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(10/01/20 10:00am)
The Performing Arts Series is providing the gift of music — a means to uplift, encourage and strengthen the college community — in a time of uncertainty and pandemic-era stress.
Due to Covid-19 restrictions, the Mahaney Arts Center’s Digital Stages project is holding an online concert every Friday night at 7:30 p.m. from Sept. 25 through Nov. 13 — all of which are free and available to all through their website.
During the first concert on Friday, the Grammy-nominated group Imani Winds kicked off the season with a wind quintet performance featuring works by John Harbison, Jeff Scott Paquito and D’Rivera.
Assistant Professor of Music Matthew Evan Taylor opened the event by performing his own music — including an alto improvisation. Taylor noted that the quintet has always avoided being pigeon-holed as one type of sound despite their classical blend of instruments.
“What they’ve done is, in many ways, expanded what a chamber group in classical music can do by working on projects some chamber groups wouldn’t even consider doing, which makes them forward-thinking and inclusive,” Taylor said.
Consistent with the college's mission to diversify the Performing Arts Series through a more inclusive curriculum, Imani Winds’s music weaves together contemporary sounds with a more traditional foundation.
“For a group like this that has a Swahili name and that has been around for over 20 years, there are still not a lot of Black groups like this in classical music and even fewer back when they started,” Taylor said. “Their legacy is partially the normalcy of seeing Black faces and Black bodies performing classical music at a virtuosic level.”
In the U.S., classical music has customarily excluded people of color, erasing them from both its image and dialogue — groups like Imani Winds are helping change this tradition. Starting off the season with a BIPOC group was a way of signifying solidarity with antiracist causes and the Black Lives Matter movement, according to Taylor.
Five of the eight concerts left to come this fall originate from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and have been curated by cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han. As a grand finale to this semester, the Jupiter Quartet will return to the stage to provide an ode to classical music. Though Taylor anticipates that the new virtual format will require artists to rethink their performances, students can listen to and interact with talented artists to gain a rich and stress-alleviating musical experience while staying safe.
(09/10/20 9:59am)
Has quarantine loneliness got you down? Whether you’re crying into your third pint of vegan Ben & Jerry’s, finding yourself binging “Too Hot to Handle” or flirting through email, we’re all feeling the romantic frustrations of isolation. Since many of us have now returned to campus (and those who haven’t are already sorely missed), here is a list of ideas for your Phase I romantic endeavors.
Tired of playing GamePigeon 8 Ball? Try FaceTiming your crush to actually establish a solid foundation. This is where you can gauge interest, instead of both being drunk, walking from Brooker to the Grille to share some post-party fries. (Or, even worse, walking straight to your dorm to hook up, still not knowing how you actually feel about each other.)
A socially distanced picnic on the basketball court behind Ross is a sure and steady way to lock in that corona cutie. Add a couple of masks and the only alcohol you’ll need on this date — the largest container of isopropyl alcohol you can procure — and you have yourself a successful rendezvous.
Club Penguin Pizzeria dates never fail to impress. For incredible service, perfect pizza and an even better date, look no further.
If you’re looking for something that is not at all cliché, walk on opposite sides of the road down to the Knoll for a moonlit stroll. Once there, lay six feet apart and name as many constellations as you can, or honestly just use the app. We won’t tell anyone.
Make up your own interpretive language and mime from opposite sides of a BiHall window. One person inside, one person outside, and both partaking in a vibrant and very visual conversation.
Use walkie-talkies and pretend to be in Mission: Impossible. The scavenger hunt will span the whole campus (minus barred buildings), requiring no contact, and the winner takes all. “All” being an air high-five or a kiss blown from across the room.
If your significant other, member of the preferred sex or person-of-interest happens to be your neighbor, utilize morse code to engage in robust intercourse... I mean, discourse. Three short taps, three long taps, then three short taps translates to SOS, which means, for our purposes: stupendously obsolete seduction.
[Chorus 1: Sammie] Kiss me through the phone. (Kiss me through the phone.)
Organize a candlelit dinner at a table outside McCullough. Bring battery-operated candles to comply with fire safety precautions and wear your fanciest Blundstones or Chacos. Your MiddView trip leader can serve you and tell you scary stories while you feast on powdered hummus and Kombucha cocktails.
Hear me out: Hammocks, but make them six feet apart. Hammocks are like giant masks, so they're super safe.
Send each other handwritten letters of endearment, complete with cursive, a wax seal and a lipstick kiss, through Middlebury campus mailing services. If you’re feeling frisky, send one to your Proc crush or the writer of this article… please. Please.
Please.
We could go to, like, Ross — just like you like to do when you get out of class at 12:15 Tuesdays and Thursdays — and get to-go meals together and then eat them outside of BiHall because we both have class there.
What if we air-kissed on Battell Beach? Haha, just kidding...
…
… Unless?
So now that you have all of these brilliant date ideas under your belt (or your fanny pack), build up the courage to take action on your quarantine crush and turn your relationship into a full-blown pandemic romance. Covid-19 is contagious, but love? Well, take it from me. That’s the strongest bug you can catch.*
*Statement not endorsed by the CDC.
(04/30/20 9:59am)
We all remember learning about the discovery of penicillin in grade school. Perhaps you remember the thrilled look on your seventh grade science teacher’s face or the pride you felt reporting this story to your parents at the dinner table. Science, society and history are as intertwined as the threads in your science teacher’s Alexander Fleming puppet, and as the world changes, it has become ever more vital to understand the ways in which they intersect.
As the academic year rockets to its close, forces behind new beginnings have been hard at work. Professors of History Febe Armanios, Rebecca Bennette and Ian Barrow have created a brand-new track within the college’s History Department: the History of Science, Medicine and Technology (HSMT). This academic pathway opens up the gates for students to investigate the development of science in relation to society over time and across the world. The hope is that students will explore how governments, societies and individuals that have influenced — and been influenced by — science, medicine and technology.
Middlebury is the first leading liberal arts college to have a HSMT concentration within its History Department. The track requires students to have a core focus of five HMST-specific classes, as determined by the Department of History. Students who declare the HMST track will graduate as History-HSMT majors.
HSMT is a well-established scholarly and academic field that dates all the way back to the 19th century. There even exists a professional society that represents this field called the History of Science Society, which was established in 1924.
“Courses on this track will range from a broader history of medicine, the history of science in colonial and postcolonial South Asia and the development of medicine in the Islamic world to the abuses of science and technology in Nazi Germany, health and healing in Africa and medieval science and alchemy in Europe, among many others,” said Armanios, one of the track’s founders and one of two co-directors of the Axinn Center for the Humanities.
“HSMT will also help students cultivate a historian’s strong methodologies of research, analysis and writing,” she added.
What, exactly, sparked the creation of this innovative addition to Middlebury’s academic repertoire? Armanios said she, Bennette and Barrow developed the track through a Fund for Innovation (FFI) grant awarded by the college in the fall of 2018.
“However, the idea was planted long before that,” she said. “In recent years, I’ve worked on two books related, in different ways, to religion, health, science and media technologies in the Middle East. Ian Barrow is an established scholar of the history of mapping and related technologies in British colonial India. And Rebecca Bennette has been working for a few years on a book project related to the medicalization of conscientious objection in Germany during World War I.”
Armanios also noted that the History Department had already been regularly offering a few classes on HMST-related subjects, specifically a course by medieval Europe by Louisa Burnham and one on African history by Jacob Tropp. “So we started to have broader conversations with our department colleagues about how to turn this growing pedagogical interest into a specialized major,” she said.
This FFI grant has given these three professors the opportunity to observe how the University of Chicago, Yale and Johns Hopkins have long-ago integrated successful HSMT majors at the undergraduate level. These visits provided them with information on how to structure the courses within the track, how to reach prospective students, and the crucial nature of co-curricular programming. In Armanios’ words, colleagues at the three institutions “were very encouraging about our plans at Middlebury and gave us enthusiastic support and encouragement to launch HSMT.”
These professors believe that Middlebury’s HSMT track will prepare students for a diverse variety of professions. For pre-med and pre-health students, this track ignites intellectual curiosity, creativity and empathy through the history courses coupled with scientific content. Recent studies by the Association of American Medical Colleges reported that — as a percentage of applicants — U.S. medical schools admitted more humanities majors, like history majors, than those who majored in biological or physical sciences.
“Students will be able to see the complex relationship between science, medicine, and technology on the one hand, and the larger historical-societal contexts in which these exist in a variety of settings,” said Bennette.
Armanios added that the creation of the track is timely.
“Our discussion with several students in recent years showed that HSMT might be that critical bridge between STEM and the Humanities,” Armanios said. “In the age of Covid-19 and of growing interest in understanding illness, pandemics, medicine, science and their relationship to history, society, religion, and humanity, HSMT will appeal to all students looking for timely, original, and relevant content.”
(03/12/20 10:02am)
Imagine feeling silenced, voiceless. Imagine feeling as though even if you were to speak, no one would care to hear what you had to say, much less act on it, no matter the importance of your words.
In the documentary play “SEVEN,” L.A. Theatre Works explores the true stories of seven women who found their voices by standing up for the rights of women, children and families all over the world. Despite the efforts of their peers to silence them, they persisted and overcame culturally- induced adversities to protect the well-being of those around them. By speaking out, they ultimately changed their lives and the lives of those around them for the better.
L.A. Theatre Works, a not-for-profit American media arts organization, was founded in Los Angeles in 1984. As the foremost radio theatre company in the United States for over thirty years, the organization works tirelessly to create both classic and contemporary plays that are immersive, educational and imaginative. SEVEN checks each of these boxes and more.
Through a magnificent mirage of stories, switching back and forth between tales across the globe, the audience peers into the lives of women who risked life-threatening obstacles to improve the lives of women in their respective corners of the earth. Their bravery and empathy shines through the excellence of the talented actresses: Jennifer Shelton, Tess Lina, Maritxell Carrero, Ellis Greer, Laila Ayad, Shannon Holt and Lovlee Carroll, and through the words of seven award-winning playwrights.
Associate Professor of Theatre Cláudio Medeiros commented on the play’s powerful stories and impressive acting. “Laila Ayad (Farida Azizi / Afghanistan) and Lovlee Carroll (Mukhtar Mai / Pakistan) were particularly effective in a format that for the most part keeps the actor aware that she is a narrator as well, and focuses ‘living the role’ on the voice and its ability to express a range of emotions, from pain or grief to joy and strength,” he said. “I think we made a very good choice with SEVEN. I am delighted that my students could see it, from a human perspective and as student actors.”
From the opening moments of the play, the audience is entranced by the simple stage set-up: seven microphones, all facing front, a simple projection backdrop and a telephone. Each woman stood motionless at a microphone, waiting for her turn to speak. And the play came to life. The audience is transported to Russia by Marina Pisklakova-Parker, where women victims of domestic violence were shockingly common, and then to Cambodia by Mu Sochua, where young girls were often victims of human trafficking. We travel with Farida Azizi to Afghanistan to empower rural women and with Muhtar Mai and Hafsat Abiola-Costella to Nigeria and Pakistan to fight for women’s right to education. Inez McCormack tells the story of promoting peace and equality in Northern Ireland and, finally, Anabella de León shows us how, as a young woman from Guatemala, it is possible for women to accomplish great feats such as becoming entrepreneurial leaders and running for political office.
Asked about the aspect of SEVEN that felt most meaningful, audience member and prospective theatre student Marijke Stiffler ’23 noted the “overarching theme of women supporting women.” “Too often in the media do we see women attacking each other, like Wendy Williams going after Ashley Graham for changing her son’s diaper in a Staples or Fox News correspondents ripping apart sexual assault survivors,” Stiffler said. “The fact that all of the stories were interconnected in some fashion emphasized the push for unity as it showed me that we have more in common with each other than is easily visible; moreover, it showed that nothing negative will come from unconditionally supporting the women around you through their struggles, as they will more likely than not turn around and support you in return.”
In light of SEVEN, how can we, members of the college community, mobilize in support of human rights? Maybe it is as simple as finding a way to tune in to the silence, the smaller communities where the voices have been repressed and can no longer be heard. By listening, we can become better advocates for the rights of those in need, inspiring a new global movement of change-makers: us.
(02/27/20 11:02am)
In a time when Kindle is on the rise and most books are instantly accessible online, it has become a rarity for people to pick up hard-cover, good old-fashioned books. We have forgotten to appreciate the age-old craft of bookmaking in the midst of a technological frenzy, and the hidden treasures inside these books have become as dusty in our minds as the shelves they sit upon.
“Under the Covers: The Hidden Art of Endpapers” reminds us of these forgotten treasures by outlining the history of endpapers, sheets of paper pasted onto a book’s inside covers. In the 15th century, endpapers simply served the purpose of protecting the first and last pages in books; however, as time went on, they began to be seen as works of art. From the earliest minimalistic paste papers to the increasingly common applications of marbling, printing, illustrating and modern-day photography, the exhibit shows the evolution of endpapers through the centuries, succeeding in reigniting an appreciation for what is hidden in plain sight.
“With this exhibit, we wanted to showcase books not just as neutral containers for any old text but as a material object that tells stories of the time and place that it first came into being,” said Rebekah Irwin, Special Collections & Archives director and curator of the exhibit. “When I look at a book, the text — the actual words under the covers — is rarely what I look at first. Especially old books. I look at the binding, the feel of the paper, the heaviness of the book, the smell (yes, old books do have a unique smell!). I also look for illustrations, annotations and doodles, and I always look for remarkable endpapers.”
Irwin adamantly believes that the physical features of books serve as a looking glass into its history. “We might remember the story of Dr. Suess’s “The Lorax,” but do we remember the freaky endpapers? Or the showy and spectacular decorated papers popular in the 1700s through the 1900s?” asked Irwin. “Our hope is that our exhibit sends you back to your shelves to open up long neglected books. Not to read them of course, but to take a closer look at the book and to see it, rather than read it — especially the endpapers. I suspect we all have at least a few surprises on our bookshelves if we took the time to look under the covers for these concealed works of art.”
Kaitlin Buerge ’13, special collections and archives fellow, discussed her experience working on the exhibit.
“Selecting books for this exhibit was the best. In my head, I’ve been referring to the process as ’shopping’ the stacks, because I would venture into our rare books section and try to guess which kinds of spine and covers might suggest beautiful endpapers within,” Buerge said in an email to The Campus. “I started to recognize that books with more expensive-looking bindings would often have marbled endpapers, but I was often surprised by the marbling hiding inside books with much plainer, old-looking (17th and 18th century) covers.”
Buerge recalled that while she was a college student, museum and library exhibitions rarely caught her attention. Yet through the eye-catching glass cases in Davis Library, she hoped students could spend some time enjoying “a glimpse of N.C. Wyeth’s illustrations or the marbled endpapers.” Often overlooked, Buerge sees this exhibition as an opportunity to give endpapers the overdue credit they deserve.
“Under the Covers: The Hidden Art of Endpapers” is on display in the Davis Library atrium now through May 31, 2020. Whether you stop in for a quick visit on a study break or are inspired to look a bit more closely at the books lining your desk back home, the endpapers display reminds us to acknowledge the aspects of our lives that take a little more work to find and understand. If we all challenge ourselves to seek these surprises hidden on our bookshelves and in our lives, who knows? The worlds around us and the worlds written, hardbound in our palms, may just become a little more exciting.
(11/07/19 11:02am)
Whether it be Darth Vader’s ominous helmet or the mask we wish we could have worn to school in our awkward stages, we cloak ourselves in protective shields to hide what often scares us most: our authentic selves. At Evolution dance crew’s fall debut, “The Mask Has Fallen,” dancers and audience alike shattered our fronts to celebrate what’s real: us, sans filter or any other tools designed to alter the original.
The crowd swelled in the lobby with each passing minute leading up to the performance. People were everywhere, anxiously positioning themselves by the doors to Wilson Hall to ensure not only entry, but also the best seats in the house. No one wanted to miss anything.
Asked about the role dance has played in her life here at the college, audience member Zoey Ellis ’22 pointed out how the arts opportunities have affected her as an individual. “Being able to artistically express my ideas and support my friends as they create a world of their own definition is essential to my Middlebury career,” Ellis said, beaming with anticipation.
Every seat in the house was filled. The show opened with a number titled “Mask Off,” where a group of dancers moved as one and seemed to say, “sit a little farther up on the edge of your seat, you won’t be falling asleep here.” And grow weary we did not. Following the dazzling group piece, the audience was struck by a saturated background, glowing behind four silhouettes. Isolating their body parts in sync with the beat, these dancers became the music, their choreography precisely timed and incredibly sharp.
Spirits rose with each piece, the whoops and hollers gaining volume with each new interpretation. Notable among these was a number about a third of the way through the show, when a cast composed entirely of women emerged onstage. Looking fierce and confident, the dancers seemed to empower one another and the audience members through a unified representation of how women should play active roles in uplifting one another. Their expressive choreography emphasized the importance of their presence on the stage — reaffirming the power of dance as an artistic outlet. Almost like a conversation, the all-women piece was followed by all men.
“Everyone has a mask they uphold. Everyone has a front we put up to fit in at Middlebury,” said audience member Samantha Paredes ’20. On the stage, however, these masks got lost in the music, in the movement and in the smiles rippling through the room. In context of these performances, the show’s title “The Mask Has Fallen” can be interpreted as the emergence of the truth.
What is the truth, exactly? It could be recognizing the flaws in ourselves that we can work to improve or seeing who around us needs support. It could be something as simple as the stagnancy that comes with being too set in a routine, something that can be fixed by remaining open and exploring new opportunities.
“As a first-year you never really know how people are going to interact with you in new spaces, particularly in established groups such as Evo. I was worried that there would be cliques or seniority, but that really turned out to not be the case,” said new Evolution member Ev Berger-Wolf ’23. “Everyone’s been kind and encouraging.”
After transporting the audience into an office-setting, where dancers dressed in white button-ups alternated between answering the rings of a phone and furiously scribbling notes, the show drew to a close. All of the dancers came together to perform a final hip-hop heavy dance on and in front of the stage, seeming to include the audience in their finale. The left-over light from the overhead disco ball dispersed with the crowd, and Wilson Hall was left feeling a little brighter.
The mask has fallen indeed.
(10/31/19 10:02am)
The reproductive rights of women have been a source of controversy for decades, eliciting a tug-of-war between opinions on what women should do in the face of unplanned parenthood. Contemporary public discourse often overlooks quantitative analysis of this particular issue.
Caitlin Myers has been a professor of economics at Middlebury since 2005, teaching numerous courses within the department and conducting her own research on topics that capture her interest. The most notable of these research endeavors is her focus on the causal effects of reproductive policies and access to reproductive healthcare on the lives of women. Myers says she “applies an economic lens to this important issue by bridging an intersection between social questions and statistical methods through application of the scientific method to testable questions.”
Myers grew up on the Georgia-Alabama border, in an area that was once a center of textile manufacturing. Surrounded by segregated facilities, she attended a public high school that was predominantly black.
“I was living in the middle of this community as a relatively privileged person racially, which evoked a shock to my system upon entering into college life,” she said. “Attending college at Tulane University changed my perspective of where I came from.”
For her, this change in social context needed to be “made sense of and placed in a broader context.” Economics was a powerful tool to understand issues of inequality, she said. This “tool,” combined with her natural curiosity, sparked her interest in researching the powerful social issues she was surrounded by as a child — including that of the legalization of abortion and its implications.
So what kind of research does Myers do, exactly?
“I use natural experiments where I compare outcomes from naturally occurring treatment and control groups,” she said. Quantitatively studying reproductive rights requires investigating human subjects. With this, there exist certain ethical principles to conduct experiments, such as ensuring participants give informed consent and protecting participants from undue stress and harm.
Additionally, randomly assigning subjects to control or treatment groups is often not possible when studying people. Myers refers to this quantitative technique as “infeasible or unethical” for the kind of research she does. Instead, she uses other statistical methods, like natural experiments, that are more ethical and do not require randomization.
Myers’ research has caught the eye of many well-known journals and newspapers, including the New York Times UpShot. This summer, UpShot covered her investigation about what would happen if Roe v. Wade were to be overturned. In 1973, the Supreme Court ruled that women would have the freedom to choose to have an abortion without government interference. So, if Roe v. Wade were overturned, many abortion clinics would be forced to close. After pinpointing the location of every abortion facility in the U.S., Myers discovered that women in the Southern and Midwestern regions of the United States would have to travel greater distances to reach a provider.
Myers found that 100,000 women would have difficulty reaching an abortion clinic in just a year proceeding an overturning of Roe v. Wade. “This demonstrates a causal effect of regulating abortion on access to reproductive care, which is an insurmountable burden for women in regards to reproductive rights,” Myers said.
When asked why her research is increasingly important in the changing social times, she said, “In a nutshell, my research measures the burdens on women while feeding in to evidence-based policy making.”
Oftentimes, students see the field of economics in a limited way — as simply a path to Wall Street, for example. Myers, however, believes that “answering thorny social questions requires a variety of approaches and economics provides students with a diverse and powerful toolbox to do so.” She, and others in her field, aim to contribute to our understanding of the reproductive rights of women, helping to raise awareness of its importance and applications in our rapidly changing world.
(10/10/19 10:02am)
Everyone has heard the phrase “do what makes you happy.” We see it in magazines, in stories our English teachers made us read and even in those Buzzfeed quizzes where we learned what we should do with our lives based off our cereal choices. But how many of us have actually managed to listen and implement this ideology in our lives? How many of us college students will go on to “do what makes us happy?” The truthful answer is too few.
Bryan Terrell Clark is proof that one can find a way to combine passion and purpose to live the equivalent of eternal summer: a life brimming with happy days. While he is most well known for his role as George Washington in the groundbreaking, Tony Award-winning Broadway musical “Hamilton,” he can also be seen in numerous television shows, such as “When They See Us.” On top of his hugely successful acting career, he co-founded an initiative titled inDEFINED, which works to inspire children to break free of the labels placed on them by society through exposure to the arts.
In front of an eager audience in Wilson Hall, Clark began speaking on the themes of reflection and motivation. He opened with two seemingly simple questions: “What is your passion?” and “When did you first engage with that passion?”
After a moment of contemplative quiet, everyone turned to someone near them to share their ideas. Clark pulled the scattered threads of conversations in the room back together with a reflection on his own role in “Hamilton,” which he referred to as “an honor and a privilege.” This eight-times-per-week “honor” was shared with the audience when he proceeded to perform George Washington’s entrance, no backdrops, no backup singers and no inhibitions. “Here comes the general” indeed.
His clear passion for his everyday reality solidified in this impromptu performance, though the significance of playing George Washington lies in his love for the fact “that [George Washington] started off as a farmer and became a soldier, a general and a president, but in his heart, he always knew he was a farmer.” So we see it in Clark’s own life.
Growing up in Baltimore, Clark began discovering his love of the arts before he could talk — he would just “bounce in front of the TV.” His mother took note and knew it was “her job as guidance to foster and shape” that passion. He explained that his mother was “the angel” who taught him how to strive to be the best him he could be, while his father was “the dragon” who taught him that no matter how many times he messed up he could be resilient. “Both of them taught me how to fly,” Clark said.
This “flying” didn’t occur until he shook off his shy middle-school persona and became a theater major at a magnet school. There, acting gave him “access to other people,” and to his voice. He began studying theater on a full scholarship at the University of Maryland, but snuck to New York City to audition for shows. A figure in his life told him he shouldn’t audition for “big-name” schools like NYU and Yale, because they would “accept less of him” on the basis of his race. To get past this shocking remark, he realized he had to tap back into his inner voice even when other people try to silence it. After receiving acceptance letters to both schools, Clark embarked on a journey to Yale, where he found “the reason why we do what we do,” by engaging his passion for theater.
Bryan Terrell Clark dropped learned-wisdom like pennies, tokens to be picked up and tucked away in a pocket to be carried throughout one’s day-to-day life. Growing up, his grandmother always said to him, “you make sure you enjoy your life.” He believes that life comes with so much and we forget to enjoy it, often sacrificing ourselves for others to the point of no longer knowing ourselves. In his eyes, we “enjoy the journey” when we “find gratitude,” which is the “key to abundance.”We must also embrace change,” Clark said, as it is the “most consistent thing” in life. Only then can we begin to make “decisions based on the inner voice.”
So, how do we do what makes us happy? His advice: “let your passion be your GPS to bring you to the moments of purpose that fulfill your life.” Well, then, why are we wasting time recalculating when we can just press “GO?”
(10/03/19 10:03am)
The Fall Faculty Forum is an academic event hosted every year during Fall Family Weekend. Featuring faculty research and innovation, the forum consists of different panels centered around themes of exploration where professors can present their projects to students, parents and members of the community.