The Miscellany News
Since 1866 | miscellanynews.org
April 5, 2018
Volume CL | Issue 17
Vassar to host Spring Festival
Volleyball takes two home wins
Izzy Braham
Kelly Pushie Reporter
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Vassar College Poughkeepsie, NY
O Courtesy of Karl Rabe
t was a clean sweep for the the men’s volleyball team this past weekend, as they handled both Bard College and Elmira College at Kenyon Hall. The number-10 Brewers faced the number-15 Elmira College Soaring Eagles on Friday, March 30 and took home the victory in a thrilling five-set match, with scores 20-25, 25-21, 20-25, 28-26 and 15-10. In their next match, the Brewers easily bested Bard in three straight sets. Head coach Richard Gary was especially happy with the energy and resilience with which the team played. “The weekend was a great challenge, not only because it’s always tough to travel a long distance, get off the bus, and play our best ball,” Coach Gary said. “Added to that, Elmira is one of the most dangerous teams to play in this situation because they’re one of the most high-energy, unrelenting and unpredictable teams we’ll play this year.” This description of Elmira turned See VOLLEYBALL on page 19
On Wednesday, March 28, the Vassar Student Association hosted a panel on what it means to be a global campus. The panel included professors and students from many academic departments and disciplines.
VSA hosts Global Campus panel Clark Xu
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Assistant News Editor
he Vassar Student Association (VSA) and Vassar College have become increasingly comprehensive in their engagement with ways of life and thought from communities all over the world. For its sesquicentennial celebration on March 28, the VSA organized a panel of students, faculty and administrators in the humanities and the social and
natural sciences to discuss the challenges and opportunities presented by globalization. The panel posed a series of questions in a round-table discussion for audience members to consider and to share at the end of the event. In her opening remarks, President Elizabeth Bradley reflected, “When we have contemporary discussions inside the United States of the term
‘globalization,’ usually, someone will quickly invoke data that has to do with increasing international trade, increasing migration and technological exchanges that maybe were not there before.” In the context of American colleges and universities, this often translates to admitting international students, funding exchange programs See GLOBAL on page 3
Assistant Arts Editor
n April 7, Vassar will welcome local kindergarteners and elementary school students to Joss Beach for its annual Spring Festival, which will include a bouncy house, cookie decorating, face painting, an egg hunt and other arts and crafts. The festival is being put on by Associate Professor and Chair of Education Colette Cann, and the Vassar Good Neighbors Committee. The Vassar College Urban Education Initiative (VCUEI) is also helping with the event by inviting local schools. The Spring Fest is part of a larger effort on Vassar’s behalf to involve locals with the school and to get Vassar students involved with Poughkeepsie. Good Neighbors Committee Intern Kevin Fernandez ’20 commented on the event via email, “Families and children will see that Vassar is open to the idea of engaging with the community and welcoming [local students] to our campus.” The festival will serve as a way to connect local students to Vassar through See FESTIVAL on page 6
Fake news: IG story reflects real life Johnston historicizes Fukushima Disaster Imogen Wade
Features Editor
“P
ics or it didn’t happen.” The unspoken rule of the Instagram generation reminds me of Socrates’ paradox on writing. He believed that writing prevented people from
Courtesy of Imogen Wade
A filtered shot of the Hollywood sign and central Los Angeles, which made it to the highlight reel of the author’s Instagram account. This one photo has generated hundreds of views.
truly remembering information (we only know about his views because Plato wrote them down). Similarly, it is a common refrain from the adults in my life that taking pictures prevents me from living the experience. Who hasn’t done it; judged their best days by the quality of the snaps? Judged how happy they were by how big their smile was in the Instagram picture? I remember once asking my sister if there were too many, or too few, pictures of my boyfriend on my Instagram account. Surrounded by couples who shared every date night, every gift, every selfie, on their social media profiles, I began to fear for oversharing. She replied that I didn’t have that many pictures of him, but had just enough to show people that we hadn’t broken up. I remember being very surprised at her answer. Who was looking at my account, checking for pictures of my boyfriend? Who was constantly refreshing my feed and stalking it for information about my relationship? Her comment was a stark reminder that my innocuous Instagram account was viewed, by many, as an extension of my real life. Without the photos posted on social media, my life didn’t exist.
Inside this issue
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ARTS
Author’s touching debut receives fivestar review
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It really made me think: what had my Instagram audience assumed about me? For people I am not close to, who do not know the truth about my life, what does my collection of unstudied pictures reveal to them? I became interested in how perceptions can be manipulated and how my social media presence changes how people treat me in real life. One of the pictures on my account that has the most likes is a shot of me standing moodily in a field against a dying sunset. It is a beautiful shot of the landscape and I received compliments on my appearance in it. In reality, I had just finished crying, the family member I was with decided it was the perfect moment to take a picture of the sky, and it ended up on my Instagram account because I liked the colors. One of my best, real-life friends said I looked “miserable” in it, whilst others thought I looked beautiful. Posting some of my other pictures coincided with receiving messages from old friends, who remarked that I was “doing really well.” Were they assuming what my life was like based off some pouty shots on Instagram? Yes, yes they were. There is nothing inherently wrong See INSTA on page 10
Behind the Misc scenes: Ed Board HUMOR member spills beans
Kelly Vinett
Guest Reporter
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hen we think of disasters, we often think of them as phenomena beyond human control. We picture uncontrollably strong forces destroying everything, and everyone, in their path. Humans have generally played the victim in when it comes to disasters, which we view as a force independent from mortal control. However, William Johnston, Wesleyan University Professor of History, Science in Society, Environmental Studies and East Asian Studies, combines his roots in historical scholarship with his passion for photography to prove this popular conceptualization of disaster to be a fallacy. On Saturday, March 31, at 4:30 p.m., Johnston, who specializes in the history of epidemics and Japanese history, gave a talk titled “Disasters Fast and Slow: Photography, History, and the Environment” in Taylor Hall. The presentation served to inform audiences that disasters not only have the capacity to affect the immediate moments that follow, but can also affect both people and places over the span of months, years and decades. Although
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the initial aftermath of destruction receives the most press coverage and overall public attention, the long-term effects of disaster can be just as devastating. In reference to the talk’s title, Johnston explained the dichotomy between events that are natural and those that are artificial. Humans conceive of natural disasters as earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, droughts and floods. Conversely, anthropogenic (human-induced) disasters are categorized as human action or human inaction. Examples would be wars, genocides, terrorism, bombings, pollution and the release of carcinogenic and radioactive material. During the talk, Johnston displayed several revelatory photographs. One depicted countless black garbage bags filling a rural landscape; another delineated one ton of radioactive debris. He added that the Japanese government has tried to claim the Fukushima disaster as a thing of the past. Johnston’s photos expose quite the opposite. Using the example of the March 11, 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan, Johnston explained that it encapsulated See DISASTER on page 8
Racial abuse all too prevalent in SPORTS soccer