The Dartmouth 04/10/18

VOL. CLXXV NO.12

TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 2018

HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE

Over 140 students attend “Take Back the Night” march

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By Jacob Chalif The Dartmouth

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OPINION

TRUONG: BUZZ CUTS, BUZZ WORDS PAGE 4

SAKLAD: MORE THAN WORDS PAGE 4

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REVIEW: ‘READY PLAYER ONE’ IS A LESSON IN REGRESSIVE NOSTALGIA PAGE 7

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In past years, the College’s annual “Take Back the Night” march only saw about a dozen people. This year on April 6, over 140 students participated and nearly all fraternity, sorority and gender-inclusive Greek houses closed their doors in solidarity with sexual assault survivors.

The annual “Take Back the Night” march serves as the culmination of Sexual Assault Awareness Month’s Week of Action. In past years, however, no more than 15-20 people showed up for the event, according to Paulina Calcaterra ’19, a member of the Week of Action planning committee.

Over 140 students participated in the “Take Back the Night” march last Friday night.

First divestment conference held

By Lex Kang

The Dartmouth Staff

Divest Dartmouth and the Inter-Community Council held their first divestment conference on April 7, which included workshops and a keynote speech by former Unity College President Stephen Mulkey, who helped

lead the first college fossil fuel divestment in the nation.

Students from Middlebury College, Mount Holyoke College, Princeton University, Smith College, Tufts University, the University of New Hampshire and the University of Vermont were SEE DIVESTMENT PAGE 3

New building designs to be submitted to town for review

B y Jennie Rhodes The Dartmouth

Conceptual designs for a new joint building that will host the College’s computer science department and the Thayer School of Engineering will be submitted for review at Hanover’s April 17 planning board meeting. Before work

Greenland ice sheet has historical high melt rates B y Allison Hufford The Dartmouth

This past month, earth science professor Erich Osterberg published a paper proving that the melt rates of the Greenland ice sheet are the highest they have been since A.D. 1550. The study was published in Geophysical Research Letters and is entitled “Ice Core Records of West Greenland Melt and Climate

SEE MARCH PAGE 2

begins on the new building, Dartmouth must first gain construction approval from the town of Hanover.

“We are working with [the construction, planning and design committee] on utility,” Hanover director of planning, zoning and codes Robert Houseman said. “It will be permissible. We will have to

see on April 17 what the exact plans are.”

Construction of the $155 million building, which is to be funded entirely through gifts to the College, is set to begin in 2019 and conclude mid-2021.

The project is currently in the design phase, while on-site work SEE BUILDING PAGE 2

MEAT ME OUTSIDE ROBO

Forcing.”

According to the study, Greenland is 1.2 degrees Celsius warmer today than in the 1890s, consistent with the larger trend of climate change caused by the substantial release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere by human industrial practices. Melt rates are often influenced by ocean temperature SEE GREENLAND PAGE 5

JESSICA CAMPANILE /THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

Members of the Dartmouth Outing Club butcher caribou meat.

TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 2018

THE DARTMOUTH NEWS

PAGE 3

Divest Dartmouth holds its first-ever divestment conference FROM DIVESTMENT PAGE 1

in attendance, as well as around 50 people from the College, according to Divest Dartmouth member and event organizer Lily Zhang ’18.

The conference was comprised of several workshops that focused on the intersectionality of divestment and how to improve divestment campaigns.

Divest Dartmouth member Catherine Rocchi ’19 emphasized the importance of addressing forms of divestment that also touch upon issues of social justice, rather than only looking at fossil fuel divestment.

After the workshops, Mulkey presented a keynote speech on the story of Unity’s divestment and recent divestment trends in the U.S. A dinner discussion followed, which was also open to all of campus.

Mulkey said he agreed to be the keynote speaker at the conference because of Divest Dartmouth’s dedication to an important cause.

“I think what they’re doing is meaningful work, and it’s part of higher education to learn about what divestment is and [how] it’s relevant to student lives,” he said.

Though Mulkey said he recognizes the complications of divesting — particularly at schools with larger endowments — he is a firm believer in the plausibility and necessity of divestment.

“It is ethically indefensible that an institution dedicated to the proposition of the renewal of civilization simultaneously invests in its destruction,” Mulkey said. “There’s no doubt in my mind that it’s imperative for us to get this right, and frankly,

we’re out of time in order to manage the consequences [of climate change].”

In order to ensure diversity in panel topics, Rocchi, Zhang and other conference organizers, such as their collaborators from the Inter-Community Council, focused their efforts on bringing in guest speakers with differing backgrounds in divestment to lead the conference workshops, Zhang said.

Topics discussed included environmental racism and classism, private prison divestment and tools for further strengthening divestment campaigns.

Micah Herskind, a junior from Princeton, led the workshop on private prison divestment.

“I learned a lot more about the [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions] movement and what that is ... It was really interesting to learn more about how the issues I care about — [regarding] the prison system — intersect with these other areas,” Herskind said.

This diversity in speakers was a valuable asset and one of the highlights of the conference, Zhang said.

While the conference was centered around divestment in all its forms, Zhang said that the conference had an outreach aspect meant to introduce the concept of divestment to those who may not be familiar with it.

The conference’s secondary o b j e c t i ve w a s t o i n c r e a s e communication amongst various divestment campaigns at higher education institutions, Zhang said. “[My favorite part was] having the chance to talk with students ... from a lot of different schools about ... the

similar barriers they’ve encountered or the encouraging things they’ve seen [while campaigning for divestment],” Herskind said. “[It was] really nice to build solidarity across campuses.”

In addition to divestment, Zhang also said Divest Dartmouth hopes that the College will begin transitioning to a broader, more intersectional approach to its sustainability efforts, which can include keeping communities healthy and letting all individual people flourish.

“Sustainability [needs to] be more than [the] classic, environmentalist standpoint,” she said.

Sydney Abraham, a freshman representing Divest Smith College, said that revisiting the broader concept of divestment helped her refocus on this cause. Prior to the conference, Abraham said she had limited interactions with people interested in divestment outside her college. “[In divestment campaigns] we get very caught up in the formalities … and a lot of times we lose sight of the actual problem, which is climate change,” Abraham said. “[The conference] really puts [the problem] back into perspective and makes us all remember why we’re all doing this.”

Isaiah Miller ’21, a Dartmouth attendee not affiliated with Divest Dartmouth, said he found that the group dynamic at the conference was beneficial for his introduction to divestment.

“My favorite part of the conference was seeing and being part of a fairly large group of people who care about addressing the problems of our institution’s investment,” Miller said.

COURTESY OF LAURA HUTCHINSON

Stephen Mulkey, former Unity College president, gave a speech for the event.

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TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 2018

THE DARTMOUTH NEWS

Greek houses close their doors Friday Town planning board to review building designs FROM MARCH PAGE 1

The march began in front of the Collis Center, where Calcaterra delivered the opening remarks. She gave a brief history of the “Take Back the Night” movement, which started in the 1970s and became popular on college campuses. Calcaterra also quoted Dartmouth’s 2017 Sexual Misconduct Survey, emphasizing that the survey found that 34 percent of undergraduate women survivors described their perpetrators as someone they met at a party.

When the protesters departed from Collis and proceeded down Massachusetts Row, the students read from distributed handouts that gave suggestions for chants. Once the protesters got to Webster Avenue, they chanted, “Pong is not consent.” After marching down Webster Avenue, the march continued behind Baker-Berry library and then onto the Green, as students chanted, “Stop the violence — no more silence!” At the center of the Green, the group formed a large circle.

Maggie Flaherty ’21 delivered the event’s closing remarks. After a moment of silence for survivors, the group disbanded. Some students went back to One Wheelock, where there was a post-march reflection and dinner.

The march was preceded by a April 1 email that asked that the entire student body close its social spaces — including Greek and offcampus spaces — as a part of a “Night of Solidarity” with sexual violence survivors.

“For one night, we ask our community to think about survivors of violence, reflect on the harm that has been done, and consider potential ways to improve the safety of our social spaces on campus,” the email stated.

The email was sent by an informal coalition of students and was unaffiliated with any College organization.

The email also included a list of ideas to replace social events, including screening a film, hosting an internal or inter-group discussion or providing a space for survivors to share their stories.

The coalition reached out to Greek organizations before its campus-wide email and received positive responses to the idea, according to Calcaterra, who was a member of the coalition.

As a result, all members of the Inter-Fraternity Council closed their doors on Friday night, as did

sororities, gender-inclusive houses “That really concerned me, and off-campus houses. because the whole point was to be IFC president Yoga Acharya ’19 survivor-centered and to validate said that every fraternity had decided survivor experiences,” Calcaterra independently to close for social said. “I think giving houses a chance events, adding that he is primarily to explain why they were involved … concerned with making fraternity adds a measure of accountability for brothers understand their role in the the fraternities.” issue.

Director of programming for He emphasized the necessity of Movement Against Violence Anne changing perceptions about sexual Pinkney ’20 said she thinks that the violence within Greek organizations. march is a powerful way to raise “It isn’t just rape,” Acharya said. awareness about sexual assault.

“There is a gray scale, and we need “Take Back the Night is a visual to recognize that.” representation of solidarity with On Friday, Kappa Delta Epsilon survivors of sexual assault,” Pinkney sorority hosted a screening of “It said. “It’s a very powerful way to Happened Here,” a documentary raise awareness about individuals about sexual assault on college who have been affected by this very campuses. pervasive issue K D E on campus.” p r e s i d e n t “Campus is looking March Dorothy Qu ’19 [for] ... actionable attendee Michael said that closing Harteveldt the sorority’s steps the Greek ’19 said that basement was community can the march an easy decision. will hopefully take to significantly She added that foster action on t h e s o r o r i t y reduce and hopefully campus. wanted to find eradicate sexual “It is a way to engage up to us to stand fraternities in violence on campus.” in solidarity its discussion of with survivors sexual assault. and highlight the Qu added that - IFC PRESIDENT YOGA perpetuation of KDE decided ACHARYA ’19 a culture that to co-host the contributes to screening of the this problem that film with Bones needs a change,” Gate fraternity, he said. “I also with which it previously had scheduled hope that it ignites more continued an event, in the hope of fostering action and involvement from the dialogue, Qu said.

Dartmouth community — especially Zeta Psi fraternity hosted a the Greek community.” discussion open to campus on Friday Sophia Koval ’21, who also night. attended the event, cautioned that Zete president Rick Dionne ’19 just marching by itself will not solve said that beyond internal discussions the entire issue of sexual assault. held within the house, it is important “I don’t think that this particular to hear from the wider Dartmouth march will do a lot in terms of the community. nationwide issue, but any action is “We want to take this opportunity better than nothing,” Koval said. to get feedback and input from our Ben Bradley, manager of the community — the community of Dartmouth Bystander Initiative, people who spend time in our social said that historically “Take Back the space and are friends with Zetes — Night” was for women who were about what’s working and what isn’t,” experiencing harassment and violence Dionne said. to gather together and “reclaim the According to Calcaterra, however, streets, reclaim the night.” some sexual assault survivors were “Take Back the Night here at dissatisfied with how certain Greek Dartmouth is an opportunity for houses framed their responses to the members of our community to come Night of Solidarity. These survivors together and say that sexual violence felt that their assaults were being continues to be a critical issue that’s invalidated when Greek houses in affecting our community,” he said. which they were sexually assaulted sent out emails of solidarity, she said. Qu is a member of The Dartmouth Staff.

CORRECTIONS Correction Appended (April 9, 2018): This article has been updated to feature the proper spelling of Chris Hanson ’13’s last name and his class year.

We welcome corrections. If you believe there is a factual error in a story, please email editor@thedartmouth. com.

of the atrium, Scherding said. The building’s exterior and interior will be mostly comprised of glass to provide is scheduled to begin later this year.

The building will be constructed visibility into the makerspaces and on the west end of campus to the projects being crafted inside, he added. accommodate “The building t h e g ro w i n g is intended to be popularity of the “They are complex computer science buildings with lab and energizing to walk in[to], to see and and engineering m a j o r s , ventilation functions.” feel the innovation and creativity,” according to Scherding said.

Thayer dean -JOHN SCHERDING, “The glass brings Joseph Helble. in more daylight.

The new building VICE PRESIDENT OF It embraces aims to become a PLANNING, DESIGN AND transparency to new center of t h e p ro g r a m s collaboration CONSTRUCTION going on in the and innovation building.” on campus, The new building Helble said.

Vice president of planning, design will be constructed in the parking lot and construction John Scherding said beside Cummings Hall and will not the new building will be similar to the affect students’ mobility to move about Class of 1978 Life Sciences Center and campus, according to Scherding. the Black Family Visual Arts Center There will be clear access for both pedestrians and bicyclists to get to in both budget and design.

“They are complex buildings the Thayer buildings or the River residential cluster. with lab and The Dartmouth ventilation Entrepreneurship f u n c t i o n s , ” “A very important Network and Scherding said. part is bringing the Digital Arts, “There are wet computer science, Leadership labs with gases and Innovation and fume hoods. with the digital Lab will also be The new building perspective, in with relocated to the is expensive, but it new building. is also very large.” the objective and The goal was T h e n e w physical perspective to move DEN building will of engineering to and DALI to a maintain the central location collaborative, benefit students.” for greater student open spaces a c c e s s i b i l i t y, embodied by Helble said. t h e p r o j e c t - -THAYER DEAN JOSEPH DEN director based design HELBLE Jamie Coughlin labs currently in said he is excited the Cummings Hall and the MacLean Engineering to have DEN’s relationship with Thayer and the computer science Sciences Center, Helble said.

Additionally, Scherding added department become closer, both in that each of the four floors of the interdisciplinary projects and physical new building will provide shared proximity.

“There will be a more intimate engineering and computer science classrooms, labs and work spaces. connection to our constituents, Disciplines within computer science building minded students and faculty,” that are synergistic with engineering Coughlin said. “We will be near will be grouped together on certain the technology components and engineering minds and also the floors, Scherding said.

According to Helble, robotics labs, business minds at [the] Tuck [School 3D printing rooms and Couch Lab 2 of Business].”

Helble added that he believes this is also will be added as features of the the time for the growth and integration new building.

“A very important part is bringing of computer science, engineering and computer science, with the digital entrepreneurship.

“This is the moment where the perspective, in with the objective and physical perspective of engineering to physical and digital are really coming together,” Helble said. “We are in benefit students,” Helble said.

Designed an open floor plan, the first the fourth industrial revolution. We floor will be an atrium with computer are bringing both together to give science and engineering labs and Dartmouth the opportunity to be a makerspaces, with DEN and DALI’s leader in bringing together the digital offices surrounding the perimeter and physical worlds.”

FROM BUILDING PAGE 1

PAGE 4

STAFF COLUMNIST VALERIE TRUONG ’21

CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST AVERY SAKLAD ’21

Buzz Cuts, Buzz Words

More Than Words

Buzz cuts on women should not be politicized.

It’s a powerful image: 18-year-old Emma González, standing resolutely at a podium, teardrops streaming down her face. She wears her hair closely cropped to her head and has small silver ball earrings adorning her ears. Over a white March for Our Lives t-shirt, she wears an olive green bomber jacket emblazoned with iron-on patches and pins displaying slogans such as “I Will Vote” and “We Call BS.” Combined, it makes for a modern, militant look — González is, after all, a general of sorts in the war against gun violence.

This is the cover image used for a recent New York Times article titled “Buzzed: The Politics of Hair” by Vanessa Friedman. The article goes on to outline how González’s buzz cut represents a political issue because it is “almost impossible to separate the image from the activism.” Friedman cites academics and uses examples from pop culture, including actresses and models, to support her point about women who choose to sport buzz cuts. Actress Rose McGowan’s cropped hair is linked to her experience with sexual harassment; actor Asia Kate Dillon plays the first nonbinary gender character on an American television show; the Dora Milaje force in “Black Panther” represent black female empowerment; model Adwoa Aboah’s hairdo is tied to her advocacy for young women’s mental health.

Though the article does not explicitly say it, it implicitly — and dangerously — implies that the cohort of women who willingly shave their heads serve as protestors of the ideas advanced by the Trump administration because they share cultural values and beliefs such as support for gun control, LGBTQ rights and feminism. The article juxtaposes these women’s hairstyles to those of other women in the public eye, such as the long hair of Melania Trump. However, we cannot generalize the former group of women in any way, except to say that they have chosen to shave their heads.

In Emma González’s case, she chose to buzz her hair for utilitarian reasons: she mentions the hot weather, her long hair’s weight and its expensive upkeep. Though she has propelled herself into the public eye and grabbed the media’s attention through her activism efforts, it is the media and the public that have linked González’s buzz cut with gun control efforts and her refusal to accept the status quo. However,

people should associate her activism and the March for Our Lives movement with Emma González’s name, face and words, rather than her haircut.

Yes, it is against our cultural norms for women to have a buzz cut. It’s certainly eye-catching, and perhaps that is why Friedman was drawn to writing about the topic. But differences in hairstyle, no matter how stark, are not the focus of Emma González’s narrative. To automatically make connections between a woman’s hairstyle and a loaded topic such as gun control is to take away from the conversation and limit personal choice. For example, if a woman does not agree with González’s views but is considering shaving her hair off, a preconceived notion that only a certain type of girl with certain beliefs gets buzz cuts may deter her from proceeding.

While we shouldn’t politicize hair, a woman’s decision to get a buzz cut can demarcate a time of change in her life, whether that change comes in the form of instability, renewal, excitement or strength. I say all of this partly because I can speak from personal experience. The day after I graduated from high school, I buzzed off my chest-length hair. It was not a random or impulsive decision; it was something I had wanted to do for several months prior to my haircut. I didn’t do it to make a grand political statement, reform or reaffirm my sexual identity or to support a friend or family member undergoing chemotherapy. I did it solely for the thrill and curiosity of wanting to know what I would look like without long hair.

Women shaving their heads are not inherently making a political statement. Buzz cuts are not the symbol of any particular movement, nor are they are prerequisites for action and social change.

The New York Times article politicized a topic that does not need to be politicized. A woman with a shaved head makes a statement, but a connection to a specific meaning is not concrete.

The buzz cut says, “Look at me. I’m experiencing change in my life,” more than “I am a powerful woman who believes in LGBTQ rights and gun control.” Though the latter statement may be true in some cases, it ought not to be applied to every woman who looks a certain way. While hairstyle may be a way in which people choose to express themselves, hair does not define their sexuality, opinions, values, political ideologies or who they are as a person.

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ISSUE

TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 2018

THE DARTMOUTH OPINION

LAYOUT: Julian Nathan

SUBMISSIONS: We welcome letters and guest columns. All submissions must include the author’s name and affiliation with Dartmouth

College, and should not exceed 250 words for letters or 700 words for columns. The Dartmouth reserves the right to edit all material before publication. All material submitted becomes property of The Dartmouth. Please email submissions to editor@thedartmouth.com.

The Night of Solidarity risks feigning action with inaction.

With the exception of several houses that hosted events promoting awareness of campus sexual assault, self-care and gender inequity, Greek life spaces closed this past Friday night in recognition of Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Termed the “Night of Solidarity,” Friday evening was meant to encourage Dartmouth community members to reflect on the ways that Greek life perpetuates sexual violence on campus.

The night’s sentiment encourages steps toward ensuring safety and support for everybody on this campus, particularly because of its union with Dartmouth’s “Take Back the Night” march.

However, in demonstrating support by prohibiting entrance to students for a single night, Greek houses risk feigning action with inaction. While the Night of Solidarity recognizes the reality of campus sexual violence, it ultimately offers no solutions for impactful change on this front.

As several houses mentioned in their emails of solidarity, the next essential steps toward aggregating campus social change include strict and enforced intolerance of sexual violence.

Dartmouth’s 2017 Annual Security and Fire Safety Report, which publishes reported on- and off-campus offenses from the past three years, reports eight instances of fondling, eight instances of domestic violence, six instances of stalking and 25 rapes during 2016 alone. These statistics do not even account for the approximately 80 percent of college women who do not report their experiences of sexual assault, nor for the men and gender non-binary individuals who also choose not to report.

Dartmouth’s Greek houses may not be the sole breeding grounds of sexual violence, but they are often conducive to it. The excessive drinking and loud, crowded scenes characteristic of many Greek house basements render inhibited decisionmaking, harassment and victimization frequent occurrences that can go easily unnoticed. In order to actually challenge its atrocious prevalence of sexual violence, this campus needs to reach beyond the standard tools of administrative programing, post-trauma counselling and community protests.

It needs to uproot the problem at a common base — within Greek houses.

Undoubtedly, the Greek system does have utility on campus. Affiliated house communities foster friendships, strong alumni relationships and networking opportunities, but perhaps most markedly, they offer the student body something to do on weekend nights. The value of this last benefit should not to be underestimated — cabin fever can drive students crazy when they have been working all week and the nearest city is two hours away. They need a way to blow off steam, and the Greek houses’ open-door policy gives all students equal access to affiliated spaces. Playing pong and grooving in the basement of a Greek house is often the easiest way to decompress. I support the accessibility of these social spaces, but the atmosphere within them needs to change. The most prevalent form of socialization on a campus should never necessitate legitimate concern for the violation of one’s bodily autonomy. It should never mean accepting the risk of victimization or drinking to the point of sickness and memory loss, or even desperate, coatless sprinting in the cold.

How can students allow this social culture to prevail? How can generations of Dartmouth

students contribute to it with nothing more than the occasional passive stab at only the most external of symptoms, which always fails to address the root causes of the problem? This college is 248 years old, and instead of being an experienced institution that has overcome the nation’s prevailing form of college violence, it is, as of 2014, the third largest reported perpetrator.

It is decades overdue for the College to pay attention to the inconvenient reality of the Greek system and initiate the tough solutions that will make this campus a safer place. I am not proposing a complete abolition of the Greek system, but instituting radical change within it is imperative.

This could mean alcohol caps enforced by brothers on bar duty, observed or decreased house capacities and diligent safety monitoring of houses by its members. Fraternities could open their doors less frequently to dissuade excessive partying and encourage students to seek social spaces outside of Greek life, or they could host more organized all-campus events rather than letting their regular parties run their own chaotic courses.

Beyond Greek life, Dartmouth’s administration needs to alter its attitude toward drinking outside of affiliated houses. In an environment with easy access to alcohol, underage students will inevitably drink — this should not be the primary concern of the administration. Rather, irresponsible and excessive consumption ought to be their focus. By enabling discreet student alcohol consumption to some extent and allowing students to relax outside of toxic, potentially threatening environments, the administration could actually benefit the community. Campus Safety and Security officers need to distinguish between destructive drinking and moderate drinking before punishing both offenses with the same reprimand.

The kind of change needed to decrease sexual violence on this campus requires a radical upheaval of Dartmouth’s social structures. It isn’t simple; it will disrupt established norms in a way that will upset many supporters of the Greek system, and it will require a concerted and prolonged effort on the part of those actually willing to fight for change. Closing house doors in recognition of the Greek system’s role in perpetuating campus sexual violence advertises an important message, but the Night of Solidarity needs to instigate much larger social change on campus. Dartmouth students have accepted sexual violence for far too long, remaining complacent within the structure of social spaces that proliferate it. Members of this community cannot continue to shy away from challenging toxic institutions because they constitute an intrinsic piece of campus life.

The collaborative stand taken on the Night of Solidarity cannot dissipate, as has every other initiative to solve a social issue we should have already eradicated.

Next year’s potential new members of Greek houses: I encourage you to consider how affiliation with a Greek house implicitly supports its upheld standards of socialization. Current brothers and sisters: know that you have the power to change the climate of your houses. Administration: evaluate your standards of punishment. And to all the students as exasperated by Dartmouth’s state of affairs as I am: keep waving your flag of social change and fight tooth and nail to see it raised above this institution.

TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 2018

THE DARTMOUTH NEWS

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Greenland’s ice sheet is melting at the fastest rate in centuries FROM GREENLAND PAGE 1

fluctuations and changes in the number of summer high-pressure systems; however, it is highly likely that the warming of Greenland’s climate and the associated temperature increase of the sea surface are acting as the most significant influencing factors, Osterberg said.

Osterberg conducted his research using ice cores, which form due to meltwater that trickles down under the snow and refreezes. Summer ice layers are buried under fresh snow each winter, preserving the history of snowmelt.

According to Gabriel Lewis GR’19, who assisted Osterberg in his study, these ice cores can be found as far down as 30 meters, or 100 feet. In total, seven ice cores were collected from Western Greenland during the first year of the study, each containing the history of ice melt dating back to 1966.

After transporting these ice cores back to Dartmouth, Osterberg and his team were able to determine that there has been an increase in the amount of ice layers since the 1990s, indicating that there has been a significant increase in summer melting. This data is supported by computer models and satellites, which demonstrate the Greenland ice sheet’s decrease in size and increase

in surface melt within the past 20 to team successfully collected and 30 years, according to the study. transported seven ice cores during the “The first first year and two to two and nine during the a half weeks “We’d never [extracted second. were extremely ice cores] before, so Lewis, frustrating,” who was Osterberg said. we had to sort of shake present during “We’d never everything down and both year s [extracted ice to maintain figure out what worked cores] before, procedural so we had to well and what didn’t c o n s i s t e n c y, sort of shake ... and then we hit our called the everything second year a d o w n a n d stride.” “victory lap,” figure out and said the what worked team returned -ERICH OSTERBERG, EARTH well and what to Greenland didn’t ... and SCIENCE PROFESSOR with “the then we hit our mentality that stride.” t h e p ro j e c t B o t h had already Osterberg and succeeded.”

Lewis described an incident on their According to research published first day of research in which a fuel by the National Academies of barrel for their snowmobile was Sciences, at the current rate of rise, punctured, leaking gasoline into the world’s oceans will be on average their sled. They resorted to fixing two feet higher at the end of the the rupture with chewing gum, they century than they are now. Since said.

1993, more than three-quarters of “We were covered in gasoline and this rise has been due to melting ice we collected no data,” Lewis said. sheets in Greenland and Antarctica.

“We got back to camp that night and “What I think is special about our had to reevaluate how we were going records is that all these other datasets to do things — it was all uphill from just go back into the 1980s or 70s, there.” but our record goes back 450 years,” After this setback, the research Osterberg said. “We’re able to show

that, yes, the melting we thought was but also in increasing our confidence happening is happening, but also that remote sensing methods do that it’s extremely unusual, and I indeed work quite well,” Culler said. think that’s where our research says Climate change is becoming an something new.” increasingly pressing issue, making Lewis said that the density of a globally-coordinated human snow has increased, and that many response even more necessary, climate models do not take that into Osterberg said. account because they are based on “We’ve seen, after tragedies invalid data from the 1990s. like the Parkland shooting, that He added that the research team is when young people decide that working with climate model scientists they want their voices to be heard, to update the models for a more they have a huge impact,” he said. accurate prediction of temperature “Everybody who is concerned about and sea level rise. climate change needs to do a better Environmental job of voicing studies professor “What I think is their opinion of Lauren Culler, what needs to who is not a part special about our change and trying of Osterberg’s records is that all to express that research team, said these other datasets opinion through she appreciates the ballot box.”

O s t e r b e r g ’ s just go back into the Osterberg also ability to get direct 1980s or 70s, but emphasized measurements that Dartmouth o f t h e m e l t our record goes back students should t h a t s a t e l l i t e 450 years.” “be conscious data has been of how much demonstrating for carbon they’re -ERICH OSTERBERG, decades. using in ... life The fact that EARTH SCIENCE decisions that stick “these two vastly with [them] for different methods PROFESSOR decades,” adding [of collecting that students can data] yield similar make a long-term patterns is not only important for impact on their personal carbon confirming increasing melt events, footprints.

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DARTMOUTHEVENTS TODAY

THE DARTMOUTH EVENTS

HOUSING GAMES

TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 2018

CAROLINE COOK ’21

11:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.

“Not Your Habibti: A Typewriter Project” with Yasmeen Mjalli, Common Ground, Collis Center

4:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.

Exhibition: “Undiscovered Pages: Hidden gems from the Dartmouth Book Arts Workshop,” Student Gallery 102, Black Family Visual Arts Center

5:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.

OCP Commitment Reception, sponsored by the Guarini Institute for International Education, Occom Commons, Goldstein 105

TOMORROW

4:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.

30th Presidential Faculty Lecture: “Sexual Violence, Social Meanings, and Narrative Selves,” with philosophy and women’s, gender and sexuality studies professor Susan Brison, Filene Auditorium, Moore Building

5:00 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.

Artist Talk: “Using Your Voice,” with Daymé Arocena and Director of the Barbary Coast Jazz Ensemble Taylor Ho Bynum, Faulkner Auditorium, Hopkins Center for the Arts

6:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.

Film Screening/Discussion: “We Are Unarmed,” sponsored by the Native American Studies Program, Carson L02

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TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 2018

PAGE 7

THE DARTMOUTH ARTS

Review: “Ready Player One” is a lesson in regressive nostalgia

By SEBASTIAN WURZRAINER The Dartmouth Staff

For better or worse, “Ready Player One” is the natural culmination of the narrative trends Hollywood and moviegoers have favored over the last five years — namely, an intense revival of interest in media from the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Don’t believe me? Well, enjoy that new “Star Wars” movie, the new “Jurassic Park” movie and the new “Predator” movie all coming out later this year. So it should come as no surprise that someone had the bright idea to adapt Ernest Cline’s popular novel “Ready Player One,” a smorgasbord of nostalgia, to the big screen. The fact that it has been brought to life by Steven Spielberg, the man behind so many of the stories that Cline appears to love, is just the cherry on the sundae.

The film follows Wade Watts, a worn-out loser who really happens to be the Chosen One (stop me if you’ve heard that one before). This particular worn-out loser lives in 2045, which is apparently a dystopic nightmare. The film’s world-building is predicated on the notion that the future is awful, driving everyone to plug into a virtual reality world called the OASIS. But the film spends so little time on the “building” part of “world building” that one wonders if these characters are looking for an escape or really just lazy, unmotivated and addicted — addicted to an Easter egg hunt created by James Halliday, deified nerd-extraordinaire and the deceased co-creator of the OASIS. Although the film makes you

feel every excruciating minute of its two-and-a-half-hour runtime, the story turns out to be little more than an Easter egg hunt, pitting Wade and his friends against a cohort of cartoonish corporate suits. Of course, no one bought a ticket for the story. They’re watching it for the pop culture references that cram the corners of every frame like photobombing nuisances. The film’s internal justification for this gimmick goes as follows: Halliday was a social outcast who created the OASIS not as a beneficial tool for humanity but as a way to deal with his own inadequacies. In turn, he turned his Easter egg hunt into a tribute to the media that sustained and comforted him as a lonely child.

In its best moments, “Ready Player One” acknowledges that there is something deeply troubling about a society that has transformed this man’s vanity project into the linchpin of its existence. Halliday’s story is, after all, a tragic one, not a triumphant one. But the film mostly fails to cast a critical eye on Halliday because it shares his undying love for older media. In a way, Halliday’s story is a cautionary tale for the extreme obsessions of white, male, heterosexual fanboys — but the film is created by white, male, heterosexual fanboys and thus sees not the substance of that story but rather a surface replete with excessive nostalgia.

Of course, nostalgic media is neither inherently good nor bad.

Video essayist Lindsay Ellis does a wonderful job of explaining the 30year cycle in her video “The Upside

COURTESY OF WARNER BROS. PICTURES

In “Ready Player One,” Wade Watts is on the hunt for an Easter egg hidden in a virtual reality world called the OASIS.

Down of Nostalgia,” demonstrating that these trends are inevitable and unavoidable. According to Ellis, people tend to be protective of the things they loved growing up, and thus they are often unwilling to accept their flaws. To be clear, there are plenty of non-regressive ways to tap into nostalgia. Love it or hate it, the newest “Star Wars” trilogy has made a more progressive approach to nostalgia crucial to its identity.

“Star Wars” has always been loved by women and people of color, for example. But both “The Force Awakens” and “The Last Jedi” finally acknowledge this fact and thus cater to these marginalized fans, fostering their nostalgia while acknowledging that the original product was never perfect to begin with. No piece of media — not even a franchise as beloved as “Star Wars” — is ever beyond reproach.

Conversely, “Ready Player One”

unwittingly adopts all the worst qualities of the media it aspires to emulate. Almost all of the female characters are props, subjected to a cornucopia of relentless male gazes.

Add to that a dash of pernicious racism toward Wade’s two Japanese friends and you’ve got a movie that captures some of the most reprehensible qualities from older films. “Ready Player One” is so desperate to imitate these films that it becomes a hollow shell, with none of what made those other stories worthwhile. The pop culture references, while loving and sincere, occur so frequently and needlessly that they become weightless and exasperating.

“Weightless and exasperating,” incidentally, also serve as perfect adjectives for almost all of the characters. The sole exception is Mark Rylance as Halliday. He appears to be the only person involved with

this entire project who actually understands that his character is no god for the nerdy masses, but rather a failed, insecure and deeply flawed human being. As much as I appreciate Rylance’s cognizance, it is distinctly dissonant with the way the rest of the film frames Halliday and his achievements.

Butmyrealsenseof disappointment is rooted in the fact that I actually liked some parts of the film more than I thought I would. Spielberg is still one of the finest directors to ever live, and his technical prowess is on full display here. The visuals aren’t kitschy — they look spectacular, genuinely transporting the audience to an astonishing other world that could have been explored more in sequel. But it would need compelling characters and an interesting story for the audience to crave sequels. “Ready Player One” has references — and that’s pretty much it.

Review: “Hitler versus Picasso” tackles WWII’s unfinished business

By SOPHIE STONE The Dartmouth

In “Hitler versus Picasso and the Others,” the final scars of World War II are far from healed. Art, argues the documentary, which played at the Black Family Visual Arts Center over the weekend, is the final Achilles heel of Germany’s atonement and the unfinished business of World War II. To set the stage, a bit of history: Nazi soldiers looted and plundered an estimated 20 percent of all art ever made. Much of the art is still missing — an estimated 15 to 20 billion pounds in current art market value. The Third Reich launched a war of military and culture and sought to elevate its Aryan vision while exterminating anything that might contradict it.

Hitler understood art’s connection to culture and cultural identity.

By destroying the art he deemed “degenerate” and elevating the art of German and classical artists, the Führer created and refined a

distinctly Aryan aesthetic. Just as important as radio, posters and speeches, art was propaganda for the Nazi party, which sought to create an absolute aesthetic and manipulate it accordingly.

Nazism revered works of classical antiquity. Paintings that depicted bucolic farmland, families and working youths were also elevated.

So too were rather obscene nudes, thought to encourage procreation and the growth of the Aryan race.

Art served to refine the narrative put forth by the Nazi party. Art that did not fit within the narrative was termed degenerate. This included much of the avant-garde: Cubism, Surrealism, Expressionism and other modernist genres were all deemed cosmopolitan and communist.

The Nazi party looked to destroy non-German culture as it built German culture. At the height of the war, an entire division of the Nazi Party was dedicated to the appropriation of the cultural property of non-Germans. The Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce

— in German, the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg — had branches with extensive operations in every Nazi-occupied country.

Enter “Hitler versus Picasso,” which examines the cultural war through the lens of three major art exhibitions. Italian actor Toni Servillo, who won a European Film Award for Best Actor for his performance in 2013’s “The Great Beauty,” narrates our journey.

“Degenerate Art,” opened in Munich on July 19, 1937, was the Nazi regime’s exhibition of what was considered despicable, low art. The paintings were hung haphazardly on the walls, often without frames. “Degenerate Art” was pure propaganda, attempting to demonstrate the loathsome nature of art that did not align with the Nazi Aryan aesthetic. Predictably, the showing was wildly successful.

Servillo takes us next to “21 rue La Boétie,” held in Paris in 2017.

Anne Sinclair, editorial director of the Huffington Post in France, details the story of her grandfather, Paul

Rosenberg, a prominent Jewish art curator and socialite. He associated with prominent artists and was good friends with Picasso, reportedly referring to him as “Pic.” In 1942, the Nazis seized much of Rosenberg’s collection and revoked his citizenship.

Finally, the film explores the collection of Cornelius Gurlitt.

The reclusive Gurlitt, whose father worked for the Nazi regime, was found to possess over a thousand works of art that had been plundered from Jewish families during the war, valued at more than a billion dollars.

While “Hitler versus Picasso” has its strengths, a viewer with an interest in art history and theory is left waiting for more about the tensions between Nazis and artists, who were surely aware of the cultural crimes that had befallen their work. “Hitler versus Picasso and the Others” is a punchy title, but the audience is offered little about how the artists viewed their role during wartime. Lacking a tie to the humanity of the artists and the story of wartime works themselves, the film is lost in the yellowing pages that it

so thoroughly investigates. Indeed, it is not until the end that we actually hear the voice of an artist at all.

When we do, it packs a punch.

The final moments of the film depict a conversation between a Nazi official and Picasso about his famous wartime masterpiece “Guernica.” The piece — eleven and a half feet high, over twenty-five feet long and painted in only black, grey and white — creates a jarring and disturbing wartime scene of dismembered bodies, brutal torture and unmitigated chaos.

“Maestro,” says the officer, “did you do this?”

The backg round music crescendoes and the camera tightens in on the piece.

“No,” Picasso says. “This is your work.”

This film is timely as the Gurlitt collection, extensively detailed in the film, reopens in Berlin in September.

While a bit overlong, “Hitler versus Picasso” provides a compelling view into the wartime exploits of a regime obsessed with cultural creation and destruction.

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THE DARTMOUTH ARTS

TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 2018

Student Spotlight: Danica Rodriguez ’18 rethinks casting

By ILEANA SUNG The Dartmouth

W h i l e t h e c o nve r s a t i o n s surrounding intersectional representation in film and media narratives seem more relevant than ever, it’s not always easy for students to know how to contribute. But film major Danica Rodriguez ’18 has already taken steps to expose biased casting in the media industry.

Rodriguez arrived at Dartmouth knowing that she wanted to study media and eventually work in the media industry. As a member of Dartmouth Television, a club that existed during her first few years at the College, Rodriguez was able to write sketches and skits for her own shows.

She fell in love with television after exploring the more academic side of media by taking classes on theory and history. She found inspiration through classes that discuss the media people consume today and how streaming has impacted people’s perspectives.

“A lot of people think that television is a bad thing, but I honestly think it’s the opposite,” Rodriguez said. “If you’re watching television, you can learn so much. It’s a different way of storytelling, and a different way of understanding the world.”

Rodriguez has interned in the casting department for various industries during the past few years, including Warner Bros. Her experience as an intern there led her to realize how important it was to listen to the way actors’ identities impacted their casting room experiences. She found herself gravitating to television shows and stories that focused on people of color, queer people and all the other stories that hadn’t been told

as often as she thought they should be.

One way she has attempted to initiate change is through her thesis project, which includes an interactive documentary installation that elevates the voices of oftenoverlooked minorities by showing the inside workings of a casting office.

Rodriguez recreated a casting room in her apartment. There, she talked to 11 New York-based actors about what it was like to audition as a minority.

These conversations helped her realize the experience could be wildly different for everyone, though layers of racism, sexism and homophobia tended to be a common thread.

“A f t e r the whole ‘#OscarsSoWhite,’ and just thinking about how the show ‘One Day at a Time’ on Netflix, that’s about a Latino family, was struggling to get renewed, I was really bothered,” Rodriguez said. “I wanted to hear why these things were happening ... My thesis basically flips the script and makes the actors talk about what they want to talk about versus just reading a script that has been deemed correct for them.”

The interactive documentary installation will be displayed on the second floor of the Black Family Visual Arts Center, and will be like the “upside down of a casting office.”

Viewers will be able to look at the documentary footage she took on the computer and go through the drawers to look at various files and papers. She believes this process is something people should be able to touch and explore for themselves.

“There’s so much in actually doing the action and feeling what a casting director is feeling, or what, as

COURTESY OF DANICA RODRIGUEZ

The film major was an intern for the casting department at Warner Bros.

COURTESY OF DANICA RODRIGUEZ

Rodriguez’s senior project is an installation that encourages people to think about the way identity affects storytelling.

a casting intern, I was going through,” Brandeise Monk-Payton, who now Rodriguez said. “Basically, this teaches at Fordham University, whole installation is where my brain was one of the professors who was at when I helped Rodriguez was interning, with her thesis. thinking about “There are often I m p r e s s e d by m y f u t u r e high barriers to high Rodriguez’s career and how commitment to I could make arts, and they’re very bridging theory things better. institutionalized — if a n d p r a c t i c e, You can go onk-Payton we don’t get people to M through all the immediately drawers and do something about it, jumped at the paperwork, see it’ll always be there.” opportunity to b re a k d ow n s help and put her and see how in contact with i n h e r e n t l y -DANICA RODRIGUEZ ’18 actors of color in problematic the New York City they are — it’s area to interview. almost like a surrealist nightmare of Rodriguez genuinely wants a casting office.” to understand media forms and Since film is a collaborative formations as they relate to issues artwork and connections are core to concerning identity, and change the the industry, Rodriguez said getting entertainment industry for the better, people to participate in her project Monk-Payton said. was an important step.

“Casting is an oft-overlooked field “All I really had to do was say of examination in studies of film ‘Hey, I’m doing this project, I want and media, but it is an important to elevate your voices, could you talk element of production that has quite to me?’” Rodriguez said. “It was so literal effects on representation,” wonderful to see people step up and Monk-Payton said. “I hope that declare that they had something to say. people take away from [Rodriguez’s] When people do research, it takes two experimental project the necessity to five years to actually get something of understanding entertainment published, and that’s why things seem industry dynamics through the a little late. I don’t want to be late!” framework of intersectionality — it Rodriguez reached out to is only by recognizing and amplifying professors and high school teachers voices that are marginalized in the in order to branch out and find more profession that Hollywood can then actors willing to participate. Professor start the work of changing its labor

practices to be truly progressive and committed to social justice.”

Rodriguez said the primary goal of her thesis is to help people see themselves in stories that they can believe in and relate to. She wants people to think about how different identities affect the stories people are telling.

“I just want people to feel good, help people in positions of power make other people feel good and make everyone feel like they can be a part of this art form,” Rodriguez said. “There are often high barriers to high arts, and they’re very institutionalized — if we don’t get people to do something about it, it’ll always be there. So this is my little way of picking away at that barrier.”

Rodriguez believes it is up to her generation to challenge discriminatory notions that have been institutionalized for so long. Cecilia Torres ’18, a friend of Rodriguez’s who supported her through her academic journey, said she strongly believes that she has the power to inspire other artists and people in the entertainment industry.

“I’ve witnessed the way she has made her thesis interactive and accessible to all — not just those in the film department or with knowledge of the casting world,” Torres said. “Her thesis has always been about changing the narrative and exposing the negative parts of our entertainment industries that she hopes to radically change throughout her career.”