Issue 24

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W A

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APRIL 2019

Paris des gilet jaunes Photos by Max Gruber

PLUS . . . Zero waste and Takamari Damacy . . . “South by Swarthmore

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. . . Chinese internation al students and their American therapists

CONTRIBUTORS

Kenny Bransdorf (he/him) is ready to d-d-d-dDuel.

Daniel Bidikov (he/him) is a senior. He fears that some of you may not have the opportunity to grow old.

Letter policy

Kat Capossela (she/her) is a sophomore from Boston who spends her Thursday nights watching Bob’s Burgers and waiting for someone to give her an internship.

Letters are welcome from all readers. We will not ever publish letters anonymously and we reserve the right to edit all letters for length and clarity without contacting the letter writer. Letters generally should run no longer than 1,000 words. They should be sent to swatreview@ gmail.com

Maya Deutsch (she/her) is a senior English Literature Major and Japanese minor. She mostly follows trans women and people who draw girls kissing each other on twitter.

How to contribute

Leo Elliot (he/him) is This. Close. to turning this clown car around. Got it?

Max Gruber (he/him) is a Junior studying art history, history, and Spanish literature. He tries to hide the fact that he has no personality behind clearframed glasses.

Nicole Liu (she/her) is an English major and psych minor. She has an acute interest in real estate, and is a master at parsing craigslist ads. Contact her if you are ever on the run. She will meet you where the ducks used to park. You alone understand what this means. The ducks are watching. Take care. Quack.

Submissions of longform reporting, personal, argumentative and photo essays, book and media reviews, short stories, poems, and anything else that seems suitable can be e-mailed to Leo Elliot, editor-in chief. Submissions will be considered from Swarthmore students, alumni, faculty, and staff, and will be considered anonymously, though will will not, except in rare cases, publish anonymously. Submissions should generally not go longer than 10,000 words.

Contact: lelliot1@swarthmore.edu

Gabriel Meyer-Lee (he/they) has spent four years writing various arts related things at this hallowed institution and now is .

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF LEO ELLIOT

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MANAGING EDITORS ANNA WEBER & HOPE DARRIS

Kathy Nguyen (she/they) is a sophomore, very proficient at sudoku and at embarrassing herself. She is also Yelp Duchess of Hobbs.

FEATURES GABRIEL MEYER-LEE

Alexis Riddick (she/her) is a junior from Philly studying Educational Studies, English Literature, and Black Studies. She particularly enjoys writing poetry, close-reading your problematic faves, and talking crap in Kohlberg Cafe.

PERSONAL ESSAYS HOPE DARRIS PHOTO ESSAYS TYLER WHITE

Anna Weber (she/her) is a senior at Swarthmore, studying English Literature, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Peace and Conflict Studies. She grew up 15 minutes from where Prince lived in Minnesota and will never get over it.

FICTION & POETRY KENNY BRANSDORF

Yi Wei (she/her) is a sophomore from China then Ohio then New Jersey, studying English with a double minor in Education and Soc/Anth. She likes longwinded sentences and co-hosting her literary lifestyle podcast, “A Bitch’s Guide to Books.�

Design Š 2017 the Swarthmore Phoenix. All content Š 2018 by its listed author unless otherwise noted.

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Tyler White (he/him) is an advocate, critic, and humanist seeking to always understand the intersections of identity, society, and history.

Published by the Swarthmore Phoenix swarthmorephoenix.com

BOOKS ANNA WEBER MOVIES & TV KAT CAPOSSELA MUSIC KATHLEEN NGUYEN WEB EDITOR BELLARA HUANG ILLUSTRATIONS SAGE RHYS LAYOUT EDITOR EVA BARON

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APRIL 2019 SWARTHMORE REVIEW

“By the road to the contagious hospital under the surge of the blue mottled clouds driven from the northeast—a cold wind.”

from “Spring and All,” by William Carlos Williams

ARTS

April 2019

FEATURES Suicide, family, and self-identity

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What international Chinese students don’t tell their American therapists

BOOKS

PHOTO ESSAY

Paris des gilet jaunes

Decoding Title IX

30

A textual analysis of the Yale

20

Fraternity Laswusit

by Anna Weber

When in France, do as the French do: PROTEST

“Super Late Bloomer” 32

by Max Gruber

Julia Kaye’s new comic portrays the unique temporality of transition

by Nicole Liu

by Maya Deutsh

Zero waste

9

Ethics, environmental awareness, and video games

MUSIC

by Dan Bidikov

Solange is back

34

“When I Get Home” gives voice to

PERSONAL ESSAYS Mother tongue

by Yi Wei

The Real World: Swarthmore

by Leo Elliot

15

FICTION & POETRY The Old Gun

by Kenny Bransdorf

25

Solange’s black womanhood

by Tyler White

Goblet on fire

35

A conversation with Swarthmore’s

16

Two poems

by Alexis Riddick

28

hottest new band

by Kathy Nguyen

MOVIES “My Brilliant Friend” 37 HBO adapts Ferrante’s novels

by Kat Capossela

South x Swarthmore 38 Filmmaking at the margins of the institution

by Gabriel Meyer-Lee

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APRIL 2019 3

FEATURE

WHAT INTERNATIONAL CHINESE STUDENTS DON’T TELL THEIR AMERICAN THERAPISTS Suicide, Family, and Self-Identity

by Nicole Liu

CW: suicide and suicidal thinking, homophobia All names used in this article are pseudonyms or modified nicknames.

This is to protect the interviewees from any future harm that may come from revealing information that is still stigmatized in many communities.

Some of the interview content is conveyed in Chinese or a combination of Chinese and English phrases, which I took the liberty of translating into English. All quotes are verified and approved by the interviewees.

PART I: SUICIDE

“

I remember one day I was really, really, really, really sad and I called my mom—but that day I truly realized that my parents will never understand because there weren’t a lot of these things happening in China—or rather people there wouldn’t talk about it. My mom probably had never—I was probably the first person who really opened up about—who just straight up said, ‘mom, I feel really depressed.’ I would just tell her I had serious OCD. She didn’t know how to deal with this, so every time she would just keep assuring me that ‘everything is fine’ or ‘it will get better’ or ‘just try to relax.’ But then I realized that everything just sounded so easy from her mouth. So I was—so at one point—it was an afternoon, I was crying and then I thought of,” Pan-Pan (盼盼) took a deep breath, “killing myself.”

Pan-Pan, 16, is currently a junior at a Californian high school. At the time of this conversation, she was perching on the small, window-side stool at a tea4

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shop at Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She clutched her heavy backpack tightly against her chest, sometimes resting her chin there, claiming she was perfectly comfortable just balancing it on her knee, occasionally sparing a hand to pick up her milk tea and take some rapid, bubbly gulps. A red lanyard from Harvard Summer School, where she was taking classes, was permanently hung around her neck. Her bushy, black hair was gathered into a slightly unkempt low ponytail. Her bright eyes peered shyly through bangs that awkwardly cupped her round face.

At Swarthmore College, about three hundred miles away and approximately one year before this conversation with Pan-Pan, Evan, then 18, had arrived at his dream school’s orientation rocking perfectly-cut hair (dyed a subtle shade of brown) and a sporty-sophisticated, black-and-white ensemble. Excited and exciting, he teased his listeners with stories about clubbing—still considered somewhat scandalous in China. In the throng of Chinese international students surrounding him, Evan stood out with his height and the infectious way he laughs—his whole upper body snaps forward, almost violently, as if laughter is a heavy thing he’s casting into the ground.

What Evan’s fellow students didn’t know was that one month ago in his hometown Nanjing, Evan received a message during a family dinner informing him that his close friend committed suicide. Days before arriving at school, Evan had gone through the biggest fight of his life with his parents. Evan made sure that he appeared like nothing happened at all. He didn’t break during din-

ner that night nor did he stop laughing at orientation. It was only behind the closed door of his bedroom that he collapsed into violent tears.

Evan, then 18, had arrived at his dream school’s orientation rocking perfectly-cut hair (dyed a subtle shade of brown) and a sporty-sophisticated, black-and-white ensemble.

Both Pan-Pan and Evan belong to the newer generation of Chinese international students who started their study in America as early as high school. Chinese international students have long been reported to experience symptoms of mental illness without seeking any professional help. According to “Report of a Mental Health Survey Among Chinese International Students at Yale University,” a frequently referenced study published in 2013, 45 percent of the 130 participating undergraduate and graduate students reported symptoms of depression, while 29 percent reported symptoms of anxiety (Xuesong Han et al.). Yet 27 percent of the students were not aware that on-campus mental health counseling services existed, and only four percent of all participating students had utilized them. Citing the discussion section of

this study: “Even in such a highly educated population it is noteworthy that the Chinese do not usually seek medical help for symptoms of mental illness.”

Chinese international students have long been the largest population of international students in American colleges, both at the undergraduate and graduate level. According to a 2017 article by the New York Times, however, the average age of Chinese students in the U.S. has dropped, for the first time in history, from 18 to 16, reflecting that more and more Chinese students come to America as teenagers instead of young adults.

Leaving home at a young age without parents creates significant challenges in the development of students’ identity.

Another 2013 study, “Conceptualizing Sexual Identity Development: Implications for GLB Chinese International Students” described such difficulties by highlighting sexual identity formation (Andrew Quach et al., 2013). This research pointed out the extra pressure international students experience compared to domestic students when it comes to identity formation, as they have to reconcile the possible conflicts and inconsistencies arising from their bicultural backgrounds. The research also claims that specific cultural elements Chinese international students experience may make them especially vulnerable, as filial piety, an essential Chinese virtue that includes respecting one’s parents and maintaining family honor, may clash directly with the still controversial issue of non-heteronormative sexual orientation. “... family needs, obligations, and honor come before personal desires. Thus, sexual identity development is of particular importance for Chinese international students, as a gay, lesbian, or bisexual identity may not align with family responsibilities and expectations.”

Both Pan-Pan and Evan had sought help from their schools’ mental health counseling services—which is already highly unusual compared to their Chinese international peers. Both students feel like their schools have made general information regarding mental health open and available. Both students freely discussed the tremendous academic stress they experience and gave positive reviews for the open, welcoming, non-judgmental attitude of their therapists.

When it came to topics such as relationships, family, and personal identity, however, both students kept their silence.

Crossing the threshold into a counselor’s

office already took a lot of consideration, yet more challenges seemed to arise within the confines of a therapy session.

Pan-Pan felt hesitant sharing with her counselor what she gradually identified as the reason behind her stress and even her suicidal thoughts. Evan never mentioned a friend’s suicide to his counselor.

PART II: IS LOVE CONDITIONAL?

A

bout an hour and a half into our interview, when the conversation had gradually trickled from English to English-studded Chinese, Evan brought up his friend’s death: “I believe my friend’s suicide is associated with how his family cannot accept that he is homosexual. He actually came out to his family with his partner. His family thought he was crazy and just flat out rejected him.

Pan-Pan felt hesitant sharing with her counselor what she gradually identified as the reason behind her stress and even her suicidal thoughts.

Evannevermentioned a friend’s suicide to his counselor.

“My friend”—Evan’s voice hitched a little—“left the world (去世) shortly after that. According to my other friends, even now his family still doesn’t believe that he’s gay, and only thought that he was experiencing a confusing phase.”

Despite the long deliberation it took for him to reveal with this information, and despite the heartbreak leaking out of every word, Evan’s words came pouring out in one hushed and hurried breath. It was as if this secret he had held onto for such a long time was so shocking yet so painful by nature, any hesitation would bottle it up again.

Indeed, despite the almost spontaneous way Evan conveyed this information, he still handled two culturally explosive concepts with extremely careful and subtle turns-of-phrase. The first carefully-chosen set of phrases concerns Evan’s description of his friend’s suicide. Death is already a taboo topic in China and is often euphemized. Suicide, however, is doubly transgressive as it is counter-intuitive, self-inflicted death.

Evan’s friend’s suicide may take on an additional taboo of violating filial piety, as it involves a son permanently severing his bond with his parents. Evan had began this topic with the blunt, technical term “killing oneself/suicide (自杀),” but avoided this term for the rest of the discussion. Delicately, he would use euphemisms that deemphasize the self-inflicted nature of his friend’s death.

The second aspect concerns Evan’s frequent use of “homosexual” to denote same-sex orientation, instead of using the more common and colloquial terms “gay” or “queer.” In bilingual and bicul-

Worth Health Center, home to Swarthmore’s Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) SWARTHMORE REVIEW

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tural interactions happening between Chinese international students, a sense of familiarity and colloquial playfulness is often invoked through speaking Chinese, while conversations that involve legitimizing opinions or theorizing complex ideas are often conducted through English terms borrowed directly from the classrooms of English-speaking colleges. A patchwork language thus emerges where Chinese and English terms flow into each other and are generously interchanged within “Western hegemonic intellectual circles.” Although there are colloquial terms for same-sex orientation in Chinese, and homosexuality is by no means a novel idea to Chinese crowds, Evan’s references to same-sex orientation in both Chinese and English seem to tend towards the more formal “homosexual (同性恋).” The word itself, therefore, stands out in the flow of conversation.

“After I heard this news, I realized I needed to come out,” Evan said. “My friend has been in the closet for way too long, the stress of pretending was really too much.”

Evan came out to his parents as homosexual right before he left for college. Despite the strong possibility of rejection, he still felt an urgent need to be upfront with his family. “I felt so lonely, and I would like to try. I have hope for my family, I believe they will love me unconditionally,” Evan explained. “this need is so complicated, I thought if I come out to my family, I can be closer to my true self.”

The ensuing conflict between Evan and his parents spilled over from summer into his first semester in college. In these following months, the pressure of familial conflict, coupled with Swarthmore’s stressful academic environment, would eventually lead him to drink more and more. Evan went to a counselor at Swarthmore to talk about his drinking problem, yet he focused solely on the academic stress he was experiencing, and did not continue counseling after that one session.

It took another long, intricate back and forth, intertwining both Chinese phrases and English concepts, to untangle the precise reasons behind Evan’s omission. In short, Evan doesn’t believe that his American counselor can understand how tightly, non-Americanly, his sense of self, his sexual identity, and his relationship with his family are tied together. “I don’t think my counselor can understand what’s going on between me 6

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and my family,” Evan explained. “I tend to tell these things to my close friends.”

Trying to explain his situation from an analytical point of view, Evan had eagerly taken classes in anthropology, sociology, and gender and sexuality studies. Evan believes that in Chinese familial philosophy, there is a “fuzzy yet distinct cut” between “inner space,” where a person and their family are considered an exclusive unit, and “outer space,” which is the rest of society. “I think this familial philosophy really prevents a lot of [Chinese] students from talking about their family.

Using my sexuality as a quick example, I was explicitly forbidden by my parents to talk to anyone about my sexuality,” Evan explained. “My parents thought that even though you can say your sexuality is not a problem and it’s nothing to be ashamed of—this is still a very personal matter, and if you tell anyone else, you are breaking the rule of taking inner space matter into the outer space, and

In short, Evan doesn’t believe that his American counselor can understand how tightly, nonAmericanly, his sense of self, his sexual identity, and his relationship with his family are tied together. that is problematic.”

Evan thinks that for Chinese people, a person’s sexual identity is not individual but familial. “In China, if you say that you are homosexual to people outside your family, you are not saying that you yourself are homosexual. You are telling people that your family has a homosexual person. That same label is spread to all members of your family equally,” Evan said. “I think an underlying idea of why my parents forbid me from talking about my sexuality is that, you know, ‘You tell everyone about how you are homosexual—even if you do not care about losing your face, our family has a face to keep.’ ” To transgress the heterosexual norms, in

other words, also jeopardizes one’s filial obligation to one’s parents.

Evan also sees a link between how LGBTQ issues and mental illness are received in China. Both issues, it seems, are designated as “inner space” topics not only because they are personal and should remain private, but also because publicizing these issues will not only bring prejudice on the individual in question but also shame the entire family involved. “If you tell people outside the family you have a mental health problem, people would probably think you don’t actually have a mental health issue, that you are [making excuses for] why you failed a class. So when you say you have a mental health problem, [it’s equivalent to] saying, ‘Oh, my family did not educate our child well enough so the child is not prepared to go through hardship,’ ” Evan explained. “Mental illness becomes a bad parenting issue.”

Despite how his Chinese familial dynamic complicated his interaction with mental illness, sexual orientation, and general culture differences, Evan consistently mentioned that he doesn’t blame his parents, and he requested verification of any information about his family before it goes public. “In my process of studying and researching this topic, I realized how underpinning social norms create an invisible social pressure. A part of me started to realize, ‘oh, my parents are doing this not because they are bad parents or because they did not love me enough or because their love is conditional.’ Rather, their minds have a condition-specific gender perspective that has

“...even though you can say your sexuality is not a problem ... if you tell anyone else, you are breaking the rule of taking inner space matter into the outer space.” been constructed for many, many years.”

It seems that Evan has anticipated the immense and rigorous work ahead of him with regards to convincing his parents of the legitimacy of his sexual and

gender identity. Coming out to his parents as homosexual, turns out, was only one part of a much longer plan. Despite coming out as homosexual, Evan doesn’t really identify with that label. “I see myself as gender-fluid, and I can go out with both girls and boys—I think I’m pansexual. I do use he/him pronouns, though,” Evan laughed. “I didn’t explain all of this to my parents— I tried in the past, but I don’t think they’ll understand all of these concepts and terminology. We’ve already reconciled to a great extent now, and I’m really happy with my current situation with them.”

Evan described his parents’ current attitude regarding his sexuality as “supportive, but distant.” “It sounds really weird, but it’s alright. I use [academic] theories to predict what will happen in order for my parents to not have a biased opinion about my gender and sexuality: they must know nothing about sex, and I never talk about having a relationship with a significant other.”

PART III: “LOSER GAY”

T

hirty minutes after I had switched off the recorder, Pan-Pan mentioned a major component of her identity that she did not disclose during therapy, “The thing I didn’t tell my counselor—the personal issue I talked about is—okay, so I’m gay.” Pan-Pan revealed, “Wow, I’ve never told anyone who is not my family or really close friends.”

Pan-Pan’s process of coming out to her family has been emotionally exhausting.

She thinks that her mother, who repeatedly reassured her of unconditional love and acceptance, might have guessed before hand. Yet when Pan-Pan started testing the waters by sending her mother articles on LGBTQ issues, she always got lukewarm or no response. After Pan-Pan came out (intentionally to her mother, via text; accidentally to her father, who saw the text a day later), these mixed

messages continued. “We see each other once or twice a year, we fight every time we see each other,” she said. She believes that her parents are trying as hard as they are able, but the weekly calls home can still be stressful and upsetting. Her father still seems to believe that her sexuality is a choice. It was one month after coming out that Pan-Pan broke down with suicidal thoughts.

Pan-Pan echoed Evan’s discomfort when explaining why she did not come out to her therapist. She talked about how, despite the open, nonjudgmental attitude of her therapist, she felt like her therapist was “still a stranger” and “not family.” She explained that should her sexuality come up organically in their conversation, she wouldn’t consciously conceal it from her therapist, yet somehow sexuality never felt relevant.

Yet Pan-Pan also reported how her sexuality deeply influenced the way she loads herself up so much in school work and extracurriculars, against the advice of her therapist and her academic counselor. She later confessed to always having “a deeply rooted fear” of her Chinese community at school somehow overhearing her counseling session and finding out about her sexuality.

Pan-Pan explained this fear with an example of her botched coming-out process to a close friend, Fu, who was also a Chinese international student. While she was probing Fu’s feelings on LGBTQ issues, he started complaining about Zhao, another Chinese international student at his school. Apparently, Zhao had a reputation for not working hard in school and failing classes, which was especially frowned upon in the generally very academically-minded Chinese international circles. In the midst of Zhao’s academic failure, he came out as homosexual.

“People at [Zhao’s] school then thought he came out for attention, because he couldn’t distinguish himself academically. Being gay is a label that made him special,” Pan-Pan explained.

Fu’s commentary on Zhao made PanPan’s heart sink with its stark implications: how easily people can dismiss her sexuality as merely a confused phase or an attention-seeking label, how easily people can link negative traits (such as academic failure) with her homosexuality. Most importantly, she feared how coming out means that her presence in her community will henceforth be defined solely through her sexual orientation and its various negative stereotypes.

“I don’t want to be known only as ‘that

gay girl,’ I don’t want my sexuality to be my distinguishing label,” Pan-Pan said.

“I want to be recognized through my achievements. My sexuality is an important part of me, but it doesn’t define me as a person.”

In response, Pan-Pan was determined

She later confessed to always having a “deeply rooted fear” of her Chinese community at school somehowoverhearing hercounselingsession and finding out about her sexuality. to become an all-around outstanding student. “My college counselor keeps on telling me to drop some activities. She doesn’t fully understand why I feel so anxious about my academics and why I load up,” Pan-Pan explained. Because her sexuality is not recognized by Chinese tradition, she felt extra pressure to conform to traditional standards of success in all other areas. “I fear that [trying to have different values and goals in other areas] may [further] conflict with the Chinese society’s standards of being successful. So I don’t know. I am pretty sure my parents won’t care that much, but I feel that there is this conflict within me, and I kind of feel insecure about my future because of this.”

Evan talked about a similar issue: friends from his LGBTQ circle do not feel like they can come out unless they have accumulated enough “social capital” Evan talked about a similar issue: friends from his LGBTQ circle do not feel like they can come out unless they have accumulated enough “social capital:” “I think it is universally true for a lot of SWARTHMORE REVIEW

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conservative countries that you can only say you are gay if you are successful and rich. There’s no ‘poor’ gays, nothing like ‘loser’ gays. It’s always gays who are rich and successful, with beautiful clothes and perfectly done hair,” Evan explained.

“This is also obviously related to mental health issues. A lot of my friends from LGBTQ circles are afraid to talk about the tremendous pressure on their mental health that’s caused by [their community rejecting their sexuality]. They are really afraid to talk about [why exactly they are so stressed] because they do not feel like they are successful enough to tell anyone [they are gay].”

PART IV: ONE PERSON AT A TIME

I

n June, 2018, Evan started publishing articles on different public channels through WeChat, a popular Chinese social media platform. Having worked as a publicity director for a Chinese company that helps students apply for American colleges, Evan had accumulated over 4000 followers and is considered a small celebrity in Chinese international student circles. He covers a wide range of topics, from clubbing in America, to studying for his SAT in a student dorm bathroom after curfew, to miraculous skincare routines. For Evan, however, the article that means most to him was not the wildly popular ones that were viewed over 10,000 times, but an article that details his coming-out process and its aftermath. Concerned about his job prospects in Chinese communities, the article itself was published anonymously through an LGBTQ forum that cannot be traced to him. But Evan shared links to this article on his personal feed, essentially coming out to all his followers and anyone who reads a repost.

“Considering how sensitive the topic is, it only got about a hundred likes and very few reposts. The comment section got really ugly. But my direct message exploded with personal thank you notes.

There’s one kid who told me that he was actually about to commit suicide because he was gay, but on that day his friend sent my article to him, and he stopped because he realized that there was someone out there—someone real—who experienced the exact things that he experienced,” Evan recalled.

“There are countless people standing at the edge, but no one is there to help them. My friend who died—he used to

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go on different social media platforms and read stories of people coming out to their families, but he never believed them because those stories always used untraceable, obscure pseudonyms, like ‘X, Y, or Z did this,’ that’s why I insist on posting it in my feed under 1my real name,” Evan raised his voice a little as the pace of his speech quickened. “And if anyone wants my contact information, I will not hesitate to give it to them! So people can read my article and know that I am a real person. They can come to my school and find me and I will tell them: ‘Yes, this is real, this happened to me, too!’ ” Evan laughed. “Got to help the kids who follow me. I need to let them know they are not alone.”

“...People can read my article and know that I am a real person. They can come to my school and find me and I will tell them: ‘Yes, this is real, this happened to me, too!’ ” Evan laughed. “Got to help the kids who follow me. I need to let them know they are not alone.”

In China, older students are conscious of how their younger peers may look up to them as role models, and there are many names older students use to address their younger peers. The word Evan chose, translated as “kid” in the above paragraphs, literally means “little friend (小朋友).” Evan and his vast network provided an opportunity for Chinese international students to meet and communicate with each other. Conversations between peers with a similar cultural background may potentially form a secure space where Chinese international students feel like the unique challenges they face can be heard and understood accurately. Granted, these spaces, formed through reading and forwarding blog posts on social media and relying heavily on the friend-of-a-friend recommendations for credibility, are not guided and chaperoned by medical pro-

fessionals. However, they may provide a rare emotional breathing space for students who are navigating their sexual identity and mental illnesses while stranded on the in-between land of conflicting Chinese and American values.

The first step, as Evan astutely indicated, was to make sure isolated individuals feel like they are not struggling on their own.

The first step, as Evan astutely indicated, was to make sure isolated individuals feel like they are not struggling on their own.

As of the time of the interview, Evan was participating in a language immersion program. Thousands of miles away in Harvard Square, Pan-Pan sucked on her straw as the last of her milk tea went noisily up. Her eyes lit up as she learned about Evan’s experience, and she eagerly inquired about Evan’s blog post, and began following his public channel on WeChat. As the interview trickled into more general inquiries about her life, she chatted happily about her love for Tetris, virtual reality, sci-fi, and artificial intelligence. The pressure Pan-Pan feels to achieve traditional success and to reconcile her sexuality in a China-America cultural context has not prevented her from enjoying and expanding her studies. When she was younger, she dreamt of becoming a writer. Right now, she thinks she will major in neuroscience in college.

She was taking journalism and neuroscience classes at Harvard summer school: “…you know, like biotech, that was so fascinating, and I felt that when I got to know about virtual reality, it was so cool, like, wow, what if we can find ways to enhance human intelligence—of course people are always afraid about it in Sci-fi.

But what if we can incorporate artificial intelligence [into our own brains]!”

It was getting late, Pan-Pan had an exam to prepare for. When asked about her short-term plans, Pan-Pan bowed her head and smiled shyly, “I kind of want to go to Harvard.” When asked about her long-term plans, Pan-Pan blushed and laughed, “I don’t know, but I kind of want to change the world.”

◆

FEATURE

ZERO WASTE

by Dan Bidikov

PART I: ON WASTE

L

ife on Earth is in a pretty tight spot right now. For the readers who live elsewhere, the situation with humanity and its imminent demise is that human-caused climate change is doing (and has done) irreparable damage to the basic ingredients for a civil society. Children are collapsing, sometimes fatally, of heat stroke on their way to kindergarten;1 the infrastructure for our day-to-day operations is struggling critically;2 the population is becoming mathematically unfeedable;3 drought and flood are making much of the planet difficult-to-impossible for humans to live on;4 and let’s make it clear right away that things are only getting worse in these and many other respects.5 Indeed, a full investigation of the ways in which humanity, primarily its most privileged constituents, has boned itself and everything it has ever touched is beyond the scope of this essay.

The variety and abundance in the marketplace of publicly broadcasted thoughts on climate change and its implications make it hard for the average Jane to tell what’s important and what can be ignored, which public opinions are actionable and which are impossible, which are reasonable and which are ungrounded.

And even if someone put in the necessary time and work to have an informed point of view on the issue of social-via-environmental collapse, they shouldn’t be expected to have any idea what to do about it.

This seems harsh at first, but remember that the most widely adopted measure against complete self-annihilation at the moment, and really since the earliest mention of the consequences of neglecting the physical environment, has been to do nothing or worse than nothing. It is true that some people have committed their lives to environmental justice, and many people offer small, consistent contributions. Locally, this has made progress, and dedicated environmentalists have earned many hard-won victories against ignorance in decent-sized neighborhoods worldwide. But globally, even sketching a

short people’s history of completely shitting on any concern for the ecosystem is, again, beyond the scope of this essay. This failure is a real shame because humans are, outside of certain science fiction worlds, completely dependent on the stability of the natural environment.

This is not to discredit the work of concerned individuals and organizations like the Sunrise Movement, which here on campus has organized at least one referendum and gotten the author’s signature on petitions several times; or the Zero Waste program via the Office of Sustainability, which has installed four types of new trash bins,6 where previously there were two, three dusty old junk buckets at most;

This failure is a real shame because humans are, outside of certain science fiction worlds, completely dependent on the stability of the natural environment. or the College administration, which has assembled more than five committees to freestyle brainstorm; or even the Congressional proponents of the Green New Deal, who fight every news cycle to write some of those big checks in Washington that we hear so much about. Let us examine the shit talk here, to see how it is that an employee and general proponent of Zero Waste7 at the College can speak so indignantly of his his peers’, colleagues’, and his own hard work.

Zero Waste means that 80% of the trash produced by the College goes somewhere besides the local incinerator by 2022.

There are no arguments in favor of the

Covanta incinerator, which is where all of the black bin trash at the College goes. It is the largest waste incinerator in the U.S. of A, burning more than three times the size of the typical U.S. incinerator’s load of trash per day,8 and it causes serious health and social issues for the residents of nearby Chester. Given the amount of trash at the incinerator that comes from major cities and other areas much more populous and consumptive than the College, removing our waste from the incinerator has a limited net mitigating effect on the toxic compounds being dumped into the local environment. However, we are still right in not wanting to feed our toxic trash to our neighbors, whose right to and need for clean air is just as legitimate as ours. And those who still deny the truth of the zero waste mission statement must not even consider the cleanliness of their own air very valuable, or else must be a real idiot not to suspect that there is any potential danger to them in daily burning thousands of tons of moldy food, plastic containers and shopping bags, candy wrappers, batteries, shoes, and who knows what else, less than eight miles away from where they sleep. So instead, we recycle.

Recycling is considered clean if its contamination is below 0.5 percent. The average contamination rate in Philadelphia and the College/borough of Swarthmore, at between 15 to 20 percent,9 is not much better. Such contaminated materials have recently become “too expensive” for many stateside recyclers to send anywhere and so they are sent to the incinerator.10 If the materials are recyclable, they are sent to be processed in countries that have been volunteered by wealthier global powers to wash plastic in their rivers and lakes, rapidly develop shoddy infrastructure for recycling without concern for the safety of the ecosystem or the populace, and cover up as much of it as possible.11 So the only option besides incineration that recycling offers is mere offsetting (a favorite concept of the cap-and-trade crazies) human environmental impact, and this is if materials are “clean” enough to be recySWARTHMORE REVIEW

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cled. We see then that the blue bin has no advantages over the black bin. One could go even further and say that the blue bin is the worst of the three because of its duplicitous role in the program of so-called waste diversion, from one backyard into another. But enough about recycling.12 We also throw our junk in the green compost bin. This is the best in show of the three.

For those unaware, composting (verb) is a process carried out on compost (noun), which is organic waste. This process involves some human labor13 that oxidizes the organic waste to prevent it from emitting methane, which the reader should note is a particularly dangerous greenhouse gas, and of which the organic matter left to rot in landfills reeks. So composting is better than incineration or landfilling (and, trivially, recycling).

Composting produces useful agricultural products while simultaneously getting rid of our stinkiest garbages at limited cost to the physical environment and human life.

But we must not give the green bin a pass, as it feeds the dangerous misconception that if we can just replace our plastic cups with ecoTainers and Greenwares, we will be saved from our thoughtless expectations of disposability and expendability in everything we do.

Those really committed to their environmental impact will purchase nalgene and stainless steel water bottles, portable silverware, and thrifted clothing. REDUCE sits at the top of the hierarchy of Zero Waste at the College. But if we are to take the aim of reduction seriously, we must reduce until we are no more, because how we live, what we do and enjoy, at its core requires throwing something out. Perhaps those with the time, energy and gumption to abandon every comfort and wonder of modern life to master sewing, cobblery, permaculture, chicken husbandry, medicine, etc. will be able to live without leaving a trail of plastic, precious metals and toxic waste behind them. God bless their venerable effort!

It is hard to imagine how the rest of us mortals, trapped despite our best efforts in modern life, could make up for it. Indeed for many of us, following the literal interpretation of Zero Waste we reach the conclusion that, in a world where water comes in plastic bottles and food comes in styrofoam boxes, Zero Waste implies Zero Life. Misplaced anxiety over a person’s carbon footprint can lead to serious negative consequences. One can rush to strategy without adequate reflection 10

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on current practices, and any plan that doesn’t involve serious work to take responsibility and redeem accountability for the unjust damage to the natural world on which people make their lives. Many, perhaps because such work requires uncomfortable self sacrifice, will ignore this necessary reflective step. They are likely to

Maybe geoengineering, nuclear fusion, or divine intervention will save the people who can afford it, but for the rest, these are technocratic daydreams. carry the naive misconception that a combination of offsetting, energy sourcing, incremental carbon pricing, and other creative means of balance sheet accounting might sustain the deranged pacing of modern life while minimizing its physical impacts.14 A full account of the problems with such theories is, as the reader might guess, beyond the scope of this essay, but here’s something. Storing energy from renewables, which is necessary to meet our current nonstop energy demands given the time sensitive availability of things like the sun and the wind, is expensive and requires scarce materials15 that are often extracted from and processed in the neighborhoods of marginalized groups.16

Meeting our current energy demands is maybe possible, in some amount of time,17 but the schedule is unreasonable given the immediacy of catastrophic damage. We, particularly those of us with the most buffering from climate change’s most violent impacts, should transition from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy. But there is no non-bullshit way to make a sufficiently timely transition without dramatically slashing our energy dependency and reordering the way we live to be about something other than burning lots of fuel. How to best provoke the necessary degree of social reorganization to avoid climate disaster is an open mystery. Maybe geoengineering, nuclear fusion, or divine intervention will save the people who can afford it, but for the rest, these are technocratic daydreams.

Of course, our work on Zero Waste is not for nothing. It is true that we think differently of our trash here at Swarthmore and that we owe this progress to the efforts of environmentally conscious people at the College. We have moved on from the assumption that the trash disappears into a black hole. Now the trash disappears into a black hole, a blue hole and a green hole, and some of it becomes fertilizer for christmas trees.

PART II: WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

F

acing such a morbid analysis, the reader may wonder what they can do to prove it wrong, to make the situation less dire, to lead the full, safe,

and meaningful life they deserve. They may participate in a brand of activism or activity oriented towards social reform, maybe not like the kind of quick fixes that have been covered so far in this essay but another, more self conscious and inclusive variety. The reader woke to the issues may imagine something like the targeted youthful energy of the Extinction Rebellion18 or the brave and focused efforts of indigenous communities around the world19 who have fought for centuries to protect their lands and lives from the constant creep of different capitalist and imperialist threats. The really clever and proactive reader will work in some leadership role in food, water, and energy sourcing; local politics; environmental regulation; conservation and cleanup; carbon tax lobbies; strict business activity supervision; or, better public transportation improvement. It would be good for the reader to get involved with or support collaborative work on managing the social impact of environmental issues in

Let this not be another tired whine in the collective scream, then; we must look for something else to say. a way that prioritizes responses to the groups most affected and least otherwise protected by emergent crises; there are a few organizations at Swarthmore College working towards this.20 Lastly, when it comes to climate change, other people are important. Unless the reader has the kind of resources one might get from a successful online shopping platform, or the grip on social organization one might get from being elected to public office, or a brilliant idea for a ready-to-scale carbon dioxide vacuum cleaner, or a detailed plan to grow food on the moon, or inhabit the moon, and act in their efforts with an eye towards equity and justice, they should have no hopes of realizing significant progress by themselves.

Yet, another hurdle is that even in groups, people’s power against the destructive forces pressuring them is, in the sphere of environmentalism, limited.

Environmentalists of all kinds have been on the losing side of their historical conflicts for centuries. If any of them knew how to reverse this trend, they would

likely have had a more successful go at it by now than many of the most ambitious efforts to date. Hopefully somebody will start getting it right soon, but there is not much empirical support for the hypothesis that any of the extant possibilities for environmental action will be effective.

There are some things that could work but, as we have seen in this section, a lot of present-day environmental concern does not cash out to much.

The goal in beginning the discussion this way is not to raise panic, moralize, tell the reader what they have done wrong, or present a comprehensive alternative to the present strategy of making everything worse all the time. Let this not be another tired whine in the collective scream; we must look for something else to say.

One way to find insight is to reach desperately for it in everything you do. The remaining parts of this essay investigate a sample case of such insight-hounding to arrive at the conclusion that a progressive action against environmental crisis may be more accessible and less daunting than the reader would initially suspect.

PART III: THE WAY I LIVE.21

I

am grateful for the bounty of conveniences and privileges handed to me at the expense of the environment.

Among the gross offenses to the natural world on which my daily life and currently rests: plastic shopping bags, air travel, car travel, out-of-season fruit, cheeseburgers, air conditioners, disposable diapers, personal electronics (cell phones, computers, video game consoles, stereo equipment, headphones, televisions, vape pens), detergent pods, free two-day shipping, sugar, individually packaged (often in plastic or styrofoam) food and drinks, etc. Within the circumstances of my life, such frivolous consumption, all of it dependent upon the gross perversion of planet-as-resource, is just about impossible to avoid—unless I am to achieve Zero Waste sainthood as described briefly in section I, which is not a lifestyle I am prepared or equipped to lead at this time.

But I do a reasonable job of footprint reduction; I’ve cut out beef and dairy, prepared myself rigorously for uncomfortable heat, humidity, cold, and dryness without technological accommodation, avoided private transportation and single use plastic to the extent that it has been possible, used a drying rack, relied on a few pieces of reliable clothing, etc. It is important to confront one’s consumerist

tendencies and perceived dependence on unnecessary and uninteresting material goods and to follow that confrontation with behavioral changes. People should be aware of their ensnarements in the carbon-burning machine. Those relatively wealthy residents of so-called “developed” countries, whose obscene consumerism is largely at fault for our present climate shittastrophe, must be ready to abandon many aspects of their reliance on environmentally unfriendly activities if they are serious about sustaining some civil, recognizable form of organized human life in the near future.

But I have no delusions about my capacity to influence worldwide emissions, which is currently, as a result of a more general absence of influence over the social and physical worlds, very limited.

Admittedly, there is also some magical appeal to the purchase and use of modern excesses. The items things they are making now are incredible; many of them are brilliant human achievements.

I find myself so dazzled by the technology and variety in my everyday life that I consider them integral parts of my quality of life, despite my detailed understanding of the pile of injustice on which my ability to access them sits. I could get along just fine without a smartphone or unlimited running hot water or the occasional car service ride or a disposable can or bottle of diet caffeine free soda, sugarfree lemonade or artificially sweetened iced tea. And maybe I even want to get along without them, as my dependency upon such quality of life items can make me nervous. But as the scientists keep reminding me, there isn’t enough time left to be worrying about the fact that I left my reusable water bottle at home, just wanted something else to drink, or if single-use soda containers at my level of consumption contribute significantly to pollution and emissions.

Indeed there are better ways to dedicate time to environmental justice than stressing about the trail of garbage one leaves behind everywhere they go, so long as the trail has been kept sufficiently short, which does require work and sacrifice.

There are organizations to join, connections to make, doors on which to knock, politicians to nag, systems to reform and reject. And I think that if everyone were to take up all or even some of these tasks with enough energy and care the problem could get sorted out somehow; this seems like an orthodox position. But the people who have enough time left over after feeding themselves and their loved ones SWARTHMORE REVIEW

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to live in accordance with strict environmentalist principles might be justified in choosing instead to (try and) pursue the good life that some combination of privilege and effort makes possible for them. It is probably a very good thing to spend a life reading and learning, painting, treating diseases, doing social work or just taking care of oneself and living safely and comfortably, and that does not seem to leave much time for campaigning, organizing, volunteering, outreaching, educating, or otherwise structuring a life around environmental activism.

Plus everyone is different and there are different ways for everyone to commit to an environmental cause. Indeed, it is not the best idea for every person to go door to door (certainly not for myself), or cold

I wonder if I should chain myself to a tree or if I am justified in living towards my interests, passions, and freedoms. I wonder if the destruction of the Earth is really my problem yet. call senators, or go to court, or organize larger collections of people. This bundle of conflicting ideas is an important one. I wonder if I should chain myself to a tree or if I am justified in living toward my interests, passions and freedoms. I wonder if the destruction of the Earth is really my problem yet.22 I wonder if everything is as okay as the present availability of food, water, and safety for myself makes it seem.

These and other dilemmas weigh on my mind heavily, and I encourage the reader to take them up for consideration as well.

But I don’t have any fully articulated answers to them in this essay. I think I can still, with an illustrative example that will be easy and fun to think about, offer a useful comment on the way that activities that seem functionally opposed to environmentalist commitments might actually enrich them.

When I am not dirtying myself in the compost or meeting my basic needs I 12

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spend a lot of time playing video games.

They can be a great way to decompress and share meaningful experiences with friends. Some are even pieces of serious art with a unique capacity to blend their entertainment value and ability to engage the audience with worlds to live in for a little while. I also realize that my hobby is at odds with my mission. Video games are played on machines that require exploitatively-harvested, rare elements, consistent power draws from the burning of fossil fuels, various manner of wire, circuit and plastic contraptions, most of which is disposed hastily via landfill or incinerator. It is an environmentally inconsiderate enterprise to say the least.

But try as I might, I can’t seem to give them up. So to justify my irredeemable transgression from the program, I will present an example of environmentalist media that I spent some time with, which is at the same time a video game. It should follow that there are rich discussions about environmental issues to be found in parts of our culture that are apparently misaligned with environmental progress. The point of doing so is to tell the reader about something I like and the environment at the same time, with the hope that they might try and do the same.

My experience with the game is that it has been a way to let some of my despair over the future of the physical world bleed into something I do for fun. The hope is that such bleeding will, by introducing environmental distress as a topic with low entry cost and literally deep connections to every part of human life, focus more serious attention on environmental action in regular conversation.

PART IV: KATAMARI DAMACY

K

atamari Damacy is a video game released in 2002 and re-released by publisher Namco-Bandai as Katamari Damacy: REROLL in 2018. There are a handful of reviews.23 which refer to

its novelty, humor, stylishness, more annoying gimmicks, and really special bits.

It is a remarkably accessible piece of media, both in that it is available on all major platforms and because it is easy, colorful, and friendly to the player. There is a “simple” mode, if handling the game becomes challenging. The visuals are smooth and satisfying and the music is fun as background noise and on its own. The hope here is that it has something to do with the environment.

In Katamari Damacy the player controls a little green humanoid with a cylinder head. This is the Prince, an androgynous, silent but friendly vessel of interaction.

The protagonist’s father, some kind of God, has in a drunken bender gotten rid of all the stars in the sky. Now the sky is empty and ugly, and the people of Earth are unhappy. It is on the player to resolve the issue. Dad’s forceful suggestion is to drop the Prince somewhere on Earth to push a ball around; things will stick to it as you roll over them, like some beetles roll around balls of their poop and feed on them. You (the Prince) are to catch as much matter off the ground as you can in three, five, six, ten, twelve, fifteen, twenty, or thirty minutes. From on high, He will set specific goals, like please roll a ball that is of one, three, five, ten, thirty, or one hundred meters in diameter, or please fetch as many or as large in size as you can of a type of object, like a crab or a swan. He will hide a little gift for the Prince, like a cute scarf or hat, on Earth for the more advanced player to discover and dress the Prince in, proudly. As the player moves the Prince around a world littered with to-be stars, they can see the Prince working hard in the corner, running fast and taking it slow as necessary, getting flustered when stopping short.

And when Daddy pulls the Prince back from Earth, He will remark on what a good job We have done together, or if We have not done so well, then He will chide the Prince alone for not rolling up enough crabs or swans or whatever else.

Every time We make a star, or a constellation, We see a short scene of a human family, rejoicing at the return of the natural wonder.

The more shit sticks to your ball the bigger it gets, and the bigger it gets, the bigger the shit that will stick to it gets. At the start you might gather small fruits, signage, and bowling pins; as the stupid garbage accretes more heavily you will notice that squeaking cats, barking dogs, and screaming people are joining the party as you raze the world around them.

When time is up, the King will take your ball of trash and life and shoot it into the sky, where it becomes a star (if the player has met His diametric requirements), constellation (if the player has satisfied His more specific goal, like finding a bear of adequate size) or the moon (this is His final request). But by the time the people of Earth get their moon back, they have all been rolled up by the Prince with his ball, pulverised into raw material and reassembled into the celestial bodies. There is no one left to enjoy the view.

The interpretive work necessary to make full use of the preceding description is another essay entirely, so that must be left to the reader. What we need to know is that the game has subversive intentions,24 and despite its childish veneer and gratuitous wackiness it does express an environmental agenda, and presents some interesting images that we can use to better reflect on our climate failures.

It is a subtle work of interactive art, teasing the politics and purpose out of its

reception without polemicizing.25 This is good: people need awareness of their impact on the physical world slipped down their gullets in every kind and instance of kind of experience they have, particularly artistic experiences and other ones that involve emotional effort. As we have seen by the half-assedness of market solutions and the direct relationship between personal life and environment, managing difficulties associated with climate change is for the individual usually an emotional and interpersona—rather than technical, intellectual or politica—endeavor, so mixing our languages of emotion and environment, i.e. getting serious about how we feel about climate change with engaging pieces of art is a great idea. There is no reason why we should not be pushing forward conversations about apocalyptic panic by overconsumption in a creative way. Anything that makes it easier to get into the deeper implications of our present crisis, to move beyond whining about the humidity and into richer discussions of justice and values, is to be welcomed.

PART V: CONCLUSION

T

o be a good environmentalist you don’t have to stop breathing, which would be the most effective way to totally cancel your carbon dioxide emissions, or abandon your dreams and take up arms full time with an environmentally adjacent cause, which would be the most potent commitment to action for

an engaged individual. But you have to think pretty hard about what is going on in the physical environment around you every day, from many angles, and you have to incorporate your concern for the future of your life as a part of the natural world into your behavior and decision making. The destruction of the physical environment needs to become a topic of conversation and moving concern every day and in every area of activity and culture, especially in those orthogonal to it. Look for it everywhere and project it onto everything; what should follow from that is a lot of work, and even more coping with the increasing difficulty of doing that work. It’s not the most satisfying conclusion, but neither will be the end of civilization by planetary breakdown.

As time passes my opinions on what to do about the global warming catastrophe change. I imagine some futures in which an essay like this is a lot more negative. As the end of the business as usual we know and love gets closer, our best courses of action will look very different. When the in principle possibility of solving the immediate issue disappears, reasoned responses will start to fail completely and the “best” course of action approaches more base desires. If it gets really bad, I hope I can hold onto my humanity for as long as possible. I pray I do not get eaten by my neighbor or feel forced to eat my neighbor. I wish to find someone’s arms to die in or, if not, that there will still be video games by then.

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ENDNOTES 1. Record 70,000 people rushed to hospitals since April 30 amid scorching Japan heat wave. The Japan Times via KYODO News, 2018, www.japantimes. co.jp/news/2018/08/07/national/science-health/ record-70000-people-rushed-hospitals-since-april30-amid-scorching-japan-heat-wave/#.XI8B5YUpCV4.

2. Climate Change in the United States: the Prohibitive Costs of Inaction. The Union of Concerned Scientists, 2009, www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/ files/legacy/assets/documents/global_warming/climate-costs-of-inaction.pdf.

3. Temperature increase reduces global yields.

Chuang Zhao, Bing Liu, Shilong Piao, Xuhui Wang, David B. Lobell, Yao Huang, Mengtian Huang, Yitong Yao, Simona Bassu, Philippe Ciais, Jean-Louis Durand, Joshua Elliott, Frank Ewert, Ivan A. Janssens, Tao Li, Erda Lin, Qiang Liu, Pierre Martre, Christoph Müller, Shushi Peng, Josep Peñuelas, Alex C. Ruane, Daniel Wallach, Tao Wang, Donghai Wu, Zhuo Liu, Yan Zhu, Zaichun Zhu, Senthold Asseng. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Aug 2017, 114 (35) 9326-9331; DOI: 10.1073/ pnas.1701762114.

4. Extreme Weather and Climate Change. The Union of Concerned Scientists, www.ucsusa.org/ sites/default/files/legacy/assets/documents/global_ warming/Methodology-Extreme-Weather-and-Climate-Change-Infographic.pdf, 2012.

5. For the curious reader: www.fasterthanexpected.com/.

6. In Standard, Formal, Trash Buddy and Slim Jim varieties.

7. The author of this article is employed by the Office of Sustainability as a residential Green Advi-

14

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sor. His responsibilities mostly concern advocacy for and maintenance of the Zero Waste program.

8. Too Much Pollution for One Place. Sullivan, Will ’17, PBS, www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/ too-much-pollution/, 2017.

9. At least half of Philly’s recycling goes straight to an incinerator. Kummer, Frank, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 2019, www.philly.com/science/climate/recycling-costs-philadelphia-incinerator-waste-to-energy-plant-20190125.html.

10. China Has Refused To Recycle The West’s Plas-tics. What Now? Watson, Sara Kiley, NPR, 2018, www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/06/28/623972937/china-has-refused-to-recycle-the-wests-plastics-what-now.

11. Cf. How mountains of U.S. plastic waste ended up in Malaysia, broken down by workers for $10 a day. Bengali, Shashank, The Los Angeles Times, 2018, www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-malaysiaplastic-2018-story.html.

12. Further reading:What Happens to All That Plastic? Cho, Renee, Earth Institute at Columbia University, 2012, blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2012/01/31/ what-happens-to-all-that-plastic/.

13. In the College’s case, the compost is oxygenated by a man named Chris who does the arduous work of collecting our food waste and turning it over in the ground with a bright yellow truck.

14. Swarthmore College Climate Action Plan.

“The product of deliberations of the Climate Action Plan Committee of Swarthmore College in consultation with the Sustainability Committee, the Crum Stewardship Committee and the Environmental Studies Committee, members of EcoSphere as well as other interested members of the College,” I don’t fucking know what year it was made, www.swarthmore.edu/sites/default/files/assets/documents/

sustainability/Swarthmore_College_Climate_Action_Plan.pdf.

15. The $2.5 trillion reason we can’t rely on batteries to clean up the grid. Temple, James, The MIT Technology Review, 2018, www.technologyreview. com/s/611683/the-25-trillion-reason-we-cant-relyon-batteries-to-clean-up-the-grid/.

16. TOSSED ASIDE IN THE ‘WHITE GOLD’ RUSH: Indigenous people are left poor as tech world takes lithium from under their feet. Frankel, Todd C., Ribas, Jorge, Robinson Chavez, Michael, Whoriskey, Peter, Washington Post, 2016, www. washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/batteries/ tossed-aside-in-the-lithium-rush/?noredirect=on.

17. Renewable Energy Can Provide 80 Percent of U.S. Electricity by 2050. The Union of Concerned Scientists, www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/smart-energy-solutions/increase-renewables/renewable-energy-80-percent-us-electricity.html.

18. More information at rebellion.earth/.

19. Indigenous Environmental Network, www. ienearth.org/.

20. The Office of Sustainability offers the Green Advisor (GA) and President’s Research Sustainability Fellowship (PSRF) programs, which deserve some positive and some negative adjectives.

21. This section details some of the author’s own experiences, and points of view to which he is willing to commit himself in the first person.

22. I almost always conclude that it is.

23. There is no citation available, as the author didn’t read any of them.

24. Katamari Damacy was way darker than you thought. Frank, Allegra, Polygon, 2018, www.polygon.com/2018/6/22/17493942/katamari-damacy-keita-takahashi-wattam-ps4.

25. A rating of three P’s is quite rare.

PERSONAL ESSAYS Mother Tongue

PERSONAL ESSAY

The place of Chinese and English in my house, in my family, in my body

by Yi Wei

M

y parents and I have never spoken the same language. Maybe it’s because we immigrated here when I was two and so I was sat in front of the TV to learn the language of the people who could teach me the rules—how to talk, walk, not smoke like my daddy, in a new country with brown carpet and two old apartments on top of us. We moved here because my father wanted to do cancer research, so it was ironic that he smoked anyhow, when he first came here anyway. I learned the ABC’s, my parents taught me how to read from print out chapter books, and I answered the phone to say “No thank you” to the telemarketers. That’s how I remember it happened, the way our conversations go now.

I say hello in english, how are you, and they respond in Chinese. We talk like this in public, in private, on the phone, and in front of relatives. It’s second nature, a second tongue. We’ve adopted colloquialisms, my parents and I. There are words that we all agree sound better in one language or the other. Sa gua sounds better than idiot. There’s no word exactly like default in Chinese. It gives the rhythm of our conversations an interesting meter,

He bled Americana, he read

Americanah. (Still, he prefers Chinese in the house). when I say things like “Guo ran this happened to me, that’s just it, isn’t it?”

Of course, we all grew up here—my father, my mother, and I. The minute we, sore bundled bodies on a plane, touched the ground. We began to grow. My father picked up english listening to podcasts, reading books, and drinking beer. He bled Americana, he read Americanah.

(Still, he prefers Chinese in the house). I

was a baby so english settled in my lungs like a birthright. My mama, she never really liked it.

Chinese is my mama’s. It belongs to her and it always will, in this house. Our house has always felt like a mast against the great America. Inside, the only english voice is mine, her daughter’s. I am foreign-familiar myself because I am close with mama, even if my language isn’t. As I have grown older, so too have our languages. I talk faster. She listens harder. She uses more Chinese slang. I use more contractions. Inside the house, we

The insulation of sounds that round the tongue, slide out of our mouths, drop in our soups—it makes our house glow red. use chopsticks and put our slidey elbows on the table. Outside, we use forks and put napkins on our laps. The insulation of sounds that round the tongue, slide out of our mouths, drop in our soup—it makes our house glow red.

When I was younger, I brought a language into my house thoughtlessly. I said default. They said defort. They couldn’t possibly, I thought, understand the words on my tongue. They couldn’t possibly understand what I wanted: the new shoes, the new book, the outfit just like the funny character in the funny show they didn’t watch growing up. You know, my mama loved me so much back then, she would say it all the time. And not in the bestseller Chinese family kind of way where she can’t say it out loud and the dad doesn’t know how to talk at all and the daughter is quiet and little and smiles, demure. No, my mama, she said ai ni, xiao hai, and she said love you, good

I remember that we are two bodies holding two languages and sometimes it hurts, but we make it work.

When we fight, we fit our languages and our histories together like puzzle pieces. think that she knows all the words on my tongue. I remember that we are two bodies holding two languages and sometimes it hurts, but we make it work. When we fight, we fit our languages and our histories together like puzzle pieces. I remember all the days she sat with me with a print out Learning to Read book teaching me english. I remember that I screamed and fought on that threadbare sofa learning english. I remember that she gave me english. I remember my home. I remember my home. u

night.

She still texts me I miss you and now I

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PERSONAL ESSAY

Welcome to “The Real World: Swarthmore” Reflections on graduating, unreality, and “the Bubble”

by Leo Elliot

W

elcome to “The Real World: Swarthmore.” On-screen, you watch a small group of the campus famous as they mill around a noisy meet and greet. Although you find nearly every face at least semi-familiar, your peers on-screen treat each other as if they have just met. Some bring the same attitude and mannerisms to this party that you know them for, even from your limited interactions on campus. Others, even some you know quite well, appear completely strange in this little castle that all six contestants, snugly, claustrophobically, call home. The charming and ambitious one who wears a baseball cap when walking around campus has the same hat on, backwards.

One by one, the camera catches them for an introductory interview and montage. Descending a set of stairs, turning abruptly around a corner, meditatively dangling monkey-bars-style off a gray stone balcony, each figure appears surprised by the confrontation. With grisly enthusiasm each one gives us a distillation of themselves, spliced with architectural cuts of the Hometown and a backing tune in the local musical style. You continue to watch as they amble around their well-decorated enclosure and take colorful drinks from strange hands intruding from off-screen. You watch as they flirt and bicker, and as loyalty contests develop. Occasionally, it cuts to an off-set interview so a contestant can tell a relevant story of struggle and growth in their fictional life up to this point.

The castle is one of the lodges over in Worth courtyard, and the screen you’re watching is Science Center 101’s double-wide. What we have before us is the pilot for “The Real World: Swarthmore,” created by students enrolled in the 2015 run of the “Reality TV” course offered by the Film and Media Studies Department. I was a freshman when I attended the screening, and I fudged some of the narrative details in my re-telling. But you get the idea.

Now I am a senior, and I have been thinking a lot about that night. I went to watch “The Real World: Swarthmore” to support a friend, a junior at the time, who

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CW: Stop-and-frisk, predatory party behavior, deportation was in the production crew. The real “Real World” is an MTV show that has been running consecutively since 1992, and helped establish the contemporary genre of reality TV. The premise of the show is thus: every season a small cohort of young adults are shipped off to a strange new city where they live together in a shared house, filmed at all times. It was strange to watch Swarthmore students act on-screen like strangers who by unusual circumstances were selected to make a new life together in an intimate setting.

I knew from my rudimentary social map that some of the people on-screen were friends. And some were even friends of mine. It seemed fun, for them, to adopt a whole new personality, an alternate history of their time at Swarthmore. But the screening almost begged its audience for the question, “what’s the premise of our time here at Swat?”

Like all seniors, I have been thinking a lot about graduating and what I plan to do in the world beyond the so-called “Swat Bubble.” And obviously that also means I have been trying like all hell to remember what I’ve done while trapped in the translucent opal sphere. The Bubble. Is that what that we were supposed to make of the bizarre celestial orb that was hanging in Sharples? I mean the symbol for the fundraising campaign that coincided with the inauguration of President Smith: “Changing Lives, Changing the World.” I can’t remember if we ever got an explanation for it, with its two concentric rings and periodic candles flaring out, all in the colors of a stoplight plus garnet. There are still a lot of things I do not know about how this institution functions, things that are still opaque to me whether by design or coincidence. But I’d like to think that this Cornell Library/de Stijl fusion was simply supposed to be the Bubble. “Changing Lives, Changing the World:” the Swat Bubble.

As I pack up emotionally, I keep coming back to this metaphor of temporary containment. The Bubble. Splurch! You’re in. And for four whole years the outside world is supposed to become only a hazy memory. Pop! And out you go again, Changed. There are a few different strains

of talk around the Bubble. The fundraising slogan, “Changing Lives, Changing the World,” represents the optimistic version of the idea—the official version, the one sold. Students attending Swarthmore have the opportunity for a moral and intellectual transformation in the tradition of the liberal arts. The Bubble, in any version, always has two parts: insularity and exteriority. In this official version, native to college brochures and tour guide trainings, the Bubble is a rigorous preparation of the intellect and the spirit, a foolproof incubator for the morally engaged and professionally successful adult life.

But I don’t think this official version of the Bubble idea is its most common use. The real Bubble, as it is invoked and considered by students during their time here, is more pessimistic and self-effacing. In the pessimistic Bubble, the insularity of the College mixes a social claustrophobia with a self-undermining sense of the naivete of Swarthmore students.

“After four years,” I remember Seniors telling us when we were Freshmen, “every possible drama has already occurred.

You have your friends, and your enemies.

You just run out of new people to meet.”

Then, in this closed-off environment, the drama, the campus politics, the critical theory, is all only a closed game. After any round of campus activism, the comments sections of Phoenix articles are plagued with this idea: “Just wait until you get to the Real World, where ‘deconstruction’ doesn’t matter, and there are Real Problems to deal with.” The exteriority of the Bubble in its pessimistic version is not an outside world to Change but one to disappear into, a depressing, individualistic “Real World” where critical thought inevitably evaporates in the rat race.

I remember being an autumn freshman and arriving to a campus that to me looked just like the brochure. I was blown away. In an embarrassing video created during Orientation week, I reveal the honeymoon feelings I then had for the College. It’s still up on Youtube, under a title that could just as easily be promotional material for a reality series: “Meet The Class of 2018 - In Seven Seconds or Less.” I am featured, but since I

took a year off almost everyone else in the tape has already graduated. In the video, I have affected what I can only describe as some kind of anxiety-induced imitation of a transatlantic accent, like a caricature radio voice from the ‘20s. At inhuman pace, I cram out, “MynameisLeoElliot.

IamfromBrooklynNewYork. And This. Is a Beautiful Campus.” It’s a tad more vague than what some of my peers offered as their first thoughts on campus. Look it up to watch your faves from the class of 2018 say silly and awestruck things.

A reminder: the video is in fact promotional material. And whoever’s in charge of the series is smart to tap the giddiness of that moment. It looks good on camera.

Walking around today, Swarthmore still resembles a brochure.

But not in the same way it used to. After four years you learn that that’s just what it looks like. Recently, I have been having moments where the regular facades of the campus environment feel suddenly unfamiliar. From a distance, Kohlberg looks like it has to be made of cardboard. The buildings on campus, from gorgeous to extraterrestrial, all feel like they are designed to draw you in. The heavy doors at McCabe, Kohlberg, or Parrish create a brief vacuum when they swing shut.

As I have tried to make sense of the finality of it, I keep returning to this image of the Swat Bubble. That “Changing Lives” orb that encloses us here. I just don’t think it’s true. Swarthmore is not a safe haven in a troubled world, where for four years all outside hierarchies dissipate for the purposes of ascetic intellectual pursuits. While it’s true that it always seems harder to get off campus than it truly is, the ills of the “Real World” all occur here. I don’t think that Swarthmore is a uniquely political Bubble where it’s possible to be an idealist, and where questions are possible that become impossible as soon as you toss your cap.

Politics on campus are a continuation of every struggle that animates the outside world, and it is only when we try to shut that relationship out that we can cynically believe that the debates we have here will be irrelevant in our lives beyond the

Bubble. For the interested reader, I would recommend Coleman Powell’s piece on STAR (Students for Transformation, Abolition, and Reform) in the previous issue of the Review, where he discusses how this anti-carceral student group applies Fred Moten’s work in “Undercommons” to their analysis of the political relations between the University and the Prison.

In one of the more unreal experiences of my time here, I met and shook hands with this political relation this Spring semester. In mid-February, the Career Services office hosted an info session with two Swarthmore alumni who are currently employed at Palantir, the shadowy data analytics start-up headed by Alex Karp.

“Changing Lives, Changing the World”

The name of the company is a nerdy and sinister reference to the Lord of the Rings.

The “palantir” is the scrying orb that Sauron uses to spy on his enemies from the peaks of his imposing tower. What does the company do? Over the past few years, Palantir has made the news for the reportedly strong representation among its clientele list of heavy hitters within the U.S. surveillance apparatus, including the FBI, the CIA, the Department of Homeland Security, and various branches of the military. Several progressive outlets have reported on Palantir’s involvement in the LAPD’s “Operation LASER,” a program for the use of “predictive policing” or surveillance and patrolling by statistical inference. This technology drastically intensifies the effects of racist “stop and frisk” policies. Palantir’s platform for government agencies is named, like a crossover episode from hell, “Palantir Go-

tham.” A disruptive start-up named after an all-seeing eye has multi-million dollar contracts with the FBI and CIA, but don’t worry: Palantir assures the public that all they do for that steep fee is clean up datasets.

I attended the info session with a few other people who have followed Palantir’s ominous reputation and poor standards for transparency, hoping to ask a few questions regarding the ethics of Palantir’s work. The two Swarthmore alumni, Andrew Taylor ‘16 and Daniela Kucz ‘14 made jokes about the “Swat Seven” as we filed in late and asked us to text our friends that they had pizza.

Andrew Taylor ‘16, a current project manager at Palantir, explained that the technology itself is neutral: Palantir only allows an organization to better use the data that they already have. Taylor used examples of Palantir’s benign and beneficent work with the the National Institute of Health, and the Department of Justice. With the DOJ, Palantir aided in the organization of data used in cases against pharmaceutical companies responsible for the opioid epidemic.

Taylor spoke about his time working on a project in cancer research.

The effect, according to one of the representatives, is that Palantir’s software “democratizes data within that organization.” How can software that helps the Department of Homeland Security more efficiently target and surveil be called “democratizing?”

When asked about the relationship between Palantir and the DHS, Taylor emphasized that, while Palantir does work with ICE, they have refused to work with the Enforcement and Removal Ops., the bureau within ICE responsible for deportations. Taylor assured the room that their technology, in which “privacy controls are marked at the granular level,” prevents ERO operatives from using the same data to which their colleagues next door have access.

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ment system for both civil and criminal cases, and in practice the ERO is not the only branch of ICE involved in deportation, anyways. A 2018 report co-sponsored by Mijente, the Immigrant Defense Project, and the National Immigration Project confirmed that Palantir plays a key role in enabling the DHS to conduct targeted, large-scale deportations.

Taylor and Kucz responded to many of these questions by emphasizing the role of ethics and accountability in the company culture. Palantir operates on three principles, they explained. 1) Protect Privacy & Civil Liberties 2) The Best Idea Wins and 3) Nothing is Permanent—conveniently offered in order of priority and in reverse order of dystopian ambiguity.

Kucz described a flat, horizontal internal structure, has a “super collaborative” workplace culture, and, thankfully, the D.C. office allows dogs. This makes it a good fit for Swarthmore students, Kucz argued, who are used to Swarthmore’s well-publicized collaborative and experiential learning programs.

Taylor, for his part, explained that without Palantir’s supportive environment and small, non-competitive working teams, he would have failed out of the company in his first few months. He expressed feeling like he could ask any question he had without fear of repercussion. I swear I’ve heard that “there are no stupid questions” line before. Where did that darn copy of the admissions booklet go?

Taylor described the company as “obsessed with feedback,” and described endless internal debates over the ethics of their practices. I did not come away with a clear sense of how much influence these internal criticisms have in the company’s decision-making. Again, this workplace culture should be familiar for Swarthmore students. There are at least three major student movements that have undergone many rounds of public debate on campus.

And, like at Palantir, we don’t know for sure whether the Board of Managers will ever take their demands seriously.

The bad press that Palantir has received, Taylor and Kucz explained, is a PR problem characteristic of a start-up that nobly invested its early resources in the technology itself, rather than public branding. They did not say, “That’s where we come in!” Instead: “We were the ones who wanted to make this happen,” said Kucz. “It says something about the company. We love our school, and wanted to make this happen. They sent us here on the company dime, too.”

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Taylor emphasized that Palantir gives its employees the right to choose not to work on any project with which they have moral disagreements. What kind of freedom is that, the choice to avoid a moral injury while still supporting the institution that inflicts it? Where did he learn to evade moral questions with talk about nuance and exceptions? Kucz offered this concluding statement: “Palantir has a lot of quirky people; it’s sort of like Swarthmore in that way.”

Two supplementaries stories, briefly.

First: a true joke. Last week, I was at a party at the Barn, the semi-derelict apartment building owned by and leased regularly to Swarthmore students. A friend of mine started to tell a story. He was working all week on his senior Philosophy papers. He had not seen friends, he had been missing class. For five days, he had not spoken a single word. This period of deprivation ended with a session of “Food Engineering.” The course had a visiting speaker that day who presented on the topic of posters. Swarthmore College, this presenter explains, used to have one of the most famous poster theorists in the country. “His web-page about poster design was the second most clicked link on the Swarthmore website. Let that sink in.” At the end of class, someone asks the presenter what this Swarthmore professor does now. “He’s a consultant, I think.”

If the Political Science department has to worry about brain drain by the military-industrial complex, apparently Biology has to worry about the poster consulting industry.

Two: a true story. The cast of “The Real World: Swarthmore” were all among the

more visible people on campus. Everyone that the producers chose was good-looking, relatively popular, and well-known because of their participation in student government, campus activism, or prominent student clubs. I had seen everyone in the cast at parties. In particular, I saw the “charming and ambitious” character from the introduction quite often. This person was well-known on campus for their involvement in various activist projects. I was involved in one organization they led.

They appeared to me to be well-liked by professors and administrators, and were one of the sharpest daily dressers I have ever met. And yet. At four or five Pub Nites I attended over a semester, I would notice their arrival. At 10:45 PM exactly, they would arrive and drink exactly one beer. At 11, the lights would go off, and the dance floor would begin to fill with students, most of whom had been drinking for hours. The student in question would enter the darkness, mostly sober.

Before 11:45, when the lights started to come back on and the closing songs were sung, this person would always seem to find someone, often very drunk, usually younger, to dance with and to kiss. The behavior seemed mechanical, practiced, and predatory. I was not the only person who noticed the pattern. If this person’s previously signalled interest in running for office comes to fruition, I would be surprised if nothing about this behavior came out. Imagine watching this person in “The Real World: Swarthmore,” sliding easily into a new personality before your eyes (a flipped cap!). With some people, there’s no knowing what’s “Real.”

Is the effect of the Bubble really that we

Kohlberg, something’s not right with it.

Left: Sauron wields a “palantir” / Right: the logo of Palantir Technologies

learn at Swarthmore to be overly idealistic, purity-oriented, and unrealistic? Or is Swarthmore a place that teaches its students they won’t be held accountable for their actions?

I think there are many people here who treat critical voices on campus with a strategy of passive or defensive deferral, waiting to have difficult conversations until we all graduate and they become impossible. Intentional and cynical abuse of the language of social justice is less common, but as with this pub nite routine it does happen. More often it’s the long-con: duck your head whenever Sunrise is tabling, and after four years you can cheerily lift your gaze, shake a hand, and receive your finance job. So there are many Bubbles, and Swarthmore is only one.

If the politics that you have developed here seem to evaporate in a few short post-grad years, it will in part be a result of your next choice of Bubble. There are people here who I know will be fighting their whole lives. And I don’t necessarily mean myself. I don’t have that certainty yet, but I know clear-sighted, committed people here who really do.

Some of the most politically active students are also most often accused of being the most fake, or performative. Not “Real.” Authenticity is a trait that varies from person to person. I have had long arguments lately that left me with the bitter feeling that I had been cunningly handled by the other person, or, paraphrasing a friend, that I had crashed into a pathologically stubborn and repetitive stone wall.

But I don’t think it is the general rule in campus politics. I think that we get con-

fused, sometimes, about our terms, but ultimately I think sincerity is the major trend. It seems to be a common opinion among large parts of the student body that political speech is, as a rule rather than an exception, a vain and decorative activity when it is not knowingly deceptive. Lately, I have felt marinated in this cynicism, immobilized in its acid juices.

It’s a kind of paranoia, trying to sniff out who is genuine and who is out to accrue social capital. If “woke points” actually exist, I don’t think it is a very stable system for scorekeeping or distributing resources. Your political worldview does not become irrelevant upon graduation because because the “Real World” is tough, insensitive, and bubble-bursting. It’s the other way around. Anyone who was talking big talk here for the pursuit of social capital will, after graduating, find that there are better ways to get private, personal power than activism. Five years after graduating, ask yourself again who in your graduating class uses politics to accrue personal power. Their trajectories will be obvious.

By the time we are about to graduate it is only our cohabitation, the bare fact that we all live here together in the watershed of the Endowment, that defines the whole senior class.

Graduating this May, there are certain myths about this College that I am trying to wash out of my memory of the place, since I prefer the real Swarthmore to a garnet-tinted brochure. Swarthmore students are not exceptionally moral people, nor are they defined by any particular collective pathology that could be identified in an Op-Ed or a personal essay.

Swarthmore students are not exception-

ally intelligent, they are academics. And neither are we exceptional hypocrites, but perhaps just a little obsessive about recording tensions that everyone exhibits.

Swarthmore is not a zero space of perfect intellectual exploration. The hierarchies of voice, resources, and ways of knowing that shape the outside world have paved our roads and erected our buildings here, too. But most of all, Swarthmore is not a Bubble. It is one of many places I will be in my life. The more distance I put between Swarthmore and the endless Outside, the less use I will have for everything that has happened to me while I was here.

I did, in fact, have a moral and intellectual transformation during my liberal arts education. I am grateful for many of my professors, who popped bubbles I didn’t know I was in. I am grateful for my friends, who have always been the driving, persistent force behind every real change in my life. I am grateful for my parents, who helped me be here. But there are also people here whom I have learned not to trust. There are ways of thinking about the world that I have left behind. Whether in its exceptionalizing or depressing variety, the Bubble idea only serves to sever us from the truth of our experience.

Entering and exiting buildings, waking up in the morning, I have had a small prayer for myself in this time before I leave. If you are an underclassman, an upperclassman, or a nostalgic graduate, it may be of some use to you. I breathe in deeply, and try to pay attention to the detail in what’s around me. I try to notice how I feel about where I am, even if I hate it. And then I think to myself, “Welcome to Swarthmore: The Real World.” u SWARTHMORE REVIEW

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Paris des gilet jaunes

by Max Gruber

A

fter being in Paris for nearly two weeks I had taken less than a hundred photographs. In fact, the bulk of the photos on my camera had actually come from one of my travelling companions who, being especially keen on documenting every facet of our trip, would take my camera and return with a selection of beaux art facades, worn out sightlines of the Parisian boulevards, and the occasional instagram-bound portrait. I was stumped. It seemed nearly impossible to me that I could produce anything new in this city...

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H

adn’t I spent the semester prior seeing students photograph every party of the city during their studies abroad?

It wasn’t until my last day in Paris, Saturday, January 19, that a group of elderly people in yellow vests piqued my curiosity. I found myself walking down the Boulevard de Invalides in the midst of a protest.

The gilets jaunes, the yellow vests, are an organizing body that arose in response to rising fuel costs, amidst a rising cost of living amongst the French working class...

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D

ynamic and forceful, I found myself following the demonstration as if I was being carried downstream. With each plaza and landmark the size of the demonstration seemed to grow until specks of high visibility yellow dotted my entire view of the Boulevard de Invalides. Suddenly I felt uninhibited in my photography.

The tomb of Napoleon, too predictably grand and excessive to my eye earlier, had now taken on a new life. Demonstrators streamed by it proclaiming the end of Macron and singing La Marseillaise. The long Hausmannian facades, normally so pretty and uniform, began to be filled with the faces and bodies of their tenants. Some showered down exclamations of solidarity while others seemed pensive. One woman in particular drew security from the threshold of her window-sill, never moving past it to do more than briefly peer out with her arms crossed [above]...

D

emonstrators scaled metro signs and bus stops, but nothing was damaged. Police presence was felt, but officers never approached the demonstration. If anything, the environment seemed jovial, more akin to a town-wide charity walk than a violent, politically destabilizing instance of public unrest. Often it may seem that Paris is a museum, its inhabitants merely visitors in an impeccably groomed landmark...

O

n that Saturday, though, the city felt real. It is possible that I was carried away by the spectacle, a clueless American out of his element. And yet, the gilets jaunes demonstrations opened my eyes to a Paris worth seeing and worth showing. A Paris without a box of macaroons on the Champs du Mars or an ice cream cone on the Ile Saint Louis. A Paris with real people and real stories. u

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FICTION&POETRY The Old Gun

by Kenny Bransdorf with illustrations by Tiyé Pulley

T

he old gun peered down the sights of her carbine, marking the three men standing under the tree and the fourth hanging from its lowest branch.

Still had a minute or so, judging by the fierce but clearly waning strength animating his legs. He nicked one of the onlookers with a wild kick. The old gun could not hear what the man said back, but she was almost certain that it was of little note. Men rarely had much to say in the face of Death.

She considered her options. She could still leave. The hanged man meant nothing to her, and was probably doomed besides. The three men had horses and firearms, and by the looks of it that was all they brought. Made sense, don’t need much for a hanging. Not much of a haul for her trouble. The old gun sighed and fired thrice in quick succession, felling the three men before any of them realized what was happening. Remounting quickly, she spurred her mustang down the hill.

As she drew closer to the tree she could make out more of the dying man’s face, regrettably. She hopped down and picked up the pail they had kicked out from under him, standing it up and stepping up on it. Rope now in reach, she whipped out her knife and began sawing away. The line was gnarled and thick, but the blade was freshly sharpened, and it gnawed through easily.

The hanged man fell flat on his face. She checked his pulse. Faint but consistent. The old gun hoisted him up and tossed him across the back of the horse.

She then turned to the man she had left alive, who was crawling for his rifle. One hand clutched the slow killing wound in his gut. The other clawed at the stock, fingers finally finding purchase. The old gun was already upon him, bearing down like a great bird of prey, stomping his

FICTION

CW: Violence and gore face. He howled in pain, rolled over on his back. Nose bent, bridge veering off to the left, swelling purple. She stomped his chest, nearly caving in his sternum. He screamed like a child.

“Where you come from?” the old gun asked.

“Mama! Mama, please, help.”

The old gun shifted more weight into the foot planted in his chest. He was crying now, snot and blood running down to his lips, seeping into his blubbering mouth.

“Boy, I can kill you quick or I can let you suffer. With these wounds… it’ll be hours, maybe a day, maybe more. And the pain only gets worse.”

The boy’s eyes flamed wild with fear.

“I’m gonna die?”

“Unless there’s a doctor up in that tree, yeah.”

“Oh god... oh god, oh fuck.”

“Where you come from?” “...Rosewater. Half a day’s ride that way.”

“Why’d you hang him?”

“He...he killed the mayor.”

“I see.”

“Please kill me. Kill me.”

She pulled out her sixshot. “All right.”

“Wait, just...don’t tell them. Don’t tell them I went out like this.”

“I don’t expect to tell them much of anything.”

Before he could thank her, she put a hole in his forehead the size of a quarter.

The back of his head broke open, brain matter and blood blooming out like a rose exploding to life, the skull a grisly cornucopia spilling food and wine for the earth and her starving children.

The old gun holstered her piece and, after picking through their belongings,

Tiyé Pulley

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trudged back to her aging, powerful steed.

He snorted apprehensively as she drew near, as he always did after she killed. His baleful eyes bored into her with something more innocent than judgment.

Still, his gaze was heavy, and she could never meet it for more than a moment.

She heaved herself up into the saddle and gently prodded him with her spurs, tugging at the reins. The horse rumbled like a devil’s engine and started off at a brisk trot. Luckily, it was a nice day. At least, as nice as it could get out here. The sun, an oppressive tyrant most days, was mostly blocked by the swollen thunderheads lumbering like cape buffalo above. No rain yet, but judging by the quiet beats of thunder she was starting to hear in the distance it was coming soon. The plains opened wide before her, lining her arms with iron.

It was an hour before he woke.

“Who are you?” he asked, voice hoarse.

The old gun was not surprised to hear his voice, and did not feel much at all aside from mild irritation. She pretended she had not heard him.

“Where are you taking me?” he pressed on, changing tactics.

“Rosewater.”

“What? Not there, they want my head.”

“I know. They’ll pay me for it.”

“Oh. Yeah, they would, but…you’re just gonna let them kill me? That’s not right” “Why not?”

“I’m a decent man.”

“You’re a murderer.”

“That’s not, no, I’m… let me explain.

I’m a doctor. The town doctor. I try my best to keep everyone healthy, even and especially when it seems like they try their best to slowly kill themselves… hey, can I sit up? Lying like this is really uncomf—.”

“No.” “…Okay.”

“You done with your little story?”

“Uh, no, I still have a bit…”

“Wrap it up. Fifteen words or less.”

“Fifteen?”

“Now fourteen.”

“Fuck, uh…”

“Twelve.”

“I tried to…treat the mayor. He refused treatment. He died.”

“Why’d he refuse?”

“Word limit for my response?”

“Just answer the goddamn question.”

“All right, I’ll be blunt: he was an idiot. He drank mercury every day for years, God knows where he got it. Some snake probably convinced him it bestowed immortality or something. I told him to 26

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stop. He told me to…well. So he died and naturally they blamed me, saying whatever I did to him during our appointment must have done him in. I told them that I didn’t do anything to him. But they didn’t listen.”

A long quiet settled between them, the only sound the rhythmic clop of the horse’s hooves against the cracked, baking ground. The doctor exhaled, unable to calm the heart beating at the bars of his ribcage.

“Don’t know if you’re lying, and I don’t care. I’m making money either way.”

“How can you say something so horrible? This is a life you’re talking about.”

“You’re not the first. After the first, it only gets easier.”

“Wait. Okay, just wait a second. Let me offer an alternative, a more lucrative alternative, to turning me in. Just hear me out…”

As he laid out his plan, they rode on through the burning red end of day and into the night, the air growing cold as the dead, each breath assuming visible form for a moment before dissolving quickly.

The doctor was sitting up now.

“We close?” the old gun asked.

“Yes. It’s just beyond that hill. Nestled in the valley.”

She lashed the reins, and the horse broke into a gallop, dust trailing behind the breakneck impact of his hooves against the ground. He bounded over the top of the hill and picked up speed as he began to descend into the valley. She saw it now: a quaint town, primitive. Houses built haphazardly around a rough little hub they probably called town square. The kind of place where nothing happens for months, and people go to rot. She brought her horse to a halt at the town gate, where a single sentinel sat in a chair, a scrawny old fool twirling a doubtlessly unloaded gun. When he saw her coming, he fumbled and dropped his gun, toppling to the ground in his effort to stoop down and pick it up. She waited for him to stand.

“Don’t move!” he ordered, finally standing, eyes darting furtively between her and the gun he was failing to load.

“I’m not looking for trouble,” she said.

“Just returning this man to the authorities” “Wait. Dr. Mitchell.”

“Hi Joe,” the doctor replied reluctantly.

“Dr. Mitchell, we ran you out of town!”

“No, you sentenced me to hang.”

“Oh that’s right. That’s right.”

“Lady, I’d like to introduce you to the town judge, The Honorable Judge Josiah

Smith” “And the town guard! Pleased to meet you, miss...?”

The old gun scowled. “You don’t need my name.”

“Oh my, so mysterious.”

“If that’s all, I’d like to get going.”

“Of course! Don’t let this old fool keep you. See you later, Dr. Mitchell!”

“No, you won’t,” he muttered. “I’m gonna hang, remember?”

“Again? I thought you already got that over with.”

“Didn’t do it right. Don’t worry, they’re gonna let me try again.”

They rode on, nearing the town square.

A few passersby threw skeptical glances their way, no doubt mildly disturbed that the man they remembered putting to death was somehow back in their town and, even worse, not dead.

The old gun stopped in front of the crude building labeled “SHERIFF” in clumsily painted letters above the door, which practically fell off its hinges when she pulled it open. Just one big room, a column of desks lining the wall to her left, an extremely filthy cage reeking of rotten flesh and excrement to the right, and a bigger desk near the back wall. Only a few of the small desks were occupied. The sheriff nearly fell from his chair when the old gun strode past the threshold, stooping a bit to avoid bumping her head on the doorway.

“Good God,” he managed. “Who the hell are you?”

“Doesn’t matter. I have your man.”

“Who?” The old gun threw Dr. Mitchell to the floor, where he laid still. “The doctor.”

“The doctor! Wait a minute, can’t be.

We just had him killed.”

“Look dead to you?”

The sheriff ’s eyes narrowed as he squatted down next to the doctor’s writhing form, pensively scratching at his droopy handlebar mustache. “Hm, let’s see… well, never seen a dead man move and breathe like that, so unless this is the work of the devil…”

“No devil. Your men are to blame.”

The sheriff stood quickly, bristling.

“What the hell do you mean?”

“He got the jump on your boys. Killed them all, easy.”

“The doctor?” he scoffed, looking down at him again. “He’s no killer… I mean, he is, but… not like that. He couldn’t have.”

“He did. Caught him running from the scene. Gave me a hell of a fight.”

“Really. He gave you a hell of a fight.”

Tiyé Pulley

“Not many creatures that can fight like a man who wants to live.”

“How true, how true,” the sheriff nodded along, not really listening. “Well, thanks for your trouble, we’ll take this miserable rat off your hands. Make sure he dies right this time.”

“How much for your man.”

“How much what?”

“Money.”

“Oh. A bounty hunter, hm?”

“Call it what you like.”

“Little better than thugs, but a necessary evil, I suppose. All right, name your price.”

She looked behind him. “Let’s see how much you got in that safe.”

“The safe? But that’s… that was the mayor’s.”

“He don’t need it anymore, do he? I won’t take all of it, just let me see.”

“Now hold on. This is hardly appropriate. W-we have little notion of who you are, what your motives are… you could be anyone. An outlaw, even,” the sheriff said quickly, looking over to his deputy for reassurance.

“Such wild accusations. Maybe I’ll just take your man and go, let him run off to freedom. Would you like that?”

“Well, no, I would not! But do you really think we’d let you leave?”

She smiled a little too widely. “No. Naturally you’ll try to stop me. You always try, that’s what I love about you.”

The sheriff blanched. He looked over at his deputy again, whose gaze was momentarily fixed on the old gun, hand hovering over his holster. The young deputy soon broke from his trance and caught the sheriff ’s look. His gaze bounced from the

sheriff to the old gun and back, at which point he shook his head quickly.

The sheriff, a man of many years, felt his chest tighten a little with rage, his heart straining under the pressure of his wounded ego. Yet he did not have the courage to express himself with violent retaliation. This woman was like nothing he had ever seen: several inches over six feet, shotgun slung across her back, features mostly hidden under a thick longcoat and a low-brimmed hat. He could see most of her face, just not the eyes, hooded by the shadow of the hat. She had clearly been a beauty in her youth, but time had stolen the softness and glow of her features. Now she was carved in hard, sharp lines, tracing her chiseled bone structure.

She seemed a specter of death. The sheriff ’s last shred of courage fled.

“All right,” the sheriff said. “All right. As you wish.”

Reluctantly, he went to open it, then stood aside, offering a full view. A few thousand, by her estimation. Without warning, she brandished her shotgun and nearly blew off his legs. He dropped, screaming. The old gun turned quickly and shot the deputy in the chest, knocking him clear over his desk. The other two lawmen brought their weapons to bear on her, but before they could fire the doctor emptied the sixshot he’d been hiding, drawing their attention. The old gun rushed the lawman closer to her, breaking his jaw with the butt of her shotgun. The other one turned to face her and take aim again, but both barrels were waiting for him.

“Don’t shoot, don’t shoot,” he protested senselessly before the old gun decapitated

him. The headless body fell to its knees and then sank feebly to the side.

The lawman with the broken jaw leveled his pistol to her thigh and fired. The bullet found its mark, burrowing deep into her flesh. She winced but did not fall. With hate burning in her heart, she swung the shotgun around and blasted off his arm. He stared at the stump without understanding, squinting at the sight as if failing to see through a thick fog. Right when he was starting to realize what was wrong, the old gun’s knuckles drove heavy into his temple, knocking him into the last sleep, sharp fragments of skull blown inward and impaling the brain, a brutish betrayal of their dictator perpetuo. She incited further insurrection with a fusillade of crushing blows about the head, stopping only when victory was certain.

Blood oozed from what remained of his nose, mouth, ears, and eyes. The old gun breathed deep the scent of freshly spilled blood, an aroma she always stopped to savor.

This was living. No greater pleasure existed, not in the drink, not in sport. Sex was fine but still a degree separated from the truly powerful union of bodies, when bone broke bone, when teeth and nails freed flesh from its fragile mortal moorings, tasted the liquid fire that coursed through the veins of the breathing. When she snapped men like toothpicks, blasted them apart limb by limb, pressed her thumbs into their eyes to the music of their pleas for swift Death. In these moments, these moments that stayed with her, moved her to rise every morning, she and Death became one. Though she had no time for gods or the faithful, she SWARTHMORE REVIEW

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firmly held that Death was more than the absence of life. It was a force of nature, a crucial cog in the clockwork of the life cycle. Something about it inspired her like nothing else could, perhaps that it was always happening, somewhere in the world, omnipresent as the air, so frequent and unstoppable that humans had no choice but to stop thinking about it, or at least try, lest they go mad, submit to it. In her many years, she had known humans to falter, ideals crumbling in the grim face of their mortality, breaking oaths and tossing lovers to the wolves for a chance at life.

All that humanity thought it achieved, all that it built and wrought, evaporated in the presence of Death. Death ends all.

The sheriff whimpered, unable to stay silent for this long. The old gun had nearly forgotten, and now a bestial grin began to pull at the corners of her mouth.

“Wait. He’s done for. You don’t need to do this,” Dr. Mitchell said.

The old gun turned to face him, eyes frigid and deep dark. “I know. I want to.”

Something lurched in his gut. “You can’t possibly… this is… this is revolting.”

“Then look away.”

He opened his mouth to respond, but had no more words. Assuming as much, she resumed her advance. The sheriff was barely awake now, lost too much blood.

Disappointing, but still salvageable. As long as he could feel it, she was satisfied.

“Stop,” Dr. Mitchell said.

She turned to him again, patience running thin. But before she could shoot him down once more, she noticed the gun in his hand, and more importantly where he was pointing it.

The old gun laughed, a sound akin to dragging daggers through gravel. “You’re shaking” “I’m… I’m not…”

She started walking toward him.

“You’ve never held a gun before.”

“And you’ve got a bullet in your leg.

You’re not going to get to me fast enough,” he spat back, failing to conceal the fear in his voice.

“Look slower to you?” she asked, counting the paces between them.

“Stay ba--” he began, but before he could finish, she was on top of him. She

had him by the wrists in a painful vicegrip, steering him toward the floor. He struggled to keep his footing, stumbling and staggering back. She smashed her forehead into his nose, smashed it again.

Now that he was stunned, she released the wrist of his unarmed hand and took him by the neck, lifting him clear off the floor only to slam him back down.

“No! No no no no don’t don’t don’t.”

She punched his teeth out and wrested the sixshot from his slackening hand. Seeing that the fight had fled him, she untangled herself from him and took her time reloading her piece. Then the old gun aimed for his head and fired.

The sheriff had succumbed to his wounds. The old gun sighed and sifted through their supplies before leaving. She was greeted first by her mustang, eyes shining and watery, as if he understood exactly what had transpired, exactly what she was. There were few things she hated more than the reminder, so she dropped her gaze to the mud and forced the thoughts out, as she had done countless times before. u

Two Poems

POETRY

by Alexis Riddick

Home-less-Sickness

The idea of home never really escapes me I am 30 minutes away from the bricks that house me. The roof is the memory of my mother’s phone call, excited, asking when I’ll come back to the city blocks whose footprints remain another patch of scraped skin that has yet to heal / If I’m not careful, the billboards above broken buildings will become a knot in my hair again, tangling with the comb that screams every time it loses.

The wind furiously peers at me like the ghost of a land that I never really lived in in the first place / A bus appears out of the corner of the back door and it drives off with my memories and pollutes the suburban atmosphere with contemplation.

I’d file a missing person report for myself in hopes that home would search for me for once. / But what happens when generations upon generations upon generations of folks are disappeared?

The idea of me is never real, is it?

Is the ghost of that motherland really just a scraped patch of my hair that screams now that it has lost me?

I never really escape the idea of home u

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An Arovague1 Abecadarian

Approaching my limit for love, my Breaking by love, my Crumbling down to the final Dregs in the teacup.

Energy is expendable so I mustn’t be Frugal, but yet I remember having so much to Give and now there’s so little I Have left for me.

I Just Kill Love as it Moves to a realm of (Nonexistence) Only Part, Quotient, Remainder of what it used to be for me.

Stillness Takes the place of what was previously Understood as romance Void fills the Wonder, I have become Xenophobic; things that used to be familiar have now become foreign and untrustworthy to me and Yes, there is a spectrum, there are Zones. People like me are Zits I guess, blemishes on queerness so they say, so they Yell so much I hear nothing at all. We must be Xeroxed copies, bad imitations of What we see and hear as the dominant Voices even within Underrepresentation.

Tumblr has too many labels and yet I have too little Security in Reaching for the umbrella of Queer, are we a Post-labels society? Post-definitions society?

Only Now Making Leaps, Keep Juxtaposing, Inferring Hues like Gray, words like Fray Endless people to be, I Decide to stop Counting and just Be Alexis. u

Asexual Visibility and Education Network Definition of “Arovague:” When one feels little to no romantic attraction due to some form of neurodivergence (e.g. a personality disorder, depression, anxiety, etc…). https://www.asexuality.org/en/topic/119238-a-list-of-romantic-orientations/?tab=comments#comment-1061240762 1

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BOOKS Reviewing and Decoding Title IX Legal Jargon in Case 3:19-cv-00209

REVIEW

by Anna Weber

O

Content Warning: This essay includes graphic descriptions of sexual violence.

n February 12, 2019, three Yale undergraduate students Anna McNeil ‘20, Eliana Singer ‘21 and Ry Walker ‘20 filed a federal complaint against Yale University, eighteen Yalebased fraternities, and nine housing corporations (that lease to these fraternities).

The complaint spans a total of 85 pages, including descriptions of the plaintiffs and defendants, details concerning physical and economic damages incurred, and five main counts each with their own laws allegedly violated. Already, the words I am using to summarize the case, such as “complaint” or “alleged,” are not commonly understood terms. I mean, what even is a complaint? How does a legal filing process work? In this way, the reason for this review is to reconceptualize the case as if it were a popular book at your local library. I want to review Case 3:19cv-00209 in order to better grasp its key terminology, expand its audience, and apply its lessons to Swarthmore’s campus.

Case 3:19-cv-00209

by Anna McNeil, Eliana Singer, and Ry Walker United States District Court of Connecticut, 2019 85 pages | $0.00 (Available Online)

Starting at the very beginning, the word “filing” is a key, groundbreaking one. To “file” a case with the U.S. federal court means to assert your existence and rights to protection/compensation—both inside and outside the courtroom. Historically (and still echoed today), “filing” has been an impossibility for people from marginalized communities. Slave laws barred African peoples’ testimonies and gender-based laws permitted husbands to speak on behalf of wives (Hartman 1997 and Warwicke 1983). Therefore, these three women-identified plaintiffs—who encompass differing levels of access to 30

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Case 3:19-cv-00209 Document 1 Filed 02/12/19 Page 1 of 85

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF CONNECTICUT ANNA MCNEIL, ELIANA SINGER, and RY WALKER, on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs,

) ) ) ) ) v. ) Yale University; Yale Chapter of Alpha ) Delta Phi International, Inc.; Alpha ) Epsilon Pi, Epsilon Upsilon; Alpha Kappa ) Delta of Chi Psi; Delta Kappa Epsilon, Phi ) Chapter; Leo; Sigma Chi, Theta Upsilon ) Chapter; Sigma Nu Fraternity Beta Alpha ) Chapter; Sigma Phi Epsilon, Connecticut ) Delta Chapter; Zeta Psi, Eta Chapter; ) Alpha Delta Phi International, Inc.; Alpha ) Epsilon Pi Fraternity, Inc.; Chi Psi ) Fraternity; Delta Kappa Epsilon ) Fraternity; Sigma Alpha Epsilon ) Fraternity; Sigma Chi International ) Fraternity; Sigma Nu Fraternity, Inc.; ) Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity; Zeta Psi ) Fraternity, Inc.; Sig Ep Housing of ) Connecticut Delta, LLC; Wallace H. ) Campbell & Company, Inc.; 402 Crown ) LLC; 340 Elm, LLC; Mother Phi ) Foundation, Inc.; Connecticut Omega of ) Sigma Alpha Epsilon House Corporation; ) House Corporation of Sigma Chi at Yale I; ) High Street Housing Corporation; ZP ) Nutmeg Associates Inc. ) Defendants. ) ) )

COMPLAINT- CLASS ACTION No. __________________ JURY TRIAL DEMANDED

February 12, 2019

CLASS ACTION COMPLAINT FOR DAMAGES

Class Action Lawsuit Cover Page, courtesy of the “New York Times”

U.S. justice on account of their African American, Jewish American, and classbased identities—not only battle Yale, fraternities, and housing corporations but also the U.S. federal court system itself. Their choice to utilize a historically exclusive justice system is a fraught one, because having a voice in the U.S. court system does not necessarily involve a transformation of that system itself; however, as this case will show, reforms and transforms are not binary choices in battles for survival.

Moving into the written case, McNeil, Singer, and Walker utilized a class-action complaint, which is a type of lawsuit that allows one or a few parties to be representative of a larger collective group called a “class.” This is especially important because individual-based legal frameworks have historically limited marginalized

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groups that are systematically targeted/ impacted. For example, in slavery reparations cases, evidence for individual damages is often difficult to demonstrate because the continued impacts of slavery on black opportunities today do not follow an individual plaintiff vs. individual defendant framework (Solow 2014).

Secondly, the class action allows all class members, whether they know they have been damaged or not, to be included in the single proceeding. This is key for a transformative justice resistance to movement membership “qualifications.” Just because one may not have had access to the name or “lingo” of an oppressive system does not mean they do not feel such oppression. In totality, McNeil, Singer, and Walker filed a class-action complaint on behalf of a multi-varied group of people joined by their experience of fraterni-

ty-perpetuated harm.

Additionally, the case is not limited to a singular defendant; rather, a noticeable strategy of the plaintiffs is to name as many potential complicit entities as possible. This attack-at-every-possible-angle plan increases the chances that at least one entity will be held accountable. Spanning pages 63 to 80, the counts that the plaintiffs filed each connect to the experience in which the plaintiffs attempted to join respective fraternities and were barred access. From this exclusion, the counts can be grouped in five general areas: 1) gender-based educational discrimination, 2) public environment safety, 3) fair housing discrimination, 4) school contracts and 5) trade practices.

Starting with the gender-based educational counts, these claims pinpoint how fraternity members maintain more robust “social, professional, and economic resources and opportunities” as a result of their membership and male gender (65).

This sets up unequal education because fraternity members inherently join extra alumni networks that uplift their job prospects as well as schooling opportunities. Importantly, the plaintiffs’ anticipate the argument that sororities exist on Yale’s campus and, as such, provide equally gendered networks. The plaintiffs highlight how “Yale’s oldest sorority was established in 1986, a full 150 years after Yale’s oldest Fraternity” and therefore “do not reach as broadly and deeply into seats of power and influence as those of the Fraternities” (32). This argument is non-transformative in that it remains limited in the Greek-life realm, pitting fraternities and sororities against one another and ignoring the fact that gender non-conforming people lack a funded and networked space altogether. However, the plaintiffs’ time aspect is a vital lesson for all identity-based campus groups. Considering Swarthmore’s campus, the funding disparities between sororities and fraternities are vast—and even vaster are the disparities between Greek and non-Greek organizations on both Yale and Swarthmore’s campus.

The second general area for the plaintiffs’ counts is public environmental safety. The plaintiffs argue that both Yale University and its local and national fraternities are “public accommodations.”

This status, according to a Connecticut General Statute, renders Yale and its fraternities “strictly liable” for any discrimination or harassment that occurs in their spaces. As a private university, the move to link Yale to a public accommodation status is valuable for other private uni-

versity-based movements. Both Yale and Swarthmore accommodate public groups with tours, libraries, and fraternity parties. Therefore, even as “private” institutions, they are still liable for what happens in and around their campus. Secondly,

to pay tuition and, in return, the college agrees to provide classes, housing, job prospects, and social life. Notably, one of the fees for tuition is a student activity fee; therefore, even as Yale fraternities exist off-campus, the plaintiffs claim that Yale

From left to right, Ry Walker, Eliana Singer, and Anna McNeil, courtesy of Yale Herald

including Yale University when referring to “hostile environments” is helpful to explain how sexual, racial, and homophobic violences do not stop (or even necessarily start) at the fraternity door. The holistic experience of Yale or Swarthmore is interconnected to experiences in fraternities; it impacts how one studies as well as parties, how well one eats or sleeps as well as dances.

Different from Swarthmore’s fraternity housing (that is owned by the college), Yale does not own its fraternities’ housing. So, the plaintiffs importantly include fair housing discrimination as their third count because this count adds Hartford-based housing corporations in the list of accused defendants. Again based on the way the plaintiffs were barred access from fraternity membership, McNeil, Singer, and Walker argue that their exclusion unlawfully refuses rent “because of sex” (66). It may be argued that the school provides equal opportunities for other housing options. However, naming housing corporations is important, because there is a statutory rule in the housing act that requires the losing party to compensate the plaintiffs’ lawyer fees.

This is a smart, reparations-oriented legal move, attempting to force the nine housing corporations (if they lose) to pay for the damage they have caused in both past allegations and present legal burdens.

The fourth general count focuses on school contracts. The plaintiffs argue that their acceptance to Yale University can be seen as a contract: the students agree

has a delegated relationship to the fraternities. Considering the funding access that a dues-collecting organization has to party equipment, Yale (and Swarthmore) fraternities dominate social life. As such, what happens during social events implicates Yale as a part of its contract.

Lastly, the plaintiffs argue in the realm of trade practices, stating Yale has engaged in false advertising with the way it alleges to support a diverse student body—on pamphlets, brochures, website statements, and even tour scripts. Especially pertinent to Swarthmore’s rhetoric of supporting student activism, this claim pinpoints how universities utilize student bodies (literally plastering students of color on website homepages) but do not tangibly support such students (as seen in fraternity spaces). If increasing educational access for people from marginalized communities is advertised, Yale and Swarthmore are legally required to maintain support services for these students.

This trade practices count is furthermore helpful to argue for increased internship funding, tutoring, and therapy services.

The overall timeline for the class action lawsuit, including all of these counts, could take two to three years. As the plaintiffs have officially filed their case with the federal court in Connecticut, the judge must next certify the class and the plaintiffs as that class’s representatives (the Yale plaintiffs define their class as all of the students harmed by fraternities, which is an important transformative definition not limited to one identity SWARTHMORE REVIEW

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category). The defendants can each voice their objections that the judge can either accept or deny. These objections could include the validity or feasibility of the defendant to resolve the conflict at hand.

After objections, discovery processes take place that build facts for the case. During this entire time, settlement negotiations may be ongoing; if the plaintiffs accept a settlement and the judge approves it, then the class action is essentially over. The word “settlement” is another keyword to consider tranformatively not only in terms of how monetary compensations could be best used (what anti-sexual violence programs/resources/or campus job opportunities could change the college space) but also in the realm of memory and archival representation (compensation with a campus statue or building that uplifts survivors). Next, if a settlement is not made, the case goes to trial, and a jury would determine liability and damages.

Lastly, once liability and damages are determined, the judge would order all class members be notified of their plaintiff status via mail. This notification provides them with the opportunity to accept the compensation (divided between all class members), opt out, or pursue their own claim.

Despite the slow process of the courtroom, there is immediate publicity from an official lawsuit filing. Yale University Tom Conroy was forced to make a public statement, in which he referred back to a recent statement by Dean Marvin Chun: the college “is partnering with students

to build a better culture and sponsor more social opportunities for students on campus,” but “does not have the power to sanction independent organizations such as fraternities” (See Yale Daily News Report). However, this publicity is a double-edged sword. On one hand, having tangible, written complaints is vital documentation for student movements. After reading the details from pages 2-16, it no longer becomes possible to deny the ex-

“Having a voice in the U.S. court system does not necessarily involve a transformation of that system itself; however, as this case will show, reforms and transforms are not binary choices in battles for survival.” istence of (or knowledge of the existence of) fraternity-connected violences--from the horrific use of non-consensual spanking to racially gendered slurs like “ghetto bitch” to entire fraternity chants like “no means yes.” On the other hand, McNeil, Singer, and Walker will undoubtedly face their own publicity for exposing these violences. For example, the Swarthmore students who filed federal complaints against the college during the 2013 “Spring of Discontent” were emailed death threats.

Additionally, attending any small school like Yale or Swarthmore entails encountering people with fraternity connections in the administration and student body.

McNeil, Singer, and Walker started a step towards expanding who and what

the U.S. federal court system includes.

My own transformative justice practice involves extending awareness about this legal case expands educational access to the language and workings of the U.S. legal system. Now, to end in book-reviewstyle with a personal recommendation, I would argue that this case is limited by its legal framework and fraternity focus.

The plaintiffs push the U.S. legal system to include their rights and representation; however, they require attorney assistance and elite educational knowledge to do so.

Secondly, the fraternity-based spatial limitation in this case necessarily undercuts the types of and identities affected by sexual violence. Fraternity spaces are always already white, upper-to-middle class, and able-body dominated; entering this space, for parties or for reform work, precipitates the centering of these identities.

This is not to say that fraternity reform is unproductive; rather, Case 3:19-cv-00209 is merely one chapter, one beginning, to increased involvements and demands for justice by people made marginalized. As McNeil, Singer, and Walker pinpointed a Yale fraternity-centric class, I am already dreaming of a broader, transformative class at Swarthmore. What if we organized anti-sexual violence around the intersecting impacts of intimate-partner physical and verbal violences, racialized understandings of sexual violence, classbased inequalities that shape relationships, queer power dynamics, and mental health manipulations between partners?

What if?

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Reading Transfeminine Experiences: A Review of Super Late Bloomer

REVIEW

by Maya Deutsch

T

ime stops for no one, so the saying goes, but for those in the thick of transition it often seems as if time cannot move fast enough. In a society that silences and belittles trans people and their stories, the process of exploring and accepting one’s own gender can take half a lifetime—and that’s before tackling any of the outward labor that transitioning publicly entails.

Super Late Bloomer

by Julia Kaye Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2018 160 pages | $19.99 (Hardcover)

Early in my own transition, the months leading up to my appointment with a 32

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gender specialist to receive feminizing hormones crawled by with agonizing slowness. However, this purgatory was merely the prelude to another purgatory: months spent scrutinizing every corner of my body for evidence that my second puberty had born some sort of subtle fruit, softer skin, budding breasts, lighter hair, anything.

Artist and animator Julia Kaye portrays the unique temporality of the transition process to great effect in her memoir, “Super Late Bloomer: My Early Days in Transition,” a collection of comic diary entries documenting a few months out of the first year of her transition. We can feel the lethargy of existing as one transitions

“Super Late Bloomer” front cover, Google Photos

straight from the first entry in the series, dated May 7, 2016, “I used to be better at ignoring my self-hatred. I could distract myself with new clothes. Body mainte-

nance was new, laser, weight loss, plucking brows…getting on hormones was an enormous relief. But reality has finally set in. There’s nothing left to do but wait.”

sometimes the details of our lives seemed eerily in sync. For instance, while walking to a trans support group meeting in Manhattan last summer, I started to think

Julia Kaye Comic Strip, courtesy of Google Images

Though not every entry in the collection concerns ruminations as heavy as these, as days turn to months Kaye finds herself continually grappling with internalized self-loathing. “I’ve realized I’ve come to like my reflection more often than not,” states a July entry, but later in August she laments seeing a man in the mirror on some days, “He wasn’t there yesterday. I wish he’d go away.” Alternating between grateful positivity and self-directed negativity in moments such as these, Kaye artfully records internal struggles with

about how lucky I was that I had never been catcalled. Seconds later, a businessman approached me on the side of the street and stopped to leer, “Hey lady, know why it’s your lucky day?” Suddenly I had become just another woman, and it didn’t feel very good. Kaye portrays a similar situation in an anecdote about washing her car, underscoring the paradoxical “success” of passing enough to warrant catcalling by drawing a woman handing her a “girl certificate” in the last panel of the comic—“Congratulations,

in strips that often encompass no more than three panels in length. When em-

“I could only stop and stare in disbelief at what was depicted on the page, unused to seeing someone capture thoughts or experiences so closely resembling my own. Like many trans women reading it, I assume, sometimes the details of our lives seemed eerily in sync.” phasizing her reliance on makeup to give her confidence as a woman, Kaye draws herself as a knight in a suit of armor emblazoned with a Venus symbol crest, and depicts the sudden onset of self-loathing thoughts as an ocean of black scribbles that blacken her typically stark white panels. In perhaps her most striking use of visual metaphor, she highlights how exposed she feels on days she cannot shave due to hair removal by drawing an orb of light in place of her head. It’s a testament to her deftness as an artist that

Julia Kaye Comic Strip, courtesy of Google Images

self-image that are particular to the transfeminine experience.

Beyond the larger themes of identity that run throughout its pages, “Super Late Bloomer” also captures the idiosyncratic absurdities of living as a trans person that would not be common knowledge outside of those communities. In one strip, Kaye reflects on how weird it feels to wear dresses around parents who raised her as a boy. In another, she laments that, after working so hard to remove some stubborn hairs from her upper lip, her razor burn still makes her read as trans. Reading these portions of the book I could only stop and stare in disbelief at what was depicted on the page, unused to seeing someone capture thoughts or experiences so closely resembling my own. Like many trans women reading it, I assume,

graduate.” Commonalities like these remind us that even if we may feel alone during our individual transitions, chances are that women in our community are going through or have gone through the same dilemmas.

Despite the oftentimes heavy subject matter of the text, Kaye’s illustrations are simple and charming. Sparse background art and iconographic character designs— such as cartoon Kaye’s bushy hair and large eyes—give “Super Late Bloomer” an immediate legibility, one that allows even readers unfamiliar with trans issues to easily emphasize with Kaye and her story. That’s not to say that the art is ever pedestrian, however. Though her style is cute and iconic, Kaye makes excellent use of visual metaphor to sell the emotional weight of a particular moment

Julia Kaye self-portrait, courtesy of @upandout

she is able to encapsulate the insidious stresses of living as a trans person, which might otherwise seem incommunicable, with just a single image.

To cis people looking to gain insight into trans people, “Super Late Bloomer” is an accessible work that shows what it is like to be trans as often as it tells it. For those going through transition, “Super Late Bloomer” is an even more important read, a heartfelt and sensitive record of one woman’s endeavors to live as she truly is in a world that sometimes conspires against her. You’ll finish it quickly, but not soon forget it.

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MUSIC Solange is back “When I Get Home” gives voice to black womanhood

by Tyler White

S

olange embodies the narrative spirit of a thousand lifetimes before her.

Most people became aware of her artistry with her iconic album, “A Seat At the Table.” The artist’s last album before the 2015 “ASAT” came out in 2008, and fused an electronic approach with 60s and 70s Motown sounds. Solange’s seven year hiatus aided her in finding the voice that would be the grounding for “ASAT’s” affirmative exploration into the complicated existence of blackness.

The suffering of black people is not the focus of her work. Thankfully. Instead, she details the multiplicity of black bodies and experience. The celebratory anthem “F.U.B.U (For Us By Us)” boasts, “All my niggas in the whole wide world / Made this song to make it all y’all’s turn / For us, this shit is for us,” representing Solange’s intention of the work to be explicitly for the consumption of a black audience. She grapples with this transition in her artistry and consciousness, stating, “I gave it all I got to know now / I don’t want no part of it no longer, no longer.” Also, later in the song, she states her fear of not benefiting economically by not catering to white ears: “Now, I don’t want to bite the hand that’ll show me the other side, no / But I didn’t want to build the land that has fed you your whole life, no / Don’t you find it funny?” The reality of this statement is one that marginalized communities, especially blacks, must confront: do I make this for me and my people, or do I make this for the appeasement of the majority, losing sight of my own authenticity? In one of my favorite songs, “Weary,” Solange croons in self-reflection, “I’m going look for my body yeah / I’ll be back real soon.” Solange demands the attention of her listener to recognize her blackness. It is recognized.

The album creates a table, a seat and a voice for the 30 year-old.

Released at midnight on the last day of Black History Month, “When I Get Home” is a new manifestation of Solange’s blackness and her womanhood. “ASAT” sought to position the singer’s blackness at the

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forefront of her work. In this earlier album, she did not command herself to also make room for her femininity. She personified the experiences of black men in the visuals for “Don’t Touch My Hair,” with black men playing air-basketball and sporting elaborate wave patterns in their hair. The lyrical poetry of “Scales”—“The streets say you’re a king / The world says you’re a failure”—also seeks to center the normative experiences of black men as the foremost suffers under racial oppression. As a black man, I have constantly seen the intentional methods of power structures and systems to entirely erase the plight of black women. Somehow they are black first. Women second. And invisible as a whole.

“WIGH” visibly details the dynamic beauty of black women. Solange, even in the continuation of an increasingly common trend of visual albums, fashions a story that is uniquely her own. The variety

Review of mediums she fuses into one experience includes personally recorded home video, futuristic animation, circular formations, black cowboys and YouTube videos. Each visual centers upon a woman. Each interlude is narrated from the perspective of the female voice. Using the voice of a well-known sexologist, Alexyss K. Taylor, states, “First, I’m tryna get the woman to understand the dynamic power and the spiritual energy.” Solange uses Taylor to substantiate the power of women despite systems of hegemony. Previously, “ASAT” primarily used the monologues of Master P—an iconic rapper and business from New Orleans but also a traditionally masculine authority on racial injustice.

My favorite track on the album, “Stay Flo,” projects a powerfully innovative black woman bringing to life a futuristic machine. The protagonist of the video carries the spaceship-shaped creation down

album art from “When I Get Home”

a runway in galactic platforms and a silver bikini. The song yells, “Man get down and they putting on a show (Hold up) / Girls getting down every day (Hold up) / Working out of town on the floor (Hold on).” Women are not popularly viewed as independent forces of entrepreneurship, hard work, and economic leadership. Men are socialized, whether evident or not, to think highly of themselves and their work.

Our behavior often performs a self-indulgent and prideful confidence. Solange is extending that same luxury to her female protagonist. The thesis of the song is a woman commanding her space amidst the negativity of the men in her life. The song’s underlying feminism has a subtlety: it is not obvious or overly celebrated. Rather, it is with ease that black women succeed against the triviality of the patriarchy. Her

promise in “I’m a Witness” rings true of the position of black women as the emotional conduits for others’ pain and suffering, but takes up this role as an empowering choice on her own behalf, “You can work through me/You can say what you need in my mind/I’ll be your vessel/I’ll do it every time.”

The entirety of the album is an ode to the black female character. u

Goblet on fire

Interview

A conversation with Swarthmore’s hottest band, Goblet

by Kathy Nguyen

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ne of Swarthmore’s newest student bands, Goblet, hit the ground running this year, steadily growing and carving out their space within the local music scene. Formed within the summer of 2018 and spearheaded by Amalia Gelpi ‘20, the band has grown in members as their presence has solidified on campus.

Starting out as a party of three rehearsing together one sweaty summer in Olde Club, Goblet now consists of eight members: Amalia Gelpi ‘20 (bass and vocals), Grace Dumdaw ‘21 (lead vocals), Max Barry ‘19 (drums), Owais Noorani ‘21 (trumpet), Leo Posel ‘22 (keyboard), Dakota Gibbs ‘19 (guitar), Nya Kuziwa ‘22 (drums), and Meena Chen ‘21 (guitar).

With a genre bending mix of R&B, soul, and latin fusion influence, Amalia describes their sound, tongue in cheek, as one of “soul con sabor” (soul with flavor).

Performing mainly original songs written

by Amalia in a mix of languages (English,

Spanish, and even French), Goblet’s songs emanate an authenticity in their lyricism.

Their live performances also pack a loud punch, with an entourage of many instruments offering a full brazen sound. From groovy funk to sultry jazz, Goblet offers a multiplicity of emotional energies with every song.

They marked their humble beginnings with their first gig in September of 2018 at a house show in Philly hosted by Haverford rapper HUEY, slowly gaining momentum that fall semester. Alongside performances with other student bands on campus, one of their most noteworthy achievements occurred serendipitously shortly after their first gig. In November 2018, mere months after their debut as a new “swat band,” Goblet was asked to open at Haverford College for SASAMI, a multi-instrumentalist indie artist known to have opened for Mitksi.

Having performed as the sole opener for SASAMI, Goblet extended their reach towards a greater audience, quickly breaking the Swat Bubble and grappling with the

changes around them as a newly emerging band. They’ve then gone on to host more shows around campus, even heading down to Virginia Beach during spring break, doing a show in Amalia’s hometown, and working on recording and mixing their own original songs.

With such a broad and varied fusion of rhythm and style as well as a growing number of new faces and talents in the band, it’s no surprise Goblet also faces difficulties with cohesiveness in connecting their music with each other and with their audience. Despite working through common struggles felt within any new band (from navigating group dynamics to balancing busy schedules), Goblet seems to be finding their stride. Their camaraderie and maturity has grown with time and their stage presence reflects that sense of emerging confidence. As lead singer Grace Dumdaw puts it, “We’re still definitely babies. And sometimes I feel like we just got lucky that the people who listen to us, like us.” While the future of the band brings uncertainty with their mix of underclassmen and graduating seniors, Goblet’s malleability offers promises of continuity while still leaving room for growth. Regardless, since that hazy summer Amalia began to flesh out her ideas for the band, Goblet has and continues to stay true their original goal: to make music.

Q: Can you tell me your intention and inspiration behind the band and the process of Goblet’s formation? As a musician and songwriter, what’s your songwriting process and what motivated you wanting to hear them performed with a large band?

From left to right: max barry, grace dumdaw, dakota gibbs, owais noorani, amalia gelpi. Missing: leo pazel.

AMALIA: “I just enjoy playing music with other people I guess. It’s so cool seeing my music come together like that with other incredible people and artists. For songwriting, I honestly just write down random words SWARTHMORE REVIEW

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and chord changes within like an hour and try to string them together—that’s very literally how I write music. As for influences, I listen to like Celia Cruz, Compay Segundo…fun stuff like Romeo Santos, La Santa Cecilia, and also contemporary Cuban jazz.

I love that stuff. I’d like to splice it with other music I love, like 60s motown and 90s r&b. I also really enjoy gospel/folk/bluegrass and flamenco- anything really intense and emotive.”

“Something that I guess we always talk about in our rehearsals is the importance of connecting while we are playing.

Making eye contact and trusting each other, leaning on one another, rather than looking down or focusing inward.”

Q: Grace, as Goblet’s lead singer what’s been your experience as a central “face of the band”, as well as performing songs that you haven’t written and aren’t as personally or emotionally connected to as Amalia?

GRACE: “I also run publicizing and networking side of goblet, and so I understand why people would associate me with Goblet more as lead singer, but Goblet honestly is running through and by Amalia. It’s weird when people will come up to me after performances and say ‘You did so well!’ or ‘That was amazing’ because yes… But are you telling Amalia that? Or the rest of the band that? I don’t know, I think my position in Goblet is interesting given that I’m lead singer, but I feel like the weight of Goblet isn’t carried solely through me. There’s a lot of trust in Amalia, I think, and mutual trust between us and the power she’s given me in singing her songs—I think the band has to run on this trust in Amalia’s vision of our sound and trust in each of the members to add their own flavors to her songs.

As for singing her songs, starting out it definitely was difficult. Amalia and I are very different people and she writes songs that were directly linked to her experiences. Amalia’s music is very emotionally vulnerable and I don’t think I’m ever fully capable of understanding and captur36

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ing those emotions, so it was very tough singing her songs in the beginning because it was her lived experiences. At the beginning, I learned a few of the songs in French and Spanish and tried to perform them for performance’s sake, but I know that a part of me is not comfortable performing her songs in languages I don’t speak. I don’t speak these languages and if I butcher it, then the audience is gonna feel that. Amalia has a direct connection to her Cuban culture and so it’s hard when I have to perform those songs in Spanish or French. But ultimately, I think that getting to understand the things that she’s writing about, the people she’s writing about, the context behind her songs helps so much in performing them with the emotion and vulnerability that she intends.”

Q: What’s been some of the biggest challenges Goblet faced starting out, especially as the band has developed over the past year?

MAX: “The biggest difficulties so far has been the rapid expansion of members I think… and because we play such a huge repertoire of songs. Amalia’s been very dedicated to bringing us new material all the time— which has been great, but also difficult to give us a chance to lock in our sound. And also balancing 8 people’s schedules and balancing everyone in the ‘sonic landscape.’ I think another challenge is when different people in the band have varying levels of

Goblet with SASAMI at Haverford

dedication, which is a problem I’m finding with a lot of student groups. It requires everyone to want to be there. With bands, I feel like there’s a lot of ego in the room.

Things get personal.”

GRACE: “I originally thought Goblet was just going to be a summer band and was going to fall apart after a semester, but our shit really got together once more people joined the band. The best way I can describe Goblet is a group of all very talented individual people, but each on different wavelengths and coming from different musical backgrounds. So it was hard getting us all on the same page. And Amalia’s is such an incredibly talented musician—I mean, she cranks out songs so fast and has a very clear vision in her head of how things sound and it’s hard sometimes translating that into everyone else’s heads.”

AMALIA: “Something that I guess we always talk about in our rehearsals is the importance of connecting while we are playing. Making eye contact and trusting each other, leaning on one another, rather than looking down or focusing inward.”

Q: With two graduating seniors, how do you foresee the future of Goblet?

AMALIA: “The future is always uncertain! No matter what, there will be music.” u

MOVIES & TV Elena Ferrante on TV and Austenian lightness What TV adaptations of Jane Austen the new HBO series, “My Brilliant Friend”

REVIEW

by Kat Capossela

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daptations of literary works are often the best form of flattery. The revolutionary nature of Jane Austen rightfully captured the interest of many film producers, but to what extent do these films distort or honor the purpose of these authors? A contemporary Italian author and her accompanying film adaptations offer a more thoughtful alternative to honoring and modernizing the legacy of Austen.

A 1950s small town on the outskirts of Naples overwhelmed with violence and poverty does not inspire a picture of feminism. One might picture black tie shoot outs and dark alley cigarette smoke, as most stereotypical Italian gangster movies are portrayed—not two petite school girls huddled over a dogeared version of “Little Women” on a curbside corner. This is the revolutionary power of Elena Ferrante, a pseudonymous Italian novelist who focuses her lens on the foils to the aggressive middle-aged men that dominate mainstream Italian plotlines: two exceptional young women attempting to navigate a misogynistic and claustrophobic cobblestoned neighborhood. “My Brilliant Friend”—the first novel of Ferrante’s “Neapolitan Quartet”—challenges the Italian narrative of male-centric mafia schemes by portraying such realities through the eyes of best friends Elena Greco and Lila Cerullo.

Ferrante takes after the iconic Jane Austen, a pioneer of feminist writing in its most subtle and genius form, and builds upon the important work of the 19th century author.

Both authors wield the female gaze to expose the deep patriarchal structures that obstruct women from operating in full within their society. Austen took interest in the institution of marriage as being the only vehicle for female survival and was often subtle in her critiques of the gender hierarchy.

An article from “The Australian” described Ferrante, writing over a century later, as “if Jane Austen got angry.” And the connection is real: Ferrante proudly credits Austen as an immense literary inspiration. Ferrante appreciates Austen’s common light-hearted nature, but seeks to dig deeper than grandiose assembly balls and weeping unmarried

white women. In a piece in “The Guardian,” Ferrante writes, “Pay attention, for [Austen’s] lightness conceals pitiless depths—it’s a glaze that, miraculously, doesn’t sweeten anything.” In her own writing, Ferrante sheds herself of such a glaze, which is perhaps a result of a more progressive time of authorship. Ferrante comes in guns blazing and girls throwing stones at older boys they beat in a math tournament.

By challenging gender and larger societal boundaries, both Ferrante and Austen’s revolutionary written works, drew the attention of large audiences—including film producers. Luckily for Ferrante, the 2018 book-

Maybe this is in part because it’s an Italian/ American collaboration. Or because Elena Ferrante is a primary consultant and writer of the series. Mini-series director Saverio Costanzo told “The New York Times Magazine” that Ferrante charged him with one main objective: to “convey the unknowability of her characters’ minds through a technique she called acquiring ‘density’” or, in other words, that “every time the actress speaks her lines, she must offer a glimpse of the river that runs beneath: the mysterious churn of her consciousness, the lawlessness of a person’s doubts or desires.” Such an intimate grasp of the novel’s purpose can only

Elena Greco (Elisa de Genio) and Lila Cerullo (Ludovica Nasti) in the 2018 HBO mini-series, “My Briliant Friend.”

to-TV adaptation of “My Brilliant Friend” continues the brilliance of the book from which it was derived. Picked up by HBO last winter, the mini-series stays close to the novel’s roots and honors Ferrante’s critical interest in the two young women. This is the most genius part of the show, in my opinion: it respects the genius of the novel.

Countless book-to-movies adaptations have slaughtered the main intentions of novelists in the name of Hollywood. The movie industry prioritizes profit potential over creative quality, which often results in the distortion of any non-mainstream story plot or character to fit their bubblegum framework—but not for “My Brilliant Friend.”

be promoted by the author herself, which led to the seamless transition of novel Lenu to mini-series Lenu—even if Ferrante is doing so remotely to maintain her anonymity.

Such creative authority, unfortunately, was not granted for Jane Austen.

The numerous Jane Austen book-tomovie adaptations have often been twisted into fluffy love stories solely about the giddiness of marriage in high society 1800s England. And they simply get so many of the facts wrong. Elizabeth Bennet does not look like Keira Knightly, Edward is not as charming or romantic as Hugh Grant, and, unfortunately for some, “Pride and Prejudice” does not incorporate zombies. The SWARTHMORE REVIEW

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largest and most recurring error in these adaptations is their focus on the heterosexual romantic relationships rather than Austen’s interest in women operating within their society. Very few of Austen’s novels are strongly romantic, but that is less appealing to Hollywood audiences. But, like Ferrante’s request of Costanzo, Austen’s interest in societal critiques and women’s issues is often subtle. And the Jane Austen film adaptations allow Austen’s lightness, her “glaze” to “conceal the pitiless depths,” which does the author’s genius a massive disservice. (This is not to discredit the BBC mini-series of

“Pride and Prejudice,” which was admirably accurate to the novel. Thanks, Colin Firth.)

Ferrante explosively carries on Austen’s legacy of exposing the empty economics of marriage and its effects on women struggling to survive in their narrow society. Ferrante applies the Austenian framework to her own Italian background, which stands as a testament to Austen’s widespread applicability. We all can adapt and uplift Austen’s legacy, to apply her framework to our own lives. Ferrante does so without the Austenian lightness—she isn’t here to glaze over “pitiless depths” but dive right into them.

And her filmmakers, impressively, have upheld these intentions. Adaptations, inside and outside of Hollywood, are simply how we see ourselves in the stories of others; they are a useful tool to aid our struggle to make sense of the world. Given their widespread visibility, film adaptations hold an especially important responsibility to maintain the original intentions of the author. Ferrante’s film adaptations did for Ferrante what Austen’s film adaptations failed to do for her.

But through Ferrante, and other honorable Austen-inspired works, Austen’s true legacy can continue on.

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South x Swarthmore: filmmaking at the institutional margin At SxSW with Swarthmore’s triumphant contingent

by Gabriel Meyer-Lee

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his past March, while Swarthmore students were on spring break, two Swarthmore-connected films premiered at South by Southwest (SXSW), the annual film/music/everything conglomerate conference-festival in Austin, Texas. One of these films, a narrative short entitled “MAY,” was filmed by writer/director Julian Turner ‘18 and director of photography Kyungchan Min ‘18 while they were attending the school last year.

While getting a film into SXSW would be a worth achievement for any film student, Turner and Min stood out among those screening projects at SXSW as having produced their film as part of their undergraduate work at a liberal arts school.

Film schools, especially their graduate programs, possess resources for film production that Swarthmore’s Film and Media Studies Department just can’t match, yet Turner and Min were able to make a film qualified to compete with MFA theses at SXSW anyways. While it may be easy to chalk up the successes of our classmates simply to talent or luck, this simple view glosses over the work they did to achieve their successes and the people who supported them in doing that work, such as their mentor Visiting Assistant Professor of Film and Media Studies Rodney Evans, who also wrote and directed a documentary feature, “Vision Portraits,” which he premiered at SXSW. Although “MAY” was certainly produced with the support of College faculty, the process of making the short stretched and exceeded the limits of this support. “MAY” is not just a commendable achievement of recent alumni but an example of success found working at the margins 38

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of the institution.

“MAY” is a fairly light and romantic short set in Philly, telling the story of the connection between a middle-aged professor and her much younger weed guy. In discussing this film, I intend to avoid coming close to reviewing it, as I am, myself, credited on “MAY” as the head of wardrobe. Since I took part in the filming of this project, I will avoid evaluating “MAY” beyond my already stated assertion that premiering at SXSW qualifies it as a successful student film. Instead, I seek to leverage my position within the crew to tell the story behind this project’s production, illuminating the informal structures that supported it.

As an additional clarifying point, I would like to state explicitly that my portrayal of “MAY” as reliant on non-institutional support is not meant as a criticism of the Film

and Media Studies department at Swarthmore, but an acknowledgment of its limits.

Of this department’s three tenured/tenure-track faculty, all are affiliated with an additional academic program at the college and hold expertise in film and media scholarship rather than film production. Swarthmore does offer several courses focused on production—taught by Evans—and other classes in the department combine production with critical scholarship components, but the school simply cannot provide a platform for film production in the way that institutions like Temple University, which offers degrees in directing and cinematography, can. “Swarthmore doesn’t offer any cinematography focused courses,” Min noted. Film schools not only have more faculty, but can offer programs focused on specific areas of production, allowing a greater

depth in study and more technical education than Swarthmore’s broad film and media program. Film schools expect students to produce films and provide the equipment, advising, and access to a large pool of talented young collaborates necessary to create films. All of this, together, sums to a level of institutional support for filmmaking which exceeds the scope of the college’s Film and Media Studies department.

Both Turner and Min graduated with minors in Film and Media Studies, and their work on “MAY” was a part of the capstone projects they each completed to earn those minors. Additionally, both filmmakers spoke highly of the department and were very appreciative of the Film and Media Studies courses they took while attending Swarthmore. “Swarthmore gave me some cool experience and a lot of knowledge and information. The professors are amazing,” Min remarked. Although he was not able to take courses specifically aimed toward cinematographers, he values the perspective a theoretical background in film provided. This may seem to contradict the notion that Turner and Min operated at the margins of the institution, but only if we do not acknowledge the scale of support needed for filmmaking. Although the department’s ability to teach both critical studies and production may be impressive given its limited size, film production has particular requirements—namely expensive equipment and a capable cast and crew—which are unavoidably intensive for most styles of festival-level film and which it is not the main objective of the department to provide. This marginal position is not the result of an unsupportive Film and Media Studies department but instead reflects the reality that producing filmmakers is simply not a priority for the College.

So, how are students able to make films despite these limited resources? It requires, more or less, for the students to constantly be seeking out and taking advantage of opportunities for filmmaking. “MAY” is actually the second short Turner and Min shot together. The summer after their freshman year, they shot a narrative short called “Tahirih,” in their same roles with Turner as writer/director and Min and cinematographer. Their first collaboration won “Best Narrative Film” at the 2016 Tri-Co Film Festival. Min has also received summer funding from the college for documentary work and has worked with independent filmmakers in his hometown of Memphis.

Although it took Turner until the end of his senior year to finish his second short, the interval in between was populated by plenty of attempts and work on smaller projects.

Although this dedication to filmmaking was clearly necessary to the realization of “MAY,” the film likely would not have been able to reach this level of success without the mentorship of Rodney Evans.

As Evans joined the Swarthmore faculty prior to the 2015-2016 school year, “Vision Portraits” is the first feature he has premiered while teaching at Swat. The two feature films he directed prior, “Brother to Brother” (2004) and “The Happy Sad” (2013), both narrative features, saw healthy festival runs with “Brother to Brother” winning Sundance’s Special Jury Prize in Drama. “Vision Portraits” actually provides a wealth of insight into Evans’ filmmaking style and methods as the documentary is about his own artistic practice and the practice of three other visually-impaired artists. “Vision Portraits” discusses how the narrowness of Evans’ field of view contributes to the focused nature of his films and how the other artists’ visual impairments have informed their photography, dance, and writing. The film combines both narrative and visual elements in order to convey deeply to the audience the nature of the artists’ visual experience.

As a professor, Evans is able to offer to his students not only education from the perspective of an adept filmmaker but mentorship in filmmaking with limited support.

“I definitely do not think things would be the same without [Evans],” said Min. “He was definitely a rather pivotal figure.” Although Evans did attend film school, as an independent filmmaker he occupies a marginal position in the industry which parallels, in some aspects, the position students at Swarthmore occupy within student filmmaking. Although some portion of Evans’ position within the industry may be by choice—for example, his dedication to experimental film—the majority of the causes for this marginalization are beyond his control. As a black, gay, visually-impaired filmmaker, making films that reflect and relate to his personal experience is impeded by several intersecting structures of discrimination. However, this institutional bias against him has not stopped Evans from making films. To Turner, some of Evans’ most powerful impact on his filmmaking was “just him being a great example of being a filmmaker of color persevering to get his art made however he can.” While his vast knowledge of film and considerable recognition within the industry qualify Evans as a teacher, it is this persistence that positions him excellently as mentor for student filmmakers.

When it comes down to it, making a film requires both money and talent. For “MAY,”

this meant pooling capstone funding and personal resources to fund the short film, recruiting friends as crew members, and an introduction to an actor with whom Evan’s had previously worked, Maria Dizzia. Future student filmmakers may have an easier time assembling these necessary resources.

The Swarthmore College Cinema Club was founded midway through Turner and Min’s time at the college, and as such, neither of them played a significant role in it. However, the Cinema Club is able to connect younger student filmmakers to necessary resources. “It would have been awesome if they had had [the Cinema Club] when I started at Swat. I feel like I would’ve been able to get a lot more stuff made,” said Turner. The organization has access to funding through the Student Budget Committee and to talent through cultivating a group of students with experience working on set in a range of crew roles. This organization, if sustained, may allow students to supplement the film education provided through the Film and Media Studies department with additional film production experience acquired much more easily than Turner and Min’s.

Swarthmore isn’t a film school, yet students make films here. On occasion, those films achieve some level of external recognition. By examining how this happens, we uncover a story of learning and working on the margins of an institution. Although this particular story is about filmmaking, similar stories could be told about making music or writing poetry. Indeed, components of the story will likely be relatable to all of us whose goals lie beyond or tangential to what the institution asks of us.

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