1. art and entertainment
2. movies and tv
3. movies

HAMPSHIRE’S ONLY
NEWS SOURCE
may 1, 2009
VOLUME Xi, ISSUE 5
the CLiMAX
A representation of this year’s Div III work: a photograph from Jenn Kane’s From the Earth; a print from Diego Rodriguez-Warner’s Pessimism of the Intellect, Optimism of the Will; and Maggie
Emerson in Teff Nichol’s play The Other Shore.
A student’s Division III is the culmination of a year’s worth of hard work and dedication. It is a project that marks the end of a student’s
time at Hampshire, and serves as a way for students to use, in one way or another, all that they have learned in Division I and II. While
we tried our best to profile as many as we could, we regret that we could not showcase every graduating Division IIIs. The Climax would
like to congratulate all the graduating Division III students on completing these final projects and wish them the best of luck in all their
future endeavors.
Nationalism treated as sacred Love, sex, and technology
scott atherly
joanna price
By Kendell Richmond
Staff Writer
S
cott Atherly arrived to Hampshire
from Illinois in the fall of 2005. After a
week of hiking with his orientation group,
he settled into Dakin, took his hookah out
to the gazebo and began blowing smoke
rings. This is how he remembers his early
days at Hampshire College.
Over the past four years Scott has studied hard but also allowed his focus to
extend beyond classes. His interest in politics led him to join Ron Paul’s campaign in
New Hampshire in the 2008 election.
As a starter for the Hampshire basketball team, he will be sorely missed by his
teammates next year. He is also one of
the defending champions for the 3–on–3
tournament.
“I don’t have a specific favorite Hampshire memory; there are a ton of good
ones, and I can’t really pick,” Scott said.
“I’m ready to move on from Hampshire,
but I can’t really imagine living without everyone I’ve gotten to know. It hasn’t fully
sunk in yet.” he said.
Last summer Scott joined his advisor
Verna Turam on a field study trip to Turkey.
This influenced his Div III, titled Nationalism and the Experience of the Sacred in the US
and Turkey, which argues that Nationalism
is treated as something sacred. “The nation
is an object
of worship in modern national
societies. Nationalism can be viewed as a
continuity of religion in certain ways.” Next
year Scott will go McGill for grad school to
study sociology. ~tree~
By Yonatan Schechter
Staff Writer
J
oanna Price’s Div III, entitled A Case
Study on the Application of Mass Opinion
on the Individual Experience: the Effects of Technology on the Individual Experience of Love
looks at the effect of a group identity such
as the internet or media on the individual
experience. She states, “The way to examine this is by looking at how individuals
incorporate this [the group identity in question] into their every-day life.” She felt that
any individual experience could be studied
in this way, but her focus was on modern
technology’s effect on the individual aspects of love and sex. Joanna found that
there were three ways effects that could be
How to make Enfield social and sustainable
applied to other cases of the group/individual relationship. The first is the recognition
of cultural context, e.g. identifying what is
going on. The next way to understand the
relationship between group identity and
individual experience is to separate emotional reactions from individual thought.
Finally, the third way to try and understand
this relationship is that by accepting group
opinions as true, we turn something that is
not “real” into a hyper-real monster. To explain this last method Joanna says that we
have to understand that social-construct is
imaginary. Joanna thinks that the applications to the individual are at least as important as the information itself and tried
to write her Division III with that thoughtprocess in mind. ~tree~
tobin porter-brown
By Eddy Mulhern
News Editor
T
obin Porter-Brown’s project will not just be printed
and placed in a library of many to
be forgotten. Rather, his architectural design is part of a scheme
to make the Enfield mods more
sustainable and livable. His final
poster, on display as of April 21,
quoted the following statement
from Hampshire’s founding document, The Making of a College.
“The Campus design should
express in every possible way the
distinctive social and educational
character of Hampshire College.”
Porter-Brown’s Div III takes
on the project of the Enfield Solar Greenhouse and the Enfield
neighborhood as a method of
Showcasing Sustainability (the title of his project) and improving
its social space.
“Most people [in Enfield] sit on
their back steps,” he said, instead
of congregating in a central social
space as was originally intended.
As Porter-Brown said, the
Greenhouse was both a public
space and “attached to our living
room” before it was taken down
last summer due to structural
problems it had caused in the attached Mod 46. Porter-Brown’s
model would leave the Greenhouse more ostensibly open to
the Hampshire community, placing it “close to the apple orchard,
close to Enfield, and with enough
sunlight for a greenhouse.” However, responsibility for maintaining the greenhouse would still
fall to the residents of the Greenhouse mod.
Porter-Brown’s design includes
a barbeque pit and a brick oven,
in addition to a social space on
the patio that features solar panels so students could plug in their
computers.
The Greenhouse would grow
kitchen herbs and fig trees. It
would house annual garden beds
and would use aquaponic systems, just to name a few features.
Porter-Brown’s Div III is not
just his vision, however, because
the Greenhouse may be constructed this summer or next fall
thanks to donations from particularly generous alums, $7,000
from students, and $25,000 from
Community Council.
Blueprints from an architect will arrive soon and will
then be presented to trustees
and upper-level members of the
administration.
Porter-Brown noted that “at
this point the college doesn’t
know how to deal with studentinitiated projects.” He said that
this summer would be a good
time to build, as contractors
are giving an average of 15% discounts because of the economic
climate. ~tree~
2
div iii
the climax
ted day & cameron vokey
By Henry Parr
Managing Editor
I
llustrating, among other things, the
tense and painful relationship that artists have
with their art, the art world, and themselves, Terrible
Beauty from Mr. Plurality was an experiment in theatre
that served as the centerpiece for Ted Day and Cameron Vokey’s respective Division IIIs. Matthew, the
protagonist, is an unsuccessful artist who lives in the
art gallery owned by his brother, Mark. Fed up with
Matthew’s poor reception into the art world, Mark
convinces Matthew to fake his own death. Matthew
continues to produce art, including a number of videos that cue the audience into his artistic process and
complicated relationship with Mark.
The play’s production was highly collaborative.
While Day and Vokey wrote the script over the summer of 2008, they had the scene, set, costume, lighting,
and sound designers contribute to the play’s production, from casting calls to direction. Day and Vokey
had particularly good synergy by the end of the production. “After 6 months of working together [we] becourtesy of zack shepard
came like one voice, I could totally trust Ted in his
Jake Mazonson in Terrible Beauty from Mr. Plurality.
decisions.”
Cameron’s Div III, entitled Writing to Inform Design Day was more focused on playwriting. After writand Multimedia was “a focus on narrative and multi- ing Terrible Beauty from Mr. Plurality, Day looked to
media and how they can connect with one another.” change the script so that it was an open-ended text,
This was done his involvement in three projects, The “an open piece of work that could constantly be addWilson and Alva Show, Terrible Beauty From Mr. Plu- ed on to. The play, isolated, is a typical narrative but
rality, and Zack Shepard’s Division III. In each project I was looking for a database structure…I wrote five
Vokey has strived to “make multimedia an integral plays that were there to inform people about the charpart of a narrative or story without seeming like it’s acters they’re basically just vignettes from the characunconnected” making less of spectacle and more of ters future or past.” These vignettes would make the
literary experience more full, and help the producan interactive give and take.
Looking for a connection between narrative the- tion of the performance. Day went further with this
ater and video art makes perfect sense for Vokey, who idea when he wrote a script with the help of Vokey
spent much of his Division I doing video, and all of and used graphic novel illustrations. This sort of mixhis Division II doing playwriting and producing. “In ing media works well with Day’s academic progresmy Div III I went back and tried to connect them to- sion that began with film and moved more towards
gether because I had done video work and had done acting and then writing.
Both Vokey and Day expect to continue their work
theater, and I wanted to make them come together.”
Day had a similar goal for his Div III entitled Col- playwriting, acting, and making video art, and plan
laborative Dramatic Writing and Multimedia Integration. on and starting their own collective arts group, based
which also was based around the production of Ter- in New York City, with a few other Hampshire alums.
rible Beauty from Mr. Plurality. Unlike Vokey, however, ~tree~
THE CLIMAX
Staff Writers
Managing Editor
Editorial Board
Kate Abbey-Lambertz
Dan Clarendon
Jean Dupenloup
Andrew Fulmer
Ben Kudler
Eddy Mulhern
Josh Schneider
Hampshire College
893 West St.
Amherst, MA 01002
climax.hampshire.edu
[email protected]
Copy Editors
Kate Abbey-Lambertz
Photo Editor
Maia Campbell
Layout Editor
Julia Partington
Kate Abbey-Lambertz
Dan Clarendon
Layout Staff
Kendell Richmond
CO2 loves to party
cameron peebles
Terrible Beauty from Mr. Plurality
Henry Parr
volume Xi, issue 5
Dan Clarendon
Catharine Smith
Kelly Wehrle
denouement editors
Jordan DeBor
Josh Schneider
Aleksi Ahonen
Ben Beach
Sam Bortle
Sam Butterfield
Colin Carr
Alejandra Cuellar
Chris McDonough
Eric Peterson
Keith Putnam
Kendell Richmond
Yonatan Schechter
Molly Smith
Kelly Wehrle
Photographers
Colleen Conley
Ryan Mihaly
Audrey Nefores
Navit Reid
Alex Vara
The views expressed in The Climax do not necessarily reflect those of the paper, its staff, or Hampshire
College. The Climax will gladly work with any interested writers and photographers and holds regular staff
meetings open to all Hampshire students and faculty. Please direct any comments, questions, corrections, letters
to the editors, or article submissions to [email protected].
The typeface family used in The Climax was designed by David Jonathan Ross (F03) as part of his Division III
work in typography and type design.
Copyright 2009 The Climax, all rights reserved.
By Kendell Richmond
Staff Writer
I
t is difficult to capture the person that is Cameron Peebles.
A proud Vermontian, a chemist, a photographer, a flash running
through the woods wearing an American flag cape and his signature hat—Cameron Peebles is all of this. First arriving to Hampshire
College in the fall of 2005, he moved into J313, though this quirky
kid quickly became an icon in the Hampshire community.
Although he divided his academic time between the Film/Photo
building and Cole, Cameron’s Div III focused in Chemistry.
“Don’t get me wrong, CO2 loves to party, but it’s everywhere.
Anthropogenic
CO2 emissions are ridiculous. Our dependence
on non-renewable energy sources
is ridiculous. And that’s what
this Division III is all about—the design and synthesis of a catalyst
capable
of inserting CO2 molecules into other substrates to make
plastics, fuels, and many other resources. In this manner, we both
reduce anthropogenic CO2
emissions and encourage the use of renewable energies,” Cameron explains.
Like C02, Cameron works hard—and parties just as hard. When
asked about his favorite Hampshire memory, Cameron said, “Watching kids wander by me in the woods on keg
hunt. It’s like that scene
in The Patriot: Mel Gibson is holding an American flag and watching all these soldiers run past him to fend off the British. But I’m
Mel Gibson and the soldiers are drunken, sloppy Hampshire kids
like Zach Heine running past me into trees and streams.”
Cameron’s advice for those remaining at Hampshire: “Do as
many drugs as possible.”
His plans for after graduation are still up in the air, though he has
limited it to two choices. 1) Moving to Berkeley, CA to work at the
LBNL (a government chemistry lab), or 2) Fishing the backwaters of
Southern Montana and Eastern Canada.
In closing, Cameron has this to say. “The Hampshire College Beer
Pong Tournament of the World is coming up. Early May. Get a team
ready and email cdp05.” Cameron Peebles, Renaissance man, is confident that he will take the belt again. ~tree~
tamara maurey
Children learning
independently
By Molly Smith
Staff Writer
T
amara Maurey’s Division III project, entitled The Role of SelfRegulation in the Elementary Classroom, focuses on determining
strategies teachers can use to help Kindergarten–3rd Grade students learn to be responsible for their own education. According
to Maurey, most self-regulation research has been done in secondary school, and most of the related research that is done in elementary settings focuses on children’s ability to sit still, be quiet
in line, etc.
At the secondary level, teachers already expect students to have
a high level of responsibility in figuring out how to be independent
learners. “I wanted to see what strategies teachers can incorporate
in their instruction at the earlier grade level in order to prepare their
students to take responsibility for their learning,” said Maurey.
Given her interest in independent learning, it’s no surprise that
she chose to attend Hampshire. The learning approach here makes
it particularly necessary to be in control of one’s own education.
“Students need to be self-regulated, especially in Division III.” Maurey’s project, through her personal observations and research, looks
closely at how this drive for independence can be fostered in the
earlier years of school.
She has done several in-class observations of children at an elementary school in Amherst. Among the more successful strategies
she has observed are those that encourage students to set goals for
their learning and that help them to analyze their current learning approach. Teachers can help students to stream-line their own
educations by giving them individualized suggestions and helping
them to set personal learning goals.
Hoping to be a teacher in the near future herself, these classroom
observations have been beneficial not solely to Maurey’s Div III, but
also to her personal teaching approach. “Being in the classroom has
helped me to identify specific strategies I hope to incorporate into
my practice next year when I have a classroom of my own.” ~tree~
div iii
may 1, 2009
rami baglio
Bear Attacking Girl and other works
the climax
3
dooler campbell
From freaky spacepods
to Narnia
By Kendell Richmond
Staff Writer
D
ooler Campbell, a native of Asheville, North Carolina, spent
many sunny days spotted smoking hookah outside, and it is one of
the things they will miss most about Hampshire College.
A transfer student, Dooler came to Hampshire in the fall of 2007 and
their first memory of the school is seeing Greenwich and thinking, “I
want to live there, in the freaky spacepods!” Sure enough, Dooler would
live in Greenwich for three of her four semesters at Hampshire.
Dooler’s Div III is entitled Nature and Development of Women’s Activism in 20th Century Iran, and was overseen by Burma Turam (chair) and
Jutta Sperling (member). The project has helped lay out the path for
Dooler’s next step in life. “I am going to Egypt,” Dooler said, “to study
Arabic from September to May, then applying to grad schools.”
Dooler’s favorite place on campus is “Narnia,” a combination of experiences that she listed enthusiastically, “Chilling by the Hampshire tree.
Drag Ball. Hampshire Halloween 2008 [which was] pretty much perfect.
Everything,”
Although Dooler did not attend Hampshire all four years, she found
a community here, and leaves the continuing students with this simple
advice: “Support each other.” ~tree~
artwork by rami baglio
By Kate Abbey-Lambertz
Photo Editor
R
ami Baglio’s Division III show in painting,
called See What You See: Exploring Archetypes
consists of seven large oil paintings, grand images
with women and beasts that exist somewhere between the real and the imaginary.
“The archetypes are influenced by folklore and
mythology. That’s what I read a lot of when I was
growing up,” Rami said. “They’re not based on specific stories, but I want people to create their own
narratives from the clues.”
“There’s a lot in them that is relatable. I wanted
to reach an audience outside of the artbarn; I was
catering to non-artists.”
Rami started Hampshire with the idea that she
would major in languages, but realized that she
liked learning them more than studying them. “I
have a lot of interests and painting was the one I
tried next, and I was kind of stuck with it by third
year.” But it makes a lot of sense: “My sister Deva
and I would always do artwork when we were
little and make up stories as we go and tell them
to each other.” Deva and Rami share an alternate
world, even talking to each other in their own secret language.
Sometimes Rami still seems to be living in fantasy world she creates, and to this day she tells
herself stories to get into her paintings. “At the beginning of the year, finally I was just like I have to
paint the first thing that came into my head, which
was Bear Attacking Girl…and I was like how the
hell am I going to paint that? That became one of
my goals, to paint whatever scene I want to paint,
screw how difficult it is.”
Rami talks about sometimes feeling pressure
from her committee to do other kinds of work. “It
built me a lot of self-assurance in the end, by sometimes being like no, thanks for the advice, but my
way is just as valid.”
While she hasn’t always been confident in her
work, Rami has always been strong: in her first
year she was a founding member of the Warrior
Society.
“There was a memorable battle that got it started—I was wrestling Keith, really holding my own.
When we finally went crashing to the floor, I landed on my ankle and we had to call the EMTs and
Health Services said it was probably fractured, but
they just gave me an air cast and a cane. So Keith
carried me around for the next three days because
he felt bad... and he was like, I get to escort a lady
around.”
While Rami might sound flippant when she
describes her work of “striving to create wacky
images,” she had strong ideals about creating art.
“Painting and art, to me, are supposed to be free,”
she said forcefully. Her epic paintings come from
a personal place: she’s a warrior, an adventurer in
her own rich imaginative world, and a little wacky
herself. ~tree~
White Zombie: a love story at heart
justin mest
Eating locally, acting
globally
By Dan Clarendon
Layout Editor
A
s Justin Mest discovered, not all colleges let one pursue academic interests en masse like Hampshire does. After transferring
here, Mest found himself free to study his passions. He could focus his
studies food and agriculture, from more than just a scientific perspective,
while also continuing hobbies like painting and sculpting. “Nobody really gave me a hassle for wanting to study lots of topics,” he said. For his
Div III, Mest conducted a nutritional and comparative economic analysis of eating a local-foods diet. “I’ve been into local foods, agriculture, and
food politics for a while. I wanted to see if I could eat a local-foods diet
from a more scientific basis.” Mest spent the year collecting and preserving vegetables from local farms while meticulously keeping track of his
diet—what he was eating, how much it cost, how much of it he ate, and
how it was prepared. He then input the information into the computer application FoodPro for nutritional analysis. Mest also compared his intake
against comparable food available at large-scale grocery stores, the weekly
spending of an average consumer (as detailed in the 2007 Consumer Expenditure Survey done by the Department of Labor), and the food plans
proposed for each economic quartile by the USDA. The results, which he
has self-published in handmade books, were surprising in a number of
way—in particular, the amount of money he saved by buying locally. What
Mest will miss most about his time at Hampshire is living in such an accepting community. He advises students to not be afraid to study something weird. “Just do it. This is one of the few places where you can.” ~tree~
vincent nero
By Josh Schneider
Arts & Entertainment Editor
F
ilmmaker Vincent Nero’s Division III project is a remake of the 1932
horror film White Zombie. The original film
starred Bella Legosi, of Dracula fame, and
is often considered to be a primary touchstone in the genesis of the zombie film
genre. Considered out of context, the original White Zombie is something of a forgotten gem, owing in no small part to Legosi’s
classic performance. Although the zombie
genre has been the fodder for low-budget
B-movies, recent blockbuster zombie films
have reinstituted the horror staple.
Nero, a New Jersey native, raised fifteen
thousand dollars in pre-production to fund
his film. The movie is a true Hampshire
product, featuring Hampshire student actors and the children of Professor Christopher Cox as zombies. In postproduction,
the film utilized HELGA, a Hampshire
made production management opensource software system. Although the film
promises terror, Nero’s adaptation is more
then the average bloodbath. The film’s website (whitezombiethemovie.com) describes
the story as “the Gothic tale of Jordan, a
young lady on the path to adulthood, who
runs away with her equally as young fiancé in order to get married, but when the
road gets bumpy and they are stranded in
a desolate village, they rely on a rich man
whose broken heart is mended at the sight
of Jordan. Foolishly in love, he will do anything to keep Jordan for his own, even turn
her into a zombie. It may be a zombie movie, but it’s a love story at heart.”
When asked as to his most beloved
Hampshire memory, Nero responded, “I
rang the bell my second year. My friend
Zardon, who recently graduated, was a
tour guide, and this one time he saw me
passing the library and asked me to ring
the bell. I thought he just wanted to show
the tour group what Div IIIs did when they
pass. Apparently, he was trying to demonstrate the fear that students have for the
urban legend of not being able to pass if
you ring the bell early, a superstition that
no one told me about until after I had already rung the bell. All seems to be going
well for me, now. I can only hope that I
don’t get struck by lightning right before
my final meeting.” ~tree~
4
the climax
DIV III
rebecca buckleystein
Bodies, stories, violence, power, change,
voice, silence, stillness, birth, space,
memory, kindness, and more
kate abbey-lambertz/the climax
Rebecca Buckleystein sat and typed in this space as a performance art piece during her show’s opening.
By Josh Schneider
Arts & Entertainment Editor
R
ebecca Buckleystein describes her Div III, Embodiment of Story: An Artistic Exploration of Stories
of Trauma and Birth Stories as Formative Agents of Identity,
Power, and Metamorphosis, as “a project exploring bodies,
stories, violence, power, change, voice, silence, motion,
stillness, birth, space, memory, kindness, etc. Through the
process of Div III I’ve tried to explore the relationships
between hardship and re-emergence—what it means to
be a site of oppression and how to digest that oppression
in a way that creates power.”
A child of Long Island, Buckleystein’s earliest ideas of
Hampshire are from a somewhat forgotten and underrated SNL classic sketch, “Jarret’s Room.” The sketch stars
Jimmy Fallon as a white dude with dreads hosting a webshow from his dorm room (which, by the way, is about
ten times the size of an actual Hampshire dorm). Jarret
and his friends played by Horatio Sanz and occasional
guest hosts depict a typical yet not un-funny Hampshire
cliché of pot-smoking hippies goofing off around the
clock. “At the chipper age of 16 I thought to myself, I’ve
got to go there!” Says Buckleystein, “little did I know that
I actually had to do work?! Talk about false advertising.”
Buckleystein’s favorite memories revolve around her
friends and loved ones. “I think my favorite memories
are all the dance parties I’ve had with friends…meeting my partner Sasha Bush, and finding a great group of
friends who are as viciously satirical as I am.”
“I also really like dorm rooms, I have lots of memories of seven or eight people trying to squeeze together
in single dorm rooms to hang out because there was no
common space…whoever chose to build dorm rooms the
size of a shoe-box was really smart…it provides an immediate feeling of closeness between any two people in one
room.”
Buckleystein advises matriculating Hampshire students to chill out. “[Don’t] stress too much, I spent so
much time stressing and I regret all that, especially now
as I am about to enter into the world during the middle
of an economic recession with a circular diploma, a 0.00
GPA, and 0.00 credits…it seems silly to stress for a bunch
of zeros and circles.” ~tree~
An architectural rendering of Tobin Porter-Brown’s plan for a new greenhouse. See page 1 for full story.
volume Xi, issue 5
Nick francomano
Translating Borges
By Kendell Richmond
Staff Writer
T
his is the best goddamn school in the United States
of America, and the United States of America is the
best goddamn country in the world. Nowhere else could
my dreams be possible,” Nick Francomano said with
enthusiasm.
Nick’s Div III, Translating Borges, was inspired by his
“recalcitrant Catholicism and the work of Borges.” The
project has two components. “I composed an essay on the
theme of translation, particularly regarding how Borges
references translations in his own work and uses translation as the form for many of his short stories,” he said.
Nick also wrote a screenplay based on Borges short
story “Emma Zunz.” He considers it to be a translation of
the original story in the way that it is an interpretation of
Borges’s work, one that “deals more particularly with the
rape.”
He explains: “It’s a buddy cop movie. Two detectives
with contrasting personalities foil the efforts of smugglers,
with heavy overtones of early childhood sexual trauma.”
Borges is considered to be one of the main contributors
to the Latin American literary movement of Magical Realism, though after working with Borges’s literature for a
year Nick has formed his own opinion on the subject. “I
would argue that Borges does not fall within the genre of
magic realism. Furthermore, that the genre is an invention
of publishers and ladies’ book clubs who feel they need to
experience some sort of magic in their lives,” Nick said.
While most of his peers are struggling to figure out
their next step after graduation, Nick is a man with a vision. “I would like to sell [the screenplay] and become
rich and famous. Win the Oscars for the best-adopted
screenplay and gloat to all those who didn’t believe in me.”
Continuing, Nick said, “I’d like to have a family, own a
significant amount of land, and have a large dog, an Irish
Wolf Hound.” ~tree~
Staging Euripides
Brennin Weiswerda
By Sophia Hoffenberg
Staff Writer
M
y favorite Hampshire moment is the entirety of my Div III,” Brennin Weiswerda said. “I found
this Ancient Greek tragedy called The Suppliant Women, by
Euripides, and I fell in love with it. I translated portions
of it from Ancient Greek into English—I know a little Ancient Greek because I took classes at Amherst [College],
and then I adapted the rest of it from available English
versions to create my own performative script. I wrote it
last fall, and then I spent this semester directing it.”
Following the first three weekend performances of
her play she said: “Seeing my play go up and realizing
that this is the culmination of all of the work that I’ve
done over the last four years—seeing it all come to fruition—was like a dream come true. My play really represents not only who I am, but the work that I want to do.
The ‘why?’ of my Div III is very Hampshire: I’m just trying to change the world. Theater is a place where I feel
like I can have a conversation with my community and
my society about the world that we live in and theater is
a place where I have developed my voice. It’s great that
we have the privilege to do theater.”
So what is there for a theater-loving, starfish-adoring,
Div III student to do after graduation? In Bren’s case,
“For next year, I’m looking at a lot of internships with
various theater companies that will pay me and provide
housing. After that, I’m going to go to grad school; I’m
hoping to get a PhD in performance studies, directing,
dramaturgy…I really love school and I love researching
and writing papers and talking about how cool theater
is, so I think teaching would be a good place for me to
end up. But in the meantime, I would like to do a lot of
theater.” ~tree~
Div iii
may 1, 2009
the climax
5
Apples and Whales The controversy of cochlear implants
Juliana Frick
laura Vitkus
By Josh Schneider
Arts & Entertainment Editor
A
By Alejandra Cuellar
Staff Writer
J
courtesy of juliana frick
uliana Frick’s performance Apples and Whales began
with the violent rupture of a green apple into two equal
sides, one side containing a sleeping boy and the other an attentive girl. The show moved forward in three sections with
an impressive group of musicians, who sometimes stood in
the four corners of the room creating an acoustic surround
sound, a narration of three different characters, and video
footage projected on a hanging translucent sheet.
Juliana’s creative process is clearly reflected in the performance. The fragmented time she lived through while
experiencing loss served as the driving force behind the
construction of Apples and Whales. From an exposure to
mixed media in her first year at Hampshire, Juliana realized
the possibilities in defying the standard forms of composition. She found expression through these different forms of
art as complementary to her different ideas about loss and
division. “It can be any division,” she said. An audience can
understand it as any rupture that occurs in human experience, but for her, the division happened first between two
sides of her person—the artistic and the hyper analytical
selves. It is also the division between memory and fantasy,
and the ways these merge together. Juliana constructed the
show based on dreams and daytime hallucinations, or rather
the moments in waking life that spoke to her in some way.
The more she worked on her show, the more she understood
the meanings of these fragments of her life. At the end of the
show the two broken sides are sewn together in reconciliation with a needle and a red thread, a reminder of that initial
rupture that cannot be forgotten. ~tree~
ccording to Laura Vitkus’s abstract, her
Division III “explores the potential impact that
cochlear implants could have on the future of Deaf culture and American Sign Language. Laura explores the
technology and science behind cochlear implants. She
identifies the best candidates for implants and explains
how and why it isn’t appropriate for everyone. She also
describes the benefits and the risks involved and illustrates the post-operative training process.
“There is a great deal of controversy around cochlear
implants within both the deaf and hearing communities. The deaf “aren’t broken, so don’t fix them,” and the
hearing can’t imagine a world without sound. The educational impacts implants have are intriguing, as is the
cultural shift in identity.” Vitkus asks, “How do implants
affect identity and how has this controversy shaped acceptance from the hearing and deaf communities individually? How might cochlear implants create change
in Deaf Culture and American Sign Language?”
samuel zucker
Tourism in Costa Rica: a complex issue
By Eric Peterson
Staff Writer
S
amuel Zucker first became interested in Costa Rica during a semester spent abroad in his junior year—but
it didn’t turn into a Div III for a while: “Last summer I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, so I sat down and wrote
out every class that I had really enjoyed, what I had enjoyed about them, and what projects could be done about
them.” Samuel, an NS student, had previously studied tourism and conservation—energy sources and the interplay
between culture and the environment. So Samuel searched around the school and, using grants from SS and NS,
developed a program of study including a six-week trip to Costa Rica starting in Jan Term. While in Costa Rica,
Samuel lived “in an apartment in Manuel Antonio, interviewing tourists, locals, and government officials, trying to
construct a history of the town and a sense for the current dependency of the area on tourism.” This reporter was
also in Costa Rica over Jan Term and can vouch for the fact that tourists and Dole are huge factors in the economy
down there.
“Trying to create a picture of the town through case study” took a lot of footwork. After actually living on-site,
Samuel experienced a change of perspective: “I realized that my conclusions at the end were that tourism is complex and sort of vague as far as being negative or positive. I expected to have a really negative view, going in… I wish
I had read more before the project.” The experience has lead to a summer job—Samuel will be going back down to
Costa Rica to lead a student group with younger kids. Overall, Samuel feels like it worked out well: “People always
told me that it would come together, and it did.” ~tree~
jesse sanes
Ecological problems are
social problems
By Kendell Richmond
Staff Writer
J
A Northampton native, Vitkus has valiantly given
her last 13 years in employment at Hampshire College
and plans to continue to work in the Dean of Students
office in the immediate future. Her earliest memories of
Hampshire College are of ear-catching anecdotes. “I was
first in college in the late 80s. Friends of mine used to
talk about parties at Hampshire with cool bands playing here. That was back when Bob Dylan’s son was a
student.”
Offering guidance to current or future students, Vitkus offers a story of success through perseverance.
“When I first started talking about applying to Hampshire, I had another staff person tell me how hard it is to
graduate from Hampshire as a full-time working mother.
Nobody’s done it in over ten years. But, four very short
semesters later here I am. But, I’m also one of those people that if you tell me I can’t do something, I’m just going to prove you wrong. I have to say, I kicked ass! It was
a blast.”
As further advice, Vitkus quotes a former Dean,
“Don’t let crazy people make you crazy.” ~tree~
esse Sanes felt at home at Hampshire the very first time he visited the
campus. So much so that he skipped out on the rest of his senior year East
Coast college tour to spend a week hanging out in Merrill. Although Merrill
made quite the impression on him, when Jesse arrived at Hampshire the following year he was placed in Dakin.
Over the past year Jessie has been working with Bob Rakoff and Betsy Hartmann on his Div III titled Addressing Global Warming. “In my Div III, I looked at
a bunch of cost-benefit analyses performed on the impacts of global and tried
to apply the lessons from what they did wrong to market-based policies that
would reduce pollution emissions and also have a larger progressive effect on
social organizations,” Jessie said. He continued to explain what he found wrong
with the analyses he looked at. They made lives in the global south worth less
than those in the global north, the loss of species or ice caps were not viewed as
a cost, etc. “I also wrote a brief history of global warming as a social and political issue,” Jessie said.
Jesse has several possible plans for the future. “Lab jobs, pre-med post-bac
program, urban farming,” he lists.
In closing Jessie wants to tell the Hampshire community to “do your homework on time,” and “FREE THE L(A)ND.”
owen watson
Telling the under-told stories
By Henry Parr
Managing Editor
I
n his four years at Hampshire College, Owen Watson has played a number of different roles. He is part of the band The Faculty, an avid baseball fan, and a core member of the
Hampshire soccer team. Academically, he has been similarly diverse, moving from music to literature to architecture and, at long last, to American studies and creative writing. His Division III, Collective Memory and the American Experience: A Novella, is a ninety-page fiction piece that takes place
in October 1975 and tracks the relationship between the protagonist, Jack, and his sister as they
come to terms with their late father and his past. This narrative is coupled by an abstract conversation between Jack and his father in a bare, white room.
In the process of writing, Watson found the story working around the idea of collective American memory. “It started out as a children’s story and then a thing about post-apocalyptic American,
and then it really turned into trying understand ideas of collective American memory: the notion
that we all carry memories, whether they are interpreted through media or YouTube, of really classic or huge events that are portrayed as historic. It also turned into an outlet for storytelling of
under-told stories of my parents’ experiences with their parents and the late 60s and 70s. There are
echoes of my dad’s time in the army during Vietnam and his relationship with his father.”
Ultimately the work tried to portray how these collective stories or memories can lack a degree
of sincerity. As Watson stated, “sometimes under-told stories are more indicative of who we are as
people rather than the stories that we tell all the time.”
Though Watson has moved around academically, American studies has always been a constant theme in his studies and time here at Hampshire. After Hampshire, he intends on working
for City Year or some other AmeriCorps program before he pursues graduate studies in public
policy or law. ~tree~
6
the climax
Div iii
Catharine Smith
Jenn Kane
Gas, Grass, Ass & Brass:
Waterbury, 1968
From the Earth
By Eric Peterson
Staff Writer
U
nlike most of the photo students vagranting outside Film/Photo, Jenn Kane does not,
has not, and will probably never smoke. Tobacco,
that is. But she probably knows more about the
cancerstick than you.
For the past year she has been photographing,
oserving, and generally hanging out on a tobacco
farm in Southwick, Masssachusetts. It’s one of
those places you pass along 91 without realizing it,
but the Connecticut River Valley is home to one
of the most historically-prominent tobacco-growing areas in the US. Also invisible are the people
who work here: at this farm, it’s migrant Jamaican
workers.
Kane, a pre-med student turned photo concentrator from New Mexico, came to know the farm
through first working with the Brightwood Health
Center in Springfield last summer. Brightwood
provides free healthcare for mainly undocumented workers who would otherwise go without.
While initially interested in doing a traditional
medical ethnography of the clinic, Kane instead
became interested in how the migrant workers
found themselves in this position in the first place:
“My Div III situates these tobacco farmworkers in
a social and political context. It addresses what
social/political reasons caused the farmworkers
to come here,” she said.
Her artist statement reads: “Standing in the
harshly lit tobacco barn, I watch as the farmworkers heave up massive green leaves into the rafters.
These fleshy plants physically overtake the men,
engulfing their bodies. Later… buyers will consume the cigars; their bodies becoming enveloped
in tobacco smoke.”
Using photography, her ethnography illustrates the metaphors that for Kane make sense
Natalie Milllis
By Kendell Richmond
Staff Writer
C
courtesy of Jenn Kane
of the disparate maps of people and goods over
time and space, in this case linking the men of
Jamaica with the anonymous smoker maybe a
few—or a few hundred—miles away. They show
tracks in the mud, bodies amongst the plant
stalks, and the broader seasonal changes upon
which the life of the tobacco, and thus these men
coming from thousands of miles to harvest them,
are dependent. In both Kane’s written and visual
accounts of this place, the seemingly anecdotal
moment gives view of a larger horizon of interactions: “ All of these forces play off of each other
to form a web of connection, each connection
showing a part of the whole.”
Jenn Kane’s photographs and writings will be
on view May 4 through 6 in the College Library
Gallery. ~tree~
Medicine, Biopolitics, and Native
Bodies on the Reservation
By Josh Schneider
Arts & Entertainment Edtor
P
retentious, right?” Asks Millis of her Div
III title, The Doctor’s Long Shadow: Medicine,
Manifest Destiny, and Women’s Bodies on the Reservation. To the contrary, Millis, an EMT from Lo
Mejor, CO brings a focus to the oppressive qualities of the federally instituted Native American
health care plan. In her own words, “It’s about the
Indian Health Service, a federal system of clinics
that give free health care to all enrolled Native
American tribal members throughout the US. My
project examines the colonial roots of this organization and how they have informed the modern Federal doctor-Indian patient relationship.
Use of Foucault’s articulations of the physical
manifestations of power was more or less obligatory, unfortunately… hence the title…”
Recalling her earliest memories of Hampshire
life, Millis relates stories of community and flavor. “Bumming a cigarette from Thanasi on the
first day of orientation after realizing that I’d
need to carry a variety of hot sauces in my bag
to every meal in SAGA.” Millis looks back on her
first year fondly, explaining, “There were a lot of
good times in general.” As for advice to Hampshire students, Millis again urges community
participation. “Drop your assumptions,” says Millis. “Reach out to your neighbors.”
Community and peer cooperation fascinate
Millis. When asked what the promising pre-med
volume Xi, issue 5
student will miss most, she responded, “I always
enjoyed the sociological lessons and political
parables inherent in a 10-person mod whose
common areas have deteriorated past the point
of livability because all other modmates appear
to have been raised by nannies or indulgent
mothers who did all the cooking and cleaning
for them, and are thus devoid of any inclination
to do these things themselves. The constant possibility of conversation and/or adventure at any
time of day or night. The particular camaraderie of misery that develops during the epic hard
times.”
After school, Millis has big plans to hike the
Appalachian Trail from Virginia to Georgia. She
then plans to take up residence with her sister,
find work as an EMT, and raise money for medschool applications and MCAT prep classes.
On a closing note, Millis offered her views on
Hampshire. “If this place is going to go anywhere,
students need to step up to challenge themselves,
their peers, and the administration EVERY DAY.
To lose the bullshit and work towards making this
place an effective platform for useful knowledge,
discourse, and social change in all of its manifestations…But bad jokes like that aside, I sincerely
think the school should be moved somewhere
that doesn’t have so many unfortunate characteristics, such as horrific weather approx. 80% of the
time, proximity to Amherst College, and regional
cuisine that appears to be completely devoid of
flavor.” ~tree~
atharine Smith has already participated in Commencement,
though it wasn’t her year quite yet. “One of our A3 group was
graduating (in 2006), and somehow the rest of A3 ended up walking in
with them. Nobody noticed as we posed for pictures, or waved to parents, but the jig was up when the graduates began to file into their seats.
That’s when we, the interlopers, had to run away. Smooth,” Catherine
remembers.
Catherine’s Div III, titled Gas, Grass, Ass, & Brass: Waterbury, 1968, is
the first 100 pages of a 250-page historical fiction novel set in a fictionalized version of Waterbury, CT in 1968. The city, formerly the brass
capitol of the manufacturing world, is on the decline as the national
economy moves away from heavy industry. “The central character, Laurel, is the college-aged daughter of a
watchmaker and the Board of Alderman’s first-elected female member. Through the first few chapters, Laurel guides us through a city on
the precipice of economic collapse, and she offers us a view of 1968
through the lens of a conservative community. Sex, drugs, rock ‘n
roll,
and homework!” Catharine expands.
With an artistic passion that extends beyond the written word Catherine also illustrated the novel with a map of the city. Explaining the
work she said, “[It’s] a mish-mash of the real Waterbury and the one I
fictionalize, a snapshot of the city green at the peak of autumn, and an
imaginary portrait of the Waterbury Watch Company,”
While Catharine completed an ambitious Div III, some might still
say she was lucky to graduate. “When I was a first year,” Catherine said
“someone told me that the Div Free Bell was cursed. If you ring the bell
before you’re Div Free, the story goes, you’ll never graduate. So what
did I do? I got drunk and rang it before the end of my first year. I never touched it again, in the hopes that I’d live to see Commencement
2009. And here I am, having passed Div
III, about to ring it for the second time. I don’t suggest that anybody tempt fate…but when you do,
it’s really satisfying when you win.”~tree~
Evan michael Ratzan
Neuroaesthetic
Psychotherapy
and Biochemical
Rhythmicity
By Josh Schneider
Arts & Entertainment Editor
S
cience concentrator Evan Michael Ratzan has studied alternative
treatments for psychological and neurological disorders in both
humans and lab rats. Ratzan elaborated on his Div III:
“Traditional cultural rituals involving communal dance, music,
and a shaman’s pharmacy have been gradually replaced by invasive
treatments including pharmaceuticals, psychotherapy, surgery, electroshock therapy, and magnetic brain stimulation. My Division III
investigates the efficacy of art and music psychotherapy for two specific sensory-motor disorders: Schizophrenia and Parkinson’s disease.
I tested this in humans with an ERP computer task for healthy individuals. I also tested chemically lesioned (Parkinsonian) rats with,and
without infrared phototherapy.”
Hailing from Breckenridge, CO, Ratzan worked with faculty members Jane Couperus and Rayane Moreira to utilize Five College resources and explore alternate medical treatments for the neurological
or psychological diseased. Ratzan lists Hampshire’s various resources
such as the Lemelson Center, the Media Basement, IT, and the Chemistry Lab when describing what he will miss most about Hampshire life.
While a meal in SAGA stands out in Ratzan’s mind as his earliest memories of the school, Ratzan’s favorite Hampshire destination
is the cool shade of the field beneath the Hampshire Tree. Another
Hamp institution, Hampshire Halloween, makes for Ratzen’s most beloved memory, specifically Halloween 2006. When asked for advice
for Hampshire students, Ratzan urges for an early start. “Don’t do Div I
or Div II, just do Div III when you first arrive.” ~tree~
may 1, 2009
Div iii
the climax
7
Elena Petricone
Zombie kittens, not zombie Nazis
By Dan Clarendon
Layout Editor
A
fter spending a few minutes trying to
describe her Div III, Elena Petricone broke
it down simply: “It’s really about zombies and
kittens.” Her project, “Humans, Zombies, and Feline Familiars,” is composed of two parts: a novella called “Nine Lives” and a media studies
paper entitled “Bringing Humans Back to Life:
An Examination of the Film Fido.”
The novella is comprised of intersecting stories, images, and characters revolving around
a “corporeal assault” in the wake of a viral outbreak. The kittens are “cute yet sinister,” and
the zombies have a dance number—and yes,
“Thriller” was a source of inspiration.
In regards to her interest in the subject matter, Petricone said, “I had always been interested in what is a source of anxiety and fear in
particular cultural moments—in which monsters become popular, in what moment and
why, what physicality they have, what anxieties they play on.”
So why go the zombie route? “Zombies are
experiencing a very large surge in popularity,” said Petricone. “I think that’s interesting because zombies are reduced to one drive.
They’re often paired with a particular ideology,
like zombie Nazis, for example.”
Petricone found the guidance of her committee (Nell Arnold, Lise Sanders, and Susana
Loza) to be invaluable. “Coming to Hampshire
wasn’t just a positive experience because I was
able to structure my education,” she said, “but
because I also had faculty to guide me along
the way and encourage that education.”
She advises students to make the most of
their four years at Hampshire and to take advantage of the services at the college. Though
she’ll miss the “beautiful surroundings and the
beautiful people,” Petricone plans on moving
closer to Boston to pursue a writing internship
and an MFA in fiction. ~tree~
No Escape: A father’s legacy
sanju Sebastian
By Keith Putnam
Staff Writer
Alright, so just start telling about your Div III.
My dad died almost two years ago. I made
a film about the relationship my father and
I had. This film has been a way for me to
grieve over my dad’s death.
So how did you get the idea for your project? Oh,
wait…
Well, Subhash Sebastian died February 6,
2007. That kinda sucked.
All right, all right. My bad. Okay, tell me about
India.
I went to India to make the film. Well, the
film was really an excuse to go back to India. My dad left me a lot of money when he
died, so the money was there, and I knew
it wouldn’t be a problem. So yes, I wanted
to make the film, but I really wanted to go
back to India and reconnect with the place,
you know? “Discover your roots”—type shit.
And it just wasn’t that… it wasn’t that at all.
I got there and, well, India kind of kicked
me in the face. It was just glaring how out
of place I was over there. Yup, so that was
India.
Tell me about the film.
I got back, and I had all this footage, so I just
started cutting it together. I hadn’t thought
out how the film was going to be made at
all. At first, I was really lost. Eventually I just
picked a clip I thought was kind of interesting and just played it over and over again.
Then, at one point, I just started talking at
the screen. Shit just started like coming
Flarnie nonemaker
out. This was at three in the morning. Then
I was like, “Oh, shit, that’s kinda interesting.”
So I turned on my tape recorder, and that’s
where the film began. And that’s basically
the style of the film. It’s me analyzing my
relationship with my father interspersed
with interviews from family members and
friends. Oh yeah, I didn’t talk about this at
all: there are no people in the film. That’s
kind of important actually.
Except for the baby footage.
Yeah, except for the home video footage. So
that was intentional. Without faces for the
voices, it forces people to take what they’re
hearing—the information and the ideas—at
face value, without any prejudice about how
the person looks or whatever, and so that’s
the first thing they engage with. And on top
of that, these places are important because
this is the only thing left of my dad: the places where he lived and the places he visited.
Tell me about doing the music.
Well, I could have used more time to get the
music together. I got my final edit done kind
of late in the process, so the time I should
have been spending with the music was
time in which I was still finishing my edit.
So the music was kind of rushed. But that
being said, I am pretty happy with the music.
It was all in the style that I had been intending to use, but I just wish that after recording all the music I could have gone back and
edited the film to the music instead of me
editing the music to the film.
And after graduation?
Tahoe, bitches. ~tree~
courtesy of icanhascheezburger.com
Maryette Haggerty-Perrault
Bringing the Outdoors In &
the Indoors Out
By Eric Peterson
Staff Writer
Y
ou could say Maryette Haggerty-Perrault came to Hampshire for its
really great sports program. “I thought the Div III at Hampshire was NCAA
Division III sports… that’s how I initially came across the college, I wanted
to play college volleyball and swim.” You can blame Google for that. Haggerty always thought she would transfer but, now upon finishing her Division III, said, “I’ve have come to realize that I was meant to be here for some
as-of-yet undiscovered reason, but I’ve certainly been able to take advantage
of learning opportunities that I never would have had elsewhere.”
Among them were the semester she spent in Cuba working with the city
planning office of Havana, getting trained in Autocad at The New York Institute for Architecture & Urban Design, and spending her final year working
on comprehensive redesigns of the Ford Foundaton Building in New York
and the Hampshire campus’s own Longsworth Arts Village. Undoubtedly, if
you’ve ever walked through the later, you know it certainly needs redesigning: “My ultimate goal for the site was to put the space to good use: improve
conditions of the site, thus increasing community usage; allow for more interaction between the arts housed in the Village, by bringing the program
of the building interiors outside as well as creating an outdoor classroom &
precedent for a minimal impact, low cost eco-friendly redesign.”
By creating outdoor spaces for the arts contained in the individual buildings, as well as upgrading the roof canopy overhead (a flat room which, forever the butt of the most infamous of modern architecture’s criticism, is
always leaking) she united her interests in engineering and the social uses
of outdoor spaces.
Maryette heads off this summer to do a fellowship at the National Institute of Standards & Technology but leaves Hampshire students with this
parting advice: “I’d say that taking advantage of Hampshire’s unique learning experiences (and exchange programs in particular) is the best thing you
can do.” “I guess I’ve finally stepped up to the ‘make your education your
own’ challenge,” she almost begrudgingly admits. ~tree~
Guiding the Development of Creativity
By Kendell Richmond
Staff Writer
knit group of friends has made college what it is to Flarnie.
From evening spent on layout in the publications office to
“raising Elder Gods from their watery tombs,” she has had
uring my tour of Hampshire the guide started a wide variety of experiences over the past four years.
When asked what she will miss most about Hampshire
singing the theme song to ‘Captain Planet,” Flarnie
Nonemaker said. This was her first impression of Hamp- College, she responded, “My 10 favorite people.”
Flarnie worked with Jana Silver and Melissa Burch on
shire College, and four years later the school has lived up
her Div III entitled Guiding the Development of Creativity. “I
to her expectations.
An active member of Excaliber and The Omen, her tight- took two high-level courses in Art and Education in the
D
fall while doing a part-time internship with a local Art
Education Specialist. In the Spring I began a full-time Art
Education internship,” she explained.
“I hope to be the first Hampshire College student to
graduate with an Art Education License,” Flarnie said.
As she prepares to set of on her next new adventure,
Flarnie has two things to say to the Hampshire Community. “Stay off my Lawn.” And as always, “Submit to The
Omen.” ~tree~
8
Div iii
the climax
volume Xi, issue 5
Janet Armour-Jones
Crafting light for
theatre and cinema
By Josh Schneider
Arts & Entertainment Editor
J
anet Armour-Jones’s Div
III project entitled LIGHT
BRITE: The Power of Light Across
Mediums evokes the childhood
toy and the sense of playfulness Armour-Jones brings to
the craft of light design. LIGHT
BRITE considers lighting design
from the specific, although not
exclusive, angle of theater and
the cinema. Armour-Jones has
already amassed an impressive
resume, working on various
Hampshire theatrical productions such as The Wilson and
Alva Show! and The Last Stop Between Us. Armour-Jones also did
projection design for the production of Bind Their Wombs as
well as producing her own short
film, That Vast Obscurity Beyond
the City, based on F. Scott Fitzgeralds’s The Great Gatsby. The film
was conceived as a visual narrative, and focused mainly on the
cinematography of light design.
In recounting Hampshire
memories, Armour-Jones remembers a visit on Accepted
Students Day. Walking in the
Dakin quad and “having a
guy with a pink puppet come
up to me and say ‘Go tooooo
Haaaampshire!” Armour-Jones
took that puppet’s advice and
recalls dear memories of Hampshire hospitality. Her first vivid
memory of life at Hampshire
was “being late for my orientation group because I either read
the sheet wrong, or I forgot to
change my watch, so I walked
in right after everyone had
done introductions. So they did
it again for me, and no one forgot my name that day.”
Spending her first year in a
Merrill basement double, Armour-Jones says she’ll miss
“the people” at Hampshire the
most. She cites the Prescott fire
escapes as a favorite place on
campus. By way of advice to
current students, Armour-Jones
suggests that you “get used to
people not doing their part of
projects, because everyone is so
busy with their own thing.” This
may sound pessimistic, but considering the communal nature
of a theatrical production, Armour-Jones stresses the importance of self-motivation verses
relying too heavily on other
group members. “Do it yourself
if you really care about it.” ~tree~
Measuring moose in
the Pioneer Valley
Dana Morrison
By Eric Peterson
Staff Writer
A
nimals are tricky. Discretion is the watchword for a
healthy ecosystem, and so even
seemingly conspicuous creatures—like the moose—can prove
elusive.
Our state is, in terms of evolutionary history, densely forested.
A brief interlude due to human
development caused Massachusetts to turn pastoral for about
150 years, but now the woods,
and the moose that live in them,
are making a comeback. In an
attempt to figure out our moose
situation and whether or not
they’ll “pose threat to people or
other wildlife,” Dana Morrison
developed her Div III around
tracking moose using their scat:
a technique she learned in Africa, working on a project with
large antelope during a semester
abroad. It took a lot of scanning.
To collect her data, Dana walked
200m transects through Cadwell
Memorial Forest—a protected ar-
ea in the Pioneer Valley suspected of harboring moose.
So should we be bracing ourselves for an onslaught of moose?
“So far I can definitively say…
moose do inhabit the Cadwell.
The total number of moose in
the Cadwell is still being determined, but we know that during
the winter at least two moose
visited the Cadwell. [White
tailed deer] are also present, in
greater numbers, with at least
five, perhaps more. Both moose
and deer appear to prefer browsing on black birch trees, but as
the two species vary in height,
competition for this resource is
essentially nonexistent.”
Dana plans to make her career by studying animal behavior.
She has recently been accepted
to Washington State University,
and will be attending in the fall
to begin her masters in behavior,
ecology and earth sciences. “In
the end I hope to procure a teaching position at a university where
I can teach and spend my summers conducting research.” ~tree~
courtesy of Janet Armour-Jones
Britton Van Vleek
Climbing buildings, taking soil
samples, and ski suits from the 70s
By Kendell Richmond
Staff Writer
on a trip to West Virginia, Britton has plenty of outrageous stories from the past four years.
Britton didn’t just limit himusted yellow bikes,” Britton
Van Vleek recalls as his first self to the climbers and has been
memory of Hampshire. Many known to be easily persuaded inwho started college with Brit- to a game of beer pong, a hike in
ton in the fall of 2005 remember the woods, or even a naked bike
a quiet boy exploring the cam- ride.
Academically Britton conpus by climbing up buildings—
buildering to be exact. When he centrated in chemistry, working
arrived at Hampshire he came closely with his chair Dulasiri
armed with climbing shoes, Amarasiriwardena. His Div III is
chalk, and a crash pad, immedi- titled Toxic Trace Metals Distriately connecting with the climb- bution in Soil and Humic Acid
Molar Mass Fractions in a Shooting community.
An active participant in the ing Soil.
Britton explained the data he
Hampshire College Climbing Coalition until the start of his Div used: “Sequential extraction and
III, many of Britton’s more epic spectral analysis of trace metals
adventures took place with these AG, AS, Cu, PB, SB, and Zn from
comrades. Road trips, neon-col- various fractions of soil samored ski suits from the 70s, boul- ples taken from a Boy Scouts of
dering, and even rolling his car America Shooting range. Analy-
B
sis of trace metals bound to soilderived humic acid (a component
of the soil organic matter) from
the same site. This information
helps give insight as to the fate,
transport and availability of said
trace metals has impact on future
assessment of the site for development and potential effects of
public health.”
When asked about his plans
for after graduation, Britton replied: “I am taking time to work
and to let the system work for
me… Please contact me for my CV
and cover letter.”
“One day I want to wake up
as early as Earl and Glenna Alderson,” he added. His parting
advice for Hampshire students
is, “Be good to each other. Tighter
jeans will not make you a better
man.” ~tree~
Jess Kim
Redefining Mixedness
By Carolyn Li Madeo
Contributor
J
ess Kim’s Division III, Redefining Mixedness: In/authenticity in Mixed Identity, consists of a
written dissertation and memoir,
a community art gallery, and an
art and writing event. The community art gallery Redefining
Mixedness will be showing in the
Cultural Center from April 22 to
April 29.
Jess’s Division III is based on
an exploration of the personal,
the theoretical and the communal, which her work balances in
a perfect chorus. In the written
section of Redefining Mixedness
Jess strives to connect these different sections of her life and
studies as they pertain both to
herself and to the idea of mixedness, a term that for Jess is constantly changing. The art and
writing event and community
art gallery under the same name,
were created by Jess to open a
conversation on mixedness up
to a larger community. Through
her Division III, Jess has worked
to create both a personal and
community space, not simply to
create or define a new term for
mixedness.
The first section of Jess’s written portion of her Division III
is an oral history; this section is
focused on her life before Hampshire, and specifically the type of
language and vocabularies that
she used to talk about herself
then. Included in this section
and throughout her Division III
are poems that she wrote. Jess’s
second written section is focused
on her experiences at Hampshire,
specifically how studying race
theory changed the language that
she used and how this language
left little space for her to fit into.
The final written section speaks
back to the prior two sections
as an intervention of mixedness
and includes excerpts from her
art and writing event.
Ultimately, Redefining Mixedness is a multilayered Division
III—one that uses personal mapping, community events and
the sharing of stories to explore
both language and space within
mixedness. ~tree~
div iii
may 1, 2009
Anna Leah Jacobson
the climax
andy berquist
Exploring the Americanization of
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
A connection between myths
explained
A
H
By Josh Schneider
Arts & Entertainment Editor
nna Leah Jacobson’s Division
III The Promised City may best be described as an ethno-anthropological documentary film. Jacobson explains that the
film is “A 45-minute documentary exploring the Americanization of the IsraeliPalestinian conflict. By traveling through
Brooklyn and meeting Palestinians (immigrants and their children) living there, we
examine the attitudes these new New Yorkers have encountered in the City. While
filming over Christmas, Israel launched a
22-day bombing campaign on Gaza, killing
1,400 and igniting the countrymen in the
US. Amid protest and boycotts, we learn a
bit about the divide between citizenship
and nationality. Overall, would they return (or “return”) if they could? Or are they
settled where “the streets are paved with
gold?” Jacobson worked with Bill Brand,
Michelle Hardesty, and Jeff Wallen to complete this ambitious project.
Jacobson’s earliest Hampshire memories include the “admit one” acceptance
letters, coming to prospective students
day on 4/20 and meeting someone in Saga
who took the young Jacobson to a reggae
show at UMass, and “moving into [her]
first room (the A3 lounge) and accidentally dropping a beer on an intern from the
balcony.” Oh college hi-jinks! They never
get old. When asked to relate her favorite
Hampshire memory, Jacobson responded,
“Oh, Lord. My favorite is probably inaccessible due to brain damage.”
Keeping up with the work hard, play
hard spirit, Jacobson advises Hampshire
students to “grab every opportunity you
can. There’s time for fun and work, trust
me. Sleep when you graduate (or Sundays).”
When asked as to her favorite locales on
Hampshire campus Jacobson gave a seasonal sampler. “The bench by the Red Barn
in fall, the media basement in winter, the
window in spring… and the acoustic freakzones any time of year. And the bonfire pit.
Oh, the bonfire pit.”
When asked what she will miss most
about Hampshire College, Jacobson responded sentimentally, “Not being the
only one.” ~tree~
By yonatan Schechter
Staff Writer
ave you ever thought that shamans and poets were an integral part
of culture? Andy Berquist did. His Div
III, Shamans and Poets: Connecting Norse
Mythology and the Kalevala, explores two
ancient and apparently dissimilar mythologies. The Kalevala is a Finnish national
epic with a number of characters that go
on all sorts of interesting adventures.
Andy got this idea for a Division III
project when a professor stated in class
that the two mythologies, Norse and Finnish, were not connected. This was based on
an anthropological assumption that language, myth, and culture are co-dependent.
They evolve together. This alone is not so
hard to grasp, the inference made is that if
a language is not related, then the mythology is not related. Finnish is a very distinct
language, not a member of the Indo-European language family, the family that every
other European language falls under.
Andy realized that the indigenous
shamans of Scandinavia, the Sami, were
Celebration and mourning found in
photographs and floral arrangements
Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich
M
adeleine Hunt-Ehrlich’s
photography Division III
Before We Can Speak of Flowers is a
collection of stunning large-scale
portraits, which are interspersed
with sculptural images of colorful, wounded floral arrangements.
Before We Can Speak of Flowers will
open May 1 at 7 PM in the library
gallery. While working on Before
We Can Speak of Flowers, Madeleine traveled, by bus, throughout
the country taking intimate, epic,
and poignant portraits of young
Black people, many of whom are
her friends and some of whom she
met through acquaintances.
Madeleine was inspired while
working on her Division III by
watching movies with the sound
turned off, and a cinematic quality
is undeniably present in her work. The portraits featured in Before We
Can Speak of Flowers tell stories of
simultaneous beauty, strength and
sadness. Madeleine ’s work captures “the day after the celebration”
and tells of a personal and communal “continuum of both victory and
oppression, with no final point.”
Madeleine’s images of floral
arrangements were inspired by a
summer spent in Jamaica and include colors that are uniquely Caribbean. Madeleine explained that
although these color combinations have been taught to be seen
courtesy of Madeleine Hunt-ehrlich
as “tacky” in the US, she invites her
viewers to see them as being both
visceral and evocative. Some of the
floral arrangements have wounds,
which were later filled with deep
blue flowers, and like her portraits
Madeleine ’s floral arrangements
represent a sense of simultaneous
celebration and mourning.
Before We Can Speak of Flowers
also includes a short film, which
is intended to be played on a loop.
The film features a young man sitting silently and motionless as he
waits for a bus to start. The film
captures, as Madeleine has eloquently stated and shown throughout Before We Can Speak of Flowers,
how “we live in a moment of pause
in the midst of flux.” ~tree~
a connecting factor of these two sets of
mythologies.
It turns out that the magic invoked in
both cultures’ mythologies is done in very
similar fashions. This was Andy’s starting
point for seeing connections between the
two stories. It appears that both Odin, the
Norse high-god, and one of the main characters of the Kalevala were similar types
shaman. They both have magical horses
that can carry them to the underworld,
and it is thought that these steeds might
actually be the drums used in shamanism
to carry a shaman on a Journey.
Andy’s hypothesis for the spread of the
Norse myths to Finland is that the bi-lingual poets of Finland encountered these
stories in their travels. They were translated to Finnish and, using names of already existing heroes and legends, added
elements relevant to Finnish culture. For
one of Andy’s advanced learning activities,
he taught an EPEC on Norse myth during
Jan term. He tried to facilitate it in the traditional way: around a campfire. He even
had a reindeer skin in case anyone got too
cold.~tree~
Studying star
formations
Gideon Bass
By Josh Schneider
Arts &Entertainment
W
By Carolyn Li Madeo
Contributor
9
ell, my visit as a prospie was pretty terrible, actually,” said Gideon Bass. “The tour guide started the
tour by saying this was his first time doing it, and things
went downhill from there. But I still came!” Despite poor first
impressions, Bass has excelled at Hampshire in the field of
intergalactic exploration. Concentrating in astronomy, Bass
worked with professional astronomer and extraterrestrial
studies enthusiast Salman Hameed.
Bass, a son of Baltimore, described his Div III work as “a
survey of star formations in thirty-one southern hemisphere
galaxies. We are looking for general trends in star formation
and unusual features that have not previously been detected,
and then we’re comparing our results with previous studies.”
Bass has also excelled in the field of athletics, citing his
inception into Hampshire’s Frisbee team, The Red Scare, as
a fond memory. Reflecting on great times spent playing Ultimate on the lawn, Bass noted the Scare’s ridiculous and
unusual cheers as an example of Hampshire’s creative spirit
and the team’s colorful attitude. In Bass’s words, “This team
is awesome!”
In offering advice to upcoming Hampshire students, Bass
wisely warned, “Don’t spread yourself thin. Find a few things
you love and actually do them fully, rather than a ton of
things you think are important and doing nothing but talking about them.” Well put. Friends and “the craziness that is
Hampshire College” are what he will miss most about his undergraduate experience.
With intentions to pursue a Doctorate degree in astronomy, Bass has already been accepted into a Masters program
but is prepared for a few more years of focused study. When
considering astronomy, a field populated by the lonesome
stargazers amongst us, there is a certain romantic element in
contemplating the vast expanses of the cosmos. But back on
Planet Earth, Bass identified the Spiritual Life Center as a favored spot. “It’s this really cool space that not many people
know about,” said Bass. (The SLC is located in Greenwich on
the second floor of Donut Five.)~tree~
10
div iii
the climax
Four years of uniqueness
Allison Wickham
Courtesy of Allison wickham
By Kendell Richmond
Staff Writer
Y
ou don’t realize the uniqueness and incredible experiences you have had during
the past four years until you realize there are no more years at Hampshire anymore,”
Allison Wickham said.
From Redlands in sunny California, Allison arrived at Hampshire College in 2005.
While many students go through waves of enthusiasm about Hampshire, she was a constant fan. Among the many things she will miss after graduating Allison lists, “being an
admissions intern for all four years, being the work study student for the dance program,
and the faculty members I have worked with for so long.”
As of now Allison has no specific plans for next year though she smiles and says,
“Things are brewing as we speak.”
One of Allison’s favorite spots on campus is the couch in the dance faculty office hallway; the other is the main studio of the Music and Dance building. This combination of
comfort and art seemed appropriate given her Div III, titled Exploring Art as a Therapeutic
Healing Tool in the Healthcare System.
Allison describes her Div III as having two components with an added sub-component. The first is a dance production based on personal experiences and patient stories/
artists stories she heard during her summer as an intern with the Shands Arts in Medicine Program. The second is a writer portion focusing on the importance of visual and
performing arts in a variety of healthcare settings. Finally the sub-component is the initiation of two arts in medicine programs in the area.
As commencement quickly approaches a feeling of nostalgia is overcoming the campus. Allison recalls the beginning of lasting friendships, “spending two hours in SAGA
laughing for no apparent reason with Maryette. We never actually figured out what we
were laughing at, but we have stayed friends from that day on,” she said.
Though perhaps the most memorable experience of her Hampshire career was the
culmination of if all, the closing night of her Div III dance performance. ~tree~
Channeling the father of gospel music
Harry Milloff
By Henry Parr
Managing Editor
H
arry Milloff’s Division III, How Many Times: The Passage of Gospel Blues, was a performance and an essay that tries to capture the
influence that Gospel Blues has had on Milloff as a musician and student of music. The essay is primarily focused on one of the
most prominent figures in Gospel music, Thomas A. Dorsey. Dorsey who is often considered the “father of Gospel music” has affected
a wide variety and number of musicians, many of who are Milloff’s musical influences.
The final performance was exemplary of how gospel music had influenced his growth as a musician. Milloff said, that the performance was made up of “my own original compositions that took aspects of gospel music into how I was writing it, but also a lot of jazz,
a lot of funk. It was just a culmination of a lot of musical influences I have had.” Playing with “a wide selection of musicians both from
on campus and off,” Milloff also collaborated with Owen Watson and Juliana Frick, co-members of his group The Faculty, and played
one song with his father.
While an administrative mishap pushed Milloff to change his Div III from making a marketing strategy and business plan for The
Faculty to a music performance, Milloff appeared to be happy with his final product. Music has been the common thread in his studies, and what he has spent “the majority of [his] time on here at Hampshire.” Of the experiences he’s had at Hampshire, playing with
The Faculty has been one of the most notable. “I’ve played with so many different bands, and never experienced anything like what I
do with The Faculty. And that’s only because of the people in the band being on the same page and just looking to have fun and being
really creative and dedicated.”
Milloff remarked that his time at Hampshire was worth it because of the experience he had “ learning about [himself] and what
[he’s] capable of and what [he] likes to do.” ~tree~
Same land, different eras
Annie nichol
By Jean Dupenloup
Sports Editor
F
volume Xi, issue 5
or her Division III, Annie Nichol wrote a book entitled Four Natural Histories: The Lived Landscape of Gratton Gulch. The
book is comprised of four stories about the same fictive piece of land (the imaginary limit between West Marin County and West
Sonoma County in California), each one taking place in a different time period.
The stories, based on historical research and Nichol’s imagination, blend fiction and non-fiction to evoke what she terms natural
histories. Through these stories, the book, about 140 pages long, examines the relationship between people and the land they live on
throughout two centuries. Nichol uses natural histories, the descriptions of day-to-day life, to depict time eras without pretense of an
objective outlook.
The first story takes place in the early 1800s and is by far the most imagination-based of the four. The story is told from the perspective of a tree that has absorbed the soul of a Native American woman buried at its foot, and the action consists in the tree’s access
to the woman’s memories. The second story takes place in the late 1800s and tells the story of a family of Irish immigrants who have
come to settle in California. The third takes place in 1958 and recounts an abused little boy’s outlook on the land. The fourth and final
installment is about a traumatized young girl who’s come to live with her grandmother and lover. This story deals with the young girl’s
mourning process, trauma, and resilience.
Rather than looking at these subjects through the lens of angry environmentalism, Nichol tried to avoid the allocation of blame
and to objectively identify the reasons for certain shifts in this relationship between people and land. She found the distinctions between people and the natural world to be extremely permeable. ~tree~
Lauren Goulding
The Great
American Wild
East Show
By Dan Clarendon
Layout Editor
I
’ve watched a lot of documentaries about the Middle East,” said Lauren
Goulding, “and they’re pretty bad in general.” With those examples in mind, Goulding
set out to produce an alternative historical documentary about the moments of
cultural intersection between the Middle
East and the United States and to do it “in
a lively, satirical, and hopefully funny way.”
Goulding arrived at this task well-prepared:
she has studied the Middle East—its history, its representation, and its interaction
with the United States—for most of her
college career. Under the supervision of
her committee—Bill Brand, Aaron Berman,
and Mary Wilson (from UMass)—Goulding compiled found footage and Monty
Python-style animation for the three parts
of her film The Great American Wild East
Show. She screened one of those parts on
Saturday, April 25: a segment that focused
on the representation of various Middle
Eastern cultures at American in the 1893’s
Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The 12minute segment combined archival footage,
clips from movies like Aladdin, modern
images like Joe Camel, collaged title cards,
and voiceover work by Hampshire students. (Due to an unfortunate hard drive
failure, she is still hard at work reassembling the other two parts as of press time.
Her emphatic advice to students: “Back
up your data.”) There’s a lot that Goulding
will miss about Hampshire, but what she’ll
pine for most are the many trails in Hampshire’s backyard. But she will likely find her
fix as she spends the time after graduation
“bumming around the American West going kayaking and climbing mountains.” ~tree~
div iii
may 1, 2009
the climax
11
Spool: photos of a family
Ariel Rosenbloom
By Kate Abbey-Lambertz
Photo Editor
A
riel Rosenbloom has been photographing her younger sisters forever: “ever since I picked up a
camera.” Her Division III, “entitled Spool, is a series of black and white and color photographs that
explore themes of fictionalized family, the unspoken, and the nameless. Hovering between the real and
imaginary, this series is cyclical in nature, weaving in and out with no real beginning or end.”
While Ariel didn’t learn to print in a darkroom until her second year at Hampshire, she has a natural affinity for it. “I think I really became passionate about photography once I started printing. I just love how
personal it is. It’s a calming process for me; you can sort of escape into this space where time doesn’t exist.”
And she works rigorously: “I did all the black and white printing over Jan-term. I was in the darkroom every day, all day until it was done.”
Ariel’s images of her sisters contain secret stories and are evocative, as mysterious as they are revealing
“I used them as muses for a created, imaginary space. Photographing them for this project was much more
like theatre. It was fun and also tedious at times.”
“I think it was strange for them to see themselves up on the wall and to get so much attention, but secretly, I think they were flattered,” Ariel guessed. “They’re normal, teenage girls.”
Ariel plans to move to New York this summer to find a gallery job or internship and start getting her
work shown. Her commitment to analog photography has put her into debt, and she warns Hampshire students that “if you’re planning on doing a photo Div III, plan out your budget ahead of time. No one warns
you about how much a Division III photo project will cost (I can tell you: a LOT).”
Not that she necessarily would have changed anything: “The main reason I came to Hampshire was so
that I would be able to carry out independent work. It feels pretty awesome to be able to say I’ve accomplished everything I hoped I would.” If you are interested in seeing Ariel’s work or buying
prints you can contact her at [email protected]. ~tree~
Jen Greenberg
Courtesy of ariel Rosenbloom
Danielle Slabaugh
Solutions to tainted water Environmentalism, privilege, and bikes
By Benjamin Kudler
Features Editor
By Josh Mosh
Arts & Entertainment Editor
J
en Greenberg recently completed her Div III in the school of Natural Science on the subject of water treatment. Greenberg explored a
contaminant that finds its way into water through fireworks, gunpowder, and ammunition. The contaminant is fairly common, and greatly
effects people with iodine deficiencies. Greenberg’s thesis stated that
wetlands could be a better source of water than traditional sources
that need to be treated in order to be consumed.
Greenberg began her time at Hampshire living in Merrill A2, before
moving to Enfield mod 44 in her final year. Although Greenberg enjoys many parts of campus she lists her mod as her absolute favorite
place to be.
While Greenberg is coy and uncertain when discussing memories
of her time spent at Hampshire she does admit that she’s had “some
great keg hunts.” Greenberg’s main advice to younger students is “to
be satisfied with your Div III.” Although Greenberg has no plans for
next year she will work with the Nevada conservation code this summer fixing, building, and maintaining trails. ~tree~
Zebediah Engberg
Math whiz sounds off
By Audrey Nefores
Staff Photographer
What is the title of your Div III?
The Norm Equation, Ideal Reduction, and Local-Global Violators: Attaching the Class
Number Problem for Real Quadratic Number Fields from a Diophantine Point of View
Who is on your committee?
Ken Hoffman
Explain your Div III.
Studying integers and whether unique factorizing holds.
Where are you from?
I’m a Masshole.
Favorite memories of Hampshire?
Walking across the campus
and seeing Luke smile at me.
In general, Luke’s face.
Any advice for Hampshire students?
Don’t start drama, especially
during your Div III.
Plans for next year?
Dartmouth
for
Graduate
School, studying pure math.
Favorite place on campus?
The treehouse, also known as
the Walkway in the Sky, and
the top of Cole.
What are you going to miss?
Luke and teaching people
math. I’m going miss being at
a school where no one else
knows anything about math.
~tree~
I
’m collecting stories from bicyclists about their relationship to environmentalism and privilege,
and using them to start conversations with communities in the valley about transportation equity and
environmental justice,” says Danielle Marie Slabaugh when describing her Division III project. The student
from Lansing, MI worked with faculty members Simin Farkondeh and Larry Winship in the formation
and completion of her work. Her earliest memory of the school is a humorous and eventually reaffirming
anecdote. Slabaugh recounts the experience of “some crazy girl wearing a green apron, explaining that she
didn’t work for Hampshire, she just decided to wear a green apron that day. I wanted to run, but we’d paid
the bill, I’m glad I didn’t.”
Slabaugh’s favorite memories of Hampshire revolve around personal relationships and the Hampshire
discourse. “Bonfires with friends!” exclaims Slabaugh. Speaking to what she will miss the most, Slabaugh
says, “I’ll miss my friends and the community of really engaged people.”
“Go away and then come back, it changes everything!” said Slabaugh, when asked for advice for Hampshire students. After graduation, Slabaugh will certainly gain a new perspective, leaving the countryside of
Western Mass to teach at an afterschool program in Austin, TX.
Here on campus, Slabaugh’s favorite place “by far, is the Community Health Center.” Says Slabaugh,
“The fridge always had leftover pizza, and there are free massages and comfy couches.”
As a closing though, Slabaugh begs that, “someone needs to replace the ladder at the Hampshire tree
please.” Will that someone be you, dear reader? ~tree~
Claudia Lerner
A human’s guide to life in the cosmos
By Andrew Fulmer
Opinions Editor
C
laudia lemer, an NS Div III, is keeping us ready. Her Div III is a comprehensive series of essays on
the history and current status of an important—but marginalized—field: astrobiology. A science writer
in Div II, Claudia has reviewed “tons and tons” of literature on the subject of alien life, and incorporates
Greek history, medieval theory, space-race era research, and contemporary theory.
“I explored the idea of “panspermia” and the use of Earthly extremophiles in helping to test that hypothesis. Next, I explored the search for life on Mars and other planets in the solar system, predicting the
chances of finding life on each planet according to their unique environments, and discussing the most
likely possible life forms that could exist on each of those worlds… I ended that section with a discussion
on SETI and searching for intelligence in the universe and the implications of that kind of research on human civilization.”
Panspermia is the process by which some biologists believe life could spread throughout the universe.
It involves extremophiles (organisms adapted for truly extreme conditions) hitching rides in meteors. If
you’ve played Spore, you’ll recognize the concept. Claudia’s work is an act of public service – translating
the sometimes arcane research on this subject into a palatable form. While, according to Claudia, we still
haven’t found any other organisms in space, this kind of study can still give us a sense for the enormous
diversity of life—and, as Claudia pointed out, our role in all of it: “Searching for life on other worlds—and
finding almost nothing, at least so far—makes us appreciate the fragile state of Earth and gives us a reason
to protect and cherish our own home planet and our own fragile lives.” ~tree~
12
the climax
div iii
volume Xi, issue 5
Breaking taboo
Alex Torpey
Colleen Blackard
The Absence of Light
By Kendell Richmond
Staff Writer
A
By Keith Putnam
Staff Writer
Image Courtesy of Colleen Blackard
Tell me about your Div III.
Well, being an art Div III you’re not quite sure what to do when you start. You just go with an idea and
see where it takes you. So what I started out doing was tornadoes and storms and that eventually turned
into skies and stars; which aren’t actually skies and stars at all! It’s more just ways of using light and dark
to create my own universes, so not like images you see in a picture, for example. So the work that I’m
doing now isn’t just about the end result but also about the process as well. I’m building up these blacks
with my medium ballpoint pen, which is a really small medium to create large amounts of black in different values and to create space. Right now I’m using lots of circular motions or infinity signs to create
images. Some people say it looks like hair, which is kind of funny.
How has the Div III process been for you?
I feel we have a lot of push from the faculty. I was surprised at the amount of direction there is in the
program. I feel for other disciplines at Hampshire, like the writing program, there isn’t as much direction
compared to the art program. You’re always in the art barn, you’re always in your space. There is a constant
pressure to keep working. I guess I really needed direction to keep working and changing. What the faculty say really influences what you do; their suggestions can really help lead you to where you want to go.
So I think I got what I needed out of the program. I don’t think I could’ve gotten to this place on my own.
How do you think you would have developed as an artist in a different setting, say if you weren’t in school?
The art I do in the summertime is definitely different from the work I do here. At home I have no one
critiquing my work and it’s really very different, kind of static actually. When I’m home I’m usually
more trying to capture what’s in front of me and then focus on making that as detailed as possible. Here
you learn to really let go. The faculty helps you keep in mind all these things I normally don’t think
about when trying to create an image. For example, keeping in mind technique, style, composition and
all these other ideas that I wouldn’t necessarily think of or practice on my own.
What are your plans for after graduation?
I would definitely love to make a living on my art. I guess that’s my eventual goal so definitely trying to
get more into the art world. I want to go to grad school later on but for now I want to move to New York
City, try to get into some galleries and get to know the art community. ~tree~
Maegan BetEnvia
Documenting the Assyrian community
By Josh Schneider
Arts & Entertainment Editor
H
ave you ever heard of Assyrians?” asks Maegan BetEnvia. Many people have not. BetEnvia’s
Div III is an ethnographic historical study on this indigenous Iraqi ethno-religious minority. BetEnvia, a first generation American, began “by documenting the century long history of the Assyrian immigrant community in Connecticut…But soon realized that I had to go further to understand the series of
events that have influenced what it means to be Assyrian in the present day.” BetEnvia, whose parents both
emigrated from Iran in the 70’s and 80’s, said that “rather than employing theory to explain this ethnic
group, I use the framework of Assyrians, primarily the Assyrian community in Connecticut, as a lens to
view political and social issues of statelessness, diaspora, post-colonial identity, gender, nationalism, and
immigration.”
“My project,” continues BetEnvia, “uses interviews and history to see if, where, and how Assyrians fit
into the academic fields of diaspora studies, post-colonial identities, statelessness, race, and indigenous
studies. This study is as much for my Assyrian community as it is for academia, so my primary objective
has been to keep the work accessible to both.”
To her fellow students, and especially transfers, BetEnvia urges “stay motivated, don’t be intimidated by
the challenges you face, it will seem impossible at times, but the end result is definitely worth it… Don’t let
Hampshire become apathetic and traditional. Student groups depend on your involvement, attend their
meetings, and make your voice heard.” ~tree~
lex Torpey is perhaps best known at Hampshire College for
his involvement in Community Council, his resounding voice,
and his closet full of suits… However, few realize that behind the cutthroat professional there is a very Hampshire student. Alex recalls
visiting the campus his junior year of high school and “knowing that
this will be the place I will go to college”.
Since beginning at Hampshire College, Alex Torpey has been incredibly active in the community, taking Non Satis Non Scire to heart.
Those who know him will describe Alex as a man who get things
done. When students complained about mice in the walls, he wrote
a letter to the Amherst Department of Health. When speed bumps
proved to be more dangerous than the speeding cars, he had them
removed.
As the head of Community Council, Alex truly tried to be a man
of the people, the liaison between the students and the administration. In his last year on campus he worked closely with student services to reform the alcohol policy, finally convincing the school to
adopt a new medical amnesty program.
His passion for his community, peers, politics, and change led
him directly into his Div III. He began to ask: Is the drinking age
working?
Over the past year Alex has traced the history of alcohol use and
policies in the US. Examining the current cultural and social taboos
around youth alcohol consumption and the unintended negative
consequences that the 21-year-old drinking age has caused. After extensive research he proposed a new groundwork of graduated alcohol policies to lower the drinking age. His intention is to change to
culture and attitude around drinking in the US.
Alex spent the past few years dedicated to the Hampshire community, and while many viewed him as a typical politician, he worked
tirelessly for the students he represented on Council. Next year he
plans to continue his work as a public servant, only this time moving
into the real world and the District Attorney’s office in NYC.
As he graduates he leaves behind this advice: “ Don’t lose perspective.” ~tree~
Learning to write
(suzanne) Elizabeth Buchanan
By Eric Peterson
Staff Writer
I
f there’s one fact to begin a profile about Elizabeth Buchanan’s Div
III it’s this one: her project is the only one taking the point-of-view
of a stray dog. But wait, the follow-up’s even better: this stray dog
lives outside an orphanage in Romania, and in order to write from
his perspective Buchanan learned Romanian, did an independent
study on Romanian history and then spent a summer at a Romania
orphanage.
“Dog’s” first-person voice is actually just one of three that makes
up the novella that is her Div III. And Why Romania you ask? “First
I was going to go to Ethiopia,” she says, “Then they went to war with
Eritrea and my program was cancelled. Then I happened to read a
book about Romanian communism, and thought, “Well, this will
work.”
So, I signed myself up for Romanian language classes at the Five
College Language Center at UMass. I’ve been writing my Div III retrospective, and it just hit me: “I learned Romanian for my Div III. I
fucking learned Romanian.” In this way she started her Div III “with
nothing but the idea that I wanted to approach a culture as an absolute newcomer and, through research and personal interaction with
members of that culture, become close enough with it to write about
it.”
While Buchanan had spent her Div II studying both fiction and
non-fiction writing, she chose to concentrate in the former as: “fiction has such a capacity to create empathy.” At a discussion regarding the Multicultural Perspectives requirement, Buchanan was struck
by one speaker, “(writing professor) Nell Arnold mentioned how she
could never write about someone, no matter how despicable, without
eventually coming to like that person... I feel that the act of reading
is similar to this—you can’t finish a book, a well-written book, without some tiny seed of connection to the people it’s about. Without
connection, we’re worthless.” ~tree~
div iii
may 1, 2009
Music for
gerbils
13
Punk rock poetry
Maxwell Schwartz
sam Teitel
By Josh Schneider
Arts & Entertianment Editor
By Josh Schneider
Arts & Entertainment Editor
M
the climax
axwell Schwartz, a graduate of Ridgewood High School, in Ridgewood, NJ has
created one of the most unique, if not somewhat
esoteric Div III projects seen this year. His major
work is basically the creation and production of
musical instruments to be played by gerbils, for
gerbils. Schwartz first had to identify if gerbils
responded positively or negatively to different
aural frequencies, learning first that any tone
that might resemble the cry of a hawk or a predator was unfavorable. Schwartz also challenged
the notion of an instrument that a gerbil would
be able to ‘play.’ Identifying the gerbil’s natural
propensity for climbing and jumping onto platforms of various elevations, Schwartz devised
three different platform based “gerbil organs.”
Originally intending to use rats, Schwartz
switched to gerbils for their relatively shorter
breeding cycles, their friendly social tendencies,
and natural predisposition for sonic communication (gerbils, like other rodents, thump their
feet on the ground in order to communicate
sonically over distances).
Schwartz, who is a top ranking chess player,
wanted to combine his love for music, interactive digital art, and animals in his final project.
His Division III began taking form in his second year when he utilized his hamster’s running
wheel as a component in a “semi-failed” project
for a Lemelson course. He then used the hamster in an interactive digital art course taught
at Smith. Says Schwartz, “I decided to go in a
more behavior oriented direction. I chose gerbils because they are social and highly intelligent when it comes to rodents; they use various
forms of seismic communication, plus they are
friendly, small, and highly curious. My Division
III became, and is, an “observational study” (very
loosely so) involving the fabrication of three
“instruments” featuring different forms of interaction based on gerbil behavior. These are then
filmed, and accompanied with a paper including
citations and analysis of prior gerbil research
which ‘justifies’ the project.” ~tree~
P
oetry swept Sam Teitel into a
world of performance poetry and
travel. His Division III maps his journey through cultural history, emotional exploration, and life on the road. The
cover of his Div III looks like an old
punk record and opens into 22 poems,
essays about spoken word poetry in
America, and a cross-country tour journal. Sam’s guiding words? “You should
write about what you want to write.” He first wanted to write about punk
rock and break through its romantic myths. “It was about me trying to
understand these people as people,
as human beings that had their own
struggles.” Sam penned persona poems
and social studies. One poem explores
the perspective of the Hotel Chelsea, fidence to take his poetry on the road.
where Sex Pistol Sid Vicious allegedly This past Jan Term, Sam and Emerson
murdered his girlfriend Nancy. Troll- College poet Steve Subrizi featured
ing punk history, Sam realized, “There’s at open mics across the country. They
a notion of writing all the gory details. hit venues all over New England, perA really rigid honesty I’m really inter- formed at Chicago’s Green Mill (where
slam poetry began), and landed gigs
ested in.”
Punk’s raw aesthetic inspired Sam in Denver, Colorado. Sam felt the tour
to work on more personal poems. He left him with a greater appreciation for
turned down this other road in part for life beyond New England. He advises,
self-preservation. “I went a little crazy,” “Drive across the country and talk to
Sam said, “I was reading about people everybody. And go to the really frightdestroying their lives.” It was time to ening, lonely bars. And don’t ask direcmove past imploding punk personali- tions from anyone that isn’t wearing
ties. “I feel like poetry and art has kind big heavy work boots, overalls and carof always been about the artist’s emo- rying an ax over his shoulder...” Chartions,” said Sam. He wanted to perform acter and stories will emerge. Sam will
continue his poetic explorations postthe poetry of his own experiences.
Sam’s regular performances with the Hampshire. His next stop: The Reader
Hampshire Slam Collective and Bos- release party in the Prescott Tavern on
ton’s Cantab Lounge gave him the con- May 1. ~tree~
Notions of the self: using theater to
find connectivity between Lacan and
Buddhism
Teff nichols
By Alejandra Cuellar
Staff Writer
T
eff Nichols’s Division III began
with her experience of encountering psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan in her
studies. She was interested in developing some of the concepts Lacanian psychoanalysis presents about anxiety, the
idea of the whole and the lack in human experience and paradox. Through
experimental theatre,
Teff approached these abstract notions of the self and held two performances throughout the year. The Other
Shore, a play written by Chinese playwright Gao Xingjian was held in the
fall and compiled many of the ideas
from both Lacan and Zen Buddhism.
She experimented with her actors
in a way that allowed them freedom of
movement and personal expression in
tackling the central idea of crossing a
river to the other shore. Teff found an
interesting parallel working with this
play—the intersection between Buddhism and Lacanian psychoanalysis
was surprisingly elucidating. Xianjian’s thoughts about Zen seemed to coincide with Lacanian concepts. he said,
“Zen does not manufacture mystery: it
is an understanding. It is eating, drinking, shitting, pissing and sleeping as
usual. It is only an attitude towards liv-
ing, a thorough understanding of the
world and of life.” Seeing both of these
disciplines as lenses into human experience rather than self-evident truths
pushed Teff forward into exploring
psychoanalysis further through theatre. Bird Hand Speak, her second performance, was held in the Hampshire
woods in the spring. She focused on
developing ideas about the limitation
of language and emphasized movement as a form of communication. She
worked towards breaking the need for
sense in theatre, and instead searched
for a new form of expression through
body language. ~tree~
Dancing with Lacan
micaela Rich
By Kendell Richmond
Staff Writer
L
ive it up, work harder than you think
you can and don’t regret. The end is a
time to feel complete and at peace.” This is
Micaela Rich’s advice to other Hampshire
students, and it’s clear that she followed her
own instructions, with plenty of long nights
in the airport lounge. When asked what her
favorite place on campus was, Micaela simply answered, “outside the library at sunrise.”
Truly taking advantage of Hampshire
interdisciplinary studies, Micaela combined her love of dance with an interest in
psychoanalysis. Working closely with her
committee, Fritha Pengally and Annie Rogers, Micaela completed her Div III titled Between Movement and Meaning: deciphering the
language of loss through dance and Lacanian
psychoanalysis. Her project consisted of a
twenty minute original dance piece and an
extensive paper on Lacanian psychoanalysis
as it relates to dance.
Originally from New York, Micaela entered Hampshire College in the fall of 2005.
The past four years have been memorable in
many ways and yet first year will always be
special to her. “Mel and me, our first year,
stealing a sign from the pubs and Nick helped
out too,” Micaela recalls as one of her favorite
memories.
While Micaela has diverse academic interests, dancing has her heart. When asked
what she would miss most about Hampshire
Micaela said, “The community I feel with
the dance program.” Next year she wishes
to focus all her time and energy on dancing.
While plans have not yet been set in stone,
she does have a goal, “Dance where I can
make enough of a living to eat.” ~tree~
Courtesy of Jim coleman
14
div iii
the climax
Experiments with time
volume Xi, issue 5
Eva Chertow
Courtesy of Eva Chertow
By Kate Abbey Lambertz
Photo Editor
L
ightspan: A Study in Gradual Repetition is the culmination of Eva Chertow’s photography
Division III. Like Eva, it’s complicated, and the further you get into the series of works, the deeper it
gets. These works are Eva’s experiments with time, a study she takes seriously and is personally invested
in, but one that she irreverently connects back to sitting around in high school with friends “smoking pot
and talking about science.”
Many of Eva’s projects are sparked by books she’s read. She started formulating her studies of time
while reading sections of The Sound and the Fury, its personal significance denoted by a symbolic tattoo on
her forearm. “I picked a topic that everyone thinks about” Eva remarked, “but also one that corresponds
very much to my own obsessions and neuroses every single day.”
After describing the serious technical constraints of her work, Eva excitedly talked about the LiarCard,
a service that records phone calls and analyzes conversations for truthfulness, which she used to create
one of the works in her show. “It’s a total parody of what came before,” she said enthusiastically, adding
more seriously, “But at the same time it’s exactly like everything else I’m doing. Measuring the immeasurable, using technology to quantify the abstract.”
“For me, some of this stuff is very heavy. But it’s also not. I just don’t want to take myself too seriously.”
Eva attributes her attitude about art to few things. At “a crazy art school” in Amsterdam where she
studied abroad, she was struck by the notion that “art is a part of your life and life is a part of your art. It’s
not just this crazy anxiety stress, it’s about enjoying what you’re doing.”
Eva has been doing photography since tenth grade, and she describes the photo room and her high
school teacher—“a hilarious guy, angsty, chain-smoker, smelled bad, very grouchy and grumpy”—as her
saving grace. She recalls him telling her, “He never took pictures of anything beautiful. Because that was
too easy.” Eva said, “So he would find something that wasn’t beautiful and make it interesting through his
photography. And somehow that one phrase has been so influential to me and still is.”
Now, Eva uses photography to create a balance in her life. “What has stabilized me and grounded
me was feeling confident in the work I’m doing. I think once you have that everything falls into
place.”
Eva will miss her committee, Jean Marie Casbarian and Karen Koehler, and the Film/Photo building
when she leaves Hampshire, hopefully on the way to an AmeriCorps position in Austin in the fall. “I
think Div III is so spectacular because you have a group of people telling you that your job is to do exactly
whatever you want to do every single day. The work that you’re the most passionate about. And I don’t
know if I will ever have that again. I hope I will.” ~tree~
No separation between
personal and academic
Nelly Bablumian
By Kate Abbey-Lambertz
Photo Editor
W
hile Nelly Bablumian has been involved in the theater community at
Hampshire since her first months at school it’s only one of the many circles
that this dreamer moves in. She’s known by her friends for euphorically dancing in
the rain during thunderstorms, spontaneously sleeping outside, and always being up
for a bonfire in the woods. “It’s so amazing that we live in the middle of all these forests. I just want to go for a lot of walks in all my free time now.”
Nelly will relax at the end of this semester, but she has been driven from her first
year, with more focus than most. “From first year, I knew I wanted to put up some
kind of play in EDH for my final Div III.”
Nelly wrote, directed, produced, set-designed, costume-designed, light-designed,
tech-directed, etc I Sing Anyway, her Division III play. As a result of some bureaucratic
difficulties, Nelly didn’t get a space in EDH to put on her show. Instead she used the
Tavern, which initially “felt like a burden” as she rolled suitcases of props back and
forth from her mod to any space she could find to rehearse in. But she came to see the
Tavern’s “gifts,” and used the difficulty to let her show evolve positively.
“I started my own theater company, which I called a theater family. We worked the
whole year—I wrote the play before that—but most of the time we didn’t work on it,
we worked on developing a foundation of trust and love without which we couldn’t
have put on a play because it was so personal.”
To Nelly, “It’s all personal. There’s no separation between academic and personal,
at least for me in my Division III.” What draws her to theater is that “it’s bodies in a
shared space connecting with each other; there’s this instant trust.”
Her time studying clowning and physical theater in Arezzo, Italy, had a strong influence on her play. “Being a clown is about tapping into your inner kid, your most
free, vulnerable self. This ties in to a lot of the themes of the play… being human, being lonely, dealing with heartbreak, responsibility for each other as people.”
Nelly appreciates how safe she feels at Hampshire; “how weird everyone is and
that’s okay…There are days and specific events at Hampshire where you feel this sense
of community of and love. And it would be a nice if that was every day.”
These are Nelly’s ideals, and it was almost by chance that she ended up living them
at Hampshire. “I didn’t read much about Hampshire before I went, I didn’t know anything. But I remember being on the phone with my mom the very first week. And the
conversation was interrupted by a bunch of people dressed up as butterflies running
across the field. And I was like Mom, I think I came to the right place.” ~tree~
wilson kemp
Printmaking elevates drawing to art
By Kendell Richmond
Staff Writer
I
was coming back from the bonfire that happened the first night and a ragged man
named Moses found me and led me back to Hampshire with a really psychedelic walking stick,” said Wilson Kemp of his first memory at Hampshire. He wasn’t sure if Moses
was a professor, a student, or just some man who hung out in the woods. But the next
morning, when he woke up slightly hungover and thought back to the previous night, he
was sure he had gone to the right school.
When Wilson arrived at Hampshire in the fall of 2005 he intended to study photography and sculpture. However, his life took an unexpected turn when he was inspired on a
Jan Term trip his second year.
“I took one drawing class in Chile, and when I came back I decided to try my hand at
printmaking as a way of elevating my drawing to art, as opposed to the doodling I had
been doing all my life, ” Wilson said.
The inspiration for Wilson’s Div III, titled SECOND NATURE, was the culmination of
his entire third year, the spring of which he spent on the Hampshire Cuba program studying with “art wizards” Norberto Morrero Pirez and Lesbia Vent Dumois.
“The relief aspect was completely inspired by the reusing and reducing that made Cuban art possible throughout [the supply shortage] of the revolution. Printmaking is something you can do anywhere, anytime,” Wilson said.
As far as plans after graduation goes Wilson said, “I
have vague opportunistic
plans [for next year] to put up
an artists’s residence. Find a
working press near any major city and make a lot of art.”
Although he’s not too picky
about which city, the list he
muses over includes San
Francisco, Savannah ,Georgia, and Asheville, North
Carolina.
“The collective memory of
Hampshire out weights any
specific memory I have—actually no—Bocce Ball is my
favorite memory,” Wilson
said. ~tree~
div iii
may 1, 2009
the climax
15
Wrestlers without arms Photographing pilgrimage
Amber Odhner
Camila Moreiras-Vilaros
By Keith Putnam
Staff Writer
So Amber, tell me about your Div III.
I completed a Division III in painting. My project was a series of
paintings inspired by invention and memory in the home I grew
up in and also I did a series of wrestler paintings.
Wrestlers without arms?
Yes, without arms.
Could you explain them?
It was about expectation and surprise in considering a painting
and also about what is necessary and unnecessary. It is also about
how much is enough and how much you can get away with in a
painting by subtracting things that are unnecessary like a skyline
or houses, things that are just cluttering the space.
Was there a metaphor you wanted to convey?
Well really you can interpret it however you want. It means something to me but it almost doesn’t matter what it means for me. I
have my own interpretation but one reason why I appreciated the
wrestlers is because I feel that form can be interpreted in so many
different ways. But I wasn’t meaning for it to be this profound thing,
it was more just a tool and a subject for creating a painting.
Tell me a little about the Div III process for you.
From the beginning I had a pretty good idea of what I was interested in painting and in making, but it was definitely a stressful year.
I put a lot of pressure on myself to do something unexpected and
different. I feel painting is not something I can articulate very well,
it’s such an internalized process. I was ultimately pretty happy with
how the show turned out though. I was definitely ready to show.
Do you feel your classes helped you come to the place you are as an artist?
Oh yeah, definitely. I think every painting you make brings you
closer… not brings you closer but teaches you something. I feel
painting is not a linear process, it’s always circular. You end up
coming back to the same things. Every time you take a class or
work on a painting you’re taking another step… and not necessarily
toward something, but I guess just gaining a better understanding
of the process and what painting is for you personally. I think the
Hampshire painting program is so important. We have all these different artists coming through, many who went to graduate school,
and after talking with them I feel I am ahead of the usual process.
I am already in the habit of making my own schedule, being in the
studio every day, and making it happen. You really have to build that
discipline. So I feel like I’m ahead of the game in those terms.
What are your plans for after graduation?
I’m going to go to San Diego and probably going to do AmeriCorps
for a year. Eventually I think I will do grad school for painting but
I’m really open to whatever happens. ~tree~
By Sophia Hoffenberg
Staff Writer
I
n high school, I was thinking that I was going to come here for film,” Camila Moreiras-Vilaros told
me, as we sat on a bench in front of Photo and Film building. “Then the summer before coming to Hampshire, I started really getting into photography, and then I got really lucky and was able to get into a photo
class here in my first semester. I really, really liked it and decided that it was the best place for me to be.”
“One of my fondest Hampshire memories is from my first year, in the middle of winter. My friends and
I got a little stir-crazy and decided, at nine o’clock at night, to take a road trip down to Virginia. We made it
down to Virginia at around six in the morning, and then a blizzard started, so we took a nap for an hour or
two and then drove back up.”
Four years later, Camila’s Div III is titled Ultreia: Photographs from the Camino de Santiago, and it involved
putting together a photo exhibit, as well as a book, on the pilgrimage from Santiago. She explained, “Basically, this summer I walked and photographed the entire 800 kilometer pilgrimage. In the book I have a lot
of philosophical writing, journal entries, a poem, and it basically deals with the idea of the pilgrim being
the prototypical mortal, as well as being the antithesis of that.”
Camila plans to move to Zurich, Switzerland for a year in August, “I’m going to be spending a year with
my aunt and uncle, learning German, finding a job related to photography, and then afterwards, hopefully
making my way to New York. I’m really going to try to make my living as a photographer, so hopefully I
will have enough recognition to be able to work on my own art. Also, half of my project was putting together a book, and I realized that I really like the layout process so I’m thinking that I would also like to try
out working as an art book editor.” ~tree~
Questioning red ant conservation
Jonathan Fanning
By Yonatan Schechter
Staff Writer
N
Courtesy of Camila Moreiras-Vilaros
ature as a Weapon: The Use of Parasitic Pseudacteon Decapitating Flies to Biologically Control the Red Imported Fire Ant sounds
like an intimidating title for a Div III, but not to Jonathan Fanning. He studied the imported red fire-ant and conservational
methods regarding its control.
The fire-ant has a bad reputation, especially in the South. People think that a swarm of fire-ants could eat their cows, their crops,
and even their unattended children. Fortunately, there is no real scientific evidence of any of these accusations. Instead, fire-ants will
infiltrate an ecosystem, causing many of the other species of insect to disappear, either through migration or inability to compete. In
one such ecosystem, fire-ants made up 99% of the insect population when they first entered the environment. However, for some unknown reason, after about 10 years the fire-ants made up only about 10% of the insect population. The remainder was most of the native species that had been there in the first place.
Due to their bad reputation, there have been a lot of attempts made to eradicate these ants. These attempts kill off everything in
an ecosystem, not just the fire-ants. In fact, fire-ants actually flourish in disturbed habitats. This means that while the eradication kills
them (and everything else), the fire-ants are the first to repopulate an ecosystem displacing many other species that could live there.
One alternative method of controlling fire-ant the population has been with a parasitic fly. This fly infects an ant with its egg,
whose baby fly larvae will eventually crawl out through the ant’s head. These infected ants are referred to as zombies. No one had figured out how to differentiate zombies from normal fire-ants. Jonathan found that these zombies preferred more humid environments.
He put a bunch of fire-ants in a tower that had a humidity gradient (it was more wet at the top than at the bottom or vice versa) and
found that the zombies would go toward the wettest areas and the normal ants would stay relatively still.
While this is a monumental achievement, this was only the first half of Jonathan’s Division III project. Jonathan also explored the
ethical and conservational implications of using these flies to control the fire-ant populations. In traditional Hampshire fashion, he
was left with more questions than answers. Chief among them: Do the risks outweigh the benefits with using this non-native species
of fly to control another “invasive” species whose actual invasiveness is questionable at best? ~tree~
LUke Grecki
Plant patterns
By Audrey Nefores
Staff Writer
What is the name of your Div III?
Phyllotaxis Dynamics: A study of the
Transitions of Plant Patterns.
What is the name of your advisor?
Ken Hoffman
Explain your Div III?
Studying transitions that happen to different kinds of plant patterns from a dynamical perspective.
Where are you from?
NYC.
Favorite memories of Hampshire?
Zeb’s face and smile and getting to rock
climb in Spain.
Any advice for Hampshire students?
Get a bestie and learn how to meditate.
Plans for next year?
UC Davis Grad School, Applied Math
PHD
Favorite place on campus?
The Treehouse, also known as the walkway in the sky. ~tree~
16
div iii
THE CLIMAX congratulates all Div III students!
the climax
Alice Ackerman
Abraham Adams
Neta Ambar
Janet Armour-Jones
Scott Atherley
Thomas Auxier
Nelly Bablumian
Rami Baglio
William Bangs
Nana Bannor
Bradford Barr
Gideon Bass
Maya Bauer
Lauren Bentley
Andrew Berquist
Maegan BetEnvia
Colleen Blackard
Matthew Blaszczynski
Benjamin Bois
Morgan Bommer-Guinn
Aliya Bonar
Fiona Botwick
Sam Breslaw
Emma Brewster
Kyle Brodie
Suzanne Buchanan
Rebecca Buckleystein
Sasha Bush
Serenity Caldwell
Carol Campbell
Adrian Carleton
Sara Carlisle
Suzanne Carlson
Nicholas Chandler
Drew Chapman
Eva Chertow
Brian Cipriano
Matthew Cohen
David Cohn
William Colon
Nicholas Conrad
Daniel Cooper
Daniel Cottle
Anne Craig
Maxwell Criden
Katherine Culligan
Scott Daley
Amy Davin
Theodore Day
Sophie DeHainaut
Nateene Diu
Ellen Dulaney
Divad Durant
Jacob Ehrlich
Anna Elliot
Zebediah Engberg
Jenna English
Jill Erwich
Meredith Eudy
Donald Everhart
Jonathan Fanning
Leah Farrell
Noah Feldman
Meggie Felman
Jeffrey Fenstermaker
Kyla Ferguson
Molly Finnigan
James Fisher
Samantha Forster
Nicholas Francomano
Marshall Frantz
Juliana Frick
Linnaea Furlong
Jeffrey Garber
Jeffrey Garneau
Lani Gedeon
Marjorie Gidwitz
Tasha Goldthwait
Caleb Goossen
Adrian Gordon
Lauren Goulding
Frances Greathead
Luke Grecki
Jennifer Greenberg
Tatiana Gutheil
Maryette Haggerty-Perrault
Sarah Hamilton
Kate Harmatz
Evan Hatten
Zachary Heine
Ryder Henderson
Inbar Heyman
Serena Himmelfarb
Crystal Hodges
Amy Hoffman
Jacqueline Hsu
Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich
Sarah Hunter
Kristin Iodice
Lydia Irons
Anna Jacobson
Taryn Johnson
Jessica Johnston
Anna Joseph
Jessica Kahn
Jennifer Kane
Sophiya Karki
Sol Kelley-Jones
Wilson Kemp
Rafferty Kenney
Johanna Kenrick
Lindsay Kerby
Jessica Kim
Anna Kitchin
Lucy Knipe
Amber Knowles
Molly Koch
Margaret Kojak
Matthew Kyros
Nicholas Lane
Adrienne Lazes
Amy Lemay
Benjamin Lerer
Todd Lerew
Claudia Lerner
Nicole Le Roux
Joyce Li
Erin Lindberg
Ian Lindsay
Jacob Lippincott
Micah Litant
Landon Little
Felix Lufkin
Kara Lyle
Anas Maloul
Christine Manning
Kelley Mariani
Raul Matta
Tamara Maurey
Nicole McClure
Carolyn Mellick
Cameron Merker
Justin Mest
Ariel Miick
Natalie Millis
Harrison Milloff
David Mills
Ariana Misfeldt
Sarah Montgomery
Julia Moore
Camila Moreiras-Vilaros
Haley Morgan
Ashley Morgenthal
Dana Morrison
Maureen Mulderig
Kristen Mulgrew
Letha Muth-Kimball
Vincent Nero
Annie Nichol
Steffany Nichols
Lovely Nicolas
Jake Nochimow
Flarnie Nonemaker
Vibhu Norby
Michael Nord
Amber Odhner
Khenrab Palden
Rohit Panchakshari
Melanie Parker
Athanasios Paul
Jennifer Pearson
Cameron Peebles
Sara Peseckis
Elena Petricone
Krista Phillips
Edgar Phillips-Jones
Alexander Points-Zollo
Jacob Porst
Tobin Porter-Brown
Lynne Powers
Joanna Price
Marisa Pushee
Tamara Raidoo
Desiree Ramacus-Bushnell
Evan Ratzan
Michael Reinganum
Bertrand Reyna-Brainerd
Micaela Rich
Terell Richardson
Carly Ries
Wesley Ringel
Unique Robinson
Joseph Robotham
Rachel Roche
Diego Rodriguez-Warner
Ariel Rosenbloom
Gabriel Roth
Esther Roth-Katz
Michael Rozycki
Jesse Sanes
Jorie Sapir
volume Xi, issue 5
Adam Sax
Eva Schnurr
Ellen Schubert
Jacob Schuchman Falk
Ian Schwartz
Maxwell Schwartz
Evan Scofield
Sanjiv Sebastian
Kate Sellers
Noelle Serafino
Patrick Seymour
Brittany Shaffer
Hannah Shaffer
Eric Shaw
Zachary Shepard
Nathan Sick
Danielle Silverstein
Rachael Singer
Danielle Slabaugh
Catharine Smith
Emma Smith
Jennifer Smith
Peter Smith
Rachel Smith
Richard Smith
Simone Stemper
Christine Stevenson
Ursula Strauss
Jonathan Strieff
Sarah Sykes-Goldsmith
Cody Tannen-Barrup
Samuel Teitel
Tiya Tejpal
Molly Terhune
Emily Thomas
Samuel Tilley
Nathan Tobiason
Alex Torpey
Andrew Torrens
Michael Turner
Britton Van Vleek
Alana Vehaba
Kerey Viswanathan
Laura Vitkus
Cameron Vokey
Karin Wallasch
Brecklyn Walters
Pesha Wasserstrom
Owen Watson
Bonnie Watt
Joshua Weiner
Joshua Weissbach
Brennin Weiswerda
Henry White
Allison Wickham
Lindsay Wilbur
Jessica Williamson
Danice Willock
Katelin Wilton
Jeanne Wolhandler
Toshi Woudenberg
James Yates
Elizabeth Youle
Ashley Young
Laura Zeppieri
Samuel Zucker