predators, keeping the cattle moving across the landscape with temporary fencing. This prevents the cows from overgrazing and allows them to stay in herds.
Marc described the “benefit to the animal, benefit to the land, and benefit to our wallets” that comes from their management style. “The cow is going out there, and harvesting its own forage, as opposed to us cutting that forage and using fuel and equipment and labor to bring that feed to a cow in a barn,” he said. “And then that cow is depositing its own urine and manure on the field, instead of us having to use fuel and labor to collect it from the barn and put that back out on the fields.”
However, Marc continued, “unfortunately, over the last fifty or sixty years, a lot of animals have been bred for not pasture-rearing. They’ve been bred to function on grain, or with mechanical harvesting, or with a lot of individual treatment, particularly in the dairy world. Everyone is focusing on weight gain, and that has geared breeding practices and protocols.”
“We’re trying to, in our own way, modify the gene pool for a more vigorous herd,” Cheryl said.
“We’re creating an environment for the animal to be an animal, and hopefully in twenty years, they can fend for themselves for the most part, beyond the daily moves,” Marc added.
The Cesarios see themselves as more than just beef producers. Marc believes his main job is to make sure the solar energy, nutrient, water and carbon cycles are functioning within their ecosystem. He posits that managing beef is almost the byproduct of the aforementioned work.
[pullquote speaker="MARC CESARIO" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]Mainstream environmentalism seemed to sort of take the humans out of the ecosystem. It was always an ‘us versus them’ thing, which didn’t meld with my vision.[/pullquote]
They explained how they maintain a diversity of healthy grasses, and manage for deep roots, in order to sequester carbon in their soil. Cheryl also noted that perennial plants decrease runoff and increase water infiltration.
“If all the agricultural soils in the world worked on increasing organic matter in the soil by one percent, we could reduce the amount of carbon in the air to preindustrial levels. That’s not hard at all,” Marc explained.
Meeting Place Pastures has increased the total carbon levels in their soil over the past 10 years by 150 percent. “And that’s just by managing for deep roots,” Marc said.
“What we’re seeing these days is droughts and flooding, droughts and flooding. Let’s heal our soils to be able to hold onto that water so we don’t have this flooding,” he said.
An energy audit conducted by the University of Vermont found that Meeting Place Pastures was carbon neutral on the production side. They are also a net zero greenhouse gas emitter. “This is not a case of doing less bad, this is a case of doing more good,” the pair concluded.
Marc spoke to how the management of the cows, specifically with regard to the use of fossil fuels, is a significant culprit of environmental damage. The couple acknowledged that there are many beef farms doing harm, raising “so-called grass-fed beef.” “It’s challenging. How is the customer supposed to know?” Marc said.
The couple has had to deal with many people’s misconceptions about their work.
“I’ve had people come up to me at the farmers’ market and tell me they’re going to shoot me in the head, telling me that’s what I do to animals and therefore that’s what should happen to me,” Marc explained.
“It is true — I’m choosing to kill an animal. But I’m creating a healthy habitat for microbes, so if you look at it holistically, I’m creating much more life in this situation than death,” he said. “But maybe as humans, we relate more to a cow than we do to a worm or a microbe. We see more of ourselves in a cow than in a microbe.”
The couple spoke about how any food and any farm can have a positive or negative impact on the environment. Their wish is for consumers to ask themselves if their food is having a positive impact on the environment, rather than simply deciding to eat meat or not. In Marc’s eyes, this approach is too black and white.
Cheryl and Marc both addressed people’s sometimes unrealistic expectations of agriculture.
“I think there’s a customer base that’s putting too much on the farmer on a daily basis, requiring them to do it all and not being realistic about those farmers’ lives,” Marc said. “And that’s a cultural and societal problem.”
He went on to cite the high rates of suicide among agricultural workers, underling the pressure many farmers feel. While the exact numbers for rates of suicide among farmers are uncertain, according to the Center for Disease Control and Protection, death by suicide is more common in rural areas than in urban ones.
Despite the challenges the couple faces, they value their ability to provide for themselves and their family — which now includes Normandy.
“It’s pretty cool to be able to look at where we came from and what we’ve created, and to know that sunshine pays for all this stuff,” Marc said.
(11/08/18 11:00am)
If nice girls do not file lawsuits, then Ruth Bader Ginsburg sure is not one.
Screened in a packed Dana Auditorium on Nov. 1, the 2018 documentary “RBG” recounts Justice Ginsburg’s path from Brooklyn to the United States Supreme Court. Using archival footage and interviews, directors Betsy West and Julie Cohen highlight her pioneering work against gender discrimination in the 1970s and take us behind the scenes of the 85-year-old’s achievements in the legal world.
It is needless to point out that the film is timely. Between Brett Kavanaugh’s turbulent confirmation to the Supreme Court and the midterm elections, questions of gender equality have been of particular interest to the public. At Middlebury, students have voiced their concerns about sexual harassment in both writing and at protests, and The Campus dedicated an editorial to affirming survivors. As the recent nominations of both Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch have added conservative voices to the bench, Ginsburg’s dissenting statements have received more attention than ever.
In the first few minutes of “RBG” we are reminded that attention is not always positive. Familiar Republican voices and phrases like “this witch” and “Anti-American” echo in the auditorium against sunny shots of the Supreme Court in Washington D.C., followed by an image that by now feels like a rite of passage. Sixty-year-old Ginsburg sits in front of an all-white, all-male Senate Judiciary Committee wearing a blue pantsuit, much like Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford would after her. Yet this time we are not dealing with allegations of sexual harassment, but the pinnacle of a brilliant attorney’s career.
Ginsburg entered the legal world at a time when the legal world did not want women. Beginning her law degree at Harvard Law School in 1956 after her graduation from Cornell University, Ginsburg was one of only nine women in a class of 500. The environment proved to be hostile. Female students were reportedly never called upon in classes and were questioned by the dean of students about how they could justify taking up a place that could have been filled by a man.
Nevertheless, she persisted. Completing both her own and her husband’s work during his illness while caring for their young daughter, she established herself as a relentlessly dedicated and disciplined professional.
Ginsburg has since become a champion of gender discrimination cases. West and Cohen give us brief snapshots of the landmark cases that she defended in front of the Supreme Court, ranging from Frontiero v. Richardson in 1973, which determined that benefits of the U.S. military could not be allocated differently on the basis of sex, to Duren v. Missouri in 1979, in which she challenged legislation making jury duty optional for women. Out of the five Supreme Court cases Ginsburg argued, she won four.
It is these scenes that remind us of how recent such developments are. How easy it is to forget that 50 short years ago it was common for a woman to be fired for being pregnant, or to be required to have her husband’s approval to obtain a credit card. At its most fundamental level, “RBG” reminds us of the women who paved the way for us to be here today.
But “RBG” is not only relevant to women. Through its depiction of Ginsburg’s husband Marty, the film reverses an old proverb to show that behind this great woman, there is a great man. Martin Ginsburg, who passed away in 2010 after battling cancer and worked tirelessly to give his wife’s work the credit and attention it deserved. Using his numerous connections in law, business and academia, he rallied to ensure that her name was on President Clinton’s shortlist of Supreme Court nominees in 1993. According to those interviewed throughout the film, it was Marty who allowed the reserved and soft-spoken Ruth to be herself and focus on what she did best.
“We need more men like [Marty]”, said Gioia Kuss ’83 during the brief reflection session which followed the screening. “[Men] that believe in women, that believe in equality.”
Given Ginsburg’s demonstrated legal talent and intellect, it is a shame how little time the film spends exploring it. Oversaturating the film with repetitive computer animations and awkward pop culture references, it seems as though West and Cohen are trying hard to make “RBG” relevant to an imagined millennial audience.
Unnecessarily so: the few instances in which Ginsburg is allowed to describe her relationship to the practice of the law are moving, even electrifying. As she reflects on debates about partisanship in the Supreme Court which followed her disputed comments about President Trump, the audience is heavy with silence, only to be interrupted by yet another playful scene of Ginsburg dressed as the Duchess of Krakenthorp for an opera production.
Footage of 85-year-old Ginsburg lifting bright green barbells while wearing a “Super Diva” sweatshirt is certainly entertaining, but it can hardly satisfy the audience’s yearning to understand the intellect behind four landmark Supreme Court cases and numerous dissenting statements. The result is an almost-but-not-quite account of a woman whom we know to be a legal powerhouse.
Whether or not you agree with Ginsburg’s politics or her status as an internet icon, one thing is clear. In advocacy and resilience, we can all stand to be a little more like the Notorious RBG.
(11/08/18 10:59am)
The leaves are falling, the sunsets are earlier and the first signs of winter are approaching. For many, this can mean only one thing: hunting season is in full swing in Vermont. Both on and off campus, plenty of Middlebury residents are gearing up for the annual activity.
In Vermont, there are approximately 68,000 hunters, all of whom are required to take a Hunter’s Education class before becoming licensed. Demographically, hunters run the gamut from children participating in a family tradition to health conscious twenty-somethings looking to incorporate local food into their diets.
“Hunting is sometimes viewed as the sport of the old, white man. And that’s not true at all,” said Nicole Meier, theInformation and Education Specialist at the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department. “Just because it’s a stereotype doesn’t mean that we need to make the other hunters out there invisible. Hunters like me, who are young females,” she said.
Although to many students it may seem as if a passion for hunting cannot be found on the Middlebury campus, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
“There are students that are hunting every season in the area. Maybe not a large number, but they’re there,” said Ira Schiffer, former chaplain at the college and teacher of the Hunter Education J-term workshop. These students are joined by a number of faculty and staff members who also enjoy hunting and act as mentors to students looking to learn. There was no lack of interest in the J-term workshop— it attracted over 35 students last year. However, while there are avid hunters on campus, many are reluctant to disclose openly their hobby for fear of criticism.
“[There are] faculty members who are long time hunters who are very quiet about it because they’re afraid of pushback from colleagues,” said Schiffer. This backlash extends to students, as well, many of whom are reluctant to share their interest with friends.
“I did not feel comfortable talking about hunting on campus, and it was a part of me that I tried to hide for most of my time at Midd,” said Hannah Phelps ’18. “I felt like I would get ridiculed or labeled with misconceptions/stereotypes if anyone found out, even though I strongly believe in the practice of hunting and in getting new people involved.”
Their involvement is often made difficult by misperceptions about hunters’ ethics and their relationship to the animals and their environment. In fact, those who hunt consider it a respectful, educational practice, one which is necessary for the conservation of the environment. They see their hobby as part of maintaining healthy habitats. Especially in Vermont, a state with a large deer population and few natural predators, hunting is integral in keeping the population in check.
“People don't always realize the good hunting can do for wildlife,” explained Phelps. “Without hunters, the deer population has the potential to eat themselves out of house and home, leading to huge spikes and plummets in their population and a decrease in plant diversity,” she added.
For many who are unfamiliar with hunting, the act of shooting an animal may seem cruel and unethical. But many hunters in Vermont resist the stereotype. “I think the reality that people who don’t hunt or aren’t part of that community don’t understand is that the hunter really has a warm, empathetic relationship with the animals that he’s hunting,” said Schiffer.
Part of this relationship is understanding the value of animal life; for example, many hunters consider it irresponsible to simply throw away one’s catch instead of eating it. Not only is shooting an animal a deliberate choice, hunters must also know when not to shoot.
“So many times I’ve had a choice to make. I would rather not shoot an animal and go home with no meat for the table than to damage it and have it go off and suffer,” said Wendy Butler, the current teacher of the Hunter Education workshop.
The J-term workshop offered by Butler gives students a chance to learn about hunting and attain a Hunter Education Certification. The workshop stresses safety, ethics and conservation-mindedness. For some students, it is a chance to explore a hobby that family members are passionate about; for others, such as international students, it is an opportunity to learn about an activity that isn’t available at home.
[pullquote speaker="HANNAH PHELPS '18" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]I did not feel comfortable talking about hunting on campus.[/pullquote]
The class allows students to see the positive aspects of hunting. Not only does it provide a local, sustainable meat source, but it also allows people to intimately connect with nature, without the trappings of modern-day technology.
“There is nothing better than walking into the woods before sunrise and watching it come to life around you,” said Phelps.
For both hunters and non-hunters, there are certain things to do to stay safe during hunting season. For one thing, if you’re considering going running around the local trails, do your best to wear bright colored clothing. Meier recommends that people wear some kind of blaze orange apparel. The color has been shown to be seven times more visible, especially during low light conditions, than any other color. If you’re walking your dog, remember to always keep it on a leash. Lastly, avoid being out in low light conditions like dusk and dawn
(10/25/18 9:59am)
I’m sure many black students on campus will be surprised when I tell them that I first watched “Coming to America,” a bona fide African American cult classic, this year, from beginning-to-end, at age 33, 30 years following its release. I’ll let the shocked gasps and guffaws die down before I go on. *waits.* For those who don’t know, this film, like “Friday” and “The Wiz,” is one many black Americans quote as a demonstration of being part of the “in-group.” Know that “Bye, Felicia!” reference? Yeah, that stems from “Friday.” Sure, I’ve been curious about the film in a lazy sort of way but it wasn’t until “Black Panther” came out that I actually pursued “Coming to America” with any sort of one-mindedness. Why, you ask? Because I knew that “Coming to America” also represented a fictional, African country, “Zamunda,” and I wanted to weigh its representation against “Wakanda.”
Not many African Americans encounter the privilege and opportunity of engaging with African studies or setting foot on the African continent. I have been fortunate enough to do both and for that reason, to some extent, I know how distant from reality the media’s representations of African peoples, cultures, communities and geographies can be. So, part of me actively looks for friction between what is accepted as truth and what I have experienced as truth. You might call it a willful quest for cognitive dissonance — something I recommend for all of you who are being trained in critical thought.
All of this said, let’s talk about the film at hand.
Essentially, “Coming to America,” featuring comedian Eddie Murphy in the height of his popularity, is the story of an African (Zamundan) prince who is bored by the women he finds in his country. They have been trained since birth to please him in any and all ways. They bathe him and if he asks them to hop on one foot and bark like a dog, they do not hesitate to satisfy his request(s). The prince finds this behavior understimulating so he designs a quest of his own in which he abandons his home and heads to Queens, New York to find his “queen”-to-be. His plan, intentionally and comically haphazard, leads him to work in the fast food industry as he feels a need to disguise his riches.
Long story short: he becomes enamored with a local woman and desires to pursue a courtship.
As a feminist, I have some significant discomforts with the patriarchal tropes in the work. However, I must say, if you’re looking for balanced, forward-thinking comedy, it is not Eddie Murphy’s oeuvre you want to search. (Hannah Gadsby’s might work for you. Ali Wong’s is worth exploring. And Hari Kondabolu’s, too, is worth a listen.) I have enjoyed some of Murphy’s works for years — no, decades. But “insensitive,” “crass,” “sexist” and “homophobic” are all befitting of his repertoire. And the further we move into the 21st century, the less we want to take out-moded values with us.
Why does this film remain popular and beloved? The story is “easy” in its predictability; it’s flagrant in its inaccurate cultural representations; it’s extreme in its, well, patriarchy. And apparently that’s what works. Or has worked. The idea that one of “our” beloved cultural films willfully misrepresents African cultures and reduces many African people to caricatures is disquieting to me, and I believe it is ignorance that keeps us from general objection.
How does Zamunda compare to Wakanda? Both represent worlds of extravagance and wealth. Both depict African peoples as living in close harmony with wild animals. Both seem to have a reverence for patriarchal kingdoms and palatial residences, tropes that Hollywood cannot seem to shake. Wakanda, however, elevates women and their roles in the kingdom with the royal security force of the Dora Milaje; it values the latest uses of progressive technology; and the king’s heart is unequivocally engaged with his subjects’ well being. I wonder what a fictional African country will look like on screen in 2048? Maybe there will be no palace. Maybe there will be a neighborhood. Maybe the protagonist’s gender and gender expression will be less central to the plot. Maybe the protagonist will be *gasp* African. Overall, I think it’s important for black people to watch “Coming to America” as it is a historical document that has meaning when it comes to the black canon of film. However, ultimately, I hope we will use it as a measuring stick to demonstrate how far we’ve come 30 years hence.
For more works from the black cinematic canon, see “The Color Purple” or “Roots.” Or consider some television classics like “The Jeffersons.”
Literatures & Cultures Librarian Katrina Spencer is liaison to the Anderson Freeman Center, the Arabic Department, the Comparative Literature Program, the Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies (GSFS) Program, the Language Schools, the Linguistics Program and the Department of Spanish and Portuguese.
(10/25/18 9:54am)
The Middlebury College Museum of Art has existed in some form or other for over 50 years, yet many might still consider it a hidden gem of the campus. Hosting both a permanent collection as well as travelling exhibitions, the Museum of Art has established its place at the college but is still striving to be a destination for the student body. The museum’s latest initiative, Thursday Nights at the Museum, hopes to improve just that.
The new program is largely organized by the Museum’s four student coordinators: Emma Boyd ’18.5, Flor Fernandez ’21, Pierce Gidez ’21 and Mimi Soule ’20. They act as the bridge between the Museum and the student body, working to make the space accessible and compelling to the student population.
In past years, the Museum held a large, semi-formal event every semester, typically with food and beverage, nice attire and live music. Turnout was good, but the infrequency of the event limited student exposure to the Museum. While these events will continue, the student coordinators hope that holding an event nearly every week will bring more students to the Museum and, as Gidez said, soon “make it the staple of the campus” it has not always been.
The Museum of Art first took form in the late 1960s with the completion of the Johnson Memorial Building, where many historically and artistically significant pieces gifted to the college were housed in the first floor. For many years the gallery was given little attention, so in the 1980s the college hired a gallery director. When the new Center for the Arts was designed, a space was designated for the Museum.
Every Thursday from 6 to 9 p.m., the Museum is open and hosts events such as talks and performances, while refreshments and snacks are served. Above all, the student coordinators want the Museum to become a place where students feel comfortable coming to “study, have a cup of coffee and relax,” Boyd said.
Last week on Thursday night, Saifa Hussain, Middlebury’s new associate chaplain and Muslim advisor, gave a talk about the Hajj. The Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam, a set of mandatory acts that form the basis for Muslim life, and consists of a pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Though the pilgrimage is required only once of each person, Hussain has performed the Hajj twice.
After her talk, Hussain led the group into the Museum’s galleries, where the exhibit “Wondrous Worlds: Art and Islam Through Time and Place” is currently on display. The exhibition offers a glimpse of Islamic art through the ages in hand-printed Qurans, decorated plates and cups and engraved weaponry. In the context of her lecture, Hussain invited the group to explore the items and offered insight on many of them beyond what could be read on their labels. Much of religious Islamic art, she said, does not contain representations of humans or animals, and instead largely relies on geometry and symmetry, which was evident in the pieces on display.
This is just one example of the kinds of events held on Thursday evenings. Hussain’s talk tied into the art currently on display at the museum, but many of the other events are student-led, such as performance art and sketching.
Gidez said that the student coordinators would like to hear students’ suggestions too.
“If the student population wants to see something,” Gidez said, “we are open to that communication.”
Describing it as a “living museum,” he thinks it is constantly evolving and improving, and the Thursday Night events should as well.
(10/04/18 10:00am)
Their slogans are catchy, jeans are bleached and their health is progressively deteriorating. Robin Campillo’s award-winning 2017 movie “Beats Per Minute” (“120 Battements Par Minute”) follows the Parisian activist group Act Up in their battle against HIV/AIDS in the 1990s. The screening was co-sponsored by the French department as part of the Hirschfield International Series.
The story begins following activist Sean Dalamazo’s (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart) difficult personal struggle with the disease as he falls in love with new member Nathan (Arnaud Valois).
We are introduced to Act Up at their weekly meeting in a lecture hall and are accompanied by Fabien’s (Jean-François Auguste) forceful words of advice: regardless of your true status, as an activist you have to now get used to being seen as HIV-positive. What follows is a series of awkward protest scenes, bass-driven parties with bizarre biological animations and a lot of medical jargon. Though somewhat quirky, Campillo’s portrayal of Act Up is oddly refreshing: it is not a dumbed-down, sanitized and perfumed version of social movements. Instead we are allowed to experience the group and their messiness in first person.
Despite taking place almost three decades ago, the events of the film feel contemporary. Were it not for Thibault’s (Antoine Reinartz) Gameboy in the hospital and the lack of laptops in the meeting room, the film could easily be set in 2018. The group’s passionate discussions about the inclusion of marginalized groups in their work and their constant struggle with corporate representatives bear a striking resemblance to issues which continue to color social activism as we know it today. As the group storms a high school to distribute condoms and flyers, the headmaster exhibits the same conservative attitude towards students’ sexuality which we still see in American sexual education today. Whether that says something about the stagnancy of Western social development can be debated.
Yet “BPM” is not all protest and debate. Judging by the number of people who were shrinking in their seats, the film’s boldest moments are found in its sex scenes. Biscayart and Valois’ captivating chemistry gets to shine as the camera appears to glide over their skin. With every vertebra and skin crease on display, the audience almost feels like an intruder. As Sean reluctantly tells Nathan about an affair with a teacher that led to his infection and the lesions on his skin, the heaviness of the atmosphere in the auditorium was palpable.
The film also proves its relevance to current debates by showing physical intimacy in a rather progressive way: sex in “BPM” is communicative and light-hearted throughout, all while never losing its spark. Plus: points for the consistent emphasis on protection — just please do not rip condoms open with your teeth like Sean does.
Although the stories presented by individual characters are generally insightful and well-developed, supporters of the Bechdel test may find themselves getting frustrated.
In its treatment of gay and lesbian women as accessories, “BPM” reflects the tendency of queer popular culture to pay disproportionate amounts of attention to gay men. Campillo feels entitled to throw around the derogatory word “dyke” for its shock factor yet gives little to no space for the development of female characters with strong presences like Sophie (Adèle Haenel), Eva (Aloïse Sauvage) and Hélène (Catherine Vinatier). While even characters with significantly less screen time, such as Germain (Médhi Touré) and Markus (Simon Guélat), get to vocalize their personal experiences with HIV, we are left to speculate what might have led the women to Act Up.
As the majority of the film is spent closely following Sean and Nathan’s relationship, some may say that this observation is irrelevant. Yet such a view fundamentally misunderstands the film’s function. “BPM” is at its core a political film and thus deserves to be discussed in political terms. Hence, its downfalls in creating an accurate portrayal are important: the HIV/AIDS epidemic may have primarily affected men, yet women certainly were (and are) not immune to it. In its current form, “BPM” remains complicit in reproducing misconceptions about the insignificance of women in the movement against HIV. Even a slight expansion of this angle could have given the film a dimension which few have explored.
As I walked out of the Dana Auditorium amidst viewers who, like me, tried hard to rub the marks of the film’s last half hour off their eyes, I found myself hyper-aware of my surroundings. Arnaud Rebotini’s soundscape and Campillo’s intricate cinematography force your mind to recalibrate.
Sean may have been joking as he described the vividness which his HIV-status added to his life, but to the viewer that illusion is very much present. In its essence, “BPM” is what one would want a film about a personal struggle like AIDS to be. It is tender, it is unapologetic, it is raw and most definitely worth your time.
(10/04/18 9:58am)
MIDDLEBURY — New Chinese tariffs on American goods have created challenges for the local dairy industry. On Tuesday, Sept. 18, China announced tariffs on $60 billion worth of goods, including dairy products. This dairy tariff amounts to 25 percent of the cost of the product itself.
The tariffs on American dairy products come as a direct response to tariffs placed on Chinese goods by the Trump administration. These fees form part of an ongoing trade war, which began when President Trump enacted tariffs on steel in March 2018. The Chinese government reacted by placing taxes on $60 billion worth of U.S. goods. The trade relations between the U.S. and China have followed a similar tit-for-tat pattern throughout the summer, with each country increasing tariffs response to the other’s actions.
Agri-Mark is a cooperative that owns one-third of the farms in the New England region, including Cabot Creamery. The cooperative operates four plants, one of which is located in Middlebury. Agri-Mark is currently one of the largest suppliers of dairy products in the Northeast.
The increased tariffs have mostly affected the sale of dry whey products, the only products Agri-Mark sells internationally. Producing cheese and milk creates whey runoff, which is then dried into two different products, whey permeate and whey protein concentrate. According to Doug DiMento, Director of Agri-Mark’s Corporate Communications, the latter is sold nationally and internationally to create the well-known whey protein powder, a staple in many supermarkets and health food stores. Whey permeate is mostly sold internationally as a component of processed foods or as animal feed. Agri-Mark currently sells most of its whey permeate to China to use as animal feed.
“The tariffs have impacted our dry whey product business, and we’ve worked for many years to build those relationships with China,” DiMento said.
The fees have already begun to affect Cabot. DiMento estimates that the tariffs will cost Agri-Mark at least several hundred thousand dollars and could easily soar into the millions by the end of 2018. “It seems like we’re in it for the long-haul with the tariffs,” DiMento said.
Agri-Mark currently shares some of the costs of the tariffs with China. However, in order to remain profitable in the long-term, Agri-Mark will need to focus on finding new markets and marketing their whey products in new ways.
The Cabot plant in Middlebury will be hit especially hard. The waste processing plant located in Middlebury is one of Agri-Mark’s largest and produces much of the whey products sold internationally.
Students need not worry about their beloved Cabot products disappearing from the dining halls, however. Cabot cheese products are only sold domestically, so the tariffs have not affected the sales of these products.
“Because we age our products nationally, we already have a premium-priced product, there’s little room. Because the nature of the cheese business is so competitive, it’s very difficult to raise prices across the board without affecting the sales,” DiMento explained.
The trade war looks like it will not be ending anytime soon. According to Associate Professor of Political Science Jessica Teets, domestic political concerns on both the American and Chinese sides will most likely prevent a swift end to this situation.
“President Trump has made pushing China into making concessions a key part of his presidential agenda, and I do not think he will back down unless the pain felt by consumers and manufacturers gets so intense that they organize and vote against him in the next election,” Teets said.
“[In China] there is a national pride in ‘standing up’ to Western aggressors, and this is the narrative under which the trade war fits, which gives President Xi a mandate to not give in to U.S. demands,” she added.
Despite the myriad obstacles, Cabot and Agri-Mark remain optimistic for the future. “What helps us every year is that Cabot products keep winning awards for quality, so we’re going to keep focusing on the quality of our products,” DiMento said.
(09/27/18 10:00am)
(09/27/18 10:00am)
Filmmakers Rian Brown and Geoff Pingree recalled a screening in Miami, after which a man in his seventies came up to tell them that he wished he had seen the film when he was 22 years old, and that it would have changed his life. “He went on and on,” Pingree said. “And that was really gratifying when someone says that.”
The potentially life-changing film is “The Foreigner’s Home,” directed by Brown and Pingree, a documentary that delves deep into Toni Morrison’s ideas and works through the eponymous 2006 exhibition she guest-curated at the Louvre. The two filmmakers’ gratification from making the film and bringing it to different places was clearly visible and transmittable during its screening last Thursday at the annual Clifford Symposium.
“The film is a call to action — to all of us, but with a special nod to the role of the artist, as a defender of our civilization and of our humanity,” Brown said.
In that sense, the film shares not only the title but also the aspirations and critical reflections of the exhibition in Paris. According to Brown, in 2006, Morrison brought in writers, artists, musicians and filmmakers from around the world “to speak to and interact with the dead artists housed in the Louvre,” centering on the conceptual construction of the foreigner and otherness.
Morrison’s son, Ford Morrison, filmed the exhibition. Years later, through mutual friend and colleague Jonathan Demme, Brown and Pingree, both faculty members at Oberlin College, were asked to look at Ford Morrison’s footage. It was firmly agreed from the start that Toni Morrison would not be in the film and that the film should be about her visions instead of her life.
The two spent three years navigating the extensive materials and bringing them to life. Pingree said that while Morrison is “riveting” in the way she talks and remains so in film, the short version consisting of only the exhibit’s footage was not satisfactory for him and Brown. Realizing that Morrison’s reappearance in the film would be indispensable, they wrote a letter to her, explaining the importance of having her on camera almost 10 years after her exhibit in Paris.
“It was at the time when Syria had exploded into war, and suddenly this massive movement of displaced people moved to the front,” Pingree said. “We saw this happening all around and thought, well, what the film really needs is for her to address now these questions 10 years later.”
Morrison agreed, and that led to the heartfelt conversations between Morrison and writer Edwidge Danticat that make up a central element of the film. We see Danticat greeting Morrison at her home and interviewing her about the 2006 exhibit, which they were both part of, as well as the pressing issues today. Throughout their dialogue, the film introduces viewers to pieces of the exhibition, including slam poets’ and rappers’ performances in front of large paintings and multiple screens installed in the gallery showing a modern dance piece.
One painting that features in the film many times is “The Raft of the Medusa” (1819), an oil painting by French painter Théodore Géricault. Its large scale highlights the strong emotional effect of the moment depicted — people struggling to survive after a shipwreck — and the film shows the details of the devastated people by occasionally zooming in and out on it.
Juxtaposed with the painting is Morrison’s voice. Be it her past interview with a French radio station or her Nobel Prize in Literature acceptance speech, her indeed captivating way of talking brings together different archival footages, ranging from groundbreaking artists’ performances from different times to more recent scenes of racial violence and inequality.
“The idea was to create the sense that Toni Morrison’s voice speaking and the import of her message is transcending time, space and media, so we are kind of soaring through the history and the world now,” Pingree said.
Brown’s animation, which both the filmmakers and audiences agreed is beautiful and moving, is another crucial element in combining Morrison’s ideas with imagery. From the very beginning, a boat packed with people in the distance moves closer to the audience against the deep navy backdrop of night sky and sea. The boat as a motif resonates with the “Medusa” painting as well as the migration crisis that has led millions of people to cross an ocean in search of a new home.
Throughout the film, the animation sequence reappears, at times in a montage with actual footages of migrants arriving by boat and getting rescued.
“That is the embodiment of the foreigner [and] ‘what is the foreigner,’” Brown said. “The foreigner is not home. The foreigner is in a vulnerable place.”
The film premiered this January at the International Film Festival in Rotterdam, where the two directors began the process of planning for its distribution. Brown described some of the “hard conversations” they had to have with distributors, as not all of them were able to help fulfill the mission of the film, which is to be educational. Eventually, they signed The Video Project, which will first distribute the film to libraries, community centers and universities.
“Our primary purpose [that] was very clear and unequivocal is for it to go to schools, not just colleges like Oberlin or Middlebury, which is a pretty privileged set of people,” Pingree said. “Anyone who asks for it, we will take it to them and let them use it. … This is just the obviously correct thing to do with this film, for it to be something that people talk about.”
