The Journal of Undergraduate Research at the University of Kansas
Inaugural Edition | Summer 2008 ON THE COVER Jayhawk Boulevard winds between Fraser Hall (left) and Lippincott and Dyche halls on the Lawrence campus. Courtesy University Relations at the University of Kansas.
© Copyright 2008 | Lawrence, Kan. To the University of Kansas Community,
We would like to thank you for reading the inaugural issue of the University of Kansas Journal of Undergraduate Research (JUR). !e JUR is a biannual peer-reviewed publication of undergraduate research at KU from a range of academic "elds. !e purpose of the JUR is to provide an avenue for undergraduates to publish their original research. Despite the large amount of research performed by undergraduates at KU, there exists no method of publishing research through the University. A number of students are able to successfully submit their research to specialty, national, and international journals, but it is rare that undergraduate research can be obviously and easily presented to the KU community. !e JUR demands a high level of quality from its submissions. At the same time, the JUR requires submissions to be easily accessible to the general public. We hope that the unique research published in the JUR will transcend academic boundaries and encourage undergraduates at KU to pursue research initiatives of their own. In this issue, in addition to six reports of original research done by undergraduates, we have a feature on current KU professor Dr. Paul Hanson regarding undergraduate research in the Chemistry Department. Publishing the inaugural issue of the JUR was a di#cult, though ultimately rewarding task. !is is our "rst publication experience and a number of unexpected obstacles oftentimes complicated publishing the JUR. Yet, similar to our researchers, we persevered through di#culty to provide a "nal product of which we are quite proud. !e JUR is a student run organization and we would like to thank our sta$ for their incredible e$ort in putting this journal together. We would also like to thank Ron Johnson, whose design expertise was essential to completing this project. Finally, we would especially like to thank Dr. Christopher Hau%er for patiently facilitating the whole publication process and the KU Honors Program for the "nancial and institutional support necessary to see this project through to the end. You can also "nd our "rst issue online at http://web.ku.edu/~kujur/. !e website contains full-size "gures of our articles and information concerning future publications.
Sincerely,
Ryan Ellis Andrew Hodgson Nate Johnson The Journal of Undergraduate Research The University of Kansas
Editors in Chief Ryan Ellis Andrew Hodgson Nate Johnson
Chiefs of Content Allison Green Amanda Shriwise
Chief of Design Gail Lee
Chief of Publication Sean Kennedy
Web Editor Paul Reetz
Adviser Dr. Christopher Hau%er
Contributors Jessica Bergman Stephen Folmsbee Rebecca Getman Surya Lakhanpal Kyle Lang Kathleen Polonchek Lauren Potter Dylan Quigley Brenna Surgeon Emily Tonsfeldt
Dr. Barbara A. Bradley Dr. J. Megan Greene Dr. Patricia H. Hawley Dr. Leslie Tuttle Dr. !eodore A. Wilson
4 SUMMER 2008 CONTENTS
The Grassroots Transformation of the African National Congress in the 1940s-1950s ...... 7 Andrew MacDonald
Beyond Mortar and Bricks !e Symbolic Function of the Berlin Wall ...... 15 Anne Kretsinger
Gender Roles and the Princess in American Literature and Society...... 25 Caitlin Shanks
Exploring the Possibility of Same-Sex Love in Late Ming China ...... 35 Kyle Shernuk
Queen of Hearts (and Communications) How Elizabeth I and Princess Diana Related with !eir Publics ...... 49 Shanxi Upsdell
Fabrication of Semiconductors by Wet Chemical Etch
Selective Etching of GaAs Over InGaP in Dilute H2SO4:H2O2 ...... 57 Laura Francoviglia
Focus on Faculty Dr. Paul Hanson, Chemistry Department ...... 63 Ryan Ellis
5
THE JOURNAL OF UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH University of Kansas | Summer 2008
!e Grassroots Transformation of the African National Congress in the 1940s-1950s
Nelson Mandela’s 1994 inaugu- ing the latent power of the frustrated ration as South Africa’s "rst demo- urban masses, new leadership in the cratically elected president soothed ANC incorporated organic strikes and decades of racial tensions in that boycotts in the 1940s into a more co- country. State-sanctioned racism, herent and durable movement during known as apartheid, crumbled under the 1950s. !e masses and leadership the spasms of the violence that shook developed a symbiotic relationship; Johannesburg and other cities in the the former o$ered economic leverage 1980s, but apartheid’s eventual de- and popular legitimacy, while the lat- struction became possible because of ter articulated a vision of racial equal- strategic changes among the left in the ity to counter the Nationalists’ oppres- 1940s and 1950s. !e African National sive paternalism. !e state cracked Congress (ANC), originally founded down on the better organized ANC-led as an interest group for the educated movement in the 1960s, but the closer African elite, in the 1940s and 1950s relationship between the ANC leader- forged a wide coalition of workers and ship and grassroots carried the move- intellectuals to challenge apartheid’s ment through its di#cult times on the legitimacy. Together with the South long walk to freedom. South Africa still African Communist Party (SACP), the faces serious racial disparities, but its mid-century ANC became a broad- progress from the apartheid age shows based grassroots organization com- the e#cacy of a broad-based move- mitted to nonracial democracy. !e ment in a$ecting signi"cant change. ANC’s transformation happened be- Contemporary progressives might cause demographic and economic model the ANC’s structure and strat- changes in the 1930s and 1940s shifted egy as they pursue their agendas. the ANC’s constituent base from rural !e Dutch "rst settled in South areas to the cities, especially Johannes- Africa in 1657, but their small popula- burg, and the new members pushed tion and rural lifestyle precluded any the Congress toward more confronta- racial dominance.1 Occasional skir- tional and ambitious ends. Recogniz- mishes over land or cattle peppered an
ANDREW MacDONALD is a senior in political science and history at the University of Kansas.
7 otherwise peaceful racial coexistence African population. For example, the until the discovery of precious met- 1927 Native Administration Act em- als in the 1860s. !e British, who had powered compliant tribal chiefs in the come to South Africa during the Na- reserves to deter any uni"ed African poleonic Wars, became interested in resistance. More importantly, social the mineral-rich interior. !e descen- legislation constructed a regime of ra- dants of the Dutch settlers, now known cial hierarchies that informed later Na- as Afrikaners, resented the British in- tionalist policy. !is state ideology pos- cursions and fought the South Afri- ited a world strictly separated by racial can War at the turn of the century. !e groups of varying degrees of advance- British won a costly victory for control ment, and healthy social relations de- over the natural resources, but reached pended on clearly de"ned group roles. an understanding with the agricultur- !e compliant tribal chiefs, then, pro- ally inclined Afrikaners to together ex- moted the state’s racial paradigm, since ploit African labor on the farms and in they accepted and pro"ted from the the mines. As historian Bernard Muga- racial divisions. Some groups began to bane notes, “Africans and their welfare challenge this framework in the early were sacri"ced to promote an abiding 20th century by forwarding new con- settlement for the whites.”2 !e Treaty ceptions of group relations. African of Vereengiging ended hostilities in nationalists, black trade unionists, and 1902 and precipitated a series of laws Marxist groups challenged the eco- that solidi"ed economic and political nomic and social order by rejecting dominance by whites. the state’s interpretation of race. Un- !e British and Afrikaners con- fortunately, internecine disputes and summated their peace in the 1910 the respective groups’ strict organiza- Union Act, which established the re- tional structures stymied their e$orts gions of Natal, Cape, Transvaal and to change South Africa at the begin- the Orange Free State as a single Brit- ning of the 20th century. Political re- ish colony. !e economic needs of the sistance to white rule took shape in the British mine owners in%uenced the 1910s, but %oundered until the ANC political agreement between the Brit- and SACP together embraced grass- ish and Afrikaners.3 !e newly uni"ed roots in%uence.i South African state passed several laws !e "rst uni"ed African national- that forced African men to work part of ist movement began when Pixley Ka the year in the mines or on Afrikaner Izake Seme, an African educated in the farms, and spend the rest on barren United States and Britain, called on 60 reserves. Harold Wolpe, a South Afri- educated Africans to meet at Bloem- can specialist, terms this arrangement fontein on Jan 8th, 1912 to “together the “dual economy,” since Africans devise ways and means of forming our split their time between industrial and national union for the purpose of cre- agrarian labor.4 Uprooted from their ating national unity and defending our homes, Africans became more vulner- rights and privileges” by forming a Na- able to whites’ economic hegemony. tional Congress, the forerunner to the !e new government augmented ANC.5 Few Africans had any rights or its economic disenfranchisement of privileges to defend, making this na- the African community with socially scent ANC an intrinsically elitist or- debilitating policies that divided the ganization. !e Congress accepted i. I distinguish political resistance from military resistance, which e"ectively ended after the British annexation of Zululand in 1887.
8 support from sympathetic whites, sands of striking workers would likely but welcomed no non-Africans to its have garnered communist support in membership. Its narrow focus led it any European country, South Africa’s to concentrate on small issues ger- racial dynamics estranged the strik- mane only to the small African upper ing black miners from the white work- class. For example, its "rst major cam- ers who made up the International paign attempted to defend the lim- Socialist League (ISL), the forerun- ited African franchise in the Western ner the SACP . !ough one ISL leader, Cape Province, where blacks able to S.P. Bunting, fought to unite white and pass a “civilization test” could vote. black workers, his pleas came to no !e ANC’s e$ort garnered little sup- avail. Despite the racial progressivism port outside those few Africans con- of one its leaders, the ISL responded cerned with limited voting rights, and to its white base and idly observed ultimately failed to protect what rights the strike.8 !e communists surren- that some Africans could claim at the dered their chance to lead a multira- time.6 !e ANC failed to attract a large cial working class movement in 1922, following in the decades after its birth, when it supported white demands for and labor groups soon eclipsed it as preferential racial treatment. Africans’ political voice. !e 1922 strike began when While the early ANC was focus- the Chamber of Mines announced a ing on the political rights of “civilized” higher ratio of black to white workers, Africans, the state continued to push prompting fears among whites that Af- most of the black population into the rican workers would depress wages capitalist economy. Draconian labor and threaten jobs. Groups of Afrikaner laws like the 1916 Labor Registration workers branded themselves “com- Act funneled Africans into low-wage, mandos”, on the model of Boer guerril- unskilled labor. Wretched conditions, las from the South African War, and led especially in the gold mines, eventu- the strike under the slogan “Workers of ally provoked organic resistance, but the World unite for a White South Af- black workers lacked the organiza- rica.”9 !ough some communist lead- tion to e$ectively wield their latent ers discouraged such outright racial economic power. In 1920, forty thou- animosity, most dismissed African sand Africans walked out of the mines workers as irrelevant “pre-proletari- on the Rand, prompting one newspa- ats”, prompting many black workers to per to observe that “!e strike is un- associate communism with the white doubtedly an instinctive mass revolt working class. !e communists’ ac- against their whole status …!e Na- quiescence to white racism alienated tive Congress had very little to (do) the Party from most black workers, but with the movement…!e strike is in it hardly won it deep support among no man’s control.”7 !e ANC’s hands- whites. A Labor-Nationalist Pact gov- o$ approach is unsurprising, given its ernment won the 1924 election with outlook in 1920. Conditions in the gold the support of the white working class, mines had little to do with the ANC’s co-opting the communists’ white emphasis on voting rights in Western base.10 Abandoned by the white work- Cape; the mineworkers’ goals fell out- ing class, the communists tried to re- side the ANC’s mission, namely, to pair relations with the black popula- protect rather than extend the limited tion, but it took nearly thirty years for African rights. the Communist Party to integrate with !e African mineworkers also fell the ANC. outside the constituency of the Com- !e racial tensions on the Rand munist Party. !ough tens of thou- foreshadowed the friction to come
9 with South Africa’s impending demo- ANC activists like Nelson Mandela and graphic upheaval. Whereas blacks had Oliver Tambo sought to incorporate mostly lived in rural areas and worked city dwelling Africans and their causes seasonally on the "elds or in the mines, into the ANC. Younger ANC members that “dual economy” began to collapse pushed a structural overhaul of the or- in the 1920s, precipitating an exodus ganization that encouraged wider par- to urban areas and a revolution within ticipation among the African masses, the political movements. A drought in and their participation in turn changed 1922-23 devastated small black farms the ANC’s mission and strategy. across the country, making city life A series of clashes over housing marginally superior to the subsistence and transportation rights outside Jo- farming that had supported Africans hannesburg gave impetus to those ar- for half the year.11 A trickle toward the guing for a broader base and mission cities turned into a %ood when the Sec- for the ANC. Tens of thousands of Af- ond World War soon increased urban ricans "lled factory jobs in Johannes- labor demands, and this industrializa- burg, but restrictive land laws shunted tion attracted most of the former sub- the newcomers to the city’s periphery. sistence farmers to cities, especially Tents and shanties popped up on the Johannesburg. !e population of Af- strips of vacant land surrounding Jo- ricans living in urban areas more than hannesburg, the population reliant doubled from 1921 to 1945, and Jo- upon white owned bus companies to hannesburg’s 5,500 new factories drew take them to work in the downtown fac- over 150,000 new black residents in tories.16 !e bus companies exploited that period.12 their very captive market by arbitrarily !e African political leadership raising rates in 1942, prompting a mass only slowly adjusted to the new de- town-meeting, unsanctioned by the mographic realities. !e Interna- ANC, which resulted in a bus boycott. tional Commercial Workers Union For eleven months, tens of thousands brie%y uni"ed over a hundred thou- of Africans walked 24 miles round-trip sand newly urbanized Africans in the to the factories every day, eventually 1920s, but failed to mount any power- forcing the bus companies to reduce ful strikes or leverage any concessions their fares.17 for its members. Lacking any accom- Just like the 1920 Rand mine strike, plishments, the ICU’s support dwin- the bus boycott proceeded without dled toward the end of the 1920s, but much organizational support. Unlike the ANC hardly sought to organize that earlier incarnation of African re- the ICU’s constituency of new urban sistance, though, the progressive lead- blacks.13 Instead, it focused its e$orts ership this time sought to turn popular on opposing Prime Minister Hertz- discontent into a viable political force. og’s Native Bills, which completely re- Dr. Alfred Xuma took the reins of the moved Africans from the voting rolls ANC in 1940, and though a moderate in Western Cape Province.14 !e ANC’s himself, he recognized that the ANC failure to halt the Afrikaner assault on needed to expand its recruitment, lest blacks’ limited political rights brought it follow the ICU’s path to oblivion. !e the ANC to a crossroads. It could qui- ANC’s failure to stop the Hertzog Na- etly dissolve itself, as some old-guard tive Bills was indicative of a weak or- members suggested, or it could re-ori- ganization, and its membership num- ent its goals and tactics by embrac- bered less than 4000 — hardly enough ing the plight of the new urban black to represent the hundreds of thou- population.15 Inspired by organic re- sands Africans that were just perma- sistance among urban Africans, young nently entering the white-controlled
10 economy.18 Xuma presided over the closer ties with the ANC, and had been 1942 ANC Convention, which birthed trying to improve relations with the two important developments. First, it black community since the 1922 white authorized Anton Lembede, A.P. Mda, strike debacle. !e Party sponsored Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu and Nel- broad-ranging night schools for African son Mandela to form a Youth League to workers and organized black unions. promote causes relevant to the mostly !e Communist Party also published a young new urban African class. Sec- “Native Republic !esis” that situated ond, these "rst Youth Leaguers suc- South Africa’s racial tensions within a cessfully pushed the Congress to hire larger class narrative. Importantly, the a community organizer to build better !esis called for nonracial democracy relations with people like the bus boy- as a step toward a classless society, cotters.19 !e existence of a commu- thereby aligning itself closely with the nity organizer signaled a shift within ANC’s stated goals. !e state banned the ANC. No longer would it limit it- the Party in 1950, pushing many of its self to protest letters and deputations, members into the ANC. !e party re- which do not require broad partici- formed underground as a more dy- pation, but it would build upon the namic and diverse organization than groundswell of political unrest begun previously existed. To evade the law, by the bus boycotters. By hiring a com- small, independent “discussion clubs” munity organizer, the ANC made clear met in private homes. Absent a stul- its commitment to ally itself with the tifying Central Committee, the SACP urban masses. pursued closer cooperation with the !e new ANC leaders branched ANC.22 Some ANC Youth Leaguers met out to both the larger black popula- the mostly white SACP with suspicion, tion, as well as to leftist white leaders. but the two groups both sought nonra- !e ANC adopted a new constitution cial democracy, and by the early 1950s at its 1943 convention that welcomed they became o#cially aligned. !e anyone, regardless of race, that sup- SACP imbued the growing ANC with ported its goals.20 !ough some black more activist zeal, and together the nationalists initially distrusted white groups organized the mass protests of and Indian allies, they worked together the 1950s. to articulate a platform acceptable State racism wore heavily on to all. !e CPSA, then the only viable black South Africa for the "rst half of political home for progressive whites, the twentieth century, but the 1948 also sought common ground with the election of the Nationalist Party made ANC.ii !e Council of Non-European a bad situation worse. !e Nationalists Trade Unions (CNETU), a previously campaigned on a platform of white marginal player, elected J.B. Marks its chauvinism, and their policy of “sepa- leader in 1943.21 As a leader in both the rate development” ossi"ed South Af- Communist Party and the ANC, Marks rica’s already stark racial divide. Just strengthened the bridges between the as the formation of a united South Af- two groups and encouraged more as- rica in 1910 preceded a %urry of dis- sertive action, especially by organized criminatory legislation, the election of labor. the Afrikaner government unleashed !e Communist Party welcomed a cascade of racial laws. !e Popula-
ii. Cape Province hosted a small Liberal Party, but it had virtually no voice in interracial dialogue in the 1940s. See: Richard Dale “Review: Liberalism’s Failure in South Africa” !e Review of Politics 35.4 (1973), 573.
11 tion Registration Act of 1950 assigned an active organizing campaign, the all citizens a speci"c race — white, Af- ANC turned popular enthusiasm into rican, South Asian, or Coloured. !e a targeted and sustained mission. On Mixed Marriages Act prohibited inter- June 26th, 1952, thousands of black racial marriage, while the Group Areas South Africans, as well as allied Indi- Act strengthened the government’s ans and whites, purposefully broke hand in racial zoning and pass laws. apartheid’s cornerstone laws. Blacks Unlike the left’s inchoate response in entered white areas and anti-govern- the 1910s, though, progressives in the ment speakers gave public addresses, 1950s uni"ed and fought for an alter- forcing police to arrest nonviolent ac- native vision for South Africa, based tivists. Peaceful protesters "lled up on equality rather than group hierar- jails across the country, signaling pop- chy ular commitment to the ANC’s new as- !e ANC’s 1949 Annual Confer- sertive agenda. Unlike the intermit- ence showcased the movement’s more tent protests and unorganized strikes coherent and assertive approach. on the early 20th century, the De"ance Youth League leaders Nelson Man- Campaign funneled popular anger dela, Oliver Tambo, and Walter Sisulu into a well de"ned mission to expose drafted a Programme of Action to out- apartheid’s absurdity. line the ANC’s response to the new Apartheid survived the De"ance government. !e ANC’s new mani- Campaign. Few volunteers could af- festo invited closer cooperation with ford to miss work, and the ANC feared allied groups, leading to a Joint Plan- that a "zzling campaign would de- ning Council to coordinate strategy volve into violence. Riots broke out in with organizations like the South Af- Port Elizabeth and Johannesburg in rican Indian Congress.23 !e Council November as police arrested peaceful soon undertook the largest and most protesters. !e Campaign’s organiz- intellectually coherent endeavor ever ers faced more serious charges for in- staged by government opponents. On citing the unrest, and the ANC began November 8, 1951, the Council re- to focus on their legal defense. None- solved to stage a nationwide campaign theless, the Campaign established the of civil disobedience to target apart- ANC as a mass movement. Its mem- heid’s six cornerstone laws (Popula- bership swelled by tens of thousands, tion Registration Act, Group Areas Act, convincing its leaders to solicit pop- Separate Registration of Voters Act, ular suggestions for a new manifesto Bantu Authorities Act, Natives Act, and written its constituents.26 !e public Suppression of Communism Act).24 enthusiastically responded; Mandela !is De"ance Campaign, set to begin recalls that contributions “came on June 26th, 1952, invited all apartheid serviettes, on paper torn from exercise opponents to join. Walter Sisulu, J.B. books, on scraps of foolscap, and the Marks, and other ANC and trade union backs of our own lea%ets. It was hum- leaders canvassed the country, speak- bling to see how the suggestions of or- ing at rallies and meetings, to encour- dinary people were often far ahead of age widespread participation. As Na- the leaders.”27 !e ANC compiled the tional Volunteer-in-Chief, Mandela responses into the Freedom Charter, traveled the country to set up commit- which it presented to an enthusias- tees at every ANC branch, with local tic rally outside Johannesburg on June Volunteers-in-Chief spearheading re- 25th, 1955. !e Freedom Charter de- cruitment e$orts.25 !e masses had "ned the ANC’s mission, namely, to proven their willingness push against create a nonracial social democracy the state during the bus boycotts; with in South Africa.28 All the ANC’s subse-
12 quent actions rested upon the thoughts cess depended, though, on its ability to articulated in the Freedom Charter. cogently articulate the popular agenda. !e Freedom Charter’s inspiring !e Freedom Charter expressed the language served its compilers well. hopes of the African masses, and em- !e government feared a popular bodied the relationship the ANC de- movement grounded in clear thinking. veloped between its leadership and !e state banned the Congress in 1960, member base in the preceding de- forcing its leaders into exile or hiding. cades. !e ANC organized and com- Mandela and "ve other leaders were piled the public suggestions, but the convicted of treason in 1964 and sen- public authored the message. Politi- tenced to life imprisonment; for nearly cal groups today could learn from the 30 years they drew strength from the ANC’s balance of popular legitimacy knowledge that their actions earned and visionary leadership. !e present popular support. Indeed, the ANC sur- anti-war movement, for example, con- vived brutal government crackdowns sists of countless eccentric groups pur- because of the bonds it built with the suing di$erent strategies; the leaders South African masses. !ough its strat- of organized labor, on the other hand, egy varied through the years, the ANC seem more intent on maintaining ac- ultimately forced and won free elec- cess to power than representing most tions in 1994 because it maintained workers. No one can expect utopia the grassroots model developed in the from human led endeavors, and con- 1940s and 1950s. temporary struggles can only hope for Contemporary movements can progress toward their goals, but South learn from the ANC’s bottom-up Africa’s transition from apartheid to model. !e Congress failed as an inter- democracy shows that broad based est group for the elite, but thrived when movements can built lasting and fruit- it incorporated a broader base. Its suc- ful connections with the public.
END NOTES 1. D.H. Davenport, South Africa: A Modern History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), 16. 2. Bernard Mugabane, Political Economy of Race and Class in South Africa (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1979), 47. 3. Mugabane, 47. 4. Harold Wolpe, “Capitalism and Cheap Labour Power in South Africa: From Segregation and to Apartheid” Economy and Society 1.4 (1972), 425-56. 5. R.V. Selopa !ema, “How Congress Began,” Drum, 1953. Accessed April 3, 2008 http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/congress/began.html. 6. Paul Rich, State Power and Black Politics in South Africa, 1912-51 (Manchester: Macmillion Press, 1996), 16. 7. “!e Great Native Strike” !e International 27 Feb 1920. In Alison Drew, South Africa’s Radical Tradition, 1907-1950 (Cape Town: Mayibuye Books, 1996), 45. 8. Edward Roux, Time Longer !an Rope (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1964), 134. 9. Roux, 148.
13 10. Davenport, 257. 11. Bonner, Phillip, “!e Politics of Black Squatter Movements on the Rand, 1944-52. Radical History Review 46.7 (1989), 89-116. 12. David Welsh “Urbanisation in South Africa: 1929-1979. Race Relations in South Africa Eds. Ellen Hellmann and Henry Lever (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1979), 133. 13. Roux, 251. 14. Davenport, 280. 15. !omas Karis and Gwendolen Carter. From Protest to Challenge Vol. 2 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1973) 82. 16. A.W. Stadler. “Birds on the Corn#eld: Squatter Movements in Johannesburg, 1944-47 Journal of Southern African Studies 6.1 (October 1979), 92. 17. !omas Lodge. Black Politics in South Africa Since 1945 (New York: Longman, 1983), 12. 18. Karis and Carter, 85. 19. “Resolutions of the ANC National Conference, 1942” In Karis and Carter, 202. 20. “Constitution of the ANC” 16 Dec 1943. In Karis and Carter, 204. 21. Roux, 333. 22. D. Everatt, “Alliance Politics of a Special Type: !e Roots of the ANC/SACP Alliance, 1950-54” Journal of Southern African Studies 18.1 (March 1992), 21. 23. “Programme of Action: Statement of Policy adopted at the ANC Annual Conference” 17 Dec 1949. In Karis and Carter, 337. 24. “Report of the Joint Planning Council of the ANC and South African Indian Congress.” 8 Nov 1951. In Karis and Carter, 458. 25. Sisulu, Elinor. Walter and Albertine Sisulu: In Our Lifetime (Claremont: David Phillip Publishers, 2002), 99. 26. Working Committee of the Cape ANC. “Circular Letter to All Congress Branches of the Province” December 1952. In Karis and Carter, 489. 27. Nelson Mandela. Long Walk to Freedom (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1995), 172. 28. “!e Freedom Charter” !e Anti-Apartheid Reader ed. David Mermelstein (New York: Grove Press, 1987), 208.
14 THE JOURNAL OF UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH University of Kansas | Summer 2008
Beyond Mortar and Bricks !e Symbolic Function of the Berlin Wall
Fig. 1. Fig. 2. Standing Berlin Wall 1 Fall of the Berlin Wall 2
!roughout history, civilizations Berlin Wall, followed by a discussion of have built walls to create boundaries the audience reactions and symbolism and to protect against attackers. How- of the wall. !en, evidence will dem- ever, the unique purpose of the Berlin onstrate that, while the Berlin Wall was Wall — to prevent the German citi- symbolic of oppression as it stood, its zens from traveling freely within their destruction also served as a visual ar- own country — sets the wall apart gument. In conclusion, this article will from other similar structures. Clearly, compare the Berlin Wall and a pres- the Berlin Wall was never simply an ent-day wall — the Israeli West-Bank object or mere piece of history, but barrier — in order to exemplify how rather functioned as a symbol of op- the analysis of the Berlin Wall provides pression. !is essay proves this asser- important insight into the function, tion by o$ering a brief history of the nature, and symbolism of walls.
ANNE KRETSINGER is a 2008 graduate from Communication Studies Department at the University of Kansas.
15 Fig. 3. !e Construction of the Berlin Wall 7
THE HISTORY OF THE BERLIN barricaded or bricked up so as not to WALL serve for escape purposes.”9 Clearly, To begin, one must consider the the presence of the Berlin wall altered history behind the Berlin Wall. Be- life for German citizens, depriving tween 1949 and 1961, 2.6 million East people of their ability to move freely in Germans attempted to evade the “re- their own nation. pressions of the Communist system” by escaping from Soviet-controlled East Germany to West Berlin.3 !is AUDIENCE INTERPRETATION population rearrangement posed a se- OF THE BERLIN WALL rious threat of economic collapse in Although the Soviets constructed East Germany. As a result of this threat the Berlin Wall in an attempt to pre- and mounting Cold War tensions, the vent the impending economic col- East German government decided to lapse in East Germany, the e$ects of prevent migration to West Berlin by the structure caused the wall’s audi- constructing the Berlin Wall, “a Wall ences, including East and West Berlin- that divided Berlin for nearly three de- ers and Americans, to view the Berlin cades.”4 !e Communist regime in the Wall as a symbol for a number of dif- German Democratic Republic autho- ferent ideas. !ese viewpoints are re- rized construction of the Berlin Wall, %ections of the di$erent “terministic and the process of assembly, which screens,” held by each audience mem- one can see in Fig.1, began on August ber, that "ltered or shaped the way that 13, 1961.5 Stretching along the border people viewed the Berlin Wall. Ken- between East and West Berlin, the wall neth Burke describes the role of termi- was twenty-six miles in length and nistic screens when he states, “Even if ranged from 7 to 13 feet high.6 any given terminology is a re%ection !e wall was created with “up- of reality, by its very nature as a termi- rooted trees and barbed wire entangle- nology it must be a selection of reality; ments; wire fencing was erected, road and to this extent it must function also surfaces torn up, ditches dug and so as a de%ection of reality.”10 Each Berlin on.”8 Railroads between the East and Wall audience held terministic screens West were destroyed during the con- formed by past experiences surround- struction of the Berlin Wall, and “win- ing Berlin’s political state, mounted dows facing towards the border were Cold War tensions, and the creation
16 of the wall. !ese terministic screens terests,” while demonstrating the fact greatly shaped the way that each audi- that, like the citizens of Berlin, America ence viewed the Berlin Wall. also saw the necessity of tearing down Two main audiences of the Ber- the wall.15 In his speech, “by embrac- lin Wall included citizens of East and ing both principled ideological and West Germany. Although the Commu- moral opposition to the Soviets and in nist regime in the German Democratic other contexts a pragmatic viewpoint, Republic instigated the erection of the Reagan was able to take a strong moral Berlin Wall, the structure a$ected the position in opposition to tyranny, but lives of the citizens of both sides of also to lessen the risk of con%ict and the wall.11 !e Soviets forcibly evicted set the stage for successful negotiation many people living near the wall, and between the two nations.”16 In contrast a large number of citizens from both to Berliners, Americans did not expe- East and West Berlin had family mem- rience the direct e$ects of living in a bers located on opposing sides of the city divided by the Berlin Wall; how- wall.12 Aside from abolishing travel ever, it is apparent that much of the and dividing families, however, one of world viewed the standing Berlin Wall the most dramatic e$ects of the wall as a symbol of the Cold War and of the was the “lost opportunity of exchang- oppression of Berliners. Because the ing life in the GDR [German Demo- Cold War was largely a post-World cratic Republic] for life in the Federal War II economic political struggle be- Republic. !e denial of this opportu- tween the United States and the Soviet nity, it has been observed, depresses Union, America supported and en- morale... resulting in resignation and couraged removal of the Berlin Wall. desperation.”13 !us, the Berlin Wall Reagan’s speech clearly re%ects these acted as a symbol of oppression for post-World War II American goals and both East Germans and West Berlin- ideas, while providing insight into the ers for twenty-eight years until the fall reaction and mindset of the American of the Berlin Wall occurred on Novem- audience, regarding the Berlin Wall. ber 9, 1989. A second audience of the Berlin Wall includes Americans. Ronald Rea- THE SYMBOLISM gan’s speech, “Tear Down !is Wall,” OF THE BERLIN WALL demonstrates how the views of this After examining the history be- American audience greatly contrast hind the Berlin Wall, as well as the re- with the German audience feelings actions of the wall’s audiences, it is toward the Berlin Wall. Delivered in necessary to determine exactly what West Berlin on June 12, 1987, Reagan’s signi"cance the structure holds. To speech re%ects the symbolic mean- begin, in order to understand why civ- ing of the Berlin Wall, as depicted by ilizations create walls, such as the one the American audience. !e line ‘tear in Berlin, one must examine the fun- down this wall’ in Reagan’s speech damental nature of humans. In places “has been treated as a wonderful ap- where there are no natural boundar- plause line, which it certainly was, ies, humans often have the tendency but it was more than that.”14 !e line to “impose boundaries — marking o$ is a symbolic expression of the need to territory so that it has an inside and a end the oppression of Berliners. Rea- bounding surface — whether a wall, gan’s speech depicts “the courage and a fence, or an abstract line or plane. determination of the citizens of Ber- !ere are few human instincts more lin, people with whom America and basic than territoriality. And such de- the rest of the world share common in- "ning of a territory, putting a boundary
17 around it, is an act of quanti"cation.”16 how “the feeling of ‘being locked up,’ It is clear that the East German gov- in addition to wall-induced separa- ernment’s creation of the Berlin Wall tion and social isolation from friends is a re%ection of this basic human in- and family, could produce various stinct to create boundaries. !e imple- psychological disorders such as psy- mentation of the Berlin Wall created a chosis, schizophrenia, and behavioral barrier that contained the German cit- problems including alcoholism, de- izens within either the East or West by pression, anger, despondency, dejec- physically constraining travel. tion, and suicide.”22 Even after the wall However, just as Lako$ and John- fell, “psychologists and psychoana- son claim it is human nature to create lysts maintained that the wall reap- walls, it is also the nature of humans to peared as ‘die Mauer in den Köpfen’ or resist the constraints such boundaries ‘the wall in the heads’ of the German impose. !is is likely because people people.”23 !ese assertions re%ect the see these boundaries not just as struc- idea that, aside from its physical im- tures, but rather as symbols for larger position, the Berlin Wall also a$ected ideas. For example, after the construc- the psychological make-up of many tion of the Berlin Wall, it became ap- Germans who lived with the wall. Evi- parent that the symbolism of the struc- dently, the Berlin Wall is not merely a ture made the wall “a state of mind as physical structure, but rather is sym- much as… a physical structure.”1 Sup- bolic of a number of ideas and emo- porting this argument is the fact that tions that caused con%ict in the minds while the Berlin Wall stood, “East Ger- of the German people. mans were prohibited from mention- Analysis of the Berlin Wall as a vi- ing the term ‘wall’… !e preferred sual argument furthers the idea that term was the ‘anti-fascist protection the structure is not just a cement ob- bulwark’.”19 !e East German govern- struction, but a symbol of the control ment knew that the citizens would be and oppression of the German people. hostile to the idea of the Berlin Wall; According to Sonja Foss, “to qualify as as a result, the government restricted visual rhetoric, an image must go be- the language that citizens could use to yond serving as a sign, however, and refer to the structure in an attempt to be symbolic, with that image only in- prevent backlash of angry Berliners. directly connected to its referent.”24 By creating a new label for the struc- !e function of the Berlin Wall exem- ture, the East German government pli"es this idea, extending beyond was attempting to change the sym- serving as a sign. Despite the fact that bolic meaning of the Berlin Wall for the East German government erected the German people. !e term ‘anti- the Berlin Wall in an attempt to sal- fascist protection bulwark’ is a euphe- vage the economic and political situ- mism for ‘wall,’ intended to lessen the ation in Germany, the German citi- sense that the government was using zens interpreted the structure as the the structure to oppress the German government’s attempt to symbolically citizens. However, “the presence of the demonstrate its power. In support of wall was, nevertheless, a dominating this German mindset, it is interesting feature.”20 to recognize that “the great walls of Furthermore, studies have shown the past were erected to repel invad- that there are many “deleterious social ers and barbarians. !e Wall in Berlin and psychological consequences of a is unique because its object is to pre- society encircled by a wall” including vent the men and women behind it “a novel psychological disease: ‘the from reaching freedom.”25 While the wall disorder’.”21 !is disorder refers to Great Wall of China protected Chinese
18 Fig. 4. Berliners celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.27
dynasties from the attacks of nomadic pute,” signed a declaration on August tribes and Hadrian’s Wall prevented 29, 1961, that stated, “It is one thing for the Roman Empire from raids by tribes a social order to force its citizens, by the in current-day Scotland, the East Ger- millions, to seek asylum elsewhere. It is man Government established the Ber- still more reprehensible to cut o$ their lin Wall to prevent travel of citizens escape by means of walls and barbed within their own nation. Armed East wire across city streets, to threaten German border guards lined the Ber- them at the point of bayonets, to shoot lin Wall to prevent people from cross- at them in %ight as if they were run- ing from one side of the wall to the away slaves.”28 !e Congress for Cul- other. During the twenty-eight years tural Freedom continued their asser- that the wall stood, “over 40, 000 peo- tion by describing how the Berlin Wall ple tried to cross illegally, and 95 died de"es “the most elementary respect while attempting to do so.”26 !e large for a human right — and one which all number of killings — both provoked the nations of the civilized world are and unprovoked — over the twenty- on record as having recognized.”29 Ac- eight years that the wall stood empir- cording to the Universal Declaration of ically demonstrate the atmosphere of Human Rights, created by the General fear the wall created. Assembly of the United Nations, “Ev- eryone has the right to leave any coun- try, including his own.”30 !e Berlin DEFIANCE OF HUMAN RIGHTS Wall violates this basic human right in Aside from creating an ambiance two ways: by physically acting as a bar- of fear, the imposition of the Berlin rier preventing travel and by impos- Wall actually de"ed human rights. !e ing psychological barriers upon the Congress for Cultural Freedom, con- minds of the German citizens. It is ap- sisting of “thirty authors of world re- parent that “the Wall that prevent[ed] the citizens of the GDR [German Dem-
19 ocratic Republic] and East Berlin from Reagan emphasizes this symbolic choosing freedom [could] not conceal nature of the Berlin Wall when he as- the injustice perpetrated behind it. Its serts: construction through the heart of the city [had] neither legal nor moral justi- “As I looked out a moment ago from the "cation.”31 !us, the Berlin Wall stood Reichstag, that embodiment of German unity, I noticed words crudely spray-painted as a symbol of oppression by depriving upon the wall, perhaps by a young Berliner: German citizens of their basic human ‘!is wall will fall. Beliefs become reality.’ rights. Yes, across Europe, this wall will fall. For it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand freedom.” 34 THE FALL OF THE WALL AND THE OVERTHROW OF A SYMBOL Clearly, Reagan understands the While the Berlin Wall was sym- symbolic nature of the Berlin Wall, bolic of oppression as it stood, its de- and calls to overthrow the symbol of molition also served as a visual ar- oppression in his speech, challenging, gument. !e “fall of the Berlin Wall” “General Secretary Gorbachev, if you occurred on November 9, 1989. From seek prosperity for the Soviet Union this day forth, Berliners could travel and Eastern Europe, if you seek libera- across the border created by the wall. tion: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gor- bachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, At this time, the wall was not physi- 35 cally torn down, but “a new law to lift tear down this wall!” Two years after the travel restrictions for East Ger- Reagan’s speech, the wall fell and the man citizens” was established.32 !e symbol of oppression and of the Cold true power of the Berlin Wall as a vi- War was overthrown. sual argument became evident when the government announced the fall of the wall and crowds screamed and CONCLUSIONS cheered loudly, celebrating the end of Clearly, the Berlin Wall acted as the oppression embodied by the Ber- a symbol of oppression as it stood lin Wall (as seen in Fig. 2). and portrayed a message of freedom On the day that the destruction when dismantled. Analysis of the Ber- of the wall’s physical form began, the lin Wall provides valuable insight into structure lost its ability to impose the nature and e$ects of walls, which movement restrictions on the German one can apply to similar present-day people; consequently, the message of structures. For instance, consider the the Berlin Wall as a symbol of oppres- role of a controversial wall in the sta- sion ended. Ronald Reagan demon- tus quo: !e Israeli West-Bank bar- strates this symbolic function of the fall rier. In 2005, an Israeli court ruled that of the Berlin Wall in his speech, “Tear the country should have the “authority Down !is Wall,” when he states: to build a separation wall in the West Bank, beyond Israel’s internationally “…as long as the gate is closed, as long as this recognized 1967 borders, for security scar of a wall is permitted to stand, it is not reasons, signaling that Israel would the German question alone that remains continue to build the barrier despite open, but the question of freedom for all Palestinian and international objec- mankind. Yet I do not come here to lament. 36 For I #nd in Berlin a message of hope, even tions.” However, in order to gain in the shadow of this wall, a message of more access to major West Bank cit- triumph.” 33 ies, Palestinian villages appealed this decision, and as a result, Israeli jus- tices decided to rethink the proposed
20 plan for the wall.37 !e fact that the Is- to be a violation of the human rights raeli government took into consider- of German citizens. While the Ber- ation the lives of the people that the lin Wall functioned as a symbol of op- wall would a$ect before erecting the pression, the Israeli West-Bank wall structure contrasts with the unilateral stands as a symbol or reminder of the decision of the East German govern- need to resolve the political unrest in ment to construct a wall dividing Ber- the Israel/West Bank area. !us, when lin. !e goals of the Israeli West-Bank the Israeli West-Bank barrier is torn wall — to prevent attacks, solve polit- down, the dismantling will symbolize ical unrest, and salvage the economy the recti"cation of political problems in the area — are similar to some ex- and the achievement of newfound tent to the functions of the Berlin Wall, freedom and peace. In the case of each which served to prevent possible eco- of the two walls in Berlin and Israel/ nomic collapse and salvage the politi- West Bank it is clear that the building cal situation at the time. Although gov- of walls serves as a visual way to assert ernments created both the Berlin Wall larger issues of politics, economics, and the Israeli West-Bank wall to rec- safety, and control. tify political and economic problems, In conclusion, the history, audi- the two walls became symbols of con- ence reaction, and role in creating an trol and oppression for certain audi- atmosphere of fear o$er important in- ences. In Berlin, the wall restricted sight into the symbolic nature of the travel, split families, and in%icted fear Berlin Wall. By relating the analysis of upon those who lived near the struc- the Wall in Berlin to the Israeli West- ture. Similarly, people who oppose the Bank wall, it is clear that the Berlin Israeli West-Bank barrier feel that the Wall rede"nes the signi"cance of walls. wall will restrict travel for Palestinians !us, what purpose does a wall hold? who live in the West Bank and work in Before examining the Berlin Wall, one Israel. However, although the inten- might have asserted that walls func- tions for both walls might be similar, it tion to contain, block, or guard. While is clear that the creation of the Israeli these things are true, the analysis of West-Bank wall is more justi"ed be- the Berlin Wall points to a higher pur- cause it is necessary for security pur- pose of walls: to visually symbolize poses, whereas the implementation larger ideas of political control, loss of of the Berlin Wall is widely accepted rights, and oppression.
END NOTES 1. “!e Art of War, Part 1.” Sirlin.net. Retrieved on June 15, 2008, from
21 6. Munro, 31. 7. “Berlin.” (1994). Weblo.com. Retrieved on Oct. 21, 2006, from
22 32. Berlin Wall Online. 33. Reagan, R. (12 June 1987). “Tear Down !is Wall.” Ronald Reagan Speeches. Retrieved on Oct. 15, 2006, from
23 24 THE JOURNAL OF UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH University of Kansas | Summer 2008
Gender Roles and the Princess in American Literature and Society
!e Disney characters that pro- traditional princess tales, they are also liferate American culture encapsulate a part of a general system that main- the traditional princess character in il- tains gender roles because even when lustrated children’s books published they challenge their traditional roles, in the United States. Sleeping Beauty, they are unable to fully transcend the Cinderella, and Snow White were, restrictions of their gender. and in many cases still are, the popu- Children’s books are an important lar princesses that sell. However, their aspect of American culture because in%uence has not remained unchal- they re%ect the changing values within lenged. Starting in the 1980’s, picture American society. !e books parents books such as Princess Smartypants, buy their children, and the messages Cinder Edna, and !e Paper Bag Prin- that they send, impact the way chil- cess, began to include princesses who dren accept or reject particular ideol- de"ed traditional gender roles. Yet, ogies. In picture books, the characters much like the readers who buy these “embody societal values and provide stories, these princesses never com- a means to observe shifts in such val- pletely transcend the traditional plot ues… [!ey] are a major means by and personality of a princess. !rough which children assimilate to culture.”1 plot structure and development that is !us, books are a way in which culture intended to challenge cultural norms, is re%ected. !is is not to say that they the characters unavoidably reinforce always embrace dominant culture. some aspects of traditional gender However, these stories are important roles. Due to a variety of factors such as because they are both a re%ection of beauty, assertiveness, modesty, desire cultural change and a means by which for marriage, and reliance on magic to change is created. solve problems, these stories present a Since books like Princess Smarty- range of characters with reversed gen- pants and Cinder Edna are reactions to der characteristics. !us, while these traditional fairy tales, they are in some books are important because they ways de"ned by their ability to reverse serve as a cultural counter-weight to the archetype. An example of the tra-
CAITLIN SHANKS is a senior in English and American studies at the University of Kansas.
25 Figure 1. Cinderella, as illustrated by Kevin O’Malley in Ellen Jackson’s 1994 illustrated children’s book, Cinder Edna. Her distant gaze and immersion beneath the blankets, indicate her passive nature. She appears sullen, yet unable to assert change upon her situation without the help of others. !is is an example of the princess prototype. ditional form and character in a prin- only because the prince saves her. !e cess story is Cinderella. Although this values that these stories seek to impart tale is not unfamiliar, the moral be- on young girls, such as the importance hind the story is a re%ection of an out- of beauty, passivity, and submission dated notion of gender roles because support what is known as the feminine it enforces passivity. For example, Cin- beauty ideal. !is ideal is character- derella patiently waits for the harass- ized by “the socially constructed no- ment of her mother and stepsisters to tion that physical attractiveness is one end. She is submissive, complying with of women’s most important assets, and their demands. Only magic is able to something all women should strive to get her to act di$erently. Although she achieve and maintain.”2 !e princess is does "nally speak up and demand to saved because of her beauty, despite, have the slipper tried on her foot, the or perhaps even partially due to, her prince has to come to her "rst. Finally, passivity. she is rescued from being her fami- !e traditional princess, however, ly’s maid and lives “happily ever after” is not always re%ective of the ideas girls
26 have. !is is manifested in the girls in Ella Westland’s 1993 study, which demonstrates the love/hate relation- ship that exists between children and fairy tale princesses. In her study, she asked both boys and girls to draw their “favourite character from Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, or Cinderella.”3 Sur- prisingly, although many girls — had indulged in painting princesses, the girls were almost unanimous in denying that they would want to be princesses themselves.…What came across strongly in many of the girls’ comments was the desire for independence. No-one was prepared to admit that the ‘best thing’ about being a princess was having a prince to protect you.… !e children saw princesses and princes as representing Figure 2: Elizabeth as depicted by Michael more extreme versions of the gender models Martchenko in !e Paper Bag Princess. She they experienced themselves: princesses is originally shown as a traditional princess had the most negative associations of who loves and adores her prince. As the girlhood…4 picture illustrates, with her dress, crown, and love-struck hearts, she is originally identi#ed !e reactions of these 9-11 year as a typical princess in the illustrations and olds demonstrate that while many girls text. enjoy fairy tales, they are also able to realize the implication of the gender the princess? Why can’t the princess roles within the stories. !ough the save the prince?”5 !is basic inquiry children in this study were older than became the basis for a story that en- the target age group for most picture courages young readers to ask the books, their reactions demonstrate the same question. impact that fairy tales have on their Munsch starts by introducing the notions of gender. !eir dislike for the main character, writing, “Elizabeth was princesses speci"cally because they a beautiful princess. She lived in castle are not independent characters dem- and had expensive princess clothes. onstrates that children are ready for She was going to marry a prince named princesses that break the gender ideal. Ronald.”6 In these three sentences, !is might represent a new trend, be- Munsch establishes information that cause just as these books are relatively indicates the traditional princess pat- recent in challenging gender roles, tern. She is praised as beautiful, rich, girls have not always been exposed to and she desires to marry. Like Cinder- these ideas. ella or Sleeping Beauty, at "rst Eliza- !e "rst American author to di- beth seems to "t the traditional prin- rectly challenge the archetypal prin- cess mold. !is sets the reader up to cess and sell millions of books was believe that he/she will be hearing a Robert Munsch, who reversed the roles more traditional story. of the prince and princess in !e Paper However, when the dragon burns Bag Princess. According to Munsch, down her castle and carries away her the inspiration for the story was a com- prince, she switches places with the ment from his wife, who worked at the traditional prince and becomes the same daycare as him, and said, “How hero. It becomes her job to rescue come you always have the prince save Ronald, and he, like the traditional
27 princess, must be saved. !is rever- ald. At this point in a traditional prin- sal is the basic plot structure that al- cess story, they would have kissed and lows the reversal to occur. Elizabeth’s married “happily ever after.” However, role as “the prince” is not, as it might Elizabeth’s transgression of her role as seem, absolute. For example, her "rst the princess is evident to Prince Ron- problem is that her clothing has been ald. It is so apparent, in fact, that he burnt by the dragon’s "ery breath. Her proceeds to scold her for not behaving modesty, typically seen as a feminine and appearing as a princess should. In virtue, requires that she "nd clothing his directions for her to “come back” instead of pursuing the dragon naked. later when she is ready to act like a Elizabeth “look[s] everywhere for real princess, he implies that he is not something to wear, but the only thing as upset about Elizabeth transgress- she could "nd that was not burnt was ing her gender role and saving him as a paper bag. So she put[s] on the paper he is about her not looking beautiful bag and follow[s] the dragon.”7 In this while she does it. His views represent scene, Elizabeth rejects her gender the stereotypes of a typical prince, and role by wearing a paper bag instead he insinuates, correctly so, that the ar- of a fancy frilly dress, but is unable to chetypal princess is, above all else, val- fully reverse her place because she ued for her beauty. Elizabeth directly cannot wear nothing at all. !e paper counters him with a strong argument bag, which now serves as a marker of that re%ects her character. She says to her reversal and acceptance of her pre- him, “your clothes are really pretty and supposed role, will follow her through- your hair is very neat. You look like a out the book and creates the paradox real prince, but you are a bum.”10 In her upon which the title of the book !e address to Prince Ronald, Elizabeth as- Paper Bag Princess is based. serts her authority, which reverses not Elizabeth then traces the dragon only her role in the story, but the end- to his cave to "nd Prince Ronald. Al- ing of a traditional fairy tale too. though this task is described as “easy,”8 In critiquing the work of authors Elizabeth’s intelligence is later proven like Munsch, Deborah !acker notes by the clever way in which she lulls the that these stories are often not as dragon to sleep. She tricks him by ap- thought provoking or complex as they pealing to his ego and asking him ques- could be. She says, tions like, “Is it true…that you can burn In most cases, these texts merely up ten forests with your "ery breath?”9 switch roles around but retain the stereotyped features of male and female and instructing him to repeat actions, characterization, so that strength, activity, like burning forests, over and over and triumph are still opposed to passivity, until he wears himself out. Here Eliza- beauty, and gentleness. In this way books beth again acts contrary to her presup- that attempt to act as a corrective only posed role. She uses intelligence and impose another way of thinking and reading perseverance, two characteristics of a conventionally, rather than challenging readers with a new way of approaching traditional prince, to beat the dragon. gender or inviting them to question the However, this scene can also be seen imposition of socially constructed modes of as an example of Elizabeth using her behavior. 11 feminine charms to %atter the dragon. !erefore, in outsmarting the dragon In relation to the plotline, this cri- her role in the story is reversed, how- tique seems to "t. Elizabeth is the tri- ever in a way it still conforms to the umphant savior and Prince Ronald traditional cultural norms. becomes the beautiful yet passive vic- After the dragon falls asleep, tim. However when this analysis is ap- Elizabeth is able to save Prince Ron- plied to the way in which the charac-
28 Figure 3: Elizabeth as depicted by Michael Martchenko in !e Paper Bag Princess. She is shocked, yet unlike the typical Cinderella she decides to #ght for the prince she desires. However, #rst she needs to put on her paper bag, because she is unable to fully transcend social precedent and save him unclothed.
ters operate it fails to correctly explain tive roles that are hegemonic, the dia- their complex behavior. For example, logue demonstrates that the characters Elizabeth is assertive when she knocks are much more complex than their re- on the dragon’s door until he "nally ductive roles might otherwise indicate. hears her speak, but she also tricks the One explanation for this phenomenon dragon with %attery, which is a meeker is that the author kept the basic gender approach to dragon slaying than the roles intact but reversed them in order typical sword. Furthermore, even to create a comic e$ect. By preserv- prince Ronald, whose masculinity is ing the basic premise of a traditional reduced because he is called “pretty,”12 fairy tale, Munsch creates a story that demonstrates assertiveness when he is familiar enough to challenge young commands Elizabeth to “come back.”13 readers without alienating them. !us, while the plot of !e Paper Bag One of the "rst books with a sim- Princess does preserve passive and ac- ilar princess to follow !e Paper Bag
29 Figure 4. Princess Smartypants, as illustrated by Babette Cole in her 1997 children’s book. In the picture she is unkempt and in a dirty room, which conveys the image of her as atypical for either a prince or a princess.
Princess successfully in publication beth as an average princess before he was Babette Cole’s Princess Smarty- breaks the traditional conventions. pants. Unlike, Munsch, however, Cole Cole does not dismiss the conven- did not write a story that reversed the tions entirely. On the second page she gender role so obviously within the describes Princess Smartypants and story. Whereas !e Paper Bag Princess applies the marks of the traditional is easily identi"ed as a reversal story, princess to her. She is “very pretty and because it reverses the characters’ rich, all the princes wanted her to be places within a traditional plot, Prin- their Mrs.”15 !ese descriptions are cess Smartypants is di$erent because in contrast with the "rst statement in the princess is initially identi"ed as the book, because the description of atypical for either role. !is does not her beauty and wealth align her with mean, however, that her reversed role the traditional princess. In contrast to is less apparent. For example, the "rst !acker’s criticism, which argues that line of the story identi"es clearly that these stories problematically maintain she is not going to act like a princess “the stereotyped features of male and because she does “not want to get female characterization,”16 Cole starts married.”14 !us, in this way, Cole’s ap- the story by creating the framework for proach to the nontraditional princess Princess Smartypants to be both beau- is much more straightforward than tiful and triumphant. Furthermore, Munsch’s, who initially depicts Eliza- as the title Princess Smartypants im-
30 Figure 5. Princess Smartypants kissing the prince, as illustrated by Babette Cole in her 1997 illustrated children’s book Princess Smartypants. Although the princess is depicted as a tomboy wearing overalls earlier in the book, when it comes time for her to kiss the prince she becomes more feminine. By depicting her as a typical princess, Cole is setting the viewer up to believe that the kiss will end in her marrying the prince.
plies, she is also allowed to reverse the ypants from any evil, rather they are mindset of the traditional princess by submitting to the conditions she cre- being strong-willed. !us, from the be- ated in an attempt to win her heart. In ginning, Cole creates characters that these ways, the book is structured so are complex mixtures of the polarizing that the plot is reminiscent of, but not sets of gender characteristics usually entirely conformant to, the traditional seen in princess tales. In this sense, al- plot of a princess tale. though her characters challenge the In accordance with a typical plot, dominant culture, they also at times a prince eventually appears who is able reinforce it. to complete the seemingly impossible Princess Smartypants ful"lls her tasks. !en, like a traditional princess, name when she cleverly outwits the Princess Smartypants kisses him,18 an usual authorities within a princess act that normally would lead to a mar- book: her parents and her suitors. riage and a happily ever after ending. She does this by creating challenges !e expectation that she marry the that the prince must complete before prince is nevertheless rejected because they can enter into a marriage that she her “magic kiss”19 turns him into a toad clearly dislikes but that her parents in- and he leaves. !is break with the con- sist on having. While some of these ventions is key because it explains that tasks, like rescuing her from a tower Princess Smartypants is not only more made of glass, have roots in traditional clever than the prince but also is in- tales, others, like riding a motobike dependent. Furthermore, her happy and roller-disco, are challenges that ending demonstrates that despite the are unique to Princess Smartypants.17 expectations of the people surround- In these ways her character becomes ing her, even a beautiful, rich princess increasingly complex. Although she does not need to marry to be happy. still relies upon the traditional idea However, her reliance on magic to es- that whoever completes the tasks can cape marriage, despite her determina- marry her, she is unique because she tion and wit, is a regression in behavior creates the obstacles herself instead reminiscent of a traditional princess. of having them imposed on her. Like- Again, the structure of the story indi- wise, the princes who are vying for her cates that even a strong princess can- attention have originality because they not reverse all the conditions that cul- are not trying to save Princess Smart- ture places upon her.
31 Although Princess Elizabeth and who relies on the customary fairy god- Princess Smartypants did not marry mother to "x all of her problems for their princes, some authors have al- her, Cinder Edna, “[does]n’t believe in lowed their princesses to embrace the fairy godmothers.”25 Instead, she relies traditional role and marry. One such on the money she has saved by work- author is Ellen Jackson whose Cinder- ing after her chores are done to buy ella spoof, Cinder Edna follows two her own dress and take a bus to the neighbor girls who face similar prob- ball.26 In a reversal of the archetypal lems. Whereas the other books did not plot, she decides to take control of her directly mention the princess model own fate. However, like Princess Eliz- that their heroines opposed, her book abeth and Princess Smartypants, she directly addresses the problems with is not a complete reversal of a typical the traditional princess by compar- princess. She is still marked as femi- ing her to a more modern princess. nine because she is depicted wearing !e plot, which tracks the lives of Cin- a dress at the ball and is asked by the derella and Cinder Edna, has the two prince, instead of asking him herself, princesses progress through the same to dance. In these ways, even though challenges at the same time.20 In this she is set up to be Cinderella’s oppo- parallel, Cinderella represents the tra- site, Cinder Edna does not fully trans- ditional princess in the conventional gress her cultural role. role, and Cinder Edna is presented as Another way in which the plot of a new, reversed alternative that is Cin- Cinder Edna reinforces cultural hege- derella’s complete opposite. mony is in her marriage at the end of Unlike the characters in !e Paper the story. Even though she is happy to Bag Princess and Princess Smarty- marry, because Cinder Edna uses mar- pants, Cinder Edna is not immediately riage as a way to escape her “wicked de"ned by the characteristics that typ- stepmother and stepsisters,”27 it rein- ically mark a princess, like beauty and forces the old message that marriage wealth, although her counterpart Cin- is the only way a princess can escape derella is. While Cinderella is “quite a bad situation. !is is problematic beautiful”21 and behaves passively, sit- because even for Cinder Edna, who is ting “among the cinders to keep warm, hard working, strong, and witty, mar- thinking about her troubles,”22 Cin- riage is the only solution to escaping der Edna is de"ned and depicted as a her oppressive family. Why is it that completely di$erent type of girl. Cin- she cannot "rst conquer them and der Edna is described as “strong and then marry? One possible reason is the spunky”23 and the narrator admits structure of the story. Since Cinder Ed- that Cinder Edna, unlike Cinderella, na’s situation needs to parallel that of “wasn’t much to look at.”24 !us, from Cinderella throughout the story for the the beginning, the namesake of the gimmick of the spoof to be complete, a story, Cinder Edna, is a foil to Cinder- break in the plot would challenge the ella, and is unlike her in every way. !e story’s form. !us, although Cinder structure of this story, which posits the Edna’s character and personality seem two characters as opposites, one thriv- to completely reject the archetype of ing on the princess tradition and one the princess, the way she escapes her rejecting it, o$ers to show by example stepmother and stepsisters reinforces that a princess need not be passive or the notion that a princess is saved only pretty to achieve a happy ending. through her marriage to a prince. One key di$erence between the !e reversal structure within these characteristics embodied by Cinder stories is one way in which the domi- Edna is initiative. Unlike Cinderella, nant idea of the princess is challenged.
32 As they demonstrate, even books with the expectations placed upon them. It a structure designed to oppose a he- is this realistic quality that makes char- gemonic norm can at times reinforce acters, like Cinder Edna or Princess the very positions they intend to chal- Smartypants rich and relatable "gures. lenge. Like humans, the princesses in By conveying a message, and working these stories they can neither com- within the dominant discourse, these pletely escape, nor completely reverse, princesses are able to challenge the the culture that surrounds them and stereotypical princess.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS !is research made possible by an Undergraduate Research Award from the Univeristy of Kansas Honors Program.
END NOTES 1. Baker-Sperry, Lori and Graueholz, Liz, “!e Pervasiveness and Persistence of the Feminine Beauty Ideal in Children’s Fairy Tales,” Gender and Society 2003, 17, 713. 2. Baker-Sperry and Graueholz, 711. 3. Westland, Ella, “Cinderella in the Classroom. Children’s Responses to Gender Roles in Fairy Tales,” Gender & Education 1993, 5:240. 4. Westland, 238. 5. Munsch, Robert “!e Paper Bag Princess,” !e O$cial Robert Munsch Web Site, 29 Feb. 2008
33 20. Jackson, Ellen, Cinder Edna (New York: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books, 1994). 21. Jackson, 3. 22. Jackson, 1. 23. Jackson, 3. 24. Jackson, 3. 25. Jackson, 5. 26. Jackson, 5-8. 27. Jackson, 3.
34 THE JOURNAL OF UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH University of Kansas | Summer 2008
Exploring the Possibility of Same-Sex Love in Late Ming China
Identity categories are constantly clusive sexual object choice; people being renegotiated. Over time, all were not forced to make a permanent things are bound to present themselves decision privileging one sex or the in unique and potentially contradic- other. !e Chinese believed that one’s tory forms. !e tradition of same-sex object choice could change in accor- love has emerged in di$erent places dance with the shifting preferences and times and refuses to manifest it- of an individual.1 !is is an important self uniformly across those spaces. Its distinction between many of the mod- practice has existed in China for more ern notions of same-sex love and that than two thousand years and the treat- of the dynastic Chinese. !e idea of ment of such performances has var- gay or homosexual that exists in mod- ied widely. Same-sex love in dynastic ern Western culture is not present in China is subject to many perspectives dynastic China and a di$erent under- and these views are mediated by legal, standing is necessary when approach- social, and literary forces. ing the topic of same-sex love in that period. !e language used to describe the DISCURSIVE CHOICES AND THE subject also needs clari"cation. Early CHINESE SEXUAL SUBJECT references to same-sex love in China Modern notions and words used are hard to clearly identify, as the ear- to describe instances of same-sex love liest forms of the Chinese language di$er across space and time and are contain a built-in inde"niteness and entirely inadequate to describe such are unmarked sexually, thereby com- relationships as they existed in past plicating the process of compiling re- contexts. Words that exist in one cul- liable references.2 Same-sex love ap- ture are not capable of accurately re- peared as early as the Zhou dynasty, %ecting the cultural nuances that are when the emperor could chose to be- inevitably di$erent across communi- stow “favor” upon any individual he ties. Unlike Western culture, the dy- deemed worthy. !e sex of the indi- nastic Chinese did not believe in ex- vidual did not factor into his selection.
KYLE SHERNUK is a 2008 graduate from the Department of East Asian Language and Cultures at the University of Kansas.
35 In fact, it is noted in the Records of the holding the descriptive nature inher- Grand Historian that men often be- ent to the Chinese language. came the sexual objects of their supe- riors in order to gain political favor: “... it was not women alone who can use THE CHINESE JUDICIAL WORLD their looks to attract the eyes of the Laws emerged as early as the Song ruler; courtiers and eunuchs can play dynasty regarding transgender issues at that game as well. Many were the and same-sex object choice. !e focus men of ancient times who gained favor of these laws, however, was not on the this way.”4 What is worth noting is that immorality of the activity but instead individuals were not de"ned by their on its relationship to an individual’s sexual object choice but rather by their status: relationship to another person, in this !e apparent purpose of Song lawmakers case the emperor. Same-sex love does was to #x boundaries: To prevent persons not create a primary identity but in- of commoner status (liang min) from being stead is an activity that is participated degraded by occupation to mean status (jian min—which included prostitutes) and in by an individual who is de"ned by to prevent males from being degraded by his/her social relationships. penetration or cross-dressing into females. 6 Another example of a reference to same-sex love resides in the term cut- !e problem with sodomy is not sleeve.5 Cut-sleeve was the term for a related to any sort of deviance asso- male who "lled the sexual and emo- ciated with the act itself; instead, law- tional needs of the emperor. !e name makers focused on preventing peo- has its roots in a story where the Em- ple from engaging in activities that peror Ai and his lover Dong Xian have would lower their social status. Even fallen asleep and Emperor Ai needs to here the law is concerned with how get up but Dong Xian is lying on his one relates to others and not about an sleeve. Rather than wake Dong, the identity or label they may ascribe to Emperor cuts o$ his own sleeve. !is the persecuted individual. !e con- term, then, does not represent a pri- cerns expressed in the above section mary identity for Dong Xian but rather concerning language choice are also is descriptive of his relationship to Em- espoused by Matthew Sommer. He peror Ai: he is one for whom the em- recognizes that words like homosex- peror will cut his sleeve. ual assume that one’s social identity !ere is a habit in the Chinese is built around his/her sexual object language of using modi"ers to de- choice, which is not the case in China. scribe a person who engages in same- In fact, “[i]n many societies, the sex of sex love as opposed to labeling him/ one’s object of desire has yielded in her with a singular, identity-forming priority to an hierarchical division be- noun. For the Chinese sexual subject, tween penetrant and penetrated.”7 !e same-sex love was something a person reason that penetration was the focus could do; one could play the role of of the Song and later dynasties’ legal the cut-sleeve, but one was not a cut- codes is not because it established sleeve. !e Western subject, however, some sort of homosexual identity, but takes same-sex love as a way of being. because it “profoundly destabilized !is paper will use the term “same-sex the gendered social hierarchy by treat- love” as its reference to the Chinese ing some men (the penetrated) like sexual subject who engages in sexual women.”8 !e Song law, therefore, was or emotional relationships with some- focused on legally regulating men into one of the same sex, as it best avoids activities that would not confuse their creating a primary identity while up- place in the social hierarchy. !e hier-
36 archy was important for two reasons. ute used to create this new, parallel, First, it embodied the norm of the law-applied-by-analogy is also useful time; people had structured their lives in revealing societal sentiments that around Confucian values for hundreds surround penetration and help ex- of years and these values placed peo- plain why the law went to such lengths ple into a very speci"c social hierar- to prevent it. While the law is aware of chy. Challenging norms in any society the bodily rami"cations that may arise is destined to be met with resistance. It from penetration, those were far from was also important to the government its central concern. Sommer notes because the destabilization of the sys- that the idea of foul material “suggests tem that told people to be obedient to pollution and humiliation more than the government could prove threaten- physical danger.”11 !ere is also a di- ing to the ruling order. Safe-guarding rectionality associated with the origi- these societal roles was critical to the nal Ming statute that implied that the maintenance of the regime. sullying of the body was only incurred !e Song, however, is not the only by a single person: the penetrated into dynasty to attempt to regulate peo- whose mouth the foul material was ple’s behavior. “...[F]rom the Song dy- poured. Moreover, it seems to imply nasty through the Qing, judicial in- that the person who is actively pouring terest in male homosexual [same-sex] the foul material is not complicit with acts consistently focused on phallic the social humiliation; it is only the re- penetration of the anus, the division ceiver who is shamed. !e penetrated of sexual roles thereby implied, and su$ers because his masculinity had the stigma of the penetrated male.”9 been damaged, while the penetrant, !e social hierarchy they tried to pro- because he played the masculine role, tect was intimately tied to the notion of was free from stigma.12 From this law it penetration, as a man was supposed to is clear that there is no mark of being penetrate and a woman was supposed homosexual in the Western sense; if to be penetrated; to allow a man to there were a similar understanding be penetrated destroyed the coherent then both parties would be subjected fashion by which society was ordered. to the shame that, in this law, is only It was not until the Ming dynasty, dur- associated with being penetrated. ing the Jiajing reign (1522-1567), how- Same-sex love between women ever, that an actual law was established in dynastic legal codes also deserves that prohibited sexual intercourse be- attention for the very reason that it tween men. !e law was implemented is not mentioned in the codes them- via a supplementary code that applied selves. Sex between women was not statutes by analogy. !ese laws each perceived as threatening, most likely cited laws from the original Ming code because of the law’s "xation on pene- that, via similar situations, behav- tration. !e phallocentrism built-in to iors and contexts, were meant to help the law made women seem innocent guide rulings in a wider range of cases because no degradation of character brought before the courts. !is statute could be committed and a woman’s applied by analogy reads: “Whoever chastity was not in danger. !e pol- inserts his penis into another man’s lution of a woman’s chastity and the anus for lascivious play (jiang shenjing degradation of a man’s masculinity, fang ru ren fenmen nei yin xi) shall re- while functionally very di$erent, both ceive 100 blows of the heavy bamboo, threaten the gender hierarchy upon in application by analogy of the statue which society rests and are still subject on ‘pouring foul material into the to societal reevaluations in contempo- mouth of another person’...”10 !e stat- rary China.13
37 EVOLUTION OF SOCIAL AND forced the subject to use reason to LITERARY ATTITUDES regulate his/her feelings and desires. While the law makes clear its !e late Ming philosophical tradition, views about same-sex love, or more however, as treated by Wang Yang- particularly male love, these opinions ming, breaks from this distinction be- are rooted in a deeper ideology that tween spirit and matter, believing that permeated all of Chinese society. !e people had innate knowledge and that late Ming saw the rise of a new way they did not have to rationally deter- of looking at the world, one in which mine and police their behaviors. !is things were not required to be posi- erasure of boundaries allowed for the tioned in dichotomous opposition to emergence of new world views, ones one another but could be conveyed that were previously denied descrip- as hybrids, exhibiting characteristics tion and repressed due to their inabil- of multiple personae. !is new move- ity to "t neatly into predetermined ment, that created reality as an amal- categories. !is blurring of what were gam of perspectives, is referred to as once distinct categories fundamen- syncretism. Giovanni Vitiello is quick tally reoriented Chinese thought and to distinguish between the syncretism broke with the neo-Confucian tradi- of dynastic China and the kind associ- tion that had previously gained promi- ated with the Western tradition. While nence.16 the West’s view of this hybridity is char- !is disruption in traditional acterized by irrationality and as “ran- thought was not only what the law dom eclecticism,” the Chinese form was trying to prevent through the cre- was one of inclusivity, without requir- ation of "xed categories, but was also ing a reconciliation as is preferred by what gave rise to new forms of litera- the rational Western order.14 Vitiello ture. !is did not simply mean rework- best describes the e$ect of syncretism ing old categories in new ways, but on Chinese culture, saying: entirely breaking free from the con- ventions that had bound authors and ... syncretism may be viewed as the their writings. No longer was it neces- constructive counterpart of that erosion sary to write in strict classical Chinese, (if not erasure) of boundaries that many and people instead began to write in scholars (already in the Ming) have the vernacular, which made literature recognized as a mark of that culture. !e special density of processes of negotiation accessible to a wider range of read- and translation featured by the late ers. !is broadening in audience, from Ming culture corresponds to a blurring the literatus to include the commoner, of boundaries at a variety of levels—of also justi"ed writing in new styles philosophical and religious boundaries, and genres that appealed to the new- surely, but also social (most notably, between literati and merchants), and of literary found, wider readership. boundaries, both in terms of languages and As a result of the increased free- genre (classical and vernacular/elite and dom in writing, there was an increase popular literature). 15 in literature concerning same-sex is- sues. !is is not to say that same-sex !is philosophical move towards love was the primary topic of a vast hybrid spaces helped to collapse many number of works, but that it became of the social barriers that had existed an integral point of debate among the for centuries in the Chinese culture. writers of the time. Many people take !e founder of neo-Confucianism, this increase in writings about same- Zhu Xi, had created a world where the sex love to indicate an increasing tol- spiritual was separated from the ma- erance of homosexuality within late terial and created an ontology that Ming culture, but this argument is
38 problematic on several levels. First, What force allowed those men to this increase in discussion does not engage in same-sex relationships and directly correlate with an increase in reshape social boundaries is an im- the practice of same-sex activities but, portant aspect of late Ming and early rather, that debating about it had be- Qing writings. !e boundary-break- come popular at that time. !ere may ing activities the protagonists engage have been a vogue for male love as in are mediated by the power of qing. well, but that is not proven solely by While there is no appropriate transla- an increase in literary discussion. In tion for qing, it, at the very least, em- fact, “Michel Foucault famously con- bodies the emotional, sentimental and tended that the ‘steady proliferation of loving feelings and actions that two in- discourses concerned with sex’ in the dividuals can share. eighteenth century in Europe marked !e idea that qing could shatter the onset of a degree of repression pre- identity categories was not reserved viously unknown, so that speaking of for Hairpins alone and, in fact, the use the sexual had in fact become a way of qing in Hairpins was merely an ex- of policing it.”17 And while this was the tension of the use of qing from another case in Europe, there is nothing exclu- famous play by Tang Xianzu called sively European about the phenome- “Peony Pavilion.” In Xianzu’s “Peony non precluding its application to dy- Pavilion,” the female protagonists, Du nastic China. Secondly, the notion of Liniang, meets the love of her life in a tolerance is also problematic. Toler- dream and dies after she awakens due ance is a trait that re%ects a society that to her pining for him. When the man is centered around protecting diversity that was in her dreams "nds her grave and individual rights; this is a far cry she is resurrected and they are wed. from the collectivist politics and social In this work, the power of qing de"es mentality to which the majority of the death “and as such overrides distinc- Chinese population subscribed.18 It is tions between dream and reality or a very Western leap to assume that the youthful volition and parental author- end goal of all politics and theory is ity...”21 !e author of Hairpins simply based on securing an individual right expands this barrier-breaking notion to expression. of qing and applies it to the destruction of socially constructed gender roles. Hairpins contains four novellas THE POWER OF QING AND that each pair qing with one of its sup- LITERARY MANIFESTATIONS OF posed counterparts (chastity, chivalry, SAME-SEX LOVE self-sacri"ce and the supernatural) One extant work from the 17th in order to highlight the potential for century treats same-sex love directly, both to coexist.22 !e "rst of these no- as its protagonists are perceived as ex- vellas, “A Chronicle of True Love,” tells ceptional precisely because they are the story of a scholar who pretends to able to blur traditional gender and sex be a student in order to seduce a fellow boundaries.19 !is work, Bian er chai, classmate. After successfully sexually translated by Keith McMahon as Hair- engaging with the boy, the academi- pins Beneath His Cap, goes so far as to cian assuages the boys fears by pro- depict love between men and women pounding the following philosophy: as less than the love between two men. !e caveat being that love between If we go by the logic of Reason, then what we have done today is wrong; but if we use the two men is %eeting and that they must logic of Love, then we are right. For a man eventually separate to "ll their pre- can become a woman and a woman can scribed societal roles.20
39 become a man. It is possible to go from life to timate desire. Here, qing demonstrates death as well as from death to life. !ose who its transformative power. In a situa- are bound by the di"erences between man tion that should have required the life and woman or life and death don’t know what real love is about. I have often said, of the o$ender, the expression of true ‘!e sea may become dry, the mountains love denied Reason’s natural response. may erode, but Love alone cannot surrender Zhang Ji even concedes that Zhong is a to Reason!’ 23 more true romantic “and declares, al- though a man, he will be his woman.”25 !e academician embodies the Zhang Ji’s concession continues to use new Ming mentality of syncretism heterosexual terminologies to refer to wherein arti"cial distinctions, such as his same-sex relationship thereby de- man and woman or life and death, no stabilizing the idea of normalcy and longer have any reality. He also indi- also makes his new world view quite cates that the power of love is some- clear: he no longer feels constrained thing that is beyond the ability of Rea- by the social barriers that had previ- son to understand and regulate and, ously bounded his existence. therefore, those so-called reasonable While the novella could have categories that the boy is accustomed ended at this point and still have com- to living his life by can legitimately be municated its message, the author forsaken in the name of love. proceeds to resolve the story of two !e second story of Hairpins, educated women warriors that Zhang “Chronicle of Chivalric Love,” con- Ji met earlier in the storyline. In soci- cerns the man Zhang Ji. !e protag- ety at that time, a woman of such a na- onist, Zhang Ji, has proven himself a ture would be considered, for all prac- complete talent as a Confucian-ed- tical societal purposes, a man. He ends ucated man and is now confronted up marrying the two daughters he had with the love of a man, Zhong Tunan met earlier who are trained in the (whose name can be read as “Intensely ways of the military and literary arts; Desiring the South” or with the play on typically those traits are considered words which it conceals, as “Desiring/ too masculine for women. His wives Pursuing Men”). Zhong Tunan drugs are gender hybrids and adopt male Zhang Ji and penetrates Zhang Ji in his personae that make them appealing. sleep. Despite the expected reaction Zhang Ji’s consummation of the mar- to the event, Zhang Ji actually enjoys riage makes clear his heteroerotic de- himself: sires and reinforces the fact that sex- ual object choice was not static and ‘In his drunken dream state Zhang felt he exclusive but could change with the was no longer in control of his body. Inside dynamic desires of the subject. At the it felt as if some insect were trying to bore out of his anus. It felt like a sting but didn’t end of the novella, Zhang Ji sacri"ces sting. He wanted to take it into himself but his heteroerotic relationship in favor wasn’t able... So buried in sleep he was that of his relationship with Zhong Tunan; he didn’t seem to know whether his body was this sends a strong message: the same- a man’s or a woman’s.’” 24 sex bond is more desirable than the heteroerotic one.26 When Zhang Ji awakens to realize Of the third novella, “Chronicle of what has happened he moves to be- Sacri"cing Love,” very little remains. head the o$ender (Zhong Tunan) but McMahon pieces together what re- refrains when confronted with Zhong mains of the story to determine that Tunan’s complete lack of fear in the a theater boy becomes a concubine face of death; Zhong Tunan was will- for a man named Yun Han. “At one ing to sacri"ce his life to achieve his ul- point Yun Han has the boy dress as a
40 !e Way of the Academicians From Hua Ying Chin Chen (Variegated Positions of the Flower Battle) China, Ming dynasty (1368–1644)
!ese are two men engaging in same-sex behavior. It can be stated with con#dence that the person on top is a man because his bare foot can be seen. A woman at this time would have her feet bound and even without her shoes on one would not be able to see her bare foot because it would be deformed.
woman, makes love to him, and then brid person, where the man physically says: ‘!ere might be women as beau- is transformed into a woman by hav- tiful as you, but none could be as pas- ing his feet bound. When disaster be- sionate or as talented or as sensuous.”27 falls the family, Li %ees with Kuang’s !is shows how the emotional bond son and raises him, living the rest of that was supposedly reserved for men his life as a nun. and women could actually be felt be- Something that makes this rela- tween two men; it proves, as well, that tionship even more ground-break- their attraction goes beyond the phys- ing than the others is that it is explic- ical. At another juncture in the story, itly noted that, the "rst time they have the boy, Wen Yun, must convince sexual contact, “the sexual encounter Yun Han to get married. Yun Han was between him [Youxian] and Kuang is going to reject a marriage proposal in described as one of mutual pleasure.”29 order to stay faithful to the boy. Just as Pleasure, as seen by Shen, Xie and oth- in a heterosexual relationship, the idea ers, was only to be had by the pene- exists that both partners need to re- trant. !is seems to indicate that both main loyal to each other. !is creates a men participated in the penetration greater air of legitimacy around same- of the other in order to avoid a power sex love because it begins to be repre- di$erential between them and fully sented more in terms that re%ect what express their love for one another. It is considered to be part of so-called erases the power di$erential because, normal relationships. legally, both men are guilty of hav- !e "nal novella, “Chronicle of ing “foul material poured into one’s Strange Love,” concerns a boy from a mouth,” while socially both mens’ male brothel, Li Youxian, and the man masculinity is equally tarnished and who buys him out of that life, Kuang elevated by being penetrated and by Shi. Kuang brings Li into his house by participating in the act of penetration. disguising him as a female concubine Li, while a man, "lls all the social and even “softens his feet by means of roles appropriated for a woman and a special liquid which allows perfect also undergoes the binding of his feet bound feet within a month.”28 !is di- to physically resemble a woman. !is rectly re%ects the desire to create a hy- is a case of a man wanting to become
41 a woman, and as such embodies an image. In this way, “[m]ale love is the early account of what might now be frontier, the boundary that de"nes the labeled as a transsexual and/or trans- center. But it is also immanent within gendered existence. He is willing to the center.”32 Same-sex love is pushed forsake the privileges given to men to the periphery, from the center of so- by society and is willing to accept the ciety, allowing the center to exist with- su$ering that is associated with living out it. As a result of having originated the life of a woman. !is is not without in the center and been pushed aside, purpose, however, as “...the one who is same-sex love, however distorted, willing to forego [sic] both the better contains traits that are inherent to the lot of being a man and the comforts of center itself. heaven is the one who enjoys the most Qing, in the same fashion, is typ- pleasure, su$ers the most pain, and, in ically described in opposition to se, doing so, live the most valuable life.”30 which occurs when a qing-style at- By being willing to live under all con- traction is based too much on physi- ditions that life has to o$er Li has the cal attraction. Volpp contends to the most valuable life possible. Li’s hybrid contrary, that rather than being in op- existence, therefore, is superior to that position, these two forces are inter- of either a man’s or a woman’s. twined, with se emerging from qing. !e heroes of Hairpins are men Se is immanent within Qing, for Volpp, and women who actively synthesize because se is a variation of the ulti- characteristics of both genders and mate attraction and feeling between sexes and attempt to articulate new two individuals. ways of living their lives beyond their !e organization of Anatomy has prescribed social roles. “!e protago- a number of implications for same-sex nists of the novellas are constructed love. It appears to take the level of qing through a transplanting of gendered possessed by each chapter as its orga- moral values; they are moral hybrids nizing principle, placing male love as whose romantic originality is pro- the 22nd of 24 chapters, after degen- duced by setting, like a gemstone, the erate and ghost qing but before qing ultimate female virtue in an equally with animals. !e title of the chapter virtuous male body and intelligence.”31 on male love, qingwai, also presumes Hairpins’’stories of moral negotiations that there is a quality of male love that are mediated by the power of qing and is outside of normal qing, separating its ability to allow for play with the sta- those who experience same-sex love ble categories that society and Reason from the rest of society. Comparison of try to maintain. that chapter’s internal structure to that Another work that pays atten- of the meta-level structure also cre- tion to same-sex love is !e Anatomy ates male love as a miniature replica of Passion. !is work embodies the of heteroerotic qing. !e chapter on emerging literary tradition of the time same-sex love begins with chaste love and uses heterosexual terminologies and ends with male love with ghosts; to refer to events of same-sex love. !e the "rst chapter of Anatomy is hetero- contexts in which same-sex love occur, sexual chastity, and heterosexual love however, are described as a deviant with ghosts precedes the chapter on variant of the norm that, due to its bi- same-sex love in the overall structure zarre nature, recreates a desire for the of Anatomy. !e internal structure is normal. !e “Way of Male Love” is like analogous to the larger structure (read: an image from a mirror in a fun-house, universe) with one exception: it does it is so distorted that it creates a desire not contain heterosexual love. !is in- for the normal or so-called original dicates that same-sex qing exists only
42 in a heteroerotic universe and not the has Zheng and Zheng’s parents move other way around. !is problemati- into his own home. It was in this way cally places same-sex qing at the cen- that Zheng is able to ful"ll his "lial du- ter of heteroeroticism (due to its place ties as a son and also maintain his rela- in the meta-structure) and outside of it tionship with Wan. “!e narrative im- by not including it with in the chapter plies that if "lial piety is the primary proper.33 !is placement of same-sex expression of male love, no one will love as both inside and outside normal question same-sex unions.”35 !e ob- boundaries parallels the tension and ject of one’s desires, therefore, did not confusion that are expressed in both o$end society but it was the neglect- late Ming literature and society. ing of "lial duties that is often associ- !e language within the chapter ated with same-sex object choice that also omits the positive categories of leads to controversy. Wan and Zheng qing included in the other chapters of were able to circumvent this obstacle the anthology, instead replacing them by moving Zheng’s family into Wan’s with negative categories, highlighting home. the cautionary nature that surrounds For the great amount of discus- the discussion of same-sex love. In- sion same-sex love is given within terestingly though, despite the binary Anatomy, it is odd that the chapter that qing and se are supposed to cre- directly concerning same-sex love is ate, the terms are used interchange- not to be found in the index. With- ably throughout the chapter giving out reading the book one would never credence to the argument that per- know that the chapter existed. More haps qing and se are more related than importantly, even if one were to open "rst thought. !e commentator on the the book to the chapter pertaining to chapter, however, tries to reestablish same-sex love he/she would not ac- this clear boundary between the two tually be able to describe the author’s by stating that qing between men is actual feelings towards same-sex love. not possible, and that what is taken as To just read that chapter would lead qing is, in fact, a debased form of qing the reader to believe that the author comparable to se. !e reasoning be- had a negative image of same-sex love, hind this argument, according to the whereas the positive descriptions it is commentator, was that qing between given earlier in the anthology would men can only re%ect a physical attrac- be necessary to temper those nega- tion, not emotional, and that is se by tive conclusions. !e mixed opinions de"nition.34 expressed in Anatomy are yet another !e 14th chapter of Anatomy expression of the syncretism that char- comes to the rescue of Volpp’s argu- acterized late Ming culture.36 ment though, as it presents a situation !e erotic discourse that de- in which two men experience qing in veloped in the late Ming culture did the absence of physical attraction. In more than give rise to works like Hair- this chapter, a man, Wan, nurses back pins and Anatomy, as that language to health an actor, Zheng, who has lost of erotic description allowed for the his looks and, consequently, his se ap- invention of an entirely new genre, peal. !is demonstrates that qing can pornography. And while pornogra- exist in same-sex relationships inde- phy’s era was short-lived, the number pendent of se and not be debased by of works produced were many.37 Por- carnal desires. Se, therefore, exists as nography often meets with disdain in a manifestation of qing and is inher- modern culture, but it actually repre- ently a part of qing. Wan later arranges sents a critical component for the his- a marriage for the actor, Zheng, and tory of sexuality, as well as gender roles,
43 across the empire. !e government pleasure. !e story is rooted in Bud- was quick to begin censoring pornog- dhist traditions that focus on liberation raphy as it was perceived as a threat from desire, and the protagonist, Niu to the normal function of literature, Jun, is confronted by the “unrestrain- and any breakdown in the traditional able resurgence of desire itself... In this structure of society was perceived as a sense, it is the story of a revelation that threat to the government’s legitimacy. must be seen as double: the revelation It also for this reason that references to of desire is as crucial as the revelation pornographic works are not contained of desire’s vacuity.”40 !e vehicle used within many governmental works ex- to help Niu Jun achieve these revela- cept in the form of reprimand and crit- tions is the dream, a common choice icism. Because of this, Li Yu notes in of Daoists and Buddhists who wished the sixth story of his Silent Operas that to help the non-enlightened "nd the “the homoerotic [same-sex] case he is Way. !e di$erence between dream about to report is one that ‘o#cial his- sequences of traditional literature and tory doesn’t need to record, but that those of the 17th century, was that uno#cial history cannot fail to record.’ dreams were now used to delve into a Sexuality, we are told, deserves its his- person’s unconscious and carry out a tory, and it is thus the charge of "ction, personal interrogation of that individ- as ‘uno#cial history,’ to record it.”38 ual’s desires as opposed to having a re- !is is why, with a determined body ligious "gure reveal things external to of literati working to record same-sex that person.41 love, the body of works produced was Niu Jun’s dream-journey occurs proli"c, even if the age of pornogra- after his classmates at school have phy was not long-lived. Master Moon- excluded him from learning about Heart, the author of Hairpins, also au- the rites of spring, the equivalent of thored another work entitled Fragrant a Chinese sex education, because he Essences of Spring. !e work opens is too ugly. He returns home, begins with a poem by which the focus of the to dream, and is taken into another work can be determined: world where he is wildly attractive and experiences sex of all kinds. He enters ... If in the world there were no passion, a kingdom of all men (!e Kingdom of I would want it to exist; but, if the whole All-Sons), where half of the men cross- world sank into passion, then I would be anxious about dissipation because when dress as women, and he has sex with passion reaches dissipation, it is a harm for the king and falls in love. He is then the world. Dissipation belongs to passion shifted to a world of all women (!e and at the same time is what harms it. 39 Kingdom of Holy-Yin) where he im- pregnates the queen with her magic !e work thus focuses on the dan- dildo and is forced to %ee to the origi- gers inherent in passion becoming the nal all-male kingdom. He returns and, singular focus of one’s existence while as happens with all great loves and simultaneously praising its necessity last rulers of China, the king becomes for human happiness. Passion was overly infatuated with Niu Jun and the something to be performed in moder- people separate the king and his queen ation because the destructive force of (Niu Jun), who is left alone. He is then dissipation exists only in cases of over- confronted by a monk who asks him to indulgence in passion. repent. While in the process of cleans- !e last story contained in Fra- ing his body he is awakened by his ser- grant Essences is called Niu Jun, “A vant bringing him tea, only to "nd he Dreamy Ugly Boy,” and represents pas- has become handsome in reality as sion in both its forms, destruction and well. After having been the constant
44 object of desire in this dream world he All three works, Hairpins, Anat- immediately pursues his religious cul- omy, and Fragrant Essences challenge tivation to avoid further struggle with contemporary Ming ideas about gen- desire and passion.42 der, sex and sexuality. While Hairpins Same-sex overtones are present focuses on the potential for mixing throughout Niu Jun’s entire journey. and matching the gendered charac- One of the most obvious examples is teristics of the sexes, Anatomy socially his falling in love with only one per- contextualizes the environment in son, a man, the King of All-Sons. In the which same-sex love is being written Kingdom of All-Sons, reproduction about and Fragrant Essences imagines occurs by praying at a temple. Niu Jun a world in which the norm is not even went to pray for his King to have a son a possibility. Whether in%uenced by and at the temple, in a dream-within-a- the power of qing to reshape the world dream, Niu Jun fails to become aroused or motivated by a need to police sexual by the sight of the temple’s female god- conduct by making it visible, the dis- dess and a special device is neces- cursive explosion over same-sex love sary to complete the sexual encoun- in the late Ming produced a wealth of ter. While in the Kingdom of Holy-Yin, literature critical to the reconstruction the King (a woman) is thrilled at actu- of the late Ming mentality. ally getting the chance to experience sex with a man (as opposed to using her magic dildo) but is disappointed CONCLUSION to "nd that “Queen Niu” is, yet again, Instances of same-sex love have unable to become aroused by her and existed across cultures and time but she thus decides to sodomize him in- have manifested themselves in ways stead.43 !ese experiences openly dis- that may not be recognizable by mod- play same-sex love and make it the ern standards and categories. It is im- most desirable outcome, running portant, therefore, to contextualize counter to traditional behaviors of the one’s investigation into the existence of late Ming. Not only, however, did Niu any same-sex tradition and to be open Jun choose to have a same-sex rela- to ways of thinking that are seem dif- tionship, but he was entirely unable ferent or strange. !e same-sex tradi- to have a heterosexual encounter. His tion in late Ming China de"es conclu- inability to participate in a heterosex- sion and perhaps that is the point. !e ual relationship further demonstrates syncretism that informed the thought literature’s ability to create scenarios of the time prevents one from mak- that the then-modern mind would not ing a broad-sweeping statement with have imagined to exist, thus giving vis- which to summarize the period, and ibility to previously unrecognized and in that state of inde"niteness is how it ignored members of society. should remain.
45 END NOTES 1. Volpp, Sophie. “Classifying Lust: !e Seventeenth-Century Vogue for Male Love.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. Vol. 61, No. 1. (Jun., 2001), 91-92. 2. Hinsch, Bret. Passions of the Cut Sleeve: !e Male Homosexual Tradition in China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990, 4. 3. Hinsch, pp. 20-21. 4. Hinsch, p. 36. 5. Hinsch, p. 53. 6. Sommer, Matthew H. “!e Penetrated Male in Late Imperial China: Judicial Constructions and Social Stigma.” Modern China. Vol. 23, No. 2. (Apr., 1997) p. 144. 7. Sommer, 1997, 142. 8. Sommer, 1997, 140. 9. Sommer, 1997, 143. 10. Sommer, 1997, 144. 11. Sommer, 1997, 145 12. Sommer, 1997, 171. 13. Sommer, 1997, 172. 14. Vitiello, Giovanni. “Exemplary Sodomites: Chivalry and Love in Late Ming Culture.” Nan Nü 2.2 (2000) p. 209. 15. Vitiello, 2002. pp. 210-211. 16. Vitiello, Giovanni. “!e Fantastic Journey of an Ugly Boy: Homosexuality and Salvation in Late Ming Pornography.” Positions. 4:2 (1996) p. 296 17. Volpp, 2001, 79-80. 18. Volpp, 2001, 84-85. 19. Vitiello, 2000, 211. 20. McMahon, Keith. “Eroticism in Late Ming, Early Qing Fiction: the Beauteous Realm and the Sexual Battle#eld.” T’oung Pao. LXXIII (1987) p. 229. 21. McMahon, 1987, 230. 22. Vitiello, 2000, 228. 23. McMahon, 1987, 230. 24. McMahon, 1987, 231-232. 25. Vitiello, 2000, 232. 26. Vitiello, 2000, 234. 27. McMahon, 1987, 232-233. 28. McMahon, 1987, 233.
46 29. Vitiello, 2000, 235. 30. McMahon, 1987, 233-234. 31. Vitiello, 1996, 295 32. Volpp, 2001, 102-103. 33. Volpp, 2001, 103-104. 34. Volpp, 2001, 105-106. 35. Volpp, 2001, 106-107. 36. Vitiello, 1996, 305-306. 37. Vitiello, 1996, 295. 38. Vitiello, 1996, 297-298. 39. Vitiello, 1996, 300. 40. Vitiello, 1996, 301. 41. Vitiello, 1996, 301. 42. Vitiello, 1996, 305-306. 43. Vitiello, 1996, 308-309.
47 48 THE JOURNAL OF UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH University of Kansas | Summer 2008
Queen of Hearts (and Communications) How Elizabeth I and Princess Diana Related With !eir Publics
Queen Elizabeth I once said, “We opinion. Diana, however, appeared in come for the hearts and allegiance of the media after her death as a woman our subjects.”1 More than 400 years “empowered” and overcoming obsta- later, Princess Diana expressed a sim- cles. Examining their public relations ilar sentiment during a BBC inter- strategies illustrates how these women view: “I’d like to be a queen of people’s in positions of national power (or in hearts.”2 !ese comments highlight a Diana’s case, in the national spotlight) certain irony in that these historical depended upon the media to shape "gures never met the vast majority of their image for their publics — the the people who were having their af- people of Britain — and ultimately, fections so pursued. Both women, the world. therefore, relied upon public relations !e research methods combined strategies through whatever media several disciplines — from literary and outlets existed at the time. historicist criticism to strategic jour- Elizabeth, as the established nalism, particularly contemporary monarch, tended to use her public re- public relations research. To under- lations to react to events as they oc- stand both women’s di$erent public curred during her reign. Diana, as the relations approaches, one must distin- challenger to the established monar- guish between proactive and reactive chy, relied more upon proactive pub- public relations. !e Webster’s New lic relations to try to set agendas and World Dictionary of Media and Com- create public responses. Literary and munications de"nes reactive public historical analyses indicate that these relations as “[a]n after-the-fact cam- di$ering approaches in%uenced the paign ... conducted in response to immediate media reactions to these events that have already occurred.”3 historical "gures after they died. !e Robert Heath, in his study of strategic media response over Elizabeth’s death issues management, explains that a re- was muted and her achievements active approach “focuses on the search minimized. Only later did Elizabeth for obstacles.”4 experience a resurgence in public !e Elizabethan administration
SHANXI UPSDELL is a 2008 graduate from the English Department at the University of Kansas.
49 was generally reactive in searching for on by gossip, letter, or print.”7 Impor- challenges to its authority. For exam- tantly, written materials reinforced ple, writers of sixteenth-century his- traditional oral communications, as torical chronicles, or “histories” of the alehouses became “provincial post English monarchs, experienced gov- o#ces” for knowledgeable writers in ernmental pressure to write favorably London to send “private correspon- of the regimes in power. Richard Lant dence” to their friends in the rural the chronicler “was sent ‘to warde’ areas. !ese would become fodder for for publishing an Epitaphe upon the oral transmission in the provinces. Fi- Death of Quene Marie”; afterward, nally, because both verbal and written “[t]he ballad was later tactfully altered intelligence at the time were easily dis- to include verses in praise of Eliza- torted or inaccurate, “there was often beth.”5 little qualitative di$erence between the Another news outlet consisted sources of the educated elite and those of the Elizabethan news pamphlet, readily available to the lower orders.” or news quarto. Paul Voss writes that Political and national news would cir- news quartos began to appear in great culate through domestic and personal numbers when civil war broke out in gossip, including “[a]llegations about 1589 in France. !ese pamphlets sent people’s personal lives and sexual mis- from France to London painted grue- demeanors.” For example, one rumor some details of the war and warned in the early years of Elizabeth’s reign readers “about the dangers of civil claimed that her brother, Edward VI, con%ict.” Voss argues that most news had been wrongfully imprisoned in pamphlets were not state-manufac- the Tower of London, thus challenging tured reports even though they re- her queenly authority; another rumor %ected such “orthodox positions” as suggested she had given birth to sev- patriotism and civil order, thus serv- eral children from an alliance with the ing government interests. !e people earl of Leicester, Robert Dudley.8 who produced these quartos included All these forms of mass commu- servants, printers, publishers, mes- nication, because of their extent and sengers, translators, and scribes. Like abundance, suggest that the Elizabe- modern-day newspapers, these were than government was less e$ective “ephemeral publications not intended — and also less interested — in cen- to survive” because of the nature of sorship than has been commonly sup- their news.6 posed. Instead of a massive campaign Other Elizabethan forms of mass that examined all books before publi- communication, which shall be con- cation, Susan Clegg writes, about half sidered uno#cial media outlets, in- of all texts printed during Elizabeth’s cluded slanderous rumors and “li- reign in England did not receive gov- bels,” or what Fritz Levy describes as ernment scrutiny — censors keeping “placards, manuscript poems circu- largely to areas of “personality, patron- lated among friends or posted in con- age, and national interest.” Clegg also spicuous places — in other words, investigates the eleven royal procla- informal, uno#cial, and highly unreg- mations concerning censorship during ulated publication” that the govern- Elizabeth’s reign to conclude that their ment could not control. !ese appear e$ectiveness to censor printed texts to be the tabloid’s ancient ancestors. has been overestimated, as they “held News now “replaced (or at least sup- no force in the common law courts.” plemented) clothes as the new so- Furthermore, Elizabethan subjects did cial marker... . [Informants] became not always comply with censorship the market for news, whether passed regulations. Clegg records the public’s
50 !e “Rainbow Portrait” of Elizabeth I by Isaac Oliver can be viewed at Hat#eld House in Hertfordshire, England. !is image, courtesy of marileecody.com, depicts the queen (who was then in her 60s) as an ageless archetype of Astraea, “the virginal heroine of classical literature.” From: http://www.marileecody.com/eliz1-images.html. response to Elizabeth’s proclamation ship and image control — more “reac- in 1573 requesting that books of re- tive rather than proactive” in its public ligious reform be surrendered to the relations.9 queen’s Privy Council or to the bishop As these and other “slanders” in- of the diocese: “Archbishop Parker creased during the last years of Eliza- complained ... ‘Her Majesty’s procla- beth’s reign — the time, Christopher mation took none e$ect: not one book Haigh contends, when Elizabeth was brought in.’ ” !is historical evidence most reactive in her press relations — suggests that the Elizabethan policies so did the state’s restrictions on pub- of prohibition and censorship — both lic expression.10 One servant, a Henry extremely reactive public relations Collins, was imprisoned in 1592 for strategies — had limited e$ectiveness. threatening to kill the queen. An- Opportunities for negative portray- other laborer, !omas Farryngton, de- als of the queen existed, though not to clared in 1598 that the queen was “An- the same extent and degree as in the tichrist” — a remark that earned him twentieth century. As a result, Clegg time in the pillory and caused his ears describes the Elizabethan administra- to be cropped.11 I would argue that the tion as incapable of complete censor- queen’s withdrawal from public com-
51 munications during the years before and controlling events to in%uence her death directly a$ected the pop- their outcome.16 Peter Stothard, for- ular perception of Elizabeth I when mer editor of !e Times, writes that she died. Because Elizabeth did not Diana showed an acute sophistication take proactive steps to establish strong about media relationships to be “as ‘on public relations among her subjects in message’ as the most disciplined de- her declining years, many responded termined New Labour apparatchik.”17 with indi$erence or even contempt After Diana’s separation from to her death. Haigh writes that on the Charles, Jude Davies argues that the evening of March 25, 1603, when Eliza- former Princess of Wales “sought to beth’s death was announced, the gen- develop a more dynamic and in%u- eral populace lit bon"res and street ential public role” by identifying her- parties in celebration of James’ acces- self more “as a businesswoman or an sion to the throne. Only afterward in independent divorcee.” Interestingly, the 1630s did several writers, now dis- Davies writes that newspapers such as illusioned with Stuart kings, laud her the Daily Mirror and the Mail helped as “the paragon of all princely virtues support this reimaging with newspa- — principled, as James had not been, per features, headlined with titles such and wise, as Charles had not been.”12 as “Diana — the business” and “Diana: In contrast, a proactive approach her own woman.” Books such as the involves “anticipating a situation and controversial 1992 Diana: Her True being prepared to execute a planned Story by Andrew Morton portrayed communications program (such as an Diana as a victim of an “oppressively advertising campaign).”13 Issues man- patriarchal” monarchy who had now agement is a two-way process — com- overcome that institutional repression municators fare better if they provide “to generate a redeeming and em- information that their audience wants powering relationship with the public to hear. For businesses and other orga- through her image.”18 It is interesting to nizations to survive and thrive, Heath note that Andrew Morton, less than a writes that they “must respond with week after her death, claimed that his information each public wants.”14 !e source for the book had been Diana Princess of Wales showed a remark- herself.19 able readiness to provide details of As a result, posthumous media her life that she expected would in- representations have tended to em- terest her audience — including her phasize this portrayal of Diana as bouts with bulimia and her rocky rela- evolving along “a trajectory from weak- tionships with the House of Windsor.15 ness and naïveté to strength through Michael Levine contends that Diana the control of appearance.” !rough showed her most proactive public re- it, Diana is given personal agency over lations strategy during the now-fa- deciding what sort of image to proj- mous 1996 BBC Panorama interview ect through her clothing and physical — proceeding without the Queen’s appearance — “coming to power over o#cial permission or knowledge and self-representation.”20 After her death, thus “defying royal precedent.” Levine Diana is characterized no longer as quotes Richard Greene as declaring an empty airhead, but as an indepen- that the interview was “PR at its best, a dent woman who “eventually used her brilliant move to have everything con- power to confront the in"delity of her trolled, from keeping the interview to husband and the failings of the Royal one hour to picking who would ask the Family.”21 !is may be a type of wish- questions.” !is is the essence of pro- ful"llment on the part of the media, active public relations — anticipating especially after the negative atten-
52 !ese photos of book covers about Diana illustrate the %uid public image of the Princess of Wales during her lifetime. Scholars such as Jude Davies and Michael Levine have explored the history of Diana’s iconic persona, from “shy Di” to the now-famous “Queen of Hearts.” tion that the paparazzi drew after Di- the “similar emotions visible amongst ana’s death. But it is signi"cant that Di- very many of the (visible) public” to ana’s handling of the press, while alive, conclude that “everyone thought and holds strong potential for media ma- felt alike.”22 nipulation. !e in%uence of Elizabeth and Some scholars argue that Diana’s Diana’s di$ering public relations ap- proactive relationship with the media, proaches upon their post-mortem im- therefore, led to the apparent mass ages cannot be extended beyond the hysteria that followed Diana’s death. J. immediate aftermath of their deaths. Mallory Wober writes that Great Brit- Scholar John Watkins notes, “What "- ain “was not, after all, as it had been nally allowed writers to sustain their described in the week and month contradictory admiration for the after the death, universally wrung out Queen of famous memory was their in grief.” Wober argues that print and ever greater historical distance from broadcast media helped whip up a her.” !us, Elizabeth I underwent “feeding frenzy” during the week be- many image makeovers in the rela- tween her death and her funeral, with tively short period of Stuart England. “special editions looking back on Di- During James’ reign, people wanted ana’s life and analyzing most conceiv- to link him with Elizabeth to provide able aspects of it” as well as focusing an appearance of “sovereign continu- on the visible crowds, “who soon be- ity to mitigate the experience of dynas- came an important part of the news.” tic rupture,” conveniently minimizing In this way, Wober contends that the the king’s “foreign birth, his inexpe- media reinforced the notion of a pub- rience with English legal institutions, lic uni"ed in its grief by reporting on his descent from Mary, Queen of Scots
53 and the Guises, and recurrent suspi- verge according to people’s ever-fainter cions that he might be soft on Catho- recollections of her life. Interestingly, lics.” Still later, proto-constitutional- the memories appear to be falling the ists desiring to limit the monarchy’s opposite way to the post-mortem im- power tried to mold Elizabeth’s image ages of Elizabeth I — overwhelmingly as “an advocate of the rights of free- passionate and loyal at "rst, but slowly born Englishmen,” presenting her not waning to a more tempered, dispas- as “a powerful monarch whose admin- sionate approach. Jill Chancey argues istrative brilliance sealed her people’s that avenues for negative representa- a$ections” but as “a queen in a perpet- tions of Diana in the media appeared ual state of abdication” in favor of em- to decline after she died. Chancey powering her citizens. During the Res- writes that “the living and compli- toration period, speculations about cated Diana de"ned by scandals, eat- Elizabeth’s private life exploded with ing disorders, and friction within the the publication of “secret histories,” royal family” has slowly been altered or novels claiming to reveal her secret to a "gure more like the traditional fai- romances. Watkins argues that nov- rytale princess, “codi"ed ... as mother, els such as !e Secret History of the princess, wife, humanitarian, beau- Most Renowned Q. Elizabeth and the tiful, and never, ever, ‘inappropriate’ E. of Essex recast the queen as a celeb- or ‘unfeminine.’”25 As a result, Diana’s rity "gure: “For an emerging bourgeois image loses any threat it may once readership, Elizabeth’s politics mat- have posed to the royal establishment. tered less than her identity as a woman Immediately after Diana’s death, CNN who transgressed increasingly rigid documented intense loyalty to Diana, assumptions about women’s place then seen as an antagonist to the tra- in society.” Because of her many im- ditional monarchy, in the form of anti- ages, Elizabeth could play virtually any royal sentiment — one poll showing role from “virtuous princess perpetu- public approval of the queen at 47 per- ally mourning her mother’s death to a cent, with Prince Charles at less than homicidal fury poisoning her erotic ri- 33 percent. A 2007 poll, however, gave vals.”23 It is important to note, however, the queen an 80 percent approval rat- that images of Elizabeth were predom- ing, with Prince Charles at 62 per- inantly negative immediately after her cent.26 If Diana’s public relations cam- death. Some reports of her deathbed paign had worked to win sympathy at suggest she was torn up with guilt over the expense of the royal family’s pub- the Earl of Essex’s execution, the be- lic image, her death e$ectively quelled heading of Mary, Queen of Scots, or that strategy for the long term. Ten her refusal of the Earl of Leicester’s years later, Michael Elliott speculated courtship. One of the Queen’s ladies- in a TIME magazine article that Di- in-waiting, Lady Southwell, recounted ana’s death instituted an “age of emo- that her “disemboweled, putrefying tion” in traditionally stoic Britain with body exploded in its casket,” which its legacy of Victorian reserve. After con"rmed to then-living Catholics that the 2005 terrorist attacks in Britain, Elizabeth’s “Protestant corruption” Elliott writes, this emotional open- had consumed her physical remains. ness subsided and Britain returned Only afterward was she presented in to its former stoicism as “the virtues more favorable and endearing images, of reason, reserve and order became showing the ephemeral nature of pub- apparent.” Elliott argues that after the lic memories.24 brief, intense mania over the Princess Likewise, the collective “memo- of Wales’ funeral, Britain was right to ries” of Diana are also beginning to di- adapt to “sterner times than the mid-
54 1990s,” concluding that “[y]ou can’t ics that appealed to a wide variety of fuel a society on %owers alone.” !is cultures and tastes gave her power to tribute to Diana mutes the sentimen- set agendas for press coverage and tality of the immediate mourning pe- elicited far more public support for her riod and downplays the manipulative, than the traditional monarchy ever re- skillful edge that Diana demonstrated ceived during her life. A proactive ap- in her interactions with the media dur- proach thus tends to make people ap- ing her lifetime.27 pear powerful, especially in the short A reactive approach to public re- term. !e outpouring of media atten- lations, as demonstrated by Eliza- tion helped Diana seem more in%uen- beth I, tends to minimize that person’s tial immediately after her death than achievements in the public eye simply she really was. !e royal family’s re- because the public may not recognize newed approval ratings, more than 10 or appreciate them. Elizabeth focused years after Diana’s funeral, belie the mainly on countering obstacles to her mass mourning that occurred in 1997. administration; this strategy, however, !ese two women who both did not prove overwhelmingly e$ec- wanted to win the hearts of their re- tive. Her subjects found ways to avoid spective publics — separated by time compliance with her authority, espe- and technology — di$ered radically in cially in her last years on the throne. their public relations methods, result- Only later, in the long term, have peo- ing in outcomes almost completely ple begun to rediscover the signi"- opposed to each other. Only time cance of Elizabeth’s actions in the con- will tell whether Diana enjoys any- text of the educational, social, and thing close to the kind of post-mortem political upheavals that were then tak- fame that Elizabeth I has encountered ing place in early modern England. throughout the centuries. Neverthe- A proactive approach to public less, their professed desire to rule over relations, as exempli"ed by Diana’s the “hearts” of their subjects provides experience, has immediate and often an unusual bridge between the Virgin dramatic results. As Diana demon- Queen and the Princess of Wales. strated, engaging the media over top-
END NOTES 1. Hibbert, Christopher, !e Virgin Queen: Elizabeth I, Genius of the Golden Age (Cambridge: Perseus, 1991), 133. 2. PBS, “Diana’s 1995 BBC interview.” !e Princess and the Press, 1995 13 April 2007
55 34-35, 37, 8, 25, 13, 54, 61, 13, 20. 7. Levy, Fritz, “!e Decorum of News,” Prose Studies 21.2 (1998), 21, 17. 8. Fox, Adam, “Rumour, News and Popular Political Opinion in Elizabethan and Early Stuart England,” !e Historical Journal 40.3 (1997), 608, 609, 598, 601, 614, 598. 9. Clegg, Cyndia Susan, Press Censorship in Elizabethan England (Cambridge: University Press, 1997), 19, 31, 67, 72. 10. Haigh, Christopher, Elizabeth I (Singapore: Longman, 1998), 165. 11. Levin, Carole, “!e Heart and Stomach of a King”: Elizabeth I and the Politics of Sex and Power (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994), 116, 117. 12. Haigh, 162, 168. 13. Weiner, 473. 14. Heath ,191. 15. Stothard, Peter, “A Perrier With the Princess,” Times Online, Sept. 2, 1997, 4 March 2008
56 THE JOURNAL OF UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH University of Kansas | Summer 2008
Fabrication of Semiconductors by Wet Chemical Etch
Selective Etching of GaAs Over InGaP in Dilute H2SO4:H2O2
Fabrication engineering of semi- terial. !e plasma etch process is car- conductor devices has made possi- ried out in a chamber in which a gas ble optoelectronic instruments, laser mixture is partially ionized to create diodes and wireless communica- a plasma, or glow discharge. High en- tion devices among many other mod- ergy ions in the plasma bombard the ern devices. Beginning with Bardeen, semiconductor material and chemi- Brittain and Shockley’s invention of cally reactive components in the gas the transistor in Bell Labs in 1947 and mixture form etch products with the Kilby and Noyce’s introduction of the semiconductor. !e process produces integrated circuit about a decade later, accurately etched features and is one semiconductor devices have dramat- of the primary reasons for the reduc- ically advanced the computing and tion in device size that has made tech- electronics industries. nology such as cell phones and laptop Semiconducting materials, such computers possible. as silicon, germanium, gallium ar- senide, and indium phosphide, are INTRODUCTION neither good insulators nor good con- Semiconductors such as InGaP ductors, but they have intrinsic electri- and InGaAsSb are important for light- cal properties so that by controlled ad- emitting devices as well as communi- dition of impurities, their conductivity cations devices and electronics. Fab- can be altered. With the need to manu- rication of these devices is achieved facture devices at the micro- and nano- by plasma etching in which an ion- scale, the semiconductor industry has ized gas mixture etches the substrate followed “Moore’s Law,” the trend that by both chemical reaction and phys- the number of transistors placed on ical bombardment. In plasma etch- an integrated circuit increases expo- ing for these purposes, indium prod- nentially about every two years. Pro- ucts are not as volatile and are usually duction of the tiny features to create more di#cult to remove than other these integrated circuits is achieved by semiconductor materials. For this ex- plasma etching of semiconductor ma- periment, only wafers with an existing
LAURA FRANCOVIGLIA is a senior in chemical engineering at the University of Kansas.
57 epitaxial GaAs cap layer grown over Delta Si Doping 1.1E12/cm2 an underlying InGaP layer were avail- Superlattice Buffer GaAs Buffer able. For the development of an In- S.I. GaAs Substrate ductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) etch process for the InGaP layer, the top Epi Layer Structures of V3339 GaAs layer must "rst be etched o$ to 350 Å GaAs 5E18 Si Doping (Top) expose the underlying InGaP layer. A 400 Å GaAs 1E17 Si Doping common technique used to do this is- 130 Å InGaP not intentionally doped (i) nvolves a selective wet chemical etch Delta Si Doping 4.4E12/cm2 that will remove the GaAs layer with- 30 Å AlGaAs not intentionally doped (i) out etching or damaging the InGaP 130 Å InGaAs not intentionally doped (i) 1 30 Å AlGaAs not intentionally doped (i) layer. Determining the selectivity and Delta Si Doping 1.1E12/cm2 etch rate for removing the GaAs layer Superlattice Buffer are the primary goals of chemical wet GaAs Buffer etch development. Once this has been S.I. GaAs Substrate accomplished, a “recipe” for remov- ing the epitaxial GaAs layer can be cre- ated. EXPERIMENTAL Chemical wet etching selectively Using a 1:8:640 chemical wet etch removes the cap layer of the wafer solution of H2SO4:H2O2:deionized through a series of chemical reactions water, an etch rate of 10 Å/s was ex- in a liquid solution. For this etch pro- pected to remove the 750Å GaAs epi- cess, H2SO4:H2O2:deionized water, a taxial layer and an etch rate of ~ 0 Å/s common solution for removing GaAs, was expected in the InGaP layer. !ese was used in the proportions of 1:8:640. results would be indicative of good se- !e reaction occurs in a sequence of lectivity. steps involving an oxidation reaction of the hydroxide ions when the semi- conductor is immersed in an electro- lyte system to produce Ga2O3 and As2O3. !ese oxides dissolve in the acid of the etchant solution and form soluble salts.2 Wafer samples with a 750Å cap layer of GaAs on top, middle layer of InGaP and thick base layer of GaAs were used. !e layer structure of these wafers is shown below. Later etching will use InGaAsSb wafers. However, because indium is the most di#cult Fig. 1 is a simpli#ed representation of the layer to etch, InGaP is a good starting layers of the wafer. On top of the wafer point. is photoresist. !e gap in between the photoresist has been developed in such way Epi Layer Structures of V3338 that the wafer is ready for chemical wet 350 Å GaAs 5E18 Si Doping (Top) etching in that region. 400 Å GaAs 1E17 Si Doping 160 Å InGaP not intentionly doped (i) Delta Si Doping 4.4E12/cm2 30 Å AlGaAs not intentionally doped (i) 130 Å InGaAs not intentionally doped (i) 30 Å AlGaAs not intentionally doped (i)
58 Before etching the wafers, a pat- to get a baseline, pre-etch, topograph- tern must "rst be imprinted on the ical pro"le of the photoresist for each wafer surface so that a contrast can sample. In taking this measurement, be seen between the etched and non- it was possible to determine the fea- etched areas. Photolithography, a pro- ture depth prior to etching. It was sus- cess similar to "lm exposure, was used pected that the etch solution would to imprint the pattern by using a mask attack the photoresist as well as the to create an image on the wafers in wafer. !e baseline measurement was a light-sensitive, protective layer of a preparatory step to establish the ini- polymer material called photoresist. tial thickness of photoresist. !e wa- !e photoresist used was Microposit fers were then dipped into a 1:30 so- S1818. !e wafers were exposed using lution of NH4OH:deionized water and a mask aligner, which is a UV exposure agitated for about 45 seconds, rinsed system, and were tested under various in deionized water and blown dry with exposure times until well de"ned fea- nitrogen in order to remove native tures were seen on the wafer surfaces. oxide. An adequate exposure time was 75 sec- !e exposed wafers were then onds for the mask aligner used. (Light cleaved into two or three pieces, so intensity can be controlled to help de- that more data would be available for termine proper exposure time, but for analysis. !e etch solution of 1:8:640 this experiment the intensity poten- of H2SO4:H2O2:deionized water was tiometer was not available, therefore prepared under the hood in manage- a trial-and-error method had to be able proportions of 0.2:1.6:128 mL. used.) After exposure, the wafers were Samples were individually immersed developed in a NaOH-based solution. in the etch solution and gently agi- tated. !ree etch times were used: 35, !e following is a description of 75 and 110 seconds. !e lower and the photolithography and develop- upper ranges from the expected etch ment procedure: time of 75 seconds were used to help verify the etch rate and selectivity. r$MFBWFXBGFSJOUPDNYDNTBNQMFTVTJOH After etching, the wafers were mea- UXFF[FSTBOETDSJCF sured again using the pro"lometer to r$MFBOVTJOHJTPQSPQBOPM BDFUPOFBOEBHBJOJTP- QSPQBOPMJOBCBUIPOBIPUQMBUFBU$GPS compare to the pre-etch results and minutes each estimate etch depth. r#MPXESZXJUIOJUSPHFO r$PBUTBNQMFTXJUIQIPUPSFTJTUVTJOHTQJOOFSBU 3700 rpm for 30 seconds RESULTS AND DISCUSSION r 4PGU CBLF TBNQMFT PO IPUQMBUF GPS NJOVUF BU$ Results were inconclusive after r&YQPTFTBNQMFTVOEFSNBTLBMJHOFSGPSTFD- the "rst round of the etch process. It onds appeared that the wet etch solution r 1PTU CBLF TBNQMFT PO IPUQMBUF GPS NJOVUF did not selectively etch the wafers. BU$ It was hypothesized that the wafers r%FWFMPQTBNQMFTCZBHJUBUJOHJO/B0)CBTFE developer for 1 minute could have been upside down, mean- r 3JOTF XBGFST JO EFJPOJ[FE XBUFS GPS TFD- ing that the thicker, bottom layer of onds GaAs was being etched instead of the r#MPXESZXJUIOJUSPHFO 750Å top layer. In the second round r6TFNJDSPTDPQFUPMPPLGPSIJHIEFàOJUJPOPG of the etch process, care was taken to features patterned onto samples mark the bottom sides of each sam- ple using a scribe. A control wafer was !e developed wafers were mea- also used in the second round, which sured with a pro"lometer (Dektak II) was purposefully %ipped bottom side
59 up for etching. In the second round, a ing the wafers with nitrogen. !e pro- sample from each wafer type was also cess was repeated until all of the pho- used. toresist was removed. !e wafers were Because the etch solution attacked then measured again with the pro- the photoresist, which can be seen in "lometer to determine the actual etch the negative etch rates in Fig. 3 and in rate and depth. Reproducible etch etch depths greater than 750Å in Fig. rates were achieved as shown in Fig. 4, the wafers had to be stripped of the 3. !e etch rate for samples stripped of PR to measure accurate etch depths. PR averaged 8.37Å/s with a standard !is was done by agitating the wafers deviation of 0.92Å/s, which was near in acetone for 2 minutes, rinsing with the expected etch rate of 10Å/s. methanol for 2 minutes, and blow dry-
Fig. 2 is an example of the results from the pro#lometer, which gives a cross-sectional view of the wafer. !is sample was in the etchant for 110 seconds and was stripped of photoresist. !e results show that this particular sample was etched to a depth of 751Å. Because measurements were taken in angstroms (1 x 10-10 m), some experimental error is to be expected using the instruments available. !ere may also be slight variations in the thickness of the grown layers.
!e second round of the etch pro- that required to remove the GaAs layer cess showed that the 750Å GaAs layer still resulted in the same etch depth. was selectively etched in the H2SO4: In Fig. 4 the etch selectivity is demon- H2O2:deionized water solution with strated in the measurement without an average etch rate of 8.6 Å/s after re- photoresist where the curve levels o$. gression analysis to "nd the best "t for At this point, all of the GaAs layer was the data. !e results also concluded etched away leaving the underlying that the wet etch stopped at the InGaP InGaP layer was exposed. layer since an etch time greater than
60 Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Depth Etched
2000
1500
Change in Depth (with PR, 1000 Angstroms) Depth After (no PR, Angstroms) Depth Predicted
500 Depth Etched ( Ǻ ) Depth Fitted
0
-500 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 Etch Time
61 CONCLUSIONS di#cult layer to plasma etch, InGaP, AND FUTURE WORK which can be etched by Reactive Ion A selective wet etch process to re- Etching (RIE) in an Inductively Cou- move GaAs epitaxial cap layers from pled Plasma (ICP). Finally, the study of underlying InGaP layers has been de- InGaP plasma etch rates will lead the veloped using a solution of H2SO4: way for study of InGaAsSb etch rates, H2O2:deionized water at a rate of ~8.6 an important semiconductor used Å/s. In future work, this etch will be in applications such as mid-infrared used to prepare wafers for the most laser diodes.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS !is research was made possible with the guidance of Dr. Karen Nordheden, the advising professor. Bogdan Pathak, graduate student advisor, provided limitless patience and support in training and data analysis, and Mike Santilli, postdoctoral research advisor, also provided expertise and training support in the photolithography process. Gratitude is also due to Dr. Ming-Yih Kao of TriQuint Semiconductor who provided the chemical wet etch recipe and to the University of Kansas Chemical and Petroleum Engineering Undergraduate Research Program.
END NOTES 1. Campbell, Stephen A. !e Science and Engineering of Microelectronic Fabrication. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. 2. Ghandhi, Sorab K. VLSI Fabrication Principles: Silicon and Gallium Arsenide. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 1994.
62 THE JOURNAL OF UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH University of Kansas | Summer 2008
Focus on Faculty Dr. Paul Hanson, Chemistry Department
With knowledge of the human Dr. Hanson is extremely in%uen- body increasing daily, methods of tial in the classroom as well. Always a pharmaceutical synthesis are in a student favorite, he has taught both se- constant struggle to keep up. Dis- mesters of the undergraduate organic eases and other a&ictions are identi- chemistry course for the last two years, "ed much more rapidly than their an- and previously was the instructor for tidotes can be devised and e#ciently the organic chemistry lab course. He manufactured in the lab. Even drugs has also taught numerous graduate that already exist are constantly being level classes, mostly dealing with ad- improved upon and optimized to in- vanced organic synthesis methods. crease their e$ectiveness. In this con- While Dr. Hanson always enjoyed text, the research conducted by Dr. the sciences, he had not identi"ed Paul Hanson takes on a particular im- chemistry as his career path until late portance. in high school. After thoroughly enjoy- Since joining the Chemistry De- ing the concepts and laboratory work partment at the University of Kansas of his high school chemistry course, in 1996, Dr. Hanson has concentrated Dr. Hanson decided to pursue chemis- on devising new methods for the gen- try in his post-secondary studies. After eration of molecular building blocks he received a Bachelor of Arts degree for pharmaceutical purposes. A major from Luther College in 1985, Dr. Han- project in his group has been the pro- son moved on to the University of Min- duction of organic ring structures con- nesota to complete his graduate work taining unique components such as and obtained a Ph.D. in 1993. Prior to phosphorous and sulfur. !ese rings, coming to KU, he was a post-doctoral termed heterocycles because of their fellow at Stanford University for three atypical atoms, are of distinct phar- years. maceutical relevance. !e molecules As an undergraduate researcher have inherent chemical properties in Dr. Hanson’s group, one should not that make them ideal components for expect to be treated as inferior. During drug synthesis. !e Hanson group also his time at Minnesota and Stanford, focuses on methods involving transi- Dr. Hanson began to truly value the tion metal catalysis, natural product mentor-mentee environment in the synthesis, molecular libraries, and im- lab. He maintains that the best way to mobilized reagents. learn a topic is to teach someone else,
RYAN ELLIS is a senior in chemical engineering at the University of Kansas.
63 and he encourages his graduate stu- apply his learning through teaching dents and post-docs to get involved in philosophy, Dr. Hanson o$ers those the education of undergraduates. Be- undergraduates who are particularly cause of this, he readily invites inter- successful with their research to men- ested undergraduates to try their hand tor younger students entering the lab. at organic chemistry research. To date, Dr. Hanson insists that with the Dr. Hanson has more than twenty indi- proper training, undergraduate re- viduals working is his lab, with nearly search can be an extremely reward- half of those being undergraduates. ing endeavor. Occasionally, it allows Of course, the level of responsibil- students to see a project through from ity given to undergraduates in the Han- beginning to end, which Hanson "nds son Lab requires a certain amount of particularly valuable. He asserts that e$ort on the part of the student. When students often fall in love with the "rst brought onboard, undergradu- problem solving and critical thinking ates should expect to spend numerous involved with laboratory work, and hours being trained regarding organic frequently pursue this interest as a ca- chemistry techniques. !e chemical reer. reactions run in Dr. Hanson’s lab re- !ough the drugs synthesized quire a relatively high level of exper- using Dr. Hanson’s building blocks tise to e$ectively accomplish experi- will always change, his role in educa- mental goals. tion at the University of Kansas will re- While this sounds like a daunting main constant. A respected teacher, task, pro"ciency in organic synthetic talented researcher, and caring men- methods is a more than attainable tor, Dr. Hanson will hopefully continue goal for a motivated student genuinely to foster the intellectual growth of KU interested in research. Continuing to students for years to come.
64