Issue 21

THE AMHERST

THE INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER OF AMHERST COLLEGE SINCE 1868

STUDENT VOLUME CXLVI, ISSUE 21 l WEDNESDAY, MARCH 22, 2017

English Creative Thesis Explores Absurdity See Arts & Living, Page 8 AMHERSTSTUDENT.AMHERST.EDU

national champions

Photo courtesy of Meredith Doswell ‘17

With a 52-29 victory over Tufts, Amherst women’s basketball completed their perfect, undefeated season with a record of 33-0. Coach G.P. Gromacki earned Division III Coach of the Year and Ali Doswell ’17 was named Division III Player of the Year.

Conservative Editor Rich Lowry Speaks at College Professors Host Claire Dennis ’20 Staff Writer Conservative political commentator Rich Lowry addressed an audience of students and faculty in a talk about the changing political climate in America on March 8. The event, free and open to the public, was held in Stirn Auditorium and sponsored by the Croxton Lecture Fund.

Lowry is the current editor of the National Review, a leading conservative magazine. He is the author of several books, a contributor to The New York Times and POLITICO and a frequent guest on shows such as “Meet the Press” and “This Week.”

After beginning with a light-hearted joke about being denied admission to Amherst nearly 30 years ago, Lowry thanked the college for the invitation to speak.

“There is a crisis of free speech on campus in this country and a lot of conservatives get disinvited or shouted down, and I really appreciate Amherst’s commitment to free speech and the free exchange of ideas,” Lowry said. “None of us, no matter how committed we are to our ideas, actually have a monopoly on the truth.”

Lowry launched into an analysis of the Donald Trump presidency, commenting on Trump’s unprecedented and unexpected road to the White House.

According to Lowry, even Trump did not expect to win — his campaign projected a mere 17 percent chance of winning the presidency on Election Day. “We have just experienced the most amaz-

ing Black Swan event in American electoral history,” Lowry said.

Specific factors that contributed to Trump’s success, according to Lowry, included media dominance during the primary election season, working class frustrations and discontentment with the Republican establishment. Lowry highlighted the shortcomings of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and her party.

“She went out and lost an election to the single most unpopular candidate who has ever run for the presidency in the United States of America, and this is in large part because she has the ethics of a grifter and the charm of an overzealous hall monitor,” Lowry said. “The Democrats should have gotten the message that something was awry when she had trouble in the Democratic primaries dispatching a 74-year-old socialist.”

Lowry noted a paradox in Trump’s views.

“In some ways, it’s something radically new, right?” Lowry said. “This is a celebrity candidate, the sort … of [which] we’ve never encountered before. But I think on a deeper level, he represents something very old, which is the Jacksonian tradition in American life.”

According to Lowry, Jackson and Trump both ran campaigns based on the mistrust of political elites, simple solutions to complex problems, suspicion of the financial sector and reactive foreign policy.

“Jacksonians tend to be populist, they tend to be nationalist — and these are elements of conservatism because conservatism has always had a populist part of its appeal, because we believe, as conservatives, that the elite institutions

of these countries are arrayed against us,” Lowry said. “And there’s also always been a nationalist element to conservatism because we are overwhelmingly concerned with protecting the country and its sovereignty. But this Jacksonian populism can be in tension with conservatism.”

Lowry noted that aspects of the Trump administration may create a positive shift for the Republican party. Trump brought a new wave of working-class voters into the active constituency and moved the focus of congressional Republicans from an abstract obsession with federal debt to more concrete issues like jobs and immigration, Lowry said.

Lowry still expressed concerns about the Trump administration. Having published an entire issue of the National Review in February 2016 dedicated to criticisms of Trump, Lowry prefaced his talk by stating that he had not supported Trump in the election.

A main issue in Trump’s administration, he said, will be how he works with three chiefs of staff: “nominal” advisor and “establishment” Republican Reince Priebus, “populist, nationalist ideologue” Steve Bannon and senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner. Lowry predicted that the trio would soon collapse and only Kushner would remain standing, as he is a member of the president’s family.

Lowry also said that Trump broke with precedent by immediately advocating for two large bills, rather than passing several smaller bills initially to build success and momentum.

Trump has chosen to focus on repealing and

Continued on Page 3

Women’s Day Symposium

Audrey Cheng ’20 and Kathleen Maeder ’20 Staff Writers Amherst College professors held a symposium on March 8, International Women’s Day, to discuss global feminist movements. A march through the Amherst town commons followed the panel and discussion session of the symposium, which was titled “Feminist Movements in a Reactionary Era: A Teach-In, Talk-Around and Walk-Out Honoring the International Women’s Strike.”

Professor Amrita Basu, who teaches in the sexuality, women’s and gender studies department as well as other departments, introduced the panelists. She discussed advances made by women in social justice movements and setbacks they have faced with the rise of rightwing political groups.

Basu also questioned whether activism can be successful and sustainable over the long term, or if it is merely in response to oppression.

Five professors from various institutions spoke at the panel: Millie Thayer and Svati Shah from UMass Amherst, Elora Chowdhury from UMass Boston, Islah Jad from the Birzeit University in Palestine and Benita Roth from Binghamton University. Professor Kristin Bumiller, chair of political science at Amherst,

Continued on Page 3

News

Jamie Gracie Thoughts on Theses

Mar. 13, 2017 - Mar. 22, 2017

>>Mar. 13, 2017 3:45 p.m., Charles Pratt Dorm An officer investigated a smoke detector sounding in a first-floor room and discovered a fire in the room. The Amherst Fire Department responded. The resident was fined $100 for a smoking violation, $100 for creating an endangering condition and a $25 handling fee for the removal of prohibited cooking devices.

4:16 p.m., Beneski Earth Science & Natural History Museum An officer investigated an intrusion alarm and found it was set off on accident.

5:38 p.m., Charles Pratt Dorm While investigating a smoke detector sounding in a first-floor room, an officer discovered a small amount of marijuana and materials used for smoking. The items were confiscated and the matter was referred to Student Affairs. >>Mar. 14, 2017 03:19 a.m., Greenway Building B A resident reported an unknown female entered his suite, urinated on the floor and then went to sleep in a vacant bed. The responding officers identified the woman, who had been drinking, and assisted her back to her room.

>>Mar. 15, 2017 1:16 p.m., Fayerweather Lot Road An officer investigated a motor vehicle accident. >>Mar. 18, 2017 1:32 a.m., Chapman House An officer encountered a student who had three candles burning in their room. The candles were confiscated and the student was fined $100. >>Mar. 19, 2017 10:25 p.m., Seelye House An officer responded to a noise complaint and found several students watching television. The volume was turned down. >>Mar. 20, 2017 12:29 a.m., Mayo Smith Lot An officer encountered a person, who has no association with the college, looking through a dumpster. She was directed to leave campus.

Correction: In last week’s article, previously titled “Town Organizes Community Dialogue on Political Climate,” the headline and article mistakenly stated that the town of Amherst held the community gatherings. The Black Sheep is funding, organizing and hosting the meetings independently and not in affiliation with the town.

Cornell Brooks President of the NAACP

Friday, March 24 Talk at 8 p.m.

Johnson Chapel Amherst College Free and open to the public.

Made possible by the generosity of the Victor S. Johnson Lectureship Fund

Department of Economics

Jamie Gracie is an economics and Spanish double major. Her thesis examines the long-term effects of bilingual elementary programs on students and their achievements. Her thesis advisors are Assistant Professors of Economics Caroline Theoharides and Katharine Sims.

Q: What is your thesis about?

A: It’s sort of like [the] economics of education … It’s looking at bilingual elementary school programs for non-native English speakers, so either a bilingual class or an English as a second language [class] ... It’s looking at the difference of the effects of those two programs on long run student achievements … So, if you’re in a district that has bilingual classes, do you graduate from high school more or less often? Or are your high school standardized test scores better or worse?

had a lot of econ education classes, so I thought if I did a thesis, I could kind of learn about it on my own.

Q: How has the thesis writing process been for you so far? When did you start, and where in the process are you now?

A: The first semester was sort of just me gathering the data and figuring out how I was going to do all of [it] … what the regression model was going to be … which I didn’t actually do until interterm, but that was what I was supposed to be doing in the first I wanted to do an econ the- semester. This semester, sis sort of related to Span- I’ve sort of been doing ish, and I wasn’t really sure if the actual analysis and I wanted to do something in writing it, and now I have a draft, so once I a Spanish-speaking country. get it back from my adMy freshman year, I wrote viser, I’ll probably have a final paper for my Spanish to … rewrite a lot of it class about bilingual educa- … but I think I have tion in the U.S., so it’s some- three more weeks or something, so I [have] thing I have sort of thought a little bit of time.

“

Q: What have you found out so far?

A: I haven’t really found conclusive evidence that bilingual programs are helpful or harmful … In the first set of results I did, it seemed like there were negative spillover effects of bilingual programs … African-American about before … I read a paper students had lower that … used the same set- Q: What has been your test scores in districts ting, but to look at short-term favorite part of writwith bilingual classes, test scores [instead] … but I ing your thesis? even though they are A: I think it’s been cool was sort of interested in the to be guiding the relikely not in the classes themselves … But long run … [Amherst] hasn’t search. [I’ve] worked I also found positive yet had a lot of econ educa- for Professor Theohaeffects for white stu- tion classes, so I thought if rides as a research asdents, which is kind I did a thesis, I could kind of sistant for the last couof depressing that if ple of years, which is learn about it on my own. you have this policy also super fun, and that intervention it would was sort of me learning help white students how to do [research]. and hurt African-American students … but I And now, I feel like I can come up with my don’t know — every time I run [the results] it’s own ideas, like, “Oh, I’m going to test this, or a little different, so I wouldn’t say that I know I’ll try doing this.” It’s been kind of fun to test for sure what is happening. different things … I still don’t know what the mechanisms are that drive the results, so I’m Q: How have you been gathering data? Have trying to figure that out and having to think you been visiting different places, or is it on- about it … Being in control of it has been kind line research? of fun … In the process, I’ve gotten to think A: It’s like an empirical project. So I have test about the questions that are interesting to me score data from [Texas]. … I have data on and that has been fun. whether or not different school districts have bilingual programs or ESL programs [as well Q: What has been the most difficult or suras] the number of English learners in those dis- prising part of writing a thesis? tricts, and then I can match that to test scores A: I thought I would just do this and the results when those students would be in eleventh would be super obvious, and I’ll be like, “Yes, grade or their graduation rates. … The way it this is a very clear effect of these programs,” but works in Texas is, if you have 20 or more Eng- actually when I do it … every time I tweak a litlish learners that speak the same language — tle thing, the results change by a lot … I think it’s almost always Spanish — in the same grade that [the results have] been less clear than I level, then the district has to provide bilingual thought or hoped they might’ve been. education … [my research is] sort of looking at that cut-off.

Q: What advice would you give to the current juniors about writing a thesis?

Q: Why did you decide to write on this par- A: I think that if you’re going to do an emticular topic? What about it interests you? pirical thesis, just getting your data and having A: I wanted to do an econ thesis sort of related good data early is super important. I actually to Spanish, and I wasn’t really sure if I wanted got the most important part of mine in the to do something in a Spanish-speaking coun- summer, which was super helpful … but even try. My freshman year, I wrote a final paper though I had it in August, it still took me the for my Spanish class about bilingual educa- whole first semester to figure out how to use tion in the U.S., so it’s something I have sort of it, so I feel like if I had gotten it in October, I thought about before … I read a paper that … would have been screwed. Definitely the earlier used the same setting, but to look at short-term you get good data, the better. test scores [instead] … but I was sort of inter— Ariana Lee ’20 ested in the long run … [Amherst] hasn’t yet

”

The Amherst Student • March 22, 2017

News

3

Symposium and March Held on International Women’s Day Continued from Page 1

moderated the discussion.

The speakers, who are experts in international feminist and LGBT movements, discussed current and historical movements for women’s rights in Bangladesh, India, Palestine, the U.S. and Brazil.

Additionally, they talked about how race, social class and LGBT issues have affected feminist activism.

When asked about international cooperation between feminist movements, Thayer described the domestic focus of Brazil’s activists.

“Most people are really focused … on the right wing in their own country, and they’re sort of fighting for their lives, so it’s been a lot of harder to focus beyond the borders of their country,” said Thayer.

A Q&A session followed the panel, with discussion on topics such as neoliberalism, modern movements like Black Lives Matter and the necessity of grassroots activism.

After the symposium, attendees gathered in the lobby of Converse Hall for the march.

People held signs with slogans in different languages to reflect the theme of internationality that was present through the day’s events and discussions.

The march, which lasted for around half an hour, took a rectangular route around the Amherst town common, beginning north

on Boltwood Avenue and ending outside of Converse Hall across from College Street.

The event held up traffic on the road, and the crowd was trailed by a long line of cars.

At the conclusion of the march, Ana Ascencio ’18 gave a final speech to wrap up the event, noting the presence of both students and members of the community and reminding everyone that they were standing in solidarity with those across the globe who were also marching that day.

Ascencio rallied the crowd with a chant at the end of her speech: “When they say step back, we say fight back!”

In an online interview, she said that the slogan was taken from a similar march held in Northampton earlier in the day, which drew approximately 300 participants, according to WWLP-22News.

“I felt compelled to take what the women on the panel said and the comments raised by the women in the crowd into a space of direct, public action,” she said.

“I think for me, the march was intended to be a disruption of normal operations — in this case disrupting traffic in a very public way — to show what would happen if women decided to strike for the day,” Ascencio added.

“And I definitely stand behind that.”

Basu, one of the event’s primary organizers, said in an email interview that Banu Subramaniam, the director of the Five College

Women’s Studies Research Center, originally suggested organizing a panel to celebrate the publication of Basu’s edited anthology, “Women’s Movements in a Global Era.” “I was enthusiastic about planning an event and of holding it on International Women’s Day, since the book documents the trajectories of global feminist movements,” said Basu.

Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science Manuela Picq was also involved in the planning process for the event.

According to Basu, the events following President Donald Trump’s election in November, including the Women’s March and the

International Women’s Strike held March 8, changed her plans for the symposium.

“We decided to make the focus of the symposium the impact on women and on feminism of the growth of right-wing populism cross-nationally,” Basu said.

“This change in focus galvanized people’s energies. I was thrilled by how many people attended and by the energy and enthusiasm of the gathering,” Basu added.

Prior to the public symposium, two workshops titled “Authoritarianism, Religion and the State” and “Neoliberalism and Feminism” were held for faculty members on March 7.

to be hard.”

Lowry concluded by addressing concerns over Trump’s character and temperament and said that he hopes Trump will control his impulsiveness on meaningful issues. “[It] seems odd to say [about] someone who is president of the United States, but I think a lot depends, ultimately, on how much he wants to succeed as president,” he said. “I think it’s an

open question.”

“I agreed with almost everything he said, as someone who’s not quite as principally conservative as he is,” Morgan Yurosek ’20 said. “I fall more moderately. But as someone who appreciates that he stood his ground when Trump got the nomination and didn’t give up his principles for the act of someone becoming popular … that is admirable.”

As a member of the Amherst College Republicans, Yurosek echoed Lowry’s advocacy for free speech on college campuses.

“I am just so happy that the college has really been trying to bring in a lot of conservative speakers, with Jeb Bush coming and now Rich Lowry,” Yurosek said, adding that Amherst was “bringing more politically diverse people regardless of if the campus leans left.”

Photo courtesy of Stephanie Orion

A panel of five professors from various institutions spoke on feminist movements and the setbacks presented by right-wing political groups.

National Review Editor Gives Talk on Trump Administration Continued from Page 1 replacing the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, and reforming the tax code.

“If [the Trump administration does] both of those, it’s a near-historic accomplishment,” Lowry said. “But doing just one of them would be a big deal, and just doing one of them is going

Opinion

THE AMHERST

STUDENT

The Measures of Success

E X E C U T I V E B OA R D

Editorial American culture demands that college students experience immense personal growth during their education. Under such external pressure, how can we make our time and growth at Amherst meaningful? It can feel as if the worth of our education is often framed as dependent on how much we change or how much we learn. While the pursuit of growth is an admirable ambition, we should be cautious of obsessing over volume and should remain critical of what our growth actually looks like. What are the indicators of development? Who chooses those indicators? Too often, we fail to set our own standards of achievement, aspiring instead to an image that is not of our own making.

It can be difficult to take our own desires seriously. When we find something we are passionate about and begin a large project — perhaps a thesis or a long research paper — we want to invest our whole selves.

We want to believe that we are doing quality and important work.

We strive to make our thoughts matter. However, there is often an afterthought that seems to trail such intense work, a voice that questions whether we are creating anything meaningful. We look at the work or

the achievements of our friends, and feel as though we do not match up. Or that, somewhere, someone has already said all the thoughts we have said, that no thought of ours is original. To stay with a long project, we must engage with these doubts. To move forward, there must be an effective way to regain self-confidence.

To be clear, we should not fall in the other direction, either. Excessive pride, entitlement and belief that our thoughts are more important or more original than others are also dangerous habits. Remembering our own uniqueness is important step, but there is no need to elevate our individuality above those of others in the process. We do not need to be the best among others, only the best and most true version of our individual selves. While at first this might seem like an antisocial way of thinking, it is exactly the opposite. When each person draws from deep within their selves, we as a group are better prepared to meet each other on an equal and transparent playing field. We are neither pretending to be anyone else nor putting on airs as disguise. To be oneself is to be vulnerable and more open to others.

Letters Regarding Disability and Inclusion These letters were written in response to an opinion article by students on the college’s disability policies published in The Amherst Student on March 8.

Dear Amherst Students, As members of the Committee of Six, the executive committee of the faculty, we write to affirm your efforts to raise awareness about issues of disability and inclusion at Amherst. We share your aspiration that the college’s campus, curriculum and community be accessible to everyone — faculty, staff, students and visitors. We have been discussing several of the questions you have raised throughout the year and remain committed to collaborating with you and the administration to make issues of disability and inclusion a top priority. We are willing and eager to meet with you and to learn more about your research and the suggestions you have made, and we look forward to supporting the Office of Student Affairs, the dean of the faculty and the Office of Diversity and Inclusion in their continuing efforts to think critically and constructively about how to make Amherst a more inclusive and accessible community for all of us.

Hilary Moss, History, Black Studies Adam Sitze, Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought Timothy Van Compernolle, Asian Languages and Civilizations, Film and Media Studies

Sincerely, Greg Call, Mathematics and Statistics Judith Frank, English David Hansen, Chemistry, Biochemistry-Biophysics

Dear Students, We, the faculty of the Department of Black Studies, applaud the courage and commitment you showed to issues of diversity, disability and inclusion in your recent editorial. While we were saddened to hear you give voice to the challenges you face, we appreciate your willingness to provide concrete suggestions for how the college might best ensure that all of its students have full access to equal educational opportunity. We write to tell you that you do not stand alone in your concerns, nor will you be alone as you work to address them. Together with the Office of Student Affairs and the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, we are here for you as you continue to press for a college that includes everyone fully — students, staff and faculty.

Sincerely, Rowland Abiodun

Rhonda Cobham-Sander Solsiree Del Moral

John Drabinski Mary Hicks

Hilary Moss Khary Polk

To The Roosevelt Institute at Amherst, The faculty of the History Department enthusiastically endorses your work to engage the entire college community in a discussion of disability and inclusion at the college. The college has made substantial progress in raising awareness about the barriers faced by many communities at the college, and this awareness is the first stage of an ongoing process of education, discussion and affirmation of belonging. We agree that all of the college’s resources should be accessible to the entire community, not only as a necessary part of Amherst’s mission as an institution devoted to scholarship and learning, but also as an essential component of the open curriculum that is the foundation of the Amherst education. We look forward to supporting your initiatives, and the initiatives of the Office of Student Affairs and Office of Diversity and Inclusion, in whatever way we can, in the classroom and in the larger community.

Sincerely, Ellen Boucher Jun Cho Frank Couvares Sergey Glebov

Adi Gordon Alec Hickmott Mary Hicks Rick López Jen Manion

Trent Maxey Ted Melillo Hilary Moss Sean Redding Monica Ringer

Dwaipayan Sen John Servos April Trask Vanessa Walker

If I May: It’s Okay to Use a Tray Jake May ’19 Columnist Earlier this year, I wrote an article for The Amherst Student titled “Try Tray-less.” In it, I urged those who were against the tray-less movement to simply give it a try and see if it really affected their dining experience in Valentine.

I was driven to write this article because I was initially skeptical of going tray-less, but once I stopped using one, I realized that it didn’t greatly affect my Val experience. In fact, since going tray-less, I’ve found that I am far less likely to end up with a significant amount of food waste on my plate. This was one of the main points of the movement. Without trays, students are far more likely to be economical and smart about what they carry out of the food area in Val.

However, Val has not gone truly tray-less.

While Val has decreased the number of trays available to students and moved them from the prominent spot outside of the “Traditional” line, there are still some trays available next to the swipe-in booths at the entrance to the dining hall. Many students have continued to use these trays. A gut reaction of many of my peers — including myself, initially — has been some disappointment in these students’ lack of willingness to embrace the tray-less initiative.

However, a dear friend pointed out that the whole point of keeping those trays there is so that students who find them very useful can use them. He also mentioned that it is totally fine to use a tray — as long as you are not wasting food.

I’d like to echo this sentiment. If a student

knows that they are going to eat a large meal, then they should, by all means, use a tray. If a student has been eating the same breakfast for four years of college that required a tray, and they know that they will finish everything they get, then by all means, use a tray. Furthermore, students should not immediately assume that peers who use trays have bad intentions. Perhaps they just have a routine that they are used to, and they know that a tray is necessary. The reason for reducing the number of trays present in Val was to break the norm of using a tray.

Now, students who did not need trays before are not using them and less food is being wasted. However, those students who do need trays should still feel comfortable using them, as they are hopefully not adding to the amount of food waste, either.

Editors-in-Chief Drew Kiley Jingwen Zhang Executive Advisers Lauren Tuiskula Sophie Murguia Managing News Shawna Chen, Isabel Tessier Managing Opinion Kelly Chian, Spencer Quong Managing Arts and Living Julia Pretsfelder, Paola Garcia-Prieto Managing Sports Nathaniel Quigley, Julia Turner Managing Design Justin Barry S TA F F Head Publishers Tia Robinson, Emily Ratte Head Marketer Sophie Currin Design Editors Zehra Madhavan, Isabel Park, Chloe Tausk, Sivian Yu

Letters Policy The opinion pages of The Amherst Student are intended as an open forum for the Amherst community.

The Student will print letters under 450 words in length if they are submitted to The Student offices in the Campus Center or to the paper’s email account (astudent@amherst.edu) by noon on Sunday, after which they will not be accepted.

The editors reserve the right to edit any letters exceeding the 450-word limit or to withhold any letter because of considerations of space or content.

Letters must bear the names of all contributors and a phone number where the author or authors may be reached.

Letters and columns may be edited for clarity and Student style.

Publication Standards The Amherst Student is published weekly except during college vacations. The subscription rate is $75 per year or $40 per semester. Subscription requests and address changes should be sent to: Subscriptions, The Amherst Student Box 2291, Amherst College Amherst, MA 01002-5000 The offices of The Amherst Student are located on the second floor of the Keefe Campus Center, Amherst College. Phone: (413) 542-2304. All contents copyright © 2015 by The Amherst Student, Inc. All rights reserved. The Amherst Student logo is a trademark of The Amherst Student, Inc. Additionally, The Amherst Student does not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation or age. The views expressed in this publication do not reflect the views of The Amherst Student.

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The Amherst Student • March 22, 2017

Opinion

5

Why We Don’t Talk about Porn (But Really Should) Tess Frenzel ’17 and Victoria Zhang ’18 Contributing Writers Watching porn at college always reminded me a little bit of Facebook stalking. Lots of people do it, many find it entertaining, and almost everyone would be embarrassed if someone caught them watching it. What’s different about porn is the way we talk about it — or maybe more importantly, the way we don’t. The porn industry is like the mafia boss of entertainment. It’s the most powerful player by far, but we feel afraid or ashamed to address it directly. To put it in perspective, the documentary “Hot Girls Wanted” reports that porn sites have more visitors than Netflix, Amazon and Twitter combined, yet we don’t hear people talking about new uploads on Pornhub the same way we do about the next episode of House of Cards. Why is that? If porn is as prevalent in our culture as current studies claim, why does that translate to such an absent or closed conversation on campus?

One of the reasons porn is difficult to talk about is because the topic makes it easy to be judgmental of both ourselves and of each other. From the first time we lied and clicked the “yes” button indicating we were over the age of 18, we were taught that our sexual desires (and our search histories) were something we needed to hide. Our generation’s relationship with sex from the outset was one tied

to embarrassment and secrecy. This fault in dialogue, in which exploring our sexual identities is written off as wrong, feeds into the lack of conversation surrounding porn and further complicates people’s relationships with their own sexualities.

My first exposure to sex was through porn. I was twelve years old, and after a five-minute lesson in health class that covered only heteronormative sexual practices (you put a penis into a vagina) and being offered no information on sexual pleasure, I decided to conduct some research online to find out what sex was really like. I know now that porn didn’t really do the greatest job of teaching me what real sex is at all, but it did grant me some exposure to the idea that sex can also be meant for pleasure and connection and that people’s sexual preferences are really complex and unique.

We believe the popularity of porn in the U.S. is strongly related to the huge gaps in sexual education across our country. The greatest concern about this substitution is that the primary function of porn is entertainment. The industry does not seek to educate, and that’s why it promotes a fantasy that can be truly harmful to everyone’s attitudes regarding sex. Porn can promote unrealistic body expectations, unsafe sexual practices and degrading or even violent actions against women.

Porn also uses racial stereotypes like “feisty Latinas,” “submissive Asians” or “hyper-masculine

black men” that degrade different racial and ethnic groups as well as perpetuate racist, sexist and ableist dialogues. Porn consumption, like any other media consumption, should be held by its viewer to a standard of decency and inclusivity that it often fails to reach.

With that being said, the most important understanding we need to develop on the topic of pornography is that masturbating to porn conditions our bodies to respond to specific sexual stimuli. Watching violent or degrading scenes in pornography can lead individuals to expect those same experiences with a partner who doesn’t share the same preferences and can also cause individuals to need those images to “get in the mood.”

Studies have further shown that overuse of porn can have harmful side effects. There is a correlation between an increase in porn consumption and higher rates of erectile dysfunction in young men. Journalist Belinda Luscombe reports that some men report that visualizing porn is the only way they are able to have an erection. The American Psychiatric Society has also found that watching porn consistently increases the likelihood for signs of behavioral addiction. While pornography provides an outlet for sexual frustration, it can also hold some serious implications for our future relationships. We owe it to ourselves and to each other to begin addressing these implications in

conversation or we allow pornography to continue to have the last word on what our sex lives should look like.

Despite its problems, blanket condemnation is not an appropriate response to the prevalence of pornography in our society. Shame tactics have not proven to lower the number of people watching porn, but they do contribute to shutting down any hope for conversation. A majority of our generation and the future generations will have their first sexual “education” through pornography. If we’re uncomfortable discussing the myths and the assumptions that we learn from porn, we contribute to its most harmful effects. We also feed into a national trend that would prefer to avoid addressing the deficiencies in the U.S. sexual education than try to solve them. There is a growing segment of the pornography industry that creates sex-positive, inclusive and feminist forms of pornography (see the work of Nina Hartley, Lust Cinema, Ruby’s Diary and OMGYES) and there are also many alternatives to using porn if you want to avoid its side effects, like photos, literary erotica and good old imagination. We should talk about porn because it helps us talk about our own sexualities.

The more open and shame-free we can make that conversation, the closer we get to a more informed and positive relationship with sex as a whole.

That’s an ideal we don’t need to judge.

“Thinking Revolution”: Muslim Immigration and Poetic Politics Siraj Ahmed Sindhu ’17 Contributing Writer My parents emigrated from Lahore to Brooklyn, NY in the early 1990s. I’ve often imagined their arrival in the U.S.: they settled in a country far from home, where people who looked nothing like them spoke an unfamiliar language, with little in the way of a support system. When I imagine their difficulties, I’m impressed by their resilience. Today, Muslim immigrants like my parents are faced with unprecedented circumstances of danger, difficulty and hostility. More importantly, migrants are often members of the larger global working class, which involves them in even larger class struggles. Even if — or when — they become citizens of Western states, they are distrusted and deemed hostile or violent enemies of the liberal West. I’m interested in deciphering what Muslims might signify to the American political-legal order if they become totally excluded.

First, it is important to clarify what we mean by the term “Muslim.” We know in one sense that “Muslim” is a category of religious identity: it refers to adherents of a certain school of monotheism who, broadly speaking, share a belief in the teachings of Muhammad and the Qur’an.

But in another, more critical sense, “Muslim” is an instrument. It is a way of labeling people as legitimate targets. It is a tool deployed by institutions of power to classify people as banned and unprotected.

To clarify what I mean by this last definition, I’d like to refer to Giorgio Agamben’s concept of homo sacer, which he borrows from the Roman Law tradition. Agamben discusses homo sacer as a figure who is defined by the law as a banned subject. That is, they are included in the law only insofar as they are also excluded from the law by being named as a danger to society and thereby being rendered legitimate targets.

Though countless American citizens have been killed by the agents of their own state, the cases of U.S. citizens whose assassinations had prior been expressly authorized by the sovereign are rare. Yet, multiple Muslims are among these cases. Political Philosopher and journalist Rafia Zakaria noted that at checkpoints and airports, the unprotected status of Muslims becomes clear.

“Checkpoints expose the crudest truths about humanity, official imprimaturs of who is deserving of deference and who of disdain,” she wrote.

“The swarthy and bearded rocket scientist and the fifteen-year-old girl speaking English with

an American accent have Muslim names and so are simply Muslim and legitimately suspect.” We can understand Muslims, then, not only as those who self-identify with a faith — we can also understand them as people labeled by the state as banned citizens external to the social contract, like Hobbesian wolves who pose an existential threat to the political order.

The rhetoric surrounding the recent ban on travel to the U.S. by citizens from seven Muslim-majority states, commonly known as the Muslim ban, framed the ban as a temporary response to emergency circumstances. To use another concept of Agamben’s, an American context for something like an extended state of exception is the Muslim ban. The courts might overturn Muslim ban after Muslim ban, but there is no assurance that further sovereign orders will not successfully come down the pipeline.

On the big picture of relations between the Muslim world and the liberal secular west, Sandro Mezzadra has developed a political concept called the “right to escape” while discussing the situation of migrants in Europe and across the rest of the West. Mezzadra maintains that the right to escape is a universal right to be upheld wherever people live in conditions of oppression, especially regarding labor conditions. Noting that members of the global subaltern generally undertake contemporary migrations purposefully, Mezzadra argues that migrants should be understood in terms of the conditions of their home countries. Putting the focus on the ways in which migrants and refugees do or do not succeed to integrate into the receiving countries, Mezzadra argues, already clouds our ability to understand migrants on their own terms. If we do not understand their circumstances and the causes of their circumstances, we cannot hope to understand their subjectivities.

Understanding migrant subjectivities, Mezzadra continues, is inextricable from issues of labor and class. More specifically, he argues that migration as an escape from exploitative working conditions is a universal right. “The mobility of migrant women and men is an expression of a series of subjective movements of escape from the rigidities of the international division of labor,” Mezzandra writes. “These movements of escape constitute one of the eradicated and denied motors of the radical transformations which have influenced capitalist modes of production during the last two decades.” From this vantage point, Mezzadra sees political persecution and labor exploitation as two sides of the same coin.

In migration, he also sees the activation of a universal latent right, the right to escape oppressive circumstances. Migrants, he notes, “have often played an essential role in offering points of reference within a social texture deserted by the crisis of other agencies of socialization — above all the Welfare State and the traditional organizations of the labor movement. In more general terms, however, it is necessary to note that this image lends itself easily to the reproduction of paternalistic logics which renew an order of discourse and a complex of practices that demote migrants to an inferior position, denying them all chance of becoming subjects.” From this perspective, the contemporary juncture of the Muslim subject with the migrant subject points to an important tension in contemporary politics: the opposition of love to hate, dovetailing with the belief that all that is needed to overcome Islamophobic hatred is indiscriminate love for all strangers. The “Love Trumps Hate” refrain, in this sense, neglects to note that structural forces — chief among them, class antagonism — obstructs the power of love to turn migrants into subjects.

Becoming subjects is a paradigmatic form of becoming — it is the particular form of becoming that determines the bounds of the human community. In order for one to have a chance of becoming a subject — or, in less phenomenological and more political terms, to be recognized as a member of the human demos, as a being with subjective interiority — one must be publicly recognized as such. It is increasingly the case that recognition in this sense is denied not only to those who are branded, for reasons of religious and racial identity, as homo sacer.

Recognition is also denied to the global working class, whose lives are, as Alain Badiou has noted, characterized by a suffering that is, importantly, “difficult to behold.”

I mention this turn of phrase because it brings to our attention the aspect of ethics — the study of proper behavior with regard to the “Other” — that is particularly in play here. It is the exceptional difficulty of beholding the suffering of dehumanized Others, of witnessing suffering and holding one’s gaze. For Mezzadra, as for Badiou, this is a crucial ethical act that also has political resonance. For as Badiou points out, the ability to meet the gaze of the suffering Other is precisely what is needed to reverse the sentiment expressed by any particular European minister who says that his nation cannot accept within its borders the misery of the world.

To bring this discussion back closer to home,

I’d like to mention that President Biddy Martin recently wrote that, especially in our age of accelerated lifestyles, social isolation, political division and the substitution of electronic platforms of communication for the erstwhile rational-discursive public sphere, “Politics without a poetic approach to language, to people, and to things can kill.” President Martin meant that it is possible to learn the lesson of slowness, to listen and contemplate, to connect and to be mutually vulnerable with those from whom we differ. The opposite of what President Martin wrote is that politics can, potentially, give us peace and harmony, but only if we act slowly and carefully in the political realm, with a poetic attunement to our relations with each other.

Taking the politics of Muslim immigration poetically means seeing the purposes and fears that drive the mass movement of people across continents and oceans. It means recognizing that each Muslim is a human being and that each person deserves a life free of domination and oppression, regardless of race, religion or nationality. But a poetic view of migration means also a prolonged and patient view of migration, one that necessarily inquires into the causes of migration. This perspective places the focus not on what migrants do once they arrive in Western nations, but instead on what has occurred in Muslim-majority nations to cause the mass exodus of people: namely, the toppling of democratic governments in favor of installing authoritarians, settler-colonization, and imperialist war in Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Now, in closing, I’d like to turn to recent writings by Asad Haider, who writes that “our responsibility” is to “think the revolution” and especially to confront the whole of the global capitalist social structure. If the goal of the liberal multiculturalist is to make it possible to love the stranger and even to welcome that stranger into one’s own home — in short, to make possible poetic intersubjectivity vis-à-vis a Levinasian or Derridean ethic of urgent respect for the life and subjectivity of the Other — then, Haider insists, a particular kind of antagonism, or even hatred, might be politically necessary. This is a hatred of the system that turns strangers into something less than human, a hatred of the system that turns the working class, and especially the refugees and migrants among them, into unwelcome non-subjects. It is this class antagonism, in our present moment of exceptional Islamophobia, that might make defending Muslims a revolutionary act.

Arts&Living

Photo courtesy of wikimedia.org

One topic the “Re-imagining the Greeks” Conference looks at is how adaptations of Greek theater interact with regional traditions such as Japanese Noh theater.

“Re-Imagining the Greeks” Conference: Cross-Cultural Adaptations Julia Pretsfelder ’18 Managing Arts & Living Editor Yagil Eliraz, stage director and professor of theatre and dance, facilitated the “Re-Imagining the Greeks” Conference.

Q: How did this conference come together? Did you just come up with the idea and pull together resources at Amherst?

A: We had a little extra budget this year, so Catherine [Epstein], our dean, asked if anyone had thoughts [on] what we could do with it. That immediately sparked an idea I’ve had for a long time, so I thought of people I’d like to bring, a budget and a detailed proposal. I am excited about adapting Greek tragedy as a director and a professor.

Q: How did you come to fall in love with Greek theater?

A: I reached a certain point in my career as a director where I got tired of realistic plays. I got tired of plays that took place in a kitchen and living room.

Greek theater deals with giant problems that are unsolvable, and the works speak in a performative language that combines image and movement and text. In this way it is both very textural, very physical and very different from commercial theater which can be like television on stage. I had a really wonderful professor at Tel Aviv University who made me really passionate about Greeks.

The first production I did was an adaptation of Oedipus that was an opera and a play, so I com-

Photo courtesy of wikimedia.org

Lee’s characters spoke in meter in this adaptation of Aristophanes’ “Lysistrata.”

posed a libretto and worked with my friend Iddo Aharony who is a composer. So we had sung text spoken text and dance, and it was very interdisciplinary.

Q: How did you choose which interpretations to focus on? (Japanese, African and/or American) Did this mainly stem from the professors who were presenting or cultures that have adapted Greek tragedies?

A: I chose the cultures and then I chose who I wanted to talk about them. I taught a class in the fall on this topic, and I found these writers that really fascinated me. So the proposal that I’ve focused on in my class is artists from different cultures who have focused on Greek tragedies for an adaptation. We asked, why has this phenomenon of adaptation of classical Greek works been happening since the ’80s? When is it happening?

What are some of the manifestations?

There are a few Japanese directors who have chosen to adapt and toured worldwide, like Tadashi Suzuki who is the best director in Japan.

There are different theater traditions like noh and butoh that interact with texts from different cultural traditions. It’s not like they’re taking butoh and doing Tennessee Williams with this cause that wouldn’t make sense. It works with Greek because it’s old and because it works with music and dance and gesture and movement. Like butoh, Greek tragedy is presentational, not representational.

What survived is a manuscript, but it wasn’t intended to be literature to sit on a shelf.

Some of the themes that are conflicts in the Greek tragedies are so universal that they are readapted and intended to be told and re-told in different cultures. Femi Osofisun, a Nigerian director, adapted “Antigone” taking action in colonialist Nigeria in the late 19th century, and that’s why they are choosing those texts.

Q: In approaching the idea that Greek tragedy is a universal resource, have you seen any influence from other cultures upon Greek tragedies to begin with?

A: The scholar from Holland Astrid van Weyenberg studies and challenges the idea of the white West and culture being born in ancient Greece.

This interpretation implies that because Greek values are universal, the white West values are universal as well. That approach started to change in the 1950s and in the 1970s the idea that there is no one place and time that is ancient Greece. It took 800 years to form in a wide geographical region.

There is an intercultural relationship between ancient Greece and ancient Egypt, the same way

that ancient Greece sold sheepskin to Egypt, they exchanged culture between them. This is also true for Mesopotamia, Sicily and Italy. There was also a colonial relationship with the Athenians. Overall, there’s a process of absorbing many different cultures to form Greek culture. There is not something that one culture can put a hand on and say, “that’s mine.”

Q: What effects does translation on the original Greek have on the plays?

A: I directed the Oresteia trilogy, which is the only one that has survived in total. There are three tragedies and satyr, which is like animals playing men in a weird variation on satyr. So we know that Oedipus trilogy was intended to be like that originally. When we worked on Orestaia, there were at least twelve translations. The Greek language works more with consonants, and English works more with vowels. The original language is metered in a way that cannot be translated. It’s the same problem we have in Hebrew when we try to translate Shakespeare … the iambic pentameter, that is also in Greek plays. When you’re working with the translation, you also want to maintain the metrical tone of the language. Meter is part of its identity on stage. How do you keep the meter in English, which is not the original meter in which it is written? That’s why it’s hard to translate into English, so it’s an ongoing negotiation between director and translator.

Q: What commentary could the Greek tragedy

provide in today’s political climate?

A: I can answer that from so many different aspects and so many different angles because it is so relevant. I’ll give you an example: “The Trojan Women,” a play written by Euripides. We’re going to have a workshop with an African-American drummer, Neil Clarke, who specializes in African drumming. And I chose this play because it’s about the suffering of the victims in the Trojan War. I talked about this with Neil, and he says in Senegal there’s a special drumming for the suffering of slavery. He read the text, and it hit him so hard because it captures the feelings of we’re being enslaved now. Half a year ago I was reading an adaptation of this from a Syrian director who is adapting this to respond to the crisis. He has many Syrian women singing in a chorus, which is very rare in Syria. Today, there is a constant crisis of war and refugee and a constant exploitation of the “Other.” In Greece, the “Other” is the Trojans, the Persians. Unfortunately, our lives give us so many occasions of what the Greeks are talking about.

So it’s just a reflecting mirror that we get to look at and ask ourselves those questions. Questions of morality, questions of social responsibility. I think what’s so exciting about Greek theater is the community aspect. It’s not about individuals—it’s about societies, it’s about the responsibility of individual in society. For example, with Medea and Jason, he’s going to marry the daughter of the king.

It’s a domestic issue, but there is a still a societal aspect because there’s a chorus and I think that’s so cool. It’s like a multi-perspective drama.

Photo courtesy of wikimedia.org

Greek tragedy complements Japanese butoh theater because both traditions are interdisciplinary performances with music, gesture, dance and movement.

The Amherst Student • March 22, 2017

Arts & Living 7

Jordan Peele’s Directorial Debut “Get Out” Lives up to Hype

Photo courtesy of vimeo.com

Photo courtesy of vimeo.com

“Get Out” enjoyed major box office success earning over 33.4 million opening weekend. Peele promises he will make more social commentary horror movies.

Youngkwang Shin ’19 Staff Writer Spoiler-free article!

The premise of this movie is simple enough — perhaps that is the first of its strengths. The audience finds the protagonist Chris packing his things, playing cute with his girlfriend Rose and preparing himself to meet his girlfriend’s parents.

Along the journey home, the movie leaks countless hints that Rose’s parents possess little to no sense of racial sensitivity. But they mean well, Rose insists. Chris, despite his misgivings, goes along with her to the Armitages’ home. Assuredly, almost every facet of the neighborhood pricks him with varying degrees of regret. But Chris discovers that he is not the only black person in the vicinity. What’s more, everything about the black people living in and around the Armitages hints at something sinister; staying seems to become a worse option by the hour.

Summer seems to have come early this year.

While the weather outside may give no such indication, it is a little difficult to see a yearly blockbuster overtaking the sheer excitement and adulation surrounding Jordan Peele’s dazzling directorial debut “Get Out.” And that praise is welldeserved. There is a finesse to “Get Out” that sets

it apart from its springtime peers. What is surprising is that it is a different kind of finesse than the one that governs Peele’s excellent comedy work.

Of course, the unfaltering idea that unites “Get Out” and Peele’s career in comedy is the idea of American blackness in the 21st century. But the approach is markedly different here. As a comedian, Peele has always had a collaborator in the form of Keagan-Michael Key. With Key, Peele, in writing, production and performance, was always playing a role in the bigger game of the sketch.

In his sketches, Peele’s individual comedic vision never wielded the kind of clout it does in the film.

What’s more, in Key & Peele, the humor and social commentary took on the affect of immediacy and improvisation, even when they were meticulously planned. The duo’s well-known East/West College Bowl sketch exemplifies this. The skit has a simple form: list the all-stars of the East, list the all-stars of the West, alternate between Key and Peele. What was funny about the sketch, then, was the torrent of increasingly ridiculous names Key and Peele would conjure up. As one relentlessly followed the other, the skit fit neatly into the praiseworthy ranks of their quick-footed comedy work.

The absence of Key or a Key-figure coupled with the fact that a film could not, by definition,

proceed as one of their skits was the biggest hangup I had going into the theater. But instead of being a disappointment, it served as a scab that was oh-so-refreshingly Peele-d off, and after that point I was laughing like every other person in my packed theater. What impresses most about “Get Out” is how its director so gracefully substitutes his honed powers from his career thus far. Gone is the duo and their speedy wit; enter the delicate emphasis on symbols. Peele adeptly plays with meaning and its objects throughout the movie.

One such symbol (which does not stray into juicy spoiler territory) is the deer. On his way to the Armitages, Chris crashes into and kills a deer.

Shocked, he stares at the deer, helpless to do anything. Rose cautiously and lovingly nudges him away, and the audience is led to conclude that the incident was mere digression. But in this brief scene, Peele introduces the single image of a dying animal entangled in two strands of distress, that of the dying deer and the living man. The former eventually engulfs Chris in the latter half of the film, and the deer becomes a potent symbol of the threat thrust upon black people, within and outside of the story. The latter stays with Chris and foreshadows a more personal trauma that develops in the margins of this airtight script, which intersects with the aforementioned general horror

and clarifies the emotional stakes of the darker parts of the movie. All this from a single scene — although it is not the only such scene, and all the more praise should be accorded to them.

“Get Out” is not a cold, cerebral experience.

One experiences it with a beating heart, and later with splitting sides when a particular friend working for the TSA shows up. Daniel Kaluuya submits an admirable performance, taking the aggressions of his world at a poker-faced stride. But Lil Rel Howery steals every scene he is in and more, since some of his lines still evoke laughter in hindsight.

Humor really is Peele’s home ground, and the comedian-director makes every shot count with the actor. It’s all the more impressive when the jokes and the commentary mingle by the climax. The last bend to that final station has a few bumps: namely, the resolution seems to aim for catharsis but paces itself too quickly to make each moment of it count. But even that is worthy sacrifice to experience the absolute, tail-end climax of the movie, a masterstroke that fuses the meditative excellence of form and the madcap comedy of TSA agent Rod Williams. One would say it makes the whole movie worth it, but in truth it’s satisfying because it builds off the rest of the expertly crafted piece. There isn’t much dilly-dallying to be had here. Get out and watch the movie.

Kota Ezawa Displays Stolen Artwork In Mead’s Rotherwas Room

Photo courtesy of wikimedia.org

For 27 years the frames remain empty in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Art Museum.

Lorelei Dietz ’20 Staff Writer In the Isabella Stewart Gardner Art Museum hang empty frames gaping like wounds.

Some consider it distasteful to leave the frames, deprived of their original content, while others maintain that the museum has taken the proper course of action, not altering the exhibits in any manner. The ideal way to dissolve this dispute, of course, would be to have the stolen artwork returned to the museum. But after 27 years, this resolution seems less and less likely.

Last Saturday marked the 27th anniversary of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist, in which two thieves disguised as Boston police officers broke into the museum and stole thirteen of the pieces on display. None of the pieces have made their way back to what Isabella Gardner had designated as their permanent resting

homes in the gallery. The museum still offers a reward of up to five million dollars for information leading to the recovery of the pieces, still in good condition.

Until these pieces are returned, the frames and the respective spaces the objects once occupied are to remain empty. The woman who created the eponymous museum, Isabella Stewart Gardner, designated in her will monetary support for the museum along with the condition that the galleries would not be significantly altered from her original plans. Out of respect for her wishes, no new works have come to fill the voids in the museum.

Yet the absence of these pieces has opened space for new ones to form, however unconventional they may be.

In the Rotherwas room of the Mead Art Museum is the work of Kota Ezawa, a German artist educated in the United States and a current

professor at the California College of the Arts, which depicts the artwork stolen from the Isabella Gardner Museum, accompanied with footage of the actual heist before entering. His works are illuminated with a glow box, which softens the somewhat harsh and planar minimalism of the actual piece. The hardware that illuminates the pieces constrasts with the antiquated architecture of the actual room itself, which was originally finished in 1611. In this space, the old and the new are forced together without an attempt to reconcile either, giving the viewer a strange sense of being within an anachronism. One cannot pinpoint a time period from which the architecture and the room suggest, giving a slight sensation of disorientation. The immediate instinct is to shrink from the room’s jarring cacophony.

Each piece is rendered in Ezawa’s minimalistic style, boiling a scene down to its base colors and most pertinent details while removing shadows and mid-tones. The shy light that glows from behind the comprehensive shards of color and shape gives it the feeling of a modern stainedglass window, which reinforces this sense of anachronism. Ezawa’s artwork commonly focuses on events such as the Isabella Gardner heist, including an animated video (which he considers a “moving painting”) of the O.J. Simpson trial and the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln and Kennedy.

However, Ezawa’s broad and simplified aesthetic in combination with his frequent use of technology renders these major historical events with a sleek, somewhat artificial and cartoonish exterior that makes it palatable for the eternallyconsuming modern mind. The clean and appealing treatment of these topics slightly hollows out their weight and significance, which modern media, such as televised news, often does by selecting the broadest details or the most sensational aspects of a stories and packaging to their

audience as the whole truth, often gutting it of nuance and complexity.

Ezawa’s work with its anachronisms may invoke some criticisms of modernity. However, it also allows us to understand artwork not as static, finished entities but as living and evolving thoughts and ideas. In doing so, Ezawa highlights a benefit of modernity, which continues to shape and improve our past efforts and gives new relevancy to the past. In the Rotherwas room, he depicts works of bygone eras and a historic heist that seems frozen in time, as it seems unlikely to ever have a resolution or closure. His modern aesthetic, in which he renders both the objects and evokes the event of the heist, gives a new life, a new meaning and a new relationship between the viewer and the artist that they didn’t have before and that the original artist hadn’t intended.

Perhaps this is a broader demonstration that, as Da Vinci once said, “Artwork is never finished, only abandoned.” Even after the painter decides upon the last brush stroke they put on the canvas, the artwork continues to evolve. Audiences interpret them in different ways either by the change in the piece’s location or a change in the views of society. Age or repairs alter the physical appearance. Other artists respond to the artwork with their own, changing the piece from a monologue to a dialogue. Other artists may take the concept of a piece, elements of a work or the whole piece itself and alter it to make a new statement with their predecessor’s work as a spring board. Ezawa’s show is a powerful demonstration of this immortal evolution of artwork, as he gives new life and a new aesthetic to pieces that some may consider static or finished, or without influence due to their disappearance. Ezawa brings these pieces and this event to the present moment to show its continued relevance and honors the evolution of art that happens long after a piece is abandoned or

Arts & Living 8

The Amherst Student • March 22, 2017

Thesis Spotlight: Edzie ’17 Redefines Reality and Absurdity film and media studies. Creative writing has always been a very important part of my life. I have a journal full of really spooky love poems from fourth grade. The first creative course I took, “Unreliabilities,” examined the reliability of narration in fiction and creative non-fiction. I love film and the courses I’ve had the opportunity to take at Amherst have only fostered that.

Photo courtesy of Gabby Edzie ‘17

Edzie conducted interviews with her father about growing up in Apam, Ghana.

Julia Pretsfelder ’18 Managing Arts & Living Editor Gabby Edzie ’17 is a senior English major writing a creative thesis. As she nears it’s final deadline, I had the chance to sit down with her and ask a few questions regarding her trajectory through the English major along with her creative writing process. As Gabby aptly observes, one of the most prized and influential aspects of the English major, and life at Amherst in general, is the opportunity to sit down with peers different from yourself and get to know each other, share thought processes and hopefully think of something new.

Q: What did you think you were going to major in coming into Amherst? How did you decide to become an English major, and what is your concentration?

A: Like everyone else, I thought I was going to be pre-med or econ for approximately ten min-

utes. So then I was like, what major will make me completely unemployable? English! In reality, I think I secretly (or not so secretly) always knew I’d be an English major. I’ve loved reading and writing my entire life. My parents often declare that reading to my siblings and me from an early age was their best decision. In addition to the never-ending opportunities to read and write, a hefty contribution to my love of the English major has been the sense of community that arises out of the discussion of literature. The courses that I’ve taken at Amherst have utilized literature and film as a doorway to discussions about otherwise seemingly indigestible concepts, like those of identity, relationality, race, gender and so on.

The ideas I’ve been fortunate enough to examine have bubbled up from conversations that are complex, challenging and honest. It’s an amazing experience to be in a classroom in which everyone has some genuine personal investment in the subject matter.

My concentrations are in creative writing and

Q: How did your progression through the English major prompt you to write a thesis? Was there a point when everything clicked, and you just knew you wanted to write a creative thesis?

A: The creative writing courses I have taken at Amherst have not only made me a better writer, but they’ve given me a chance to really pinpoint my writing style, which has been really exciting.

I noticed that when I had a creative course in my schedule, I would end up giving it all of my energy. As I mentioned, community in the classroom is really important to me, and with creative writing courses, students are really invested because their work is both inherently personal and shared with other students. I would spend hours working on my stories, and I became sort of obsessed.

I knew pretty early on that if I were to write a thesis, it would be creative.

Q: How have your ideas evolved from the initial proposal? What does your thesis look like now — very close to the deadline — as opposed to what you thought it would be?

A: I’ve maintained the structure that I proposed — that is, the linked-story-cycle. A brief explanation: I’m writing four stories with four different protagonists that, somehow, all link together in the end. Thematically, I originally proposed to work with absurdity as it relates to foreign realities. Half of my project was to be set in the United States, and in those stories something narratively absurd would occur. The other half was to be set in Ghana and nothing absurd would happen, but it might seem that way to the American reader.

I wanted my readers to have to ask themselves: What is absurdity and what is simply foreign?

The project has maintained a lot of that, but I think I’ve drifted a little bit away from the whole absurdity objective. Instead of forcing my stories into a sort of hyper-absurd state, I want to ask readers to recognize realities that, although seemingly foreign, have the potential to be very real. I don’t want stories to fetishize unrecognizable cultures or life experiences. They’re not simply ‘absurd’; they’re based in reality. It’s a little hard to step away from the ‘what is your thesis about’ speech I’ve given to a million people. Yet, ultimately, instead of linking foreign realities and absurdity, I’m distancing them. I guess it’s sort of hyperrealist. These situations are plausible, despite any absurdity you may detect at first glance.

A big part of the shift came with the help of my advisors Naomi Jackson and Daniel Hall. They’ve encouraged me to focus more on writing what I want to write in my style rather than simply writing toward an objective.

On a more concrete level, now only one of my stories is set in Ghana!

Q: What is the most important or shocking thing that you have learned throughout the process?

A: In terms of technique, it has been a very valuable experience to work on such a long project.

Prior to my thesis, my longest story had been around twenty pages. I’ve had to learn how to pace out my character and plot development, which has been pretty difficult. I’ve also never done a linked-story cycle, so I’ve had to pay careful attention to all the loose ends, making sure they all get tied in the end.

Speaking to the broader experience, my dad is from Ghana and a lot of the story that is set there is based on interviews I did with him. It has been amazing to hear more about his childhood.

Q: Where do you do your best writing?

A: I actually work best when there is a little bit of noise, so Amherst Coffee or Frost first floor.

Probably Amherst Coffee more, because hanging out around a bunch of hipsters is a great cure for

Thundercat’s Third Studio Album “Drunk” Explores New Sound

Photo courtesy of ondarock.it

Thundercat experiments with rap and R&B vibes in this new album, which features artists like Kenny Logins, Michael McDonald, Kendrick Lamar and Wiz Khalifa.

Hugh Ford ’20 Contributing Writer On February 24, celebrated bassist Thundercat released his third studio album, “Drunk.” Thundercat is renowned for not only his solo works but also his collaborations with producer Flying Lotus and rapper Kendrick Lamar. “Drunk” continues Thundercat’s record of success, although it departs slightly from some of his more intense work in the past. In “Drunk,” Thundercat prefers a laidback funky vibe, which he infuses with R&B and rap. What really makes the album unique and interesting, however, is Thundercat’s sense of humor.

The album opens with a moody and melodic intro, but then immediately transitions into the hilarious song “Captain Stupido,” an upbeat track about feeling weird that, unsurprisingly, turns out pretty weird itself. The fifth track on “Drunk,” “A Fan’s Mail (Tron

Song II),” is another humorous track about how cool it would be to be a cat. The track grooves nicely and includes Thundercat mimicking a cat meowing. “Tokyo,” possibly the best track on the album, is a song about visiting Japan, filled with a bunch of hilarious pop culture and anime references. “Jameel’s Space Ride,” the next song, is a perfect follow up to “Tokyo,” complete with a cartoony sound.

Besides being humorous, the album features some amazing production from Flying Lotus and sometimes Thundercat himself.

Thundercat puts his bass skills on display in “Uh Uh,” a mostly instrumental track padded with soft background vocals. He continues this light mood on “Bus in These Streets.”

Flying Lotus incorporates some electronic sounds into the album on the “Day & Night” interlude, but unfortunately, this theme is not explored much elsewhere on the album. One exception, however, is the 14th track “Friend

Zone,” which is backed by a great drum track and electronic sounding scales. With “Inferno,” an enthralling track juxtaposing creepy and soft vocals, “Drunk” continues its excellent production. The album concludes with “DUI,” which picks up the same beat as the intro track, giving a sense of closure to the album.

The features on the album range from very good to completely forgettable.

“Show Me the Way” and the following track “Walk On By” form one of the best moments on the album. Both songs feature great guest verses from Kenny Logins, Michael McDonald and Kendrick Lamar. “Dat Drink” is a would-be good song, with an eerie atmosphere, but Wiz Khalifa’s verse doesn’t fit the mood. The penultimate song of the album, “The Turn Down,” features Pharrell, but his feature is pretty much lost due to how similar his and Thundercat’s vocals are.

The one complaint I have with the album

is that there are a few indistinctive tracks on the second half of the album. “Them Changes” is not a bad song in and of itself. However, it was already used on his 2015 EP, “The Beyond/Where the Giants Roam,” and not really necessary on a 23-track album. “Where I’m Going” is also a pretty uneventful song. The three tracks “I Am Crazy,” “3AM” and the title track “Drunk” are all decent but not long enough to be memorable.

Overall, I really enjoyed “Drunk.” The album keeps a funky, mellow mood throughout, while changing up enough to keep it interesting. In the latter half of the album, “Drunk” falls off a bit. Some of those tracks could certainly be cut from the 23-song track list. Nevertheless, “Drunk,” along with other major releases like Childish Gambino’s “Awaken, My Love!” might bring some funk sounds back into popular music. It would be great to hear more of it.

Overall Rating: 8.5/10

The Amherst Student • March 22, 2017

Sports 9

Women’s Lacrosse Improves to 3-2 on Season with Trio of Wins

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

First-year sensation Katherine Malone has gotten off to a strong start this season, posting five goals and two assists in the past four games.

Katie Bergamesca ’18 Staff Writer The Amherst women’s lacrosse team finished out the past two weeks with a 3-1 record.

Claire Cagnassola ’17 led the team over break, scoring six goals and four assists while garnering NESCAC player of the week honors for the week of March 7.

The purple and white’s first victory came during a midweek away game against the Keene State Owls on Wednesday, March 8.

Amherst dominated the host team for the entirety of the game for a 16-3 win.

At the end of the first half, the purple and white already held an 11-1 lead over Keene State. Amherst continued to control the remaining 30 minutes and tacked on another five goals before the final buzzer.

The Owls only managed to add two more goals before the last seconds ticked off the clock, giving Amherst a lopsided victory.

Senior captains Cagnassola and Kate Wyeth

paced the purple and white’s offense, netting three goals each. Cagnassola also led the team in assists with three. On the defensive end, Kat Krieg ’20 claimed two ground balls and Rowena Schenck ’18 forced two turnovers. Goalies Kyra Gardner ’18 and Talia Land ’20 made a total of three saves.

The purple and white faced Bates next.

Originally scheduled for Saturday, March 11, the game was moved up a day to avoid playing in sub-zero temperatures. Although Friday did not prove to be much warmer, the Amherst women persevered and claimed another win with only one day of rest after the Keene State game.

An early goal from Bates sophomore Sydney Howard put the Bobcats on the board first.

Amherst responded with four unanswered goals. The Bobcats then rallied with their own series of four consecutive goals, making the score 5-4 with 12:15 left in the first half.

Goals from juniors Kelly Karczewski, Mary Grace Cronin and Julia Crerend helped the

purple and white regain their lead going into halftime. Amherst came out strong in the second half, firing four goals past Bates’ goalie.

With 9:51 left in the game, the purple and white held an 11-6 advantage over the visiting team. The Bobcats had an offensive surge in the final minutes of the game, tallying three more goals, but it was too late and Amherst came away with the victory.

Crerend put on an impressive offensive performance, notching four goals. Crerend, Katherine Malone ’20, Coco Kusiak ’17, Annie Cohen ’19, Hanna Krueger ’17 and Cagnassola all contributed one helper in the winning effort. Schenck anchored the defense with five won ground balls and three caused turnovers.

The purple and white returned to action on Friday, taking on Claremont-Mudd-Scripps.

The low-scoring game was a hard-fought battle on both sides. After 30 minutes of the play, the scoreboard only read 2-2.

The purple and white got the jump on the Athenas in the second half, taking a one-goal lead courtesy of Crerend, who continued her dominant start to the season.

CMS fired back with three straight goals to establish the largest lead of the game. Inside the last ten minutes of the game, it looked like Amherst might be able to send the game into overtime, with the purple and white piling the pressure on the Athenas’ goal. However, despite another Crerend goal at the 8:41 mark, the purple and white were not able to break the CMS defense for the tying goal, giving the Athenas the 5-4 win.

Amherst bounced back from the tough loss with a 9-4 win over local rival Springfield College. The purple and white started the game hot, with Karczewski scoring less than two minutes into the game.

Amherst continued its dominance with four more goals in the first half. Karczewski added her second of the game and Crerend, Malone and Dakota Foster ’18 added their

names to the scoresheet. The purple and white also held Springfield without a goal, entering the half with a 5-0 lead.

While Springfield did manage to score three of the first four goals in the second half, cutting the lead to just three, Amherst responded strongly, scoring three goals in the last six minutes to clinch the victory. Both Malone and Crerend notched their second goal of the game, while Wyeth managed her first of the game. Although Springfield mustered one final consolation goal, the purple and white emerged victorious.

After this series of games, Amherst moves to 3-2 on the season and 1-1 in NESCAC play. The purple and white return to action on Saturday, March 25, when the team will play Hamilton at home on Pratt Field.

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

Rowena Schenck ‘18 keyed a strong defensive effort over the past week.

Men’s Lacrosse Record Stands at 3-2 Men’s Swim and Dive Close Out Season After Pair of Losses Over Spring Break With Strong Showing at DIII Nationals Nate Quigley ’19 Managing Sports Editor The Amherst men’s lacrosse team suffered its first losses of the season over the past week, falling first to Bates and then splitting a pair of games at the Mustang Classic in Maryland.

The purple and white opened spring break play against the Bobcats on Sunday, March 12 in a game that had been rescheduled due to extreme cold the day prior. Although Amherst notched the first goal of the game, courtesy of an unassisted tally from Evan Wolf ’19, Bates responded with five unanswered goals in a less than threeminute span. The teams then traded goals for the rest of the first, with the purple and white receiving contributions from Wolf, Chris Albanese ’17 and Trenton Shore ’20. However, the Bobcats managed three of their own to leave the scoreboard reading 8-4 at the end of the quarter.

Bates again came out firing to start the second, putting up three unanswered goals and extending its lead to seven. Although Amherst cut the lead back down to 12-7 entering the half, thanks to two more goals from Wolf, Bates headed to the locker room brimming with confidence. The third and fourth quarters played out similarly to the first two frames, with the purple and white easily able to score, especially Wolf who added four more goals, but completely incapable of defending the Bobcats. When the final whistle blew, Bates left the field with a 22-17 win, giving Amherst its first loss of the season.

The purple and white then traveled to Owings Mills, Maryland, to participate in the Mustang Classic. First matched up against RIT, Amherst fell in yet another shootout, this time by a heartbreaking score of 17-16. The Tigers leapt out to an early 1-0 lead, but the purple and white were relentless, scoring five unanswered goals, with all the tallies coming from Albanese and Killian, who notched three and two goals, respectively, in

the quarter. Although RIT pulled two goals back in the waning minutes of the quarter, Amherst managed to regain the four-goal margin with two quick goals at the start of the second.

It was the Tiger’s turn to go on a run of their own, notching five straight goals and grabbing an 8-7 lead going into halftime, one that RIT would never relinquish. The Tigers consolidated their lead at the start of the third, scoring three straight goals and winning the overall frame 6-2, good for a 14-9 lead at the end of three quarters.

Amherst fought back valiantly, closing the gap to just one goal at 16-15 with just under two minutes remaining. A goal from RIT’s Chad Levick, though, was the final nail in the coffin, and even with one last goal from Albanese, the Tigers emerged with the win.

The purple and white closed out the tournament with its first win in nearly two weeks, defeating Lynchburg in a low-scoring, 10-8 affair.

Amherst dominated the opening frame, scoring four unanswered, with Wolf and Shore again adding their names to the scoresheet. However, a sloppy second quarter that saw Lynchburg score four times resulted in the game being knotted at five apiece heading into the half. Lynchburg even managed to take a one-goal lead twice, but the purple and white pegged them back each time, before Albanese scored to give the purple and white the lead for good with 4:50 to go in the third.

The fourth was scoreless for nearly ten minutes before Colin Minicus ’20 scored his third goal of the game to put the score at 9-7. Lynchburg responded almost immediately, though, and the next few minutes were fraught as the Hornets fought desperately to even the score. A late goal from Max Keeley ’18 sealed the win for Amherst.

Amherst will play at home on Wednesday, March 22 against non-conference Endicott at 4:30 p.m.

Jenny Mazzella ’20 Staff Writer Amherst men’s swimming and diving wrapped up its 2016-17 season by competing in the NCAA Division III Championships. Team members who qualified traveled to the CISD Natatorium in Shenandoah, Texas to compete in the prestigious four-day meet, which took place March 1518. Emory University won the team crown with 438 points, while Kenyon took second with 384 points, followed by Denison with 371 points. Amherst ended the meet with 35.5 points and a 20th place team finish out of the 52-team field.

On day one, first-years Eric Wong and Jack Koravos competed in individual events. Wong placed 30th in the 500-yard freestyle with a mark of 4:35.68, while Koravos took 35th in the 50-yard freestyle with a time of 21.02 seconds. Koravos also swam in the 200-yard medley relay, joined by teammates Sam Spurrell ’18, Elijah Spiro ’18 and Alex Dreisbach ’17. The team qualified for finals by swimming a preliminary time of 1:30.96. In the finals. Amherst posted a 14th-place finish with a time of 1:30.96, scoring six points.

The purple and white returned to the pool for day two of the competition. Amherst placed 21st in the 200-yard freestyle relay with a time of 1:23.49. Dreisbach (20.96) swam the first leg, followed by Charlie Seltzer ’19 (21.15), then Wong (20.94) and Koravos (20.44), who anchored the relay. In the 100-yard butterfly, Koravos and Spurrell finished 29th and 30th, with times of 49.71 seconds and 49.78 seconds, respectively. The 400yard medley relay was the final event of the day for the purple and white. Spurrell, Spiro, Koravos and Dreisach made up the relay team, which finished 17th overall with a time of 3:20.92.

Amherst had another strong showing on day three. Sam Spurrell’s speedy performance in the 200-yard butterfly highlighted the meet.

In the preliminaries, Spurrell recorded a time of

1:48.56 — two seconds faster than his seed mark of 1:50.68 and enough to take sixth place, qualifying him for the finals. In the finals, Spurrell posted another quick time of 1:49.74, earning him eighth place overall and eleven points for the team.

The 800-yard relay also had a solid performance, beating its seed time and finishing in a time of 6:42.26. The quartet of Seltzer (1:38.69), Wong (1:40.16), Koravos (1:41.29) and Connor Haley ’17 (1:42.12) made up the relay team. Spiro and Sean Mebust ’20 finished the day with strong performances in the 100-yard breaststroke. Spiro placed 27th in 56.79, while Mebust was close behind with a 29th-place finish in a time of 56.88.

Mebust returned for the 200-yard breaststroke on day four, in which he placed 12th overall with a time 2:01.96. Koravos, Wong, Seltzer and Dreisbach competed in the 400-yard relay, placing 15th with a time of 3:02.74. Wong also swam in the 1650-yard freestyle, in which he placed 22nd overall with a time of 16:35.33, to close the meet for Amherst.

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

Amherst placed two swimmers in the top-30 in the 100-yard backstroke.

10

Sports

The Amherst Student • March 22, 2017

Softball Wins Seven, Drops Five Against Non-Conference Schedule in Florida Jenny Mazzella ’20 Staff Writer

Over spring break, the Amherst women’s softball team traveled to Winter Garden, Florida to start off its 2017 season. Taking advantage of the warmer weather, the team played twelve games.

Amherst faced off against University of New England and Wittenberg University on March 11, Lake Forest College and Endicott College on March 12, Millsaps College and Salve Regina University on March 14, Bowdoin and Washington University on March 15, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and Arcadia College on March 17, and the team finished their trip with games against Babson College and University of Wisconsin-Whitewater on March 18.

Of their 12 games, the purple and white won seven and lost five, scoring 62 runs in total and allowing only 46.

The purple and white kicked off their season with two wins on March 11, outscoring New England 9-1 and Wittenberg 7-0.

Against New England, Alena Marovitz ’17 had two home runs and four RBIs, while Ally Kido ’18 had two doubles and one run scored.

First-year Andrea Sanders added an RBI and a stolen base. In game two, Amherst scored all seven runs in the fifth inning in another winning effort.

Amherst tallied another win during game three against Lake Forest, with a final score of 6-5. Amherst led the game 6-0 for the first five innings, but Lake Forest came back with five runs in the sixth and seventh inning. Amherst held them off, however, and secured another victory.

The purple and white suffered its first loss of the trip to Endicott on March 12 on a walk-

off single, but after a much-needed off-day, the squad came back with three more wins, defeating Millsaps 3-0, Salve Regina 12-2 and NESCAC foe Bowdoin in a close 9-8 game. Against Millsaps, the purple and white scored three runs in the sixth inning and shutout Millsaps for the rest of the game to secure the win.

The matchup against Salve Regina consisted of only six innings; Amherst scored in five of those six and had eighteen hits, a season best.

Against Bowdoin, Amherst trailed for the majority of the game. Going into the final inning, Bowdoin led 8-3. However, in the bottom of the seventh, Amherst rallied and scored six runs to take the win.

The purple and white looked to be losing steam after seven games in just four days, as they suffered three close losses in a row to Washington (Mo.), Wisconsin-Oshkosh and Arcadia.

The women recovered, however, and on their last day of play in Florida, Amherst defeated Babson 3-1. Amherst pitchers Gina Pagan ’18 and Lorena Ukanwa ’19 highlighted the purple and white’s performance during this week of play. Combined, the two women struck out 91 strikeouts in the twelve games played. Pagan averaged 9.61 strikeouts per game while Ukanwa averaged 8.73.

“Out of my four trips to Florida over my collegiate career, I would say that this year was definitely our most successful tournament,” said Marovitz. “We proved that we can compete with any team in the country, and all of us cannot wait to begin conference play and take down our NESCAC opponents.”

The Amherst women’s softball team will take the field again to face off against Trinity in a non-conference doubleheader on Saturday, March 25.

Women’s Swimming and Diving Finishes 15th at NCAA Division III Championship

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

Stephanie Moriarty ’18 placed top 20 in the 100- and 200-meter backJulia Turner ’19 Managing Sports Editor Amherst women’s swimming and diving wrapped up an impressive season with its 21st consecutive top-15 finish at NCAA Championships March 15-18. The team finished 15th, and the showing was highlighted by several standout individual performances.

Day one began with a 19th-place finish by Bridgitte Kwong ’19 in the 200-yard individual medley race with a time of 2:05.83. First-year Ingrid Shu highlighted the 50-yard freestyle for the purple and white, posting a 33rd-place finish with a time of 23.92. Shu then helped the Amherst women to their highest finish of the day, swimming the second leg of the 200-yard medley relay. The quartet of Stephanie Moriarty ’18, Shu, Gerlayn Lam ’18 and Destin Groff ’17 raced to a 13th-place finish in a time of 1:44.15.

The second day of competition saw some familiar faces and some new, as Kwong once again impressed by posting Amherst’s first topfive finish of the meet, securing third overall in the 400-meter IM race. Next, The 400-yard medley relay squad of Moriarty, Shu, Lam and

Natalie Rumpelt ’20 registered 24 points for the purple and white by taking home seventh overall behind a time of 3:47.08. In the 100yard butterfly, Lam touched the wall in 55.96 seconds to secure 15th place overall.

The purple and white’s best finish of day three came in the 800-yard freestyle relay, when Kwong, Moriarty, Jayne Vogelzang ’19 and Rumpelt claimed fifth overall with a time of 7:31.65. Rumpelt anchored the relay team and swam the fastest leg in a time of 1:52.26, just one 100th of a second faster than Moriarty. In the 100-yard backstroke, Moriarty claimed 17th with a time of 56.28 seconds, shaving nearly a second off of her seed time.

In the final day of action, Moriarty recorded the top individual performance of the day for the purple and white, placing 12th overall in the 200-yard backstroke race in a time of 2:01.86. In the 400-yard freestyle relay, the Amherst women notched a 12th place finish when Lam, Rumpelt, Moriarty and Shu recorded a 3:26.05 finish. Rounding out the day, Vogelzang grabbed a 24th place finish for the purple and white in the 1,650-yard freestyle in a time of 18:02.92.

ATHLETE SPOTLIGHT

Anthony Spina ’17 Favorite Team Memory: Playing behind a no-hitter my freshman year Favorite Pro Athlete: Giancarlo Stanton Dream Job: Working for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship Pet Peeve: People who recycle Favorite Vacation Spot: Puerto Rico Guilty Pleasure: Chocolate covered blueberries Favorite Food: Chicken cutlet parmigiana Favorite Thing About Amherst: The snow How He Earned It: Spina has been an integral part of the dynamic purple and white offense so far this season. The senior outfielder leads the team in plate appearances and batting average, with an impressive .444 average through eight games. He came out strong with a home run in Amherst’s season opener, and has contributed a hit or RBI in all but one of the purple and white’s games. Defensively, the left fielder has yet to falter in the field, owning a perfect fielding percentage.

Gina Pagan ’18 Favorite Team Memory: Beating Williams in extra innings to win the series my first year.

Favorite Pro Athlete: Brandon Crawford Dream Job: Puppy snuggler Pet Peeve: People who clap when airplanes land Favorite Vacation Spot: My bed Something on Your Bucket List: Hike Patagonia Guilty Pleasure: The Office Favorite Food: Breakfast burritos Favorite Thing About Amherst: Buff chick wrap day How She Earned It: The junior pitcher has thrown 39.1 innings so far this season, the most of any NESCAC pitcher. Her 1.42 ERA is fifth-lowest in the conference and the lowest of her career thus far.

Boasting a 4-3 record, Pagan has struck out an impressive 54 batters, averaging 9.61 strikeouts per game. Her 54 strikeouts leads the NESCAC, the next closest pitcher notching only 39 in one fewer innings pitched than Pagan.

Women’s Tennis Opens Spring Season With 2-3 Record on California Trip Scout Boynton ’20 Staff Writer The Amherst women’s tennis team traveled to California this past week for their annual spring break trip. Over the course of the week, the purple and white played five matches, finishing with a 2-3 record.

On Monday, March 13, seventh-ranked Amherst fell to No. 6 Pomona-Pitzer College by a score of 7-2 in Claremont, California. The purple and white’s two wins came from Camille Smukler ’20 and Camilla Trapness ’19 in singles play.

Smukler defeated Caroline Casper in the first position 6-1, 6-3, while Trapness won 2-6, 6-4, 10-6 on the fourth court. Pomona-Pitzer swept all three doubles matches, beating the pair of Smukler and fellow first-year Jen Chen in the first position, Avery Wagman ’18/Anya Ivenitsky ’20 on court two and Kelly Yang ’19/Joanna Booth ’19 in the third spot.

The next day, the purple and white suffered a close, 5-4 loss to 11th-ranked Washington University St. Louis. Of the six singles matches, Amherst took three. Chen (6-3, 7-6 (9-7)), Ivenitsky (7-6 (7-5), 6-1) and senior captain Megan Adamo (6-1, 7-6 (7-5)) earned the purple and white’s wins in singles action, while the doubles team of Chen/ Smukler secured Amherst’s fourth victory, defeating Washington’s Ho/Griffith 9-7. However, the four wins were not enough and Washington came out on top.

On Wednesday, Amherst lost 6-3 to No. 12 Carnegie Mellon to drop to 0-3 on the season.

In doubles play, the Wagman/Ivenitsky duo was the sole pairing to pull out a win, dominating by a score of 8-2. Chen continued her strong play on the week, beating Cori Sidelle 6-4, 6-0 on the second court. Adamo also notched another victory, prevailing in her match on the fifth court 6-3, 6-3.

However, Smukler, Ivenitsky and Trapness were defeated 7-5, 7-5; 4-6, 6-4, 6-4; and 6-4, 6-2, respectively.

The purple and white found their first win on Thursday, annihilating University of Redlands

8-1. Amherst swept all six singles matches, with Smulker, Chen, Ivenitsky, Trapness, Adamo and Wagman logging wins on courts one through six, respectively. In the doubles matches, Wagman/Ivenitsky earned an 8-2 win on the second court and the senior duo of Claire Carpenter and Adamo pulled out a 9-7 victory. With the win, Amherst improved to 1-3.

Friday marked Amherst’s final match in California, with the eleventh-ranked purple and white beating Sewanee, 6-3. The doubles teams came out strong, earning victories on all three courts.

Chen/Smukler posted an 8-3 win on court one, Wagman/Ivenitsky prevailed on the second court 8-6 andCarpenter/Adamo notched an 8-4 victory on the third court. Smukler (1-6, 6-3, 6-2), Chen (6-3, 6-3) and Wagman (6-3, 6-2) secured Amherst’s last three victories of the day on courts one, two and six.

The purple and white ended their spring break trip strong, finishing the week at 2-3 overall. The team next plays Tuesday, April 4, at 4 p.m., when the team will open conference play on the road against Connecticut College.

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

First-year Camille Smukler swept her Sewanee opponent in singles play and earned a doubles win.

The Amherst Student • March 22, 2017

Sports

11

Baseball Impresses Against Ranked Men’s Tennis Opens Season with Competition in Florida, Finishes 3-5 11-1 Record over Spring Break Julia Turner ’19 Managing Sports Editor Amherst baseball saw an exciting start to their season last week, March 12-19, as the team went 3-5 on their spring break trip to Port Charlotte, Florida. The purple and white took down two ranked teams, recording wins over No. 4 Keystone College and No. 21 Marietta College.

The men began their season in dramatic fashion, totaling 19 runs on 16 hits to clinch a 19-9 win over fourth-ranked Keystone College. Jackson Volle earned the win for Amherst on the mound, tossing 4.2 innings and striking out three. The purple and white outscored the Giants 10-1 through three, before giving up eight runs over the next five innings.

At the dish, junior Max Steinhorn notched a team-high three hits for three RBI and crossed the plate four times. Amherst saw two home runs, one apiece for Anthony Spina ’17 and Zach Horowitz ’20. Horowitz was an offensive threat, going 3-5 against Keystone. The firstyear narrowly missed hitting for the cycle, only failing to hit a double.

After an exciting opener, Amherst faced two tough games the next day to Ohio Wesleyan University and Denison College. Sophomore Wilson Taylor opened on the mound against Ohio Wesleyan, allowing five earned runs in 5.1 innings pitched.

The second half of the game, however, saw four Amherst pitching changes and seven earned runs off of the purple and white pitching staff. Spina and Nick Nardone ’19 led the offensive effort, each notching four hits on the day, while first-year Will Murphy led the team with two RBI and his first collegiate home run.

Junior captain Harry Roberson drove an impressive three doubles to the wall, but despite the offensive effort, Amherst fell 11-14 to the Bishops.

The purple and white faced off against

Denison later that day, with Roberson and Spina once again highlighting the Amherst offense, each batter finishing 2-for-4. Firstyear Severino Tocci notched the lone purple and white RBI when he plated Nardone on a stand-up double. On the mound, Davis Brown ’19 took the loss for Amherst, while classmate Andrew Ferrero struck out four in two innings of relief.

The next two days saw two more tough losses for the purple and white, as they fell to Susquehanna University and Arcadia University 6-5 and 4-2, respectively. The young Amherst pitching staff saw impressive performances from Brown and Sam Schnieder ’18, who each went five innings to start the game. Schnieder allowed two runs and one hit against Susquehanna, while Brown held Arcadia to one earned run.

Amherst came back for a strong performance against Marietta later that week, defeating the No. 21 ranked team 14-1. Volle once again earned the start for the purple and white, allowing just one hit and striking out five through six innings of play. Steinhorn, Yanni Thanopoulos ’17, and Chase Henley ’19 each notched doubles in the winning effort, with Thanopoulos adding his first home run of the season.

On their final day down south, Amherst split their doubleheader: losing 11-2 to No. 9 Wooster, and pulling out a 12-11 victory over SUNY-Canton. Taylor took the loss on the mound against Wooster, allowing eight hits in two innings, while George Long ’17, Chris Baldi ’17 and David Brinkley ’19 each saw relief innings to close out the game. The purple and white nabbed a win in walk-off fashion against SUNY-Canton with impressive perfromances from Spina, Henley and junior Ryan Hardin.

The purple and white will take the field next on Sunday, March 26 when they welcome Wheaton to Memorial Field for their home opener at 1 p.m.

Women’s Track And Field Sends Three Competitors to NCAA Championships Nicole Frontero ’20 Staff Writer The Amherst women’s indoor track and field team sent Katherine Treanor ’20, Abbey Asare-Bediako ’18 and Kiana Herold ’17 to compete at the 2017 NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships on March 10-11. Held at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois, the meet marked the final competition of the indoor season for the purple and white.

Competing on the track for Amherst was Treanor, the only first-year to qualify for the 5,000-meter run. She was seeded No. 15 with a time of 17:20.43, but beat this time by an impressive 8 seconds, running a 17:12.73. Her showing earned her an 11th-place finish, with Taryn Cordani of Ithaca College winning the event with a time of 16:28.15.

Meanwhile, Asare-Bediako and Herold competed in the long jump and high jump, respectively. Asare-Bediako jumped 11.29 meters, garnering her a strong 16th-place finish. The winning jump was 12.64 meters from Alex Wandy of SUNY Geneseo.

“Going to nationals was an opportunity that I didn’t really think would happen.”

Asare-Bediako said. “It was amazing to see my teammates compete and do so well.”

Herold wrapped up a standout senior indoor season by placing 9th in the high jump with a leap of 1.69 meters. The jump earned her a place in the top-10 despite being the 16th seed. Herold was one of seven jumpers to jump 1.69 meters, but finished 9th because she missed her first attempt at 1.65. Cirrus Robinson of Ohio Wesleyan took the gold in the event with a height of 1.72m. “[The] level of competition at nationals is

inspiring,” Herold said. “The high jump field was the strongest it’s been in four years at Amherst.”

While the 2017 NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championship meet wraps up the purple and white’s indoor season, they have plenty of competition in the coming months as the outdoor season gets underway. The purple and white kick off their outdoor season on Saturday, April 1 at the Tufts Snowflake Invitational, and will hopefully continue upon their indoor success.

Photo courtesy of Risley Sports Photography

Junior Abby Asare-Bediako finished her impressive season with an 11.29 meter long jump performance.

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

Sophomore Zach Bessette won five of six matchups in singles and doubles this week, falling only to his top-ranked Emory doubles opponents.

Nate Quigley ’19 Managing Sports Editor The Amherst men’s tennis team opened its season with a spring break trip to Florida, where the purple and white faced a daunting slate of 12 matches in seven days. However, the purple and white was more than up to the challenge, posting an impressive 11-1 mark on the week, with the sole loss coming at the hands of No. 1 Emory University.

Amherst began play on Sunday, March 12, with a pair of matches against 30th-ranked Stevens Institute of Technology and Roger Williams. Over the course of the two matches, the purple and white only suffered one loss, dominating Stevens 8-1 and sweeping Roger Williams 9-0.

The match against the Ducks proved to be the closer of the two affairs, but only by a slim margin, as Amherst swept five of the six singles courts and managed two impressive doubles wins courtesy of Jayson Fung ’20/Zach Bessette ’19 and Gabe Owens ’20/Josh Marchalik ’20.

Against Roger Williams, the purple and white won each of the three doubles matches 8-0 and allowed the Hawks to take just six games across the six singles matches.

Amherst’s all-conquering play spilled over into Mondays doubleheader, in which the purple and white defeated No. 20 Kenyon and Colby Sawyer by scores of 8-1 and 9-0, respectively. Amherst’s first singles loss of the trip came against Kenyon, when senior Anton Zykov fell on the first court.

The impressive underclassman quintet of Bessette, Marchalik, Fung, Owens and Oscar Burney ’20 made up for Zykov’s loss, however, picking up wins on the remaining singles courts in addition to a second straight sweep of the doubles courts for the purple and white.

Like Roger Williams, Colby-Sawyer proved to be no match for a rotated Amherst squad in a contest that saw Colby-Sawyer lose every set in singles play, the closest affair coming on the fifth-court, where Cameron Raglin ’19 posted a 6-4, 6-4 win.

Rest was on short supply for the purple and white who had to play yet another double-header on Tuesday, besting 25th-ranked University of Texas at Tyler 6-3, the team’s closest win of the trip, and then posting a third 9-0 sweep against Ithaca.

Against the Patriots, Amherst used a 2-1 mark in doubles play to jump out to an early lead, one which the team consolidated with a 4-2 record on the singles court, again spurred on by the play of Bessette and the talented first-year class.

Additionally, Ithaca proved to be the most challenging of the non-ranked foes that the purple and white faced, as the 9-0 scoreline brushed over the fact that Amherst needed three tiebreaking sets in singles play, while the doubles courts saw the Bombers come close to stealing

a match.

Wednesday’s matchups, the seventh and eighth in four days, proved a welcome respite for the purple and white after the previous day’s battles, as the hot Florida sun saw Amherst emerge with two more sweeps, this time against Trinity University and Lake Forest College. The win over Trinity (TX) was potentially the most impressive result, given the Tigers’ national ranking of No. 14, one spot higher than the purple and white, and the fact that Amherst swept every single singles court and tallied comfortable wins in doubles action.

Lake Forest, on the other hand, entered with little to no hope against Amherst and were significantly outclasses by an Amherst team that was riding a seven-game winning streak.

Fatigue started to show for the purple and white on Thursday, however, with the purple and white tallying still-impressive, yet not quite dominant, wins over Rensselaer and Hobart by scores of 8-1 and 7-2, respectively. Coach Todd Doebler decided to switch up his lineups, moving Bessette to court one, where he gutted out a 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (7-5) win.

However, Amherst suffered its first loss in singles action in four matches, with Sam Silver ’17 falling 6-7, 6-0, 6-3 on court three. Against Hobart, the purple and white posted a fifth straight sweep of doubles play, suffering its only two losses on the singles courts.

Amherst, standing at a record of 10-0 and having played five straight days of double-headers, took a welcome day off on Friday, before traveling to Atlanta to close out the southern trip with matchups against Oglethorpe and Emory on Emory’s home courts.

Against the Petrels, Doebler returned to the lineups used in the first eight games, sending out his reserves, who still managed to put together an impressive display with four singles sweeps and three easy doubles victories.

However, Emory, the top ranked team in the nation, proved to be too much for the purple and white, who fell in a 5-4 heart-breaker.

Emory started strong on the doubles courts, using a pair of 8-6 victories on courts one and three to take a 2-1 lead into singles play, after the Amherst pair of Zykov/Burney fought to a 9-8 win on the second court.

The purple and white’s first-years keyed Amhersts efforts in singles play, with Marchalik, Fung and Owens all picking up two-set victories on the third through fifth courts respectively.

The purple and white were unable to pick up the crucial fourth singles victory, as Zykov, competing in the number two spot, fell in three sets, sealing the Emory win.

Ultimately, Amherst returns to campus sporting an impressive 11-1 record and will return to action this Saturday, March 25, when the purple and white face Harvard and No. 30 Bowdoin in another doubleheader in Cambridge. Amherst will open against the Crimson at 5 p.m., and will face the Polar Bears at 8 p.m.

Sports

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

Ali Doswell ‘17 capped her Amherst career with a dominant 21-point showing against Tufts en route to being named the Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player.

Women’s Basketball Claims Second Ever Division III National Championship Talia Land ’20 Staff Writer The Amherst women’s basketball won the Division III National Championship on March 17. The team posted four consecutive double-digit wins on their way to a 33-0 record, the program’s first undefeated season.

Ali Doswell ’17 was named Women’s Basketball College Association (WBCA) Division III Player of the Year and a D3hoops.com First Team AllAmerican. After picking up NESCAC Coach of the Year honors the week prior, coach G.P. Gromacki was named both the Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) Coach of the Year and D3hoops.com Coach of the Year.

On Friday, March 10, and Saturday, March 11, the purple and white dominated local opponents Babson and UMass-Dartmouth, winning each contest by more than 20 points and earning a trip to the team’s second consecutive NCAA Final Four.

After a close game in the semifinals against Christopher Newport, Amherst pulled away with a 66-51 win to advance to the Division III Championship on Saturday, March 18 at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The purple and white then played NESCAC rival Tufts in the title game. The game marked the first time in NCAA Division III men’s and women’s basketball history that two teams from the same conference played each other in the championship game.

Tufts entered the game as the underdogs, having lost twice previously to Amherst. But in college athletics, beating a team — especially a good squad like the Jumbos — three times in one season is especially difficult. For the purple and white, however, the third game proved the easiest. Amherst thoroughly outplayed its NESCAC rival, defeating the Jumbos 5229. The purple and white’s stellar defense led them to victory. Tufts shot just 24.4 percent from the floor, while Amherst limited Tufts leading scorer Melissa Baptista to five points on 1 for 14 shooting.

Offensively, Division III Player of the Year Doswell paced Amherst throughout. The senior went 7 of 15 from the floor in a 21-point effort while pitching in five rebounds and four steals.

“It felt incredible,” Doswell said. “I felt such pure happiness sitting next to my teammates and best friends watching the clock tick down until we were officially national champions.”

The first four minutes were scoreless, but Ali Doswell opened the scoring for Amherst with a layup at

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

GAME SCHE DULE

WED

Men’s Lacrosse vs. Endicott, 4:30 p.m.

the 6:03 mark to give Amherst a 2-0 lead.

Following a pair of missed free throws by Tufts, Meredith Doswell ’17 hit a three-pointer to give Amherst a 5-0 advantage. From there, Amherst was able to hold its five-point advantage for the majority of the quarter. Emma McCarthy ’19 had three rebounds in the first 10 minutes, and the purple and white held Tufts to just two points in the quarter.

The second quarter got off to a quick start for Amherst, with Hannah Hackley ’18 scoring a layup at the 8:40 mark and then hitting a long two-point jumper following a steal by Jackie Nagle ’18.

Amherst extended its lead to 18-2 following a three and a two by Ali Doswell. Tufts’ Michela North, however, hit two jumpers to make the score 20-6 in favor of Amherst at the half. Ali Doswell finished with 11 first half points, while Meredith Doswell contributed five rebounds. Additionally, Jamie Renner ’17 dished out three assists as the purple and white shot 42.9% from the field in the first 20 minutes while Tufts was limited to just a 15.8 mark from the floor.

In the third quarter, Tufts pulled to within seven with a jumper and three-pointer, but a pair of free throws by McCarthy stopped the Jumbos’ run. Two more McCarthy foul shots and a fast-break basket by McCarthy pushed Amherst’s lead back to 26-15 with

under five minutes to play in the period. After three quarters, Amherst held a 32-21 lead.

At the start of the fourth quarter, McCarthy knocked down two more free throws, Madeline Eck ’20 pulled in a solid defensive board and scored a layup on the ensuing possession, and Meredith Doswell picked a steal and converted a fast-break bucket to make it 38-21 with just under six minutes to play.

A Tufts jumper made the score 38-23, but Ali Doswell answered with a jumper of her own to keep the lead at 17 points. After Eck hit one of two from the line, Tufts put in a bucket to make it 49-25. Another Eck free throw gave the purple and white a 25-point advantage.

At this point, Gromacki subbed most of the Amherst lineup out and celebrations began for Amherst.

The purple and white finished a solid night at the free throw line with Meredith Doswell swishing a pair to make it 52-25, and, with a few late consolation baskets by Tufts, Amherst emerged with an impressive win to cap off its season.

“Those last couple minutes of the game seemed to take forever but I literally could not stop smiling,” Ali Doswell said. The senior class of the Doswells and Renner leave Amherst with a 114-10 record at Amherst, laying a strong foundation for the program.

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

SAT

SUN

Women’s Lacrosse vs. Hamilton, 12 p.m.

Softball @ Trinity, 2 p.m.

Softball @ Trinity, 12 p.m.

Men’s Tennis @ Harvard, 5 p.m.

Men’s Lacrosse @Hamilton, 1 p.m.

Men’s Tennis @ Brandeis @ Harvard, 8 p.m.

Baseball @ Wheaton, 1 p.m.