Thursday, Sept. 21, 2017

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Thursday, Sept. 21, 2017

IDS

A slice of life Weekend breaks down age 7 dietary lifestyles, page

Indiana Daily Student | idsnews.com

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o it goes TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE

Kurt Vonnegut was born Nov. 11, 1922 in Indianapolis. The tenth anniversary of his death is this year.

Kurt Vonnegut’s imaginary university comes to life online with help of Lilly Library collection By Peter Talbot pjtalbot@iu.edu | @petejtalbot

Kurt Vonnegut, witty 20th-century science fiction writer and nativeborn Hoosier, once wrote of a place of learning that existed beyond the boundaries of classrooms, lectures, professors and buildings. “A kind of university — only nobody goes to it,” Vonnegut wrote in "The Sirens of Titan." “There aren't any buildings, isn't any faculty. Everybody's in it and nobody's in it. It's like a cloud that everybody has given a little puff of mist to, and then the cloud does all the heavy thinking for everybody.” Since the spring of 2017, Ed Comentale, director of IUB Arts and Humanities Council, has been working on a project similar to Vonnegut’s fictional university. Professors from nine different disciplines have contributed their thoughts on Vonnegut’s work to the Salo University blog, a website exploring the impor-

tance of his writing. Comentale said that the website is a part of a larger project to celebrate Kurt Vonnegut. “Vonnegut is a very educated man, mostly a self-educated man,” Comentale said. “He had interests in anthropology, interests in science, interests in the history of literature and philosophy, and it was really important for me to get all of those perspectives, get all of those disciplines commenting on the way that he thinks and writes and the stuff he has to say about contemporary society.” Professors who are a part of the project have read through Vonnegut’s novels month by month, starting with "Player Piano" last May and ending with "Slaughterhouse Five" this October. Comentale said that he hopes to continue the readings and blog posts next year, ending with "Timequake." The website also includes objects from the Kurt Vonnegut archive at the Lilly Library. The library’s collection includes many of Vonnegut’s manuscripts, rejection letters and fan mail, as well as his high school report card, doodles and blueprints for a board game he designed. Vonnegut named the game General Headquarters. Comentale said Vonnegut claimed in a letter to the board game company Milton Bradley that Gen-

eral Headquarters would be the third-best game after checkers and chess. He said that while much of Vonnegut’s work was written in the '50s, '60s, '70s and '80s, his books provide a fabulous commentary on the state of American society and culture. “He probably is the greatest author of the Trump era, even though he died before it happened,” Comentale said. “He certainly had a lot to say about today's America in terms of class, in terms of race, of the ways in which different political factions arise and the way they define themselves.” To achieve a better understanding of how Vonnegut’s work is still relevant today, three professors shared how reading Vonnegut’s work provided insight to themselves and to their field of study. History Eric Sandweiss, Carmony professor and chair of the Department of History and adjunct professor of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, said that he didn’t know much about Vonnegut’s work before the project. “I'm always interested in Indiana and Hoosiers and how they conceive of themselves,” Sandweiss said. “Vonnegut was very self-consciously a Hoosier-writer. He thought a lot about Indiana, so I wanted to see more about the development about that strain of work." Sandweiss said that while Vonnegut is not one of his favorite authors and he disagrees with some of what Vonnegut has to say, the project gave him an appreciation of Vonnegut’s craft. “I think that Vonnegut was trying to break down what he saw as kind of the rigidity or linearity of modern science and social science included,” Sandweiss said. "So, I think that he felt that a more imaginative mind could make connections between places and times and eras and individuals that historians were too stodgy for, stuck in their ways, too afraid to do themselves.” Sandweiss placed Vonnegut’s

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work in the context of WWII, in which Vonnegut was a soldier. He says that his experience at the Allied bombing of Dresden helped to shape the tragic view of mankind Vonnegut has in many of his novels. “I think there's a very deep cynicism, and the only way he escapes it is not through imagining a utopia or imagining social betterment or getting politically involved or any of that kind of engagement," Sandweiss said. "The only way he imagines escaping from it is turning inward to personal relationships and human decency and you might call it tending one's own garden." In relation to the crises of today’s world, Sandweiss said he thought that Vonnegut would not be surprised by where we are today. Vonnegut was writing at a time when artificial technology was starting up and atomic weaponry had already been developed. “He probably would be yet more cynical and yet darker, and still I think he would find his refuge or his solution in sort of an escape from all of those big institutional evils and a return to the sort of one on one person-hood that he tries to affirm in his books,” Sandweiss said. American Literature, Culture and Feminism Rebekah Sheldon, assistant professor of English, said that she remembered reading some of Vonnegut’s work as a child. “My memory of it is sort of being fascinated by all of these fun images that his work gives us,” Sheldon said. “The sad robot, for example, the human zoo, Kilgore Trout tromping through the creek with his socks being plasticized because of all the pollutants in the water." Sheldon explored the postmodern voice of Vonnegut’s work. SEE VONNEGUT, PAGE 5 Related Content Five ‘new’ Kurt Vonnegut stories are to be published. Read the story at idsnews.com.

Voting challenge encourages civic engagement By Katelyn Haas haask@indiana.edu | @khaas96

KATIE FRANKE | IDS

Devonte Williams receives a kick and fights to get through the Buckeye defense during the Aug. 31 game against Ohio State. IU will play Georgia Southern on Sept. 23.

After week off, IU plays against Georgia Southern on Saturday From IDS reports

IU, 1-1, will play Georgia Southern, 0-2, at 3 p.m. on Saturday at Memorial Stadium in the Hoosiers' second home game. To get an inside look at the Georgia Southern team, the Indiana Daily Student spoke to Thomas Jilk, sports editor of The George-Anne, the student newspaper at Georgia Southern University. Indiana Daily Student: Georgia Southern has gotten off to a poor start this season. Aside from having to play at then-No. 12 Auburn and

a "home game" outside the state of Georgia, what other factors have caused the poor start? Jilk: After Tyson Summers was hired (as head coach) last season, Georgia Southern’s offense wasn’t all option all the time as it had been in the past. The 2016 team went 5-7, drastically below standards, which was partially attributable to the offensive scheme change and the players' not being used to the best of their talents. A perfect example of this is RB Matt Breida, now on the San Francisco , who had just over 600 rushing yards his senior season (Summers’

first season) after rushing for more than 1,600 yards as a junior under Coach Willie Fritz. After backlash from the fans and Athletics Director Tom Kleinlein, Georgia Southern and Summers vowed to return to option football, but it has been a terrible struggle thus far. The same problem of not making the most of talent is manifesting once again. Redshirt freshman quarterback Shai Werts has gained 240 yards on the ground but has carried the ball 54 times and lost 100 yards as well. SEE FOOTBALL, PAGE 5

The Big Ten Conference is not only for sports. This year, the Big Ten universities are joining forces to encourage students to register to vote through an initiative called the Big Ten Voting Challenge. Lisa-Marie Napoli, associate director for the Political and Civic Engagement Program, said after a nationwide student voter engagement initiative last year, Big Ten universities talked about ways to keep the momentum going. The Big Ten Voting Challenge was the answer. “We’re focusing a lot on voter registration efforts because we know sometimes that’s an obstacle for students,” Napoli said. “We want to make sure students understand the voting process and get them registered without problems.” She said the program will work to enhance awareness of engagement on campus and encourage healthy competition and encouragement between Big Ten universities. In 2014, only 21 percent of those under 30 voted in the November midterm elections, the lowest young turnout ever recorded, according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University.

The challenge began Sept. 17, Constitution Day. It is a nonpartisan initiative to encourage students to exercise their right to vote, according to a press release. IU-Bloomington Provost and Executive Vice President Lauren Robel said she hoped the challenge would begin a lifetime habit of civic engagement among students. “It’s important for all of our students to learn how to make their voices heard as active members of a community — at home, while they’re here in Bloomington and wherever they go after graduation,” Robel said in the release. The millennials born in the years leading up to and after 2000 are the largest generation in the United States at 83 million people, according to the release. The Big Ten Voting Challenge is designed to increase voter registration by the 2018 midterm elections. Napoli said this will happen in part by working with other college political organizations, including reaching out to the College Republicans and College Democrats. Program leaders will also do tabling on Tuesdays to get students registered as easily as possible, Napoli said. SEE BIG TEN, PAGE 5


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