The Tufts Daily - Friday, October 9, 2020

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Friday, October 9, 2020

Confusion surrounds residential cohorts, enforcement of system, residential advisors say

by Sam Klugherz

that cohorts were assigned to all students as of Sept. 9.

“For many suite and apartment style communities, the suite or apartment made a natural cohort,” Jordan wrote in an email to the Daily. “For traditional style halls, cohorts were created based on the floor plans of the community and the limits of students per cohort.”

Jordan acknowledged that the establishment of the cohort system had slowed the finalization of student housing assignments.

He noted that there have been no delays, however, in the formation of cohorts.

“Cohorts have been overall a positive endeavor, but have caused some delay in completing continuing student housing assignments due to the housing reselection and cohort formation process that occurred in late July and August,” Jordan said.

“There has not been a delay in the assignment of cohorts.”

Avery, an RA who requested anonymity out of concern for their job security, said there was confusion surrounding cohort

Assistant News Editor

Editor’s note: The name of a source has been changed to protect their privacy. The source requested anonymity out of concern for their job security as a residential advisor.

Residential advisors (RA) claim they have seen a lack of guidance from the university regarding the implementation and enforcement of the residential cohort system. The Office of Residential Life and Learning (ORLL) maintains they provided RAs with a variety of resources in an effort to help them navigate the new system.

According to the fall 2020 guide released by the university in June, residential cohorts are small groups of students, consisting of about six to 12 people each. Students in a cohort can relax social distancing measures while interacting with each other, but they must wear masks at all times, except when eating.

Tim Jordan, assistant director of residential education, explained

AIDAN CHANG / THE TUFTS DAILY

First-year dorm Miller Hall is pictured on Sept. 24. assignments at the beginning of the semester among RAs. “Ultimately, the reason that we found out what the cohorts were, are because of how the hall is designed, and we needed to

figure out who would be an RA for which section,” Avery said.

Anna Ehrlich, an assistant residential life coordinator for Miller Hall and Houston Hall, offered possible reasons for the issues

some have experienced with the new system.

“I think with a lot of moving pieces and instruments, also [stusee COHORTS, page 2

Streamlined support services for students after ARC, Student Accessibility Services merge

NICOLE GARAY / THE TUFTS DAILY

Dowling Hall is pictured on Feb. 12.

by Alejandra Carrillo Executive News Editor

The Academic Resource Center (ARC) merged with the Student Accessibility Services office earlier this semester to form the StAAR Center. The new center provides writing sup-

port, academic coaching and is responsible for approving student accommodations and ensuring that barriers to student learning are reduced.

Kirsten Behling, who previously served as the director of the Student Accessibility Services office and is the associate dean

of student accessibility and academic resources, works to ensure that staff in the StAAR Center have the necessary resources to launch new initiatives to support students.

“I work closely with colleagues across campus both advocating on behalf of students’ academic

needs generally and the needs of students with disabilities more specifically while also gathering information from faculty and staff as to the current needs of students,” she wrote in an email to the Daily.

Behling explained that the merger resulted from the offices’ shared goal of creating a more effective and efficient support structure for students. She said it ultimately allowed for the centralization of their work.

“For students [the merger] equates to less run-around, referrals to other offices, the need for additional appointments, and trying to find the services that they need specifically,” she said.

Behling added that staff in the new center are now cross-trained and can offer more creative and proactive programs to students. “[Students] have more options for engagement. They might try a study group, or seek a one-onone consultation with a writing tutor,” Behling said. “Students with disabilities will have easier access to these resources without cumbersome referrals.”

However, Behling noted that ARC tutors are uniquely affected by the merge, as it relates to the

SPORTS / back

ARTS / page 4

FEATURES / page 3

NESCAC cancels winter conference play because of COVID-19 pandemic

Professor Jess Keiser discusses his new novel, scientific and literary intersections within ‘nervous fiction’

Tufts students get excited for Gideon campaign

mode in which tutoring is conducted.

“We have shifted from a oneon-one subject tutoring model to a study group and small group tutoring,” she said.

The StAAR Center has also added a series of subject-specific workshops to its programming based on conversations and observations with faculty from various academic departments, according to Behling.

“Our workshop series for example … [is] designed to support students at that particular time in the semester,” she said.

“We have a StAAR Center Canvas page that any Tufts student can join to access [workshop] materials whenever they like.”

Katie Swimm, associate director for academic support at the StAAR Center, contributed to the development of a new Academic Coaching program, which supports the diverse academic needs of students and offers small group tutoring for certain courses, according to its website.

Swimm explained that one of her goals is to promote the center to the larger Tufts community. see EXPANDS, page 2 NEWS

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THE TUFTS DAILY | News | Friday, October 9, 2020

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RAs left to enforce cohort system, source claims COHORTS

continued from page 1 dents] deciding to move to different dorms, students deciding if they’re going to be remote or come to campus … that delayed some of the solidification,” Ehrlich, a student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, said.

Jordan responded to the confusion RAs have experienced navigating the cohort system.

“With any new process I think there can be some initial confusion in getting everyone on the same page,” he said. “ORLL sent communication to students regarding their specific cohort,

held town halls regarding the cohort process, updated our FAQ page on the housing website, and also had individual outreach.”

Avery believes that Tufts has shown a larger disregard for the residential cohort program.

“I honestly don’t believe that the cohorts were the number one priority of the university when trying to figure out when people were coming back,” Avery said.

“I’m sure that figuring out the cohorts were less of a priority than figuring out check-in, and figuring out quarantines.”

RAs believe the university inadvertently imposed on them

the responsibility of policing students on cohort policy.

“The RAs are not supposed to be the police on this issue, it’s just something that’s fallen upon us due to the circumstances we have found ourselves in,” Avery said.

Jordan explained that the enforcement of residential cohorts is a shared responsibility.

“The students in the cohort should be conscious of who they are interacting with and only allow those within the cohort to relax physical distancing,” he said. “Residential Life staff, including the RAs, will also

enforce COVID-19 safety policies if two people from different cohorts are not maintaining physical distance to keep our community safe.”

Avery reflected on the effectiveness of the cohort system, more broadly, and said it would be more efficient if the university found others to enforce it, and not RAs. “The cohort system, as a whole, is something that seems very idealistic,” Avery said.

“It seems like something that could work if they had people to enforce it, but there’s nobody to force it really.”

StAAR Center offers subject-specific workshops to better support students EXPANDS

continued from page 1 “My goal for this year is to make our new center known …

I want [students] to be aware of what we can offer and feel comfortable coming to us to ask for support,” she wrote in an email to the Daily. “I also want to encourage all students to try something new in terms of sup-

port, like attending one of our new workshops.”

Swimm echoed Behling’s sentiments about the benefits of the merge, especially as it allows students to receive support under a more modernized system.

“We can offer support without a lot of back-and-forth between groups. We’re able to provide a

variety of options for each individual student with just one visit,” Swimm said.

She emphasized that another benefit of the merger is that staff can now answer questions using their different, cumulative experience.

Junior Ellie Murphy said she used ARC services in the past and is looking forward to using the

academic resources of the StAAR Center this semester.

“I’ve used ARC in the past for my writing. It’s been a really helpful resource for me, specifically for essays that I’ve written,” she wrote in an electronic message to the Daily. “I haven’t used ARC yet this semester, but would definitely consider it … I’ve had positive experiences with the program.”

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Features

3 Friday, October 9, 2020

In fight for Senate, Tufts students look north to Maine

by Julian Perry

Deputy Copy Editor

On the afternoon of Sunday, Sept. 27, a group of students from the Tufts chapter of the activist embroidery organization Stitch it to the Patriarchy gathered on President’s Lawn to call voters.

That same day, at the same time, members of Tufts Democrats attended a virtual phone-banking event to support the same campaign. But the candidate these groups were supporting was not Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, nor a local Massachusetts politician.

These groups had both gathered to support Sara Gideon, the Democratic nominee in Maine’s upcoming Senate election.

Both groups see the campaign as critical in the effort to flip the Senate toward Democrats.

Gideon, speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, is running against incumbent Republican Susan Collins, who has held the seat since 1997.

Collins is New England’s sole Republican member of Congress, making her seat a target for the region’s Democrats.

“New England feels like, for most Democrats, it’s kind of like a no-brainer, ‘Oh, we’re liberal, those states are fine,’” Sofia Zamboli, a senior, and the vice president of Tufts Democrats, said. “But Maine has a Republican senator … so this race is something that we know we can achieve if we set our minds to [it].”

Collins aims to maintain her reputation as a moderate Republican in the Democraticleaning state, and is not endorsing the president’s reelection campaign. But Mark Lannigan, the Secretary of Tufts Democrats, doesn’t see very much distance between her and the president.

“Susan Collins has been kind of a background supporter of

Trump much more than she’s let on,” Lannigan, a sophomore, said. “With Sara Gideon’s campaign, they’re trying to bring that to light.”

A source of tension between Collins and her opponents has been her support for Donald Trump’s previous Supreme Court nominees. This came up at the Stitch it to the Patriarchy event as one of the reasons participants opposed Collins.

“Susan Collins was very impactful in the decision of Brett Kavanaugh being elected to the Supreme Court,” sophomore Ansel Link said. Kavanaugh was confirmed by a close margin, following contentious hearings that included testimony from Christine Blasey Ford that he had allegedly sexually assaulted her.

The salience of Collins’ views on the Supreme Court has grown since the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in September. Now, the prospect of an even more conservative court looms in the minds of Democratic voters, which has motivated some to get off the sidelines and get involved in political action.

“A lot of people have been mobilized by RBG’s death,” Elizabeth Strileckis, a sophomore and the leader of the Tufts chapter of Stitch it to the Patriarchy, said. “Before it was like, ‘Oh, we need the Senate, obviously, for bills and stuff, but also for when RBG passes away inevitably.’ So now that it’s actually happening, it’s just adding more to the importance of different Senate races.”

Rhys Murphy, the president of Tufts Democrats, described a similar experience in his club.

“After Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away, there was definitely a feeling in the club that our work certainly felt a lot more important. The consequences of politics and political decisions

felt a lot more real,” Murphy, a senior, said.

Following Ginsburg’s death, Collins said she would prefer Ginsburg’s replacement be nominated by whoever wins the presidential election in November — but she has since said that she is willing to meet with President Trump’s nominee, Amy Coney Barrett. Amid this mixed messaging, Gideon’s supporters are not optimistic about what Collins will do next.

“As of now she’s been saying that she’s going to oppose, but I honestly would not be surprised if she flips and endorses Trump’s nominee,” Strileckis said of Collins. “Collins can be wishywashy.”

Both Stitch it to the Patriarchy and Tufts Democrats hope to use this concern that Tufts students have, toward President Trump, the Senate GOP and the prospect of a more conservative Supreme Court, and funnel it into direct action that contributes to political change.

Stitch it to the Patriarchy is a national brand with chapters at colleges around the country, whose website features clothes for sale with embroidered phrases like “Voting is Sexy.” But for now, the Tufts chapter is focusing on political activism and not embroidery, Strileckis said.

The group’s event on Sept. 27 began with participants attending a training session on Zoom, to make it accessible even for people who had never phone banked before.

“It’s my first time phone banking,” sophomore Lily Ahmed said at the event. “I’ve canvassed before, door to door, but obviously that’s not really a thing anymore just because of COVID.” In an email, Strileckis wrote that the Tufts chapter plans to host more phone banking events for Democratic Senate candidates, including one for Jaime

Harrison, running for Senate in South Carolina, and potentially more for Sara Gideon as well.

Tufts Democrats, too, plans to continue its fight for the Senate beyond the one event on Sept. 27. That event was part of College Nights for Gideon, a weekly series of events organized by the Gideon campaign, where students from various colleges get together on Zoom and call voters.

“They have groups of people from a whole range of schools all come together, and then they tally up how many calls each group gets, and it’s a little bit of a friendly competition,” Murphy said of the College Nights events.

Tufts Democrats plans to continue attending College Nights events every week until the election, Lannigan said. At the event on Sunday, Oct. 4, the Tufts team won, making the most calls in a field that included schools like Barnard College, Columbia University and Brown University.

Both Lannigan and Murphy said that the Senate race in Maine is the one that Tufts Democrats has spent the most time on this semester.

“Maine people would not like us to say this,” Murphy, a Massachusetts resident, said.

“But it’s kind of our backyard. If it’s this important of a race, this close of a race in our own backyard, you can bet you’re gonna get a lot of people coming out for it.”

This sudden organizing did not spontaneously occur on its own, however. Tufts Democrats’ process of turning distress into action was facilitated by direct help from the Gideon campaign itself.

“The Gideon campaign … they were very active about reaching out to us, so they contacted us directly,” Murphy said.

This organized involvement with the Gideon campaign comes

in a year when the top of the Democratic ticket is presidential nominee Joe Biden, who few Tufts students’ showed enthusiasm for during the primaries.

Murphy noted that this has made it more difficult for the club to get students involved in the presidential race, which normally gets the most attention.

“It’s been somewhat difficult to get people interested and involved, as I think was not surprising to us, considering that Biden is the nominee, and our group on campus has always been significantly more to the left than the center of the Democratic party,” he said.

But others emphasized that focusing on the Senate was not an abandonment of the Biden campaign, and that Democratic Senate candidates are part of the same movement for change.

“There are a hundred issues that are on the ballot with this race,” Lannigan said of the Senate election in Maine. “And pretty much the entirety of Biden’s agenda is going to hinge on [Mitch] McConnell not being the majority leader in the Senate.”

Multiple Gideon supporters framed their activism as part of a broader movement, one to reject the vision of America that Donald Trump put forward when he was elected four years ago.

“A lot of people in 2016 felt helpless when the results of the election came out,” Zamboli said. “I feel like a lot of people might feel this way — that we want to know we did everything we could to make sure that what happened in 2016 doesn’t happen again.”

Murphy echoed this sentiment.

“The stakes now are higher than they’ve ever been, so really what it comes down to is whether or not we’re going to continue to have a democracy,” he said. “Or at least a functioning democracy.”

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Arts & POP ARTS Pop CULTURE Culture

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Friday, October 9, 2020

Jess Keiser explores the Enlightened psyche, “nervous fictions” in new book

by Yiyun Tom Guan News Editor

Jess Keiser (A’06), assistant professor of English at Tufts, in his new book, “Nervous Fictions: Literary Form and the Enlightenment Origins of Neuroscience” (2020), investigates the relationship between literary forms and scientific advancement in 17th and 18th century English literature.

Terming a hybrid body of work, which includes scientific writing using literary metaphors and literature incorporating science to explore the psyche, as “nervous fiction,” the book asks important questions about the relationship between the body and the mind, between “rational” scientific inquiry and literary expression.

Speaking at a virtual book talk sponsored by the Center for the Humanities at Tufts on Oct. 2, Keiser began by introducing the scientific underpinnings of the 17th and 18th centuries. This period saw advances in what is now known as neuroscience, of which the strikingly detailed studies of human cerebral anatomy by British physician and natural philosopher Thomas Willis in 1664 were a pinnacle, and it included René Descartes’ questioning of how nerves convey sensory information across the body.

Crucial to understanding the “nervous fictions” is the mainstream view of the nervous system at the time. Keiser explained that, according to this view, as the brain sends and receives commands to and from the body, the pineal gland acts as what Tufts Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies and Professor of Philosophy Dan Dennett dubs “Cartesian theater.” For example, in visual experiences, the eyes perceive sense stimuli and the nerves connected to the eyes then place the patterns perceived on the pineal gland; in this sense, the pineal gland is “where thoughts and stimuli are unified.”

The understanding of the nature of nerves also under-

COURTESY JESS KEISER

A screenshot from Jess Keiser’s talk about his book ‘Nervous Fictions: Literary Form and the Enlightenment Origins of Neuroscience’ (2020) is pictured. went a transformation during this period. Instead of the earlier categorization of nerves as “animal spirits,” later 18th century natural philosophers described nerves as solid tubes that vibrate like musical strings; one can strike an emotional note with another, causing their bodies to quiver in response.

Ideas like “Cartesian theater” and synchronized vibrations are attempts by then-scientists to explain neuroscientific concepts using metaphoric devices — precisely what Keiser categorizes as “nervous fiction.” In addition, literary writers at the time also employ scientific figures to experiment with the idea of “interiority.” Keiser explained that, despite nervous fictions being fusions of science and literature, the two tenets are often in conflict in those works.

The most popular metaphors of the brain and the nervous system at the time include a “castle, a kingdom or a state.” The body is often depicted in hierarchi-

cal terms: the pineal gland as a throne, animal spirits being servants and so forth, according to Keiser.

Keiser also introduced the idea of “virtual witnessing,” a notion found in the 17th and 18th centuries, in which scientific documents were written as if the readers were present at the experiment. Because the nervous system is incredibly hard to be delineated this way, Keiser argues that science writers thus adopted figurative devices to reproduce “the illusion of entering into the nervous system.”

He cited philosopher Gilbert Ryle, who proposed the idea of a “double-life legend,” that all “outward and public actions are matched by internal and private ones.” According to this theory, , when one smiles on the outside, something within their interiority is smiling as well, Keiser explained. Thus, nervous fictions take a microscopic view into the inner workings of our brain and attempt to explain

how they translate to outward actions.

Nervous fictions have also made contributions to the mindbody problem — how do the physical and biological aspects of the brain translate to our mental and psychological inner world?

In his book, Keiser argues that nervous fictions directly respond to this philosophical dispute.

“My argument is that the nervous fictions are a response to that gap, that sense of how do we get from matter to mind,” Keiser said. “[The] nervous in this concept is really nervous in two senses: about the [biological] nerves, but also nervous as an adjective about anxiety and uncertainty.”

Keiser went on to discuss what he deems are the top five nervous fictions. Among those are a passage on the brain when in love from Thomas Willis’ book, “Two Discourses Concerning the Soul of Brutes” (1683). It proposes that when one is in love, all the animal spirits in other parts

of their body would rise to the brain to watch the image of the lover, as if in a theater. Keiser argued that the personification of animal spirits is necessary for Willis to connect them to the feeling of love.

Other nervous fictions discussed by Keiser were Margaret Cavendish’s “The Worlds Olio” (1655), which introduces panpsychism, the idea that “everything thinks,” including everything in the nervous system; for example, a hand has intelligence. In Laurence Sterne’s “The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentlemen” (1759), the narrator describes perceiving a vibration in his heart when speaking, yet “the brain made no acknowledgement.

There’s often no good understanding betwixt them.” In “The Hypochondriack” (1777–1783), James Boswell criticizes the practice of anatomy, comparing the soul to a watch in a case that should not be opened, or else it will be ruined.

A&P

Friday, October 9, 2020 | Arts & Pop Culture | THE TUFTS DAILY

TV SHOW REVIEW

Flo Almeda Live-Streamed and Quarantined

‘Emily in Paris’ underwhelms across the board

by Elizabeth Oxendine Contributing Writer

James Blake

D

VIA IMDB

A promotional poster for ‘Emily in Paris’ (2020) is pictured. is the direction in which television writing is moving.

“Emily in Paris” tries to hop on the coattails of this progress by portraying Emily as an active feminist making waves of change in the fashion industry. In one scene, she fights against a perfumer for marketing his newest scent by having a model walk naked down a street of men in a commercial. While this is a valid argument, it was ironic that the producers were trying to comment on these issues while producing a show with its own underlying sexism.

One of Emily’s superiors at the Paris office, a woman named Sylvie (Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu), was continuously cruel to Emily because the man with whom she was having an affair showed interest in the young American. It was upsetting to see a woman in such a powerful position have to base all of her decisions around what she thought would please her lover. Sylvie could have recognized Emily’s potential

and actually guided her through the challenges of transitioning to a new lifestyle, but instead she was painted as villainous.

Women who lead can be powerful and strong without being callous and uncaring.

Another eyebrow-raising moment was some of the jokes made at the expense of a character’s overweight female publicist.

Considering the average jean size in the United States for women is 16–18, I don’t think its very feminist for a show filled with a supermodel-thin cast (which isn’t representative of the actual population) to make jokes at the expense of a woman’s body type.

Overall, I think we should appreciate “Emily in Paris” for what it is: a fluff piece of escapism in the middle of a content drought. At the same time, we should question why shows with such flimsy and half-baked writing get produced over those that could leave viewers with important messages about how we can change our world for the better.

oused in glassy synths and mournful chord progressions, James Blake’s music is equally enchanting as it is haunting.

Like standing on a frozen lake in late December, his cascading melodies never fail to raise goosebumps.

I would consider Blake to be a fixture in my listening library for a number of years now. The wintry soundscape of “Retrograde” (2013) was one I first entered as a 13-year-old while angstily staring out a rain-streaked window on the bus home from school, and it is one that I still find myself returning to. Although I’ve never thought of myself as an avid James Blake fan, his recent discography is speckled throughout my playlists and tossed into my Discover Weekly on Spotify. Somehow, his music continues to make regular appearances in my life.

And yet, Blake himself has always eluded me. I’ve never been able to picture him as the brooding, indie songwriter to the likes of Bon Iver. Nor can I imagine him as an artist with the vibrant, ethereal edge of Moses Sumney.

Even after seeing him live at the Cadillac Palace Theatre in Chicago, he remained an enigma. Shrouded in a veil of pulsing shadows and ambient soundscapes, the stillness of his performance style and minimalism of the stage design seemed intentionally mysterious. For this exact reason, I sought out his livestream; I was fascinated by the prospect of finally putting a face to the gravelly voice with such a tremulous falsetto, to get to know the sculptor of such inventive songs.

He entered his April 6 livestream with no fanfare, just a simple improvisation on the piano. There was no awkward fumbling with the camera or forced reactions to the comments flooding the video. The set flowed freely from one contemplative piece to another for over an hour. Beyond just the virtuosity of his singing and piano playing, the livestream showed me another aspect of his music that I hadn’t been able to appreciate in concert or in recording: the extraordinary poise with which he approached each and every piece, so sincere that the performance felt nearly religious.

For soft-spoken artists like Blake, I’ve come to discover the platform of the livestream as a unique avenue for audiences to understand their music. After watching his set, I not only developed a fondness for Blake himself, but I realized what it is that makes his music so magnetic.

Flo Almeda is a junior studying community health. Flo can be reached at florence. almeda@tufts.edu

ION OF STA IAT TE OC

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Looking for something to help you procrastinate that fifth asynchronous lecture your professor just uploaded? Or do you need something playing in the background as you swipe through your daily dose of TikTok? Meet “Emily in Paris” (2020): Netflix’s new show about Emily Cooper (Lily Collins), a promising marketing savant from Chicago who moves to the heart of France without knowing a word of French.

The thing I loved most about “Emily in Paris” was the beautifully crafted aesthetic. From brightly colored bucket hats to billowing ball gowns, every single one of Emily’s outfits leaves a lasting impact.

“Emily in Paris” is ultimately a plane ticket out of our current lives and back to a world where you could sit knee to knee at a tiny table with your best friend and gossip over a morning espresso.

Despite being the titular character, Emily experiences little — if any — development during the series. Though quirky and headstrong, Emily’s character was not strong enough to overcome anything of substance or deliver a compelling story. In the first episode, Emily has a brief brush with loneliness. But after a short stint of sulking, she quickly meets Mindy Chen (Ashley Park), her new best friend who teaches her all of the survival tips necessary for being a foreigner in France. Because her character doesn’t really conquer anything besides the five flights of stairs up to her apartment, it’s hard to say that Emily really grew or changed at all.

While romances often are one way a show can successfully keep viewers hitting that “next episode” button without a second thought, “Emily in Paris” does not do justice to the reputation of the City of Love. Anyone could easily guess that the hot downstairs neighbor, Gabriel (Lucas Bravo), would be Emily’s love interest. Predictability aside, Gabriel’s character lacks depth, both as a character and in his relationship with Emily. Over the course of the 10 episodes, all we learn about Gabriel is that he is hot and he can cook. Just because Bravo and Collins are both conventionally attractive does not mean that their characters are compatible or deserving of the label “relationship goals.”

“Emily in Paris” also makes a cheap attempt at trying to make a meaningful statement about some aspect of the world.

In recent years, it has become the norm for television shows to educate and entertain us. For example, NBC’s “Superstore” (2015-) highlighted the dangerous lack of healthcare benefits for customer service workers, while also having a storyline that focused on the challenges of being undocumented in the United States. While not all current shows have these messages, it

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THE TUFTS DAILY | Fun & Games | Friday, October 9, 2020

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Libra (Sept. 23–Oct. 22) Focus to resolve a breakdown.

Don’t believe everything you hear.

Listen and learn. Fact and fantasy clash.

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Opinion

7 Friday, October 9, 2020

Jack Clohisy The Weekly Rewind

The 35-year-old lifespan of female artists

I

n her documentary “Miss Americana” (2020), Taylor Swift admitted, “As I’m reaching 30 … I want to work really hard while society is still tolerating me being successful.” Despite having five No. 1 albums before the release of her 2019 album “Lover” (her eventual sixth No. 1), Swift feared the potential demise of her career. “We do exist in this society where women in entertainment are discarded in an elephant graveyard by the time they’re 35,” she said. Why is this?

Male music icons like Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen and David Bowie all released successful albums past 60 years old, Yet at half their age, Swift feels more pressure. Sexism and ageism in the music industry favor men and prevent them from needing to demonstrate artistic growth in order to be successful. As artists age, their music matures, so the belief that a female musician has to be at her peak before 35 is frustrating.

Swift’s fear is not without merit. There is clear-cut intersectionality between sexism and ageism in the music industry. In a just world, artists’ worth and success should be determined by the quality of their work, not their age.

Katy Perry experienced this while transitioning from her successful albums “Teenage Dream” (2010) and “Prism” (2013) to her more recent album “Smile” (2020). “Prism” sold 286,000 copies during its first week, whereas just seven years later, “Smile” could only manage 50,000 equivalent album units.

Female artists have also successfully challenged age limits. Lana Del Rey released “Norman Fucking Rockwell!” (2019) at age 34 in August 2019, receiving some of the best reviews of her career. Earning a 9.4/10 rating on Pitchfork, Del Rey proved that a woman in her mid-30s could still best her earlier works. “Norman Fucking Rockwell!” undoubtedly reflects Del Rey’s growth as an artist. Transitioning from an indie artist in the early 2010s to a full-blown alternative icon, Del Rey’s success came with age.

Even Swift’s doubts proved fictitious.

Now 30, Swift’s recent album “Folklore” (2020) topped the Billboard 200 for seven weeks, scoring her 47th week at No. 1, more than any other female artist. Would she have achieved this at 25? Probably not. She needed time to grow and build upon her existing success. Had audiences written Swift off due to her age, the chart-topping success of “Folklore” would not have been possible.

As artists age, their albums mature and reflect life experience, regardless of gender identity. The reality is that women are held to a separate standard created by sexism and ageism. Demonstrated by the success of “Norman Fucking Rockwell!” and “Folklore,” music by women over 30 clearly holds merit, so it is time the music industry and audiences give credit where it is due.

Jack Clohisy is a sophomore who has not yet declared a major. Jack can be reached at Jack.Clohisy@tufts.edu.

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Sports

8 Friday, October 9, 2020

Arnav Sacheti Hoops Traveler

The Canadian dream, a basketball nirvana

tuftsdaily.com

NESCAC cancels winter sports season amid safety concerns

J

une 13, 2019. Game 6. NBA Finals. The buzzer has just sounded, and for the first time in the history of professional basketball, a team from outside the United States is the best team in the world.

Congratulations, Toronto, Canada. You have just won your first NBA championship!

The excitement surrounding the Toronto Raptors winning an NBA title seemed even greater than a normal championship for any other team. After the Vancouver Grizzlies were relocated to Memphis in 2002, the Raptors were the only NBA team left in Canada. For the last 18 years, the Raptors had been the hoops hope of an entire country.

In a league that is called the National Basketball Association, the Raptors effectively render this name false simply through their existence outside the United States. Therefore, not only has Canada longed to have success at the world’s biggest basketball stage, but on a national pride level, they have wanted respect. The Raptors gave them all of that with the 2019 title.

Although the championship gave Canada the glamor it craved, Canada’s rich basketball history dates all the way back to the game’s roots.

The man who is credited with inventing the game in 1891, James Naismith, is in fact Canadian. He and a few of his Canadian students became pioneers in helping introduce the game all across the country. This resulted in professional basketball being introduced in Canada for the first time.

Although Canada had a few professional teams in the first half of the 20th century, the words “basketball” and “Canada” were finally widely associated together when the NBA decided in 1995 to add two teams in the Toronto Raptors and the Vancouver Grizzlies.

In the few decades leading up to the 90s, Canada had a huge influx of immigrants whose interests were sparked by basketball.

In Toronto, the upstart and gritty nature of the new team that was trying to prove itself resonated well with the same ideas of these immigrants. Super fan Nav Bhatia, an immigrant who escaped from Punjab, India due to religious persecution, found a new sense of purpose and hope attending Raptors games at their inception.

Now, he is a global icon representing Canadian and Indian basketball as the Raptors super fan who has never missed a Raptors home game. In addition, his Superfan Foundation has been able to send thousands of kids from various backgrounds to Raptors games, giving them that greater sense of purpose just as he got before.

By watching the Raptors and Grizzlies, many kids were inspired and started playing more basketball in a hockey-dominated city. Mesmerized by the unique play style of the Raptors that headlined high-flying dunks by Vince Carter, current star NBA players such as Jamal Murray of the Denver Nuggets, Andrew Wiggins of the Golden State Warriors, and RJ Barrett of the New York Knicks have continued and strengthened the Canadian basketball legacy.

“We’re always the underdogs. We have our own little energy,” Murray said, referring to Canadian players. That energy not only fueled the advancement of the game, but it has brought together people of all walks of life in a truly meaningful way. That is power.

Arnav Sacheti is a sophomore studying quantitative economics. Arnav can be reached at arnavsacheti@gmail.com

NICOLE GARAY / THE TUFTS DAILY

The Steve Tisch Sports and Fitness Center is pictured on Aug. 28.

by Jake Freudberg Associate Editor

The NESCAC has canceled the 2020–21 winter sports season due to the COVID19 pandemic, sidelining the Jumbos for another season. The respective presidents of the 11 NESCAC schools announced the decision in a joint statement on Thursday.

The decision was made because of COVID-19 policies at each of the NESCAC institutions addressing off-campus travel, campus visitors and physical distancing.

In addition, some NESCAC schools have made or are considering making adjustments to their academic calendars for the spring semester, which would limit “time to conduct meaningful conference play,” according to the release. Many winter sports, such as basketball and hockey, traditionally begin their conference schedules in mid-January around the beginning of the spring semester.

The cancellation only applies to the NESCAC regular season and postseason competitions, leaving the option open for

individual schools to schedule non-conference competitions. At this time, Tufts has not made any announcements about scheduling any non-conference competitions for any of the nine winter sports.

Winter teams can continue to practice, work out and participate in leadership activities in accordance with public health guidelines, as fall teams have been doing in recent months.

As of now, there is no timeline for a decision from either the NESCAC or Tufts about the spring 2021 season.