Reediana

Sherry Xinyue Chiang STUDIO ART

Hometown:

Castro Valley, California

Thesis adviser:

Prof. Gerri Ondrizek [art]

Thesis: “What We Want, What We Need: Community Solidarity, Diaspora, and Resistance as Immigrants”

What it’s about: I examine the radical resistance of preparing and serving meals to immigrants and refugee families in the United States and how relational aesthetics combat narratives of isolation and exploitation as a result of Western Imperialism. Drawing on ideas of horizontality and the transmigrational experiences of people of color, I explore the act of spoken conversation and food as acts of cultural modes of production and the phenomenon of subversively existing.

What it’s really about:

Holding two dinner parties where I can be in conversation with immigrants and children of immigrants about the reasons we are here, the challenges we face, and the recognition of our resilience.

In high school: I was intensely focused on school and producing art on every notebook, wall, or pizza box I could get my hands on!

Influential book: Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga presents nuanced considerations of Zimbabwe/Rhodesia in the transition period around white minority rule.

Influential class: Race and the Politics of Decolonization with Prof. Radhika Natarajan [history] gave me the language to talk about complex issues surrounding race and racial divisions and introduced powerful thoughts about how colonial privilege manifests in our modern society.

Concept that blew my mind:

Much inequity is created and intentionally institutionalized so that the oppression can continue in future generations.

Cool stuff: Zumba classes, the Multicultural Resource Center, and tutoring middle school and high school students.

Help along the way: I am extremely grateful for the substantial financial aid provided by Reed. Further acknowledgment is needed that higher education and the ability to afford a private school degree is a privilege based on generations of class- and race-based oppression.

How Reed changed me: It allowed me to find intimacy with friends and community in a way I have never felt before.

What’s next: Pursuing a creative career while working within communities and historically marginalized populations.

Thalia Wolff LITERATURE-THEATRE

Hometown:

Poulsbo, Washington

Thesis advisers: Profs. Kate Bredeson [theatre] and Catherine Witt [French]

Thesis: “‘At This Point the Audience Must No Longer Know What is Happening’: Postdramatic Memory and the Embodiment of Ambiguous Loss in Marguerite Duras’s Savannah Bay (1982-3)”

What it’s about: In the play Savannah Bay, two women struggle to collectively reconstruct the incomprehensible traces of a traumatic event which ties them together: a history of love and loss, the mythic origins of an intergenerational bond of suffering and survival. I close-read the original, experimental 1982 script; compare it with the more streamlined 1983 production text; and describe my process directing the original script on the Reed College stage.

What it’s really about:

Linear, straightforward storytelling might not be the way to embody experiences which aren’t experienced or processed in a linear, straightforward way.

Influential professor:

Prof. Tamara Metz’s clear, iterative approach to writing assignments and thoughtful feedback helped me in everything from literary close readings to psychology research papers. The way she worked to promote an ethics of care and collaboration in the classroom was inspiring and informative to my practice as a theatre director.

Influential book: In Mad Love and War, a stirring collection of poetry by Joy Harjo, unfolds in a spiraling structure, reflecting the transformation of memory into an always active, imaginatively and collectively developing subject.

Concept that blew my

mind: The rhizome as a literary concept. The idea of a mode of representation that defied the simplicity of linear causative logic and explored the nonhierarchical interconnectedness of all things spoke to my experience of the world and to my favorite forms of meaningmaking through art.

Cool stuff:

I led two playwriting workshops, directed three plays, including two original musicals, translated a play from French with Prof. Kate Bredeson, and received the David Eddings Literature and Language Scholarship.

What’s next: I’m spending the summer as a teaching artist intern at Seattle Children’s Theatre, then moving to Maine in the fall for a company management apprenticeship with Portland Stage. As long as I’m working with others in an imaginative and experimental context, in the spirit of helping others and in a manner that promotes personal lifelong learning, I’ll be on the right track.

EDITED BY ROBIN TOVEY ’97

Email reed.magazine@reed.edu

The Quiet Before: On the Unexpected Origins of Radical Ideas

The year was 1968, and a Russian poet moved between empty apartments to clandestinely type up censored pamphlets, known as samizdat, to document abuses by Soviet leaders.

In 2017, members of the alt-right chatted endlessly on Discord, mapping out plans for an organized, aggressive gathering in Charlottesville, Virginia.

In 2020, as a novel virus surfaced, scientists, doctors, public health experts, and others conversed anxiously on a long email chain named “Red Dawn” about what to do.

Such radical and revolutionary movements seem to take root in intimate spaces and media, a new book by reporter Gal Beckerman ’98 tells us—and the media in which these extraordinary, sometimes treacherous seeds are sown have evolved. In his expansive, well-researched second book The Quiet Before, Beckerman deconstructs how various media worked in the past as incubators for new ideas, and asks if, and how, they do so now.

Exploring stories of new thought, from pre- and post-internet movements, he argues that in order for new ideas to fully flower—or fester—they need secluded space and time in which to do so. Beckerman builds his argument by first looking at historical figures and movements and the various platforms where they nursed ideas—some effective, others not. He chooses lesser-known examples to explore, which provides for a fresh and intriguing history lesson. A particular standout is a chapter on anticolonialist ideas circulating in the “Grumblers’ Row” section of a Ghanian newspaper from the 1930s. The newspaper at the time was helmed by Nnamdi Azikiwe, the future president of Nigeria, who welcomed discussion in his paper. Beckerman says, “The debates in the pages of the Post were sometimes serious— one forum straightforwardly asked the readers, ‘Is the Gold Coast a nation?’—and sometimes trivial, but they were the only way to move an anti-imperialist movement forward.” With evocative narrative, a chapter on the 1990s-era zines (self-produced mini books that could be easily xeroxed and distributed) of the Riot Grrrls (an organically grown third-wave feminist group that rose out of punk culture) also stirs nostalgia for these more tangible forms of thinking and communication. When the book turns its attention to the internet era, there’s no audible buzz of dial-up or flashing computer screens, but the distinctly different atmosphere of the cyberspace is palpable. Suddenly, we are in the moment where “an uprising . . . now scheduled on Facebook” doesn’t sound ludicrous. Money is inextricable from contemporary platforms that host radical ideas, where platform developers have to deal with “constant pressure to figure out how to make this work as a business.” This umbrella of capitalism makes the social and political movements of the internet age appear less authentic, as if they can be bought by the highest bidder.

Secret History: a collection of Soviet-era samizdat, illegal documents circulated by dissidents in opposition to the state.

Photo: Nkrita/wikipedia

Beckerman argues that the “symbolic wins” that happen on social media are part of the obstacles radical thinkers meet at present. (He gives the example of Lululemon pledging to “unveil historical erasure and resist capitalism” in the wake of George Floyd’s murder.) The disembodied space that is the internet, where anonymity and speed create quick, but artificial, change is another such obstacle. However, Beckerman emphasizes that the internet provides a platform never before available. The question remains, can we use it to cultivate true transformation?

November 4 & 5, 2022

Join us for Parent & Family Weekend 2022!

Visit campus; enjoy speakers, performances, and other family-friendly activities; experience the rich array of student opportunities and resources Reed has to offer; and spend quality time with your student.

From Scratch: Adventures in Harvesting, Hunting, Fishing, and Foraging on a Fragile Planet

Jon Moscow ’69 has cowritten a book with his son David Moscow, the creator, executive producer, and host of From Scratch, a cable television show based upon the book. Their book is a global travel journal that takes the reader on deep dives (sometimes literally) with fisherfolk, farmers, scientists, community activists, historians, hunters, and more, bringing back stories of the communities, workers, and environments involved—some thriving, some in jeopardy, all interconnected with food. In addition to this project, Moscow is coexecutive director of Ethics in Education Network and cohost of the Ethical Schools podcast. He actively works to support asylum seekers with housing and links to social services. (Permuted Press, 2022)

Building Solid: A Life in Stories

Joan Rudd ’69 recalls her life from a feminist, Jewish, and largely humorous perspective. Illustrating with original sculptures, drawings, and photographs, Joan writes about both coasts: a childhood among post- WWII refugees in Manhattan, and then leaving her family for college, marriage, a commune, and art school in Portland, Oregon. She shares some of the pivotal events and decisions involved in ultimately leaving Portland for Seattle, through a second marriage and the raising of two sons born 23 years apart, all the while creating original sculpture and drawings. (Strudel Press, 2022) A new novel by Prof. Peter Rock [English & creative writing] involves a murder house, a fax machine, communications between the living and the dead, and a mountain lake that moves from place to place. Passersthrough has been called “a gripping, slippery, spooky book about fragile family bonds, loneliness, and what we choose to remember.” The story follows a father as he does his best to reconnect with his estranged daughter; at the heart of their disconnect is the mystery behind the week, nearly 25 years prior, she disappeared in Mount Rainier National Park. Where did she go during that time, and what did she bring back? Speaking with an interviewer at Powell’s about Passersthrough as a “spiritual successor” of My Abandonment, which was adapted into the acclaimed film Leave No Trace, Rock shares insights into his creative process. “Nothing comes from nothing, and it’s true that in the past I’ve perhaps more consciously collected artifacts and histories, artworks and other books to react to, to surprise myself, to see what came out of me. This time it was more like I was letting the story come to me as I walked around like a bewildered magnet.” (Soho Press, 2022)

African World History video

Andre’ S. Wooten ’70, attorney at law and CEO of his company African History Videos, has published a new installment in his educational video series on Black world history. This latest video looks at four billion years of climate change and how the ice ages affected human migration. Previous chapters have followed his travels to Africa, the Caribbean, the South Pacific, and great museums to show the evidence of ancient African civilization before the Atlantic slave trade.

Juris Zoology: A Dissection of Animals as Legal Objects

Geordie Duckler ’81 is a lawyer and scientist specializing in animal law cases. His first academic book exists at the intersection of two complementary and conflicting perspectives: law and biology. From the vantage point of both disciplines, Juris Zoology provides a comprehensive framework to objectively assess the role and significance of animals in American civil and criminal law. Contrasting the views of animal rights activists, Duckler examines animals in terms of their prehistory, history, biology, social utility, economic effect, and aesthetic value and ultimately refutes the proposal of granting animals legal rights. (Rowman Littlefield, 2022)

The Pearl and the Flame: A Journey into Jewish Wisdom and Ecological Thinking

Rabbi Natan Margalit ’82 has a new book woven with stories of his journey from a secular upbringing in Honolulu to Orthodox Judaism in Jerusalem, and back to his own spiritual path. His book proposes a new integration of ecological thinking and core Jewish concepts to help us move from isolation to connection. This approach puts Judaism at the forefront of efforts to combat climate change, the culture of addiction, and social fragmentation. Proposing that Judaism, along with other Indigenous and traditional cultures, has preserved ways of thinking that existed before we learned to dissect the world, he is hopeful that seeds of understanding can be nurtured through seeing patterns and relationships in less reductive terms. (Albion-Andalus Books, 2022)

Words for the Heart: A Treasury of Emotions from Classical India

A new book by Maria Heim ’91, professor of religion at Amherst College, is a treasury of emotion terms drawn from some of India’s earliest classical languages. The collection features 177 jewel-like entries evoking the kinds of phenomena English speakers have variously referred to as emotions, passions, sentiments, moods, affects, and dispositions. The entries serve as literary and philosophical vignettes that convey the texture of Indian thought and the multiplicity of conversations about emotions in Indian texts. The book reveals how Indian ways of interpreting human experience can challenge assumptions about emotions and enrich our lives. (Princeton University Press, 2022)

Star Trek’s Philosophy of Peace and Justice: A Global, Anti-racist Approach

Joseph Orosco ’92, professor of philosophy at Oregon State University, argues that if we want help trying to imagine a way forward to a more just and humane future, then Star Trek is a place to begin, with stories that inspire one to think about a humanity devoted to cooperation, human rights, sustainability, and racial justice. In addition to teaching courses on social and political philosophy, particularly democratic theory and global justice, Orosco is also the codirector of the Anarres Project for Alternative Futures. Previously he wrote César Chavez and the Common Sense of Nonviolence. (Bloomsbury, 2022)

Better than Destiny: Practical Science for Creating the Life You Want

Frederic Bahnson ’99 opens his book with a quote by Jean-Paul Sartre, “We are our choices,” and it sets the tone for his guidance about making better decisions when faced with challenging choices. Based on psychology and decision-science research, the discussion in Better than Destiny is informed by Bahnson’s years of work both as an engineer and as a physician, and his experience of choosing and then making the career change that led from one to the other. He says this is the advice he wishes he’d had at his own life turning points—like the period after graduating from Reed. (Lioncrest, 2021)

Project Escape: Lessons for an Unscripted Life

A new book by Lucinda Jackson ’73 is no sudsy tale of packaged enlightenment set against the backdrop of tropical sunsets. Instead it is the story of her selfimposed challenge to swap out a career-centric life for something differently meaningful, an undertaking she calls her “Project Escape” (other possibilities included “Project Icarus”!). Jackson’s project? She sets off as a mature Peace Corps volunteer to Palau, with a vision plan, goals, and even a scorecard for her assignment. Her memoir, Project Escape, is an engaging travelogue about her unexpected experiences and adaptation.

Hoping to achieve a mellower state of mind after leaving the corporate track, Jackson, a harried scientist and business executive, figures that assimilating to island life will do the trick. However, the service project and living arrangements are coordinated by a dysfunctional organization, and are not as advertised. She struggles with deviating from her plan, and she is forced to have some pointed conversations with herself about longtime authority issues and whether or not her reactions are an emotional response to retirement. At one point, while struggling to learn one of several native languages, she laughs at herself as a “lifelong overachiever accepting an A for effort was adequate.”

There is no island vacation vibe as the group of Peace Corps volunteers contends with challenging logistics around procuring food, shelter, and transportation, not to mention waves of isolation and loneliness. Wary of her distress at the differential between expectations and reality taking on a “whiny white woman” tone, Jackson’s selfdeprecating narration of the roller-coaster experience draws the reader in with humor and warmth. Moreover, observing the poverty and strict class structure of Palau, she gains appreciation for the resilience of a nation that has endured multiple iterations of colonial rule.

Will her “success metric,” honed over years of perfecting project management, be up to the task of determining whether or not Project Escape is sustainable? And if not, what kind of course correction will be necessary to salvage Paradise Lost? Jackson’s unvarnished insights make her journey from corporation to Corps—and the reenvisioning of purpose and identity that comes with it—compelling to anyone pondering a life change, no PowerPoint presentation required. —ROBIN TOVEY ’97