Misc.03.21.24

The Miscellany News

March 21, 2024

Taking on 2023’s Oscarless and unnominated films

Ben Kaplan, Nicholas Tillinghast Columnist, Humor Editor

While this past week has been a celebratory experience for films like “Poor Things” and “Oppenheimer” after their Oscar successes, the vast majority of films from this year did not win any such awards. Many scored Oscar nominations but no wins, while many more went completely unnominated. Here we will celebrate a few of those winless films.

Nick’s pick: “Killers of the Flower Moon”

“Killers of the Flower Moon,” directed by Martin Scorsese, is a powerful three hour and 26 minute film about the Osage Nation that has made it rich through oil and the white people that are murdering them for inheritance money. It is a very painful film, and it uses its long runtime to properly inhabit and describe the turmoil of the Osage nation. A lot has been written about actress Lily Gladstone’s quiet but incredibly rich performance as Molly Burkhart, but I think it is worth reiterating. It is hard to put into words the power of good subtle acting. Gladstone’s performance is like nothing

else I have seen this year. She strikingly expresses warmth and pain, familiarity and distance.

While I admittedly, like many others, am quite bugged by the film’s cartoonishly long runtime, I also recognize that long films really work for the slow pacing and stewing vibe of the Western genre. It is not a particularly experimental or flashy film, apart from a fairly unique epilogue, but it is clean filmmaking with energetic performances from Scorsese veterans Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro. What is not to like? It notched an impressive 10 Oscar Nominations but no wins, a theme in Scorsese’s long career.

Nick’s pick: “Maestro”

“Maestro” is a biopic of American composer Leonard Bernstein, focusing on his relationship with his wife, Felicia Montenegro. This is the second year that the Oscars have nominated a film about conducting, and I am actually much fonder of “Maestro” than its 2022 counterpart, “Tár,” and for good reason. I think films like “Tár” and “Whiplash” do a disservice to music by featuring characters with sterile and often hostile relationships with music. While I

find both of those films riveting, their interaction with music has always irked me. I appreciate that Bernstein in “Maestro” simply loves making music, and that it is not any more complicated than that. The drama in the film comes primarily from personal matters, not spats over who conducts or performs what.

A lot of critiques have been leveled about this film being a rather incomplete portrait of Bernstein, or, just as often, about his weird prosthetic nose. I do not actually care about either of those things. I was captivated by actor Bradley Cooper’s somewhat bizarre, nasal and idiosyncratic performance of Bernstein, and that was enough for it to be a great watching experience. It is not a very complete picture of Bernstein, and for me, it did not have to be. Nominated for seven Oscars, including three for Cooper, it won zero.

Ben’s pick: “The Iron Claw”

Centering around the Von Erich wrestling family, “The Iron Claw” is one of the more tragic films that production company A24 has had a hand in over the last few years. If you want to feel sad, “The Iron

See Oscarless on page 4

Advice from abroad: Student finds success

Jacques Abou-Rizk Guest Columnist

There is nothing easy about studying abroad. Let us make that clear. You are in a new country, with new people and new classes. You are thrown into an unfamiliar environment and are forced to grapple with the changes.

For me, studying at Danish Institute for Study Abroad (DIS) Stockholm, Sweden, for the Spring 2024 semester is the epitome of these challenges. I have never lived with two roommates, let alone lived in a country outside the United States for more than a few weeks. I am here alone—none of my friends came to this program with me. But at the same time, that is exactly why I chose such a program. At the risk of sounding cliché, studying abroad is about expanding your horizons—about putting yourself out there to learn more about what you want in life. At least this mantra is what I tell myself when facing difficult situations.

And I can assure you, difficult times are inevitable. For the first few weeks—perhaps even the first month-and-a-half—I struggled acclimating to life in a cold, dark and somewhat reserved Swedish society. I missed my friends, I missed The Miscellany News, and I missed Vassar College. I still do.

But as weeks have passed, I have undoubtedly grown. I cook three meals a day for myself, I go grocery shopping and do my laundry on a weekly basis, I budget my savings, and, most importantly, I put myself out there to find friends and hobbies that keep me entertained.

For someone who has been writing journalistically since my freshman year of high school, a semester without it seemed unfeasible. Coming from the fall semester when I was Editor-in-Chief of The Miscellany News, I was well-integrated into campus life. I was constantly busy. But this semester is vastly different. Luckily, I found an opening as a DIS blogger to continue my journal-

ism journey abroad. Still, I have more time to learn about the real world, about living life in an unfamiliar place and about taking care of myself. Finding people that I could spend time with, even if I have not needed to make friends since I first arrived at Vassar, was a challenge, but it was a challenge well spent. While I like to think that I will

Ever

Vassar College’s student newspaper of record since 1866

Volume 161 | Issue 6

BDS struggle continues

Clara Alger News Editor

On Feb. 16, 2024, Vassar Students for Justice in Palestine (VSJP) made an Instagram post outlining their commitment to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) movement, writing, “BDS is a tangible approach we can take as the Vassar student body to put pressure on Israel as the occupation of Palestine intensifies.” The post came hours before a protest held outside of a Board of Trustees meeting that demanded the College divest its endowment. VSJP has clashed with the administration over this demand since 2016, as the College’s General Counsel has explained that the College has no plan to divest. The BDS national committee’s website reads, “Inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement, the BDS call urges action to pressure Israel to comply with international law.” Kelly notes that calls for divestment were a tool used in student protests at Vassar against South African apartheid, though it took the college around a decade to actually divest.

VSJP member Kelly reports that most, if not all, chapters of SJP support the BDS movement, saying, “[It] was created in 2005 by Palestinian civil society and groups of Palestinians who basically agreed that one of the most effective forms of nonviolent protest is an economic boycott and sanction of Israel.”

VSJP’s calls for divestment from Israel at Vassar include two parts: one, for the College to divest its endowment, and two, for the Vassar Student Association (VSA) to boycott companies on the BDS list with its allocated funds.

Complicating this goal is Executive Order 157. Issued by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on June 15, 2016, the order requires state agencies and authorities to divest public funds from any organization that supports “boycott, divestment, or sanctions activity targeting Israel.”

Cuomo’s executive order makes divestment from Israel much more of a challenge than past divestment campaigns. Vassar’s General Counsel, Shay Humphrey ’91, explained in a written correspondence to The Miscellany News, “Under the order, the Commissioner of the Office of General Services of New York is required to put together a list of organizations that participate in BDS actions against Israel. Any organization on that list is banned from receiving funding from any New York State agency.”

In addition to companies on the list being denied state funding, they are also prohibited from business dealings with state agencies. The order defines state agencies as being any departments over which the Governor has executive authority.

VSJP’s post on BDS included a note on the concern raised over the order and alleges that President Bradley deemed a campus-wide boycott illegal.

See Divestment on page 3

Brewers keep on Ballin’! This week, the Sports section highlights women’s basketball’s Tova Gelb.

Image courtesy of Jacques Abou-Rizk ’25.

March

Maryam Bacchus

Charlotte Robertson

Sufana Noorwez

Sashinka Poor

Sandro Lorenzo

Will Sorge

Monika Sweeney

Clara Alger

Makenna Monaghan

Allison Lowe

Allen Hale

Jesse Koblin

Emma Lawrence

Carina Cole

Luke Jenkins

Lev Winickoff

Jyotsna Naidu

Nicholas Tillinghast

Oliver Stewart

Nick Villamil

Caris Lee

Igor Martiniouk

Molly Delahunty

Amelia Gracie

Ellie Kogan

Julia Weinberg

Willa Jewitt

Anabel Lee

Ailynn O’Neill

Karen Mogami

Sadie Keesbury

Felix Mundy-Mancino

Olivia Kahn

Richard Lu

Catherine Borthwick

Fallon Dern

Kai Chang

Michael Yang

Jordan Alch

Britt Andrade

Cassandra Brook

Soren Fischer

Henry France

Yaksha Gummadapu

Anna Kozloski

Gwen Ma

Madeleine Nicks

Oliver Stewart

Josie Wenner

Andrew Chu

Ian Watanabe

Kathryn Carvel

Darja Coutts

Grace Finke

Willa Jewitt

Claire Miller

Ailynn O’Neill

Emma Sandrew

Emma San Filippo

Students face challenges in divestment efforts

Continued from divestment on page 1

But according to lawyers outside of Vassar that VSJP has consulted, “illegal” would be the wrong word to use when talking about how the order deals with divestment, noting that enacting BDS is not actually prohibited, Kelly says.

Humphrey writes, “So while there is no NYS [New York State] law prohibiting an organization from enacting BDS sanctions against Israel, an organization that chooses to do so will likely be placed on the NY Office of General Services List and therefore would not be eligible for any funding from New York State. If Vassar were placed on this list, it would mean the termination of all New York State funding to Vassar, which could include monies for scholarships, state financial aid, and research or grant funding.”

Kelly believes that the likelihood of being placed on that list is very low. They acknowledge that being placed on the list means risking state funding; “But [of] all the companies that have been on the blacklist in the past eight years that the executive order has been enacted, none of those companies have been universities,” they said.

In 2020, Columbia College passed a referendum calling for the College’s divestment from Israel, although the college said this would not affect their investment plan. This action did not result in placement on the state’s list of BDS participants, likely because it was not actually BDS legislation. On March 3, 2024, Columbia College Student Council approved another referendum to be sent out, as well as BDS legislation for their organization’s funds. We have yet to see if this will result in placement of the state’s list, as the document is updated every 180 days.

Humphrey also notes that enacting BDS measures could result in the college facing charges under the New York State Human Rights Law. She writes, “Last year, after the faculty council at CUNY’s School of Law passed a resolution against Israel, the NYS Division of Human Rights launched an investigation against CUNY’s School of Law to determine whether this was a ‘discriminatory boycott’ against Jewish and/or Israeli students and faculty.” This marks another difference of this campaign from the South African divestment campaign because in that situation, there were no charges that could make enacting divestment a violation of state or federal anti-discrimination laws.

Divestment at the college level is a complex process. Kelly says, “There’s so little transparency on where the school’s money is, and where it goes.” VSJP has been told that information about Vassar’s investments is inaccessible because it is outsourced to Capital Hall Partners. Humphrey explains that the Investment Committee of the Board of Trustees determines investment policy at Vassar, and that the Board has a specific Investor Responsibility Committee to review issues of “overriding social concern.”

In addition to demanding that the college divest, VSJP has also focused on possible divestment of the VSA’s allocated budget for student organizations. Kelly says that VSJP did not know about the executive order until this year because last year, their conversations with the VSA were cut short. “We were told the VSA will not help us pass any type of legislation to boycott Israeli goods because it will put other goals of the VSA at risk,” they said. This year, VSJP has been in much more regular contact with them, attending meetings

and working in committee.

VSA Equity Executive Traci Francis ’25 says that Humphrey has advised them that divestment within the organization is not possible under the current order. In the Spring of 2016, when VSJP first pushed to get the VSA to pass BDS legislation, the VSA was told by then-President Catharine Bond Hill that the administration would take full control of the VSA’s funding. A Miscellany News article published at the time refers to the yet to be issued executive order as a bill that was making its way through the New York state legislature.

Francis suggests that instead of BDS legislation, the VSA could write a statement that gives student organization leaders the option to not spend their money with companies on the boycott list, but this would not be enforced. She adds, “I would hope that we can send something out to org leaders in terms of a different…form of BDS that will follow the law if that’’s something that they’re still interested in. But I think right now that they’re pushing for something more radical, which I just don’t know if it’s going to be feasible for us to do, but I hope that we can support them in some other ways moving forward.”

Campus gears up for April primary elections

William Sorge Contributing Editor

New York State will hold primary elections for 2024 races on Tuesday, April 2, with early voting to be held from Saturday, March 23, through Saturday, March 30. Several campus organizations are gearing up to ensure that Vassar students have easy, informed access to their ballots. One such organization, Vassar Votes, is focused on making voting as accessible as possible to students and maximizing campus voter turnout. In a written correspondence with The Miscellany News, Associate Director of Community Engaged Learning Jean Hinkley discussed some of the measures Vassar Votes is taking to achieve its mission.

“Thanks to the support of the Dorm Voting Advisor team and our Campus Voting Assistant, we have many methods of outreach to support strong voter turnout.,” wrote Hinkley. “DVAs communicate pertinent information, support students’ voter registration, and requests for absentee ballots. Our Campus Voting Assistant, Matt Freire, has been supporting the DVAs in their role. We hold monthly meetings and welcome any students interested in the upcoming elections to attend!”

Hinkley provided a list of DVAs and instructions for how to register to vote. She noted, “Later this week, students registered to vote locally with their campus addresses will receive a ‘Voter Guide’ via email. The guide will include information about voting on campus for New York State’s Presidential Primary Election, information about early voting, and an explanation of the ballot.”

Calder Beasley ’26, Noyes House DVA, wrote about the role of DVAs on campus

and in conjunction with other Vassar Votes initiatives: “Dorm Voting Advisors will be in communication with their houses throughout the semester to share information about registering to vote, voting by mail and primary updates. Students should receive emails through their house’s Dorm Voting Advisor. If students have questions and don’t know their Dorm Voting Advisor, they can email VassarVotes@vassar.edu.”

He continued, “DVAs will also be tabling around campus and hosting events in their houses to spread awareness and rally students to vote. On the day of the primary, VassarVotes will be tabling and directing students to the Aula [in Ely Hall] where they can vote if they are registered in Dutchess County.”

Beasley also described how Vassar Votes has measured interest in the upcoming primaries on campus. “I gauge interest by the people who approach me when tabling or at events. Emails are also a great way to understand what questions people have and how I can support students in their voting journeys.”

About half of all campus residential areas are currently supported by a DVA, according to Hinkley, though Vassar Votes aims for all housing areas to have one. “One of our goals is to have 100 percent of the houses supported with a Dorm Voting Advisor. We are [currently] at 50 percent and are looking for students to volunteer as DVAs in Cushing, Ferry, Raymond, Strong, the TAs [Terrace Apartments], and the SOCOs [South Commons],” wrote Hinkley.

Vassar has also partnered with TurboVote to register students at their home addresses. Hinkley wrote, “TurboVote will send election reminders (including upcoming absentee ballot request deadlines) to those signed up. Anyone can sign up to receive these types of re-

minders, by visiting vassar.turbovote.org. At the beginning of the semester, we shared this resource with students to learn more about primary elections in their state. This resource is on our website and the campus Voter Guide will be uploaded there as well.”

On the day of the primary elections, Vassar will have a poll site on campus as is required by New York State law, confirmed Hinkley: “Right now, the Board of Election has approved Vassar to have a polling place on campus. The Aula at Ely Hall is the current polling site for Election Districts 6-2 and 6-3 for this 2024 Primary Election.” Vassar first had an on-campus poll site for the midterm elections in November 2022, which several community members and outside organizations helped the College to establish.

The Office of Community Engaged Learning (OCEL) is in collaboration with various campus organizations to raise awareness about voting. According to Hinkley, “[OCEL has] partnered with the VSA on ways to share more information about the work of our office, including Vassar Votes. We’re grateful for their support! Vassar Votes aims to collaborate more with student organizations, house teams, and student groups. If a group would like to collaborate on a Q&A session or workshop they can complete this form.”

She continued, “The OCEL works with many local and grassroots organizations that support issues impacting Poughkeepsie, Dutchess County, and the greater Hudson Valley. Some issues that our partners care deeply about on the voting ballot are: housing justice, rent stabilization, access to affordable healthcare, New York for All Act, and renewable energy.”

Giovanni Verdi ’25, Vice President of Vassar Voices for Planned Parenthood (VVPP),

spoke about which candidates the organization was looking forward to supporting in the upcoming races. “Vassar Voices for Planned Parenthood is looking forward to seeing advocates for reproductive rights, healthcare, and justice on the ballot in the upcoming primary elections in New York state. These candidates align their action in NYS politics with the values that our organization upholds and the overarching goal of pro-reproductive health work being tackled in these political settings. Kirsten Gillibrand is running for re-election in the New York State senate and has always worked to protect abortion rights and reproductive health freedoms in our state,” wrote Verdi.

Charlie From ’25 shared some of their candidate preferences for the State Assembly race. “Claire Cousin supports NY public workers’ rights to strike among other initiatives that’ll help Hudson Valley’s working class. Didi Barrett has shown time and time again she won’t stand with working folks when it comes down to it, so it’s time to get her out of office,” wrote From.

This primary election is drawing attention for several candidates’ stances on the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. From added, “[Barrett’s] a Zionist supporting Israel’s state-sanctioned genocide of the Palestinians, and we certainly can’t have that.”

There is still time for students to register to vote in the upcoming April 2 primaries. Hinkley noted, “The deadline to register to vote with your campus address is Saturday, March 23. Students will need to complete a paper voter registration form by Friday, March 22.” Beasley wrote, “Please vote! If you are confused about your registration or the voting process, please reach out to me, other DVAs, or VassarVotes.”

Image courtesy of Vassar Students for Justice in Palestine.

ARTS

Taking on 2023’s Oscarless and unnominated films

Continued from Oscarless on page 1

Claw” more than delivers. The dedication throughout the film to depicting a sobering look at the downfall of a group of brothers who just wanted to impress their tough father is intense. This will make or break this film for the average viewer, as it focuses on that depiction and almost nothing else. Not to say it is not a visually striking film or lacks depth in certain areas, but there is noticeable shallowness when the film zones in on making you feel bad for the main characters and nothing else. It does help that the cast is headed by a striking performance from Zac Efron, who brings an occasionally boring but ultimately heartbreaking performance as the kind, quiet Kevin Von Erich. It upset many fans that “The Iron Claw” was not nominated for a single Oscar, but it does make some sense. This is not a film like “Oppenheimer” or “Poor Things” with layered themes and long, complex plots. This is a simple movie that wants to immerse you in a small group of characters as the world around them becomes undone. It is also a movie that lacks great pacing, as the first half moves at a brisk pace before a certain point where it slows down dramatically as tragedy begins to strike the number-one wrestling team of Texas.

Ben’s pick: “Priscilla”

Though incredibly different in the main focus, “Priscilla” is actually a very similar movie to “The Iron Claw.” “Priscilla” is a fairly simple but effective A24 piece that gives a view of Elvis Presley and Priscilla Presley’s relationship, marriage and later divorce through the eyes of Priscilla. Similar to “The Iron Claw”, the laser-focus on Priscilla and the characters surrounding her makes this movie more of a study of this person and her predicament rather than bringing the audience into a fully-realized world. Compared to “The Iron Claw” though, the emotions of the film are not as easily placed into the viewer’s lap. Director Sofia Coppola used many subtle techniques to show the grooming of Priscilla, such as casting two actors—Jacob Elordi and Cailee Spaeny—to play Elvis and Priscilla, despite the two having a far greater height difference than the couple did in real life.

Considering the Oscars, it is a bit of a snub that the film wasn’t considered for Best Makeup and Hairstyling. Spaeny transforms throughout the film as Priscilla grows up, making her look like a schoolgirl in the start and then an adult woman by the end just through styling. Both Spaeny as

Priscilla and especially Elordi as Elvis were perfect casting decisions, and Elordi’s performance, if not up against some of the best supporting roles of the last few years at the Oscars, could have at least gotten a nomination.

Ben’s pick: “Saltburn”

A movie notorious for its sexual undertones that would make even a Vassar student occasionally queasy, Saltburn was one of the strangest films of 2023 to gain such prominence and cultural standing. It is an in-your-face thriller that mainly grabs onto your attention through shocking scenes of Barry Keogan engaging in deviant sexual acts, sucking the audience in with a first half that is genuinely uplifting and intentionally feels like a completely different film by the time the action begins to pick up. This artistic choice alone makes the film poorly paced but also a fun watch. Though some might consider the lack of any nominations a snub, that was not really the goal of director Emerald Fennell. Instead, “Saltburn” is a strange, twisted movie for those who do not watch strange and twisted movies. It will shock the person who was seated at night one for “Avengers: Endgame” but will probably get more yawns than gasps from

someone who indulges in gory and unnerving films on the regular. Nevertheless, it is a fun movie with a great soundtrack and excellent performances by Jacob Elordi and especially Keoghan, whose sheer commitment to his character makes the sexual scenes more disturbing than attractive.

It is an in-your-face thriller that mainly grabs onto your attention through shocking scenes of Barry Keoghan engaging in deviant sexual acts, sucking the audience in with a first half that is genuinely uplifting and intentionally feels like a completely different film by the time the action begins to pick up.

Angela Su blends science and occultism in ‘Melencolia’

Jesse Koblin Arts Editor

On a brisk spring break afternoon during an excursion to Manhattan’s Morningside Heights neighborhood, a moment of artistic serendipity presented itself. I was meeting a friend and feeling like an urban flâneur. I was relaxed, ambling absently through the cityscape and seeking intellectual enrichment. I did a quick Google search for “free open art museum” and yielded an immediate (and nearby) return. I found The Wallach Art Gallery, checking off both the free and open categories. According to their website, the Wallach serves as both a laboratory and a forum organized by Columbia University’s Art History department. I immediately got the gist—experimental, eclectic, compelling, and entirely up my alley. I set off, briefly taking note of the featured exhibit: Angela Su’s “Melencolia.”

My friend and I soon stepped into Columbia’s Lenfest Center for the Arts, a towering Modernist edifice of expansive glass paneling and white geometry. I entered its central elevator and ascended to the sixth floor for the Wallach Art Gallery. A sensory cacophony immediately enveloped me. The clicking of a metronome wound unremittingly through the space. Three films played simultaneously to overdubbed narration, creating a dense syllabic salad. Bright LED spotlights underscored polygonal sculptures, ranging from dodecahedrons to latticed pyramids, as though a massive Dungeons & Dragons dice pouch had spilled onto the gallery floor.

I am still struggling to find a cogent starting point to unpack the madness that is Su’s exhibit, “Melencolia.” Su is a Hong Kongbased visual artist and biochemist who elides scientific rationality and esoteric mysticism throughout her creations, drawing often-jarring parallels between the proven and the fringe. Through elaborate performance and genuine biomedical ethos, her work blurs the sanctified lines of epistemology, weaponizing art to unravel the seeming stability of what is “truth” and “fact.” As her first independent show in the Western Hemisphere, “Melencolia” is a collection of Su’s films, tap-

estries and sketches rendered from 2014 to 2023, epitomizing a career examining medicine through occult perspectives.

The exhibition is named after Albrecht Dürer’s 1514 engraving “Melencolia I,” an exploration of the philosophy of creativity and the artist’s social role within the emerging German Renaissance. Dürer synthesized worlds of medieval scholastic cosmicism and classical geometry in his engraving through the symbolic use of lambs, comets and calipers, postulating the artist as an intermediary between the scientific and the divine. His choice of the name “Melencolia I” references melancholy, historically one of four “temperaments,” a pseudoscientific theory asserting that personality is reflected by complexion and bodily fluids. Melancholic individuals were strongly associated with artistry, and viewed as both predisposed to genius and insanity. Su invokes Dürer’s work and melancholic duality to assert her career as tenuously balancing between cabbalistic insight and inscrutability, more than confirmed through actually experiencing the exhibit itself.

The first leg of my journey through Su’s intellectual and artistic consciousness was the 2019 film “Cosmic Call,” among the most enigmatic and jarring pieces within the gallery—and fittingly, the closest to the entrance. Su begins her theoretical musings by introducing a trademark of her work: historical fiction. She invents Aureus, a comet whose passage over Earth’s atmosphere in the medieval period profoundly impacted cosmological history. From this false basis, Su constructs an elaborate metaphor where massive astronomical phenomena passing spectral bodies are compared to microbial germ clusters infecting human bodies; Su’s naming of the comet “Aureus” is derived from Staphylococcus aureus, a form of bacteria. “Cosmic Call” weaves an elaborate thematic exploration of traditional Chinese medicine’s spiritual and holistic approaches as being subverted by a philosophy of biomedical rationality originating from Western practice. Su’s response is to divine cosmological approaches, conflating the microbial world of bacteria with spectral movement

unfolding among the cosmos.

The heady comparison of astrological and epidemiological science intertwined with sociotechnical implications is to this point explored through Su’s narration and a slideshow of still images, evoking a (particularly existential) documentary. Yet suddenly we smash cut to a cryptic title card, introducing the next sequence as footage of Su being voluntarily injected with “various deadly diseases” as a protest against encroaching Western biomedical imaginaries. A scene is staged: Su is cuffed to a chair, entirely still in the middle of a dark and barren room. Two nurses in stark-white scrubs brandishing hypodermic needles approach from either side, disinfect the arm, and inject her in unison, evoking a squeamish cringe from me and my friend. The nurses recede into the background, and Su bolts up, unshackles herself from the chair and quadrupedally prowls the set on her steel limbs, deliriously scampering back and forth until the film abruptly ends. My expectations were now both set and entirely shattered. Su’s first film had incomprehensibly blended truth with fiction, documentary exposition with narrative diegesis and video essay with cryptic performance art.

As we briefly composed ourselves and set off to unearth the exhibit’s other curiosities, a pattern emerged. Su’s film repertoire entwines obscure historical facts with invented protagonists, furthering the viewer’s inability to assess the truth of her narratives. This trend is best evidenced in 2022’s “The Magnificent Levitation of Lauren O,” which follows the induction of its eponymous fictional heroine into anarchic cells amid the American hippie movement. “Lauren O” pulls from the fictitious events of real-life groups, such as the anti-imperialist Weather Underground and the shadowy New Age Esalen Institute, in tandem with invented ones, such as Laden Raven (comically described as a “troupe of Marxist vaudeville performers”). Su uses the character of Lauren and her liminal historical existence to explore the central theme of levitation, both as a transgression of natural physical laws and a spiritual movement toward divinity. In light of this thematic duality, Lauren’s eventual supernatural act of

levitation represents both a radical political defiance and religious ascension. Of course, the film ends with another performance piece—Su grapples onto a floating disco ball and coils around with the crooked limbs and spindly agility of an arachnid. The ball eventually dissipates and Su seems to levitate, invisibly hoisted within a barren padded cell enshrouded in shadows.

Su’s earliest film, 2015’s “Mesures et Démesures,” was the source of the ambient metronome I had heard upon entering the gallery. “Mesures” explicitly examines mental illness by utilizing historical footage of a male psychiatric patient ambling naked through a stark room, the incessantly ticking metronome scoring the man’s absent movements. As the viewer experiences this banal footage, we are drawn in as voyeurs, inadvertently replicating the lurid dehumanization of psychiatric observation. Su seems to chide our complicity in the othering of disabled populations, exacerbated by having “Mesures et Démesures” screened in a distant—yet always visible—corner of the gallery. Wandering eyes are continuously invited back to the film by the metronome’s even meter, which almost seems to beg attendees to lose themselves in the benign violence of spectatorship.

My friend and I left the gallery bewildered yet enthralled, continuously recalling cryptic moments from the gallery to analyze in conspiratorial detail. We glibly half-joked that Morningside Heights did not look quite the same as when we had entered the Wallach Art Gallery, our tastes in art and basic understanding of reality irrevocably altered. Su’s work is so thematically dense, her artistic vision so singular, that it is irrefutably essential viewing for anyone interested in performance art. Su is a provocateur and an auteur, and her work wavers somewhere between eminently fascinating and eminently overwrought. Although the “Melencolia” exhibit has since closed, I recommend looking into Su’s art nonetheless. She invites audiences into a vast intellectual labyrinth, then challenges them to find the artistic understanding at its center. I still do not know if I have made it there yet.

‘Indian Skies’ explodes with color, splendor

Charlotte Robertson Managing Editor

It is the Saturday before St. Patrick’s Day, and half of the people in The Metropolitan Museum of Art are dressed in green. I am here to see an exhibition called “Indian Skies.” Co-curated by Navina Najat Haidar and John Guy, the three-room show features over 120 pieces of Indian court art from the 16th through the 19th centuries obtained from the late British painter and art collector Howard Hodgkin. I cannot help but wonder what the royals of the Mughal, Deccani, Rajput and Pahari empires would think of their fine watercolor paintings now on display for a bunch of young children in plastic shamrock headbands.

As I walk through the collection, trailed by a green, hand-holding chain of kindergarteners, I notice that flat perspective—where shapes of the same size sit on the surface instead of gradually diminishing into the background—prevails across centuries. “A Fly Infested Feast,” made sometime between 1740 and 1750 by an unknown artist, is one example. The brush drawing depicts an assembly of Brahmins—members of the highest caste within Hindu society—seated within a perimeter of tall grass, eating from plates made of leaves. Flies that look like tiny black arrows fill the empty space. They gather more densely around the Brahmins, their pointed ends angled as if to strike, creating swirling, busy movement. It is unclear if the flies are attacking the Brahmins or simply

attracted to their food—they flood into the thatched structure where one man is pouring soup into a stack of bowls, and another man is holding out his hands for a serving. The flies only dispel in the top right corner of the enclosure where two senior priests and a young prince sit. The three of them eat from silver platters, uninterrupted as three attending boys shield them from the flies. Outside the grassy fence, a group of men watch with disdain.

While the piece lacks a vanishing point, our eyes are directed nonetheless to the two senior priests, their bright red pants contrasting against the muted whites, greens and beiges of the rest of the painting. This is quite intentional—“A Fly Infested Feast,” according to its accompanying description, was most probably created to mock the selfish priesthood within Brahmanism.

Color is similarly important in “Elephants Fighting,” which was painted by a woman named Khurshid Banu for the court of the Mughal empire, one of the longest-ruling, richest Muslim empires in India. The painting depicts two elephants locked by their trunks, mouths wide, leaping towards each other. An invisible vertical line between their clashing trunks separates the piece into two halves that are symmetrical in color. The elephants themselves are fairly identical—gray skin decorated with bells, bracelets, earrings, tusk rings and waist chains set with gold.

On the left elephant, a mahout, or elephant tender, donned in navy grips the stringed saddle. Another mahout wearing a brilliant

orange robe takes the front, raising his arms above his head. On the right elephant, a matching navy-dressed mahout climbs up the rear while his frontman adjusts the saddle. Though the orange blanket on which the frontman sits is less vivid than the left mahout’s robe, the seated man beneath the leaping elephants rebalances the orange distribution. Positioned somewhat off-center, his clothing drags more orange pigment to the duller half. Even the teal background wash is symmetrical, the empty space mirrored on a diagonal.

Rather than pulling our eyes to a specific component of the scene, as in “A Fly Infested Feast,” color in “Elephants Fighting” pushes our eyes to the middle. There are many details to explore—the sequins on the mahouts’ hats, the ripples in the elephants’ tails, the string between the fingers of the seated man—but our gaze always returns to the elephants’ faces tangled together.

There were several portraits on display too. My favorite was “A Court Beauty” by the painter Chokha commissioned for the Rajput palace in the early 19th century. Instead of watercolor, Chokha used gouache, a paint much more resistant to fading, resulting in fantastic color. The subject, a royal woman covered in silver and gold jewelry, carelessly raises clasped hands above her head. Her hips sway to one side. Is she leisurely stretching, or is she dancing? Facing the four-foot painting, I imitate her movement, as if I am following an aerobics video. A green kindergartener looks at me, and I immediately stop.

Like the figures in “A Fly Infested Feast” and “Elephants Fighting,” the royal woman is in profile. Her one eye takes up nearly a quarter of her face and stares into the distance, its lid drooping with boredom. A small baby, also sporting layers of sumptuous jewelry, stands next to her, waiting to be held. It is probably my favorite piece in the exhibit, if only for its vibrance. The woman’s blood-orange skirt fans around her ankles, dozens of teensy-tiny pleats swooping upward. The deep sky boasts two small clouds that hide under the ruffled painted frame. The wash of yellow on the cotton canvas is like a continuation of the wall on which it is hanging, as if the art cannot be entirely divided from life.

Facing the four-foot painting, I imitate her movement, as if I am following an aerobics video.

I leave “Indian Skies” only because I am hungry. It takes me a few minutes to readjust to New York. In the late afternoon sun, a veteran and his saxophone pace up and down The Met’s promenade. For the rest of my day, I think about color and splendor and where it exists outside of a frame.

I implore anyone and everyone to visit “Indian Skies.” The exhibition is running through June 9.

Rounding up the best looks from the Oscars

Madeleine Nicks Columnist

This year’s Oscars awarded the best in film from 2023 and brought together an impressive array of past winners to celebrate the nominees and their achievements. The ceremony, while always long, felt more personal and touching than those of the past few years, and the camaraderie shared between casts and creatives shined through the speeches. While I have many thoughts and feelings about who ended up taking home statues, I choose to overlook my disappointingly incorrect ballot this year and focus instead on fashion. The red carpet started especially early this year and brought a refreshing array of daring looks and commitment to personal style. Four people stood out to me and delivered impressive conclusions to a whirlwind award season.

Emma Stone

I have to start with Emma Stone, who took home her second award for Best Actress. The votes were likely split between her and the equally deserving Lily Gladstone, and so the chances of Stone’s dress making its way onto the stage were high. An actor being favored to win an award is always interesting to me from a fashion perspective, as it usually results in them playing it safe with their looks, trying to be as comfortable and timeless as possible. That is why I was pleasantly surprised when Emma Stone decided upon a seafoam green jacquard Louis Vuitton gown with a dramatically oversized peplum and a stunning, large diamond and sapphire necklace. She darkened her hair for this carpet as well and chose a clean natural makeup look, enhancing her features. All in all, she delicately crafted a look that was true to her personal style while giving a nod to

the costuming and aesthetic of the role she was nominated for, Bella Baxter. Stone set the tone for the night, choosing an ethereal and pastel color juxtaposed with a structurally daring silhouette. It was the first time in a long time that I felt that Louis Vuitton, one of the leading brands in ambassadorship deals, catered to the occasion and hit the mark tonally. The dress got even more attention as Stone announced to the crowd upon receiving her award that it was broken in the back, solidifying the gown in the fashion hall of fame.

Carey Mulligan

I rarely find a black dress to be truly interesting on a carpet, but Carey Mulligan’s Balenciaga archival recreation was stunning. Mulligan and her stylist Andrew Mukamal—who also dresses the likes of

The bodice is a simple strapless sweetheart neckline and hugs her figure until it tightly curves in at her knees, billowing out into a mountain of white tulle with the black velvet draped over with an elongated, scalloped edge.

Margot Robbie and Billie Eilish—have been consistently selecting elegant looks for this awards season, and this gown is the perfect example of saving the best for last. Mulligan kept her hair sleek and modern in

a jaw-grazing bob and let the dress speak for itself. The bodice is a simple strapless sweetheart neckline and hugs her figure until it tightly curves in at her knees, billowing out into a mountain of white tulle with the black velvet draped over with an elongated, scalloped edge. Opera gloves as an accessory have skyrocketed in popularity over the past few years, so much so that most of the time, they feel unnecessary and distracting. This look, however, uses these items to add continuity and drama to the gown; they bolster its shape and sleekness rather than pulling focus. This modern interpretation of the classic design has proven that you can still find interest in simplicity and that textural variety can be as stunning as a bold color or pattern choice.

Florence Pugh

Taking a step away from the “Dune: Part Two” press tour to remind everyone that she is, in fact, in “Oppenheimer,” Pugh also abandoned the comfort of her usual Valentino gown. Instead, she looked toward the daring and modern fashion house Del Core for one of the most interesting but elegant looks of the night. The dress, from the waist down, is a flowing metallic silver, a popular shade for the night, sprinkled with water-drop-esque beading that transitions seamlessly into the totally unique bodice that is covered in the same translucent gems. The top is perfectly fitted into a low v-neck that curves into a slight peplum-adjacent structure that hugs her waist. The corset-like bodice is complete with floating, elevated straps, reminiscent of Emily Blunt’s Schiaparelli look. However, Pugh’s is more delicate and gives balance and intrigue to the entire gown. Stylist Rebecca Corbin-Murray topped the look with a plunging, snake-inspired Bulgari necklace completed by Pugh’s shaggy, tousled, Madonna-inspired bleached bob. The gown

was a welcomed departure from the classic brands that rule Oscars fashion, giving Pugh room to maintain her completely original, feminine and bold style while taking risks. The overall aesthetic of the dress is uniquely Oscars-worthy while still subtly giving a nod to the sci-fi aesthetic she has been bringing to the array of “Dune: Part Two” looks she has been sporting.

Colman Domingo

While I always appreciate a beautifully well-tailored suit on a red carpet, the monotony of men’s fashion can undoubtedly get tiring. That is, until Colman Domingo came along. While he has been an important part of the acting community for decades, recognition for his role in “Rustin” resulted in Domingo as a red carpet regular and cemented him as, possibly, the best dressed man in history. He works with the styling duo Wayman and Micah and seems to have the entire fashion world at his fingertips, selecting an array of amazing brands throughout the season. For the Oscars, he tapped the newly Pharrell Williams-led Louis Vuitton for a custom tuxedo that has flair, embellishment and the perfect combination of both Western and Old Hollywood influence. The jacket itself is double-breasted with detailed buttons and a bowtie fixed with a dazzling brooch. The pants are flared just enough to remain fitted and proportionate, and the look is completed with gold cap-toe cowboy boots. He is sporting an Omega watch and David Yurman bracelets and rings, a level of accessorizing that feels sophisticated and completely natural to Domingo. While many of the more daring men’s fashion looks quickly veer into feeling performative or costume-y, Domingo has proved himself as the case study for remaining chic, confident and fashion-forward, but never boring.

Struggle, fall, succeed, repeat: Learning to study abroad

stay close to those I have met in college, it is inevitable that we will all eventually go our separate ways and choose our own journeys, whether within the United States or abroad. Studying in another country was my first opportunity to experience this change firsthand.

My next major challenge came in the form of homesickness. While time flies, and it is hard to believe that I have been here for over two months, not a week goes by without thinking about my friends at Vassar. Of course, I am fortunate and privileged to even have this opportunity to study in Stockholm for the semester, but change is hard. Without experiencing this lifestyle change before graduating in May 2025, I might not have felt fully prepared. It is an opportunity I am forever grateful for, even if I struggle some weeks.

I have trips to London, Barcelona, Amsterdam and Vienna planned in the coming month. Again, the privilege for these opportunities is not one that is extended to all students, and I recognize that every day I am here. But what I also have realized is that without the friends I have made while I have been here, without stepping outside of my comfort zone to understand what makes me happy, my college experience would have felt incomplete. As an International Studies

major, I understand the importance of experiencing other cultures, of learning what connects and separates us.

But it comes as no surprise that only roughly 170,000 of the nearly three million undergraduate students in the United States study abroad. It requires money, time and privilege. Study abroad is not for everyone— but it opens you up to change that is inevitable after your four years of undergrad. Vassar and colleges around the country must do better to provide this opportunity for their students.

Some days, I question whether studying abroad was the right experience for me. My life at Vassar is wonderful: I had friends that I loved spending time with, I could not ask for better friends at The Misc and I felt comfortable in my environment. Everything is thrown into the air when you enter a new home. Your social life, academics, housing and self-care all come crashing down. Everything you thought you knew about yourself turns to dust. Because in this new home, there is no comfort. There is no escape from change. It is coming for all of us when we graduate. But I am proud to call Stockholm my second home. This city will always hold a special place in my heart—it is the place where I truly learned about myself. And I know that my friends back in the States will be there upon my return.

Understanding fast food’s relation to regional identity

Allen Hale Arts Editor

The convenience and culinary appeal of fast food is simple to grasp despite the exploitative, unhealthy nature of these franchises. Although many people seem to know such downsides, most Americans enjoy a quick meal at their favorite chains from time to time. This baseline understanding of fast food, however, cannot explain the unusual attachment many have to regional brands, attachments that often involve heated debates on their products: think In-N-Out vs Whataburger. Why

When I reminisce about my childhood, I remember Monster Mash ice cream sundaes at Friendly’s with my family, donuts from Dunkin’ after soccer matches and fried shrimp meals at the Ninety Nine with my grandparents, where kids eat free if the Boston Red Sox win.

might we jump to fast food consumption as a means of explaining our regional pride and identity, even when we know the dangers and consequences of praising their business practices and health impacts?

Cultural identity is reliant upon unique markers of one’s experience within a particular locale, including factors like urbanity or rurality, climate, population demographics, accents, recreational activities, and more. As such, the culinary options and traditions within an area we inhabit influence what we eat and, in turn, how

we identify with wherever we call “home.” In the world of fast-food, the coast-to-coast presence of restaurants like McDonald’s and Burger King signals little about regional identity in America. Similarly, “Americanized” takes on other national cuisines like Taco Bell or Panda Express carry a reputation as being inauthentic or uprooted, regardless of their quality of experience; even brands with names referencing their origins like Kentucky Fried Chicken or Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen are now present across the globe. Despite these instances, other brands retain symbolic function in representing their locale, even as they expand beyond state and national boundaries.

As someone from eastern Massachusetts who identifies as a New Englander, it is easy to think of instances of this phenomenon. The proliferation of Dunkin’ franchises is almost comical, a constant feature of jokes and references surrounding the region. Dunkin’ was started in Quincy, MA; my hometown used to contain two within a three minute drive, and I have more recently found a Dunkin’ hat randomly resting in my basement. Getting one’s coffee from Dunkin’ instead of Starbucks is seen as an opportunity to forgo infringements of West Coast outsiders, even though both companies are among the largest coffee chains in the world. Friendly’s, D’Angelo’s Grilled Sandwiches, the Ninety Nine and Papa Gino’s also come to mind, with the latter branding themselves as “The Official Pizza of New Englanders.”

When I reminisce about my childhood, I remember Monster Mash ice cream sundaes at Friendly’s with my family, donuts from Dunkin’ after soccer matches and fried shrimp meals at the Ninety Nine with my grandparents, where kids eat free if the Boston Red Sox win. In this sense, the association is simple: A region I know and love is marked by the presence of chains that also originated in my vicinity. If experience of these markers helps form my regional identity, then using them to explain the

distinctness of an area where I am from is an easy rhetorical move. There could be no cultural memory without the restaurant; the spread of these chains across particular regions thereby enables a specifically localized yet collectively shared sense of self, allowing people to find joy in shared regional experiences.

I recently spent the first half of my spring break at an ultimate frisbee tournament in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, a hyper-consumerist area dotted with mini golf spots, surf shops, Christian billboards and, most importantly, food. The main strip is filled to the brim with restaurants, offering many inexpensive chains that are absent in the Northeast. As I made my rounds at Zaxbys, Cookout and Bojangles, the intersection of regionalist pride and fast food/casual dining began to congeal in my mind, increasingly obvious to someone who is out of place in the American South. Other examples of this density include Culver’s in the Midwest, Del Taco on the West Coast and Wawa in the Mid-Atlantic. When traveling to new places, regional chains become a gateway to understanding a particular locale’s offerings. For instance, I was told that I had to visit Swenson’s when traveling to Ohio, a restaurant which now ranks among my favorite chains and serves as a pleasant reminder of visits to my girlfriend’s hometown. Similarly, the aforementioned stores in Myrtle Beach are evocative of time spent vacationing with teammates and friends. My consumption is socialized in the form of meals taken with others, distinct from solitary purchases. In the case of both travel and my origins, the picture I paint of a region seems reliant upon the available stores and products they serve, items which may also reflect those places’ own cultural heritage.

Despite these associations, fast food cannot obviously paint a full picture of one’s locale. As such, its use as a convenient reference for identity is incomplete and problematic. It must be acknowledged that one’s pride therefore becomes entangled

with the nature of consumption, a particularly exploitative affair in an industry reliant on tipped or low-wage labor and the environmentally damaging mass production of food. Discarding the restaurant and choosing to link my local experience to the company of others seems reasonable, yet it involves the loss of the most succinct signifier of identity from that moment, a damning implication that our sense of self is built upon market forces. It is simply easier to explain regional pride by making the occasional reference to these symbolic institutions, inadvertently allowing our personal culpability to go by the wayside. This association allows for companies to remain alluring to consumers, something essential to identity formation. Even if the oft-repeated slogan of there being “no ethical consumption under capitalism” seems true, it encourages placidity with our damaging habits. Instead, one’s sense of regional pride should also prioritize supporting the people and places of our locality which enabled us to grow through their support. Although spending in certain forms is still necessary for opening avenues of experience, making an effort to better understand our identity and others’ must go beyond the limits of consumption, instead centering interactions which occur outside of monetary transactions.

In the case of both travel and my origins, the picture I paint of a region seems reliant upon the available stores and products they serve, items which may also reflect those places’ own cultural heritage.

Image courtesy of Jacques Abou-Rizk ’25.

FEATURES

Writing seminar blends academics and activism

According to Vassar’s website, “The First-Year Writing Seminar introduces students to critical reading and persuasive writing at Vassar and helps them make the transition to college-level writing.” As last semester proved to me, that introductory experience varied wildly from person to person, friend to friend. At worst, first-year writing seminars were a burden: loathed, or at most tolerated, by the students in them, a graduation requirement and nothing more. But at their best, they were truly transformative: an introduction not only to college writing, but to the deeply enriching experiences that represent the very best of a liberal arts education. I was so lucky that my writing seminar with Professor Molly McGlennen fell into the latter group, and I could not have begun my academic experience at Vassar in any better way.

The course was entitled “Sending Smoke Signals: Representations and Realities of Contemporary Native America,” cross-listed between English and American Studies. As I was browsing through possible writing seminars last summer, the final sentence of its course description caught my attention: it promised to “guide [students] to think more deeply about the histories and contemporary realities of Native American nations and peoples — and the ethics and responsibilities that accompany that knowledge and engagement.”

Like anyone in America, I grew up seeing countless references to and representations of Native Americans: professional sports

teams, place names, brand labels, and movies from Peter Pan to Pocahontas. Native iconography was everywhere, but the picture felt incomplete. That course description struck me because the “contemporary realities of Native American nations and peoples” were something I had never learned about, and I felt like I should have. I ranked the course highly in Ask Banner, excited by the idea of really diving into something new in college.

About a week ago, I stopped by Professor McGlennen’s office hours on Zoom. We talked for a little about the spring semester— what new classes I was taking, how I was liking Vassar—before I brought up “Sending Smoke Signals,” explaining the curiosity that led me to take it. And as she told me, my lack of knowledge was not unique. McGlennen has conducted informal surveys on her incoming first-years, as she explained: “Very few students come with any working knowledge of Native life, reality, laws, people, culture… What they do have is a lot of colonial baggage, a lot of misperceptions.”

“Now,” she continued, “being the smart Vassar student that you are, you all know that there’s something problematic about that… But you don’t have the language for it.” Combatting that “colonial baggage,” then, and building that necessary language, were central focuses of the course.

The United States, as all of us at least vaguely know, has a long history of prejudice against Native Americans. I remember learning as much in seventh-grade history. While we did spend some time in class reviewing that historical context, “Sending Smoke Signals” went a step further. Mc-

Glennen encouraged us to examine the ways non-Indigenous American society has viewed and treated images and ideas of Native Americans, and the ways that such depictions have been used as a foundation for American identity. The romanticization of America’s inception and its expansion West, the celebration of the pioneer and the cowboy, and the subsequent relegation of the Native to villain or sidekick all play a part in the distorted and harmful representations of Native Americans we see in the U.S. “Once you begin to see all the ways that that representation [of Native Americans] is wielded as a tool of dominance, as a weapon, it matters so much in understanding who you are…as Americans,” McGlennen said.

As we discussed these societal biases, or these “tool[s] of dominance,” we read, watched, and analyzed the work of many Native activists. What was especially impactful for me, though, was McGlennen’s discussion of her own activist work. She was part of the team that wrote Vassar’s land acknowledgement statement, adding phrasing about how Vassar has benefitted from Indigenous people’s displacement and fighting to add commitments to “build and sustain relationships with Native communities” and “expand opportunities at Vassar for Native students,” among others. She is also part of an effort to add a contextualizing statement to the piece of Plymouth Rock on display above the entrance to New England Building.

For McGlennen, this work is inseparable from her teaching. “I couldn’t do the work that I do successfully without doing the work of raising awareness around these is-

sues, and also doing the work of making Vassar a more hospitable place for Indigenous people… It’s not service work, it’s what I do. It’s part of my intellectual life here.” Having a teacher so passionate about, and committed to, the subject material that she taught made classes that much more engaging and discussions that much more meaningful.

“Sending Smoke Signals” was a wonderful experience. The examination of culture, the reframing and challenging of the foundations of American identity, was at once mind-blowing and enriching; it was both an introduction to the rich complexity of college coursework and, most importantly, to the power that education has for social justice. It blurred the lines between academics and activism, forcing me to confront my own privileges and preconceived notions, and motivating me to be a more active agent for social justice in general on campus.

Beyond just social justice, though, I walked away from “Sending Smoke Signals” understanding clearly why Native Studies is so important. We all live and study in a country founded on Indigenous displacement. As McGlennen said: “Part of the responsibility of being a community member at Vassar is to know better your relationship to that settler-colonial history, how you’re a beneficiary of that, what Native peoples have to say about that, and how they can teach you something about it… I think it’s important, just as a thinking person in this world, to know that history.”

At a school that so publicly advertises its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, what could be more appropriate?

Student reflects on Shary Boyle’s poeticism in MAD exhibit

Justbefore spring break, I had the opportunity to explore a number of New York City museums, specifically Manhattan’s Museum of Art and Design (MAD). The museum had galleries from the second to the fifth floor, with the sixth floor dedicated to showing artists’ active studios—some of which had artists working on current projects in them while I was at the museum. The predominant attraction of MAD was the work of Shary Boyle, an interdisciplinary Canadian artist “who is known for her feminist explorations of anxiety, desire and otherness, often through the marginalized genres of decoration, illustration and fantasy.” Located on the fourth and fifth floors, her paintings and sculptures (and a single masterfully written poem) all illuminated a broad variety of topics and projects she wishes to push forward amid today’s political agenda. While not necessarily political, there were ways for viewers to attach meaning from her work to nearly all political and cultural spheres depending on their own lived experience. Titled “Outside the palace of me,” her work at MAD was a must see, not only for those interested in art, but also for those interested in poetical discourse and poetry as a rhetorical device in art.

The fourth floor carried a more melancholic tone compared to that of the fifth. Upon entrance, there were acetate-based framed works projected onto different walls. Two porcelain figures balancing large unnamed moons on their stomachs were positioned in the center of the room, one a woman and one a man. Clearly based on the history of theater, and looking suspiciously Vaude-

ville-esque, they represented a clear desolation which was echoed on this floor with minimal, at times completely dark, lighting. All the figures were in battle with resistance, seeming to invoke melancholic strength as they overcame a given number of obstacles.

On one side of the room, there was a poem transcribed on a wall with an American Sign Language (ASL) rendition of the poem on video. The poem was fraught with emotion and hinged upon the possibility of vulnerability and strength’s coexistence. It also served to remind viewers of the poetic perspective in all of Boyle’s work, even though it is not always explicit. She uses symbolism and expressiveness in all of her work, creating a rhythm outside of language itself. Thus, her work remains poetical despite lacking traditional stanza written form.

The fifth floor invited viewers in with music that you could personally pick out from a preselected arrangement of songs from Boyle. All the songs were jubilant compared to the previous floor’s instrumental tone— pickings included Nina Simone and Bill Withers. She creates a portrayal of the female body engaged and active in political, emotional and cultural spheres. The epicenter of her sculpture work seemed to be the idea of female individualism-—evident in sculptures “Scarborough” and “Oasis” that showed widely different portrayals of femininity, one based on intersexuality and the other on LGBTQIA+ stereotypes. I also enjoyed that her work seemed to exist within a space between mysticism and corporeal exploration, while also being interested in the political discourse of the 21st century.

I have never experienced an exhibit that so rawly defined political and emotional topics, sometimes in entirely different ways. From having three pieces devoted entirely to white

privilege and the different ways it manifests, to sculpting an old woman disoriented with her own image when looking in a mirror, Boyle is able to tackle art without picking a perspective or losing her message(s) through genre.

Her work pulled at so many parts of me,

and felt both personal and available. I have never felt so activated within a gallery, or tender. Although the exhibit is now closed, I encourage all to explore Shary Boyle’s work online or in another gallery or visit Manhattan’s Museum of Art and Design for their future exhibits.

Image courtesy of Emma Goss ’26.

Breaking News

From the desk of

Nicholas Tillinghast

New Hackensack sold on Fizz Marketplace for a stack of nickles

Giving my hot takes on toddlers

Nicholas Tillinghast

During breaks, I tend to spend an inordinate amount of time with toddlers. My mother runs a daycare, so I work there when I’m back home (something something nepotism), and I often get stuck working in the toddler room. It’s not easy to talk to toddlers. None of them have seen “The Godfather.” This is not a precursor for any conversation with me (though it certainly helps) nor is “The Godfather” the only film I have opinions on. I also like “The Godfather Part II,” though no toddler has intellectually conversed with me about it yet.

Toddlers don’t know anything about music either. I’m not big on the whole, “Oh yeah, you like so-and-so band? Name five of their songs,” thing, but I am that way when it comes to toddlers. I saw one wearing a Nirvana shirt the other day. You like Nirvana? Really? Name any Nirvana song and I will inquire no further. You know what? Name ANY song, Paxton. My mind will be blown. I think the only music shirt a toddler could wear that

I would be okay with is one that says, “I have a modest appreciation for ‘The Itsy Bitsy Spider.’” Maybe a bit wordy, but there’s a lot of truth there.

Another thing that bothers me about toddlers is that they are ridiculously bad at washing their hands. Every time I go home, I get upsettingly ill and I always know who the culprit is. You could give a group of toddlers a semester-long course on handwashing where the final is just washing your hands. They would all fail.

Toddlers most definitely toddle. It’s a name so spot-on it almost feels ageist.

I could imagine that they might actively reject the concept of germs. “You’re telling me I need to cover my hands in water to get rid of microscopic guys on me that are trying to kill me? Nice try. I thought the whole ‘San-

ta’ thing was a bit much, but this I just can’t accept, Mr. Nick. It’s preposterous. I’ll do the handwashing thing, but always begrudgingly and very badly.”

I do have some sympathy for the struggles of toddlers. It can be tough being born in 2022 and having to catch up on all the happenings of Earth. They may go their whole lives unaware of the existence of Silly Bandz or PSY’s “Gangnam Style” or Crazy Frog. They weren’t even on Earth yet for the insurrection. Bro, how could you have missed that? It happened, like, yesterday!

I know I have given them a lot of flack, but toddlers are genuinely some of the funniest people that I know. I thought John Mulaney’s “Field of Dreams” bit at the Oscars was funny, but when I imagine it being performed by a two-foot-tall toddler John Mulaney with a weak but self-confident grasp of the English language, it suddenly becomes much funnier to me.

There was this tweet I saw a while ago saying that “toddler” is the most accurate name for anything ever. Firefighters fight fires. Lawnmowers mow lawns. Toddlers most

definitely toddle. It’s a name so spot-on it almost feels ageist. And yet there’s no better name for this bumbling group of humans.

You could give a group of toddlers a semester-long course on handwashing where the final is just washing your hands. They would all fail.

I’ve had a pretty good experience with toddlers, all things considered. None of the toddlers I’ve had actively bite each other, which is something they apparently do sometimes. They grow teeth and want to start using them. Who can really blame them? That being said, not biting people is pretty cool, in my opinion. I’m glad that the toddlers I have worked with have decided to use their teeth for good.

So yeah. Honestly, I think toddlers are generally solid. Pretty good update to baby.

CHEEKY SMOKE Anna Kozloski

I’m

so

back:

My

thoughts on the winners of the Oscars

“Congratulations 96th Oscars nominees and winners!” Something I say all of the time, and it was not the first thing that showed up when I clicked on “oscars.com.” Please don’t check that. Though I didn’t watch the Oscars this year (or any other year; I’ve never been able to sit through award shows), I watched several movies over Spring Break. Two of my friends, Sophia and Katie, came to visit me in the great state of Florida. It’s possible that they just came to visit the world-famous Gatorland, but I’m choosing to believe that they came to see me for my sparkling personality and decent pancake-making skills.

While they were at my house, we watched several five-star, flawless movies including “Divergent” and “Insurgent” (and I will never watch either ever again), “Bottoms” (again), “Red, White & Royal Blue” (my third time watching it) and finally, after many months of considering it, “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.” I hope you are so proud of me for finally watching it, even though it took two sittings. Anyway, all of this is to say that I am double extra qualified to talk about the winners of the Oscars in comparison to my previous predictions. Get excited everyone!

Best Actor I technically predicted Cillian Murphy and, as per usual, I was correct. I will say that this is well-deserved. He was very good in “Oppenheimer.” I am also a casual fan of Cillian Murphy; I really like how he looks mildly bored or afraid all of the time. As someone who suffers from a bad case of RBF, I feel very seen and heard by him. Thank you, Cillian, for representing unapproachable people everywhere.

Best Actress

In my last piece, I made a grave error regarding Emma Stone’s role in the Spider-Man movies. I was just informed by my girlfriend, an avid Spider-Man fan, that Emma Stone did not, in fact, play MJ in “The Amazing Spider-Man,” but she instead played Gwen Stacy. I am extremely embarrassed. However, I was also extremely correct in predicting that Emma Stone would win. So I would call this situation a solid medium-embarrassing event. Though I haven’t seen “Poor Things” and I absolutely hated “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley when I read it in sophomore year of high school, I have no doubt that Emma Stone’s performance was phenomenal and well-deserving of the Oscar.

Best Supporting Actor

I was very wrong about the winner of Best Supporting Actor. So what? Sue me! Please don’t, I would be sad. Anyway, I’m not surprised about Robert Downey Jr. winning for “Oppenheimer,” because of course there was an “Oppenheimer” sweep. That being said, I was (once again) informed by my girlfriend that it was RDJ’s first Oscar, which is so exciting for him and a long time coming.

Best Supporting Actress

I was sort of correct about the winner of Best Supporting Actress! Though I was rooting for America Ferrera (because Barbie is one of two Oscar-nominated films I have seen), I am very excited that Da’Vine Joy Randolph won! From what I’ve heard, and as substantiated by her Oscar, her performance slayed. My roommate would like me to give her a special shoutout for firmly predicting this win and many other categories, but we will share this win as a roommate unit. That’s enough to make me consider watching “The Holdovers,” which means I’ll finally end up watching it in five to seven business months.

Best Picture

Okay, so “Barbie” didn’t win. It’s fine. We all knew that “Oppenheimer” would win, it wasn’t surprising. However, I was once again, kind of correct! I predicted a “La La Land” re-

peat event at the Oscars, and I was right. I’ve seen many TikTok edits of the “La La Land” ending where Ryan Gosling’s character sings to Emma Stone’s character, who happens to be a very decorated actress. And guys, you’ll never guess what happened at the Oscars. Ryan Gosling sang to Emma Stone, an award-winning actress. Crazy stuff!

Best Director

Once again, I was not surprised by Christopher Nolan winning Best Director. Is it deserved? Sure. “Oppenheimer” was a very good movie. Loud, but good. However, Ialso think that Greta Gerwig was snubbed for Best Director. According to Variety, and checked with Wikipedia, only seven women have been nominated for Best Director in the history of the Oscars, and only three have won. I could talk about how this says a lot about the film industry, but I’ll save you from that undoubtedly long rant.

I hope you all enjoyed my very professional and qualified review of my own Oscar predictions. I don’t want my movie knowledge to be tested publicly, as I scare easily, so if you would like to share your opinions about this, please reach out to me via my two favorite forms of contact: snail mail (from a real snail) or a Harry-Potter-esque owl delivery at breakfast.

Jordan

Boeing to stop making planes out of LEGOs

Benjamin Savel Too Fly

After reports of Boeing planes dropping wheels, bolts and entire doors, with some even falling out of the sky mid-flight, the company has announced that it will no longer be consulting its local LEGO store for airplane supplies. Effective immediately, Boeing is suspending Danny, a two-year-old boy, from his role as construction manager for the nation’s top aerospace company.

Boeing’s mishaps culminated earlier this month, when a wheel detached from a plane on takeoff, causing it to hurtle to the ground and smash several cars at an adjacent parking lot. When asked for comment, Danny relayed a message: “Wheel go SMASH! Vroom vroom boom!”

Boeing flyers are demanding answers after Danny’s response, calling it “planely insufficient” and “full of hot air.” In response, Danny replied that he was hungry and wanted applesauce for snack.

A few hours later, Danny was informed by his mother, the Famous Alexandra Airlinerre (or the FAA for short), that he had to put away his toys for a few hours. Soon, the FAA gave him a time-out after he kept flying his planes anyway, grounding him for the rest of the week.

Boeing, last Friday, announced a new, revolutionary approach to ensure flight integrity after it removes its LEGO-based process. To ensure planes’ safety, each crewmember will thoroughly check over each plane’s construction using a new device called “their eyes”.

The company has vowed it will apply the eyes-based approach to other flight operations. Two weeks ago, a flight attendant accidentally bumped into a switch that sent a Boeing plane hurtling to the ground. The company will not remove the doom switch but instead is asking flight attendants to please look carefully and whatever they do, don’t press that button. Boeing has assured us from their experience with Danny that this

method is very effective.

Boeing is also designing the upcoming lunar lander and is taking extra measures to ensure that it is safe, ceasing all LEGO-based lunar manufacturing. Instead, the company will build the lunar lander out of DUPLOs because they are bigger and therefore have more integrity.

Now that Boeing has fixed the problem, there will be no more issues with Boeing planes ever again, the company announced

shortly before there were three more incidents involving Boeing planes. Boeing’s PR team has announced that this announcement was a mistake. They will never make a mistake like this again, the company announced before it made two more PR mistakes.

After these PR incidents, the company announced that the PR mistake-explaining mistake was a mistake, and while the mistake and the misstated mistake regarding the mistake were mistakes, it would be a mistake to think

that Boeing will make any direct mistakes or mistake-related mistakes in the future. To entice customers back to their airline, Boeing is offering customers discounts of over $50,000 on their next Boeing flights, enough to pay for two whole flights. But a large body of analysts remain skeptical of the plan. “This new plan is from Boeing,” analyst LaGuardia F. Newark stated. “It’s theoretically a cool idea, but who knows if it will ever really take off.”

Image courtesy of Benjamin Savel ‘26 and Flickr/Modified from originals.

Discovering I’m old in a Texas Roadhouse

Cassandra Brook Boomer

Ihad a splendid break. A really fantastic vacation, if you may ask. I saw the Grand Canyon, the Mars-like, red mountain terrain of Sedona and a whole lot of men who wore suspenders and looked exactly like Sam Elliot, but what I didn’t see happening to me was being called old. For reference, I’m 18. The sweet spot where I’m just old enough to vote, but not old enough to actually see myself represented in Congress. Old enough to join the military and have the ability to end a human life, but not old enough to drink. You know, a really wonderful age with lots of freedom.

Anyways, I was in a Texas Roadhouse in Tucson, Arizona, minding my own business. Well, not really. I was lying about it being my birthday to get free dessert. (If the government sees this, I, in fact, did not lie about my birthday in a Texas Roadhouse in the year 2024. I actually have never lied and am incapable of lying due to a rare disease called Real Irreversible Pinocchio Syndrome (RIPS) that is very real and can be researched on realdiseases.com.)

So, I told the hostess it was my birthday. And normally, she asked, “How old are you turning?” So I provided the standard response, “19,” as I am actually turning 19 in two months. And then, to my shock, horror, allout confuzzling frustrated anger, she replied, “Wow. I could never imagine being that old.” What do you mean Texas Roadhouse hostess? You could never imagine being 19?! That’s not even two decades. It’s not like I materialized into a Texas Roadhouse from the 1800s gossiping about how much I hate John C. Calhoun’s haircut. Or worse, I’m not even a millennial who constantly looks like they’re preparing to be in an Instagram boomerang. I’m in Gen Z, for god’s sake! I’m young. So, naturally, I asked her how old she was. 16. She was 16. She’s not even a fetus, she’s a person. You know, I was 16 once too. Just two years ago. So, because I’ve been age-shamed—basically called an old hag—I have to defend myself. I have to prove my youth. So, here are some things I can and can’t do at my age.

I’m old enough to call a restaurant to order food, but not old enough to actually want to instead of just using an online ordering sys-

tem. I’m old enough to have used an iPad as a kid, but too old to be an iPad kid and thus insufferable at restaurants and addicted to “CoComelon.” I’m old enough to know celebrities, but not old enough to forget celebrities and call Olivia Rodrigo Olivia Rodriguez. I’m old enough to wear wide-legged pants, but not old enough to be caught dead wearing culottes. I’m old enough to have Facebook, but not old enough to actually use it. I’m old enough to have watched “Jessie,” but too old to have watched the spin-off. I’m old enough to go to restaurants and properly enjoy the food beyond a kids menu, but not old enough to send food back or truly critique the food

in any way beyond saying “It’s great, thank you” about a meal I despised. I’m old enough to live without a bedtime, but not old enough to want to give myself a bedtime and go to bed promptly at 9 p.m. I’m old enough to have Instagram, but not old enough to blast Reels at full volume in all public spaces. I’m old enough to have loved the Jonas Brothers (“Burnin’ Up” was my favorite song at age four), but not old enough to go to a Jonas Brothers concert. I’m old enough to know what it means to call someone “mother,” but too old for the words “she’s so mother” to ever slip my mouth. I’m old enough to have fake vines, but not old enough to have worn Vine-

yard Vines.

You see, I am young. Sure, I don’t always wear big pants little top or only think Sabrina Carpenter’s music is a bop, but does that make me a flop? Sorry, maybe I’m trying too hard trying to speak the language of the youth. My point is, I’m young. I don’t idolize the members of NSYNC, and I haven’t even watched Twilight. I know how to take a 0.5. I’m just 18! Well, I hope I’ve proved my point. Thanks a lot Texas Roadhouse for the free ice cream and for making me feel ancient. Next time, I’ll make sure to bring my best friend King Tut because we’re obviously the same age. Dagnabbit!

Calling all feminists: Stop eating lollipops

Josie Wenner FEM&M

Lollipops. Innocent enough, right? A tasty piece of candy famous for its longevity and ease of carrying. Children love them. Doctor’s offices love them. Dentists hate them. But this seemingly innocent sweet is actually of the most insidious forms of patriarchy, presented in a sugary package.

Most candymakers are men. Kirk Vashaw, Christian Jegen, Poul Weihrauch and Willy Wonka have their hands in some of the biggest candy companies in the world. And, of course, candy is one of the most pervasive and persuasive ways that companies send subliminal messages to the masses. Rearranging the letters of “Hershey’s Chocolate” actually gives you “Big Brother is watching you,” reminding us that we live underneath the thumb of big corporations, a message ever-so-cleverly concealed in plain sight in every grocery store candy aisle. Lollipops are a different form of oppression, this time relating to gender. Lollipops are actually symbolic penises, and by eating them, we as women

are accepting what the patriarchy is quite literally shoving down our throats.

Think about it. Stick attached to a ball. Need I say more? Every time a woman eats a lollipop, she takes in the intended message of male superiority. She thinks she’s licking on a piece of candy, eroding away to the sugary core, but really, she’s licking the candy of a male-dominated society, and the only thing being eroded is her personhood.

The green M&M isn’t the only candy going woke. Any self-respecting feminist knows that she must stop eating lollipops and go for a more female-friendly treat. If you put two Skittles together and squint your eyes a lot and imagine a little bit, they kind of maybe look like breasts. Female warriors, continue to consume womanly candies, and refuse to swallow for any man.

Gloria Steinem wouldn’t be caught dead eating a lollipop. Elizabeth Cady Stanton couldn’t Elizabeth-Cady-Stand them. RBG actually stood for Ruth Bisn’t Geatinglollipops. We must stand with our sisters before us and reject male power on a stick. Women, stop deepthroating the patriarchy and say no to these phallic pops.

Image courtsey of Wikimedia Commons.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

We need more dialogue about nuclear technology and weapons

Soren Fischer Columnist

As of late, my life has been filled with conversations surrounding nuclear technology and nuclear weapons. From class discussions on the Cold War to personal discourse on the contemporary political and scientific realities of society, I just had to write about it. Especially since the world was reminded once again of the reality of nuclear technology and its military capabilities this past summer, with the release of “Oppenheimer.”

Nuclear weapons are not the problem of yesterday. They still remain one of the greatest threats to humanity’s existence—and almost all life as we know it. Omnicide, the destruction of human life through the means of nuclear annihilation, is as great a concern as it ever has been, but it seems to have disappeared? in the rear-view mirror for many and does not evoke as much of a public outcry as it did, say, during the 1960s.

We live in an incredibly worrying time. The climate crisis, most notably recognized as an emergency among young people, is a threat to our well-being due to the actions of the generations before us. Furthermore, international governments are unable to take proper action. The sharply dividing and systemic inequalities that exist alongside deadly conflicts and human rights abuses have placed us in an unprecedented period of

human history.

It is important to continue the dialogue surrounding the ongoing issues that plague humanity, but it is still important to recognize that the existential threat of nuclear omnicide looms over us at every moment. We need to reamplify the dialogue surrounding the management of nuclear technology and how to harness it for purely benevolent reasons, while working toward eliminating nuclear weapons altogether.

“According to the 2020 Chicago Council Survey, two-thirds of Americans (66%) believe that no country should be allowed to have nuclear weapons.” More specifically in regard to political affiliation, 54% of Republicans, 78% of Democrats and 64% of independents hold this sentiment. While it might be assumed that this could be a partisan issue, given how the approach to foreign policy generally diverges greatly across party lines, the nuclear threat is not nearly the same political issue as it was previously.

It is as much of a threat to our existence as it ever has been. However, the nuclear threat, one of the most previously important political issues in the United States and the international community is not being talked about nearly as much as it had been during the Cold War, nor is it registering on the public level like it had.

There is no justification for the usage of nuclear weapons in any conflict, which can be easily proved by the two times they were

used by the United States at the end of World War II on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Any scenario justifying the deployment of nuclear weapons would inherently lack morality and legitimacy, as the unparalleled devastation and loss of innocent lives stand as stark reminders of the ethical abyss inherent in their utilization.

The notion of preventing “rogue states” or “terrorist groups” from obtaining nuclear weapons that is prevalent in American foreign policy is misleading and frankly unrealistic. While it is true that keeping nuclear arms away from extremist groups would be ideal for the safety of the international community, they actually, and more importantly, need to be kept away from the United States and other nuclear-armed countries that would have the capacity for the nuclear destruction of humanity.

Within the discourse of who has access to weapons of mass destruction, there is a striking dichotomy of “governmental terrorism” juxtaposed against “non-governmental terrorism.” There is, of course, no universal definition of terrorism. The Federal Bureau of Investigation might define it one way, while the United Nations defines it another. With that being said, terrorism generally has been associated with the actions of non-governmental organizations (NGO). However, I would argue that what the United States did in Japan to end World War II absolutely constitutes terrorism. Nation-states, who

have committed numerous acts of terrorism, should be held accountable; not just NGOs.

Terrorism is, I think, the use of intentional violence specifically against civilians to advance political aims. The United States committed mass violence against the civilian population of two major Japanese cities to force a surrender and prevent the need for further deployment of troops. Because of the “unlawfulness” associated with actions by terrorist organizations, as portrayed by the United States and frequently depicted in the media, countries engage in terrorist violence without facing consequences, leading to a cycle of continuous aggression.

As a result, the United States and other countries that have a nuclear arsenal justify maintaining their collection of always-atthe-ready weapons to protect their people from not only non-governmental threats, but also each other.

The persistent threat that is the existence of nuclear weapons demands a greater and renewed attention. Recognizing the immorality of their use, as seen in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is reason for an absolute discernment and global recognition of terrorism applying to state-sponsored violence. Despite a shortage of conversation, it is imperative to intensify the discourse on the management of nuclear technology, focusing on its constructive utilization for benevolent purposes, while simultaneously striving for the complete eradication of nuclear weapons.

Dobbs v. Jackson was just the beginning

Britt Andrade Columnist

Less than two years ago, the Supreme Court of the United States overturned the landmark 1972 decision in Roe v. Wade It was the death knoll for reproductive rights. In the last two years injustice disguised as law has embedded itself into the American legal system. It is necessary to understand the legal changes happening within our justice system as they are one of the only forms of protection that remains. Dobbs v. Jackson’s Women’s Health Organization was heard by the Supreme Court in an act of good faith, with the expectation that the legal precedent of Roe would be upheld. The issue being argued in Dobbs: the constitutionality of Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban. The champion for abortion rights: the only remaining abortion clinic in the State of Mississippi—Jackson’s Women’s Health Organization. The Supreme Court was supposed to uphold 50 years of legal precedent. Instead, in a decision written by Justice Samuel Alito, the Supreme Court not only upheld the Mississippi abortion law but also overturned Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey—the two legal precedents that prevented an outright ban on abortion care. The decision eliminated all federal constitutional protections for abortion and moved all abortion laws and regulations to be assessed under the

It is necessary to understand the legal changes happening within our justice system as they are one of the only forms of protection that remains.

most lenient level of judicial review: “rational basis.” Under this standard, according to the Supreme Court, any laws regarding abortion would be entitled to a “strong presumption of validity.” Lawmakers now could determine the validity of abortion rights regardless of medical or legal understanding. Women’s rights activists and medical providers across the world condemned the decision as a gross violation of women’s right to autonomy. They warned that restricting access to abortion was just the beginning of a political attack on women’s reproductive rights.

They were right to be worried. Instead of a “presumption of validity” toward existing abortion laws, many states immediately began banning access to abortion care entirely. According to a New York Times report from Jan. 8, 2024, 14 states have implemented a full ban on abortion in most or all circumstances, another seven have implemented bans well before the previous timeline protected by Roe and three states are currently fighting for bans through their court systems. Abortion remains legal in 27 states, but that may not be enough, especially in light of the most recent attacks on reproductive rights in the United States.

On Feb. 16, 2024, the Alabama Supreme Court declared that embryos created during the in-vitro fertilization (IVF) process should be considered children. In this case, the plaintiffs were three couples who underwent IVF at a clinic in Alabama and successfully had children. They also had several embryos frozen, assuming they could return at a future time to once again conceive. Instead, a patient of the hospital where the embryos were stored entered the clinic’s cryo-preservation unit and opened the storage tank containing the embryos. The patient then touched and dropped the embryos after burning his hand on the frozen components of the tank. The plaintiff couples sued the clinic for the destruction

of the embryos for the Wrongful Death of a Minor. The case was thrown out because under Alabama law, embryos were not considered children. On appeal to the Alabama Supreme Court, the decision to dismiss the case was overthrown under the belief that the Wrongful Death of a Minor does apply “to all unborn children without limitation. That includes unborn children who are not located in utero at the time they are killed.” Not only did the Alabama Supreme Court enshrine embryos into personhood but their justifications were filled with religious reasoning with Chief Justice Tom Parker citing scripture and theology as his justifications instead of legal statutes. IVF clinics throughout Alabama have already stopped providing services out of fear that they and their clients may face criminal charges during the IVF process. After all, what happens if an embryo does not implant, or does not survive the freezing or thawing process? The journey through infertility is rife with failure and heartbreak, and this new risk of unjust legal consequences is more than most can bear.

IVF clinics throughout Alabama have already stopped providing services out of fear that they and their clients may face criminal charges during the IVF process.

Meanwhile in Texas, a federal appeals court ruled that a father has the authority to consent to his daughter’s use of birth control under the federal Title X program, under the claim that a state’s parental

rights laws preempt the federal statute. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower Texas court’s ruling that prevents minors from obtaining contraceptives at federally funded Title X clinics without parental consent. This decision ignores the 1997 Carey v. Population Services International decision that granted minors similar rights to adults in accessing birth control without parental consent. The case, supported by the Fifth Circuit Court, was based on a Texas father’s claim that he wanted to raise his three daughters under Christian beliefs and required that he be made aware of his children’s access to contraceptives. What is to stop parents in states like Texas from preventing their children attending school in more progressive states from accessing birth control? If your adult children are on your insurance do you have the right to prevent their access to contraception and reproductive health care? Where do we draw the line?

These new legal precedents have both been rooted in religion. Arguments that once would have been deemed violations of the First Amendment, placing specific religious theology over all others, were allowed unencumbered by our highest courts. They place women and children in danger, under the burden of men’s expectations of and to their bodies. They are a continued warning from Dobbs that a government willing to rescind one civil liberty is a government willing to rescind them all. We cannot ignore what is happening just because it is happening primarily in the South. The South has always been a testing ground for legal policies and procedures, for the oppression and control of systematically marginalized communities. What happens there happens to all of us, because there is no justice under unequal laws. It is time for new generations to enter the political arena, to overwhelm the ballots, the courts and public offices with our presence and our voice.

Economics needs to change first for gender-equality

Jyotsna Naidu Assistant Opinions Editor

This Women’s History Month, I urge more women to take economics classes. For those who had a bad experience in “Introduction to Economics,” please do not stop reading this piece, because I had a bad experience, too. Now, as an economics minor, I am still convinced that the discipline needs to better reflect real-world conditions and diversify.

First, the problem: I have noticed that my economics courses are overwhelmingly male-dominated and taken largely by economics majors. In contrast, there are more students of all genders and majors in my other social science classes. This is not only my experience. According to The Economist, there are nearly three male economists per every one female economist.

I advocate for more heterodox (non-orthodox) economics, to encourage more women to take economics. Heterodox economics, in contrast to mainstream, neoclassical economics, helps to better explain the real world through an interdisciplinary and critical lens. According to the International Monetary Fund, women already tend to think more outside the market, advocating for more government intervention and environmental action than men on average. Especially at Vassar, a historically women’s and liberal arts college, the value of interdisciplinary learning for women is widely acknowledged and encouraged. For interdisciplinary learning in economics to be institutionally supported, teaching heterodox economics is a good

starting point.

I spoke with Taylor Gee ’23, one of the first economics majors I met, who now works in an economics-adjacent field. She had an interesting idea on how to make economics more interdisciplinary: co-taught courses, cross-listed between departments. For example: offering economics courses like “Chinese Economics” taught by an economics and Asian Studies professor, or “Behavioral Economics” with an economics and psychology professor. I think this model would allow both economics and non-economics students to benefit and enjoy classes across disciplines. Still, Gee reminded me that the main barrier to entry for interesting economics electives is often “Introduction to Economics,” the hardest economics course she took, barring students who would otherwise be interested in cross-listed economics classes.

I think this model could be powerful to combat widespread hatred among Vassar students, myself included, for “Introduction to Economics.” “Introduction to Urban Studies,” for instance, invites several professors from various disciplines to deliver guest lectures so students may be exposed to a variety of topics at the same time as most students are deciding their majors.

If “Introduction to Economics” followed a similar model, having professors guest lecture from a variety of disciplines within and beyond economics, I think more students would take economics courses, beyond simply checking off their quantitative course requirement. According to the Chicago Booth Review, getting insight across the field and meeting several professors would be especially impactful for fe -

male students who tend to leave the field if they lack support at the introductory level, more than men. For Gee also, it was taking “Gender Issues in Economics” and seeing further applications of economics that encouraged her to give economics a second chance after the introductory course.

But this more factual advocacy approach, while important, puts the onus on the institution to make changes in order for students to benefit, which can result in forced, short-term fixes. I strongly believe that students have the power to shape their college experience. By extension, women who take economics classes can change the course and field itself, forcing it to be more inclusive and interdisciplinary.

Vassar students already deeply care about economic issues. As News Editor last semester, I interviewed student activists at the forefront of the gender pay lawsuit, divestment and labor organizing. Their efforts are inspiring and demonstrate how students can change the institutions they exist in, given concentrated time and energy. I think if more of these students, especially women, were encouraged to be in my economics classes, the material would be more grounded in reality, benefiting both students’ interest and the class environment. Some of the biggest, redefining forces in economics today are credited to radical women economists. For students to give economics a second chance, it requires both institutional support and a community of engaged, diverse students. For me, economics was the first discipline in my college experience that taught me problem-solving techniques. By extension, I urge us to solve the problems

of economics by using its very own tools; occupy its space in order to shape it. This student-led change-making not only helps us understand real world economics with more nuance, but instructs students on how to occupy unfamiliar spaces to make change from within.

To others debating whether to take economics, I am going to refute myself and not tell you outright to take economics. Rather, invest in mentors and friends who can help you work through what economics is and how you can make it your own. Especially in male-dominated spaces, female friendship can be radical.

Lastly, I express my gratitude to my economics classes. People say that an economics degree is a practical degree for getting a job, but in my experience taking just one course is a practical lesson in how to operate professionally: how to ask for help, how to build networks that sustain you, how to take up space. Gee even credits her economics major for her current advocacy for pay transparency.

Author Annie Dillard said, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” Likewise, the perseverance and friendships I build in my economics courses are not just valuable in college, but lifelong lessons in prioritizing my wellbeing. While this is not necessarily encouraging for women entering the field, I think it helps to make the struggle and pursuit meaningful. I would like to offer this same grace to economics. Economics is not sufficient to understand the way the world works, but it is working through it with others and across disciplines that can be improved for the better and for us all.

ChatGPT hurts us all in the long run

Sufana Noorwez Senior Editor

Perhaps one of the biggest changes I have encountered during my time in college has been the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and its insertion into our everyday life. AI has been around as a concept for much longer than the past four years, but it has not entered the mainstream until the last two years. In this sense, AI is a modern marvel; the fact that we can train a computer to (supposedly) think like a human being is the stuff of science fiction. However, I am not entirely sure if the integration of AI into our everyday lives has been for the better.

The arena in which I encounter AI the most is everyday schoolwork. Occasionally, I will look over at one of my classmates’ screens during class, and they are typing away in ChatGPT to get their answer. A large part of me feels discouraged, for a few different reasons.

We no longer get to go through the process of problem solving ourselves, and are therefore unable to really engage with our fields of study.

First, I am discouraged because I know that my method of problem-solving will never match up to a computer. In second grade, my math teacher had us do an ac-

tivity where we did simple multiplication problems while our partner solved the same problem on a calculator. Inevitably, I (the student) was able to solve 7 x 9 faster than a manual calculator. The point of this exercise was to show us that it is not prudent to jump to use a calculator at any given opportunity, because it is often less efficient than using our brains. Although I am no longer doing second-grade-level multiplication in my classes, it is no longer true that my brain power can outperform the computer. I might end up at the same result as ChatGPT, but it will have taken me a significantly longer time, since ChatGPT has an essentially unlimited repository of information from which it can pull information. In times like these, I can see the appeal of ChatGPT: It is simply a much more efficient tool by which we can complete our problem sets and assignments. However, I cannot help but feel that we are, in the end, disadvantaging ourselves by letting a computer do our hard work. We no longer get to go through the process of problem solving ourselves, and are therefore unable to really engage with our fields of study. Furthermore, while we are able to access ChatGPT while doing problem sets, I would be surprised if people were able to do so while taking exams. We are just creating more work for ourselves by taking a shortcut earlier in the process, instead of trying to engage with content.

The second reason that I feel discouraged is because we are, in some ways, contributing to our own future unemployment. As a senior who is currently looking for a job, I have already been told once that a position that was available in previous years has been phased out because they have de -

cided to use AI instead. When I received that news, I had to sit down for a couple of minutes and really think about how we, as a society, have reached this point already. This is the problem with all automation at the end of the day: It takes jobs away from people, and in many cases creates greater inequalities and divisions between different levels of labor and work. For example, the job that I had inquired about is often considered a “stepping stone” for students before they enter medical school, in which they are able to get clinical experience and experience interacting with patients in a

We are just creating more work for ourselves by taking a shortcut earlier in the process, instead of trying to engage with content.

formal medical setting. If positions like this one start to get phased out because AI is being used, how are students going to get the kind of experience that helps them become better doctors later on? The divisions become greater the more that we integrate artificial intelligence, and we inevitably move more toward an employment system that prioritizes profit and efficiency over workers and their growth and development. I will concede that scientific and technical fields are a little bit more vulnerable to AI than perhaps other fields are, but no field is immune at the end of the day. While ChatGPT can usually solve

a mathematical problem, it is harder for it to write a high-quality, college level essay. However, the more that we use artificial intelligence, the “smarter” it gets, as we are giving it new information upon which it can train itself. The “smarter” it gets, the more capable it could be of making our future jobs obsolete.

The “smarter” it gets, the more capable it could be of making our future jobs obsolete.

This is not to suggest that I think AI should be completely avoided. I think there are some positive uses for AI. One of the things that I have used it for in the past is generating practice problems for a standardized test, and I found this to be helpful. Still, I could not help but think that I might be contributing to something a little bit more devious than we understand right now. After all, it is AI itself that is responsible for some terrible things, including nude photos of unconsenting individuals and misinformation that is already rampant across the internet. Especially when we are about to enter an election cycle which may have significant consequences for Americans, the last thing we need is another way of spreading fake news and false information across the internet. It is times like this when we must ask ourselves if two extra points on a problem set is really worth contributing to something that has continued to create mayhem across the world.

Brewers Ballin’: Gelb leads Brewers to NCAA Tournament

Our goal is to feature Vassar athletes who starred for their team the week previous to publishing. If you would like to nominate an athlete, please email nvillamil@vassar.edu.

Brewers Ballin’

Name: Tova Gelb

Year: Junior

Team: Women’s Basketball

Stats: Led team with 18 points and 16 rebounds in Liberty League Championship game victory. Named to D3Hoops.com First Team All Region 3.

Statement: “With our new head coach Meredith Mesaris and such a young team, I don’t think anyone really knew what this season would bring. I’m so proud of how this team came together and put in the work to win our first Liberty League title since 2014. Tons of credit goes to our Junior Tri-Captains – Tash, Moss and Julia who really did a fantastic job. Winning was awesome, but it’s the camaraderie and sharing the experience from lifts to long bus rides that makes the experience. Having a chance to compete in the NCAA’s was so special and getting there.” created a wonderful shared lifelong memory.”

Box Score: Women’s basketball wins Liberty League title

Image courtesy of Tova Gelb ’25.

The Miscellany Crossword

Category Match

By Kate Billow

In the word bank below, there are 16 words that belong to four categories. Each word belongs to only one category. You don’t know which words belong together, nor do you know what the categories are! Try to find similarities between them, and place them into four categories below. Answers (which words belong together, as well as the categories they belong to) will be revealed in next week’s issue. Have fun!

Example category:

1: Toyota Car Models COROLLA PRIUS TACOMA HIGHLANDER

WORD BANK

CHINESE MOON SUN AIR LAMP ICE CANDLE ISS ASL

SKINNED GERMAN

ASTEROID ENGLISH SATELLITE K FLASHLIGHT

Answer Key to last week’s puzzle:

“Summerland” by

Brody Weiss

At this semester’s Misc Mingle, I encouraged visitors and Misc staff alike to try their hand at making a mini crossword puzzle or a category match game. The puzzles that came out of it (some are featured in this week’s issue) were so fun, especially from those who never thought about making one before. This is your encouragement: pick up a pencil, draw yourself a grid, and don’t be afraid to try your best at making a puzzle. If you need a hand, ask a friend and work together. And hey, if you end up proud of it, send it over to misc@ vassar.edu. You might just see your name in print!

Love, Sadie Keesbury, Games Editor

The Miscellany Crossword

“MINI 1”

By Clara Alger, Carina Cole, Luke Jenkins and Allison Lowe

“MINI 2”

By Felix Mundy-Mancino

ACROSS

1. Scarf or snake

4. There are only 25 of these in the world

6. Where cowboys compete

7. The Misc Mingle, for one

8. Where a bear sleeps

DOWN

1. Scranton’s biggest export?

2. A black cat is a bad one

3. _____ full of gold

4. Born and _____

5. What February 14 celebrates

ACROSS

1. Franklin or Stiller

4. Harvey or Buscemi

6. Yogurt drink

7. Admission of a narc

8. German article often in names

DOWN

1. “What could that _____?!”

2. Malicious

3. Term of honor for many sci-fi fans

4. Come to a halt

5. Head of the French?