FAALLL 2013

M AG AZ I NE

Director Kimberly Peirce takes on Carrie

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C2_CUCNY.indd C2 9/24/13 1:30 PM CONTENTS Fall 2013

10 22 28

DEPARTMENTS FEATURES

3 Letters 14 Moving Pictures By Paul Hond 8 College Walk Kimberly Peirce, director of Boys Don’t Cry, His poker face . . . An international-student applies her powers to Stephen King’s Carrie. affair . . . Carbon nations . . . Kibbitzers and criers . . . Chapel chamber music 22 The Pillage Option By Chris Cannon 38 News In his fi ght against genocide, James Stewart, David Madigan to lead Arts and Sciences . . . a former war-crimes prosecutor, has revived Community Impact’s campaign . . . Brown an old legal tactic. Institute’s inaugural “Magic Grants” . . . Engineering prof opens biotech incubator 28 The Carbon Eaters in Harlem . . . Libraries acquire art-book By Douglas Quenqua publisher Granary’s archives The climate crisis has put humanity between a rock and a hard place. And that’s exactly 44 Newsmakers where Peter Kelemen hopes to fi nd a solution.

54 Explorations 36 Shades of Green By Michael Christman 48 Reviews During his fi nal tour in Afghanistan, a Marine captain emails home. 55 Classifi eds

56 Finals

Cover illustration of Kimberly Peirce by Jeffrey Alan Love

1 ToC2.indd 1 9/24/13 5:18 PM IN THIS ISSUE COLUMBIA MAGAZINE

Executive Vice President for University Development and Alumni Relations Fred Van Sickle Gaiutra Bahadur ’97JRN is a Guyanese-born journalist and Publisher critic who writes primarily about immigrants and refugees. Tim McGowan She is the author of the forthcoming book Coolie Woman: Chief Editorial Adviser The Odyssey of Indenture. >> Page 53 Jerry Kisslinger ’79CC, ’82GSAS

Editor in Chief Michael B. Shavelson

Managing Editor Rebecca Shapiro

Senior Editor David Benefi eld is a professional poker player and a student David J. Craig in the School of General Studies, where he plans to major in Associate Editor Chinese and political science. A native of Fort Worth, Texas, Paul Hond he hopes to pursue a career in foreign policy. >> Page 8 Copy Chief Joshua J. Friedman ’08JRN

Contributing Editor Eric McHenry

Art Director Eson Chan

Jason Bordoff is the director of Columbia’s Center on Global Assistant to the Editor Lauren Savage Energy Policy and a professor of professional practice at the School of International and Public Affairs. He previously Editorial Assistants Juwon Kim, Elisabeth Sherman worked in the White House as a special assistant to the president and as senior director for energy and climate change Mailing Address Columbia Magazine >> Page 10 on the staff of the National Security Council. Columbia Alumni Center 622 W. 113th Street, MC 4521 New York, NY 10025 Tel. 212-851-4155 Fax 212-851-1950 [email protected] Wm. Theodore de Bary ’41CC, ’53GSAS, ’94HON is the www.magazine.columbia.edu John Mitchell Mason Professor Emeritus, provost emeritus, and Address and Archive Assistance a special service professor. This semester he is teaching Asian [email protected] 212-851-4155 Humanities and a second-level Core course, Nobility and Civil- ity. He is the author, most recently, of The Great Civilized Con- To update your address online, visit versation: Education for a World Community. >> Page 50 alumni.columbia.edu/directory, or call 1-877-854-ALUM (2586).

Advertising: 212-851-4155 [email protected] To download our advertising brochure or submit a classifi ed advertisement online, Victor Navasky is the George T. Delacorte Professor in visit www.magazine.columbia.edu/advertise. Magazine Journalism at the Graduate School of Journalism. Columbia Magazine is published for He was the editor of the Nation from 1978 until 1995, alumni and friends of Columbia by the Offi ce of Alumni and Development. and its publisher and editorial director from 1995 to 2005. >> Page 52 © 2013 by the Trustees of Columbia University EDWARD SOREL EDWARD in the City of New York

2 Columbia Fall 2013

2 Contributors.indd 2 9/20/13 2:20 PM letters

GONZO JOURNALISM creations. It seems that the artists aim to SAVE OUR SHIP I loved the profi le of Juan González (“Street- épater les bourgeois, to provide such a Columbia is a terrifi c alumni magazine, Beat Confi dential,” Summer 2013). As a visual shock as to disorient and confuse and the College Walk section is always journalist, I write profi les; they take enor- the senses of what they think is a naive entertaining. However, in “The Tender” mous time, thought, patience, and a true public. It’s the emperor’s new clothes. (Summer 2013), you did a disservice to give-and-take between subject and reporter. Nicolas Kariouk ’61SEAS readers — including GSAPP preservation Then there’s the writing: in this case, Paul Baton Rouge, LA professors, grads, and students — by fail- Hond’s marvelous weave of present day, ing to mention whether or not the Lilac near past (9/11), past past (college, activ- NO DEFENSE OF STATE was listed on the National Register of ism), plus the particular struggles of Puerto In your interview with Harold Brown (“To Historic Places. Mary Habstritt is fi ght- Rican immigrants. A life story, fully told. Deter and Protect,” Summer 2013), the for- ing the good fi ght, and various nonprof- Anne Moore ’82BC mer secretary of defense charges that “State its (National Maritime Historical Society, Chicago, IL Department people tend not to be decisive Historic Naval Ships Association, etc.) and decision makers. For them, a negotiation our government (National Maritime Heri- As a medical student at Columbia in the is a success no matter what happens.” But tage Program) work alongside Habstritt to early 1970s, another student and I fol- wasn’t it a success that the Cold War never save National Register–listed and –eligible lowed Juan González and a few Young became a hot war, and communism came to maritime sites every day. Lords to the health commissioner’s offi ce, an end in the Soviet Union? Kirsten Brinker Kulis ’03GSAPP, ’05GSAPP where Juan was extraordinary in obtaining Yale Richmond ’57GSAS Alexandria, VA lead-testing kits that were not being used. Washington, DC Ed Weeks ’73PS The Lilac is listed on the National Register Moab, UT Harold Brown’s observation that for State of Historic Places. — Ed. Department people, a negotiation is a success THE BEHOLDER no matter what, applies equally to federal MEDIC ALERT I am almost amused by the presumably agencies, and even to big-company business The College Walk article “Safe at Home” serious article that your editors defi ne as these days. I can’t count the times I’ve heard (Summer 2013) states that Columbia “A jaunt through the boundless visual people compliment each other on a confer- baseball player Joey Falcone is “a former worlds of six young, successful Columbia ence call or meeting in which absolutely Marine combat medic.” But how can this artists” (“Without Walls,” Summer 2013). nothing was accomplished. be, when our Marine Corps has no medi- I am glad to read that the artists are William J. Mahon cal corps? Can it be that he was a Navy successful, but I fail to see beauty in their Great Falls, VA corpsman assigned to the Marines, as I was

Fall 2013 Columbia 3

3-7 Letters.indd 3 9/20/13 2:01 PM LETTERS

assigned to be a battalion fi eld surgeon I was fourteen when the US was attacked offi cials but resembled a full-fl edged trial. with the Third Marine Division in Viet- at Pearl Harbor and seventeen when I enlisted Columbia retained retired federal judge Har- nam, though I held a Navy commission? in the Army Air Corps. I was called to active old Tyler, now deceased, to preside over the Those of us who served deserve a clari- duty two days before the fi rst atomic bomb disciplinary hearing, and employed outside fi cation on this point, and the proper mili- was dropped on Hiroshima. After spend- counsel from a prominent New York law tary service should be given credit. ing a year on occupation duty in Germany, fi rm to prosecute Jealous and other students. Martin Flamm ’64CC I returned home ready to resume my educa- Seemingly, any and every charge that could Sun City, AZ tion. I had credits at Newark College of Engi- have been brought against them was. neering, but neither it nor NYU worked for During these proceedings, Jealous did not While Falcone initially enlisted in the Navy, me. As I was returning from NYU, I noticed hesitate to testify truthfully about his actions, he served as a “corpsman,” or medic, the station sign for 116th Street–Columbia although as his lawyer, I would have preferred within a Marine infantry unit. — Ed. University. I had never considered Columbia. he not testify at all. He did not seek to avoid I knew only that it was prestigious, expen- responsibility for his actions, or allow his sub- INTERWOVEN TALES sive, and diffi cult to get into. “What the sequent punishment to stop him from fi nish- Your College Walk article on the late Frank heck,” I thought. “What have I got to lose?” ing his undergraduate education at Columbia, Lautenberg (“Army of One,” Summer 2013) I got off the train, went to the admissions or deter him from going on to a life of service brought back a number of memories. Like offi ce, explained my situation, and was given to others. In that way, his story is not just fas- Senator Lautenberg’s father, my dad was a information about the engineering school. I cinating: it is a story of redemption worthy of weaver at a silk mill in Paterson, New Jersey, was eligible to be admitted to the School of celebration, regardless of whether you agree and he also took me to see the inside of the General Studies immediately in February with his actions then or now. factory on a few occasions. 1947 and could then apply for admission to What would have been lost if Ben Jealous the engineering school in February 1948. had been expelled or jailed or had given up In February 1950 I received my bach- pursuing his education after his suspension? elor’s degree, and in June 1950 I attended If he had, Columbia would have missed the Commencement ceremonies, where, like out on claiming someone who is passionate Senator Lautenberg, I received my diploma about life and justice for all, something every from General Eisenhower, with my parents Columbia graduate should aspire to be, and my fi ancée in attendance. regardless of how he or she views the world. Norman D. Redlich ’50SEAS, ’52SEAS Victor A. Bolden ’86CC Woodland Hills, CA New Haven, CT

DEBATING JEALOUS What a shock to read the letters to the editor At the behest of a friend, who knew I was in response to the article on my admirable an alumnus, I agreed to represent Benja- fellow alumnus Benjamin Jealous. Are these min Jealous in the disciplinary proceedings letters indicative of the type of alums who brought against him by Columbia (Letters, read Columbia Magazine? I am proud to be Summer 2013). My decision to do so intro- part of a progressive tradition at Columbia, duced me to someone who was remarkable am no fan of the NRA, respect the history of then and is even more remarkable now. Any protest at Columbia in which Jealous par- suggestion that Jealous received a far less ticipated, and recognize that voter suppres- stringent penalty than he deserved ignores sion is a far greater threat to our democracy not only the circumstances of that time than voter fraud. I also oppose the cur- but the reality of today: by any reasonable rent stop-and-frisk policy in NYC, which measure, Jealous’s professional accomplish- subjects thousands of innocent people to ments merit recognition. unwarranted invasions of privacy. I doubt Following a one-day protest against what the writers would for a minute countenance he perceived to be a serious injustice, Jealous such a policy in their communities if they faced a process that could have ended his were the subjects of the stops. academic career. This was not a simple dis- David Hershey-Webb ’83CC ciplinary proceeding presided over by school New York, NY

4 Columbia Fall 2013

3-7 Letters.indd 4 9/20/13 2:03 PM As an old Columbia graduate and an old showing for graduates of one of America’s Thanks for publishing the letters on the National Rifl e Association member, I was fi nest universities. Since all this dreck is in NAACP and the NRA. How frustrating it appalled at the level of ignorance demon- response to an article on NAACP president must be for conservative alumni — not of strated in the letters to the editor in your Benjamin Jealous, I leave it to readers to the New Left, as I was, not Obama sup- Summer 2013 issue. determine whether or not this is another porters, as I am — to read articles like the The NRA, although founded in 1871, example of the Obama Syndrome, wherein one on Benjamin Jealous. was until 1977 a sportsmen’s organization, the sight of an educated and successful But at least they are reading the articles, dedicated to gun safety, marksmanship, black man somehow reduces a group of and, more to the point, you are publishing hunting, and conservation. In 1977, an white men to babbling nonsense. their responses. Honest dialogue, not regur- element took over the organization, bring- David Looman ’62CC gitation of fi xed positions, is the way we all ing in an expansive political agenda, one San Francisco, CA learn. The letters section is a beginning. part of which was a protection of Second Walter Jonas ’67GS Amendment rights. As a gun owner, I am, In contrast to members of real civil-rights Milton, MA of course, thankful for those efforts to pro- organizations, NRA members have not tect my rights. However, given the scope been beaten, shot at, bombed, and jailed I was heartbroken over the letters you and content of the NRA’s political agenda, for demanding their constitutional right to received about your article on Benjamin and the relatively small role the Second equal access to public accommodations, Jealous. The fi rst letter, about the NRA — I Amendment plays in that agenda, it is rea- and to register to vote. The claim that the guess the KKK is also a civil-rights organiza- sonable to argue that the NRA is not now National Rifl e Association is a civil-rights tion. When people think of civil rights, they a civil-rights organizati on. It is certainly organization is grotesque. think about the rights of all types of people. clear that it had no claim to be a civil-rights Martin Oppenheimer ’53GSAS I wonder if any of the letter writers organization prior to 1977, and certainly Princeton, NJ are doing anything to fi ght for injustices no claim to seniority over the NAACP. around the world. It’s easy to complain. Numerous scientifi c studies have been I am baffl ed by the letters to the editor pub- Do your part. done on the effects of New York’s stop- lished in response to the cover story on Ben I also want to add that blacks are not and-frisk policies, and they show no effect Jealous, president of the NAACP. mostly criminals. I’m black, and so are my on crime prevention. The letter writer’s A year behind Jealous at Columbia Col- two sons. I work in corporate America, live strange bleating about the lives of poor lege, I remember spackling drywall with him in a doorman building in Tribeca, and both black crime victims is, even on its face, far in decrepit brownstones with Harlem Resto- my boys attend top private schools. Yet more prejudicial than probative. ration Project, following his leadership on the we still seem to have a hard time getting With regard to voter ID and voter fraud: destruction of the Audubon Ballroom, and a cab, and my son gets stopped in Whole another writer wishes to liken the activity listening to him frame claims for ethnic stud- Foods occasionally, even though most of of voting, which is sui generis because it is ies during an occupation of Low Library. He the people who steal from there are middle- both a right and the foundation of demo- was, by turns, inspiring, charismatic, infuri- aged white women. I work on the trading cratic government, to other, more trivial ating, and arrogant. I know that I am not the fl oor, and I’m the only black woman there. and optional activities for which we require only member of my class who is proud that Instead of stopping and frisking black peo- identifi cation. This conceptually bizarre we went to Columbia with him, and consider ple, how about stopping them and giving activity is for the purpose of preventing him to be the most accomplished of a very them scholarships and jobs. voter fraud, which is imaginary. His letter accomplished generation. Dana Young repeats the urban myths about college stu- Like many leaders, he is complicated, New York, NY dents and “certain populations” (we know sometimes hyperbolic, driven, and not uni- who he means!). The facts are that over the versally admired. However, his meteoric rise I am embarrassed by the letters in the past several decades numerous studies and to national prominence is something all of us Summer 2013 issue, which I presume investigations have been done, tendentiously affi liated with Columbia can take pride in. are all written by white men, piling on searching for evidence of voter fraud. They Only the most bigoted and ignorant of NAACP president Benjamin Jealous. The have come up with nothing. Columbia’s alumni could deny that Jealous claim that the NRA is a “civil-rights orga- Thus we have, in one issue, several let- is a source of pride for the College. The nization” is downright silly. The implicit ters that misinterpret the evidence, another magazine was right to profi le him. racism in some of the other letters, sup- that ignores the evidence, and one that Alyshia Gálvez ’95CC porting stop-and-frisk as something that denies the evidence. Not a distinguished New York, NY young black men (and the rest of us)

Fall 2013 Columbia 5

3-7 Letters.indd 5 9/20/13 2:03 PM LETTERS

should be grateful for, and endorsing the this sort is “epidemic,” as claimed by one machine as war surplus in the 1950s, and Republicans’ efforts to suppress the votes of your correspondents. Further ID require- Western Union offered a facsimile service of African-Americans and other minori- ments will not stop “multiple voting, fraud- in the 1950s. I was covering Washington ties, is far worse. I, for one, am glad to ulent registration, [and] illegal residents in those years for a Hawaiian radio station, have Benjamin Jealous add luster to the voting,” as another correspondent thinks. and members of Congress had those fax institution of which I am an alumnus. If election offi cials permit a vote to be cast machines in their offi ces to speed up com- Peter Schneider ’77CC, ’83LAW under the same name twice, or if a name is munications with their district offi ces. Philadelphia, PA in the registration records that should not Gordon Eliot White ’57JRN be, then the remedy lies elsewhere. Hardyville, VA The Summer 2013 issue of Columbia starts Some letter writers disapprove of the off with a bang: six letters complaining about opposition of Jealous and the NAACP NO BUTS various statements in the Benjamin Jealous to the way the NYPD carries out its stop- Perhaps John Simon will explain why, article from the Spring issue. What did you and-frisk policies because of overall crime according to Jacques Barzun, the phrase offer your readers in the way of countervail- statistics. Granted that blacks are dispro- “could not help but” is redundant (“The ing opinion to this litany of right-wing cant? portionately involved in crime, that is no Unedited Man,” Winter 2012–13). In the Nothing. Not a word. When did Columbia license under our Constitution to target all very next issue of the magazine, Moira Magazine become a house organ for Rupert blacks. It is one thing to stop a black man Egan’s use of it in a poem seems not redun- Murdoch and Roger Ailes? who fi ts the description of a black man who dant at all (“On Marriage,” Spring 2013): Alan P. Rosenberg ’64CC committed a robbery or other crimes. It is “And when I hear ‘a marriage on the rocks’ Potomac, MD quite another to stop a randomly chosen / (I’m sorry but) I cannot help but see / some black man because as a statistical matter he murky, over-complicated cocktail / whose It hurts, and makes me sad, that in our is more likely than a randomly chosen white bitters have obscured all trace of sweet.” popular culture, it is in any way controver- man to have committed some crime con- The phrase “cannot help but” conveys sial to discuss the requirement to produce cerning which the police offi cer has no par- the poet’s sense of trying but failing to ID before voting. The claim of racism is so ticular information. Given the constitutional refrain from doing something she feels she absurd it is hard to fathom. If one were to requirement that stops be based on reason- should not do. And even if the phrase is (at say (and no one does) that “all people of able suspicion or criminality, a dispropor- least partly) redundant, why is that a prob- color must show their ID” — then yes, the tionate number of blacks would be stopped lem? Discourse is replete with redundancy; claim would have some credence. But what only if a disproportionate number of blacks it helps communication to succeed. The kind of world are we living in when the acted suspiciously while walking down the trick is knowing how to use it effectively, simple requirement to show you are in fact street in the sight of a police offi cer. I have as both Egan and Barzun appear to do. a citizen (and the requirement is applied to seen no claims that this is the case. Consider Barzun’s own quoted words: “I all) is a problem? As to the writer who proposes that long ago learned to curb the spontaneous Let’s keep serious discussion of real rac- “maybe we need more stop-and-frisk, Ciceronian invective I might enjoy discharg- ism as the important subject it is. Why hurt until guns taken is zero,” that approach is ing from time to time.” Having already writ- the legitimate issue by claims of racism at an argument for stopping everybody. And ten “long ago,” why does Barzun need the the drop of any hat? since that would not reach the guns that -ed suffi x on “learned”? Or, if grammar is Jim Isbell are at the moment stored in a home, per- disallowed as evidence: “And by the way, Anaheim, CA haps we should search everybody’s home who has decreed that violence in a playwright as well. Totalitarian governments work is splendid and violence in a critic unforgiv- Those who wrote to question the opposi- like that; ours does not. able?” The two instances of the word “vio- tion of Benjamin Jealous and the NAACP Malvina Nathanson ’65LAW lence” help to distinguish, as opposed to to voter-ID requirements show a basic New York, NY blurring, the two types of violence. misunderstanding of the “problem” of Joseph Davis ’92GSAS voter fraud. FAX CHECK Bayside, NY The only voter fraud against which the Xerox may have marketed the fi rst consumer requirement to present identifi cation at the facsimile machine in 1964, as Ed Silberfarb John Simon responds: “The answer is obvi- polling place can guard is the attempt to writes in his letter to the editor (Summer ous: redundancy is always wrong, and it is vote under somebody else’s name. There are 2013), but the technology was in use dur- either ‘cannot help’ or ‘cannot but.’ Hence no studies suggesting that “vote stealing” of ing World War II. I bought a military fax ‘cannot help but’ is redundant.”

6 Columbia Fall 2013

3-7 Letters.indd 6 9/20/13 2:03 PM Student opportunities. Discoveries. Championship athletics. Global programs reaching new heights. This October, what will YOU do?

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3-7 Letters.indd 7 9/20/13 3:21 PM COLLEGE WALK

MARK STEELE Bettor Living

avid Benefi eld is about to drop. chip leader holds a gargantuan 38 million. your opponent, you will win money in the After seven long days of intense But as the old poker saying goes, “All you long run. I try to consistently make good Dmental focus at the Rio All-Suites need is a chip and a chair.” decisions and limit my own mistakes while Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas; after Benefi eld has both, as well as a chance thinking about the best ways to exploit the sleepless nights rocked by extreme emo- to turn his $10,000 entry fee into a major tendencies of my opponents.” tional swings; after sweating it out under score and a huge comeback in poker’s big- Benefi eld has won $633,243 in his live- the lights and ESPN cameras amid a fi eld gest event, the World Series of Poker. Hav- tournament career, but like many players, of 6,352 other competitors, the twenty- ing qualifi ed for ninth place and pocketed his early forays at the table were tough les- seven-year-old General Studies student is just over $900,000, Benefi eld will return sons rather than cash cows. After his fi rst exhausted, ecstatic, and in disbelief. to the Rio hotel on November 4 as one of game, with his wallet considerably lighter, He is one of nine players left sitting. the “November Nine,” vying for the gold he went home and ordered some poker In front of him, on the green felt table, lies bracelet (poker’s green jacket, its champi- books. He consumed as much information a stack of candy-colored tournament chips: onship belt) and a prize of $8.3 million. as he could, and soon began winning con- 6.34 million (not a dollar amount, but more “Poker is different from the majority of sistently against friends. like points). While the pile looks impressive, casino games in that you are playing against In 2008, Benefi eld broke into the world Benefi eld faces an uphill climb. His winnings other players, not the casino itself,” says of tournament poker with several nice fi n- are less than those of the eight other players Benefi eld, a native of Fort Worth, Texas. ishes, including seventy-third place with who have advanced to the fi nal table. The “As long as you make better decisions than $77,200 in that year’s world champion-

8 Columbia Fall 2013

08-13 Collegewalk_v1.indd 8 9/20/13 10:42 AM ship main event. This year, he has already dealing with large monetary losses. They some other major tournaments in Barce- improved on that fi nish. hurt me a lot mentally, and I would tend to lona and Paris. Just making the fi nal table will be lucra- turn inward. I wouldn’t want to hang out But his heart will be in Texas. The Lone Star tive. Because he can fi nish no lower than with friends or hit the gym. Instead, I would State has a rich poker history, with legends ninth, Benefi eld will earn at least $733,224. sit at my computer and fi gure out how to like Doyle Brunson and Amarillo Slim Preston That could ease some of the pressure, but avoid losses in the future. I have gotten dominating in the game’s early tournaments. not all of it. much better about this over the years.” What would it mean to be the next in “Poker is incredibly stressful on an emo- Before November’s main event, Benefi eld that line to bring home the gold? tional level, which negatively impacts the plans to spend some time in Vancouver “It seems only right,” he says, “that a physical,” says Benefi eld, who studies politi- working through game situations with his Texan should win the world championship cal science and Chinese. “In my earlier years friend, tournament poker superstar Jason of Texas Hold ’Em.” playing professionally, I was not good at Koon, as well as playing online poker and — Sean Chaffi n

Convocation Conversation

n a bright morning one week before director of international student programs “Use your resources,” said a lanky junior fall classes, a few miles north of the and services. from Singapore. OUnited Nations, a group of stu- As Liquori Terni got to work setting up “Yes, especially offi ce hours,” added the dents wearing matching lime-green T-shirts a projector that announced the session title woman to his right, an English major from processed through College Walk to South (“Life at Columbia. #makeityours”), six an Indian family in Dubai. Lawn, each gripping the pole of a fl ag. upperclassmen in orientation T-shirts (purple “Be fl exible about your classes,” said a As ceremonial music poured from loud- this time, to signify their international status) sophomore from Ethiopia. “I came in think- speakers, the students paused along the formed a semicircle of chairs at the front of ing I was going to be pre-med, but when I pathway, stationing the poles so that the the classroom. Eventually, their audience set- had to rearrange my schedule for Lit Hum banners created a wind-tousled tunnel for tled in front of them, pulling out laptops and and Music Hum, I took classes I might not the rest of the procession — a cadre of fac- iPads and munching on the chips and granola have otherwise, and now I’m undecided.” ulty in academic regalia and a sea of ner- bars that had been left near the door as bait. Twenty minutes later, when the panel vous eighteen-year-olds. The international students had already paused for questions, the advice fi nally “Beginnings are almost always very spe- been through nearly a week of orientation. started getting more specifi c. cial and memorable moments in life,” said But this session, just a few days before classes One upperclassman noted that inter- President Lee Bollinger as he welcomed the started, was, as Liquori Terni explained, national students had to make certain to Columbia College and Columbia Engineer- the fi rst in what was intended to be a year- have their Core classes completed by the ing Class of 2017. “But among beginnings, long series of coffeehouse-style discussions fi rst semester of their senior year — not it’s hard to beat the start of college.” for the group. Older international students to ensure they weren’t stuck with one last For many of those students, however, it would be on hand now and throughout the swimming test on Commencement morn- wasn’t just the start of college: it was the year to guide fi rst-years through not only ing, but because it was a requirement for start of life in a new country. Seventeen choosing classes and dorm life but the more work-visa applications. percent of new undergraduates are inter- nuanced parts of their transition. Liquori Terni recommended, on a similar national students, and fi fty-nine of the dif- As the advice began, it tended toward note, the campus resources, like the Center ferent fl ags carried through campus that the former — general tips for college living for Career Education, that would eventu- morning represented their nationalities. that the fi rst-years had likely heard dozens ally help students to know where many Four days later, in a fi fth-fl oor room in of times already in their short careers as internationals end up working, and which Lerner Hall, things were a little less formal students. Purple shirts and a few clipped companies are willing to sponsor them for as a group gathered for an optional orien- accents aside, it could have been any orien- green-card applications. There would be tation session with Kirin Liquori Terni, the tation session. workshops on American work culture, and

Fall 2013 Columbia 9

8-13 Collegewalk.indd 9 9/24/13 5:19 PM COLLEGE WALK

the offi ce could even lend out interview learn how to balance those out. But that’s you get to know people that are studying suits when the time was right. also where I found my best friends.” engineering, philosophy, computer sci- But for now, the panel guessed that most of A curly-haired junior from Albania nod- ence, whatever. And that’s what Colum- the students had more immediate concerns. ded enthusiastically, before piping up in a bia’s all about.” “When I fi rst got here, I was so scared throaty baritone: “But don’t forget about “You’re far away from home,” added of not making friends,” one bubbly junior your hallmates, too. In Albania, you’re so the Ethiopian woman softly, echoing what told the group, “but you have to join extra- pigeonholed by your interests. There’s an was probably on the mind of every student curriculars. In London, extracurriculars attitude that if you’re a visual-arts person, in the room. “Your friends will be your aren’t a thing. You’re just focused on aca- you only interact with people of your own family now.” demics all the time. At Columbia I had to discipline. Meeting people on your fl oor, — Rebecca Shapiro

Global Warnings

t’s an appropriate day to talk about the thirty people in the Kellogg Center in the Inter- First, the good news: thanks to a recent challenges of climate change,” said Jason national Affairs Building. The occasion was boom in oil and gas extraction in North “IBordoff, the former director for energy the annual summer lecture series sponsored by America, the United States has reduced and climate change for President Obama’s Columbia’s Hertog Global Strategy Initiative. its dependence on coal and other carbon- National Security Council, on a ninety-eight- This year’s theme: “The History of Climate heavy fuels. As a result, domestic carbon degree afternoon in July. “If I were still in Change and the Future of Global Gover- emissions are down to their lowest levels government and we were trying to stagecraft nance.” Over the next thirty-eight air-con- in twenty years. By 2016, Bordoff said, we a speech, we would have done this outside.” ditioned minutes, Bordoff presented graphs, will likely export more natural gas than we Thankfully, Bordoff was not still in gov- statistics, and geopolitical data that painted a import, a shift with signifi cant geopolitical ernment: now director of Columbia’s Center troubling picture of the shifting global-energy repercussions, such as a change in Rus- on Global Energy Policy, he addressed about landscape and its effect on Earth’s climate. sia’s leverage in Europe as its traditional monopoly supplier of natural gas. “This is one of the really transformational moments in our energy history,” Bordoff said. So why wasn’t he smiling? “You hear some people say that we’ve solved our climate problem because we have a lot of cheap natural gas and it’s displacing coal,” he said. “I don’t believe that’s correct.” Gas may pollute less, but it still pol- lutes. And the fracking process has its own potential pitfalls. “We need to make sure drinking water is protected,” said Bor- doff, who believes that the “host of issues” associated with unconventional shale pro- duction “can be managed with the right regulation and enforcement.” But there’s a bigger problem, and it’s com- ing from the other side of the globe. Over the past decade, emissions in the US have gone down, but China’s have skyrock-

JAMES O’BRIEN JAMES eted, and India’s are climbing, too, as those

10 Columbia Fall 2013

08-13 Collegewalk_v1.indd 10 9/20/13 10:43 AM countries increase their reliance on coal. “If you don’t use plastic bags, you use Bordoff, proving that you can take the “Greenhouse gas is a global pollutant with a reusable bag, and you don’t use paper man out of government but not necessarily a global impact,” said Bordoff. “Ultimately, cups, you use a reusable cup — does it vice versa, fi nished his talk with a slide pro- it doesn’t matter where it comes from.” matter?” Bordoff said. “We don’t want jection showing a donkey and an elephant, And while the amount of our energy com- to discourage anyone from doing these both wearing T-shirts. “Drill, Baby, Drill!” ing from renewable sources like wind is ris- things” — Bordoff does believe they can read the elephant’s shirt. ing, it still accounts for a tiny percentage have meaningful environmental benefi ts The donkey’s shirt was a little more of our overall power — and will for a long — “but from a climate-change standpoint, complex. “Increase domestic production, time. “Fossil fuels, even with serious climate they have a relatively small impact.” improve fuel effi ciency, invest in clean policy, will still power our global economy No, to turn the tide on climate change, he energy alternatives, and reduce oil imports for decades to come,” Bordoff said. said, we need smart, responsible policies with by 1/3, BABY,” it read. So what’s the answer? It is not, as one a global reach. “We need a cap on carbon, we “Which may not be the best slogan,” said questioner suggested, a matter of making need a price on carbon, we need some policy Bordoff, “but it may be the right policy.” better individual choices. to help drive our emissions reduction.” — Douglas Quenqua

Mavens of Madness

n May 20 of this year,” the British The DMOM has a similar cover to the boren got to work, eager to get the book actor Paul Hecht tells the crowd DSM, but at sixty-two pages is in all ways out in May, around the same time that the “O inside the downstairs dinner theater lighter than the original. The idea for the revised DSM was to be published. at New York’s Cornelia Street Café, “the book came in February, when Neugeboren, He churned out a draft in four weeks, American Psychiatric Association launched Friedman, and Sederer, who are all adjunct and his collaborators then “potchkied with its so-called bible of psychiatry, the newly professors at Columbia, got together for it,” Neugeboren says, “potchkied being revised edition of the Diagnostic and Statis- drinks and began discussing the contro- Yiddish for played around with.” The fi nal tical Manual of Mental Disorders. It is the versies over the latest version of the DSM product is like the love child of the DSM fi rst new edition of the DSM in nineteen (among them: should bereavement be clas- and Leo Rosten’s The Joys of Yiddish. years. It is one thousand pages long, and sifi ed under depression?). To promote the book, the friends orga- retails for $199.” “People have gotten themselves into nized the Cornelia Street Café event. But who wants to schlep a doorstop? deep tumult about diagnoses,” Neugeboren With Hecht and Friedman onstage Hecht explains that there is an alternative, explains. “‘It should be called this and it and Sederer in the audience, Neugeboren and introduces the two men seated with him shouldn’t be called that,’ and some of it is opens the scripted performance by reading on the stage: Jay Neugeboren ’59CC and absurd.” Neugeboren became familiar with straight from the DSM: “Subtypes (some Michael Friedman ’64CC, ’70GSAS, coau- mental-health issues through taking care of of which are coded in the fi fth digit) and thors of the Diagnostic Manual of Mishegas his mentally ill brother, the inspiration for specifi ers are provided for increased speci- (DMOM), a Yiddish-infl ected satire of the his 2003 book Imagining Robert. fi city. Subtypes defi ne mutually exclusive DSM that they wrote with Lloyd Sederer, As the friends schmoozed, Friedman and jointly exhaustive phenomenological the medical director of the New York State declared that there were “really only two subgroupings within a diagnosis.” Offi ce of Mental Health. (Mishegas — pro- mental disorders — mishegas major and “You had to write a satire?” someone shouts. nounced mish-a-goss — is Yiddish for cra- mishegas minor.” And so they began to There are laughs throughout the night, ziness.) Neugeboren, a writer and novelist, contemplate the capacity of Yiddish, a occasionally mixed with groans and winces and Friedman, the former deputy commis- language with an almost onomatopoetic at the often-corny Jewish jokes for which sioner of the New York State Offi ce of Men- relationship to anguish and deprecation, to Neugeboren, Hecht says, has “an encyclo- tal Health, are here on this midsummer night bring clarity to the linguistic complexity of pedic memory.” At one point, Hecht com- to treat the audience to — or is it with? — a psychiatric diagnoses. This led to the idea ments, “I can’t believe these jokes are still spiel based on their slender volume. of a Yiddish diagnostic manual. Neuge- getting laughs.” An onstage pianist, Ellen

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8-13 Collegewalk.indd 11 9/24/13 5:19 PM COLLEGE WALK

Mandel, punctuates the punch lines with kocker (“If we live long enough, we all become levity was welcome,” says Sederer. “A lot piano fl ourishes. Then she reads aloud forgetful alter kockers”), they’re quick to cor- of people who bought this are the people some of the female conditions, such as the rect him, with some particularly impassioned who wrote the DSM, so it turned out to symptoms of a yenta. audience members calling out, “Oy vey!” and be a tonic.” Yenta is a term many New Yorkers are “You don’t deserve the name Friedman!” But what about a tonic for mishegas itself? familiar with — the gossip, the meddler By night’s end, two dozen copies of the The DMOM authors write, “For virtu- — while others are more obscure, like DMOM have sold. The book is also a hit ally all cockamamy conditions of character, schmegegge. “Your brother-in-law usually with DSM’s publisher, the American Psy- the operative diagnosis is gornisht helfen” qualifi es as the schmegegge,” says Neuge- chiatric Association, whose psychiatric — beyond help — “though it can’t hurt to boren. “Or, if he’s the successful one, it’s professionals don’t seem to feel mocked, as try matzoh ball soup, a spa day, a sitz bath, you who are the schmegegge.” the authors had feared they might. a cruise in the Bahamas, or playing hooky The listeners at Cornelia Street rarely need “Because of all the mishegas going on from work in the afternoon and going to a defi nitions, though. Their Yiddish is sharp, in the fi eld and all of these vituperative movie and not telling anyone.” and when Friedman mispronounces alter exchanges and communications by critics, — Maya Rock

Speech of Angels

t. Paul’s Chapel is known for its Since 1999, the Music at St. Paul’s Cha- setting” — “sacred” in the sense of being ninety-one-foot dome, its stained- pel series has offered performances by an expression of the performers’ spirit. Sglass windows (Paul preaching in students, alumni, members of the larger “Any chaplain in the United States front of the Parthenon), its clay-tile ceiling, University community, and even those knows that spirituality needs to be under- its bronze chandelier, its Ernest M. Skinner with no formal Columbia ties. University stood in a big-tent way,” she says in her pipe organ. But when it comes to promoting chaplain Jewelnel Davis created the series offi ce in Earl Hall. “One way is through its fi ne acoustics on a music-loving campus to promote “sacred music in a nonreligious the performing arts, whether it’s music or that includes Miller Theatre, St. Paul’s has to whisper a little louder. On a summer day around noon, over the full-throttle whir of two large electric fans, the sounds of a string-and-piano

dance suite by Columbia College senior PHILIPPE LECHIEN Solomon Hoffman wafted up to the cha- pel’s vaulted reaches. Chris Ruenes ’13CC then pursued, some- times insistently, a spiky guitar theme of his own devising, backed by percussion- ist Rebecca Gray ’13BC. The premiere of “Mycroft’s Mirror,” by Columbia College senior David Su, then fi lled the chamber with the haunting, atonal, and ultimately strident sound of violins, percussion, and guitar. The fi fty-odd members of the audience, some waving paper fans, also heard Barnard junior Sophie Lewis, accompanied by Hoff- man, sing “Die Nacht,” by Richard Strauss, and “Après un rêve,” by Gabriel Fauré.

12 Columbia Fall 2013

8-13 Collegewalk.indd 12 9/24/13 5:19 PM dance.” (Davis plays the piano but recalls, bia University Bach Society, and chamber the chapel was last fall. “When I came to laughing, “When I think of growing up music by Juilliard students. St. Paul’s, I thought it would be this echoey in churches, I was never able to get in the No matter their genres or styles, the art- and reverb-y thing and that my voice would choir because I was tone-deaf. They told ists love the space. Composer Hoffman, who be lost,” she says. “But all my friends said me, ‘You can clap your hands, you can conducts the Columbia Classical Perform- they could hear me just fi ne. It’s an amaz- sway, but you can’t sing!’”) ers and cowrote the music and lyrics for the ing space. It’s what I imagine a rider feels The artists who appear once a week dur- 2012 Varsity Show, much prefers St. Paul’s when riding a thoroughbred.” ing the academic year (and once a month to venues like Lerner Hall. “The other sites Daehlin’s outing this summer, which fea- during the summer) are recruited through are not as pretty and acoustically satisfying,” tured show tunes, came with an unusual e-mail blasts and word of mouth. Last he says. He was especially glad to have the acoustical bonus. It was a hot day, so the spring, Music at St. Paul’s highlighted a world premiere of his ambitious, meander- doors and windows were open. “I was viola, harp, and contralto ensemble called ing “FADE” at St. Paul’s. “I think the way it listening to the audio recording the other the Beowulf Consort; a Korean Chris- echoed in the chapel really helped bring out day, and I could hear the birds singing. I tian group playing classical works called some of the effects.” thought, ‘No way.’ They particularly liked C&SC New York; and University organist Soprano Lisa Daehlin ’12TC performs the Jerome Kern.” Timothy Smith. This fall’s menu includes all over the city with her pianist, Richard — Thomas Vinciguerra ’85CC, the Harlem Chamber players, the Colum- Pearson Thomas. Her fi rst appearance at ’86JRN, ’90GSAS

An Old-Fashioned Song

No more walks in the wood: The trees have all been cut Down, and where once they stood Not even a wagon rut Appears along the path Low brush is taking over.

No more walks in the wood; This is the aftermath Of afternoons in the clover Fields where we once made love Then wandered home together Where the trees arched above, Where we made our own weather When branches were the sky. Now they are gone for good, And you, for ill, and I Am only a passer-by.

We and the trees and the way Poet and critic John Hollander ’50CC, ’52GSAS, Back from the fi elds of play known as much for his humor as his technical mastery, Lasted as long as we could. died on August 17. No more walks in the wood. Poem originally published in Tesserae and Other Poems. — John Hollander Reprinted with permission of Alfred A. Knopf.

Fall 2013 Columbia 13

8-13 Collegewalk.indd 13 9/24/13 5:19 PM Moving Pictures Kimberly Peirce, director of the indie hit Boys Don’t Cry, focuses her powers on Carrie.

By Paul Hond

On the set of Carrie, from left: Peirce, Chloë Grace Moretz, and Julianne Moore.

14-19 Peirce.indd 14 9/24/13 4:35 PM ix weeks before the October 2013 release of Peirce’s second fi lm, Stop-Loss (2008), was inspired Carrie, Kim Peirce ’96SOA is locked in an by her brother’s military service, and expanded her Sediting room in Los Angeles. The air holds study of violence and rural machismo. The story the dolorous last notes of blockbuster season and begins with an electrifying Tikrit street battle (shot the fi rst tingles of Oscar time, when studios trot out in Morocco) before settling into a stateside fraternal their prize ponies. The chief of the studio has been drama about a group of returning soldiers, one of in and out. Phones ring, reporters wanting to know whom, Brandon King, after getting a hero’s welcome how the director of a gritty, personal, true-life fi lm in his Texas town, is ordered back to Iraq. Believing like Boys Don’t Cry came to remake an outlandish this “stop-loss” policy unjust, Brandon makes the horror masterpiece. grim decision to go AWOL. Peirce gets it. She, too, loves the 1976 Carrie, None of which sounded much like a pulp Gothic directed by Hitchock-goggled visionary Brian about a bullied schoolgirl with paranormal powers. De Palma ’62CC. Calls it “brilliant.” De Palma is “Why do you want me to do it?” Peirce asked a friend, and gave his blessing. Peirce frames her the executives. movie not as a remake, but as a fresh retelling of the Their answer surprised her. “Because of Boys Stephen King tale, whose elements of an outsider, a Don’t Cry.” knotty family life, a small town, bullying, and repri- Peirce was baffl ed. Then she read King’s book. sal tugged a rope inside her. Still, when the studio approached her in 2011, When I was six I got ahold of an audio recorder she was skeptical. and would record my family, mostly my mother, her “I just didn’t trust it,” she says. “I thought, ‘Oh, mother, and her mother’s sisters, talking or arguing. it’s a remake. Hollywood is doing tons of remakes.’” They’d say, “Why are you always recording things?” Peirce has nothing against remakes — she loves, for I didn’t know why, exactly, but I liked listening back. instance, both the 1932 Scarface, directed by How- It helped me begin to understand dramatic structure ard Hawks, and De Palma’s 1983 Miami-splashed and dialogue. white-tuxedo edition. But in general, she felt that the studio system lacked the imagination and inspi- eirce read Carrie three times during a trip to ration to do the process justice. P Turkey with her fi ancée. King’s novel was a “I thought, ‘You guys want to do this because succulent little truffl e. Reading about the lonely there’s money in it.’” teenage misfi t with a potent secret made a light bulb That motive at least made sense. Peirce had big- go pop! above Peirce’s head. ger questions. Though Carrie White and Brandon Teena could The thing was this: she had made two movies, not be more different (Brandon: magnetic, bold, and neither seemed terribly relevant to Carrie. cunning, reckless; Carrie: shy, ungainly, sheltered, Boys Don’t Cry (1999), for which Hilary Swank afraid), Peirce fell in love with the picked-on girl won the Oscar for best actress, told the real-life from Chamberlain, Maine. In Carrie she saw, as story of Brandon Teena, a twenty-year-old trans- she’d seen in Brandon, a profound need for love gendered person from Lincoln, Nebraska, who and acceptance. The ache to be normal. To live. moves to a nearby town to live as a man. Bran- Both characters possessed cryptic powers. Bran- don pursues Lana, a working girl; they fall in love. don could seduce girls with charms unknown to his Brandon also befriends Lana’s pals, John and Tom, rowdy male counterparts. Carrie could make objects two roadhouse burnouts who take a shine to this move with her mind — a faculty that blooms with sweet, slight, oddly appealing dude. When the men her late-onset menstruation. “With the period comes learn the truth about Brandon’s anatomy, they are the power,” Peirce says. “That’s straight from King.” enraged, humiliated; they beat Brandon, rape him, In Boys, Brandon is unmasked in part by a tampon and, after Brandon fi les a police report against wrapper that he’d stashed under his bed. In King’s

© 2012 MGM PICTURES INC. AND SCREEN GEMS, INC. / MICHAEL GIBSON INC. AND SCREEN GEMS, MGM PICTURES © 2012 them, murder him. book, Carrie gets her initial period in the high-school

Fall 2013 Columbia 15

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shower (a scene made famous by De Palma’s slow-motion, soft-focus the director witnessed the fulfi llment of that work. “In the rela- lyricism and Psycho-tinged tension), which rouses the other girls to tionship with Julianne, and under Julianne’s tutelage, I saw Chloë taunt her and pelt her with tampons. grow as an actor.” Both Brandon and Carrie are marked by blood and secrets. Both Moore, a four-time Oscar nominee, had her own concerns. risk everything for a chance at happiness. Both attain a brief exal- “Julianne was worried that people wouldn’t love her character,” tation before their peers betray them. Peirce says. “And I said, ‘What do you mean? Margaret’s great. “I do love a tragic structure,” says Peirce. “I love that everybody Everyone’s going to love Margaret.’ is culpable for the explosion that happens at the end. Everyone is “We worked through Julianne loving this complicated woman part of the trigger point.” through her love for Carrie. Margaret and Carrie’s love for one another is at the center of this movie. Yet there’s a tragic inevita- Throughout my childhood, things were so chaotic and traumatic. But bility, because Margaret fears that the child is evil, fears that her when I put stories together, I could fi nd meaning. I could fi nd calm. powers could come out. Margaret is in a moral struggle: she feels she must kill Carrie, but she loves Carrie. So what should she do?” f you want to start at the beginning,” says Peirce, “you have Peirce, versed in Aristotle’s Poetics (core undergrad reading at the “I to start with Carrie’s mother, Margaret, being terrifi ed of this University of Chicago) and the lessons of her fi lm-school teachers, is thing that comes out of her, feeling that she needs to kill it, then a demon for dramatic confl ict. recognizing that it’s a baby, then falling in love with that baby and “Carrie is bullied at school, bullied at home. She discovers she struggling with her terror and love all through their lives together.” has a secret power, which maybe could make her happy, make her Here, Peirce nods to King’s book, which chronicles Carrie’s howling birth in Margaret’s bed: blood-sopped sheets, a butcher knife, a sliced umbilical cord, and a baby at the breast — a scene “ Margaret is in a moral struggle: she that did not appear in De Palma’s fi lm. feels she must kill Carrie, but she loves “Each character is pursuing her primal need,” says Peirce. Carrie. So what should she do?” “Margaret’s is to protect her child; Carrie’s is to get love and acceptance and fi nd a way to be normal. How wonderful that they both have such strong, confl icting needs, and that’s what fuels the normal. So she explores it. When her mother fi nds out, she tells movie from beginning to end.” Carrie it’s the devil’s work. She tries to stop the power. But Carrie Sixteen-year-old Chloë Grace Moretz stars in the title role, is desperate to have something of her own, desperate to be a whole with Julianne Moore as the religiously incandescent Margaret. person. She’s trying to be everything she’s ever wanted to be. ‘I can In Moretz, Peirce had a Beverly Hills–raised, full-lipped, preco- have powers and I can go to prom. I can be normal.’ ciously poised actress endowed with movie-star je ne sais quoi (“If “But we all know that she can’t.” you have that quality, the camera just falls in love with you,” says Peirce. “You watch her face, watch an emotion play off it — she ecause it’s a Kimberly Peirce fi lm, the horror builds from the doesn’t have to do anything”), a child star who had worked with “B truth in the acting and the relationships,” says Lee Percy, Martin Scorsese and Tim Burton, and whose un-Carrie-ish confi - Carrie’s editor. Originally trained as an actor at Juilliard, Percy has dence Peirce sought to break down. edited more than forty features, including three with Oscar-winning “We have to create for you a space where you don’t have all the performances: William Hurt in Kiss of the Spider Woman, Jeremy things you’ve had since you were fi ve,” Peirce told the teenager. Irons in Reversal of Fortune, and Hilary Swank in Boys Don’t Cry. “Success, money, confi dence, love, support. Carrie doesn’t have For Percy, the heart of the fi lm is the mother-daughter bond. these things. We have to transform you as a character from an “I think Kim would say it’s the love story,” he says. “The rela- overconfi dent child to a broken young woman.” tionship between Carrie and Margaret in Kim’s fi lm is much more To that end, Peirce took Moretz to homeless shelters. emotional, much more linked, much more aware of what holds “That was sensitive. I didn’t want to use people who are less for- them together than in the De Palma fi lm, which is a great classic. tunate than us,” Peirce says. “So I suggested to Chloë that she owed Brian has his areas of expertise, and Kim has hers.” it to herself, and to others, to see beyond how we live. She was open. She was wonderful. We went to shelters and worked with some girls eirce was born in 1967 in working-class Harrisburg, Penn- and women who were very generous and talked to us about their dif- Psylvania. Her mother was fi fteen. Her father was seventeen. fi cult times. I said to Chloë, ‘Try to go beyond just listening and feel.’” Peirce remembers her parents as “larger than life” — her mother For three months they focused on getting Moretz to internalize beautiful, alluring, adventurous, her father a charismatic hell- adversity and rebellion. When Moretz fi nally teamed up on the raiser brought up to “fuck, drink, and fi ght.” It wasn’t long before set with Moore (“who is a master,” says Peirce, “she just is”), they each blew town.

16 Columbia Fall 2013

14-19 Peirce.indd 16 9/24/13 4:35 PM Her father, a builder, went to Florida. Her mother went to New It was a hell of a story, and Peirce wanted it to be her thesis proj- York. Peirce bounced around among relatives, lost herself in Sat- ect. She’d been drawn to Columbia’s fi lm school for its emphasis on urday-morning cartoons. Got ahold of a tape recorder, too. storytelling. Columbia meant “you’re going to write, write, write, At fi ve, she moved to New York to live with her mother, who and you’re going to take acting classes and acting classes and acting had gotten a job as a waitress at the Plaza Hotel. classes.” Peirce took three years of acting with theater director Lenore That arrangement didn’t last long. Peirce went to live with her DeKoven and actress Carlin Glynn. “I loved it,” she says. “I wasn’t father in Miami. any good at acting, but I was good at the class, at reading the texts Her father started his own contracting business. In the late 1970s and understanding what the actors were going through and what they Miami began receiving mind-blowing injections of Medellín-cartel needed from me. I was glad the program made me write, work with drug money. Construction cranes shot up like weeds. Her mother sojourned in Europe, lived with sheikhs in Morocco. Both parents drifted in the patchouli of me-decade immoderation. Hilary Swank (right) In Florida, Peirce learned to fi sh, swim, scuba-dive, play tennis. and Chloë Sevigny in Boys Don’t Cry. She was a sparky tomboy who read DC Comics and sci-fi –fantasy books like A Wrinkle in Time, who loved to draw and make anima- tions with her Super 8 camera. At times, her father became abusive. He’d been beaten as a kid, toughened up the Harrisburg way, and he repeated that pattern with Peirce. His life moved fast. Money. Women. What Peirce didn’t know was that he was running cocaine in and out of the Bahamas on seaplanes. When Peirce was ten, her mother returned from overseas and landed in Puerto Rico. Peirce went to live with her for a year. She would ask her mother questions. Where did you live? What were you doing? How did you make money? Who were you screw- ing? Why did you come back to get me? What do you want? She wanted chronology, wanted to understand the mechanics of how one thing led to the next. Her mother also brought into Peirce’s life a “complicated step-

father.” That situation, Peirce says, informed a lot of the physical / CORBIS / SYGMA L.A. COLLECTION © BUREAU and sexual abuse in Boys Don’t Cry. Someday, when the time is right, she says, she will tell her own actors, and use other media in addition to fi lm, because it allowed me story in fi lm. Until then, she will tell it through others. to create more work, make more mistakes, and learn more.” Her fi rst year, in 1992, the students shot video. Peirce knew I quit college after my sophomore year, bought a still camera, and from having recorded her family in different media that format moved to Japan. I had my own darkroom in Kyoto. Over the next wasn’t the crucial thing. And yet. Video. two years I went through Japan, Hong Kong, Korea, and Thailand, “Look, we all bitched about it,” she says. “We were running photographing everything I could. I wanted to be a photojournal- around the Upper West Side in the horrible New York City heat with ist. I wasn’t pursuing fi lm, but I was pursuing life, and literature, these ridiculously huge video cameras. We had all chosen Columbia and images. Being stripped of the ability to speak a language really and were like, ‘Aah, this is fucking awful, these cameras suck.’ We’d developed my visual ability. It was the best training in the world. shoot these crazy videos, then go back to these old, bulky editing machines that had something called ‘timecode’ that none of us could efore Carrie, before Brandon, there was Pauline. fi gure out. You’d be up till six in the morning doing linear editing, B “I was wildly in love with this story,” says Peirce, who burns you’d have your whole project edited, and then you’d suddenly for her characters with the passion of a raptured mother. She doesn’t ‘break the code’ and lose the whole thing, and then it’s time for class, just love them; she is in love with them. and you’d say, ‘It was great, and it’s gone.’ It was crazy. Pauline Cushman, an actress born in 1833 in New Orleans, was “But it became so clear to me — and this is said with a great one-eighth African-American, a fact she concealed as a matter of love for fi lm — that it was just about getting story down. I saw survival. During the Civil War, Cushman became a Union spy, pos- that no matter how technically weak the visuals were, whether ing as a white Southern man in order to get her hands on Confed- they were done on Super 8, Hi8, PixelVision, or whatever, if the erate battle plans. story was good, it worked.”

Fall 2013 Columbia 17

14-19 Peirce.indd 17 9/25/13 12:46 PM Moving Pictures

Peirce took the Pauline Cushman story to her writing teacher, with the visual effects. The question is always: who is Carrie, what playwright Corinne Jacker. does she want, and how would she use her power?” Jacker thought about it, and said, “I think you have a problem.” “What is it?” said Peirce. For me, sexuality was very fl uid — I had boyfriends, I had girlfriends “Cushman dresses as a man to get a job,” Jacker said. “I think — and gender was very fl uid: I was a tomboy. I wasn’t ever really you want to write about somebody who dresses as a man because closeted, but once I came out, I left a sort of heteronormative life. that’s who that person is.” The insight sank in. Jacker was saying that the story wasn’t ith the Pauline Cushman story on the shelf, Peirce fi xated going to work as a movie because Cushman’s motivation wasn’t W on her new obsession. “I was in love with Brandon,” she coming from an internal enough place. says. “It was amazing to me that this female-bodied person lived That laid Peirce low. She had no story now. No thesis fi lm. as a boy, loved other women, and had the audacity to live like that, At the time, Peirce lived in “the lesbian ghetto” of Manhattan’s especially in the Midwest.” East Village, home to artists, anarchists, squatters, drug dealers, Peirce brought the Brandon Teena idea to Corinne Jacker. Peirce academics, activists — “an oasis of queerness that was wildly more had many wonderful fi lm teachers — director Miloš Forman; screen- interesting to me than the straight white male world uptown.” For writer Paul Schrader, a name well known to a Scorsese nut like Peirce money, she worked nights at a Midtown law fi rm. (“Paul taught us that you need ten years’ distance before you can tell One evening, Peirce was at the law offi ce. During a coffee break, your own story, and even then you should aim to transform it, fi nd a co-worker, Hoang Duong ’94SOA, came over to her. a cover for it, as he did in Taxi Driver”); Serbian director Emir Kus- “Hey,” Duong said. “You should read this.” He handed her the turica; and Ralph Rosenblum, editor of Annie Hall, to name a few Village Voice. — but it was Jacker, her thesis adviser, whom she had to persuade.

It was an article by Donna Minkowitz about the case of a young Peirce had reason to be optimistic. Here was a story about INC. / MICHAEL GIBSON INC. AND SCREEN GEMS, MGM PICTURES © 2012 Nebraskan woman named Teena Brandon, who transposed her someone who wanted to dress like a man and date girls because name, passed as a male, and won the hearts of the prettiest girls in that’s who that person was. the town. The story of Brandon’s life and death, told from a butch- Again, Jacker balked. lesbian perspective, jolted Peirce. “Now this person has two needs,” she said, “and that doesn’t “From the moment I read that article, that was it,” she says. work. You need one need. Does she want to be a man or does she “Brandon was my child.” want to be a lesbian?” “Well, I don’t know,” said Peirce. “She seems to want to be his is a girl with superpowers. She can stamp her foot and a guy, or to dress like a guy, and she seems to want to be with “T create a fi ssure in the earth. She can lift up a car. She can women; she seems to want both, and I’m not sure which one came levitate the furniture.” fi rst or which one is more important. I don’t think it’s an either–or Peirce, in postproduction, is talking about Carrie while exercis- proposition. I think this person needs both.” ing her own earth-shaking power. With big-budget digital technol- “Kim, you can’t just follow the truth. You have to shape drama.” ogy at her disposal, Peirce can summon not just the minor mischief “I know, I know,” Peirce said, “but there must be a way dra- matically that this character can both want to be with women and dress like a boy. Because I do.” “ The question is always: who is Carrie, Jacker said, “That’s the truth. That’s still not one dramatic need.” what does she want, and how would Peirce understood. She had to fi nd the one need that encom- she use her power?” passed Brandon’s behavior. As she sat down to write the script, it came to her that what Brandon really craved was love and accep- tance. Dressing as a man and being with women weren’t Bran- caused by Carrie’s capricious fl exing of her telekinetic muscles (if don’s needs; they were the means to satisfy his need. there’s a girl-appropriate superpower, Peirce has said, it’s teleki- nesis: emotions turned physical), but the massive destruction of I’ve always been an insider and an outsider. I liked being an out- the town caused by the full discharge of her adolescent rage. (De sider because being an outsider helped me be inside myself. Palma, fi lming in 1976, had confi ned the ruined prom queen’s cli- mactic vengeance mainly to the school gymnasium.) eirce made Boys as a twenty-minute fi lm for her graduate “It was a blast to fi gure out how to use visual effects to better Pthesis project. It was a troubled venture. Her producer left tell the story,” says Peirce. “As a writer, not only was I able to in the middle of it, and his replacement stole Peirce’s money and write on the page, write with the actors, and write on set, but now racked up car-rental bills and parking tickets. Peirce was desper- I could write throughout post, as I refi ned the action and the story ate. Her life savings were gone and she had no producer. She did

18 Columbia Fall 2013

14-19 Peirce.indd 18 9/24/13 4:36 PM Moore and Moretz in Carrie.

end up with gorgeous dailies, but didn’t have the fi nal scene where so assured and enduring that, a dozen years later, as MGM dis- Brandon dies. cussed the resurrection of Carrie, the president of the studio’s fi lm Worse, her dailies — her raw, unedited footage — were still division, Jon Glickman, remembered Peirce and Boys Don’t Cry. at DuArt, a postproduction facility on West 55th Street. Peirce couldn’t afford to get them out. tephen King was incredibly sophisticated and ahead of his It was then, in 1994, that she was introduced to Christine Vachon. “S time, projecting what female power was going to do,” Peirce Soon to found Killer Films, Vachon was the hottest indie producer says of King’s 1974 novel, published a year after tennis player Bil- in town. She’d made Rose Troche’s Go Fish and Todd Haynes’s lie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs in their “Battle of the Sexes” and Poison, with Haynes’s Safe and Larry Clark’s Kids set for release. two years after the advent of Ms. magazine. “Both De Palma and Vachon, too, yearned to tell the Brandon Teena story. Through art- King were looking ahead to what happens when women have world friends, she had caught wind of Peirce’s project. power. I’m making this movie after women have power, so what The producer invited the fi lm student to her East Village offi ce. does that look like?” Peirce was thrilled. It was a huge opportunity. But she had nothing Peirce has argued for the book’s feminist aspects — the chan- to show. No short fi lm, no feature. neling of the fear of women’s power, the centrality of the female She went to see Vachon anyway, thinking, “I’ve gotta get my characters — but it’s clear that her Carrie will speak in ways that goddamned dailies out of DuArt. Who’s gonna pay for that?” its predecessors did not and could not. At Killer Films, Peirce and Vachon sat down to talk. Peirce told And so, curious, eager, and a little nervous, we take our seats and Vachon about her own passion for the story. She said that though silence our phones. What will this Carrie be like? How will audi- she had made a short, which was all she could afford, she’d realized ences respond? What will it all mean for Peirce? while shooting it that it was meant to be a feature. Would Vachon The lights go down. We are in the dark, as we have been for like to see the dailies so she could know what she, Peirce, was up to? months, for years, waiting for the return of the girl with the hid- Vachon was game. She sprang the dailies from DuArt and den powers. looked them over. “If you start out with a secret,” Peirce says, talking about dra- “Christine thought they were good,” Peirce recalls. “But she matic structure, “then obviously, over the course of the movie, agreed with me: why would we pay to fi nish this as a short if we that secret will be exposed. That exposure is generally the crisis can make it as a feature?” point. What I’m fi nding in my movies is that after the second-act Five years later, they did. crisis, the third-act turn is, ‘How do you deal with the fact that Boys Don’t Cry went on to win dozens of awards from fi lm- your secret has been exposed?’ festival juries and critics’ societies, and earned Peirce a reputation “That’s the new life for the character.”

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14-19 Peirce.indd 19 9/24/13 4:36 PM 20-25 WarCrimes3.indd 20 9/23/13 4:14 PM Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo. national Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, in Arusha, Shovel them under and let me work — Tanzania, Stewart had come to investigate the mur- I am the grass; I cover all. der, torture, and rape of Tutsis in the city of Butare. — Carl Sandburg One woman came to meet him after a long day’s walk. Over the course of several hours, she here is not enough grass in Rwanda. On spoke about being raped thirty-fi ve times, then April 6, 1994, after decades of clashes being thrown down a well with the body parts T between the Hutu government and Tutsi of her family. rebels, two surface-to-air missiles struck a plane “When your imagination has been brought very carrying the Rwandan leader Juvénal Habyari- close to the reality of what this looks like and how mana. The fl aming aircraft crashed into the garden this felt for people, it’s disorienting,” Stewart says. of the presidential palace and disintegrated. Within “I didn’t understand any more what it meant, how hours of the attack, thousands of Hutus — incited the world was made up, what was really going on. by the government and goaded by the media — How could we Westerners tolerate this?” began sweeping through the small African nation, The experience set Stewart on his path. In the butchering civilians with the half million machetes dozen years since, he has produced a body of work the government had stockpiled for just such an that is helping to slowly change the calculus of war opportunity. Over the next three months, 800,000 atrocities. And he’s done it by recovering an old, Tutsis died at the hands of the Hutu majority. neglected tactic: going after the international cor- Seven years later, James Stewart ’13LAW, a porations that profi t from the violence. twenty-fi ve-year-old New Zealander, visited the ravaged nation for the fi rst time and saw what the A LEGAL FRAMEWORK grass had yet to cover: open pits containing thou- In the new glass-and-concrete law-school build- sands of dead bodies preserved in lime. As a legal ing at the University of British Columbia, Stewart, intern in the Offi ce of the Prosecutor for the Inter- thirty-seven, enjoys a moment of peace. His offi ce

How do you stop genocide before it starts? Legal theorist James Stewart, a former war-crimes prosecutor, has revived a forgotten The strategy — and The Hague is listening. Pillage By Chris Cannon Option JÖRG MEYER JÖRG

20-25 WarCrimes3.indd 21 9/23/13 4:14 PM The Pillage Option

is white and spartan and smells of new carpet. The building’s east- THE BUSINESS OF WAR ern views hold Vancouver’s skyline and the mountains beyond. While most war atrocities are committed by rebel groups or military Stewart’s wide offi ce window opens onto the Pacifi c. units that operate outside the law, Stewart says, these groups “are “Have you ever met any human-rights defenders from third- almost entirely dependent upon commercial actors to purchase, trans- world countries?” he says. “It’s terrifying to imagine the courage port, and market the illegally acquired resources in order to sustain it takes to do what they do. I live in a damn nice city. I have a nice the violence.” The cycle of destruction works this way: locals illegally lifestyle. But I have seen some really bad things. If addressing these exploit resources such as metals and minerals and sell them to the nat- politically sensitive issues is what it takes to make a difference, ural-resources industry, earning money to buy weapons from foreign then so be it.” arms manufacturers, which they use to perpetrate horrendous acts. The As a prosecutor and legal adviser for war-crimes tribunals, Stewart self-sustaining loop operates outside the realm of national or interna- has spent years shifting between the killing fi elds of Central Africa tional law, leading to large-scale crimes against the local populations. and the courtrooms and relief organizations that are largely power- “Armed groups often vie for control over resource-rich areas,” less to stop the slaughter. While the international justice system has says Stewart, “bringing with them waves of violence as towns fall grown incrementally more adept at punishing human-rights abuses in under the control of competing military groups. Often, the inten- war-torn areas, the prosecutions are largely after the fact: very little sity of this violence is directly tied to demand from Western mar- is being done to prevent war atrocities against civilian populations. kets, like when a major new game console enters the market before Stewart’s research paper “Corporate War Crimes,” which he Christmas, or when regulators ban lead in circuit boards, causing wrote in 2010 while working toward his JSD at Columbia, examined a spike in global demand for the only substitute, tin.” the responsibility of the extractive industries for illegally exploit- Holding corporations accountable, then, creates incentives for ing natural resources in modern war zones, and offered national warring parties to observe the laws of war — a way to alter the and international courts a new tool: a legal framework to hold the trajectory of confl icts as they happen rather than waiting out the natural-resource industry accountable for crimes against humanity. bloodshed and mopping up afterward.

Gold miners dig an open pit at the Chudja mine in northeastern Congo, February 2009.

20-25 WarCrimes3.indd 22 9/23/13 3:58 PM COURT DREAMS oners of Hutu origin are mine workers of [the Rwandan Patriotic Stewart was never allowed toy guns as a kid. Raised in Welling- Army], enemies get weapons from the same dealers and use the ton, New Zealand, he devoted himself to tennis, hoping one day same intermediaries. Business has superseded security concerns. The to play professionally. Off the courts, he read books about New only loser in this huge business venture is the Congolese people.” Zealander soldiers in World War I, and was stunned by the horror of trench warfare. “In these testimonies I read, people said they THE CRIME OF PILLAGE couldn’t open their mouths without getting a mouthful of fl ies. The term “pillage” may call to mind something as remote and Then someone would blow a whistle, you’d go over the top, and antiquated as the fi fth-century rampages of the Huns, but Stewart most of your friends would be massacred. That was insane.” As saw fi rsthand — in Rwanda, the Congo, and the former Yugo- Stewart engaged with this material, it produced in him a desire slavia — the results of modern pillage and the war economy it to understand the type of madness that led to these awful events. produces. He also saw the legal world’s ineffectiveness at prevent- Three days after fi nishing his law degree at Victoria Univer- ing these catastrophes, focusing as it did on “transitional justice” sity, Stewart moved to Florida to teach at the Saddlebrook Ten- — prosecuting crimes such as rape, torture, and genocide after the nis Academy, where he met players like Pete Sampras, Martina damage has been done. Hingis, and Jennifer Capriati. After a year, he realized that he’d never turn pro, and decided to use his law degree to explore the questions that had haunted him since childhood. He left the clay “ Armed groups often vie for control over courts and manicured lawns of Saddlebrook and was soon walk- resource-rich areas, bringing with them ing among the mass graves of Rwanda. waves of violence as towns fall under the There, he recorded fi rst-person accounts of gang rapes and control of competing military groups.” butchered families — stories from a genocide that had unfolded while the American media fi xated on the O. J. Simpson case. The motto of the Hutu slaughter was “Leave none to tell the story.” Most international criminal courts, Stewart says, target those But even if they did, the West didn’t seem to be listening. “who bear the greatest responsibility” — the physical perpetra- As Stewart carried out his research in Rwanda, he looked across tors — “instead of prosecuting corporate enablers who are more the border and saw the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) easily apprehended and more easily deterred by the threat of descending into turmoil. criminal prosecution.” But what does pillage mean, exactly? THE GREAT WAR In “Corporate War Crimes,” Stewart explains that plunder and The Second Congo War, also known as the Great War of Africa, pillage are “legally synonymous” and often interchangeable. Both was the deadliest confl ict since World War II. Preceded by a series describe theft during wartime. The International Criminal Tribunal REUTERS / FINBARR O’REILLY REUTERS / FINBARR of massacres and cross-border skirmishes in the 1990s, the war for the former Yugoslavia defi ned plunder as embracing “all forms displaced millions of refugees as it spread across eight nations of unlawful appropriation of property in armed confl ict for which between 1998 and 2003, ultimately killing more than fi ve million individual criminal responsibility attaches under international law, people, the vast majority of them civilians. including those acts traditionally described as ‘pillage.’” It took less than a year for arms manufacturers and mining In 2004, Stewart, working as a legal adviser for the Interna- interests to turn the localized Congo War into a transcontinental tional Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), was asked to write a resource grab for tin, tungsten, tantalum, gold, and diamonds, with- pamphlet on the relationship between the laws of war and busi- out regard for the environment or the local populations enslaved or nesses. When he fi nished, he offered to write a much broader study destroyed in the process. Stewart saw the same patterns of plunder, on corporate responsibility for pillaging natural resources. But his death, and Western indifference that had plagued Rwanda. superiors at the ICRC, aware of the pillage cases from World War “After my time in Rwanda, the DRC became my problem,” II, weren’t sure how or if they might apply to modern resource Stewart says. “I had met Jewish people for whom the Holocaust wars in Africa. “‘Using pillage to hold corporations criminally was a personal problem. Although the Holocaust was always a responsible for buying resources is a very avant-garde idea,’ they huge moral shock to me, it wasn’t until I worked with victims of told me,” Stewart says. “‘We think it’s too radical. We’re not sure it atrocity in Africa that the DRC became for me a day-to-day per- works. We’re not sure the legal basis is there to make this work.’” sonal problem.” Stewart remembered those words when he came to Columbia in According to a scathing 2001 United Nations report, “The con- 2007. An academic at heart, he took up an associate-in-law position fl ict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, because of its lucra- (a two-year teaching fellowship at Columbia Law School) and pur- tive nature, has created a ‘win-win’ situation for all belligerents. sued his JSD (the legal equivalent of a PhD) in the area of corporate Adversaries and enemies are at times partners in business . . . pris- responsibility for international crimes.

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“Pillage had been prosecuted as a war crime after World War II, zene, and grossly underreporting oil spills, which it accomplished, but it had then largely fallen off the map of modern thinking about according to a leaked US embassy cable, by planting operatives war crimes,” says Sarah Cleveland, the Louis Henkin Professor of throughout the Nigerian government. Human and Constitutional Rights at Columbia Law School, who “Criminal responsibility creates different incentives,” says Stew- advised Stewart in his writing. “Exploitation of natural resources art. “Criminal law can reach into a corporation, take individual such as oil, diamonds, gold, and ivory has been critical to sup- CEOs and employees, and call them to account for their actions. It porting many of the world’s most intractable armed confl icts, and can also hold corporations themselves criminally responsible. James’s work has put new tools on the table to help us confront When applied to international crimes, these possibilities change these challenges.” the ball game. You don’t need to prosecute every single incident to In Belgium, for example, an investigation is underway over the have a massive effect on the industry. You prosecute a few cases pillage of diamonds in Sierra Leone, in which prosecutors are successfully, and it will send a clear message that will change the way confl icts are fi nanced and the way weapons are transferred into confl ict zones.” “Businesses just write off the cost of the loss Criminal liability also has the power to stigmatize a corporation, on these sorts of issues and build it into the as it did with the accounting company Arthur Andersen, which all cost of the widgets that they’re selling and but folded after it was convicted of obstruction of justice for shred- pass that cost on to consumers.” ding documents during the 2001 Enron scandal. If public shaming can bring down a single company, says Stewart, imagine the impact it can have on an entire industry. He notes that after animal-rights using a French translation of “Corporate War Crimes” to pros- activists targeted the fur market in the 1980s, fur sales dropped by ecute a Belgian businessman allegedly involved in the illegal dia- nearly half. “It shifted the way people think about wearing furs on mond trade. Stewart is also pressing his case personally: in 2010, moral grounds almost instantaneously,” he says. at the Peace Palace in The Hague, he addressed three hundred judges, prosecutors, members of civil society, and scholars, all of TARGETING ARMS them seeking that elusive legal basis to hold corporations account- Stewart’s current project picks up from his Columbia work on cor- able for pillaging natural resources — no longer such a radical porate accountability, looking at the possibility of holding arms idea. That same year he used “Corporate War Crimes” to train vendors who sell weapons to combatants responsible as accom- prosecutors from twelve different legal systems at the Interna- plices in the atrocities enabled by their merchandise. tional Criminal Court, and was invited back to instruct a group of Stewart maintains that meaningful international arms regula- European prosecutors this fall. tion is unlikely. This past April, the United Nations, after nearly a

BACK ON THE RADAR A Congolese soldier inspects confi scated weapons in 2005. The concept of pillage as a war crime is enshrined in the Hague Regulations of 1907 and the Geneva Conventions of 1949. It is at the heart of Stewart’s work, because it allows for criminal liability. Civil penalties, in the rare instances when they are awarded, are a slap on the wrist to extremely profi table corporations. When Shell Oil was accused of collaborating with the Nigerian govern- ment in 1993 to execute environmentalists and tribal leaders, the company, which asserted its innocence, eventually settled for $15.5 million — a parking ticket for a business that generated $467 billion in revenue in 2012. “Businesses just write off the cost of the loss on these sorts of issues and build it into the cost of the widgets that they’re selling and pass that cost on to consumers,” Stewart says. “So there’s a concern that civil liability isn’t really something that organizations feel terribly acutely, particularly if the entire industry is undertak- ing those sorts of practices.” Meanwhile, over the thirteen years the Shell case dragged on, the company was repeatedly accused of funding armed groups to murder civilian activists, polluting the drinking water with ben-

24 Columbia Fall 2013

20-25 WarCrimes.indd 24 9/24/13 5:19 PM decade of fi ghting organizations such as the National Rifl e Asso- ciation, fi nally adopted the Arms Trade Treaty, a step that Stewart views as positive but inadequate. “I’ve always felt we shouldn’t be too sanguine about the value of a treaty,” he says. “Generally, treaties are important, but it’s diffi - cult for me to imagine that states would actually agree to have any type of independent scrutiny over their weapons transfers. And even if they did, it’s diffi cult to imagine that we’re ever going to hold people individually accountable for those types of transfers. You already have a network of courts able to do that work, and they have real teeth in ways that initiatives like the Arms Trade Treaty will probably not.” Which is why Stewart believes the best way to curb unfettered arms trade is through national courts rather than waiting for global cooperation. Following World War II, national courts held

corporate representatives accountable for a range of war crimes, / CORBIS JON JONES as they did with the German businessman who pillaged one hun- Rwandans walk past bodies at a refugee camp in Zaire (now the Demo- dred million tons of ore from France, the director of the Dresden cratic Republic of the Congo), 1994. Bank who mediated the transfer of Jewish property to German hands, and the business partners who sold the Nazis large quanti- those weapons to commit international crimes. You have to do ties of Zyklon B, the poison chemical used in the gas chambers. some pretty bad things to be guilty of a war crime with weapons. In the last case, the United Nations War Crimes Commission The message really is, you have to comply with the laws of war. described the transaction as “a clear example of the application You can sell weapons to people who comply with the laws of war.” of the rule that the provisions of the laws and customs of war are addressed not only to combatants and to members of state and THE RISING TIDE other public authorities, but to anybody who is in a position to The credibility of Stewart’s approach is refl ected in the surge of assist in their violation.” attention he has received. Over the past few years, he’s won the “Crimes against international law,” the Nuremberg Tribunal ulti- Cassese Prize for International Criminal Law Studies; Canada’s mately concluded, “are committed by men, not by abstract entities.” Aurora Prize, awarded to top emerging scholars; and an Open National courts are now rediscovering the precedent set by Society Initiative fellowship. these cases, using them as an alternative to ineffectual interna- “Stewart is a consummate scholar unafraid to bring his con- tional law. In 2000, the Rwandan director of a tea factory was science into his work,” says Peter Rosenblum, a professor at Bard convicted of crimes against humanity for failing to restrain or College and a former human-rights-law professor at Columbia, punish the genocidal acts of his employees. In the Netherlands where he was on Stewart’s JSD committee. “He’s the hedgehog of in 2007, a Dutch businessman received seventeen years in prison pillage — he knows everything about it. The idea of prosecuting for selling chemicals to Iraq that were turned into mustard gas to corporations had been there from the beginning, but we stopped be used on the Kurds. looking at those who were prospering. Stewart connected the dots “This is very bitter medicine to swallow,” says Stewart, “and between pillage and the idea of international accountability.” states hate prosecuting their own corporate nationals. But it Stewart acknowledges the powerful forces in his way, and, as started happening in part because of the pressure that the Interna- Rosenblum confi rms, they’re not just big businesses. tional Criminal Court creates, since its jurisdiction is based on the “It always takes a special will from a government to pursue

LIONEL HEALING / AFP / GETTY IMAGES LIONEL HEALING / AFP GETTY IMAGES idea that the national system didn’t prosecute these people. What these cases,” Rosenblum says, “and we’re not seeing a lot of that.” I’m most interested in is states prosecuting their own corporate But Stewart believes there is no turning back. nationals for these sorts of crimes. There’s a much stronger sense “If you look at the ways in which societies have developed and of legitimacy in that process.” the fi ghts that have been fought — women’s rights, racial equality, But Stewart is not out to shut down the weapons and extractive sexual orientation — I think this is the next one,” he says. “I don’t industries. He does want them to be more vigilant in making sure think of it as a battle. I think of it as a tide. I think it’s inevitable.” their commerce doesn’t support atrocities. “If what I was saying was something like, ‘You can’t sell weap- Chris Cannon ’00GS is an American writer and former Marine ons to Africans,’ then my project would be ridiculous,” Stewart Corps sergeant living in Vancouver, BC. His writing has appeared says. “Africans have a right to weapons, provided they don’t use in Rolling Stone, Men’s Journal, and Billboard.

Fall 2013 Columbia 25

20-25 WarCrimes.indd 25 9/24/13 5:20 PM 26-31 Rocks.indd 26 CARBON EATERS researcher thinks By DouglasQuenqua could liebeneath global warming One Columbia a solutionto THE our feet.

CONTOUR BY GETTY IMAGES 9/24/13 5:20PM Peter Kelemen with a chunk of rock covered in carbonate.

26-31 Rocks.indd 27 9/24/13 5:20 PM THE CARBON EATERS

he fi rst time Peter Kelemen visited the tite is normally hidden ten miles or more below mountains of northern Oman, a craggy ground. But a series of tectonic fl ukes under the T stretch of rock that pushed up through Arabian Peninsula pushed a big chunk of man- the earth’s surface ninety million years ago, he tle upward, forming the Hajar Mountains and was disappointed to fi nd cracks fi lled with car- making this one of the few places in the world bonate, obscuring much of the landscape. where peridotite is accessible to scientists. Kele- To him, it might as well have been Wite-Out, men hoped that by studying the rock’s chemical redacting millions of years of geological history. composition he could reveal secrets about the “When I would come to an outcrop full of all extraordinarily hot, pressurized, and unstable these white veins, I would turn and run the other subterranean world from which it came. The way,” says Kelemen, a geochemist at Columbia’s problem was that wherever peridotite had come Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. into contact with carbon dioxide, the two had In a spring in Wadi Sudar, Oman, It was 1994, and Kelemen had traveled to reacted to form a limestone-like solid. Much of wherever water has run over a the desert Sultanate of Oman to study a coarse- the peridotite exposed to air or water was thus rock called peridotite, a crust of carbonate has formed. grained, greenish rock called peridotite. The converted into a chalky substance, making it dif- main constituent of the earth’s mantle, perido- fi cult for scientists to fi nd clean samples. “If our goal had been to study how carbon dioxide interacts with these rocks, this would have been great,” says Kelemen. “But we wanted to understand processes in the mantle. And the carbonate-fi lled cracks were obliterat- ing the evidence.” When Kelemen returned to Oman in 2007 for the fi rst time in a few years, however, it was the carbonate he was looking for. Politicians and scientists in the United States had been buzzing about an ambitious plan to slow global warm- ing by sucking carbon dioxide out of the air and storing it underground. One challenge was fi nd- ing a safe place to lock it away. Kelemen had a hunch his old nemesis could help. “These rocks suddenly seemed worth sam- pling,” he says. “Whereas once I bemoaned how they react with carbon dioxide, now I wanted to know: how much of the stuff could they take? And how fast?”

Mantle pieces Since the Industrial Revolution, the amount of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere has risen more than 40 percent, sealing in heat and wreak- ing havoc with our climate. The problem grows worse with every pound of fossil fuel we burn to fl y, drive, watch television, or wash our clothes. But what if there were a way to siphon that excess carbon dioxide right out of the air and stash it somewhere forever? The idea is known as carbon capture and storage, and while it may sound like wishful thinking, it’s won some

OMAN PHOTOS BY KEVIN KRAJICK KEVIN BY OMAN PHOTOS prominent backers. Howard Herzog, a senior

28 Columbia Fall 2013

26-31 Rocks.indd 28 9/20/13 4:08 PM The Hajar Mountains on the Arabian Peninsula were created when a piece of the earth’s mantle thrusted upward from ten miles underground.

research engineer at the MIT Energy Initiative, going to use up the billions of tons of CO that 2 “ This rock from says that developing a practical storage method scientists hope to pull from the air. is “critical for a secure, clean energy future.” Kelemen is not a climate scientist, nor did he the earth’s President Obama has supported carbon capture have much professional interest in global warm- interior is out of since his fi rst national campaign, and included ing until a few years ago. But his experience in his 2009 federal stimulus package $3.4 billion working in Oman — since 1994 he has returned equilibrium with for developing it. there regularly — gave him unique insight into our atmosphere, To pull the carbon out of the air, researchers the chemistry of carbon dioxide and rock. He have devised some creative, if still speculative, knew that those streaks of carbonate that he had and hungry for solutions. Columbia physicist Klaus Lackner avoided occurred when magnesium and calcium carbon dioxide. is working on giant synthetic trees that would in the mantle rock sucked up carbon dioxide absorb carbon dioxide like real trees do, but at from air and water, storing it, he says, “as an We want to a much greater rate. Harvard physicist David inert, harmless mineral.” He thought: what if take advantage Keith has built a machine that sucks air through peridotite could be made to do that on a massive of that.” a thirty-foot-long chamber and extracts carbon scale? It might make the perfect storage facility. dioxide using water laced with sodium hydroxide. Geologists had noticed that peridotite soaks — Peter Kelemen But what to do with the gas once it’s been up carbon dioxide long before Kelemen vis- captured? Some suggest compressing it into a ited Oman. But most believed the process was liquid and injecting it into depleted oil wells, impractical for large-scale sequestration. “I was gas reservoirs, and other cavities underground. told that people had thought about it and con- But critics warn that it could escape and cause cluded that it was not practical because it was damage to soil and water. Others suggest selling too slow,” Kelemen says. He was pretty sure it to oil drillers, who use it to fl oat oil out of the they were wrong. “It didn’t match my intu- ground, or even selling it to carbonated-beverage ition,” he says. “I had seen things that made me manufacturers. But all the soda in the world isn’t think the reactions could happen within hours.”

Fall 2013 Columbia 29

26-31 Rocks.indd 29 9/20/13 4:08 PM Finding a way For example, pools of water that emerged were still forming. This seemed to happen when from the rock and came in contact with air the mountains’ topsoil eroded to expose fresh to store carbon would develop a cloudy white fi lm. Disturb that peridotite and when new cracks appeared in dioxide in a fi lm, and it would grow back almost immedi- the rock, permitting carbonate deposits to form ately. “I’d throw a pebble in the pool and knock deep inside. Kelemen and Matter estimated that mineral form the little scum of carbonate down, and a day the peridotite was absorbing about 100,000 has always been later, a new one would have formed,” says Kele- tons of carbon annually, far more than geolo- men, who is the Arthur D. Storke Memorial gists had previously believed. the Holy Grail of Professor in the Department of Earth and Envi- Kelemen and Matter soon published a study sequestration ronmental Sciences. “For a geologist, that’s just theorizing that this natural process could be superfast. That’s supersonic.” accelerated a millionfold in some places. Their research. So when he and fellow Columbia geochemist idea was to pierce the Hajar Mountains, a range Juerg Matter returned to Oman on a fi eld trip for the size of Massachusetts, with boreholes and

students in 2007, they collected samples of the then pump huge quantities of CO2-infused water carbonate and had them dated using carbon-14 into the ground. Even considering the economic analysis. “I thought a lot of these deposits would and engineering challenges involved, Kelemen Peter Kelemen and his daughter Sarah, a college freshman, map be millions of years old, but they weren’t,” and Matter concluded that it would be feasible rock formations in Wadi Fins, Kelemen says. “It turned out they were all less to store several billion tons of CO2 per year, or Oman, where veins of carbonate fi ll every crack that has been than 50,000 years old.” Their tender age was roughly 10 percent of all of the CO2 that humans exposed to water. a strong indication that the carbonate deposits are now producing. Alternatively, they proposed

30 Columbia Fall 2013

26-31 Rocks.indd 30 9/20/13 4:09 PM THE CARBON EATERS

drilling boreholes off the coast, which would permit seawater to permeate the mantle rock

beneath the ocean fl oor and deposit its CO2 there. Finding a way to store carbon dioxide in a mineral form has always been the Holy Grail of sequestration research, says Greg Dipple, a professor of geology at the University of British Columbia. “It’s been recognized since the early 1990s as the optimal way to store carbon, but it hadn’t been feasible,” he says. “What Peter came up with is a novel way to do it on a large scale.”

Rock-tight storage? This past January, Kelemen spent a month in Oman collecting more samples. “We’re now interested in learning how to

maximize the amount of CO2 that a certain vol- ume of rock absorbs,” he says. “What nature can do in this regard is amazing — we’ve found pieces of the rock that literally have carbonate attached to every single one of the magnesium and calcium atoms. It’s permeated. Maxed out. And we want to learn how to make more of the rock like that.” neer who has done extensive research on novel In recent years, Kelemen has learned more methods of carbon sequestration, is working Carbon dioxide reacts with peridotite in this region, turning about the mechanism by which peridotite with Kelemen to understand the optimal condi- it into a chalky substance that resembles limestone. absorbs CO2. For example, he has discovered tions for CO2 to chemically combine with ele- that when carbonate forms within the cracks of ments in the peridotite. peridotite it presses out against the surround- “One trick is to circulate the water as deep ing rock, forming new, microscopic fi ssures. into the ground as possible, because heat from These clefts allow more air and water inside the the earth’s interior is going to make the chemical peridotite, which kick-starts a self-perpetuating reactions occur at a faster rate,” says Kelemen. cycle of carbonate formation and splintering. Kelemen’s next goal is to dig a single borehole “This rock from the earth’s interior is out of and experiment with the injection and removal

equilibrium with our atmosphere, and hungry of large quantities of CO2-rich water. The oper- for carbon dioxide,” Kelemen says. “We want ation would cost roughly $10 million, and so to take advantage of that. This is chemical far he has not convinced anybody to put up potential energy, as a geochemist would say. It’s the money. Part of the challenge in funding his there to be harnessed on a massive scale, if we work, Kelemen says, is that private companies can learn how to do it.” don’t yet see commercial potential in storing Kelemen is now collaborating on the project carbon dioxide, especially when scientists are with several other Columbia scientists. Among still searching for an economically viable way to them is Heather Savage, a geophysicist who remove it from the air. studies earthquakes. She is now applying every- He is prepared to be patient. “Maybe in ten thing she knows about how rock formations or twenty years, after we’ve had catastrophes near tectonic faults naturally slip, crumble, that are clearly attributable to global warm- and crack in order to help Kelemen fi gure out ing, there will be more urgency surrounding the a way to initiate new fi ssures within peridotite, development of these technologies,” Kelemen thereby exposing more of its surface area to says. “When the time comes, we want to have

CO2. Alissa Park, a climate scientist and engi- the basic concepts ready to go.”

Fall 2013 Columbia 31

26-31 Rocks.indd 31 9/20/13 4:09 PM Shades of Green By Michael Christman A Marine in Afghanistan writes home

ow could it be that so few Ivy graduates shared in our country’s burden?” “H wrote Michael Christman ’00SEAS in a 2007 op-ed in the Spectator. “Why was it that we had sent so many of America’s youth to war and so few of its elite were there alongside them?”

In 2005, Christman, working as an engineer in Washington, DC, ing side by side with the Marine Corps in Helmand Province. The joined the Marines, wanting to experience what he calls “one of the opium-producing area is the historical home of the Taliban and most important events of my generation.” one of the most violent regions of the country. Christman had pre- “Back in ’05 there were plenty of people willing to complain viously deployed to Afghanistan as the pilot of an AH-1W Cobra or point out the fl aws of the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan,” attack helicopter, and recently served as a forward air controller. Christman says. “But very few people were willing to put their As the most senior of the ten Americans on the base of more than money where their mouths were.” 150 Georgians, he found that his role included much more than Christman, now a captain, returned home in April from a coordinating airstrikes. seven-month deployment to Afghanistan, in which he served as The following edited excerpts are taken from Christman’s e-mails an adviser to one of the two Republic of Georgia battalions work- home from his third and fi nal deployment.

32-37 AfghanDiaries.indd 32 9/23/13 9:22 AM A memorial ceremony for a fallen Marine, Helmand Province, February 2013.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY MICHAEL CHRISTMAN

November 8, 2012 running the command operations cen- where safe. When children are present, it’s I had always wondered if I would react ter (COC). But being the senior guy also usually a sign that things are good and the appropriately the fi rst time I was shot at. means that if I want to patrol with the boys Taliban is going to leave us alone for the day. Other than six months at the Basic School from time to time, I can. Part of my deal So you can imagine our surprise when seven years ago, I haven’t really had any with my Marines is that when I go out on the fi rst rounds came in. Getting shot at formal infantry training. It turns out your patrol, I’m the pack mule and carry the for the fi rst time is an emotional event as brain has a pretty good idea of what to do heaviest radio (and the only radio with the it is, but for the Taliban to shoot at us with all on its own. A millisecond after hearing power to talk back to the COC). women and children nearby seemed just the fi rst crack as the round broke above The fi rst half of the patrol was unevent- wrong. Despite my overwhelming desire to my head, I was on the ground. Go fi gure: ful. There were plenty of women and chil- return fi re, your job as a forward air con- the get-the-fuck-down instinct is somehow dren around. A couple of the braver kids troller isn’t to shoot back; it’s to get on the hardwired into you. came up to the patrol asking for food and radio and start coordinating with higher We had headed out for the patrol just candy. Mothers all over the world, not just and see if you can’t get some air on station before 9 a.m., pushing just under a mile in Afghanistan, seem to have a sixth sense and, if possible, tell the aircraft where to from the forward operating base. As the about when bad things are going to happen. drop a bomb so that 1) it makes the bad senior guy at the position, my job mostly If a mom senses that something’s up, she’ll man stop shooting and 2) the bomb doesn’t keeps me inside the wire and off patrols, bring her kids inside or take them some- drop on you. However, with my face in the

32-37 AfghanDiaries.indd 33 9/23/13 9:23 AM Shades of Green

dirt I had lost line-of-sight communication patrol leader decided that we were going Taliban, but probably not. We don’t speak with the COC. I needed to stand, or at least to try to egress our end of the patrol, the the language, don’t understand the culture. kneel, in order to talk with higher. I got up Georgians should have immediately started We might as well be space aliens. on one knee and was able to call back. bounding back, providing cover for each The rest of the patrol was uneventful. “Wild Eagle 43, this is Wild Eagle 41. We other. But they just sat there in the open, There were a half dozen farmers around just took a couple of pop shots.” Crack! taking rounds. After spending what seemed for the shooting whom we talked to, but of Crack! My face was back in the dirt as two like forever getting shot at, I fi nally got fed course none of them knew anything about more rounds snapped over my head. up and started directing traffi c. The advan- who or where the Taliban might be. Such is We went back and forth with this. I got tage of being a Marine is that these guys life in the Helmand Valley. up, took a round, and got back down. will listen to you. Be loud, be forceful, and Since World War II, one of the fi rst rules they’ll move. Give them some leadership February 24, 2013 of combat has been that the enemy will try and they will execute to a T. The most dangerous times of any deploy- to kill the guy with the radio. Turns out I As we bounded back, we took up a defen- ment are the fi rst and last thirty days. In had a big-ass bull’s-eye on my back. That, sive position, waiting for the aircraft that I the fi rst thirty days, you don’t have the experience to keep you from making stu- pid mistakes. Add to that the swagger that Crack! Crack! My face was back in the dirt as any young person might have when head- two more rounds snapped over my head. ing off to war for the fi rst time, and you’ve got a potentially dangerous combination. In short, you’re too stupid to realize that and my American uniform. Johnny Taliban had requested. I noticed that some of the your aggressiveness and confi dence is what isn’t stupid: he was targeting the Marines. kids from earlier were crouched behind a is most likely to get you killed. One of the biggest frustrations we have berm (they must have been much smarter During the last thirty days, you have with the Georgians is that they, like many than us to fi nd actual cover). Fifteen min- the benefi t of fi ve to six months of com- former Soviet militaries, don’t empower utes earlier they had been playfully running bat experience, but you are tired and have their junior and midlevel leaders. Once the a wheelbarrow with a bag of fertilizer across convinced yourself that you have every- the fi elds. Now they were intently watching thing under control. You’ve patrolled the us, not scared or frightened but curious, like same roads and talked to the same people any eight-year-old boy would be. for half a year, and all you can think or We could see their heads poking out talk about is going home. In short, you’ve from behind the berm, and perhaps tak- become too cocky to realize that letting ing a cue from us (we were now kneeling your guard down is what will get you rather than lying fl at) the boys started to killed. In both cases, it is our hubris that is come out one by one, wheelbarrow in tow. our most dangerous enemy. I’ll always remember the look that two of Timing has it that the last thirty days of the older boys gave us. Their younger com- our deployment coincide with the start of patriots had already scurried off, but here the spring offensive, on February 22. That they were with their wheelbarrow and us morning, an American-only convoy had blocking the way. You could see the wheels just left our base, where they had dropped turning in their heads. They had to get the off some mail and people. As usual, we wheelbarrow and its contents past us, but enjoyed the opportunity to speak with we blocked the path. They clearly didn’t visitors, asking how so-and-so was doing want to stay here, but they couldn’t leave at the main base to the north, poking fun their parcel. What to do? at how they lived the privileged life with We shooed them through our forma- their fancy showers (Marines wear harsh tion, hoping to get them out of the crossfi re conditions like a badge of honor), and before we took any more rounds. As the kids hearing the latest rumor of who was going headed off, I couldn’t help but wonder what home early and who wasn’t. We had had

COURTESY OF MICHAEL CHRISTMAN COURTESY it must be like to grow up like that. Maybe some violent weather over the last couple The author, at the end of his fi nal deployment. they’ll see us as something better than the of days, but the storm had passed, and I

34 Columbia Fall 2013

32-37 AfghanDiaries.indd 34 9/23/13 9:23 AM This base, belonging to the Georgian sister battalion, served as a logistics hub. A Russian-built helicopter can be seen in the landing zone.

was enjoying the crisp Afghanistan winter of battalions, battalions of companies) were The Marine at the scene of the attack morning and company. focused on us. Quick-reaction forces from was so nervous and upset that he mistak- The convoy commander, Staff Sergeant two companies raced to the scene, medevac enly threw the smoke to mark the landing Jones (not his real name), was a talkative aircraft were launched, close air support zone twice before the aircraft were on sta- man, confi dent to a degree that bordered (bomb-dropping aircraft) circled overhead. tion. Lucky for us, a team from another on arrogant, but humorous enough to not On the negative side, this infl ux added to company arrived and was able to take be annoying or over-the-line. There was the chaos. They originally sent a large Brit- charge of the situation. always a kernel of truth to his combat sto- ish medevac helicopter from Leatherneck With the patients away, the guys on scene ries (he had scars from IED strikes to prove that could carry all the patients at once. were able to concentrate on the recovery it), but he certainly took some liberties. When that took too long, a second order effort. The same Marines, now with the Still, the Marines looked up to him, and he was given to launch two smaller American blood of fi ve of their brothers staining their always had their best interests at heart, so aircraft from a nearby base. Every aircraft uniforms, had to bring back the downed I would patiently listen to his stories and showed up at the same time, and it was on truck, which in Afghanistan is no small take them for their entertainment value. I me to coordinate it all while at the same task. The entire process took several hours liked Staff Sergeant Jones and enjoyed his time trying to help the Marine running the and involved a small gun battle and an tales as a way to pass the time. show at the attack site to keep calm and unrelated IED fi nd that required some of Less than twenty minutes after the con- focused enough that we could bring in the the security to be redirected. voy left our position, we received a semi- aircraft safely. At one point, we had six air- As the hours went on, we began to receive panicked call from the convoy. They had craft — two US UH-60 Blackhawk mede- reports from the medical facility where the hit an IED, and there were casualties. vac helicopters, one British CH-47, two patients had been taken. The driver of the The next half hour was chaos. On the British Apache attack-helicopter escorts, vehicle was badly injured, with severe burns positive side, all the resources of the battal- and an armed aircraft — all trying to pick to his face and disfi guring wounds to his ion and the regiment (regiments are made up up the wounded Marines. right arm. Other passengers, two Marines

Fall 2013 Columbia 35

32-37 AfghanDiaries.indd 35 9/23/13 9:23 AM Shades of Green

and a Georgian interpreter, would survive, to take care of each other, and that talking is percent, but have started joking around but their recovery would be long and dif- the best form of therapy, and they are right. again as only brothers can. Keeping them fi cult. The fi fth patient, Staff Sergeant Jones, Venting your anger, telling stories, taking a working and focused on the task at hand is had died of his wounds upon arrival. day or two off are all things that help. the only therapy that I can provide. The convoy made its way back up north. Perhaps the hardest part about leader- I can’t help but think of the wife and child A freak storm whipped through the area, ship is that you are a team of one. Being the Staff Sergeant Jones left behind, or his badly forcing the Marines to stop once again at our solid rock for these boys is diffi cult. If I break injured driver, a lance corporal not more base. One of the hardest things I’ve had to do down or go internal, the Marines will break than twenty years old who hadn’t quite is to stand in front of them and tell them that down or go internal. If I blame the Geor- grown into his body. I think about what the Staff Sergeant Jones had died. They reacted gians for all the problems, the boys will do rest of his life will be like. While his peers are as you would expect a group of Marines the same, destroying the relationship we have starting their lives, dating girls, getting mar- would. There was no immediate crying or worked so hard to forge. For now, my role is ried, and starting families, he’ll be spend- outbursts of emotion, but you could read to remain the steady ship. To listen when the ing the next months, if not years, in painful on their faces the torrent of emotion going Marines want to talk, to rein them in if their rehab. And when he does go out on the through them: astonishment, disbelief, attitudes become toxic, and to have the wis- town, will his scars keep him from getting a anger. Some would come to the realization dom to tell the difference between the two. date? These are the circumstances that these that they were in fact mortal. One began to No amount of training or Ivy League educa- young men will have to live with for the rest feel survivor’s guilt after he realized that the tion can prepare you for that. of their lives. It’s a sacrifi ce that they chose to person who took his spot on the convoy had And yet the fi ght goes on, whether we make, volunteering to join the military dur- been one of the men wounded. like it or not. This has been a trying few ing a time of war. America, whether or not Mental-health experts remind us that the days, but the boys are doing as well as can she realizes it, is built on the backs of men most important thing for these guys to do is be expected. They’re not back to a hundred like these. It is an honor to serve with them.

March 24, 2013 Of course, the most widely discussed topic is our impending return home. The fi rst of our Marine replacements arrive in a week, and soon after that I’ll be back in Leather- neck waiting on a fl ight home. At times I can almost taste the beer waiting for me in America. Those on their fi rst deployment are jumping out of their skins with antici- pation to get back. I’ve done this a couple of times, and from my experience, the reintegration process is best described from the point of view of ordering a coffee at Starbucks. Phase 1: You stand patiently in line, happy to be around people who have showered at least once in the last twenty- four hours. You order an Orange Mocha Frappuccino from the girl behind the coun- ter, just glad to be talking to someone who doesn’t have to shave. Phase 2: You’re standing in line behind a businessman and a soccer mom who are complaining that there isn’t enough foam

A fl yover during the memorial on their Orange Mocha Frappuccinos, and service for Staff Sergeant Jones. it takes all your willpower not to strangle them and scream about how you just spent

36 Columbia Fall 2013

32-37 AfghanDiaries.indd 36 9/23/13 9:24 AM A patrol walks in “Ranger fi le,” each member closely following the person in front of him to minimize the risk of stepping on an IED.

These are young men who have stared death in the face and walked away unscathed. It can be hard to go back home and not become bored with the banality of modern life in America.

seven months in the fi lth with a bunch of for their reintegration. These are young goes smoothly with the next unit, but in Georgians tiptoeing around IEDs so that men who have stared death in the face and the end, it’s time to go home. they could enjoy their mornings with a walked away unscathed. It can be hard to It’s funny what you crave after being fi ve-dollar beverage made from the beans go back home and not become bored with gone for so long. For the last seven months picked by some kid in Guatemala. the banality of modern life in America. Too everything I’ve eaten has come out of a Phase 3: You’re complaining that there’s many of these young men will try to recap- bag (and all my poop has gone into one, not enough foam in your Orange Mocha ture the thrill of combat by going home so in a weird way it makes sense). I haven’t Frappuccino. and driving fast cars, drinking heavily, self- watched TV, seen a sporting event, had a Everyone is different, and most people medicating, or all three at once. Sometimes I face-to-face conversation with a girl, sent will end up at Phase 3 sooner or later. The wish that before we get home we could lock a text message, used running water, or experts estimate that somewhere between ourselves in a padded room with a couple of fl ushed a toilet. I haven’t driven in a car 10 and 20 percent of us come back with kegs of beer and some boxing gloves so that that doesn’t require me to put on sixty some sort of posttraumatic stress disorder. we could get most of the drinking and fi ght- pounds of body armor and ammunition, Some of those end up committing suicide. ing out of our systems before we’re released had a day off, or showered on a regular But it’s important to recognize that this sta- back into the general public. basis. I’ve been living in an open tent with tistic also means that between 80 and 90 But overall it has been a great deploy- nine other guys and little to no privacy, percent of us come back without PTSD. ment, a life-changing event for the better. sleeping on a cot in a sleeping bag. I haven’t It’s great that we as a society recognize Nothing focuses a group of young men like been without my pistol or handheld radio mental health as an important topic, but I preparing for and going into combat, and for months. worry that we may have swung too far and no other job will ever have as much excite- My fi rst meal when I get back? A bowl of that the stigma of the veteran who “loses ment, meaning, or importance as the last mussels and fries with a plate of oysters and it” is a burden that we all have to carry. year has had for me. There is a small part a tall, cold Belgian beer sounds great right I’m concerned about the boys as they go of me that would like to stay for another now. Don’t ask why that particular meal back. The fi rst ninety days can set the tone month, just to make sure that everything sounds so appealing. I don’t know, either.

Fall 2013 Columbia 37

32-37 AfghanDiaries.indd 37 9/23/13 9:26 AM NEWS

David Madigan picked to lead Arts and Sciences

David Madigan, a Columbia statistics pro- and recruit the best students,” he says. “And fessor who chaired his department for the when these people have amazing ideas, I past fi ve years, has been named the Uni- want to make sure they have the resources versity’s new executive vice president and they need to do amazing things. I want to dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. provide fertile ground for fl owers to grow.” In this position, Madigan helps to over- Madigan succeeds Nicholas Dirks, who see the operation of fi ve schools: Columbia left Columbia in July to become chancellor College, the School of General Studies, the of the University of California, Berkeley. School of the Arts, the School of Continuing Madigan’s appointment was announced in Education, and the Graduate School of Arts September, after he had served in the posi- and Sciences. More specifi cally, his offi ce tion on an interim basis for several months. coordinates the management of the twenty- A native of Athlone, Ireland, Madigan nine Arts and Sciences departments whose received his bachelor’s degree in mathemat- faculty serve these schools. Deciding how ics and his PhD in statistics from Trinity large these departments should be relative to College, Dublin. After working as an infor- one another, for instance, and what strengths mation-technology consultant in Ireland they should develop as they grow, requires for a few years, he joined the University an organizational structure that spans the of Washington as a statistics professor in schools, since all of them are affected. This is 1990, remaining there for a decade before where Madigan’s offi ce comes in. moving to Rutgers. At Rutgers, he served as “I want to help all of our Arts and Sci- dean of physical and mathematical sciences. David Madigan

MARTYN GALLINA-JONES MARTYN ences departments hire the best professors He was recruited to Columbia in 2007,

Community Impact launches fi rst capital campaign

For many college students, Saturdays are for sleeping in, brunch with but it recently launched its fi rst capital campaign, in the hopes of friends, maybe a trip to the library. But from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., building a $5 million endowment over the course of fi ve years. The Columbia College junior Hahn Chang has other plans. As a coor- campaign is to be offi cially announced at the organization’s October dinator for Columbia Youth Adventurers, he spends his weekends gala and auction, which also honors trustee Lisa Carnoy ’89CC. taking low-income elementary-aged students from Harlem, Morn- With the new endowment, Community Impact plans to bol- ingside Heights, and Washington Heights on excursions around the ster its current programs, which it operates in partnership with city — activities like ice skating in Central Park, or planting seeds in forty community organizations. Programs are loosely organized a community garden. into four groups: adult education and job placement, community “We try to give them experiences that they wouldn’t otherwise education, homelessness assistance and advocacy, and youth pro- have,” says Chang, “to show them a world beyond their world.” Columbia Youth Adventurers is just one program under the umbrella of Community Impact, the University’s largest service organization. Founded by two students in 1981, it now employs

nine hundred volunteers from Columbia and Barnard, and serves ADRIAN SILVER more than eight thousand low-income children and adults in the surrounding neighborhoods. Community Impact is currently funded by a mix of government grants, institutional money, and a small number of private donations,

38 Columbia Fall 2013

38-43 News.indd 38 9/24/13 1:17 PM taking over as the statistics department the diversity of Arts and Sciences faculty, works. Neuroscientists can’t address that chair the next year. to support teachers in their use of new by themselves. They need input from physi- While distinguishing himself as an admin- classroom technologies, and to encourage cists, engineers, statisticians, biologists, istrator, Madigan has also built a reputation the involvement of faculty and students in computer scientists, psychologists, chem- as a versatile and innovative researcher. In University-wide research endeavors. These ists, and many others. This presents exciting the past few years, Madigan and collabora- endeavors include those housed at the new opportunities. And it means that we tors have developed algorithms that help doc- Institute for Data Sciences and Engineer- can’t have any barriers to the free-fl owing tors make predictions about how prescribed ing, where expert number crunchers are exchange of ideas across academic units.” drugs are likely to affect certain people, based culling enormous data sets for the benefi t Madigan is a fellow of the American on how the drugs have affected others with of colleagues in urban planning, journal- Statistical Association, the Institute of similar health profi les. Today he is working ism, health analytics, fi nancial analytics, Mathematical Statistics, and the American with Columbia historian Matthew Connelly and cybersecurity; and the Mortimer B. Association for the Advancement of Science. to analyze large numbers of US government Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Insti- “In his important new leadership role, documents to understand offi cial secrecy tute, where neuroscientists are collaborat- David will be called on to sustain and patterns. (See related story about the Brown ing with researchers in many other fi elds further strengthen Columbia’s academic Institute’s “Magic Grants” on page 40.) to study how brain mechanisms underlie excellence, expand our interdisciplinary “For me, statistics has always been high-level functions such as memory, self- programs, and make this core academic about collaborating with people to tackle awareness, language, and emotion. community of Arts and Sciences even more real-world problems,” he says. “I have lit- “A lot of the biggest, most interesting diverse,” says President Lee C. Bollinger. tle interest in working alone.” research questions today require interdis- “Having seen his effectiveness in recent Among his objectives as executive vice ciplinary teams to solve,” says Madigan. months working on an interim basis, I am president, Madigan says, are to increase “Consider the mystery of how the brain confi dent he will succeed on each front.”

grams. Volunteers work daily within the community to tutor stu- >> To learn more visit www.communityimpactatcu.org. dents, teach GED-prep classes, serve a weekly hot lunch, and, in Chang’s case, allow the students to explore their own backyard. “Columbia wouldn’t be Columbia without it,” says Columbia College senior Jane Brennan, who started working at the Com- munity Lunch program when she was a high-school senior in Westchester County, and now serves as its coordinator. “It has impacted every aspect of my college experience.” Executive director Sonia Reese says that as the endowment grows, the organization will focus more on recruiting and train- ing volunteers and evaluating their performance, as well as reach- ing out to the community. It will also develop and launch a new website and improve its electronic communications generally. One group that Reese particularly hopes to reach is Community Impact’s alumni base. “We’ve got more than thirty years of Community Impact vol- unteers,” says Reese. “One wonderful thing about planning the

campaign has been bringing them back into the fold.” DENG COLLEEN

Fall 2013 Columbia 39

38-43 News.indd 39 9/24/13 1:17 PM NEWS

Brown Institute awards fi rst “Magic Grants”

A new institute run jointly by Columbia and Stanford has side pressure. The NewsHub team will then publicize on its website announced its fi rst seed grants for high-tech journalism projects. the suspicious editorial changes that its users catch, in an effort to The inaugural recipients of the so-called “Magic Grants” from shame news organizations into being more principled. the David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute for Media Innovation “This problem of quietly changing news stories is not limited include researchers who are leading Web-based projects to track to dictatorial regimes,” says Sravan Bhamidipati ’13SEAS, a com- censorship in authoritarian regimes; detect what types of docu- puter engineer who is creating NewsHub’s software. “We’ve found ments the US government classifi es; and study how drag queens in this occurring now even in the United States, as news websites Brooklyn use social media to manage their identities. will sometimes delete controversial statements from their articles The grants, which are given in amounts up to $100,000, were without any explanation.” made possible by a $30 million gift from the late Cosmopolitan Another project that got a Magic Grant, the Declassifi cation editor Helen Gurley Brown, who endowed the Brown Institute in Engine, is run by Columbia history professor Matthew Connelly in 2012 as a partnership between Columbia’s journalism school and collaboration with members of the statistics and computer-science Stanford’s engineering school. All of the institute’s activities are departments. His team is using data-mining technology to analyze aimed at promoting collaboration between journalists and data US-government archives for clues about what information is with- scientists. This year the institute awarded a total of eight Magic held from the public record. For instance, Connelly hopes to gain Grants between the two campuses. insight into the political priorities and sensitivities of past US presi- NewsHub, a project led by students and recent graduates of dents by studying the documents that were kept secret under their Columbia’s journalism and engineering schools, won a Magic Grant watch and subsequently declassifi ed by their successors. to create software that will detect when news websites alter their “We want to make out the broad patterns of government stories after they are published. The organizers hope to distribute secrecy, to see what types of information get classifi ed, for how the software to media watchdogs around the world to help them long, and on what legal basis,” Connelly says. spot when news organizations make edits in response to govern- Mark Hansen, a Columbia journalism professor who was recruited ment censorship, threats from advertisers, or other types of out- to be the Brown Institute’s East Coast director, says this year’s Magic

For NYC biotech, a real starter-upper

New York City offi cials have been trying for years to establish this “It’s completely set up,” says Sia, who owns and operates the city as a biotechnology hub on par with Boston or San Francisco. enterprise with his wife, Christine Kovich, who previously worked One challenge is that scientists with ideas for new cancer drugs, in fi nance. “You can show up and start working. If your idea pans surgical devices, and other lifesaving inventions have trouble fi nd- ing commercial laboratory space that is affordable. “To outfi t a lab in Manhattan, you’re looking at plunking down $100,000 or more,” says Samuel Sia, a Columbia associate profes- sor of biomedical engineering. “A midsized startup that already has venture-capital backing can handle that. But smaller players get squeezed out. A lot of them end up leaving New York or drop- ping their ideas altogether.” This fall, the city will take a big step in the right direction when Sia opens Harlem Biospace, a business incubator that he says is the fi rst in Manhattan for early-stage biotech companies. Located on the ground fl oor of the Sweets Building, an old confectionary research facility at 423 West 127th Street, Harlem Biospace will provide up to two dozen startups an offi ce desk, a wet-lab bench shared with one other tenant, and access to cell-culture hoods, bench-top centri- Samuel Sia and fuges, autoclaves, chemical-fume vents, microscopes, and other costly Christine Kovich

equipment. Monthly rent is $995, with Wi-Fi and all utilities covered. ENGINEERING LENZ / COLUMBIA MATT

40 Columbia Fall 2013

38-43 News.indd 40 9/24/13 1:17 PM Grants went to applicants who “led with a story.” The story that Connelly aims to tell is about how the US government has in recent years been classifying more information than ever before and keep- ing it secret for longer. To document this, Connelly needs the help of technologists who can build special analytic systems. “It’s that back-and-forth, between technology making stories and stories creating technology, that I’m interested in exploring,” Hansen says. “We looked for stories that didn’t fi t comfortably in existing publication frameworks, but instead required new kinds of tools.” Bushwig, a multimedia documentary project led by Columbia journalism student Adam Golub, is about a group of people who don’t fi t comfortably on social-media sites: drag queens. The prob- lem they confront is that sites like Facebook allow a person to have only one profi le, whereas drag queens typically have sepa- rate drag and male identities. “How should social-media sites be designed to accommodate that?” asks Hansen. The Declassifi cation Engine, a research project supported by the Brown Golub is creating a digital archive for the community of drag Institute, looks for revealing patterns in data culled from US-government queens to upload their media data. archives. One of its tools visualizes previously classifi ed State Department “We expect to create new archiving tools,” says Golub, who is cables sent to or from American embassies in the 1970s. Shown here is the working on the project with Jessa Lingel, a postdoctoral fellow at Saigon embassy’s cable activity in January and February 1975 — an unusual burst of communication that suggests “the US government might have real- Microsoft Research New England. “Every performer and active ized Vietnam’s fall was inevitable much earlier than was offi cially admitted,” nightlife goer could have their own profi le and upload media orga- says history professor Matthew Connelly. “Is it possible that people didn’t nized by performer and venue.” need to be clambering up to the roof of the embassy later that year?”

out, we envision that you’ll probably graduate to a larger lab When NYCEDC offi cials told Sia that no affordable facilities space within two or three years. If not, your upfront investment existed in the city for fl edgling biotech companies, he offered his will have been minimal.” vision for one: why not create a communal space where people The idea for Harlem Biospace came about last fall, when Sia can exchange ideas, swap professional contacts, and barter lab approached the New York City Economic Development Corpo- skills? Why not give them shared access to equipment to keep ration (NYCEDC) for advice about where he could fi nd a cheap costs down? Why not sweeten the deal by offering one-on-one commercial lab to rent. Sia already had a track record as an entre- mentoring and classes on starting your own business? preneur: in 2004, when he was twenty-eight years old, he founded “The more we discussed it, the clearer it became that this was a company that developed a portable diagnostic tool to detect viable and necessary,” he says. prostate cancer with just a fi nger prick. He managed to create that In June, the NYCEDC announced that it was kicking in device, which is the size and shape of a credit card, while bouncing $626,000 to support the launch of Harlem Biospace. Sia and Kov- between several commercial labs — including one as far away as ich, who recently signed a ten-year lease on their 2,300-square- Switzerland, where especially cheap laboratory space was avail- foot space, put up a six-fi gure sum of their own using Sia’s payout able. He eventually sold the device to the international health-care from the sale of his previous company. company Opko. This time, however, Sia was determined to situate “We’re in this for the long haul,” says Sia, whose latest biotech his new company in Manhattan. startup, Junco Labs, has claimed the fi rst spot at Harlem Biospace. “I wanted to be near the investment community,” says Sia, who “We believe there is no industry sector more in need of innovation is now developing a handheld device that can detect a wider vari- than health and biotech. And we want to create an entire com- ety of health problems. “I also wanted to be close to my academic munity of talented scientists who are similarly devoted to turning lab at Columbia.” their ideas into technologies that improve people’s lives.”

Fall 2013 Columbia 41

38-43 News8.indd 41 9/23/13 5:58 PM NEWS

Miller Theatre opens luminous 25th season

A parade of glowing lanterns in the likeness Highlights of Miller’s 2013–14 season of deep-sea creatures capped off a weeklong include an evening of 125 short composi- series of free art workshops that Colum- tions inspired by John Cage on October bia’s Miller Theatre hosted in September to 17; a concert of early music by New York celebrate the start of the concert season, its Polyphony on December 14; a series of twenty-fi fth. Members of the public carried free “Pop-Up Concerts” in which audience their lanterns from Morningside Park to the members are invited to sit onstage; and theater as other participants played music on the theater’s signature Composer Portraits handmade instruments under the direction series, featuring the work of Georg Friedrich of composer Nathan Davis. “The idea is to Haas, Rand Steiger, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, ANNA CHANA DEMIDOVA bring the community into the campus and the Roger Reynolds, Unsuk Chin, Jean-Baptiste The Miller Theatre celebrated the start of its campus into the community,” says Miller’s Barrière, and Liza Lim. concert season with the “Morningside Lights” executive director, Melissa Smey. >> Visit millertheatre.com. parade September 21.

A century of stories

Columbia Journalism School, founded in zer Prize for International Reporting; 1913, celebrated its centennial this year by Andrés Oppenheimer ’78JRN, who earned gathering together one hundred extraordi- a Pulitzer for exposing the Iran-Contra nary stories written by alumni. The articles, Affair; and Reginald Stuart ’71JRN, whose which can be found on the school’s website, reporting on mandatory sentencing laws start in 1915 with a report from the front- for drug crimes brought national attention lines of World War I and end with an inno- to the social injustices that can result. vative Kickstarter-funded 2012 project on When viewed as a whole, the articles kidney disease. offer a mosaic of memorable moments of

BETTMAN / CORBIS Included are stories by Marguerite Hig- the last century, from D-day to Tiananmen Marguerite Higgins reports from the Korean gins ’42JRN, whose Korean War dispatches Square to September 11. War for the New York Herald Tribune in 1950. made her the fi rst woman to win the Pulit- >> Visit centennial.journalism.columbia.edu.

Film your darlings

Columbia students strolling across campus tory of their alma mater from the movie: in the spring of 2012 may have been sur- it tells the story of Lucien Carr (played by prised to see the actor Daniel Radcliffe on Dane DeHaan), a friend and classmate of College Walk — not in Hogwarts robes, but Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac (Jack Huston), 1940s tweed. Radcliffe was channeling Beat who murdered his longtime admirer David poet Allen Ginsberg ’48CC for the indie fi lm Kammerer (Michael C. Hall) after a night Kill Your Darlings, which will open in lim- of drinking at the West End. It premiered ited North American release on October 18. to critical acclaim at the 2013 Sundance The shoot was a learning experience for Film Festival, where it was nominated for a few Columbians: producer Rose Gan- the Grand Jury Prize.

guzza ’72SIPA hired several fi lm students >> Read more about Lucien Carr in “The Last ALPER BARBARA as extras and production assistants. Others Beat” (Columbia Magazine, Winter 2012–13) Actor Daniel Radcliffe shoots a scene on campus are likely to learn something about the his- at www.magazine.columbia.edu/carr. for the fi lm Kill Your Darlings.

42 Columbia Fall 2013

38-43 News.indd 42 9/24/13 1:17 PM Gabelli and Samberg pledge $40 million for B-school’s new home

Mario J. Gabelli ’67BUS and Arthur J. Samberg, the manager of Hawkes Finan- Samberg ’67BUS, members of Columbia cial Services, says that he, too, was inspired Business School’s board of overseers, have by the promise of helping the next genera- pledged $15 million and $25 million, respec- tion of business leaders. tively, for two new buildings the school “I had the good fortune to attend a num- is planning for Columbia’s new campus ber of elite schools, but many people don’t in Manhattanville. have the advantages I had,” Samberg says. The buildings, which are being designed “In supporting Columbia Business School, by Diller Scofi dio + Renfro and FXFOWLE I’m helping others, who didn’t grow up in the Architects, will be erected between 130th same environment, get a chance to advance.” and 131st Streets, west of Broadway, a few The business school is now more than years from now. two-thirds of the way toward its $500 mil- “My parents did not have a formal educa- lion fundraising goal for the two build-

tion, but in this country, I had the opportu- ings, which will be named for Ronald O. SCHOOL BUSINESS COLUMBIA nity to progress through a great education,” Perelman and Henry R. Kravis ’69BUS in Mario J. Gabelli and Arthur J. Samberg says Gabelli, the chairman of LICT Corpo- honor of their previous $100 million gifts ration. “And in order to provide that type for the project. resources and expertise that make Colum- of education, schools need great facilities. Glenn Hubbard, the dean of the business bia a top-tier, global institution,” he said. Columbia Business School is at a critical school, expressed his gratitude for the latest “Their commitment and generosity will point in moving to Manhattanville, and I fi g- donations from Samberg and Gabelli. help enable us to expand into Manhattan- ured I’d help as much as I could to push it “Art and Mario have long been leaders ville, with facilities befi tting our status as a over the goal line.” in the school community, providing the leading business educator.”

In brief

Chalfi e, El-Sadr earn top rank and tuberculosis. Among her insights: tifi c results ought to inform policy deci- Martin Chalfi e, a chemistry professor who patients are more likely to take their medi- sions, such as those involving fossil-fuel has developed novel biomarkers used in cations when family members are encour- emission targets. medical research, and Wafaa El-Sadr, an aged to keep tabs on their loved one’s epidemiologist who has spent decades adherence to a treatment regimen. Mailman adopts open-access policy fi ghting HIV/AIDS in Africa, were recently The Mailman School of Public Health has named University Professors. The rank of Hansen to lead new climate program joined a growing movement among universi- University Professor is Columbia’s highest James Hansen, a renowned climate scien- ties and research institutions to make schol- academic honor, with just thirteen mem- tist and activist who until this past spring arly research available for free. Earlier this bers of the faculty now holding the title. directed the NASA Goddard Institute for year, the school’s faculty members decided Chalfi e won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry Space Studies, is creating a new policy-ori- that their papers should be posted in publicly in 2008 for showing how a protein that is ented climate program at Columbia’s Earth available online repositories like Columbia’s responsible for the luminescence of some Institute. The mission of the Program on Cli- Academic Commons or the National Insti- jellyfi sh can be used in research. Scientists mate Science, Awareness, and Solutions, he tutes of Health’s PubMed Central. now use the protein, which is known simply says, is to drive policy and market reforms Mailman is the fi rst school at Columbia as “green fl uorescent protein,” for observing “needed to preserve a habitable planet.” and one of the fi rst public-health schools biological processes in model organisms. According to Hansen, who is a long- in the US to adopt an open-access resolu- El-Sadr has worked with hundreds of time adjunct professor at Columbia, the tion; Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory health-care facilities across sub-Saharan program will support a broad range of became the fi rst program at Columbia to Africa to develop best practices for fi ght- climate research while also conveying to adopt such a policy in early 2011, followed ing infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS civic leaders and the media how its scien- by Columbia Libraries later that year.

Fall 2013 Columbia 43

38-43 News.indd 43 9/24/13 5:21 PM NEWSMAKERS

Design in Bloom engineering at Columbia, on its annual list of the representation of black women in the Aki Ishida ’98GSAPP won one of this year’s “35 Innovators Under 35” for 2013. Flem- media, gun violence, and racial profi ling. twelve Architectural Lighting magazine’s ing, who works in biotechnology, is currently design awards for Lantern Field, an interac- developing optical-imaging technology for Gracie Mansion-Bound? tive installation that she created with a team cardiologists that will give them access to Bill de Blasio ’87SIPA won the Democratic from Virginia Tech, where she is an assistant high-resolution real-time fi lms of the heart nomination for New York City mayor on during cardiac procedures . . . Computer- September 10, beating out initial front- science professor Henning Schulzrinne was runners Christine Quinn and Bill Thompson. inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame for De Blasio has been the New York City public his work with Voice over Internet Protocol, advocate since 2010. He previously served which serves as the backbone for commu- on the New York City Council, represent- nication programs like Skype and Google Hangouts. Schulzrinne has also served since 2011 as the chief technology offi cer for the US Federal Communications Commission.

Masthead Toppers Two Columbians are now running major women’s magazines. In one of her fi rst

TETSUNORI ISHIDA TETSUNORI moves as Condé Nast’s creative director, Aki Ishida ’98GSAPP Anna Wintour named Eva Chen ’05JRN editor in chief of the shopping and fashion professor. The piece was displayed during magazine Lucky. Chen spent seven years as the National Cherry Blossom Festival, in beauty director of Teen Vogue and also had a Washington, DC, and used paper lanterns, regular column in Vogue China. Vanessa K.

color-changing LEDs, and sound for a mul- Bush ’97JRN became editor in chief of DE BLASIO FOR YORKERS NEW tisensory experience. Essence, a leading lifestyle magazine for Afri- Bill de Blasio ’87SIPA can-American women. Bush began her jour- Screen Savers nalism career with Time, Inc., and moved ing several neighborhoods in Brooklyn. De The Netfl ix series House of Cards, created and to Essence in 2000 after it was acquired by Blasio will face Republican Joe Lhota in the produced by Beau Willimon ’99CC, ’03SOA, Time. She hopes to focus on issues such as general election on November 5. received nine Primetime Emmy Award nomi- nations, including for best drama series. An Ethical Fellow The program, which stars Kevin Spacey and Former Columbia president George Rupp Robin Wright, was Netfl ix’s fi rst original was appointed a senior fellow at the Carn- series, and was released as an entire season egie Council for Ethics in International on February 1, 2013 . . . Mother of George, Affairs. After his tenure at Columbia, from a fi lm co-produced by Carly Hugo ’06CC, 1993 to 2002, Rupp served as president and shared the best-cinematography award at CEO of the International Rescue Committee, this year’s Sundance Film Festival. The fi lm where he oversaw relief and development tells the story of a Nigerian-American couple operations in more than forty countries, and in Brooklyn trying to conceive a child. It pre- refugee resettlement and assistance in twenty- miered in New York this fall. two US cities. At the Carnegie Council, Rupp plans to write a book on ethics and global- Real-Time Profs ization. He continues to teach at Columbia

MIT Technology Review included Christine MILLER MOBLEY as an adjunct professor of religion, public Fleming, an assistant professor of electrical Vanessa K. Bush ’97JRN health, and international affairs.

44 Columbia Fall 2013

44-45 Newsmakers.indd 44 9/24/13 5:21 PM COLUMBIA MAGAZINE This is your magazine.

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44-45 Newsmakers.indd 45 9/20/13 2:13 PM EXPLORATIONS

Neuroscientists discover a major cause of age-related memory loss

Columbia scientists say they have found the strongest evidence yet Forty years ago, scientists assumed that almost everyone with that the forgetfulness many people experience in old age is dis- a spotty memory was in the early stages of dementia. This is now tinct from Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. More known to be untrue: whereas one in eight people over the age remarkably, they say it may be reversible. of sixty has memory problems, only half as many have a serious “We have treatments for mice that work extremely well, and brain condition like Alzheimer’s disease, with its sticky plaques there’s no reason why that wouldn’t work in people, if we worked and fi brous tangles that gum up communication between neurons, hard enough on it,” says Eric Kandel, the Nobel Prize–winning or vascular dementia, with its bursting of blood vessels in the Columbia neuroscientist who led the research team. brain. Until now, however, scientists have been unable to say why The researchers say their discovery, even if it does not lead to people who are free of such conspicuous pathologies nevertheless a memory pill, could one day help clinicians tell patients if their see their mental faculties decline. misplaced keys, forgotten birthdays, and missed appointments are A clue came a few years ago, when studies showed that a part merely senior moments rather than the signs of something worse. of the brain called the dentate gyrus, which was known to be They say this could alleviate anxiety for countless middle-aged involved in the formation of new memories, was especially vulner- and elderly people. able to aging. This was a different part of the brain than is initially “I think this really sets the stage for developing better diagnos- attacked by Alzheimer’s. tics and better interventions to try to ameliorate age-related mem- To determine if a breakdown of the dentate gyrus was behind ory decline, versus Alzheimer’s,” says Scott Small, a Columbia common memory loss, the Columbia scientists inspected brain neurologist who was the joint senior author of the paper, which samples from deceased people aged thirty-three to eighty-eight appeared in the August 28 issue of the journal Science Transla- whose organs were donated to science. The analysis revealed that tional Medicine. as we age, the dentate gyrus is prone to slowing down its produc-

Going viral, one by one by one by one . . .

Consider this fl u-season math problem: 5,486 used to distinguish viruses from one another kinds of mammals exist on Earth. How many have advanced to the point where it might different viruses do you suppose infect all of soon be feasible for large numbers of scien- those monkeys, dogs, cats, rats, bats, cows, tists to team up and catalog all the viruses horses, pigs, elephants, shrews, moles, por- inside the bodies of our mammalian com- cupines, beavers, weasels, bears, seals, goats, patriots. Doing so could have major pub- and other hairy, milk-producing creatures? A lic-health benefi ts, he says, since most new few thousand? Millions? Billions? infectious diseases are caused by viruses Here’s another question: is it even pos- jumping from other mammals into people. sible to count them? “If we knew what viruses exist, we “The assumption has always been that might even be able to predict the appear- there is a nearly inexhaustible pool of viruses ance of new viral infections,” he says. out there,” says Simon Anthony, a zoologist “That’s something we’ve never done before and molecular virologist at the Mailman — not with HIV/AIDS, West Nile, Ebola, School of Public Health. “Scientists have or SARS. They all came as a surprise.” thought it would be prohibitively time-con- To gauge how much work would be suming and costly to describe them all.” involved in compiling a global inventory of B. G. THOMSON / SCIENCE SOURCE G. B. Anthony, an expert on how viruses spread viruses, Anthony recently set out to identify The Indian fl ying fox carries fi fty-eight viruses, says zoologist Simon Anthony, who is the fi rst to between animals, is betting it can be done. all the viruses inhabiting a single species. make such an assessment of any animal. He says that genetic-sequencing techniques He chose the Indian fl ying fox, a large bat

46 Columbia Fall 2013

46-47 Explorations2.indd 46 9/24/13 2:00 PM tion of a protein named RbAp48. When the scientists genetically programmed mice to make less of this protein, the results were dramatic: even young, healthy mice lost their way in mazes and performed worse on object-recognition tests. The most exceptional part of the research was still to come. It involved a different set of subjects: old mice that had naturally become forgetful. To see if these rodents’ fl agging minds could be propped up, the scientists employed a technique called viral gene therapy to switch on a gene that controls production of RbAp48. The scientists were astonished to fi nd that when the RbAp48 was restored to a healthy level, the old mice regained their youthful acuity. “I didn’t expect that,” says Elias Pavlopoulos, a Columbia neuro-

scientist and the paper’s lead author. “That was a surprising fi nding.” OF CUMC COURTESY The Columbia scientists say they are now determined to fi nd a Scott Small and Eric Kandel safe way to stabilize RbAp48 levels in people. They are motivated, they say, by the news that low levels of RbAp48 seem not to cause that certain experimental drugs enhance this pathway’s function irreparable damage in the brain. and thereby improve cognition in mice. Another fact that bodes well for the prospect of treating mem- “Now we have a good target, and with the mouse we’ve devel- ory loss in humans is that RbAp48 uses a chemical pathway that oped, we have a way to screen therapies that might be effective,” is already well known to scientists. Previous studies have shown says Small.

that lives in the jungles of Southeast Asia. seen before. The scientists then used a sta- Nevertheless, the scientists say they are Anthony had done extensive research on this tistical technique from the fi eld of ecology encouraged by the relative effi ciency with bat, and he knew it was prone to infections. to estimate that their analysis had likely which they were able to create a nearly com- Several outbreaks of the deadly Nipah virus undercounted the number of viruses in this plete viral profi le of the Indian fl ying fox. in humans had been traced back to the wide- species by three, thus bumping up their total They say the project cost about $1.2 million eyed tree hanger. to fi fty-eight. Finally, they extrapolated this and could be repeated across all mammalian “Remarkably, no one had ever done a fi nding to apply to all 5,486 known mam- species for $6.3 billion. That’s not bird feed, complete viral assessment for any given mal species, yielding a global estimate of but considering that the SARS pandemic in species,” he says. “Most research in virol- 320,000 mammalian viruses. the early 2000s is thought to have cost the ogy has focused instead on studying the “That’s not an unmanageable number,” global economy tens of billions of dollars, relatively small number of viruses already says Anthony, whose fi ndings appear in a they say it could be a good investment. known to be dangerous.” recent issue of the journal mBio. “We are not saying that this undertaking Over the course of a few weeks last year, Anthony and his co-authors, who would necessarily prevent another outbreak Anthony and several members of his research include Columbia epidemiology professor like SARS,” says Anthony, who is now team trekked through the rainforests of Ian Lipkin and adjunct senior research sci- conducting follow-up studies in several Bangladesh to collect stool, urine, and blood entist Peter Daszak, acknowledge that their other primate and bat species. “Nonethe- samples from more than one thousand bats. global estimate is speculative. They cannot less, what we learn from exploring global Back in their Columbia lab, they analyzed say if the number of infections carried by viral diversity could mitigate outbreaks, the samples and found DNA strands of fi fty- the Indian fl ying fox is representative of by facilitating better surveillance and rapid fi ve viruses, only fi ve of which had ever been other mammals, for instance. diagnostic testing.”

Fall 2013 Columbia 47

46-47 Explorations.indd 47 9/24/13 2:13 PM REVIEWS PHOTO BY JENNIFER S. ALTMAN / CONTOUR BY GETTY IMAGES BY / CONTOUR ALTMAN JENNIFER S. BY PHOTO Essayist Phillip Lopate near the George Washington Bridge.

Assaying the Essay // By Eric McHenry Portrait Inside My Head: Essays By Phillip Lopate (Free Press, 292 pages, $26) To Show and To Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfi ction By Phillip Lopate (Free Press, 225 pages, $16)

If there’s one thing writers love writing about, it’s how much they hate tense of graceful participation which does not fool for a second writing. The novelist Peter De Vries claimed to enjoy everything about those closest to me (my wife and daughter), and I wait impatiently being a writer except the paperwork. “A writer is someone for whom for the next opportunity to sit at my desk and write. Anything. For writing is more diffi cult than it is for other people,” Thomas Mann it is only when writing that I begin to exist. . . . Intensely honest wrote, presumably with some diffi culty. “I hate writing. I love having self-exposures come easily to me, the most provocative positions written,” Dorothy Parker may or may not have written (one never that clash with conventional morality are a breeze . . . next to the knows with Parker). And Fran Lebowitz concluded that “not writing diffi culty of getting through daily domestic life.” is probably the most exhausting profession I’ve ever encountered.” If that strikes you as a less-than-fl attering admission for a writer Maybe it’s just the contrarian in him, but Phillip Lopate ’64CC to make, welcome to the world of honest self-exposures in which appears to be that rarest of creatures — the writer who loves to Phillip Lopate exists. write. Whatever the challenges of crafting language that rises to It won’t quite do to call Lopate the dean of American essayists life’s occasions, he prefers them to almost any other human activ- — he himself reserves that title for Edward Hoagland. But Lopate ity. “I plod through the hours of leisure,” he writes, “with a pre- has long been something like the president of the personal essay.

48 Columbia Fall 2013

48-54 Reviews2.indd 48 9/20/13 2:53 PM If you’ve ever taken a course with a title like Creative Nonfi ction at the knowledge that a writer of Lopate’s stature isn’t above such or Expository Writing, you probably own a copy of his canonical petty account keeping; then rueful recognition that few people of anthology, The Art of the Personal Essay. If you’ve ever taught any stature are above it; then gratitude again for Lopate’s pursuit such a course, you probably refer to the book simply as “Lopate,” of candor at all costs. The costs are real, too. In “On the Ethics of the way composition instructors say “Strunk and White.” And Writing About Others,” from To Show and To Tell, he confesses in addition to being the genre’s major champion, explicator, and that his work has permanently damaged at least one close relation- pedagogue, he is one of its most accomplished practitioners. The ship and imperiled many others. His recalls his mother forbidding “Also by Phillip Lopate” list at the front of his books will soon him to write about her ever again. “I spill onto a second page, which must be a pleasing prospect for refused, saying that by this time she was a writer who admits to measuring his achievement by the foot: a lively character whom I could render “Sometimes as I roam about on a break from writing I tell myself, easily on the page, and I would make no like a parent reassuring a child, that I am the author of a whole guarantees. She said she would still come shelf of books; it was always my dream to take up a shelf in the to my book party but would tell every- library, and I’m almost at that point.” one I was her nephew, not her son.” Lopate has added two more spines to that shelf this year, refl ect- Lopate isn’t equally compelling on ing his dual commitment to the practice and promotion of his art: every page. He opens Portrait Inside My Portrait Inside My Head is an entertaining congeries of memoir Head with “In Defense of the Miscel- and meditation; To Show and To Tell is a book of well-made laneous Essay Collection,” announcing essays about the well-made essay. both the book’s magpie sensibility and his What makes Lopate’s writing, and his writing about writing, distinc- self-consciousness about it. Lopate could tive is not so much a matter of style or substance alone as of a provoca- write a good essay on the contents of his glove compartment if he tive tension between the two. Lopate doubts himself, hectors himself, needed to, and that sort of facility can be a trap. Some of his pieces feel contradicts himself, and lays himself bare, all in a voice as smooth and decidedly more commissioned than others. Plunked down hopefully authoritative as a 747 pilot’s. He has achieved a mastery of sentence and between “Why I Remain a Baseball Fan” and “On Changing One’s paragraph rhythm, of what Robert Frost called “the sound of sense,” Mind About a Movie,” is a long survey of approaches to the cinematic that allows his progress to seem linear even as he peregrinates; his con- adaptation of novels that reads like the foreword to a big book on the clusions to seem inevitable even as he surprises himself; and his most subject. Still, Lopate can do a lot with a little. As he notes in “Get- outré pronouncements to seem merely reasonable. In Portrait Inside ting the South Wrong,” “Ever since Montaigne, lack of knowledge My Head, he begins an essay about his older brother, the well-known has often served as the starting point for personal essays.” He then WNYC radio host Leonard Lopate, with proceeds to make his ignorance of the American South an asset in a a dully predictable encomium: “He has, in series of subtle, insightful paragraphs about how the region has long my opinion, the best show on radio — the held a fascination for Northerners, Jews, writers, and fi lm buffs (he is most informative, discerning, entertain- all four). For such outsiders, the South is exotic in all the right ways: ing.” But the admiring little brother isn’t “It was as though anthropologists had found a tribe where the unre- done: “The only aspect of his radio per- pressed continued to thrive, where they still yelled at the dinner table.” sona that dismays me is when he comes Lopate also has a weakness for the odd cliché, which his obvi- across as dripping with solicitude for some ous fl air for fi gurative language makes all the more mystifying: “it guest . . . and I sense an insincerity in that shook me to my very core,” “barely scraping by,” “no cushion to momentary delay, that vocal catch (ending tide them over” (that last one comes with a side of mixed meta- questions with ‘isn’t it?’) that has become phor). I point this out with some reluctance, half suspecting that if a signature tic in his delivery.” And then I were to comb through his corpus, I would fi nd, and be humbled there’s this: “Regardless of the greater adu- by, a masterful contrarian defense of clichés. If it doesn’t exist, lation my brother receives . . . I continue to feel I hold an edge, based maybe this review will irritate him into producing it — in which on the idea that my writings have at least a chance of enduring, while case he won’t be irritated for long, because he’ll be writing. his improvised radio chatter disappears into the ether.” It’s the sort of frankness that elicits a complicated response from Eric McHenry is the author of two books of poetry. He teaches the reader: fi rst gratitude that it’s interesting; then embarrassment creative writing at Washburn University.

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The Central Kingdom The book: The Great Civilized Conversation: Education for a World Community (Columbia University Press) The author: Wm. Theodore de Bary ’41CC, ’53GSAS, ’94HON

Columbia Magazine: Your new collection who later became dean. He told us that have our differences. There is no other way of essays covers Asian classics as well as your we would be learning only about Western human life can be viewed. broader views on teaching the humanities, civilization, and he challenged us to start which you’ve been doing at Columbia since thinking about Asia, as well. Right away I CM: We associate you with defi ning and 1948. The great conversation of the title usu- was stimulated to do that, and I took Chi- defending Columbia’s Core Curriculum, ally refers to works of literature commenting nese as a sophomore. and of course with bringing Asian studies on the works of previous generations, but it into the Core. Reading this book, I began has a broader meaning for you. CM: Paul Robeson ’23LAW was in that to think of the Core as something three- Wm. Theodore de Bary: My exposure to Chinese class. You had been involved in dimensional, like the core of the earth — the term came in my humanities courses at leftist politics in high school. Were you in the center that holds. Columbia College, especially with Mark awe of Robeson’s presence? WTB: A lot of people don’t realize that. It Van Doren and John Erskine. It became WTB: No, by that time I wasn’t so awed. has everything to do with centrality. If you increasingly signifi cant to me as I realized I had begun to be disabused of my radi- stop to think about the name for China, that conversation was a key for the Confu- cal ideas, and was especially suspicious of Zhonghua, it is usually translated as “mid- cians, my main area of study. The title of the Communist Party, which the socialists dle kingdom.” That is somewhat mislead- the work that is attributed to Confucius, had worked with earlier, especially during ing. It was in the middle, but the main idea Lunyu, was translated by Jesuit missionar- the Spanish Civil War. Already we were is “central”: the central kingdom everybody ies in China as Analects. That name stuck, beginning to learn something about how looks to for civilization, and for the core of but the literal meaning is “collected say- diffi cult it was to cooperate with the Com- civilization. That is a key to the whole thing. ings” or “collected conversations.” munists without their subverting or domi- You know, “general education” was then nating the process. the going term, not “Core.” When I chaired CM: The conversation also suggests differ- the committee that reviewed the program at ent cultures talking to one another through CM: You understood that then, before the Columbia in 1987–88, one of the fi rst things their works. Were you aiming for that cul- 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact? we discussed was the inappropriateness of tural triangulation from the beginning? WTB: I sensed that before Robeson himself “general education.” Because generality WTB: I arrived at it pretty early, because I did. He was still very much enchanted by could lead anywhere. And did. could see that in Japan, what I was learn- Mao. I had been, earlier, but I was becoming ing about had been formed in some way disenchanted by Mao’s Stalinist leanings. CM: It leads outward. by Confucianism and Buddhism. Japa- WTB: That’s what happened at Harvard nese literate culture from the beginning CM: In your book, the core program of because generality could mean anything. It was strongly infl uenced by China. It was study you endorse begins with the “sym- became a kind of distribution requirement enabled by their encounter with literate pathetic and critical” repossession of a with no core. Chinese. They had an earlier, primitive cul- given society’s cultural traditions and then ture, but it was oral and inarticulate for the moves on to other major cultures: draw- CM: Do you ever feel unsure of where you purpose of civil discourse. ing on what is different, but also what we belong between East and West? have in common. WTB: No, I’m an American. While I felt CM: Your interest in Asian culture dates WTB: That’s exactly the key. Recogniz- that it was essential for me to try to under- back to your arrival at Columbia. ing commonality in the midst of diversity, stand other cultures and civilizations, no WTB: It began with my fi rst class as a and diversity in the midst of commonality. other civilization could have the same freshman in 1937, Contemporary Civiliza- They are an irreducible combination. For meaning for me as my being an American tion, which was taught by Harry Carman, all that you and I have in common, we also and a Columbian. — Michael B. Shavelson

50 Columbia Fall 2013

48-54 Reviews2.indd 50 9/20/13 2:53 PM Autumn of the President // By William R. Keylor JFK’s Last Hundred Days: The Transformation of a Man and the Emergence of a Great President By Thurston Clarke (Penguin, 432 pages, $29.95)

More than sixty new books have been published in the past year nedy’s decision to remove a thousand American military advisers in anticipation of the fi ftieth anniversary of the assassination of from Vietnam by the end of 1963 and his plan to bring home most President John F. Kennedy. Is there anything new to say? Author of the remaining personnel in 1964, or at least after his reelection. and historian Thurston Clarke ’72BUS demonstrates there is with Clarke is absolutely convinced that, had Kennedy survived, Amer- JFK’s Last Hundred Days: The Transformation of a Man and ica would have been out of Vietnam by the end of his presidency, the Emergence of a Great President, a meticulously researched, and the Cold War a thing of the past. endlessly entertaining, almost day-by-day narrative of the three In the realm of domestic policy, the conventional history por- months leading up to November 22, 1963. trays Kennedy as personally committed to civil rights, immigra- Clarke’s book hardly belongs to the genre of unabashed hagiogra- tion reform, medical care for the elderly, antipoverty legislation, phy published long ago by former Kennedy insiders such as Arthur and other liberal initiatives, but unable Schlesinger and Ted Sorensen. Nor does Clarke gloss over the seamy or unwilling to mount an energetic cam- side of Camelot exposed by Seymour Hersh and others. On the con- paign to convert these progressive goals trary, JFK’s womanizing is recounted in detail, down to his position into law. Lyndon Johnson is usually after removing his back brace for a very brief roll in the hay with credited with employing his renowned Marlene Dietrich. So, too, is the sordid story of his cruelty toward skills of persuasion and his close rela- his wife after she gave birth to a stillborn baby girl in 1956 while the tions with congressional leaders of both senator was on a cruise off Capri with several young women. Leav- parties to pass such landmark pieces ing brother Bobby to comfort Jackie and bury the child, he refused of legislation as the Civil Rights Act of to cut short his vacation until his friend Senator George Smathers 1964, the Voting Rights Act, the Immi- persuaded him to “haul your ass back to your wife if you want to gration and Nationality Act, Medicare, run for president.” But in Clarke’s telling, this type of risky and and the multitude of laws making up the thoughtless behavior came to an end with the death of his infant son War on Poverty. Clarke demonstrates Patrick in August 1963, a tragic event that transformed the woman- that Kennedy himself, using his own formidable horse-trading tal- izer into a loving husband who doted on Jackie and curtailed his ents to wrest concessions from partisan Republican conservatives compulsive philandering. such as Senate minority leader Everett Dirksen and House minor- This remarkable transformation in Kennedy’s personal life was ity leader Charles Halleck, had already set in motion the legisla- mirrored, according to Clarke, in an analogous shift in his domes- tive machinery to produce all these transformative laws after his tic and foreign policies in the fi nal months of his life. The hard-line reelection. Vice President Johnson appears throughout the book cold warrior who had denounced the Eisenhower administration as a bitter man totally marginalized by the architects of the New during the 1960 campaign for the (nonexistent) missile gap and Frontier. On several occasions, Kennedy, his wife, and several top then stared down Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis was aides express horror at the thought of a Johnson presidency. converted into an ardent proponent of détente with Moscow. The Some assassination conspiracy theorists will fi nd grist for their man who authorized the Bay of Pigs invasion and then the top- mill in this book. The Oliver Stone crowd will be heartened by the secret project (code-named “Operation Mongoose” and supervised portrait of Kennedy’s plans to seek détente with Khrushchev and by his brother Bobby) to assassinate Fidel Castro encouraged secret Castro, withdrawal from Vietnam, and an end to the nuclear-arms contacts with the Cuban leader through intermediaries in the hopes race in the face of stiff opposition from the military brass. The of reestablishing normal relations with Havana. Underpinning 1962 novel Seven Days in May, later made into a movie, described this quest for renewed dialogue with the communist world was an attempted military coup in reaction to a president’s decision to the fear of a nuclear Armageddon after the Cuban Missile Crisis. sign a nuclear-arms agreement with the Soviet Union. After read- In his “peace speech” at American University on June 10, 1963, ing it in galley proof, JFK confessed that he had pondered the he unveiled his new preoccupation with achieving the fi rst major possibility of such a move by the military and named a couple of breakthrough in nuclear-arms control, which culminated in the generals whom he thought “might hanker to duplicate fi ction.” Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which he signed four months Proponents of the theory that Castro ordered JFK’s assassination later. Another example of this foreign-policy turnaround was Ken- in retaliation against the Kennedy brothers’ project to kill the

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Cuban leader will be dismayed by the book’s claim that both Ken- Castro’s government and promised to deliver a high-powered rifl e nedy and Castro were giving serious consideration to burying the with a telescopic sight to take out the Cuban leader. Toward the hatchet. But Clarke’s effort to play down the Castro assassination end of his presidency, Johnson opined that “Kennedy was trying plan and play up JFK’s turn toward moderation ignores the evi- to get to Castro, but Castro got to him fi rst.” dence that Operation Mongoose continued right up to the tragedy in Dallas, as Tim Weiner ’78CC, ’79JRN has shown in his Legacy William R. Keylor ’71GSAS, ’71SIPA is a professor of history and of Ashes: The History of the CIA. On October 29, 1963, the CIA’s international relations and the director of the International His- top Cuba specialist met in Paris with a prospective hit man inside tory Institute at Boston University.

Politickles // By Joshua J. Friedman The Art of Controversy: Political Cartoons and Their Enduring Power By Victor S. Navasky (Knopf, 256 pages, $27.95)

“A pamphlet is no more than a violation of opinion; a caricature Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never amounts to an act of violence,” declared King Louis-Philippe of harm me, goes the nursery rhyme; why do political cartoons bring France in 1835. Were the royal feelings merely bruised by Charles the mighty to their knees? That’s the question that Columbia Jour- Philipon’s popular drawing of his pointy-wigged, fat-jowled head nalism School professor Victor Navasky morphing into a plump pear? Or did he genuinely fear for the sta- grapples with in The Art of Controversy: bility of his regime? Louis-Philippe was not the only monarch who Political Cartoons and Their Enduring felt this strongly about the wounding power of cartoons: Napo- Power. Drawing on his experience as leon Bonaparte found James Gillray’s caricatures of him as the the editor of the Nation and the satiri- vain, paranoid “Little Boney” so damaging to his international cal magazine Monocle, Navasky traces reputation that he reportedly claimed that they “did more than all the form across centuries and nations the armies of Europe to bring me down.” — Hogarth to Hirschfeld, Denmark to South Africa — and collects theories. Perhaps drawings have the power to act instantly upon the imagination, like a book read at the speed of light. Or perhaps it is the particular genius of caricaturists to seek “the perfect deformity . . . to penetrate through the outward appearance to the inner being in all its ugli- ness,” as the art historians E. H. Gombrich and Ernst Kris wrote in the British Journal of Medical Psychology in 1938. Think, for instance, of the indelible Nixon caricatures of Washington Post cartoonist Herblock: hunched, jowly, with permanent fi ve o’clock shadow. Of course, some subjects are riper for carica- ture than others, as political cartoonist Doug Marlette observed: “Nixon looked like his policies. His nose told you he was going to invade Cambodia.” In the end, perhaps the greatest reason the caricature wounds so deeply is that the subject has no adequate way to respond. “The only way really to answer a cartoon is with another cartoon,”

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS LIBRARY writes Navasky, “and there is, for all practical purposes, no such James Gillray, Maniac Ravings, or Little Boney in a Strong Fit, 1803 thing as a cartoon to the editor.”

52 Columbia Fall 2013

48-54 Reviews2.indd 52 9/20/13 2:53 PM Mirror, Mirror // By Gaiutra Bahadur At Night We Walk in Circles By Daniel Alarcón (Riverhead Books, 384 pages, $27.95)

At Night We Walk in Circles, the title of the new novel by Daniel the brother in America who abandoned him. As this journalist Alarcón ’99CC, is a willful mistranslation of the medieval Latin narrator reconstructs the story, from everyone’s perspective except palindrome In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni. The correct Nelson’s, the tension builds. Clearly, something has happened to translation is “We enter the circle at night and are consumed by the actor. Exactly what is withheld until the very end, when the fi re.” The palindrome invites us to solve a riddle: what enters a cir- novel’s surrealism, if little else, becomes clear. cle at night and is consumed by fi re? The answer is a moth, which, The novel’s indeterminate ending dazes us a bit, as if we’ve contrary to Alarcón’s title, does not walk, but fl ies. It’s a riddle as emerged from a midday screening of a movie onto streets too bright a title, too: nowhere in the novel itself does the palindrome appear. and too straight for the noir surrealism we encountered inside. An epigraph contains a clue, however. It’s from The Society of But Alarcón’s Situationist allusions help us to understand that we the Spectacle, by the avant-garde French writer and fi lmmaker Guy should be puzzled and dissatisfi ed when Debord, whose autobiographical fi nal fi lm, made in 1978, was titled we emerge. Alarcón means to play with In Girum Imus Nocte et Consumimur Igni. Debord, a key fi gure in the our expectations of a neatly resolved nar- 1968 Paris uprising against the French government, was grounded in rative. And we’re supposed to be think- the Marxist, anarchist, surrealist movement he founded, the Situation- ing about art’s disruptive intersection ist International. “At Night We Walk in Circles and Are Consumed with politics, about how performance by Fire” is also the title of a 2013 experimental nine-part song cycle merges disturbingly with real life — both inspired by dreams. The composer, Carla Kihlstedt, has said that try- Situationist ideas, central to its critique ing to explain dreams during waking hours is like plugging a phrase of a society of spectators. into translation software. It yields confusing, even absurd results. The Peruvian-born Alarcón’s fi rst Readers won’t need these footnotes to appreciate Alarcón’s novel, Lost City Radio, focuses on a brooding, effortlessly readable second novel, set in an unnamed radio show that reunites the disap- Andean country intent on forgetting the guerrilla war from which peared with their families in a country it has emerged, a place where “there were no statues to the dead, recovering from civil war. In At Night We Walk in Circles, regimes no streets renamed in their honor, no museum of historical mem- don’t steal people, but other things do: mundane death, rival lov- ory.” The young actor Nelson scores a role in an infamous play, ers, America. The village where Henry’s late lover spent his child- The Idiot President, which once landed its playwright in prison on hood is eerily empty of men, except for adolescents and the elderly. trumped-up terrorism charges. As a child, Nelson had been trans- It’s a world that García Márquez might have dreamed up, but in fi xed by a jailhouse production of the play, broadcast on the radio. fact it’s real. Immigration has drained many villages of men across He idolized the playwright, Henry, who reluctantly resuscitates Latin America. It is easy for an infi rm old woman to believe her the play fi fteen years after his arrest, reviving unnerving memories. son undocumented in Los Angeles rather than dead, and Alarcón Taking the play on tour, into tiny, high-altitude towns in former evokes this simply, movingly, hauntingly. guerrilla territory, leads Henry to the backwater where his late Mostly, however, the novel’s pleasures are intellectual. Engag- lover from prison used to live. There, Henry unwittingly reveals the ing readers as puzzle solvers, Alarcón, for instance, embeds mir- lover’s death to the man’s dementia-ridden mother, who believed rors throughout the text. Henry uses one during rehearsals to help her son to have migrated, not died, fi fteen years earlier. Nelson, Nelson inhabit his role. The don of Henry’s cell block is Espejo who had already been instructed to cut off all ties to his own life (Spanish for mirror). Nelson’s girl realizes she loves him in the to enter the world of the play, is now forced to act the part of the moment when she mirrors his every gesture involuntarily. Nel- senile woman’s own absent son to cover up his mentor’s mistake. son’s life refl ects that of the missing son he impersonates. In a glass Early in At Night We Walk in Circles, long before Nelson darkly, what happens to Nelson looks a little like what happened inhabits the roles of killer and dead man, an anonymous narra- to Henry. And what, after all, is a palindrome if not a sequence of tor intrudes into the story. He sounds omniscient because he has letters mirrored back at itself? read Nelson’s journals from the troupe’s journey into the hills and has interviewed everyone who encountered Nelson — not just the Gaiutra Bahadur ’97JRN is the author of the forthcoming Coolie ex-girlfriend he still loves, not just his widowed mother, not just Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture.

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The Love Affairs Necessary Errors A Ship Without a of Nathaniel P. Sail: The Life of By Caleb Crain Lorenz Hart By Adelle Waldman (Penguin, (Henry Holt, 480 pages, $16) By Gary Marmorstein 256 pages, $25) (Simon & Schuster, 531 pages, $17)

Chances are that anyone who has spent Prague, in the fall of 1990, was a city Columbia Journalism School dropout time in Brooklyn over the last decade just starting to come to terms with its Lorenz Hart, one of the top-of-the-tree knows a Nate Piven. The “product of a new freedoms, trying them on like the American lyricists, grew up in a ram- postfeminist, 1980s childhood and polit- blue jeans beginning to appear in stores bunctious immigrant home on 119th ically correct, 1990s college education,” (though inaccessible to most, costing Street. He was “gnomish,” homosexual, he is a freelance writer with a Harvard two weeks of a still state-regulated sal- disheveled, overgenerous, alcoholic, and degree and an enviable but not life- ary). It is, in this way, the perfect sanctu- brilliant. He met Columbia College soon- changing book deal. In The Love Affairs ary for Jacob Putnam, a foundling on to-be-dropout Richard Rodgers in 1919 of Nathaniel P., the crisp, keenly obser- unsteady footing and the quiet hero of — composer Rodgers was good-looking, vant debut novel from Adelle Waldman Necessary Errors, the ambitious fi rst heterosexual, dapper, and disciplined ’03JRN, the issue is how he deals with novel from journalist and literary critic — and they collaborated on the 1920 women. After spending his twenties Caleb Crain ’99GSAS. Jacob, a recent Varsity Show. The partnership, though hoping to meet a girl who reads Svevo college graduate who left his Boston it became increasingly strained, created or Bernhard on the subway, he is almost offi ce job to teach English abroad, more than two dozen musicals, including too successful in his thirties: “The more quickly teams up with a group of simi- A Connecticut Yankee, On Your Toes, his byline appeared, the more appealing larly minded young expats, who meet Babes in Arms, The Boys from Syracuse, they found him.” But they want com- in pubs to drink cheap beer and talk Pal Joey, and hundreds of songs, includ- mitment, something he isn’t sure he’s about what they want to do with their ing “Manhattan,” “Spring Is Here,” “My ready to give, even to Hannah, who lives, while actually taking comfort in Funny Valentine,” and “Bewitched, Both- fi nally seems right — relaxed, pretty, avoiding that very choice. As Jacob says, ered, and Bewildered.” Svevo-reading, and “almost universally “Being here is what you’re doing, when Hart’s alcoholic binges and disap- regarded as nice and smart.” Much you’re here.” Jacob has another layer pearances worsened over the years, has been written about the Nates of of early-twenties existential angst: he and Rodgers found his partner’s unreli- the world (Keith Gessen’s All the Sad has recently come out of the closet, and ability impossible to deal with. Rodgers Young Literary Men is the most obvi- Prague is forcing him at least partially began working with Oscar Hammer- ous and perfectly titled prelude). What back into secrecy, to his frustration, and, stein II ’16CC shortly before Hart died makes this take so interesting is that at the same time, his relief. There’s not in 1943 at forty-eight, and, as Gary Waldman is a woman, entering Nate’s quite enough plot to justify fi ve hundred Marmorstein writes in his intensely fi ctional psyche in what almost feels like pages, and the endless banter of the researched and entirely enjoyable biog- a reconnaissance mission on behalf of expat circle grows tiresome, especially raphy, Rodgers’s resentment had by her gender. Why does this kind of mod- after one of Jacob’s American friends then turned to revulsion. ern man act the way he does? Waldman moves to Prague and joins them. Far Hart’s lyrics are lovely, his rhyme can’t provide us with a clear answer, more interesting are the supporting schemes unexpected, and his texts much but at least her subject comes across as Czech characters — a grumpy land- closer to real speech than the songs appropriately tortured on the matter. lord, a warm-hearted neighbor, a group of the early 1900s. His love songs are “Contrary to what these women seemed of politically active chemists seeking sweetly longing. Marmorstein hears to think,” we are told, Nate “was not English lessons. Between them and his in them the words of the outsider, the indifferent to their unhappiness. And yet masterful attention to detail, Crain cre- homely, closeted homosexual looking he seemed, in spite of himself, to pro- ates a nuanced portrait of a city toddling in at the party. Could be, or maybe he voke it.” toward change. could just make words sing. — Rebecca Shapiro — RS — Michael B. Shavelson

54 Columbia Fall 2013

48-54 Reviews.indd 54 9/24/13 5:22 PM CLASSIFIEDS

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University Psychoanalytic Center offers diag- www.adrhomes.com Call 516-902-3152 for private showing. nostic consultations and psychoanalysis at very www.realestatesantacruzca.com low fees. The evaluation includes a research www.realestatefelton.com ROME: Spacious, stylish, renovated apartment. component in addition to the clinical consulta- www.realestateinaptos.com Living room, 2 generous double bedrooms, tion. If psychoanalysis is not appropriate at this www.realestateinscottsvalley.com 2 baths, kitchen/breakfast room. Central time, referrals to other treatment are part of the www.realestatecapitolaca.com location near St. John Lateran. $850 weekly. consultation. For further information and to www.realestateinnaplesfl orida.net 212-867-0489; www.casacleme.com; request an application, please call the Columbia www.monterey-realestate.net [email protected]. Psychoanalytic Center: 212-927-0112; www.santacruzrealestatebroker.com www.columbiapsychoanalytic.org. www.realestateaptos.net SAN FRANCISCO: Lovely studio apartment: www.realestatecapitola.net [email protected]. MOVE CONCIERGE AND TRANSITION www.realestatescottsvalley.net SERVICES: Need expert help with a move for WINTER IN ST. CROIX ,V.I.: 18th-century yourself or your parents? Are you downsizing WOODBRIDGE, VA: Moving to the national Danish farmhouse retreat on secluded organic and need assistance making diffi cult decisions capital region? Available 12/1/2013 is a pris- farm, 3 bedrooms/2 baths, baby grand piano, like what to keep, sell, or give away? Concerned tine, 4,560-sq-ft, executive home in Prince mahogany fl oor, pool, veranda, walk to private about fi nding a realtor, organizing an estate William County. 15264 Chincoteague Court 4,000-ft beach. Available for weekly and sea- sale, or managing other move-related needs is in Lake Terrapin, attached to desired school sonal rental. [email protected].

Fall 2013 Columbia 55

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COURTESY OF MAISON FRANÇAISE French Toast Columbia’s Maison Française has a long son has hosted Shoah fi lmmaker Claude of Columbia Libraries, the exhibit includes tradition of hosting the leading fi gures of Lanzmann, writer and professor emerita documents, program materials, audio record- French culture. Take this après-guerre run: Maryse Condé, economist Thomas Piketty, ings, and photographs of distinguished think- Sartre spoke here in 1945. Camus spoke in and philosopher Jacques Rancière. ers, artists, and vedettes de cinéma. 1946. Piaf spoke — and sang — in 1947. In 1966, the Maison Française moved Charles Boyer was a cultural ambassador And in 1948, fi lm star Charles Boyer from its original townhouse at 411 West par excellence, if his trip to Columbia is any (above, surrounded by adoring Columbia 117th Street; a decade later it arrived at its clue. The Spectator reported that Boyer, in and Barnard students) spoke, mostly in current home in Buell Hall, where it has town to act in an English adaptation of Sar- French, to the French Club. sponsored conferences, talks, debates, and tre’s play Les Mains sales, left the Maison The Maison Française was established fi lm screenings to promote intellectual and Française after his talk to fi nd a group of by Columbia president Nicholas Murray cultural exchanges not just with France, teenagers “waiting breathlessly” to ask for Butler in 1913 as a “center for the study of but with the entire French-speaking world. his autograph. “He cheerfully signed the French civilization and French literature” Now, in 2013, the Maison Française slips of paper handed him,” wrote the Spec, — the fi rst French cultural institute on an is toasting its centenary with events through- “stating, ‘I never understood what value American campus. That inaugural year, out the year, starting with an exhibit in Buell they would have.’” Butler, a man of grand gesture and grander Hall, on view through October 30. Curated infl uence, brought the French philosopher by Maison Française director Shanny Peer, Learn more about the centennial.  Henri Bergson to Morningside Heights as a and jointly organized by the Maison Française maisonfrancaise.org/centennial visiting professor. More recently, the Mai- and the Rare Book and Manuscript Division

56 Finals.indd 56 9/24/13 5:22 PM C3_Athletics.indd C3 9/20/13 2:43 PM Columbia Alumni Center Non-Profi t Org. COLUMBIA 622 W. 113th Street, MC 4521 U.S. Postage MAGAZINE New York, NY 10025 Paid Columbia Magazine

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