February 20, 2020

The Chronicle

See Inside Can Duke win the ACC outright?

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T H E I N D E P E N D E N T D A I LY AT D U K E U N I V E R S I T Y

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2019 DUKECHRONICLE.COM

ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTEENTH YEAR, ISSUE 43

THE PEOPLE VS JOHN BOLTON

OPINION

Rethinking the English major

By Gretchen Wright Columnist

by the Government Accountability Office.

Meanwhile, low-income student enrollment has grown as institutions work to make college education more accessible, according to the same GAO report.

Since 2015, the Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice in Philadelphia has issued an annual #RealCollege report on the status of campus food insecurity, surveying more than 330,000 students at 411 colleges and universities in the U.S. Nearly 40% of surveyed students reported being food insecure in the past 30 days, according to the most recent report released last Wednesday.

Pantries like the GPSC Community Pantry are short-term fixes, Stantial said. While they

By the end of this semester, I will have taken ten English classes at Duke, completing the major just in time to graduate (knocks on wood). Some might say this makes me an expert on the English major requirements; I agree. And my main takeaway is this: Without much difficulty, a student could obtain an English major at Duke University without reading a single book written by a person of color, and maybe only two or three written by women.

A couple weeks ago a fellow English major, Victoria Priester, published an opinion piece discussing this issue, arguing that the English major’s narrow, Eurocentric focus might be pushing students away from the field. The English Department Chair, Robert Mitchell, and DUS, Aarthi Vadde, wrote a response shortly after, defending the diversity of the courses and programs they offer.

The gestures these administrators highlight in their response to Priester do nothing to address what I see as the fundamental issue of the English major: its requirements. Of course not every student who enrolls in an English class is an English major, but for those who are, every course we take is predicated upon departmental requirements as much as personal interest or intellectual curiosity.

With the overwhelming pressure at Duke to complete more than a single major (only 13% of the class of 2019 graduated with just one major), not to mention Trinity requirements, students don’t have the freedom to take more than a few nonessential courses.

If they participate in a Focus program or study abroad, the small space in their schedule to take extra classes shrinks even further. I have often had to choose courses that satisfied parts of the major over those in which I was most interested.

Some of you probably haven’t spent as much time triple-checking the English major requirements website as I have, so let me clarify. The major is primarily centered around a division into three time periods, so students have to take two classes in Area I (Medieval and Early Modern) and one each in Areas II (18th and 19th Century) and III (Modern and Contemporary). In addition to a gateway class and a Criticism, Theory or Methodology (CTM) course, majors must take four English electives for a total of ten classes.

For Area III, a student could feasibly stumble upon a class about writers of color;

See INSECURITY on Page 4

See ENGLISH on Page 11

Students, community members protest Bolton’s talk on campus STORY ON PAGE 3

Henry Haggart (main) | Assistant Sports Photography Editor. Eric Wei (circle) | Sports Photography Editor Main: Protesters rallied outside the Chapel, handing out flyers informing people about Bolton’s record. Circle: John Bolton spoke in Page.

How Duke’s graduate students are tackling food insecurity on campus

By Maya Miller Staff Reporter

On Duke’s nearly deserted Central Campus, one of the last buildings standing holds a vital resource. From the outside, it looks like a humble brick house—but inside lies a treasure that some students desperately need.

Welcome to Duke’s student-run food pantry.

The Community Pantry opened in 2017 and serves students in the graduate and professional schools. It came in response to complaints from fellow students who didn’t have enough money to eat, said Nicholas School Ph.D. student Rashmi Joglekar, pantry founder and former president of the Graduate and Professional Student Council.

Thus began the GPSC’s initiation to the world of food insecurity.

Today, the pantry serves more than 30

students per week, according to current pantry director Nicole Stantial, a Ph.D. student in the molecular genetics and microbiology program.

Throughout the past three years, the operating budget grew from $2,000 to more than $30,000 a year, and the pantry also started offering Wednesday evening hours.

Still, students at Duke are going hungry.

Facing food insecurity on campus

At first glance, prosperous colleges like Duke appear unlikely places to find student hunger and homelessness problems.

But recently, student hunger has become an issue on campuses nationwide, and no college seems immune.

Why? Students face costs not covered by federal aid and have limited eligibility for food assistance programs, according to a 2018 report

Jazz, Art and Consciousness: The Miles from Bird to Cannonball FEB

21

Friday, February 21, 2020 | 11:30 a.m. - 1 p.m.

Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture | The Underground Multipurpose Room, Flowers Building Music provided by John Brown, JD, Director of the Jazz Program and Professor of the Practice of Music, Duke University Refreshments to follow. Limited space available.

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Michael V. Drake, MD President, The Ohio State University

2 | THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2020

The Chronicle

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How the class schedule you see on DukeHub gets made

By Leah Boyd Staff Reporter

Ever wonder who’s responsible for making students drag themselves out of bed and stumble into that old lecture hall at 8:30 in the morning? Don’t immediately blame the professor.

Turns out, there is a course schedule policy that all academic departments must follow at Duke. Set forth by the Office of the University Registrar, the course schedule policy governs both undergraduate and graduate class schedules, and specifies time periods and allowable meeting times for proposed classes on a departmental basis.

Despite these strict guidelines, teachers do get to indicate their time preferences.

According to Natalia Silva Harwood, assistant to the director of undergraduate studies in the psychology and neuroscience department, the Registrar Office’s online policies are matched with what faculty members indicate in their questionnaires about their availabilities and class time preferences.

“I ask that they give me a minimum of three options so we have enough options to make sure the schedule passes the Registrar’s scheduling system validation and to avoid conflicting with other core classes,” Harwood wrote in an email.

She noted, however, that even though she tries to accommodate them, professors aren’t always guaranteed their first choice. According to Harwood, the office will “never assign teaching times without making sure they work with the professors first.”

Amy Jones is a graduate student teaching German 101 this semester who filled out the questionnaire. Her class is taught every morning Monday through Thursday from 8:30 to 9:45 a.m.

Matthew Wang | Contributing Photographer Departmental and curricular needs, teachers’ preferences, and classroom availability are considered when determining the class schedule on DukeHub.

“What I like about teaching early classes is that the students are always very motivated,” Jones wrote in an email. “It’s also usually a smaller group, and that means each student can get a lot of individual attention.”

But Jones added that teaching later in the day can make it more difficult to get to work early. She wanted to teach in the morning because she believed it would be helpful in more efficiently writing her dissertation.

However, other scheduling matters are not as simple.

Gregory Wray, professor of biology and director of Duke’s Center for Genomic and Computational Biology, teaches Gateway to Biology: Molecular Biology, Genetics &

Evolution, a currently meets on Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 8:30 to 9:45 a.m.

Wray found that scheduling is a “remarkably complicated process” due to extensive external constraints.

He first noted that a classroom with the proper elements “right capacity, AV equipment, and configuration,” as he listed must be available. The class is taught by three faculty members and two to three TAs, so Wray explained that their schedules needed to be accommodated as well.

Biology 203L is an introductory course for biology majors, so it cannot conflict with other typical first-year classes for biology majors, namely introductory chemistry and calculus,

Wray wrote in an email to The Chronicle.

This requires coordination with these other departments when scheduling classes.

Most importantly, since Biology 203L is a science course, there is a lab component in the afternoon, requiring lectures to be held in the morning.

Like Jones, Wray is allowed to indicate preferences for his lecture time slots. However, he doesn’t believe this is entirely helpful.

“Meeting the professor’s preferences is much more difficult for a class like Bio 203 than it would be for, say, a FOCUS or seminar class where there is one instructor, many available rooms, and fewer external constraints,” he wrote.

Although the earliest courses at Duke begin at 8:30 a.m., some don’t wrap up until about 12 hours later. Durham artist Thomas Whiteside teaches The Silent Film: An Introduction, a seminar held on Monday nights from 6:15 to 8:45 p.m.

Whiteside said that he likes to have one long class per week as opposed to several shorter meetings, as the course involves film screenings.

He is teaching the course for the first time this semester. Last semester, the class was offered from 8:45 to 11:15 a.m., but only four students signed up and it was canceled.

Whiteside added that his students seem to have no problem with an evening course.

He plans to keep the class at this time moving forward.

“Although it might be unusual, I have not heard any complaints from students about the time,” he wrote in an email. “I will add that no one has missed a class, nor even been late, so I’d say it’s working well.”

He added that he would have been fine with teaching the 8:45 a.m. section, but he understands that “students don’t like early morning classes.”

David M. Rubenstein Distinguished Lecture

Partners in Health Co-founder

PAUL FARMER The Future of Global Health Equity In conversation with Manoj Mohanan, professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy

Wednesday, Feb. 26 5:30-6:45 p.m.

Page Auditorium, Duke University Tickets: tickets.duke.edu Parking: Bryan Center Garage, $5, cash only

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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2020 | 3

Protesters rally against Bolton’s record outside his talk FROM PAGE 1

By Leah Boyd Staff Reporter

Cries of “hey hey, ho ho, these racist wars have got to go” and “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” echoed in front of the Chapel Feb. 17 as students gathered to protest John Bolton when he came to speak on campus Monday evening.

Bolton has worked for Republican administrations since Ronald Reagan, most recently serving as a national security advisor to President Donald Trump. He also served as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations for a year under President George W. Bush before working as a foreign policy adviser to Mitt Romney in 2012.

Flyers promoting the protest labeled it “The People vs. John Bolton” and invited those “concerned about American imperialism, militarism and war” to participate.

“Concerned students and community members oppose the Spring 2020 legitimation of American warmongering by Duke University,” the flyer read.

Bolton worked at the Project for the New American Century, an organization that supported the Iraq War. Bolton was also previously the chairman of the Gatestone Institute, a reportedly anti-Muslim organization warning its followers of a “Great White Death.”

These positions have led Bolton to be criticized as a neoconservative and a white supremacist.

The protest formally began at 5 p.m. but protesters began their demonstration several minutes early. They handed out fliers to those in line for Bolton’s speech headlined “A Brief History of John Bolton’s Wars,” which provided a timeline of Bolton’s controversial past, including his support for the Vietnam War in 1966 and calls to bomb North Korea in 2018.

On the back of the flyers were quotes

Family international lecture series.

Manzoor Chema of the Muslim Justice Center spoke as well, highlighting the need for a strong “intersectional movement” and calling capitalism the “core of oppression.”

Aberra challenged Duke to “question and reflect on why Bolton was someone they wanted to invite.” He told The Chronicle that this initiative “would start with questioning the American Grand Strategy program at its foundation.”

Michael Trudeau, a member of the North Carolina Green Party, was also present at the event. He handed out fliers that listed the party’s platform, such as “No human being is illegal” and “Hands off Bolivia, Venezuela, Ukraine, Haiti and Honduras.”

Students from Campus Reform, a conservative college news source, were present at the rally and identified themselves as student journalists. They asked protesters questions, Henry Haggart | Assistant Sports Photography Editor including if they believed war was a “necessary Students gathered in front of the Chapel to protest John Bolton’s controversial past. evil,” sparking some confrontations.

The rally dispersed around 6 p.m. Protesters from Bolton himself, including “[President that have died—mostly black and brown, did not enter or disrupt Bolton’s talk.

Barack Obama] is a Muslim king of a Muslim mostly poor—all over the world.” country,” and from others about him, such Aberra added that they were also there to as George W. Bush’s claim that he “doesn’t “condemn the institutions and the imperialist consider [Bolton] credible.” ideology” that John Bolton promotes.

Several members of the crowd held posters, Lama Hantash, a senior, followed Aberra, some reading “No bombs, no bullets, no criticizing the University as an “enterprise that Bolton” and “You belong in a cell in the Hague.” capitalizes on whatever opportunity it gets to The group continued with shouts of “no get a quick buck.” more endless wars” and “from Kashmir to “Today, we demand that Duke drop the false Palestine, occupation is a crime,” before the first pretenses of high ethical standards and respect organizer spoke. for minority lives and just admit that white “We’re here to inform [you all] on the real supremacy and imperialism are far too lucrative record of John Bolton, the person Duke is to divest from,” Hantash said. She later told The paying tens of thousands of dollars to teach us Chronicle that she believes Duke should “value about national security,” said Aman Aberra, a the humanitarian side, the ethical side, over just Henry Haggart | Asst. Sports Photo Editor graduate student and one of the coordinators blind searches for power.” of the protest. “We’re here to remember the American Grand Strategy hosted Bolton as Protesters criticized American Grand Strategy for victims of John Bolton, the millions of people part of its Ambassador Dave and Kay Phillips hosting Bolton but did not disrupt his talk.

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4 | THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2020

INSECURITY

technology manager, Newton spends most of her days around students in the library. When she first started in 2008, she often FROM PAGE 1 asked where students were from and how they got to law school.

If someone brought a bagged lunch or plastic container, she’d are valuable resources, student-run pantries cannot be the only ask why they brought lunch from home. solution, as they aren’t sustainable long-term.

Some students said they brought food because they were “For real change to happen, we need to have administration vegan or disliked the school restaurant’s offerings. Others, and faculty and staff on board,” Stantial said. however, couldn’t afford lunch every day. Some told her they Under Larry Moneta, former vice president for student often snagged free pizza from an event because they couldn’t affairs, the Office of Student Affairs increased the number of afford anything else. food points for first-year undergraduates and added a $5 meal On Thanksgiving Eve of 2008, Newton asked a few students option at most campus eateries. lingering in the law library why they weren’t with their families for Ask anyone, though, and they’ll say those “meals” are more the holiday. They told her they couldn’t afford the trip home. like snacks. “They’re probably half the size of most West Union “So, I invited them to my home for dinner,” Newton said. meals,” sophomore Tess Noonan said.

Every Thanksgiving since, Newton has fed students who don’t The pantry’s exponential growth signals an increasingly have food or a place to go. She’s expanded beyond Thanksgiving urgent need among graduate and professional students. dinner and now opens her home and kitchen every Sunday evening to anyone who needs a home-cooked meal.

Hunger: A hidden problem As someone who grew up hungry from kindergarten through Rochelle Newton was the first to ring the alarm bell on high school, Newton said she could empathize with these students. food insecurity at Duke. As Duke Law’s senior information She said it was an issue at the “heart” of where she was. That’s why

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she asked students so many food-related questions.

“I grew up extremely poor and food insecure,” Newton said, “and that lasted until I found myself in my career in information technology.”

Even though she has a steady job and a good salary, Newton says she’s still food insecure, but in a different way. “I’m worried that it may come back again, that I may be food insecure again,” she said.

Newton still stockpiles extra food in her pantry, just in case.

As word traveled about her willingness to feed students, her Sunday night dinner attendance grew so much that Newton felt the University should step up and take action.

The ball soon started rolling.

A little more than a year after Newton began inviting students for dinner, she convened a small team of experts from across the University to dig into food insecurity at Duke.

Newton learned from a limited survey she sent out that one grad student slept in his car and stole ketchup packets from fast food restaurants in order to eat. Another student spent summers tenting in Eno State Park so she could sublet her apartment for extra money.

Her team concluded they needed more data.

Anecdotes were one thing, said Sarah Zoubek, associate director of Duke’s World Food Policy Center. But for Duke’s administration to act, they’d need baseline numbers to underscore need. Last April, Zoubek and the WFPC conducted a small survey of the graduate student population with funding from the Office of Student Affairs.

Zoubek credited Newton for pushing the issue forward, despite various departments playing hot potato with it.

“I think this topic bounced around Duke and didn’t really have a clear owner,” she said.

Duke students take action

Around the same time, graduate students started speaking out about their need for food.

“We were getting bombarded with complaints that students didn’t have enough money to travel home or to buy a special wardrobe or to eat,” said Joglekar. This was the first time that leadership had heard concerns about financial and food insecurity from their peers.

The stories were jarring.

One student who shared his story with the GPSC General Assembly described how he spent weeks in the library copying books from other students because he couldn’t afford to buy his own. He also didn’t have money for food. Joglekar remembered him talking about how he would bridge the gap between financial aid checks by eating free food from campus events and sleeping on friends’ couches.

“That was when it clicked that we needed to do something,” Joglekar said after hearing this story.

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Budget for the GPSC Community Pantry, up from an original budget of $2,000 The GPSC Community Pantry officially launched in September 2017. In the beginning, the pantry only opened for three hours each Saturday. The first week, just three people came, Joglekar remembered.

“And that was a good week,” she said.

As word spread and the need grew, the pantry slowly swallowed up the first floor of the GPSC house. Its organization system improved, too. Cans and boxes that used to cover the stockroom floor now fill sturdy shelves that line its lime green walls. Positive feedback from pantry users helped motivate the pantry team in those formative days.

Early on, a Dutch Ph.D. student came in with his infant daughter. Joglekar remembered the man telling her that his wife couldn’t get a work visa, so his university stipend had to feed three mouths. As he picked up baby food and diapers, he told her that the pantry had helped his family immensely.

“There was nothing like that moment,” Joglekar said. “Even if he’s the only guy that comes in this week, this is all worth it.”

The pantry program added a new level of convenience last year with its weekly bag program. Pantry shoppers now place orders using an online form, and volunteers pack the bags on Wednesday evenings, leaving time for late additions before Saturday pickup.

Last Wednesday, Stantial and another volunteer filled 25 bags. As one person called out the orders, the other darted around the shelves.

When Stantial joined the Community Pantry committee, she knew little about food insecurity on campus. “I’m fortunate enough not to have experienced it, so it really wasn’t on my radar,” she said.

But after hearing patrons’ personal stories and further researching the issue, she recognized the depth of the problem.

Read the rest online at chron.it/food-insecurity

The Chronicle

recess dukechronicle.com

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2020 | 5

VOLUME 115, ISSUE 43 | FEBRUARY 20, 2020

the trocks are en pointe The all-male drag ballet troupe is coming to Durham, page 7

tame impala faces eternity Kevin Parker‘s latest album explores his fear of the future, page 6

dukechronicle.com

recess

6 | THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2020 2020

recess

What are your snow day plans?

Nina Wilder............. gotti rewatch

Kerry Rork ....... strokes on repeat

Will Atkinson ........ loving my wife

Sydny Long .........being a cool girl

Miranda Gershoni ... campaigning

Jack Rubenstein ............... tenting

Sarah Derris .................snow day?

Selena Qian ........... quitting chron

Alizeh Sheikh ................mediating

Eva Hong .......... amelie on repeat

On the cover: The all-male drag troupe The Trocks. Photo by Zoran Jelenic.

staff note When I was a young girl, I hated Aphrodite.

Like most children, I underwent a brief phase of total and fanatic fixation with Greek mythology, reading every story and relishing the sword-and-sandal fantasies so steeped in the vengeful, poetic magic of the gods. As a bookish, shy girl whose aspirations seemed limited entirely to academics given my ugliness and timidity, I sought refuge in Athena, empowered by her intellectual superiority.

She was the embodiment of the “not like other girls” phenomenon; here was a woman liberated from patriarchal values, honored for her brains rather than her beauty and too

wise to mind herself with silly trivialities like romance or looks.

Aphrodite, on the other hand, seemed modeled after the very girls I had never fit in with. She was vain, lecherous, shallow — invariably blonde and invariably conceited.

Afraid of losing my lone-perceived strength and poisoned by the rhetoric that any girl concerned with appearances or other vapid pursuits was to be othered as a cruel, mindless Barbie doll, I demonized Aphrodite as the villain of every mythological narrative. After all, nobody liked a mean girl.

It would take several years of maturation and introspection to reprogram myself. The “not like other girls” phenomenon dominated internet culture during my formative years, permeating every corner of my social spaces and coaxing

me into adopting that toxic mindset. Countless posts depicting a brunette, bespectacled girl standing in a crowd of heavy-breasted, madeup blondes and having the courage to hold a book instead of a cell phone circulated forums and feeds, contributing to this bizarre narrative that the only way to ditch conformity was to resent anyone who conformed. This rhetoric offered me a refuge from the countless men dead-set on mocking teenage girls for being “Twilight”-loving, bauble-headed sheep. I could insulate myself from a society that loved to hate young girls by joining in on the ridicule, masking my membership to this hated group in haughty derision.

It wouldn’t be until my sophomore year of high school that I finally realized there was no “other girl.” After extricating myself from an emotionally and eventually sexually abusive relationship, I came to the conclusion that I wasn’t that bookish brunette anymore — and I didn’t want to be.

My identity had been cracked and duct-taped haphazardly back together by years of anxiety and bullying and longing to be liked until I no longer recognized who I was underneath my desperate attempts to be someone desirable. Once I had peeled back that ugly wallpaper, I found that the girl beneath was just like Aphrodite.

I started dying my hair blonde, which granted me a confidence that was at once unfamiliar and beautifully fitting. Instead of relegating myself to jeans and T-shirts to avoid standing out and emphasizing my “real girl” appeal, I wore the very pink dresses and skirts I had once scorned. The makeup I had been applying since sixth grade became less of an armored shell and more of a form of expression; I became a veritable expert in winged eyeliner.

The Chronicle What surprised me most about my radical transformation was that I felt deeply empowered by these external changes. The sensitivity, the sappy compassion and the vulnerability that I had learned to hide in order to avoid being labeled an overly-emotional, hysterical girl crept out as I softened my appearance to match my insides. I fell more in love with love with every passing day.

There have been countless feminist retellings of the myths of Aphrodite, reframing her historically misogynistic portrayal as a morallybankrupt, insipid sexpot to better reflect her true nature. She could be materialistic, she could be short-tempered, but she was fundamentally a good woman whose femininity didn’t have to be shrunken down or weaponized to be useful.

I was not born from sea foam, nor am I pretty enough to start wars between mortals, yet I feel a particular kinship with her so different from my hasty alliance with Athena. We prioritize love, allowing ourselves to be guided by our hearts instead of our heads and luxuriate in the warm, pink glow of passion in all of its forms. In spite of her godly status, it seems to me that Aphrodite knew better than anyone how to be human and enjoy our limited time on Earth: by loving unconditionally.

To this day, I am still learning how to be a better woman and uplift all of my sisters. I dress myself in hearts and eat strawberries and send pink letters sealed with lipstick-kisses as a form of devotion to myself, to the idea that I can embody the undefinable, unstoppable love we feel for life and for each other. I can epitomize beauty without being beautiful; I can be woman without man. I can be the other girl.

—Sydny Long

playground

Tame Impala faces eternity on latest album ‘The Slow Rush’

By Aaron Paskin Contributing Writer

I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen the jelly beans video reposted online. Exactly 28,835 jelly beans, one for each day in a lifetime. I scroll past it every time, only to have a “memory” of a photo I was tagged in a year ago flash on my screen. Keep scrolling. A trailer for the next “Star Wars” movie, out in just 47 days! The irony of the jelly beans, of course, is that we’re addicted to the high of sobering perspective. We’re hyper-aware of the passage of time, leading lives of countdowns and memories and nostalgia, and yet it’s in our nature to be overwhelmed by change.

On Feb. 9, 2019, Kevin Parker got married.

On “The Slow Rush,” his fourth album as Tame Impala, he faces the idea of eternity head-on. With song titles such as “Lost In Yesterday,”“Tomorrow’s Dust” and “One More Year,” the record sees Parker grappling with a hyper-awareness of his position in the timeline of his life. He clings to routine, rages against lost time and fears for the future, but there’s hope in every part of it. Really, it’s a miracle to have time at all, and doubly so to spend that time with loved ones.

“One More Year” kicks off the album with all of these sentiments. Parker anxiously admits, “I never wanted any other way to spend our lives / I know we promised we’d be doing this ‘til we die / And now I fear we might.” He remembers how careless and free he felt a year ago, blissfully ignorant to the future. Now that he’s married and facing the forever ahead, his demons are begging for one more year of turning a blind eye to tomorrow. Parker’s voice, glitched out and stuttering, moans the song’s title and his lead vocals wrestle with the idea of another year of ignoring eternity. Functionally, it’s reminiscent of and as effective as James Blake’s electronic falsetto in “Don’t Miss It,” the haunting backing vocals

representing his inner demons dragging him into his phone to let time pass him by.

Time and anxiety about the future are areas rich with varying perspectives and narrative potential, and “One More Year” acts as a perfect introduction to a record about such themes. The problem with “The Slow Rush,” however, is that it struggles to expand on the basic idea that time is a rush and the future is scary. On at least half the songs, Parker addresses such anxiety, but leaves it at that, failing to offer any interesting ideas. These tracks, including “Instant Destiny” and lead single “Borderline,” also feature similarly catchy beats and washed-out synths. They’re fun on their own, but their similarity in both instrumentation and theme blends them into a soundtrack rather than a main event.

The exceptions to this run of sameness are by far “The Slow Rush”’s highlights. “Posthumous Forgiveness” features an anxious funk riff not unlike that of Childish Gambino’s “Redbone” as Parker professes his resentment for his late father, from whom he was estranged for much of his life. He cries, “Did you think I’d never know? Never wise up as I grow? Did you hope I’d never doubt? Never one day work it out?”

Percussive synths advance the track’s first part to a cacophonous climax of frustration, but what follows is a melancholy and somewhat hopeful second part, in which Parker tries to understand his father. “You didn’t know that I suffered / What a thing to discover,” he admits. The song closes with the time he wishes he had with his father, or maybe any father: “Wanna tell you ‘bout the time / Wanna tell you ‘bout my life / Wanna tell you ‘bout my life / Wanna play you all my songs / Hear your voice sing along.”

“Tomorrow’s Dust” is another welcome change of pace. In an album full of intense synths and electronics that often distance us from Parker, the track’s acoustic guitar and relatively raw drum

Courtesy of Interscope On “The Slow Rush,” Kevin Parker’s fourth album as Tame Impala, he faces the idea of eternity head-on.

beat reel us back in. Parker sings about deeply personal emotions throughout “The Slow Rush,” and acoustic instrumentation such as this is so effective in connecting us with these feelings. The record’s almost complete lack of such strippeddown sounds is frustrating and distancing, and it’s why “Tomorrow’s Dust” is one of the album’s standout songs.

Despite the instrumentation and structure’s failure to keep the record’s themes compelling, it must be noted that Parker’s production is phenomenal. Any one of these songs in isolation is a stunning work of art, a labor of love in which every synth and beat has been mixed to perfection. Featuring influences ranging from Daft Punk to P-Funk, “The Slow Rush” is a wonder of production. With no slight to

the swirling soundscapes of “Innerspeaker” and “Lonerism” or the synth-pop spectacle of “Currents,” producer Kevin Parker is clearly at the top of his game.

“The Slow Rush” closes with “One More Hour,” an epic saga of quiet suspense interspersed with explosive synth bursts. Kevin Parker finds himself accepting the slow rush of time. The important things in his life, namely his new wife and being himself, are clear to him now in this final hour of the year he faced at the start of the album. Although such a satisfying and revelatory ending would be stronger if it concluded a more structured narrative arc, the message hits home, and as Parker’s voice fades away, we’re left still longing for the past, but a little less anxious about the future.

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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2020 | 7

local arts

All-male drag troupe the Trocks revamps the classical ballet world

By Tessa Delgo Staff Writer

In recent years, the world of ballet has been increasingly scrutinized for its inaccessibility and lack of diversity, but Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo has been keeping the art on its toes since the 1970s.

Colloquially known as the Trocks, the allmale, comic drag ballet troupe will perform Saturday, Feb. 22 at the Carolina Theatre in a co-presentation with Duke Performances. The Trocks officially began in 1974 as an outgrowth of Charles Ludlam’s Theater of the Ridiculous in Greenwich Village, where the Stonewall riots took place. In the nearly half-century since, attitudes toward drag in the mainstream shifted greatly, but the troupe’s commitment to inclusion and joy have remained consistent.

The troupe’s comedic performances include parodies of classical ballets such as “Don Quixote” and “The Nutcracker.” In traditional performances of these ballets, principal female roles are typically performed en pointe, a technique in which a dancers’ entire body weight rests upon the tips of the toes. Pointe training, even now, is often reserved for female dancers, but the Trocks are at the forefront of a growing movement of blurring the form’s gender expectations.

“I think times have changed. It seems to be more common now that guys are trying [pointe], because it’s really good for your ballet training. It really helps you find your balance and your center,” said Duane Gosa, a seven-year veteran dancer in the company. “So I think a lot of schools and male dancers have decided to give it a shot.”

Gosa first encountered pointe — and the Trocks — while studying dance at the University of Akron. Joining the dance world relatively “late”

at age 16, the university’s dance program was Gosa’s first exposure to what a career in the field could look like for him.

“I kind of got a better perspective of … the types of roles that a male dancer would do, and [they weren’t] as interesting to me as female roles,” Gosa said. “I remember putting on a pointe shoe and wanting to see what that felt like.”

After he successfully convinced the program to allow him into pointe classes, Gosa’s faculty mentors pushed him to look into the Trocks. But burnout eventually turned him away from ballet near the end of his college career, and shortly after graduation, he found himself in a contemporarymodern dance company.

“I was like, ‘You know what, I am much stronger at other things, and I think I’ll be happier if I don’t torture myself with ballet.’ And then I was kind of in a rut with what I was doing and where I was, and I kind of felt stuck,” Gosa said. “So then I looked online and [the Trocks] had an audition, and I thought, ‘Let me just give it a shot — why not?’”

Joining the Trocks meant performing in drag, something Gosa had limited experience with prior to auditioning for the company.

“I think every gay man thinks about what it’s like to have a pair of heels and a wig on, so of course I was intrigued by it,” Gosa said. “It really helps when you’re with a group of people. When everyone’s doing the same thing, you feel a little more supported and safe.”

After one last-minute Halloween costume provided Gosa his first experience in drag over a decade ago, he initially decided not to pursue it further.

“I remember putting on the wig and looking at myself in the mirror and I was like, ‘I can’t go out looking like this.’” Gosa said. “I was freaked

Photo by Zoran Jelenic | Special to The Chronicle The Trocks will perform Saturday, Feb. 22 at the Carolina Theatre, in partnership with Duke Performances.

out about it. Because, you know, it brings a lot of attention. And especially 10-plus years ago, [drag] wasn’t as mainstream as it is now.”

These days, widely-beloved shows like “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and “Pose” have brought drag culture and history onto a global stage. The Trocks, whose legitimacy in the dance world was once subject to question, are now participants in RuPaul’s DragCon and are consistently afforded gravitas as trained dancers and culturallysignificant artists.

“I do think we’re a very distinct part of American culture and American dance, so it really does feel like we’re kind of ambassadors of culture,” Gosa said. “There are [still] some people who oppose the idea, but they’re just on the wrong side of history, you know? I just feel

like people who speak that way are looking for attention. I think, for the most part, everyone is delighted and amused by [us].”

Though the company’s dancers are highlytrained and increasingly bringing in extensive pointe backgrounds, Gosa believes that their continued raison d’être is bringing “joy and lightheartedness” to ballet, encouraging audiences and dancers alike to eschew pretension. ”I hope people get the idea of — just joy. Joie de vivre. There is joy in everything, and I think our purpose in life is to appreciate that,” Gosa said. “Especially with ballet — the ballet world can [feel] so self-serious and esoteric, but it’s really not. Ballets are storybooks, they’re fantasies — and we’ve all learned fairytales. Ballet is really for everyone to enjoy.”

Jazz, Art and Consciousness: The Miles from Bird to Cannonball FEB

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Friday, February 21, 2020 11:30 a.m. - 1 p.m.

Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture The Underground Multipurpose Room Flowers Building

Music provided by John Brown, JD, Director of the Jazz Program and Professor of the Practice of Music, Duke University Refreshments to follow. Limited space available.

Speaker Michael V. Drake, MD President, The Ohio State University

RSVP required:

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Sports 8 | THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2020

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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2020

BASEBALL

MEN’S BASKETBALL

Blue Devils down Tribe behind Can Duke pull Chillari and company’s pitching off ACC regular season title?

By Riley Pfaff

Associate Sports Editor

Pace of play may be a source of concern for many baseball fans, but on nights when pitchers are as efficient as Duke’s staff was Tuesday night, even the most anxious fans worries are put to rest.

No. 17 Duke breezed by William & Mary 5-0 Tuesday evening at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park in a brisk 2.5hour game, extending the Blue Devils’ winning streak to three. Senior Bill Chillari started the night on the hill for Duke and impressed through three scoreless innings before handing the ball to Eli Herrick, the first new arm in a succession of four relievers. The Blue Devils pitched by committee in a brilliant manner, holding the Tribe to just four hits and no runs. “[I’m] so proud of Bill Chillari. What a great competitor, what a selfless teammate,” said head coach 0 Chris Pollard. “Last week I brought Bill W&M 5 in the office and told him he wouldn’t DUKE be starting this past weekend. It was a tough conversation because he’s been an incredible asset for us over the last four years.

“The way everything shook out for us this past weekend put him in a situation where he needed to start for us today, and he’s just always ready to take the ball. He’s been ready to take the ball every time we’ve asked him to and he pitched great today.”

Chillari made his first appearance for the Blue Devils (3-1) since starting Game 3 of Duke’s super regional loss to Vanderbilt last season. The southpaw has struggled in the past with his command, but finished with a clean slate Tuesday evening, recording no walks while striking out a pair of Tribe batters.

He was relieved in the fourth inning by Herrick, who worked through five efficient outs without giving up a baserunner, before being lifted with two outs in the fifth inning. Herrick matched Chillari with two strikeouts of his own, only throwing fifteen pitches in his 1 2/3 innings of work.

Matt Dockman came into the game to close out the fifth, inducing a flyout to begin the sixth before walking the next batter he faced. Prior to that walk, the trio of Duke pitchers had retired 16 straight batters.

William & Mary (0-4) struggled at the plate all night, managing only four singles while striking out ten times.

“I think we’re throwing really well. Even the two walks we [gave up], we were trying to execute 3-2 breaking balls. We’ve got guys really comfortable throwing any pitch in any count, and it keeps guys off balance, gets a bad swing,” Pollard said.

“We’re doing a good job getting ahead and that’s putting us in a position to get a lot of soft contact.”

The Blue Devils jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead in the first inning as the heart of their order continued its torrid start to the season. Joey Loperfido led off the game with a single and then swiped second base. Two batters later, Michael Rothenberg launched a ball 105 miles per hour off his bat to deep center field for a double to score Loperfido and give Duke an early lead. Matt Mervis followed that up with a single through the right side to keep the line moving and drive in Rothenberg, giving the Blue Devils a 2-0 lead after the first inning.

In the fifth inning, Rothenberg came to the plate looking to do damage again with runners on second and third and no outs. He hit a nearly identical blast that sent William & Mary centerfielder Joe Delossantos all the way to the wall where he leapt up and made a fantastic catch, crashing into the padding to rob Duke of another extra base hit. Nevertheless, as See BASEBALL on Page 9

Note: This article was written before Duke and Louisville’s Wednesday night games.

Though this year’s Duke team may not generate a ton of hype, the 2019-20 Blue Devils are primed to accomplish something that the previous 13 Duke squads have not: win an outright ACC regular season title.

With less than three weeks remaining in the regular season, the Blue Devils currently sit atop the ACC standings, holding a half-game lead over both Louisville and Florida State. No other team in the conference is within less than three games of the lead, so we will ignore the rest of the ACC for this exercise (sorry Virginia).

Without further ado, let’s take a look at how likely for each of the top three teams to pull out an ACC regular season title.

Derek Saul

Florida State (currently 12-3 in the ACC) The Seminoles certainly still have a chance to win the ACC, but their path to doing so is much more difficult than the other two contenders.

Of Florida State’s five remaining games, only one is a sure victory: the season finale against Boston College. The four prior contests present as grueling a stretch as possible. The Seminoles will play a trio of capable opponents on the road in North Carolina State, Clemson and Notre Dame, with the rematch against Louisville in Tallahassee, Fla., sandwiched between the tilts against the Wolfpack and the Tigers.

Given the Blue Devils’ softer remaining schedule (more on that later), the Seminoles likely need to win out in order to secure the crown. With their gauntlet of a schedule, I just don’t see this happening, and I expect Florida State to drop two of its four tough contests, locking it into the third spot in See COLUMN on Page 9

Jackson Muraika | Associate Photography Editor

Charles York | Photography Editor

Junior Michael Rothenberg sparked the Blue Devils at the plate against William & Mary, driving in three runs.

Sophomore point guard Tre Jones has led the Blue Devils to the best record in the ACC.

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BASEBALL

COLUMN

FROM PAGE 8

FROM PAGE 8

Delossantos struggled to recover and get the ball in, the two baserunners were able to tag up and score and push the Blue Devils’ lead to five.

“We’re getting in good counts. Friday night versus Army we expanded our zone a little bit, tried to hit too big a zone. What you see now is us laying off some marginal pitches and getting in better counts and getting in fastball counts,” Pollard said.

“We’re ready and we’re on time putting good swings on pitches in fastball counts. And we’ve got some strong guys who are able to do some damage in those counts.”

The Blue Devils will be back in action at the DBAP this weekend against Cornell, where the Blue Devils hope Rothenberg, Loperfido, Mervis and the rest of the lineup can continue their hot start against a veteran Big Red staff highlighted by senior righthander John Natoli.

“We’re going to see a really good arm on Friday night, maybe the best arm we’ve seen all year in John Natoli, a really complete pitcher,” Pollard said. “They’ve got almost their complete pitching staff back from last year, and they’re very well-coached, so we’ve got our hands full this weekend.”

the ACC standings.

Worst-case scenario: 1-4 over final five, 13-7 in the ACC Best-case scenario: 5-0 over final five, 17-3 in the ACC My prediction: 3-2 over final five, 15-5 in the ACC Louisville (currently 12-3 in the ACC) At the beginning of last week, the Cardinals looked like a near lock to win the ACC, with Louisville riding 10 straight wins in conference play, including a victory against Duke in Cameron Indoor Stadium. But back-to-back losses to Georgia Tech and Clemson ejected the Cardinals from the ACC driver’s seat, putting Louisville a game behind the Blue Devils in the loss column.

Three of the Cardinals’ remaining games are manageable matchups against Syracuse, North Carolina and Virginia Tech at their home KFC Yum! Center. However, Louisville still has away contests against Florida State and Virginia on the docket, two of the tougher tests that the ACC has to offer. I expect the Cardinals to take care of business at home but drop one of its two road tilts, putting Louisville at 16-4.

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Vernon Carey Jr. and the Blue Devils are the odds-on favorites to win the conference.

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Duke (currently 12-2 in the ACC) With the edge in the loss column over both the Cardinals and Seminoles, the Blue Devils control their own destiny. If Duke wins out, which is a very legitimate possibility, it will be the outright ACC regular season champion for the first time since 2006. Considering the unlikelihood of Louisville or Florida State winning out, the Blue Devils can probably even afford to drop one game in this stretch.

In addition to its lead, Duke also benefits from the easiest schedule of the three teams.

KenPom.com places the Blue Devils’ win probability in each of their final six games at 70 percent or higher, with four of the contests at 85 percent or higher. All three of Duke’s home games fall in the 85-plus percent bucket, with Virginia Tech, N.C. State and North Carolina set to come to Durham.

Getting a win in road matchups against the Wolfpack and the Cavaliers is no sure thing, but Duke probably just needs to win one of those games to claim the ACC title. I’m confident that the Blue Devils can do just that, capturing the ACC title.

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Worst-case scenario: 4-2 over final six, 16-4 in the ACC Best-case scenario: 6-0 over final six, 18-2 in the ACC My prediction: 5-1 over final six, 17-3 in the ACC

G.K. Butterfield: ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������gwenstephanie

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Worst-case scenario: 3-2 over final five, 15-5 in the ACC Best-case scenario: 5-0 over final five, 17-3 in the ACC My prediction: 4-1 over final five, 16-4 in the ACC

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T

he first step in the assembly of a beetle kite is the acquisition of the beetle. If you find yourself residing in the southwestern United States or Mexico, I suggest you look for a Cotinus Mutablis, or figeater beetle. They can be found feeding near any tree or plant which produces a sweet fruit (the riper the better). I’ve personally had the most success with cacti.

Sami Kirkpatrick COLUMN In the Southeast your best bet is the Cotinus Nitidia, or June beetle. While considerably duller in presentation compared to their shiny western cousin, the June beetle will do in a pinch and can also be found on ripe or rotting fruits.

Once you have eyes on your beetle, you may consider using a mason jar or other cylindrical container for easy capture and storage (remembering of course to poke holes in the top of your lid so as to not suffocate your beetle). The more experienced beetle hunter may forgo the jar in favor of the bare

hot take of the week “I like it when Duke loses because our website analytics do really well.”

—Jake Satisky, Editor-in-Chief, on February 19, 2020

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handed method, but if you choose to do so remember to have your string already handy at your side.

To tie your knot, gently pinch your beetle by its sides and loop the string around its body behind its first two sets of front legs, all the while being careful not to cover the part of its torso shielding the wings. Additionally, make sure to tie your knot an inch or two away from the beetle, leaving enough room to easily set it free using scissors unharmed after you’ve finished your flight.

Now that you’ve assembled your living kite, stand back and wait for the beetle to do its part (some gentle prodding might be necessary in order to induce flight).

Yes, the end result is just a beetle on string, but like most things the satisfaction in beetle hunting comes from the journey, not the end result.

The best beetle hunter I have ever had the pleasure of knowing was my grandfather. He honed his craft as a young boy playing alongside his twelve brothers and sisters on their family farm just outside of Damascus.

His native beetle was of a different variety, but the basic mechanics remain the same.

Some sixty odd years later, he would pass on his beetle knowledge to me and my siblings, this time hunting in the two acre garden attached to his Malibu home. He was the only one of his siblings to leave Syria.

I’m named after his younger brother who died shortly before I was born due to complications resulting from an easily treated bacterial infection. My grandpa fought to bring him to California for medical treatment, but time and time again his visa was blocked.

My grandpa didn’t know the word beetle, so he referred to them onomatopoetically as “zeez” after the buzzing sound produced as they zipped back and forth, constrained by the string. I remember one time in elementary school shouting “look, a zeez!” on the playground while my friends stared at me, puzzled. At the time it hadn’t occurred to me that the word was my grandpa’s own creation.

I’ve been thinking about zeezes a lot recently. When I first heard about the controversy around John Bolton

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My grandpa didn’t know the word beetle, so he referred to them onomatopoetically as “zeez” after the buzzing sound produced as they zipped back and forth, constrained by the string. coming to speak on campus, my initial reaction was indifference. Do I agree with his politics? No, but if Duke wants to have him speak on campus what do I care? Let the AGS blowhards have their fun for an afternoon.

But then I thought about how disappointed my grandpa would be to hear me say that if he were still alive. I thought about how my indifference is only made possible because he left Syria before American intervention in the region set off a chain of events which would eventually leave his family home in rubble and surviving relatives spread out across Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt.

My grandpa’s younger brother is also survived by a grandson named Sami who turned five this past September. I got to grow up catching beetles in Malibu. Barring a significant change, he’ll grow up catching not-so-different beetles in Cairo under refugee status. Compared to many, he’s lucky. My grandma is able to send his parents money that they aren’t able to earn in Egypt as refugees.

Look, I’m still an entitled piece of shit like 99.9% of the time. I have no plan to stop complaining about the food in West Union or how Dean Sue was being a total narc when she wouldn’t let us burn that bench.

But the least I can do is not be indifferent towards a war criminal. I owe my grandpa that.

Sami Kirkpatrick is a Trinity senior. His column runs on alternate Thursdays.

Stop joking about homelessness in K-Ville

I

t’s another cold, unforgiving morning in Durham, North Carolina. The rising sun’s golden beams are blocked by the canopy of the winter clouds, and the frigid weather has us all retreating to the comfort of our centrally heated homes.

Sannan Saleh GUEST COLUMN

Est. 1905

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10 | THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2020 2020

But hundreds of Durham residents—veterans, single mothers, old folks—cannot afford that luxury. Thus, they wrap themselves in layers of worn out jackets and sweaters, and enter the makeshift shelters they’ve set up in the dark alleyways of downtown.

Thankfully, they aren’t the only ones. A couple of miles away are a bunch of depraved college kids who are ‘roughing it.’ Some of them have even intentionally copied the ‘homeless’ look and are holding signs saying, “We sleep in a tent. Help us.”

Their friends huddle around, busy curating the photos they took of these “misfortuned” souls. With a filter here and a hilarious caption there, these photos are ready to join the wealth of Tiktoks, Snapchat stories and instagram posts that document the struggles of living in K-Ville.

I can’t be the only one disgusted by this.

Yet, for the longest time, I have told myself that I’m overreacting. Since, after all, how can an institution like Duke, known for its political correctness, harbor such insensitive practices?

I guess that’s where the Duke ‘bubble’ plays its part: we’re so blinded by our privilege that we collectively fail to consider the moral reprehensibility of living in a tent for fun, in a state where over 9,000 people experience homelessness on any given day, and in a country where approximately 70,000 college students do not have a secure place to sleep (I find the need to clarify that these statistics do not include K-ville tenters).

It seems like Duke students only care about an issue when it augments their social media outlook. Since K-ville tenting has become a tradition that glorifies the ‘Duke Difference,’ refusing to tent would have the catastrophic consequence of being left out of the Duke experience.

And in moments like these, the bourgeois-esque need for

exclusivity trumps social consciousness.

What a killjoy! Bet he wouldn’t survive a week in a tent!

I wouldn’t. And I don’t really care if you spend a month, or even a year, in a tent; I’m not here to lecture anyone about how they’re spending their time, because I do believe that institutional traditions are important. But if you think that voluntarily spending a month in a tent, drinking every night and talking about the difficulty of your eighty grand a year classes makes you qualified to boast about your mental fortitude, and that pretending to live in tents in a country where half a million people are actually living in tents comes with no moral misgivings, then I’d request you to look around.

The liberty to spend your time in a tent reeks of privilege.

K-ville is a page straight out of some dystopian novel: the most privileged people in the world coming together to emulate an impoverished existence. Why? Because a safe, stable lifestyle is much harder than it sounds! They need tenting to escape the great misfortune of boredom and mundaneness. The conversation around K-ville and its ‘challenges’ is the perfect portrait of the blatant inequality that runs rampant in our world today—one person’s tribulations are another’s ‘college experience.’

But let’s take a step back—sports are awesome. And awesome fans make awesome sports, well, ‘awesomer’.

Therefore, fans of any sport who are willing to go the extra mile for their team deserve the utmost respect.

And the Cameron Crazies are no different; they’re Duke’s sixth man.

But Krzyzewskiville, today, is not about team spirit, community building or even basketball; it is an immaculate exhibition of the common asset that binds the students at Duke and every other elite school in America: privilege—a toxicity that blinds and numbs even the most highly educated people in the world.

Students need not fold up their tents, but they must approach this practice with the sensitivity, awareness and humility that the university claims to instill in its attendees.

Posting jokes insinuating that tenting is equivalent to homelessness isn’t funny, and ‘K-ville residents’ who indulge in acts like this, even subtly, should face penalties.

Tents are bumped if a student isn’t present for a check, I’m sure we can do the same for an absence of empathy.

Sannan Saleh is a Trinity junior.

The Chronicle

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ENGLISH FROM PAGE 1 for Area II, she would have to thoroughly scour the course descriptions to find a class that features any. For Area I, it’s an impossible task. Instead, she will need to spend two semesters in classes exclusively about white men in order to graduate with an English major. The gateway and CTM courses cover slightly more diverse topics, but the elective credits are typically filled from the same offerings as the ones that satisfy Areas I, II and III.

Gretchen Wright CAMERON CRAVINGS This structure guarantees that graduating seniors will have taken two full classes on exclusively white, male authors, namely Chaucer, Shakespeare or Milton. Everyone typically takes a Shakespeare class because there is at least one, and often two, offered every semester, while the remaining credit goes to Chaucer, Milton or a survey course like “English Love Poetry.” By nature, at least one-fifth of the English classes a major takes at Duke are dedicated to white, male authors who lived and wrote hundreds of years ago.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the English language spread around the globe with British and American imperialism. For this reason, the Area II requirement has the potential for more diversity, but in the past four years there has not been a single class dedicated to a non-white author in this time period. Predictably, white women do comparatively well in Area II: since fall 2016, there have been three classes each dedicated to Jane Austen and Emily Dickinson. All other single-author Area II courses are white men, mostly William Faulkner, William Carlos Williams and Walt Whitman.

There are, of course, many Area II classes centered on a wider topic than a single author. Some of these are courses

that Professors Mitchell and Vadde raise as counterpoints to Priester’s argument, like “Queens of Antiquity” and “Remembering the Middle Passage.” And perhaps I ought to give the benefit of the doubt to survey courses like “Classics of American Lit, 1820-1860” because the course description does include Frederick Douglass as a possible author (at the end of a list of half a dozen white authors). But I took “Queens of Antiquity” last spring and can attest that the syllabus was dominated almost entirely by works written by white men, the exceptions short enough that they usually didn’t even necessitate a whole week’s worth of class discussions.

Unsurprisingly, Area III is by far the most diverse time period of the major requirements, especially in the past two years. Classes like “Zora Neale Hurston,” “Music & African American Lit,” “Latinx Lit” and “Asian American Gender & Sexuality” showcase the remarkable depth of the English language and the poignant, captivating stories authors from around the world have written in it, as well as demonstrate that the Duke English Department does have the resources to support classes like these. But does it?

As proof of the Department’s commitment to supporting authors of marginalized identities, Professors Mitchell and Vadde proudly hold up the fact that they offered a “crosslisted undergraduate course on Toni Morrison three years ago.” My initial response was to scoff at the absurdity of their evidence. They offered a single course on Toni Morrison three years ago? For comparison, there have been twelve classes on Shakespeare offered in the last eight semesters.

Professors Mitchell and Vadde indicate that the English Department is dedicated to making progress and is working on creating a webpage for undergraduates that will “explicitly advise students to take literature courses that expose them to the diverse communities and continents that have produced some of the best literature in the English language.”

I raise them one further: don’t make it advice, make it a requirement.

The administrators’ central argument is that the English major is flexible and dynamic. They write that “Duke English enables precisely that wide breadth of study of works in

THURSDAY, THURSDAY,FEBRUARY FEBRUARY20, 20,2020 2020 | 11

English for which Ms. Priester calls.” Looking at the courses offered recently, there is certainly a breadth of study, a breadth that I’m sure was unimaginable twenty or thirty years ago. But while the major might enable students to study many different writers and topics, it only requires them to study one kind of author: white men.

Why are the works of Shakespeare, Milton and Chaucer more important than any of the dozens, if not hundreds, of critically-acclaimed books written by authors of color? How is it possible that I have spent nearly seventeen years of my life in school and have never been taught Virginia Woolf, Zadie Smith, Ta-Nehisi Coates or Frank Chin? Why is To Kill A Mockingbird an American classic that I had to read three times by the ninth grade but I had never even heard of The Bluest Eye until my second year of college?

Some of these questions are clearly bigger than the Duke English Department. Like Priester, I feel immensely thankful to the English professors I have had the joy and privilege of learning from at Duke. I am grateful to the professor who taught Toni Morrison’s Desdemona right alongside Shakespeare’s Othello. I am grateful to the professor who supplemented Robert Louis Stevenson and Alfred Tennyson with Mary Shelley, Christina Rossetti and Mary Ann Evans (George Eliot). I am a better thinker, writer and citizen than I was four years ago, and I have the professors of the English Department to thank for it. Truly, thank you.

But no matter how many fascinating, inspiring classes the Department offers, the major requirements still take precedence, and the tragedy of the major lies in how these requirements are built to privilege the voices of white, male authors over everyone else.

I would only ask the administrators to consider what it would look like for the major requirements to truly reflect the Duke English Department’s “commitment to featuring minority perspectives.”

Gretchen Wright is a Trinity senior with a double major in English and Classical Civilizations. Her column, “cameron cravings,” runs on alternate Wednesdays.

Advice for DSG presidential candidates

A

s the Presidential Primary churns along, another campaign will soon sweep Duke—the race for the Presidency of Duke Student Government (DSG). Today marks the deadline for campaigns to submit 100 signatures from supporters so that they may enter the running.

cognizant of the limited powers of DSG’s Chief Executive. The shortage of ambition may just be a function of humility, of candidates recognizing the limitations of the office to which they aspire.

Nonetheless, what the DSG President lacks in direct instrumental power, they make up for

Reiss Becker ROUSED RABBLE

Then, from now until election day, a frenzy will ensue as each candidate conducts a relentless selfie stop campaign, traversing campus with canned rhetoric, ear-to-ear grins and well-timed daps.

In theory, DSG Presidential candidates are supposed to run substantive campaigns where they make affirmative commitments to pass concrete proposals. But in my experience, DSG Presidential campaigns boil down to boring biographical contests, a competition of resume-waving and credential-claiming.

Ostensibly, politics is about using power to benefit the body politic. But you wouldn’t know it from DSG’s Presidential elections. Here, power and its uses are subordinate to vacuous liberal virtues and their public reiteration, ad nauseam. Hence why so few DSG Presidential campaigns are defined by signature proposals for how to improve student life.

In all fairness, candidates are surely

in communicative influence. The President of DSG is the student body’s voice, the articulate champion of their interests. With such power over campus discourse comes a responsibility to lobby for change, for ideas that will shift paradigms at Duke.

Does this necessarily mean that the DSG President’s proposals will be realized?

Of course not. That kind of power mostly lies with the Duke administration. But a penchant for forceful, determined, borderline confrontative, advocacy should be a required characteristic of any candidate.

The DSG President is not elected to dither their term away while playing nice with the Duke administration, accomplishing little other than adding bullet points to their resume. They are elevated to foment change!

To that end, I humbly submit some policies for consideration.

The next DSG President should prioritize low-income students and advocate for

“Throw the cynicism, the belief that DSG is an

utterly ineffectual, careerist institution, aside. That outlook is a choice, not a reality. Worse still, it’s also a self-fulfilling prophecy.

”

their wellbeing. Research demonstrates, counterintuitively, that the knowledge and skills accumulated during an undergraduate education do not drive the monetary value of a degree.

Rather, the social connections developed during the undergraduate experience are the primary source of value. The Harvard Career Center agrees with that notion, pointing out “[if] you’ve ever had to pick people for your group or team, chances are you asked your friends to recommend people they know. In much the same way, recent studies indicate that nearly 80% of the positions available are filled through personal referrals.”

As of now, low-income students do not have close to the same opportunities for networking and socialization. As other columnists have pointed out, bills at restaurants, memberships in social organizations and cover charges for clubs often represent intolerable costs for many students. All candidates must prioritize bridging the socialization gap that pervades Duke social life.

DSG’s President must mitigate the inadequacies of Duke’s social system. As I have previously argued at length, our social system belies the full extent of Duke’s diversity. To fix this, we should liberalize the approval process for new social organizations, enabling students to create as many SLGs, Greek organizations and SSGs (selective social groups not tied to a living space) as possible. Every Duke student should be able to join or create a community that suits them.

Each candidate for DSG President should also commit to serious, deliberate action towards ending sexual assault on campus.

Although Duke continues to grapple with this pressing reality, the administration is still not taking every action possible.

Currently, the Student Experiences Survey, a report that analyzes “sexual assault and other forms of sexual misconduct” at Duke, is conducted on an opt-in basis. But as anyone in intro statistics can tell you, conducting

statistical analyses on an opt-in basis can lead to wildly inaccurate conclusions. As Stanford Researchers confirm, “opt-in sample surveys done via the internet [are] always less accurate and [are] sometimes strikingly inaccurate.”

Given the shortcomings of the current approach, we should address sexual assault on campus with the severity it deserves: the Student Experiences Survey should be conducted on a mandatory basis (with limited exceptions for those with demonstrated trauma) and administered through Duke Hub as a prerequisite to signing up for classes.

There will surely be many understandable objections to this approach, but do any such concerns surmount the crucial imperative to collect accurate information? We can’t be sure that we are making a difference if the information that informs our policies is intrinsically flawed.

DSG Presidential candidates should support reforms to DSG itself. As I addressed in my column on how to improve DSG, the structure of representation in the DSG Senate is inane. There is no reason to presuppose a collective political interest based on class year, for instance. Instead, representation should be based on living groups so that like-minded students can elect authentic representation. This would spur turnout, promote political accountability and give campus politics some actual grounding in the needs of the student body.

To candidates and constituents alike, I ask this: throw the cynicism, the belief that DSG is an utterly ineffectual, careerist institution, aside. That outlook is a choice, not a reality.

Worse still, it’s also a self-fulfilling prophecy.

There is nothing to be lost by taking the race for DSG President seriously. If anything, candidates might differentiate themselves both by proposing bold initiatives and by committing to doggedly fight for their beliefs.

Reiss Becker is a Trinity junior. His column, “roused rabble,” runs on alternate Thursdays.

12 | THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2020

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