Hindenburg Airship Makes Its First Test Flight from the 39 the Price of War Zeppelin Dockyards at Friedrichshafen, Thomas Nester Germany, 4 March 1936

Home , Koyaanisqatsi, Max Pruss, Naqoyqatsi, Powaqqatsi

Bridgewater Review

Volume 32 | Issue 1 Article 1

May-2013 Bridgewater Review, Vol. 32, No. 1, May 2013

Recommended Citation Bridgewater State University. (2013). Bridgewater Review. 32(1). Available at: http://vc.bridgew.edu/br_rev/vol32/iss1/1

This item is available as part of Virtual Commons, the open-access institutional repository of Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts. Bridgewater Review

In this issue: Also in this issue: MICHAEL SLOAN on AHMED ABDELAL on Voice New works of Art and Commentary Germany’s Zeppelin Museum and Vocal Health by LEIGH CRAVEN and and the History of Flight TOBY LORENZEN BJORN INGVOLDSTAD on Games and Academic Life FANG DENG on Globalization and Teaching SYS Creative Non-fiction by ELLEN SCHEIBLE

VolumeMay 2013 32 Number 1 May 2013 Bridgewater State University1 Bridgewater Review

2 Editor’s Notebook EDITOR Andrew C. Holman Andrew C. Holman History & Canadian Studies 4 Deutsche Luftshiffahrts-Aktiengesellschaft: Rediscovering the World’s First Airline ASSOCIATE EDITORS Michael Sloan Ellen Scheible English 8 The County Brian Payne Ellen Scheible History 12 The Aura of Flora: Pâte de Verre Vessels EDITORS EMERITI Leigh Craven Michael Kryzanek 16 Academic and Non-academic Games Political Science & Global Studies Bjorn Ingvoldstad William C. Levin Sociology 19 Inhuman Temporality: Koyaanisqatsi Matt Bell Barbara Apstein English 23 TEACHING NOTE Four Pillars in Understanding Globalization: DESIGN How I Teach Second Year Seminar Philip McCormick’s Design Fang Deng Works, Inc., Stoughton, MA

28 As The World Turns Toby Lorenzen (with Photographs by Frank Gorga)

32 Voice as a Parameter of Emotional and Physical Health Ahmed M. Abdelal

35 VOICES ON CAMPUS Bob Woodward: What Journalism is About Maple Platter: Old Man of the Mountain by Toby Lorenzen BOOK REVIEWS (Photograph by Frank Gorga) 37 It Isn’t that Simple: Globalization, History and Inevitability Brian Payne On the Cover: The Hindenburg airship makes its first test flight from the 39 The Price of War Zeppelin dockyards at Friedrichshafen, Thomas Nester Germany, 4 March 1936. (Photograph by Archive Photos).

Photo Credits The images of professors Bell, Craven, Deng, Bridgewater Review is published twice a year by the faculty and librarians of Bridgewater State University. Opinions expressed herein are those of the Gorga, Holman, Lorenzen, Nester and Sloan were authors and do not necessarily reflect the policies of Bridgewater Review or Bridgewater State University. taken by Frank Gorga. The images of associate editors Brian Payne and Ellen Scheible were Letters to the Editor are encouraged and should be sent to: Editor, Bridgewater Review, [email protected] taken by Bridgewater Review editor emeritus Articles may be reprinted with permission of the Editor. ©2013, Bridgewater State University ISBN 0892-7634 Bill Levin. Other photo credits are indicated below the respective photographs.

2 Bridgewater Review May 2013 1 Bridgewater Review

28 As The World Turns Toby Lorenzen (with Photographs by Frank Gorga)

32 Voice as a Parameter of Emotional and Physical Health Ahmed M. Abdelal

2 Bridgewater Review May 2013 1 and public transportation was closed The Blizzard of 1888, or the for 24 hours. On the South Shore, pounding surf and high winds worked Great White Hurricane, was in concert to cause the storm’s worst physical damage. It took several days unpredicted and dumped up to 50 to repair homes, businesses, and power lines, but, happily, unlike the blizzards inches of snow between March 11 of 1888 and 1978, no one died, and we now lightheartedly remember it as the and 12 across the Northeast. “snowpocalypse,” or “snowmageddon,” names that we coined to psycho- a 1789 dearth: “Societies tend to place consequences. In New York, profiteer- logically diminish its effect and assume certain people, usually the poorest and ing coal merchants raised the price of our control over nature. (From left to right:) Snowfall totals from the blizzards of 1888, 1978 and 2013 (Charts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration library). powerless, in dangerous circumstances; that critical fuel from 10 cents to one So what does the Blizzard of 2013 blaming ‘nature’ for the consequent dollar per bucket. Scores of factory tell us about who we are? The event is but scholars tell us that the ways we deal ‘disaster’ serves to absolve the social workers were injured or killed attempt- too close for historians like me to look Editor’s Notebook with bad weather can tell us a great deal order.” Laying blame is a big part of ing to make it to their jobs, fearing at with any certainty; anecdote still about who we are, or, more accurately, our very human reaction to natural dismissal if they didn’t. In Connecticut, reigns, and we haven’t gained much Andrew C. Holman who we think we are. disasters. But there is more to it than two young unmarried female office perspective yet. But I suspect that on pays ce n’est pas un pays, c’est l’hiver We should pay close attention to the that. Big weather events expose a wide workers froze to death when Victorian our experiences parallel those who Mon jardin ce n’est pas un jardin, c’est la plaine meanings we attach to bad weather, variety of the moral threads and ethical and especially to its “exceptional” choices that compose our social fabric. Mon chemin ce n’est pas un chemin, c’est la neige M events–such as tornadoes, hurricanes, When New Englanders of a certain Mon pays ce n’est pas un pays, c’est l’hiver. floods and, yes, blizzards–because, as age contemplate the word “bliz- unlike the blizzards of 1888 much as we like to see them as some- zard,” their minds race automatically and 1978, no one died, and we “My country it’s not a country, it’s winter.” So sayeth times cataclysmic phenomena natu- to personal memories of February French-Canadian poet and icon Gilles Vigneault in rally and unavoidably imposed from 1978, when a three-day Nor’easter without or (for those who prefer the now lightheartedly remember his anthemic song, Mon Pays (1965). The song is an delivered 27 inches of snow, wrought old term “act of God”) from above, $520 million worth of damage, and it as the “snowpocalypse,” or old favorite in Canada, but it’s one of those that people they are all inherently human events. killed 100 people. But that event pales know mostly for its catchy tune. Its words are not often Anthropologist Anthony Oliver-Smith in comparison to a storm that blew “snowmageddon” states this idea plainly in an oft-quoted in 90 years earlier. The Blizzard of pondered. I think Vigneault was trying to relate a passage from his 1986 book Natural 1888, or the Great White Hurricane, mood, a feeling among people in the Sixties generation Disasters and Human Responses: “Human was unpredicted and dumped up to propriety demanded that they try to suffered through the Great White groups and institutions play a far more 50 inches of snow between March that they could find an identity in the immediate make it home rather than spend the Hurricane of 1888, in meaning if not active role in the creation of destructive 11 and 12 across the Northeast. In night at their snowed-in workplace in in degree. In time, I think we’ll surroundings of daily life. And that weather is a big agencies and circumstances than is usu- Boston, wind gusts reached 50 mph. the company of their male workmates. remember that our blizzard laid bare our ally imagined or portrayed.” In other Across the entire region, more than part of that context. communities’ best traits and, perhaps, words, the contexts and effects of bad 400 people died. Like most blizzards, A century and a quarter later, our some of which we are not so proud. Here, in Massachusetts, as I write called it. By the time this issue appears weather are not random or “natural.” this one generated plenty of narratives Blizzard of 2013 hardly matches the these lines, we are experiencing yet in print, the awful winter of 2012-13 As Pulitzer-prize-winning historian of how ordinary people coped with disaster of 1888 (or that of 1978) in another one of the fourth season’s messy may have faded into a dim memory, Alan Taylor puts it in a 1999 essay on and explained the snow. The effects either scope or consequence. But it did blasts and I cannot help but think of of the Blizzard of 1888 were met with have its measure of hardship, and it will Vigneault’s opening statement. Right determination, resolve, hard work, have its own meanings. On February now, winter seems a perennial state and Scholars tell us that the ways charity and sympathy, all traits that we 8 and 9, more than two feet of snow stormy weather more normal than not. would like to think of as our own. And fell on most of eastern Massachusetts Our country–our normal, that is–these we deal with bad weather can the storm, like all storms, produced its which, combined with fierce winds (up past months, has been exceptionally own heroes. But the 1888 storm also to 63 mph), caused tremendous physi- white and cold and wet. Not surpris- tell us a great deal about who manifested some less laudable human cal damage to property and enterprise: ingly, it seems to have produced among traits, among them greed, pride, fear about 400,000 homes and businesses us a grim fatalism; the “delirium of we are or, more accurately, and commitment to hidebound social lost power, some for up to four days. winter,” as one NPR commentator who we think we are. convention, all of which had regrettable The Governor instituted a driving ban

2 Bridgewater Review May 2013 3 and public transportation was closed The Blizzard of 1888, or the for 24 hours. On the South Shore, pounding surf and high winds worked Great White Hurricane, was in concert to cause the storm’s worst physical damage. It took several days unpredicted and dumped up to 50 to repair homes, businesses, and power lines, but, happily, unlike the blizzards inches of snow between March 11 of 1888 and 1978, no one died, and we now lightheartedly remember it as the and 12 across the Northeast. “snowpocalypse,” or “snowmageddon,” names that we coined to psycho- a 1789 dearth: “Societies tend to place consequences. In New York, profiteer- logically diminish its effect and assume certain people, usually the poorest and ing coal merchants raised the price of our control over nature. (From left to right:) Snowfall totals from the blizzards of 1888, 1978 and 2013 (Charts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration library). powerless, in dangerous circumstances; that critical fuel from 10 cents to one So what does the Blizzard of 2013 blaming ‘nature’ for the consequent dollar per bucket. Scores of factory tell us about who we are? The event is but scholars tell us that the ways we deal ‘disaster’ serves to absolve the social workers were injured or killed attempt- too close for historians like me to look Editor’s Notebook with bad weather can tell us a great deal order.” Laying blame is a big part of ing to make it to their jobs, fearing at with any certainty; anecdote still about who we are, or, more accurately, our very human reaction to natural dismissal if they didn’t. In Connecticut, reigns, and we haven’t gained much Andrew C. Holman who we think we are. disasters. But there is more to it than two young unmarried female office perspective yet. But I suspect that on pays ce n’est pas un pays, c’est l’hiver We should pay close attention to the that. Big weather events expose a wide workers froze to death when Victorian our experiences parallel those who Mon jardin ce n’est pas un jardin, c’est la plaine meanings we attach to bad weather, variety of the moral threads and ethical and especially to its “exceptional” choices that compose our social fabric. Mon chemin ce n’est pas un chemin, c’est la neige M events–such as tornadoes, hurricanes, When New Englanders of a certain Mon pays ce n’est pas un pays, c’est l’hiver. floods and, yes, blizzards–because, as age contemplate the word “bliz- unlike the blizzards of 1888 much as we like to see them as some- zard,” their minds race automatically and 1978, no one died, and we “My country it’s not a country, it’s winter.” So sayeth times cataclysmic phenomena natu- to personal memories of February French-Canadian poet and icon Gilles Vigneault in rally and unavoidably imposed from 1978, when a three-day Nor’easter without or (for those who prefer the now lightheartedly remember his anthemic song, Mon Pays (1965). The song is an delivered 27 inches of snow, wrought old term “act of God”) from above, $520 million worth of damage, and it as the “snowpocalypse,” or old favorite in Canada, but it’s one of those that people they are all inherently human events. killed 100 people. But that event pales know mostly for its catchy tune. Its words are not often Anthropologist Anthony Oliver-Smith in comparison to a storm that blew “snowmageddon” states this idea plainly in an oft-quoted in 90 years earlier. The Blizzard of pondered. I think Vigneault was trying to relate a passage from his 1986 book Natural 1888, or the Great White Hurricane, mood, a feeling among people in the Sixties generation Disasters and Human Responses: “Human was unpredicted and dumped up to propriety demanded that they try to suffered through the Great White groups and institutions play a far more 50 inches of snow between March that they could find an identity in the immediate make it home rather than spend the Hurricane of 1888, in meaning if not active role in the creation of destructive 11 and 12 across the Northeast. In night at their snowed-in workplace in in degree. In time, I think we’ll surroundings of daily life. And that weather is a big agencies and circumstances than is usu- Boston, wind gusts reached 50 mph. the company of their male workmates. remember that our blizzard laid bare our ally imagined or portrayed.” In other Across the entire region, more than part of that context. communities’ best traits and, perhaps, words, the contexts and effects of bad 400 people died. Like most blizzards, A century and a quarter later, our some of which we are not so proud. Here, in Massachusetts, as I write called it. By the time this issue appears weather are not random or “natural.” this one generated plenty of narratives Blizzard of 2013 hardly matches the these lines, we are experiencing yet in print, the awful winter of 2012-13 As Pulitzer-prize-winning historian of how ordinary people coped with disaster of 1888 (or that of 1978) in another one of the fourth season’s messy may have faded into a dim memory, Alan Taylor puts it in a 1999 essay on and explained the snow. The effects either scope or consequence. But it did blasts and I cannot help but think of of the Blizzard of 1888 were met with have its measure of hardship, and it will Vigneault’s opening statement. Right determination, resolve, hard work, have its own meanings. On February now, winter seems a perennial state and Scholars tell us that the ways charity and sympathy, all traits that we 8 and 9, more than two feet of snow stormy weather more normal than not. would like to think of as our own. And fell on most of eastern Massachusetts Our country–our normal, that is–these we deal with bad weather can the storm, like all storms, produced its which, combined with fierce winds (up past months, has been exceptionally own heroes. But the 1888 storm also to 63 mph), caused tremendous physi- white and cold and wet. Not surpris- tell us a great deal about who manifested some less laudable human cal damage to property and enterprise: ingly, it seems to have produced among traits, among them greed, pride, fear about 400,000 homes and businesses us a grim fatalism; the “delirium of we are or, more accurately, and commitment to hidebound social lost power, some for up to four days. winter,” as one NPR commentator who we think we are. convention, all of which had regrettable The Governor instituted a driving ban

2 Bridgewater Review May 2013 3 Industrie’s double-decker A-380 passengers. William Randolph Hearst and gondola windows that opened as Deutsche Luftshiffahrts- in Lufthansa livery; and Zeppelin’s chartered it for the globe-straddling the Zeppelin spanned continents and LZ-129, the Hindenburg. 1929 flight, eastbound from New Jersey oceans at a pace of 80 miles an hour. Aktiengesellschaft: to New Jersey, so the flight could begin Onboard comfort and stylishness are These models of a ship, two airplanes, and end on American soil. readily evident. Above the lounge deck, and an airship reveal the enormous size Rediscovering the World’s visitors see a grouping of passenger of the Hindenburg, which was taller than Climb Aboard cabins that look very much like those and almost as long as the Queen Mary First Airline Museum visitors travel deeper into the on cruise ships and long-distance trains (making them both about the size of past and glimpse life aboard a Zeppelin in the twenty-first century. Back in the RMS Titanic). To put this in context, Michael Sloan dirigible (experienced by a total of only 1930s, a new sense of professional class when the Hindenburg flew by, it would 43,000 passengers). Complimentary marked the officers of these impressive n the eastern shore of the Bodensee, in the have been like the entire US Capitol sets of baggage tags and tickets are skycrafts. Not for them the dare-devil building floating 1,000 feet overhead. picturesque German town of Friedrichshafen, available–authentic reproductions of reputation that leather helmeted and Near the top of the display case, the Zeppelin Museum from the Bodensee, Friedrich those issued by the Deutsche Zeppelin- begoggled barnstorming pilots earned there is a time portal–a window onto the A-380 hovers mosquito-like above the O shafen, Germany (Courtesy of Zeppelin Museum). Reederei, GmbH (German Zeppelin and flaunted; captains of the sky like history of science and technology and onto a society Zeppelin behemoth. the depot; and a ferry from Switzerland Transportation Company, Inc.). Then Eckener, Max Pruss, Albert Sammt, The aviation pioneers whose contribu- that existed more than a century ago. Viewed through docks just steps away from the depot. they climb the gangway into a 1:1 Ernst Lehmann, were clad in crisp, tions made the dirigibles possible must this portal–one that extends in its unlikely origin, Appropriately, it’s housed in the former model of a small part of the Hindenburg. dark uniforms emblazoned with gold have had massive ideas for the possi stripes upon the sleeves. Both officers factory headquarters of the Zeppelin Visitors stroll through the art-deco pas- back to the American Civil War–visitors can witness bilities of modern air travel. Among and crew modeled a new, respectable Company, with the refurbished exte- senger lounge and dining areas, authen- them, of course, was visionary inven- formality that drew its culture from the creation and development of an idea that altered rior restored to a 1930s Bauhaus style, tically furnished with table settings, tor and persistent industrialist von passenger ocean vessels. Photographs reflecting a time when the company wall coverings, upholstered chairs, existing notions of time, space and travel. This portal Zeppelin, who created the groundwork was at the zenith of its success. of the dirigibles’ officers and crew at is called the Zeppelin Museum, named to honor the for ridged airships and established man who created the world’s first airline. Through the Portal the blueprint for the German Airship Travel Corporation, the world’s first The first piece of evidence that visi- airline. Also profiled at the Museum Frederick Adolf Heinrich August von ride became a defining moment in his tors have stepped through a time portal is Wilhelm Maybach whose technical Zeppelin (better known simply as life and it inspired his own creation. inside the museum’s revolving glass expertise–which helped him to develop Frederick Graf [Count] von Zeppelin) Within a few years, von Zeppelin had doors is the sight of a Zeppelin Saloon the engines for the Zeppelins–was first experienced lighter-than-air flight sketched out plans for a ridged-framed Car. The car gleams, light reflecting gained as co-worker with German in St. Paul, Minnesota. He was visiting airship, an improvement of the flexible, from its elegant, classic lines; a vin- automotive pioneer Gottlieb Daimler. the United States in 1863 as an official formless balloon he rode in. As a result, tage stylishness that reveals it is clearly Claude Dornier–who built the largest, military observer with the Union Army lighter-than-air flight fragmented into not of the twenty-first century. The most powerful flying boats of his day, during the Civil War. That balloon two distinct groupings: hard-structured Zeppelin Car was built by Maybach and whose name is still linked to air- dirigibles and soft-skinned blimps. Manufacturing, originally a wholly craft flying in the twenty-first century– A trip to the Museum provides visi- owned subsidiary of the Zeppelin became Count von Zeppelin’s scientific tors with a pathway through all that Company. Maybach was tasked with advisor in 1910. Dornier researched and history, from the beginnings of an the creation of various propulsion perfected lightweight metal alloys for idea that pioneered intercontinental systems for the dirigibles manufactured dirigibles. Dr. Hugo Eckener, aeronau- air travel through the creation of the here. The Maybach Company is now tical engineer and exceptional pilot, largest aircraft ever to fly, ultimately owned by Daimler-Benz, which has was von Zeppelin’s “heir apparent,” and leading “back to the future.” Today, announced that 2013 will bring an end flew the dirigible Graf Zeppelin on its The Hindenburg airship makes its first test flight from the Zeppelin dockyards at Friedrichshafen, dirigibles still evoke in us curiosity and to this venerable brand of automobiles. historic around-the-world flight in the Germany, on March 4, 1936. (Photograph by Archive Photos). excitement. Half a million dollars for a single car, summer of 1929. apparently, is too high a price. Access to Friedrichshafen to take this Graf Zeppelin was the most successful time-traveler’s journey is simple, as The wall in front of the Zeppelin dirigible in history. It flew more than When the Hindenburg flew by, it the museum is situated at a modern Car features a huge display case one million miles, visiting the U.S., transportation hub. The Deutsche Bahn showing scale models of famous South America, the Middle East, Japan, would have been like the entire (German Rail) harbor rail station is transportation icons: the oceanliner and the Arctic. It safely completed 590 across the street; an inter-city bus depot RMS Queen Mary I; Boeing’s four- US Capitol building floating flights, including 144 ocean crossings, Museum’s main gallery showing Zeppelin Saloon is next to that station; a multi-story motor Flying Boat in Pan Am livery; Car and, at upper left, exterior windows of the 1:1 and carried a total of more than 13,110 Hindenburg model (Photo by the author) parking garage stands at the far end of the largest passenger airplane, Airbus 1,000 feet overhead.

4 Bridgewater Review May 2013 5 Industrie’s double-decker A-380 passengers. William Randolph Hearst and gondola windows that opened as Deutsche Luftshiffahrts- in Lufthansa livery; and Zeppelin’s chartered it for the globe-straddling the Zeppelin spanned continents and LZ-129, the Hindenburg. 1929 flight, eastbound from New Jersey oceans at a pace of 80 miles an hour. Aktiengesellschaft: to New Jersey, so the flight could begin Onboard comfort and stylishness are These models of a ship, two airplanes, and end on American soil. readily evident. Above the lounge deck, and an airship reveal the enormous size Rediscovering the World’s visitors see a grouping of passenger of the Hindenburg, which was taller than Climb Aboard cabins that look very much like those and almost as long as the Queen Mary First Airline Museum visitors travel deeper into the on cruise ships and long-distance trains (making them both about the size of past and glimpse life aboard a Zeppelin in the twenty-first century. Back in the RMS Titanic). To put this in context, Michael Sloan dirigible (experienced by a total of only 1930s, a new sense of professional class when the Hindenburg flew by, it would 43,000 passengers). Complimentary marked the officers of these impressive n the eastern shore of the Bodensee, in the have been like the entire US Capitol sets of baggage tags and tickets are skycrafts. Not for them the dare-devil building floating 1,000 feet overhead. picturesque German town of Friedrichshafen, available–authentic reproductions of reputation that leather helmeted and Near the top of the display case, the Zeppelin Museum from the Bodensee, Friedrich those issued by the Deutsche Zeppelin- begoggled barnstorming pilots earned there is a time portal–a window onto the A-380 hovers mosquito-like above the O shafen, Germany (Courtesy of Zeppelin Museum). Reederei, GmbH (German Zeppelin and flaunted; captains of the sky like history of science and technology and onto a society Zeppelin behemoth. the depot; and a ferry from Switzerland Transportation Company, Inc.). Then Eckener, Max Pruss, Albert Sammt, The aviation pioneers whose contribu- that existed more than a century ago. Viewed through docks just steps away from the depot. they climb the gangway into a 1:1 Ernst Lehmann, were clad in crisp, tions made the dirigibles possible must this portal–one that extends in its unlikely origin, Appropriately, it’s housed in the former model of a small part of the Hindenburg. dark uniforms emblazoned with gold have had massive ideas for the possi stripes upon the sleeves. Both officers factory headquarters of the Zeppelin Visitors stroll through the art-deco pas- back to the American Civil War–visitors can witness bilities of modern air travel. Among and crew modeled a new, respectable Company, with the refurbished exte- senger lounge and dining areas, authen- them, of course, was visionary inven- formality that drew its culture from the creation and development of an idea that altered rior restored to a 1930s Bauhaus style, tically furnished with table settings, tor and persistent industrialist von passenger ocean vessels. Photographs reflecting a time when the company wall coverings, upholstered chairs, existing notions of time, space and travel. This portal Zeppelin, who created the groundwork was at the zenith of its success. of the dirigibles’ officers and crew at is called the Zeppelin Museum, named to honor the for ridged airships and established man who created the world’s first airline. Through the Portal the blueprint for the German Airship Travel Corporation, the world’s first The first piece of evidence that visi- airline. Also profiled at the Museum Frederick Adolf Heinrich August von ride became a defining moment in his tors have stepped through a time portal is Wilhelm Maybach whose technical Zeppelin (better known simply as life and it inspired his own creation. inside the museum’s revolving glass expertise–which helped him to develop Frederick Graf [Count] von Zeppelin) Within a few years, von Zeppelin had doors is the sight of a Zeppelin Saloon the engines for the Zeppelins–was first experienced lighter-than-air flight sketched out plans for a ridged-framed Car. The car gleams, light reflecting gained as co-worker with German in St. Paul, Minnesota. He was visiting airship, an improvement of the flexible, from its elegant, classic lines; a vin- automotive pioneer Gottlieb Daimler. the United States in 1863 as an official formless balloon he rode in. As a result, tage stylishness that reveals it is clearly Claude Dornier–who built the largest, military observer with the Union Army lighter-than-air flight fragmented into not of the twenty-first century. The most powerful flying boats of his day, during the Civil War. That balloon two distinct groupings: hard-structured Zeppelin Car was built by Maybach and whose name is still linked to air- dirigibles and soft-skinned blimps. Manufacturing, originally a wholly craft flying in the twenty-first century– A trip to the Museum provides visi- owned subsidiary of the Zeppelin became Count von Zeppelin’s scientific tors with a pathway through all that Company. Maybach was tasked with advisor in 1910. Dornier researched and history, from the beginnings of an the creation of various propulsion perfected lightweight metal alloys for idea that pioneered intercontinental systems for the dirigibles manufactured dirigibles. Dr. Hugo Eckener, aeronau- air travel through the creation of the here. The Maybach Company is now tical engineer and exceptional pilot, largest aircraft ever to fly, ultimately owned by Daimler-Benz, which has was von Zeppelin’s “heir apparent,” and leading “back to the future.” Today, announced that 2013 will bring an end flew the dirigible Graf Zeppelin on its The Hindenburg airship makes its first test flight from the Zeppelin dockyards at Friedrichshafen, dirigibles still evoke in us curiosity and to this venerable brand of automobiles. historic around-the-world flight in the Germany, on March 4, 1936. (Photograph by Archive Photos). excitement. Half a million dollars for a single car, summer of 1929. apparently, is too high a price. Access to Friedrichshafen to take this Graf Zeppelin was the most successful time-traveler’s journey is simple, as The wall in front of the Zeppelin dirigible in history. It flew more than When the Hindenburg flew by, it the museum is situated at a modern Car features a huge display case one million miles, visiting the U.S., transportation hub. The Deutsche Bahn showing scale models of famous South America, the Middle East, Japan, would have been like the entire (German Rail) harbor rail station is transportation icons: the oceanliner and the Arctic. It safely completed 590 across the street; an inter-city bus depot RMS Queen Mary I; Boeing’s four- US Capitol building floating flights, including 144 ocean crossings, Museum’s main gallery showing Zeppelin Saloon is next to that station; a multi-story motor Flying Boat in Pan Am livery; Car and, at upper left, exterior windows of the 1:1 and carried a total of more than 13,110 Hindenburg model (Photo by the author) parking garage stands at the far end of the largest passenger airplane, Airbus 1,000 feet overhead.

4 Bridgewater Review May 2013 5 skin was kept ridged, and how a net- Pusher-propellers were attached to So again, why did all commercial work of catwalks permitted inflight the rear of each sidecar. Pusher-props operations of Zeppelins immediately inspection of the 19 individual gas cells. positioned at the rear of the aircraft cease after the Lakehurst accident? When viewing this giant erector set- were more efficient than those at There is another answer to the “why?” like maze, the significance of Dornier’s the front (“puller-props”) because question. The truth is that at the time of critical research to develop the light- air forced rearward at the back of an the Hindenburg tragedy, the days of the weight aluminum alloy, duralumin, is aircraft remains relatively undisturbed– zeppelin were already numbered. Even revealed. Without it, these dirigibles creating less drag/resistance–than air if the Hindenburg had not exploded, the could not have flown. that must pass around the frame of age of the dirigible would soon have the craft. As a result, Zeppelins flew been over. Not as dramatically or as Motive Power non-stop from Friedrichshafen to Rio abruptly, of course, but just as certainly. In two other wings of the Museum, de Janeiro or Tokyo at a time when Airplane safety and reliability had made guests learn about airship propulsion airplanes could not even begin to rival great strides since Charles Lindbergh’s Superstructure of Hindenburg (Photo by the author) systems, navigational techniques, and those distances. solo Atlantic crossing aboard the a bit more about the airship’s journeys. Spirit of St. Louis only a decade before Original drive-trains and propel- their duty stations reveal this demeanor. The most striking object in the propul- Lakehurst. By 1937, giant six-motor lers from LZ-127 (Graf Zeppelin) and On rare occasions, this photographic sion gallery is an original nacelle from Dornier flying boats regularly carried LZ-129 (Hindenburg) are displayed record comes to life in the person the airship Graf Zeppelin. Prominently passengers on scheduled flights, as did along the walls of the propulsion of Manfred Bauer, a member of the situated in the center of the room, Pam Am’s Boeing 314 Clipper fleet. room, as is a motor salvaged from Museum’s Board of Directors who this large aluminum “sidecar” once Airplanes were the future of aviation, the Graf Zeppelin. A portion of the The Hindenburg disaster took place on Thursday, May 6, 1937, as the Hindenburg caught fire and was just as Zeppelins once had been. engine block is removed, allowing destroyed during its attempt to dock with its mooring mast at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station. (Photograph visitors to see pistons, cylinders, con- by U.S. Navy) Invention, improvement, public aware- necting rods, springs, rocker arms, ness, then regular operational use, Graf Zeppelin was the most crossing, it carried over 2,000 pounds and newspapers, stunned the world. and other internal components. and finally obsolescence: the cycle of of mail; these envelopes and cards were “Oh, the humanity!”–uttered by a successful dirigible in history. It progress. We see it in every technol- In 1929, the Graf Zeppelin made the affixed with commemorative stamps shocked eyewitness reporter–is still a ogy of the twenty-first century, where very first non-stop flight across the issued in advance of the flight and post- catchphrase in our language. This event flew more than one million miles. today’s innovation becomes outmoded United States, from Los Angeles to marked aloft while enroute to America. marked, in many people’s minds, an tomorrow. For a deeper, more pro- Lakehurst, NJ. In 1936, the Hindenburg exclamatory lesson that dirigible flight found understanding of the dynamics of was festooned with sets of five inter- Return to the Twenty-first was irreparably flawed. change in our world, we gain a greater greets and engages visitors. He is the housed a motor weighing over a ton. locking rings, and pulled an enormous Century son of Heinrich Bauer, who served as a That motor employed a series of eight Of course, the explosion of the perspective by examining those same Olympic flag behind it, as the airship Wandering through the age of the crewmember on the Graf Zeppelin dur- gears–the same gearing configuration Hindenburg was not singular. Horrific forces at work in other eras. In the larg- made an appearance over the open- dirigible, this museum provides a fan- ing its globe-circling flight and as an used in the Zeppelin Car on display aviation accidents happen more often est sense, if we look closely into these ing ceremonies of the summer games tastic glimpse of a world we have lost. officer aboard the Hindenburg. “That’s in the main gallery. Each sidecar–the than we care to acknowledge. The time portals, what we will see on the in Berlin. Postage stamps were issued It is a pathway back to the present and my father,” Manfred proudly says, as he Hindenburg had four–was connected by fiery 1977 collision of two fuel-laden other side of that doorway is a mirror. celebrating these events–as well as other an ideal place where questions crystal- points to a picture of Heinrich at a duty an aluminum catwalk to the main body Boeing 747s at Tenerife–the deadliest historic firsts–and franked envelopes lize and answers to them are hazarded. station on board one of the Zeppelins, of the airship. The arrangement enabled accident in aviation history–killed more are displayed in exhibit cases. For Among these questions, the biggest, or in a group photograph that was mechanics to conduct onboard work than 580 people, an order of magnitude instance, during LZ-129’s first Atlantic perhaps, is “why?” Why would a system taken with his fellow officers. Herr in the nacelles during flight. Picture it: far beyond the 36 deaths at Lakehurst. of transportation that had proven itself Bauer shares insights and remembrances mechanics exiting the dirigible in all Yet the era of the jet plane did not end for more than a third of a century–one passed along to him by his father, kinds of weather, and scrambling along with the Tenerife accident, and 747s characterized by ingenious technology glimpses of life on board the dirigibles. a narrow metal skywalk while the are flown today by every major airline coupled with passenger luxury–come airship was flying 1,000 or more feet in the world. Today, given the bias Between the two levels, Museum visi- to an end so abruptly? above the surface. And at its extreme, toward catastrophe that characterizes tors have the chance to view a truly during flights in the Arctic, tempera- The famous 1937 explosion of the 24/7 newscasting on cable TV and the remarkable sight, one that airborne tures along the catwalks could be below Hindenburg at Lakehurst, NJ was Internet, we are inundated by an almost Michael Sloan is an FAA-certified Flight passengers never saw. Exposed for freezing while, inside the nacelles, air appalling. It took only 35 seconds for constant stream of disasters, so much so Instructor who teaches in the Aviation inspection is a full-scale portion of the was warmed by the engines. As a safety the massive Zeppelin to ignite and that we have become inured to them. Science Department. His most recent book Hindenburg’s complex interior super- precaution, there was always at least explode. This was the first spectacular Such pervasive negativity by electronic is a political thriller, Cone of Silence structure of ribs, girders and braces. one mechanic on duty in every nacelle, accident in the relatively new com- media was simply not possible in 1937, (Wheatmark, 2012). The reproduction gives a sense of just monitoring performance of each of the mercial aviation industry. Accounts of which helps to explain the popular how the massive Zeppelin’s exterior 1,200-horsepower diesel engines. Reproduction of baggage tag and ticket for “passage” the disaster on radio and in newsreels reaction to this single tragedy. on the Hindenburg (Photo by the author)

6 Bridgewater Review May 2013 7 skin was kept ridged, and how a net- Pusher-propellers were attached to So again, why did all commercial work of catwalks permitted inflight the rear of each sidecar. Pusher-props operations of Zeppelins immediately inspection of the 19 individual gas cells. positioned at the rear of the aircraft cease after the Lakehurst accident? When viewing this giant erector set- were more efficient than those at There is another answer to the “why?” like maze, the significance of Dornier’s the front (“puller-props”) because question. The truth is that at the time of critical research to develop the light- air forced rearward at the back of an the Hindenburg tragedy, the days of the weight aluminum alloy, duralumin, is aircraft remains relatively undisturbed– zeppelin were already numbered. Even revealed. Without it, these dirigibles creating less drag/resistance–than air if the Hindenburg had not exploded, the could not have flown. that must pass around the frame of age of the dirigible would soon have the craft. As a result, Zeppelins flew been over. Not as dramatically or as Motive Power non-stop from Friedrichshafen to Rio abruptly, of course, but just as certainly. In two other wings of the Museum, de Janeiro or Tokyo at a time when Airplane safety and reliability had made guests learn about airship propulsion airplanes could not even begin to rival great strides since Charles Lindbergh’s Superstructure of Hindenburg (Photo by the author) systems, navigational techniques, and those distances. solo Atlantic crossing aboard the a bit more about the airship’s journeys. Spirit of St. Louis only a decade before Original drive-trains and propel- their duty stations reveal this demeanor. The most striking object in the propul- Lakehurst. By 1937, giant six-motor lers from LZ-127 (Graf Zeppelin) and On rare occasions, this photographic sion gallery is an original nacelle from Dornier flying boats regularly carried LZ-129 (Hindenburg) are displayed record comes to life in the person the airship Graf Zeppelin. Prominently passengers on scheduled flights, as did along the walls of the propulsion of Manfred Bauer, a member of the situated in the center of the room, Pam Am’s Boeing 314 Clipper fleet. room, as is a motor salvaged from Museum’s Board of Directors who this large aluminum “sidecar” once Airplanes were the future of aviation, the Graf Zeppelin. A portion of the The Hindenburg disaster took place on Thursday, May 6, 1937, as the Hindenburg caught fire and was just as Zeppelins once had been. engine block is removed, allowing destroyed during its attempt to dock with its mooring mast at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station. (Photograph visitors to see pistons, cylinders, con- by U.S. Navy) Invention, improvement, public aware- necting rods, springs, rocker arms, ness, then regular operational use, Graf Zeppelin was the most crossing, it carried over 2,000 pounds and newspapers, stunned the world. and other internal components. and finally obsolescence: the cycle of of mail; these envelopes and cards were “Oh, the humanity!”–uttered by a successful dirigible in history. It progress. We see it in every technol- In 1929, the Graf Zeppelin made the affixed with commemorative stamps shocked eyewitness reporter–is still a ogy of the twenty-first century, where very first non-stop flight across the issued in advance of the flight and post- catchphrase in our language. This event flew more than one million miles. today’s innovation becomes outmoded United States, from Los Angeles to marked aloft while enroute to America. marked, in many people’s minds, an tomorrow. For a deeper, more pro- Lakehurst, NJ. In 1936, the Hindenburg exclamatory lesson that dirigible flight found understanding of the dynamics of was festooned with sets of five inter- Return to the Twenty-first was irreparably flawed. change in our world, we gain a greater greets and engages visitors. He is the housed a motor weighing over a ton. locking rings, and pulled an enormous Century son of Heinrich Bauer, who served as a That motor employed a series of eight Of course, the explosion of the perspective by examining those same Olympic flag behind it, as the airship Wandering through the age of the crewmember on the Graf Zeppelin dur- gears–the same gearing configuration Hindenburg was not singular. Horrific forces at work in other eras. In the larg- made an appearance over the open- dirigible, this museum provides a fan- ing its globe-circling flight and as an used in the Zeppelin Car on display aviation accidents happen more often est sense, if we look closely into these ing ceremonies of the summer games tastic glimpse of a world we have lost. officer aboard the Hindenburg. “That’s in the main gallery. Each sidecar–the than we care to acknowledge. The time portals, what we will see on the in Berlin. Postage stamps were issued It is a pathway back to the present and my father,” Manfred proudly says, as he Hindenburg had four–was connected by fiery 1977 collision of two fuel-laden other side of that doorway is a mirror. celebrating these events–as well as other an ideal place where questions crystal- points to a picture of Heinrich at a duty an aluminum catwalk to the main body Boeing 747s at Tenerife–the deadliest historic firsts–and franked envelopes lize and answers to them are hazarded. station on board one of the Zeppelins, of the airship. The arrangement enabled accident in aviation history–killed more are displayed in exhibit cases. For Among these questions, the biggest, or in a group photograph that was mechanics to conduct onboard work than 580 people, an order of magnitude instance, during LZ-129’s first Atlantic perhaps, is “why?” Why would a system taken with his fellow officers. Herr in the nacelles during flight. Picture it: far beyond the 36 deaths at Lakehurst. of transportation that had proven itself Bauer shares insights and remembrances mechanics exiting the dirigible in all Yet the era of the jet plane did not end for more than a third of a century–one passed along to him by his father, kinds of weather, and scrambling along with the Tenerife accident, and 747s characterized by ingenious technology glimpses of life on board the dirigibles. a narrow metal skywalk while the are flown today by every major airline coupled with passenger luxury–come airship was flying 1,000 or more feet in the world. Today, given the bias Between the two levels, Museum visi- to an end so abruptly? above the surface. And at its extreme, toward catastrophe that characterizes tors have the chance to view a truly during flights in the Arctic, tempera- The famous 1937 explosion of the 24/7 newscasting on cable TV and the remarkable sight, one that airborne tures along the catwalks could be below Hindenburg at Lakehurst, NJ was Internet, we are inundated by an almost Michael Sloan is an FAA-certified Flight passengers never saw. Exposed for freezing while, inside the nacelles, air appalling. It took only 35 seconds for constant stream of disasters, so much so Instructor who teaches in the Aviation inspection is a full-scale portion of the was warmed by the engines. As a safety the massive Zeppelin to ignite and that we have become inured to them. Science Department. His most recent book Hindenburg’s complex interior super- precaution, there was always at least explode. This was the first spectacular Such pervasive negativity by electronic is a political thriller, Cone of Silence structure of ribs, girders and braces. one mechanic on duty in every nacelle, accident in the relatively new com- media was simply not possible in 1937, (Wheatmark, 2012). The reproduction gives a sense of just monitoring performance of each of the mercial aviation industry. Accounts of which helps to explain the popular how the massive Zeppelin’s exterior 1,200-horsepower diesel engines. Reproduction of baggage tag and ticket for “passage” the disaster on radio and in newsreels reaction to this single tragedy. on the Hindenburg (Photo by the author)

6 Bridgewater Review May 2013 7 benefit, a communal law that protects separated the kitchen from the dining they matured. Most of us lived on the consumer capitalism, you get a special The County the isolated communities of St. Mary’s room. We served mostly fried food, but property together; my parents and I cocktail of self-recognition. When County that fall south of the Patuxent all homemade: crab cakes, fish sand- on one side of the restaurant and my I left home, the underbelly of my Ellen Scheible River Naval Air Station from overde- wiches, and my parents’ signature dish: grandmother, uncle and cousin on the adolescence revealed itself to me and I ight before Christmas I flew home to visit velopment. I used to lament the fact crabbettes (miniature, spicy crab cakes). other, in separate homes. My parents suddenly realized two essential things that our isolated house could never At some point in the 1980s, the res- managed the business mostly on their that were dialectically connected: first, my parents in a rural town called Ridge, in have cable television and resent it that taurant expanded and, by about 1988, own for the last 30 years of its operation I am an only child; second, I am not a southern Maryland, on the western shore, pizza delivery services wouldn’t come the business was at its peak. Fifteen and I’m convinced that their separate man. In my experience, women don’t R down that far. Now an exiled academic charter boats operated from my parents’ roles–one in the public exterior as a inherit fishing businesses. What’s more, where they have both lived since they were children. attuned to close reading and unearthing pier, nine of which were owned by my fishing captain, and one in the domes- women who don’t have brothers often My parents’ house sits on a plot of land adjacent to once-hidden truths, I find its remote- father. I remember throngs of people on tic interior as a restaurant owner–kept watch their family histories fade. We the property where my mother was born, in an old ness fascinating, like some place in a the pier, on picnic tables, drinking beer, them sane and, better yet, married. might call this modernity, one of the William Faulkner short story. The most predictable stages of empire that histo- post office and general store that my great-great- rural parts of the county seem preserved rians, Enlightenment philosophers, and grandparents once owned. If you walk out of my like towns in southern gothic fiction, nineteenth-century landscape artists where crossing one street leads you observed. My family’s business, in this parents’ front door, stand in the middle of Wynne to an entirely different way of living, way, was not really all that different Road, and look about a quarter of a mile down to foreign to us only because it is part of a from Thomas Cole’s five-part series of your left, you can see the house where my father was distant past that exceeds what is possible paintings, The Course of Empire–when to know in memory. civilizations no longer advance, they raised. That house was where I grew up and where must surely decline. And for Scheible’s, * * * my parents lived until just a few years ago. My parents the want of a male heir all but guaran- Scheible’s Fishing Center began as a teed that. Still, even as the scholar in have lived within a quarter of a mile of each other for tiny, recreational charter boat opera- me can stretch to rationalize this sad their entire lives and many members of our extended tion, founded in 1946 by my grandfa- chapter in objective terms, that exercise family live within a stone’s throw of them on that same ther after my father’s family moved to can never capture things completely. southern Maryland from Washington, It feels intimate and personal when it road, in that same county. St. Mary’s County. Or just D.C. Over the years, the center is your own family and their land and “the county.” expanded to include an eight-room, their history. And it stings more pain- single-story motel (built by hand) and The author and her parents, summer 1980, the year the Ellen S was built. The family’s head boat, the fully when it is your own patrimony. Bay King, can be glimpsed in the background. (Baltimore Sun photograph) The county is situated on a peninsula will still tell you that Ronald Reagan Scheible’s Crab Pot, a seafood restau- I have spent almost two decades real- at the very tip of the western shore of was the greatest president who ever rant. When I was born into the family izing, critiquing, and compartmental- Maryland, where the Potomac River lived (and that Jimmy Carter was the in 1977, we owned six wooden charter filleting fish, and taking in the pictur- But, as the 1990s progressed and the izing something I already knew and still meets the Chesapeake Bay, and my worst). It wasn’t until recently that I boats, almost all named after women esque view of the water. The business societal roles that shaped nuclear cannot resolve: if I was born male, my parents live at the end of that tip. The realized how connected their political in my family, including my mother, was so successful that it attracted atten- American life started to morph into parents would probably die knowing southernmost part of the county hosts tion in newspapers and magazines that gray space, fishing changed completely. that their business, a monument to their Point Lookout, an old Civil War prison had national readership: The Washington Environmental moratoria on com- hard work, was still inscribed on the camp turned state park. Wynne Road Families drove from Post, SaltWater Sportsman, and The mercial and recreational fishing in the landscape of the county. is about seven miles north of Point Fisherman magazine. Families drove Chesapeake Bay became increasingly * * * Lookout and, if you travel the full two Washington D.C., Baltimore, from Washington D.C., Baltimore, and stringent and took their toll. By the ear- miles of Wynne, you will pass farms all over the region, to go fishing and ly 2000s, few fishing families had the When my parents tell the story of my that have traded hands between only and all over the region, to go eat seafood at Scheible’s Fishing Center. disposable incomes they enjoyed in the birth, there’s never a dry eye in the two or three different families in the Second-tier celebrities, such as pro 1980s. At the same time, what America room. My mother, the oldest of four last 200 years. At the end, you will hit fishing and eat seafood at basketballer Karl Malone and crooner knew to be a family changed. And my girls, marries my father, the youngest the gravel driveway where the home- Harry Connick Jr., snuck down to the parents were tired. Shortly after I left of three boys. They grow up together, made, hand-painted sign for Scheible’s Scheible’s Fishing Center. county whenever they were in D.C. to for California and graduate school in are dance partners in high school, Fishing Center still sits, even though experience the rural aesthetic of fishing fall of ‘99, the once-bright future of become best friends, and fall in love. the center itself is no longer there. and eating on the Chesapeake Bay. Scheible’s Fishing Center fogged over They inherit a growing business and views are to their intimate experience Sarah, and women I didn’t know, like with uncertainty. decide to raise a family. A year passes. In its heyday, my parents’ business * * * with small-business success in a rural, Mary Lou and Patsy. Our restaurant Five years pass. After doctors’ visits and was a flourishing testament to boot- When you mix a liberal gradu- farm town that corporate industry was small with no air conditioning and, My father is the youngest of three the birth of several nieces and neph- strap, American capitalism and what ate program in the Humanities with had neglected. Today, that neglect instead of a wall, the backside of a row brothers, each of whom was given a ews, they are told that they cannot many believed was the strength of an upbringing in rural American Reaganomics in the 1980s. My parents has developed into an unanticipated of industrial refrigerators and freezers separate role in the fishing business as have children. They learn to live in the

8 Bridgewater Review May 2013 9 benefit, a communal law that protects separated the kitchen from the dining they matured. Most of us lived on the consumer capitalism, you get a special The County the isolated communities of St. Mary’s room. We served mostly fried food, but property together; my parents and I cocktail of self-recognition. When County that fall south of the Patuxent all homemade: crab cakes, fish sand- on one side of the restaurant and my I left home, the underbelly of my Ellen Scheible River Naval Air Station from overde- wiches, and my parents’ signature dish: grandmother, uncle and cousin on the adolescence revealed itself to me and I ight before Christmas I flew home to visit velopment. I used to lament the fact crabbettes (miniature, spicy crab cakes). other, in separate homes. My parents suddenly realized two essential things that our isolated house could never At some point in the 1980s, the res- managed the business mostly on their that were dialectically connected: first, my parents in a rural town called Ridge, in have cable television and resent it that taurant expanded and, by about 1988, own for the last 30 years of its operation I am an only child; second, I am not a southern Maryland, on the western shore, pizza delivery services wouldn’t come the business was at its peak. Fifteen and I’m convinced that their separate man. In my experience, women don’t R down that far. Now an exiled academic charter boats operated from my parents’ roles–one in the public exterior as a inherit fishing businesses. What’s more, where they have both lived since they were children. attuned to close reading and unearthing pier, nine of which were owned by my fishing captain, and one in the domes- women who don’t have brothers often My parents’ house sits on a plot of land adjacent to once-hidden truths, I find its remote- father. I remember throngs of people on tic interior as a restaurant owner–kept watch their family histories fade. We the property where my mother was born, in an old ness fascinating, like some place in a the pier, on picnic tables, drinking beer, them sane and, better yet, married. might call this modernity, one of the William Faulkner short story. The most predictable stages of empire that histo- post office and general store that my great-great- rural parts of the county seem preserved rians, Enlightenment philosophers, and grandparents once owned. If you walk out of my like towns in southern gothic fiction, nineteenth-century landscape artists where crossing one street leads you observed. My family’s business, in this parents’ front door, stand in the middle of Wynne to an entirely different way of living, way, was not really all that different Road, and look about a quarter of a mile down to foreign to us only because it is part of a from Thomas Cole’s five-part series of your left, you can see the house where my father was distant past that exceeds what is possible paintings, The Course of Empire–when to know in memory. civilizations no longer advance, they raised. That house was where I grew up and where must surely decline. And for Scheible’s, * * * my parents lived until just a few years ago. My parents the want of a male heir all but guaran- Scheible’s Fishing Center began as a teed that. Still, even as the scholar in have lived within a quarter of a mile of each other for tiny, recreational charter boat opera- me can stretch to rationalize this sad their entire lives and many members of our extended tion, founded in 1946 by my grandfa- chapter in objective terms, that exercise family live within a stone’s throw of them on that same ther after my father’s family moved to can never capture things completely. southern Maryland from Washington, It feels intimate and personal when it road, in that same county. St. Mary’s County. Or just D.C. Over the years, the center is your own family and their land and “the county.” expanded to include an eight-room, their history. And it stings more pain- single-story motel (built by hand) and The author and her parents, summer 1980, the year the Ellen S was built. The family’s head boat, the fully when it is your own patrimony. Bay King, can be glimpsed in the background. (Baltimore Sun photograph) The county is situated on a peninsula will still tell you that Ronald Reagan Scheible’s Crab Pot, a seafood restau- I have spent almost two decades real- at the very tip of the western shore of was the greatest president who ever rant. When I was born into the family izing, critiquing, and compartmental- Maryland, where the Potomac River lived (and that Jimmy Carter was the in 1977, we owned six wooden charter filleting fish, and taking in the pictur- But, as the 1990s progressed and the izing something I already knew and still meets the Chesapeake Bay, and my worst). It wasn’t until recently that I boats, almost all named after women esque view of the water. The business societal roles that shaped nuclear cannot resolve: if I was born male, my parents live at the end of that tip. The realized how connected their political in my family, including my mother, was so successful that it attracted atten- American life started to morph into parents would probably die knowing southernmost part of the county hosts tion in newspapers and magazines that gray space, fishing changed completely. that their business, a monument to their Point Lookout, an old Civil War prison had national readership: The Washington Environmental moratoria on com- hard work, was still inscribed on the camp turned state park. Wynne Road Families drove from Post, SaltWater Sportsman, and The mercial and recreational fishing in the landscape of the county. is about seven miles north of Point Fisherman magazine. Families drove Chesapeake Bay became increasingly * * * Lookout and, if you travel the full two Washington D.C., Baltimore, from Washington D.C., Baltimore, and stringent and took their toll. By the ear- miles of Wynne, you will pass farms all over the region, to go fishing and ly 2000s, few fishing families had the When my parents tell the story of my that have traded hands between only and all over the region, to go eat seafood at Scheible’s Fishing Center. disposable incomes they enjoyed in the birth, there’s never a dry eye in the two or three different families in the Second-tier celebrities, such as pro 1980s. At the same time, what America room. My mother, the oldest of four last 200 years. At the end, you will hit fishing and eat seafood at basketballer Karl Malone and crooner knew to be a family changed. And my girls, marries my father, the youngest the gravel driveway where the home- Harry Connick Jr., snuck down to the parents were tired. Shortly after I left of three boys. They grow up together, made, hand-painted sign for Scheible’s Scheible’s Fishing Center. county whenever they were in D.C. to for California and graduate school in are dance partners in high school, Fishing Center still sits, even though experience the rural aesthetic of fishing fall of ‘99, the once-bright future of become best friends, and fall in love. the center itself is no longer there. and eating on the Chesapeake Bay. Scheible’s Fishing Center fogged over They inherit a growing business and views are to their intimate experience Sarah, and women I didn’t know, like with uncertainty. decide to raise a family. A year passes. In its heyday, my parents’ business * * * with small-business success in a rural, Mary Lou and Patsy. Our restaurant Five years pass. After doctors’ visits and was a flourishing testament to boot- When you mix a liberal gradu- farm town that corporate industry was small with no air conditioning and, My father is the youngest of three the birth of several nieces and neph- strap, American capitalism and what ate program in the Humanities with had neglected. Today, that neglect instead of a wall, the backside of a row brothers, each of whom was given a ews, they are told that they cannot many believed was the strength of an upbringing in rural American Reaganomics in the 1980s. My parents has developed into an unanticipated of industrial refrigerators and freezers separate role in the fishing business as have children. They learn to live in the

8 Bridgewater Review May 2013 9 present. They build a small business moment and we could form another into a booming success and make good Scheible’s Fishing Center has layer to a familial bond that I was still money doing it. Then, almost ten years learning to understand. I joined them after they get married, my mother gets retired, now found only in the for the stress test and watched as the a bad flu. She’s sick for three months historical archives of St. Mary’s nurses connected my father to a series before a doctor finally decides to of wires and suction cups and he pro- take a pregnancy test. She calls to get County life, and a certain kind ceeded to walk on a treadmill, facing the results and she and my father cry a blank wall. His breathing increased, together, believing that such a miracle of American idealism that no he panted and lost the ability to speak must be destiny. The gift of a child has clearly. The doctor finally stopped the completed their lives so tremendously longer reigns supreme has fallen treadmill after he asked my father if he that they can only feel humbled and was okay and received no reply. mesmerized with gratitude and love. off of its pedestal. My father failed the stress test. While I have felt nothing but absolute love we were putting Christmas flowers on and support from my parents my entire that my parents’ business was in decline. life, and a certain kind of American my dead cousin’s grave, I cried over my life. They have never stopped me from My father sold most of his boats and my idealism that no longer reigns supreme father’s health. He reassured me, telling accomplishing anything and their parents leased the restaurant, hoping to has fallen off of its pedestal. me maybe it was time for this to hap- pride in me has always been my first pen. I spent the next week mourning The Ellen S, the only remaining boat owned by the author’s father. This year is the vessel’s 33rd year in sell. 2008 destroyed that hope. When * * * and main source of motivation. But they finally did sell it to a man who the death of his fishing license and the operation. (Author’s photograph) they have never intimated, suggested, used to fish with my father when he My father still owns and maintains one blow to his masculinity. The intense implied or hoped that I would take over was younger, they underestimated the boat, the Ellen S, built three years after guilt that has plagued me for such a long could have ever imagined. He’ll get his first-generation college graduate who I was born. He still runs fishing par- time led me to believe that I somehow Captain’s license with no obstacles and will never inherit the family business. ties between the months of April and caused this failure. My presence in the he’ll run the Ellen S for another chapter And, finally, it allowed me to witness October. He is now 71 years old. About room while he was on the treadmill in her charter boat life. directly the kind of historical, social, and economic change that most of ten years ago, my father had bypass must have created the stress that under- More important to the preservation of the novels I teach struggle to articulate. surgery and has had to provide special mined his health and ended his ability my fragile academic ego, I didn’t cause The county will always be written paperwork to the U.S. Coast Guard to to maintain the only way of life he’s him to fail. And I’m not the reason renew his Captain’s license every couple into my academic pursuits and onto of years. 2012 was one of those years. my physical, gendered body, provid- ing a hybridity that underscores my I arrived home for the Christmas holi- My family history allowed me middle-class American experience. day about one week before my father’s My dissertation director used to often stress test and cardiogram that were to witness directly the kind of tell me that most scholars spend their going to support his license renewal. academic lives rewriting their first We decided to combine our errands– historical, social, and economic books. I think I will spend my life shopping for my mother’s Christmas rewriting, reliving, and renegotiat- presents and visiting my cousin’s grave– change that most of the novels ing the personal history that led me to with his doctor’s appointment. We’d hit academia in the first place. the doctor’s first and then the gravesite, I teach struggle to articulate. and finally do our shopping at the end. The appointment was supposed to last Girl boats at dock: The Sarah S, named after the author’s mother, and the Alice T, named after her around two hours, and I brought a grandmother, docked at their winter home, fall 2005. (Author’s photograph) giant stack of student papers to grade in ever known. I was the reason he would anything risked failure whether it was no longer fish. I was the reason he’d feel the business, my parents’ sometimes Scheible’s Fishing Center. It was never difficulty of divorcing themselves from the waiting room. When the doctor’s severed from his past. I was the reason rocky marriage, or the future of rec- on the table, so I never had to decline something that glares at them, from a assistant opened the door and called my he’d die early. reational fishing in St. Mary’s County, the offer. This act of love protected me quarter of a mile down the road, like an father’s name, the assistant asked me if Maryland. But, my family history is through my 20s, while I lived 3,000 abandoned lover. And no owner will I wanted to come in to be in the room It turned out that the stress-test the reason I have succeeded. It drives miles away from them and finished my ever love the land, the property, or the for the stress test. After years of feeling machine malfunctioned. After another my interests and research in litera- education. At the same time, my coun- business the way my parents did. Slowly like parts of my father were inaccessible doctor’s visit, this time two hours away ture, economics, and gender studies. Ellen Scheible is Assistant Professor in the ty contemporaries married their neigh- and steadily, Scheible’s Fishing Center to me, like I was eternally infantilized in D.C. at a major medical facility, It makes me a better teacher, one who English Department and Associate Editor bors and had children. When I turned has retired, now found only in the by both my parents’ business and my and an invasive procedure, we were knows what it’s like to commute to a of Bridgewater Review. 30, though, the veil lifted and I realized historical archives of St. Mary’s County gender, I saw this as divine interven- told that my father’s heart is in fantas- state college in a small town and be that tion. I could be there for an important tic condition. He is healthier than we

10 Bridgewater Review May 2013 11 present. They build a small business moment and we could form another into a booming success and make good Scheible’s Fishing Center has layer to a familial bond that I was still money doing it. Then, almost ten years learning to understand. I joined them after they get married, my mother gets retired, now found only in the for the stress test and watched as the a bad flu. She’s sick for three months historical archives of St. Mary’s nurses connected my father to a series before a doctor finally decides to of wires and suction cups and he pro- take a pregnancy test. She calls to get County life, and a certain kind ceeded to walk on a treadmill, facing the results and she and my father cry a blank wall. His breathing increased, together, believing that such a miracle of American idealism that no he panted and lost the ability to speak must be destiny. The gift of a child has clearly. The doctor finally stopped the completed their lives so tremendously longer reigns supreme has fallen treadmill after he asked my father if he that they can only feel humbled and was okay and received no reply. mesmerized with gratitude and love. off of its pedestal. My father failed the stress test. While I have felt nothing but absolute love we were putting Christmas flowers on and support from my parents my entire that my parents’ business was in decline. life, and a certain kind of American my dead cousin’s grave, I cried over my life. They have never stopped me from My father sold most of his boats and my idealism that no longer reigns supreme father’s health. He reassured me, telling accomplishing anything and their parents leased the restaurant, hoping to has fallen off of its pedestal. me maybe it was time for this to hap- pride in me has always been my first pen. I spent the next week mourning The Ellen S, the only remaining boat owned by the author’s father. This year is the vessel’s 33rd year in sell. 2008 destroyed that hope. When * * * and main source of motivation. But they finally did sell it to a man who the death of his fishing license and the operation. (Author’s photograph) they have never intimated, suggested, used to fish with my father when he My father still owns and maintains one blow to his masculinity. The intense implied or hoped that I would take over was younger, they underestimated the boat, the Ellen S, built three years after guilt that has plagued me for such a long could have ever imagined. He’ll get his first-generation college graduate who I was born. He still runs fishing par- time led me to believe that I somehow Captain’s license with no obstacles and will never inherit the family business. ties between the months of April and caused this failure. My presence in the he’ll run the Ellen S for another chapter And, finally, it allowed me to witness October. He is now 71 years old. About room while he was on the treadmill in her charter boat life. directly the kind of historical, social, and economic change that most of ten years ago, my father had bypass must have created the stress that under- More important to the preservation of the novels I teach struggle to articulate. surgery and has had to provide special mined his health and ended his ability my fragile academic ego, I didn’t cause The county will always be written paperwork to the U.S. Coast Guard to to maintain the only way of life he’s him to fail. And I’m not the reason renew his Captain’s license every couple into my academic pursuits and onto of years. 2012 was one of those years. my physical, gendered body, provid- ing a hybridity that underscores my I arrived home for the Christmas holi- My family history allowed me middle-class American experience. day about one week before my father’s My dissertation director used to often stress test and cardiogram that were to witness directly the kind of tell me that most scholars spend their going to support his license renewal. academic lives rewriting their first We decided to combine our errands– historical, social, and economic books. I think I will spend my life shopping for my mother’s Christmas rewriting, reliving, and renegotiat- presents and visiting my cousin’s grave– change that most of the novels ing the personal history that led me to with his doctor’s appointment. We’d hit academia in the first place. the doctor’s first and then the gravesite, I teach struggle to articulate. and finally do our shopping at the end. The appointment was supposed to last Girl boats at dock: The Sarah S, named after the author’s mother, and the Alice T, named after her around two hours, and I brought a grandmother, docked at their winter home, fall 2005. (Author’s photograph) giant stack of student papers to grade in ever known. I was the reason he would anything risked failure whether it was no longer fish. I was the reason he’d feel the business, my parents’ sometimes Scheible’s Fishing Center. It was never difficulty of divorcing themselves from the waiting room. When the doctor’s severed from his past. I was the reason rocky marriage, or the future of rec- on the table, so I never had to decline something that glares at them, from a assistant opened the door and called my he’d die early. reational fishing in St. Mary’s County, the offer. This act of love protected me quarter of a mile down the road, like an father’s name, the assistant asked me if Maryland. But, my family history is through my 20s, while I lived 3,000 abandoned lover. And no owner will I wanted to come in to be in the room It turned out that the stress-test the reason I have succeeded. It drives miles away from them and finished my ever love the land, the property, or the for the stress test. After years of feeling machine malfunctioned. After another my interests and research in litera- education. At the same time, my coun- business the way my parents did. Slowly like parts of my father were inaccessible doctor’s visit, this time two hours away ture, economics, and gender studies. Ellen Scheible is Assistant Professor in the ty contemporaries married their neigh- and steadily, Scheible’s Fishing Center to me, like I was eternally infantilized in D.C. at a major medical facility, It makes me a better teacher, one who English Department and Associate Editor bors and had children. When I turned has retired, now found only in the by both my parents’ business and my and an invasive procedure, we were knows what it’s like to commute to a of Bridgewater Review. 30, though, the veil lifted and I realized historical archives of St. Mary’s County gender, I saw this as divine interven- told that my father’s heart is in fantas- state college in a small town and be that tion. I could be there for an important tic condition. He is healthier than we

10 Bridgewater Review May 2013 11 translucency. If the firing completes The Aura of Flora: successfully, the plaster mold is then broken and chipped away to reveal a Pâte de Verre Vessels glass vessel. Leigh Craven The created works were inspired by nature, more specifically, botanicals. (Photography by Clements Photography & Design) I did not attempt to mimic; rather I strived to embody the aura of flora. The he technique of pâte de verre is most closely pieces are extremely thin and fragile. associated with the art nouveau movement These attributes enhance the delicate of the 1890s and 1900s, and with artists nature of the vessels and stem from the T elements that inspired them. The soft- such as Almeric Walter (1870-1959) and Gabriel ness of their jewel-like glow comple- Argy-Rousseau (1885-1953). The complex and ments their rough, organic edges. illusive technique lacks mass-production qualities, and therefore never gained the popularity of glass blowing. Many of the secrets of the technique have been lost in history, which prompted me to investigate the elaborate process. The process begins by building a clay visualized and placed, as the colors do model of a form that I hope to create in not reach their actual hue or saturation glass. I encase this clay model in a thick until the firing process is complete. Leigh Craven is Assistant Professor in the plaster shell. The original clay model is Once the mold is packed with glass it is Art Department. She wishes to acknowledge then removed from the interior of the then fired in a kiln. The firing/fusing the support of a CARS Faculty Librarian plaster, leaving behind a usable plaster schedule takes more than thirty hours Research Grant without which the research mold. The mold is carefully packed to complete. The schedule slowly heats and creation of these works would not have with various colored glass powders the glass to allow the frits to move, fuse, been possible. and frits. These colors are thoughtfully and reach desired color saturation and

Untitled, 9" x 5 ½," pâte de verre

Untitled, 8" x 4," pâte de verre, cast glass Untitled, 6" x 3 ½," pâte de verre

12 Bridgewater Review May 2013 13 translucency. If the firing completes The Aura of Flora: successfully, the plaster mold is then broken and chipped away to reveal a Pâte de Verre Vessels glass vessel. Leigh Craven The created works were inspired by nature, more specifically, botanicals. (Photography by Clements Photography & Design) I did not attempt to mimic; rather I strived to embody the aura of flora. The he technique of pâte de verre is most closely pieces are extremely thin and fragile. associated with the art nouveau movement These attributes enhance the delicate of the 1890s and 1900s, and with artists nature of the vessels and stem from the T elements that inspired them. The soft- such as Almeric Walter (1870-1959) and Gabriel ness of their jewel-like glow comple- Argy-Rousseau (1885-1953). The complex and ments their rough, organic edges. illusive technique lacks mass-production qualities, and therefore never gained the popularity of glass blowing. Many of the secrets of the technique have been lost in history, which prompted me to investigate the elaborate process. The process begins by building a clay visualized and placed, as the colors do model of a form that I hope to create in not reach their actual hue or saturation glass. I encase this clay model in a thick until the firing process is complete. Leigh Craven is Assistant Professor in the plaster shell. The original clay model is Once the mold is packed with glass it is Art Department. She wishes to acknowledge then removed from the interior of the then fired in a kiln. The firing/fusing the support of a CARS Faculty Librarian plaster, leaving behind a usable plaster schedule takes more than thirty hours Research Grant without which the research mold. The mold is carefully packed to complete. The schedule slowly heats and creation of these works would not have with various colored glass powders the glass to allow the frits to move, fuse, been possible. and frits. These colors are thoughtfully and reach desired color saturation and

Untitled, 9" x 5 ½," pâte de verre

Untitled, 8" x 4," pâte de verre, cast glass Untitled, 6" x 3 ½," pâte de verre

12 Bridgewater Review May 2013 13 Untitled, 8" x 6 ½," pâte de verre, cast glass Untitled, 5" x 3," pâte de verre, ceramics, gouache

Untitled, 5" x 4," pâte de verre Untitled, 9 ½" x 7," pâte de verre Untitled, 5" x 4," pâte de verre Untitled, 4" x 3," pâte de verre

14 Bridgewater Review May 2013 15 Untitled, 8" x 6 ½," pâte de verre, cast glass Untitled, 5" x 3," pâte de verre, ceramics, gouache

Untitled, 5" x 4," pâte de verre Untitled, 9 ½" x 7," pâte de verre Untitled, 5" x 4," pâte de verre Untitled, 4" x 3," pâte de verre

14 Bridgewater Review May 2013 15 motion-sensor enabled consoles (e.g., the Academic and Non-Academic Games Nintendo Wii), and the like. My student, Zach, went so far as to loan me a Sony Bjorn Ingvoldstad Connect console over winter break–for background research! And I tell you: the TOP 1 TOP 2 reading and screening schedules. This kind technology is dangerously fun. Left to my of flexibility would simply be impossible to Late August, for us baseball fans, means When I was a boy, all I ever wanted to be own devices, I might spend far too much facilitate in a more traditional, face-to-face a pennant race–if we’re lucky. (This past when I grew up was a baseball player. The time for my own good playing those learning environment. year, Red Sox fans = not lucky.) But let me problem: I couldn’t hit, couldn’t throw and videogames. I’ll just have to settle for a tell you, growing up as a baseball fan in the couldn’t catch, and I could barely run. It was a TOP 3 game of Tetris after I finish this sentence. American Midwest, seasons are too often a nice idea, but nothing with which my career- In fifth grade, I got a board game called perennial exercise in quiet desperation. So, counselor mom could work. At some point, TOP 6 Statis Pro Baseball. This game had cards for a little success goes a long way: everyone’s near the end of my undergraduate years, I hit In terms of board games, I was a terrible loser. hundreds of different players, their statistics ball club should win the championship once. upon the idea of teaching film from around Awful. At holiday gatherings, one by one, boiled down to usable sets of probabilities Really. Once is all you need. For the rest of my the world. Was it possible, I asked my favorite my relatives vowed never to play with me for pitching, hitting, fielding, running, and quests. Except we didn’t understand that, life, I’ll remember October 1991: running up Spanish professor, Señor Irvin, to teach film number of challenges at my students. It again. I have a particularly shameful memory so on. As a kid, I loved playing this game but at first, those new characters need to be to the Metrodome after the Twins won that across language departments, rather than already has! And yet here we all are–mark of a meltdown at a Door County, Wisconsin when I returned to it as a teenager, things nurtured. One simply does not successfully 10-inning Game 7 over the Atlanta Braves, having to specialize in a particular language? ing our successes individually and collectively. mini-golf course, having just been schooled by got really interesting: several friends and roll a random pack of wolves by the camp- high-fiving random motorists trying The answer I received was an emphatic Life after Bridgewater beckons: I entice Mom. Soon after, Dad got a ping-pong table I drafted players to play out abbreviated ground to rip apart the newbies–who to join the celebration. maybe; but that was enough for me to inquire students with visions of crossing the gradu for our basement, and set about teaching me (60-game) seasons. We played every knew? As Dungeon Master, a firmer hand– further, once I was in graduate school, about ation stage, collecting their diplomas. Soon how to lose with grace. If I started whacking weekend. We kept statistics. We wrote a manager–is what’s needed. BOTTOM 1 teaching cinema globally. enough, it’s happening for real. And before my paddle or otherwise acting up, that was news stories about our games. We were you know it, I’m sending them emails Late August, for university professors, means BOTTOM 4 it for the week. And he never, never let me syllabus (re)writing. Time to revisit familiar BOTTOM 2 obsessed in the way kids can be before inviting them back to campus for the win. He wanted me to win (I realized that classes, or perhaps craft a new one: what I taught Global Cinema again last fall. they start to discover dating and jobs and I’ve always thought teaching is like running Alumni Roundtable. decades later), but first he wanted me to learn students will read when, how much this or This time, it was entirely online, which cars–the other parts of a balanced life. a fantasy baseball league–we all load our how to lose. I think I’m better now, but I still scores onto Blackboard and follow the s TOP 5 that assignment will be worth, how many allowed me to empower students to customize BOTTOM 3 have to keep myself from going for the throat absences can occur before it gets ugly, etc. their learning experiences. So, for instance, tandings. Grades. Whatever. Or maybe When I was kid, cartoons were still a Saturday playing Yahtzee. Once I can articulate a series of objectives in our unit on national cinemas, we My wife of 13+ years and I have been the Dungeon Master analogy is even more morning affair. I’m not sure how it started, and outcomes, I go about creating a calendar, began with a shared curriculum of films: having a conversation about life balance for, apt: my Senior Seminar students’ 6000-word but I got in the habit of rolling a die to choose including which assignments will happen Potemkin, Rashomon, Rules of the oh, at least the past 13+ years. How can papers might be their longest quests to date, which station to watch. It was easy enough when, and for what value. In a very real Game. Then students picked a national I do everything that I need to do career-wise, but they still need to be nurtured through to set it up: 1-2 = ABC; 3-4 = CBS; 5-6 = NBC. sense, a syllabus lays out the “rules of the cinema they wanted to study in more while still having a full and fruitful life the process. Teaching Seminar turns out to What drove me to this? Option paralysis? game” for my class. depth and developed their own individual otherwise? If this question seems mundane to be an extended exercise in managing the Couldn’t my eight-year-old self decide on his you, you have not thought about it enough. anxiety of students: anxious about their own whether to go with Electra Woman or This isn’t an academia thing–it’s an research projects, anxious about graduat Looney Tunes? Was I so enamored with board everybody thing. I think all of us wrestle ing, anxious about their career trajectories games that it didn’t seem like such a leap to go with this question of balance, and the after graduation. No more random rolls for from spinning the wheel in The Game of Life to solutions we embrace profoundly impact wolves–the “real world” will throw any rolling a die to make important third-grader how we live our lives. decisions? It’s like I was trying to turn my real life into one of those Choose Your Own TOP 4 Adventure books that became a mini-fad at Trouble ensued when my teenage friends the time. “If you choose to stay in the Boy and I thought we’d “graduated” from mock Scouts, turn to page 64!” baseball to, erm, Dungeons & Dragons, the BOTTOM 6 fantasy war board game. Sure, setting up all BOTTOM 5 We read The Hunger Games this fall the game’s monsters in a big tournament akin Gaming studies is an emerging sub-discipline in the Honors Book Club. The rules of to NCAA basketball’s March Madness was all within media studies. Indeed, the first the game within the novel are horrific: well and good (gelatinous cube vs. werebear– Honors thesis I advised (the only Honors part military draft, part Shirley Jackson who do you root for?), but we knew we were thesis I’ve advised) was on the emergence “Lottery”-esque ritual sacrifice, part reality “supposed” to go on Lord Of The Rings-type of the casual gaming industry, marked by TV send-up, 24 teens fight each other to the mobile devices (Angry Birds, anyone?),

16 Bridgewater Review May 2013 17 motion-sensor enabled consoles (e.g., the Academic and Non-Academic Games Nintendo Wii), and the like. My student, Zach, went so far as to loan me a Sony Bjorn Ingvoldstad Connect console over winter break–for background research! And I tell you: the TOP 1 TOP 2 reading and screening schedules. This kind technology is dangerously fun. Left to my of flexibility would simply be impossible to Late August, for us baseball fans, means When I was a boy, all I ever wanted to be own devices, I might spend far too much facilitate in a more traditional, face-to-face a pennant race–if we’re lucky. (This past when I grew up was a baseball player. The time for my own good playing those learning environment. year, Red Sox fans = not lucky.) But let me problem: I couldn’t hit, couldn’t throw and videogames. I’ll just have to settle for a tell you, growing up as a baseball fan in the couldn’t catch, and I could barely run. It was a TOP 3 game of Tetris after I finish this sentence. American Midwest, seasons are too often a nice idea, but nothing with which my career- In fifth grade, I got a board game called perennial exercise in quiet desperation. So, counselor mom could work. At some point, TOP 6 Statis Pro Baseball. This game had cards for a little success goes a long way: everyone’s near the end of my undergraduate years, I hit In terms of board games, I was a terrible loser. hundreds of different players, their statistics ball club should win the championship once. upon the idea of teaching film from around Awful. At holiday gatherings, one by one, boiled down to usable sets of probabilities Really. Once is all you need. For the rest of my the world. Was it possible, I asked my favorite my relatives vowed never to play with me for pitching, hitting, fielding, running, and quests. Except we didn’t understand that, life, I’ll remember October 1991: running up Spanish professor, Señor Irvin, to teach film number of challenges at my students. It again. I have a particularly shameful memory so on. As a kid, I loved playing this game but at first, those new characters need to be to the Metrodome after the Twins won that across language departments, rather than already has! And yet here we all are–mark of a meltdown at a Door County, Wisconsin when I returned to it as a teenager, things nurtured. One simply does not successfully 10-inning Game 7 over the Atlanta Braves, having to specialize in a particular language? ing our successes individually and collectively. mini-golf course, having just been schooled by got really interesting: several friends and roll a random pack of wolves by the camp- high-fiving random motorists trying The answer I received was an emphatic Life after Bridgewater beckons: I entice Mom. Soon after, Dad got a ping-pong table I drafted players to play out abbreviated ground to rip apart the newbies–who to join the celebration. maybe; but that was enough for me to inquire students with visions of crossing the gradu for our basement, and set about teaching me (60-game) seasons. We played every knew? As Dungeon Master, a firmer hand– further, once I was in graduate school, about ation stage, collecting their diplomas. Soon how to lose with grace. If I started whacking weekend. We kept statistics. We wrote a manager–is what’s needed. BOTTOM 1 teaching cinema globally. enough, it’s happening for real. And before my paddle or otherwise acting up, that was news stories about our games. We were you know it, I’m sending them emails Late August, for university professors, means BOTTOM 4 it for the week. And he never, never let me syllabus (re)writing. Time to revisit familiar BOTTOM 2 obsessed in the way kids can be before inviting them back to campus for the win. He wanted me to win (I realized that classes, or perhaps craft a new one: what I taught Global Cinema again last fall. they start to discover dating and jobs and I’ve always thought teaching is like running Alumni Roundtable. decades later), but first he wanted me to learn students will read when, how much this or This time, it was entirely online, which cars–the other parts of a balanced life. a fantasy baseball league–we all load our how to lose. I think I’m better now, but I still scores onto Blackboard and follow the s TOP 5 that assignment will be worth, how many allowed me to empower students to customize BOTTOM 3 have to keep myself from going for the throat absences can occur before it gets ugly, etc. their learning experiences. So, for instance, tandings. Grades. Whatever. Or maybe When I was kid, cartoons were still a Saturday playing Yahtzee. Once I can articulate a series of objectives in our unit on national cinemas, we My wife of 13+ years and I have been the Dungeon Master analogy is even more morning affair. I’m not sure how it started, and outcomes, I go about creating a calendar, began with a shared curriculum of films: having a conversation about life balance for, apt: my Senior Seminar students’ 6000-word but I got in the habit of rolling a die to choose including which assignments will happen Potemkin, Rashomon, Rules of the oh, at least the past 13+ years. How can papers might be their longest quests to date, which station to watch. It was easy enough when, and for what value. In a very real Game. Then students picked a national I do everything that I need to do career-wise, but they still need to be nurtured through to set it up: 1-2 = ABC; 3-4 = CBS; 5-6 = NBC. sense, a syllabus lays out the “rules of the cinema they wanted to study in more while still having a full and fruitful life the process. Teaching Seminar turns out to What drove me to this? Option paralysis? game” for my class. depth and developed their own individual otherwise? If this question seems mundane to be an extended exercise in managing the Couldn’t my eight-year-old self decide on his you, you have not thought about it enough. anxiety of students: anxious about their own whether to go with Electra Woman or This isn’t an academia thing–it’s an research projects, anxious about graduat Looney Tunes? Was I so enamored with board everybody thing. I think all of us wrestle ing, anxious about their career trajectories games that it didn’t seem like such a leap to go with this question of balance, and the after graduation. No more random rolls for from spinning the wheel in The Game of Life to solutions we embrace profoundly impact wolves–the “real world” will throw any rolling a die to make important third-grader how we live our lives. decisions? It’s like I was trying to turn my real life into one of those Choose Your Own TOP 4 Adventure books that became a mini-fad at Trouble ensued when my teenage friends the time. “If you choose to stay in the Boy and I thought we’d “graduated” from mock Scouts, turn to page 64!” baseball to, erm, Dungeons & Dragons, the BOTTOM 6 fantasy war board game. Sure, setting up all BOTTOM 5 We read The Hunger Games this fall the game’s monsters in a big tournament akin Gaming studies is an emerging sub-discipline in the Honors Book Club. The rules of to NCAA basketball’s March Madness was all within media studies. Indeed, the first the game within the novel are horrific: well and good (gelatinous cube vs. werebear– Honors thesis I advised (the only Honors part military draft, part Shirley Jackson who do you root for?), but we knew we were thesis I’ve advised) was on the emergence “Lottery”-esque ritual sacrifice, part reality “supposed” to go on Lord Of The Rings-type of the casual gaming industry, marked by TV send-up, 24 teens fight each other to the mobile devices (Angry Birds, anyone?),

16 Bridgewater Review May 2013 17 TOP 8 year in which Carl Yastrzemski won the Triple Kristin Thompson’s Film Art (2004). Crown, and the Red Sox were one game away Today, the film continues to find an Somewhere, in a storage box, there are Inhuman Temporality: Koyaanisqatsi from winning the World Series. I set up a tour- audience: in December 2012, the audiocassettes of me (fourth-grade me) doing nament to play the teams solitaire and “see” Matt Bell Criterion Collection released a box set play-by-play coverage of a board game Super them in action. To my horror, the Red Sox are of the three “Qatsi” films on DVD and Bowl. It was the culmination of a full-on, eight- iewers familiar with Godfrey Reggio’s 1982 struggling. Yaz is injured. Boston is currently Blu-ray, and screenings of game season, playing all teams solitaire-style, Koyaanisqatsi a game away from elimination at the hands of motion picture spectacle Koyaanisqatsi know with live musical accompaniment have using See-Action Football, another one of my the Yankees. I’m horrified at the prospect of become part of the repertoire of the board-game obsessions. I kept and regularly well both its attitude toward human beings playing Boston right out of the tournament. V Philip Glass Ensemble. updated standings–stats too. (What a wealth It’s like rolling the wolves into the D&D and its techniques for manipulating time. The film’s of sheer TIME we have when we’re young!) Familiar too are the major strains campground all over again. I don’t remember it ever being my dream to reputation consists of a mere few components: its of criticism of the film. Reviews BE an announcer; I just WAS an announcer in BOTTOM 9 title is a Hopi word that translates as “life out of by Vincent Canby in the New York my head. On some level, I think all sports kids Times and by Harlan Jacobson in Post-tenure academic life is a funny balance”; it is a nonfiction, non-narrative feature that do this (complete with crowd noise). It came Film Comment read it as a simplifying thing. For instance, after years of portfolio naturally–it was all part of our play. uses fast-motion and slow-motion cinematography construct that pits corrupt humanity creation and class visitation, I now find against natural purity. Canby regarded myself in the position of evaluating those to contemplate landscapes and cities in the United BOTTOM 8 it as a “‘folly’ of a movie,” in part death for a post-apocalyptic nation’s viewing portfolios and classes. Somewhere along the States; it has a minimalist musical score by Philip One of the great joys of being a professor is because its argument constitutes an pleasure. You’d think the notion of being a line, I’ve started to morph from someone guiding students as they try to get where Glass that keeps pace with the rhythms of its frame “unequivocal indictment” of man’s vio- good loser wouldn’t exactly weigh heavily on seeking mentors to someone attempting to they want to be. Sometimes the means lations of the natural world. Jacobson these characters’ minds–but in fact one of the mentor (or at least not scar too terribly). rates and editing; and it protests the impact of human to that end is video production work. In appraised Koyaanisqatsi more severely philosophical questions the book asks us to These kinds of changes sneak up on all of us, Videography, it’s making short films (these civilization on the natural world. Koyaanisqatsi as a “banal” polemic. These and other ask ourselves is how to effectively retain our right? John Lennon was right: “Life is what days: YouTube). In Television Studio became an unlikely object of fascination in the 1980s, assessments suggest that the film merely core humanity within such a horrific happens to you while you’re busy making Production, it’s simulating news programs, recapitulates a trite critique of the scenario. It’s easy to take the moral high other plans.” Of course, Kenny Rogers was meeting with surprising success at the box office and talk shows, and such. You might be surprised industrialized world. Engaging with ground in our minds… Just pray you’re never also right: “You got to know when to hold just how many students want to be sports enjoying several afterlives: it has yielded countless imitations in television Koyaanisqatsi’s inhuman temporality, how- put to the test. ‘em, know when to fold ‘em.” That’s my casters, doing interviews or play-by-play, two follow-up collaborations between advertising and music videos, and ever, means returning our attention to story, and I’m sticking to it. If you know tied as they are to our vibrant Boston sports Reggio and Glass called appeared in introductory film text- this “familiar” film to take seriously TOP 7 what I mean, and I think you do. Powaqqatsi scene. The competition is intense: first for its aesthetic of de-familiarization, an I hope this piece doesn’t come off as wide- (1988) and Naqoyqatsi (2002), inspired books, such as David Bordwell and internships and later for paid positions. eyed nostalgia for my pre-adolescent years. Finding that balance between encourage Maybe it’s inevitable. Cue “Sweet Caroline.” ment (“Follow your dreams–go after a career BOTTOM 7 that feeds your soul”) and realism (“Do you know how many people want to anchor I hope this piece doesn’t come off as wide- at NESN?”) is quite tricky. Regardless of eyed boosterism for the academic experience the field, my colleagues across the university at Bridgewater State. Again, maybe it’s are daily striking that same balance. It’s an inevitable. My “out”: neither is a mortal occupational hazard. sin, all told. I suppose we never fully outgrow concerns about external judgment. Part of TOP 9 growing up, though, is honing those concerns I’m a 40-something professor who still loves about our internal judgment. “To thine baseball, and still loves board games. I still own self be true” and all that, then. Besides, love seeing how different companies “opera- as an old lapel button I acquired in Stratford- tionalize” statistics into a concise, interactive upon-Avon says, “Where there’s a Will, structure. And I love to play. I recently got a Bjorn Ingvoldstad is Associate Professor in there’s a play.” Strat-O-Matic Baseball game featuring the the Department of Communication Studies 1967 season, in my ongoing attempt to speed along my New England cultural assimilation. This was, of course, the “Impossible Dream”

Monument Valley

18 Bridgewater Review May 2013 19 TOP 8 year in which Carl Yastrzemski won the Triple Kristin Thompson’s Film Art (2004). Crown, and the Red Sox were one game away Today, the film continues to find an Somewhere, in a storage box, there are Inhuman Temporality: Koyaanisqatsi from winning the World Series. I set up a tour- audience: in December 2012, the audiocassettes of me (fourth-grade me) doing nament to play the teams solitaire and “see” Matt Bell Criterion Collection released a box set play-by-play coverage of a board game Super them in action. To my horror, the Red Sox are of the three “Qatsi” films on DVD and Bowl. It was the culmination of a full-on, eight- iewers familiar with Godfrey Reggio’s 1982 struggling. Yaz is injured. Boston is currently Blu-ray, and screenings of game season, playing all teams solitaire-style, Koyaanisqatsi a game away from elimination at the hands of motion picture spectacle Koyaanisqatsi know with live musical accompaniment have using See-Action Football, another one of my the Yankees. I’m horrified at the prospect of become part of the repertoire of the board-game obsessions. I kept and regularly well both its attitude toward human beings playing Boston right out of the tournament. V Philip Glass Ensemble. updated standings–stats too. (What a wealth It’s like rolling the wolves into the D&D and its techniques for manipulating time. The film’s of sheer TIME we have when we’re young!) Familiar too are the major strains campground all over again. I don’t remember it ever being my dream to reputation consists of a mere few components: its of criticism of the film. Reviews BE an announcer; I just WAS an announcer in BOTTOM 9 title is a Hopi word that translates as “life out of by Vincent Canby in the New York my head. On some level, I think all sports kids Times and by Harlan Jacobson in Post-tenure academic life is a funny balance”; it is a nonfiction, non-narrative feature that do this (complete with crowd noise). It came Film Comment read it as a simplifying thing. For instance, after years of portfolio naturally–it was all part of our play. uses fast-motion and slow-motion cinematography construct that pits corrupt humanity creation and class visitation, I now find against natural purity. Canby regarded myself in the position of evaluating those to contemplate landscapes and cities in the United BOTTOM 8 it as a “‘folly’ of a movie,” in part death for a post-apocalyptic nation’s viewing portfolios and classes. Somewhere along the States; it has a minimalist musical score by Philip One of the great joys of being a professor is because its argument constitutes an pleasure. You’d think the notion of being a line, I’ve started to morph from someone guiding students as they try to get where Glass that keeps pace with the rhythms of its frame “unequivocal indictment” of man’s vio- good loser wouldn’t exactly weigh heavily on seeking mentors to someone attempting to they want to be. Sometimes the means lations of the natural world. Jacobson these characters’ minds–but in fact one of the mentor (or at least not scar too terribly). rates and editing; and it protests the impact of human to that end is video production work. In appraised Koyaanisqatsi more severely philosophical questions the book asks us to These kinds of changes sneak up on all of us, Videography, it’s making short films (these civilization on the natural world. Koyaanisqatsi as a “banal” polemic. These and other ask ourselves is how to effectively retain our right? John Lennon was right: “Life is what days: YouTube). In Television Studio became an unlikely object of fascination in the 1980s, assessments suggest that the film merely core humanity within such a horrific happens to you while you’re busy making Production, it’s simulating news programs, recapitulates a trite critique of the scenario. It’s easy to take the moral high other plans.” Of course, Kenny Rogers was meeting with surprising success at the box office and talk shows, and such. You might be surprised industrialized world. Engaging with ground in our minds… Just pray you’re never also right: “You got to know when to hold just how many students want to be sports enjoying several afterlives: it has yielded countless imitations in television Koyaanisqatsi’s inhuman temporality, how- put to the test. ‘em, know when to fold ‘em.” That’s my casters, doing interviews or play-by-play, two follow-up collaborations between advertising and music videos, and ever, means returning our attention to story, and I’m sticking to it. If you know tied as they are to our vibrant Boston sports Reggio and Glass called appeared in introductory film text- this “familiar” film to take seriously TOP 7 what I mean, and I think you do. Powaqqatsi scene. The competition is intense: first for its aesthetic of de-familiarization, an I hope this piece doesn’t come off as wide- (1988) and Naqoyqatsi (2002), inspired books, such as David Bordwell and internships and later for paid positions. eyed nostalgia for my pre-adolescent years. Finding that balance between encourage Maybe it’s inevitable. Cue “Sweet Caroline.” ment (“Follow your dreams–go after a career BOTTOM 7 that feeds your soul”) and realism (“Do you know how many people want to anchor I hope this piece doesn’t come off as wide- at NESN?”) is quite tricky. Regardless of eyed boosterism for the academic experience the field, my colleagues across the university at Bridgewater State. Again, maybe it’s are daily striking that same balance. It’s an inevitable. My “out”: neither is a mortal occupational hazard. sin, all told. I suppose we never fully outgrow concerns about external judgment. Part of TOP 9 growing up, though, is honing those concerns I’m a 40-something professor who still loves about our internal judgment. “To thine baseball, and still loves board games. I still own self be true” and all that, then. Besides, love seeing how different companies “opera- as an old lapel button I acquired in Stratford- tionalize” statistics into a concise, interactive upon-Avon says, “Where there’s a Will, structure. And I love to play. I recently got a Bjorn Ingvoldstad is Associate Professor in there’s a play.” Strat-O-Matic Baseball game featuring the the Department of Communication Studies 1967 season, in my ongoing attempt to speed along my New England cultural assimilation. This was, of course, the “Impossible Dream”

Monument Valley

18 Bridgewater Review May 2013 19 aesthetic that exceeds and complicates from the one we already know. the apparent thematic simplicity identi- The real novelty of Koyaanisqatsi Benjamin’s essay thus seems to ascribe fied by the critics. The real novelty of to the camera a kind of de-familiarizing Koyaanisqatsi is the way it stretches and is the way it stretches and knowledge. The camera, Benjamin fur- condenses time, an aspect that remains ther claims, “introduces us to uncon- more startling and strange in 2013 condenses time, an aspect that scious optics as does psychoanalysis to than does the film’s environmentalist remains more startling and strange unconscious impulses.” Like Reggio’s critique. statements, Benjamin’s notion of the optical unconscious grants to motion Some of the best-known passages of in 2013 than does the film’s picture technology a de-familiarizing the film displace the human figure capacity, but that capacity entails show- altogether in favor of meditations on environmentalist critique. ing us a positive vision with which we non-human measures of time. Even may become familiar. when the camera captures images at canyons, and plateaus; these shots flowing movements of automobiles, the the conventional rate of 24 frames per I contend that Koyaanisqatsi’s approach present the world simply “as it is” and camera observes structures reminiscent second, as it does early in the film, in a Tableau Vivant to the human eludes the kind of yet also accomplish a wonderfully cin- of the landscapes and bodies of water series of images of the vast Southwest, apprehension implied by both Reggio’s ematic abstraction, evoking an experi- glimpsed previously. As it regards Los But the film is still more qualities of movement but reveals the mise-en-scène expresses an alternative Koyaanisqatsi “re-visioning” and Benjamin’s “uncon- ence of time known not to humans, but Angeles, the camera re-presents human temporal scale. In a sequence of shots of hostile to humanism than Reggio’s in them entirely unknown ones… scious optics”; the film’s work of to those desert landforms. The camera civilization in non-human time and Monument Valley followed by a slow own statements allow. Its temporal Even if one has a general knowl- de-familiarization is most effective later considers the movement of water space: its extreme long shots of skyline pan across a winding canyon, the rock and aesthetic values are not merely edge of the way people walk, one when the camera’s knowing, empiricist in a four-minute sequence that intercuts and highways remove us from intimate an alternative to humanism but are knows nothing of a person’s pos- look encounters some unfathomable relation to individual persons. more properly inhuman violations of ture during the fractional second knowledge. In the film’s second half, Koyaanisqatsi’s director, Godfrey it. Koyaanisqatsi’s inhumanity results of a stride. The act of reaching we glimpse that inaccessible knowledge Reggio, purposely aspires to create not from its displacement of the human for a lighter or a spoon is familiar in five sequences that feature closer this alienating effect. His remarks in a in its land and cityscapes, but in its routine, yet we hardly know what examinations of individual human 1989 interview suggest his familiarity protracted and unsettling looks at indi- with the ideas that time can be experi- vidual human beings. enced in more than one way and that To get closer to what we might call Koyaanisqatsi’s inhumanity results temporality expresses ideology: “What the film’s inhumanism, let us turn first we’re trying to do in Koyaanisqatsi is to a classic exposition of the de- not from its displacement of the show that we’re living in a world that’s familiarizing possibilities of motion engulfed in acceleration.” According picture technology. Walter Benjamin’s human in its land and cityscapes, to Reggio, the medium of film enables 1936 essay “The Work of Art in the him both to occupy a position inside Age of Mechanical Reproduction” but in its protracted and unsettling the Western conception of time and to is familiar to film scholars who have see that position from the outside. In read and re-read it as a bracing mani- looks at individual human beings. Downtown Los Angeles the same interview, he calls for a “pro- festo that champions cinema as the cess of re-visioning,” and he explicitly medium par excellence of politicized formations and layers of sediment tell counterposes his film to a humanist art. In a passage especially resonant for time-lapse shots of shifting clouds and really goes on between hand and us that the camera is recording a fleet- regard for the world: “I’m suggesting Koyaanisqatsi, Benjamin concentrates fog with slow-motion shots of a water- metal … Here the camera inter- ing moment in geological or planetary that the vision that we need for our day on film’s de-familiarizing effects, fall, ocean swells, and crashing waves, venes with the resources of its time. More often, Koyaanisqatsi per- is one that is not anthropomorphized, including slow-motion and fast-motion adding to the reflection on geological lowerings and liftings, its interrup- forms the work of de-familiarization one that doesn’t put the human being cinematography: time a sense of the fluid movements through slow-motion and fast-motion [at] the center of the universe.” Even as tions and isolations, its extensions that sculpt the landscape. Much later With the close-up, space expands; photography, which visualizes the the human subject seems to disappear in and accelerations, its enlargements in the film, when Koyaanisqatsi pre- with slow motion, movement is movements of our ordinary world at many of the most iconic passages in the and reductions. sents time-lapse footage of downtown extended. The enlargement of a otherwise imperceptible rates of speed. film, humanism survives in Reggio’s Benjamin treats the motion picture Los Angeles at night, the film echoes snapshot does not simply render A montage of five time-lapse shots account of Koyaanisqatsi, both in his camera as a tool of aesthetic emancipa- the compositions and temporalities more precise what in any case was taken with an immobile camera shows notion of artistic agency and in his first- tion from an industrialized “prison- identified in its early going with the visible, though unclear: it reveals the play of shadows cast by clouds and person statement of the new vision that world” of objects and routines. An Southwest. In these panoramas of the entirely new structural formations the setting sun on magnificent buttes, “we need.” alternative to “the naked eye,” the city, contemplating high-rise archi- of the subject. So, too, slow camera reveals “a different nature” tecture, man-made topography, and motion not only presents familiar Advertising Sightseeing

20 Bridgewater Review May 2013 21 aesthetic that exceeds and complicates from the one we already know. the apparent thematic simplicity identi- The real novelty of Koyaanisqatsi Benjamin’s essay thus seems to ascribe fied by the critics. The real novelty of to the camera a kind of de-familiarizing Koyaanisqatsi is the way it stretches and is the way it stretches and knowledge. The camera, Benjamin fur- condenses time, an aspect that remains ther claims, “introduces us to uncon- more startling and strange in 2013 condenses time, an aspect that scious optics as does psychoanalysis to than does the film’s environmentalist remains more startling and strange unconscious impulses.” Like Reggio’s critique. statements, Benjamin’s notion of the optical unconscious grants to motion Some of the best-known passages of in 2013 than does the film’s picture technology a de-familiarizing the film displace the human figure capacity, but that capacity entails show- altogether in favor of meditations on environmentalist critique. ing us a positive vision with which we non-human measures of time. Even may become familiar. when the camera captures images at canyons, and plateaus; these shots flowing movements of automobiles, the the conventional rate of 24 frames per I contend that Koyaanisqatsi’s approach present the world simply “as it is” and camera observes structures reminiscent second, as it does early in the film, in a Tableau Vivant to the human eludes the kind of yet also accomplish a wonderfully cin- of the landscapes and bodies of water series of images of the vast Southwest, apprehension implied by both Reggio’s ematic abstraction, evoking an experi- glimpsed previously. As it regards Los But the film is still more qualities of movement but reveals the mise-en-scène expresses an alternative Koyaanisqatsi “re-visioning” and Benjamin’s “uncon- ence of time known not to humans, but Angeles, the camera re-presents human temporal scale. In a sequence of shots of hostile to humanism than Reggio’s in them entirely unknown ones… scious optics”; the film’s work of to those desert landforms. The camera civilization in non-human time and Monument Valley followed by a slow own statements allow. Its temporal Even if one has a general knowl- de-familiarization is most effective later considers the movement of water space: its extreme long shots of skyline pan across a winding canyon, the rock and aesthetic values are not merely edge of the way people walk, one when the camera’s knowing, empiricist in a four-minute sequence that intercuts and highways remove us from intimate an alternative to humanism but are knows nothing of a person’s pos- look encounters some unfathomable relation to individual persons. more properly inhuman violations of ture during the fractional second knowledge. In the film’s second half, Koyaanisqatsi’s director, Godfrey it. Koyaanisqatsi’s inhumanity results of a stride. The act of reaching we glimpse that inaccessible knowledge Reggio, purposely aspires to create not from its displacement of the human for a lighter or a spoon is familiar in five sequences that feature closer this alienating effect. His remarks in a in its land and cityscapes, but in its routine, yet we hardly know what examinations of individual human 1989 interview suggest his familiarity protracted and unsettling looks at indi- with the ideas that time can be experi- vidual human beings. enced in more than one way and that To get closer to what we might call Koyaanisqatsi’s inhumanity results temporality expresses ideology: “What the film’s inhumanism, let us turn first we’re trying to do in Koyaanisqatsi is to a classic exposition of the de- not from its displacement of the show that we’re living in a world that’s familiarizing possibilities of motion engulfed in acceleration.” According picture technology. Walter Benjamin’s human in its land and cityscapes, to Reggio, the medium of film enables 1936 essay “The Work of Art in the him both to occupy a position inside Age of Mechanical Reproduction” but in its protracted and unsettling the Western conception of time and to is familiar to film scholars who have see that position from the outside. In read and re-read it as a bracing mani- looks at individual human beings. Downtown Los Angeles the same interview, he calls for a “pro- festo that champions cinema as the cess of re-visioning,” and he explicitly medium par excellence of politicized formations and layers of sediment tell counterposes his film to a humanist art. In a passage especially resonant for time-lapse shots of shifting clouds and really goes on between hand and us that the camera is recording a fleet- regard for the world: “I’m suggesting Koyaanisqatsi, Benjamin concentrates fog with slow-motion shots of a water- metal … Here the camera inter- ing moment in geological or planetary that the vision that we need for our day on film’s de-familiarizing effects, fall, ocean swells, and crashing waves, venes with the resources of its time. More often, Koyaanisqatsi per- is one that is not anthropomorphized, including slow-motion and fast-motion adding to the reflection on geological lowerings and liftings, its interrup- forms the work of de-familiarization one that doesn’t put the human being cinematography: time a sense of the fluid movements through slow-motion and fast-motion [at] the center of the universe.” Even as tions and isolations, its extensions that sculpt the landscape. Much later With the close-up, space expands; photography, which visualizes the the human subject seems to disappear in and accelerations, its enlargements in the film, when Koyaanisqatsi pre- with slow motion, movement is movements of our ordinary world at many of the most iconic passages in the and reductions. sents time-lapse footage of downtown extended. The enlargement of a otherwise imperceptible rates of speed. film, humanism survives in Reggio’s Benjamin treats the motion picture Los Angeles at night, the film echoes snapshot does not simply render A montage of five time-lapse shots account of Koyaanisqatsi, both in his camera as a tool of aesthetic emancipa- the compositions and temporalities more precise what in any case was taken with an immobile camera shows notion of artistic agency and in his first- tion from an industrialized “prison- identified in its early going with the visible, though unclear: it reveals the play of shadows cast by clouds and person statement of the new vision that world” of objects and routines. An Southwest. In these panoramas of the entirely new structural formations the setting sun on magnificent buttes, “we need.” alternative to “the naked eye,” the city, contemplating high-rise archi- of the subject. So, too, slow camera reveals “a different nature” tecture, man-made topography, and motion not only presents familiar Advertising Sightseeing

20 Bridgewater Review May 2013 21 It stands on four foundations, or pillars: TEACHING NOTE awareness, embrace, independent thinking, and integration. Throughout the semes- Four Pillars in Understanding ter I lead students in building these four pillars of understanding in class assign- Globalization: How I Teach Second ments and discussions. Year Seminar First Pillar: Awareness– Going Outside the Box Fang Deng Many students who take this class he end of the twentieth century saw the are unaware of the changing world. It seems that they live “in the box,” Acknowledging the Camera Flirting or Mocking beginning of a new era of globalization. and do not realize that the world has beings. These sequences concern the Harlan Jacobson complained, “They … In one especially stunning sequence, Economic integration, advances in technology, become a different place. Students T articulate this perspective when they human subjects’ awareness of the pres- ceased to become people,” and Michael for example, we see six shots that and global transport networks have forged a “global write comments such as: “While I had ence of the camera; in contrast to earlier Dempsey, in Film Quarterly, concluded emphasize the capacity or incapacity village.” As the world changes, we also need to change perspectives in the film–when Reggio’s that the shot of casino workers exempli- of their subjects return our gaze: one known about jobs being lost in the camera floats unseen in desert land- fies “contemporary dehumanization.” older white man stands as an adver- –in both our knowledge and our perspective. Literacy U.S. due to outsourcing, my knowl- scapes or above urban crowds–these Jacobson’s and Dempsey’s comments tisement for “sightseeing,” though he in the twenty-first century is no longer limited to edge on globalization was very vague sequences present their human subjects share the wish that Koyaanisqatsi present himself appears unaware of the camera; and uninformed;” “While the world in alternately knowing, hostile, plead- to us human persons rather than de- a young black man acknowledges the conventional, text-based reading competency–it is rapidly changing and cultures are ing, dissociated, or flirtatious relation humanized or impersonal objects. camera with a nod as it zooms in to also includes technology and media applications and becoming more intertwined, in general to the camera. In the first of these isolate his face; another man shaves, extends to intercultural realms of knowledge. most Americans are far behind when it treating the camera as a mirror; a comes to globalizing themselves. I am young woman laughs as she either flirts In 2006, I developed a writing- and have never been abroad or had the no different;” and “Until I came to this “What we’re trying to do in with or mocks the camera; an elderly intensive Second Year Seminar, opportunity to study other cultures– class, I was unaware of the meaning white man gazes in the direction of the “Globalization: Cultural Conflict and some have never even watched foreign of globalization.” Koyaanisqatsi is show that we’re camera without quite seeing it; and a Integration,” as part of Bridgewater movies. So I am challenged to find middle-aged white man in glasses looks State’s new core curriculum offerings, ways to teach them about globalization living in a world that’s engulfed our way. Each of these figures occupies and have taught it since 2007. It has and provide them with new and diverse a perspective that cannot be our own, been very well received by students; for perspectives of the world. four years, two sections of the course in acceleration.” one we cannot know. The dehuman- I have met this challenge by creating a have been offered every semester and izing but strangely humane address of three-step process. First, I encourage student enrollment is consistently high. the human figures in these sequences students to candidly express their opin- sequences, for example, we initially tells us that we cannot be familiar with The course is designed to inform stu- Koyaanisqatsi’s inhuman attention to the ions on globalization, and then I post see a single man among the pedestrians them, or with Koyaanisqatsi. dents about the new era of globalization human figure in these five sequences their varied opinions on PowerPoint to on a crowded New York avenue look and encourage them to become glob- operates only in part through objec- share how they feel about the changing back over his shoulder at us. Later in ally literate and responsible citizens. tification. As Jacobson and Dempsey world. Second, I expose them to some this same sequence, the camera offers indicate, the camera does deny them Teaching this course is immensely important global events and ask them to a series of tableaux vivants, in each of the kind of personhood available either gratifying to me because it involves explain their opinions on globalization, Awareness, the first pillar of under- which the subjects gaze steadily at the through narrative–where characters innovation. What I enjoy most is the based on the facts they learn. Finally, I standing globalization, results from camera: two women stand on a subway are developed–or through a fetishiz- challenge posed by the fact that 95% have designed a building that symbol- an exposure to global trends. In platform as a train rushes past them, a ing admiration, which might confer of students in my class are 19 years old izes our understanding of globalization. my class, our exposure focuses on jet fighter pilot poses at the rear of his “dignity” upon them. The camera economic zones, especially BRIC, airplane, and six female casino work- does something else in these engage- the emerging and fast-growing markets ers in orange work uniforms line up ments with human subjects that de- of Brazil, Russia, India, and China. beneath the neon signs of Las Vegas. Matt Bell is Assistant Professor in the familiarizes not only the individuals 95% of students in my class are Three regions–the U.S. (with 22% Commentators on these human fig- Department of English. seen, but also the looks of the director, share of the world economy); Euro ures in Koyaanisqatsi have criticized the camera, and the audience: in these 19 years old and have never been Zone (with 18%); and emerging Reggio’s use of them in the film: cases, the subjects answer our efforts to markets (led by China, with 20%)– become familiar with them in variously abroad or had the opportunity to are the three legs of the stool that inscrutable ways. study other cultures.

22 Bridgewater Review May 2013 23 It stands on four foundations, or pillars: TEACHING NOTE awareness, embrace, independent thinking, and integration. Throughout the semes- Four Pillars in Understanding ter I lead students in building these four pillars of understanding in class assign- Globalization: How I Teach Second ments and discussions. Year Seminar First Pillar: Awareness– Going Outside the Box Fang Deng Many students who take this class he end of the twentieth century saw the are unaware of the changing world. It seems that they live “in the box,” Acknowledging the Camera Flirting or Mocking beginning of a new era of globalization. and do not realize that the world has beings. These sequences concern the Harlan Jacobson complained, “They … In one especially stunning sequence, Economic integration, advances in technology, become a different place. Students T articulate this perspective when they human subjects’ awareness of the pres- ceased to become people,” and Michael for example, we see six shots that and global transport networks have forged a “global write comments such as: “While I had ence of the camera; in contrast to earlier Dempsey, in Film Quarterly, concluded emphasize the capacity or incapacity village.” As the world changes, we also need to change perspectives in the film–when Reggio’s that the shot of casino workers exempli- of their subjects return our gaze: one known about jobs being lost in the camera floats unseen in desert land- fies “contemporary dehumanization.” older white man stands as an adver- –in both our knowledge and our perspective. Literacy U.S. due to outsourcing, my knowl- scapes or above urban crowds–these Jacobson’s and Dempsey’s comments tisement for “sightseeing,” though he in the twenty-first century is no longer limited to edge on globalization was very vague sequences present their human subjects share the wish that Koyaanisqatsi present himself appears unaware of the camera; and uninformed;” “While the world in alternately knowing, hostile, plead- to us human persons rather than de- a young black man acknowledges the conventional, text-based reading competency–it is rapidly changing and cultures are ing, dissociated, or flirtatious relation humanized or impersonal objects. camera with a nod as it zooms in to also includes technology and media applications and becoming more intertwined, in general to the camera. In the first of these isolate his face; another man shaves, extends to intercultural realms of knowledge. most Americans are far behind when it treating the camera as a mirror; a comes to globalizing themselves. I am young woman laughs as she either flirts In 2006, I developed a writing- and have never been abroad or had the no different;” and “Until I came to this “What we’re trying to do in with or mocks the camera; an elderly intensive Second Year Seminar, opportunity to study other cultures– class, I was unaware of the meaning white man gazes in the direction of the “Globalization: Cultural Conflict and some have never even watched foreign of globalization.” Koyaanisqatsi is show that we’re camera without quite seeing it; and a Integration,” as part of Bridgewater movies. So I am challenged to find middle-aged white man in glasses looks State’s new core curriculum offerings, ways to teach them about globalization living in a world that’s engulfed our way. Each of these figures occupies and have taught it since 2007. It has and provide them with new and diverse a perspective that cannot be our own, been very well received by students; for perspectives of the world. four years, two sections of the course in acceleration.” one we cannot know. The dehuman- I have met this challenge by creating a have been offered every semester and izing but strangely humane address of three-step process. First, I encourage student enrollment is consistently high. the human figures in these sequences students to candidly express their opin- sequences, for example, we initially tells us that we cannot be familiar with The course is designed to inform stu- Koyaanisqatsi’s inhuman attention to the ions on globalization, and then I post see a single man among the pedestrians them, or with Koyaanisqatsi. dents about the new era of globalization human figure in these five sequences their varied opinions on PowerPoint to on a crowded New York avenue look and encourage them to become glob- operates only in part through objec- share how they feel about the changing back over his shoulder at us. Later in ally literate and responsible citizens. tification. As Jacobson and Dempsey world. Second, I expose them to some this same sequence, the camera offers indicate, the camera does deny them Teaching this course is immensely important global events and ask them to a series of tableaux vivants, in each of the kind of personhood available either gratifying to me because it involves explain their opinions on globalization, Awareness, the first pillar of under- which the subjects gaze steadily at the through narrative–where characters innovation. What I enjoy most is the based on the facts they learn. Finally, I standing globalization, results from camera: two women stand on a subway are developed–or through a fetishiz- challenge posed by the fact that 95% have designed a building that symbol- an exposure to global trends. In platform as a train rushes past them, a ing admiration, which might confer of students in my class are 19 years old izes our understanding of globalization. my class, our exposure focuses on jet fighter pilot poses at the rear of his “dignity” upon them. The camera economic zones, especially BRIC, airplane, and six female casino work- does something else in these engage- the emerging and fast-growing markets ers in orange work uniforms line up ments with human subjects that de- of Brazil, Russia, India, and China. beneath the neon signs of Las Vegas. Matt Bell is Assistant Professor in the familiarizes not only the individuals 95% of students in my class are Three regions–the U.S. (with 22% Commentators on these human fig- Department of English. seen, but also the looks of the director, share of the world economy); Euro ures in Koyaanisqatsi have criticized the camera, and the audience: in these 19 years old and have never been Zone (with 18%); and emerging Reggio’s use of them in the film: cases, the subjects answer our efforts to markets (led by China, with 20%)– become familiar with them in variously abroad or had the opportunity to are the three legs of the stool that inscrutable ways. study other cultures.

22 Bridgewater Review May 2013 23 constitutes the global economy. These that other countries, which were once information age. The invention of familiar with other parts of the world, statistics show that a superpower can greatly inferior economically, are now new technology has been the driving American media (and the influence no longer exist without the assistance coming into the global spotlight.” force of social change, and we can- of Western ideology generally) create and collaboration of other nations. For Another student challenged globaliza- not fight that historical trend. These obstacles. No one can think indepen- instance, although Apple symbolizes tion: “Do we have to globalize at all? students can either have unrealistic dently when he or she is under the the best of American big business–its I don’t feel it’s necessary.” Another dreams (i.e., to go back to the old days), influence or control of ideology–and innovative drive, its flair for style, and student commented: “Other countries or accept and prepare themselves for the inability to think independently its advertising acumen–it has only are accepting us but we have trouble to the reality of globalization. Almost makes it impossible for students to succeeded because of its deep relation- accept them.” all of the students agree that we must understand the changing world. In our ship with China, where nearly all of embrace globalization. class, for instance, students constantly Although students had differing its products are assembled by workers degrees of embrace (or acceptance) who are paid on average $260/month. of globalization, all of the students In addition, about 20% of Apple’s global agreed that it was digital technology “Countries must now learn sales revenues come from China. In that made globally integrated markets short, isolated domestic markets simply profitable, at the same time it threatens to cooperate and build do not exist anymore. American jobs. If we don’t accept By exposing students to global Business Terrace farming, Qinkuo, Yunnan, China globalization, could we alter the trend relationships more than ever Process Outsourcing (BPO) they also and go back to the old days? before in human history.” become more aware of globalization. Some students had difficulty under- learned from this discussion that it is To address this issue, I have students In one documentary film, 1-800-India, standing the impact of globalization impossible to understand the world study the history of the relationship students witness the power of digital while they were just beginning to we now live in without understanding between the invention of new technol- technology that has made global BPO become aware of it. One student wrote: globalization and its consequences. ogy and social change. For example, Third Pillar: Thinking deny the implications of the rise of boom within a single decade, from an “Globalization doesn’t have any effects Second Pillar: Embrace– as the invention of the steam engine BRIC, because economic and social industry with no profits to an indus- on me because I will be a teacher, and Independently–Getting Rid helped create industrial society in developments in these four countries try with a trillion dollars in profits. that job cannot be taken by a laborer in Accepting Globalization of the Influence of Ideology the eighteenth century, computer pose major challenges to Western Students’ responses to the documentary China or India.” I brought this student’s as the Direction in which How we globalize ourselves is a chal- chips transformed our society in the perspectives and undermine the West’s have been very strong and impressive: opinion into class and encouraged lenge that all students face. Although the World is Moving twentieth century, and digital technol- deepest assumptions. “Through watching 1-800-India, you students to discuss how the globally the majority indicate a strong desire Becoming aware of globalization ogy has brought our society into the can see globalization coming to life integrating labor market has changed to broaden their horizons and become In another documentary film, Mardi and its effects on all societies divides right before your eyes;” “The movie the American employment structure. Gras: Made in China, students witness the students. Two different attitudes 1-800-India was a very insightful movie. In the discussion that ensued, students a process of globalization: Mardi Gras emerge. When asked how they felt China’s and India’s Per Capita GDPs Rising Against U.S. beads are made in China and sold in about China’s rise and the issue of the U.S. The owner of the factory is globalization, the majority embrace the 40% a Canadian-Chinese, the workers are changing world. They have written in “Until I came to this class, young Chinese laborers, and the cus- their papers: “With the unparalleled 35% tomers American shoppers at Wal-Mart surge of technology the world has now I was unaware of the meaning and Kmart. The American director of become a much smaller, more closely 30% the documentary interviewed many knit community. Countries must now of globalization.” Chinese workers, who presented learn to cooperate and build relation- 25% their views on the factory where they ships more than ever before in human worked, their work environment, history;” “If the world is globalized, we 20% After watching this movie I believe argued and gradually came to realize their pay, their lives, and globalization. must globalize ourselves;” “The key to that in order to globalize myself and that globalization will impact their 15% Although the documentary focuses on globalizing yourself is to not challenge prepare for the new world, education future careers for two reasons: first, a single factory built at the beginning change, but to accept it.” and diversity are the key;” “I look at competition for jobs like teachers 10% of the 1990s, it symbolizes the way globalizing myself as a way of going and police officers is increasing On the other hand, some students that China has transformed itself, in outside the box; straying away from the because no one wants a job that can used the words “weird,” “scared,” and 5% only 30 years, from one of the poorest norms we are used to and interacting be easily outsourced; and second, as “unwanted changes” to describe their countries in the world to the second with the world.” more people compete for jobs like feelings. For example, one wrote: “It greatest economic power. teaching and police work, the income makes me feel a little unsettled to hear 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 2040 2045 2050 growth in these jobs decreases. Students CHINA INDIA

24 Bridgewater Review May 2013 25 constitutes the global economy. These that other countries, which were once information age. The invention of familiar with other parts of the world, statistics show that a superpower can greatly inferior economically, are now new technology has been the driving American media (and the influence no longer exist without the assistance coming into the global spotlight.” force of social change, and we can- of Western ideology generally) create and collaboration of other nations. For Another student challenged globaliza- not fight that historical trend. These obstacles. No one can think indepen- instance, although Apple symbolizes tion: “Do we have to globalize at all? students can either have unrealistic dently when he or she is under the the best of American big business–its I don’t feel it’s necessary.” Another dreams (i.e., to go back to the old days), influence or control of ideology–and innovative drive, its flair for style, and student commented: “Other countries or accept and prepare themselves for the inability to think independently its advertising acumen–it has only are accepting us but we have trouble to the reality of globalization. Almost makes it impossible for students to succeeded because of its deep relation- accept them.” all of the students agree that we must understand the changing world. In our ship with China, where nearly all of embrace globalization. class, for instance, students constantly Although students had differing its products are assembled by workers degrees of embrace (or acceptance) who are paid on average $260/month. of globalization, all of the students In addition, about 20% of Apple’s global agreed that it was digital technology “Countries must now learn sales revenues come from China. In that made globally integrated markets short, isolated domestic markets simply profitable, at the same time it threatens to cooperate and build do not exist anymore. American jobs. If we don’t accept By exposing students to global Business Terrace farming, Qinkuo, Yunnan, China globalization, could we alter the trend relationships more than ever Process Outsourcing (BPO) they also and go back to the old days? before in human history.” become more aware of globalization. Some students had difficulty under- learned from this discussion that it is To address this issue, I have students In one documentary film, 1-800-India, standing the impact of globalization impossible to understand the world study the history of the relationship students witness the power of digital while they were just beginning to we now live in without understanding between the invention of new technol- technology that has made global BPO become aware of it. One student wrote: globalization and its consequences. ogy and social change. For example, Third Pillar: Thinking deny the implications of the rise of boom within a single decade, from an “Globalization doesn’t have any effects Second Pillar: Embrace– as the invention of the steam engine BRIC, because economic and social industry with no profits to an indus- on me because I will be a teacher, and Independently–Getting Rid helped create industrial society in developments in these four countries try with a trillion dollars in profits. that job cannot be taken by a laborer in Accepting Globalization of the Influence of Ideology the eighteenth century, computer pose major challenges to Western Students’ responses to the documentary China or India.” I brought this student’s as the Direction in which How we globalize ourselves is a chal- chips transformed our society in the perspectives and undermine the West’s have been very strong and impressive: opinion into class and encouraged lenge that all students face. Although the World is Moving twentieth century, and digital technol- deepest assumptions. “Through watching 1-800-India, you students to discuss how the globally the majority indicate a strong desire Becoming aware of globalization ogy has brought our society into the can see globalization coming to life integrating labor market has changed to broaden their horizons and become In another documentary film, Mardi and its effects on all societies divides right before your eyes;” “The movie the American employment structure. Gras: Made in China, students witness the students. Two different attitudes 1-800-India was a very insightful movie. In the discussion that ensued, students a process of globalization: Mardi Gras emerge. When asked how they felt China’s and India’s Per Capita GDPs Rising Against U.S. beads are made in China and sold in about China’s rise and the issue of the U.S. The owner of the factory is globalization, the majority embrace the 40% a Canadian-Chinese, the workers are changing world. They have written in “Until I came to this class, young Chinese laborers, and the cus- their papers: “With the unparalleled 35% tomers American shoppers at Wal-Mart surge of technology the world has now I was unaware of the meaning and Kmart. The American director of become a much smaller, more closely 30% the documentary interviewed many knit community. Countries must now of globalization.” Chinese workers, who presented learn to cooperate and build relation- 25% their views on the factory where they ships more than ever before in human worked, their work environment, history;” “If the world is globalized, we 20% After watching this movie I believe argued and gradually came to realize their pay, their lives, and globalization. must globalize ourselves;” “The key to that in order to globalize myself and that globalization will impact their 15% Although the documentary focuses on globalizing yourself is to not challenge prepare for the new world, education future careers for two reasons: first, a single factory built at the beginning change, but to accept it.” and diversity are the key;” “I look at competition for jobs like teachers 10% of the 1990s, it symbolizes the way globalizing myself as a way of going and police officers is increasing On the other hand, some students that China has transformed itself, in outside the box; straying away from the because no one wants a job that can used the words “weird,” “scared,” and 5% only 30 years, from one of the poorest norms we are used to and interacting be easily outsourced; and second, as “unwanted changes” to describe their countries in the world to the second with the world.” more people compete for jobs like feelings. For example, one wrote: “It greatest economic power. teaching and police work, the income makes me feel a little unsettled to hear 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 2040 2045 2050 growth in these jobs decreases. Students CHINA INDIA

24 Bridgewater Review May 2013 25 After watching the documentary, into the students’ framework, and of cooking oil, and fifteen pounds of in the culture that we live in.” Another students are hard pressed to understand confuses them. Instead of understan meat annually–and the markets lacked one agreed: “I think we are doing just the economic boom in China and its ding China’s economic development, virtually everything. But in 1978, fine and there is no need for us to make implications for the world. At the same BSU students criticize sweatshops China launched a program of economic any changes in our culture.” But others time, all of them were shocked by the and question the reliability of Chinese reform that opened a door to the world. thought we should learn something hard work done by the young Chinese workers’ positive opinions about Young workers seen in the documen- from BRIC’s success. “The movie laborers, the tough factory regulations, their lives. My students neither accept tary came out from their small villag- (Mardi Gras: Made in China) definitely and workers’ living conditions, which Chinese perspectives nor believe that es–for the first time in generations–to showed me how to put what I have were radically different from those Chinese workers could have opinions work in factories, were given free room learned thus far in class into action. It of American factory workers. More that differ from Western perspectives. and board, and sent their wages home teaches us to accept the inevitable and specifically, students were shocked by take it with pride.” the striking contrast between their own Culture is not a once-and-for-all fact, perspectives and Chinese views, but an ongoing process that is con- as Table 1 shows. “I think it’s time for us to learn tinuously constructed. A culture both Why were their opinions so diverse? shapes its members and is shaped by Students bring an emotional frame- something from other cultures in its members. Globalization calls into work and a mindset formed by Western question some of the deep assumptions ideology. For them, the world consists order to better ourselves.” of the Western worldview–assumptions of only two major forms of societies: that heretofore have been beyond ques- a) democratic societies based on a tion. But BRIC’s economic develop- successful economy, with freedom I encourage my students to try to to help their parents build new houses. ment shows that there is not only one and human rights as important understand the difference between the There were about 250 million migrant trajectory to modernity, and presents principles; and b) non-democratic Chinese and Western perspectives; laborers in China (just like those alternatives for Western societies in societies based on authoritarianism to stay away from ideology and focus young workers) and their hard work relation to problems such as social (such as Communist regimes) in solely on reality and practice. Before has created China’s economic miracle: inequality. Individualism may long be which people suffer from poverty 1978, for instance, when China was more than 300 million people were a core value of the Western worldview, and deprivation of political freedom. one of the poorest countries in the lifted from poverty. Without accept- but several of my students would agree with their classmate who wrote: China’s successful economic devel- world, an individual could consume ing the Western world view, China has “There is too much individualism in opment within the context of a only three pounds of eggs, five pounds achieved goals that Westerners had long our culture. I think it’s time for us to Communist regime does not fit assumed to be uniquely theirs. learn something from other cultures in order to better ourselves.” As this comment shows, my students have Table 1: Different Reactions to the Documentary, Mardi Gras: Made in China gone from being unaware of the TOPIC AMERICAN STUDENTS‘ OPINIONS CHINESE WORKERS‘ OPINIONS changing world to preparing themselves very consciously for the new One of many economic opportunities Factory One of many sweatshops in China Old and New Shanghai, China era of globalization. in China From their experience watching Mardi Environment Military compound Nice living arrangement Fourth Pillar: Integration– Gras: Made in China, students learned Learning from Each Other three important lessons: first, when the Salary ($1.00/hour) Extremely low Normal world is changing, no existing ideol- Does the study of globalization give us ogy can be used as a basis for judging an opportunity to learn from each oth- Workers They are exploited by capitalists They are achieving their own goals change, reality and practice must be the er? Again, students have been divided sole criteria; second, rejecting the influ- in their answers to this question. Some ence of ideology is key to globalizing thought we should simply turn away Regulations of the Factory Too tough to be acceptable Reasonable and Acceptable ourselves; third, escaping the assump- from BRIC’s success stories and the best tions of our own culture is the begin- of other cultures. One student wrote, Fang Deng is Professor in the Foreign Businesses in China In violation of human rights Have created a lot of jobs ning of opening our minds to other “I realized that the cultures vary so Department of Sociology. parts of the world. much in the norms and values that we Globalization Resulting in inequity Resulting in prosperity couldn’t benefit from each other. What works for other cultures doesn’t work

26 Bridgewater Review May 2013 27 After watching the documentary, into the students’ framework, and of cooking oil, and fifteen pounds of in the culture that we live in.” Another students are hard pressed to understand confuses them. Instead of understan meat annually–and the markets lacked one agreed: “I think we are doing just the economic boom in China and its ding China’s economic development, virtually everything. But in 1978, fine and there is no need for us to make implications for the world. At the same BSU students criticize sweatshops China launched a program of economic any changes in our culture.” But others time, all of them were shocked by the and question the reliability of Chinese reform that opened a door to the world. thought we should learn something hard work done by the young Chinese workers’ positive opinions about Young workers seen in the documen- from BRIC’s success. “The movie laborers, the tough factory regulations, their lives. My students neither accept tary came out from their small villag- (Mardi Gras: Made in China) definitely and workers’ living conditions, which Chinese perspectives nor believe that es–for the first time in generations–to showed me how to put what I have were radically different from those Chinese workers could have opinions work in factories, were given free room learned thus far in class into action. It of American factory workers. More that differ from Western perspectives. and board, and sent their wages home teaches us to accept the inevitable and specifically, students were shocked by take it with pride.” the striking contrast between their own Culture is not a once-and-for-all fact, perspectives and Chinese views, but an ongoing process that is con- as Table 1 shows. “I think it’s time for us to learn tinuously constructed. A culture both Why were their opinions so diverse? shapes its members and is shaped by Students bring an emotional frame- something from other cultures in its members. Globalization calls into work and a mindset formed by Western question some of the deep assumptions ideology. For them, the world consists order to better ourselves.” of the Western worldview–assumptions of only two major forms of societies: that heretofore have been beyond ques- a) democratic societies based on a tion. But BRIC’s economic develop- successful economy, with freedom I encourage my students to try to to help their parents build new houses. ment shows that there is not only one and human rights as important understand the difference between the There were about 250 million migrant trajectory to modernity, and presents principles; and b) non-democratic Chinese and Western perspectives; laborers in China (just like those alternatives for Western societies in societies based on authoritarianism to stay away from ideology and focus young workers) and their hard work relation to problems such as social (such as Communist regimes) in solely on reality and practice. Before has created China’s economic miracle: inequality. Individualism may long be which people suffer from poverty 1978, for instance, when China was more than 300 million people were a core value of the Western worldview, and deprivation of political freedom. one of the poorest countries in the lifted from poverty. Without accept- but several of my students would agree with their classmate who wrote: China’s successful economic devel- world, an individual could consume ing the Western world view, China has “There is too much individualism in opment within the context of a only three pounds of eggs, five pounds achieved goals that Westerners had long our culture. I think it’s time for us to Communist regime does not fit assumed to be uniquely theirs. learn something from other cultures in order to better ourselves.” As this comment shows, my students have Table 1: Different Reactions to the Documentary, Mardi Gras: Made in China gone from being unaware of the TOPIC AMERICAN STUDENTS‘ OPINIONS CHINESE WORKERS‘ OPINIONS changing world to preparing themselves very consciously for the new One of many economic opportunities Factory One of many sweatshops in China Old and New Shanghai, China era of globalization. in China From their experience watching Mardi Environment Military compound Nice living arrangement Fourth Pillar: Integration– Gras: Made in China, students learned Learning from Each Other three important lessons: first, when the Salary ($1.00/hour) Extremely low Normal world is changing, no existing ideol- Does the study of globalization give us ogy can be used as a basis for judging an opportunity to learn from each oth- Workers They are exploited by capitalists They are achieving their own goals change, reality and practice must be the er? Again, students have been divided sole criteria; second, rejecting the influ- in their answers to this question. Some ence of ideology is key to globalizing thought we should simply turn away Regulations of the Factory Too tough to be acceptable Reasonable and Acceptable ourselves; third, escaping the assump- from BRIC’s success stories and the best tions of our own culture is the begin- of other cultures. One student wrote, Fang Deng is Professor in the Foreign Businesses in China In violation of human rights Have created a lot of jobs ning of opening our minds to other “I realized that the cultures vary so Department of Sociology. parts of the world. much in the norms and values that we Globalization Resulting in inequity Resulting in prosperity couldn’t benefit from each other. What works for other cultures doesn’t work

26 Bridgewater Review May 2013 27 Image 1. Natural Edge: Cherry Image 2. Natural Edge: Cherry Burl Image 3. Natural Edge: Maple with Feather Image 4. Natural Edge: Maple with Feather (bottom)

family’s past there was a turner who, halves. That initial cut consigns many Other bowls are creations of my right swans-in-training. Now I marvel and As the World Turns like me, turned wood on a lathe to potential bowls to a premature, saw- brain. After the bowl blank is mounted sometimes laugh out loud in delight make bowls or table and chair legs. dusty death. It’s a cruel job to be a to the lathe and turned round, I watch when a “discarded” form is admired. Toby Lorenzen turner. With bated breath, we look forms evolve under my gouge; I focus What a strange and wondrous thing All turners need wood. I started by at the released center surfaces of the on any area that doesn’t seem quite is beauty! How do I determine if a begging wood from neighbors’ fire- (Photographs by Frank Gorga) tree. Will there be a beautiful heart- right to me; I stop cutting when a shape shape is beautiful? The Greeks’ idea of wood piles to make 6" bowls, then wood picture peering out at us or seems right to me. My subjective expe- a universal standard of beauty surely hen I walk through a forest, I do not see followed the siren wail of chainsaws some wonderful feather grain; or will rience is very much that of being an doesn’t hold in the vicinity of my lathe. to locate fresh tree trunks to make 10" “trees.” I see a red oak or white oak or a bark inclusion or crack run the length observer to a sequence of unveilings. If If “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” bowls, and finally have graduated to of the log? Will the Muse trace the out- pressed, I would agree that I created the and every bowl is admired by someone, black oak. I see a sassafras or an ash–rarely, the hard stuff: professional foresters W line of a beautiful shape hidden in the bowl in question, but I feel more like an then by what standards should a surviving elm. I pass beech, walnut, apple, cherry, deliver me 24"-diameter tree trunks in wood or whisper the way an imperfec- explorer or a prospector for beauty than I evaluate my newest work? For me, exchange for a finished bowl. red maple or sugar maple, moosewood, yellow birch tion can be transformed into a unique a creator. that remains an open question. I love wood and I kill trees to get that feature of beauty? Or will the turner or white birch. Sometimes a young chestnut–soon Things don’t always progress straight “Parting is such sweet sorrow.” Each wood. I delight in cutting open a new force his preconceived vision onto the forwardly. Sometimes I experiment on piece of wood is unique and every to die–presents itself. Looking at tree bark patterns, log and discovering the hidden beauty yielding wood? an imperfect piece of wood and make bowl is one of a kind, never to be seen awaiting me: the swirls of the grain I see if the underlying wood promises to be curly To create some of my shapes requires a something very different from my again. How do I part with my unique patterns; the rich colors of heartwood or straight-grained; if that “bump” is a true burl or mastery of solid geometry, the creation previous bowls. If the resulting form creations? “Let me count the ways.” set off against a background of creamy of many jigs, and meticulous planning: isn’t attractive to me, I won’t sand or At first, when I had completed only a an overgrown dead limb; if the crotch will probably sapwood; the profusion of buds in a all left-brain functions. If you look at finish it. I set it aside (I can’t quite bring few bowls, it was hard for me to give burl. And yet I mourn the vibrant leaf contain a bark inclusion. I have learned that apple will my cherry natural edge bowl (Image 1), myself to throw it on the firewood one away as a present–even to a family colors that will be missed next Fall. It’s you might notice that the bark rim has pile) and start another bowl. Invariably member. Would it crack in its first days warp excessively when drying, that delight, but sanding walnut produces a cruel job to be a turner. black oak and beech will probably toxic dust; ash’s open grain is beauti- two wing tips of identical height and someone proclaims admiration for away from home? Would some unfeel- develop splits, and that I don’t like the ful, but maple’s closed grain makes a Each log contains dozens of unborn two lower-rim points also of identical my discard and I finish it. When I ing visitor put it in the dishwasher or smell of turning red maple. I love the better salad bowl. forms under its bark. Which one will heights. It took me weeks of thinking first started turning, in my naïveté on top of the fireplace mantel? Would smell of fresh cherry and delight in the turner attempt to free? A heavy, to create my first symmetrical natural- (or arrogance?), I was perplexed when I ever make one like it again? Would Do you know anyone with the last cutting or turning that wood; walnut’s loud, expensive chainsaw with an edge bowl. others found my ugly ducklings to be name of Turner? Somewhere in that black heartwood and white sapwood unforgiving 20"-long bar rips the log down the pith into two mirrored

28 Bridgewater Review May 2013 29 Image 1. Natural Edge: Cherry Image 2. Natural Edge: Cherry Burl Image 3. Natural Edge: Maple with Feather Image 4. Natural Edge: Maple with Feather (bottom)

28 Bridgewater Review May 2013 29 Image 5. Natural Edge: Maple Image 6. Natural Edge: Maple Image 7. Cherry Platter: Detail of Bottom Image 8. Natural Edge: Maple

I ever make any beautiful bowl again? I too create beauty that some people want my art to be somewhat affordable Maybe the indulgent Muse would pack appreciate in a similar fashion. It took a so those who aren’t rich can still invite up and return to Olympus… long time for it to dawn on this prag- beauty into their homes. Then I put it Behind the Images matic computer scientist, but creating all together. Now, I barter my bowls for Then the owner of a local gallery asked beauty is a fine thing to do with the rest tax deductible contributions to micro Frank Gorga for bowls–bowls she wanted to sell of my life. As Emerson almost said, “If loan organizations. Instead of earning a Photographing wooden bowls indoors in a “studio” is far outside the usual realm of my photography... land- to strangers. After I got over the initial eyes were made for seeing, then creat- little for each hour I turn a bowl, I earn scapes and wildlife. However, I do like a challenge. The challenge in this type of photography is to document horror of the idea, I was flattered. And ing beauty is a good reason for being.” nothing. But turning feeds my soul and a three-dimensional object in a two-dimensional photograph. I began by borrowing a bowl from Toby and ex- I now had dozens of bowls. But, then, makes a difference to those women. perimenting with approaches in my basement studio at home. Toby and I spent an hour last fall choosing bowls how to price a bowl? The obvious My turning has opened other doors Finally, it’s all cleanly done. and talking about what he was looking for in the photographs. In early January, I set up a “studio” in a Conant answer was to ask as much as I could for me beyond the simple pleasures of Science and Mathematics building laboratory and spent a day making photographs. get. But if I charged at my computer creating and sharing the beauty I dis- science consultant rate multiplied by cover. I had been giving to a variety of Photography is all about light. One of the advantages of working in a studio is that one has complete control of the ten hours I spend in all aspects of charities, but it was never cleanly done. light. I began by making the studio room as dark as possible, then put my white, seamless background in place making a bowl, no one would pay it. I felt the money was just going down a and proceeded to add back light in a carefully controlled manner. The lighting set-up used here is a standard A friend suggested that since I presum- bottomless pit and supporting no lasting one, employing two lights, plus a reflector or two. The goal is two-fold: deliver even, non-distracting light on ably enjoyed turning, I should only change. I wished to give cleanly, with- the background and uneven, “interesting” light on the bowls to give them depth. I placed one light to illuminate the background without charge $10 an hour. That’s reasonable, out resentment. When I heard about spilling it onto the bowl. The second light was placed at camera left of the bowl and just a bit in front of it. Thus, one side of the bowl is well I suppose, but playing starving artist the practice of micro loans granted to lit while the opposite side is in shadow. Reflectors were used to add light to the shadows on the dark side and into the interiors of the bowls. held little appeal to me. women in the developing world to cre- None of the lighting equipment is high-tech or photo-specific. I used LED lights that are designed for use under kitchen counters. The reflec- ate small businesses, something clicked Over the years I have collected and tors are rectangles of cardboard; some white, and some covered in aluminum foil. The camera (a Nikon D300 fitted with an 18-70 mm zoom for me. Those loans were reportedly Toby Lorenzen is a turner and Professor decorated our home with high-end in the Department of Computer Science. lens) was mounted on a tripod. For each new bowl, I adjusted both the camera and lighting to fit the new shape. Each bowl was photo- repaid 90% of the time. It is the gift that crafts that provide me continual view- The bowls featured in these photographs are graphed at different angles by turning the bowl and moving the camera. The photos you see here were selected from a total of seventy keeps giving! ing pleasure. I deeply appreciate those part of an interdisciplinary display in the exposures and “polished” in PhotoShop. artists who create the beauty that I then I knew the following: no one would Conant Science Building, second floor. Frank Gorga is an accomplished photographer whose nature photography has been featured in Bridgewater Review. bring into my life. Perhaps I was slow pay me what I was used to earning as a He is also Professor in the Department of Chemical Sciences. on the uptake, but finally I realize that computer professional while I turned. And I didn’t want to work for “free.” I

30 Bridgewater Review May 2013 31 Image 5. Natural Edge: Maple Image 6. Natural Edge: Maple Image 7. Cherry Platter: Detail of Bottom Image 8. Natural Edge: Maple

30 Bridgewater Review May 2013 31 gender), and is encased within a thin, newborns’ crying/vocalization con- typically produce. Let’s take the case When it involves loudness we call it rubbery, flexible and shiny cover called veys pleasure, comfort or hunger. In of laryngitis, for example, which is an shimmer. These tremors are so tiny that the mucosa/lamina propria. Because the conversation, the meaning of utterances infection of the VFs and surrounding neither speakers nor listeners can detect VFs are positioned on top of the airway, may depend solely on intonation. For laryngeal tissue. Like any type of them. When jitter and shimmer values all the air you breathe in and out must example, one can say the word great infection, laryngitis triggers swelling exceed the norms, that could mean PD, pass between them. These two little several times, conveying excitement, as an immune response, which increases a disease characterized by involuntary muscles guard our lives day and night agreement, disappointment or indiffer- vocal-fold size/weight, thus decreasing tremors that eventually affect the entire to ensure that nothing other than air ence simply by modifying intonation. the vibration rate. Vocal-fold body. Because the VFs are extremely gets into the airway. They enable us to Thus, intonation serves fundamental edges become uneven and fail to valve sensitive, PD shows up in them long sneeze, cough, push, or hold our breath social and linguistic communication the air efficiently. The escaping air before it shows up in the extremities whenever we need to. In addition to functions. If speakers do not vary pitch compromises air pressure below the and the rest of the body. Soon a person these life-preserving functions, the and loudness, and monitor their own VFs (which reduces loudness) and adds will be able to call a phone number, VFs enable us to communicate and to voices, speech becomes monotonous. noise to vocal-fold vibration, thus speak for 30 seconds and know if he/ Voice as a Parameter of Emotional add shades of meaning and emotion The listener’s nervous system soon producing hoarseness and reducing she has early symptoms of PD. The to our voices. shifts into habituation mode and ceases loudness further. experimental phase of testing included to respond to the speaker’s voice as it ten thousand people and PD detection and Physical Health Originating from the same location in ignores the unchanging noises of a dish- A 30-second Voice- rate reached 98.6% accuracy. The next the larynx, inside the Adam’s apple, the washer or a fan. Consequently, our abil- based Test to Diagnose phase is to make the system commer- Ahmed M. Abdelal VFs gradually diverge as they course ity to use intonation depends on both cially available to healthcare specialists This article provides basic information about voice and laryngeal health to fellow educators and posteriorly, and each connects into a Parkinson’s Disease (PD) vocal-fold health and voice control. (see http://www.parkinsonsvoice.org/). professional voice users with the hope that it can make a difference in their lives. I tackle voice little pyramidal cartilage (arytenoid) Voice quality reveals important Vocal pathology that alters pitch and from a multi-dimensional approach integrating research and clinical practice. What follows is in back of the larynx. A paired muscle information about vocal-fold health, loudness compromises one’s ability to Smoking and Other based on extensive research that I have reviewed over the years, on coursework that I have attached to the bases of the arytenoids and can alert us to more serious health verbally convey emotions and attitudes. Things From Which You taught in related areas (including anatomy and physiology of speech, language and hearing; rotates them inward to bring the VFs problems. In July 2012, Dr. Max Little Executive control skills enable speak- phonetics, linguistics, and neurological bases of speech, language and hearing) and on my own in contact with each other. Two other and colleagues at MIT adapted voice- Should Protect Your Voice ers to organize their thoughts, and to experience as a licensed speech language pathologist who has diagnosed and treated patients muscles bring the arytenoids more based technology that has been used by Vocal-fold tissue is extremely delicate constantly monitor their own voices with voice disorders for more than 14 years. tightly together to compress the VFs SLPs for decades to design a new test and susceptible to damage. The VFs can and listeners’ body language. against each other. With the VFs now for PD. Normally vibrating VFs tend be harmed by a variety of allergens (e.g., s we move about our daily lives there are sealed, air pressure builds up beneath What Voice Quality to make very tiny involuntary trem- pollen), noxious gases (as those found many things that we take for granted. Voice them and forces the rubbery edges of and Pitch Reveal about ors in pitch and loudness. When the in paint products and some household is one of them. Voice is an extremely intimate the mucosa open, causing the vibration tremor involves pitch we call it jitter. cleaners) and other environmental A we know as voice. Your Health part of our personalities, as it is intricately tied to our There are many voice-quality descrip- Voice as a Vehicle for nervous systems, especially the circuits responsible for tors including pleasant, husky, breathy, Conveying Emotions hoarse, raspy, strangled, strident and grav Tips on How to Protect Your Voice and motor execution and emotional processing. For this and Attitudes elly. Voice quality is directly determined Maximize Its Performance by vocal-fold structure and function. • Avoid speaking in noisy situations. This causes you to raise your voice. reason, voice analysis has been widely used in medical A major component of speech is Normal VFs have shiny, moist mucosa the manner in which utterances are • If you suspect you are a loud speaker, get a hearing evaluation. Hearing loss can cause and criminal investigations. Criminal investigators with even, smooth edges. Whether expressed. Normally, speakers depend people to raise their voices. sometimes conduct a voice stress test states, attitudes, agreement or disagree- pitch is high or low depends on vocal- on intonation/melody of speech to to help them determine a suspect’s ment, level of certainly, truthfulness, fold vibration rate per second. The • Avoid tobacco smoke, especially the first-hand kind. add shades of meaning to their utter- credibility. Speech language patholo- deceitfulness, humor, and so on. The greater the vibration rate, the higher the ances. Intonation is achieved by • Space out speaking engagements to avoid putting excessive stress on the VFs, and to gists (SLPs) and ear, nose and throat secret lies in two small, very sensitive pitch, and vice versa. On average, for continuously varying levels of pitch, allow them to rest. doctors (ENTs) conduct voice testing muscles we know as the vocal folds example, a woman’s VFs complete 215 loudness and muscular tension. This to determine if someone has laryngeal (VFs) or vocal cords. vibrations per second, while a man’s • Drink water throughout the day (especially when talking) to ensure adequate vocal- is achieved through constant modifica- pathology. Most recently, voice analysis complete around 125. This explains fold hydration and function. tion of vocal-fold tension and length. has been used as a quick and highly The Vocal Folds Serve why a woman’s pitch is much higher Sometimes intonation is the only tool • Avoid caffeine prior to speaking engagements. Caffeine elevates anxiety and dehy- accurate tool for diagnosing Parkinson’s Life Preservation and than a man’s. These rates, however, used for conveying a message. Children drates the VFs. Disease. We can gather a tremendous are altered in the presence of a cyst, Speech Functions just a few weeks old, for example, learn amount of information about speakers tumor, inflammation, or any mass that • If you experience hoarseness or a gurgly voice while eating, contact an SLP. This could The VFs are positioned within the to use intonation as a means of com- and the messages they are trying to increases vocal-fold weight. A lesion indicate a swallowing disorder. larynx. Each VF ranges from 0.5 to munication. Mothers soon learn what convey through tone of voice. Voice could also compromise loudness and 0.94 of an inch (depending on age and type of pitch accompanying their • If you feel your voice has become less pleasant in tone, seek a voice evaluation. enables us to infer their emotional interfere with the pure tones the VFs

32 Bridgewater Review May 2013 33 gender), and is encased within a thin, newborns’ crying/vocalization con- typically produce. Let’s take the case When it involves loudness we call it rubbery, flexible and shiny cover called veys pleasure, comfort or hunger. In of laryngitis, for example, which is an shimmer. These tremors are so tiny that the mucosa/lamina propria. Because the conversation, the meaning of utterances infection of the VFs and surrounding neither speakers nor listeners can detect VFs are positioned on top of the airway, may depend solely on intonation. For laryngeal tissue. Like any type of them. When jitter and shimmer values all the air you breathe in and out must example, one can say the word great infection, laryngitis triggers swelling exceed the norms, that could mean PD, pass between them. These two little several times, conveying excitement, as an immune response, which increases a disease characterized by involuntary muscles guard our lives day and night agreement, disappointment or indiffer- vocal-fold size/weight, thus decreasing tremors that eventually affect the entire to ensure that nothing other than air ence simply by modifying intonation. the vibration rate. Vocal-fold body. Because the VFs are extremely gets into the airway. They enable us to Thus, intonation serves fundamental edges become uneven and fail to valve sensitive, PD shows up in them long sneeze, cough, push, or hold our breath social and linguistic communication the air efficiently. The escaping air before it shows up in the extremities whenever we need to. In addition to functions. If speakers do not vary pitch compromises air pressure below the and the rest of the body. Soon a person these life-preserving functions, the and loudness, and monitor their own VFs (which reduces loudness) and adds will be able to call a phone number, VFs enable us to communicate and to voices, speech becomes monotonous. noise to vocal-fold vibration, thus speak for 30 seconds and know if he/ Voice as a Parameter of Emotional add shades of meaning and emotion The listener’s nervous system soon producing hoarseness and reducing she has early symptoms of PD. The to our voices. shifts into habituation mode and ceases loudness further. experimental phase of testing included to respond to the speaker’s voice as it ten thousand people and PD detection and Physical Health Originating from the same location in ignores the unchanging noises of a dish- A 30-second Voice- rate reached 98.6% accuracy. The next the larynx, inside the Adam’s apple, the washer or a fan. Consequently, our abil- based Test to Diagnose phase is to make the system commer- Ahmed M. Abdelal VFs gradually diverge as they course ity to use intonation depends on both cially available to healthcare specialists This article provides basic information about voice and laryngeal health to fellow educators and posteriorly, and each connects into a Parkinson’s Disease (PD) vocal-fold health and voice control. (see http://www.parkinsonsvoice.org/). professional voice users with the hope that it can make a difference in their lives. I tackle voice little pyramidal cartilage (arytenoid) Voice quality reveals important Vocal pathology that alters pitch and from a multi-dimensional approach integrating research and clinical practice. What follows is in back of the larynx. A paired muscle information about vocal-fold health, loudness compromises one’s ability to Smoking and Other based on extensive research that I have reviewed over the years, on coursework that I have attached to the bases of the arytenoids and can alert us to more serious health verbally convey emotions and attitudes. Things From Which You taught in related areas (including anatomy and physiology of speech, language and hearing; rotates them inward to bring the VFs problems. In July 2012, Dr. Max Little Executive control skills enable speak- phonetics, linguistics, and neurological bases of speech, language and hearing) and on my own in contact with each other. Two other and colleagues at MIT adapted voice- Should Protect Your Voice ers to organize their thoughts, and to experience as a licensed speech language pathologist who has diagnosed and treated patients muscles bring the arytenoids more based technology that has been used by Vocal-fold tissue is extremely delicate constantly monitor their own voices with voice disorders for more than 14 years. tightly together to compress the VFs SLPs for decades to design a new test and susceptible to damage. The VFs can and listeners’ body language. against each other. With the VFs now for PD. Normally vibrating VFs tend be harmed by a variety of allergens (e.g., s we move about our daily lives there are sealed, air pressure builds up beneath What Voice Quality to make very tiny involuntary trem- pollen), noxious gases (as those found many things that we take for granted. Voice them and forces the rubbery edges of and Pitch Reveal about ors in pitch and loudness. When the in paint products and some household is one of them. Voice is an extremely intimate the mucosa open, causing the vibration tremor involves pitch we call it jitter. cleaners) and other environmental A we know as voice. Your Health part of our personalities, as it is intricately tied to our There are many voice-quality descrip- Voice as a Vehicle for nervous systems, especially the circuits responsible for tors including pleasant, husky, breathy, Conveying Emotions hoarse, raspy, strangled, strident and grav Tips on How to Protect Your Voice and motor execution and emotional processing. For this and Attitudes elly. Voice quality is directly determined Maximize Its Performance by vocal-fold structure and function. • Avoid speaking in noisy situations. This causes you to raise your voice. reason, voice analysis has been widely used in medical A major component of speech is Normal VFs have shiny, moist mucosa the manner in which utterances are • If you suspect you are a loud speaker, get a hearing evaluation. Hearing loss can cause and criminal investigations. Criminal investigators with even, smooth edges. Whether expressed. Normally, speakers depend people to raise their voices. sometimes conduct a voice stress test states, attitudes, agreement or disagree- pitch is high or low depends on vocal- on intonation/melody of speech to to help them determine a suspect’s ment, level of certainly, truthfulness, fold vibration rate per second. The • Avoid tobacco smoke, especially the first-hand kind. add shades of meaning to their utter- credibility. Speech language patholo- deceitfulness, humor, and so on. The greater the vibration rate, the higher the ances. Intonation is achieved by • Space out speaking engagements to avoid putting excessive stress on the VFs, and to gists (SLPs) and ear, nose and throat secret lies in two small, very sensitive pitch, and vice versa. On average, for continuously varying levels of pitch, allow them to rest. doctors (ENTs) conduct voice testing muscles we know as the vocal folds example, a woman’s VFs complete 215 loudness and muscular tension. This to determine if someone has laryngeal (VFs) or vocal cords. vibrations per second, while a man’s • Drink water throughout the day (especially when talking) to ensure adequate vocal- is achieved through constant modifica- pathology. Most recently, voice analysis complete around 125. This explains fold hydration and function. tion of vocal-fold tension and length. has been used as a quick and highly The Vocal Folds Serve why a woman’s pitch is much higher Sometimes intonation is the only tool • Avoid caffeine prior to speaking engagements. Caffeine elevates anxiety and dehy- accurate tool for diagnosing Parkinson’s Life Preservation and than a man’s. These rates, however, used for conveying a message. Children drates the VFs. Disease. We can gather a tremendous are altered in the presence of a cyst, Speech Functions just a few weeks old, for example, learn amount of information about speakers tumor, inflammation, or any mass that • If you experience hoarseness or a gurgly voice while eating, contact an SLP. This could The VFs are positioned within the to use intonation as a means of com- and the messages they are trying to increases vocal-fold weight. A lesion indicate a swallowing disorder. larynx. Each VF ranges from 0.5 to munication. Mothers soon learn what convey through tone of voice. Voice could also compromise loudness and 0.94 of an inch (depending on age and type of pitch accompanying their • If you feel your voice has become less pleasant in tone, seek a voice evaluation. enables us to infer their emotional interfere with the pure tones the VFs

32 Bridgewater Review May 2013 33 pollutants. One of the worst vocal-fold of water while speaking. Day after day cups of water per day, while minimiz- White House. So I went up to lunch. offenders is smoking. In the short term, the locations along the edges of the VFs ing/avoiding drinks that dry vocal-fold Voices on Campus When I came in, she stared me down smoking causes frequent episodes of that receive the greatest impact begin mucosa (especially, coffee and alcohol); and started asking me about Watergate. unilateral or bilateral inflammation to form contact ulcers/vocal nodules. If and modifying speaking behavior. Bob Woodward: She blew my mind with what she and thickening of vocal-fold mucosa. excessive speaking occurs infrequently, knew. Her intellectual engagement A condition known as Reinke’s Edema the VFs will be able to heal. However, Impact of Stress, Anxiety What Journalism is About could not be higher. At one point she occurs almost exclusively in smok- if excessive speaking is habitual, the and Other Psychiatric On December 3, 2012, BSU was privileged to host and hear Pulitzer-Prize-winning journal- said I’ve been reading the following ers; therefore, it is sometimes dubbed ulcer soon turns into a painless, perma- Conditions on Voice ist and executive editor of the Washington Post, Bob Woodward, as part of the President’s about Watergate in the Chicago Tribune! smokers’ edema. This condition causes nent callous, and additional tissue will Here she was, scooping it all up. Her The effects of anxiety and stress on Distinguished Speakers Series. Mr. Woodward’s path-breaking reportage about the 1972 a voice to sound guttural and gravelly, build on it and bury it, adding more management style was “mind on, hands the body can be overwhelming, and Watergate incident uncovered criminal conspiracy at the government’s highest levels and led and the person will find it difficult to mass to the VFs. These complications off.” Mind fully engaged in what our their earliest symptoms show up in a to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. With his colleague, Carl Bernstein, Woodward speak out loud. Smoking is linked to cause a significant drop in pitch and job was, but hands off–didn’t tell us person’s voice. These conditions cause set the standard for generations of investigative journalism in the U.S. and opened the eyes of many types of cancer, one of which make it difficult to raise one’s voice. how to report, didn’t tell the editors excessive muscular tension, especially Americans to the concentration of power in the presidency and its potential for corruption. In is laryngeal cancer, which typically Vocal nodules could also be caused by how to edit, what to investigate, what in abdominal, thoracic, laryngeal, the 40 years since, Woodward has had a tremendously productive career as a journalist, editor involves removal of the FVs and larynx, vocal abuse or misuse, caused by speak- not to investigate. lingual and neck muscles. Air in the and political pundit, one that has included the publication of 17 non-fiction books on American and part of the trachea. Another medi- ing loudly, yelling or screaming. Vocal lungs (our fuel for speech) decreases, politics. His Bridgewater talk, excerpted below, outlined the essence of good journalism and At that moment, Nixon was about to which causes shortness of breath during the daunting challenge of getting the story right.– BR go to his second inaugural. He had won talking. The entire larynx is elevated a massive landslide victory over George The experimental phase of testing and constricted, and the VFs are tensed. ow much do we know about what goes on McGovern, winning 60% of the popu- This elevates pitch. Severe anxiety and in politics and among politicians? This is the lar vote and over 500 electoral votes. It included ten thousand people and emotional trauma can induce laryngeal question that plagues journalism. And it is was a wipeout… In addition, in January spasms that may cause a habitual cough, H 1973, one of the secret strategies of the Parkinson’s Disease detection rate a severe asthma attack, or even total so relevant to your lives as citizens. Do we know who Nixon campaign was to get people to voice loss. these people are? Do we know what they actually challenge the FCC television licenses reached 98.6% accuracy. that the Washington Post company These problems can be effectively intend? Once, I asked Al Gore, how much of interest owned. These licenses were very valu- treated by multidisciplinary efforts of or of consequence do we know about what went on in able. The challenges themselves sent the SLP, psychiatrist, ENT and other the stock into the toilet. So, the Post’s cal condition we should protect our misuse can result from habitual abnor- members of the medical team. But the Clinton White House. “You were there for eight stock was in the toilet, its journalists’ voices from is gastro-esophageal reflux mal vocalizing behaviors that strain more important in the short term is years as the Vice President.” This was in 2005, this was reputation was submerged in the toilet disease (GERD), which causes stomach the VFs (e.g., imitating certain cartoon awareness of our vocal health. With and I’m having lunch, with her asking acids to leak into the esophagus during characters/animals). awareness, educators can preserve their five years after they’d left office, after dozens of books, about Watergate. At the end, she had sleep and come in contact with vocal- VFs, avoid the need for medical atten- 24/7 coverage, and two investigations–Whitewater Whether the problem is caused by the killer CEO question: when are we fold mucosa. Untreated GERD could tion and continue to offer our students excessive use, vocal abuse, or mis- and Monica Lewinsky. So how much, what percentage going to find out the whole truth about damage the mucosa, which impacts what they need to hear through the use, see an SLP or an ENT for a voice Watergate? When is it all going to come pitch and loudness. Therefore, you are vehicles of our healthy voices. of the core of what we should know, do we now evaluation. These medical profession- out? I said that because it was a criminal advised to avoid sleep for 1-2 hours als use endoscopy or videostroboscopy know? And he said: “one percent.” conspiracy and all the incentives were after a big meal. to visualize the VFs and make the This is our challenge. What do you of the Post, and she supported the not to talk about it, because when Carl Are You Over-using, appropriate diagnosis. They also use do, as somebody in my business, to get publication of these stories. There was a and I went to visit people at their homes Abusing, or Misusing sound-analysis instruments to measure high-quality, authoritative information lunch she had invited me to, just myself at night, more often than not, they pitch and loudness. Often surgery is of the kind that so often people don’t (Carl had had to go to a funeral) and the slammed the doors in our faces with a Your Voice? required to remove the nodules. Before want you to know? The answer is a managing editor. This was in January real sense of fear, because the Watergate As we speak throughout the day, the the surgery is performed, however, the strong sense of mission and a commit- 1973. We had written these stories five burglars who were caught in the VFs slam against each other thousands person must implement a vocal-hygiene ment to getting it right. saying that there were secret funds and Democratic headquarters were being of times. When a person speaks for program to ensure that the behaviors a massive campaign of political spy- paid for their silence. [Because of all of First, mission. We talk about leadership an extended number of hours, warm that caused the problem are avoided; ing, espionage, sabotage aimed at the these things] I said “never.” She looked Ahmed M. Abdelal is Assistant Professor in and we wonder exactly what it is and air heats and dries vocal-fold mucosa otherwise, the problem will recur. SLPs Democrats, and provided a good deal across the lunch table with a look of the Department of Special Education and what it means. I want to tell a war story and the muscles will fatigue. Voice and ENTs often coordinate their efforts of detail. The big problem was no one pain and bewilderment, and said: Communication Disorders and Coordinator about when I got a glimpse of leader- will become even more strained if the to help patients implement the vocal- believed them. Nixon was too smart. “Never? Don’t tell me never.” I left the of BSU’s BRAIN Network. ship. It… had to do with the Washington speaker does not occasionally take a sip hygiene program prior to surgery. This was inconceivable. You could not lunch a highly motivated employee. Post when we were working on the The typical program involves ongoing have this kind of activity going on in a “Never? Don’t tell me never” was not Watergate story. Katharine Graham vocal-fold hydration by drinking 6-8 president’s re-election committee or his a threat, and this is what was important was the publisher and owner

34 Bridgewater Review May 2013 35 pollutants. One of the worst vocal-fold of water while speaking. Day after day cups of water per day, while minimiz- White House. So I went up to lunch. offenders is smoking. In the short term, the locations along the edges of the VFs ing/avoiding drinks that dry vocal-fold Voices on Campus When I came in, she stared me down smoking causes frequent episodes of that receive the greatest impact begin mucosa (especially, coffee and alcohol); and started asking me about Watergate. unilateral or bilateral inflammation to form contact ulcers/vocal nodules. If and modifying speaking behavior. Bob Woodward: She blew my mind with what she and thickening of vocal-fold mucosa. excessive speaking occurs infrequently, knew. Her intellectual engagement A condition known as Reinke’s Edema the VFs will be able to heal. However, Impact of Stress, Anxiety What Journalism is About could not be higher. At one point she occurs almost exclusively in smok- if excessive speaking is habitual, the and Other Psychiatric On December 3, 2012, BSU was privileged to host and hear Pulitzer-Prize-winning journal- said I’ve been reading the following ers; therefore, it is sometimes dubbed ulcer soon turns into a painless, perma- Conditions on Voice ist and executive editor of the Washington Post, Bob Woodward, as part of the President’s about Watergate in the Chicago Tribune! smokers’ edema. This condition causes nent callous, and additional tissue will Here she was, scooping it all up. Her The effects of anxiety and stress on Distinguished Speakers Series. Mr. Woodward’s path-breaking reportage about the 1972 a voice to sound guttural and gravelly, build on it and bury it, adding more management style was “mind on, hands the body can be overwhelming, and Watergate incident uncovered criminal conspiracy at the government’s highest levels and led and the person will find it difficult to mass to the VFs. These complications off.” Mind fully engaged in what our their earliest symptoms show up in a to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. With his colleague, Carl Bernstein, Woodward speak out loud. Smoking is linked to cause a significant drop in pitch and job was, but hands off–didn’t tell us person’s voice. These conditions cause set the standard for generations of investigative journalism in the U.S. and opened the eyes of many types of cancer, one of which make it difficult to raise one’s voice. how to report, didn’t tell the editors excessive muscular tension, especially Americans to the concentration of power in the presidency and its potential for corruption. In is laryngeal cancer, which typically Vocal nodules could also be caused by how to edit, what to investigate, what in abdominal, thoracic, laryngeal, the 40 years since, Woodward has had a tremendously productive career as a journalist, editor involves removal of the FVs and larynx, vocal abuse or misuse, caused by speak- not to investigate. lingual and neck muscles. Air in the and political pundit, one that has included the publication of 17 non-fiction books on American and part of the trachea. Another medi- ing loudly, yelling or screaming. Vocal lungs (our fuel for speech) decreases, politics. His Bridgewater talk, excerpted below, outlined the essence of good journalism and At that moment, Nixon was about to which causes shortness of breath during the daunting challenge of getting the story right.– BR go to his second inaugural. He had won talking. The entire larynx is elevated a massive landslide victory over George The experimental phase of testing and constricted, and the VFs are tensed. ow much do we know about what goes on McGovern, winning 60% of the popu- This elevates pitch. Severe anxiety and in politics and among politicians? This is the lar vote and over 500 electoral votes. It included ten thousand people and emotional trauma can induce laryngeal question that plagues journalism. And it is was a wipeout… In addition, in January spasms that may cause a habitual cough, H 1973, one of the secret strategies of the Parkinson’s Disease detection rate a severe asthma attack, or even total so relevant to your lives as citizens. Do we know who Nixon campaign was to get people to voice loss. these people are? Do we know what they actually challenge the FCC television licenses reached 98.6% accuracy. that the Washington Post company These problems can be effectively intend? Once, I asked Al Gore, how much of interest owned. These licenses were very valu- treated by multidisciplinary efforts of or of consequence do we know about what went on in able. The challenges themselves sent the SLP, psychiatrist, ENT and other the stock into the toilet. So, the Post’s cal condition we should protect our misuse can result from habitual abnor- members of the medical team. But the Clinton White House. “You were there for eight stock was in the toilet, its journalists’ voices from is gastro-esophageal reflux mal vocalizing behaviors that strain more important in the short term is years as the Vice President.” This was in 2005, this was reputation was submerged in the toilet disease (GERD), which causes stomach the VFs (e.g., imitating certain cartoon awareness of our vocal health. With and I’m having lunch, with her asking acids to leak into the esophagus during characters/animals). awareness, educators can preserve their five years after they’d left office, after dozens of books, about Watergate. At the end, she had sleep and come in contact with vocal- VFs, avoid the need for medical atten- 24/7 coverage, and two investigations–Whitewater Whether the problem is caused by the killer CEO question: when are we fold mucosa. Untreated GERD could tion and continue to offer our students excessive use, vocal abuse, or mis- and Monica Lewinsky. So how much, what percentage going to find out the whole truth about damage the mucosa, which impacts what they need to hear through the use, see an SLP or an ENT for a voice Watergate? When is it all going to come pitch and loudness. Therefore, you are vehicles of our healthy voices. of the core of what we should know, do we now evaluation. These medical profession- out? I said that because it was a criminal advised to avoid sleep for 1-2 hours als use endoscopy or videostroboscopy know? And he said: “one percent.” conspiracy and all the incentives were after a big meal. to visualize the VFs and make the This is our challenge. What do you of the Post, and she supported the not to talk about it, because when Carl Are You Over-using, appropriate diagnosis. They also use do, as somebody in my business, to get publication of these stories. There was a and I went to visit people at their homes Abusing, or Misusing sound-analysis instruments to measure high-quality, authoritative information lunch she had invited me to, just myself at night, more often than not, they pitch and loudness. Often surgery is of the kind that so often people don’t (Carl had had to go to a funeral) and the slammed the doors in our faces with a Your Voice? required to remove the nodules. Before want you to know? The answer is a managing editor. This was in January real sense of fear, because the Watergate As we speak throughout the day, the the surgery is performed, however, the strong sense of mission and a commit- 1973. We had written these stories five burglars who were caught in the VFs slam against each other thousands person must implement a vocal-hygiene ment to getting it right. saying that there were secret funds and Democratic headquarters were being of times. When a person speaks for program to ensure that the behaviors a massive campaign of political spy- paid for their silence. [Because of all of First, mission. We talk about leadership an extended number of hours, warm that caused the problem are avoided; ing, espionage, sabotage aimed at the these things] I said “never.” She looked Ahmed M. Abdelal is Assistant Professor in and we wonder exactly what it is and air heats and dries vocal-fold mucosa otherwise, the problem will recur. SLPs Democrats, and provided a good deal across the lunch table with a look of the Department of Special Education and what it means. I want to tell a war story and the muscles will fatigue. Voice and ENTs often coordinate their efforts of detail. The big problem was no one pain and bewilderment, and said: Communication Disorders and Coordinator about when I got a glimpse of leader- will become even more strained if the to help patients implement the vocal- believed them. Nixon was too smart. “Never? Don’t tell me never.” I left the of BSU’s BRAIN Network. ship. It… had to do with the Washington speaker does not occasionally take a sip hygiene program prior to surgery. This was inconceivable. You could not lunch a highly motivated employee. Post when we were working on the The typical program involves ongoing have this kind of activity going on in a “Never? Don’t tell me never” was not Watergate story. Katharine Graham vocal-fold hydration by drinking 6-8 president’s re-election committee or his a threat, and this is what was important was the publisher and owner

34 Bridgewater Review May 2013 35 hoping no one would notice. But it was you can guarantee the president gets a global capitalism in the 1990s. In this widely noticed. There was the larger pardon, he’s going to resign and you’ll BOOK REVIEW sweeping treatment, time and history question of justice–why does the person be president.’ The deal was offered, but seem to have lost all context. at the top, the President, get a pardon I rejected it. I did not pardon Nixon It Isn’t that Simple: Globalization, As such, Mann’s book is what academic and 40 people go to jail, hundreds of for Nixon, or for me –I knew I was historians call Whig history: history people have their lives wrecked in one going to become president. Nixon was History and Inevitability writing that is driven by the present, way or another? I thought, at the time finished, he was going to be impeached or works that seek to explain the past and for years after, there’s something in the House and thrown out of office; Brian Payne based on the assumed realities of the smelly about the pardon. Two years it was inevitable. I pardoned Nixon for Charles C. Mann, 1493: Uncovering the New World present. To be sure, historians should after the pardon was announced and the country.” At the moment in ’74, try to explain how we got to where granted, in the ’76 election, Ford ran there were hard economic times, we Columbus Created (New York: Knopf, 2011). we are today, but they must do so by against Carter and Carter won, in large were in the middle of the Cold War, starting with the past, and assessing it part, because he had nothing to do with it was a time of great difficulty. Ford hen the Soviet Union crumbled in 1989, on its own terms. Historians should Washington, and because Ford still concluded, “I had to get Watergate off capitalism emerged as the dominant let the past unfold within the context hadn’t answered that question of what the front page. If he was investigated, economic structure for world trade. of its own time and then draw insight happened with the pardon … indicted and tried, we would have W from that past to help shed light on two or three more years of Nixon and Even with the rise of communist China as a global Twenty-five years later, I called up the present. In Whig history, like Watergate. We could not stand it. I had Gerald Ford. I had never met him, had economic force, the International Monetary Fund Mann’s 1493, the present is the start- to pardon Nixon.” never interviewed him, and said that and the World Bank have worked to ensure that ing point and the records of the past are I’d like to interview him about the I can’t tell you how sobering it is to be free-market capitalism sets the structure for global marshaled to serve the agenda of the about it. It was a statement of purpose. pardon, figuring that he would slam so sure that things are one way: the present. All of this makes history seem What she said to me was “Use all of our down the phone. But he said, “Fine.” pardon is corrupt, unjust, a deal, a exchanges of wealth and resources. Historians, eager inevitable. The past is stripped of much resources, use all of the resources to get So I… interviewed him at length, manifestation of the worst of our poli- to capture the whiff of contemporary issues, have dug of its human agency and is presented as to the bottom of this. Why? Because many times. I followed my method: tics. And then, 25 years later, it’s sub- a steamroller pushing indiscriminately into the records of the past searching of how a global economic system this is what we do. This is why we have got all the legal memos, interviewed jected to neutral inquiry, and what was towards the present. for the beginning of globalization. In influenced the lives of individuals and protection under the First Amendment. 1992, urged on by the 500th anniversary their immediate environs, both past Mann moves the reader rapidly not This is our tradition. We don’t give up of Columbus’ first voyage, historians and present. In his book we read about only through time and place but also and I will not be told ‘Never’.” … I was began to push back the start date of the Spanish silver trade, the English across disciplinary boundaries. His 29 years old at the time, and to have the What was thought to be [one] the world system to coincide with the tobacco trade, sugar production in material cites the works of academic boss say in the face of economic and expansion of the Spanish empire in the West Indies, rubber plantations historians, anthropologists, archeolo- reputational peril “Let’s keep going” way turns out to be exactly the wake of Columbus’ “discovery.” in South America, the potato blight gist, sociologists, geographers, biogra- is a lift that you don’t often get in your Charles Mann’s 1493: Uncovering the in Ireland, corn growing in China, phers, chemists, geologist, economists, life. Someday, we’re going to put a the opposite; the pardon was a New World Columbus Created represents resorts in the Philippines, and dozens and political scientists, as well as a host plaque in the lobby of the Washington both the best and worst of what can of other case studies stretching across of government and non-government Post, and we’re going to bolt it in so no manifestation of the best in our be defined as “journalistic history.” the past 500 years. On one page this think-tanks, advocate groups, and one can ever take it out, and it will say: politics, not the worst… Mann seeks to explain the impact of reader found himself reading about research centers, all while occasionally “Never? Don’t tell me never. Katharine global commerce on local cultures and Spanish galleons in the early sixteenth giving us the voice of the individual Graham, January, 1973.” There was environments, something he attributes century; when he turned the pages, farmer, fisher, boater, activist, and somebody who knew what journalism entrepreneur. As a journalist, Mann and re-interviewed anyone who had thought to be this way turns out to be to Columbus’ 1492 voyage. In the he witnessed American imperialism is about. not only incorporates the published any knowledge of the pardon, read all exactly the opposite; the pardon was a first pages of the book, Mann argues in the late nineteenth century, then The other point I want to make is work of this long list of academic and the contemporaneous journalism, read manifestation of the best in our politics, that the Spanish occupation of the equally important: If you don’t do non-academic experts, but he also takes all the memoirs, going back, sifting. not the worst… Americas following 1492 “began the the work, you get it wrong, you the extra step of interviewing many of What happened here? I remember era of globalization–the single, turbulent miss the story, you don’t compre- But even with a sense of mission and them. Many of the book’s quotes are saying to him, “You know, I’ve spent exchange of goods and services that hend what it means. Thirty days after hard work, comes one final caveat: from these interviews. By doing so, a lot of time on this and I don’t know today engulfs the entire habitable Nixon resigned and Gerald Ford was After all this, we may still get it wrong. Mann the journalist can get the experts why; why’d you do this?” He said, world.”(7) Part history, part travel tale, President, Ford went on television early As I go about my business, you get to speak more informally and thus he “You keep asking that question.” And part activist manifesto, 1493 is a book of one Sunday morning and announced information, you make judgments, but is able to work their expert knowl- I said, “Well, you haven’t answered dizzying complexity. To tell this very that he was giving Nixon a full, total with the locked-in understanding in edge into his more casual narrative it. Why not now?” He said, “OK, I’ll big story, Mann takes his reader on a pardon for Watergate. He went on your stomach that that may be wrong, style. In the end, the book is certainly tell you. Al Haig, Nixon’s chief of world tour through time, touching television early on a Sunday morning you may not have it, you may not have more readable than most scholarly staff, came and offered me a deal: ‘If down occasionally here and there, now figured it out… and then, to give us a closer perspective

36 Bridgewater Review May 2013 37 hoping no one would notice. But it was you can guarantee the president gets a global capitalism in the 1990s. In this widely noticed. There was the larger pardon, he’s going to resign and you’ll BOOK REVIEW sweeping treatment, time and history question of justice–why does the person be president.’ The deal was offered, but seem to have lost all context. at the top, the President, get a pardon I rejected it. I did not pardon Nixon It Isn’t that Simple: Globalization, As such, Mann’s book is what academic and 40 people go to jail, hundreds of for Nixon, or for me –I knew I was historians call Whig history: history people have their lives wrecked in one going to become president. Nixon was History and Inevitability writing that is driven by the present, way or another? I thought, at the time finished, he was going to be impeached or works that seek to explain the past and for years after, there’s something in the House and thrown out of office; Brian Payne based on the assumed realities of the smelly about the pardon. Two years it was inevitable. I pardoned Nixon for Charles C. Mann, 1493: Uncovering the New World present. To be sure, historians should after the pardon was announced and the country.” At the moment in ’74, try to explain how we got to where granted, in the ’76 election, Ford ran there were hard economic times, we Columbus Created (New York: Knopf, 2011). we are today, but they must do so by against Carter and Carter won, in large were in the middle of the Cold War, starting with the past, and assessing it part, because he had nothing to do with it was a time of great difficulty. Ford hen the Soviet Union crumbled in 1989, on its own terms. Historians should Washington, and because Ford still concluded, “I had to get Watergate off capitalism emerged as the dominant let the past unfold within the context hadn’t answered that question of what the front page. If he was investigated, economic structure for world trade. of its own time and then draw insight happened with the pardon … indicted and tried, we would have W from that past to help shed light on two or three more years of Nixon and Even with the rise of communist China as a global Twenty-five years later, I called up the present. In Whig history, like Watergate. We could not stand it. I had Gerald Ford. I had never met him, had economic force, the International Monetary Fund Mann’s 1493, the present is the start- to pardon Nixon.” never interviewed him, and said that and the World Bank have worked to ensure that ing point and the records of the past are I’d like to interview him about the I can’t tell you how sobering it is to be free-market capitalism sets the structure for global marshaled to serve the agenda of the about it. It was a statement of purpose. pardon, figuring that he would slam so sure that things are one way: the present. All of this makes history seem What she said to me was “Use all of our down the phone. But he said, “Fine.” pardon is corrupt, unjust, a deal, a exchanges of wealth and resources. Historians, eager inevitable. The past is stripped of much resources, use all of the resources to get So I… interviewed him at length, manifestation of the worst of our poli- to capture the whiff of contemporary issues, have dug of its human agency and is presented as to the bottom of this. Why? Because many times. I followed my method: tics. And then, 25 years later, it’s sub- a steamroller pushing indiscriminately into the records of the past searching of how a global economic system this is what we do. This is why we have got all the legal memos, interviewed jected to neutral inquiry, and what was towards the present. for the beginning of globalization. In influenced the lives of individuals and protection under the First Amendment. 1992, urged on by the 500th anniversary their immediate environs, both past Mann moves the reader rapidly not This is our tradition. We don’t give up of Columbus’ first voyage, historians and present. In his book we read about only through time and place but also and I will not be told ‘Never’.” … I was began to push back the start date of the Spanish silver trade, the English across disciplinary boundaries. His 29 years old at the time, and to have the What was thought to be [one] the world system to coincide with the tobacco trade, sugar production in material cites the works of academic boss say in the face of economic and expansion of the Spanish empire in the West Indies, rubber plantations historians, anthropologists, archeolo- reputational peril “Let’s keep going” way turns out to be exactly the wake of Columbus’ “discovery.” in South America, the potato blight gist, sociologists, geographers, biogra- is a lift that you don’t often get in your Charles Mann’s 1493: Uncovering the in Ireland, corn growing in China, phers, chemists, geologist, economists, life. Someday, we’re going to put a the opposite; the pardon was a New World Columbus Created represents resorts in the Philippines, and dozens and political scientists, as well as a host plaque in the lobby of the Washington both the best and worst of what can of other case studies stretching across of government and non-government Post, and we’re going to bolt it in so no manifestation of the best in our be defined as “journalistic history.” the past 500 years. On one page this think-tanks, advocate groups, and one can ever take it out, and it will say: politics, not the worst… Mann seeks to explain the impact of reader found himself reading about research centers, all while occasionally “Never? Don’t tell me never. Katharine global commerce on local cultures and Spanish galleons in the early sixteenth giving us the voice of the individual Graham, January, 1973.” There was environments, something he attributes century; when he turned the pages, farmer, fisher, boater, activist, and somebody who knew what journalism entrepreneur. As a journalist, Mann and re-interviewed anyone who had thought to be this way turns out to be to Columbus’ 1492 voyage. In the he witnessed American imperialism is about. not only incorporates the published any knowledge of the pardon, read all exactly the opposite; the pardon was a first pages of the book, Mann argues in the late nineteenth century, then The other point I want to make is work of this long list of academic and the contemporaneous journalism, read manifestation of the best in our politics, that the Spanish occupation of the equally important: If you don’t do non-academic experts, but he also takes all the memoirs, going back, sifting. not the worst… Americas following 1492 “began the the work, you get it wrong, you the extra step of interviewing many of What happened here? I remember era of globalization–the single, turbulent miss the story, you don’t compre- But even with a sense of mission and them. Many of the book’s quotes are saying to him, “You know, I’ve spent exchange of goods and services that hend what it means. Thirty days after hard work, comes one final caveat: from these interviews. By doing so, a lot of time on this and I don’t know today engulfs the entire habitable Nixon resigned and Gerald Ford was After all this, we may still get it wrong. Mann the journalist can get the experts why; why’d you do this?” He said, world.”(7) Part history, part travel tale, President, Ford went on television early As I go about my business, you get to speak more informally and thus he “You keep asking that question.” And part activist manifesto, 1493 is a book of one Sunday morning and announced information, you make judgments, but is able to work their expert knowl- I said, “Well, you haven’t answered dizzying complexity. To tell this very that he was giving Nixon a full, total with the locked-in understanding in edge into his more casual narrative it. Why not now?” He said, “OK, I’ll big story, Mann takes his reader on a pardon for Watergate. He went on your stomach that that may be wrong, style. In the end, the book is certainly tell you. Al Haig, Nixon’s chief of world tour through time, touching television early on a Sunday morning you may not have it, you may not have more readable than most scholarly staff, came and offered me a deal: ‘If down occasionally here and there, now figured it out… and then, to give us a closer perspective

36 Bridgewater Review May 2013 37 activists say, but the problem! These This journalistic and whiggish supposed do-gooders are just hooking BOOK REVIEW Ifugao into the worldwide network of approach takes what are scores exchange, making them dependent as The Price of War never before on the whims of faraway of individual and complex case yuppies!”(500) Thus, in this story, Thomas Nester studies, irons out the uniqueness global capitalism killed indigenous Powers, Kevin. The Yellow Birds: A Novel. culture and environment. (New York: Little, Brown and Co., 2012). of each place and time, and This inconsistency might actu- stitches them together into a ally be the book’s real contribution. ased on the rave reviews Kevin Powers’ first Globalization is especially complex. novel, , has received, it appears Neither the eco-activist nor the cor- The Yellow Birds fabric that Mann proclaims is porate capitalist are exclusively right. that the literary world is ready for the next From an economic worldview, glo- B global capitalism. generation of war novels and author-veterans to more profound sense of isolation, like a balization is a smashing success. There emerge from the West’s recent military misadventures “hole is being dug because everybody is more food and more money than is so fucking happy to see you, the publications on the history of globaliza- “discovery” of the New World sheds ever. But from a local environmental in the Middle East. Most popular reviewers agree. murderer, the fucking accomplice, the tion, but this readability comes as a the important context of 500 years of and cultural perspective it is a crushing The Yellow Birds is one of these books and Powers one at-bare-minimum bearer of some fuck- simplified version of complex issues. economic history and ignores the often defeat. Local culture has been evapo- ing responsibility, and everyone wants painful development of that economic rated by globally mass-produced goods of these authors. Not one to be easily impressed, New Mann’s discussion of the nineteenth- to slap you on the back and you start system. Just because we have global ranging from Nike shoes and shorts century guano industry is as good an York Times book critic Michiko Kakutani labels it “a to want to burn the whole goddamn capitalism today certainly does not to Starbucks coffee and McDonald’s example as any among his scores of classic of contemporary war fiction.” Hector Tobar country down, you want to burn every mean it was an inevitable result of the hamburgers. Mann’s final assessment case studies. Mann provides the reader goddamn yellow ribbon in sight.”(145) sixteenth-century Spanish silver trade. comes at the very end of the book: of the Los Angeles Times calls it “the first American with an understanding of the science “Economists have developed theoreti- The question of guilt pervades this of guano as a fertilizer, the history of So what is Mann’s final assessment literary masterpiece produced by the Iraq war.” Rolling cal tools for evaluating these incom- book. Bartle’s guilt is intensely personal agricultural reform in nineteenth-cen- of this world that Columbus created? mensurate costs and benefits [of glo- Stone’s Darren Reidy declares it “the first great Iraq and involves a fellow soldier, but readers tury Europe, the brutality of the labor Following a passage that examines the balism]. But the magnitude of the costs will detect a larger conversation at play of guano extraction, the journalistic life of a contemporary Amazonian War novel.” As an author, Powers has drawn numerous and benefits is less important than their in Powers’ story. When something goes appeal to expose guano slavery, and farmer named Dona Rosario, Mann comparisons to Tim O’Brien, Ernest Hemingway, distribution. The gains are diffused and so terribly wrong, as the Iraq War did, the imperial competition between the writes: “They [Amazonians] had spread around the world, whereas the Erich Remarque and Siegfried Sassoon. someone ought to be held to account. United States and Britain to control been forced to live covert, hidden pain is intense and local.”(505) Given Powers offers some oblique answers, the world’s guano islands in the Pacific lives, always worried about disposses- Individual writing styles and modes of meaningful past, all while coming to that the effect of globalization is most but his characters are too wrapped up Ocean. To do this, Mann brings in sion. Now they would be free to live authorship aside, Powers has earned the grips with the fate of his good friend, profound on the local level, perhaps in their own circumstances to worry the insight of historians, scientists, in their creation, the world’s richest right to be placed in this distinguished a fallen soldier. From the moment he more locally oriented case studies much about making any bold asser- political scientists, and economists; garden.”(488) The success of Rosario’s category through his ability to com- steps back onto American soil, Bartle would be more enlightening than tions. These are left for the reader to often via interviews. Although Mann farm, according to Mann, was due to municate the immutable horrors of war seethes at a nation he no longer identi- grand narratives that tend to universal- contemplate. But Powers does offer tells a rich and interesting story that her acceptance of non-native, market- and the indelible scars it leaves behind. fies with: “the land of the free, of reality some biting commentary. For exam- ize the unique realities of people and television, outlet malls and deep vein stitches together the complexities of oriented crops and the use of new This book cuts like a knife and should ple, the U.S. government’s decision to environments all around the world. thrombosis”(101), very different con- academic disciplines, in the end, his technologies such as freezers and cell be required reading for Americans go to war intrudes on Bartle’s anti- cerns than those that occupied soldiers story is driven by his fear of globalism, phones that enabled more successful who readily embrace military solu- heroic army life, one he had adopted in Iraq. Powers’ protagonist experiences which is exposed in this case with his engagement with the global foods mar- tions to national security challenges. to escape home, prove his manhood, a tremendous sense of dislocation and direct comparison between the guano ket. Thanks to globalization, Rosario Powers’ greatest achievement in this and avoid responsibility. As his unit alienation, withdrawing completely cartel of the nineteenth century and found economic happiness. Yet just a work may be his compelling ability prepares to deploy to Iraq, Bartle finds from family, friends, and society as he today’s OPEC. few pages later, Mann takes us to the to evoke the psychological wreckage himself “struggling to find a sense of Filipino terrace farms at Ifugao, which struggles to cope with post-traumatic This journalistic and whiggish the Iraq War has left behind among urgency that seemed proportional to have been identified as a UNESCO stress disorder (PTSD), an inescapable approach takes what are scores of America’s combat veterans. The book the events unfolding in my life.”(34-35) World Heritage site. Mann tells of the souvenir of war. The author’s gripping individual and complex case studies, details Private James Bartle’s struggles Washington faced similar challenges economic collapse of the terrace farms elucidation of the challenges combat irons out the uniqueness of each place to readjust to civil society after his tour as it confronted an emerging insur- and efforts to introduce heirloom rice veterans face as they reintegrate into and time, and stitches them together in Iraq and his efforts to organize his gency after toppling Saddam Hussein’s production for export to Europe and Brian Payne is Associate Professor of society is powerful stuff. The adulation into a fabric that Mann proclaims is wartime memories into a coherent and regime. In the novel, “Mother Army” the United States. Mann concludes that History and Associate Editor of he endures from civilians produces a global capitalism. To suggest that global “The global market is not the solution, Bridgewater Review. capitalism is the product of Columbus’s

38 Bridgewater Review May 2013 39 activists say, but the problem! These This journalistic and whiggish supposed do-gooders are just hooking BOOK REVIEW Ifugao into the worldwide network of approach takes what are scores exchange, making them dependent as The Price of War never before on the whims of faraway of individual and complex case yuppies!”(500) Thus, in this story, Thomas Nester studies, irons out the uniqueness global capitalism killed indigenous Powers, Kevin. The Yellow Birds: A Novel. culture and environment. (New York: Little, Brown and Co., 2012). of each place and time, and This inconsistency might actu- stitches them together into a ally be the book’s real contribution. ased on the rave reviews Kevin Powers’ first Globalization is especially complex. novel, , has received, it appears Neither the eco-activist nor the cor- The Yellow Birds fabric that Mann proclaims is porate capitalist are exclusively right. that the literary world is ready for the next From an economic worldview, glo- B global capitalism. generation of war novels and author-veterans to more profound sense of isolation, like a balization is a smashing success. There emerge from the West’s recent military misadventures “hole is being dug because everybody is more food and more money than is so fucking happy to see you, the publications on the history of globaliza- “discovery” of the New World sheds ever. But from a local environmental in the Middle East. Most popular reviewers agree. murderer, the fucking accomplice, the tion, but this readability comes as a the important context of 500 years of and cultural perspective it is a crushing The Yellow Birds is one of these books and Powers one at-bare-minimum bearer of some fuck- simplified version of complex issues. economic history and ignores the often defeat. Local culture has been evapo- ing responsibility, and everyone wants painful development of that economic rated by globally mass-produced goods of these authors. Not one to be easily impressed, New Mann’s discussion of the nineteenth- to slap you on the back and you start system. Just because we have global ranging from Nike shoes and shorts century guano industry is as good an York Times book critic Michiko Kakutani labels it “a to want to burn the whole goddamn capitalism today certainly does not to Starbucks coffee and McDonald’s example as any among his scores of classic of contemporary war fiction.” Hector Tobar country down, you want to burn every mean it was an inevitable result of the hamburgers. Mann’s final assessment case studies. Mann provides the reader goddamn yellow ribbon in sight.”(145) sixteenth-century Spanish silver trade. comes at the very end of the book: of the Los Angeles Times calls it “the first American with an understanding of the science “Economists have developed theoreti- The question of guilt pervades this of guano as a fertilizer, the history of So what is Mann’s final assessment literary masterpiece produced by the Iraq war.” Rolling cal tools for evaluating these incom- book. Bartle’s guilt is intensely personal agricultural reform in nineteenth-cen- of this world that Columbus created? mensurate costs and benefits [of glo- Stone’s Darren Reidy declares it “the first great Iraq and involves a fellow soldier, but readers tury Europe, the brutality of the labor Following a passage that examines the balism]. But the magnitude of the costs will detect a larger conversation at play of guano extraction, the journalistic life of a contemporary Amazonian War novel.” As an author, Powers has drawn numerous and benefits is less important than their in Powers’ story. When something goes appeal to expose guano slavery, and farmer named Dona Rosario, Mann comparisons to Tim O’Brien, Ernest Hemingway, distribution. The gains are diffused and so terribly wrong, as the Iraq War did, the imperial competition between the writes: “They [Amazonians] had spread around the world, whereas the Erich Remarque and Siegfried Sassoon. someone ought to be held to account. United States and Britain to control been forced to live covert, hidden pain is intense and local.”(505) Given Powers offers some oblique answers, the world’s guano islands in the Pacific lives, always worried about disposses- Individual writing styles and modes of meaningful past, all while coming to that the effect of globalization is most but his characters are too wrapped up Ocean. To do this, Mann brings in sion. Now they would be free to live authorship aside, Powers has earned the grips with the fate of his good friend, profound on the local level, perhaps in their own circumstances to worry the insight of historians, scientists, in their creation, the world’s richest right to be placed in this distinguished a fallen soldier. From the moment he more locally oriented case studies much about making any bold asser- political scientists, and economists; garden.”(488) The success of Rosario’s category through his ability to com- steps back onto American soil, Bartle would be more enlightening than tions. These are left for the reader to often via interviews. Although Mann farm, according to Mann, was due to municate the immutable horrors of war seethes at a nation he no longer identi- grand narratives that tend to universal- contemplate. But Powers does offer tells a rich and interesting story that her acceptance of non-native, market- and the indelible scars it leaves behind. fies with: “the land of the free, of reality some biting commentary. For exam- ize the unique realities of people and television, outlet malls and deep vein stitches together the complexities of oriented crops and the use of new This book cuts like a knife and should ple, the U.S. government’s decision to environments all around the world. thrombosis”(101), very different con- academic disciplines, in the end, his technologies such as freezers and cell be required reading for Americans go to war intrudes on Bartle’s anti- cerns than those that occupied soldiers story is driven by his fear of globalism, phones that enabled more successful who readily embrace military solu- heroic army life, one he had adopted in Iraq. Powers’ protagonist experiences which is exposed in this case with his engagement with the global foods mar- tions to national security challenges. to escape home, prove his manhood, a tremendous sense of dislocation and direct comparison between the guano ket. Thanks to globalization, Rosario Powers’ greatest achievement in this and avoid responsibility. As his unit alienation, withdrawing completely cartel of the nineteenth century and found economic happiness. Yet just a work may be his compelling ability prepares to deploy to Iraq, Bartle finds from family, friends, and society as he today’s OPEC. few pages later, Mann takes us to the to evoke the psychological wreckage himself “struggling to find a sense of Filipino terrace farms at Ifugao, which struggles to cope with post-traumatic This journalistic and whiggish the Iraq War has left behind among urgency that seemed proportional to have been identified as a UNESCO stress disorder (PTSD), an inescapable approach takes what are scores of America’s combat veterans. The book the events unfolding in my life.”(34-35) World Heritage site. Mann tells of the souvenir of war. The author’s gripping individual and complex case studies, details Private James Bartle’s struggles Washington faced similar challenges economic collapse of the terrace farms elucidation of the challenges combat irons out the uniqueness of each place to readjust to civil society after his tour as it confronted an emerging insur- and efforts to introduce heirloom rice veterans face as they reintegrate into and time, and stitches them together in Iraq and his efforts to organize his gency after toppling Saddam Hussein’s production for export to Europe and Brian Payne is Associate Professor of society is powerful stuff. The adulation into a fabric that Mann proclaims is wartime memories into a coherent and regime. In the novel, “Mother Army” the United States. Mann concludes that History and Associate Editor of he endures from civilians produces a global capitalism. To suggest that global “The global market is not the solution, Bridgewater Review. capitalism is the product of Columbus’s

38 Bridgewater Review May 2013 39 also bears a share of the responsibility, Private Daniel Murphy (“Murph”), and Iraq with Bartle being completely non- Untitled by Leigh Craven but as an institution its only goal is to the rest of their unit. The war desires reflective, seeing “only with the short 7" x 9" pâte de verre roll responsibility downhill. According nothing more than to go on, to con- sight of looking for whatever might to the CID officer investigating Bartle’s tinue killing and corrupting. “I knew kill me” and failing to miss the changes role in his comrade’s death, “Shit’s rol the war would have its way,” Bartle occurring in his friend. Murph resisted ling everywhere nowadays. It’s a shitty observes. “The war would take what the war and its excesses. According to goddamn war.”(188) American society it could get. It was patient. It didn’t Bartle, Murph “wanted to choose. He is portrayed as completely oblivious care about objectives, or boundaries, wanted to want. He wanted to replace and out of touch, as if plastering their whether you were loved by many or the dullness growing inside of him cars with yellow ribbons and thanking not at all.”(4) In order to survive the with anything else … He wouldn’t soldiers for their service is enough war he must develop an “edge” by be bound by this place to anything, and now they can return to their discarding his civilian values, abandon- or anyone, even me. And I was afraid normal lives, completely untouched ing the person he had been to become because I wondered what would be by the damage inflicted by the war. a willing participant and propagator required for him to keep his promise Bartle poignantly reflects that his of the war’s savagery. Eventually, he to himself.”(166) By the time Bartle own personal experiences have taught and his comrades lose all awareness of becomes cognizant of his friend’s men- tal state, it is too late. He will soon go through the wire. This book cuts like a knife and After all of the suspenseful build up, Bartle’s act falls a little short of being should be required reading for adequate to the guilt he feels. It proved a bit of a letdown, an opportunity Americans who readily embrace missed to say something more damn- ing about the war, its architects, or military solutions to national American society as a whole. Perhaps it security challenges. is a fitting end. There is a sense of hope- Thanks for your stimulating “Editor’s Notebook” article on objectivity. lessness and helplessness in Bartle that Readers Respond We in the physical sciences are more fortunate to quantify data and only begins to disappear with time and arrive at more “objective” conclusions [I am reminded that Heisenberg’s distance. In any situation these salves On “Objectivity” “Uncertainty Principle” dilutes absolute certainty … dilutes objectiv- are the victims’ only hope; to put time him “that freedom is not the same “the sheer brutality” of their presence. I received the latest issue of Bridgewater Review. I am very impressed ity]. The current trend in increased subjectivity in fields of religion, and distance between themselves and thing as the absence of accountability.” (159) Although he never ascends to the with the quality of research, writing and illustrations, and the variety humanities, etc. has created much grief world-wide and should be the memories that haunt them. Today, (35) In the end, the veterans bear a level of enjoyment, as some did, he does of interesting articles. [The] piece on “objectivity” is very much to the minimized. Ah, idealism. Americans are enjoying the time and disproportionate share of the pain, nothing to halt its excesses, watching point. How tiresome it has become to read and hear “scholars” of all Vahe Marganian distance away from the Iraq War. The guilt and shame of a brutal war that passively when civilians are gunned stripes chatter on like so many talking heads, sharing their opinions and Professor Emeritus, Chemistry Yellow Birds forces us to remember and went terribly wrong. There is no down. The war is to blame. conclusions but very little else. reckon with that not-so-long-ago past. escaping that judgment because, as Suspense builds as the plot unfolds in Perhaps if we do, we may look forward Darrell Lund ’60 Bartle states, “it’s all your fault, really, chapters alternating seamlessly between to achieving the catharsis that Bartle because you went on purpose.”(145) past and present, frontlines and the ultimately experiences. This line, in particular, evokes homefront, the war and after. We learn Call for Submissions with revision and in polished pieces that are publication ready. All O’Brien’s The Things They Carried submissions will be reviewed, but there is no guarantee that submitted early on that Murph did not survive Bridgewater Review invites submissions from full- and part-time faculty work will be published. (1990) in which the author deems and librarians for publication. Bridgewater Review is published twice yearly and that Bartle feels responsible, but the himself a coward for having gone to by the faculty and librarians of Bridgewater State University. It provides a exact nature of his culpability remains a Bridgewater Review also welcomes Letters to the Editor with the hope war rather than fleeing to Canada. forum for campus-wide conversations pertaining to research, teaching and dark mystery, “a quarrel that will never that BR may become a locus for community discussion at Bridgewater creative expression, as well as a showcase for faculty art. Articles in all State University. But it is the war itself that is most be resolved.”(30) If Bartle reached an disciplines and genres are welcome and encouraged, including scholarship responsible. In Powers’ capable hands, accommodation with the war in an about research interests and trends, scholarship about teaching and learn- Submissions should be sent electronically to: ing, creative writing and short reviews of other publications. the conflict emerges as Bartle’s prin- effort to get home alive, Murph refused Andrew Holman cipal antagonist, a living creature bent and paid the ultimate price for it. Awash Editor, Articles should be 1700-2200 words in length, though shorter articles only on its own survival. From the in guilt, Bartle struggles to remember Bridgewater Review will also be considered. Creative writing can be submitted at lengths Thomas Nester is Assistant Professor in the [email protected] book’s first sentence, the war explodes his friend “before he was lost, before he briefer than 2200 words. Those wishing to submit are asked to consult the on the scene stalking Bartle, his friend surrendered fully to the war.”(80) The Department of History Bridgewater Review submission guidelines (available from the Editor). In Articles published in Bridgewater Review may be reprinted with distance between the friends grows in keeping with the founding spirit of our faculty magazine, the editors are permission of the Editor. equally interested in unfinished pieces of writing that may need assistance

40 Bridgewater Review also bears a share of the responsibility, Private Daniel Murphy (“Murph”), and Iraq with Bartle being completely non- Untitled by Leigh Craven but as an institution its only goal is to the rest of their unit. The war desires reflective, seeing “only with the short 7" x 9" pâte de verre roll responsibility downhill. According nothing more than to go on, to con- sight of looking for whatever might to the CID officer investigating Bartle’s tinue killing and corrupting. “I knew kill me” and failing to miss the changes role in his comrade’s death, “Shit’s rol the war would have its way,” Bartle occurring in his friend. Murph resisted ling everywhere nowadays. It’s a shitty observes. “The war would take what the war and its excesses. According to goddamn war.”(188) American society it could get. It was patient. It didn’t Bartle, Murph “wanted to choose. He is portrayed as completely oblivious care about objectives, or boundaries, wanted to want. He wanted to replace and out of touch, as if plastering their whether you were loved by many or the dullness growing inside of him cars with yellow ribbons and thanking not at all.”(4) In order to survive the with anything else … He wouldn’t soldiers for their service is enough war he must develop an “edge” by be bound by this place to anything, and now they can return to their discarding his civilian values, abandon- or anyone, even me. And I was afraid normal lives, completely untouched ing the person he had been to become because I wondered what would be by the damage inflicted by the war. a willing participant and propagator required for him to keep his promise Bartle poignantly reflects that his of the war’s savagery. Eventually, he to himself.”(166) By the time Bartle own personal experiences have taught and his comrades lose all awareness of becomes cognizant of his friend’s men- tal state, it is too late. He will soon go through the wire. This book cuts like a knife and After all of the suspenseful build up, Bartle’s act falls a little short of being should be required reading for adequate to the guilt he feels. It proved a bit of a letdown, an opportunity Americans who readily embrace missed to say something more damn- ing about the war, its architects, or military solutions to national American society as a whole. Perhaps it security challenges. is a fitting end. There is a sense of hope- Thanks for your stimulating “Editor’s Notebook” article on objectivity. lessness and helplessness in Bartle that Readers Respond We in the physical sciences are more fortunate to quantify data and only begins to disappear with time and arrive at more “objective” conclusions [I am reminded that Heisenberg’s distance. In any situation these salves On “Objectivity” “Uncertainty Principle” dilutes absolute certainty … dilutes objectiv- are the victims’ only hope; to put time him “that freedom is not the same “the sheer brutality” of their presence. I received the latest issue of Bridgewater Review. I am very impressed ity]. The current trend in increased subjectivity in fields of religion, and distance between themselves and thing as the absence of accountability.” (159) Although he never ascends to the with the quality of research, writing and illustrations, and the variety humanities, etc. has created much grief world-wide and should be the memories that haunt them. Today, (35) In the end, the veterans bear a level of enjoyment, as some did, he does of interesting articles. [The] piece on “objectivity” is very much to the minimized. Ah, idealism. Americans are enjoying the time and disproportionate share of the pain, nothing to halt its excesses, watching point. How tiresome it has become to read and hear “scholars” of all Vahe Marganian distance away from the Iraq War. The guilt and shame of a brutal war that passively when civilians are gunned stripes chatter on like so many talking heads, sharing their opinions and Professor Emeritus, Chemistry Yellow Birds forces us to remember and went terribly wrong. There is no down. The war is to blame. conclusions but very little else. reckon with that not-so-long-ago past. escaping that judgment because, as Suspense builds as the plot unfolds in Perhaps if we do, we may look forward Darrell Lund ’60 Bartle states, “it’s all your fault, really, chapters alternating seamlessly between to achieving the catharsis that Bartle because you went on purpose.”(145) past and present, frontlines and the ultimately experiences. This line, in particular, evokes homefront, the war and after. We learn Call for Submissions with revision and in polished pieces that are publication ready. All O’Brien’s The Things They Carried submissions will be reviewed, but there is no guarantee that submitted early on that Murph did not survive Bridgewater Review invites submissions from full- and part-time faculty work will be published. (1990) in which the author deems and librarians for publication. Bridgewater Review is published twice yearly and that Bartle feels responsible, but the himself a coward for having gone to by the faculty and librarians of Bridgewater State University. It provides a exact nature of his culpability remains a Bridgewater Review also welcomes Letters to the Editor with the hope war rather than fleeing to Canada. forum for campus-wide conversations pertaining to research, teaching and dark mystery, “a quarrel that will never that BR may become a locus for community discussion at Bridgewater creative expression, as well as a showcase for faculty art. Articles in all State University. But it is the war itself that is most be resolved.”(30) If Bartle reached an disciplines and genres are welcome and encouraged, including scholarship responsible. In Powers’ capable hands, accommodation with the war in an about research interests and trends, scholarship about teaching and learn- Submissions should be sent electronically to: ing, creative writing and short reviews of other publications. the conflict emerges as Bartle’s prin- effort to get home alive, Murph refused Andrew Holman cipal antagonist, a living creature bent and paid the ultimate price for it. Awash Editor, Articles should be 1700-2200 words in length, though shorter articles only on its own survival. From the in guilt, Bartle struggles to remember Bridgewater Review will also be considered. Creative writing can be submitted at lengths Thomas Nester is Assistant Professor in the [email protected] book’s first sentence, the war explodes his friend “before he was lost, before he briefer than 2200 words. Those wishing to submit are asked to consult the on the scene stalking Bartle, his friend surrendered fully to the war.”(80) The Department of History Bridgewater Review submission guidelines (available from the Editor). In Articles published in Bridgewater Review may be reprinted with distance between the friends grows in keeping with the founding spirit of our faculty magazine, the editors are permission of the Editor. equally interested in unfinished pieces of writing that may need assistance

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