FEBRUARY 20, 2018
THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SINCE 1892
VOL. 129, ISSUE 30
David Brooks Presents His Populism Theory BY CAROLINE KUBZANSKY NEWS REPORTER
New York Times columnist David Brooks (A.B. ’83) discussed populism at an event hosted by the Institute of Politics (IOP) on Monday. Brooks began the event with a short speech outlining a “hatchet, ratchet, pivot, hatchet” concept of societal change and its manifestations. In his speech, he used references to the College Core Curriculum to frame his arguments, and identified a deep-seated desire of many people to be a part of a positive social movement. “[People] build communities, or they build moral ecologies, which is a culture in which it is easier to be Continued on page 3
Alexandra Nisenoff
At an IOP event Monday, David Brooks, who recently spent an afternoon with Steve Bannon, said he highly recommends him as a speaker.
REG EXHIBIT EXPLORES MET LAB SCIENTISTS’ VIEWS ON BOMB BY TONY BROOKS NEWS REPORTER
The Regenstein Library Special Collections is currently displaying an exhibit on the University’s role in the development of the atomic bomb and how University scientists reacted to the bomb in the decades after its invention. The exhibit, titled Science and Conscience: Chicago’s Met Lab and the Manhattan Project, began yesterday and will continue until April 13. The exhibit comprises manuscripts and artifacts from the scientists who worked in the Metallurgical Laboratory (Met Lab), the code name for the University lab that investigated nuclear reactions during World War II, including a letter written by then-President Harry Truman defending his decision. “The exhibit traces the organization of the Manhattan Project and the Met Lab,” said Daniel Meyer, director of Special Collections. “The materials that are in the exhibit are drawn from the scientists’ personal papers that they kept in their laboratories during the course of their careers.” In addition to declassified gov-
SG TALKS DISRUPTIVE CONDUCT BY CAMILLE KIRSCH DEPITY NEWS EDITOR
Scientists at the Met Lab (right) went on to form the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (left). ernment files and personal letters, the exhibit includes other notable artifacts, such as Enrico Fermi’s 1938 Nobel Prize in Physics. Fermi was in charge of creating the first Nuclear Reactor, Chicago Pile-1 (CP-1). The experiment was conducted under the west stands of the old Stagg Field, a site now marked by Henry Moore’s sculpture Nuclear Energy. “The original intention was to build [the reactor] out at the Argonne Forest Preserve,” Meyer said. “They were going to have a
Pile-2. The University continued to play a prominent role in the Manhattan Project, however. The Met Lab used dozens of campus buildings, including Eckhart, Ryerson, and Kent, and several new buildings were constructed for it. The exhibit contains booklets and pamphlets detailing proper security protocol for members of the Met Lab. “All of the buildings that the Met Lab occupied were guarded,” Meyer said. “There were a lot of in-
Student Government (SG) discussed Steve Bannon’s upcoming appearance and the University’s new process for adjudicating disruptive conduct at its Assembly meeting on Monday. SG president and fourth-year Calvin Cottrell announced that SG would be accepting student questions for Bannon at the debate. “Working with the professor that invited Bannon, we’re very excited that student questions will be included,” Cottrell said. Questions from students will be accepted through a Google Form which SG will create and promote. Debate moderators will select which questions will be read at the Bannon event. “Who those debate moderators are and when the debate will be held is yet to be determined,”
Continued on page 3
Continued on page 2
Courtesy of Argonne National Laboratory
building constructed and put the Pile inside it, but there was a labor strike.” With the fear of losing momentum, the project decided to conduct the experiment under Stagg Field. “They trusted Fermi’s calculations that the experiment could be carried out successfully and that the reaction could be controlled,” Meyer said. In early 1943, the reactor was disassembled and taken out to the Argonne Forest Preserve, where it was put back together as Chicago
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THE CHICAGO MAROON - FEBRUARY 20, 2018
Events 2/20–2/22 Today Reproductive Justice 101: A Teach-In 5710 South Woodlawn Avenue, 6-8:30 p.m. Project Reproductive Freedom presents an introduction to reproductive justice in the Community Lounge of the Center for Identity + Inclusion. Dinner will be provided. Tomorrow Illinois Elections 101 Library, Ida Noyes Hall, 12:30–1:30 p.m. Join three reporters from WBEZ and Politico for a roundtable discussion on the 2018 Illinois elections. The conversation will touch on hot-button issues, competitive districts, and races to watch. Lunch provided. Sophia Corning
Thursday
Ambassador Nikki R. Haley Assembly Hall, Interanational House, 5:30–6:45 p.m. During her tenure at the United Nations, Haley has prioritized organizational reform and the defense of human rights while addressing the international threat posed by North Korea. The discussion will be moderated by IOP Director David Axelrod. Register online.
See more events and submit your own at chicagomaroon.com/events.
Support Our Advertisers Page Three: Talk—A Lutheran pastor discusses her life as a female faith leader in Jerusalem and the “complexities of life in the Holy Land”. Help wanted— full-time receptionist at a Hyde Park real estate company. Send resumes to dlewis@urbansearchrealty. com. Concert —The Sacred Power of A nimals, featuring Vox Balaenae and A Midieval Bestiary. Friday, February 23, 7:30 p.m. at Rockefeller Chapel Page 7: Eat at Jimmy John’s, with a Hyde Park location at 1519 E. 55th Street open from 9 a.m.–10 p.m. Prize—The T. Kimball Brooker Prize for Underg raduate Book Collecting awards $1,000 and $2,000 to secondand fourth-years, respectively, who possess exemplary themed book collections. If you want to place an ad in T he M ar o on , please email ads@ chicagomaroon.com or visit chicagomaroon.com/ pages/advertise.
In this week’s Citizen Bulletin: Rauner juggles pensions; Rahm conjures Google; Currie backs Madigan. Find more at chicagomaroon.com/contributor/citizen-bulletin.
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Cosette Hampton, Harris School student and organizer with the Black Youth Project 100, shares her thoughts at the first of three teach-ins against the upcoming Steve Bannon event, held at the First Unitarian Church Friday evening.
SG Parliamentarian Explains Disruptive Conduct Rules Continued from front
Cottrell said. Cottrell was not sure if there are plans to allow professors and community members to submit questions for Bannon. Cottrell then introduced fourth-year Max Freedman, SG parliamentarian and a member of the University-wide Standing Committee on Disruptive Conduct, who shared an explanation of the University’s new disciplinary procedures for disruptive conduct. “There is a lot of confusion, I think, because it’s a mysterious committee,” Freedman said, adding that he thought that it was important to clarify the new procedures given the possibility of disruptive protests at the Bannon event. Last spring, the Faculty Senate approved a new system for evaluating complaints regarding disruptive conduct following administration pressure to revise the existing process, which had been in place since 1970 but had not been invoked since 1974 due to “cumbersome” procedures. The Bannon event could test the newly-instated centralized disciplinary system. Freedman said the main points to understand about the new procedures are the inclusion of an informal mediation option and the centralization of the disciplinary process. “Things that were already against the rules are still against the rules,” Freedman said. He read a University-created list of examples of protest that would not be considered disruptive, including “a spontaneous hour-long demonstration on the Quad… rising during a speaker’s presentation, turning one’s chair around, and sitting with one’s back facing the speaker…[and] standing at the back of the room where a speaker is presenting and holding a large sign.” Freedman said there is still challenge in determining whether an action was disruptive. “There’s a grey line there,” he said. “What does it mean to ‘substantially impede’?… So some of those things will have to be sorted out.” However, Freedman defended the mission of the committee. “People who are here have an expectation that classes and events that they go to will continue, and there’s also a commitment to be able to have debate,” he said. In the question-and-answer portion of Freedman’s presentation, one audience member said that the disruptive conduct process seemed to effectively criminalize
student protests. “That’s not the intent of the committee,” Freedman said. Following the presentation, SG unanimously voted to approve bylaws for the Emergency Fund, a student-run fund which provides rapid microgrants to students experiencing emergencies that affect their academic careers. The Emergency Fund will now begin accepting grant applications. Students from any school or division who pay a student life fee or who are enrolled in classes and are not required by their division to pay a student life fee are
eligible to apply. Priority will be given to students applying for the first time who are requesting less than $200, since the fund’s mission is to provide emergency microgrants. “We’re not here to replace other [emergency funding] sources, but to be one that is a complement and one that is super fast,” said second-year College Council representative Jahne Brown, who drafted the initial resolution proposing the Emergency Fund. “We’re dealing with small amounts of fast funding, so we can’t be the sole source and we don’t intend to be.”
Audrey Teo
Students traveled downtown on Sunday to advocate for gun reform just three days after the mass shooting in Parkland, FL.
HELP WANTED Full-time, 9 to 5pm, (three days a week could be considered) receptionist opportunity in a busy Hyde Park real estate company. Available immediately. Seeking an individual with a friendly manner to answer and direct phone calls and welcome walk-in clientele, be of office assistance to brokers and staff, maintain advertising data base and compile weekly ads, proficient in Word and Google platforms. Submit resumes to dlewis@urbansearchrealty.com URBAN SEARCH, 773.451.5751. Email ads@chicagomaroon.com to place a classified ad.
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THE CHICAGO MAROON - FEBRUARY 20, 2018
Brooks: Bannon Has “Conviction” Continued from front
good…to solve the problem of their time,” Brooks said. “And they build for a time and they work for a time and then they stop working.” Over time, Brooks said, the institutions built for one generation become irrelevant to future generations. “History moves by a process of hatchet, ratchet, pivot, hatchet,” he said. “You build a culture that solves your problems, then it stops working, so you hatchet it up and you pivot and you build another one.” Tracing examples of previous cultural upheavals, Brooks diagnosed the present moment as a part of the cycle of institutional reform. “I think we’re at another one of these hatchet moments, and those moments can be bumpy. To me, we’re sort of running out the string on this individualistic ethos,” he said. What Donald Trump and other populists have done, according to Brooks, is take advantage of a vacuum moment in society to create a new paradigm aligned with their interests. “The populists understood that you don’t have to build a new system, you just have to tear down the old culture that isn’t working
for people anymore,” Brooks said. After Brooks’s speech, the floor opened for questions on topics including the upcoming Steve Bannon event and responses to growing tribalism. Brooks enthusiastically endorsed Bannon’s upcoming visit to campus as an opportunity to better understand the populist worldview, although he stridently disagrees with Bannon’s views. “I spent an afternoon a few months ago with Steve Bannon. I highly recommend that he come here,” he said. “It was like being with Trotsky in 1905. This guy knows who his intellectual antecedents are, he’s got a 50year plan to take over this institution, that institution, he knows who his international allies are…. He’s got a tremendous coherence to his worldview and it was kind of inspiring. I didn’t agree with it at all, but at least there’s a coherence and a conviction.” Brooks referred to his College experience, which taught him that hearing others’ ideas was the best way to sharpen his own convictions. “They taught us how to argue by seeing the other points of view as well as we saw our own,” he said. “If you don’t get in the habit of teaching it, people will dismiss what they don’t want to believe.”
Alexandra Nisenoff
Brooks discussed populism during his talk in Ida Noyes.
WSJ Praises Zimmer for Bannon Event The 112 faculty who signed an open letter opposing Steve Bannon’s visit to campus are exceptions, University President Robert J. Zimmer told The Wall Street Journal for an article published Friday.
Robert J. Zimmer President Emily Lo
“ What we see among our faculty is that only a few of those who dislike what they view Bannon as represent-
ing have asked that he be disinvited,” Zimmer said. He said that most faculty have instead “talked about counterprogramming, and have talked about protests—nondisruptive protests—which, of course, is totally fine.” “ The students have been remarkable,” Zimmer said in the same article. He added that at the student-moderated town hall on February 5 with Professor Luigi Zingales, who invited Bannon to campus, University students “were very clear that there was to be no disruption, that they wanted to have a conversation.” Zimmer also said he will not attend the Bannon event. “We have many, many talks.... I’m really pretty busy.” — Deepti Sailappan
Reg Showcases University Scientists Continued from front
structions to the staff about security. It was an ongoing concern at this site and at other sites of the Manhattan Project that espionage might be taking place.” At any given time during World War II, the Met Lab employed about 2,000 people on campus. This number decreased to 1,300 after the war, Meyer said. To minimize security risks, the University housed hundreds of Lab employees on campus in a large building where Eckhardt Research Center now stands. In 1946, the Met Lab was turned into Argonne National Laboratory. Some personnel from the Lab were transferred to the newly created Fermi and Franck institutes, which focus on the study of nuclear and molecular science.
“The second part of the exhibit is really about how scientists who worked on the Manhattan project and at the Met Lab reacted to the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” Meyer said. “They began to organize an effort to pass legislation that created the atomic energy commission, which put atomic energy under civilian control.” These efforts, led by University of Chicago scientists, resulted in the passage of the Atomic Energy Bill, which shifted control of nuclear power away from the military and into civilian authority. University scientists also created the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a periodical that promotes the peaceful use of nuclear power. The exhibit is on display on the first floor of Regenstein Library.
ROC K E F E LLE R C H A P E L C H O I R Conducted by James Kallembach
SACRED POWERS OF ANIMALS
F R I DAY F E B R UA RY 2 3 | 7 : 3 0 P M ROC K E F E LLE R C H A P E L 5850 S. WOODLAWN AVE ., CHICAGO, IL 60637 | rockefeller.uchicago.edu
Photography by Anne Benvenuti
A concert of music celebrating the wisdom and ways of animals: George Crumb’s Vox Balaenae (Voice of the Whale), with RUSSELL ROLEN cello, TIMOTHY MUNRO flute, and DANIEL PESCA piano, and R. Murray Schafer’s whimsical and rarely heard A Medieval Bestiary, along with music of John Tavener and other music celebrating animals. $20 at the door, free to students.
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THE CHICAGO MAROON - FEBRUARY 20, 2018
VIEWPOINTS Letter: UChicago Should Support Unionization Editor’s Note: The following is an updated version of an original e-mail sent by Professor Yali Amit to University Provost Daniel Diermeier and Executive Vice Provost David Nirenberg, following news that Graduate Students United (GSU) has withdrawn its petition before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Colleagues, Your campaign against graduate student unionization has significantly damaged the integrity of the University of Chicago both morally and intellectually. To mention a few
examples: the various testimonies of deans at the NLRB hearing, the one-sided, biased e-mails from Dean Michele Rasmussen during the hearing, the propaganda web page you posted claiming to provide “facts” about unionization, the calls to students to go vote in the elections and your subsequent refusal to recognize the results of the vote, the President’s claims that the U of C strongly supports free speech while refusing to recognize a democratically elected union or even have an open debate about unionization, and finally the latest e-mail from the Provost announcing the withdrawal of the petition to represent
graduate students by the AAUP and the AFT with no explanation and no context. Well, the context is quite clear, according to Graduate Students United’s website. We learn that this surprising move stems from fears, at the national level, that your actions in cooperation with the sinister anti-union agenda of the Trump administration will cause long standing damage to the graduate student unionization movement. It would behoove you to provide this explanation alongside your e-mail so that the University community is fully informed about what is going on. Personally I find this chapter in the Uni-
versity’s history profoundly distressing. In your desperate attempts to prevent unionization, you have chosen to ally the University with the most anti-intellectual, anti-science, anti-democratic, anti-education administration in modern U.S. history. You have chosen to fight unionization with tools that are antithetical to the core ideals of an intellectual and academic institution and have caused serious damage to the reputation of the University. —Yali Amit, Professor, Departments of Statistics and Computer Science
Past the Pretense: Reconsidering Allyship The Aziz Ansari Case Makes It Clear That Men Need to Embody the Feminism They Claim to Support
Lucas Du About a month ago, an article appeared on the website Babe.net, a self-styled publication for “girls who don’t give a fuck,” detailing a sexually aggressive and deeply disturbing encounter a woman under the pseudonym “Grace” had with Indian-American comedian Aziz Ansari. As fellow columnist Zahra Nasser noted soon after in her piece, “Rape Culture and the #MeToo Movement,” Ansari’s name became the latest addition to a growing list of men in the entertainment industry accused of sexual misconduct. And like Nasser says, the article and its latent accusations were especially difficult to process and contextualize, given Ansari’s reputation as an advocate for female empowerment and male allyship. He was, to me, a role model for what it means to be a decent, self-aware, and “woke” man in the modern age. It’s difficult to reconcile this fumbling, grossly oblivious Aziz with the Aziz I thought I knew—as much as one can know another through scripted television and staged standup. I’ve watched all of his Netflix comedy specials. Master of None is one of the best TV shows I’ve seen in the last couple of years. In fact, one of my all-time favorite scenes is a wordless three-minute-long shot near the end of the second season of Master of None that centers on Ansari’s character Dev, sitting in the back seat of a cab after a date, his face showing so much more than a voice-over ever could. Ansari has built a career partly
on his ability to see the rough edges, the sly subtleties of modern romance, and it is so deeply ironic that he is now accused of failing to do exactly that. As Nasser astutely noted in her column, while both Grace and her story have all been criticized in countless ways from countless perspectives, neither the tabloid-esque quality of the writing nor the potentially ambiguous nature of the allegations should detract from the important discussions that the article has generated and continues to generate. Given all the complexities of consensual sex, experiences like Grace’s undoubtedly deserve a seat at the table. More than anything, I feel that stories like Grace’s point toward the importance of enthusiastic consent. But I also believe these stories shed light on the fundamental paradox of a world in which we cannot reconcile the social boundaries and gender roles instilled in us with our voiced support of gender equality and feminism. Throughout our lives, women are taught, either directly or through social cues, to be subservient, to be accommodating, to be nice. And men, at least in my view, are constantly being urged or urging others to not only be strong, powerful, and assertive but also to never show vulnerability or affinity for anything feminine. As fellow columnist Dylan Stafford wrote in his piece entitled “Manhood Without Misogyny,” manhood is so often defined not only by aggression but by a latent objectification and belittling of women. And that sort of dynamic feeds into the kind of power imbalances at the root of sexual violence and the victimization of women. But for many of us, especially those who have grown up in the more liberal, progres-
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sive pockets of the States, our conscious idea of who we should be often contradicts the things that we’ve been taught and that have inevitably informed who we have become. It was frustrating for me, as well as many other commentators in the immediate aftermath of the Ansari article, that Grace never seemed to think she had agency in the situation. Despite her visible discomfort and Ansari’s evident apathy, she never assertively refused him until things really started to get out of hand. She never decided to just get up and leave, not until things escalate much further. Even when she did call the Uber home, Ansari joked that she should use the pseudonym “Essence,” and she actually does, under obligation to nothing but Ansari’s offhand whims. But it is clear that Grace is well aware of how to think, speak, and reflect on consent— or the lack thereof. She used the phrase “I don’t want to feel forced” when responding to Ansari’s sexual advances, she actively attempts to think about why she felt so violated, and she is able to let Ansari know how she felt about the night. Of course, it is also worth noting that, because Ansari is a man of considerable fame, Grace was even more vulnerable: she had to deal with not only the power imbalance between men and women, but also with the privilege that comes from fame itself. In a piece by Megan Garber than ran in The Atlantic a few days after the Babe article, Garber writes that “much of the immediate backlash against the Ansari story, then, frames Grace as a kind of walking paradox, simultaneously empowered and weak.” In a similar vein, Ansari can also be characterized as simultaneously “woke” and subservient to the expectations of toxic masculinity.
Indeed, Ansari is at least guilty of performative allyship, if not more, given his public profession of his feminism in order to accumulate some kind of twisted social capital while he continues to benefit from and even contribute to the underlying injustices. But these paradoxes are not limited to these two people in this one tell-all exposé, and allyship as a performance is certainly not limited to Aziz Ansari. These are things that many, if not all of us, carry with us everyday. We live in extraordinarily important, albeit sometimes confusing times. And finding a solution, a way to iron out these contradictions in the fabric of who we are, will require a major cultural shift. It will require us to rethink how we teach men to be men and women to be women and how we impose the gender binary even on people that fall outside of it. It will require us to teach women that their pleasure matters as much as men’s and to teach men that women’s pleasure matters too. Above all, it begins with individual braveries. It begins with the courage to look within ourselves and think critically about what we believe and how we profess it and act on it. For men especially, it begins with the humility to accept criticism and reject the toxic parts of masculinity, the parts that glorify our sexual exploits at the expense women’s well-being. It begins with the fearlessness to call out not only others but also ourselves when it is clear that our allyship is based not on authentic belief but on personal gain. And it begins with our ability to listen and empathize. Because ultimately, it’s on us. Lucas Du is a first-year in the College.
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THE CHICAGO MAROON - FEBRUARY 20, 2018
ARTS
Portugal. The Man. The Band. BY ALEXIA BACIGALUPI ARTS EDITOR
Are you even an indie rock band if you don’t have a nonsensical band name that mocks the standards of proper English? Are you even a lead singer of said band if you don’t perform in the dark with small, round sunglasses, a handlebar mustache, and a shrunken beanie perched on your head? Friday night, the iconic Aragon Ballroom was overrun by an unlikely mix of Pacific Northwestern–looking rock fans with tattoos, union shirts, and flannels, college kids with Manic Panic–dyed hair, and a handful of clean-cut couples in their 60s. The evening’s draw was the Alaska-based rock band Portugal. The Man touring for their latest album, Woodstock. No concert truly starts until someone sloshes beer onto your sneakers, and some very excited fans happily obliged when the opening band, Twin Peaks, strolled on stage for an enthusiastic, if overwhelming, set. The audience shrieked and writhed along with the band as they thrashed about on stage, looking like the boys of Stranger Things as pothead philosophy majors. Their 1960s garage-rock sound, complete with over-the-head guitar antics, filled the cavernous space and swallowed up most of the lyrics. During an extensive 45-minute set, the two intelligible lines I noted were, “Tripping through the sewer,” and, “Keep it together,” so I can’t speak much to their lyrical abilities. Even if I missed most of the words, there was something exciting about the band’s earnestly goofy energy and music steeped in The Rolling Stones and The Beach Boys. Guitarist Clay Frankel’s eel-like shimmies and mic-grabbing antics made for an amusingly fresh stage presence even though the band has been performing since 2010. Then the lights went out and the shrieks, gasps, and relentless drums of Kanye West’s “Black Skinhead” filled the darkness...only to be followed by the saccharine sweetness of the enduring ’50s ballad “Unchained Melody.” Having thoroughly disoriented the crowd, Portugal. The Man walked out to rapturous applause and, without a word, launched into an extend-
Samuela Mouzaoir
An eclectic audience gathered in the iconic Aragon Ballroom for the Alaska-based psych-rock band. ed guitar and drums riff; guitarists John Gourley and Eric Howk occasionally turned their backs to the audience, heads down, fully absorbed in their instruments. While its recent Grammy win for the infectiously upbeat “Feel It Still” has launched the band to mainstream fame, Portugal. The Man continues to perform like under-the-radar musicians who care more about the music and their fans than stardom. There is no spotlight; when the light display fades, the duo is often lit only by screens behind them. The banter with the audience that is common to casual performances like this was shy and limited. As they began to play, the video behind the band members displayed the message, “We are not very good at stage banter, so tonight’s performance will feature some slogans written by our management. Thank you for your continued understanding.” True to their word, most of the au-
dience interaction was through questions on the screen, asking if they liked to smoke weed (which received a hearty cheer), checking that they were at the right concert, and thanking them for downloading (or stealing) their album. After the solo, the band led off with a single from its 2013 album Evil Friends. The falsetto groove of “Purple Yellow Red and Blue” became increasingly frantic; its bassline slowly warped, and the chorus, “All that I needed/ Was something to believe in” took a plaintive edge, accompanied by rainbow lights and swirling oil slick patterns. A tightly coiled bassline propelled the contemplative melancholy of “Number One” before melting into the louche sprawl and drum kick fillip of “Live in the Moment.” Woodstock is the band’s most arena friendly, bombastic rock album, dabbling with jingling tambourines, voice distorters, and
guest vocalists. There’s a little bit of the shimmery MGMT funk in “Keep On,” a heavy touch of The Black Keys’ unhurried ’70s grunge in “So Young,” and the soft “oohs” of “Tidal Wave” evoke The Neighbourhood. Even the album cover—a crisp photo of a glossy black car engulfed in smoke—is a distinct departure from previous covers, which featured surrealist images of a humanoid figures with horns or three eyes. Live, the band sticks to its altrock roots, trading in slinky topline drums for extended guitar passages and a richly textured low-end from bassist Zachary Scott Carothers. In the multi-layered wall of noise, Gourley and Howk’s nasal head-voice vocals often struggled for air, trailing behind the ferocious drums. After retreating for the first few verses, the funky beat of “Noise Pollution” swallowed up the chorus for a muddled mess of skittering cymbals and keyboard. Toward
the end of the set, a mellower bass, rich as umami, suffused the ballroom and the vocalists finally found themselves in control, cresting the wave of sound. Behind it all is a video display best described as a claymation horror sequence: pale, distorted, humanoid figures striding forward, mountains of naked plastic dolls endlessly re-generating, milky white rubbery faces with dark, pupilless eyes. Occasionally the mood shifted to colored blotches blooming like samples on a petri dish. It’s this shy earnestness that makes Portugal. The Man so much fun to experience live. They are first and foremost musicians, not show ponies caught up in gimmicky antics. Woodstock may be their eighth album in 12 years, but on stage it still feels like their first show, a group of high school friends playing their hearts out, oblivious to the rest of the world.
Unthought Environment Examines the Elements BY PERRI WILSON ASSOCIATE ARTS EDITOR
The Renaissance Society’s newest exhibit, Unthought Environments, could not have chosen a broader theme. Using the elemental world as a frame of reference, the exhibit, which opened Saturday, strives to stimulate viewers to ask, “What are our unthought environments?” The 16 artists’ works interpret the question in incredibly varied ways, their pieces ranging from the explicitly natural (such as Jochen Lampert’s large gelatin
prints of wind) to the most curated human structures (such as Cecile Evan’s model of a tidy office, complete with a little rolling chair). At first I was skeptical: How could any topic so broad yield a conclusion, or even a substantive discussion? Any piece of art could be abstracted from or justified by the all-encompassing theme of elements. Yet, after a slow walk through the exhibit, and especially after reading Karen Lund’s accompanying essay of the same name, it became clear that this very breadth of interpretations was exactly the point. Yes, the
elemental frame of reference might be all-encompassing, but to rethink our world in terms of phenomena that she calls “elusive, easily forgotten, or deliberately kept out of sight,” is to speak in the closest thing we have to a universal language. While the exhibit may have centered around the most fundamental, and as Lund calls it, “archaic,” vocabulary, few of the pieces were immediately understandable. The exhibit requires a certain patience from viewers; you enter the gallery with a map in hand, complete with short blurbs on each piece, and
Lund’s accompanying essay. Like an overwhelmed tourist, you weave through the disparate installations and photographs, often finding pieces hidden in corners of the room or going unnoticed on an obscured wall. Some of the pieces bring the elemental language to the foreground, while in others, the natural is obscured. Near Here by Nina Canell and Robin Watkins, translates a 1,000,000-volt current into a visible lightning-strike pattern with photocopy toner. And Florian Germann’s emf/liquid state evokes “primordial forces” in a pool of bubbling,
green gel, made from algae. Marissa Benedict’s installation at first appears to be just a messy collection of black balls, bottles and fencing. With knowledge of her research in “water containment,” however, the scattered materials suddenly seem to be bobbing in a dirty waterway, and the linoleum floor begins to feel eerily fluid. Often, such a dependence on written explanation can be a sign of an opaqueness in the artist’s vision, but in the case of Unthought Environments, many of the piecContinued on page 6
6
THE CHICAGO MAROON - FEBRUARY 20, 2018
“Some of the pieces bring the elemental language to the foreground, while in others, the natural is obscured...” Continued from page 5
es were striking on their own. Cohen and Balen’s huge screens printed with distorted images of mines were sufficient in creating the desired effect of a frustratingly untouchable environment. The value of the written materials, then, was only to explain the causes of these already successful effects, in much the same way that an understanding of chemistry explains the existence of known phenomena. Why does one feel an acute discomfort while standing in the middle of Cohen and Balen’s screens? Perhaps because the photographs are not natural at all, but rather rendered using game engine software. Even Lund’s essay did not so much add to the pieces as it did explain the feeling of relevance that had become clear by the time one
had worked their way through the exhibit. The generality of the exhibit, each piece building on the broad concept of the elemental realm, worked to prove its own thesis. Creating effects as varied as the electric power in Near Here and the disconcerting bubbling in emf/ liquid state, the pieces can’t help but create the feeling that the language of elements might in fact be the overlooked key to expressing anything and everything. Analyzing Lorine Neidecker’s poem “Lake Superior” in her essay, Lund writes “water and earth flow through it all.” Indeed, the environments created and exposed through the Renaissance Society’s exhibit prove that the language of elements has the power to encompass any and everything.
Courtesy of Boudewijn Bollmann
Avant Tout, Discipline (2017) by Revital Cohen and Tuur Van Balen.
Embodying and Rebodying With Young Joon Kwak BY JAD DAHSHAN ARTS STAFF
The Department of Visual Arts’ Open Practice Committee invited Los Angeles–based artist Young Joon Kwak to present and discuss her oeuvre at the Logan Center on February 12. Kwak’s works deconstruct conventional conceptions of the body and investigate its materiality through performance, sculpture, and digitization. “Fundamentally, I’m a material girl,” Kwak said as she played her first video. Against a blank, white backdrop, Kwak is seen flippantly flicking ceramic slime off of her forearm, which is entirely slathered in the wet, gray clay. Kwak sees “femininity and faggotry” inscribed in the glib gesture, a form of creative resistance against patriarchal and homophobic power structures. Simplistic but powerful, “Ugh, As If,” was an apt preface to her other projects, many of which are characterized by a hyper-tactile quality. A music video superimposed her digitally-manipulated vocals against the intimacies of two figures covered in the same goo. Extreme close-ups of physical contact and the eventual introduction of a flaming hand accentuate her bodily materiality through fiery exorcism. Titled Burn Slow, the song was released by Xina Xurner, a music and performance collaboration between Kwak and Marvin Astorga. Before starting Xina Xurner, Kwak performed as a drag queen, and purported a sense of ennui from constantly seeking men’s approval while lip-syncing. Through her experiences in drag, however, Kwak came to appreciate the power of make-
TUESDAY [2/20] Pursuit of Happyness Rosenwald Hall, 6 p.m., free. The English and economics departments are teaming up to present a special screening of Happyness, followed by a discussion on inequality and wealth with professors Elaine Hadley, Ken Warren, and Allen Sanderson. Pizza provided! Will Boast’s Daphne Seminary Co-Op Bookstore, 6 p.m., free. Author Will Boast will speak at the CoOp about his debut novel, Daphne, a modern retelling of the myth of Daphne and Apollo. WEDNESDAY [2/21] Can’t Wait: Participate, an exhibition by Angela Davis Fegan
up and prosthetics in building identity, leading her to create pieces like “Makeup Play.” In the 10-minute video, two figures, invisible in black bodysuits against a dark background, begin to slather cosmetics all over each other, exposing maniacal smiles and intense frowns and revealing the humans buried underneath. The action of painting a mask becomes, itself, the removal of one. In another treatment of body-altering products, “Musical Beauty Instruments,” Kwak reimagines brushes, combs, and scissors as psychedelically flamboyant tools that respond to their usage and movement with sound. The exhibition was facilitated by Mutant Salon, which Kwak founded in 2012. A nexus of haircuts, makeovers, tattooing, psychic readings, and other forms of aesthetic experimentation, Mutant Salon is a platform for people of all identities to cooperate, transform, and support one another. Untethered to a single location, the Salon shifts between venues while remaining faithful to its essential aim of fostering self-care and providing a respite from the stressful outside world. During Mutant Salon’s 2015 exhibition, Attack, Sustain, Release, Decay, performers used Kwak’s “Musical Beauty Instruments,” along with green screen technology, to create a surreally carnal video of disfigured creatures melting into each other and their background. Applying the chroma key paints to their bodies allowed them to blur the perimeter between the body and its environs. Viewers, too, are encouraged to participate in exploring their identities and bodies. Before ending the lecture, Kwak shared one of her latest exhibitions: Hermy
(2017). In 2014, Kwak created “Excreted Venus,” which reduced the Roman paragon of feminine beauty into a fluid, formless, and disproportionate figure—a direct attack on oppressive body standards. Three years later, she took up another mythical subject: Hermaphroditus, an archetype reborn in the modern world as the “chick with a dick,” Kwak explained. As the renaming indicates, pejorative attitudes toward transgender and intersex figures persist. Kwak attempts to subvert this stubborn bigotry. Traditionally depicted in a vulnerable lying-down position, Kwak’s recast Hermaphroditus stands upright in defiance. Kwak similarly “queered” another facet of Greco-Roman visual culture in “Herma Herculine.” A herma was a rectangular marble monolith, used to mark territory, with the head of a (male) god at the top and divine genitalia near the bottom. Kwak’s sculpture upends the custom with resin blocks covered in cracks, crevices, and pink protrusions, feminizing a symbol of male dominance to assert power and protest. Other exhibition objects included “Inverted Vaginis Masturbator,” a cast produced by using a fleshlight as a mold, as well as “Brown Rainbow Eclipse Explosion,” a disco ball seemingly suspended mid-burst. Eccentric and eclectic, Kwak’s presentation demonstrated a keen sensitivity to the nuances of identity, gender, and community. Her recent reception of the Rema Hort Mann Foundation’s $10,000 Emerging Artist Grant presages exciting times in the artist’s career, whether as part of Xina Xurner, Mutant Salon, or any other future collaborations.
Exhibit [A]rts
Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, Community Room 105, 5–7 p.m., free. As part of the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality’s ongoing series “Care@ Chicago,” Angela Davis Fegan, a South Side native, will be discussing her exhibit of handmade prints and letterpress posters. Translation as Citation, Haun Saussy with Rosanna Warren Seminary Co-Op Bookstore, 6–7:30 p.m., free. Drawing from Chinese history, professor Haun Saussy examines the complex influence that culture has on translation in his newest book. Professor Rosanna Warren, a critically acclaimed poet, will join him in conversation at the Seminary Co-Op.
THURSDAY [2/22] Eurydice Logan Center, Thursday–Friday, 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, 2 p.m. & 7:30 p.m.; $6 in advance, $8 at the door. University Theater presents Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice, a thought-provoking examination of grief using the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice as its backdrop. FRIDAY [2/23] Galería de MODA: Winter 2018 Fashion Show The Geraghty, 8–10 p.m., $20 student. See classmates strut down the catwalk in student-designed fashion at MODA’s annual fashion show. If you can’t get enough MODA, arrive early for a cocktail reception and stay late for the after-party!
Courtesy of Young Joon Kwak
“Lying Hermaphroditus” (2017) from Hermy, a recent exhibit.
SUNDAY [2/25] Logan Center Cabaret Logan Center, 7 p.m., free. Featuring a range of performances from singing to slam poetry, this student-driven event showcases a range of talented solo and group performers. MONDAY [2/26] East Asia by the Book! CEAS Author Talks: Yoon Sun Yang Seminary Co-Op Bookstore, 5 p.m., free. Yoon Sun Yang, an assistant professor of Korean and Comparative Literature at Boston University (and former Ph.D. student at UChicago) will be speaking about her recent publication From Domestic Women to Sensitive Young Men: Translating the Individual in Early Colonial Korea.
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THE CHICAGO MAROON - FEBRUARY 20, 2018
Maroons Stay Undefeated
Individuals Shine for South Siders SWIM & DIVE
TENNIS
BY KEVIN JOHNSTON BY ANNA ROSE SPORTS STAFF
This past weekend, the men’s and women’s tennis teams competed in the XS Tennis Village at home, facing off against DePauw University and Coe College. T he women advanced their win streak to eight straight wins, winning six of nine matches against DePauw and clean-sweeping Coe College with wins in all nine matches. The men also remain undefeated after the weekend, completely sweeping the competition winning 9–0 against both DePauw University and Coe College. The Maroons are feeling good about their performance. Both teams are on a roll, and this past weekend places the Maroons even closer to their goal of winning nationals. “The weekend was another good one for the team, which was, of course, very exciting,” second-year A lyssa Rudin said. “We ae happy we made it through top-ranked team DePauw and took care of business against Coe. Things are really starting to come together for us. The team is feeling good and we are all starting to play to our potential.” Third-year Adrienne Travis echoed her teammate’s sentiments. “The team is super motivated to keep up the positive momentum we have been having,” she said. “We have really been tested these past two weekends with matches, but we have proved ourselves and we know our strengths as a team.”
However, even with its impressive performance and undefeated record, the squad is far from satisfied. Working with its strengths and improving its skills in all aspects is necessary as the season progresses. Consistency and focus are key as the Maroons begin to face off against higher-ranked teams. “Obviously, being undefeated is nice, but as we head into the last stretch of the winter season our competition gets a lot tougher,” Rudin said. “We need to stay focused and get as ready as we can to play three top-15 teams.” The Maroons are working to improve every day in practice. “We have been focusing a lot more on fitness and change of direction drills to increase our speed, as well as a lot of doubles work to try and start more matches off with a 3–0 score,” Travis said. Additionally, bringing intensity and energy to every match is a priority. “Going forward our goal is to keep up the positive morale and keep building our relationship as teammates,” Travis said. “Looking ahead, I think we are really going to be focused on bringing our maximum intensity from the first moment we step onto the court because we know our opponents are going to do the same,” Rudin said. “For some of our together matches, we cannot afford to let a match or two go because we weren’t bringing the energy, so that definitely is very critical for us.”
WHERE
FRESH & FAST MEET ®
SPORTS STAFF
The Maroons’ swimming & diving team faced off against the rest of the UAA this past weekend. The 2018 University Athletic Association Championship took place at Emory, where the Maroons sought to overtake Emory, the reigning champion. Unfortunately, the Maroons would have to settle for fourth on both the men’s and women’s side, as Emory was able to become back-to-back UAA Champions. Although the Maroons as a team were unable to finish in the top three, multiple UChicago individuals shined while picking up AllUAA honors. The second day of the event saw the men pick up six top-five finishes, while the women managed five top-eight finishes. On the men’s side, second-year Lance Culjat and first-year Keda Song finished second and third respectively in the 200-yard I.M. The women’s 200-yard freestyle relay team consisting of third-year Daria Wick, second-year Yifan Mao, and first-years Nicole Lin and Gillian Gagnard finished third, enough to capture all-conference honors. The Maroons built upon this promising start on the third day. Second-year Reona Yamaguchi won the Maroons’ first UAA event, taking home the gold in the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 55.02 seconds. Fourthyear diver Natalie DeMuro took second in the three-meter dive, following up on her thirdplace finish in the one-meter dive on the first day. More All-UAA nods were earned this day as well, as the men’s 800-meter freestyle team of Culjat, Song, third-year Keenan Novis, and second-year Taye Baldinazzo placed second. The highlight of the day, however, was the performance of first-year Nadia Redza. Red-
za broke the UChicago 400-meter I.M. record with a 4:26.41 time in her fourth-place performance. On breaking the school’s record, Redza was understandably jubilant. “For me, I was definitely happy to swim best times and swim to a new school record and the transition to swimming in college and swimming in short course yards has proven to be very successful for me,” she said. The final day of the meet saw a nail-biting victory from Culjat in the 200-yard breaststroke by .04 seconds. UAA honors were also bestowed upon third-year Alexander Farrell (third in 100-yard freestyle), first-year Margaret Wolfson (third in 200-yard breaststroke), and Gagnard (third in 200-yard backstroke). Song won the UAA Men’s Rookie of the Year to round out the excitement of the weekend. Although the Maroons were unable to place in the top three, there was still plenty to be excited about regarding the team’s performance. The UAAs were a definite success for the team, according to Redza. “Despite the many downs that have happened this season, the swim team definitely rose to the occasion at this year’s UAAs. Ending UAAs this year with two UAA champions and Rookie of the Year [awards] on the men’s side and a school record on the women’s side proves that as a team, we will always grow, improve, and rise in the face of adversity. Looking forward to NCAAs, we hope to place in the top 10 of all DIII schools on both the women’s and men’s side and based on what we have achieved this season and at UAAs, this is certainly a very achievable goal.” The Maroons will return next weekend at the Midwest Invitational. Following the Invitational, the Maroons will head to Indianapolis to compete in the NCAA DIII Championship.
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THE CHICAGO MAROON - FEBRUARY 20, 2018
SPORTS
South Siders Have Strong Weekend MEN’S BASKETBALL
BY THOMAS GORDON SPORTS STAFF
In a rousing success of a weekend, the UChicago men’s basketball team evened up their record to 12–12. With the beg inning of their three-game home stand this weekend, the Maroons were facing two matches this weekend against Carneg ie Mellon and Case Western Reserve, teams against whom they split the previous matchups. Overall, the Maroons were scorching the nets of Ratner this weekend. In their first match of the weekend against the Carnegie Mellon Tartans, the Maroons took advantage of Carnegie’s slow start. In the opening five minutes of the game, the Maroons’ relentless defense forced a staggering six turnovers. The Tartans struggled out of the gates and were unable to cope with the pressure. The Maroons were able to keep up this pressure throughout the first half to increase their lead to a 14-point margin heading into the halftime break. However, the Tartans came out firing in the second half, almost as if the first half had never happened. They continually cut into the lead throughout the second half, coming within three points of the Maroons, 57– 54. Then suddenly, the Maroons woke up and went on an absolute tear. They ended up going on a back-breaking 15–2 run to take back control and to stall the comeback from Carnegie Mellon. After this run, the Tartans never threatened the lead again and the Maroons closed off a wire-to-wire victory with a final score of 86 –70. After defeating cellar dwellers Carnegie Mellon, the Maroons had the
chance to exact revenge on Case Western after their tight loss in Ohio earlier this year. The team was up for the challenge from the start, seizing control halfway through the first half with the teams within one point. Then the Maroons went on a vital 16 –4 run to establish their dominance on the game. Heading into the break, UChicago was up by eight over the Spartans from Ohio. The second half was more of the same with the Maroons unable to miss and extending their lead to a game-high 26 p o i nt s w i t h only f ive minutes left in the game. Fourth-year C ol l i n B a r thel le d t he way for t he M a roons w ith 2 6 p oi nt s on a very efficient 12 shots. “ We had a really solid, all-around game on Sunday against Case. It was fun to see the whole team firing on all cylinders. I’m glad the seniors [Ryan Shearmire and Porter Veach] got a chance to play as well. Now it’s time for us to start getting ready for Wash on Saturday,” first-year Brennan McDaniel said. The upcoming match is the endof-season tilt against the No. 2 team in the country, Wash U. With the Maroons narrowly losing by one point in St. Louis earlier this year, the boys are looking to pull off the upset with the home crowd behind them at 3 p.m. on Saturday in Ratner.
Maroons Win UAA Title WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
BY DIESTEFANO LOMA SPORTS STAFF
With victories over Carnegie Mellon and Case Western Reserve, the University of Chicago women’s basketball team clinched the UA A title for the sixth time, as well as recording their 20th straight victory as they maintain a perfect, 13–0 record in the UA A. In Friday’s 70 – 51 win over Carnegie Mellon, second-year Mia Farrell opened the scoring with a three-pointer one minute into the game. The Maroons maintained pressure on the defensive end, forcing the Tartans to turn the ball over multiple times. The first quarter ended with second-year Taylor Lake making a layup in the final seconds, giving the Maroons a 23–17 lead. The Tartans went on a run at the
start of the second quarter, scoring back-to-back shots in order to lower the deficit to 23–21. Soon after, Farrell took over the game, going on an offensive run that included a three-pointer and layup, and completing a three-point play that extended the Maroons’ lead by seven. The Maroons led 38 –23 at the half. While the Carnegie Mellon Tartans looked to begin a small run after making back-to-back shots, second-year Miranda Burt put that to a halt with several consecutive shots. After that, the Maroons extended their lead by up to 19 points, successfully scoring contested shots and making it to the free-throw line. Bringing this momentum into the fourth quarter, the Maroons outscored their opponents 16 –12, easily securing the victory.
UPCOMING GAMES
Farrell finished with 16 points, four UChicago went on a 22 –2 run in the rebounds, and three steals. Lake added second half, eventually capturing the 12 points and nine rebounds, with third- 73 –35 victory. The Maroons forced 22 year Olariche Obi scoring 10 points and turnovers from the Spartans, while playing fiercely on the defensive end, they only had seven. The bench was with six steals and three blocks. The dominant, scoring 45 points total. Maroons forced 24 turnovers from the The Maroons shot 40 percent from Tartans, which led to 27 points, while the field (28 –70), while the Spartans limiting their turnovers to seven. shot 22.6 percent (14 – 62). First-year F rom the sta r t of thei r mat ch Marissa Igunbor played an important against Case Western Reserve, the role, coming off the bench and getting Maroons were dominant and aggressive. a double-double, with 19 points and 12 While both teams struggled offensively rebounds. Obi notched another douduring the first quarter, the Maroons ble-double with 11 points and 10 rewent on an 11-minute run, where the bounds. Spartans were held scoreless. They outThe Maroons will face off against scored the Spartans 25–2 in the second Wash U on Saturday, February 24, at quarter and led 43–9 at halftime. 1 p.m. The Spartans were unable to come back from this deficit, scoring a combined 26 points in the second half.
M AROON
SPORT
DAY
Opponent
TIME
Tennis Baseball Wrestling Swim & Dive
Friday Friday Friday Friday
Carnegie Mellon Fontbonne NCAA Midwest Invite
3:30 p.m. 8 p.m. 11 a.m. 6 p.m.
SPORT Swim & Dive Men’s Basketball Women’s Basketball Women’s Tennis Men’s Tennis
SCORE BOARD W/L Opponent W W W W W
UAA Champs Case Western Case Western Coe College Coe College
Score 4th of 8 98–78 73–35 9–0 9–0