The Dartmouth 10/17/17

VOL. CLXXIV NO.130

SUNNY

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2017

HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE

AMELL, AMES propose restructuring

EYE ON THE BALL

HIGH 58 LOW 37

By ALEX FREDMAN

The Dartmouth Staff

T h e n e we s t c l a s s o f postdoctoral researchers will join the Society as junior fellows. This year’s new junior fellows come from a wide range of academic backgrounds including criminal justice reform work and quantum information sciences. The Society also includes nine senior

The College is in the final stages of considering a proposal to restructure the Asian and Middle Eastern Studies program and Asian and Middle Eastern Languages and Literatures department, separating Asian studies and Middle Eastern studies.

The proposal calls for the creation of two new interdisciplinary programs — Middle Eastern Studies and Asian Societies, Cultures and Languages — to replace the current AMES and AMELL units. The plan is scheduled to receive its final vote of approval at the general faculty meeting on Oct. 23, according to AMELL chair and Arabic studies professor Jonathan Smolin and associate dean for international studies and interdisciplinary programs and a former chair of the AMES program Dennis Washburn.

Both programs will be interdisciplinary, with core educational courses and a language requirement. This is in contrast with AMES, which is interdisciplinary but has no language requirement, and AMELL, which has a language requirement but is not interdisciplinary, according to Smolin.

“We believe that we are making these changes for the educational betterment of the institution,” he said.

Smolin said the restructuring can be understood as a process in which the current AMES and AMELL units would be combined and then separated into Middle Eastern and Asian sections as independent

SEE FELLOWS PAGE 3

SEE AMES PAGE 2

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The men’s tennis team won its Dartmouth Invite tournament this past weekend.

OPINION

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ELLIS: BOYS WILL HAVE GUNS? PAGE 4

ARTS

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FILM REVIEW: ‘DETRIOT’ PAGE 8

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Society of Fellows welcomes new postdoctoral researchers

By GIGI GRIGORIAN The Dartmouth

This fall, Dartmouth’s Society of Fellows welcomed seven new postdoctoral fellows to campus. Having recently earned their Ph.D.s in various disciplines across the arts and sciences, they will now spend three years at Dartmouth continuing their scholarship

and teaching.

Dartmouth’s Society of Fellows is modeled after similar societies that exist at other institutions, including Harvard University and Princeton University. In 2013, College President Phil Hanlon first announced that the Society would be created, and its first class of fellows arrived in fall 2015.

NASA grant funds Q&A with government lake water research professor Sean Westwood

By HYE YOUNG KIM The Dartmouth

Researchers in various fields of science from the College, the University of New Hampshire and the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies are joining forces in a three-year research project on the prevalence of bacterial blooms in lakes in Maine, New

Hampshire, New York and Vermont. Led by David Lutz, an environmental studies research associate and lecturer at the College, the team is working under a grant of $1.47 million from NASA. Specifically, the team aims to assess all of the data that has been collected SEE LAKES PAGE 2

By GRACE STILLWELL The Dartmouth

Governmentandquantitative social science professor Sean Westwood specializes in political partisanship and representation.

According to Westwood, he examines the impact of legislator action and partisanship on individual behavior. Westwood is the lead researcher in a recent paper on effective polarization

in the U.S., in which he found that those with similar political ideologies were more likely to trust each other than those who had differing ones. He found that this dichotomy was even stronger than that between people with different racial backgrounds.

When did you first become interested in government and quantitative social science, and what was your

journey from there?

SW: I originally wanted to be a computer scientist, and I taught myself to code as a kid, but when I got to college and took my very first computer science class, I realized it was going to be immensely frustrating to get through all these courses covering content that I had already been exposed to. Then I tried to look at SEE Q&A PAGE 3

THE DARTMOUTH NEWS

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TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2017

AMELL and AMES departments could be reorganized FROM AMES PAGE 1

units. He added that while such a change has been discussed at Dartmouth for several years, it was catalyzed by a 2014 external review conducted of the AMELL department, which suggested a restructuring.

“We believe that the kind of intellectual and academic specificity of the new units reflect the importance of the Middle East and Asia in the 21st century,” Smolin said.

He added that most of Dartmouth’s peer institutions currently have separate Asian and Middle Eastern programs, which is beneficial because those areas combined account for a very large and diverse set of cultures and

languages.

Smolin emphasized that both of the new units would be interdisciplinary, allowing them to connect “in vibrant and fundamental ways with other departments and academic interests on this campus,” and that he wants the new programs to be as flexible as possible to accommodate students.

Smolin also noted that all current AMES and AMELL students could opt to be “grandfathered” into the new programs, meaning they could choose to maintain their current major tracks under the old departments regardless of the changes. He added, however, that while most juniors and seniors will probably take this option, firstyears and sophomores who have

not taken as many classes might want to consider adapting to the new requirements.

Washburn said that he believes many underclassmen will choose t o s w i t ch ove r t o t h e n e w requirements. He added that the new programs would be scheduled to take full effect by the fall 2018 term, meaning students in the Class of 2022 would be the first to choose from only have the new options to choose from.

“The key thing is to have a program that responds to students who are interested in those areas, provide a lot of opportunities for study,” Washburn said.

Washburn described several potential benefits for the restructuring, including more team-taught courses, a tighter

curriculum, improved AsianAmerican studies and more offcampus opportunities. He added that the restructuring would be simpler from an administrative standpoint and allow the programs to better leverage over its faculty members.

Wa s h b u r n s a i d w h i l e Dartmouth’s smaller student population limits the potential of having larger-scale programs, the restructuring could serve as a model for peer institutions.

“These are important areas of the world to study,” Washburn said.

“But we have to get away from the old Cold War regional model and really look at it in interdisciplinary terms.”

If the proposal is approved at the general faculty meeting, several

steps would be required in order to implement the restructuring.

This includes changing the course numberings for all current AMES and AMELL classes, building new websites, budgeting changes and working out potential joint appointments for the faculty in the programs, Washburn said.

Smolin said that in addition to these steps, there will need to be an outreach campaign to inform students of the changes, which may include public speakers and other events to raise awareness.

Washbur n said that given the length of time that the idea for this proposal has existed, he looks forward to starting the implementation process.

“We’re eager to get it started as soon as possible,” Washburn said.

NASA grant will fund research on cyanobacterial blooms in lakes FROM LAKES PAGE 1

on New England lakes to find out what factors have led to the decline of water quality in some lakes and not others, Lutz said.

“Our general focus for this project is to look at lakes in our region and look at how water quality is changing and the incidence of cyanobacteria blooms, which obviously affect water quality,” Lutz said.

Cyanobacteria, or “blue-green algae,” sometimes blooms in massive, toxic clumps and rises to the surface of water. These blooms can be observed in both local locations like Lake Sunapee or more distant locations like Lake Erie, Lutz said, but they occur under very different circumstances; lakes in the Midwest are surrounded by cities and farms that release waste and fertilizer into the water whereas New England lakes are less tainted by possible sources of nutrients that fuel cyanobacterial growth.

“The lakes we’re seeing the changes of water quality and these blooms in are not like the blooms that you would see in the Midwest,” Lutz said. “When you see Lake Sunapee, you don’t see that many farms around it — it’s very different.”

The research that Lutz’s team is doing is unique in that it is composed of interdisciplinary researchers who assess the lakes through multiple techniques.

Michael Palace, a team member and an environmental science and earth sciences professor from the University of New Hampshire, said he approaches the research through

remote sensing, satellite imagery analysis and unmanned aerial vehicles, also known as drones.

“Satellite imagery is important for both complete coverage and repeatability — so collections may be a few times a season, and also going back in history,” he said.

The satellite imagery is used to view large cyanobacterial growths and determine water contamination by the lakes’ reflections, Palace said.

While satellites and remote sensing provide efficiency in covering a lake-rich area like New England, data collection needs to take place on ground level as well, according to Ken Johnson, sociology professor and senior demographer at the University of New Hampshire, who is on the research team.

“My overall goal is to be able to provide additional information that cannot be obtained from the remote sensing platforms,” Johnson said.

Johnson works with information from the U.S. Census about where populations reside on the perimeter of the lakes.

“We believe that in areas where there is population and housing, the effects on the likelihood of blooms may be different than where there isn’t population and housing,” Johnson said. “The census data, when it’s combined with what the remote sensing platforms can see, will give us a more comprehensive understanding of what’s going on along the lake shores and in close proximity to the lakes.”

Palace said that for the first year, he and his colleagues will focus on Lake Sunapee and will eventually

expand into other lakes in New England.

“Our long-term goal is to create an algorithm that NASA could use to predict when these cyanobacteria outbreaks are going to occur,” Palace said.

Their hypothesis, according to Lutz, is that the shape, size and

depth of the lake control the water quality and appearance of blooms, along with the land use surrounding the lake. The team, however, hopes to proceed beyond analyzing the factors of cyanobacterial pollution, Palace said.

Dartmouth undergraduates with an interest in the topic will have an

opportunity to get involved with the research sometime this winter, according to Lutz.

“We’ve specifically set aside a funding stream for people who are interested in either satellite imagery, lake data collection, data science or UAVs and drones, to work in the lab,” he said.

TOP BRASS

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

SABA NEJAD/THE DARTMOUTH

Students performed at the Barbary Coast Jazz Ensemble Fall collection performance this past Saturday.

THE DARTMOUTH NEWS

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2017

PAGE 3

Seven postdoctoral researchers join Society of Fellows expose him to new academic fields and research methods. fellows, all of whom are College “It’s very easy in graduate school faculty members working in an array life to get stuck in your own little of departments and fields. corner and never leave, so it’s nice Each week, junior and senior to have this immersive experience,” fellows gather to learn more about he said.“I’m definitely learning a the current research lot from the other of one of their “The real fellows — not only peers. Although each how they present presentation is not emphasis here is their work but how directly relevant to all on scholarship ...” they conduct their of the other fellows’ research. What their work, Randall day to day looks like is Balmer, the director -RANDALL BALMER, completely different o f t h e S o c i e t y SOCIETY OF than mine.” and chair of the Sean Griffin, a religion department, FELLOWS DIRECTOR medieval historian b e l i e v e s t h e s e AND RELIGION who also joined the interdisciplinar y DEPARTMENT CHAIR Society this year, meetings are one of echoed Harris’ the most important appreciation for the aspects of the interdisciplinar y program. nature of these Similarly, junior fellow Jared meetings.

Harris, who holds a Ph.D. in “People from all different chemistry and joined the Society disciplines and all different this year, appreciates how these backgrounds can meet and rub interdisciplinary conversations shoulders and exchange ideas in a FROM FELLOWS PAGE 1

way that often isn’t done given the traditional disciplinary boundaries,” he said.

In addition to attending these meetings, postdocs in the Society of Fellows spend much of their time in their first year continuing previous research in hopes of getting published. In their second and third years in the program, the fellows will continue their research and begin teaching at the College.

Balmer cited the importance of fellow’s ability to research, even when they begin to teach classes.

“The real emphasis here is on scholarship, to have junior fellows develop their scholarly work and their scholarly profile,” Balmer said.

In addition, Balmer also emphasized that when fellows teach at Dartmouth, they usually develop courses according to their previous research and interests.

Max Fraser, who joined the Society this fall and studies history, appreciates the structure of Dartmouth’s program.

“It gives you time to turn your

doctoral thesis work into material “The opportunity to integrate fit for publication, whether it’s in the a teaching component is fairly form of articles or books, and also uncommon in the sciences. Most postdoctoral start new projects,” f e l l ow s h i p s o r “People from all he said.

Griffin also said different disciplines appointments are strictly research he was excited to based, but I have time to work and all different wanted to get on tur ning his background can some teaching dissertation into a meet and rub experience,” he book manuscript. said.

In the next shoulders ... in Reflecting on the years, Fraser expects a way that often effect of the Society that he will teach of Fellows on classes in the history isn’t done given Dartmouth as an department focused the traditional institution, Balmer on his research highlightsed the highlighting the disciplinary importance of migration of rural boundaries.” h av i n g re c e n t white southerners Ph.D.s on campus, from the upper especially because s o u t h i n t o t h e -SEAN GRIFFIN, the College lacks industrial Midwest JUNIOR FELLOW doctoral programs in the mid-20th in most fields. century.

Unlike his peers studying the “Having newly-minted Ph.D.s here humanities, Harris is spending most on campus helps all of us to remain of his time this year working in a conversant with the latest developments in scholarship,” Balmer said. research group before teaching.

Government professor Sean Westwood discusses partisanship FROM Q&A PAGE 1

other things I found interesting and was attracted to government. Even though I had more of a vision of becoming a computer scientist, I think in the end I am using those skills to answer social science questions, so I have been able to bridge my mathematical interests with substantive interests I have. In the end, I think I am actually very lucky.

What motivated you to work on research on the relationship between shared political identity and trust?

SW: I think part of it is just trying to figure out how it is that Americans can have such hostility toward members of the opposing political party given that they don’t really know much about what that political party stands for. It has been kind of a puzzle in political science. How is it that we think American voters are at the same time completely uninformed and also extremely polarized? There has to be something that’s driving that polarization other than familiarity with facts with policy and with proposals of policy, so trying to address that gap I think was really the birth of the research on effective polarization. For me personally, I was just really interested in how partisan animosity has turned into such a present force in everyday life.

What conclusions can you draw from the experiment, and were you surprised by what you found?

SW: I think there are a couple of things we can take home from this experiment and from other experiments that I have done. So this particular paper had

four experiments in it. The takes are essentially, first, that average Americans are very hostile toward the political opposition and very positive toward members of their political party. And that isn’t just something they’ll say on a questionnaire, but it’s deeply ingrained in their subconscious. If you give people tasks that are designed to measure just direct subconscious thoughts, political animosity is pretty significant across average Americans. The second thing is that on average, Americans are more willing to discriminate against partisans than they are willing to discriminate against those who are of a different race. I think it’s important to put a bit of an asterisk by that because that doesn’t mean that racial discrimination isn’t bad or that on its extremes it isn’t worse than partisanship, it’s just that more people on average are willing to discriminate along partisan lines than along racial lines. Although Americans are more biased in terms of partisanship than in race, it’s certainly the case that racial violence is real whereas partisan violence is really rare. The third thing is that this actually blurs over into apolitical behavior. That is to say that if you’re assessing someone for a job or if you’re assessing a student for a scholarship, if that student indicates that he or she was a member of the young Democrats or the young Republicans, that little bit of information is going to be more important in your decision to hire or to give a scholarship than their GPA or other groups that they may have belonged to. People are making decisions that are objectively not political with political information. The fourth thing is that people are actually willing

to put their money where their mouth is. It’s not that they are just saying, “I don’t like Democrats” or “I don’t like Republicans.” If they’re put in the scenario where there is an actual dollar payout that’s put at risk by trusting a Democrat or by trusting a Republican, they’ll behave in ways that suggest their willingness to discriminate actually has effects when it comes to costly task or costly outcomes — it’s pretty depressing actually.

Why do you think people are so hostile to people of the opposing political party?

SW: Safeguards just don’t exist in politics. If you turn on cable news, you are going to see someone shouting about the other political party. They’re either socialists, or they’re fascists or they’re communists or they’re Nazis.

In politics we’ve more or less designed it to be hostile. Politics have changed recently and we’re in what a lot of people call “permanent campaign.” Because of that, we then have this campaign sniping that’s going on more or less in perpetuity. We also have cable news that has to fill 24 hours a day, and it’s really easy to fill time when you have people arguing with one another.

And we have also created a situation where you can opt in to content that aligns with your ideology. If you’re a Democrat, you can watch MSNBC. If you’re a Republican, you can watch Fox News. And if you don’t care, you can watch the E! network, so that means political information is not reaching the masses and when it is reaching the masses, a lot of people are only getting content that aligns with their ideology.

We see these things as coming together and creating our current state.

Are you working on any projects currently?

SW: There is some good news. In another project, I tried to look at just how bad effective polarization is in terms of a source of prejudice. There is a taxonomy that was developed in the 1950s by a man named Gordon Allport. He suggests there are different levels of prejudice so you can say hostile things. For example, you could avoid interacting with the opposing group, or you can actually engage in acts of discrimination. Finally, at the top of his scale is outright extermination.

We were wondering just how bad polarization is in the U.S. Through a series of experiments we found that, yes, it’s certainly the case that people are willing to say nasty things. They’re certainly willing to avoid contact with the out group, but when it actually comes to discrimination, they’re really more interested in helping those who are like them than in hurting those who are not like them. So if you look at effective polarization it doesn’t necessarily tell you the full story. It is certainly the case that we have biased responses toward those who are like us and biased responses towards those who are not like us, but the biggest effect is that we try to give a bump to those who are like us. It’s not that we are trying to take away from those who are not like us. It’s a bit of good news, but more importantly those studies were conducted in 2014, and we thought given what’s going on now that perhaps our results might

have been too optimistic, so over the summer I replicated them and almost nothing has changed. The good news is that we’re at perhaps maximum effective polarization, which objectively doesn’t sound like good news because it’s a terrible state for American democracy, but I think it suggests that the American public aren’t following our political leaders to extremes, or, put another way, perhaps we’ve reached a point where leaders can no longer take us that much further.

What is the greatest problem our government faces right now?

SW: I don’t think ef fective polarization is the biggest problem affecting our government. At the elite level, I think the problem is just simply that we’re not governing.

We’re engaged in in-fighting, we’re engaged in petty fights over legislation that will never pass or we’re engaged in constant obstructionism. I think our biggest problem at the national level is just simply that our government isn’t functioning well, which I think could lead to effective polarization, or it could potentially be a response to effective polarization because it could be the case that representatives see that their constituents are really mad and angry and are trying to mimic that in Congress, but I don’t think it’s the problem that we are in most need of addressing.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.

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DARTMOUTHEVENTS

THE DARTMOUTH EVENTS

THE BOYS CLUB

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2017

CAROLINE COOK ’21

TODAY

12:15 p.m. - 1:15 p.m.

Lecture: “The Political Consequences of Voter Information Deficits,” with quantitative social science postdoctoral fellow Erik Peterson, Silsby Hall 119

5:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.

Opening Reception: “Faces of Immigration: Here and Abroad,” Russo Gallery, Haldeman Center

7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.

Film: “Into the Light,” directed by Charles Stuart ’66, Loew Auditorium, Black Family Visual Arts Center

TOMORROW

12:30 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.

Walking Tour: “Part 2: Resonant Spaces: Sound Art at Dartmouth,” with exhibition co-curators Amelia Kahl and Spencer Topel, begins at the Bema Ampitheater

3:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Dartmouth field hockey vs. University of New Hampshire, Chase Astroturf Field

4:00 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.

Lecture: printer, designer and artist Clemente Orozco, Periodicals Room, Baker Library

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THE DARTMOUTH OPINION

CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST CHRISTOPHER CHENG ’21

CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST SIMON ELLIS ’20

Listserv Reform

Boys Will Have Guns?

A way to truly move Dartmouth forward by creating a better Listserv.

Last week, I attended two dinner events, ordered free gear and learned about two funding opportunities on campus. Such is the power of the knowledge I received via Listserv, the software with the capability to forward emails to the entire Dartmouth campus.

We’re all blitzed hundreds of times week after week. We get advertisements about everything from club meetings to guest speakers and, most importantly, free food. Some of these opportunities are relevant while others aren’t, and many of us find ourselves in one of two situations. Either our inboxes are cluttered with irrelevant blitzes or we invest precious time into painstakingly organizing our inboxes’ contents. I’ve run into the former situation quite often, getting emailed by Smart Women Securities despite being neither smart nor a woman nor interested in securities. Jokes aside, “blitzstorms” can be a serious problem.

Important and relevant emails can get buried under mountains of ones that are, at least to some readers, unimportant. Fortunately, this problem can be mitigated.

Listserv operates through a very userfriendly system in which an individual emails a certain email address registered to a list, which then forwards the email to all addresses registered in that list. Dartmouth, under its license with L-Soft Corporation, can make as many Listserv lists as it wants, and it does so under management of the College’s Information Technology Services. In other words, we have all the technical tools we need to reform Listserv management on campus.

Let’s talk logistics. How can we optimize the amount of relevant blitzes each student gets? The answer lies in doing so through a combination of manipulation of existing information and student input and consent.

Dartmouth already collects a vast array of demographical information: Gender identity, ethnicity, religious affiliation, class year and other key identifiers are all known by the College for each of its students. There could be special Listserv lists made for those demographics so that, for instance, men do not get blitzed about opportunities to attend a rush party for a sorority. This arrangement would also make me much less envious of the research

opportunities available through the Women in Science Project. Furthermore, through the use of surveys, students can choose to join certain categorical Listserv lists: Finance organizations, social justice clubs, health care teams and interest groups could all be joined upon request by Dartmouth students.

By necessity, this would be an entirely opt-in program. The default Listserv system would be the current one, in which every student gets emailed senseless, unless they chose otherwise.

For those blitzing through Listserv, there would be regulations in place to prevent inappropriate outreach. If the Dandelion Project blitzes the finance Listserv list, for example, ITS could step in, possibly with the help of new student interns. There could also be caps set on the number of categorical lists that each organization could email which already exist for Council on Student Organizations-recognized groups. Creativity isn’t off-limits in this system, either: There could be a special “free food” list set up for events looking to boost their attendance numbers. I’d put my name down for that.

With this sort of initiative, who takes responsibility? One organization that comes to mind is COSO, given that the Listserv is a major means of recruitment and logistical coordination for the organizations it governs.

Alternatively, ITS could spearhead the initiative, simply by coordinating with the Undergraduate Dean’s Office for demographic information, creating the Listserv lists and sending out information to groups and students. A particularly industrious student could take advantage of College President Phil Hanlon’s open office hours to suggest it to the man himself.

Conceptually, Listserv reform is not difficult. It might not even be so in execution, since such a measure would negatively affect very few groups. The reform procedure would also be a prime time to educate students on how to remove themselves from Listserv lists, helping to avoid situations where recent alumni accidentally email the entire College rather than removing themselves from the Listserv.

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ISSUE

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2017

NEWS EDITORS: Paulomi Rao.

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

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

Gender plays an important role in gun violence.

On Sunday, Oct. 1, the largest mass occur for a range of reasons, but most often shooting in modern American history took have to due with fighting, drug possession or place in Las Vegas. The usual questions other risky behaviors that lead to the breaking came immediately to media attention: What of school policy. was the shooter’s motive? Was this an act of America’s obsession with guns may be a terror? But no one second-guessed a critical gendered issue, but that hasn’t stopped the part of the story: The perpetrator was a he. National Rifle Association of America from Since 1982, 91 mass shootings have occurred encouraging women to buy and use guns with more than four victims, and of those as a solution to the problem, surely a blind only three were committed by women. Mass and unquestioned approach to the Second shootings in America are a gendered issue, Amendment. The NRA ran a series of something that we need to acknowledge advertisements on its YouTube channel last and question. What aspects of masculinity year showing women speaking about buying are contributing to mass shootings — and guns and defending themselves. In one of the how can we take concrete steps not only to videos, an actress claims that a woman with eliminate tragedies but also to change social a gun is “what real empowerment looks like” attitudes surrounding gun violence? and that the NRA is “freedom’s safest place.”

More than 12,000 people have died The way to solve issues related to gun as a result of gun violence so far in 2017, violence is not to encourage individuals to according to the Gun Violence Archive. In buy guns. The implementation of the NRA’s 2014, Japan had just six gun-related deaths advertisements have ideals that are decidedly while the United States had more than un-feminist. A woman will only be safe when 33,000. Gun violence is a problem that the she has a gun, thus allowing her to defend United States, alone amongst developed herself from men with guns? American gun nations, faces, and in solving it we must policy frequently seeks to treat the symptoms consider deep reasons, not simply our of the proliferation of firearms rather than the lenient gun control laws and strict Second underlying causes of their now omnipresent Amendment interpretations. One fact looms threat. Rather than accepting, as the women large: Mass shootings are inextricably male. in the advertisements do, that men have guns The way men and boys are socialized and everyone should carry their own gun to is a key part of any explanation of this protect themselves, why don’t we address the phenomenon. Societal norms attempt to basis of the issue? Men are statistically more require men to be the providers and protectors violent. We should not simply accept the fact of their families and that whenever we are in their family pride. I, “We should be a public space, we are in like many, have heard danger of being victims educating boys and the multiple phrases of gun violence or a mass we use to enforce these girls in the same ways shooting. The NRA and gender roles on boys. and socializing them its ilk only continue the “Be careful, girls are gendering of crime and fragile, so you can’t play to understand that mass shootings through too rough” and “boys violence should not current campaigns rather don’t cry” are statements than actually empowering be the first outlet for that represent the ideals women. Instead of putting perpetuated in Western frustration.” the impetus on women to society. These statements become more violently have disastrous effects. socialized, we need to put According to the pressure and focus on the American Physiological Association, men way boys are socialized. We also can’t only are less likely to ask for help than women blame the legislature and organizations like when suffering from mental health issues. the NRA. They are at fault for perpetuating Those issues are exacerbated by the societal existing norms that help to cause gun violence. pressure that pushes men not to seek If the socialization of men and boys and physiological help. the ideals we, as Americans, hold dear are The problems of male socialization resulting in tragedies like the Las Vegas manifests in crimes other than those related massacre, those ideals must change. Our to gun violence. Men make up the vast legislation should step up and decide that majority of prison inmates in America. going to a country music festival should According to the Department of Justice, not mean putting your life at risk. Virginia about 214,000 women were incarcerated Rep. Barbara Comstock said she was in 2013 in American jails and prisons while “heartbroken” about the Las Vegas incident, just over two million men shared the same yet she has accepted more than $100,000 in fate. On the other hand, women are more NRA campaign donations. It is not just our likely to be victims of domestic violence laws and legislation that needs to change but sexual assault. The consequences of male our values. We should be educating boys and socialization have been documented to begin girls in the same ways and socializing them at the high school level. In the 2011-2012 to understand that violence should not be school year, on average, approximately 11 the first outlet for frustration. Otherwise, percent of high school boys were suspended these sorts of massacres will become while only about 5 percent of girls faced the commonplace, and that is an outcome that same disciplinary action. These suspensions I do not accept.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2017

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THE DARTMOUTH ARTS

Eclectic jazz group Pink Martini to perform at the Hop tonight

the jazz era, the instrumentation is actually a diversion from typical The Dartmouth jazz style.

“For me, the most striking element Comprised of 11 performers from Portland, Oregon, jazz group of the band’s instrumentation is the Pink Martini, which was founded in inclusion of a string section, which 1994, artfully merges music from can give the music the sound of midaround the world, infusing it with its century pop music — not necessarily own unparalleled style. This worldly jazz, but calling on similar sources appeal is partially a result of Pink of nostalgia,” Christie said.

Music is often described as a Martini’s commitment to embody what bandleader and pianist language, a medium that allows for Thomas Lauderdale described as communication across boundaries.

For Pink Martini, the house band this conception of t h e U n i t e d “Pink Martini music is reiterated Nations would is this fabulous through its h ave h a d i n combination of a multinational and 1962. multilingual set While Pink cocktail band, a list and diverse Martini’s audiences. Over f a n b a s e i s jazz band, a minithe past few widespread and orchestra, an ironic, ars, people extends beyond hip, tongue-in-cheek ye from outside the U.S., the of the Upper D a r t m o u t h band.”

Valley have been community known to travel and the Upper to Hanover to Valley at large -MARGARET watch and listen h a v e b e e n LAWRENCE, DIRECTOR to Pink Martini notoriously OF PROGRAMMING AT perform at the receptive to Hop, according t h e e c l e c t i c THE HOPKINS CENTER to Lawrence. group and its FOR THE ARTS I n multilingual addition to their repertoire. musical appeal, In fact, Pink Martini is something of a Dartmouth college students may find that favorite, having returned to campus attending perfor mances from multiple times. Its upcoming visiting artists like Pink perfor mance marks its fourth Martini can provide appearance in Hanover. a sense of departure Hopkins Center for the Arts from the typical school director of programming Margaret environment. At Pink Lawrence credits Pink Martini’s M a r t i n i s h ow s, t h e uniqueness for the group’s status as audience is often filled a musical favorite of the Dartmouth with both students and community. non-students, forging a “Pink Martini is this fabulous more organic experience combination of a cocktail band, for those who may be a jazz band, a mini-orchestra, an seeking a change of pace. ironic, hip, tongue-in-cheek band,” Christie expressed Lawrence said. excitement Gray Christie bringing “In my opinion, about ’20, a jazz music jazz groups like enthusiast who any jazz act Pink Martini plays second that comes to Dartmouth’s alto saxophone campus. for Dartmouth’s to campus is “ I n Barbary Coast a worthwhile my opinion, Jazz Ensemble, any jazz act experience.” said that Pink that comes Martini’s to campus is s o u n d a n d -GRAY CHRISTIE ’20 a worthwhile perfor mance experience,” style are he said. “I’m distinctive. all for the “The name ‘Pink Martini’ and idea of spreading jazz the dynamic between the animated appreciation on campus, pianist [Lauderdale] and the female and a group like this is a vocalist [China Forbes] are both good way to get people elements of the group’s presentation interested.” that evoke the smoky, film noir, E m b r a c i n g swing-era nightclub vision of jazz,” coincidence, the show he said. takes place in conjunction Christie noted that while the with Breast Cancer group’s presentation may hearken Aw a r e n e s s M o n t h , back to a stereotypical vision of so, following the Pink

By JORDAN McDONALD

Martini show, the bar at the top of the Hop will be decked out in pink to celebrate the group and raise breast cancer awareness, Lawrence said.

“It’s not the purpose of the show,

but they happen to be here during National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, so while they’re here, we’ll also give a shout out to that,” Lawrence said. “Our pop-up bar — which we’ve been experimenting

with at the Top of the Hop before and after the show — it will be lit up in pink and there will be a special pink drink that night.”

Pink Martini will perform at the Hop tonight at 7 p.m.

COURTESY OF THOMAS HORNBECKER

Tonight will mark Pink Martini’s fourth performance at the Hopkins Center for the Arts.

THE DARTMOUTH ARTS

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TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2017

Dark, challenging ‘Detroit’ may be controversial without purpose

By SEBASTIAN WURZRAINER The Dartmouth Staff

I watched “Detroit” over a week ago, and I’m still not quite sure what to say. It is, without a doubt, the hardest film I’ve ever had to review. In retrospect, this is not a shock — director Kathryn Bigelow has shown a steadfast willingness to tackle controversial topics in her previous two films, “The Hurt Locker” and “Zero Dark Thirty.”

Similarly, “Detroit” is based on the Algiers Motel Incident, although the film acknowledges that Mark Boal’s tense screenplay takes certain factual liberties due to conflicting or incomplete testimonies about what actually occurred in the 1967 incident of police brutality against three black teenagers. Thus, the plot details described in this review will be based purely on the events as the film describes them; if you want to know more about the real-life incident, I highly recommend looking it up.

In July 1967, rising racial tensions in Detroit boiled over when the majority white police

force raided an unlicensed club that was celebrating the return of two black Vietnam War veterans.

Things eventually spiraled out of control and led to the 12th Street Riot, turning Detroit into something of a war zone. In the midst of the riot, the police and members of the National Guard mistook the firing of a starter pistol with sniper fire coming from the Algiers Motel. They rounded up patrons of the motel, all black men except for two white women, and proceeded to brutally interrogate and torture them under the guise of wanting to ascertain the identity of the “sniper.” The night ended in three deaths, yet none of the officers were ever convicted.

I’m not the first person to point out that the film’s biggest problem is the way it always keeps itself at an arm’s length from its characters.

John Boyega ostensibly plays the lead, Melvin Dismukes, a black security guard who serves as a de facto mediator between the police and the victims. Yet it wasn’t until the film started to depict the aftermath of the incident that I felt like I was given a chance to really

know Dismukes. The same can be said for all of the characters, black, white or otherwise; effective characterization often doesn’t arise until the final act. And that’s a problem because when the film depicts the incident, which takes up the majority of the runtime, it is a brutal, grueling and deeply unpleasant experience — as it should be. But because we don’t know these characters nearly as well as we might like to, the film walks uncomfortably close to the line between showing the suffering of black individuals to make a moral point and showing the suffering of black individuals for the sake of depicting suffering. The former is already questionable, and the latter is entirely unacceptable.

What’s odd is that Bigelow has traditionally been excellent at getting us inside the minds of her characters. It’s almost as if she too was wary of this controversial subject matter and thus opted to distance herself from the story she was trying to tell.

All that being said, the directing on a purely technical level is a marvel. Bigelow is undoubtedly

one of the finest directors working today; her work is visceral and intense in a way that is truly difficult to stomach. Too often films attempt to downplay our atrocities, past and present, yet Bigelow never falls prey to the glossy Hollywood sheen that could have ruined “Detroit.”

Controversial as this film may be, I think Bigelow could end up getting nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director, a decision I wouldn’t dispute.

Likewise, all of the actors do an excellent job, making the most of parts that are occasionally underwritten. Boyega is regularly sidelined, but his presence helps ground the story. In fact, the star might be Will Poulter as the seemingly sociopathic police officer Philip Krauss. I’m not sure if Krauss is terrifying because Poulter is so good or because he so closely resembles some of the people that too often dominate our daily news, but either way he’s chilling. The real scene-stealer, though, is Algee Smith as Larry Reed, a singer with a dream who is simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Reed is the only

character that I felt I really got to know from the beginning, and that’s largely thanks to Smith’s heartfelt performance.

“Detroit” may be about a tragic historical event in the 1960s, but it should come as no shock that in the era of Black Lives Matter and “take a knee,” it feels painfully relevant. Unsurprisingly, the film has also reignited the debate about white artists, in this case Bigelow and Boal, depicting true events that so prominently feature the pain of black individuals. Given that I am white, I freely acknowledge this is a thorny topic that I do not feel entirely comfortable wading into.

Is it a good film? I don’t think I have a satisfactory answer to that question. It is an effective and well-made film with admirable intent. But is it doing more good or more harm in these charged times?

Frankly, I don’t think that’s for me to decree, but instead something each viewer should decide on his or her own. This might be one of those unique cases where the discussion after the film is more important than the film itself. And that’s got to be worth something.

Group spotlight on Dartmouth’s Christian a cappella group X.ado

By HOLLY SUNG The Dartmouth

Dartmouth’s Christian a cappella group X.ado celebrated its 25th anniversary during Homecoming, welcoming alumni of the group in a performance at Rollins Chapel on Saturday night. Following the performance, the group and audience members enjoyed an evening of unstructured worship, an event demonstrative of X.ado’s group personality and mission. Founded in 1992, X.ado differentiates itself from other campus performance groups both in its philosophy and its approach to rehearsing and performing. While a love of music unites the group members, music isn’t the only thing that draws them together; the members’ faith and strong sense of purpose unites X.ado under a common identity.

“I feel like X.ado is by nature different from the other groups on campus,” Elisabeth Pillsbury ’18, the Outreach Pitch of the group, said.

“We’re not just a performance group,

but we are also a ministry. It’s a big different,” Fred Kim ’17, a recent component of who we are.”

X.ado alumnus, said. “I feel like This impacts the group’s audition what sets X.ado apart is our purpose; process, according to Pillsbury. every song and every show we have “We are selecting from a smaller are selected and designed carefully pool from the beginning — [members] with purpose. Each time, the purpose need to be talented musicians but is different, but the main theme is also have to be to spread God’s on track with “We’re not just a love.” our mission,” performance group, In addition she said. “So our to this common group tends to but we are also a purpose, X.ado’s be smaller, but ministry.” dee p histor y in the end, all contributes to the people in the the community group are excited -ELISABETH PILLSBURY ’18, of the group. to be there.”

Approximately X.ADO OUTREACH PITCH The group’s 20 group alumni unique closeness visited for is perhaps best Homecoming, demonstrated by the weekly “x-hour,” ranging in year from ’17s to ’06s. separate from and in addition to its The Homecoming performance, normal rehearsal schedule. However, which group alumnus and event emcee this is not the same period that Daniel Fang ’15 said X.ado began Dartmouth students know so well. planning in March, was a meaningful Instead, this is a time for X.ado way to celebrate X.ado’s history and members to come together in spiritual share current and former members’ reflection as a group. love for the group.

“The nature of our shows are also “Emceeing for the event, I was

able to really appreciate X.ado and what it meant for each of us,” Fang said. “It’s a beautiful family that God has brought together for an amazing and powerful purpose. We spent the whole afternoon on Saturday just street singing together; we brought back a lot of the X.ado classics, and it was magical how we were all able to just come together as a group despite the age gaps.”

Although the event was on Saturday, current members and alumni were able to spend quality time together throughout the weekend, ending their weekend with a gathering for brunch on Sunday.

“It was like coming home,” Kim said. “I remember we would have rehearsals three times a week, and no matter what happened in my college life, either academic or social, every time I went to the X.ado rehearsal I felt like I was brought back home. The group rounded me and I received a lot of love, and it was amazing to come back as an alum.”

Fang ended the reunion weekend with high hopes for the next 25 years

of the group.

“This anniversary event was an opportunity for us to dig back into what X.ado is,” Fang said. “Hopefully we will catapult ourselves into the next 25 years with the same sense of family and purpose and passion.”

Fang also expressed excitement for X.ado’s future growth, mentioning that the group went on its first international tour in Seoul, South Korea last winter.

As a senior, Pillsbury said that the weekend allowed her to reflect on her thankfulness for the X.ado “family” over the past three years.

“It’s a special connection and family that I feel grateful for, especially after this weekend,” Pillsbury said. “A lot of our ’17s joined us for the concert and in the end the alumni joined us to sing as well, and it was amazing.”

As a recent alumnus, Kim was pleased to see that the group continued to thrive despite the departure of its most recent graduates.

“I was glad to see that the group survived without the 17s,” Kim said.

“That assured me that the group would keep living on.”