Many study abroad programs have sought an egalitarian liberal education objective, but many have fallen short.
By Conor Gaffney May 27th, 2008

Today’s study abroad programs, “the hottest new education market,” according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, are unlike the smaller and less common research-oriented international education programs of the 1960s. Undergraduates today choose from a dizzying array of options: working, volunteering, or studying on every continent, even Antarctica. International experience has become a common element of the American undergraduate education, and a credential much desired by employers. Two schools, Goucher College and Soka University of America, have already instituted mandatory study-abroad requirements for undergraduates, while other schools like Harvard and Duke are currently debating whether or not to follow suit.

Studying abroad, however, is just a single facet of a much larger educational trend that has repositioned the idea of a liberal education in American political and social life. Recruiting foreign students, creating international research groups, designing a multilingual and multicultural campus at home, and sending students to study in foreign countries around the globe are all efforts made by America’s colleges to master the profound, yet ill-understood effects of globalization. As part of the larger program of internationalization, adjustments in curricula, new initiatives, and the diminishing gap between campus and the market, reveal the reorientation of values in American education.

Internationalization is the new “diversification,” a social and educational vision that has profoundly changed the terms of a liberal education. Diversification, popularized by Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell in his in 1978 opinion in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, enshrined the idea of an ethnically diverse campus as reflective of American egalitarianism. By ruling that race could be used as a criterion of positive discrimination in college admissions, making affirmative action constitutional, Powell’s opinion helped establish diversity as a centerpiece of American liberal education.

Louis Menand, a cultural and intellectual historian at Harvard, notes that the consequences of diversification have reached far beyond the color of college campuses: “the changes are visible today in a new emphasis on multiculturalism (meaning exposure to specifically ethnic perspectives and traditions), and on values (an emphasis on the ethical implications of knowledge); in a renewed interest in service (manifested in the emergence of internship and off-campus social service programs) and in the idea of community; in what is called ‘education for citizenship.’” Diversification reoriented the values of a liberal education, enthroning cross-cultural understanding as the critical element of American citizenship.

An American student chronicles her travels — and her fluid identity — as she visits the Middle East.
By Shira Tevah; May 19th, 2008

I arrived at the JFK airport in New York from Damascus after a layover in Istanbul. The official behind the passport and immigration desk had taken one look at the countries I’d visited and slashed my customs form with a yellow highlighter. I was standing now before a second official. “It’s definitely not Israel. It’s not Turkey. It’s probably not Jordan,” he said, speculating about the reason I was flagged for interrogation. “It’s gotta be Syria.”

He handed me the paper marked by the yellow slash. “Take this to the end of the corridor,” he said. I followed his instructions, and after some minutes of tapping my foot anxiously in a non-descript office, I was called to a different booth.

“What was this, some kind of religious pilgrimage?” the third customs official asked me. From August to December last year, I studied Arabic in the Palestinian territories and Israel, and vacationed to Jordan and Syria. Life in the Middle East is a game of identity, and my own identity had become flexible during my time there. It wasn’t who I was—it was what I was, and where. In the Middle East, the situation determines if it’s better to label yourself as an American, a student, a religious traveler, an Israeli, a Canadian, or an Arab. Guess wrong and a cabbie might overcharge you, a country may refuse you entrance, or a friend could turn his or her back on you. With every border and checkpoint I crossed, I assumed new facets of identity and concealed others.

“No,” I replied. “I was on a leave of absence from university, just traveling. I’m studying the Middle East.”

He typed some things into the computer in front of him and sighed. “Well, they sent you over here for a reason,” he said. “Where are your parents from?”

“Both American,” I told him.

“I mean, where are they from?”

“How far do you want me go back? I think my mom’s parents are British or Scottish and my dad’s family are mostly Jews from the Ukraine and Eastern Europe.” He looked puzzled.

“Let me explain something to you,” he said, his voice taking on a lecturing tone.

“When I come back into the United States after a trip, I get a hard time. People even ask me if my parents were slaves. And I’m an officer in the U.S. Navy. Now why do you think they do that?” he asked me, gesturing to his black skin. “Look at you, and your name, and this list of countries. It’s not right they sent you down here. But now that your name’s been flagged, I just have to put some information into the computer to de-flag it.”

Something dawned on my sleepless, addled mind: He meant I’d been profiled as an Arab. Though singling people out for questioning at airports on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, or religion is illegal, it is widely recognized to be a continuing practice. Apparently the four months I’d spent in the Arab world trying to experience life as a Palestinian had worked better than I’d imagined. It wasn’t the fact alone that I’d been to Syria that the first official noticed; it was the fact that I’d been to Syria and look like I might be Syrian.

• • •

“Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte

Bylines in Iraq are matters of life and death. As “the long war” — as it is increasingly labeled by the Pentagon — grinds on past its fourth anniversary, foreign correspondents and their local colleagues live in an environment of fear and intimidation. Sebti, an Iraqi reporter for the Washington Post, who, like many locals, does leg work for Western journalists, said in an interview for Dangerous Assignments, a journal of the Manhattan-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), that he is placed in “double jeopardy” by his occupation. Insurgents view him interchangeably as a “spy,” “infidel,” and “profiteer.” He has little doubt about what will happen should his cover be blown: Since 2004, he says three translators for American firms living in his neighborhood have been murdered. Sebti refuses to divulge his occupation to neighbors, and his paranoia compels him to take different routes to work every day. What would ordinarily be considered extraordinary circumstances for any stateside reporter are commonplace for media workers in Iraq.

On May 29th, CBS News correspondent Kimberly Dozier was injured, and her camerman and soundman were killed, by a car bomb that exploded while they were traveling with a U.S. military convoy. After three months of being held hostage by Iraqi insurgents, freelance reporter Jill Carroll was released unharmed on March 30. Sadly, the fate of dozens of other journalists who shared Ms. Carroll’s misfortune tends to resemble that of Steven Vincent, another kidnapped American freelancer who was murdered along with his translator in August 2005. Since the commencement of hostilities in Iraq over three years ago, 97 media workers have been killed. Such circumstances are by no means unique to Iraq. Journalists occupy an increasingly precarious position, working in a post-9/11 world fraught with transnational terrorism, geopolitical uncertainty, and governments intent on controlling the information to which its population has access.

Though reporting is a hazardous occupation, the trends of the past two years are particularly alarming. For journalists, 2004 was the most dangerous year over the past 20 years: 53 individuals died on the job. Despite a decrease in the overall number of deaths in the industry in 2005 (47), the proportion of media workers that were murdered rose to three-fourths from two-thirds the previous year. This tally doesn’t take into account instances of kidnapping, imprisonment by authorities, or forced closures and intimidation of media outlets. Countries on every continent are involved in restricting and intimidating the press, including two of the world’s largest: China and Russia.

China’s government may have embraced free-market capitalism and opened its economy to the outside world, but the authorities still maintain a stranglehold on their population’s access to information. Internet access to news is filtered with the convenient aid of Google, and undesirable articles bring serious repercussions, as evidenced by the imprisonment of New York Times researcher Zao Yan since 2004. Endemic rioting across the Chinese countryside, such as the December 6th, 2005 demonstration in the village of Dongzhou, where clashes between security forces and protestors led to the deaths of at least three people and the arrest of 13 more, is downplayed in the state-controlled print and broadcast media. Currently, 34 reporters are being held by China’s government, two-thirds of the 125 reporters worldwide who have been thrown in prison for their activities.

Understanding poverty statistics in America
Field Report, by Julie Fry, Jun. 1, 2006

Visiting the Center for American Progress last year, John Edwards told this story: “I met a woman in Kansas City with two kids who had a job that pays $9.50 an hour. She told me about winters where the choice was between lights and gas. She chooses the lights. She says to me, ‘When my kids go to bed, I tell them to wear as many clothes as they can. And when they go to school, I tell them not to tell anyone you don’t have gas because somebody might come and take you away. In America, nobody who works hard should live like that.’ She is absolutely right. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. What that woman endures is evil.”

Let’s take a look at some basic facts about poverty in the US: Last year, the pre-tax-income cutoff for a couple with two children to be considered living in poverty was $19,806. According to data from the US Census Bureau, this means that there were 37 million Americans living in poverty in 2004—nearly one out of every eight people in the United States. In more human terms, 3.6 percent of American households faced food insecurity and hunger in 2004. Between 1999 and 2000, the number of Americans suffering from hunger increased to 2.8 million adults and over one million children.

Perhaps contrary to popular media stereotype, poverty is not just confined to inner-city ghettos: Only 40 percent of poor Americans live in central cities. The percentage of Americans in poverty living in suburbs is only slightly lower at 36 percent, but as a relatively new phenomenon it is growing quickly. Nearly 40 percent of America’s poor over the age of 16 worked either part- or full-time in 2001, yet could not earn enough money to live on.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that, ostensibly, ending poverty is relatively easy. The secret? Minor adjustments to the formula that determines who qualifies as living “in poverty.” Crunch a few numbers, raise a few cutoff points, and voila! The number of impoverished Americans has been cut by over a third. Quite the public policy miracle. It’s almost too good to be true. But don’t tell that to folks at the American Enterprise Institute, or the Heritage Foundation.

As I learned from these organizations, despite the seemingly dreary numbers, it turns out that poverty statistics are merely one more way to manipulate the government into giving money to the undeserving. “The poverty rate misleads the public and our representatives, and it thereby degrades the quality of our social policies,” writes Nicholas Eberstadt, of the American Enterprise Institute, “It should be discarded for the broken tool that it is.” The Heritage Foundation reminds us: “most of America’s ‘poor’ live in material conditions that would be judged as comfortable or well-off just a few generations ago.” Another report reveals a starker analysis: “There are two main reasons that American children are poor: Their parents don’t work much, and fathers are absent from the home.”

By Kelly Richter, University of Chicago, 2005
Kelly Richter was a student at the University of Chicago and the managing editor of Diskord, a Campus Progress-supported publication.

On March 15, 2005, US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced the arrest of 103 key members of the Mara Salvatrucha gang, otherwise know as MS-13. The crackdown targeted the top MS-13 networks nationwide: Los Angeles, the Washington DC area, New York City, Long Island, Newark, Baltimore and Miami. These arrests indicate a future of ensuing mass deportations of MS-13 members from the country as part of “Operation Community Shield,” a new, multi-agency initiative launched this January.

Salvadoran gangs, of which the notorious MS-13 is the largest, have established a significant presence in the US over the past two decades. The gangs originated in Los Angeles during the early 1980’s amongst Salvadoran youth fleeing civil war. They have since developed a pan-Latino membership and expanded into East Coast cities and American suburbia over the past decade, with a national membership that numbers tens of thousands in over 30 states.

Over the past decade, the phenomenon has taken on transnational dimensions. Salvadoran American gang affiliates deported from the US are arriving on the violent streets of urban El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, and most recently in rural Central America, the Mexican borderlands, Canada and other Latin American countries. Gang membership in Central America has grown rapidly – current estimates suggest up to 30,000 members in El Salvador with 20,000 more in Honduras and Guatemala. While the problem of Salvadoran youth gangs has been long-standing, the recent rapid proliferation and the intense US federal response to the phenomenon this year are without precedence.

Early this year, the FBI listed dismantling MS-13 as a top priority of its organized crime unit and began coordinating “Operation Community Shield.” The Pentagon’s South Command has declared transnational gangs like MS-13 a top threat to Central American stability. This past March furthermore, the Homeland Security Department began coordinating intelligence and training with Central American law enforcement to directly combat the gangs, with plans to exchange federal agents across borders.

Context: US Intervention in El Salvador

The current Salvadoran-American gang phenomenon is, in part, traceable to the long and tainted history of US intervention in Central America. During the Cold War, Central America served as a nexus for the projection of American fears over the rise of the “Left,” especially after the Sandinistas rose to power in Nicaragua in 1979 and President Reagan, a zealous anti-communist, came into office in 1981. Prior to and during the 1980’s, the United States openly and covertly bankrolled and trained repressive anti-communist military regimes and insurgency movements in the region. While tales of the Iran Contra scandal in Nicaragua have become urban lore, much less is remembered about US intervention in El Salvador.

El Salvador, roughly the size of Massachusetts with a population of 6.5 million, was the largest hemispheric recipient of US military aide during the Cold War – including over four billion dollars during the 1980’s. With a legacy of stark socio-economic inequality, repressive right-wing rule and democratic struggle, El Salvador reached a breaking point in the late 1970’s. Government repression came to a violent apex in systemic efforts to eradicate leftists and alleged sympathizers. Official military efforts and paramilitary “death squad” operations claimed some 30,000 victims by the mid-1980’s. The violence fostered the coalescence of leftist groups and the military mobilization of the Marxist Farabundo Marti Liberation Front (FMLN) guerilla insurgency, which led the country into a full-scale civil war.

During the official war, which lasted twelve years and claimed an estimated 100,000 lives, military human rights abuses were widespread, including torture, forced “disappearance,” and child soldiering. The FMLN also engaged in abuses, though to a significantly lesser degree. In light of the violations (including murders of US citizens), the Carter administration wavered on aid to the military junta but ultimately restored funding. When Reagan came to power, funding of the Salvadoran military dramatically increased, often against congressional opposition, and the US continued to extensively fund the Salvadoran military until the 1992 ceasefire.

The early 1980’s saw a massive influx of Salvadoran refugees and illegal immigrants entering the US to escape death squads, the military, the FMLN, economic desolation, and other trappings of guerilla war. However, the United States refused to acknowledge the extent and often, existence, of a humanitarian crisis. Salvadorans were categorically denied amnesty in favor of refugees from communist countries. While these policies were successfully challenged in the early 1990’s, the status of Salvadorans in the US has remained precarious.

The wartime cultures of violence and impunity in El Salvador have not fully subsided and new waves of undocumented immigrants continue to arrive in the US. Since the end of the war, the country has maintained one of the highest murder rates in the world, a problem only compounded by a recent surge in American-style gang activity. Of the roughly two million Salvadorans in the US today – nearly 20% of the total global Salvadoran population – many remain undocumented. The threat of deportation has bred a perceived inability to contact law enforcement authorities in US immigrant communities, creating an optimal atmosphere for criminal gang culture to proliferate.

by Kunal Basu-Dutta

At the University of Chicago, we have the tendency to be wrapped up in the past. Many of the texts we read are to give us a solid foundation built upon ‘The Canon.’ Life does, however, progress, and I believe that it important to understand the modern world. We tend to overlook modernity’s effects on areas, specifically the arts. When we think of the effects of technology, we always consider the socio-economic effects; yet, we fail to notice the ripples within litero-poetic communities. There are currently several influencing figures that are bridging the supposed gap between technology and poetry. Two such figures are Chicago’s own Judd Morrissey and Mark Jeffery (for bios, see below).

Recently, both of them came to my poetry class to talk about themselves, their new project, and answer some of our questions.

Judd started out by talking about his early works, his first being “The Jew’s Daughter”—one of the canonical works of e-literature. The hypertext embedded in the piece creates a sense of liquidity in the reading. It is here that the idea of a “very fluid and circular reading,” seen in later works, begins. This type of new connectivity is prevalent within the works of many electronic writers because it is a never-before-seen facet of the electronic medium.

“My Name is Captain, Captain” was one of Morrissey’s next major published pieces. However, if you try to find it online or in the library, you will run into some difficulty. Why? Simply because it was published on CD. Technology advances at a rapid pace, and everyone must try and rush to keep up with it. When CDs first came about, they were perfect for carrying large quantities of data which made them seem to be a viable medium. Now-a-days, CDs are seen as outdated and difficult to manage, especially with P2P sharing and the ease with which personal websites can be created. The effect of outdated electronics on e-lit is indicative of technology’s force in general. Also, the poetry cannot be reproduced in website form due to a legal contract. This should serve as a warning to all artists to check the sustainability of the medium and the control of reproduction.

Mark Jeffery and Judd Morrissey: Rehearsal of The Precession

While these two themes of fluidity and new technology prevail over e-poetry, they do not give a real sense of what the term means. The first part of the term “e” seems simple; it refers to ‘e’lectronic, meaning that the work must actively involve technology, usually computers, in some form or fashion. The electronic component can be anything from hypertexts and links to video and sound editing to e-distribution i.e. blogs, RSS feeds, etc. This range lends itself also to the poetic side of things. With the new electronic medium, poetry comes off of the page and, even, leaves the realm of text at times. In fact, the mobility allowed by technology fuels many artists to new and unknown realms and media, whether in the form of a website, a video, a performance, or a textual piece.

This fusion of bytes with letters is something that everyone should watch since it heralds the new age of poetics. While it is important to read Ovid, Byron, Frost, and other canonical poets, a fresh canon is being created right now, right here. The future of poetry is being written at this moment and we should pay attention. Soon, the three words of Judd Morrissey will be highlighted in modern arts and poetics-“Choreography, context, and chorus.”

Welcome to an age of “less writing and more parsing.”

Judd Morrissey calls himself a “code artist” and fuses the electronic/technological with the poetic and performance. He did not start as a poet and, in fact, had never really done a serious writing workshop before college. It was late in college when one of his thesis review professors, the esteemed poet Robert Kelly, pointed him to the MFA at Brown where he was introduced to hypertext programming and literature, such as the program Story Space and the piece “Patchwork Girl” by Shelley Jackson. He went on to release “The Jew’s Daughter,” “My Name is Captain Captain,” and “The Last Performance.” Currently, he is working with Mark Jeffrey on a project called “The Precession (Living Newspapers Version” which will be happening June 1st through June 25th at the MCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) and teaches at the SAIC (School of the Art Institute of Chicago).

Mark Jeffery proclaims he is “not a writer” but a performance artist. After growing up in very rural town ‘across the pond,’ he received his training at Dartington College of Arts, which he compared to the familiar Black Mountain College. His background influenced his predilection to symbols such as milk and black soot. Mark is well known for being one of the core members of the Goat Island Performance Group which is based in Chicago. He and Judd Morrissey actually met through Goat Island and have since done several works together, including the upcoming event. Mark also teaches at SAIC.

by Dahlia Rizk

Try this as a little experiment: turn on the TV or a major news website. What do you see? Chances are, you are witnessing Kate Gosselin cry on TV, Tiger Woods return to golf, or the latest reality TV show that wants to turn YOU into a star. Usually, you don’t follow such programming (I know I don’t). But now that you’re sitting in front of the TV, you ask yourself, what do all of these things have in common?

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the inability of the middle-class American to keep up with their own dreams of financial stability in the midst of skyrocketing inflation, wage stagnation and a new apex of social inequality and wealth distribution. These words aren’t mine—they’re iterated and proved by economists and analysts much more qualified than I. But more poignantly, in the ashes of the mortgage boom, and in today’s weak economy, the American Dream has changed. Arguably, the sublime mediocrity we were seeking in the middle of the last century—the home in the suburbs, the white picket fence, the housewife greeting her working husband with an apron and a tray of frosted cupcakes as he walks in after an hard day’s work—has been glossed and whitewashed over by much shinier ideas. And some of those ideas involve lights, cameras, and action.

For a case in point, I give you the most popular television show on TV for the better part of the decade, American Idol. With ratings easily in the Top 3 since its debut (see Nielson TV ratings for exact quotes), and given how much TV the average American watches (up to 8 hours a day, also according to Nielson), there’s no question that mainstream TV can give us some leads on the pulse of the American psyche. One day, as I myself contributed to this statistic by watching an old episode of auditions online, there was something one (somewhat desperate) contestant said in front of the judges that really grabbed me. He seemed nervous and ill at ease, and when asked why he was so nervous, he said something along the lines of, “Well, look at this. All these lights and people. And here I am in front of you, in the Kodak Theatre. This is the American Dream!” One judge agreed (who happened to be Ellen DeGeneres). “It absolutely is,” she said.

And he wasn’t the only one. I can’t tell you how many others auditioning said they were doing this “for their family”, or “to give their children a better life”. One heart-wrenching story, from a father of an autistic child who was auditioning, had the hope that, maybe if he went far on the show, he could finally afford the proper medical care for his son. The point is these weren’t just musicians or thrill-seekerswaiting for their big break. They were pastors and oil-rig workers. They were ordinary Americans, and some of them were out of ideas.

Perhaps there was a time when fame and fortune were sought by those trapped in small towns, or dreadful jobs like Marilyn Monroe at the factory assembly line. But in our age of live fast and die hard, something tells me that time is over.

Call me old-fashioned and naive, but I thought the American Dream was about one thing, first and foremost—work. Just unglamorous, unadulterated work, and the idea that you proved yourself through it.

“I can’t believe this is happening! It’s real!” Idol contestants would say, over and over again. It may be happening, for a short while, but as most of these people are bound to find out, it is far from real. How did we get here? How did the get-rich or die-tryin’ mentality come to represent the American Dream? While there are no easy answers, the TV will always give us some clues. And some of those clues tell us that we’re starting to mortgage too much of what we’ve built for a few minutes under the blinding lights of second-rate stardom. And when those lights do go off, we come to realize that the theatre we stand in—the one where we’ve attempted to pursue our narcissistic desires—has been empty all along. Maybe, I think, it’s time we start on a journey that is about more than just ourselves.

by Valerie Michelman

Many students at the University of Chicago will never leave academia. We recognize that one day, we may be sitting in our TA’s chair and (if we’re lucky) standing behind our professor’s podium. However, to get there, we need to publish… and publish… and publish. The question becomes, publish what exactly?

The “major” questions have been written about extensively, but more obscure research questions have the danger of being irrelevant. So one has to choose, either follow the well beaten path and risk repetition, or go out on a limb and risk triviality. I reference mainly the humanities, but the fundamental issue applies to all academic fields. Topics which are considered important seem stale. But by avoiding those topics, they may never be resolved.

I recently encountered a perfect example of this conundrum at a Shakespeare Conference in downtown Chicago. At the beginning of April, Shakespeare scholars from around the globe gathered in our Windy City for three days of presentations, workshops, and seminars. University of Chicago Shakespearean legends, David Bevington and Richard Strier, were in attendance. And, by the good graces of the lovely ladies of the Shakespeare Association of America, I too was able to indulge my passion for the Bard, despite my lowly undergraduate status. While wandering the halls of the Hyatt, overhearing conversations in the ladies room, and watching weary PhD candidates struggle to look engaged by the speakers, I found myself intrigued by the people around me. There seemed to be a divide between the current generation of established scholars and their protégés. As the day wore on, I grew increasingly confident that such a divide existed. Finally, when I sat in on a seminar on the sonnets, an intergenerational interaction flared up and highlighted the underlying difference between the established members of the field and those who were still working to join them.

The seminar consisted of eleven academics, aspiring to advance their status in the field of Shakespeare scholarship, who responded to a simple prompt: “Shakespeare’s Sonnets in Context.” Their papers varied greatly in topic, from an examination of the notion of justice, to a discussion of how to teach sonnets in the modern high school classroom. Some papers were focused on form, such as one that examined the role of the couplet. Others took more content driven routes, including one that discussed imagery that combined imagination and physiology. Altogether, it was a whirlpool of scholarship steeping in Latinate words, and I was drowning in it.

Now, I have read all the sonnets. I have even read literary criticism on all of the sonnets. And yet, I was feeling sheepishly lost until the discussion was opened to the entire room and an elegant and assertive silver-haired lady softly posed the question: “Why did none of you choose to broach the historicity of the sonnets?”

Of course, context need not be historical context, but I wondered the same thing. Why had none of them chosen to write on the traditional questions of context? The central mystery of the sonnets revolves around the identity of the Young Man. Was he real or merely a fictional subject? Were the sonnets an honest expression of love (or at least obsession) by our favorite poet or merely another demonstration of his creative genius? When one considers the sonnets and context, historicity is the burning question.

However, not a single seminar participant chose to broach it. And a member of the older generation wanted to know why not. Did they consider the question answered? No, they did not believe the field had come to a consensus. Did they not find the question interesting? No, they denied that as well. Of course the Young Man’s identity was of interest. What was it then?

Slowly, as they responded with their gingerly phrased answers, I gathered that it came down to a desire to distinguish themselves. While they recognized that the question of historicity was important, they felt that the conversation had already happened.

They felt pressured to contribute something “new” to the field and in their eyes new meant different. It is easier to contribute something “new” if you skip over the questions that scholars have spent generations teasing out. Why bother asking the obvious?

At this, I bristled; the silver-haired lady did as well. The question of historicity and the Young Man’s identity is important. It is unavoidable in any study of the sonnet sequence. Just because the question has been asked before does not mean it should not be asked again and again until it is answered. Is that not the purpose of academia? To have each generation of scholars approach the same questions until we can approximate answers to the unanswerable?

Of course, generating new questions is important as well. But I object to the trend of carving out a piece of academic real estate so obscure that no one can challenge it. Sure, no one will contest the findings, but no one will utilize them either. Especially with a thoroughly studied topic such as Shakespeare, if no one has already asked the question, it is likely not worth asking. If no one has answered the question, the greatest contribution one can make is to attempt to answer it.

So I pose this challenge to the aspiring academics here in Hyde Park: try to answer the difficult questions, the questions which have lost their gloss, the questions which have been agonized over by minds more well-stocked and agile than yours. Don’t flee to the frontier, but pitch a tent and battle for the heartland. “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.”

by Tiffany Young

A couple of summers ago I had the amazing opportunity to travel to Japan for two weeks of culture, learning, fun, and freedom. What transpired easily exceeded my expectations and opened my mind. I didn’t know exactly what to expect, only that I anticipated the unexpected. I remember filling out my profile—17 years old, 4-year Japanese student, allergic to fish but partial to shellfish, a carefully chosen picture of me attached—and receiving my host sister Chihiro’s profile. I was incredibly excited on the day of travel: I was about to embark on my dream trip—a homestay with a real Japanese family in the quiet countryside. All throughout the year I thought that June couldn’t come fast enough, though when it did, it went by too fast.

During those first few days of the homestay period, when I spoke, I did so almost exclusively when I was spoken to, and with the guidance of imaginary cue cards flashing through my head to ensure I was using the polite forms of the Japanese verbs. I tiptoed around gingerly, so afraid that whatever I did would be offensive. I practically tried to be invisible.

But then, during one of those first nights, I remember sitting down for dinner to a plate of perfectly cooked scallops and smiling internally at the reality that my anxiety had deprived me of: Chihiro and her family were just as nervous as I was, and just as eager to please as I was, as shown by the fact that they had obviously studied my profile and gone through the trouble of making everything perfect down to the smallest detail, including serving my favorite foods. Those were the best scallops I have ever tasted.

I realized that I had mistaken nerves on their part for indifference, shyness for coldness, and that to continue to let that happen would be a waste of our time. I had failed to recognize their kindness, the universality of human feelings, and the fact that, usually, situations aren’t as bad as I perceive them to be.

After that, I didn’t waste any more time. At first, the language barrier was daunting: conversations were halting, shy, hesitant, each girl embarrassed that she couldn’t articulate herself as well as she would have liked (try articulating what “gusto” means in Japanese—needless to say, I didn’t have any luck using hand motions). But we encouraged each other against giving up, and through pantomime, an electronic dictionary, and sheer force of will, we managed to connect very well. I told her my background and interests, she told me about her dreams to study sports therapy in college and that, yes, her grandmother was indeed appalled upon learning that I was allergic to fish. We enjoyed getting to know each other better; I remember showing her my high school yearbook and presenting her with an omiyage (a gift for the host), and her wanting to take puri-kura with me (those candids you take in a photo booth with friends). So the conversations got smoother, and although both of us still suffered from nervousness, I could see that there was no real reason for it. I was touched when she gave me a friendship bracelet, and when I returned to California, I mailed her a letter with a homemade bracelet in return.

At times, Japan was oddly surreal: here I was, physically and mentally miles away from my normal, everyday life. The experience was nothing short of exhilarating and liberating because of the mixture of emotions I underwent. The trip gave me a heightened sense of awareness through a perfectly formulated cocktail of adventure, independence, validation, and self-gratification. I was so proud to be able to interact with people, or even to recognize the words on signs and packaging—what I had learned was relevant and I could see my knowledge “working” before my eyes.

Trying to communicate with the Japanese people—even if I know my host sister must have been merciful and only pretended to understand me at times, bless her—was especially satisfying after seeing the eventual, relieved smile and spark of recognition in my listener’s eyes, knowing then that I had successfully tapped into someone else’s understanding. Even when I got frustrated, I realized that disappointment had no place in this journey and would only spoil the memories of this time for later. I understood that it was all a matter of taking advantage of the moment. Traveling and interacting with people native to places I admire creates a sort of “culture shock” for me that forces me out of my comfort zone so much that I get a singular, sensational, significant experience in return.

by Kunal Basu-Dutta

At the University of Chicago, students have the tendency to stay on the campus grounds, within the safe boundaries of the Quad. In fact, I was the same way during my first quarter here. It is understandable; you are new to the college, let alone the city, and you would rather be comfortable and explore closer surroundings. Well, as your friendly neighborhood journalist, I am going to start reporting on restaurants and venues downtown that are affordable, easy to reach, and enjoyable.

Today’s spotlight falls on a popular venue in Wrigleyville known as The Metro. I know that sounds far away, but it really isn’t. Just take the Red Line to Addison, and once you get off, walk past Wrigley Field and head a block north. It does not really stand out so be careful not to miss it.

At first, The Metro looks sort of small and dirty. Both of these are false assumptions. Up the stairs, The Metro opens up into a wide and shallow room with a big stage, a bar, and a balcony. I actually prefer this set-up, compared to the long and deep variety, because it allows more of the audience to be up close to the performers (when I say “up close,” I mean it). Just last night I got a fist bump from Bobby “Blitz” Ellsworth, lead singer of Overkill. At the end of their set, he even dived off the stage and crowd-surfed the audience. The Overkill show is definitely one I am going to remember, a phrase I have uttered often after leaving The Metro.

It is not the best venue in the world, especially for metal or rock. The main reason is that The Metro is ‘professional’ and looks down on crowd surfing, stage rushing, and stage diving. Also, the sound quality is not the highest quality in Chicago: the House of Blues has a much better sound system. However, this place is not known for its heavy metal shows. For the most part, these guys book alternative and electronic gigs, such as Tim Green, who is making his first Chicago appearance on May 21, and Local H, who will be playing an entire album on May 23.

The one thing I have found in common between all the varied artists that come through is a passionate energy that transmits through the music to the audience and floor. Luckily, shows are reasonably priced; the most I have ever paid for a show is $25. If you do decide to go, make sure to check the age. Some shows are 18+ or 21+ so keep that in mind while planning your outing.
After grooving or rocking or dancing to whatever show you go to see, there are several places to eat nearby from local dives, upper class sit-down locations, and fast food restaurants. Everything one could possibly desire after a concert is at hand. Would I recommend going? Definitely. Am I going to go again? Definitely!

Next time, I will talk about two restaurants near the heart of downtown. Hope you enjoy whatever show you choose to attend. Maybe I’ll see you there.