INTERuniTARY

Yes yes, I’m doing my part to spread viral videos…except this one is actually quality. And the one he made this year is even better. Can I submit a proposal for summer enrichment?

–Irene L.

In the interest of consolidating all the names in one place, I’ve taken the liberty of doing so, culling from the various posts and comments, plus adding a few more:

Anthony Kelley and Jennifer Jenkins (they could even do a “team” keynote presentation). They co-taught a course last fall in the law school with law professor Jamie Boyle on “Music Composition: Borrowing and the Law.” Very interdisciplinary and a great fit for our topic. Boyle and Jenkins are featured in the graphic comic “Bound By Law”: http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/comics/ about documentary film making, fair use, and intellectual property and copyright issues. A sequel is supposedly coming out on music featuring Kelley.

MUSIC AND LAW:

Anthony Kelley is a professor in Music: http://fds.duke.edu/db/aas/Music/faculty/antk
For an interesting discussion of musical borrowing, see “The Splendid Thievery of Anthony Kelley”

Jennifer Jenkins directs the Center for the Study of the Public Domain and is a lecturing fellow in the law school, specializing in intellectual property law: http://www.law.duke.edu/fac/jenkins/

COMICS:

Brooke McEldowney: Wikipedia article on him, which links to further Wikipedia articles on his two comic strips
9 Chickweed Lane (his main comic strip, the one seen ’round the world)
Pibgorn (his online-only comic strip - featuring a re-working of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream)

ENVIRONMENT AND ART:

Bryant Holsenbeck, environmental artist from Durham www.bryantholsenbeck.com/
Does workshops to make your own journals.

Noah Scalin, graphic design professor at VCU, specializes in socially conscious design
alrdesign.com (read his philosophy)
noahs@alrdesign.com

elin o’hara slavick
(teaches at UNC, does strong/political work)
http://www.unc.edu/~eoslavic/

HUMANITIES

Franklin Humanities Institute’s “Recycle” seminar fellows: http://www.jhfc.duke.edu/fhi/seminar/sem0708.php

Mark Anthony Neal, Professor of Black Popular Culture, AAAS, co-convener of FHI “Recycle” Seminar:
In order to attack old assumptions of the relationship between “high” and “low” culture I consider the ways that cultural texts and icons are recycled in the service of popular art. For example, the music industry reformulates previously recorded songs and random mass media utterings for contemporary consumption through the practice of sampling and remixing. This practice has been particularly common in hip-hop, which can be described as a sonic collage brilliantly exhibiting producers’ broad musical palate. Sampling and remixing also extends to the recycling of popular iconography and vernacular language use, including figures like the “pimp” (and the act of pimping) and pejoratives like the word “nigger”.

Pedro Lasch, Professor of the Practice of Visual Arts, FHI Faculty Fellow in “Recycle” seminar: http://fds.duke.edu/db/aas/AAH/faculty/pedro.lasch

and also: George Gopen (English)

ENVIRONMENT AND WATER - THE DROUGHT
Possibly city or NSOE folks involved in the Durham town hall meeting on the drought earlier in January. http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/news/ns-watertownhall2.html

For example, among others:
Bill Holman, senior visiting fellow at the Nicholas School

Ted Voorhees, Durham’s deputy city manager: theodore.voorhees@durhamnc.gov

PHYSICAL (MATERIAL) RECYCLING

George W. Roberts, retired professor of chemical and biomolecular Engineering, and/or Dr. Saad A. Khan, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering (NCSU): http://news.ncsu.edu/releases/2007/feb/025.html

EXPERIENTIAL RECYCLING (PSYCHOLOGY):Beth Marsh (psychology) - works on human memory
Roberto Cabeza (psychology) - works on neural correlates of memory and cognition
Kevin LaBar (psychology) - works on the cognitive neuroscience of emotional learning and memory

In the interest of nominating people from my own household who happen to be internationally syndicated cartoonists, I nominate my father, Brooke McEldowney. One of his more recent projects within his comic strip “Pibgorn” was a reworking of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which involved the recycling of Shakespeare for purposes graphic, artistic and comic.

For more information:
Wikipedia article on him, which links to further Wikipedia articles on his two comic strips (I recommend checking those out before you check out the strips themselves)
9 Chickweed Lane (his main comic strip, the one seen ’round the world)
Pibgorn (his online-only comic strip)

(edit: oh, yeah. This was me, Nicola. Bonus points if you guessed.)

On the topic of recycling and the connection to the environment, here are some possibilities for keynote speakers, courtesy of my friend Tom Buhrman. He’s currently working on an environmental art exhibition called “re|THINK” (got your “re” in there, Lisa!) to encourage visual artists to design posters to encourage Carolinians to care about and protect the environment. When I mentioned our symposium topic to me, he suggested a few possible speakers. Some are artists, others are professors, some are local, some are not (from Tom’s email to me):

(1) Bryant Holsenbeck
(environmental artist from Durham)
www.bryantholsenbeck.com/
Does workshops to make your own journals.

(2) Noah Scalin, graphic design professor at VCU, specializes in socially
conscious design
alrdesign.com (read his philosophy)
noahs@alrdesign.com
*** Noah is one of the AIGA judges (for the re|THINK show), and his design philosophy is
outstanding — not just thinking about sustainability, but about
political choices in general.

(3) Amy Chapman-Braun
www.brauncreative.com
amy@brauncreative.com
creative director, Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth
Sciences at Duke
*** One of our AIGA judges. Our only local judge.

(4) elin o’hara slavick
(teaches at UNC, does strong/political work)
http://www.unc.edu/~eoslavic/

(5) This show of political posters is similar to our concerns.
Any of the 3 curators would probably be good.
http://www.thegraphicimperative.org/

(6) Mike Salter
(designer/visual artist I used to know, he used to live in NC, now
lives/teaches/creates in Oregon)
http://www.copyrightsalter.com/
http://art-uo.uoregon.edu/index.cfm?mode=faculty&page=msalter
*** One of our AIGA judges. Uses recycled materials/objects. Special
note: did some of the wall murals in the Duke Coffeehouse.

(7) Marc Alt (NYC) or Phil Hamlett (SF), Co-Chairs AIGA Center for
Sustainable Design

( Jonah Sachs, founder/ pres. of Free Range Studios, design firm
specializing in socially conscious design
Named to Fast Company’s Fast 50: 50 Profit-driven solutions for what
ails the planet (along with Arnold Schwarzeneggar & Nike)
Lots of experience/ awards in environmental and social change
http://www.freerangestudios.com

Also, we could consider some of the fellows in the Franklin Humanities Institute’s “Recycle” seminar as possible keynote speakers:

http://www.jhfc.duke.edu/fhi/seminar/sem0708.php

Franklin Humanities Institute Co-Conveners “Recycle” Seminar:

Neil De Marchi, Professor of Economics, has interests in the emergence of art and financial markets and cultural economics.

Mark Anthony Neal, Professor of Black Popular Culture in the Program in African and African-American Studies works on black popular culture, black feminist and queer theory and black intellectual production.

Annabel Wharton, William B. Hamilton Professor of Art History, works on art, architecture and material culture from late antiquity to modernity.

Duke Arts and Sciences Faculty Fellows:

Pedro Lasch, Assistant Professor of the Practice, Art, Art History & Visual Studies
Peter M. McIsaac, Andrew W. Mellon Assistant Professor, Germanic Languages and Literature
Rebecca L. Stein, Assistant Professor, Cultural Anthropology
Susan G. Sterrett, Assistant Professor, Philosophy
Kenneth J. Surin, Professor and Chair, Program in Literature

Duke Professional School Faculty Fellow:

Catherine Fisk, Professor, School of Law

UNC-Chapel Hill Institute for the Arts & Humanities (IAH) Exchange Fellow:

Richard Langston, Assistant Professor, Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures

Duke Library Fellow:

Ernest “Erik” Zitser, PhD, Librarian for Slavic and East European Studies, Bostock/Perkins Library

Postdoctoral Fellows:

Jane E. Anderson, PhD (2003), Law, University of New South Wales
Andrew Russell, PhD (2007), History of Science and Technology, Johns Hopkins University

- Tori

Symposium Planning Seminar Recap (Jan. 14, 200

At this past Monday’s seminar, we discussed ways in which our current work could be viewed (or not) through the lens of “recycle,” our theme for this year’s symposium. The above link is a recap of ideas proposed, which could be largely grouped into 3 broad categories, as Roxanne suggested, Materials, Ideas, and Experiences.

PLEASE REVIEW AND RESPOND IF INTERESTED IN COORDINATING ON ANY PROPOSED PANELS OR PROPOSE NEW TOPICS.

Ideally, we’ll have 3 group presentations. Each group will be comprised of undergraduate, graduate, and professional school Unis, working together.

Suggestions for keynote speakers also welcome! At Monday’s seminar, the following names were bandied about:

Beth Marsh (psychology)
Roberto Cabeza (psychology)
Kevin LaBar (psychology)
George Gopen (English)

Please feel free to elaborate on the merits of the proposed speakers and/or to propose others.

~ Tori

After the seminar on Thursday, I realized that my current research focuses on a unique recyclable that never came up during our discussion: money! Beyond the normal circulation of currency that we engage in any time we make a purchase, investment in capital is a particularly striking form of recycling, although it’s rarely made so salient (after that one lecture in intro econ).

To make it more clear, consider the loans you can make at a site like www.kiva.org. Here, you can make a loan (in full or in part) to an entrepreneur in the developing world who will use the loan to invest in capital; perhaps the loan will enable the purchase of a sewing machine which will help the entrepreneur to make a better living. When he or she is able (after using the sewing machine to increase output), the loan is paid back. After the loan is paid back, the lender has the same amount of money he or she started with (excluding interest, although you could easily incorporate interest into this system as it is in most others), and the borrower now has a sewing machine… It really does have a bit of a magical feeling about it.

At a meta-level, I received a gift certificate to the site from my brother after he had a loan that was paid back from a gift certificate he had received, and so on and so on. Unlike the other kinds of recycling we discussed, there doesn’t seem to be any loss here, other than the value of having money today rather than tomorrow. Of course, it may not quite satisfy the definition with respect to being decomposed into its component pieces through violence…

Stephen

Here is the link to “Recycling is Garbage” by John Tierney, and here’s another story that pretty much states his views on sustainability (i.e., human ingenuity is one resource we won’t soon run out of).

And if anyone wants more background literature on economics and the environment, this website is chock full of stories.

Enjoy!
Irene L.

(Yoinked from The Snark Ascending, which I guess means, technically, that I can sue myself.)

MY BIG FAT GREEK TRAGEDY

I’m het up. There’s very little I can do about this, aside from daily applying the necessary cream. But I thought you ought to know.

Of course this comes of attending college. Getting het up is fashionable here. You can tell by the T-shirts. The other day at breakfast, I passed by a girl in a T-shirt that said: FREE TIBET.* Yes’m. Right after the Cocoa Puffs.

What’s gotten me het is ancient Greek tragedy. Under the watchful eye of my Greek and Roman Drama professor, Dr. Greek and Roman Drama Guy**, I have lately studied numerous paragons of ancient Greek tragedy by eminent ancient Greek tragedy guys Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, who are highly suspicious for several reasons:

- They each appear to have only one name.***
- Their plays all involve characters with names like “Creon”.
- They also involve blatantly made-up concepts, such as “stichomythia”.
- Has anyone seen them together lately?

For me, reading these plays has proven an experience of great personal change, in the sense that I have shed a great number of personal cells. Now please don’t take this the wrong way, Dr. Greek and Roman Drama Guy – I am sure you are a lovely person – but it is clear that ancient Greek tragedy was composed via the following procedure:

1. Buy box of ancient Greek Alpha-Bits.
2. Pour Alpha-Bits on ancient Greek floor.
3. Transcribe contents.

If you’re not going to take my word for it, consider the following outline of actual ancient Greek tragedy Seven Against Thebes, written by Aeschylus, or to use his stage name, “Sophocles”. Running times are in brackets:

First Act (or “stichomythia”): Everyone is about to fight. The chorus is very worried. They explain that this is because everyone is about to fight. For clarity’s sake, they explain again that everyone is about to fight. Also, they explain that they are very worried. This is because everyone is about to fight. [97 minutes]

Second Act (or “kommos”): Brief time-out to describe everybody who is fighting or ever fought or flossed in the vicinity of ancient Greece, as well as their shields, horses, earlobes, shoelaces, prostates, etc. [38.2 hours]

Third Act (or “spanakopita”): Everybody dies. Shortly thereafter, they are described. [2.5 hours Centigrade]

This will never do, folks. We need motion. We need intrigue. We need our ancient Greek tragedy to be the literary equivalent of a sizzling fajita, such as the one I purchased at Busch Gardens in 2001 for $17.99 and it was a MAGICAL MOUTHWATERING EXPERIENCE, DAMMIT oh who am I kidding it SUCKED SOOOO MUCH OH GOD IT’S A PAIN THAT NEVER GOES AWAY.

Which is to say, you’ll be glad to know I’ve taken it upon myself to make my own contribution to Greek drama: Freon. For your perusal, a synopsis:

Freon, prince of Cyst, is disquieted because his duck is missing. Also, he may or may not have fathered 47 children with his mother, plus another 13 more in the last few minutes while he was busy being disquieted. The chorus hatches a plan to console their beloved leader by making him an outfit from the draperies and singing to him about their favorite things. Zeus takes pity on Freon and fries the chorus to a golden brown crisp.

Norman the prophet arrives to inform Freon, in highly oblique terms, that he will soon eat a sandwich. Freon points out that he has already eaten a sandwich, and orders that Norman be buried alive. Thinking quickly, Norman points out that he is already buried alive. Freon is content, despite the fact that Norman is talking to him from above ground. Satisfied that he has done his work for the day, Freon goes off to eat a sandwich.

The chorus**** sings about the nature of yarn, just because they can.

Freon’s mother, Urethra, enters in hysterics. It takes twelve mighty warriors to disentangle her from the hysterics, but they succeed. Afterwards, she tells them news. It turns out that the missing duck is actually Freon’s father, Flatus. As it happens, Flatus is also Freon’s grandfather and third-aunt, due to a chain of highly uninteresting coincidences. As penance, Freon pokes himself repeatedly. The chorus becomes very worried and engages in a lyric dialogue to the effect that Freon is poking himself repeatedly.

Duane, god of lesser mayonnaise, descends on a crane in the ancient Greek dramatic tradition of “e pluribus unum” and tells them all to shut the hell up because he is TRYING TO READ FIELD AND STREAM. Gore ensues.

A few survive, but they are summarily stricken down for being homely.

Granted, it’s a rough draft, but I hope to flesh it out in time for this year’s Dionysia, tentatively to be held in beautiful Biddeford, Maine.***** Until then, if you need me, leave a message. I’ll be out freeing Stichomythia.

*I mean, just like that. No “please” or squat.
**Not his real name. His real name is “Dr. Greek and Roman Drama Dude”.
***Following the tradition begun in 670 B.C. by “Cher”.
****So the crispy guys have been replaced with new ones. Work with me here.
*****Look for the 535-lb. plaid-shirted man with the rifle. Then turn left.

(c)2007, Nicola M.

Last night, the University Scholars Program had our first seminar of the semester. Mari, Roxanne, Sarah H. and Jacob led the discussion on the topic of “memory,” inspired by an NPR Radio Lab broadcast on the subject on WNYC. If you haven’t had a chance to listen to the broadcast yet, I highly recommend it. It’s a fascinating program, although I do have some small quibbles with the style of presentation, especially early on in the show. Nevertheless, folks should definitely check it out.

At our seminar last night, Roxanne began by explaining how psychologists discuss memory. I draw upon my notes, which others should feel free to correct in commenting on this post, should my recap prove erroneous at points. As Roxanne explained, in psychology, memory is the internal representation of things that have happened and is “selective,” “constructive,” “reconstructive,” and “dynamic.” The selective function of memory results from the situational nature of memory, that we remember in accordance with certain values, etc. to create or maintain consistency in our interpretation of the world around us, including our memories.

The constructive or reconstructive aspect of memory results when we fill in gaps. For example, the way a lawyer asks a question can influence the answer. In another example, psychology professor Elizabeth Loftus‘ research revealed how memories can even be constructed based on zero experience. For example, in the 1980’s, there were hundreds of reported cases of Satanic sexual abuse which proliferated due to news reports and a cultural fascination with the phenomenon.

We can talk about how memory is dynamic when we consider an event that we may remember one way today and differently five years from now. People take for granted the fidelity of memory, and our legal system is based on it, but this is deeply problematic, as Elizabeth Loftus’ has also demonstrated.

Roxanne also discussed the how memory works in incidences of PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. For example, when a natural disaster such as a tsunami occurs, in a child who witnesses the event, adrenaline solidifies memory in the hippocampus and creates strong links with the emotional realm of the brain in the amygdala, which leads to the development of super strong memories. These may re-emerge unwillingly through re-experiencing the event in dreams, flashbacks, in physiological responses, etc. Therapy will help break these memories down, help the patient find the accuracy in them, and thereby disempower the trauma of certain memories, reconstructing memory to be more useful.

- Tori

N.B. I’ve begun cross-posting these (alongside other brand-spankin’-new, never-before-skimmed musings) over at my own web site, The Snark Ascending, where I can soliloquize with abandon on topics, such as flagrant indifference to the environment, which I would never even allude to here.

BIOSMUT

Like most Americans, I am deeply concerned by the issues impacting our country*, such as the pollution issue, the foreign policy issue, the cellulite issue, the April/May Cosmo, etc. But I think I may aver without fear of accuracy that foremost among these is: the smut issue.

I recently found myself face-to-face with this very issue while reading my biology textbook. It is for your edification as well as my own that I reprint the following verbatim excerpt, which concerns the sporophyte of the liverwort Marchantia, and should for enhanced effect be read as though the text consists of the words “what are you wearing?” Better yet, experts recommend first spending an afternoon immersed in a work such as Loins of the Mississippi by Jessamyn Torso**, so as to get yourself in the proper frame of mind. Then, feast your endoplasmic reticula on THIS baby:

“The mature capsule contains spores and elaters, which are elongate structures with spirally thickened walls. Eventually the wall of the capsule dries and bursts, releasing the spores. Ejection of the spores is aided by the elaters, which twist and jerk as they dry, thus throwing the spores from the capsule.”

The passage goes on to describe, in painstaking detail, the capsule’s subsequent cigarette. Now I’m not saying science is finally good for something, but, well…I’d be a fool not to open my mind.

At the same time, I must admit to some conflicted feelings over this. My main problem is reconciling myself to this new perception of my bio book. I’m just not sure I can do this. For one thing, the book is old.*** It dates from my father’s own biological studies at the University of Pennsylvania (motto: “Not The State School! The Other One!”). Reading it in its entirety has been one of my summer projects, which also include Russian and popsicles. I have become fond of this book, against my better judgment and despite its repeated attempts to make me feel as though I fall, on the Great Intellectual Barometer of Intellectualness****, somewhere between “microbe” and “leader of the free world”*****. Take this scintillating nugget (topic: “The Effects of Qualitatively Unequal Cleavages”) (really):

“We have already seen that the cytoplasm of the unfertilized egg is often not homogeneous. Most animal eggs contain stored food material, or yolk, which being usually concentrated in one part of the cell, establishes a distinction between animal and vegetal hemispheres. Another distinction between them is that the animal hemisphere often has much more pigment in the cytoplasm than the vegetal hemisphere. It is reasonable to think that other materials may be similarly restricted to certain regions of the cytoplasm.”

OH! So I CAN think that other materials may be similarly restricted to certain regions of the cytoplasm! I feel MUCH better now! Don’t you?

But my point is, I have heretofore viewed this book solely as a source of infinite tedious enlightenment. For example, if not for Chapter 21 (”In Which Pooh Goes Visiting and Gets Into A Tight Place”), I might never have become acquainted with the myriad classes of algae, which include Chrysophyta, Rhodophyta, Phaeophyta, Toyota, Rhododendron, Morticia, Mexican Hairless, and Neil. Sociology enters the picture, too, with the introduction of Lycopsida, the highly exclusive and icy-hearted “club mosses,” whose ranks consist primarily of Connecticut orthodontists who, it is widely rumored, would never let poor Rudolph join in any reindeer games.

This is not to say I trust the book implicitly. Far from it. In fact, I have had occasion to be convinced of its pulling a fast one on me. Hardcore followers of my dad’s biology book will know I am referring to page 464, paragraph 2, line 6, aisle 8, adjacent the bendy straws, wherein the author has the gall to assert that our bodies feature such structures as “meiotic spindles,” which, as of now, I have not located ANYWHERE on my personal body. Fortunately for those readers less prone than I to independent thought, this chicanery is blatantly exposed on neighboring page 465. Here we are shown a picture of Canada geese, which - and I’m sure many eminent biologists will back me up on this - have nothing to do with meiotic spindles whatsoever.

Come to think of it, this makes me feel much more sanguine vis-à-vis Smutgate, as if maybe the whole thing is just a harmless trick to see if we’re still paying attention. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I know many’s the time I’ve found my thoughts diverging from the text before me, informative though it may be, little knowing the author has inserted a passage teeming with such filth as to boggle the “Oh, Trent,” moaned Jessamyn, her qualitatively unequal cleavage pulsating with wild bilateral symmetry. “Do it do it DO IT.” “Okay,” said Trent, his massively bulging biomass bulging massively as he Back with me now? Thank you.

*America, or as some lah-dee-dah astronomy types will insist on calling it, “Earth”.
**Available wherever loins are sold.
***As evidenced by this actual excerpt from the inside cover page: “©The Pleistocene Epoch”.
****Sponsor: Claire’s Accessories.
*****Notice I have deftly arranged this sentence so that you may interpret it any way you wish. You’re welcome.

©2007, Nicola M.