Fall 2013 Contents Tufts Magazine Fall 2013 Vol
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FALL 2013 CONTENTS TUFTS MAGAZINE FALL 2013 VOL. XXI, NO.1 16 Up in Arms BY COLIN WOODARD, A91 The complicated roots of American violence “ To understand violence or practically any other divisive issue, you need to under- stand historical settlement patterns and the lasting cultural fissures they established.” To create the bullet hole on our cover, Christopher Harting fired a Walther 23 The Power of Soft Power BY MICHAEL BLANDING PK380 handgun at an actual magazine and photographed As NATO supreme commander, James Stavridis, F83, F84, the damage. helped redefine the role of the military. Now he brings his fresh thinking to Tufts, as dean of the Fletcher School. ILLUSTRATION: BRIAN STAUFFER (UP IN ARMS); SEAN MCCABE (SING ON!); PHOTO: CONOR DOHERTY (HEALING ART) 28 Sing On! Departments BY DAVID MENCONI 2 The Editorial We Beyond optimism “Over the Beelzebubs’ 3 Letters half-century of musicmaking, no group 5 Planet Tufts has been more influential in defining and Oliver Platt’s nomadic youth 5 expanding a cappella’s sound and style.” Comics meet brain science 8 Tufts Days: Lil at the till 10 How fish swim 11 Brilliant! (Jumbo startups) 13 32 Healing Art BY HUGH HOWARD, A74 Laurels 14 Tiarna Doherty, J97, chief conservator at the Smithsonian 44 Wellness American Art Museum, is part chemist, part painter, “Gluten-free” facts, dental hyp- part sleuth. nosis, allergic pets, and more 46 Creations She’s with the chorus 38 Punching Above Our Weight 49 News & Notes BY HEATHER STEPHENSON The class of ’68 pulls together James Stern, E72, A07P, has spent three decades watching 70 Advancement Tufts’ ascent into the big time from his front-row seat as a member, and then chair, of the Board of Trustees. 74 Take It from Me Your tips on love poetry, leading teams, Google ads, and more 70 Afterimage Fine-art superhero Think Tank 41 SCHOLAR AT LARGE Discovering the MOOC BY SOL GIttLEMAN 42 MIND AND SPIRIT Is it grief or depression? BY RONALD PIES 43 KIDS THESE DAYS Parenting with a positive spin 32 BY W. GEORGE ScARLEtt THE EDITORIAL WE Beyond Optimism Magazine is the glass half empty or half full? careful, it’s a trick question. You are being asked to declare VolUme XXI, NUmbeR 1 allegiance to one of two rather questionable world Editor views. If you answer “half empty,” you must be a David Brittan pessimist—one who finds difficulty in every oppor- [email protected] tunity (as Churchill put it), is fond of citing Murphy’s Editorial Director Karen Bailey Law, believes in the curse of the Bambino, and in the [email protected] eighties had a bumper sticker that said “Life sucks Design Director and then you die.” Margot Grisar [email protected] The other answer—the one you are supposed to give—is even more damning. It Design Consultant brands you as an optimist: one who believes, despite festering heaps of misery and 2communiqué injustice, that the world is about as good as it can get. Optimists like to think that [email protected] things work out for the best. And to sustain that belief, they become masters of ratio- News & Notes Editor Heather Stephenson nalization, like Voltaire’s Dr. Pangloss. “There is a concatenation of events in this best [email protected] of all possible worlds,” Pangloss assures Candide. “For if you had not been kicked out Contributing Editors of a magnificent castle for love of Miss Cunégonde, if you had not been put into the Beth Horning Kara Peters Inquisition, . if you had not lost all your sheep from the fine country of El Dorado, you would not be here eating preserved citrons and pistachio nuts.” Columnists Nicholas Dodman Both optimism and pessimism have the same fatal flaw: the presumption that Sol Gittleman Ronald Pies things are proceeding according to plan. We onlookers can only marvel as life con- Jeswald W. Salacuse W. George Scarlett tinues on its upward or downward march. The passivity of that stance—the idea that Philip Starks we must ignore the world’s torments, à la the optimist, or resign ourselves to them, à Contributing Writers la the pessimist—makes me think of Monty Python’s condemned men, dangling from Micah Bluming Laura Ferguson crucifixes, musically exhorting one another to “always look on the bright side of life.” Phil Primack, A70 Do you have to choose between optimism and pessimism? No, you don’t. What you Class Notes can be instead, and perhaps already are—I say as I trot out my Merriam-Webster—is Faith Hruby Elizabeth Ponce a meliorist. A meliorist is someone who believes the world can and should be better, and that people have the capacity to improve it. There is nothing passive about melior- Tufts Magazine (USPS #619-420, ISSN #1535-5063) is ism. Probably every dragon slayer, every reformer, heretic, utopian, entrepreneur, or published three times a year by the Trustees of Tufts University. Direct magazine calls to 617.627.4287. creative artist who ever lived would qualify as a meliorist. Every Tufts student training Send correspondence to Tufts Magazine, Tufts Publications, to be an “active citizen” is a meliorist. Magazine editors, in their own small way, can 80 George Street, Medford, MA 02155, or email [email protected]. be meliorists, too. It was in this spirit that my last column acknowledged progress in Tufts Magazine is distributed without charge to alumni, parents of current undergraduates, and other members of areas such as alleviating hunger and slowing population growth—a shout-out that the Tufts community. Periodicals postage paid at Boston, MA, and additional mailing addresses. one reader interpreted as Panglossian (see Letters, page 4). Postmaster: Send address changes to Development Records, I suspect that many people who are trapped in the false choice between optimism Tufts University, 80 George Street, Medford, MA 02155. and pessimism are actually meliorists and don’t know it. They are just waiting for © 2013 Trustees of Tufts University somebody to come along with a dictionary and set them free. http://go.tufts.edu/magazine Tufts Prints Green david brittan Printed on recycled paper by Lane Press, Inc., South Burlington, VT editor Please recycle. 2 tufts magazine fall 2013 PHOTO: ALONSO NICHOLS LETTERS FACULTY VETERANS another illustrious drama professor who out if it weren’t for the cheering of so many As I read Sol Gittleman’s article “The Qui- was also a World War II vet. spectators along the twenty-six miles—they et Men” (Summer 2013), I cried to think of DICK ARNOLD, G68 were strangers, but that day they felt like my the heroic veterans who were in our midst BREMERTON, WASHINGTON friends and relatives. At the finish line, even while so many of us remained unaware. I the plastic shawl with hundreds of printed was privileged to have been a student of Professor Gittleman’s article is a fitting and fan signatures could not keep me warm, and both Jerry “Doc” Collins and Dan Mar- proper tribute to the World War II veterans afterwards, I was so exhausted I essentially shall. Doc Collins was my advisor; I can he mentions. But it would also be good to slept three days in a row. Still, I treasure the still recall the wonderful fragrance of the remember Elliott King Shapira, professor of experience of running the marathon, because tobacco in his pipe. And what a surprise to French and a member of the Army Air Corps the memory of finishing it with my fellow learn that the polite and very soft-spoken Seventy-Ninth Fighter Group; Seymour O. Jumbos will live with me forever. Professor Marshall, my student teach- Simches, head of the modern languages So my heart shattered when I heard of ing mentor, had earned not one but two department, who trained French-speaking the bombing of last spring’s race. Who would Bronze Stars and Purple Hearts. pilots at U.S. air bases; James B. Wads- commit such a cowardly act? I thought to my- LINDA CICCARIELLO SQUIRE, J77 worth, professor of Italian, who served in self. The news confirmed my fears that the LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY the British infantry in North Africa; Wisner culprits were Muslims. Alas, when things P. Kinne, professor of Eng- like this happen, I feel the playing field gets The “quiet” of Professor lish, who served in the narrower for Muslims in America. But it was Gittleman’s fellow profs is U.S. Navy; and, of course, uplifting to hear how the Boston community totally consistent with the Tufts President Jean May- pulled together. Equally, it was encourag- way others of their gen- er, a hero of the French ing to see pictures of Afghan women, kids, eration conducted them- Resistance. policemen, and others holding a sign: “To selves. My father was a LAWRENCE H. MARTIN, Boston from Kabul with Love.” paratrooper killed in action A64 Although I live and work in New York City in Germany, and in 2002 BAR HARBOR, MAINE today, my heart remains in Boston. Boston is I met for the first time a the magnificent city that nourished me with number of his army bud- MARATHON education, comfort, and great friends. And dies. I have met with them MEMORIES the Boston Marathon is a transnational cel- every year since. They have Before coming to Boston ebration of humanity. May Boston and the told a multitude of stories from Kabul to attend col- Boston Marathon live long. involving enormous bravery by men who lege, I often fantasized about joining the JAVED REZAYEE, A13 never mentioned their experiences. tens of thousands of enthusiastic marathon- NEW YORK CITY JERRY O’BRIEN, E67 ers in Copley Square, and when I learned GAITHERSBURG, MARYLAND of the President’s Marathon Challenge, I enjoyed the article about the current the charity run that Phil Primack, A70, Tufts connection to the Boston Marathon.