Spring 2016

HARVARD POLITICAL REVIEW

SOLITARY TO SOCIETY

UNDOCUMENTED AT HARVARD

INTERVIEW: CONAN O’BRIEN

VOLUME XLIII NO. 1, SPRING 2016 HARVARDPOLITICS.COM

STATE OF THE ART PAINT, PITCH, AND POLITICS

THE NEW HARVARD POLITICAL REVIEW. ON SCREENS NEAR YOU.

HARVARDPOLITICS.COM

STATE OF THE ART

11 Superheroes, Society, and the Silver Screen Brandon Dixon

16 Songs of War Frankie Hill

14 Borders Apoorva Rangan

19 Cultural Landscapes Hanna Connelly

26 Little School on the Prairie David Gutierrez

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CULTURE

3 Hackers at Harvard Yehong Zhu

36 Be Our Guest Daniel Kenny

6 Undocumented at Harvard Elizabeth Schick and Alex Gachanja

38 This Isn’t Even My Final Form Michael Kennedy-Yoon

8 Finding God at Harvard Scott Ely

UNITED STATES 22 Solitary to Society Samarth Gupta 24 A Teachable Moment?

Joshua Florence 30 Camel Bells and Smoky Deserts Jiafeng Chen

26 Little School on the Prairie David Gutierrez

INTERVIEWS 40 Conan O’Brien Daniel Kenny 42 Anne Hawley Marie Becker

ENDPAPER 44 That Four-Letter Word Ashley Chen

WORLD 30 Camel Bells and Smoky Deserts Jiafeng Chen 32 No More Safe Harbor Priscilla Guo 36 Be Our Guest Daniel Kenny

34 Raising the Green Lantern Alice Han

Email: president@harvardpolitics.com. ISSN 0090-1032. Harvard Political Review. All rights reserved. Image credits: Flickr: Table of Contents- Randy Heinitz, 3- TechCrunch, 4- TechCrunch, 6- Tim Sackton, 8- Tim Sackton, 14- Possan, 18- Rik Goldman, 19- g.sighele, 22- J Miller, 28- Lane Pearman, 30- Lensnmatter, 32- Thijs ter Haar, 34- DaiLuo. Photographer: Cover Fre Sonneveld, 26- Emma Katka, 40- Peter Wright, 42- Peter Wright. Wikimedia: 13- Hashi Photo, 16- Sam Stadener, 36- Official White House Photo by Pete Souza, 44- Chensiyuan

SPRING 2016 HARVARD POLITICAL REVIEW 1

FROM THE PRESIDENT

HARVARD POLITICAL REVIEW

State of the Art

A Nonpartisan Undergraduate Journal of Politics, Est. 1969—Vol. XLIII, No. 1

EDITORIAL BOARD PRESIDENT: Joseph Choe PUBLISHER: Flavia Cuervo MANAGING EDITOR: Mark Bode ASSOCIATE MANAGING EDITOR: Ali Hakim ASSOCIATE MANAGING EDITOR: Perry Abdulkadir STAFF DIRECTOR: Ari Berman CAMPUS SENIOR EDITOR: Tasnim Ahmed CAMPUS ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Akash Wasil COVERS SENIOR EDITOR: Tess Saperstein COVERS ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Sam Kessler U.S. SENIOR EDITOR: Quinn Mulholland U.S. ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Carla Troconis U.S. ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Henry Brooks WORLD SENIOR EDITOR: Sam Plank WORLD ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Jack Boyd WORLD ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Jacob Link CULTURE SENIOR EDITOR: Hana Connelly CULTURE ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Emily Zauzmer INTERVIEWS EDITOR: Minnie Jang HUMOR EDITOR: Richard Tong BUSINESS MANAGER: Enrique Rodriguez ASSOCIATE BUSINESS MANAGER: Jenny Horowitz SENIOR DESIGN EDITOR: Kyle McFadden ASSOCIATE DESIGN EDITOR: Victoria Berzin MULTIMEDIA EDITOR: Solange Azor ASSOCIATE MULTIMEDIA EDITOR: Peter Wright WEBMASTER: Julia Steigerwald Schnall

SENIOR WRITERS John Acton, Julianna Aucoin, Ashley Chen, Jenny Choi, Colin Criss, Colin Diersing, Matthew Disler, Avika Dua, Rachel Hanna, Harry Hild, Johanna Lee, Paul Lisker, Sarani Jayawardena, Clara McNultyFinn, Priyanka Menon, Mattea Mrkusic, Andrew O’Donohue, Pooja Podugu, Advik Shreekumar, Tom Silver, Kim Soffen, Gavin Sullivan, Vikram Sundar, Alec Villalpando, Celena Wang, Emily Wang, Angela Yang.

STAFF Victor Agbafe, Maha Al-Suwaidi, Ben Barrett, Marty Berger, Evan Bonsai, Jiafeng Chen, Amy Chyao, Gansu Colakoglu, Chris Cruz, Nathan Cummings, Justin Curtis, Sunaina Danziger, Ali Dastjerdi, Sal DeFrancesco, Brandon Dixon, Jullian Duran, Matthew Estes, Joshua Florence, Samarth Gupta, David Gutierrez, Conor Healy, Olivia Herrington, Nian Hu, Cindy Jung, Arjun Kapur, Daniel Kenny, Kieren Kresevic, Gal Koplewitz, Bin Hui Kwon, Ayush Midha, Sienna Nielson, Kevin O’Donnell, Derek Paulhus, Apoorva Rangan, Sebastian Reyes, Neill Reilly, Audrey Shi, Wright Smith, Sydney Steel, Narayan Sundararajan, Ashim Vaish, Sarah Wu, Fiona Young.

ADVISORY BOARD Jonathan Alter Richard L. Berke Carl Cannon E.J. Dionne, Jr.

Ron Fournier Walter Isaacson Whitney Patton Maralee Schwartz

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French artist Edgar Degas once said, “Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.”

Indeed, it is precisely this characteristic that has allowed art to become a key component of various aspects of our lives—including politics. Just ask the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists, whose caricature of the Prophet Mohammad ultimately led to their deaths. Or Senator Bernie Sanders, whose presidential campaign has capitalized on the power of online multimedia to court millennial voters. Or Aretha Franklin, whose song “Respect” was an anthem of the feminist movement in the late 1960s.

Art is a flexible and amorphous term that captures the expression of creativity and imagination. Throughout the ages, humans have used art as a vehicle to convey thoughts and ideas that transcend mundane forms of communication. We have learned to harness the power of everything from landscape paintings and orchestral music to satirical television and picket signs in order to bring to life that which would otherwise be limited to the confines of our minds.

I first encountered the power of art in politics as a seventh grader drawing inspiration from then-Senator Barack Obama’s “Hope” poster. In designing this poster, Shepard Fairey wanted to galvanize voters and infuse them with confidence in the aspiring presidential candidate. Recently, I witnessed another political exhibition of art during Beyoncé’s tribute to the Black Lives Matter movement during her Super Bowl halftime performance. At a time when the deaths of people like Sandra Bland and Freddie Gray occupy the public sphere, Beyoncé wanted to use her music to inspire African-

Americans “to feel proud and have love for themselves.” There is no doubt that art, regardless of its medium, has the potential to be used as a powerful political tool.

Therefore, I find no topic more apt for the HPR to tackle than the intersection of art and politics.

Within the pages of this magazine, Hana Connelly takes us to France, where she analyzes the pitfalls of classifying multicultural art into easily digestible categories. Frankie Hill outlines the evolution of protest music from Revolutionary War tunes to contemporary songs like Macklemore’s “Same Love.” Apoorva Rangan explores how artist M.I.A.’s personal background and political views on refugees inform her music. Brandon Dixon takes a critical look at dystopian and superhero films and connects them to antigovernment sentiment. This issue also includes exclusive interviews with Anne Hawley, the former director of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and Conan O’Brien, famed comedian and talk-show host.

State of the Art is the HPR’s first issue under my leadership, and I am so proud of all the hard work my staff writers, publication staff, and editors have put into it. I am honored to be serving such a distinguished magazine alongside some of the most dedicated and intelligent people I have met while attending Harvard. I ask that you look forward to the upcoming year as we continue to engage critically with our readers and tackle challenging questions confronting today’s society.

Joseph Choe President

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HACKERS AT HARVARD Yehong Zhu

I

t’s Saturday evening. The science center is lit with fluorescent lights and humming with quiet energy. To my left stands table after table of tech booths, manned by caffeinated recruiters and filled to the brim with branded memorabilia. To my right are heaping boxes of ‘Noch’s, platters of Kong, and tubs of JP Licks.

And all around me, in every room and against every crevice, coders are sprawled, plugged in, and tapping relentlessly away at their keyboards, the electric glow of their MacBook screens reflected upon their intent faces.

WELCOME TO HACKHARVARD The emergence of hackathons at college campuses across the country is a relatively new phenomenon. The first documented hackathon was held in 1999­—the first hackathon at Harvard, in 2015. Within a span of less than two decades, a niche has opened up in the community for these events, which strive to promote a culture of inclusivity and innovation within the field of computer science.

Hackathons are better characterized as fun-filled weekends for tech enthusiasts to build something new, rather than professional or academic working spaces for serious ventures. They typically hold more appeal for novices than experienced coders. After participating in their fair share of hackathons, computer science veterans usually develop the work ethic to do projects on their own time, and they often plan hackathons rather than attend them.

Nevertheless, the benefits of both hosting and participating in hackathons are numerous. They can attract new talent to the field by creating fun opportunities to code, provide veterans with chances to give back or hone existing skills, and foster spaces in which coders can collaborate with one another in risk-free environments. They can build stronger communities, allow tech companies to recruit qualified candidates in exchange for event sponsorships, and offer social outlets for technical students. Most importantly, they can get hackathon participants excited about pursuing futures in CS. And with that excitement comes the ever-alluring possibility of one day following in the footsteps of Bill, Mark, Elon, and Sergey; of coding something that matters; of changing the world.

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MOVE FAST AND BREAK THINGS So what exactly are hackathons, anyway? “Basically, you have 36 hours to get a bunch of talented people together and make something,” explained Patrick H. Pan ‘18, who recently attended YHack 2015 at Yale. “A bunch of kids get together, don’t sleep, and then show off what they made. It’s a celebration of the culture.”

Due to limitations in time and feasibility, participants are challenged to think outside the box. Besides the 24-48 hour deadline, there is an implicit rule that you cannot build on existing projects. “You’re supposed to write all the code for something during a hackathon, so you can’t really come in with something half-done,” said Anson H. Kahng ’16. “But you can definitely come in with an idea.”

This year Kahng was one of the co-coordinators of HackHarvard, Harvard’s inaugural hackathon. “Hackathons are very quick and dirty,” he explained. “You can often get something together quickly, pulling a lot of shortcuts along the way, but then you can go back and smooth out the edges.” He added that the frenetic energy levels are “probably exacerbated by the fact that they’re playing [electronic dance music] the whole time.”

Indeed, the environment of a hackathon is typically youthful, fast-paced, and highly energetic. It’s stocked with calories, caffeine, techies, and technology and culminates in a showcase of finished projects at the end of the weekend. “You don’t do it when you’re old because it gets less fun,” said Pan. “People generally don’t sleep, and they’re clearly very passionate about the products they’re working on.”

IMPACT Hacking within the CS community today focuses primarily on creating solutions to existing problems or disrupting established spaces with new innovations. “At the end of the day, hacking is not about how well you code,” said iOS app developer Joshua A. Meier ’18. “It’s about creating something that people care about.”

Given the time and scope limitations of traditional hackathons, however, questions of impact often arise. After all, in the grand scheme of things, how influential can a 48-hour-long hackathon really be?

Hillary J. Do ’17 attended YHacks 2014 last fall, and she described the weekend as a “good time to work on projects that I wouldn’t have had time for during the semester.” Do coded an iOS app with her hackathon team while she was there, learning an entirely new coding language in the process—a skill that stayed with her long after the end of the event. Hackathon enthusiast Timothy H.C. Tamm ’18 agreed that there is plenty of potential to learn: “Even if you drop the project after a hackathon, you keep the knowledge.”

Moreover, hackathons provide opportunities to explore new technologies. Because events are typically sponsored by corporations, tech companies often bring in new products and cutting-edge hardware for talented CS students to try out.

Given a weekend to play with the newest virtual reality headset, Bluetooth-operated gadget, or remote-controlled drone, some

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students choose to integrate the hardware into their projects.

These students develop new software to interact with the technology. According to Kahng, they “will form new paths from these technologies—and win prizes in the process.”

While some hackathon attendees described the benefits of the events, others felt they were not as productive as possible.

“If I wanted to work on a project, I would just work on it. I don’t need a hackathon to do that,” said Jared R. Pochtar ‘17, a former software engineering intern at Dropbox. Like Pochtar, Meier also expressed a preference for working on longer-term projects in a less frenetic environment, adding that “[Hackathons] are more about making that one little tweak on a new app than coming up with something original.”

According to CS concentrator Gregory M. Foster ‘17, however, there are other benefits to attending hackathons. “The chance to see computer science friends from other schools and internships can be appealing, especially if your social circles are mostly computer science.” Meier also emphasized the role of camaraderie and fun in the field. “Life isn’t just about building innovative things; it’s also about enjoying the process. Hackathons have a lot of energy and they’re really good at building community, and I have friends who got really into CS after attending them.”

PROBLEMS IN HACKER CULTURE Some students mentioned that they wanted to follow in the footsteps of high-profile alumni like Mark Zuckerberg, who coded Facebook from his Kirkland dorm room. “Hacker culture now follows that American dream of running your own company and changing the world,” said Roger M. Zurawicki ‘16, a former member of HackHarvard who is currently taking a semester off to intern at a startup.

With an influx of venture capital money available in Silicon Valley, tech projects now have enormous potential for impact.

According to Tamm, the massive success of companies like Snapchat has instilled a certain mercenary mindset into many tech enthusiasts—one in which monetary concerns sometimes dwarf others.

“Quite often, with a new idea or an app or project, you’ll often hear the words, ‘How do I monetize this? How do I make money out of this?’ ... A lot of genuinely cool projects are abandoned because they’re not profitable,” said Tamm.

Pan adds that “a lot of it also comes back to the ego-drivenness of it, because CS is filled with a lot of really competitive guys. Everyone has testosterone; it just depends on whether you’re putting it into football or hackathons.” Foster agrees with Pan’s sentiment, stating that although the over-competitiveness of the CS community is implicit, it’s well understood. While competition can be helpful in driving innovation, too much of it can contribute to a toxic culture that both intensifies the pressure to achieve success and alienates coders from one another.

The issue of inclusivity within hackathons also exists within the CS community at large, particularly in regard to the gaping gender disparity in tech. Although the CS community at Harvard is only about 30 percent female, Harvard still has some of the best-represented numbers of women in computer science compared to other top institutions.

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Hackathon culture has boomed since its inception in 1999.

According to Tamm, “If you go to a hackathon, there’s nothing that screams, ‘this is a male event!’ The hacker culture itself is very accepting and very forthcoming, but over the past half decade or so not a lot of women have gone into CS.” However, Harvard seems to be actively taking steps to reverse that trend.

Its initiatives with Women in Computer Science and CS50 strive to create an inclusive environment for those interested in CS, regardless of their backgrounds or previous coding experience.

Pochtar argues that despite its problems, the CS community is well-intentioned and self-aware. “It’s really easy to see that the kinds of things that people complain about within the tech community. We want to be more friendly, social, inclusive. It’s never been perfect; nothing ever is. But we are trying.” Pochtar adds that he believes the administration is doing a good job in getting more students interested in the field. “I saw a real change from freshman year. There are a lot more people in CS now than there were even a few years ago.”

Kahng agrees with Pochtar’s sentiment, commenting positively on the uptick in interest in the field. “The community is definitely growing; there are more concentrators every year— especially after Steve Ballmer’s gift to the CS department.”

The former Microsoft CEO’s generous donation to Harvard is

estimated to be around $60 million for 12 professorships, which would increase the number of computer science faculty members by 50 percent.

As the community expands, students from all walks of life are bringing new perspectives to the table. That diversification is starting to counteract some of the perceived problems in the field. According to Kahng, students who are invested in the community are optimistic about its future. “People are getting really excited about CS.” I arrived at HackHarvard at 8 p.m. on a Saturday night, and it was 8 a.m. the next morning when I finally left the Science Center. Walking outside, I watched rays of sunshine stream through the Science Center Plaza on a gorgeous autumn morning. It was the kind of day that makes you want to abandon all your responsibilities just for the chance to sit outside, to gaze at the clouds.

To breathe.

And yet, I was amazed that the coders were still inside, unfazed by those first rays of morning light. Wide awake, plenty alert, and still tirelessly working, they stayed true to their craft, their fingers continuing to fly across their keyboards, coding their visions into life.

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UNDOCUMENTED AT HARVARD Elizabeth Schick and Alex Gachanja

F

or freshman Ana Andrade, the rigid divide between the privileges of being a Harvard student and the struggles of coming from an undocumented family became all too apparent at a time of joy for most college freshmen: move in-day.

Driving down JFK Street in the midst of the commotion and bustle of move-in day, Andrade and her family were stopped by a police officer for a minor traffic violation. With no valid US driver’s license, Andrade’s father feared the worst as he sat behind the wheel. The officer knew the situation almost immediately as he asked for the license and registration, and Andrade’s father reluctantly handed him his Brazilian documents. The moments following dripped with tension as the officer examined the invalid documents. The police officer glanced back and forth between the university gates ahead and Ana’s belongings in back of the pick-up truck. He eventually allowed her father to go with just a warning. If it had not been for the Harvard name and the fact that it was move-in day, Andrade says, she is unsure if the officer would have been as lenient; her father might have been arrested and be in the process of immigration hearings at this moment. While most of her peers are only exposed to such issues in news reports or political debates, these fears are a reality for students like Ana, who either have undocumented family members or are undocumented themselves.

Harvard is a dream for most high school students. For undocumented students, however, Harvard is of another dimension, situated in a world not meant for them, a world where they feel they do not belong. Although being a Harvard student does mean one is part of the five percent, many students arrive at school without feeling like our nation’s most privileged. In particular, theDonovan handful of undocumented Keene students attending Harvard shares

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a unique experience, one that starts with the beginning of the college admissions process. Generous financial aid and welcoming policies for undocumented students make Harvard stand out in its admissions outreach; once on campus, undocumented students enjoy their experience but may not encounter as much support.

GETTING IN THE DOOR Harvard’s admissions team projects a policy of openness towards undocumented applicants. Undocumented freshman Daishi Tanaka found that Harvard seemed much more welcoming than the other colleges he considered applying to, even peer institutions such as Columbia and Stanford. Tanaka told the HPR he found the simple ability of being able to apply “as a regular student” an important feature of the application process.

In addition, Harvard provides financial aid to undocumented students, who are ineligible for federal financial aid and many scholarships due to their legal status. As one of only sixty-two American colleges that provide full financial aid, Harvard has exemplary policies that may even require no student contribution and provide funds for books each semester. However, choosing to apply to Harvard can still be a difficult decision for undocumented students in awe of its name and reputation. Sonia Espinosa ’16 was afraid to disclose her undocumented status to her high school counselor, fearing dismissal for wanting to apply to college generally, let alone Harvard. “At that time, I kind of expected him to just laugh at me because I thought it was a joke that I actually wanted to do this,” she told the HPR. Although Sonia was brave enough to pursue her college applications, not

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all undocumented students have the courage to push past the numerous obstacles in their application process.

Harvard admissions would do well to increase its outreach to potential undocumented applicants. Currently, the admissions website has two FAQs related to being undocumented and lists an appointed faculty liaison as a resource. This openness could be due to the Obama Administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). DACA allows undocumented children to apply for temporary protection from deportation under the Department of Homeland Security. This type of online information provided by both universities and their students has made researching schools more anonymous and accessible, even since junior Enrique Ramirez’s application process only three years ago. Ramirez told the HPR that he only realized attending Harvard was possible when he saw a news story about an undocumented student facing deportation for using his Harvard ID in an airport. Finding out basic information about the application process can be tedious—both Tanaka and Espinosa spent hours calling schools to find out their policies on undocumented students, often encountering schools that simply said they could not help. While other students can focus on filling out the Common App and writing their essays, undocumented students end up spending hours on the phone revealing their most powerful secrets to admissions officers. Currently, the Harvard admissions office has outreach programs such as the Harvard College Connection that reaches out to minority and low-income students. It would do well to extend its outreach programs to include undocumented students specifically, with student liaisons similar to those of the minority and first-generation recruitment programs.

The admissions office should make sure undocumented students know that Harvard is an option for them—one that is more welcoming and more affordable than even their state schools.

Fortunately for future applicants, Harvard will soon have a pre-orientation program for undocumented students and others who have similar needs in the transition to college. Currently, Tanaka is on the board for the Freshman Enrichment Program, FEP, a developing pre-orientation program aimed towards students who come from under-resourced backgrounds, such as undocumented students. The development of this program is a first step toward addressing the current void of information or support for students who may not have the experiences or resources that ease the many changes that accompany moving into college. While FEP has yet to be officially introduced to the undergraduate community, Tanaka shared with the HPR that the program will foster supportive relationships with components such as nightly fireside chats to allow students to share their worries. Yale currently already has a pre-orientation program for first generation freshmen, and Ramirez felt disappointed upon realizing that Harvard lacked a counterpart. Creating such a program will mitigate many of the difficulties undocumented students face when adjusting to college.

FINDING A HOME Once at Harvard, undocumented students must take their own initiatives to find supportive communities. The university’s small undocumented population, which numbers fewer than

50 undergraduates according to Tanaka, may be shortchanged by the university’s policies in this regard. The summer before matriculating, Espinosa received an email from Dean of Freshman Tom Dingman regarding her undocumented status, offering her support “within the limits of the law.” However, she recalled feeling intimidated directing her questions to administrators and wished that there was a more active student group that would have reached out to her as well. Tanaka recalled that no member of the administration or student group contacted him with regard to his legal status, so he instead reached out to an undocumented student group himself. Now an active member of Harvard’s Act on a DREAM, an organization that underpins most of the resources for undocumented students, Tanaka feels that Act on a DREAM has been a critical part of his Harvard experience.

Despite this, Harvard currently has the Act on a DREAM group listed as a Hispanic/Latino student organization—potentially alienating other undocumented students who come from different ethnicities or cultures. Ramirez has found that in his experience “it’s in the hands of undocumented students” to help each other learn to navigate college. Harvard encompasses a wide range of political leanings and socioeconomic classes, creating a culture shock for students like Ramirez. He counts himself lucky for having attended a diverse high school where he was exposed to some of the many aspects of the college transition that burden freshmen who haven’t experienced such a politically and socially liberal environment.

Being undocumented on campus can color students’ external and internal worlds. President Drew Faust has openly shown her support for the undocumented community, particularly by publicly endorsing the DREAM Act. Since June 2012, DACA makes it easier for undocumented students to share their status without the fear of repercussions. Tanaka finds that being of Asian descent makes his legal status surprising to others, but he has been able to have open discussions with conservative and liberal students alike. Over her years at Harvard, Espinosa has come to terms with the fact that other students may be insensitive to or unaware of her restrictions, which preclude her from studying abroad or applying to overseas opportunities like the Rhodes Scholarship. She cites the mental health resources on campus as essential to her working through the stresses of coping with such frustrations. Not all the personal effects of being undocumented are negative, however; Tanaka finds that his legal status has spurred him to become more politically involved on campus.

These aspects of life as an undocumented Harvard student comprise the unique experience that such students call their own.

One the whole, Harvard’s administration provides a supportive environment for undocumented students, starting with the admissions process. Harvard already offers some amazing resources– generous financial aid, a faculty liaison, and the ability to use the same process as an American citizen, to name a few.

However, a more publicized and supportive admissions process would help attract undocumented students and make them feel welcome. For undocumented students matriculating to the college, a special pre-orientation program and a stronger undocumented student support network would ease their adjustment.

We can only hope that Harvard continues to attract and support undocumented students.

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FINDING GOD AT HARVARD

Scott Ely 8 HARVARD POLITICAL REVIEW SPRING 2016

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I

n our enlightened and postmodern culture, pollsters talk often about the rise of the “nones,” a category of people who profess no religious affiliation. They cite the decline of the church in Europe and the similar trajectory of mainline Protestantism in the United States as the natural result of scientific advancement, education, and a more diverse and understanding society. One might expect the pinnacle of this secularism to be at Harvard, a liberal arts institution perched above the petty, tribal instincts of religion. Yet the reality remains that there are many students on campus who still practice a variety of faiths. According to the Harvard Crimson, the majority of Harvard’s Class of 2019 identifies with a particular religion, and approximately 35 percent of the class identified as Protestant or Catholic.

Harvard offers financial support to officially recognized Angela Yi student organizations of a religious nature and hosts many chaplains of different religious backgrounds, yet the language of the Harvard student handbook religion section paints a different picture. The first sentence affirms that the college upholds religious freedom, but the rest of the section outlines prohibitions and warns of the dangers of “religious recruitment through high-pressure tactics,” revealing a nervous, almost skittish attitude toward religious students and institutions.

While there is no clear institutional hostility toward religious practice, there are clear gaps in understanding how to address religious diversity at Harvard. Administrators and students alike must engage with these issues that are so pertinent for many students on campus. If Harvard is really willing to stand up for its goal to achieve intellectual, personal, and social transformation for its students, it cannot afford to ignore religion.

EATING, DRINKING, AND SEX (OR MAYBE NOT) One of the clearest ways that religious students often differ from their peers is in their lifestyles. Anam Javed ’18 is a Muslim from Pakistan who described to the HPR religion as “intertwined with culture.” She noted that Islam prohibits drinking, and given that drinking can play a large role in the college lifestyle, she realizes how different her college experience is from other students’. There is an even more noticeable daily difficulty with making choices like whether or not to eat Halal.

While Isaac Inkeles ’16, who is Jewish, admitted to the HPR that although he may not always eat Kosher, he still makes an effort to go to the Harvard Chabad, which offers Jewish services and Kosher food for interested students at Harvard.

Students with dietary restrictions are not the only ones that are compelled to make decisions unfamiliar to their peers. Kate Massinger ’16 is the co-president of Harvard College Faith & Action, the largest Christian student group on campus. In an interview with the HPR, she recalled a rather peculiar question from some friends. “What is it like not to have sex when dating someone you love? How do you do that?” She was amazed by their fascination at things that some religious people take for granted, such as living by an often counter-cultural sexual ethic.

Massinger also added things like tithing—giving 10 percent of income to one’s church—and praying to the list.

IS GOD DEAD IN THE CLASSROOM? A recent movie popular in some Christian circles titled God’s Not Dead depicts the stereotypical, atheistic, philosophy professor forcing his students to write down “God’s dead” as their first in-class assignment. While this may seem extreme, religious students often find their faith being challeneged within Harvard’s liberal environment.

Javed, who is a sociology concentrator, described a class that was not religious, though one of its readings was about the Quran. She said it “felt weird to suddenly be surrounded by people who probably didn’t know anything about Islam,” and furthermore, did not know the correct terminology to discuss it.

Students were offering value judgments of the text, though many did not have the background to understand it. They seemed unaware of the substance of what they were discussing. She was quick to brush it off, though, as a singular experience.

For Inkeles, religion and classwork never seemed to clash.

He noted that “the answer is different for a lot of people, but I haven’t ever felt like my faith was directly challenged in class.”

Still, in one of Massinger’s classes, she saw a major disconnect when it came to discussion about religion. She was in an education class that addressed issues in public schools regarding race, gender, and class. Massinger felt that while these topics were treated with sensitivity, when the discussion arrived at religion, the professor opened the conversation “by laughing about Satan” and noting how silly it was to teach “literacy through the Bible.” They had been given a set of readings “obviously set up to have us pick a good guy and a bad guy,” in which a paper that had voiced strong opposition to all things religious was considered the “good guy.” The “bad guy” was a piece arguing religious students should be able to opt out of parts of their education that were in opposition to their religious beliefs. From the start, the class was geared toward arguing against the bad guy, which Massinger found frustrating because previous classes had been so focused on inclusion. She remembered raising her hand and voicing “we were joking ourselves if we thought that we were giving equal weight to the concerns of religious students” and argued that their treatment of this viewpoint was a far cry from the respect that other topics discussed in class had received.

WHAT ABOUT DIVERSITY? Harvard as an institution faces great challenges addressing the needs of religious individuals and groups on campus. Dan Cho ’96 is the Chaplain for Asian Baptist Student Koinonia. He told the HPR that “Harvard has been reasonably supportive of providing religious opportunities for students on campus,” but that is different than the reality of a more closed intellectual diversity. He still sees problems with religious representation in terms of faculty and ideas.

Inkeles finds it telling that there is an Office of Diversity and Inclusion for racial, gender, and sexual diversity, “but there’s no sort of analog for religious diversity.” He feels that the College’s choice of limited offerings indicates that discussion about religious beliefs and backgrounds is not considered worthwhile or

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“While remarkably different in beliefs, a commonality among those interviewed was the strong conviction that faith enhanced the Harvard and human experiences.”

significant. Additionally, Inkeles notes the Community Conversations program that all freshmen entering Harvard must attend during their first week to address the challenges and benefits of diversity at the College. While he believes that the program can be informative for how students see themselves and understand the community, he notes that none of the discussion “was about people with different religious perspectives.” This reality seems remarkably rich at a university setting that prides itself on socalled inclusive discussions. Still, Massinger suggests the problem is not due to a lack of pursuing religious diversity, but rather a failure to understand how to engage with different religions.

She adds that “it’s not about always being coddled,” but about getting “a fair hearing.”

Inkeles believes that students often assume that religious beliefs are irrational. When having intellectual conversations, there is a pervasive assumption that religious beliefs are held despite certain unpopular “religious tenets or principles” rather than because of them. Inkeles has never experienced malicious intent in these conversations, but there is “this idea that [religious beliefs are] counter to rational thought.”

For Cho, the issue is one of “thin pluralism versus thick pluralism,” a concept he learned from philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff. True pluralism, or “thick” pluralism, acknowledges the deep conflicts in our understandings of common issues and recognizes the dramatic consequences of these disagreements.

In having a necessary “discussion and university-wide conversa-

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tion,” it is unproductive to have the “safety of a very thin, plastic kind of conversation,” where there is no free expression and those involved feel a need to simply agree to disagree in order to get along.

COMMON GROUND While remarkably different in beliefs, a commonality among those interviewed was the strong conviction that faith enhanced the Harvard and human experiences. By having to make daily religious decisions, Javed feels that she is learning more about herself and that that has shaped the way she approaches opportunities at Harvard. Massinger believes religion offers a different lens to view struggles with stress, anxiety, and feelings of inadequacy that students experience on campus. It is “not that [Christians] don’t struggle, but how we struggle differently and how we operate differently [that] is really important.”

Cho puts this dichotomy in more direct terms. “If we really want to experience life to the fullest, there’s a spiritual part to that. The absence of that is to experience life and humanity in only a partial way.”

As Massinger said, it is not about coddling or not offending.

The issue lies in providing an environment for an open discussion about real differences. It is important to recognize and address religious conversations with intellectual rigor and refuse to brush aside alternative worldviews as irrational.

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SUPERHEROES, SOCIETY, AND THE SILVER SCREEN

Brandon Dixon

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lockbuster or city-buster? The delineation is unclear in the modern film industry. Popular films are filled with spandex-clad superheroes who invariably either level cities or wreak havoc on the earth. The methods to their destruction are diverse and inventive—Avengers: Age of Ultron’s titular enemy tried to drop a city onto the earth. When the earth isn’t being ravaged by superhuman conflict, it is acting as a stage for adolescent revolutions in post-apocalyptic worlds; be it in the Hunger Games series, where Katniss Everdeen leads a collective of disenfranchised citizens against a tyrannical president, or The Giver, where individualism does battle against society’s need for conformism.

Hollywood has found itself lodged in a comfortable and profitable place: the era of blockbusters drawn increasingly from superhero and dystopian genres.

Sans the lackluster release of Fantastic Four, the superhero movie was the dominant film trope last year. Age of Ultron was the third highest grossing film of 2015, netting almost $460 million. The fourth installment of the Hunger Games saga pulled in eighth place, boasting more than $270 million, and Ant-Man, Marvel’s newest addition to the superhero ensemble, came in 14th place with more than $140 million.

Despite these movies’ commercial success, film critics across the board seem to lament the release of superhero films. Matt Zoller Seitz, Editor-in-Chief of RogerEbert.com, wrote, “Specifically, the problem is the visual and rhythmic sameness of the films’ execution.” For critics, who examine both the artistry of

a film and the societal context in which the film in placed, that homogenous makeup is disconcerting.

Film, like many mediums of art, can be an outlet for criticism. It follows, logically, that films can operate as representations of the times—artistic endeavors that function as effective criticism—much in the way that Birth of a Nation shed light on the egregious racism of the times. But big-ticket genres like the recent superhero craze are being passed off not as artistic endeavors, but as simple products.

“Audiences and studios alike are conditioned to view superhero films as more product than art. Art is allowed to fail; product isn’t,” explained Atlantic entertainment writer Derek Thompson. “There’s a reason why positive reviews of superhero films often use the phrase ‘delivers the goods,’ as if the movie were UPS or Fresh Direct.”

“The goods” are cinematically pleasing moments like the Avenger’s signature “Avengers Assemble” shot or the moment when Spider-man glides across the Manhattan cityscape. Films full of cinematically handsome moments like these appeal to the average movie-goer and increase sales. “That’s great news for the studios and their accounting departments, but terrible news for popular art. As long as viewers ask little of superhero films, there’s no impetus for studios to encourage an auteurist vision,” wrote Zoller Seitz.

This trend of studios playing into the lowered consumer expectations calls into question the ability of modern blockbusters to effectively mirror or critique society. If artistry—the founda-

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tion of that criticism—is being sacrificed in lieu of profitability, are superhero films and dystopian movies missing the mark?

As easy as it is to write off superhero and dystopian films for their apparent simplicity, it is important to examine their genres not on the merit of individual films, but on the narrative that the genre tells. For the most recent rash of superhero and dystopian flicks, one of the overarching narratives playing out on the big screen is one of growing anti-government sentiment—a disturbingly accurate depiction of an attitude spreading across America.

MOVIES OR MONEY TRAPS? Superhero films are, at their core, profit seeking endeavors.

They play on the nostalgia of a consumer base seeking to relive the stories of their childhood through the medium of the big screen.

In the past, this somewhat manipulative trend gave birth to the behemoth Star Wars universe. Now a revival of comic book characters is playing out across the big screen, with companies like Marvel, DC, and FOX lining up superhero movies and sequels four years into the foreseeable future; in 2016 alone, seven superhero films are slated for release.

Arguably, the profitability of these films is a creative handicap. Production companies elect to curb artistic exploration in lieu of crafting safe films that will net large audiences. The modern film industry must adapt to an audience that is increasingly disinterested in spending money on movies. To compensate, production companies birth films that have built-in audiences.

Viewers elect to see these films because they either know the story being told, or they thoroughly enjoy the world in which the movie is set. Film, it follows, transforms from its previous state— a pure form of escapism, where viewers sought to envelop themselves in untold stories—into a medium for reliving the past.

This new mold of movies seems to lack incisiveness: Thompson described it as cashing in on a genre where “explosions translate easier than wit.”

Even with that creative handicap, superhero movies have the potential to be critical. Some of Marvel’s recent films have featured superheroes in direct opposition to a distrustful government. Ironically, Captain America—a superhero created to work in tandem with the American government—has a slate of films that feature this anti-government theme the most.

The second film in the series, The Winter Soldier, was, as Zoller Seitz pointed out in a recent critique, “plugged into a version of political reality—a parable about the United States’ recent response to terrorism, with the Battle of New York representing the attacks of 9/11, and S.H.I.E.L.D.’s terrifying surveil-anddestroy plan standing as this franchise’s version of The War on Terror.”

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Captain America’s upcoming film, Civil War, pushes the antigovernment theme even further by raising the issue of government attempts to bend strong forces in the direction of national defense. The movie will incorporate elements from a comic book arc of the same name in which Captain America and a cohort of heroes act in open defiance of a government policy that requires superheroes to be documented and identified.

Films from the X-Men series feature government entities that are blatantly xenophobic. Both of the recent renditions of the series (First Class and Days of Future Past) cast the government as hell-bent on neutralizing the perceived threat of the mutants.

Because they were fundamentally different than typical citizens, the government feared and despised them and thus embarked on systematic campaigns to eliminate them. Days of Future Past’s storyline, when stripped of the time travel, is a comic book’s version of ethnic cleansing.

A GRIM LOOK

Compared to superhero movies, dystopian blockbusters seem even better equipped to dish out criticism. “They tend to be commentaries on the present and imply [that] if we don’t do something about this now, we’re doomed,” Carrie Rickey of the Philadelphia Inquirer told the HPR, “and thus they incite us to action.”

Ultimately, dystopian films are about social issues. In the context of the progression of blockbuster genres, this is important to note. Only a few years ago, theaters were inundated with apocalyptic films depicting environmental cataclysms. This was partially attributable to genuine concern amongst some people that the world was facing an impending apocalyptic scenario.

The movie 2012 is the perfect example of this: it quite literally converted the namesake of a doomsday prophecy into a film about the apocalyptic ramifications of climate change.

Recent films have moved past that apocalyptic period and are now focusing on the social constructs at the dusk of civilization.

A typical trend of these new constructs is that the government is either authoritarian (The Hunger Games) or governed by a collective of corrupt politicians who have a distorted understanding of what is best for the public, as is the case in Divergent.

Dystopian films are great at stoking distrust for political figures. They highlight instances in which political maneuvering has resulted in the development of unfavorable conditions—either ghettos, extreme economic and social stratification, or oppression—and then elevate young anarchists out of those areas to do noble battle against corruption.

“If there’s one trait that holds together great swathes of dystopian features, it’s a healthy fear of the government,” Kate Erbland of Vanity Fair wrote. “And no, not just a vague sense

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Superhero and dystopian films toe the line between art and product.

that your rights might be threatened by your elected overlords, but the deep and unshakable truth that your entire life has been dictated by whole groups of people who ostensibly have your best interests at heart.”

This is a sentiment that is becoming widespread today. This fall, the Harvard Public Opinion Project found that 50 percent of survey participants agreed with the statement, “For the problems facing America today, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” Though the degree to which dystopias visualize fear and distrust of government is extreme, it is rooted in a growing trend that identifies the government as a problem. Evidence of this can be found in the January standoff between a local militia and the government in Oregon— an event soaked in anti-government sentiment—or in mounting frustration with the government over perceived infringements on second amendment rights.

ZEITGEIST It is tempting to write off the anti-government themes in these genres as a simple reflection of adolescent anarchy. After all, most dystopian books-turned-films were originally written to satisfy young adults, for whom a mistrust of authority is the status quo. But to do so ignores the obvious: through their depictions of themes like distrust of government, dystopian films

and superhero movies convey a salient sentiment.

As disdainful as Hollywood’s recent trends may be—as hackneyed as the superhero stories and dystopian flicks can seem amidst a whirlwind of too-similar movies—the trends themselves are important lenses through which to examine society. Media and propaganda are heavy plot points in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay because of the surge in new media forms that are proving disruptive in the modern political theater.

Genetic manipulation and its societal ramifications lend color to Divergent’s sometimes unpredictable plot. Femme fatale leads are emerging because feminism is redefining traditional genderbased power structures. Rickey told the HPR that we are seeing a “pattern of seasoned heroes and dewy heroines, underlining the industry presumption that viewers like their heroes rugged and heroines sexy ... Charlize Theron of Fury Road, Daisy Ridley of The Force Awakens, Alicia Vikander of Ex Machina, Jennifer Lawrence of Mockingjay, and Shailene Woodley in Divergent suggest that the new heroine is kickass and whip-smart.”

These genres don’t need to pass active criticism on society, as films in the past have done; they function much better when they try to embody the zeitgeist of the era. These films are more of a play at immortalizing modern sentiment than they are at trying to critique it—and that is okay. They can leave the criticism to the genres that are effective at them—drama, romance, thrillers—and still be winners at the end of the day.

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MONEY

BORDERS

M.I.A.’s juggling act of autobiography and musical commentary Apoorva Rangan

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line of brown men clings precariously to a barbed-wire fence, 20 feet above the ground. They shuffle along carefully, moving from one edge of the video frame towards the other. The shot changes—the men jostle with each other as they clamber up the fence. Another shot—the one that differentiates the video from documentary—their bodies, plastered on the fence, spell out the word “LIFE.” In front of them, the artist M.I.A. dons an outfit of dusty pink: overalls, a blush hat, and rose-tinted aviators. It’s a jarring juxtaposition, linking the scene to fashion-forward, comfortable Western culture as if she had teleported to the region without time to change or camouflage.

M.I.A.’s latest track “Borders” hinges on this superimposition of commercialism onto crisis. It’s an accusatory song from the beginning, opening with the line “Freedom, I-dom, me-dom, where’s your we-dom?” She moves from the intro to a hypnotic verse: “Borders, what’s up with that?

Politics, what’s up with that?

Police shots, what’s up with that?

Identities, what’s up with that?

Your privilege, what’s up with that?

Broke people, what’s up with that?

Boat people, what’s up with that?”

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The second verse follows the same structure—“queen,” “killing it,” “slaying it,” “being bae, what’s up with that?” to contrast the refugee crisis with pop culture pettiness. In doing so, M.I.A. critiques cultural apathy and hypocrisy. She stated in a recent interview with Time that the second verse features the questions that a refugee would have upon entering Europe—what is up with “slaying it?” How could “killing it” be a good thing?

It can seem hard to reach that interpretation when first listening to the song or watching the music video. She’s been criticized for the limited word count and repetitiveness of the lyrics, which some say create a seemingly oversimplified social critique. The images in the “Borders” video seem to anonymize refugees and further compromise a pro-refugee sentiment.

Indeed, it is possible to dismiss the song’s pro-refugee impact entirely since it hasn’t reached the tens of millions of people that her previous songs have. But M.I.A.’s background as a refugee and intentions to advocate for the refugee community prevent such a ready dismissal of “Borders.”

WHAT’S UP WITH M.I.A.?

Before she was M.I.A., the rapper and pop artist was Londonborn Maya Arulpragasam. At the age of six, her politically active father, Arular, moved their family to Sri Lanka, where militant

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Tamil groups like the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) and the Sri Lankan military fought a bloody civil war for control over the northeastern portions of the country. Her Tamil father co-founded the political group Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of Students, later affiliated with the militant Tamil Tigers, the year that M.I.A. was born. As an elementary school student, M.I.A. was taught to flee to an English-language school when soldiers started shooting. The war eventually took the lives of 100,000 civilians, and the UN investigated both the LTTE and Sri Lankan military for widespread human rights violations.

Before her 11th birthday, M.I.A.’s mother moved her children back to London, where they received refugee status. She commented on the cultural distance between refugees and Western pop culture in “Banana Skit” on her 2005 debut album Arular— “Refugee education number one ... Banana / Ba-na-na / Say it again now.” She said in a subsequent interview, “we’d learn English like we were two years old.”

In essence, M.I.A. does not focus on refugee-centric dialogue in order to maintain political relevance. Instead, recent discourse has focused on a refugee-host country dynamic that she has lived through and commented on for years. Her latest track is topical considering the millions of refugees that entered Europe in 2015, but the lyrics and images that she relies on for the song stretch more broadly to her past, and to other continents and immigration crises. Any analysis of her music needs to move beyond lyrics and style to appreciate the influence of her background. The sounds of warfare are at home amongst the heavy dance beats, as if she pulls violence from her daily lexicon. The “boat people” in her lyrics could refer to Syrian or North African refugees or the post-war influx from Vietnam, and the song’s music video features refugees climbing a fence resembling the U.S.-Mexico and Israeli-Palestinian borders.

BREAKING GENRE BORDERS Much of the mainstream coverage of the Syrian refugee crisis has been written (op-eds, print and online news, social media) or videotaped (documentary, broadcast journalism). Photojournalism and satirical cartoons have also generated some of the most iconic images of the conflict. But other than “Borders,” little mainstream musical coverage has emerged.

M.I.A. leans heavily on electronic dance music, a genre rarely associated with political statements. Music has frequently been used to shape political discourse, but artists are more likely to rely on genres such as rap, folk, and rock (take Public Enemy, Green Day’s American Idiot, or John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance”). “For most mainstream dance or electronic music, you don’t think about it as political content in the way you might think about rap,” Atlantic pop culture writer Spencer Kornhaber told the HPR. “There’s a lot of corporate interest riding on it, which can make it less favorable to take controversial stances.”

Indeed, M.I.A. seems to toe the line between political commentary and irreverence as a result of her genre. Her lyrics aren’t theses on political situations, but instead are vague and vapid. The dance influence makes M.I.A.’s music catchy and emphatic, but it constrains the number of words her message contains. Some of her tracks feature 20 words or fewer.

In “Borders,” M.I.A. raises questions that few prominent artists do, but at the same time she leaves it to the listeners to answer them. The song is political, but in the way that many people

from privileged and peaceful nations are political, lacking in specific and granular positions. M.I.A.’s EDM-influenced music is not necessarily a call to action, but instead a continuation of her criticism of political apathy in much of Western society. “I wanted to make a connection between the apathy I was feeling in England and what [my peers] in Sri Lanka go through,” the artist said in a 2008 interview, the year before the Sri Lankan civil war ended.

THE VIDEO: CONFLICT-APPROPRIATE OR CONFLICT APPROPRIATION? The self-directed “Borders’” music video stretches the mainstream coverage of the refugee crisis into the even less traversed terrain of video fiction. The video features predominantly male refugees assembling into background formations—lines, a boat— while the artist sings along in the foreground.

The tension between M.I.A.’s individuality and the refugees’ homogeneity pervades the video. M.I.A. chose to render the refugee population as almost entirely homogenous: male, young, and brown-skinned. Critics attest that the video reinforces the myth that the majority of refugees entering Europe are young, potentially dangerous Muslim males. Indeed, the extras’ gravely set faces belie little emotion. They do not speak or move with autonomy in the video, counter to other pro-refugee media efforts that feature the peaceful intentions and individuality of incoming refugees.

Yet M.I.A. states that she wishes to directly confront the myth of the scary, dangerous male refugee. She wishes to display an image that shows distance between the perceived all-male influx and reality. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, women and children comprise approximately three-quarters of the Syrian refugee population. “When the media covers [the crisis], it’s like there’s this swarm of men in boats coming to wipe the West out,” she told Apple Music. “If it was just men arriving on the coast like an army, this is what that looks like. Except it’s not that. The real images of what it looks like are actually women and children.”

Perhaps her positioning also serves as autobiography, highlighting her own role in a similar journey and in doing so, defending the individual potential of the refugee surrounding actors. In interviews, M.I.A. discusses the song as a statement on the Syrian crisis, yet she uses refugee actors from south India and released the video on Tamil Remembrance Day, dedicating it to an uncle who had also fled Sri Lanka during her youth.

M.I.A. expects both refugee and Western listeners to engage with the lyrics. “Borders, what’s up with that?” is a question to be asked by both apathetic Europeans and truly befuddled Syrian refugees, a question that ties together the artist’s refugee roots and English identity. The lyrics aren’t necessarily calling for the destruction of national borders, but for a more abstract reduction in the division between “us” and “them.” M.I.A. is the perfect conduit for such a statement, an artist willing to increase mutual understanding, to speak to both refugees and Western populations in a consumer-driven musical market.

Dismissing a uniquely powerful and relevant song because of its lyrical structure and surface-level contradictions: What’s up with that? It may be an imperfect, confusing statement, but M.I.A. has spoken up from a place of personal resonance where few other artists have.

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SONGS OF WAR The Evolution of Protest Music in the United States

Frankie Hill

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ith estimates ranging from one to three million total deaths, the Vietnam War spawned some of the most ferocious domestic resistance to government policy to ever exist in the United States. This sentiment was strongly reflected in protest music, which gained significant popularity in the ’60s and ’70s. While the public often views Vietnam as the apex of American protest music, the use of songs to convey political discontent is a long-practiced tradition in the United States.

Although early technological and governmental restrictions prevented the voice of the average civilian from being heard, almost every American conflict has inspired musical dissent in one form or another. These songs have evolved over the years as new voices have found the right to share their thoughts.

CENSORED BEGINNINGS During the Revolutionary period, music was spread primarily through the print media; therefore, it was tightly controlled by the social elites of the time. Songs were written by well-educated individuals whereas common folk, the ones most affected by war and thus the ones most likely to argue for peace, didn’t have a public voice. Thus, the vast majority of protest songs from this era followed a propaganda-like style.

This perspective is epitomized by tunes like “To Britain,” a song originally published in The Craftsman’s Journal and then

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redistributed by a number of other American newspapers. It opens with the line “Blush Britain! Blush at thy inglorious war!”

Its purpose is twofold. First, the song explains the mires of armed conflict, and second, it blames the fighting on the British.

A similar tune, “The Rebels,” was written by Captain Smyth of the British Army; it has a very similar message but shifts blame for the destruction of war towards the colonists. Although both songs could be considered propaganda since they were written by army elites, they also reflected the anti-war sentiment relatable to much of the populace.

The American Civil War saw a slight weakening in the monopoly of speech. While protests against the conflict were common in border states like Ohio, few, if any protest songs were disseminated. This means that either they weren’t written in the first place, or they were censored by the wartime press. The Ohio History Connection, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the heritage of the Buckeye State, explains on its website that Ohio was home to many “Peace Democrats.” These politicallyminded Northerners “strenuously objected to the American Civil War,” usually because they had ties to the Confederacy but also due to pacifist ideologies or opposition to the draft. According to the OHC, many of these Peace Democrats were silenced under General Order No. 38, which stated, “The habit of declaring sympathy for the enemy will not be allowed in this department.” Violations of the order could be punishable by death. This hostile climate made expressing dissent difficult.

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For this reason, most music stuck to one of two themes: patriotism or homesickness. Patriotic songs, like the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and “Dixie” were written by professional composers, many of whom never saw battle. Despite their popularity, these tunes offered little comfort to those rocked by the horrors of war around them. The average soldier instead tended to embrace ballads about going home. While these songs didn’t protest the war outright, they did covertly express an anti-war sentiment. The song “Lorena” may have been primarily about a Union soldier’s longing to be with his lover, but also reflected a desire for the fighting to end. Even optimistic songs followed a similar theme. “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” and “Better Times are Coming” both focused on the life that soldiers expected to have once the war had ended. These tunes were rarely directly critical of the conflict; Professor Benjamin Tausig of Stony Brook University told the HPR that when it comes to protest songs, “you’re as impolite as you’re allowed to be.” Considering the structured lifestyle that Civil War soldiers lived, such songs were the closest things to protest that they had available.

FIGHTING BACK Anti-war songs as they are known today developed in the United States during the buildup to World War I. Throughout this time, isolationism was the driving force behind American foreign policy and pacifism became a viable political ideology. The advent of photography towards the end of the Civil War forced the nation to come to terms with the reality of the devastation the war caused, leaving a bad taste in the mouths of many Americans. This contributed to an anti-war sentiment that extended from commoners to composers to congressmen. Social elites still held most of the sway in the production of popular music, but for the first time, many began to write songs that directly challenged the concept of war. Isolationist ideals leant commercial success to “I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier,” which, as Mariana Whitmer stated in the Organization of American Historians’ Magazine of History, was “one of the first songs to protest war.”

Following the Dust Bowl in the 1930s, America saw its first folk revolution. The widespread distribution of record players and radios allowed significantly more musicians to make their voices heard. During this time, artists like Woody Guthrie and Lead Belly wrote a number of politically charged tunes.

Carol Oja, chair of the Harvard University Music Department, informed the HPR that the Composer’s Collective, a group of famous composers active in the 1930s, wrote “politically charged and politically informed compositions.” According to Oja, “Times changed, issues changed, and these singers and composers just rose to meet whatever the challenge was.” While their primary focus was not on war, “one [movement] built on another.” Many subsequent artists would look back at this era as the beginning of protest music’s popularization.

After the attacks on Pearl Harbor, World War II avoided widespread criticism. In Music of the World War II Era by William and Nancy Young, the conflict is described as “’the Good War,’ one that few Americans challenged in any way.” Most agreed that a military response was necessary; therefore, few questioned proposals to heavily regulate the music industry. According to the Youngs, 1942 saw the creation of the Office of War

Information, which was founded “in an effort to maintain public morale and control the flow of information about the war.” This propaganda agency spawned a spinoff department called the National Wartime Music Committee. The NWMC was tasked with “[evaluating] the suitability of certain songs over others.” As a result of “the heavy hand of government [in] the music business,” most songs went back to the Civil War approach of expressing a longing for home. Melodies such as “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” “When the Lights Go On Again,” and “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree” spread rapidly among lonely servicemen.

REBELS WITH A CAUSE By the 1950s, the anti-war movement—and thus anti-war music—regained popularity. With the advent of television, the horrors of war could be brought straight into the American living room. As people back home came to grips with the violence and destruction they saw, they began to question the nation’s motivations.

Tausig attributes the reemergence of protest movements to the rise of the baby boomers. There was a “far larger pool [of protestors] than at any other [point] in history,” Tausig explained. Simultaneously, there was a general feeling that young people wanted “to change the world, [and] the Vietnam War became a rallying point for [that] energy.” The mobilization of the nation’s youth, combined with staggering death tolls and unexpected mission creep helped to turn Americans against the war. When the second folk revolution began in the early ’60s, the powder keg was lit.

As young people gained the right to vote under the 26th Amendment, they began to be courted by singers travelling the college circuit. Humorous songs like “The Draft Dodger’s Rag” helped to make the protest movement more mainstream. Moderate entertainers like Simon and Garfunkel and Johnny Cash covered anti-war songs. Perhaps most important of all, the Civil and Women’s Rights Movements brought previously unheard voices into the national discussion. Black artists like Edwin Starr, Jimi Hendrix, and many more took to the stage alongside their white counterparts, united in their desire to end the war in Vietnam.

The borrowing and revision of several Civil Rights ballads helped the movement to attract a number of already organized progressives. This coalescence of youthful exuberance and free speech helped to define the 1960s as the decade of disobedience.

The legacy of Vietnam carried over well into America’s future. During the ’80s metal and hard rock bands like Megadeath, Iron Maiden, Metallica, and Black Sabbath exploded in popularity, bringing along a number of anti-war songs. Pop music, on the other hand, was shaped in a different way. According to Tausig, mainstream protest music “became commercialized” at this time, allowing for musicians to raise significant amounts of money for specific causes. “A lot of the mass music for change concerts that took place in the ’80s were modeled after protest music,” Tausig explained. While some genres continued with the anti-war traditions established during Vietnam, mainstream protest music “began to focus on other causes, like curing AIDs and fighting hunger.” In 1986, the golden age of rap began, popularizing protest songs among an even wider demographic. Punk, too, gained popularity, although neither genre became well known for anti-war songs until the turn of the century.

War once again became a primary issue addressed by protest

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Using songs to express political discontent is a long-practiced tradition in the United States.

music during George W. Bush’s presidency. The level of protest music being produced was nothing compared to Vietnam, as anti-war tunes were considered a sort of niche, but the U.S. invasion of Iraq still met harsh criticism. In fact, callousness is perhaps the most defining aspect of this era’s music. Green Day, Bright Eyes, and a returning Neil Young all wrote biting tunes directed at the president himself. The U.S. government met new levels of hostility; it is unclear whether this was caused by increasing partisanship or simply by a greater level of openness on the political stage. Either way, Iraq and Afghanistan helped to prove that the 21st century could be one in which Americans are free to express discontent.

Although the scope and style of protest music has changed since the United States’ inception, the very conflicts that have inspired these songs have become more and more rare. Steven Pinker, professor of psychology at Harvard, explained in an interview with the BBC that humanity is currently enjoying its most peaceful era in all of recorded history. As protest songs

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have declined in popularity, music advocating for social change has risen to the top of the charts. Fifty years ago, Macklemore’s “Same Love” might have been scrapped for a song about nuclear non-proliferation and Meghan Trainor’s body-loving “All About that Bass,” probably wouldn’t have received international attention in a society worried about immediate obliteration. Although music has not always reflected the ideas of the majority, it has quickly become an engrained part of American political culture.

So long as every member of society continues to be allowed to contribute to the Great American Songbook, protest music will keep reflecting the trials and tribulations of the times.

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CULTURAL LANDSCAPES On reductive categorizations in art Hana Connelly SPRING 2016 HARVARD POLITICAL REVIEW 19

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n September 2012, the Louvre Museum in Paris opened an Islamic Art wing, in line with former President Jacque Chirac’s vision to “highlight the contributions of Muslim civilizations to Western culture.” The new wing, partly funded by the French government, was presented as an important statement of cultural acceptance in the face of tensions between France and the Muslim world. In the week before the wing’s opening, these tensions were particularly high after the arrest of more than 80 people protesting an anti-Islam film outside the U.S. embassy in Paris and the publication of cartoons lampooning the Prophet Muhammad in the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Prince Waleed Bin Talal of Saudi Arabia donated 17 million euros to the construction of the gallery in the interest of showcasing the fundamentally peaceful nature of Islam, and French president François Hollande characterized the gallery as an important step towards recognizing the “more vibrant and more tolerant” roots of Islamic civilization.

To critics, the opening of this gallery speaks to some of the problematic aspects of France’s relationship with Islam. The gallery’s attempt to label, organize, and present such a wide range of art in one place has been criticized for being reductive.

Moreover, the museum’s focus on the ancient roots of Islamic art can be taken as a reminder of France’s failure to acknowledge contemporary representations of Islam. Though it may indicate positive intentions to bridge cultural divides, the Islamic Art wing also represents one of the biggest problems in French relations with multicultural art: a simplification of the foreign to more easily digestible tropes that can come at the expense of real understanding.

Whether the gallery’s contributions to the multicultural art scene in France are essentially positive or negative, the debates surrounding the exhibit denote the importance of art in cross-cultural dialogues. In France, artistic trends have played a particularly obvious role in political issues, both historically and recently. From 19th century French fetishization of Egyptian art to the January 2015 attacks on satirical cartoonists, art has been both a bridge and a divide between cultures, often serving as both at the same time. In a country that emphasizes secularism in public spheres, art is an especially important means of expressing, contesting, and forming degrees of difference that challenge preconceived notions of culture. Consequently, it is also especially important that this art remains diverse and avoids rigid categorizations based on comfortable tropes about the “East” versus the “West.”

ACKNOWLEDGING HISTORY It is impossible to consider the state of French multicultural art today without acknowledging the country’s colonialist past.

As early as the 18th and 19th centuries, French art reflected the country’s imperial reality. Around the time of Napoleon Bonaparte’s military campaigns in Egypt and Syria, France was famously gripped by “Egyptomania”—a fascination with ancient

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Egyptian styles, which quickly became part of the trending “mode” in visual art, home décor, and fashion. In the 20th century, globally renowned artists like Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Henri Matisse shifted focus to French colonial Algeria, which they visited as tourists and depicted in many of their works through the lens of Orientalist tropes.

The coexistence of such reverent art alongside violent colonization speaks to the complex nature of art itself: even when produced with good intentions, art is not always a positive bridge between cultures. Instead, depending on the larger social context in which it is produced, art can serve as a tool for cultural reductionism. During the course of French colonization of North Africa, Islamic art in particular was viewed through a one-sided colonial lens and reduced to trending fascinations.

In her book, Only Muslim: Embodying Islam in Twentiethcentury France, Naomi Davidson describes what she calls “Islam Français.” Davidson uses this term to describe a conscious attempt by the 20th-century French state to promote only certain components of Islam that confirmed conceptions of Islamic culture with which the French were already comfortable, grounded in assumptions that Muslims were a fundamentally inassimilable “other.” Davidson argues that this selective promotion of Islam informed policy decisions and political attitudes toward French Muslims, further flattening diversity and promoting ignorance by grouping all North African immigrants under the same category of “Muslims.” This allowed the French state to present a more “digestible” but less comprehensive version of Islam to its people.

In many ways, France’s trending fascination with the arts of other cultures throughout its imperial history parallels Davidson’s 20th-century description of French-sanctioned Islam.

When French society took an interest in specific components of the aesthetic of a foreign culture, it failed to see or present a full picture of the culture in question.

Despite the problem of French-sanctioned Islam, Francophone literature in the 20th century did famously come to include the voice of the colonized. The French region of Martinique is known for the writing and politics of Aimé Césaire and Frantz Fanon, who both spoke to the particular tensions between colonizers and colonized. Harvard professor Verena Conley pointed out in an interview with the HPR that, in comparison to Anglo-Saxon trends in colonization, French postcolonial subjects tended to be more revolutionary and outspokenly critical of past imperial regimes. Out of this critical spirit emerged important artistic voices that spoke for more than one culture; these artists represented the voice of an oppressed Martinique, but they did so in a post-colonial context that necessitated a consideration of and response to French culture.

In an interview with the HPR, Professor Maud Mandel of Brown University drew attention to the importance of the 1970s for French postcolonial art. Broadly speaking, from a political perspective France did not tend to celebrate public expressions of difference until the early years of the Mitterrand government.

Despite the eventual pushback of the Far Right, the coming of

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age of post-colonial migrant children led to a shift in France’s relationship with its former occupied territories, which translated to a shift in artistic trends. Of course, as Professor Mandel explained, art has always been a space in which differences are explored, challenged, and presented. After the 1970s and 1980s, art responded to an even wider range and combination of differences. François Zabbal, editor-in-chief of Qantara Magazine, has remarked that, over the past 30 years, Muslim artists have gained acknowledgment of their presence but continue to be “catalogued by their country” of origin. In this post-colonial world, it may have become impossible to remain isolated within one cultural context, but it has remained easy to find oneself compartmentalized, simplified, and misunderstood by others.

A FRENCH PROBLEM? Today, France is notorious for its law of “laïcité,” which emphasizes the importance of keeping religion out of the public sphere. This law has been criticized for discriminating against religions that incorporate certain publically visible elements.

Most evident is the hijab worn by many Muslim women, which has been banned from French public schools and government buildings since 2004.

The French state’s insistence on public secularism is closely connected to the country’s approach to artistic expression.

In January 2015, the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo was attacked by two Al-Qaeda-affiliated brothers who were principally motivated by the newspaper’s controversial depictions of the Prophet Muhammad. For many Muslims, depictions of Muhammad constitute blasphemy, and those that appeared in the magazine were drawn to be intentionally provocative. In light of this motive, many Frenchmen interpreted the attacks as an assault on French secular free speech. The slogan “Je suis Charlie” was spread in the aftermath of the attacks as a way of expressing solidarity with satirists’ right to produce whatever art they wanted in spite of the possibility of causing offense.

In the aftermath of the horrific attacks, it has also become important to question the degree to which this insistence on the right to offend allows for a variety of voices beyond those of white Frenchmen critical of Islam. While Charlie Hebdo should be free to publish negative depictions of Islam, Muslim artists must also have an equal voice in representing their culture and religion in order for the magazine’s cartoons to remain satirical as opposed to oppressive. In considering how to balance depictions of Islam, however, it is also important to consider the blending of cultures affected by France’s colonial past and the impossibility of considering any culture or artist in a vacuum.

Perhaps it is less productive to look for a “positive” and “negative” or an “Eastern” and “Western” perspective on Islam than it is to challenge our notions of art’s ties to any one culture in the first place.

AN ART PROBLEM? Algerian artist Adel Abdessemed is one such artist who defies simple cultural categorization. He was born in 1971 and grew up in early post-colonial Algeria. During his year as an art student, he witnessed the violence of the 1992 Algerian Civil War, which broke out after elections won by an Islamist party were annulled. In his twenties, after receiving personal threats for his involvement in secular groups, he moved to France in order to work more freely as an artist. Since then, he has created notoriously disturbing visual art: his works include a sculpture of himself about to be beheaded by his father, ivory reproductions of famous photos of a girl running from a Vietnam War napalm attack, a Jewish boy surrendering outside the Warsaw ghetto, and videos of animals being bludgeoned.

Abdessemed offers poignant critiques of both Algeria and France. His drawings of people kissing in famous movie scenes criticize Algerian censorship of public affection, while a real migrant vessel exhibited as a sculpture draws attention to the plight of refugees. He has quickly risen to become one of France’s most popular contemporary artists. In an interview cited in a New York Times profile, Abdessemed explained his signature provocative style by stating, “As artists, we must generate tensions for something very positive and extraordinary to come out. If we don’t put our finger on a problem, how will it get proper attention?”

Abdessemed’s artistic philosophy and life story offer a glimpse into the current state of multicultural French art. Writers such as Mohammed Dib, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Assia Djebar, Boualem Sensal, and Mahi Binebine offer a similarly critical lens through which to view both France and their North African roots. Though they often write about their Muslim identities or reflect on their personal experiences, most of these artists would object to being categorized simply as “Muslim artists.” As Assia Djebar expressed in an interview with Le Figaro in 2005, “I am not a symbol. My only activity consists of writing ... Like many writers, I use my culture and I collect several imaginary worlds.”

Although many aspects of laïcité and its corresponding controversies may be unique to France, art itself represents more universal values. The figure of the “artist” is generally removed from any one culture in order to allow for the critical distance needed to produce thought-provoking and socially significant art. In an interview with Artnet Magazine, Abdessemed hinted at his own relationship to his Algerian roots by stating, “When I look at the work of an artist, I am not interested in his biography. I want to be struck by what he makes; I want to hear his cry.” When art is interpreted as a critical lens through which to inspect the world, a relative lack of purely positive depictions of Islam in France may not be any more problematic than the lack of purely positive depictions of France itself. Instead, the most problematic aspect of multicultural art may be an insistence on a simple East-West dichotomy that categorizes art by cultural origin in the first place.

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SOLITARY TO SOCIETY Samarth Gupta

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ive Mualimm-ak spent 2,054 days wasting in isolated confinement in the New York City prison system. Neither judge nor jury put him there, but rather an endless stream of “tickets” from prison guards. These tickets were not for major offenses like instigating violence in the prison yard or striking an officer, but for seemingly minor infractions. Mualimm-ak drew portraits to stay sane in prison, but he had too many pencils—a ticket. He also had too many postage stamps in his cell—a ticket.

He ate a whole apple, including its seeds, which contain arsenic—a ticket. The next time, he fearfully left his apple on his tray, thereby “refusing to eat”—a ticket.

In an interview with the HPR, Mualimm-ak said he still considers himself lucky. When the Innocence Project, a non-profit that aims to exonerate innocent individuals through DNA testing, eventually proved that his original conviction was wrong, he was taken straight from solitary confinement to a bus heading to Times Square. There, he had family and a psychiatrist waiting to take care of him. Mualimm-ak had already begun working with a publisher to tell his story, so he had a support system ready for him. The 15 others on his bus who had also spent time in solitary confinement were not as lucky. Within a year of stepping foot in Times Square, five of them had committed suicide.

CAGED An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 prisoners in America spend about 23 hours a day alone inside an 80 square foot cell, known officially as “administrative segregation” and colloquially as “the box.” For many prisoners, this isolation is not a matter of hours or days, rather months and years. Studies have shown that the average time spent in solitary units is as long as five years in some states.

This extended isolation has detrimental effects on prisoners. University of California, Santa Cruz professor Craig Haney found that extended solitary confinement caused “hypertension, uncontrollable anger, hallucinations, emotional breakdowns, chronic depressions, and suicidal thoughts and behavior” in prisoners. Another study found that four years in solitary confinement caused a noticeable decrease in electroencephalography (EEG), a measure of electrical activity in the brain, which is indicative of sensory deprivation. Research done by Stuart Grassian, a former faculty member at Harvard Medical School,

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confirmed that “even a few days of solitary confinement will predictably shift the electroencephalogram (EEG) pattern toward an abnormal pattern characteristic of stupor and delirium.”

The “inadequate environmental stimulation” in solitary can lead to the permanent harm of “a continued intolerance of social interaction” that prevents an inmate from reintegrating into the larger prison population and into society.

Mualimm-ak told the HPR that there is “no such thing as a positive reintegration into society: everyone leaves damaged.” He said this damage occurs in two stages. First, prisoners in solitary confinement experience “a lack of human validation,” which “places permanent mental damage on a person.” Second, inmates become paranoid, hallucinogenic, and suffer from mental illness in solitary. According to Mualimm-ak, who now works in advocacy, many prisoners have a fear that the prison or prison guards could kill them and no one would ever find out.

This psychological harm of solitary is exacerbated by the fact that many people in solitary confinement already had prior mental health issues. The New York Correctional Association reports that as of 2004, 23 percent of its prisoners in special housing units (SHU), the administrative term for solitary, were also on the mental health caseload. According to a survey of those in SHUs, nearly a third of prisoners had prior psychiatric hospitalizations, over one-half had suffered from depression, and about 28 percent are diagnosed with either schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. The report also found that the average SHU sentence for mentally ill prisoners is six times longer than that of other prisoners. In the 1995 case Madrid v. Gomez, Federal District Court Judge Thelton Henderson compared placing the mentally ill in such isolation to “putting an asthmatic in a place with little air to breathe.”

Given such mental health problems, suicide is a growing concern for solitary confinement prisoners. Dr. Raymond Patterson, who was appointed by California to find ways to lower prison suicide, found that inmates in California’s solitary units were 33 times more likely to commit suicide than were other inmates.

Furthermore, a study in the American Journal of Public Health found that in 2004, 73 percent of all suicides in California prisons occurred in isolation units, although these units accounted for only 10 percent of the state’s prison population. A study in New York showed similar results: per capita, five times as many suicides occurred in solitary confinement as compared to the

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general prison population. However, even for those who survive solitary confinement and leave prison, obstacles to a stable life still remain.

RELEASED Of the tens of thousands of prisoners in solitary confinement, thousands go straight from the box back to the streets. A survey by NPR and The Marshall Project found that in the 24 states which maintained records, at least 10,000 prisoners were released straight from solitary confinement. When taking the other 26 states into account, that number is undoubtedly higher.

Without re-entry programs, these prisoners face challenges reintegrating into society.

One concern about prisoners leaving straight from solitary is recidivism. Analysts for the Texas Legislative Budget Board found that more than 60 percent of prisoners released from solitary were rearrested within three years of their release, compared to 49 percent of the overall prisoner population. These results extend to other states, as well. Studies in Washington and California found that recidivism rates for those leaving solitary were as much as 35 percent higher than those of prisoners who had not been held in solitary confinement.

These conclusions on recidivism may draw statistical scrutiny—perhaps solitary confinement was not the causal mechanism for the differing rates. One could argue that those in solitary were more likely to be rearrested than their peers regardless of their cell conditions. These prisoners could be more mentally unstable, more violent, or more rebellious, which is why they were in solitary in the first place. However, solitary could also have been the trigger for an inmate becoming more mentally unstable, more violent, or more rebellious. Without the data tracking each individual prisoner, reaching a definite conclusion on the relationship between recidivism and solitary confinement proves challenging. Still, multiple studies point to a clear association between solitary confinement and higher recidivism rates.

Even the ex-solitary confinement prisoners who do not find themselves behind bars again struggle in society because of time spent away from social interaction and because of a lack of training opportunities in prison. In his research, UC Santa Cruz’s Haney found that those in extended solitary feel an “unprecedented totality of control” and become dependent on their prison. The general population inmates still have the ability and the necessity to organize their time and make decisions, but for those in solitary, prison administrators make those decisions for them. Those in solitary struggle to “structure their lives around activity and purpose” because they have no opportunities to do so. They also lose the ability “to socially construct their identity” because of their limited interaction with other people. Without this structure and possibly without a support network outside of the prison, these former prisoners are vulnerable in society.

Haney also found that these prisoners become “disoriented and even frightened” by social interactions after spending little time with other prisoners and with few visitation hours. This undermined social ability makes it more challenging for a prisoner to reestablish a family life and to become part of the labor force. Dave’s Killer Bread, a bakery based in Oregon, helps to ease this transition by intentionally hiring people with criminal backgrounds. Today, about 100 of its 300 employees has a crimi-

nal background. Gina Delahunt, the Director of Human Relations, told the HPR that “individuals with criminal backgrounds perform as well as those who don’t have a criminal background,” according to a study done by Dave’s and Portland State University. Delahunt believes that employing ex-inmates can combat recidivism and that “businesses have the power to create meaningful, lasting change for people with criminal backgrounds and society as a whole.”

However, prisoners in solitary confinement still face additional challenges when seeking employment. These challenges not only exist because of the decay of a prisoner’s mental health and social skills, but also because of the lack of rehabilitation opportunities within solitary. Haney refers to solitary as a “rehabilitationless period,” for prisoners have little access to work, substance abuse classes, vocational training, or educational opportunities.

REFORM Recently, some states have acknowledged the negative consequences of solitary confinement and have attempted to reform their solitary policies. New York has agreed to decrease the number of prisoners in solitary and also reduce the reasons and length of time for which prisoners can spend in solitary.

California has agreed to stop placing prisoners in solitary simply for gang affiliations and has agreed to review over 3,000 cases of prisoners in solitary. In 2014, a total of 10 states adopted reforms for solitary confinement.

In Massachusetts, State Senator Jamie Eldridge has sponsored legislation that would require a hearing every 15 days an inmate is in solitary and would give more rights to prisoners in solitary confinement. In an interview with the HPR, Eldridge said that in Massachusetts, “rather embarrassingly, we have one of the most outdated prison systems in the country both in terms of solitary confinement but also the lack of vocational or educational programs in the prison.” He also laments the fact that “many prisoners [are] being released right from solitary out to the community if they’ve served their sentence with no interlude to re-socialize them.” To remedy this issue, Eldridge has proposed creating a buffer of at least six months, consisting of education and reintegration programs, before a prisoner goes from solitary confinement to society.

On the national scale, President Barack Obama recently implemented reforms to the federal use of solitary confinement.

His executive actions prohibit solitary confinement for juveniles who commit “low-level infractions” and reduce the time a prisoner can spend in solitary after his first infraction from 365 days to 60 days.

Still, for now, Mualimm-ak says, “this type of reintegration is hard because there is no such thing as a positive reintegration back to society.” After being exonerated, he was given $40 and a bus ticket and dropped off at Times Square. Then, along with “20 million commuters, you have to navigate your way to make it to parole, and then the panic attacks.” Mualimm-ak has been lucky, with support networks to help him overcome the panic.

But he is an exception, as he has been able to reclaim a fulfilling life in the outside world. All too many of his peers are unemployed, re-imprisoned, or dead in part because of their time in solitary. “[Even the lucky ones] are not survivors,” Mualimmak added. “You ask them how much they’ve deteriorated.”

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A Teachable Moment?

Education in 2016 Joshua Florence

I

n the world of politics, not all issues are equal. For better or worse, our conversations are driven by media coverage.

And while the most talked about issue in 2015 was the 2016 presidential election, certain aspects of the divisive and newsworthy campaign were often overlooked. The current slate of candidates, on both sides of the aisle, have ignored a plethora of worthy discussions. Perhaps the most glaring example is one that affects every child in America: education policy. While there are multiple reasons for the scarcity of coverage at this stage in the campaign, internal debates amongst the major parties could eventually make education one of the most polarizing issues in the general election.

But first, what does “education” even mean? Lumping all educational issues into one bloated topic can cause confusion.

These educational issues include battles over the implementation of Common Core, affirmative action policy, the prevalence of standardized testing, student loan debt, and access to college.

The magnitude of this topic lends itself to a wide variety of opinions even among members of the same political party. “Education is a big tent,” said Katherine Merseth, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in an interview with the HPR. “I can imagine that these candidates are trying to appeal to different tables of people sitting in the tent.”

SILENCE ON THE CLASSROOM Yet, for all the differences in opinion, the issue remains one of the least talked about in the race for president, and for good reason, politically speaking. According to a recent Gallup poll, only 4 percent of voters consider education their top issue, compared to 33 percent for the economy and 16 percent for “poorly run government”. And with international terrorism rising as a topic of importance, education will likely remain a second- or third-tier issue for voters.

The few Americans eager to hear education debates are not likely to see much coverage on the networks running debates.

Discussing economic issues and international affairs are considered better for ratings and imperative for candidate platforms.

Cable networks have devoted entire debates to economic and tax policy as well as national security, while briefly allowing one or two candidates to give short statements about their education plans. In a world where soundbites and two-minute clips are vital to the campaign process, substantive debate about educa-

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tion reform is often left behind.

Education also suffers from a lack of political representation.

While social programs like Medicaid and Social Security benefit from an organized and involved senior citizen populace, the majority of those affected by education policy cannot vote. Aside from powerful teachers unions like the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers and groups of concerned parents, K-12 education advocacy is relatively unorganized at the national level. Voters without children, or parents with children old enough to be out of the school system have no personal stake in school reform, while everyone, regardless of age, has a stake in the economy.

PARTY CIVIL WAR Despite these examples, perhaps the most compelling argument for the lack of education chatter among the candidates is infighting within the parties. “The parties are internally divided,” said Jeffery Henig, a professor of political science and education at Columbia University, to the HPR. “It’s a slippery and risky issue for [the candidates] to on the one hand position themselves within their party and on the other hand try to be sensitive to the fact that if they win the nomination they’re later going to have to position themselves relative to the other party.”

For example, take the past and present Republican candidates’ stances on Common Core. Mike Huckabee, Donald Trump and Rand Paul proposed eliminating the Common Core standards and dismantling the Department of Education, a goal certain to rally their ultra-conservative base. Establishment candidates, on the other hand, are far more varied in their positions on the Common Core, with Marco Rubio suggesting a full removal of the standards, Chris Christie altering his position, and Jeb Bush standing alone in support of the education initiative. In a primary already fraught by sharp divisions, it makes sense for Republicans to avoid another divisive issue. Only until after a nominee is chosen will the party coalesce around a unified stance on education.

Similarly, Democratic candidates cannot agree on the best ways to deal with soaring college costs and increasingly limited access to higher education. While Bernie Sanders is a proponent of free four-year college, Hillary Clinton has followed suit with President Obama, calling for tuition-free community college.

Democrats may also be wary of discussing education openly

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for fear of association with teachers unions. “They don’t need to say that they are going to listen to the AFT and the NEA and be more responsive to them than the last two administrations … because the teachers and teachers unions know that,” said Henig.

“And they don’t want to say it too clearly because the Republicans can use that as a cudgel against them.”

It seems unlikely that candidates will shift their positions on education anytime soon, which could lead to a prolonged silence on the topic. However, despite little representation, low polling interest, and a lack of coverage, there is hope for a real debate on the multifaceted issue in the general election. “Once things have settled down and the candidates have identified themselves, unless the Republican nominee is Bush, then I expect the candidates to actually use education as an issue to distinguish themselves,” said Henig.

It is true that Bush’s familial ties to No Child Left Behind (NCLB)—the widely unpopular 2001 law signed by his brother, President George W. Bush—and his ardent support of Common Core are not terribly popular among either the right wing conservatives or establishment members of the GOP. “I think everybody from various political points of view came to find that NCLB was not working,” said Merseth. If Bush were to win the nomination, he may continue to keep quiet about his education views for fear of angering the conservative base in the general election.

bolstered while Democrats praised the end of federal mandates on standardized testing.

Perhaps Americans can take solace in the fact that complex issues like education do see reform. Two-sided issues have a way of dividing the nation and making progress difficult. As James Madison wrote in Federalist 10, “So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts.”

Indeed, the myriad views regarding education make it difficult for us to divide into two wholly partisan camps.

“Education is such a personal topic. We’ve all been through it,” said Merseth. “With education, everyone’s been to school, so everyone has an opinion.” And perhaps that is why there is hope for discussion in the future. With education’s complexity and propensity for variance in viewpoints, the issue has proven to be one where compromise is possible, achievable, and hopefully in 2016, repeatable.

THE BRIGHT SIDE OF A FORGOTTEN ISSUE There may be a silver lining to the divisiveness of the issue within the parties. Without two clear sides like those that characterize the gun control or abortion debates, politicians can be more fluid in their stances, and not feel bound by an overarching party ideology. “Education’s been generally an area where it’s easier to get agreement at the national level than other issues,” said Henig. The very scope of the issue and the array of solutions to persistent problems may make it easier to compromise.

This was exemplified at the end of 2015, in the heat of divisive primaries in both parties. In December, the House and Senate passed the Every Student Succeeds Act, a bipartisan bill that was lauded by President Obama as “a Christmas miracle.” The new law, a comprehensive reform of the K-12 system, removes many remnants of the controversial No Child Left Behind Act. “The Every Child Succeeds Act is a classic example of compromise,” said Merseth.

Republicans celebrated that state control over education was reaffirmed and

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LITTLE SCHOOL ON THE PRAIRIE

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The State of Rural Education in Twenty First-Century America David Gutierrez

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T

hat America’s public education system is characterized by extreme inequality does not come as a surprise to many. Yet when most people think of educational inequality, they think of inner-city schools—publications like Education Week spend much more time discussing urban schools than rural schools.

This disparity in media coverage is understandable—the crumbling infrastructure of cities, the poverty and segregation faced by inner-city students, and the presence of a school-to-prison pipeline are all serious problems that demand reforms. But in a media market where large newspapers and television stations now compete with international media outlets, rural educational issues can be forgotten in the commotion. Many rural school districts face concerns stemming from current demographic and economic trends, the lack of technological infrastructure, and the difficulty of hiring and retaining teachers.

ANOTHER KIND OF POVERTY Like their urban counterparts, many rural residents face extreme levels of poverty. It is no surprise, then, that rural areas struggled to bounce back from the 2008 recession. As a 2014 USDA report explains, the perpetually high unemployment rate is rooted largely in slow population growth. The economic underdevelopment of rural America and its slow recovery caused the total population of rural counties to decrease as rural residents emigrated to suburban or urban areas between 2010 and 2012.

This poverty contributes to lower educational attainment in rural schools. Only one in 10 people from low-income families attain a bachelor’s degree by the age of 25. Rural districts face an even harder task than their urban counterparts in improving these statistics; at the turn of the century, an urban resident had a 10 to 15 percent higher chance of going to college than a rural resident.

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FUNDING DISPARITIES Student enrollment drives public school funding, so the fewer students enrolled in a district, the less the funding.

Especially in states where there are a greater number of urban districts, urban students receive more than their rural peers. In states like Connecticut, Michigan, and Massachusetts, rural districts received 50 percent less funding per poor pupil than urban counties. Even in other states, urban districts received between 20 to 50 percent more funding than their rural counterparts.

The Obama Administration has made strides in leveling the playing field for rural schools. A 2011 White House Rural Council Report detailed that School Improvement Grants invested $3.5 billion in the lowest performing schools across the nation, with 18 percent of that money going to rural schools. Additionally, as part of Obama’s Race To The Top program, many rural districts receive large influxes of cash.

THE BURDEN OF TRANSPORTATION

Compounding funding issues, rural schools face unique problems concerning transportation. Despite making up only 15 percent of the population, rural residents are spread out across 72 percent of the United States. With vast distances to cover, many rural school districts are forced to allocate a greater percentage of their budgets to transporting students. While urban California spends $16.46 on instruction for every dollar spent in transportation, rural West Virginia spends only $11.71.

There are also variations in transportation costs within states. For example, a 2001 report to the Minnesota State Legislature disclosed that transportation spending per student varied between $198.66 in metro suburbs and $378.44 in rural districts with enrollments less than 500 students. This $179 difference per student in transportation costs can be used to fund opportunities in suburban districts that are not available to rural students.

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SHORTAGE OF TEACHERS The difficulty of getting to rural schools also impacts the teachers and administrators working there. Transportation might discourage teachers from working at rural schools at all.

Rural schools tend to be far away from many services that appeal to young people or newly formed families. William Saunders, Superintendent of Marquette Area Public Schools, worked as the superintendent of Superior Central Schools from 2005 to 2006.

Both of these school districts lie in Marquette County, Michigan, which has an average of 37 people per square mile. “We had to drive 34 miles to the market or for entertainment. It was a 34mile trip,” Saunders told the HPR when recounting his time at Superior Central. “That in itself, especially if you’re hiring young single teachers, makes it really difficult to establish roots … And when there’s an opening in one of the nearby school districts, they might say, ‘Hey, I’d make $7,000 or $8,000 more.’ They usually jump at those opportunities.”

If getting paid a lower salary is not bad enough, rural teachers also face the possibility of having an increased workload, or teaching something that is not their expertise. Dr. John Hill, the Executive Director of the National Rural Education Association, told the HPR, “There’s just not enough people teaching these subjects and sometimes the person teaching is on an emergency license.” A science teacher in a rural school district might be asked to teach biology, chemistry, and physics. Although related, these subjects require individual preparation and thus require teachers to spend more time planning lessons. According to Hill, rural teachers, especially those who work at the high school level, often leave in their first three years.

TECHNOLOGY

41 percent of rural schools lack access to the Internet. Without Internet access, rural students lose out on a vast number of electronic resources.

Saunders saw firsthand the importance of Internet access during his time at Superior Central Schools. Because of his push for technology in the classroom, Superior Central students could sign up for virtual classes in subjects like German, Spanish, and pre-calculus. “All of the classes that we didn’t offer as a district, students were able to take online at their own pace and get credit for those [classes],” recounts Saunders.

Other rural districts may soon see similar benefits, too. In 2014, the Obama Administration partnered with private firms to bring Internet access to every classroom in America through a program called the ConnectED Initiative. This public-private partnership represents an important alliance that has been missing for quite some time. Firms that support ConnectED benefit from the higher-skilled workforce that results from increased educational opportunities for all Americans.

LOOKING TOWARD THE FUTURE Changing school funding formulas can help address the financial woes of rural schools. As of 2011, the Department of Education used four formulas to determine grants to school districts. In a report for the Center for American Progress, Jeremy Ayers argued that these formulas should be streamlined into one.

This formula would take into account the number of low-income children a district serves and would allow for both large and small districts to receive fair funding.

But more than think-tank thought pieces is required to address the disparate treatment of rural schools. Without legislative attention to rural school quality, a generation of schoolchildren will grow up a step behind many of their peers.

While districts across the country increase their use of technology in the classroom, many rural districts do not have the infrastructure that would allow them to do the same. Problems with connectivity, costs, and budget constraints prevent many rural schools from having adequate Internet connection at all. A 2014 Federal Communications Commission report showed that

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CAMEL BELLS AND SMOKY DESERTS China’s “One Belt, One Road” Initiative

Jiafeng Chen

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s I stand here and look back at that episode of history, I could almost hear the camel bells echoing in the mountains and see the wisp of smoke rising from the desert,” said Chinese President Xi Jinping in Astana, Kazakhstan in 2013. Xi’s poetic pomp voiced a nostalgia for the second century BCE, when the Han Dynasty rivaled the Romans and the diplomat Zhang Qian pioneered the Silk Road. In his speech, Xi announced a vision that seeks to revive Zhang’s legacy via a two-part plan. Part one would involve investing in infrastructure connecting China to Central Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, and the second would develop maritime trade extending from Southeast Asia to the Mediterranean. Known as the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-century Maritime Silk Road respectively, the two initiatives command a name that seeks to carry the weight of history.

The grandiosity of the “One Belt, One Road” program has unsurprisingly attracted skepticism. The land Belt, in particular, draws more questions than its maritime twin. In an interview with the HPR, Philippe Le Corre of the Brookings Institution speculated that the Maritime Silk Road, a mundane collection of shipping lanes and maritime trade routes, “will work.” On the other hand, the Belt, an initiative that seeks to connect Beijing and Budapest via high-speed railroads through Astana, Tehran, and Moscow, is significantly more ambitious. Indeed, critics have speculated that China has ulterior geopolitical motives, questioned the initiative’s feasibility, and lambasted the prospect of a China-led world order.

The current discourse, however, is still speculative. Despite considerable noise from China, OBOR has not yet concretized.

According to Le Corre, who visited Astana in November, not

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much infrastructure-building has started. Ben Simpfendorfer, founder of Silk Road Associates, a consulting firm advising businesses operating in Asia, wrote in Forbes that he felt “underwhelmed” by OBOR’s impact so far in Kazakhstan, which would theoretically be the project’s first stop. Tao Xie, a professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University, confirmed in an email to the HPR that “no specifics regarding investment, mileage of roads, or number of ports were [yet] mentioned” in the CCP’s cryptic bureaucratese. However, Le Corre explained that this is merely an indication that OBOR is still in the “planning process.” A more detailed course of action, according to him, will appear during the annual session of the National People’s Congress in March 2016.

But this lack of actual construction does not mean a lack of financing or lobbying. OBOR wields an arsenal of over $90 billion from the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the China-owned Silk Road Fund. Le Corre noteed that Jin Liqun, the AIIB’s president-designate, has travelled globally to meet with international financial institutions. Over the past year, President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang have played salesmen in many key regions, from Moscow to London, and signed a pile of memoranda of understanding, non-binding declarations of goodwill, likely laying the groundwork for the Silk Road project.

China is moving quickly to translate its vision into real leadership, and such ambition unsettles many—often motivated by a knee-jerk Sino-skepticism. The United States notably declined to join the AIIB in March and sought to dissuade its allies from joining.

Realpolitik, however, would demand a closer look at China’s

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grandiose vision, rather than a swift dismissal. Indeed, OBOR could end up being as successful as the Marshall Plan (though Beijing avoids the comparison). The world should welcome “One Belt, One Road” and capitalize on China’s investment. Yet it should also tread with caution. OBOR presents a host of risks and obstacles, partly due to structural concerns within the PRC.

THE OASIS AHEAD OBOR is more a loose confederation of initiatives than a unified agenda of establishing a Chinese world order. And the potential benefits are many. A westward march, Xie explained, would connect Beijing to Central Asia’s energy reserves and to the Middle East via land, bypassing the Malacca Strait. OBOR’s massive infrastructure construction could also absorb some of China’s industrial overcapacity, according to Anthony Saich of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, who spoke with the HPR. Furthermore, greater involvement in Europe would lessen Beijing’s economic dependence on Washington and diversify its investment portfolio, said Le Corre.

Furthermore, strengthened ties with Central Asia, an area oft-neglected by the United States and underinvested in by Russia, would heighten China’s international profile. Prosperity in Central Asia could also bring economic opportunity and stability to China’s troubled Xinjiang Province. Even domestically, Harvard history professor Michael Szonyi told the HPR, Xi’s allusion to the Silk Road could rally public support by appealing to China’s historical legacy.

But for those worried about a new Sino world order, “One Belt, One Road” is far from a groundbreaking grand strategy.

China “has invested in ‘OBOR regions’ long before President Xi coined the term,” according to Wen Wang, executive director at the Chongyang Institute, a think-tank based in Beijing, who spoke with the HPR. China’s motives in creating OBOR are not conspiratorial but rather mundane: OBOR is a catchy label for a vision that loosely knits together China’s already-existing economic and political interests. Vast, ambitious, and grandiose as it is, OBOR is neither focused nor revolutionary, and far from politically alarming. Any fantasized Pax Sina is unlikely to materialize, agreed Szonyi.

The economic impact of OBOR is generally benign as well.

For China, OBOR will likely provide healthy returns. Wang estimated that “the proportion of ‘failed investments’—[existing investments in Belt regions, not necessarily Belt-related, that incurred losses]—is about 25 percent,” a risk that he called “average” for overseas investments. He further cited that “for the past 10 years, annual loans from the China Development Bank are in the trillions of dollars, of which only 1 percent went bad.” Since the CDB is one of OBOR’s key financing sources, he is optimistic about OBOR’s future profitability.

Key regions involved in the project, like Central Asia, Central Europe, and Eastern Europe, will also benefit from Chinafinanced infrastructure, which is evident in the regions’ enthusiasm in welcoming Beijing’s cash. Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Massimov has pushed for greater ties with Beijing—a sentiment echoed by Kazakh communities of Chinese descent.

Le Corre noteed that Central and Eastern European countries also work closely with Chinese leadership in the “16+1 Initiative,” a coalition that coordinates OBOR-oriented development.

Infrastructure—roads, railroads, airports, electric grids, and

Internet connections—would spark economic growth but cannot be built without massive investment, the money for which most countries in the region lack. Through OBOR, China can supply the capital for these investments.

Of course, some observors, like James Evans of Harvard’s Fairbank Center of Chinese Studies, are rightly concerned that these grand, state-sponsored projects will only benefit socioeconomic elites. Saich acknowledged such skepticisms but affirmed the basic economic logic that “a better network of railroads and infrastructure” that connects to markets in China and Europe will boost the economies of all countries involved.

The same goes for Western Europe. Evans believes that EU states, plagued by persistent slow growth, are eager for Chinese investment since their own governments are too cash-strapped.

The “One Belt” collaboration could feature significant political benefits as well. Central Asia and the Middle East, both key players in China’s vision, have long been plagued with extremism. As China marches west, it will inevitably hold a greater stake in security and counter-terrorism. Not only could new economic opportunities help stabilize growing Islamic extremism along China’s own western border, but its heightened interest in security could also lead to Sino-U.S. collaboration that may contain jihadist violence in Pakistan and the Middle East.

Though ambitious, OBOR would not radically alter global politics, much less the world order. Instead, the project promises to stabilize precarious economic and political climates throughout the Eurasian continent while allowing China to expand its geopolitical clout—a win-win. However, none of this is to say that implementation of “One Belt, One Road” will be a walk in the park.

ROADBLOCKS AND PITFALLS The typical Chinese foreign investment model could prove problematic if expanded to the Belt region. Past Chinese programs, particularly those in Africa, have featured massive inflows of Chinese labor and goods that locals came to resent.

Though Wang disputes this claim, citing instead that “about 80 percent of jobs created went to local workers in past Chinese investments” from Nigeria to Ethiopia, negative perceptions of Chinese businesses amongst locals abound nonetheless. This poor perception of China could plague OBOR, warned Xie, unless the CCP revises its strategy to the benefit of local labor.

Furthermore, the top-down investment model that China frequently uses could prove inefficient. Many governments along the Belt, much like China’s own, are authoritarian and corrupt, and many OBOR-investments will be products of state-level interaction with these governments. Such top-down approaches, Evans warns, can lead to inefficient and inequitable results.

While improved infrastructure, in principle, should bring economic benefits to all levels of society, other projects reek of kleptocracy: two upscale airports in Djibouti, for example.

But if Beijing manages to implement efficient, locally focused business models toward its grandiose “One Belt, One Road” vision, the benefits could be vast. Without threatening international geopolitics, China may actually resurrect the Silk Road’s faded glory with shiny railroads and freshly paved highways, bringing economic benefits and security to a vast swath of troubled territory.

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NO MORE SAFE HARBOR Priscilla Guo

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accept the terms and privacy policy. The instant that my browser connected to a wifi network in London, I mindlessly proceeded to check this box as I had done countless times before. What could be so different between my consent to a privacy policy in the Harvard Square Starbucks and in London’s Heathrow Airport? A lot in fact. Protection of individual privacy in the United States and Europe are very different. Contrary to popular belief, physical location still matters with respect to the Internet. “The cloud” is often portrayed as an extra-geographical space, but data follows unique laws in distinct parts of the world.

Put simply, the major difference betweewn the European Union and the United States is that privacy takes precedence in European law. This precedence was reaffirmed in October 2015 when the European Court of Justice decided Maximillian Schrems v. Data Protection Commissioner. Schrems, an Austrian privacy activist, filed a complaint that the laws of the United States did not adequately protect the privacy of his data on Facebook against American authorities. The European Court of Justice agreed with Schrems and invalidated the Safe Harbor framework

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that had been established to govern data transfers between the United States and the EU for the previous 15 years. The ruling illuminates the growing discrepancies in individual privacy between the two regions and the resulting challenges in crosscontinental data regulation.

CONTINENTAL DISCREPANCIES The overturned Safe Harbor privacy principles allowed American businesses to move data from the EU to the United States and self-certify that the data would be protected according to European privacy principles. But in light of the admissions of Edward Snowden against the National Security Agency, this self-certification process came under scrutiny, and many began to fear that data transferred to U.S. businesses was insufficiently protected against national surveillance. Now, American officials will have to craft updated privacy laws that adequately protect EU citizens against privacy violations.

The invalidation of Safe Harbor arose from a mounting concern in the EU regarding unbridled American surveillance. Due to events of the previous decade—from 9/11 to Charlie Hebdo—today’s legislators face the challenge of balancing individual privacy with national security.

The Patriot Act of 2001 gave U.S. surveillance

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agencies access to virtually uninhibited data about Americans. And although the Freedom Act of 2015 prevented these surveillance agencies from gaining access to the data without permission from a federal court, many activists in the United States and Europe remain unsatisfied.

The historical precedent for the deep-rooted respect of citizen privacy in the EU can be traced back to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development guidelines on the protection of privacy and trans-border flows of personal data in 1980. The principles, which were updated in 2013, include collection limitation, purpose specification, use limitation, security safeguards, and accountability. These guidelines still form the foundation by which all OECD participating nations evaluate any piece of data and its privacy. In 1995, the EU instituted the Data Protection Directive, which sought to safeguard these principles via the empowerment of data protection commissioners— public servants tasked with monitoring compliance with data protection legislation. Schrems was able to bring his suit against Facebook through such a commissioner. Though the original intent of the OECD principles was to protect accidental disclosure or loss of data, their interpretation has now expanded to include protection against the purposeful disclosure of personal information.

But what is the nature of privacy in the United States? In the EU, privacy is recognized as a fundamental right. In the United States, it is treated as secondary in importance. The most current legislation in the United States that safeguards privacy is from 1974 and thus understandably outdated. The Privacy Act “[established] a code of fair information practices that governs the collection, maintenance, use, and dissemination of information about individuals that is maintained in systems of records by federal agencies.” But the protections that the act provided proved to be clearly insufficient after the Snowden leaks. There are several key exceptions to the data collection provisions, including dissemination of information for “law enforcement purposes.” Additionally, according to the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a routine exception “[allows] government agencies to disclose individually identifiable information simply by stating their plans to disclose that type of information.”

The right to privacy in the United States is abstracted as a right from the Fourth and 14th Amendments. There is nothing in the Constitution that explicitly grants the right to privacy, especially not in the digital world. However, many Americans do care about their privacy. According to a Pew research study published in March 2015, 93 percent of American adults said that being in control of who can get information about them is important. It is increasingly clear that the United States needs to update the American model of privacy safeguards to reflect public opinion.

In an interview with HPR, President Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Center added that “The European model is the U.S. model. The problem is that we have not updated U.S. privacy law in many years. That is why there is an

increasing divide between legal safeguards.” In other words, citizens from both regions desire similar safeguards for their privacy. European law has reflected that desire while American law has not. Bridging the gap is thus the necessary next step.

BRIDGING THE GAP It is becoming increasingly important to have shared data policies across regions. Not only would this lessen confusion between states, but it would also increase the effectiveness of digital policy. For instance, one new policy on electronic data that was recognized by EU authorities in 2006 is the right to be forgotten, which requires companies like Google to remove links to posts about EU citizens if they deem them to be “inadequate” or “irrelevant.” But no such protection exists across the Atlantic, and guaranteeing the right to be forgotten in the EU becomes a moot point if the same data can show up in the United States. As Brad Smith, the President and Chief Legal Officer of Microsoft put it in his most recent press release, it is time that “new laws adapted to a new technological world.” With data untied to any physical location, the laws governing said data must be similarly expansive.

The invalidation of Safe Harbor in the Schrems case was a response to the ineffectiveness of American authorities in safeguarding citizen privacy with outdated privacy laws. In an interview with the HPR, Center for Digital Democracy Executive Director Jeff Chester commented: “the decision underscored how important privacy is as a right. The end of Safe Harbor was a long time coming. It was supposed to be a temporary program but the self-certification process never had any effective enforcement.”

U.S. NGOs and the EU have made clear recommendations for an enhanced Safe Harbor agreement. Among the suggestions is the termination of self-certification so that authorities are able to ensure that companies adhere to privacy guidelines. More general policies towards stronger encryption and the end of mass surveillance are discussed. Finally, in order to evaluate the progress towards goals of citizen privacy, the NGOs recommend an annual summit with full participation from both the EU and United States. However, according to Rotenberg, a commitment will have to come from Capitol Hill. “We are looking for changes in U.S. law. That can’t be accomplished in a negotiation with the Department of Commerce or the Federal Trade Commission. It needs to be accomplished in the U.S. legislative process.”

At the moment, the EU Commissioner for Justice Vera Jourova and U.S. legislators are deciding what Safe Harbor 2.0 will look like. Their decisions will play an important role in how data is treated. As Director Chester put it, “Privacy is a right. The new Safe Harbor should create clearly established limits on what companies can do in terms of data profiling and data trafficking.

In Europe the individual is in control, and in the [United States] companies are in control.”

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RAISING THE GREEN LANTERN CHINESE-INDIAN COOPERATION ON A GREEN ASIA Alice Han

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s two of the three largest emitters of greenhouse gases, China and India’s rapid economic acceleration will indelibly impact the global environmental commons. Of the two countries, India’s dilemma in negotiating the tradeoff between economic growth and environmental sustainability seems to be the more precarious. China, confronted with a similar issue, could offer critical solutions. More robust Sino-Indian cooperation on green technology may be the key to tackling the global warming challenge as well as strengthening bilateral ties between the two Asian nations.

China’s and India’s phenomenal economic growth stories have largely been at the expense of environmental sustainability.

China’s export-led growth model since the Deng-era economic reforms has created an insatiable appetite for fossil fuels. In 2013, more than 70 percent of China’s energy was powered by coal, and the country consumed the commodity at a higher rate than every other country in the world combined. Today, lifethreatening levels of air pollution in Chinese cities are a direct corollary of this coal-powered growth model.

In New Delhi, with toxic levels of air pollution said to surpass even Beijing levels in the winter months, residents now don surgical face masks too. For Adam Joseph, an American Fulbright Scholar studying entrepreneurship in India, the air pollution in New Delhi is astounding. “Within 24 hours, my throat was in pain, and my snot turned black.” Speaking to the HPR, Joseph insisted that Indians are “looking for something—anything—that they can do to lower pollution.” The most recent iteration of these efforts was the Odd-Even program to reduce cars on the road.

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DIFFERENCES IN APPROACH In the last few years, Beijing’s response to climate change has been highly robust and forward-planning, a stark change from the pre-2008 Chinese government that cared little for international discussions on climate change. In 2015, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang declared that the government would “fight [climate change] with all our might.” Beijing’s recent five-year plan emphasized targets to boost energy efficiency and decrease pollution. Internationally, the Chinese are increasingly active in leading climate change negotiations, one of which led to the recent Paris deal.

India has yet to raise the green lantern and fight climate change to a commensurate degree, despite being more vulnerable to its effects. Home to 13 of the 25 most polluted cities in the world, India is projected to be the biggest single contributor to new greenhouse-gas emissions over the next 15 years. Yet India was one of the few major countries that refused to set a peak and fall target for carbon emissions. As was the case with post-Mao China, India’s economic growth agenda is now Prime Minister Modi’s number one priority.

However, India’s increased exposure to the effects of global warming renders any decision to neglect climate change mitigation extremely costly for the prime minister. This is partly because India has a highly agricultural economy with large strips of low-lying coastal settlement and heavy dependency on monsoonal weather patterns. A 2012 report published by the United Kingdom’s Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests revealed

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that residents of agriculture-dependent areas such as Orissa and Madhya Pradesh face increased climactic variability, which could lead to more frequent flooding and droughts as well as resulting economic shocks.

Modi’s dilemma, therefore, is a significant one. At its core lies a tradeoff between economic growth and environmental sustainability. Yet in an interview with the HPR, former Indian Minister for Rural Development and later Minister for Environment and Forests, Jairam Ramesh, revealed that China could be the answer. According to Ramesh, there is a complementarity of interests between China and India that extends to combatting climate change: “​the two countries cooperated to get the basic quartet going along with Brazil and South Africa … they shared their experiences in implementing climate change action plans.

They are collaborating [now] in biodiversity conservation.”

China could therefore be the secret to a greener India.

THE TIGER AND THE HAMMER In the field of renewable technology, China is far ahead of India due to considerable government and private-sector investment. According to a recent Bloomberg New Energy Finance survey, China’s investment in renewable energy and energy-efficient production increased by 32 percent to reach $89.5 billion in 2015, while India’s investment rose only 23 percent to $10.9 billion. China comprises 29 percent of total global investment in “clean” energy. In solar panel systems, China has become an undeniable global market leader, producing 60 percent of the world’s cells in 2014 while drastically cutting production costs.

As leading global suppliers and investors in renewables, Chinese firms are heavily involved in financing and constructing Indian solar and coal power generation. These firms are unleashing a flood of cheap Chinese solar panels into the Indian market and are also a massive source of investment in India’s burgeoning renewable energy market. After Modi’s visit to China in 2014, Beijing and New Delhi announced the construction of two major solar panel industrial parks in India by China’s Tebian Electric Apparatus. In October 2015 China’s Sany Group announced that it would provide $3 billion to India’s renewable energy sector, installing 2,000 megawatts of renewable energy capacity, creating 1,000 jobs, and offsetting 3.6 million metric tons of carbon emissions annually.

Beyond supply and investment, Chinese companies are opportunely positioned to engage in knowledge sharing and R&D collaboration with Indian firms. Traditionally, Chinese and Indian firms have achieved “catch-up” in production capacity by “leap-frogging” technology from foreign firms. A study by Joanna Lewis, associate professor at Georgetown University, reveals that Chinese and Indian firms specializing in electric vehicles and wind power have caught up to modern technology through joint ventures with smaller European companies.

Following this model, such companies were able to leverage collaborative R&D infrastructure to build future in-house R&D and innovation. There is great potential for a similar model to be adopted between more knowledgeable Chinese firms and nascent Indian ones, in a way that reduces transaction costs and risk for both sides.

Furthermore, collaboration on climate change could have positive spillover effects on issues such as border disputes and

trade. For instance, cooperative programs could be designed to mitigate the retreat of the Himalayan glacier, a source for all major rivers in the region, so as to preemptively reduce the risk of water insecurities sparking conflict. On a grander scale, Sino-Indian cooperation could have broader implications for the design of a sustainable Asia development model and affect the global price competitiveness of green technology.

SLOW PROGRESS

But while both governments have signaled that greater collaboration is the way forward, there has been little to no movement beyond rhetoric. After leaving his office as Minister of Environment and Forests in 2011, Ramesh declared that the momentum of the Memorandum of Understanding on Green Technologies, signed in 2010, “was not sustained.” In an interview with the HPR, former Indian Foreign Secretary and Special Envoy and Chief Negotiator on Climate Change, Shyam Saran, revealed that “the [memoranda of understanding] concluded with China have mostly remained on paper. I have not seen any reference to practical projects either in clean energy or renewable energy so far.”

As of today, Chinese and Indian firms do not engage in any substantial joint R&D projects on renewable technologies. Much of this has to do with a fundamental trust deficit between China and India. As Saran notes, friction arises from the private sector: while “in some cases, Indian and Chinese companies have entered into joint venture arrangements, for example, in Venezuela, Sudan, and Syria, the experience of these joint ventures has been mixed … Indian and Chinese firms have been competing with each other in resource acquisition over the past several years, mainly in the oil and gas sectors.” According to him, “Only sustained high-level political dialogue can help manage the trust deficit.” Indeed, roadblocks remain ahead with deep-seated historical mistrust, border disputes, and protectionist interests constituting significant barriers to collaboration. Indeed, recent Chinese plans to construct hydropower dams on the Tsangpo River has fueled renewed anxieties of a “water war.”

Both governments, therefore, have a substantial role to play in overcoming this mistrust and facilitating collaboration.

Climate change mitigation and adaption—a less contentious issue than dam construction—offers an excellent opportunity for cooperation. Firms and national research institutes from both China and India can share knowledge in areas ranging from the diffusion of clean coal technology to water basin planning.

Collaborative research centers such as Norway’s Centre for Environment-friendly Energy Research and bilateral multistakeholder programs like the UK-India Education and Research Initiative offer successful models. Other concrete joint R&D prototypes, identified by Arabinda Mishra and Neha Pahuja in “China-India Relations: Cooperation and Conflict,” include Indian assistance in the development of China’s biomass energy technology program, Chinese help with India’s decentralized solar technology systems, and cooperation on nuclear waste management and more secure thorium-based nuclear reactor technology.

Raising the green lantern requires superhuman effort on the part of policymakers, but it is not out of reach for the two Asian powers.

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BE OUR GUEST Politicians on Late-Night in the Digital Era Daniel Kenny

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uring his 16-year run as host of The Daily Show, notoriously liberal host Jon Stewart welcomed many conservative politicians as guests. In fact, Arizona Senator John McCain appeared as a guest on the program more than any other politician—13 times. The show’s new host, comedian Trevor Noah, continued the tradition by hosting GOP presidential candidate and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie during his first week behind the desk.

Stewart and Noah are not the only members of the so-called “liberal media” who cozy up to the same politicians whom they satirize. Stephen Colbert has sat down with former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and current Texas Senator Ted Cruz, and Larry Wilmore has hosted Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. Even Saturday Night Live, which often skewers politicians in its sketches and “Weekend Update” segment, brought on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to host the program this past November.

All of these examples raise the question: can programs like late-night talk shows and Saturday Night Live successfully satirize the same politicians whom they welcome as guests, and do they have a responsibility to do so? The question has become even more complicated in the digital era. Viral videos’ growing importance has marked a shift in the late-night genre away from long-form political conversation and toward short and punchy videos featuring guests playing games or performing out-of-theordinary tasks. This shift has coincided with a shakeup of latenight hosts, and the combination has given late-night television a new role in the 2016 presidential election cycle.

Saturday Night Live and its peers are entertainment programs

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at heart, but when they host politicians, they invite criticism of their satirical capabilities. They are expected to entertain, inform, satirize, and parody as they did during the 2012 election, but they must also adapt to what garners high ratings and impressive YouTube view counts. In this environment, late-night comedians must strike a delicate balance in order to thrive and accomplish what comedians do best in politics: expose the truth.

SATIRICAL VIABILITY After Donald Trump hosted Saturday Night Live, television critics across the web and in print decried his appearance as unfunny and in poor taste. Dennis Perkins of The A.V. Club wrote that Trump’s viability as a candidate is based on hateful pandering, which “makes the fact that [Saturday Night Live] has invited him back to host in the middle of an election season a referendum on Saturday Night Live’s viability as a satirical enterprise.”

Trump represents the “power” in the phrase “speak truth to power” perhaps more than any other presidential candidate in this election. Allowing such a man not only to host but to select mostly apolitical jokes for the episode puts into question whether Saturday Night Live can handle the balancing act of welcoming and critiquing a politician.

Indeed, late-night appearances seem to do politicians more good than harm. University of Delaware communications professor Danna Young said in an interview with the HPR that research shows that politicians benefit from appearing on latenight talk shows by reaching audience members who might not otherwise be interested in politics and by answering soft-

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ball questions. Donald Trump, widely denounced as a far-right demagogue, has been making the rounds; he has appeared on Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, and Jimmy Kimmel, and most notably Saturday Night Live, without receiving much political criticism from his hosts. Colbert and Kimmel attempted to satirize Trump in muted fashion: Colbert played “Donald Trump or Stephen Colbert,” comparing the billionaire to Colbert’s former over-thetop conservative talk-show-host alter ego, and Kimmel presented Trump with a satirical children’s book entitled Winners Aren’t Losers in the style of Dr. Seuss. Both were attempts to quietly demean Trump, but both hosts still allowed him a national platform without directly condemning his most absurd political stances. Fallon and Saturday Night Live were even more toothless in their attempts and focused mainly on Trump’s egomaniacal personality.

VIRAL VIDEOS AND POLITICIANS The viral video era of late-night television might be welcoming this low level of political discourse, and Trump’s appearances represent the worst of what today’s version of the genre can be. Since the recent late-night shuffle—most notably Stewart’s departure and Colbert’s move to CBS—and in light of the looming election, late-night talk shows have exploded with political content that stretches along a wide spectrum of edginess. On network television, Jimmy Fallon and James Corden offer a mostly inoffensive brand of comedy, whereas Jimmy Kimmel and Seth Meyers are a bit rougher around the edges.

Comedy Central’s Noah and Wilmore and HBO’s Bill Maher and John Oliver are the most outwardly political, followed closely by now-network Late Show host Colbert. Former Daily Show correspondent Samantha Bee recently debuted her talk show Full Frontal, which offers mostly political commentary in the Daily Show vein. In order to stand out in this saturated market, late-night programs—Saturday Night Live included—have taken to the web, where they post clips from previously aired episodes and web-exclusive content in hopes of supplementing their live viewership with clicks.

Ratings have always mattered in late-night television. But today’s late-night programs have a distinctly numerical goal: to garner more viewers by producing viral video-friendly content.

The newly viral video-driven genre must now appeal to online audiences with short and shareable videos. Previously, the fusion of late-night comedy and political commentary had been a tale of two eras—before and after the attacks of September 11, 2001. Before 9/11, the mainstream late-night hosts were Johnny Carson and Jay Leno on The Tonight Show, David Letterman on The Late Show, and Conan O’Brien on Late Night—and according to Mount Holyoke sociology professor Nickie Michaud Wild, they shied away from political comedy as we now know it now.

The new genre of political late-night comedy was a result of the effect that 9/11 had on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show. Stewart crafted The Daily Show’s brand by providing a counter-narrative to the Bush administration’s War on Terror, Michaud Wild explained to the HPR, and thereby raising expectations for mainstream network shows to engage with serious subject matter. In the digital era of late-night TV, however, hosts’ attempts to create viral media govern tone and content when politicians—most recently 2016 candidates—appear as guests. Saturday Night Live’s “Hotline Bling” music video parody featuring Trump best illustrates

the program’s prioritization of online viewership over political discourse. It was short, it derived from a popular Internet meme, it featured Trump, and—most importantly—it garnered nearly six million views on YouTube.

SATIRICAL TELEVISION TRANSFORMED Can late-night talk show hosts properly balance the need to satirize politicians with the need to have them on as guests?

“I tend to think the answer is no,” said Young, who believes that engaging in the “critical, aggressive, judgmental satire that scholars have written about for decades probably requires a level of distance that few contemporary late-night hosts have today.”

The good news is that there is at least one show that routinely establishes that level of distance: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Young recalled an interview John Oliver gave on NPR’s Fresh Air, in which he acknowledged a comedian’s responsibility to be an outsider. “There should be a kind of awkward tension whenever a journalist walks into a room that politicians are in, because you should’ve done things that annoyed them in the past,” he said. “It’s the same as a comedian. You’re no one’s friend.” Oliver rarely conducts on-air interviews, and he has never invited a politician or political candidate on his program as a guest. Oliver maintains critical distance and delivers substantive satire while simultaneously creating viral videos that garner millions of views on his show’s YouTube channel.

Politicians and late-night talk show hosts can have substantive discussions about policy issues. But more often, politicians’ guest appearances feed what University of Wisconsin media and cultural studies professor and Satire TV author Jonathan Gray calls “a plethora of bullshit.” Consider two different talk show appearances by Florida Senator Marco Rubio. When Rubio appeared on The Daily Show in January 2015, he and then-host Jon Stewart discussed Rubio’s philosophy of economic inequality and the earned income tax credit. The two matched wits in an amusing but informative interview. Contrast this interview with Rubio’s appearance on The Tonight Show in January 2016, during which he and host Jimmy Fallon discussed the Senator’s controversial heeled boots and how Rubio proposed to his wife atop the Empire State Building. Watching the two clips side-byside reveals a clear difference in Rubio’s comfort level and the host’s authority. Rubio and Fallon laugh it up in a backslapping atmosphere, whereas Rubio uncomfortably chuckles at Stewart’s quips as Stewart rallies the audience behind his criticism of Rubio’s policy proposals. As Gray notes in Satire TV, Stewart’s use of the audience places the guest in an outsider position and creates the distance required to satirize, rather than mock, the guest. Both Oliver’s lack of guests and Stewart’s audience manipulation are examples of how late-night hosts can remain satirical in the viral video era.

On late-night talk shows politicians search for softball questions to enhance their public image but run the supposed risk of becoming the object of the host’s satirical takedown. However, not every host can or even wants to render a political candidate a fool in front of millions of television viewers and even more online ones. Digital media has largely pulled the teeth from latenight political commentary. And while a handful of ambitious satirists and critics remain, it seems that entertainers and politicians have turned from foes to friends.

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THIS ISN’T EVEN MY FINAL FORM --------------------evolution in the medium of animation

Michael Kennedy-Yoon

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nd they lived happily ever after”—a classic footnote to a classic Disney-style animated fairytale.

The idea of animation as a happy children’s medium along these lines is so persistent that it has seldom been adjusted over the past five decades. Indeed, in this socalled “golden age” of television we have seen very little recent progress beyond a simplistic conception of animation. The genre remains overrun with children’s shows and formulaic slapstick comedies that have changed only slightly in form and function since the 1980s.

There is, however, a rising experimentalist trend in the medium that has revealed untapped potential. Recent work has demonstrated that animation can be more than fairytales and satire—that it can be a mature medium that deals honestly with the crests and troughs of the human experience.

HOMER’S ODYSSEY To understand animation’s resistance to change, it is important to examine its roots. In an interview with the HPR, Harvard senior lecturer on animation Ruth Lingford explained that animation was not always so predominately a children’s medium.

She affectionately described the Fleischer cartoons, including Betty Boop and Popeye, as “surreal” and “quite drug-addled.”

However, these cartoons fell out of favor when “Disney became more popular and brought with it a sort of wholesomeness.”

But Lingford believes that animation fulfills its highest potential when it returns to its subversive roots: “Animation has these fantastic opportunities for transgression ... You can do things in animation that you’d be put in jail for in live action— and rightly so.” But thanks in large part to companies like Disney,

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its diverse potential has been curbed in the United States by its relegation to Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon (with several notable exceptions).

The first obvious deviation from the family-friendly genre established by Disney was The Simpsons, which previewed in 1989.

Greg Daniels, a former writer and producer for the show, told the HPR that the four-fingered family of five caught viewers’ attentions for “being the first sophisticated animated show in twenty years since The Flintstones and the first animated show in a more modern era with a modern sensibility.” While Daniels acknowledged that The Simpsons had “excellence of execution and first mover advantage,” he was less eager to highlight the brilliance of introducing a program with an adult tone into what had previously been a children’s market. The Simpsons, whose first season was and is still revered by audiences, had a Disneyesque effect on animation: it set the tone for the medium going forward.

Daniels kept in mind the enormous impact of The Simpsons when he co-created King of the Hill: “I intentionally tried to zig when the other show [The Simpsons] was zagging and never use the same cast or style,” he recalled. Daniels’ approach is in the minority, however. The general trend in animation has been to keep zagging along. Shows like Family Guy, American Dad, The Cleveland Show, and even to some extent Beavis and Butthead and South Park all adopted The Simpsons’ formula: a satirical take on the middle-class American experience. Relying heavily on slapstick comedy and absurd characters with irrational motivations, these shows largely repeated and generally failed to improve upon The Simpsons’ model.

These shows are reflective of the status quo of adult animation: They’re humorous, engaging, and occasionally thoughtful, in much the same way that The Simpsons was and continues to

CULTURE

be. But none of them have revolutionized the medium of animation the way that The Simpsons did. Since The Simpsons transcended the realm of children’s entertainment in 1989, animation seems to have found its niche and been largely content to stay tucked inside of it.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR TRANSGRESSION But status quos don’t last forever. Today, two new shows are defying the typical model of adult animation: Community creator Dan Harmon’s wacked-out sci-fi Rick and Morty and the deeply contemplative Netflix original Bojack Horseman. Both shows are in their second seasons, coming off of successful and critically acclaimed debuts. Both also represent a departure from the pitch and timbre of Family Guy and the like.

Rick and Morty features a grandfather and grandson duo reminiscent of Back to the Future (in fact, it is derived from a short co-creator Justin Roiland wrote parodying Back to the Future) and is a self-described “high-concept sci-fi rigmarole.” The refreshingly serious show differs at a storytelling level from the light-hearted joking of The Simpsons, which at its heaviest only parodies works of a more serious nature. It also diverges from the angry, over-the-top, societal critiques found in South Park by forcing the watcher to confront difficult realities in subtle ways. Take Morty’s parents’ failing marriage: nothing is resolved in easy 23-minute chunks. Just like real people, Beth and Jerry have good days and bad days; while they try hard to support each other, sometimes they succeed and other times they fail.

The show builds realistic personalities to which the audience can relate, but their setting and form teeter on the reductively absurdist. Take, for example, Mr. Poopy Butthole—an ear of corn wearing a top hat who has deep feelings with which the audience can identify and empathize. In contrast to shows like Family Guy and The Simpsons, which derive humor from ridiculous protagonists’ handling of mundane situations, Rick and Morty places characters that feel emotionally real in situations that are absurd.

This ironic counter-play between character realism and setting absurdity is mirrored in the Netflix original Bojack Horseman, starring Will Arnett. “I wanted to tell a [story] that I felt was honest,” creator Raphael Bob-Waksburg told The Verge, “and I think a lot of shows that I see are not honest about sadness.” The titular character, Bojack, a washed-up actor from a popular sitcom—who also happens to be a horse—struggles with rejection, alcoholism, and an all-consuming need to be loved.

There is a particularly poignant scene in which Bojack says to his girlfriend, “You didn’t know me. Then you fell in love with me. Now you know me.” It is a scene that cuts to the core of Bojack’s struggle: not feeling—and oftentimes not being—good enough for anyone but needing beyond anything else to be loved.

It is also a scene in which a horse is talking to an owl who just woke up from a thirty-year coma. It is a scene that should be plainly ridiculous but is instead sad and, more importantly, honest.

Bojack Horseman offers an intimate, personal exploration of the human condition. When asked about making a show that dealt heavily with issues of depression, Bob-Waksburg said, “I think the best way to do that was a wacky cartoon starring a talking horse.” This is one of the strengths of animation as a medium: Not only is it feasible to feature a talking horse, but the semi-absurdist nature of animation itself also allows viewers to accept a talking horse without a second thought. A talking horse—a talking anything, really—is an animated form with which most viewers are familiar thanks to the experience of Disney animation. And centering a plot around an animal character allows for a Kafkaesque reading of the nature of (horse)man: Bojack’s unique appearance gives viewers some much-needed distance to observe human nature from an impersonal, objective perspective. This distance allows for a kind of paradoxical intimacy with the character: without a preconceived notion of how Bojack should act, we are better able to see his strengths, weaknesses, and emotional states for what they are in the show rather than what we might expect them to be in a real-life human being. Cartoonist Lisa Hanawalt’s two-legged horseman design is the perfect vehicle for Waksburg’s animated, equestrian anti-hero.

And while Bojack and Rick and Morty are abrasive and crude at times, the difference they represent from the norm of animation is that their offensiveness is never the point of the scene.

The audience is always in on some larger joke that the characters never quite seem to get, for they are instead caught up in their own personal failings. Whether or not they succeed in their endeavors, there’s a certain Sisyphussian pleasure that we take in watching them struggle. The actions are not funny in a vacuum—they are funny in context of each individual and his or her particular story. These two shows have begun to produce a strange hybrid of comedic and serious animation, in which the primary goal is not to solely be funny but rather to tell a story and to explore heavier themes of morality and humanity, even when the characters themselves are not literally human.

For so long, repetition has been the industry standard in animation, which is why shows like Rick and Morty and Bojack Horseman breathe much-needed life into the medium. They do the work that we need from television but seldom see. They serve as portraits of events and people in a crazy, scary world that in some way allow us to more fully experience our own.

We’ve still got to do all the work—we’ve got to deal with our own sadness and experience our own realities—but there’s a comfort in knowing that someone else is worried about the same things we are, even if that someone is a talking, alcoholic horse.

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INTERVIEWS

INTERVIEW: CONAN O’BRIEN with Daniel Kenny

Conan O’Brien ’85 is a comedian and the late-night host of Conan on TBS. He has previously written for Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons, hosted Late Night and The Tonight Show, and is a three-time host of the Emmy® Awards.

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INTERVIEWS

I remember when Letterman was retiring, I read what you wrote in Entertainment Weekly— “Everything Was Wrong”. And so I was wondering if you consciously try to do a similar thing with your show, throughout your career?

And you’ve always been doing those remote bits.

I wish I could say I consciously—I don’t consciously do that much. All I consciously do is try to make myself laugh and do that every day. And what I’ve found that’s refreshing is that if something really makes me laugh, it tends to make younger people laugh too. If it really makes me laugh, like hits me in the stomach. So, Kevin Hart and Ice Cube looking for weed with that young student driver—I could tell as we were doing it this is really funny and out of control, but there’s a really great spirit to it. Like, it just keeps escalating, you know? So as long as I’m doing that I feel like I’m on the right course. I wouldn’t say I start every day by like, “Let’s just try and be different.” I just try and think of what would make me laugh. And sometimes that’s different from—there are things that really make me laugh that won’t go viral. But that’s okay; I’d rather do the thing that makes me laugh. Sometimes the thing that makes me laugh will go viral, sometimes it won’t. But I want to start with what makes me laugh.

Ninety-five. You were born in ’95, so two years before you were born—

And do you feel a pressure to do things—is there a different pressure these days, starting in 1993 to now, to do something that goes viral?

Yeah, I think it’s becoming—it’s the yin and the yang. There’s the good, and the not so good. The good part of it is, it used to be that if you weren’t up late you didn’t see the really funny thing that happened. Now, because things go viral, more people can see it. The downside is sometimes that’s all people see. So they only see the elements that go viral, but they don’t see the rest of the show, which also has a lot of work put into it. I don’t feel that pressure so much. I won’t lie to you: I love it when we do something and it goes viral and people like it, or it gets picked up a lot like my Cam Newton press conference bit I did the other night.

That just felt funny to me, and I did it. And then the next day it’s everywhere, and people in the street are saying, “Hey Conan that was really funny.” I like it if it does go viral, but the first prerequisite is that I want it to be funny. There are ways I could go viral that wouldn’t be that funny, which is just doing something physical with a celebrity, and it will go viral. But that won’t always necessarily be something that makes me laugh. So I’m trying to have my cake and eat it too. You see what I’m saying?

Yeah, I see what you’re saying.

Yeah, the nice thing is I started doing remotes in ’93, and— what year were you born?

Ninety-Five

[Jokingly] I’m so sorry.

No, no, no—I like that. I actually think it’s kind of cool, because a lot of people that work for me are younger than you guys. I have college students that are nineteen that work for us, or eighteen. And this fascinates me, that when I walk around I get fifteen year old boys and sixteen year old girls that are like, “Oh my God, the ‘Clueless Gamer’ you did about…” you know, and I can’t believe they’re still a fan of mine. The Internet is, in some ways, taking away some of the judgment, or “Oh that guy—he’s the guy my older brother likes, and I can’t like him.” If you can come up with something funny, it can break across all lines. I have all these gamers in Sweden, or like I said these fans in South Korea, and my particular silly, weird brand of comedy appeals to them. So, that’s great. I love that.

I was wondering, since you went to Harvard during the Reagan Revolution era, were you politically active too?

I was less politically active. I remember Casper Weinberger, the Defense Secretary, was going to go speak at, I think, Sanders Theater. And I think my roommate at the time said, “Come on, we’re all going to wear black cloaks, stand, turn, and point at him like we’re Death and he’s”—and I was like, What? I remember just that it wasn’t me. I was not a firebrand politically. My humor has never been overtly political.

That’s why I ask.

Yeah, not that I have anything against that, because I don’t. I always liked comedy that had a little bit more—I liked silliness, I liked it to be a little agnostic. The comedy I’m proudest of is not Republican or Democrat, or liberal; it is looking at people.

It is looking at the absurdity of people. I find people are silly, and then they happen to be both Democrat and Republican. So that’s always been my take on it. But I was not someone who was throwing paint at [then-Secretary of State] George Shultz when his car went by. I probably wouldn’t have recognized him if I saw him.

I’m greedy that way. I want it to be funny, and then I want people to see it. I’m not going to lie to you and say that I don’t care if people see it or not, but my first rule is I’m a stickler for wanting it to be something that makes me laugh.

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INTERVIEWS

INTERVIEW: ANNE HAWLEY with Marie Becker

Anne Hawley is the former director of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Previously, she has served as the executive director of the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities.

Hawley is currently a fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard University.

The mayor of Boston has introduced a new artistin-residence program in which local artists are going to be integrated into city departments to foster creativity and innovative approaches to public policy issues. Since you have supported and promoted such initiatives throughout your whole career, what is your opinion on this new program?

I think it’s a very exciting development. Now, Mayor Walsh’s election was boosted by the arts community. An organization called Mass Creative, which is a lobbying organization for the arts in the state of Massachusetts, really turned out people to hear him talk and asked him questions about what he would do to further the arts in Boston. So, he has been very tuned to the need to have leadership in the arts in his administration. I

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think having an artist in a public agency will actually ask a lot of questions and make people think differently about the way they are delivering services. You know, years ago, the man who founded the Polaroid cooperation would bring in major artists like Ansel Adams and have them play with his products to ask questions about them. So, I think that having a creative person that is engaged in using their imagination look at what we are doing can freshen our thinking about how we are going about services. It will be interesting to see what happens—maybe the snow removal will even become artistic!

That would be great! So, relating to this artist-inresidence idea, you have introduced an artist-inresidence program at the Isabella Stewart Gardeners Museum, where artists come to live and work at the museum to draw inspiration from it and inspire others. Would you like to tell us something about that?

Most of my professional life I’ve worked with artists, and this program was an extension of the work I had done before with artists. Our curator really travels the world, looking for people who are very talented, who may not be that well known

INTERVIEWS

yet but could benefit from a month of just thinking, dreaming, and getting support for what they want to do. We have had such an amazing array of artists from Wales who used grass to make their imagery … They would grow the grass on campuses and then through light exposure make their images, and when you stood far away, you thought that it was actually paint. It was so beautifully done. So, from that extreme to people who have worked on compositions, dance, fashion design, a great body of arts has come from this program.

Talking about inspiration from different fields of study and different professions, now you are here, as a resident fellow at the IOP and as an artist who has worked at a museum. In your role at the IOP, you will lead multiple seminars—what do you think you want to inspire people here to do?

I would really like to inspire students who are planning on going into government service, running agencies, or being thinkers who develop public policies, to incorporate the arts much more into civic life. There has been too much of a pullback on the arts being integrated into our life, whether it’s removing them from the public school curricula or keeping people from developing their talents. The arts are so integral to the shaping of everything we do as people. I’m hoping to awaken people to the possibilities of that.

How about political life as part of the arts? Artists are risking becoming targets for censorship or even the destruction of their work. Looking at our world today, can you tell us about a particular case in which you think arts had a huge impact on politics?

Artists trying to reflect truth to political regimes is something that has been, in many countries, very important. But there is also the fact that regimes use artists. For example, Hitler used Leni Riefenstahl to make films that glorified him, which we are still looking at and debating when propaganda is actually art.

Stalin also harnessed artists for his will, and we now look at the whole Soviet Realism genre as propaganda. But I think more often what we think of is artists bringing down regimes. Certainly even in Egypt, the street art that arose during the Arab Spring was quite remarkable, and exhibitions have been done on the street art in Cairo.

So, those are global instances of artists changing world politics. Have you ever personally experienced any instances in which artists were threatened by censorship?

Oh yes. And in fact often, in the roles I have been in, you have to stand up for the freedom of expression in this country. You cannot let it pass. I think that self-censorship is also a problem because institutions and museums don’t want to have big donors remove their funding. Likewise, they don’t want to lose artists due to a fear of their work being censored. We feel that there is kind of tameness in what’s going on, because we are self-censoring ourselves. We’re not as out there as we were in previous times. When the Berlin Wall came down and when the Communist Party in the USSR collapsed, the forces in the West that were fighting “communism” really turned their fight to contemporary artists. There was a period of about a decade where there was just horrendous conflict between the National Endowment for the Arts and Congress, which has had the effect of weakening the National Endowment for the Arts and its funding for 20 years.

We don’t really get off campus as often as we want to. If we happen to wander into the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum, do you have any recommendations?

Yes! First of all, when you go there, if you can let yourself just drift and sit in the courtyard, let yourself experience the beauty of the garden, the ancient sculptures, and the Venetian architecture. It’s a place you’re supposed to feel rather than think. The founder was actually quite a genius because she was trying to sell a way in which people could experience their senses outside of an analytic mode of judgment, quantifying, and categorizing. I mean, when people go to museums and think they have to look at everything, it’s crazy. When you go to a library, you don’t think you have to read every book (laughs). If you’re looking at a painting or a sculpture, you could spend an hour just looking at one thing if you’re really, really looking at it. And so I encourage people to just pick a few things to look at, talk to, and let speak to you.

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ENDPAPER

THAT FOUR-LETTER WORD

Ashley Chen

A

fter taking the last final of every semester, I fall into a routine. Its start marks the end of a marathon of papers and exams that only seems to get harder each year. And each time it culminates in one of the most rewarding realizations.

It’s 12:01 P.M. on the last Saturday of the fall semester. As I finish my last final, the routine begins. I make my way out of the testing room with a pace slowing from that of an amateur speed walker to a casual saunter. I tuck my phone into my pocket and pluck my headphones out of my ears. My eyes are awake and alert. Having removed all of the barely-used books from my backpack, a weight has literally been lifted from my shoulders. I take a deep breath, push open the Science Center doors, and take my first steps of freedom. It’s time for me to take a walk.

I wander through Harvard Yard and take in my surroundings.

On my right, I pass by my freshman dorm; memories of laughing and bonding with people who would ultimately become integral to my college experience come rushing back. On my left, the bright white steeple of Memorial Church towers above me.

It strikes against a cloudless pale blue sky and makes me wish I was a professional photographer, so I could pull out my DSLR camera and capture the simplicity and beauty of the composition. I see several students throwing a Frisbee on the grass in front of Widener Library, while many others sit on its steps chatting with friends, reading, or just stopping for a break.

Finally, I reach the gate separating me from the Yard and the streets of Cambridge and I look up, squinting to read the inscription: “Depart to Serve better Thy Country and Mankind.” And that’s when the realization hits me.

On a typical day at Harvard, the Yard is filled with two sets of people. Tourists make up one group: most of them can be found crowding around the John Harvard statue as they eagerly wait their turns to snap pictures with the Statue of Three Lies. Others can be seen making the trek up the Widener steps to get a closer look at the grandeur of it all. Students make up the other group: they are easy to spot with hands gripped around a coffee cup or book, eyes fixed forward with laser focus on reaching their destination. They rarely stop on their way, pausing briefly only

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to exchange a quick “How are you?” with people they know.

It is in these moments that for Harvard students—myself included—“walks” are no longer leisurely strolls, but mere missions to get from point A to point B with the fewest distractions.

It seems like we are always juggling ten different things at once, running to a class, meeting, or practice. Pretty soon the answer to most invitations becomes “Sorry, I don’t have time,” and the 15-minute trip to the Quad to see someone you haven’t seen in a month becomes too much of an endeavor.

With everything going on, it’s easy to take things for granted.

In that sense, the tourists seem to know something we don’t.

Having every minute of every day planned in a color-coded calendar that would make Corporate America proud may seem like the only thing that is keeping our lives in order. But it is just as important to carve some time out for ourselves: We should take a page from the tourists’ book and learn how to take a moment to take a walk, pause, and appreciate our surroundings. Walks like these can help reflect on our accomplishments—trust me, we have plenty of them—and goals, and remind us of why we chose Harvard in the first place.

Whether you’re debating the merits of such a walk or you’re in the midst of one now, there’s another four-letter word you should keep in mind: Four. It is easy to get swept up in the daily routine of classes, work, and extracurriculars.. But we only get four years at Harvard. In the blink of an eye we will be off serving our country and mankind in various capacities. Many of us will no longer have these incredible opportunities and friends at our fingertips as we are blessed with now.

I will admit that I used to only find myself on these walks after a major exam or a particularly stressful week. So in my final semester, I’m challenging myself to go on one of these walks every so often. It’s important to take a moment to slow down and reflect on my experience amongst the chaos that is so common to the life of a college student. And I hope you will join me, because a walk is a four-letter word that we should always make time for.

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