2019-2020 Double Issue of the Saint Rose Journal of Undergraduate Research by The College of Saint Rose

The Journal of Undergraduate Research

Research

2019-2020 vols. 10 & 11

The Journal of Undergraduate Research of The College of Saint Rose Volume X & IX 2019-2020

Editorial Staff and Advisory Board

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English Darl and the Depiction of Trauma in As I Lay Dying Jessica Werner-DeLong

English A Fixed Mindset: Slavery and Its Effect on the Minds of Black Americans in Jean Toomer’s Cane Briana S. Robles 14 Biology The Effects of JUUL-pod e-Cigarette Vaping Solution on Human Lung Fibroblast Cells Over a 72-Hour Period Abigail Kronau 21 Philosophy An Analysis of Stephen J. Morse’s “Scientific Challenges to Criminal Responsibility”: How Recent Neuroscience Research is Challenging Traditional Legal Ideas About Whether People Should Be Held Responsible for Their Actions Hannah Liscomb 28

Nutrition & Wellness Nutrition in College is Nutrition for Life Elizabeth Mattair

Political Science Irish Female Sports Fans: Unwittingly Political Aileen K. Burke

Political Science The Development of Racial Science in Apartheid and PostApartheid South Africa Mark Edem

Staff and Advisory Board Editor Robert R. Shane, Art History Cover Design Amy Bishop, BFA Graphic Design, class of 2019 Advisory Board Cailin Brown, Communications Paul Conti, Communications Jenise DePinto, History and Political Science Risa, Fausette, History and Political Science Brian Jensen, Biology Lisa Kannenberg, History and Political Science Jin Kim, Communications Kate Laity, English Rebecca Landsberg, Biology Angela Ledford, History and Political Science Marcia Margolin, Teacher Education Jeffrey Marlett, Philosophy & Religious Studies Ryane McAuliffe Straus, History and Political Science Karen McGrath, Communications Mary Alice Molgard, Communications Ann Neilson, Physical Education Vaneeta Palecanda, English Christina Pfister, Teacher Education David Rice, English Brian Sweeney, English Kelly Weiss, English Bridget Williams-Searle, History and Political Science Elizabeth Yanoff, Teacher Education Ann Zeeh, Biology Founding Editor Ryane McAuliffe Straus, History and Political Science

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Darl and the Depiction of Trauma in As I Lay Dying Jessica Werner-DeLong English 498 – Dr. Eurie Dahn As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner, depicts the journey of the Bundren family on their quest to bury its matriarch in the nearby town of Jefferson. The second-oldest son, Darl, initially seems to be one of the sanest members of the characteristically selfish and dysfunctional family, due to his seemingly objective and literary descriptions of the events in his narrative sections. But Faulkner provides many clues throughout the novel, such as the townspeople’s reactions to his unnerving stares and strange behaviors, which suggest that Darl may not be as straightforward as he may seem, long before his apparent mental breakdown in the conclusion of the text. Faulkner also depicts Darl as a veteran, though the revelation of this information is not made explicit until one of the final sections of the novel, when Darl mentions a “little spy-glass he got in France at the war” (254). After he burns the barn containing his mother’s corpse, the central question of the text, for both the other characters and the readers, becomes, “Is Darl insane?” I argue that Faulkner does not depict the character as traditionally “insane,” but rather as a veteran who has significant untreated trauma from his experiences in World War I. Faulkner develops Darl’s character using various techniques throughout his sections of the novel, which are written in stream-of-consciousness-- an overreliance on facts, a lack of emotional language, and his alleged clairvoyant abilities all provide evidence for Darl’s traumatized mental state throughout the novel. An understanding of Faulkner’s depiction of Darl’s trauma is central to the novel as a whole, since the question of Darl’s insanity is at the heart of the text. Many texts written under the tradition of modernism in the 1920s and ‘30s focused on the aftermath of World War I, including As I Lay Dying, as, the effects of the Great War were unprecedented in history.. One such effect was the phenomenon of soldiers seeming to “bring the war back with them” after returning home. The condition was coined “shell-shock,” because it was initially believed to be directly caused by exposure to an exploding shell during the war, rather

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than as a general reaction to trauma (Stagner 256). Veterans who returned home with the condition experienced a range of symptoms, including “exhaustion, palpitations, shortness of breath, tremor, joint and muscle pain, dizziness, and headache, together with nightmares, persistent anxiety, and difficulty sleeping” (Jones and Wessely 1708). The term “shell-shock,” which was formally recognized for the first time following World War I, became a bit of a catchall for the vast array of physical and mental difficulties that veterans experienced. In the century following the Great War, psychologists’ understanding of the effects of trauma has expanded significantly, and the origins of shell-shock have transformed into the more specific contemporary definitions of PTSD. However, at the time that many modernist texts were written in the early 1900s, the ideas of trauma were just starting to form in the public consciousness and the specifics of shell-shock were still largely speculative, so it is no surprise that the condition became a recurring theme in many texts of the period. In her essay “Healing the Soldier, Restoring the Nation: Representations of Shell Shock in the USA During and After the First World War,” Annessa C. Stagner provides an overview of how shellshock was viewed in the period during and immediately following the war, which will be helpful in our consideration of how As I Lay Dying fit within the national conversation about the condition during the period. The term shell-shock was first used in a British newspaper to describe the condition that was plaguing British soldiers during and after their time in the war (Stagner 256). It was from Britain that the term eventually became adopted in America to describe similar phenomena happening to American veterans. Unlike in Britain, American views of shell-shock tended to focus on the condition as a temporary, curable injury of war, instead of as a chronic condition. Stagner writes, “American psychiatrists boasted that, unlike their European counterparts, they were prepared for shell shock cases” (258). This idea of shell-shock as a curable condition spilled over into the depictions of shell-shock in the American media-- film, print media, music, and other representations of the condition all tended to depict shell-shock as a war injury that could be cured. Treatments for the condition, described in various newspapers and print media from the period, included breathing exercises, relaxation in yellow-painted rooms (as opposed to blue- or red-painted rooms), music, “country life and farming,” occupational therapy, and religious faith (Stagner 262). In light of our contemporary understanding of trauma, it is clear that most of these treatments were not founded on any true psychological basis; but the idea of shell-shock as curable persisted. Female care from mothers and wives was also viewed as an essential ingredient to the

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healing of distressed male veterans, and letters sent to soldiers abroad was seen as a preventative measure against their development of the condition (Stagner 263). By the time that As I Lay Dying was published in 1930, the continued presence of shell-shock symptoms in American veterans was just beginning to incite questions about whether or not the condition was really as curable as once believed (Stagner). Although shell-shocked soldiers were thought to have a temporary injury, and not a permanent psychological disorder, that did not stop many of them from ending up in institutions and insane asylums. As John R. Sutton writes, “Madness was an elastic status that could be applied to persons whose major problem was poverty, homelessness, or physical disability … Most asylum referrals originated from families who, for a variety of circumstantial reasons, found themselves unable to tolerate or provide care for a troublesome family member” (667). Faulkner’s depiction of Darl being ambushed by his family and taken to an asylum would not have been outlandish in 1930, when the number of individuals sent to such asylums was growing rapidly (Sutton). Although “shell-shock” was first recognized following World War I, trauma is now understood as something that has always been a part of the human experience in response to distressing events; and as such, it has been depicted in literary texts that stretch further back in human history than the Bible. According to Cathy Caruth, a literary theorist who examined the way in which trauma is depicted in narratives, trauma often represents a “double wound”: the pain from both the initial traumatizing experience, and the pain that comes from reexperiencing the event over and over again. She writes, “… So trauma is not locatable in the simple violent or original event in an individual’s past, but rather in the way that its very unassimilated nature—the way it was precisely not known in the first instance— returns to haunt the survivor later on” (11). This suggests that, because the traumatic event is so significant for the individual who experiences it, he or she cannot fully incorporate that event into their normal consciousness. Caruth also argues that, interspersed with these periods of reexperiencing, individuals who have experienced significant trauma also undergo periods of latency in which the traumatic event lies dormant in their consciousness. She writes, “The experience of trauma, the fact of latency, would thus seem to consist, not in the forgetting of a reality that can hence never be fully known, but in an inherent latency within the experience itself. The historical power of the trauma is not just that the experience is repeated after its forgetting, but that it is only in and through its inherent forgetting that it is first experienced at all” (19). These theories suggest that the experience of an individual with

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shell-shock might alternate between the periods of latency and reexperiencing, but that the trauma is always, in some way, affecting the sufferer because the traumatic event can never be fully assimilated into that person’s consciousness. Literary theorists Bessel A. van der Kolk and Alexander C. McFarlane also offer insight on how to understand trauma in literature. Two points are particularly noteworthy as they relate to As I Lay Dying. The first is that individuals who have experienced trauma often engage in “compulsive reexposure … to situations reminiscent of the trauma” (van der Kolk and McFarlane 493). Although sufferers will often do their best to consciously avoid anything that reminds them of the trauma, they also often experience a compulsion towards situations, places, events, and people that remind them of the trauma. A common example of this would be an individual who was abused by a parental figure, who then enters into romantic relationships later in life with individuals who are subtly similar to their previous abuser. This compulsive reexperiencing is often inherently harmful for the individual with trauma (van der Kolk and McFarlane 494). Although Faulkner does not reveal any specifics about the nature of Darl’s traumatic past, the potential connection between the violence of the war and Darl’s decision to burn down the barn cannot be overlooked. The second noteworthy point is that, as a means of avoiding thoughts of the trauma while in the latency stage, individuals with PTSD often struggle with fantasizing, since those types of thoughts can quickly become unsafe. They write, “When traumatized people allow themselves to fantasize, this creates the danger of breaking down their barriers against being reminded of the trauma. In order to prevent this from happening, they become constricted and seem to organize their lives around not feeling and not considering options for the best ways of responding to emotionally arousing problems” (496). Since As I Lay Dying is written in a stream-of-consciousness, Faulkner reveals that Darl almost never engages in that type of fantasy-thought. In fact, Darl is characteristic for his apparent objectivity in the sections of the novel that he narrates, suggesting that there is a relationship between Darl’s narrative style and his previous trauma from the war. Current literary scholarship focusing on Darl in As I Lay Dying has tended to focus on either the way in which Faulkner has written his sections of stream of consciousness or the way in which Darl’s trauma and alleged “insanity” manifest themselves within the text. For example, Michel Delville argues that Darl’s tendency to speak and think in similes is representative of his sense of alienation, while Homer B. Pettey argues that the distinction between “being” and “saying” in the novel is representative of Darl’s insanity because he

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cannot recognize that his perceptions do not always indicate reality. Dorothy J. Hale argues that Darl, in his own narrative sections of the text, attempts to completely differentiate between his “public” and “private” selves, and that Darl’s alleged breakdown at the novel’s conclusion is a result of his inability to continue hiding his “private” self. Other critics, such as Charles Palliser, have argued that Darl’s clairvoyance is representative of his belief in predestination. In their respective essays, Zackary Tevlin, Kathryn Olsen, Eunju Hwang, and Charles Hannon all consider the effect of Faulkner’s language and word choice in Darl’s narrative sections of the text in relation to the question of his insanity. While it is true that Darl’s unique narrative style and clairvoyance are linked to the question of his insanity in the text, I argue that the distinctive choices that Faulkner makes in Darl’s narrative sections are directly related to Darl’s unresolved trauma from the war. Darl is both the first character to narrate a section of the novel, as well as the character who narrates the most sections, so his voice is arguably one of the most important in the text. Faulkner begins the novel by depicting a scene of Darl and Jewel walking home, written in Darl’s voice. He writes: Jewel and I come up from the field, following the path in single file. Although I am fifteen feet ahead of him, anyone watching us from the cottonhouse can see Jewel’s frayed and broken straw hat a full head above my own. The path runs straight as a plumb-line, worn smooth by feet and baked brick-hard by July, between the green rows of laidby cotton, to the cottonhouse in the center of the field, where it turns and circles the cottonhouse at four soft right angles and goes on across the field again, worn so by feet in fading precision. (3) From these opening lines, two trends in Darl’s narrative style become immediately apparent, both of which persist throughout his sections of the novel. The first is that Darl describes the scene with immense precision in his language, though the apparent precision contains clues to his unreliability as a narrator. He cites the exact number of feet that he is walking ahead of Jewel, despite the fact that he would have no way of knowing that the distance between them was precisely fifteen feet. Darl also uses geometric language to describe the shape of the path, stating that the path travels around the cotton house at “four soft right angles.” The mathematical language suggests that Darl is

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objective and accurate in his description, but his credibility is undermined by considering the entirety of the phrase; Faulkner writes, “it turns and circles the cottonhouse at four soft right angles.” It is humorous that Darl suggests that the path both forms a circle around the cottonhouse as well as a series of right angles, which is a mathematical contradiction. These opening lines show that although Faulkner uses objective language to write in Darl’s voice, the character might be less precise than it appears on the surface. The second trend that becomes apparent from the opening lines is that Faulkner also uses poetic, descriptive language when writing as Darl. The imagery of Jewel’s “frayed and broken straw hat,” the simile of the path running “straight as a plumb-line,” and the alliteration of the phrase “baked brick-hard by July” are all techniques that could come straight from a creative writing textbook. This descriptive language, paired with the long, flowing syntax of the sentences, suggests that Darl is a sensitive, emotional character. But that observation proves suspect as well, when it is considered that Darl does not describe his emotions at all in the opening section of the novel. Darl simply describes the setting and the characters’ actions as he sees them, but he does not provide any direct insight into how he feels about them. This, too, is a trend that persists throughout the entirety of the novel; Darl does not pass judgement on most of the details that he describes, but the reader must read between the lines to get a sense of his true feelings. For example, the fact that he is walking a whole fifteen feet ahead of Jewel, a seemingly far distance, suggests that there is tension between the two characters, even though Darl does not explicitly say so. These two trends provide insight into Faulkner’s depiction of Darl’s psychology. I argue that Darl’s insistence on precision in his descriptions shows that he uses language as an attempt to gain control over his environment. Although he cannot possibly know how far away Jewel is, his claim that Jewel is behind him by exactly fifteen feet allows him to have a comforting sense of control over an otherwise unpredictable setting. After experiencing the horrors of war and having an intimate understanding of how unpredictable the world can be, Darl’s thoughts reveal that he avoids the uncertainty that comes with “not knowing” as often as possible. Secondly, Darl’s refusal to directly state his emotions, and to instead hint about his emotional state through the use of descriptive prose, appears to be a manifestation of his trauma. As discussed earlier, individuals with significant trauma often feel unsafe when fantasizing or having emotional thoughts (van der Kolk and McFarlane 496), so Darl’s insistence on simply describing the

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here-and-now, objective facts of the situation appears to be a coping mechanism for him. As many critics have pointed out, Darl’s mental health appears to rapidly decline as the novel progresses, which corresponds with the fact that the prose of his narrative sections becomes increasingly incoherent until his eventual breakdown at the end of the text. It can be inferred that the death of his mother, and the subsequent stress of the family trip to Jefferson, is the catalyst that triggers the resurgence of his trauma from the period of latency that he is in at the beginning of the novel. Faulkner first hints at Darl’s traumatic past during a scene in which he struggles to fall asleep while on the journey to Jefferson. In a rambling series of philosophical sentences, Darl contemplates his existence using forms of the verb “is.” Faulkner writes, “In a strange room you must empty yourself for sleep. And before you are emptied for sleep, what are you. And when you are emptied for sleep, you are not. And when you are filled with sleep, you never were. I don’t know what I am. Jewel knows he is, because he does not know that he does not know whether he is or not” (80). These musings continue for over a page, which is followed by a separate paragraph that is only one sentence long; Faulkner writes, “How often have I lain beneath rain on a strange roof, thinking of home” (81). The abrupt stylistic shift between the dense, philosophical language in the preceding paragraph and the more descriptive prose in the final sentence suggests that Darl’s train of thought changes rapidly. The unusual sleeping arrangements on the trip to Jefferson appear to be a trigger that reminds Darl of his time in the war, where he likely slept in many unusual and dangerous locations. Darl’s inability to contain his thoughts within the precise, objective language that he uses to describe his philosophical ideas is a hint that Darl may be undergoing an intrusive symptom of his trauma at the conclusion of this section. This is a logical time for Faulkner to depict a reemergence of Darl’s symptoms, as it is well-known that sleep is one area with which many sufferers of PTSD have particular difficulty, due to the frequency of reexperiencing that occurs in nightmares during sleep. To return to Caruth’s ideas about trauma, the period of latency that Darl had been experiencing thus far in the novel has been broken, and he has now shifted back to the stage of reexperiencing. One of the unique features of Darl’s narrative style is his apparent ability to know things about which he was not directly present. Scholars have differing views on the meaning of this alleged clairvoyance, but I argue that it is also a feature of his reaction to the past trauma. The scene in which this clairvoyance is most prevalent is Faulkner’s depiction of Addie’s death. Addie’s death is written from

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Darl’s point of view, despite the fact that Darl and Jewel are away on a job. Faulkner switches back and forth between seemingly objective descriptions of Addie’s death scene and descriptions of Darl and Jewel on the job. The obvious question is how Darl can narrate a scene for which he is not present, and while that could not happen in reality, Faulkner uses this alleged supernatural ability to draw attention to Darl’s unique way of coping with the world after his trauma. I argue that Darl is not really clairvoyant and could not truly know the specifics of what had happened back home, but that this seeming? ability is the result of two things. First, as discussed at length previously, Darl fills in the gaps of things that he does not know by inventing seemingly objective, factual details, which is likely due to the fact that the unknown is synonymous with the unsafe for him. He narrates the details of Addie’s dying breath, Cash’s horrified shock, Dewey Dell’s feigned emotionality, Vardaman’s quiet escape, and Anse’s awkward fumbling because it is better to invent the scene himself than to admit that he does not know what happened. Secondly, Darl’s elaborate, descriptive prose suggests that he spends much time observing the world and other people, and so his descriptions are quite true to how his family members would behave in such a situation. It almost does not matter whether Darl truly “saw” his mother’s death through some supernatural clairvoyance or not, since his observational powers allow him to piece together the missing details with exceptional accuracy anyway. By not focusing on his own emotional reactions to the events of his life, Darl is able to hone in on his observational skills, which allow him to better cope with the horrors of his trauma. Darl eventually decides to burn down the barn in an attempt to bring the family journey to an immediate end. Using Darl’s narrative voice, Faulkner writes, “Against the dark doorway, he seems to materialise out of darkness, lean as a racehorse in his underclothes in the beginning of the glare. He leaps to the ground with on his face an expression of furious unbelief. He has seen me without even turning his head or his eyes in which the glare swims like two small torches” (218). Though Darl does not explicitly state that he has burned down the barn, Faulkner provides several clues to allow the reader to deduce what had happened. Darl describes the fire using the phrase “the beginning of the glare.” When paired with the imagery of Jewel entering the scene in “furious unbelief,” the reader first assumes that Faulkner uses the word “glare” to mean “a fierce or piercing look” (Oxford English Dictionary). It seems as though Jewel is glaring at his half-brother for some crime that is still unknown to the reader. On the second reading, however, it becomes clear that Faulkner uses the word “glare” quite differently in this passage, to mean “dazzling brilliance

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(of a light, fire, sun, etc.); a strong fierce light” (Oxford English Dictionary). Faulkner instead uses the word to create the imagery of Jewel, appearing majestically against the backdrop of fire. Faulkner intentionally uses the double meaning of the word “glare” to provide ambiguity about the scene taking place, which aligns with Darl’s apparent motive to keep his role in the fire hidden. Although Darl describes the scene using his characteristic objective language and descriptive prose, this double meaning provides a clue that Darl is not really recounting the scene objectively. Faulkner completes the simile by comparing the “glare” in Jewel’s eyes to “two small torches.” This again seems like a classic instance of Darl using literary language to compare his half-brother’s anger to a raging fire, when in reality, he is simply recounting the image of the fire that is probably quite literally reflected in Jewel’s eyes. As stated earlier, individuals who have experienced trauma often behave in ways that are impulsive or reminiscent of their previous trauma, and while we do not know whether Darl encountered any fire during the war, it is likely that his sudden act of arson is reminiscent of the violence and danger that is characteristic of all wars. Darl knows that his involvement in the fire would likely cause him to be labeled as “insane” by the other characters, so Faulkner uses many such narrative techniques to obscure his role in the event throughout the section. Faulkner depicts the eventual mental breakdown of Darl in the concluding sections of the novel. In this scene, Darl’s past as a veteran becomes most clear to the reader, due to the reference to the “little spyglass he got in France at the war” (254). Almost more striking than the reveal of Darl’s war history, however, is the breakdown of Darl’s characteristic expressive prose. Faulkner writes: Darl has gone to Jackson. They put him on the train, laughing, down the long car laughing, the heads turning like the heads of owls when he passed. ‘What are you laughing at?’ I said. ‘Yes yes yes yes yes.’” (253). The scene continues with several more references to Darl, laughing and repeating the word “yes,” and referring to himself in third-person. Although Faulkner shows that Darl has lost his capacity for cohesive narration and rich description, the scene also represents a more positive shift for the character. For one of the first times in the novel, Darl either cannot or chooses not to conceal his emotions, laughing for the entirety of the section. Although he does not articulate the reasons for his laughter, possibly because he is so unaccustomed to the language of emotions, he acknowledges and accepts the laughter, saying “yes yes

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yes yes yes.” He does not repeat the word “no,” which would signify that a part of him still denies the emotional response, but he repeats the word “yes.” In many ways, this lack of explanation and articulation about his laughter actually shows that he is more in touch with his emotions than it would if Faulkner had provided an explicit reason. As literary theorist Jacques Lacan describes in his famous essay, “The Mirror Stage as formative of the function of the I,” young children who are preverbal have an idealized sense of their own identity that is made complete by recognizing their image in the mirror. It is the eventual acquisition of language that distorts this sense of identity as children grow up (Lacan). Darl’s apparent regression to a more primitive form of language, represented by the repetition of the word “yes,” shows that he has, in some ways, moved closer towards that more idealistic version of himself and his identity. I argue that this shows that he is closer to the primitive experience of emotion than he could be if Faulkner had written the scene using more elaborate descriptions and explanations. To return to Cathy Caruth’s ideas of trauma as a double wound that the survivor is unable to assimilate into their psyche, this scene shows that Darl is finally beginning the process of assimilating his traumatic past by allowing himself to feel and acknowledge his emotions. In light of Darl’s apparent ability to laugh and experience emotions for the first time in the text, it is ambiguous whether the ending should be read as optimistic or not. The stereotype that would have been prevalent in the 1920s and ‘30s when Faulkner was writing the novel-- that shell-shock was caused by a lack of female care after returning from the war (Stagner 263)-- would have been applicable in Darl’s case. Addie was not a warm maternal figure, and Darl’s consistent focus on Jewel throughout the narrative shows how bothered he was by his half-brother’s preferential treatment by their mother. In the absence of maternal love and support from Addie, Darl had suppressed his emotions so deeply that he was not even able to access them until the conclusion of the novel. It is possible that the death of Addie was both a trigger that led to Darl reexperiencing his trauma, as well as a relief from the abuse that she caused and an escape from the burden of trying to become worthy of her love, which led to Darl’s healing. Similarly, the rest of Darl’s family do not appear to have any significant care for him either, as they send him away to the asylum for their own convenience and benefit. Although it is well-known that asylums were not generally restorative places in the early 1900s (Sutton) and that they often perpetrated their own crimes of abuse against residents (Sutton), Faulkner could be suggesting that the asylum is still a better alternative for Darl than the dysfunction of living with

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an abusive and uncaring family. Since the novel ends before Darl reaches the asylum, any takeaways about how he might fare in the new setting, had Faulkner extended the story, could only be speculative. However, Darl’s apparent acceptance of his emotions while on the train ride does provide a bit of optimism for an ending that appears so bleak on the surface. This analysis into Darl’s traumatic past in the war provides a deeper understanding of the connection between the way in which Faulkner wrote Darl’s voice in stream-of-consciousness and the nature of Darl’s mental health. The focus on factual, precise language, combined with elaborate prose illuminates some of the coping mechanisms that individuals with trauma often experience in real life, such as an avoidance of certain thought patterns, a desire to have control over one’s environment and the people in it, and a belief that fantasy-thought can be unsafe. This helps us to answer one of the central questions of the text: is Darl insane? I argue that Faulkner would want the reader to believe that the answer to that question is no. Faulkner portrays Darl as a veteran who experienced significant trauma during his time in World War I, during a decade when there were only pseudoscientific treatments available for the devastating condition of shell-shock. Darl did not have a supportive family-- and one could argue that he actually had an abusive one-- to help him through his experience, which caused him to become stuck in the cycle of latency and reexperiencing that is characteristic of PTSD (and its predecessor of shell-shock). The death of Addie Bundren, his mother who would never love him as much as she loved Jewel, was a trigger that catalyzed Darl’s descent into what appears to be madness on the surface of As I Lay Dying; but a closer inspection of the text reveals that Darl was likely to be an ordinary man who had the untreated “double wound” of trauma from his time in the Great War.

Works Cited Caruth, Cathy. Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016. Delville,

Michel. “Alienating Language and Darl's Narrative Consciousness in Faulkner's ‘As I Lay Dying.’” Southern Literary Journal, vol. 27, no. 1, 1994, pp. 61–72.

Faulkner, William. As I Lay Dying. Vintage International, 2005.

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“Glare, n.1.” OED Online, Oxford University Press, Dec. 2019, https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/78732?rskey=Pjc9w5&resul t=1&isAdvanced=false#eid. Hale, Dorothy J. “‘As I Lay Dying's’ Heterogeneous Discourse.” NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, vol. 23, no. 1, 1989, pp. 5–23. Hannon, Charles. “The Function of Function Words in William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying.” The Faulkner Journal, vol. 29, no. 1, 2015, pp. 3–21., doi:10.1353/fau.2015.0006. Hwang, Eunju. “Language and Schizophrenia in Faulkner's As I Lay Dying.” CEA Critic: An Official Journal of the College English Association, vol. 70, no. 3, 1 Jan. 2008, pp. 1–19. Jones, Edgar, and Simon Wessely. “Battle for the Mind: World War 1 and the Birth of Military Psychiatry.” Legacy of the 1914-18 War, King's College London, 8 Nov. 2014, https://www.kcl.ac.uk/kcmhr/publications/assetfiles/2014/Jone s2014e.pdf. Lacan, Jacques. “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience” Reading French Psychoanalysis, 2014, pp. 97–104., doi:10.4324/9781315787374-6 Olsen, Kathryn. “Raveling Out Like a Looping String: As I Lay Dying and Regenerative Language.” Journal of Modern Literature, vol. 33, no. 4, 2010, pp. 95–111, doi:10.2979/jml.2010.33.4.95 Palliser, Charles. “Predestination and Freedom in As I Lay Dying.” American Literature, vol. 58, no. 4, Dec. 1986, pp. 557–573., doi:10.2307/2926441 Pettey, Homer B. “Perception and the Destruction of Being in As I Lay Dying.” The Faulkner Journal, vol. 19, no. 1, 2003, pp. 27–46. Stagner, Annessa C. “Healing the Soldier, Restoring the Nation: Representations of Shell Shock in the USA During and After the First World War.” Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 49, no. 2, 2014, pp. 255–274., doi:10.1177/0022009413515532

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Sutton, John R. “The Political Economy of Madness: The Expansion of the Asylum in Progressive America.” American Sociological Review, vol. 56, no. 5, 1991, pp. 665–678., doi:10.2307/2096087 Tevlin, Zachary. “‘Ravel Out Into Time’: Phenomenology and Temporality in As I Lay Dying.” Mississippi Quarterly: The Journal of Southern Cultures, vol. 68, no. 1-2, 1 Jan. 2015, pp. 83–100. Van der Kolk, Bessel A., and Alexander C. McFarlane. “The Black Hole of Trauma.” Literary Theory: An Anthology, edited by Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan, 2nd ed., Blackwell Publishing, 2004, pp. 487–502.

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A Fixed Mindset: Slavery and Its Effect on the Minds of Black Americans in Jean Toomer’s Cane Brianna S. Robles English 336 – Dr. Eurie Dahn

How does the environment one has been accustomed to affect the way they behave and view the world? In Jean Toomer’s book, Cane, the author shows how the traumatic reality of slavery imposed on black people has caused them to react in ways cohesive to what they have experienced. Despite the debate on whether or not Toomer was worthy enough to write this book on the experiences of black people in the South, the reader is introduced to the mindset of many black characters. Even though many of the characters had different experiences in Southern states, their trauma manifested itself in similar ways. The time period of the book highlights the struggles black people had to endure after migrating from Southern states into Northern territory. Despite being free from slavery, the residue from systematic oppression seemingly followed them wherever they went. In the book, Toomer brings light to these issues and helps the reader to understand how the effects of being oppressed and enslaved has created a mindset parallel to these experiences. The book focuses on how trauma from things seen and experienced during slavery creates a cycle that black people unknowingly participate in. In Jean Toomer’s Cane, the author uses chronotope, the connection between time and place, to highlight how the trauma and learned behavior imposed on black people from slavery has created a fixed mindset they cannot be set free from. In the first part of Toomer’s Cane, the reader is introduced to a woman by the name of Fern, who ultimately is physically desired by most men she comes into contact with. Instantly, when the reader begins the section they are familiarized with her physical characteristics, specifically her eyes. Her eyes being the main focus for the majority of the chapter, the men who were attracted to her eyes

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often sexualized Fern’s whole body. The men who were attracted to Fern believed they were entitled to her body and therefore she would be an easy catch because that was her role as a woman. In the book, the narrator states that “the sexes were made to mate is the practice of the South. Particularly, black folks were made to mate” (Toomer 19). According to the quote, the idea that black people, specifically black women, were only good for their physical characteristics stemmed from learned behavior in the South, particularly that of slavery. Originating from the beginnings of slavery in the South, Cane makes a connection between how the time period and location influenced how the role of women and their bodies were often viewed by men. Since many black people had no true sense of autonomy during slavery, it became almost inevitable for men to view women in any other manner than what they were exposed to. This learned behavior caused the men to not only sexualize Fern but to feel entitled to her body. The men attracted to her began to question what it was about Fern that made them desire her and why they felt this desire so strongly. Toomer describes this desire by stating, “A man in fever is no trifling thing to send away. They began to leave her, baffled and ashamed, yet vowing to themselves that some day they would do some fine thing for her: send her candy every week and not let her know whom it came from… rescue her from some unworthy fellow who had tricked her into marrying them.” (Toomer 18). Once the men realized how their strong desire for Fern was often met with their inability to own and control her, they prided themselves on being an inconsistent present in her life. The goal of the men in Fern’s life was to make her need and desire them in ways that created tension between them in hopes of her becoming submissive to their wishes. Seemingly based on the interaction between the men and Fern, their behavior represented their entitlement not only to her body but to her attention as well. In particular, this section of the novel highlights the constant power struggle of the sexes and illustrates to the reader how many believe that the presence of men is in fact needed to bring safety and security to women. Toomer’s belief that the mind and body are connected further argues the idea that learned behavior is passed down and imposed onto other people. In the text, “Jean Toomer’s Cane and the Erotics of Mourning”, the author highlights how the lasting effects of slavery affects the way the body is represented and illustrated to the novel’s readers. In reference to vain illustrations made in the novel, Williams argues that, “Throughout Cane, violation of the land as/and woman is haunted by the trauma of enslavement and the sexual exploitation of black women that sustained it” (Williams 89). Stemming back to enslavement, the idea that women are property and can be exploited for

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their enjoyment has been ingrained into the minds of many men therefore causing them to behave accordingly. As a result of habitual actions, men have become accustomed to oversexualizing black women and their bodies. The author of the article also argues that the trauma of slavery in Southern states is evident in Toomer’s narrative through the intersectionality of sexualization and death. Toomer uses concepts of death to show how the oversexualization of women results in their loss of innocence. In reference to the women in the book, the author of the article states, “acts of sexual union and conception in Cane are marked again and again by traumatic history. I want to intervene at that critical crossroads in Cane, where sexuality and loss intersect at the black female body. I call this coupling of desire and loss an “erotics of mourning” and regard Cane as an embodied narrative of a passing era associated with the trauma of slavery.” (Williams 88). The author of the article argues that the connection between sexualization and loss stems from the trauma of slavery, where young black women were often raped and/or sexually assaulted by their slave owners. While the time period depicts the oversexualization of women and the loss of their innocence, the trauma attached to it had a long-lasting effect on the behaviors and mindset of both women and men. Likewise, the way women are depicted during this time period is displayed in the story of Karintha. In Karintha, the section begins with a lyric poem that does not tell much about Karintha’s characteristics but only gives the reader information on her physical attributes. Toomer purposely and strategically does this in order to show how women’s bodies were often oversexualized, causing men to not only desire them, but to desire them at such a young age. In reference to her physical attributes, the narrator states, “Her skin is like dusk on the eastern horizon, O cant you see it, O cant you see it, Her skin is like dusk on the eastern horizon when the sun goes down” (Toomer 5). Instantly, the reader is forced into seeing her the way the men in the story view her. The narrator does not allow the reader to make their own conclusions about Karintha but coerces them into oversexualizing her skin as well. Continuing on throughout the section, the narrator implies that Karintha is young despite the men’s attraction to her. Repeatedly, the narrator states, “Karintha is a woman” as a way to convince himself as well as the reader that due to Karintha’s age, the way men treat her is acceptable. However, the constant repetition of this saying brings a sense of suspicion to the reader and allows them to question whether or not Karintha is actually old enough to be looked at and treated in this manner by the older men. Karintha, although being a lyric poem depicts how women despite their age were predatorized by men much older than them which was learned behavior.

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The oversexualization and objectivity of women caused by traumatic experiences from slavery is represented in the way the narrator chooses to speak about Karintha. In the section, the narrator constantly compares her to other things instead of allowing her to carry her own depth and meaning. In “Mediating Forms: Narrating the Body in Jean Toomer’s Cane” Whyde argues that the description of Karintha did not add to her value in the story, but caused the reader to look at her as an object. The author states, “As a sign, she is narratively emptied of all meaning and then filled by the narrator; she is a passive object whose meaning is imposed on her by the outside” (Whyde 44). The true state of Karintha is based on the interpretation of the men who lust after her. By allowing the men to dictate how Karintha is seen by the reader, it forces the reader to place Karintha in the shadow of the men who desire her. Similarly, throughout the section, the reader is only subject to the information given to them through the perspective of the men who want her. Whyde states, “The flashes of light and color that characterize her replace her physical presence, and the desire men feel for her subsumes her. Woman is narratively transformed into desire which mediates the relationship between male and female, literally and figuratively turning the two into one” (Whyde 44). By having the reader view Karintha through the lens of men, Karintha loses her true identity and takes on the identity of the men who speak of her. Despite not speaking directly of slavery, the correlation between slavery in the South during this time period and the way women were treated is shown through the narrator’s interaction with Karintha. While many slaves were considered property, their identity was stripped away from them causing them to solely be identified as objects and property of their slave owners. Although one may argue that the enslavement of black people has not affected them mentally because they are able to reach higher social status, through the use of the character Ralph Kabnis, Toomer highlights how mental enslavement is not something black people can escape. In “Kabnis”, a short story that encompasses many songs, Toomer expresses how black people are often shackled by a slave mentality despite their current environment. The reader is first introduced to the songs of the chapter when the main character of the story, Ralph Kabnis, a Northerner who returns back to the South to teach, tries to put himself to sleep by reading a book. However, being restless, Kabnis realizes that despite his living situation in the North, fear of having to live in white America still haunts him when he faces the harsh realities of the South. The narrator states, “the warm whiteness of his bed, the lamp- light, do not protect him from the weird chill of their song” (Toomer 81). In this context, the “song” Kabnis is

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referencing, is that of the wound he has received from being black and having to deal with the trauma of slavery. To represent chronotope, the narrator, gives the reader an internal perspective of Kabnis’ mindset, which allows us to see that although his social position in the North might have protected him, the environment cannot change how the trauma of slavery in the South has been rooted into his mind. In addition to the time period, Kabnis’ goal was to escape the bondage of slavery in the South by reverting to a Northern lifestyle. The lyrics go on to say, “white-man’s land. Ni**ers, sing. Burn, bear black children till poor rivers bring rest, and sweet glory in Camp Ground.” (Toomer 81). The song represents how black people will always have to live with being on the “white man’s land” and not fully feeling at home in their own hometown and environment. Despite being natives to the environment, black people’s constant awareness of how they are perceived by white people will always constrain them to a mindset and lifestyle that is not that of their own. Although Kabnis was a Northerner and now lives in the South, the constant uncomfortability and internal struggle he faces shows how he is stuck in a cycle imposed on him through learned behavior. In the section, Kabnis is facing an internal struggle between his mixed identities, that which has enslaved him and the other Northern culture identity he tries to portray. In the article, “Jean Toomer’s Kabnis”, by Tom Marvin, the author shows the internal struggle the main character faces and how Kabnis, the main character tries to ignore his black roots. The author states, “The paradoxical phrase ‘so close to me that I cannot reach them’ perfectly expresses his dilemma: physical proximity to the black folk makes him painfully aware of his failure to traverse the mountain of class and culture that stands in the way” (Marvin 44). Despite being from the North, Kabnis, while being in physical proximity of Southern culture and all it entails, begins to realize that he is like them in more ways than one. Later in the section when Kabnis is speaking to two older men in the community, he realizes that although he may not be as well versed in Southern life as the older men, he still has ties to enslavement. In the article, the author discusses how despite Kabnis’ denial of Southern culture, he still faces the fear that any other black person faces. The author states, “By rejecting the ecstatic devotion he witnesses in the rural church, Kabnis confirms his identity as a ‘Yankee,’ forever alienated from the community.” (Marvin 44). Kabnis ultimately denies his ties to Southern culture by calling himself a Yankee, in other words, a Northerner, however, the local men try to get him to realize that whether he likes it or not, he is still black and has to face the effects associated with his skin color. Although Kabnis associates with being from the North, when he reaches the Southern

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states and realizes he is still a part of black culture, he recognizes how similar their traumas and experiences are to his. Through Kabnis’ character, the reader is shown how one cannot escape their own identity and that despite whether being physically enslaved or not, black people are consumed with learned behaviors and traumas of slavery. In closing, although being debatable on whether or not Jean Toomer’s Cane should be considered a novel, throughout the book, Toomer uses both lyric poetry and short stories to represent how black people’s behaviors is a direct representation of learned habits and trauma directly associated with slavery in Southern states. In the lyric poetry and songs spread throughout the sections, the narrator is much more descriptive when illustrating how trauma has mentally enslaved many black people and caused them to live their life out of fear. As stated before, the body and identity of women is often compared to that of an object, ultimately stripping their sense of autonomy away. Likewise, in the short stories, like Kabnis, for example, Toomer allows the reader to get a direct perspective on the thoughts of the character. Although encompassing a song in the section, the section is significant due to the perspective it is being told from. This allows the reader to get direct access to the thoughts of the character as opposed to having limited access to important information, which in some cases can minimize the emotional connection the reader feels to the story or song. Toomer strategically switches perspectives throughout “Fern”, “Karintha” and “Kabnis” in order to show how the trauma enacted from slavery becomes ingrained in black people’s mindset causing them to act in a way similar to their experiences. The significance of the connection between the slavery and Southern states allows readers to see how both the time period and the effects of their location ultimately affected the behavior. Slavery was much more proactive in Southern states which allows Toomer to enact how these harsh experiences shaped the way black people, specifically viewed themselves and others around them. Works Cited Marvin, Tom. “Jean Toomer’s Kabnis.” Explicator, vol. 67, no. 1, 2008, pp. 43–45. EBSCOhost Toomer, Jean, et al. Cane: Authoritative Text, Contexts, Criticism. W.W. Norton, 2011. Whyde, Janet M. “Mediating Forms: Narrating the Body in Jean Toomer’s Cane.” Southern Literary Journal, vol. 26, no. 1, Fall 1993, p. 42. EBSCOhost

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Williams, Jennifer D. “Jean Toomer’s Cane and the Erotics of Mourning.” Southern Literary Journal, vol. 40, no. 2, 2008, pp. 87–101. EBSCOhost

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The Effects of JUUL-pod e-Cigarette Vaping Solution on Human Lung Fibroblast Cells Over a 72-Hour Period Abigail Kronau Biology 351L - Dr. Ann Zeeh Abstract Vaping and e-cigarette use have become increasingly popular and addicting activities among young people in the U.S. over the past ten years. In an attempt to help educate the public on the dangers of these products, we conducted a study to see how the chemicals in vaping solutions affected human lung fibroblast cells. Our results show that even after only 24 hours, a diluted version of the solution has detrimental effects on lung cell viability. Introduction Vaping and e-cigarettes have exponentially grown in popularity among young people in the U.S since their release to the market in 2007 (1). For many, vaping is an alternative to tobacco cigarettes but, contrary to common belief, vaping products are not necessarily any safer to inhale due to the many chemicals present in the vaping solutions (1). In fact, the vapor inhaled while using a vape pen contains many chemicals that are not found in traditional cigarette smoke (2). According to the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, chemical toxicants and carcinogens have been found in a number of different vape pen products and these substances can have significant health risks associated with their use (2). The vape pens often are small and easily hidden, making them perfect for middle and high school students, who constitute 72% of the JUUL market, to use and hide from parents or teachers (1). The liquid contained in these e-cigarette pods generally contains a propylene glycol or vegetable glycerin base, varying concentrations of nicotine, and several other chemicals and enticing flavorings (i.e. Bubble Gum, Virginia Tobacco, Peach) (1). These products are often advertised as flavored and nicotine-containing in order to lure in this specific group

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of young people, but they are also advertised as a tool to help cigarette smokers quit the habit (3). Nicotine is a highly addictive substance and companies like JUUL have begun using compounds like acidified nicotine salts, which deliver nicotine to the body at higher concentrations, making these vape products more addictive than traditional cigarettes (4). In a study published by the Tobacco Regulatory Science Journal, JUUL products can deliver up to eight times more nicotine to the bloodstream per puff compared to traditional cigarettes (4). A study done by Tsai et al. (2020), found that in human and animal models, chronic use of e-cigarettes caused a large number of cardiac and pulmonary changes in subjects (3). These changes ranged from increased blood pressure and heart rate in human models caused by acute exposure to the e-cigarette chemicals, to angiogenesis, airway obstruction, cardiorenal fibrosis, arterial stiffness, atherosclerotic plaque formation, and emphysema caused by chronic exposure to the ecigarette chemicals in animal models (3). After learning about the many adverse effects of vape products, we wanted to conduct our own study. For this experiment, we tested the effects of JUUL pod e-cigarette vaping solution on human lung fibroblast cells grown in culture. Lerner et al. (2015) reported that human fetal lung fibroblasts showed reduced cell counts and morphological changes associated with cellular stress when exposed to e-cigarette compounds. We referred to the paper by Lerner et al. (2015) to create our experimental plan and decide how to expose our cells to the pod solution (5). Materials & Methods To begin this experiment, we cultured and grew two groups of human lung fibroblast cells, a control population which contained cells and MEM+ culture medium, and the experimental population, which contained cells and MEM+ culture medium mixed with Virginia Tobacco-flavored JUUL pod vape juice. The medium for the experimental group contained 0.025% nicotine, which was diluted in the MEM+ culture medium from the 5.0% nicotine contained within the pure vape solution taken directly out of the pod. These cells were left to grow in a 37°C incubator injected with 5% CO2, then observed and photographed after 24 hours, 48 hours, and 72 hours.

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Results We had very clear results after the 24-hour period. Evident by Figures 1 through 3 shown below, the e-cigarette vaping solution had a negative effect on the lung fibroblast cells.

Figure 1: A: Control lung fibroblast cells after 24 hours growth in MEM+ medium. B: Experimental lung fibroblast cells after 24 hours growth in Virginia Tobacco JUUL solution plus MEM+ medium with a 0.025% nicotine concentration. C: Giemsa-stained control lung fibroblast cells after 24 hours growth in MEM+ medium. D: Giemsa-stained experimental lung fibroblast cells after 24 hours growth in Virginia Tobacco JUUL solution plus MEM+ medium with a 0.025% nicotine concentration. Panels A and B, photos taken under inverted phase contrast microscope at 200x magnification. Panels C and D, photos taken under compound light microscope at 40x magnification.

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Figure 2: A: Control lung fibroblast cells after 48 hours growth in MEM+ medium. B: Experimental lung fibroblast cells after 48 hours of growth in Virginia Tobacco JUUL solution plus MEM+ culture medium with a 0.025% nicotine concentration. C: Giemsa-stained control lung fibroblast cells after 48 hours growth in MEM+ medium. D: Giemsa-stained experimental lung fibroblast cells after 48 hours growth in Virginia Tobacco JUUL solution plus MEM+ medium with a 0.025% nicotine concentration. E: Giemsa-stained control lung fibroblast cells after 72 hours growth in MEM+ medium. F: Giemsa-stained experimental lung fibroblast cells after 72 hours growth in Virginia Tobacco JUUL solution plus MEM+ medium with a 0.025% nicotine concentration.

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Table 1: Cell Count in Control and Experimental Groups at 24, 48, and 72 hours

Control: Number of Cells present Experimental: Number of Cells present

24 Hours 102.0 cells/mm2

48 Hours 292.0 cells/mm2

72 Hours 318.0 cells/mm2

72.5 cells/mm2

9.6 cells/mm2

7.5 cells/mm2

Figure 3: This graph shows the growth of our cells, both the control and experimental, over 24, 48, and 72 hours. It is apparent here that the growth of cells according to our experimental group, is much less than that of our control group. This also confirms that the JUUL pod vape solution is extremely damaging to human lung fibroblast cells.

Discussion After 24 hours, nearly all of the cells in the experimental group had died, in contrast to the cells suspended in the MEM+ culture medium alone, which were growing well in culture. Healthy fibroblasts in culture appear as attached, spindle-shaped cells; dead cells detach and Vols. 10 & 11

lose their spindle shape, appearing instead more spherical in shape (compare living cells in Figure 1A and 1C to non-living cells in 1B and 1D). As time went on, the results continued to show us the same outcome, cell death after 48 hours and then 72 hours in the experimental cultures. At the same time, cells in our control cultures for the 48- and 72-hour marks both continued to divide as shown by the Giemsa-stained samples in Figures 2C and 2E. From these results we conclude thate-cigarette vaping solution causes the death of human lung fibroblast cells grown in culture, while the MEM+ culture medium allows continued growth of these cells. Our preliminary results are strong evidence that even with just a small amount of the e-cigarette solution present, there was a detrimental effect on the lung fibroblast cells’ viability. Even more shocking is that this effect only took 24 hours to occur. The toxic effects were also supported by the quantified cell counts shown in Table 1 and the graph shown in Figure 3. Future work should include repeated trials on the fibroblast cells with the same and varying concentrations of the vaping solution to confirm reliability of our preliminary results. Our findings are extremely important because of the percentage of individuals, especially young students, that are using these vape products every day. It is important to educate these individuals on the dangers of e-cigarettes and the detrimental effects that it can have on their lung cells. Acknowledgments This research was completed as part of a project for Cell Biology Laboratory (BIO 351L) in Fall 2019 at the College of Saint Rose with the help of my classmate, Morgan Percy. Dr. Ann Zeeh was an advisor on this project. References 1) Richter, L. (2018, October 1). What is Vaping? Retrieved March 18, 2020, from https://www.centeronaddiction.org/ecigarettes/recreational-vaping/what-vaping 2) Walley, S., Wilson, K., Winickoff, J., & Groner, J. (2019, June 01). A Public Health Crisis: Electronic Cigarettes, Vape, and JUUL. Retrieved January 18, 2021, from https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/143/6/e2018274 1

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3) Tsai, M., Byun, M. K., Shin, J., & Alexander, L. E. (2020). Effects of e‐cigarettes and vaping devices on cardiac and pulmonary physiology. The Journal of Physiology, 598(22), 5039-5062. doi:10.1113/jp279754 4) Maier, S. (2020, January 6). JUUL Delivers Substantially More Nicotine than Previous Generation E-Cigs and Cigarettes. Retrieved January 18, 2021, from https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/01/416371/juul-deliverssubstantially-more-nicotine-previous-generation-e-cigs-and 5) Lerner, C. A., Sundar, I. K., Yao, H., Gerloff, J., Ossip, D. J., Mcintosh, S., … Rahman, I. (2015). Vapors Produced by Electronic Cigarettes and E-Juices with Flavorings Induce Toxicity, Oxidative Stress, and Inflammatory Response in Lung Epithelial Cells and in Mouse Lung. Plos One, 10(2). doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0116732

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An Analysis of Stephen J. Morse’s “Scientific Challenges to Criminal Responsibility”: How Recent Neuroscience Research is Challenging Traditional Legal Ideas About Whether People Should Be Held Responsible for Their Actions Hannah Liscomb Philosophy 330 – Dr. Laura Weed

Ever since law was invented to manage human behavior, traditional ideas of responsibility to obey the law and culpability to punishment if one disobeys the law have prevailed. Everyone who has a basic understanding of law knows that these traditional ideas of responsibility and culpability are that everyone has a responsibility to obey the law and if they do not, they are subject to punishment. However, recent discoveries in neuroscience and genetics have dramatically complicated, challenged, and questioned these traditional ideas about responsibility to obey the law and punishment as a result of criminal activity. The profound questions that research in neuroscience and genetics have provoked are, “Are people morally responsible for their actions like we think they are or are everyone's actions completely determined by brain chemistry and genetics?” and “If people can't help engaging in criminal behavior because their actions boil down to their brain chemistry and genetics, can they be held legally responsible for actions they hypothetically have no control over?” In his work, “Scientific Challenges to Criminal Responsibility,” Stephen J. Morse gives an articulate, in-depth explanation as to why he believes traditional legal ideas about responsibility for human actions and why he does not believe recent scientific research that challenges conventional ideas about responsibility. Though he is articulate and thorough in his writing, there are some aspects of his arguments that I dispute and take issue with. I will cover each general argument he includes in his piece and explain why I reject some of the ideas he proposes.

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Morse starts off the piece by acknowledging recent research and discoveries in genetics and neuroscience but rejects the impact that these discoveries could have on law and morality. In his own words, “Despite the rapid advances in both sciences in the last decade – including sequencing of the human genome and the increasing use of functioning magnetic resonance imaging [fMRI] to measure brain physiology – there have been no revolutionary breakthroughs in morality and law.”1 Morse is correct in saying this because discoveries in neuroscience, though hugely influential and important in the scientific/medical community, have been not nearly as influential in reforming the US Legal system. According to a scientific article posted on the PBS Nova website, “...adoption of neuroscience in the courtroom has been gradual...”2 Part of this reluctance on behalf of US courts to take these groundbreaking research developments into serious consideration could be explained by philosopher Jerry Fodor, who Morse quotes in his piece: “If commonsense intentional psychology were really to collapse, that would be, beyond comparison, the greatest intellectual catastrophe in the history of our species; if we're that wrong about the mind, then that's the wrongest we've ever been about anything,” and “We'll be in deep, deep trouble if we have to give it up...”3 There seems to be a strong tone of fear in Fodor's words of the idea that humans may have been woefully wrong all along about how the human brain operates and also a tone of stubborn reluctance and refusal to entertain the possibility that we need to change our current thinking about how the brain works in relation to actions. The problem with this situation is that science doesn't care about people's inability to accept changing ideas about how the material world works. The nature of scientific study is to fearlessly pursue new information about how the material world operates without regard to people's fears about the effect that changing theories will have on material existence. In this regard, science and the law are at odds with each other. Morse acknowledges this conflict between science and the law by saying, “The law is in many respects a conservative enterprise and will always resist the supposed reforms other disciplines suggest.”4 Science moves too quickly for law, and this difference plays a role in the issue of whether neuroscience research should affect how law is administered. After acknowledging scientific research that challenges law but rejecting its impact on the law, Morse goes on to sum up the argument resulting from neuroscience research. The argument is that brain chemistry and activity is entirely responsible for people's actions, therefore people cannot be held responsible for their actions because we can't help what our brain chemistry is.5 An analogy to this issue would be laws criminalizing people who are too short or too tall. (Of

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course, there have never been such laws, but the purpose is to use them as a hypothetical analogy). Such laws would be holding people responsible for something they can't help: their height. Morse argues that people's actions are not something they can't help due to brain chemistry. He prefers the traditional legal definition of human actions: “Law views human action as reason-governed and treats people as intentional agents, not simply as part of the biophysical flotsam and jetsam of the causal universe.”6 In other words, he flatly rejects the idea that human actions can't be helped because they are a result of brain chemistry and embraces the idea that human actions are dictated by reason and carried out by people who are “intentional agents.”7 One could challenge his claim further though by saying that reason is a product of brain chemistry and that “intentional agents” can also be reduced to their brain chemistry. Biological anthropologist Dr. Helen Fisher developed a method of classifying people's temperaments based on neuroscience.8 It naturally follows that some personalities have more reasoning capabilities than others (based on physical activity in the brain) making some people engage in behavior that the law views as criminal and others not engage in such behavior. This is contradictory to what Morse is saying, which is that brain chemistry is not necessarily connected to people's actions and behavior. So what does Morse think dictates people's actions if he doesn't believe the theories of neuroscience? His answer ultimately is that he doesn't know what dictates our actions. He writes that he does not believe the spiritual explanation for human behavior and actions—“I am not positing the existence of nonnatural or mysterious properties, such as a soul. Nor do I assume that our nonmaterial minds are somehow independent of our physical bodies but yet are in causal connection with our bodies,” he writes.9 Instead he believes that our brain dictates the activity of our minds and our minds dictate the activity of our bodies, but admits that there is currently no explanation as to how this works.10 He concludes the question of what he believes dictates human actions by stating that people as a whole (not just their brain or soul, for example) dictate how they act through reason. But again, the question remains of where this reasoning comes from. Does reason come from our soul, from brain chemistry or from somewhere else that we don’t understand? The remaining question weakens the validity of his argument. In the next section of his piece, Morse argues that even if actions are caused by physical activity such as brain chemistry, this does not excuse people from being responsible for their actions. He writes that “Although all behavior may have physical causes in a physical, material universe, it does not follow that all behavior is

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excused, because causation per se has nothing to do with responsibility.”11 There are flaws to this argument, though, because if people's actions are a result of something they cannot help, (brain chemistry and/or genes) then they should not be held responsible for their actions. Careful scientific study of brain chemicals that cause different types of behavior is problematic for traditional legal theories that Morse believes because people can’t control what chemicals control their brain. Scientists know for sure that there are chemical compounds circulating in our brain called neurotransmitters. They cause different brain functions, and brain functions cause different behaviors and actions.12 There are four major chemicals active in the brain: serotonin, dopamine, glutamate, norepinephrine. All of these chemicals affect the way people think and feel in different ways, and an abnormal imbalance in these chemicals, can lead to mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, depression, and bipolar disorder.13 If everybody has these chemicals in their brains and an imbalance in these chemicals can happen to anyone, thus changing their behavior negatively, then why should people be held responsible for their actions? Some of the most famous criminals who have committed atrocious acts were medically diagnosed with mental illnesses that are caused by imbalances of chemicals in the brain. According to The Atlantic, the majority of inmates are mentally ill. The U.S Department of Justice issued a set of statistics in 2007 showing that most inmates in state and federal prison suffer from depressive disorders, mania, bipolar disorder, manic-depression, schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety disorders, and personality disorders.14 According to research done by neuroscientists, an imbalance of the chemicals dopamine, glutamate, and serotonin cause schizophrenia.15 So the question is, should Berkowitz have been held legally and morally responsible for the murders he committed, or should he not have been held responsible because he can’t control the chemical imbalances in his brain? Many neuroscientists would say he should not have been held responsible, but Morse would say that the punishment he got was the correct solution to his criminal activity. Morse does admit that if neuroscientists and geneticists discover that human beings aren't capable of “minimal rationality,” then more legal excuses can be made for people so that they aren't responsible for their actions, but he maintains that the idea that people are not capable of “minimal rationality” is a dubious claim.16 In the next section of the piece, Morse goes on to further discuss what he thinks of as extreme neuroscientific views on responsibility. The idea that people’s state of mind has no connection to their behavior is a new hypothesis that neuroscientists have come up

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with. Morse refers to the idea that people are reduced to their brain chemistry as “VNC” or “victims of neuronal circumstances.”17 This idea that people are “victims of neuronal circumstances,” if true, would completely undermine and delegitimize all previous “folk psychological” theories about the connection between people’s mental states and their behavior. “Folk psychological” theories posit that people’s mental states cause their behavior, but neuroscience research developments posit that it’s actually just brain chemistry that causes different behaviors and actions, not a general state of mind. To clarify what the neuroscientists hypothesize, Morse quoted an article written by Jonathan Cohen and Joshua Greene (both neuroscientists): “What neuroscience does, and will continue to do at an accelerated pace, is elucidate the ‘when,’ ‘where’ and ‘how of the mechanical processes that cause behavior.”18 The two neuroscientists continued on to describe the irresponsibility of denying that behavior is caused by “mechanical processes” in the brain, when these processes can be displayed by fMRI scans and how they work can be described through equations.19 The important distinction here is between mental states and brain mechanisms controlling how we behave and act, as Morse points out.20 People like Morse believe that mental states are the cause of behavior, and neuroscientists believe that brain mechanisms are responsible for behavior. There is a critical difference between the two causes, and which cause courts and judges decide to believe affects the legal system in very different ways. Neuroscientists Jonathan Cohen and Joshua Greene hypothesize the “VNC” concept, but Morse is against the “VNC” concept for a couple reasons. One of the reasons he is opposed to the “VNC” concept is because it could possibly render the US legal system completely pointless. This is a valid concern because what he’s talking about is the issue that treating criminals like they aren’t morally responsible for their actions because they are “victims of neuronal circumstances” would, in fact, make the criminal justice system useless. In Morse’s words, “If Cohen [Jonathan Cohen] and Greene [Johusa Greene] are right, we are all allegedly ‘merely victims of neuronal circumstances.’ But are we? And will the criminal justice system as we know it, which includes robust notions of personhood and desert, wither away as an outmoded relic of a pre-scientific and cruel age?”21 Though it is a perfectly valid and thought-provoking challenge to the “VNC” claims of neuroscientists, an easy and equally valid rebuttal could be, “What’s the big problem with the criminal justice system becoming useless as a result of advanced neuroscience research?” Even if the criminal justice system is weakened or made useless by this research, one could argue that other non-legal systems

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could replace the criminal justice system to keep criminals from committing criminal acts. Solutions that could be suggested to keep criminals from behaving in harmful ways are medicating them, putting them in therapy, or sending them to mental asylums (voluntarily or involuntarily), instead of legally punishing them for actions that, neuroscientists hypothesize, they are not responsible for (due to their brain chemistry). On both sides of the coin, I think traditional legal theorists and neuroscientists have wholly unhelpful approaches to how studies of the human brain should impact legal responsibility for criminal acts. Traditional legal theorists like Morse seem to not take into account the importance of brain science research and how the legal system will need to adapt to the research that is currently unfurling. As a result of the conservative nature of the legal system, there are mentally ill people who are thrown in jail for actions that they are not responsible for because it is truly their abnormal brain chemistry that causes their criminal behavior (something they cannot control or change). On the other side of the coin, there are neuroscientists making, as Morse puts it, “scientific overclaim”22 about how no human beings are morally responsible for their actions because, according to the reductionist theory, we are all reduced to our brain chemistry. If this were to be true, then nobody would be held responsible for their actions, mentally ill or mentally well. Why does the truth have to be black or white? Can’t it lie somewhere in the middle? I tend to believe that abnormal brain chemistry (mental illness) is grounds to excuse somebody from being legally punished for criminal actions. Instead of being prosecuted and put in jail, they should be treated for their mental illness. But if somebody has normal brain chemistry and commits a criminal act, then they do have responsibility for criminal behavior and actions. This middle ground theory seems to be totally ignored between the extremist points of view of neuroscientists who believe in the “VNC” theory and traditional legal theorists who often believe that how the brain works on a neuronal level should have no effect on how much people are held responsible for criminal behavior. The prison system in the Netherlands is an interesting example of how an understanding of the complexity of human mental illness can lead to appropriate treatment of criminals. Though criminals are held legally and morally responsible for their actions, there are varying degrees of responsibility for crimes based on the mental health of the criminal and varying degrees of psychiatric care in prisons for criminals based on how mentally unwell they are.23 This is in stark contrast to the U.S. legal system where there is a serious mental health crisis in prisons due to a lack of understanding of mental illness among corrections officers and a lack of willingness on behalf of prisons to accommodate

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psychiatrists who know a lot about how the human brain works.24 So, the controversy over whether human brain chemistry is what causes criminal behavior is not just a lofty philosophical debate, it is also a critical issue that has real-world implications, like mental health crises in prisons. Owen D. Jones, a professor of the biological sciences at Vanderbilt University studies this issue and gave a lecture at Georgia State University’s College of Law where he stressed the importance of “having an interdisciplinary approach to complicated legal issues” (by including neuroscience research in criminal cases). He explained in the lecture that the law deals directly with human behavior and neuroscience is producing evidence that human behavior is caused by chemical processes in the brain, complicating how the legal system deals with criminals. Jones, unlike Morse, believes that neuroscience research can be used as an advantage for the criminal justice system. He claims that if judges and courts pay more attention to the findings of neuroscientists, the information can be handled in such a way that benefits the criminal justice system, not tears it apart and creates a postlegal dystopia like Morse claims.25 In conclusion, the field of neuroscience has uncovered some potentially world-changing evidence that suggests that all human behavior, criminal or benevolent, can be traced back to chemical reactions in the brain. Proponents of the “VNC” (victims of neuronal circumstances) theory claim that nobody is truly responsible for their behavior because their behavior is a direct result of their brain chemistry and nobody is responsible for the kind of brain chemistry they were born with (or that environmental factors influenced). Proponents of traditional legal theories about justice and moral responsibility like Stephen Morse believe that people are responsible for their actions and that the neuroscience research claiming that people are not responsible for their behavior is woefully incomplete and therefore invalid. I, personally, think that both claims are too extreme and imbalanced, but that there are grains of truth to both stances. These grains of truth make up a more nuanced understanding of human behavior and how it relates to brain chemistry which is that brain chemistry may have a lot more to do with human behavior than traditional legal theorists thought, but that there are other factors that control human behavior other than brain chemistry, making some criminals more responsible for their actions than others. It is clear to me that the situation is more complicated than simply saying that everyone is responsible for their actions no matter how much brain chemistry has to do with our behavior or saying that nobody is responsible for their actions because we are all “victims of neuronal circumstances.” The question of whether the criminal justice system is in need of revision is

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one that I am unwilling to answer due to the fact that the “VNC” theory has yet to be explored in- depth by lawyers and neuroscientists alike. Whether the fate of the criminal justice system is left up to the research of neuroscientists and geneticists is something that my generation might never know. Endnotes

1 Stephen J. Morse, “Scientific Challenges to Criminal Responsibility,” Philosophy of Law: Ninth Edition, Joel Feinberg, late, Jules Coleman and Christopher Kutz (Boston: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2014), 840. 2 PBS Nova, “Can Neuroscience Determine Guilt or Innocence?” Public Broadcasting Service, last modified 2018, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/law-neuroscience/ 3 Stephen J. Morse, “Scientific Challenges…,” 849. 4 Ibid., 851. 5 Stephen J. Morse, “Scientific Challenges…,” 840. 6 Ibid., 841. 7 Ibid., 841. 8 “Dr. Helen Fisher on How Brain Chemistry Determines Personality and Politics,” YouTube video, 45:14, posted by “ReasonTV,” April 18, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lOPtTbFCMY 9 Stephen J. Morse, “Scientific Challenges…,” 841. 10 Ibid., 841. 11 Ibid., 842. 12 Bret Stetka, “Cocktail of Brain Chemicals May Be a Key to What Makes Us Human,” Scientific American, January 24, 2018. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cocktail-of-brain-chemicals-maybe-a-key-to-what-makes-us-human/ 13 University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, “How Brain Chemicals Influence Mood and Health,” UPMC HealthBeat, last modified 2018, https://share.upmc.com/2016/09/about-brain-chemicals/ 14 Olga Khazan, “Most Prisoners are Mentally Ill,” The Atlantic, published April, 2015, https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/04/more-than-half-ofprisoners-are-mentally-ill/389682/ 15 Mental Health America, “Schizophrenia,” last modified 2018, http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/conditions/schizophrenia 16 Stephen J. Morse, “Scientific Challenges…,” 844. 17 Ibid., 844. 18 Ibid., 845. 19 Ibid., 845. 20 Ibid., 845. 21 Stephen J. Morse, “Scientific Challenges…,” 845. 22 Stephen J. Morse, “Scientific Challenges…,” 846.

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23 Melissa Hogenboom, “The Unique Way the Dutch Treat Mentally Ill Prisoners,” BBC Future, published April 25, 2018, http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180423-the-unique-way-the-dutch-treatmentally-ill-prisoners 24 Alisa Roth, “The ‘Insane’ Way Our Prison System Handles the Mentally Ill,” The New York Times, May 22, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/22/books/review/insane-alisa-roth.html 25 Georgia State University, “Owen D. Jones to Discuss How Neuroscience Plays a Role in Law at Georgia State Law’s Miller Lecture,” http://www-lexisnexiscom.proxy4.athensams.net/hottopics/lnacademic/

Works Cited “Dr. Helen Fisher on How Brain Chemistry Determines Personality and Politics.” YouTube video, 45:14. Posted by “ReasonTV,” April 18, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lOPtTbFCMY Feinberg, Joel, Jules Coleman, Christopher Kutz. Philosophy of Law: Ninth Edition. Boston: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2014. Georgia State University. “Owen D. Jones to Discuss How Neuroscience Plays a Role in Law at Georgia State Law’s Miller Lecture.” http://www.lexisnexiscom.proxy4.athensams.net/hottopics/lna cademic/ Hogenboom, Melissa. “The Unique Way the Dutch Treat Mentally Ill Priosners.” BBC Future. Published April 25, 2018. http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180423-the-unique-waythe- dutch-treat-mentally-ill-prisoners Jensen, Emily. “New York’s Biggest Police Manhunt: The Son of Sam.” StMU History Media. Published December 5, 2018. https://www.stmuhistorymedia.org/new-yorks-biggest-policemanhunt-the-son-of-sam/ Mental Health America. “Schizophrenia.” Last modified 2018. http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/conditions/schizophrenia

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PBS Nova. “Can Neuroscience Determine Guilt or Innocence?” Public Broadcasting Service. Last modified 2018. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/law-neuroscience/ Roth, Alissa. “The ‘Insane’ Way Our Prison System Handles the Mentally Ill.” The New York Times, May 22, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/22/books/review/insanealisa-roth.html Seigel, Max H. “Berkowitz Given 25 Years to Life in Each of 6 ‘Son of Sam.’” The New York Times, June 13, 1978. https://www.nytimes.com/1978/06/13/archives/new-jerseypages-berkowitz- given-25-years-to-life-in-each-of-6-son.html Stetka, Bret. “Cocktail of Brain Chemicals May Be a Key to What Makes Us Human.” Scientific American, January 24, 2018. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cocktail-of-brainchemicals-may-be-a-key-to-what-makes-us-human/ University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. “How Brain Chemicals Influence Mood and Health.” UPMC HealthBeat. Last modified 2018. https://share.upmc.com/2016/09/about-brainchemicals/

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Nutrition in College Is Nutrition for Life Elizabeth Mattair English 105 - Professor Danielle Elly One of the most stressful and time-consuming aspects of college life is nutrition. Some students can find themselves overwhelmed with options in the dining hall, and other students may find that the options with which they are presented do not suit their taste. Paired with the added challenges of time management and independence, mealtime in college can be a draining chore. With that being said, nutrition for college students is often an afterthought. Between registering for classes and shopping for dorm decorations, teens and young adults are often ill-equipped to make educated decisions at mealtime. Why do college students so often lack the knowledge and skills to select nutritious sources of nourishment? It could be due to the lack of healthy options presented to them in the dining hall. While some colleges are working towards providing more balanced choices for students, the average university dining hall still needs improvement. Another struggle could arise from the lack of structure and newfound independence. College first-years are used to action-packed high school days, in which they were not only busier than they are in college, but they also most likely had someone else preparing healthy meals for them each day. Lastly, cultural standards and expectations can lead to body image issues and eating disorders, which are likely to manifest themselves in a new, stressful environment like college. Given the struggles college students have faced regarding nutrition for decades, college administrations and students should work together to inform and improve the average college student’s approach to mealtime. Proper nutrition during college years can set the tone for a lifetime of health and wellness. According to Lindsay Boyers in an article for the San Francisco Gate, “Regularly eating at night, consuming a lot of fast food, skipping breakfast, eating oversized portions and drinking sugary beverages all contribute to weight gain that can eventually lead to obesity, according to MayoClinic.com.

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Obesity puts you at risk of several health conditions, including high cholesterol, high triglycerides, type-2 diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, heart disease, gallbladder disease, cancer, depression, osteoarthritis and skin problems.” (Boyers). In other words, typical unhealthy eating patterns and behaviors of college students may lead to more serious health issues later in life. These eating patterns are often functions of the hustle and bustle of college life, and students who slip into these patterns by default often suffer the long-term consequences as they get older. Given this information, colleges and universities have the opportunity to impact nationwide health by informing and assisting students at mealtime. According to the New York University website, “a balanced diet can help students increase energy levels, promote a functioning immune system, improve their ability to cope with stress, and increase concentration and performance in school.” (NYU). In other words, good nutrition has many benefits for students during their time at college and beyond. This means that, in the interest of promoting their students’ success, colleges and universities should invest more time, energy, and resources into helping students plan and provide balanced meals for themselves. It is no secret that a lot of college dining halls leave much to be desired. Many students count the days until they can return home and eat a home-cooked meal. The lack of quality of the food served in many dining halls may be a contributor to the lack of balance present in the diet of the average college student. An article by Hayley Tillet for Buzzfeed called on the internet to submit their own college dining hall horror stories. The story includes photos of caterpillars and newts in the salads, moths in the ice cream, undercooked eggs, and purple chicken, among other nauseating exposures of the daily health code violations in many university dining halls (Tillet). Given this information, it is no wonder that college students desperately seek out other options, such as high-fat, high-calorie takeout, or skip meals altogether. When these behaviors become habits, college students may begin to see their lack of nutrition show up in other areas of their life, such as their academic or athletic performance, or their general health. Aside from lack of quality in the dining halls, another reason for poor nutrition in college can be the circumstances of the average college student. A ChildMind article by Rae Jacobson explains that the typical challenges of college life include a larger amount of schoolwork, a more open schedule, and an emphasis on peer relationships and social activities. “College can be a time of a lot of excitement and stimulation and also a lot of stress,” explains Dr. Baker, a child and adolescent psychopharmacologist. “It asks young people

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who are not yet adults to act in a very adult way.” (Jacobson). Students at colleges and universities are faced with more freedom than they have likely experienced before. This freedom and independence, mixed with the pressures and demands of college life, can result in young people making poor decisions in seemingly meaningless areas of their day such as their food. Due to their busy schedules and other distractions, college students tend to select the quickest and easiest source of food. This is often not the healthiest option, and as a result college students may not get the proper nutrition due to lack of time and energy. College is full of transitions. School administrations should make more of an effort to acknowledge these transitions, and to funnel resources into removing the difficulties of meal planning and preparation for students. College students may experience issues with getting proper nutrition as a result of pressures from pop culture and the media. Dr. Douglas Bunnell, the clinical director of New York’s Monte Nido treatment center, states: The stress of a college schedule, managing a new social context, and dealing with independent living can trigger reemergent anxiety or, in some cases a new mental illness… If you have a heavy dose of anxiety and you’re in a social environment, and you’re constantly exposed to the thin body ideal, that’s a perfect storm convergence of factors that can drive a vulnerable individual into an eating disorder. (Jacobson). As discussed previously, college brings many transitions and challenges. Paired with pressure from social media and peers, even more obstacles are created. For 25% of college men and 33% of college women, these obstacles tend to manifest themselves as eating disorders (Campbell). Between horror stories about the “Freshman 15” (the fifteen pounds college first-years supposedly gain), images on social media, and outside pressures from peers, the taste of freedom and lack of supervision for a college student may spiral into disordered eating or a full-blown eating disorder. In a New York Times article about a study debunking the idea of the “Freshman 15” altogether, Tara Thean states, “The study authors urge the media and universities to stop using the term ‘freshman 15,’ since it’s not only misleading, but may also add to the problem of distorted body image among college students, particularly young women.” (Thean). In other words, the term “Freshman 15” does not paint an accurate picture of what happens to the majority of college

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students’ weights, and it can be damaging to their mental health and self-esteem. In fact, Thean’s article states that the average female college student only gains about 6 pounds across four years, and the average male student gains about 12. These numbers may also be attributed to natural body aging and changing and not a massive gain of weight due to junk food or overeating (Thean). However, an impressionable college student may hear “Freshman 15” and panic, triggering disordered eating habits and anxiety. By understanding proper terminology and taking into account the relatively fragile mental health of many college-age students in this day and age, universities have an opportunity to make choosing and planning meals an enjoyable and educational experience rather than a stressful one. Given all this information, how exactly can colleges and universities assist their students with their dining choices? According to an article by Emily Kerr for U.S News and World Report, various institutions across the nation have come up with unique ideas. Sterling College in Craftsbury, VT, in particular has an interesting plan for providing nutritious options for students. They take pride in involving students behind the scenes, proving that exposure is the best form of education. “Considered among the best of the best in sustainability, the college grows its own food from seed to compost, and students are required to do their part: All students do one week of dish duty each semester, and many cook alongside the college's professional chefs to prepare meals.” (Kerr). Elon University in North Carolina is another trailblazer in educating students about nutrition through hands-on experiences. “The university allows its students to get involved in the Oxford College Organic Farm, a living lab that provides produce for the school's dining hall and a weekly farmers market on campus.” (Kerr). By allowing students to get involved in the kitchen and in the garden, the lessons they learn about nutrition are likely to last a lifetime. The dining practices at Elon and Sterling are examples of ways that universities can not only remove some stress and confusion about nutrition for students, but educate them about proper nutrition as well. There are other simpler ways universities can assist their students at mealtime. “Point-of-purchase interventions provide cues to action about the nutritional value of certain food items to guide individuals in making healthier selections.” (NYU). New York University provides transparent information about the nutritional value of the food they provide for their students with labels, signs, and symbols. This transparency encourages students to make educated decisions and helps them to know exactly what they are putting into their bodies. Another way colleges can help students with nutrition is through required educational courses. Universities already require

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students to take online course modules about alcohol, drugs, and sexual assault. Given the prominence of eating disorders and stress about healthy eating on college campuses, nutrition should be talked about just as much as these other issues. Universities can also help by not scheduling classes at mealtimes. A student with an 8am class will most likely not eat breakfast, and a student with a night class may not be able to squeeze in a proper dinner. By creating two or three breaks in their schedules each day, colleges can encourage students to get a quality meal in between classes. Every little bit helps, but there is definitely a need for more education, assistance, and intervention from universities when it comes to helping students eat a balanced diet. Nutrition in college is a well-known but widely unaddressed issue. Given that health habits during the college years can set the tone for general health later in life, it is imperative that universities make more of an effort to improve their dining options and assist students in their decision-making at mealtime. By taking steps to educate and inform their students about nutrition, colleges have an opportunity to create lasting health habits in students and rewrite the landscape of obesity and heart health statistics in America. Works Cited Boyers, Lindsay. “Long-Term Effects of Bad Eating Habits.” Healthy Eating | SF Gate, 2 Dec. 2018, healthyeating.sfgate.com/longterm-effects-bad-eating-habits10555.html Campbell, Leah. “Here's Why Eating Disorders On College Campuses Are On The Rise.” Healthline.com, 1 Oct. 2018, www.healthline.com/health-news/eating-disorders-on-collegecampuses-are-on-the-rise#The-role-universities-play. Jacobson, Rae. “Eating Disorders in College Students.” Child Mind Institute, 21 Aug. 2020, childmind.org/article/eatingdisorders-and-college/ Kerr, Emily. “10 Colleges With Unique Dining Options.” U.S. News & World Report, 3 Dec. 2019, 9:59 am, www.usnews.com/education/bestcolleges/slideshows/collegethat-offer-unique-healthy-dining-options.

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NYU Web Communications. “Nutrition.” NYU, www.nyu.edu/life/safety-health-wellness/live-wellnyu/priority-areas/nutrition.html. Sogari, Giovanni, et al. “College Students and Eating Habits: A Study Using An Ecological Model for Healthy Behavior.” US National Library of Medicine , National Institutes of Health, 23 Nov. 2018, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6315356/. Thean, Tara. “Debunking the Myth of the 'Freshman 15'.” Time, 2 Nov. 2011, healthland.time.com/2011/11/02/debunking-the-mythof-the-freshman-15/ Tillett, Hayley. “18 Times College Dining Halls Tried To Food And Failed Miserably.” BuzzFeed, 30 July 2020, www.buzzfeed.com/hayleyrochelletillett/college-dining-hallfood-fail

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Irish Female Sports Fans: Unwittingly Political Aileen K. Burke Undergraduate Research Grant Project (Summer 2019) Political Science

Introduction The Irish and their descendants have a long, storied history in the United States after their emigration from Ireland due to the massive potato famine that drove 1.5 million families to rapidly leave the country in the late 1840’s. The Irish, in addition to eastern European and Italian immigrants, were met with great discrimination by Americans when arriving to North America in the early 1800’s. They were “othered” by the “typical” white members of the American communities in large cities in a way that was similar to the recently “freed” African American slaves of the south; it is imperative to state that the discrimination that these two ethnic groups faced were nonetheless not identical. By way of illustration, an image associated with this time in American history was the help wanted signs with “No Irish Need Apply” boldly annotated underneath. The Irish were “othered” because of where they came from, and early depictions of their new culture in American mass media; this includes political cartoons by historically significant cartoonist Thomas Nast. These images also depicted personality traits that are still associated with people of Irish heritage, such as laziness, drunkenness, volatility, and unintelligence. Those immigrants were not born within the borders of the United States and were competing for limited work within major cities at this time in American history. The fear of losing jobs to people who would work for less money manifested itself in hatred and discrimination. The Irish and other immigrant groups moving into the United States at the time did not receive the same level of discrimination as other “others,” because they were ultimately still white. Therefore this group faced the discrimination that is taught in 44

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some history classes today, and paralleled in modern white fears about Mexican immigrants; the power structure aims to remain the same in both cases, and hatred is the tactic selected to enforce the structure. Although the Irish demographic has become increasingly and permanently brought into the socially constructed fold of American “whiteness,” there are many people who still believe in the salience of the Irish-American hyphenated identity; some of these people choose to still identify as such. Being Irish and or Irish-American has not been politically salient in a significant amount of time, as there are no phenotypic markers that make it easy for people to “other” those who identify as such; although there were depictions in media by elite whites that presented markers that became normalized. Nonetheless, there is a particularly significant community of people who still believe in the salience of the identity from West Brighton; this is a small community on the northernmost shoreline of Staten Island, New York. Staten Island is one of the five boroughs that make up New York City, and is frequently referred to as “The Forgotten Borough.” It stands as the most politically conservative of the boroughs, and inhabitants, including those responding participants, sometimes feel neglected by the city’s government. This is a problem dating back to the 1960’s: there was even a short film made called “The Forgotten Borough.” Originally settled by the Dutch, the borough diversified once it was absorbed into New York City on the whole. Irish currently make up roughly four [4] percent of the city’s population, and approximately 60 percent of the residents of Staten Island identify as Roman Catholic (U.S. Census Bureau, 2017.) There is overlap between these two demographics, especially within the community of West Brighton. West Brighton, New York is home to a great portion of the Irish population of the borough, and many families have lived there intergenerationally. I hypothesize that their Irish identity is salient to them, especially those who identify as female, but not for the reasons that created the historic incarnations of the identity. The Irish-American identity, along with the reasons that people identify with it, has evolved with time. How this identity applies to different people depends on the rest of their constructed identity. Women who identify as such, or as anything at all, gesture to the political salience of their individual experiences within a particular context. Women, especially women of color, have been historically discriminated against and the compounding of these interactions between women and men have resulted in the political salience of identifying as a woman, as women have been and still continue to be marginalized; therefore they do not possess the same collective power as cisgendered men.

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Furthermore, an individual who chooses to actively recognize their heritage manifests itself in many ways, and one that is distinctly notable is self-affiliation with particular sports teams. While barely studied, affiliation with sports teams can be a direct reflection of regional, national, socioeconomic, and political alignments. This is typically intergenerational, and it is of interest to see whether or not identifying as Irish-American will present through alignments of sports teams within the region. The intersection of these four identities is specific but are filled with great intergenerational depth when examined collectively and qualitatively. These identities should not compete with each other and are no longer “othering” like they were in previous centuries. It is important to note that there are other identities or components of identities that are present within each participant of the study, and unless they informed the identities that are part of the study, they are not addressed in the later components of the work. Literature Review All aspects of various identities are inherently political. Choosing to identify with groups that are outside of the straight, white, landowning males who wrote the rules that the country has stood by for centuries is revolutionary. It is difficult within the American context to take up space as someone who stands in opposition to what has been historically accepted by society, and it is imperative to note that many of the identities that people align with in the 21st century are ones that are placed upon them by those in a position of historic power. Identities serve to legitimize this maldistribution of power, and only some identities can truly be chosen. Over time, depending on what is happening in a given time during eras of this American context, different identities come to possess more or less political charge. It is simple to see them in the same way as a second-string ball player getting activated, and suddenly they are carrying the weight that once belonged to someone else. This independent research project will delve into the social construction of identity as shown in the work of Charles Tilly and Sidney Tarrow in their 2003 work The Politics of Collective Violence, and the construction of race from Omi and Winant’s Racial Formation in the United States. Tilly, and other scholars who work on ideas pertaining to identity look at specific aspects of different types of salient identities. This project examines the construction and politicization of whiteness according to Matthew Frey Jacobson as well

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as the scholarly literature on state identification, sports team identification, and feminist theory. All human identities are invented and inherently political, according to Tilly’s book Identities, Boundaries, and Social Ties (Tilly 6). This project will argue that white [caucasian] female sports fans that self-identify with a “hyphenated” Irish identity, especially those living within New York State, are extremely political and are the direct result of their intergenerational economic, social, and political conditioning. I hypothesize that there will be a significant correlation between “hyphenated” Irish-American identities and self identification with Roman Catholicism. Identities, according to Tilly in the aforementioned title, are the result of compounded transactional social interactions that create “us/them” boundaries that increase the salience of different constructed identities throughout points of history. The existing body of work shows that these identities are concrete but depend on a large variety of factors that contribute to their manifestation. The intersection of these five aspects of identities are not average, but of interest when looking at how they could possibly be constructed, and under what conditions. Matthew Frey Jacobson’s book, Whiteness of a Different Color, addresses these categories discussed by Tilly, but looks closely at the idea of whiteness as it pertains to the historic Irish and other ethnic immigrant populations in the United States of America. The reracialization of these identities has allowed for populations such as Irish and Jewish persons to enjoy the hierarchical benefits of whiteness while maintaining the existing American power structure. This work, and the work of Noel Ignatiev’s How the Irish Became White, grants more specificity to the broader strokes of Tilly’s theories. The intersection of the Irish-American and female identities is of interest as they both are socially constructed but widely accepted, even beyond the American context. Both race and gender are constructions that allow those who have relative power to suppress others and keep the status quo. Although things have become easier for Irish, or really white European immigrants, people still believe in the “plight,” or racialized discrimination of Irish-Americans as it stands today. There is currently no work that examines the people who exist in this pocket of Irish-Americans, and limited research outside of the aforementioned works. It is important to note that political science, and the disciplines that compose the studies, are relatively new within the limits of academia. The literature that exists mainly comes from sociologists, and contributions like this one are based in the political implications of the behaviors and groupings that these sociologists have

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observed. It would be easy, but rather erroneous, to chalk these identities up to human nature or human nature argument. Nothing is ever truly that simple, though it is not yet fully addressed within the body of work. The contribution to the standing body of work here comes in the form of the intersectional case study and practical application of Tilly, Omi, and Winant’s work in order to increase cognition in populations that do not realize the political nature of their daily existence. For further understanding of the work, race is taken into consideration based on the operationalization of Omi and Winant, who wrote that is a master category; a concept that is arbitrarily founded in social, political, and economic divides that ebbs and flows based on the salience of certain identities at a certain point in history. Race is a category that is assigned meaning rather arbitrarily, and although the average member of the attentive public takes the idea of race as something given or natural, it is only because that same attentive public was conditioned to see race in this way. Methodology I recruited the sample through convenient referral and canvassing at Silver Lake Park and Mount Bethel Fire House in Staten Island, New York and Mount Bethel, Pennsylvania respectively. I shared an Institutional Review Board-approved contact speech with those interested in participating, which is included in the appendix of the paper. The overall sample size for the preliminary work [6 weeks] was ultimately seven [7] individuals. The referrals came from personal contacts who were conveniently members of the target demographic. The hypothesized connection between Irish-American self identification and practicing Roman Catholicism was apparent from the interviews, and this helped with further demassification of the answers from the participants. The context of these interviews was non-medical; there was no discussion that could have posed physical harm to the participants in the study. There was no conversation that asked for familial or personal health histories as they applied to their identification. The study’s participants all had at least a high school diploma and had seemingly healthy social circles that they referenced their interactions with during these interviews. The institutions they interact with on a daily basis vary, from their workplace to their choice in finding stories through national news media.

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Principles of Selection Those who participated had to identify as Irish-American and female; the two demographics that compose the identity of interest. Those potentially interested in participating in the study from referrals and the canvassing locations were given a contact speech outlining the project and providing. The speech is located in the appendix. If contact was reciprocated, an interview was set up and the following guide was used for conversation: 1. 2.

What is your name? How “Irish” are you? 1. Both parents? 2. One parent? 3. What can you tell me about your growing up? Where did you grow up? Did you self-identify as Irish during this time? 4. How does that inform how you live now? Are you raising your children, if you have them, to identify as Irish? 5. What sports teams do you follow? 6. Can you cite any distinct experiences you have had as a female sports fan? Experiences that you may not have had if you were or identified as a male? 7. How did you decide to follow them? Were these the teams that either of your parents followed, if they followed sports? 8. Where do you currently live? 9. How long have you lived there? 10. Do you plan on staying or eventually moving elsewhere? The conversation changed based on the content of the answers from the participants. This guide was exactly that: a guide. The points within the questions were important to address, but there were differences in each case that needed to have flexibility in order to take into consideration. It is important to note that there was no difference in questioning for someone who followed team sports over someone who followed individual sports. If a participant stated that they followed team sports or individual sports, it was noted, but it was not a component of the initial interview questions. Analysis Using this guide for conversation, the participants in the study spoke about themselves and their experience as a self-identifying IrishAmerican, and how that informs the rest of their experience involving

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their identities. The conversations took the same broad strokes, but the finer details of each interview were different depending on other components of the identity that inform being Irish-American. Being Irish-American informs many other components of existence for the women who participated in the study. Ultimately, identifying as Irish-American stands at the top of the figure, and different parts of the identity plays off of other components. This is rudimentarily illustrated in figure 2 in the Appendix. Self identification as an Irish-American, according to the participants in these interviews, has a great deal to do with what I refer to in the appendix figure as Ancestry Anecdotes. Stories from older members of family conglomerates are directly related to the Irish and or Irish-American experience. These two aforementioned items directly inform what is marked as Religious Affiliation, Parenting Tactics, and the participant’s ideas surrounding the “Role of the Woman in the Home,” and what it means to identify as female. These smaller facets of the Irish-American identity can influence each other in various ways, even down to the respective sports team affiliations of each participant. These trends tend to repeat themselves intergenerationally. Identifying as Irish-American leans itself towards a further affiliation with the Roman Catholic church. 8 out of 9 participants attested their religious affiliation to Catholicism, and claimed this to be a direct result of how they were raised by their “Irish-American” parents. 5 out of the 8 who claimed religious affiliation of any kind were also students in parochial schools from kindergarten through high school, and claimed that religion was an important part of their educational experience. Being raised in the church affected these women in a number of ways, including how they saw themselves existing in the family structure and in society. On a much more detailed scale, 3 of the women claimed that their Irish-American heritage “informed” their parenting, or what I have labeled on figure 2 as Parenting Tactics. This means that their children have been or are being raised with some respect for what these women perceive to be Irish culture; in many cases this is inextricably linked to traditions that come directly from the Catholic church. One participant cited an Ancestral Anecdote that was central to her Parenting Tactics; “Never take a day off of work, my Grandparents and Great Grandparents couldn't... It made them look lazy, and so I don't do that myself... I am raising my children to have that similar Irish grit, it’s important to me.” As indicated in the Principles of Selection portion of the paper, there was guided discussion towards the sports team affiliation of each participant. All of the participants who were born in the state of

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New York affiliate themselves with the team that parents affiliated with, no matter what the sport. The two participants from Pennsylvania claimed different sports affiliations; one aligned with the teams that their parents chose to affiliate with, and one had a varying list of teams that she attached to on her own, mainly from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. “Philly is known for having particularly rowdy sports fans, and as someone who is incredibly competitive and passionate... I love that culture and cannot picture myself supporting the teams of any other city.” The intersection of womanhood, being a woman, and affiliation with sports teams was an important topic of discussion for all of the participants in the study. Each participant had a specific instance that they cited as a woman who follows sports professionally or otherwise. 6 of the participants cited that men think it’s ‘cute’ and usually assume that they do not know what they are talking about until further discussion takes place. Two participants, both from West Brighton, Staten Island, did not feel as though they had been treated any less seriously than they would have been if they were a man. All of the participants use sport as a means to build community within their immediate nuclear families and or with other people that they meet in their daily lives. One participant’s story was particularly striking. She currently lives in San Diego, California, after being raised in West Brighton, Staten Island, New York. This participant was raised Irish-American and chooses to raise her 4 children with Irish-American traditions, and she uses sport to build community for herself nationally. She takes organized trips to seasonal games to follow her two favorite sports teams, the New York Mets and the New York Football Giants, as personal time to submerge herself in something that she is passionate about. She has met many new people through these trips and plans to continue to take them for the foreseeable future. This participant claims to face “interesting conversation” about her team affiliations, but never anything “gross or misogynistic.” The choice to identify with a sports team is subtly political, until it’s analyzed through the lens of Tilly’s work. One can only hypothesize that these Irish-American families have such strong allegiance to sport because of the factors that were mentioned throughout the course of their interviews. Competition, no matter what the regional component, appeals to a sense of hard work that underlies all of the other informative bits of the Irish-American identity that is being examined here. These families champion a sense of hard work that breeds success, and hard work from sports teams displays itself in wins and championships.

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Conclusion While the Irish-American identity is no longer politically salient, it seems to be intergenerationally significant in some pockets of New York City for lesser political reasons. Within these pockets, there is an inextricable link between identifying as Irish-American and practicing Roman Catholicism, or what participants would refer to as Irish Catholicism. This stands as the most significant difference between those participants from Staten Island and those Pennsylvanians who were used as a control population, who did not claim a religion at all in interviews. There are other ways in which different parts of the IrishAmerican identity manifest, especially in the experience of female Irish-Americans. All of the participants cited a sentimental intergenerational anecdote about the families that they grew up in, and these anecdotes were tied more frequently than not to experiences growing up within the Roman Catholic church and the practices of Roman Catholic faith tradition. Although the United States has moved away from blatant discriminatory practices, such as the ‘Irish Need Not Apply’ signs of the past, the anger towards those on the other side of the “us/them” boundary is still palpably present. This hostility is applied to those who present as a phenotypic “other” from the white standard that is commonplace in the United States; those groups such as selfidentifying Irish and Italian Americans monitor the boundary between white and “other”, as they still stand as lesser in the socially constructed spectrum of whiteness. Adding the presence of female identification only increases the “otherness” of the participant in question. When these groups started using their whiteness to their advantage, they were allowed into white society to defend the “us/them” boundary that exists between white America and American people of color. It is commonplace to hear members of these groups, especially those who identify as Irish-American, still lament about how rough their ancestors “had it,” and how they were able to “rise above” the discrimination they faced past customs on Ellis Island. The practices of discrimination, while sometimes just as poignant, are more subtle now and much more ingrained in the fabric of the inherently racist United States. That withstanding, the “other” within the United States then became racialized demographic groups such as Black, Asian, and Latinx persons whose difference is made much more apparent by physical markers than anything else. This is the “other” that suffers the most discrimination in the United States today; and in most cases it is

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more pointed than anything that European immigrants ever suffered, especially under the current [Trump] administration. In July 2019 four democratic congresswomen were the subject of an angry tweet from President Donald J. Trump that suggested they, all American citizens, go back to where they came from. This hostility is matched by the president’s supporters, and has only gotten worse since the start of his administration. The other facets of the identities belonging to the “other,” like identifying as a woman, belonging to the middle class, or even following the National Football League or being a self-proclaimed United States Women’s Soccer team fan, do not matter to those members of the American norm who exist in power. It is important for those who identify as Irish-American, especially women, today to recognize the plight of those demographic groups and stand in solidarity with them. The “others” of the past and present have all been told to “go back to where they came from,” by members of the norm. There is tremendous political strength in recognizing the covert construction of these political identities. If the “other” has changed over time, it stands to reason that it can change again. It is a matter of increasing cognition, and then deciding that there does not have to be an other at all.

Appendix Figure 1: Contact Speech Hello, my name is Aileen Burke and I am conducting independent research at the College of Saint Rose on the construction of irish female identity and sports team identification. I am looking for participants who identify with the demographics I am interested in studying. I would love to be able to talk to you about it personally. We would talk about your life and family for about a half of an hour, and all of our information/discussions would remain absolutely private. You can reach me at this number or at burkea735@strose.edu if interested or if you have further questions.

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Figure 2: Informing Identity

Works Cited Ignatiev, Noel. How the Irish Became White. Routledge, 2009. Jacobson, Matthew Frye. Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race. 2005. Omi, Michael, and Howard Winant. Racial Formation in the United States. New York: Routledge, 2015. Print. Tilly, Charles and Sydney Tarrow. The Politics of Collective Violence. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2008. Tilly, Charles. Identities, Boundaries, and Social Ties. Routledge, 2005. US Census Bureau. “Census.gov.” Census.gov, www.census.gov/. Weiss, Robert Stuart. Learning from Strangers the Art and Method of Qualitative Interview Studies. Free Press, 1995.

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The Development of Racial Science in Apartheid and Post-Apartheid South Africa Mark Edem Political Science Capstone – Dr. Angela Ledford

Research Question Since the first Dutchmen landed on the shores of the Cape of Good Hope, race has been at the center of the colonialism, expansionism, and privatization movements in South Africa. While the concept of race was still in its novel stages, it quickly developed into an ideology powerful enough to envelope the whole country and, at the time, the whole world. Apartheid has often been described as perfect racism; it was able to segregate and segment not only the different racial groups, but the different tribal groups present in the country (by reinforcing tribal differences that had existed prior to European colonialism). My aim is to analyze the “perfectness” of this racism. I want to first look at how the Afrikaner race had emerged as a branch of whiteness. I then want to look at how the Afrikaner race (and therefore its othered counterpart, the black race) was recognized scientifically and medically. I will then go into how different laws were instituted as a result of the accepted biological disparities between the races. And then of course, following apartheid, I will look at what has made it so difficult for these archaic racial paradigms to disappear from the national consciousness, and how black men and women (this of course is where gender enters) continue to be harmed by such paradigms. Ultimately, I will be arguing that democratization did not bring any additional objectivity to science. It is still being practiced in a way that works to legitimize the dehumanization we see amongst black and colored people. Furthermore, I will argue that these racial paradigms constructed and justified by science were upheld by the succeeding government, after the departure of the Nationalists. Introduction Since its inception, the concept of race has reordered and restructured the world. The concept began taking shape upon early European Vols. 10 & 11

contact with the brown- and black-skinned people of Africa and Asia. Following exploration, the era of European conquest and expansion dawned with the hopes of expanding its markets as well as rival fellow European nations for wealth and hegemony. Africa was ripe ground for this project because of its land, its resources, and ultimately its people. One can correctly conclude that the architects of race, then and even now, required a narrative around race in order to rationalize the exploitation that would come from it. It was around this time that racism had morphed into a consuming and barbaric ideology, legitimizing oppression and, consequently, wealth extraction. Once this erroneous narrative around race had been established, it indelibly burned itself into the social consciousness and peoples’ psychology. This then set stage for many of the infamous periods of oppression, whose haunting legacies remain with us today: slavery, segregation, colonialism, Apartheid. The question of whether race retains the same import it once did is an open one. Some people claim that it does in fact retain this import, but the form it has taken is more veiled, as open, explicit expressions of racism in modern society is unacceptable. Race does in fact play an incredibly critical role in certain, if not all, societies. And for some societies, to forfeit or eliminate race, would be the equivalent of dissolving that society completely. Two countries in particular have their entire societies constructed around race: The United States and South Africa. The racial history of South Africa is quite interesting. Traders and merchants, once they had discovered their route to India, landed on a cape (which they later named the Cape of Good Hope, currently Cape Town). After reporting this “newly discovered” piece of land back to the Dutch, the cape was regularly used as a sort of rest stop during voyages to India and other parts of Asia. The Dutch started settling along this cape and began farming the land as a means of living (this earned them the name Boers, which translates to “farmer” in Afrikaans). Seeing themselves as the rightful heirs of the new land and developing a new language (Afrikaans, a dialect of Dutch), a nascent Afrikaner identity was taking form. The initial interactions between the Boers and the indigenous inhabitants of South Africa were peaceful. However, because of corporate interests, British colonialism, and Afrikaner nationalism, conflict arose between the African tribes and the Boers (Boers and Afrikaner can be understood to be interchangeable). The Boers continued expanding, annexing the native lands with their own. The Boers rationalized the murder, and settler colonialism with scientific empiricism and used this to preach a doctrine of Afrikaner supremacy

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and black inferiority. Soon the Boers had colonized the entire country, and once they had declared independence from the British crown, they enshrined this doctrine of Afrikaner supremacy. However, with the election of the nationalist government to power in 1948, this doctrine was fully entrenched. The nationalist government not only reinforced overtones of racism but also controlled the sexual habits and behavior between races. This not only entrenched a racial hierarchy but consequently a gender hierarchy. These were the de jure policies of the country until 1994 when South Africa was fully democratized and enfranchised all population groups. However, I argue that the ethos of racial and gender hierarchies justified through science have remained intact in the social and political arenas. I take it further and argue that (because of economic and political agendas) the incoming ANC government had upheld these racial and gender hierarchies, long after the Nationalist government had left power. The burden of this research paper will be to track the emergence of the Afrikaner identity, understanding how the Afrikaner identity (as well as Afrikaner supremacy) was calcified through science and medicine, and, of course, how these narratives continue to shape contemporary society as well as black-white relationships. Literature Review In order to develop a more profound understanding of the conditions of the Afrikaner race, we must first inquire about the nature of race. Jansen and Walters attempt to undertake answering this. In their book “Fault Lines: A Primer on Race, Science, and Society”, the two authors claim that in our contemporary societies, we understand race as a biological concept, and that even though this biological concept does exist, all people must be treated and honored with respect. They completely reject this view and suggest that we stop seeing race as a valid biological category. Dorothy Roberts assumes a similar position on this matter. In her acclaimed work, “Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-Create Race in the 21st Century”, she begins by explicitly stating that all research around the topic has not found a biological component to verify the racial demarcations we have made. If, with our highly technical and sensitive 21st century instrumentation, we cannot identify a biological component for race, then how was race determined and drawn up in centuries before. This leads Roberts to conclude that race was created around political truths and not biological ones; therefore, it is actually a political category. The framing of the Afrikaner identity was incredibly important and can be recognized as the genesis of racialism in South

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Africa. South African historian, Saul Dubow, attempts to explore the nature of this identity and trace its development in “Afrikaner Nationalism, Apartheid and the Conceptualization of 'Race'”. The Dutch had left Holland as farmers and merchants and had settled along the Cape Colony, under British rule. The nomenclature reveals the perception Afrikaners had of themselves. “Afrikaner” translates directly to “African”. The sentiments that Boers held was that they too were native to Africa, and, therefore, were the rightful heirs to and owners of the land. While the identity was initially carved out in response to British aggression, it soon became parochially nationalistic. The British and the Boers signed a treaty granting independence to South Africa in 1910. Having a monopoly on political power, the Boers entrenched white supremacy and maintained this political (as well as social and of course economic) power over their black counterparts. Scientific research was a key cornerstone in the rationalization of white rule in South Africa. However, what the South African government and scientists presented as an empirical, factual truth of science, was laced in controversy and falsehoods. Thomas Kuhn, a trained mathematician and physicist, in his “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”, attempts to explain such failures in the way that science is practiced. Kuhn suggests that science is generally practiced through paradigms. A scientific paradigm (much like its literary meaning) is a set of accepted principles and beliefs within which scientists work and try to answer questions in the field. When attempting to answer these questions, scientists may discover that the paradigm within which they are working does not possess all the necessary information to support their research. Ultimately, it will require that the paradigm be repudiated and a new one replaces it. Kuhn goes further suggesting that the myopia caused by the paradigms causes the scientist to model their question-and-answer approach according to what they believe should be asked, and they find answers that they expect to find. Understanding this, we see that lending political and rhetorical weight to white supremacy was not enough to fully legitimize white rule. Given that white people were a numerical minority in South Africa (this is a key difference between racial relations in the US and South Africa), they needed a stronger rationale for their cause. Paul Rich in “Race, Science, and the Legitimization of White Supremacy in South Africa, 1902-1940” delineates this in his work and suggested that this stronger rationale was, of course, science. Rich points out that after the Anglo-Boer war between 1899-1902, (which worked to ultimately earn the Boers freedom and control over South Africa), this was when we began noticing the emergence of racial hierarchy being supported through science. This led to the establishment of the South African

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Association for the Advancement of Science, founded at the end of the Anglo-Boer war in 1902. Much of their scientific research was ordered around the already existing cultural and social stereotypes about black people. It does not only show that the science of the day was to preserve and even further entrench the status quo of a white supremacy, but that the scientists found these answers because they sought to. They believed they were correct. This new understanding of scientific sub-variations within the human race found its way into medicine and medical practices in South Africa. Harriet Deacon’s article, “Racism and Medical Science in South Africa's Cape Colony in the Mid- to Late Nineteenth Century.”, chronicles the entrance of racism into the South African medical industry by using the Cape Colony’s medical history as a case study. Over almost the entire Nineteenth century, the Cape housed several European settlers. Many of these settlers from Europe were practicing doctors. Because Cape doctors were simply adopting long-standing western practices, their own medical practices too reflected this bias. Deacon writes about the recount of one doctor, that is particularly important because of what it highlights. The doctor had for a patient, a Madagascan slave who had an ulcerated leg. In treating the patient, the doctor writes, “‘The raw flesh appeared as exactly of the same colour with that of a European. As the ulcer began to heal, it threw out fresh fibres in the same manner as ours do”(195). Deacon points out that even though the patient's wound healed in similar fashion as a European, the doctor was reluctant to accept these results and believed that an error was made in their documentations (169). This affirms Kuhn’s hypothesis that scientists are biased. Doctors and the medical industry in general continued to exhibit the same racial medical disparities. Karen Jochelson in her book, “The Colour of Disease: Syphilis and Racism in South Africa, 1880-1950” exposes the racist agenda of medicine in South Africa. Jochelson begins the book by citing the current epidemic in South Africa and much of Southern Africa; acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). Given the work that Jochelson had done on AIDS and migrant labour in South Africa, she noticed striking similarities between the political and social narratives around AIDS and syphilis. During the close of the nineteenth century and the first few decades of the twentieth, there was an explosion in the number of people who were contracting venereal disease. The demographic of people who had contracted the disease provided fertile ground for the government to offer a racialized explanation for proliferation of this disease. Scientists and doctors were also offering racialized answers along the same line. The government then endeavored to explain the social behavior,

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culture, and sexual relationships of blacks, coloreds, and even whites through this prism of syphilis. Black people were seen as carriers of this disease because of their weak genetic makeup (Jochelson 77). Whites, on the other hand, were not susceptible to the disease because of their genetic supremacy and advantage. The government launched a campaign spreading this sort of propaganda and instilling in whites a deeper fear for black people. Black men in particular, the government claimed, were hypersexual, and the lack of a strict nuclear family in African culture is what catalyzed this spread. This same hypersexuality was cited for black women and they were pathologized as “prostitutes (96). Because both syphilis and AIDS are largely sexually transmitted, it helped feed the narrative of the unrestrainable sexual habits that blacks in particular possess. From these preliminary understandings of the emergence of the Afrikaner race, and their legitimization of their biological supremacy through science, we can now look at how first segregation then Apartheid became the de jure national ethos of South Africa. Dubow and Beinart write on the history of South African segregation, and eventually, Apartheid in “Segregation and Apartheid in Twentieth Century South Africa”. For a number of reasons, the Afrikaners wanted to live segregated from their black counterparts. Several theories have been provided to answer why segregation had emerged. Dubow and Beinart stress that there is not a single concise, correct theory. They have only compiled the different logical and plausible explanations for the emergence of segregation. One of these reasons cited for segregation is the preservation of whiteness. The two authors highlight that the rhetorical and scientific explanations of race would erode if there was miscegenation. It becomes harder to justify white supremacy. And racialism is easier to preserve when the races are distinct. This is an interesting problem that colored people and Indians had presented to the South African government. This is exactly why the sexual habits of all races were strictly controlled. Because coloreds and Indians cannot be placed in any specific racial category, new categories had to be created in order to insert them into the racial hierarchy (between whites and blacks). Other reasons cited include (According to Marxist scholars) easy access to cheap African labor, preventing Africans from getting capital and owning property, colonialism and imperialism, the welfare and security of the Afrikaners in the event of a black uprising, and of course to feed the narrative that the different racial groups had different environmental and social needs (because of their biological makeups). Dubow and Beinart share a relevant example with public health. Because it was purported that black students have slower cognitive

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capacities/processes, they needed different schools in order to address their special education needs (151). For these reasons and beliefs, a political and social system of separateness began to take shape. Much like segregation in the US, white people, black people, and colored people each lived in racially allocated housing, went to racially allocated schools, and used racially allocated public facilities. Black people and coloreds were severely underrepresented politically. Dubow espouses a somewhat similar model in his “Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa” in trying to understand how Apartheid was successfully implemented. Dubow studied the scientific disciplines in South Africa at the time and recorded how they were all racially tinged. From anthropology, medicine, and psychology, they all reinforced a fundamental difference in black and white people, one that could not be reconciled. It was this irreconcilable difference that lent credibility to the system of Apartheid. Dubow attributes the success of the Apartheid systems to the two polarizing currents of political and economic thought: capitalism and communism. Private and public ownership, essentially. The Apartheid government was able to exploit white fears of communism. In this way, they mirrored the propaganda campaign intended to sway white thought in the US against communism. Black people were seen as a people susceptible to the consuming ideology of communism and thus, had to remain uneducated and heavily surveilled, for example. Something interesting that Dubow finds is that the Bantu Education system that the Apartheid government had set up to train black people as semi-skilled laborers, actually assisted in nursing their political thought and groomed them into the generation that eventually overthrew the regime. His in-depth analysis allows him to find phenomena and relationships other historians normally wouldn't. With a rudimentary understanding of the general structure of Apartheid, one can take a more in-depth look into some of the policies that were instituted during it. It will also be observed how overtly and covertly, the policies relate themselves back to a racialized science. Susanne Klausen’s “Abortion under Apartheid Nationalism, Sexuality, and Women's Reproductive Rights in South Africa” keenly explores abortion laws during Apartheid. Klausen writes the criminalization of abortion during the period, the reasons for the criminalization, and the personal stories of women involved. The pre-Apartheid government had outlawed abortion and the Apartheid government enforced this law. Having a rabid fear for communism, the Apartheid government would fight against the permissiveness and “religiouslessness” of communists, by preserving the nuclear family and controlling the sexual habits of its population. This meant that sex was only allowed in heterosexual marriages, and heterosexual marriages within races. During the 60’s a

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concerning number of black and white women were dying from complications during abortions. The government tried to further crackdown on women, by enforcing stricter laws and ultimately passing The Abortion and Sterilization Act (1975). It disallowed abortions, threatened sterilization, and gave penalties to doctors who performed abortions. It later surfaced that the government was aware of the clandestine abortion sites that black women would go to, but they chose not to crackdown. They chose not to because they did not want to subsidize or have to pay for black women, the fear of a ballooning black population, and the narrative that black women were naturally promiscuous. White women on the other hand, were discouraged from having abortions so that they could bear white babies, increasing the white population and thus preserving white supremacy. Another nefarious policy instituted during Apartheid was the Bantu Education Act (1954). In “Outstanding Individuals do not Arise from Ancestrally Poor Stock": Racial Science and the Education of Black South Africans”, Stephen Appel attempts to elucidate the intense racialization of the Act and its consequence on a generation of South African youth. This was a segregation law that segregated schools throughout the country. Hendrik Verwoerd, a universally recognized architect of Apartheid, helped draft the legislation. The intention of the legislation was to move African students towards unskilled and semiskilled labor, while simultaneously keeping them politically inactive, suppressing collective political thought. Appel says that this move was validated because of some of the claims Verwoerd made. He claimed that African students, because of their different cognitive make-up and capacities, must go through a different education system. This education system would help them come to an understanding with their white counterparts, groom them sufficiently, and ultimately resolve South Africa’s racial problems. This pseudo-yet real scientific practices continue today, whether deliberately or subconsciously. In, “Fault Lines: A Primer on Race, Science, and Society”, authors Jansen and Walters reference a redacted article in a Stellenbosch University paper titled, “Age- and Education-Related Effects on Cognitive Functioning in Colored South African Women”. Because of pressure from the students, the researchers chose to rescind the article from the University’s journal. The paper attempted to explain the effects of age and environment on the cognitive functions of colored women in South Africa. Jansen and Walters point out that the only reason such an article would be published is because the researchers believe that there is perhaps a difference in the manner in which a colored woman's brain operates versus her black or white counterpart. Of course, the researchers go

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further and suggest that colored women do in fact have slower cognitive processes because of their environments. The authors warn that we must not see racial science as an ancient relic of South African history, but of course as something that is still being practiced. Analysis and Discussion Collating the arguments of the different authors, we can surmise with much confidence that the racial hierarchy of South Africa is justified through racial science. From the same arguments, one can track the evolution of racial science chronologically as well as the inconsistencies woven into the science. As mentioned earlier, the Dutch arrival to the Cape in significant numbers was somewhat concurrent with the British arrival and colonization of the region. Understanding the British/Dutch relationship is fundamental in understanding the emergence of the Afrikaner race. British expansionism and colonialism in the 15th and 16th centuries would ultimately consume much of Africa, South Africa included. The Dutch were unhappy with the arrival and seizure of control by the Brits (Dubow 215). While the Boers were allowed some self-rule, they were forced to cede majority of the power they held to England. The Brits ruled over both the Boers and the indigenous populations austerely and asserted themselves as the dominant force. As the Dutch were required to pay taxes and other levies to the British, they grew increasingly disgruntled with the British presence. Their disaffection had led to them orchestrating a series of overthrow attempts to depose the British. It is important to note that in the Afrikaners’ attempt to separate themselves from the British politically, they also had to separate themselves racially. It is at this point in history where we begin to see the sequestering of a novel Afrikaner identity, and more importantly, a Dutch race from the larger white race. The Dutch began to feel separate from whiteness as had been established, and the need for a distinct identity emerged (Dubow 217). The rhetoric around the essentialization of the Afrikaner race is quite similar to that of eugenicists in the United States during its immigration waves. Okrent’s “The Guarded Gate” does a fine job of recreating the ethos of this period. The book perfectly characterizes the distaste of elite, upper-class America to immigrants and immigration in general. The relaxed immigration policies in the United States was a key contributing factor to the inception and rapid popularity of eugenic science. Eugenicists fought to proscribe those with less-desirable genetic conditions and predispositions (“such as feeblemindedness”) from procreating (Okrent 39, 142, 233). In addition to this, eugenicists pushed for the proscription of less-desirable immigrants into the

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country (Okrent 51, 77). In suggesting that there is a less-desirable immigrant from Europe (a majority white continent), eugenicists had to draw strict demarcations around races within whiteness. Those of English and German descent, they had deemed fit, and those of Russian or Italian descent were seen as unfit of American citizenship. The Afrikaner race-thinkers operated in the same fashion as American eugenicists; they worked to segment themselves from the rest of whiteness using science. The peculiarity of this new race must be highlighted immediately. This is suggesting that within the racial boundaries of whiteness, there are further racial classifications. The only legitimate secession from whiteness that the Dutch could claim was as an ideology, not as a separate race. At the time (and even during this age of scientific innovation), it would have been impossible to scientifically validate this claim, showing further that this identity was more political than biological. However, the classification of the Dutch (now Afrikaners’) as their own race was critical in laying the architecture upon which a systemic racial hierarchy would be built. This also places emphasis on another important area of concern, which is the purpose of race. If there was no way to biologically or scientifically prove that human beings could be grouped into racial categories, why still perform the exercise? The Afrikaner endeavor to create their own race gives us some insight into a compelling answer to this question. The course of South African history tells us that race has been constructed to create wealth, and racial science is a way to fortify and consolidate race (which then allows for the continued creation and accretion of wealth). So, while the concept of race had made no objectifiable sense, it continued to develop with the goal of wealth always at its center. As racial science develops, scientific integrity is willingly forfeited in favor of the overarching mission of race. The work of scientist Thomas Kuhn is particularly important here as he speaks of paradigms and how they can distort the lens through which a scientist conducts their studies. It becomes particularly important to preface this, and explicitly state, that there is no biological or scientific basis for the racial classifications of human beings. These groupings are purely political and founded on interests. To illustrate the exclusively political nature of race, Dorothy Roberts elucidates an important point. Roberts highlights that people grouped into the same racial categories actually have more genetic differences than people outside those groups. There are more genetic disparities, for example, between Zimbabweans and Ethiopians. And Zimbabweans and Ethiopians together have more genetic similarities to a white person from France for example. If genetics was in fact a strong identifier of race, it would be more

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appropriate to collect Ethiopians or Zimbabweans and French people under the same racial category. However, what we instead see is that Zimbabweans and Ethiopians are grouped under the umbrella racial category of “black”. This reveals two things. The first is that the concept of different human races is erroneous and should not exist under the conditions that it does, or even at all. The second, is that the integrity of science has once again been betrayed. The scientists who created the categories either have a political agenda or have allowed all the previous work on racial science (and perhaps their own biases) to affect the reporting of their results which they believe are objective. This reveals the truth and relevance of Kuhn’s observations. It completely refutes the notion that scientific disciplines are omniscient, unbiased, and more objective than human thought. Like many other disciplines, it is fraught with bias and executes the agenda of its gatekeepers. Paul Rich brings forth a pertinent example that reveals the insouciance of scientists in preserving the integrity of the scientific method. Rich writes about the establishment of the South African Association for the Advancement of Science. The Association’s principal task was to take complex scientific literature and distill it into easily understandable and digestible information for the public (664). This came at a particularly opportune time as the fields of sociology and anthropology began to garner scientific and cultural importance. South Africa seized on the newly acquired legitimacy of these fields to support their endeavors to validating racial supremacy (665). Interestingly enough, the association had founded much of its scientific research on eugenic science from the United States. It can be correctly assumed that the science practiced by the association was extremely biased and skewed. Rich writes, “there was a clear desire to incorporate modern and ‘scientific’ modes of discourse within segregationist lexicon” (667). The association actually grew to become the most important scientific body in all of Southern Africa, and other countries in the region were modelling their own national scientific associations/agencies after this one. This means that racial science spread virally throughout Southern Africa, and non-white peoples were being regarded, en masse, as biologically inferior. It is in this way that South African scientists and eugenicists subconsciously manipulated their data and research to yield the results that they desired. Kuhn, in this work, did not focus on race, it can certainly be applied to the practices of racial science. An entry by a former member of the association, E.G Malherbe captures the bias and racism that his fellow scientists exhibited when conducting research. Malherbe wrote “‘It is an amazing spectacle that men of science will come together annually

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in solemn conclave and condone results of measurement so inaccurate the likes of which they would have never accepted in their own scientific work’” (Rich 667). The scientists did not actively recognize their distortion of their results because they were so eager to find what they already believed to be true. Once this racial science had become deeply entrenched in the social consciousness, then segregation and Apartheid could take shape unhampered. Racial (and gender) science had underpinned almost every area of the social and political framework. The zenith of the Apartheid was during the 50’s and 60’s. Over this twenty-odd year period, Apartheid performed perfectly its desired functions. The wealthy political elite were making money from the extraction of natural resources and the appropriation of black labor. The white minority population enjoyed an unparalleled standard of living. The country’s population had been perfectly segmented into four major racial classifications: white, native, colored, and Asian. People were forcefully relocated, dispossessed of their lands, and lived in new areas according to these racial classifications. Racial mixing and interaction was rare. If a person was seen in a place not assigned to their race, they needed to provide paperwork showing their eligibility for being there, or they were arrested. Miscegenation, interracial sex, and interracial marriage was deemed unconstitutional and was strongly policed. Similarly, homosexuality and abortions were illegal. Any act of resistance or dissent against the state and its policies was met with arrest, violence, and murder. What must be acknowledged is that these laws and policies work in a complementary manner. All the different pieces of Apartheid interlocked in a way to keep the structure erect. While all the different laws may seem to have no relationship, if they are carefully studied, it can be seen that, in conjunction, they serve a fundamental purpose; the preservation of a capitalist empire. And this empire would be preserved, through violence, oppression, and of course, science. The goal of this capitalist empire, as with any other capitalist empire, was to generate wealth for a small group of people. As South Africa is a resource-abundant country, the white political elite had once violently coerced black people (as well as Indians and some whites) to work and mine these resources. When slavery was abolished and frowned-upon globally, the white elite began paying laborers to continue working in the mines. However, the wages of the workers were very meager. The white elite would extract the surplus of the profits made when they would put the resources on the market. This was the primary avenue through which white people earned economic hegemony in South Africa. However, to prevent collectivization by

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laborers against the ruling class, a rigid form of segregation was instituted (Dubow 35). People who did not belong to the same racial category could no longer live and work together. White people were paid significantly more for much easier work. Better standards of living for whites gave them incentive to police the black-white border, and to maintain segregation/Apartheid. Racial segregation also precluded any meaningful interaction between races that would allow them to challenge false narratives and propaganda peddled by the ruling class. The government, however, would always cite scientific reasons for this mass separation, such as the different educational and occupational needs of the different races. Even if one were to think about abortion, the same strategy would be observed. The reason the government criminalized abortions, is because they feared the explosion in black population statistics and wished to coerce white women into having more babies. White supremacy, they deemed, would be difficult to preserve without a numerically significant white populace. Of course, not wanting these babies to be colored, miscegenation was outlawed. Another reason miscegenation was outlawed, was to ensure that strict racial demarcations existed, and to avoid racial ambiguity; white supremacy could not survive if it was difficult to determine who was and was not white. However, the government would constantly air false/unverifiable claims such as the fetus having life, or they would exaggerate the danger of abortion medical processes. Homosexuality was outlawed because it was seen as a threat to the heterosexual nuclear family; the most basic unit in any capitalist society. However, the common narrative of it being a biological anomaly, was oft repeated by the government. It can be seen how the seemingly disjointed laws of Apartheid have a nebulous connection that sought to preserve wealth primarily and subsequently white supremacy. Limitations While the literature on that exists on racial science in South Africa is both detailed and comprehensive, there are still some areas that lack proper academic focus and attention. To be more specific, the area where there is a deficit of academic appraisal is in Post-Apartheid South Africa. While of course there is literature about the state of racial relations and racial science in Post-Apartheid South Africa, it is sparing in its acknowledgment of how institutional it remains. The paper published in the Stellenbosch medical journal, Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition is a great example of this point. In 2019, a number of psychologists and social scientists published an article titled “Age- and Education-Related Effects on Cognitive Functioning in Colored South African Women.” The article argues that

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colored women are at risk of having reduced or lowered cognitive function (330). It goes further to state that the source of this is their lifestyle and cultural behaviors, as well as their low education levels (330). The article was retracted soon after it was published because of the criticism it received from Stellenbosch students and the general public. The findings of the paper were so incendiary that the incident made the news and several academics made stern comments about the paper and its divisive agenda. However, even in their scathing diatribes of the racist intentions of the paper’s writers, no mention was made of the structure of scientific racism still being present in South African society. The farthest anyone got to establishing a nexus between the racist scientific practices of Apartheid and the paper was Jansen and Walters in their book “Fault Lines: A Primer on Race, Science, and Society.” However, even though this connection was established it was not emphasized nor explored with more depth. This episode in Stellenbosch is treated as one of many isolated incidents of racist science being practiced that in ways mirrors racial science during Apartheid. However, this is more than the practices mirroring each other; it is the persistence of the structures of Apartheid, particularly the scientific structures of Apartheid. Even more than these structures persisting, it is the current power holders and ruling class choosing to preserve these structures. When the ANC had seized power from the Nationalists, it had also inherited all the structures of political, and thus, social control. Instead of completely purging and revolutionizing these institutions, the ANC government had just remodeled them to suit the new power structure. This includes, of course, the scientific structures that the Apartheid government (and preceding governments) had built and expanded. The purpose of racial science was to validate the claim that there was in fact sub-groupings within the human race, and these sub-groupings had characteristics so diverse, that it required them to live and work separately. Racial science rationalized exploitation, poverty, dehumanization, and interpreted all these malevolent phenomena as the manifestation of the traits of the races. Of course, since the ANC had taken power in 1994, segregation, wealth inequality, and worker exploitation occurs just as often, if not more, than during Apartheid. This must mean then that the current government continues to use racial science, along with other devices, to continue to rationalize the ongoing exploitation, poverty, dehumanization etc. The literature about racial science must be bold enough to express this directly and unapologetically. It must highlight the government and its institutions roles in perpetuating this kind of thinking. Stellenbosch is a private institution, but of course it borrows its research from other research conducted during Apartheid and during

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the post-Apartheid period; science that is implicitly encouraged by the current political construct. The ethos of the society encourages thinking in racist terms, and in order to defeat this, it must be explicitly stated. Conclusion Racial science has dominated the manner in which the South African state has been run and set up since its inception. It continues to rationalize the same social and political condition we see and is modified where necessary depending on the era. There was promise that the tensions of the 70’s and 80’s would bring about a change to the South African political construct. During that period, the masses of black people were arming themselves in anticipation of a civil war. Countries such as Cuba, Libya, and even the Palestine were aiding South Africans in procuring arms. If a violent revolution had taken place in South Africa, it would see all of its institutions purged and this could have possibly been the end of racial science in the country. If the institutions of the country were free of racial bias, it would also eventually wither away from the social consciousness. However, a violent revolution did not occur, and therefore the structures, even though unstable, remained. Sensing that the country was on the precipice of war, De Klerk and the Nationalists, in 1990, released Mandela from prison in order to engage in peace talks to avoid open conflict. De Klerk was willing to make a number of compromises, as he removed many of the legislation of Apartheid, which included desegregating public spaces and unbanning political parties. He also lifted the state of emergency the country was in since 1986. Although enfranchising the non-white population was tough on De Klerk and his party, they eventually conceded and in 1993, agreed that they would hold their first non-racial national election a year later in 1994. Mandela then inquired about the question of redistribution. It was here that De Klerk and his party refused to concede and an impasse was reached in the talks. De Klerk maintained that whites should reserve their economic rights, and Mandela, not wanting to drive out investment from the country, agreed to this compromise. This presented another golden opportunity for the removal of deliberate racial bias in national science practices. If the economic compromise was agreed to, there would be no reason for deliberate racism in science, as the economic and political incentives would be removed. Racial science exists as a way to justify the racial demarcations we draw. From the constant evolution of these categories, we know that race is not real, and yet those who engage in racial science speak highly of its necessity and accuracy. As long as there is a political construct that is designed to secure wealth or power, there will

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exist within it some form of racial science. Racial science is a prerequisite and a necessary ingredient for any country that intends to exploit its people. It seems then, that the only way any objectivity can be brough into science, and biological science, in particular is to separate it from the overarching political forces that control it. Of course, politics and science are married in an almost inseparable way. Politics will not release its grip on science and allow it to be practiced without agenda other than its own furtherance. This almost places humanity at an impasse. Political systems are incredibly difficult to remove, and a population who is not literate in a discipline as complex as science cannot be expected to judge its objectivity or freedom from racism or other constructs. Ultimately, we have to study the effects that policies backed by science have socially. If the policy has a disproportionate effect on a certain group of people, we can then scrutinize the science behind the policy, to see whether it was practiced with integrity. This of course is the more conservative solution. The solution that is more radical, and promises to be more effective, is to remove political constructs. While this is inordinately difficult, the removal of political constructs promises more than more objective science. It promises freedom from other modes of oppression. Works Cited Rich, Paul. “Race, Science, and the Legitimization of White Supremacy in South Africa, 1902-1940.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 23, no. 4, 1990, pp. 665–686. Nieuwoudt, Sharné, and Elmarie Terblanche. “RETRACTED ARTICLE: Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition, vol. 27, no. 3, 28 Mar. 2019, pp. 321–337. Dubow,

Saul. “Afrikaner Nationalism, Apartheid and the Conceptualization of 'Race'.” The Journal of African History, vol. 33, no. 2, 1992, pp. 209–237.

Marks, Shula, and Stanley Trapido. Politics of Race, Class and Nationalism in Twentieth Century South Africa. Routledge, 2017. Wolpe, Harold. Race, Class & the Apartheid State. Africa World Press, 1990.

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Deacon, Harriet. “Racism and Medical Science in South Africa's Cape Colony in the Mid- to Late Nineteenth Century.” Osiris, vol. 15, 2000, pp. 190–206., doi:10.1086/649326. Dubow, Saul. Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa. Cambridge Univ. Press, 1995. Klausen, Susanne M. Abortion under Apartheid Nationalism, Sexuality, and Women's Reproductive Rights in South Africa. Oxford University Press, 2019. Jansen, Jonathan and Walters, Cyrill. Fault Lines: A Primer on Race, Science, and Society. African Sun Media, 2020. Beinart, William, and Dubow Saul. Segregation and Apartheid in Twentieth Century South Africa. Taylor and Francis, 2013. Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. The University of Chicago Press, 2015. Jochelson, K. Colour of Disease: Syphilis and Racism in South Africa 1880-1950. Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. Roberts, Dorothy. Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-Create Race in the Twenty-First Century. Tantor Audio, 2011. Dubow, Saul. A Commonwealth of Knowledge: Science, Sensibility, and White South Africa, 1820-2000. Oxford Univ. Press, 2010. Okrent, Daniel. The Guarded Gate: Bigotry, Eugenics, and the Law That Kept Two Generations of Jews, Italians, and Other European Immigrants out of America. Scribner, 2020.

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2019-2020 Double Issue of the Saint Rose Journal of Undergraduate Research

Articles inside

Hannah Liscomb

Abigail Kronau

Briana S. Robles

Jessica Werner-DeLong