issue-1

The Yale Herald Volume LXI, Number 1 New Haven, Conn.

FROM THE STAFF Hi hi hi guys!

The Herald is back and better than ever. Our New Year’s resolutions were “go to Woads more,” “eat a pizza from all of the pizza places,” and also “set attainable goals,” so that’s all going pretty well so far. The snow is melting, the sky is blue, and we got to watch the sun rise while making this paper! It’s great to be home.

The Yale we’ve returned to this semester has undergone a transformation of its own over the past few months. Through marches, protests, songs, teachins, and painful conversations, student activists have pushed for a more inclusive campus, and many of their demands have been heard­. Next Yale is a group of students of color that has taken the lead in organizing and galvanizing the campus community in these efforts—in this week’s front, David Rossler, SM ’17, listens to organizers and tracks Next Yale’s emergence and structure. What’s next for them? And what’s next for Yale?

For the Herald, change is also in the air: we have a new Audio section! Stream, download, and listen to fun podcasts online.

But don’t forget to pick up the good old-fashioned print issue for more new news. In Opinion, Anna Lipin, ES’ 18, campaigns for a new female President. In Culture, Jacob Potash, DC ’17, worries for Kanye West’s new baby, and Magda Zielonka, SY ’17, Charlie Bardey, SM ’17, and Josh Isenstein, BK ’16, make new friends in Ubers. And in Features, Emily Patton, DC ’17, highlights a new solar energy initiative will ensure that no New Haven families live in fear of their homes going dark.

Spring semester has sprung, and we couldn’t be more excited for whatever comes next. We hope you are too.

Happy reading, Sarah Holder Editor-in-Chief

The Yale Herald Volume LXI, Number 1 New Haven, Conn.

Friday, Jan. 29, 2016 EDITORIAL STAFF: Editor-in-chief: Sarah Holder Managing Editors: Brady Currey, Tom Cusano, Rachel Strodel Executive Editors: Kohler Bruno, Austin Bryniarski, Sophie Haigney, David Rossler, Alessandra Roubini, Lily SawyerKaplan, Lara Sokoloff, Charlotte Weiner Senior Editors: Libbie Katsev, Carly Lovejoy, Kendrick McDonald, Anna Meixler, Jake Orbison, Jake Stein Culture Editor: Lora Kelley Features Editors: Emma Chanen, Calvin Harrison Opinion Editors: Charlotte Ferenbach, Lea Rice Reviews Editors: Luke Chang, Joe Kuperschmidt Voices Editor: Olivia Klevorn Insert Editor: Elias Bartholomew Audio Editors: Phoebe Petrovic, Korinayo Thompson Copy Editors: Genevieve Abele, Alexander Mutuc, Allison Primak ONLINE STAFF: Online Editor: Zoe Dobuler Bullblog Editors: Jeremy Hoffman, Caleb Moran DESIGN STAFF: Graphics Editors: Haewon Ma, Claire Sheen Executive Design Editors: Ben McCoubrey, Kai Takahashi BUSINESS STAFF: Publishers: Olivia Briffault, Russell Heller, Ellen Kim, Jocelyn Lehman The Yale Herald is a not-for-profit, non-partisan, incorporated student publication registered with the Yale College Dean’s Office.

If you wish to subscribe to the Herald, please send a check payable to The Yale Herald to the address below. Receive the Herald for one semester for 40 dollars, or for the 2015-2016 academic year for 65 dollars.

Please address correspondence to: The Yale Herald P.O. Box 201653 Yale Station New Haven, CT 06520-1653 sarah.holder@yale.edu www.yaleherald.com The Yale Herald is published by Yale College students, and Yale University is not responsible for its contents. All opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of The Yale Herald, Inc. or Yale University.

Copyright 2015, The Yale Herald, Inc. Have a nice day.

Cover by Claire Sheen YH Staff

2 – The Yale Herald

THIS WEEK

Incoming Janelle Monae She’s so cool that she had to write a rock opera. Yale is so cool that she’s going to perform it for us. Actually, Yale isn’t cool, we just have a lot of money, enough to finance the performance of rock opera songs.

Outgoing Money See above. Also, if you forget to hand your schedule in.

Also, if you drop a class! It’s like $50 for the paperwork fee. Free speech ain’t free, people.

Friday 216 Presents Goldwash // Astral Bird // Zack Sekoff 216 Dwight 8:30 p.m.

Saturday This Is Our Youth Off Broadway Theatre 3 p.m. and 8 p.m.

Saturday 90s Party!

Three Sheets New Haven 8 p.m.

Thursday How We Died of Disease Related Illness Yale Cabaret 8 p.m.

In this issue Cover 12– David Rossler, SM ’17, sits down with Next Yale, a group of student activists who have driven tangible change on campus.

Voices Linus Lu, DC ‘19 and Emily Ge, BK ’19 share poems of identity 6 – and perspective.

Opinion 8 – Emily Ge, BK ’19, reflects on the loss of a beloved Yale professor.

9 – Anna Lipin, ES ’18 explains why Hillary Clinton’s gender makes her the ideal candidate.

Features 10 – Emily Patton, DC ’17, explores a solar energy initiative in New Haven.

16 – Tran Dang, TD ’19, examines how the Islamophobia within the current election cycle manifests at Yale.

Culture 18 – Jacob Potash, DC ’16 meditates on the gospel of Kanye and his new baby Saint.

19 – Josh Isenstein, BK ’16, Charlie Bardey, SM ’17, and Magda Zielonka are taking rides and taking names in international Ubers.

Reviews 20 – Kohler Bruno, SM ’16, hands down his verdict on Making a Murderer. Plus: the Bowie “death album,” Iñárritu’s worship of suffering, and Grimes’ reinvention of pop.

Jan. 29, 2016 – 3

CREDIT D FAIL

THE NUMBERS Index 12.4 inches of snow fall in

Hey! How was your break?

New Haven on Fri., Jan. 23

1,000,000,000

Shalom! Thanks for asking. I had a really nice break. I spent one week at home, then went to Israel and explored my Jewish heritage, consuming a destructive number of chickpeas in the form of hummus along the way, and then I spent another week at home. You know, to unwind. And also to untag myself from all the pictures where my hair is really weird from not showering enough. I feel marginally superior to you because it is an unspoken rule on campus that everybody stays home watching Netflix during winter break. But not me! I was in the Holy Land.

inches of snow fall in New Haven (as estimated by my Southwestern suitemate)

100,000 pairs of Bean Boots

backordered before winter even started, back when B.O.B. still thought the earth was round

1

metal detector acquired to find all the cellphones lost in the freshman snowball fight

That sounds pretty nice.

What do you mean it sounds “pretty nice”? You sound just envious enough to make me feel uncomfortable, but not envious enough that I feel good about myself. Did I mention I rode a camel? Did I mention the hot Israeli soldiers?

3

snow dicks meticulously constructed around Yale’s beautiful campus Sources: 1) nhregister.com, 2) Me 3) Bloomberg.com, 4) Overheard at Yale 5) Observation.

– Emma Chanen

Top five Spring 2016 guts Well, we should get a meal sometime. See you around!

5–

No, thank you. I will be dining at Slifka until graduation, seeking my future Jewish husband.

SURG 123: Biochemical and Metabolic Foundations of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. If you’re like me, you know the value of a good gut. Who’s got time to study for midterms when Barcelona is serving halfoff wine every Sunday? Thankfully, the Yale School of Medicine is offering this super gutty intro to plastic and reconstructive surgery this spring. Give your schedule a facelift with this easy A!

4–

NEUS 101: Neurosurgery. I know what you’re thinking—isn’t brain surgery supposed to be kind of hard?

Oh, I’m sorry, did you see the ONE OH ONE in the course title? Folks, this intro class is as gutty as it gets!

3–

SURG 130: Cardiac Surgery. Not for the faint of heart… if what you’re afraid of is a four-week sub-internship with zero tests and papers. Word of warning: you may have to conduct a live cardiac operation, but I’ve heard the instructors are super chill about grading.

2–

SURG 152: Advanced Senior Seminar, General Surgery.

Pro-tip: if the course title has “general” in it, it’s probably a survey—in other words, a huge gut! And if you’re taking any of the courses above, you can basically use the same study guide. Make it your fifth class!

1–

MATH 160: The Structure of Networks. Ok, I don’t know much about this one, but hey, everybody needs a QR.

– Rachel Lackner

– Chris Cappello 4 – The Yale Herald

Email olivia.briffault@yale.edu & ellen.m.kim@yale.edu

VOICES A Short History of Nearly Everything Emily Ge For your sake, I will pretend that the sum total of my life, this constant collection and connection of random specific indignities, can be opened as simply as a dictionary.

Page 78.

SCAR, LEFT THIGH, BELOW KNEE: ­­—had her first kiss too early.

Page 13.

MOLE, RIGHT EAR, UNDER LOBE:

—hates the smell of overripe strawberries.

I wish I could cut myself open and count the rings inside and wear them on my cheeks like purple-rinsed warpaint, a trail of pocks and spots and gold-flicked freckles that leads all the way from the start.

I am the grey-blue pebble you’d pick up at the beach, selected and deposited in the crutch of your hand.

Pick me up and measure me against the size of your thumb.

Feel the abruptness of my margins, folded in from the outside.

Turn me over between your fingers and remember to check for cracks.

Fling me into the sky and see if I fall.

I am the product of pressure, and heat, and geography squeezed too tight, a carbon-based jigsaw of beauty, and flesh, and the fear of forgetting how to love.

Look at me and recognize yourself in the strange and starry pawprints of joy that trek from my salt-stained toes to the secret ache of my eyelids that shield me in the dark quiet of solitude.

But I will not hide anymore.

I am tired of being small, tired of tucking my unruly edges into a gift, neatly folded.

6 – The Yale Herald

So now I stand here, in the foreign and sickly glare of the dawn, and the light strikes my skin like a shower of lit matches, melting away our blindness with the morning dew.

And for the first time, we can see.

You can touch the bones of my brow and trace the smudged and painful thrill of youth untempered by time which scabs over feeling.

You can see all the lovely, hushed loneliness draped across my eyelashes like silken pearls of desire that goes ignored and threads of regret as soft and subtle as the thrum in my chest.

Can you understand me?

Are you paying attention?

Feel the muscles in the arches of my legs, hardened by all the steps I took to outrun shame— that dull little blow of not wanting to belong.

Study me well, and re-read me often.

Underline the shadows beneath the bend of my neck, and circle the lines on my palm, and scribble a big question mark next to my eyes, one smaller than the other, two black whirlpools that never return their dead.

Give me a close and careful moment, and then dive with me to the bottom of what I am and believe in it.

Rooms with Windows Linus Lu I. The Room with the Stained Glass How inordinate is the dust that flutters in, casting visible rays across the monumental space— beaming like those forgotten spirits hung by the day and the rose, wishing to rise.

II. The Room with the Small Window It was upstairs where no one had gone in for years.

The floorboards would moan, the caking walls asking what time it was: “Is it when the poppies bloom?”

The answer, solitary, comes in the form of a lawnmower, humming from outside, teasing a lowly tune that sneaks in, from which the walls dutifully vibrate to— hugging the dirty, framed window from which the living see the living, before the cut of man

sinks in.

III. The Room with the Big Windows “How lovely!” she once said.

It had been raining, leaving tear marks on the window panes.

Though light still floods in, washing the floor with the shimmer of a placid lake, I can’t help thinking that all the gold makes the room look oddly dull.

IV. The Room with the Broken Window A feeling of vulnerability— the angst of wind sweeping up the stillness.

But you could see clearer now, out to the street where laughter and shrieks lingered.

Those sounds would wander in, coming to rest in a bowl that sat on a relic of a table, collecting sorrows.

V. The Room with the Curtains Down Only the golden afterglow passes through, yellowing the carpet.

without the image of the object of speech.

It is in this way that the world seeps through, filtered and dampened.

Still the luminance of something else (something in the sky, perhaps) makes it to the book, possessing the paper between the ink.

VI. The Room with the Skylight I hoped things would be ok.

Lying sleepless (as always) listening to the stars die insomuch that stars were dreams and dreams were life.

These people, passing by; drifting away and away, up to the little window of heaven.

I could see it so, tasting the honey that trickled down before dawn.

Was it inside, or out?

We gazed up— dazzled, in the soft edge of the surreal, awake, awake awake.

VII. The Room with the Barred Window The sun goes down: fleeting days, fleeting years— shadows here stretch and grow, shadows I eat for supper.

A woman sits close by, reading quietly. The birds speak Graphic by Jason Hu Jan. 29, 2016 – 7

OPINION

Güle Güle (Goodbye)

by Emily Ge When I walked into my Elementary Turkish class last Friday, no one was dressed in all black. There were no flowers, and no one was crying. Instead, there was birthday cake and a bottle of Sprite and cheerful echoes of Nasılsın? Iyiyim, teşekkürler.

Death had slipped unnoticed into our tiny classroom—we just didn’t know it yet.

When Meriç, our TF, told us that she had learned of Etem’s whereabouts, I expected a story of how the fishing that week was too good for him to pass up, or of how Alpha Delta Pizza had needed a line cook on short notice, and, knowing that we would be alright without him for a few days, Etem had volunteered. I pictured him grilling freshly-caught sea bass or enjoying a full Turkish breakfast at home, complete with honeyed kaymak spread and spicy, cured pastırma. I wondered if he was chortling his full-belly laugh and playing backgammon with his friends.

But when Meriç started to cry, we slowly lowered our half-raised forks of double fudge supermarket cake and tried to believe what she was saying: that Etem Erol, our Etem Erol, would not return to us, would not fish again, would never down another peach-flavored shot of rakı. A heavy, tired silence draped itself over everyone. We could barely move ourselves to swallow our cake and continue reviewing prepositions.

The tragedy was confirmed a few days later via an email that began as follows: “Dear all, I am writing to confirm what you probably already know or have heard rumored: the terrible news that our well-liked Turkish lector, Etem Erol, passed away after a heart attack in early January, while on vacation in Bulgaria. The funeral was in Turkey, and he was buried in his birthplace, as he wished.”

But even in the email, there was so much already missing, so much already on its way to being forgotten. In a few years, no one here will remember that Etem’s birthplace is an idyllic Mediterranean seaside town a stone’s throw across the straits from the Greek island Lesbos. No one will know that he was in Bulgaria furnishing the summer home he planned to retire to, or that he died in his brother’s arms. No one will know that he had a fondness for seftalı, or Turkish peaches, which he claimed to be an entirely different species than the faulty specimens we are subjected to in this country. People will forget that he could read coffee grounds, and that he believed that buying a lottery ticket was like buying yourself imagination for a week. No one will know that when faced with an impossible question in class, our default answer was “Etem çok yakışıklı,” or “Etem is very handsome.”

Etem has only been gone for a week, and already I feel him slipping away, piece by piece, until all

that’s left of him is what we hold onto for safekeeping. Few among us will even care. And I don’t hold onto pretensions of special closeness with Etem; he was my professor, and I liked and respected him. I call him Etem only because he asked us to. But I don’t want to forget him. Not now and not ever. In fact, I’m afraid to forget him—if I do, what will that say about me? What will that say about our world and the place of death in our consciousness? Most of all, I’m afraid that I’m going to learn a cold truth: that these days, there is no space for death of the everyday, individual variety. We have no place for it anymore.

But the fact that I’m afraid at all says something about people in 2016. Death is as real as it has ever

been, but we mourn collectively now—whether that of a time-weathered rock star or a refugee child on a beach halfway across the world, one death can touch us all. And yet at a time when death is always present, splashed across our headlines and our newsfeeds, it is difficult to know how to grieve one single man, loved only by the small group of people who knew him. And the problem with this is that grief does not know how to measure itself. It cannot be proportional to its need. And so when cities are set on fire or when planes crash into the earth, there is no way for me to mourn those people that is different from the way I can mourn a single, kind man who was big enough to contain all the stories that I told my friends about him. I cannot separate those responses, and perhaps that is why I cannot begin to name what I feel. Simply put, my grief is called for so often that I no longer recognize its shape.

But now death has come, and I have no room for it. I still have to go to class and practice and rehearsal, and I cannot pause to grieve. Pausing is not allowed. The hard truth is that there is no space

in my life for grief to settle down gently, and so I must take it with me, stuffing it into a pocket and feeling it on the go, whenever I have a second to spare. I have no time to say goodbye. But I hope that perhaps the act of writing, of continuing, of saying nasılsın and responding iyiyim, teşekkürler is good enough.

My lingering concern is this: how can a man who is funny and good and smart simply vanish off of the face of the earth, just like that? And even though I know that feeling bewildered in the face of death is a cliché, for the first time in my life, I understand why. Death is not something I reckon with regularly.

I am not fascinated by my own morbidity, even when confronted with Etem’s passing. I understand that unexpected death makes people afraid and that it makes them want to live to the fullest because everything could be taken away in an instant.

I understand that, but I also know that I cannot live as if I am about to die. To continue onwards in my everyday life, I must choose to believe that I am young and invincible, and that death will not come for me, or at least not for a long while. Whether I am forced to reconcile a global loss or a personal one, moving on is often the only option. Moving on from a headline isn’t new to me, but from a friend and mentor is an entirely different challenge. I’ve come to believe that mourning is dictated by distance of experience. Perhaps this shouldn’t be, but I often feel that a single man means more than a statistic. One man is closer. One man is more real.

As of this week, my class has a new Turkish professor. She is kind and gentle and thoughtful, and we will do great things together, I am sure. I know everything is slowly coming back to balance, and yet I can’t help but feel Etem standing in a corner of our classroom, smelling of cigarettes and chalk dust, nodding smilingly when we remember that the third person possessive always requires a buffer. We watch videos and write journal entries and I guess we are successful. Each day we learn a handful of new verbs, new grammar structures, new ways in which language can express itself. In September, we started at zero. It is incredible that after a few short months we have learned to read, to write, and to think from another perspective. Now we can make jokes in Turkish. We can tell stories.

We can speak for ourselves. And yet there are still some things I do not know how to put into words.

Today my professor told us that soon we will be ready to learn the future tense. Until then, I think I still need some time in the past.

Etem hoca— çok yakışıklısınız.

Graphic by Claire Sheen YH Staff

8 ­– The Yale Herald

Madame President

by Anna Lipin YH Staff

Sex, Markets, and Power was packed at its first meeting. Professor Rosenbluth opened her lecture with a photo collection by Elle UK, in which men were photoshopped out of global political institutions: the British parliament, the UN, the US’s Situation Room, the Bundestag. The rooms appeared almost empty. According to a UN Women report, just 22 percent of “national parliamentarians” are women. This, despite the fact that when women are involved in government, more money and resources reach constituent communities, and overall public health improves. This, despite the fact that women constitute about half of the population.

The United States places 75th in the world in female representation in government, according to a list provided by the Inter-Parliamentary Union. The statistics for women of color are even worse: they constitute only 6.2 percent of the 535 members of Congress.

There are myriad explanations, but one of them is the reluctance of pundits and voters to appreciate gender as a valid reason for choosing one public official over another. When women voters are accused of supporting Clinton on the basis of their gender, we deflect by reciting a litany of Clinton’s policies. But why should we have to?

I can and will vote for Hillary Clinton at least in part because of her gender. The election of a female president will have a lasting impact on the lives of women, both globally and domestically. Just as the presidency of Barack Obama enabled millions of African-American children to envision themselves within our nation’s highest office, the election of Hillary Clinton will allow women and girls to share in the same dream.

Female supporters of Clinton are often targeted for playing the “gender card.” Clinton is accused of pandering to women because she has been outspoken about her commitment to “women’s issues.” Heaven forbid she acknowledge her own gender identity and speak about dire public health issues like reproductive rights. Her prolonged commitment to female empowerment—both in her global work as Secretary of State, and in her domestic advocacy—should be the marker of a genuine political commitment to human rights, not pandering to a constituency. The concerns of women should be on a national stage, a constant conversation.

Take affordable childcare. As a nation, we are still grappling with the idea of subsidizing a woman’s work outside of the home. Yet it is not until both parents in a family have equal societal support for their careers that women can bridge the wage gap. The phrase “equal pay for equal work” is a misnomer. According to economist Claudia Goldin, the problem of the wage gap isn’t women being paid less for exactly the same job, but rather the series of decisions women are forced to make that land them in lesser-paying jobs. If she is choosing between a higher-paying position that necessitates more hours on the job and a more flexible, lower-paying position, a mother, or a woman considering motherhood, will often choose the latter. This is an economic issue, not a women’s issue, and it is not only limited to greater female representation in the upper ranks of corporations. When women participate more in the labor force at all levels, from CEOs to cashiers, GDP per capita increases.

There will be other socioeconomic effects too, if Clinton is elected president. A female leader of the

United States would send a strong message to companies with respect to hiring practices. Despite public avowals to strive for gender parity in the workplace, most companies fall far short. According to the HeForShe Parity Report, “one in four senior leadership and board positions are held by women,” and women “hold 19.2 percent of board seats across S&P 500 companies.” 95 percent of CEOs of the world’s largest companies are men, but stocks perform better if women serve on company boards. Part of the reason is female prowess in collaboration: we are socialized to be better listeners from a young age. According to the Dr. Melvin Konner—a professor of anthropology, behavioral biology, and neuroscience and author of Women After All—women are better dealmakers, and more likely to work and play better with others. They don’t jump into conflict to stroke their egos. They are less likely to be corrupt.

How, then, are we surprised that workplace environments are so often hostile to women? The people setting the tone are men, who don’t have to consider sexual harassment or the challenges of breastfeeding when creating workplace culture. But a revolution in the workforce would defy the dominant political and societal traditions in this country, which devalue women’s labor. We don’t pay for our wives and mothers to devote hours of work to the upkeep of their families, so their unpaid labor—of which women still do the lion’s share—is not considered valuable. There are simply inadequate resources for working mothers and families, and therefore inadequate means of achieving gender parity. They will remain inadequate until a woman ascends to the highest office and implements supportive family policies, and until the American people agree that a woman can occupy the Oval Office.

In her concession speech to Obama, Clinton said: “To build that future I see, we must make sure that women and men alike understand the struggles of their grandmothers and their mothers, and that women enjoy equal opportunities, equal pay, and equal respect…

Although we weren’t able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it’s got about 18 million cracks in it, and the light is shining through like never before, filling us all with the hope and the sure knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time.”

This is next time. And the anger that I feel in the pit of my stomach when the right to equal pay and maternity leave are shuffled aside as “women’s issues” has only grown since 2008.

So when I’m told that I’m only supporting Clinton because I’m a woman, I’m deeply insulted, because

the implication is that I haven’t bothered to do any real research. That I’m being guided by “sisterhood” and emotion. Or else, that voting for a woman has to be justified in a way that a man’s support of a male candidate does not. But I’m not supporting Carly Fiorina.

I’m supporting a woman who has proven her lifelong commitment to policies that support my human rights.

She champions an amendment that will safeguard the right of poor women to reproductive healthcare; she has received the endorsements of NARAL and Planned Parenthood. Like any savvy voter, I am defending my interests by supporting a candidate that promises to value them.

I’m supporting a woman whose career merits and demands the recognition of her capacity to lead. If she were male, so many of the jabs at her record would simply not exist. Would she be asked about her partner’s affairs if she were a man? Unlikely.

Would the media spend time describing her clothing?

Doubtful. In an interview, Lena Dunham—who’s been stumping for Clinton in Iowa—recited a list of sexist, condescending words that are regularly used to describe Clinton. “Shrill. Inaccessible. Difficult. Frumpy.

Plastic.” And Donald Trump used the unambiguously phallic “schlonged” to describe her 2008 loss to a male opponent, Obama. Have any of those words been lobbed at male candidates? NPR describes Hillary’s response to a frankly sexist accusation that she had been “dishonest” as “an energetic, finger-pointing defense that might have struck some as defensive.” Even her defense is deemed too defensive.

Any woman knows that when we’re assertive and outspoken, we’re called bitchy. So many people in this country are afraid of answering to a head bitch in charge.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, one of the leaders of America’s suffragist movement, said in 1869: “We need women’s thought in national affairs to make a safe and stable government.” It’s high time the American public actually acted on that sentiment.

Graphic by Alex Swanson YH Staff Jan. 29, 2016 – 9

FEATURE

The Trump Effect Islamophobia and Yale

by Tran Dang

I have been in situations at Yale where my peers’, professors’ or invited guest speakers’ lack of authentic knowledge about or exposure to Islam left me frustrated.

– Didem Kaya, CC’16

M

any of the conversations surrounding the presidential primaries focus on its spectacle, filled with larger-than-life personalities. For most of campus, the election is something distant, to be observed and discussed. But some students and administrators find the discourse a little more personal—and a lot more threatening.

Omer Bajwa, Yale’s Muslim Life Coordinator, says that the anti-Muslim rhetoric that many GOP candidates have included in their campaigns has been harsher this election season than it has been in previous years. This has had real effects on the lives of Muslims at Yale. According to Bajwa, although it is not common to see outright hostility toward Muslim students, the campus is not immune to what he calls the “Trump Effect.” Bajwa describes the Trump Effect as an “attitude or tenor that is invoked by the misinformation and fear-mongering that Donald Trump and many other GOP candidates stir up.”

He continues, “Politicians, media pundits and social commentators help create a climate of fear and Islamophobia. This makes people more cavalier with expressing their hatred and bigotry.”

Donald Trump has recently called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” He has also advocated for a database that would track Muslims in the U.S. With the rise of the terrorist group ISIL, Islamophobia has increased in the mainstream political discourse, but such anti-Muslim sentiments are not new to U.S. elections.

10 –­ The Yale Herald

In the 2008 presidential election, allegations that Barack Obama practiced Islam in secret, and was thus unfit to lead the nation, marked the beginning of a trend of Islamophobia that has characterized recent election cycles. Later on, in the 2010 midterm elections, the planning of Park51, a mosque to be built two blocks from the site of the World Trade Center, once again elicited vicious tirades against Muslims and became a divisive issue in several congressional elections.

This anti-Muslim rhetoric is a signifier of the populist shift in American politics. Ishrat Mannan, DC ‘17, former board member of the Muslim Student Association, comments, “To know that the Islamophobic sentiments expressed are helping boost people’s approval for certain politicians speaks to the larger problem of growing racism.”

When bigoted comments are made about Muslims, it is not out of “total ignorance, but rather a sustained misinformation that is maintained by the debris of the ‘War on Terror’ and popular American entertainment,” explains Didem Kaya, CC ’16, former president of the Muslim Student Association.

Kaya, along with many other Muslim students, has felt the weight of this misinformation: “I have been in situations at Yale where my peers’, professors’ or invited guest speakers’ lack of authentic knowledge about or exposure to Islam left me frustrated.”

But according to Ahmad Aljobeh, TD ’16, what could be more disconcerting than the things Muslim students hear is what they don’t hear. Hate speech often

occurs behind closed doors, away from the ears of those toward whom it’s directed.

Aljobeh continues, “Those aren’t the conversations people are going to have in public at a place like Yale, because it is primarily a liberal campus. Those conversations are the ones being had in people’s common rooms.” As a result, although students do feel the presence of Islamophobia on campus, it can be difficult to truly gauge its the extent.

Additionally, Bajwa and Aljobeh noted the pressure put on Muslims, Yale Muslim students included, to condemn the actions of the extremist group, ISIL. They explain that there are some Muslim students who feel the need to publicly and actively denounce the terrorist attacks because of this implicit Islamophobia. Bajwa says that this is guilt by association. However, he continues, there are other students, perhaps greater in number, who believe it is not their responsibility to apologize for the violent actions of a terrorist group that is a miniscule percentage of a religion that has over one billion observers.

Though anti-Muslim language may be hidden away at Yale, Bajwa warns that hate speech can often lead to hate crimes. This has become more evident as anti-Muslim sentiments increased near the end of last year. Bajwa shares that some Muslim students have come to him because they have felt uncomfortable, even physically unsafe, on and around campus. “People have accosted them in the street,” Bajwa says. Female Muslim students, who are more visible because they wear the hijab, are particularly at risk.

There are institutional problems that reveal discrimination against Muslims.

For example, in response to the terrorist attacks in Paris on November 13, 2015, the administration sent out an email to the student body -- titled “Solidarity with Paris” -- acknowledging the attacks and expressing condolences to students affected by the bombings in Paris. However, the email failed to address similar terrorist attacks related to ISIL that occurred in Beirut and Baghdad around the same time. Aljobeh explains that many members of the Muslim Student Association felt that the administration completely disregarded the attacks that happened in the Middle East, though students did also mourn for those attacks.

“There were attacks in multiple places in the world, and students are from those places. And then the administration sends out an email to the entire student body about just one of those events. So these students felt that the administration, in doing so, was saying that some students are more valuable than others,” commented Aljobeh.

According to Bajwa, Yale classrooms are not immune to this subtle Islamophobia: “It is unfortunate that some of the most popular and well-subscribed classes about Islam discuss it through the paradigm of national security concerns and terrorism. If that is the only cognitive frame through which one talks about Islam, that’s very problematic. That creates an attitude about how people think about Islam and Muslims—that there is something inherently belligerent about Islam.”

In Bajwa’s opinion, it is appropriate to discuss Islam in such a context only when there is an alternate or opposing view that is presented to students as well. He believes that this is not often the case, though there are exceptions.

Mannan cites one such exception: the course “Islam and Empire: Central and South Asia.” She praises the course because “the professor really relied on a myriad of voices and scholars, both Muslim and non-Muslim, to contribute to building from the ground-up an understanding of Islam throughout history, and how it affected culture, society, and politics.” However, she does agree with Bajwa, stating, “When classes treat Islam as the only religious or political influencer of many conflicts it creates a very one-dimensional view and understanding of Islam.”

Kaya highlights the silver lining in this year’s election cycle: it “may have made liberals more aware of America’s mistreatment of Muslims, in part due to Donald Trump’s legacy.” But there are steps that students can take both to help empower the Muslim community and to engage in more sophisticated and intellectual conversations that dispel misinformation and propaganda, she notes. Bajwa advises that students must become more critical consumers of information, so that they are able to separate what is accurate from what is inaccurate when presented with news and mainstream political discourse.

Bajwa also encourages active engagement across campus communities. He suggests non-Muslim students learn more about the stories, narratives, and experiences of Muslims: “Engaging with Muslims to genuinely ask them about their lived realities as Muslims will have tremendous transformative power.”

Graphics by Haewon Ma & Claire Sheen Jan. 29, 2016 – 11

12 – The Yale Herald

COVER

What’s Next?

David Rossler, SM ’17, investigates Next Yale’s past, present, and future

O

n Mon., Nov. 8, 2015, about 1,200 bodies stood on Cross Campus. Most had gathered in the narrow walkway between the Afro-American Cultural House and the Yale Cabaret before spilling onto Park Street, then down Crown past the Asian American and Native American cultural houses, then past the frat houses on High. Now they stood surrounded by the stone turrets at the center of James Gamble Rodgers’ medieval village, illuminated white in the cool sun. The buildings on Cross Campus—Sterling Memorial Library, Berkley College North Court and South Court, William L. Harkness Hall, Calhoun College, all architecturally varied and meticulously placed—seemed much closer to each other now that the lawns, paths, and steps between them were obscured by a plane of people.

This afternoon of chanting and singing and dancing on Cross Campus was the University’s first introduction to Next Yale, although they didn’t know it. The March of Resilience was perhaps the single most iconic moment of a semester consumed

by Halloween incidents that had little to do with Halloween. The name Next Yale had not yet been chosen, and the March was technically organized by Down Magazine. Chants like “Another Yale is possible!” foreshadowed Next Yale’s official advent, but it wasn’t until Down published a piece on Thurs., Nov. 12 that the name became ubiquitous. The piece was a list of demands addressed to University President Peter Salovey, GRD ’78. Next Yale was the only signatory.

This signature is Next Yale’s entire online presence. There’s no website or Twitter or Facebook. There is no list of members or officers. There are no listed headquarters. There is no email address for fielding questions. In short, this is a tricky story to go about writing. Without an involved friend of a friend to get the ball rolling, it might have been an impossible story.

I’m lucky enough to have the right friends with the right friends. But my relative proximity had done little to dispel the fog around Next Yale.

Last semester, as the editor of the Herald and as a student at Yale, I read most of what there was to read about the racial unrest on campus.

That didn’t help much either. Before two weeks ago, despite knowing people involved with it, I understood little more about Next Yale as an entity than the amorphous implications of those two words below the list of demands.

Next Yale’s accomplishments last semester, which include doubled funding for the Afro American, Native American, and Asian American cultural houses, and La Casa, and new systems for reporting discrimination, were far more significant than anything else realized by a group of students within institutional memory. Nevertheless, most of Yale knows as little about the entity behind the change as anyone else scouring the internet. We know that Next Yale made demands, and we know that President Salovey felt compelled to address them. But, of course, it took work to get there. And, depending on who you ask, there might be lots more left for Next Yale to do.

NEXT YALE MUST HAVE HAD A BEGINNING. THIS IS ONE OF THE few points on which the people I spoke with, who can’t quite be called members, agreed. Consensus about when that beginning was, however, was hard to reach.

Some say it grew out of Unite Yale, which was a rally organized on March 27 to draw attention to various student demands, including divestment from fossil fuels, reformed mental health policy, and increased funding to cultural houses.

Or maybe Next Yale began in Eshe Sherley’s, MC ’16, apartment at the beginning of fall semester, when a small group met to discuss the departures of notable faculty like Jafari Allen from the Ethnicity, Race, and Migration department.

Jan. 29, 2016 – 13

Or Next Yale might have begun on Thurs., Nov. 5. That was the day students chalking on Cross Campus spontaneously engaged with Yale College Dean Jonathan Holloway, and later in the afternoon, chalking in Silliman Courtyard, confronted Silliman Master Nicholas Christakis, ES ’84. That day ended in President Salovey’s office in Woodbridge Hall, in a meeting Karleh Wilson, SY ’16, described as “traumatizing” for the way students of color were asked to recount instances of discrimination. Wilson says Next Yale was already in full swing by then, but Jamie Hobson, DC ’17, president of the Black Student Alliance at Yale, thinks the harrowing meeting jolted Next Yale into existence.

Sherley says that group in her apartment wasn’t Next Yale. She’s not even sure Next Yale began with the March of Resilience. “You could say, on Nov. 8, Next Yale began,” she said. “But we weren’t called that then. We didn’t know what we were. We were just a bunch of students.”

“It really arose around the time that it submitted the list of demands to Salovey,” said Alex Zhang, CC ’18. That’s when the name was chosen.

But Wilson disagrees. “If you wanted to say that the start of Next Yale was the day we decided on the name, that would be fallacious.”

THOUGH THOSE INVOLVED WITH NEXT YALE DON’T HAVE JUST ONE answer, it seems that it was born sometime on or before Thurs., Nov. 12, the night Next Yale read its demands in front of President Salovey’s house. But what was it, exactly?

When it comes to Next Yale, terminology is tricky and personal. There are different understandings of what exactly the name represents. “Next Yale is not a club,” Zhang said. “It’s not an organization necessarily.

It’s more a movement than anything else.” “It’s a group of people,” said Sebi Medina-Tayac, DC’16. “It’s a self selecting group of students of color at Yale,” said Wilson. “In my head, what it became was a movement,” Nat Aramayo, TD ’17, said. “I’ve been really resistant to

“Next Yale is a grassroots organization, so you’re not going to get a very clear picture of what we are ever.­” – Karleh Wilson, SY ’16 calling it anything,” Sherley said. “It’s not an organization, I will say that. Unless someone makes it one in the future. It could totally become one. I guess I wonder why it has to be anything.”

Next Yale is certainly a name, regardless of what sort of thing it denotes. “I think there’s something powerful about naming a moment,” Sherley said. “I think even if it doesn’t become an organization, and a group of people under that name stops doing things, I think it will always be powerful as a signpost that says something about all that was happening, and in a lot of ways that’s the most important thing a name can do.”

That name gained even more significance because it was all the information made available about Next Yale. That was an intentional choice. “Next Yale isn’t a firmly defined organization,” Medina-Tayac told me. “It has no internal structure, no very official networks of communication. There’s no discussion of incorporating it into a student organization.” There’s no president or treasurer to interview.

“There’s never going to be a website for Next Yale,” Wilson said.

“There’s no link…there’s never going to be a list [of members].”

Wilson understood Next Yale to be a movement first and foremost,

14 – The Yale Herald

which would only be hindered by the limitation of an articulated online presence or publicly identified group of people.

Aramayo also acknowledged the constriction an online presence would represent. “I personally feel like having a website, having a Facebook page or something like that reduces Next Yale as a movement to a specific group,” they elaborated. That specific group would be limited to a number of interests, and vice versa, certain issues might become the sole responsibility of that group.

But beyond avoiding the constraints that a digital presence could pose, Next Yale may have been well served by the air of mystery its unexplained announcement produced. “I think it was strategic,” Sherley said of the decision not to provide a broader context for the name Next Yale. “It looks like it worked, because people were still asking, ‘What is this thing?’” When the demands were published and attributed to a group no one outside of it had heard of, it drew people in, if it didn’t alienate them.

“Next Yale is a grassroots organization,” Wilson said, “so you’re not going to get a very clear picture of what we are ever.” That’s because there isn’t really a clear picture to get. “People think it’s an organization that meets in secret every week, but it’s literally an email thread that people are constantly getting added to, and people are constantly taking themselves off of,” Medina-Tayac explained. “When enough people agree to have a meeting, then there’s a meeting.”

Though Next Yale’s lack of structure is somewhat deliberate, it was also in part a byproduct of the short period of time in which Next Yale responded to events on campus. It’s easy to remember conversations about race dominating all of fall semester. But Associate Silliman Master Erika Christakis emailed her college about Halloween costumes on Fri., Oct. 31, and Next Yale read its demands outside President Salovey’s house the night of Thurs., Nov. 12. That’s not a long intervening period.

“There wasn’t really time to stop and say, ‘You know, maybe we should organize as an official University organization that has a board and a structure and everything,” Aramayo said. Without a board or defined membership, there wouldn’t be much information for a nextyale.com to display. Next Yale’s vague projected image might have been its most accurate representation.

A CENTRAL TENSION BEGAN TO EMERGE IN DISCUSSIONS ABOUT Next Yale. On the one hand, Next Yale was grassroots. That meant that there was no defined leadership or officers of any kind. Zhang insisted on the egalitarian nature of the group. “So far it’s been all students, all members, all organizers: it’s been from the bottom up that decisions have been made and priorities have been set,” he said. “We don’t need a Next Yale Corporation as far as I can tell.”

But on the other hand, Next Yale was able to act effectively in a matter of mere days to enact drastic change on campus by producing a list of demands. That’s not the sort of action typical of a completely egalitarian group. Zhang said responsibilities were divvied up evenly— but someone had to do the divvying.

Sherley said Next Yale was driven by consensus decisions, but that that wasn’t the whole picture. “That is a true answer, it’s just an incomplete one,” she said. “People who were going to run the meeting would come in with general questions or proposals about how we would move forward from where we were last time, and then you would facilitate a discussion.” In other words, there was leadership of some sort. It may not have been a single person, or even the same group of people from meeting to meeting, but the meetings had an agenda, and someone composed that agenda. She noted that Next Yale drew crowds of over 50 students to meetings, some of whom didn’t have experience with activism, “and that’s what’s beautiful about movement, they pull in people who weren’t doing that work before. But,” she paused, “I think that that just creates friction.”

Some leaders from the cultural houses, which fed into Next Yale, simply have spent more time honing political organization skills, and have more experience working with each other. They also had spent months galvanizing their own communities and could use their already strong relationships to draw people into the movement: “Building trust is a process,” she said. Sherley herself was vice president of BSAY last year.

Even among those who attended Next Yale meetings, Sherley said people felt excluded by the group of more experienced organizers.

Nevertheless, it’s hard to imagine that Next Yale could have done so much without guidance from seasoned leaders. Whether or not the March of Resilience predated Next Yale, many of the major players were the same. It drew an impressive and enthusiastic quarter of Yale’s undergraduates. And the teach-ins Next Yale sponsored filled Battell Chapel, one of Yale’s largest auditoriums, over capacity.

And on Tues., Nov. 17, President Salovey sent an email to the entire Yale community titled “Toward a Better Yale,” in which he addressed the demands Next Yale put forth. Although he did not promise an ethnic studies department, Salovey did announce plans for a center for the study of race and ethnicity. He doubled the funding for all four cultural houses, promised mental health resources in the cultural centers, and publicized upcoming reforms to Yale’s financial aid policy. He announced that he and all other Yale administrators would receive anti-discrimination training along with instating new mechanisms for reporting discrimination.

Not everyone was equally pleased with Salovey’s response. Many of Next Yale’s demands went unanswered. But most people I spoke with deemed the response a victory, if not an absolute one. Sherley is satisfied with the change Next Yale has effected. “I think it’s done its work,” she said. “I think if we never heard anyone use that name again, it’s done more to change this institution than any other group of students in the last few decades.”

But much of that change is less about University policy and more about culture. “If you think about Birgit Rasmussen’s class Race and Gender in American Lit and the way it’s been oversubscribed so much, that this class is in such high demand that the University doesn’t really know what to do about it, that’s incredibly amazing and important,” Aramayo said.

According to the University’s online statistics, 608 students shopped the course on a single day.

“I think there’s something powerful about naming a moment... It will always be powerful as a signpost that says something about all that was happening and in a lot of ways that’s the most important thing a name can do.”

– Eshe Sherley, MC ’16 moment.” That moment is passed. The group can disband, and in the view of some, it has. The moment might not even be as brief as the time since Halloween. Sherley sees the newly achieved funding for the cultural house as the final resolution to some of the problems behind Unite Yale. “It feels like the final endpoint,” she said.

But the broader movement has no such visible endpoint. “Next Yale exists,” Wilson told me. “Even if it takes a new form or takes a new name or has no name, Next Yale exists. It will always exist as long as Yale continues admitting students who are lower income, who are people of color, and who are not represented by the faculty.” In other words, Next Yale the feeling cannot dissolve. Even if it ceases to dominate conversation on campus, it will never disappear.

Though there is still progress to be made, the kind of activism performed last semester might be simply unsustainable as we begin the new year.

Much of Next Yale is seniors who will leave here in a matter of months, and who have much to do before then. Last semester was exhausting; schoolwork suffered. Many feel that it’s time to go back to being a student.

“Sometimes staying on the battlefield means you’re at the front of the fight with spear in hand, charging forward, and sometimes staying on the battlefield just means healing your wounds so you can go back at it again,” Sherley said. “Since the second semester of my freshman year, I’ve been fighting this battle at the front, and I wouldn’t do that any differently, but also one of the biggest battles any student of color can win at this campus is to graduate. And so it’s time for me to win that one.”

­Graphic by Claire Sheen YH Staff

AT SOME POINT IN SPEAKING WITH PEOPLE FOR THIS PIECE, I realized that one of the primary reasons talking about Next Yale is so difficult is that really, there are two separate entities that both go by that name. One is a movement or a moment or a feeling, and the other is a group of people. Only something as intangible as a movement could produce the cultural shift Yale has undergone, quantifiable in the unprecedented number of students interested in an ER&M course, but more readily experienced by students on this campus in the sorts of thoughtful, sensitive, and rigorous conversations that have continued to take place.

But a movement didn’t write a list of demands. Moments can’t do that— groups of people do. An understanding of Next Yale as the more abstract or concrete of these two entities determines every impression of it, from its founding to its function, from its role in the future, to the state of its current existence.

This last question—the question of its status today—unexpectedly proved one of the most contentious. “It doesn’t exist,” Medina-Tayac said matter-of-factly. “Next Yale was something that was needed in a particular

Jan. 29, 2016 – 15

FEATURE

Here Comes the Sun A new partnership aims to address energy insecurity through lowcost solar panels.

by Emily Patton

I

t’s easy to take electricity for granted; lightbulbs, stereos, and computers are such constant features that one can start to take them for granted. But what happens when the electricity stops flowing? The lights go out, the music stops, the screen goes dark. Suddenly, there is no heating during the winter, no cooling during the summer, and no lights to read by once the sun goes down.

For many people in New Haven, this is is all too real a possibility.

From Mar. to Nov. of 2014, 6,157 Connecticut households served by United Illuminating, the company that provides electricity to New Haven and other parts of Southern Connecticut, were disconnected from their electric bill due to an inability to pay. More than 1,000 of those households were in New Haven. Electricity access is a strikingly large problem in Connecticut, which has the highest electric power rates in the contiguous United States. A new initiative announced Jan. 12 by Governor Dannel P. Malloy seeks to address that through access to solar panels for low- and moderate-income households.

Solar energy has historically been a luxury reserved for environmentally-conscious households that can afford the high upfront costs that come with purchasing and installing solar panels. However, this is slowly changing as a result of recent efforts to make solar energy more accessible to a broader swath of the population. These programs are aimed at diversifying the financing options available to those interested in solar, as well as subsidizing the costs of installation and other services for those who would normally have trouble affording them. Despite the potential for expanded access to

16 – The Yale Herald

solar energy, there are many structural barriers that every month.” If the program meets its enrollment stand between low income homeowners and cheap, goals, these savings could reach as high as $110. renewable energy.

While forty to fifty dollars may not sound like The governor’s new initiative, Solar for All, is part much, this money can have a significant impact on of a push to knock down some of those barriers. the daily lives of families that are struggling to make Funded by a public-private partnership between ends meet. “For a low income family, [these savthe Connecticut ings] could mean Green Bank and the difference bePosiGen Solar tween buying a Energy and Efnew pair of shoes, ficiency (a soor a nutritious lar technology meal,” said Jim provider), it will Paley, executive offer its particidirector of the pants the abilNew Haven Housity to receive a —Annie Harper, member of New Haven Energy Task Force ing Authority. This free, full-serorganization has vice installation worked closely of a six kW solar system. A system of that size can with New Haven homeowners for many years and provide a significant portion of the average family’s will play a significant role in connecting community energy use. PosiGen’s service includes roof assess- members it has worked with to the program. ment, installation, maintenance, insurance, and an Annie Harper, an active member of the New Haven energy audit.

Energy Task Force and an Associate Research Scientist Unlike many companies, they will not require of Psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine, voiced a credit checks, impose income minimums, or require similar sentiment in her assessment of the potential down payments, which commonly disqualify lower- benefits of programs like Solar For All, She added that income people. All that residents have to contribute the money saved on utility bills can relieve not only is a $79 leasing fee each month; if more than 50 financial stress, but emotional stress as well. “I don’t homeowners sign up for the program by Mar. 31, think most of us realize… how many people are afraid that number will drop to $20 per month for the first of having their utilities turned off, and how many are year. As a result, “our average customer is going living without heat or light in New Haven,” she said. to save about $125 to $140 a month,” said Posi- “Utility costs and cold houses and all of the things Gen CEO Tom Neyhart in an interview with WTNH. related to energy are actually a real problem for people, ”They’re going to pay us $79 a month, so our goal is and are a source of mental stress.” to put $40 to $50 back into our customers’ pockets

“I don’t think most of us realize how many people are afraid of having their utilities turned off.”

While the name of Solar For All communicates an ambitious goal of widespread accessibility, the program’s reach is limited by a range of factors that are currently out of its control. Perhaps the most significant of these obstacles is the large portion of New Haven residents that do not own their own homes. According to census data, between 2009 and 2013, the homeownership rate in New Haven was 31.1%, significantly lower than Connecticut’s statewide rate of 67.8%. For renters, the decision to get solar panels is not as simple as it is for homeowners, as changes to their property would need to be authorized by their landlords. Because it is the renters who will foot the energy bill, landlords have little incentive to invest in the infrastructure for greener, less expensive energy.

Another issue that often prevents people from getting solar is that some houses are either not structurally fit to support the panels or do not receive enough sunlight to make the technology worthwhile.

Furthermore, even if a family is willing and eligible to receive solar panels, the process of getting the panels on the roof can require homeowners to go through a long bureaucratic process. Many families are busy just trying to make ends meet and simply do not have the time to investigate and enroll in programs. It is worth noting that nearly all of these issues have a disproportionate impact on families of low socioeconomic families; even with the earnest effort of programs like Solar For All, the people most in need of solar technology still face the most obstacles in trying to gain access to it.

While there are serious challenges to the success of the program, there are many people within the community who are working to overcome them. For example, members of the New Haven Energy Task Force are currently investigating the possibility of advancing the cause of low-income renters by requiring all rental properties to disclose information on their energy efficiency and total energy bills.

This would allow renters to put pressure on landlords to update their buildings to be both greener and more economical. Some cities in America already have similar systems, which have been effective at incentivizing people to invest in greener technology. In Austin Texas, for example, any landlord of a multi-family property is required to complete an energy audit, the results of which must be displayed in a common area where prospective tenants can view it.

The groundwork for such an initiative already exists through programs like the U.S. Department of Energy’s home energy score.

Though this score is currently only offered to those who volunteer to have their homes appraised, if required by law, it could help members of the community advocate more effectively for green energy development. The New Haven Energy Task Force has also worked on appealing to landlords directly by including them in their outreach efforts. Meanwhile, on the structural front, members of the New Haven Housing Authority have taken it upon themselves to make the houses they rehabilitate both energy efficient and structurally ready to potentially support solar technology.

The New Haven Energy Task Force has also proposed a system that would allow households to share solar energy generated by a publicly placed set of panels. So far, this plan appears to have stagnated; a recent bill authorizing shared solar power did not pass through the state legislature. However, if the state were to revive this proposal, it could open the possibility for solar energy to people with houses that are not well-situated for panels.

Despite the many challenges facing Solar for All, this program and others like it have the potential to make a profound difference in the lives of the people they are designed serve. In Bridgeport, where PosiGen launched its first Connecticut campaign, the company was able to register nearly 170 homes, 50% of which were low to middle income. If the governor’s new endeavor were able to achieve a comparable level of success in New Haven, it would present a promising new opportunity for New Haven to address both environmental and economic issues in a single initiative.

Perhaps the most important aspect of an initiative like this is that its positive impact will be directed at a group of people who are typically underserved by solar companies today. “[With both] the energy efficiency campaign [and] the solar for all campaign, obviously the goal is to team up and reduce New Haven’s carbon footprint,” said Harper. “But it’s also, and I think perhaps more so to me personally, to create a more equitable system where people don’t have to be worrying about the basic essentials of life.”

Graphic by Joseph Valdez

Jan. 29, 2016 – 17

CULTURE

You have distracted me from my creative process

by Jacob Potash

T

he most shocking sentence in Kanye West’s recent Twitter tirade against fellow rapper Wiz Khalifa was, “I own your child.”

He was invoking his mid-2000s relationship with model Amber Rose, who went on to marry and have a son with Khalifa in 2013. The impetus for the rant itself is relatively uninteresting—bickering over a proposed album title—but West’s discursive soliloquy, particularly his child-ownership put-down, shed light on one of his chief concerns: family.

Like Greek gods or biblical shepherds, West and wife Kim Kardashian exist in the public psyche, their lives simultaneously of us (raising children, balancing careers) and beyond us (wedding in Milan, hanging out with Beyoncé). It is no coincidence that they’ve wound up there.

Rap is the musical equivalent of reality TV: an art form stripped of fictive pretensions, offering instead a real person’s exhibition of upward mobility, of lavish consumption, of capitalist striving. This striving, with a side of sexual temptation, is the standard fare of each medium. They are our most honest forms of entertainment, best suited for a hyper-mediated, hyper-stratified society. For all the eye-rolling the label “reality” receives, the name is not ironic. The genre carries our hope for an authentic encounter with someone at the helm of their own pop cultural output.

Kim and Kanye—America’s greatest reality star and one of its greatest rap stars—are hated and loved with outrageous passion. (Having tens of millions of fans does not make one immune from being called an “asshole”

“maybe I couldn’t be skinny and tall but I’ll settle for being the greatest artist of all time as a consolation.” ­­– @kanyewest

by President Obama or “talentless” by Barbara Walters.)

They do very little that is not extravagantly emblematic of themselves; having a child proved no exception.

On December 5th, Kim had a son, whose birth she heralded on Twitter with a series of emojis, which dovetailed with the release, later in the week, of the “Kimoji” app—a huge success on the app charts, referenced in “FACTS,” Kanye’s Dec. 31 release (announced via a Kim tweet), which is a diss song aimed at Nike—yes!

Nike!—who didn’t pick up his sneaker collection. (Adidas distributes it instead.) In the ensuing weeks, they’ve continued to promote the album and app.

And, the baby’s name is Saint.

Is Saint inscribed to be the saint of American individualism? The prophet of capitalism’s eventual self-cannibalism? A martyr of celebrity culture? Seriously—what more could you want than for the young couple at the pinnacle of the commercial entertainment ecosystem, aware that they are this ecosystem’s embodiment, to

make its religious hierarchy explicit in anointing its heir.

One of the most exciting elements of rap, and I suppose of reality TV, is that it is essentially contentless.

The content of each medium (to speak in gross generalities) is a set of boasts about the performer’s skill in their medium. The boast might be validated by the boast’s form: in rap, this means impressive flows, rhymes, metaphors and images, or the incorporation of characters or alter-egos. In reality TV, “superior form” usually entails possession of—literally—a superior physical form, and an outsized personality. Success, here, is both a result of boasting of success and cause for further boasts. It involves an infinite regress of image-making.

The end result is obvious. The most stylish man (per GQ’s year-end reader’s poll) and the most beautiful woman get together. He is an aesthete, a perfectionist, obsessed with symmetry and monochromatic schemes but also known for obscene outbursts and rages. She evokes Old Hollywood glamour but is originally and best known for her sex tape.

This is the strangeness of them to my mind. On one hand, they represent a latent Romanticism, a longing for a kind of elitism—for the ascendancy of fine things, of aesthetic, ceremonial, and religious concerns. But they also stand in the minds of many for crudeness, shockjockery, fame-whoring, the abolishment of standards.

It’s into this strange inheritance that Saint is born. Is the name meant sincerely or ironically? Is it apocalyptic or tongue-in-cheek? To the credit of his parents, it’s impossible to say.

Graphic by Shelby Redman

18 – The Yale Herald

Ubsterdam I’m currently studying abroad in Amsterdam (aka “the city of lights”), and as you can probably imagine, I’ve already grown a ton.

I’ve pretty much immersed myself in this new and exciting place, and I’ve learned that there are a lot of differences between American and Dutch culture. For example, I would say hamburgers are actually more prominent here than they are in the United States. Who knew? I did.

Definitely not you, though.

One huge difference is the transportation culture. Everyone rides bikes here, even when they’re drunk or high, which is pretty devastating to Uber’s business model. Dutch people so far have loved talking about how much they bike (they don’t seem to have a very rich culture), meaning they do it even when it’s cold and raining. From what I’ve gathered, Uber is used mostly by tourists, whose stay is too short for them to get a bike. An American export, used mostly by Americans—very much not the spirit of what study abroad is all about.

-Charlie Bardey, Foreign Correspondent

Death cab for cutie Delivering a metaphorical slap in the face to the chain of cab drivers lined up ten steps in front of me, I shamelessly whip out my phone and pull up my Uber app. Am I proud of the fact that I’m willing to wait six minutes outside of Union Station at 11:56 p.m. on a Tuesday night if it means not having to pay a tip? Hmmm…

It’s minute three out of six, and I’m approached by a kindred nightcommuter: “You wouldn’t happen to have a smoke, would you?” “No, sorry. Have a good night though.” The Tobacco-Free Yale Let’s Clear The Air water bottle in my backpack has never felt heavier.

Enter: my knight in shining Toyota Highlander.

“Hello, Magdalena!!!” The three exclamation points that beg to be inferred from his voice say it all--we’ve got a chatter. “Where are you headed tonight?”

“The corner of Elm and York, please.”

“Elm and York—so right by Box 16?” He may have been 47 numbers off in the name, but this guy had found a pretty damn direct route to my heart. “Yep, right in that area.”

RIIIIING. “Hold on, I can’t take this call. That’s my friend calling me. But I can’t answer.”

“Oh, no worries. Feel free to take it! It might be important.”

“No, you’re here. My friend can wait. This is your time.” Whoever said chivalry was dead clearly hadn’t met my Uber driver. Then again, whoever said chivalry is dead probably didn’t go out of their way to avoid tipping a cab driver.

We shared a nice bit of small talk. He asked me what I’m studying.

I said biomedical engineering. He asked me if I would make him a bionic arm in the future. I said of course (hmmm…). He told me about a movie he recently watched where aliens invaded our planet and we engaged in massive warfare against them. He shared his theory that we are actually the aliens and that we live in a glass box with other more advanced species looking in at us. I realized he wasn’t kidding about the bionic arm.

Ubering around Taking trips at home and beyond I choose you Uber drivers are like legendary Pokémon. Not the ones like Lugia or Mewtwo that you follow through a cave, saving the game right before battling them so you can turn it off and on if you accidentally kill instead of catch them. I’m talking Raikou and Entei (even Chansey, if we’re pushing it). These are the Pokémon that show up for a fleeting moment, interact with you, alter your life in some way, and then leave—maybe never to return again. You get one chance with these guys and then it’s over.

Sounds just like Uber drivers, right? They show up, take you somewhere, maybe you chat, maybe you don’t, and then they leave. You never expect to hear from them again. I imagine that each of my Uber drivers evaporates into a mist of royal pine air freshener as soon as my ride ends. They’re for me and me alone.

This fantasy of mine came crashing down when I got a text from a friend over the summer: “Dude, I’m in an Uber with your Uber driver from earlier.” I mean what are the chances? I asked, “Is it Steve?” My friend replied, “It’s Steve.” Now I know the truth, and I can’t say I’m happier for it. Treat each Uber ride like it’s your first and your last. I know Steve appreciated it. Gotta catch ‘em all.

-Josh Isenstein

-Magda Zielonka

Graphic by Rachel An

Jan. 29, 2016 – 19

REVIEWS True crime, doing time

by Kohler Bruno YH Staff

Making a Murderer is more frightening and devastating than most true crime series. The show is no fun. In fact, it’s exhausting to watch. It sucks the hope, and the wind, out of you. Still, like the best dramas in the true crime genre, the brilliant 10-part Netflix show beats a steady drum of tragedy, shock, and disappointment.

Viewers, readers, and listeners like me who find themselves obsessed with stories like the one told in Making a Murderer have come to recognize a rhythm in their misery. According to the now wellworn true crime formula, first come the pangs of innocence robbed: we learn someone has died, or has been assaulted, or has disappeared altogether.

We mourn for this victim first, keenly aware that there is more despair to come.

Any good true crime involves layers of overlapping tragedy. In The Thin Blue Line, Errol Morris’s 1988 documentary that gave birth to the modern pop genre, we sympathize with both a slain Dallas cop and Randall Dale Adams, the man wrongly convicted of the officer’s murder. Morris’s film led to Adams’s exoneration, and some have suggested it’s possible that a similar fate is in store for Steven Avery, the subject of Making a Murderer.

I doubt it. It’s clear from the get-go that Avery is, in a word, fucked. Making a Murderer follows the same rhythms as its true crime predecessors, but with hardly any hope. Between 1985 and 2003, after being wrongfully convicted of rape, Avery spent 18 years in prison until improvements in DNA testing led to his exoneration. Two years after Avery’s release, police arrested him in connection to an unrelated murder, and with that conviction, Avery found himself back in a prison cell.

A propulsive energy drives the storytelling of Making a Murderer. It’s impossible to stop watching, so it is ideal for Netflix, which released all 10

episodes at once. And while at times difficult to watch, the show depends on a different type of suspense than most true crime: the drama does not depend on demonstrating innocence; rather, it hangs on determining guilt.

The distinction between the two questions is subtle, one that also came up in the first season of Serial to a lesser degree. Most true crime involves a whodunit of some sort. This is true of Serial, and the brilliance of that show derived from the maddening uncertainty surrounding Adnan Syed and the murder of Hae Min Lee. After every episode of Serial, listeners contemplated and debated one question: Did he do it? Not so with Making a Murderer, which sidesteps this issue and substitutes an even more important dilemma: Was Avery guilty?

The key phrase, which comes up again and again in Making a Murderer, is reasonable doubt. Prosecutors must establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt in order to convict someone in a criminal trial. In this way, you can be found not guilty without being innocent. A not-guilty verdict for a notinnocent person doesn’t necessarily signal a failure of the justice system. It can reflect a healthy criminal justice system yielding to the Constitution’s emphasis on the presumption of innocence.

As Dean Strang, one of Steven Avery’s heroic lawyers who feature heavily in Making a Murderer, put it, “Most of what ails our criminal justice system lies in unwarranted certitude on the part of police officers and prosecutors and defense lawyers and judges and jurors that they’re getting it right, that they simply are right—just a tragic lack of humility of everyone who participates in our criminal justice system.”

It’s scary to consider the prospect of a murderer going free, but it’s scarier still to think of an innocent person being imprisoned, or executed, for

a crime he did not commit. Making a Murderer investigates the role of police misconduct in these injustices, drawing on the current debate surrounding police procedure. The show complements the many stories that have surfaced dealing with racial bias in policing. Last July, Rachel Aviv wrote a story for The New Yorker about Louisiana’s Caddo Parish and the murder of an infant for which the child’s 23-year-old father Rodricus Crawford was accused.

After waking up next to his lifeless son, Crawford was tried, convicted of murder, and sentenced to death, all based on evidence that Aviv’s story compellingly calls into question. He’s most likely not the only in this situation. “Juries in Caddo Parish, which has a population of two hundred and fifty thousand, now sentence more people to death per capita than juries in any other county in America,” Aviv explained in The New Yorker. Over the course of the past 40 years, 77 percent of those executed in the Caddo Parish were black.

Less of a systemic failure, Avery’s predicament feels like being in the wrong place at the wrong time, which adds a particular gravity to the question of his guilt. It’s staggering to imagine that Avery could now, for the second time in his life, be behind bars for a crime he did not commit. “If I’m gonna be perfectly candid,” Strang said in the show’s final episode, “there’s a big part of me that really hopes Steven Avery’s guilt of this crime, because the thought of him being innocent of this crime and sitting in prison again for something he didn’t do, and now for the rest of his life without a prayer of parole—I can’t take that.” Making a Murderer makes you take that possibility and forces you to wonder if you can still call it justice.

Photo courtesy of Netflix 20 – The Yale Herald

Music: David Bowie

Film: The Revenant

On January 8th 2016 David Bowie released Blackstar. When Bowie died two days later, Blackstar took on a far more sacrosanct meaning.

The idea of a “death album” stretches far beyond recorded music. Rothko’s final Untitled 1970 is a blood-red painting with “violent” shades of color reflecting both his love of color and upcoming suicide. Bob Marley’s Uprising album was his concluding dedication to faith as he faced terminal cancer. Death albums connect a lifetime of artistic and intellectual work with the artist’s final moments. For Bowie, Backstair delivers a moving final reflection on his life’s work, drawing on past themes of his songs showing his flair for innovation until the end.

Blackstar is backed by avant-garde jazz musicians and has a starker sound than any of Bowie’s previous releases. Aggressive, domineering drumbeats carry more sway than melodies; rhythms are eccentric and rarely linear. Fast-tempo, staccato drumming and screeching saxophones drive songs such as “Blackstar,” “’Tis a Pity She’s a Whore,” and “Sue” with the kinetic energy of the Let’s Dance era. In the title track, Bowie sings of his eventual replacement in pop culture: “Something happened on the day he died / Spirit rose a meter and stepped aside / Somebody else took his place.” The album’s third song, “Lazarus,” discusses Bowie finding freedom – “just like a bluebird” – in his death. “Girl Loves Me” is written almost entirely in the fictional Nadsat slang language of Clockwork Orange, a language he also referenced in “Suffragette City.” The final song of the album, “I Can’t Give Everything Away,” begins with a reverbed harmonica mimicking that of “A New Career in a New Town,” a song he released forty years earlier.

Blackstar is as much a throwback as it is a new (and final) direction for David Bowie’s personal reinvention. As a death album, it culminates Bowie’s entire past into a cathartic concluding statement. In one of his first hits, Bowie proclaimed what would become his life’s motto: “Changes / (Turn and face the strange) / Oh, look out you rock’n’rollers / Pretty soon now you’re gonna get older / Time may change me / But I can’t trace time.” Bowie was one of the most consistently inconsistent pop figures: none of his incarnations were “traceable” forwards or backwards in the least. Blackstar is an album about Bowie’s final “change.” He tells us where he’s come from and where he’s going; he can’t trace exactly how he’s going to change, but he knows it’s going to happen soon.

Most of all, he’s telling us he’s ready for it when it comes.

—David Toppelberg

The Revenant asks for more than just your attention; the film requires your surrender to its overwhelming spectacle. The Revenant’s crystalline landscapes evoke wonder as effectively as its unremittent gore and violence evoke revulsion. The intensity of those feelings is what makes this film remarkable.

Based on actual events, The Revenant’s plot is a fundamentally American story: Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio), a rugged frontiersman, must fend for himself when he is betrayed by fellow trapper John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) and left to die. Battling oppressive elements and hostile Indians, Glass seeks to persevere through sheer will and familial strength in order to wreak vengeance on the man who wronged him. The Revenant is shot with the same dizzying grace present in director Alejando González Iñárritu and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki’s last film, Birdman. In the opening scene, the camera seamlessly glides between the frantic movements of fighters and animals.

Despite its physicality, The Revenant does not command awe with traditional heroism or glory; the two unambiguously moral characters— Hikuc (Arthur RedCloud), the solitary Pawnee Indian who rescues Glass, and Captain Henry (Domhnall Gleeson), the leader of the trapping party—spend little time at the center of the camera’s attention.

Though the ending is somewhat predictable and reveals its moral lesson heavy-handedly, its faults do not detract from the film’s compelling power.

The cast’s courage in braving the elements and the filmmakers’ stubborn demand—namely, Iñárritu’s insistence on filming only with natural light—significantly elevate The Revenant’s emotional clout and visual realism. Though the horrors of nineteenth-century expansionism are on full display, The Revenant is more concerned with the aesthetics of storytelling than with cultural commentary. The film affirms the strength of Iñárritu’s vision, as well as Lubezki’s place as Hollywood’s preeminent cinematographer. Leonardo DiCaprio’s physical acting as Hugh Glass also merits substantial praise. DiCaprio’s performance is exceptional not for the sympathy he garners, but for epitomizing the film’s themes. His concertos of grunts underscore The Revenant’s guttural aspect. His character’s constant anguish fits right alongside the frozen trees and flying arrows. Instead of a hero tale, The Revenant is an animalistic exploration of the frightening human capacity to endure and fight when survival is at stake.

A complaint I’ve heard from many friends is that this movie is not for all moviegoers. They are right: those who prefer an intricate, layered plot or multi-dimensional characters will find neither in The Revenant. The jarring aspects of the film ensure that The Revenant is not your conventional blockbuster. However, I enjoyed The Revenant so much precisely for those abundant moments of discomfort; watching Hugh Glass helpless before nature on screen in turn made me feel miniscule. Instead of providing emotional assurance, the film will hold you captive with the near-constant brutality of a winter in the wilderness.

Watch The Revenant not to be inspired by a story of redemption, but to witness the savagery of both nature and humanity captured on screen.

—Marc Shkurovich

Music: Grimes We live in an age of manufactured pop stars. Expert producers, engineers, and mixers work together to create shimmering and admittedly infectious anthems.

Yet an artist’s vision is often lost within the sea of personaities. What Claire Boucher, aka Grimes, has done with her latest release, Art Angels, is industry-defying.

Singlehandedly writing and producing each song, Grimes has created a monumental record, soaring in its complexity and production value, and consequently demonstrating the power of the individual in realizing a singular musical vision. While other musicians, such as Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker, similarly control the entire creative process, it is Grimes’ emulation and mastery of pop production that sets her album apart. Still, reducing Art Angels to a “pop” record does not wholly encapsulate its range and eccentricity.

Art Angels is lush with foreign drum samples, sweet and sporadic guitars, and sudden bursts of synths, all of which provide a backdrop for Boucher’s spectacularly bizarre and contagious vocals. Many of Grimes’ tracks can initially appear elusive, too multifaceted and layered to fully grasp in one listen. Yet in time, their depth and complexity unfold; each song is overflowing with life, adorned with unexpected twists and turns of both songwriting and production. On Art Angels, Grimes has unmistakably taken influences from pop music and even embraces EDM techniques, allowing her transitions to swell and bloom in a similar fashion. Still, Grimes’ tracks are never tied to a formula, and Boucher showcases a wide variety of soundscapes and attitudes. She sings like a Broadway performer on “Easily”, chants like an anime character on “California”, and even flatly screeches on “Scream” in a beautiful eruption of aggression. The album can be alarming and overwhelming, but it maintains an irresistible pop sensibility that will make the listener want to break out in a sort of deranged, enraptured dance. On “REALiTi”, Boucher sings, “every morning there are mountains to climb”, revealing of her relentless dedication, and befitting for an artist who presents a precision and clarity that is only achieved through tireless production and mixing.

“Kill V Maim” best encapsulates Grimes’ remarkable range; in it, you’ll find captivating synths, playful feminist word play, belligerent declarations of war, cartoonish vocal injections, jarring transitions, well-crafted and unpredictable drums, an electric guitar emulating a huge synth bass, and melodies that will bounce around your head for days.

As music marches forward into an increasingly computerized world, Grimes’ fourth album proves that we exist at a rare moment where one artist can control the entire creative process, without sacrificing scope or sound. While it typically takes hordes of individuals to create a pop star, Claire Boucher has made one of herself, by herself. In the process, she has created an utterly astonishing record that stands as one of the best of 2015.

Image courtesy of SpinMedia (top) Image courtesy of Pitchfork Media (left) Image courtesy of 20th Century Fox (right)

—Daniel Belgrad Jan. 29, 2016 – 21

BULLBLOG BLACKLIST when freshmen offer to give u resume tips

stop or I’ll give u a wedgie

What we hate this week

#newyear newme

the gays do love Berlin

UCS Symplicity

Tinder pics from the literal Holocaust Memorial

stop coddling ur damn American mind

already have a Spotify playlist titled “Shambles 2016”

“I need a title for this thinkpiece”

Trumbull I already hate myself, thanks though!

“anyone who’s anyone transfers out of trumbull”

distracting from the real Neil Degrasse Tyson B.O.B beef

when frocos get married

Kanye/Wiz beef lil pervs

Jan. 29, 2016 –­ 23

Get your passport ready.

[Summer comes sooner than you think.]

On December 15th, applications opened for Yale Summer Session Abroad 2016.

We offer the best choice of programs taught all over the world: Africa, Asia, Latin America, or Europe.

Full-credit programs in language, culture, arts and social sciences.

Applications deadline: February 15, 2016. Enrollment limited.

PROGRAM LISTINGS: AFRICA

EUROPE

Society and Politics of North Africa

History & Culture of Southeastern Europe

Private Law & Contract Enforcement in the U.S. & France

Intermediate Modern Standard Arabic I & II

In Kafka’s Spirit: Prague Film & Fiction

Intermediate German I & II

Visual Approaches to Global Health

Travel Writing

AFST S325/GLBL S361/HIST S236/MMES S285/SOC S236 (So) The legacies of colonialism and nationalism, political systems, and opposition in North Africa and the Maghrib in the 21st century.

July 2 – August 6 ARBC S130-S140 (L3-L4) An intensive intermediate course in Modern Standard Arabic with an emphasis on all language skills.

May 29 – July 23 FILM S340/HLTH S350 (So) Learn to translate complex global health concepts such as HIV/AIDS, human rights, and conflict through hands-on filmmaking and storytelling.

June 24 – Aug 6

Intermediate Kiswahili I & II

SWAH S130-S140 (L3-L4) Study of Kiswahili structure and vocabulary based on a variety of texts from traditional and popular culture.

May 29 – July 23

Advanced Kiswahili

ENGL S247 (Hu) Examines travel writing, surveying a wide range of works, from long-form “place” essays to destination articles, from travel memoir to adventure odysseys.

May 28 – June 25

Rome

Elementary and Intermediate French I & II

Elementary Italian I & II

ASIA

Advanced Language Practice

Japanimation and Manga

ANTH S283 (So) Focus on the social and historical context of the production and consumption of manga and anime.

May 28 – July 2

Southeast Asia in Context + Southeast Asia’s Cultural Mosaic

ANTH S230 Explore themes such as Southeast Asian religion, archeology, rural development, politics and regional integration.

June 18 - July 23

SPAN S130-S140 (L3-L4)

Cultural Studies of Peru

Intermediate Italian I & II ITAL S130-S140 (L3-L4)

History, Culture, and Film in Tuscany

ITAL S152 (Hu) Apply language skills while living and studying in the Tuscan city of Siena and engaging in travel and other cultural encounters in Tuscany and Rome.

May 29 – July 23

Second Year Russian I & II RUSS S130-S140 (L3-L4)

Russian Culture

FREN S160 (L5) Introduction to contemporary French culture and current events intended to further skills in listening comprehension, speaking, and reading.

May 21 – June 25

Age of the Cathedrals

RUSS S242 (Hu) Russian language study with an interdisciplinary and hands-on exploration of Russian cultural history in its transformations from the early 18th Century to the present.

May 29 – July 26

Third Year Russian I & II

FREN S305/HUMS S267/LITR S176 (Hu) Discussion of gothic architecture, urban and economic renewal, and intellectual life of the 12th and 13th-century Paris.

July 2 – August 6

RUSS S150-S151 (L5)

Russian Culture

RUSS S242 (Hu) Comprehensive review of grammar, with an exploration of Russian cultural history, extensive vocabulary building for social sciences and practical vocabulary.

May 29 – July 26

Belle Époque France

Elementary Portuguese for Romance Language Speakers

Intermediate Spanish I & II

ITAL S153 (Hu) Italian language study at the elementary level with an exploration of Italian literature, film, and culture.

May 29 – July 23

Advanced Culture and Conversation

Paris and the Cinema

PORT S352 (Hu) An intensive elementary course in Portuguese language emphasizing development of all language skills, with an introduction to Brazilian cultural history.

May 29 – July 23

Tale of Two Cities

FREN S150 (L5) Improve comprehension and speaking and writing skills through the study of modern fiction and non-fiction texts, film, museum visits, and theater performances.

May 21 – June 25

LATIN AMERICA Introduction to Brazil

ITAL S110-S120 (L1-L2)

FREN S130-S140 (L3-L4) Perfect skills in understanding spoken and written French and in speaking and writing.

May 29 – July 23

FREN S369/HUMS S214/LITR S247 (Hu) A study of important works of literature, painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and decorative arts in turn-of-the-century France.

May 28 – July 2

PORT S112-S122 (L1-L2)

HUMS S250 (Hu) Consider how Rome’s contributions to western thought are recorded in the very fabric of the city.

May 29 – July 2

FREN S110-S120 (L1-L2) Develop language skills, communicative proficiency, self-expression, and cultural insights through extensive use of authentic audio, video material, and field trips.

May 29 – July 30

Intermediate and Advanced French I & II

AMST S449 (Hu) Memory powerfully shapes our understanding of our lives; examine how photographic images equally powerfully shape our memory.

July 2 – July 30

GMAN S130-S140 (L3-L4) Intensive, content-based language course that teaches linguistic skills through a variety of texts and media, with special emphasis on the culture and history of Berlin.

May 29 – July 23

CZEC S243/FILM S143 (Hu) Introduction to Prague’s intellectual culture and the Jewish question through contemporary film, fiction, history, language and travels.

June 26 – July 31

SWAH S155 (L5) Development of fluency through readings and discussions on contemporary topics in Kiswahili.

May 29 – July 9

Photography, History, Memory

ECON S276 Study the design of written and oral contracts, with particular emphasis on economic efficiency, and the body of law that governs them.

June 18 – July 23

HIST S299 (Hu) & SOCY S286 (So) Multidisciplinary study of Southeastern Europe from antiquity to modernity.

July 2 – August 6

Intermediate Spanish I & II SPAN S130-S140 (L3-L4)

Spain, 1936 to the Present

FILM S153 (Hu) Introduction to French cinema and culture that focuses on the stylish romance as well as the mysterious underworld of cinematic Paris.

July 2 – August 6

SPAN S248 (Hu) Spanish language study with an analysis and discussion of the historical, social, and cultural development of Spain from the Civil War to the present.

May 29 – July 23

Paris in the ‘20s

LITR S244 (Hu/Wr) A moveable feast. Study iconoclastic writers of the 1920s, including Hemingway, Stein, Breton, and the Surrealists, in the city that inspired them.

May 28 – July 2

Language, Culture, and Society of Spain

SPAN S242 (L5) Increase knowledge of the language, history, and culture of Spain, within an immersion program set in Valencia.

May 21 – June 25

SPAN S247 (Hu) Spanish language study with an analysis and discussion of the historical, social, and cultural development of Peru from Pre-Columbian times to the present.

May 29 – July 23

Study Abroad YALIES, ABROAD. What’s Your Story? studyabroad.yale.edu | email: studyabroad@yale.edu Visit yale.edu/yalecollege/international/funding for summer funding information ©Copyright 2016 Yale Study Abroad