viewpoinT

ND history department provides new minor

By ISABELLA VOLMERT

Associate news editor

The notre dame history department is offering a new economic and business history minor with the goal of providing an in-depth study of the history of capitalism, markets, economies, business and more for students interested in this side of history. department chair dr. elisabeth Köll said the creation of the minor was inspired by faculty members within the history department who focus their research and teaching on the history of economics and business, spanning subfields, subjects, time periods and geographical locations.

Additionally, dr. Jake Lundberg, director of undergraduate studies for the history department, said within the field of study, there has been a turn toward the history of capitalism — especially in the U.s. — in recent years. Lundberg also said the student population has expressed increased interest in the subject of economic and business history, including many economic majors and mendoza college of business students who do not have the time to complete a whole history major on the traditional fouryear track.

“They are interested in the history of their profession and discipline, and the intellectual history of how to think about economic structures, institutions and markets,” Köll said.

The economic and business history minor’s requirements are four elective courses and the completion of a capstone class. The available classes focus on a variety of subjects such as the history of commerce, financial markets, gender in the workforce, labor and more. The capstone class is designed to partly be a research seminar in which students can focus on and produce a project of their own specific interest while working with a faculty member.

Köll emphasized students can cater the minor to their specific interests and said the history department has a variety of educators and resources to support their goals.

In regards to why the minor is valuable, Köll said economics and mendoza students often learn very valuable content in their majorspecific classes, but not the rich historical context history classes can provide, especially outside of the context of the U.s. such context includes a variety of temporal and geographical histories, such as the history of the role of women in the U.s. economy or different economic approaches to modern India, Köll said. she herself teaches a course on the history of the stock market.

“We are not pretending to be economists; we are historians,” she said. “but we bring something to the table in terms of being able to look more deeply into the political, social and economic conditions that lead to certain developments.”

Finance major and notre dame senior Jason Kidwell also praised the importance of historical contextual knowledge for students interested in economics and business.

“mendoza is great in terms of teaching kids the technical stuff and about market theory and in the job market field, but they don’t necessarily contextualize a lot of things,” he explained. “If you don’t have an understanding of market history or investor behavior and stuff like that, you are basically running around without a flashlight.”

Kidwell officially confirmed his enrollment in the economic and business history minor on Tuesday. he has taken a number of classes with Köll concerning the field. he is currently taking a class on the development of the economy in china, capitalism, and how china fits into the globalized world economy with Köll.

“That’s a rockstar class to be in,” he said.

In addition to finance and economics students, Köll and Lundberg stressed any major is welcome to pick up the minor, as it would be beneficial to all notre dame students.

“no matter what your major is — engineering, english, accounting — to see the economy in any country, in any chronological context, and in a broader perspective and to analyze it in that context is a very valuable skill and intellectual challenge that is interesting and useful to learn no matter what you do after in your job,” Köll said.

Additionally, the minor teaches students how to think critically, to analyze and interpret challenging situations and to identify arguments — all based on limited information.

For example, Köll often encourages her students to think about arguments and situations as if they were an analyst working for a firm or a consultant who suddenly has to deal with something they are not at all familiar with.

“We teach exactly the skills you need in any professional environment,” Köll said.

Kidwell said he is very grateful for the role the history department, and especially Köll, has played in his education, and hopes that more mendoza students will join the minor in years to come.

The life skills the minor provides, Lundberg said, will give students an edge after they graduate.

“I think that for notre dame students planning on entering careers in the business world, this kind of historical grounding and historical way of thinking about what they’re doing will be really useful for them within their jobs, but also as citizens going out into the world,” Lundberg said.

Contact Isabella Volmertat ivolmert@nd.edu

Mustard Club offers community

By MEGAN FAHRNEY

news Writer

It all started with a packet of mustard on a table in south dining hall. club legend has it that before becoming notre dame’s official creative writing club, mustard was an informal gathering of students interested in creative writing. A packet of mustard would be placed on a table in south dining hall before each meeting to discreetly show where participants should meet. since its creation, mustard’s goal has been to provide an opportunity for students to share their writing and receive feedback in a laid-back setting. mustard uses a unique style of workshopping and critique, junior ella Wisniewski, mustard club president, said.

“one of the best things about mustard is you get feedback immediately after you read your piece out loud,” she said. “other times, when you’re trying to get feedback on your writing, it can take days or weeks for someone to email you back and be like, ‘oh, this is good.’ but in mustard, you get it right away.” meetings take place on Wednesdays from 9:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., in the mcneill room in LaFortune student center. meetings are held in-person, but due to the pandemic, members participate via Zoom if the number of attendees exceeds the room’s maximum occupancy. senior club member William disimone said mustard is open to anyone, regardless of major or level of writing experience. disimone himself joined as a first-year studying finance and felt welcomed.

“You can even come not intending to submit anything, just to see what other people write, to get a feel for how everything works,” disimone said. “It’s a pretty casual experience.”

Participants are welcome to submit any type of writing, junior Alena coleman, another member of mustard, said.

“We’ve had raps, screenplays, poems, prose, short stories, bits of novels, songs,” coleman said. “really anything that you can write, we can talk about.”

In a typical meeting, members submit a piece beforehand, read their work aloud and then receive feedback, Wisniewski said. coleman said during national novel writing month, the club holds “write-ins.” In these meetings, members participate in various writing activities.

“We’ll do some writing sprints, where you write for a short amount of time and try to get as many words out as possible. We’ll do fun writing prompts, or we’ll just talk and play other games,” coleman said. “so those are a little less like a workshop and a little more like a writing camp for an hour or two.” disimone said during one meeting in his sophomore year, the group didn’t feel like discussing writing, so everyone went around and told stories of the most horrific injuries they had had.

“It’s just fun hanging out,” disimone said. “It’s a good time.”

Wisniewski said the first time she submitted a piece for a meeting as a sophomore, she was terrified.

“everyone was so nice and they genuinely made my poems better, and now I feel a lot more comfortable submitting,” Wisniewski said. “And I just hope that someone who comes into mustard and submits for the first time can have that same experience. If you just want to come and not say anything, just listen to writing, that’s awesome, that’s totally fine. We’re just happy you’re there.”

Contact Megan Fahrney at mfahrney@nd.edu

College’s Campus Ministry changes location

By CARMEN FEUCHT

news Writer

For the first time in over 40 years, saint mary’s campus ministry has moved its location from regina hall to a suite on the second floor of the student center. director of campus ministry regina Wilson said the regina center is currently undergoing major renovations to provide space for the health science departments. In order for these renovations to happen, campus ministry was offered the opportunity to move its location for the foreseeable future.

“The second floor of the student center was identified as a very good location for campus ministry since it is a place where most students come for meals and for other student services,” Wilson said. “It made a lot of good sense for campus ministry to join those other student service offices in the student center and to be in a location where students frequently gather.”

Wilson and the campus ministry staff are very pleased with the move and believe it has benefitted the campus ministry community.

“overall, some of the benefits we gain are an office space where we can work together better as colleagues, a location that is more central to campus, more meeting space for gathering with students, more possibility for networking with other student service colleagues, and shiny new offices,” Wilson said.

The campus ministry staff are still working together on how to invite students into their new space. In regina hall, there was a fair amount of student traffic passing by so it was common to meet a student interested in campus ministry.

“That kind of engagement with students will be a little more difficult now, but we are actively thinking about how to facilitate more opportunities for those kinds of engagements,” Wilson said.

Wilson and her staff view the change as a new opportunity and are hopeful for the future.

“We believe that all the changes aren’t worse or better, it’s just change, and we’re embracing the challenge with an eye to all the new possibilities that we can imagine and that present themselves,” Wilson said. campus ministry also plans on adding new renovations to their new home in the near future.

“eventually, we will also have a lounge when further renovation of the second floor of the student center occurs, and this will allow us to have those more informal encounters with students that are a big part of our ministry and outreach,” Wilson said.

Wilson also added that another bonus of the move is that students can now get to the holy spirit chapel of Le mans through the tunnel and not have to walk outside.

Wilson and the campus ministry staff are looking forward to the future of the program in the student center and will be hosting an open house Feb. 16 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

“We hope a lot of people will come for that, appropriately distanced, of course,” Wilson said. “We’ll be giving away a prize for a little contest we are having and showing people around the new space.”

The observer | wednesday, february 10, 2021 | ndsmcobserver.com

InsIde Column

Gwyneth Paltrow has a point

Maeve Filbin

Assistant managing editor

To be frank, the venn diagram of those who ask for oat or almond milk in their iced coffee from starbucks and those who will eat an entire wheel of baked brie off of a charcuterie board looks like a circle. To be fair, I live in this intersection, alongside all of my roommates and most of the people I’ve met who have self-diagnosed as lactose intolerant. our fridge holds an impressive selection of dairy alternatives, derived from almonds, coconuts, oats, soybeans and vegan pea protein. open the crisper, however, and you’ll find a fromagerie of 100% real cheese.

To be clear, this inside column is not pro- or anti-dairy. environmental, ethical and economic arguments aside, I’m just exploring my options and recognizing a common trend. Who among us hasn’t sipped a cup of coffee with almond milk for breakfast and then asked for extra cheese on our burrito bowl for lunch?

Almost everyone I know who have broken up with dairy comes down very hard on their stance regarding milk and coffee creamers — they’re easily substituted with a variety of nut and plant-based alternatives that actually taste good.

As an impressionable person who once read online that cutting out dairy would solve all my problems (prom was coming up, and I had a zit that the internet convinced me was from eating milk with my cereal), I ran the experiment. I dumped milk and started dating different dairy alternatives, and I’ve been in a committed relationship with ripple products for a couple years now.

And all this time, I’ve harbored tender feelings for the varying cheeses that have wandered into my life. I’ve never been able to settle for vegan cheeses, mostly made from plant-based materials that have no business trying to impersonate the original. If real cheese is bad, then I don’t want to be good. here’s an important point we’ve landed on: maybe the biggest reason that the alt dairy community still hasn’t let go of real cheese is that the alternative tastes nothing like cheese, or even a decent imitation. simply, vegan cheese is bad. “Friends don’t let friends eat vegan cheese.”

If we can’t turn to plant-based cheese the same way we fell in love with alternative milk and creamer, maybe it’s all about finding balance.

“I use organic products, but I get [laser treatments],” Gwyneth Paltrow once said. “It’s what makes life interesting, finding the balance between cigarettes and tofu.”

The best thing Gwyneth Paltrow has done for me personally is perform the iconic role of holly holiday. however, this super strange soundbite that she shared with a women’s magazine is a very close second, and might just be the conclusion I land on in this personal dilemma.

Gwyneth strokes her organically lasered brow and eats her tofu with a marlboro Light dangling between manicured fingers; I take oat milk in my coffee and eat sliced American cheese straight out of the bag. We exist.

You can contact Maeve at mfilbin01@saintmarys.edu

The views expressed in this Inside Column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.

Taylor Swift and the power of teenage tears

Elllie Konfrst

butterfly effects

If you know nothing else about me, you may know that I am a pretty big Taylor swift fan. After I first heard “red” when I was 13, I quickly devoured the rest of her discography and began anxiously anticipating her next releases. In a sense, I grew up with her, letting her stories of heartbreak and love and growing up echo off the walls of my childhood bedroom while I, too, suffered through the pain of being a teenage girl. my love for swift’s music went beyond just obsessively listening to her records, though. In my early teen years, I regret to admit that I spent a lot of time on Tumblr, and when I found the community of Taylor swift fans on that website, I was hooked. eventually, swift herself found her way onto the website, and to this day, I am still proud to announce that she followed my blog and liked about a dozen of my posts (my fifteen-year-old self would be furious with me for not knowing the exact number). my blog has been inactive for a few years now, but I can’t bring myself to delete it and lose that follow.

To a large extent, swift — and the online community I found thanks to her — were like saviors to me. not only did they provide a distraction when my thoughts were betraying me (I was diagnosed with ocd around the same time), it provided me a place where my complicated, melodramatic feelings were completely valid.

The reason swift’s music is special to me is not because of her delicate storytelling, catchy hooks or artistic songwriting (though I could spend another thousand words talking about that). Taylor swift lodged herself in a permanent place in my soul because her music was so full of feeling — the complicated kind, the oceans of tears shed over a two-month relationship, the messy, unfair anger directed at other women, the unexplainable and irrational and overdramatic feelings of being a teenage girl. even though I don’t run a Taylor swift blog anymore, and I have (hopefully) moved beyond the tidal waves of feeling that comes with being a teenage girl, swift is still my favorite artist of all time, and listening to her music feels like coming home. This past year has been a big year for her and all swift fans, too — in July, she released her eighth studio album, “folklore,” after a surprise announcement, and did the same with another fulllength album “evermore” in december. both were received with broad critical acclaim, with many reviews noting a newfound maturity in her songwriting. For me, though, “folklore” and “evermore” didn’t feel like a departure at all — they felt entirely honest to the person swift has always been. Yet there was an entirely new cohort of people drawn to her music, discovering how great of an artist she has always been, and even recognizing that previous hatred for her may have been rooted in misogyny. sure, it’s possible that her shift to a more folksy, alternative sound drew an audience that she’d never reached before. It’s also possible that “folklore” and “evermore” are just better albums than she’d released before. To me, though, it seems as though people feel comfortable admitting that they liked swift’s music because she’s a real artist now, not just one making music for teenage girls.

This phenomenon, of discarding the quality of media due to a fanbase made up of primarily teenage girls, seems to happen all the time — our culture considers the opinions of teenage girls to be the inverse of whatever refined taste looks like. however, teenage girls have historically been instrumental in catapulting some of our greatest musical prodigies to fame.

Yes, I’m talking about The beatles, a group that made music in obscurity until teenage girls began fainting at their concerts and brought about “beatlemania.” Today, The beatles are considered by many to be one of the greatest rock bands of all time, not despite, but because of teenage girls.

The fandom of teenage girls is often disregarded as unrefined precisely because of the intensity with which teenage girls feel. The beatles can’t actually be good, right? They only have a following because of the hormones of teenage girls! Taylor swift can’t possibly make good music — the feelings of teenage girls are obnoxious and unimportant, so her music must be too. now, this isn’t to say teenage girls are the ultimate predictor of future critical success, but our culture acts as if something is not good simply because it’s popular among teenage girls. It’s patronizing, it’s unnecessarily vitriolic and it’s often just incorrect.

I connected with Taylor swift because she made music for teenage girls, and she has made an incredibly successful career by validating and expressing their emotions. Listening to her and being a fan of hers has completely changed my life, and I think that experience is valid whether or not she had eventually made music that appealed to other demographics.

Teenage girls deserve the ability to love artists that they feel connected to — whether they make objectively “good” music or not — without constant harassment from the general population. It’s time to treat the opinions of teenage girls with respect — when you don’t, you may be missing out on the next great rock band, or even just bangers like “enchanted.”

Ellie Konfrst is a junior majoring in political science, with minors in the Hesburgh Program for Public Service and civil & human rights. Originally from Des Moines, Iowa, she’s excited that people will finally be forced to listen to all of her extremely good takes. She can be reached at egloverk@nd.edu or @elliekonfrst13 on Twitter.

The views expressed in this column are those of the authors and not necessarily those of The Observer.

Do you want to get involved with Viewpoint? Email viewpoint@ndsmcobserver.com for more information!

THE oBSErvEr | wednesday, february 10, 2021 | NDSMCoBSErvEr.CoM

Ask me about George Washington’s teeth

Sydni Brooks

Everything is Fine

Editor’s Note: This story includes descriptions of sexual abuse and violence. A list of sexual assault reporting options and on-campus resources can be found on the Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s and Holy Cross websites.

Every couple of weeks, my roommates and I find ourselves in deep conversation regarding our current world experience and how we can change it for the better. We recently had one of these conversations, and the discussion began to focus itself on race. As a Black woman living with three white women, conversations about race aren’t rare, and my roommates are always extremely receptive and interested in my Black experience and its differences from their lives.

We spoke about the flaws in the American education system and how American history, specifically Black American history, is inadequately taught. While there are several chunks of Black history that were simply removed from the American history curriculum requirement, many of the facts we do learn were either half-truths or blatant lies.

Most of us are aware that early slaves were stolen from their homelands and brought to America through the transatlantic slave trade to work the lands of white plantation owners. We were taught slaves were beaten and whipped as punishment by white slave masters and overseers, and slave women were raped to produce more slaves after the transatlantic slave trade was abolished. We learned that President Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves with the 13th Amendment in 1863. After the Emancipation, we learned Jim Crow was a thing, the civil rights movement happened, Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream and magically, after Black Americans received the right to vote, institutionalized racism simply “vanished.”

This watered down, spark-noted, sugar-coated version of Black American history perpetuates the extremely false narrative of the institution of slavery. Slavery was not simply a flaw of Man that can be dismissed under the “just the way things were” category in the story of American History. Slavery and the treatment of Black people in the Americas was a sadistic, ungodly, abominable practice based in racism, torture and a blood thirst for control.

We know that white slave masters and overseers had intercourse with slave women, but we were not taught about breeding farms, where slave women were repeatedly raped to produce more slaves, or how Black slave boys and men were beaten unconscious and raped by their owners in front of their families. We did not learn that the genitalia of Black boys and men were mutilated or gouged completely from their bodies as a form of punishment.

We know Black Americans were lynched, but we did not learn that their limbs were ripped from their bodies as they swung from their necks. We were not taught that metal hooks were pierced into slave’s lungs before they were hung, or that some victims were burned alive. We learned that slaves were whipped for not meeting their labor expectations or other punishments, but we were not taught they were whipped daily to ensure submission and obedience. We did not learn slaves were boiled in sugar water, or that Black slave skin was used as leather for shoes and instrument cases, or that slave teeth were used as dentures for white Americans.

No, George Washington’s teeth were not made from wood.

While I can’t speak for the rest of the Notre Dame student body, my roommates and I didn’t learn about any of these horrific fates for Black slaves in any history class we have taken in high school or college. It wasn’t until the international outburst highlighting systemic racial inequality erupted the nation in the summer of 2020 that I began hearing about the sadistic tortures of the institution of slavery.

I stumbled upon trinkets of information from history buffs who specifically study this section of American history, and I realized I’d have to do my own research on the topic. Considering the few details I explained previously are not an exhaustive list, what other barbaric horror stories are hidden in Black history? How much of the PG version of our past protects the doors of our horrifically unimaginable, but factually accurate stories of American ancestry that clearly correlates to the traumas of the Black experience today?

Black Americans are asked why they can’t leave the sins of slavery their ancestors endured in the past, and some white Americans believe that Black citizens are demanding them to take responsibility for the sins of their ancestors. However, neither side of this argument truly knows the extent of torture, brutality, humiliation and generational mental and emotional damage Black Americans have suffered because it isn’t extensively or honestly provided for any of us.

We can’t forgive the sins of slavery because we are only beginning to understand how deep the depths of horror were during slavery. The slivers of truth we received in high school dilute the real experience, and the little we can find through personal research only add to the list of horrific possibilities of what else happened.

While our warped sense of history distorts our reality in the present, how will it dictate our future? We are told to look to our past to navigate through our future, but if we are unaware of the truths of our past, how can we be sure that we are capable of providing a better future? What other details in other subsections of American history are we oblivious to? Do we have to endure yet another national outrage to birth the truth from the depths of the Land of the Free?

Sydni Brooks is a junior at Notre Dame studying English and gender studies. She is originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, and calls Flaherty Hall home on campus. With equal passions in writing and helping others, she hopes to serve her community well in her future. She can be reached at sbrooks2@nd.edu or @sydnimaree22 on Twitter.

The views expressed in this column are those of the authors and not necessarily those of The Observer.

LeTTer TO THe edITOr

A response to ‘The power of Notre Dame’s Christian left’

While Clark Bowden is certainly entitled to his opinion, he is not entitled to alternative facts.

Mr. Bowden claimed that Notre Dame did not respond to former football coach Lou Holtz’s remarks at the republican National Convention when, in fact, a statement was issued the day after the speech.

He implies that, while faculty and students protested former President Trump’s orders threatening DACA students, the University stood by silently. In fact, at a prayer service the Monday after the 2016 election, Fr. Jenkins specifically addressed DACA students, saying the University would “support them in every way possible.” Before and since then, he has issued numerous statements in opposition to various efforts to discontinue DACA. Here is one of many.

He writes that only students organized rallies in support of racial justice last spring and summer when, again in fact, Fr. Jenkins held a “Prayer for Unity, Walk for Justice” rally on Library Quad on June 2, then spoke at a community rally in downtown South Bend on June 7. He also joined with members of the football program at the Juneteenth rally.

Finally, Mr. Bowden criticizes the University for “putting forward a conservative Supreme Court justice.” It simply isn’t possible — much less true — that Notre Dame or any university could or would “put forward” a court nominee.

Facts matter, even in opinion columns.

Dennis K. Brown

assistant vice president Notre Dame news and media relations Feb. 5