#the Importance of Peer Discussions in Anthropology Preparation | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ikingsley · 4 years ago

Text

Ina x MC: That Day

Loosely based on chapter 6 of QB. Read the other parts of the series here: The Dance, A Small Detour, One Chance.

Summary: Ina and Luna discuss their past.

Warnings: Sadness, I guess. Warning for coming out stories?

Tag: @samanthadalton @domakir @kulaykape @hellyeah90sbaby @dopeyouth @kwaj05 @thedaft1 @swimmingshoebakerydreamer (Let me know if you’d like to be added or removed)

Author’s Notes: Sorry, I’ve been real busy, but here’s another installment of my series.

——————————————————————–———–———–———–

Luna strolled into Ina’s office at a quarter past seven. It’d been a long day for both of them. Ina had a full day of lectures and quizzes while Luna had midterms approaching.

“Professor,” Luna said, putting down her bags.

“Good evening, Luna. How are you?”

The two made small talk while Ina pulled the stack of quizzes she needed graded. But as well as Ina could hide her emotions, Luna felt there was something off about Ina.

“Here’s the answer key,” Ina began. “It’s all multiple choice so it shouldn’t take too long.”

Ina handed Luna a red pen. But Luna wasn’t paying attention to Ina. Instead, she scoured through the stack of papers, pulling one out and comparing the answers.

“Whose is that?” Ina peered over Luna’s shoulder. “Oh, that’s right. You took this quiz today.”

Luna hummed in reply. “Aww man. I got one wrong.”

This time, it was Ina’s turn to tease Luna. “Nerd,” she scoffed.

“Shut up.”

The two worked in silence, except for Ina going ham on her keyboard. That research paper wasn’t going to write itself.

“Why are you typing so vigorously?” Luna commented absent-mindedly.

“Hmm...I don’t know, maybe because this paper’s due at midnight,” Ina said quite uncharacteristically. Ina, the polite and beloved anthropology professor, was not one to be so brash.

Rude! For no reason! Luna thought. While Luna was pondering the true reason for Ina’s disrespect, Ina stood up and began pacing back and forth. Finally, she stopped, slumping onto the couch that sat at the corner of the room.

“Ina?” Luna questioned, getting off of her chair. Like usual, her initial intuition was spot-on, something was, in fact, off.

Ina laid on the couch, her head resting on the couch’s arm. When Luna finally approached it, she took a look at Ina. Her face was slightly glossy, tear-stained.

“Scoot over,” Luna said firmly.

Ina huffed a little, but she moved further into the couch. Luna faced Ina, acting as a handkerchief, wiping away Ina’s tears.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Luna finally broke the silence.

“No.”

“Okay. We can just lie here together. It’s okay.” Luna wrapped her arms around Ina. Ina subsequently buried her face in her shoulder, her tears falling slowly, wetting Luna’s shirt.

The two stayed like this for a few more moments, until Ina sat up, wiping the lasts of her tears. “I apologize, Luna. I owe you an explanation.”

“You don’t need to-”

“Please, I want to. I feel like you should know.”

“Only if you’re sure.”

“I am.” Ina had gained her confidence back. “I know we haven’t known each other for long, but I trust you. Maybe it’s naive or too early, but well...I feel like I could tell you anything, and you wouldn’t judge me. So here goes.”

And boy, did Ina open up. It was unlike anything Luna had ever witnessed from the mysterious professor. But she wasn’t complaining. This was arguably what she loved most about Ina.

“It was my freshman year of high school and I was sitting in my US history class. I was such a little nerd,” Ina recalled fondly. “Anyway, this girl walked into my class and god, I was smitten. What she made me feel...I’d never felt before. I mean, I hadn’t been with any guy, but this was different. Sure I’d thought some guys were attractive, but every time I looked at her, I got butterflies.”

“Aww! I’m imagining a little nerdy Ina staring at a pretty high schooler now.”

“Mhm. Well, we got assigned each other for a project. And we hit it off. She was brilliant, passionate, caring...I really liked her, but I thought it was just as friends. One afternoon, we went to the library together to prepare for the presentation of the project. She asked me if I liked girls, and I hadn’t really considered it. Some sort of internalized homophobia, I guess. I went home that day just deep in thought. But God, she made me feel so alive. It was something I’d never experienced before. And then I just started thinking of kissing her and I never wanted to stop. I think I knew then and there that I liked women.”

“Well? What happened after?” Luna asked, invested in Ina’s anecdote.

“A few days later, some teacher was berating her for not knowing an answer to something rather trivial and I found myself defending her. I guess my protective side came out.”

“Not the only thing that came out then...” Luna smirked.

Ina scoffed but had a huge grin on her face. But just as quickly as it appeared, her smile faded.

“When we left school that day, she uh thanked me with a kiss. And that’s how I knew for sure that I liked her. A lot. I asked her out a few weeks later and we were together for a little over a year. At the time, she meant the world to me. We’d do everything together and she was my first for a lot of things, my first kiss, my first love...”

“A year? That is...surprisingly long for a relationship at that time. Why’d it end?”

“Her parents were incredibly supportive. They knew about us since the beginning of the relationship. Mine...did not know. I had told Lilian, and she listened and supported me a lot. We were always pretty close. Well, after a year together, Emma asked to meet my conservative parents. I was both giddy and nervous, but I thought I was ready. I truly thought love was unconditional. Maybe I was naive to think acceptance was guaranteed. And well, I told my parents that I had someone special for them to meet. In retrospect, I should’ve told them more details. Maybe they were expecting a dashing young man that could escort me to Prom in the following year or whatnot. And well, Emma came over for dinner and I told my parents about us. They...were shocked. Their perfect little nerdy daughter was gay. They didn’t handle themselves well that night. They said some unforgivable things to Emma. We tried to work through it, but we were young and broke up a few weeks after that.”

“Ina, I’m so sorry.”

“I...it’s okay. It’s been a while now. They didn’t throw me out of the house, but they didn’t talk about my sexuality at all. Emma was always my ‘friend.’ No one in the extended family knew. It was like they were ashamed of me. Lilian was the wild child and I was the apple of my parents’ eyes, but they never looked at me the same after that dinner. It was a tough time. Lilian and my friends at school supported me. If it weren’t for them...I don’t know where I’d be now.”

Luna caressed Ina’s check, wiping away the flowing tears.

“I just existed in their house for a while. I had a brief period of dating guys who were’t too good for me, probably out of my parents lack of support. Trying to be straight. But there was never any feelings between the two of us. They just...weren’t Emma. The last guy I dated was sweet, but I felt nothing for him romantically. And then Lilian was pregnant. And that was the last straw for my parents. They kicked out Lilian and I left with her. After all those years of her supporting me, I needed to support her. They said some inexcusable things to her and I’m glad we left. But it was incredibly difficult. Lilian and I struggled a lot. We had to work odd jobs just to pay rent whilst still going to school. Today’s the anniversary of them kicking us out. Today I have to be strong for Lilian’s sake, but I lost my parents that day too. I guess it all just hit me now.”

“You don’t need to apologize. Come here.”

Luna wrapped Ina in her arms once more. Then, she held Ina’s face, staring intensely into her eyes.

“You are the strongest woman I know. Strongest person I know. But it’s okay to not be strong too. You don’t need to pretend to be strong 24/7. Strength and weakness...that’s what makes us human.”

Ina smiled at Luna, tears falling freely. For a moment, they just stared at each other. Ina then leaned in, closing the gap between them. She captured Luna’s lips slowly, but as the kiss prolonged, the passion increased. When they finally pulled away, both women were out of breath.

Ina cleared her throat, standing up and beckoning Luna to get on her feet.

“Dance with me.”

Luna took a second to play a song on her phone, but she then gratefully accepted, leaning into Ina’s arms as they moved slowly.

Tu cabeza en mi hombro

Quiero yo tener siempre

Acaríciame, cielo

Si me quieres tú

Ina smiled again at Luna, a hand rising from Luna’s waist to cup her cheek.

“I hope your coming out story is better than mine,” she jested.

“Well, yeah I guess. When my family moved to the States from Venezuela, my mom always emphasized the importance of getting a good education, being prudent, all of that. I was very involved in high school, and I was a part of a lot of science extracurriculars. My freshman year of high school, my mom forced me to join mock trial to improve my public speaking. I thought it was useless since I knew I wanted to do neuroscience. She drove me to every practice, every conference...I fell in love with it. The more I did research for trials, the more passionate I became about public policy, law, and civil rights. And of course, gay rights. I guess that’s how I knew. Mind you, I was one of those kids who cuffed their jeans and got called out for not sitting in chairs properly.”

“It makes so much sense now. And you are...extremely well-spoken. Anyway, how’d you tell your parents?”

“We were at a mock trial competition. I had just used Obergefell v. Hodges as legal precedent to win the trial. My parents picked me up and I told them all about the case. My dad kinda stopped me mid-sentence and asked me if I had anything to tell them.”

“And?”

“I told them, but they said they already knew. They didn’t care who I’d be with, as long as they’re someone decent, kind, protective...the whole nine yards. The only problem is that they’re just very nosy about my love life. If I texted someone and smiled they’d look to see who it is. They also acted as if each person I’d bring home to meet them was the love of my life.”

Unreasonable jealousy flashed through Ina’s eyes, but her voice remained steady. “Did you bring a lot of people home to meet your parents?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Luna smiled smugly.

#ina x mc #ina kingsley #queen b #luna garcia

44 notes · View notes

fucktheoryquestions · 7 years ago

Text

On The Economics of Higher Education

I would like to ask you a question I've been thinking of for a while, if you have the time. I have just started my PhD in Anthropology in University of Helsinki, and I have been involved in quite a few student campaigns against university reforms (of neoliberal kind). Yet still all our universities are public institutions, there are no tuition fees and all students receive student allowance, so our situation is quite different than in, say, UK and US. I've been able to study two majors without acquiring any debt, which is quite common here. My question is: Do you think university system that is publicly funded and free for all students (and adjunct staff is payed comparatively well) still has some of the irredeemable qualities that you describe in your critique of US elite universities? Best wishes, Viljami Kankaanpää-Kukkonen

Hi, I appreciate the question, thanks for letting me respond publicly so I don’t have to answer it more than once.

Before I answer your question let me say what perspective I’m speaking from. I’ve been in the US for 10 years. My involvement in American academia was mostly at private institutions on the East Coast, though I took a few seminars and spent time at Rutgers and CUNY, as well. Before that, I did my undergraduate education in Berlin at the Free University. I was in the last generation of students at the FU who graduated with a traditional German Magister degree; even before I graduated, the FU began to implement the accords of the Bologna Process, which aimed to unify educational standards across the EU and which led to a splitting of the Magister degree into American-style BA and MA programs. I haven’t been involved in European academia in the past 10 years. My “data” consists in 10-year-old experience with the German system; extensive 10-year-old familiarity with the British and French systems; and passing 10-year-old acquaintance with the Italian and Dutch systems. I’m sure that higher education in Europe has changed a great deal in the past 10 years in response to the pressures and forces you describe as “neoliberal,” so take everything I say in light of these ongoing developments.

Very simply put: the more “Americanized” an educational system becomes, the more its structure and consequences will resemble the structure and consequences of the American education system. The most distinctive feature of the American university system is its exorbitant cost, and its relation to debt and hence to the labor market. So the shortest answer I can give you is No, a free or cheap university system does not share all the dangerous implications of the American system. That said, the disciplinary and organizational nature of the European system is very similar to the American system and growing more so. I don’t think humans are “rational actors,” but I do think we constantly perform conscious or unconscious cost/benefit analysis, and I think it’s easy to see why the cost of an American higher education is much greater than the cost of a European higher education, not only in dollars but also in anxiety, in preparation, and in non-academic lifestyle commitments required to access and survive the university. The higher the cost of attending a European university becomes, the more that system will resemble the American one

That’s the short answer, and anyone who’s reading this can feel free to stop reading here; the rest of this post is just an elaboration.

Your e-mail mentions “other countries” generally, but I’m not comfortable speaking about countries I don’t know enough about. I’ve met and studied with and read papers by academics from all over the world, and I know some vague stories, but that’s not the same thing as having concrete knowledge of economic relations, so I’m going to localize the rest of my response and frame it as a comparison between the American and the European systems with which I’m familiar.

A free university system cannot engage the same socio-economic relation to the labor market and to personal debt that the American university system currently engages. The difference has to do with a different relation of the institution to the state and to private capital, as well as to the job market and to relations of labor and production more generally. For these reasons, I consider the European university less irredeemable and pernicious than the American one.

It shares many of the same features and problems, especially on the inside of the institution and in the production of knowledge, but I think the social role of the university is less compromised and dangerous and I think European universities could be improved more easily than American ones – for now. As we’ve already noted, the twin ideologies of privatization and austerity are pushing hard to “Americanize” higher education in Europe and elsewhere. The more successful these efforts are, the more irredeemable the university becomes.

Before I continue, please note that while I’m less critical of the European university system, I’m not holding it up as an ideal or a model or ignoring its very real problems. For example, I discuss the non-academic (vocational/professional) higher education system in many European countries as opening up more paths to financial stability than are available in the US. I stand behind that claim, but I’m also very aware that the parallel higher education systems in Europe have a classist function and a classist history, serving mostly to route upper and upper-middle class students to universities and poorer students to vocational schools. I’m also keenly aware that I went to university in a city (Berlin) that has more Turkish residents than Ankara, but I can count on one hand the number of Turkish students that sat in seminar rooms with me at that university. Etc., etc. This is not an encomium to the European higher ed system, it’s just a description of some crucial differences.

There are at least three major differences between the American and the European higher education systems:

· Debt

· Non-academic higher education

· Public system only vs. public/private dual system

I’ll expand on all these, but first we can observe that despite a profound difference in the economic relations in which the university is embedded, a fascinating aspect of the question is that there is fairly little difference between higher education systems in terms of content and style. You find the same plodding, obfuscatory writing; the same laborious processes of peer review; the same behind-the-scenes politicking and reputation-based privilege; the same interests and questions, though often with different approaches or angles; and most importantly, the same canon of concepts and thinkers and disciplines. This fact reinforces my belief that the discourse of the university performs a similar organizing social function (what Gramsci describes as “traditional” intellectual activity) everywhere, regardless of the specific hegemonic structure it’s serving or upholding. In this context, it’s worth distinguishing a critique of the university as an institution embedded in a specific economy from a critique of the discourses produced in the institution. These aren’t separate questions: there’s only one economy. But these questions operate in different registers, because the critique of the production of knowledge goes all the way back to Plato and beyond while the critique of the university’s current economic entanglements can’t go beyond the material history of those entanglements while remaining in any way immanent.

Back to the three big differences I listed.

Debt is the biggest one, by far.

I graduated from a European university debt-free. I paid registration fees every semester and I had to house and feed myself, but I didn’t have to pay exorbitant tuition fees. I certainly didn’t have to take out a loan at the age of 18 that would follow me the rest of my life. This difference is the single most important difference, because it doesn’t just change other relations, it changes the weight of other relations. A damaging situation is bad; a damaging situation is 100 times worse if you have no way of getting out of it or putting it behind you.

If you’re German and you get into a university and you find it utterly unbearable and traumatizing, you can just leave. You’ve spent some time, you might disappoint yourself or other people, but you’re not in debt, your parents didn’t spend $80,000. If you’re 20 years old and you’ve already signed the loan papers and you’re $80,000 in debt already after just 4 semesters, you’re going to think really fucking hard about starting over in a different program, or leaving school to do something non-academic. You’re much more likely to stay on a path you’re not happy with. And even if you do make the choice to leave, that debt can still follow you around the rest of your life unless you manage to adjust very effectively to a highly profitable new career path. If you spent $160,000 on a law degree from Yale then start practicing law and discover you absolutely hate it, you’re probably going to practice law for a few years anyway because otherwise you’re changing careers $160,000 in debt (that’s one hundred and sixty THOUSAND dollars). Minimum wage in Connecticut is currently $10.10 dollars an hour

Maybe this isn’t the case any more, but 15 years ago in much of Europe, you could decide academia wasn’t for you, leave the university, and get a job in a restaurant that would pay all your bills. In other words, you could shift gears to a much lower-pressure lifestyle without serious consequences. But imagine if you have serious student debt and you have $500 deducted from your salary each month? Suddenly you have earn more, even if you want a low-key lifestyle; you take on another job, or you find a job that’s higher-pressure even though you want to shift gears or whatever.

The costs of debt – in labor, in health, in anxiety – are enormous. In this way, there is a much tighter and more vicious link between higher education and the labor market in American than in Europe. There’s no other way to put it – the structure and pressures of the American system mean that Americans have to work, constantly, grindingly, in a way that many (not all) Europeans just don’t have to and honestly can’t understand. The American system presents a double bind: either you are bound to the labor market by debt because you did go to school, or you’re bound to the labor market by necessity because you didn’t go to school and are locked out of higher-paying jobs. The American university system is locked into the economy in a way that presents three options only: serve the system at the top; serve the system at the bottom; or succeed against all odds by being truly exceptional and carving out a space for yourself alongside the system or breaking into it in an unexpected way. There are very few paths to genuine economic prosperity that don’t run through the university system somehow.

The situation in the US hasn’t always been so dire; it got bad under Reagan and has been getting worse ever since. For a couple of decades after World War II, the G.I. Bill and a flood of money to universities made public higher education really affordable in the U.S. for many people. In the ‘60s or ‘70s in the U.S. (so I’m told, I wasn’t here), you could flip burgers for three months during the summer and save up enough money for a year’s tuition at a good state school if you were an in-state student; I doubt that’s still the case anywhere in the U.S., and certainly not at the more prestigious state schools.

Now that the American “middle class” has effectively vanished, we can see what role the university had in making that class disappear. An absolutely crucial element in that process was the defunding of public universities at the state and federal level, which led to massive tuition hikes that have made tuition at the most prestigious public universities almost as high as those at prestigious private ones. Capitalism played a major role in that process, because university pass their costs on to students by framing the rising costs as the availability of additional features, from trendy new disciplines to massive, ridiculous sports facilities. This is a “client-centered” approach to education that directly prioritizes students who can afford to pay. Basically, America no longer has a state-sponsored, debt-free path to prosperity, which Europe still does…for now. Defunding of universities and tuition hikes are the changes that will most quickly introduce debt as a decisive factor and bring the European system in line with the American one, with massive implications for the entire economy, not just for academia in some isolated, abstract way. Keeping the European university system free or at least cheap is unspeakably important and probably impossible at this point.

The relation between the education system and the labor market is also different in that many European countries have vocational or professional higher education that isn’t academic. That’s the second big difference. Craft and trade apprenticeships represent an important bloc that has no equivalent in the US, where most internships are professional position you get after you do a BA, and not instead of doing a BA (not always, but often). There are often but not always alternatives to university-style education in Europe. German interns (Auszubildende, or Azubis) are usually paid and can access no-interest government loans to support themselves when they aren’t. Many people I knew in Germany in the 2000s finished an academic Magister degree and then went on to do an Ausbildung in a completely different area (sound design, lighting tech, theater management) which then became their actual career. Here again the major difference is debt – you don’t need to take on massive debt to study nursing or hotel management in much of Europe – but there is also a difference in the need for critique of the institution. Simply put, if there are effective non-academic paths to prosperity, academics have less of an ethical obligation to critique and correct their institutions, and the institution has less of an exclusive onus to fight against inequality. If we consider “university students” as a socio-political bloc, that bloc is much more massive, diverse, and complex in the United States than it would be in much of Europe.

Third – and this too is linked closely to the question of debt rather than separate from it – a major difference between the US and Europe is the long-standing existence in America of extremely wealthy private universities. In Europe until recently there weren’t many private institutions of higher education. This was changing rapidly even while I was still there, and I’m sure it’s gotten worse. However, it will take a long time before new institutions acquire the prestige and surplus capital which American private universities already have.

The brilliant scheme of the American private university is that it took up the model and the rhetoric of the European, post-Enlightenment liberal university, but without sharing or adopting its economic model, which is that of a state-operated and –funded institution. The American private university is a European liberal shell over a fundamentally different economic motor, which is basically a massive private endowment of religious origin. The biggest American universities weren’t started to train scholars, they were started to train preachers; in this, they had more to do with the medieval canon school than with the post-Enlightenment liberal university. These universities acquired private wealth and land in the manner of traditional Catholic institutions, not in the manner of liberal European universities; now, centuries later, these institutions are basically giant pools of privately-held capital which have an enormous impact on the education, labor, leadership, scholarship, and values of the United States and, indeed, the world, but without any of the regulations that state-funded and –controlled institutions have to endure. These institutions are first and foremost corporate brands and wealth managers; they only teach students incidentally, as a kind of favor to the rich whose money they manage, but despite this they exert an enormous and unhealthy influence on higher education all over the world. For decades, the public university system in the US has worked extremely vigorously to imitate the private model, where instead the American public should have demanded the divestment of property from private universities, or at least an end to their tax-exempt status.

The impact of these institutions can scarcely be overestimated, but they are only the keystone of a vast system that all works together to produce and enforce inequality in the United States. Because the university is an instrument of hegemony and because capitalist hegemony always depends on inequality, the university under capitalism will always be in some ways an instrument and an enforcer of inequality. This statement is always true, but for that reason also fairly banal, because it doesn’t engage with any actual, specific material relations. The difference – as of now – is in the degree to which the entire system interlocks to trap and control the individual. Simply put, because in Europe there is less systemic inequality, less poverty, and more options for non-academic upward mobility (not many, but more than in the U.S.), the effect of the European university can’t be considered as pernicious and total as the effect of the American university. That doesn’t mean there isn’t much to correct and improve, it just means that capitalism has long tended to workshop its oppressions in the Americas first and then exported them elsewhere.

European systems, which have traditionally been national or nationalized, tended to have a single centralized application system and held rigidly to unitary standards of admission and education across the national system, even if certain schools had a better “name” or were more popular. But even before I left Germany, there were already efforts to declare certain universities in the national system “centers of excellence” and to pump money into those places. A major symptom of Americanization is the establishment of a corporate institutional hierarchy, often based equally on actual funding and on institutional PR, between universities in the public system. This idealistic appeal to merit and excellence justifies budgetary inequalities which in turn serve both to defund “less excellent” disciplines and to center education on the interests of funders and not students. Here too a “client-centered” corporate approach claims to serve students but is actually a pretense for increasing inequalities between them, and here too the same conclusion follows as above: the more tiered and hierarchical the national European systems become, the more inequalities will emerge that resemble those of the American system.

Another big difference between the US and Europe traditionally has been a much higher European emphasis on the humanities and “human sciences.” Scientists have always looked down on poets, but until fairly recently in Europe, it was equally the case the poets had the opportunity to publicly and emphatically look down on scientists. When I first lived in Germany as a teenager, I remember regularly seeing literary critics, poets, screenwriters, and other kinds of art and humanities people on TV, in panel discussions (broadcast on daytime network television!) and in newspapers. This too had begun to change by the time I left Germany, and I’m sure it has gotten worse. There’s a reciprocal pressure between intellectuals and institutions devaluing the humanities and the general public devaluing the humanities; as humanities programs disappear from the university humanities programming disappears from mass media. A primary ideological function of the university in modern society is to tell people what’s important and what counts as real knowledge. There are direct and significant consequences to the logic of quantification and its Four Horsemen, S, T, E, and M. Global warming would be easier to fight if so many people weren’t convinced life is impossible without tech, for example. These societal ideological formations don’t begin or end with the university, but they are upheld by it, promoted by it, and routed through it. Consider for example the ways in which STEM professions are dependent on corporations in a way that many humanities jobs aren’t. You can be a high school teacher pretty much anywhere if you speak the language; good luck being a freelance molecular biologist and crowdsourcing a lab. There are material and economic and personal consequences to ideological formations, that’s the whole point of enforcing an ideology, whether consciously or not. Here too it’s a question of degree; we already see the process happening. How far will you let it go? You often hear administrators tell you that the emphasis on STEM comes from students, who just don’t care about literature the way they used to. In my experience, this is nonsense. The proportion of humanities-oriented students and science-oriented students in the average classroom doesn’t change; what changes is the number of students who feel pressured or obligated to try and be science people when they’d rather be studying literature. That is my experience only, I haven’t done any studies.

The importance of fighting to keep European higher education free and accessible doesn’t rest on some liberal ideals of education and equality, but on the very real functions that higher education plays in the general economy, and in the relations of labor and production that express that economy. The European university often serves the interests of industry and private capital, but it is an arm of the state and transmits the values of the state and is susceptible to the pressures of private capital roughly to the same degree that the state itself is. But in America, the leading universities are expressions and instruments of private capital. They are inseparable from it, and they serve as instruments with which private capital applies pressure to the state, rather than as an apparatus of the state on which private capital applies pressure.

At the moment, the differing economic and social relations within which it is embedded make the European university less broken and less harmful than the American university, and with more potential for reparative change. But even as American global hegemony collapses, economic “Americanization” is on the rise everywhere. How far it will go, and what traditional institutions are destroyed or altered in the process, remains to be seen.

#higher ed #student debt #education

18 notes · View notes

ramajmedia · 5 years ago

Text

Midsommar Directors Cut: Every New Scene (& What They Mean)

WARNING: Spoilers for Midsommar.

The Director's Cut of Midsommar has a number of added scenes packed with new meaning. Directed by Ari Aster, the 147-minute theatrical cut released in July 2019. Two months later, Aster’s original 171-minute cut was released in U.S. theatres. Overall, the new scenes provide extra context for character motivations and Swedish rituals. Aster’s additional Midsommar sequences mostly take place before the final act.

Midsommar explores how Dani copes and grieves with her psychological trauma. At Hårga, she comes to the realization that commune members grieve together and share each other’s pain. In that sense, Dani temporarily overcomes her internal conflict. While some director's cuts deviate significantly from the theatrical cut, Midsomamar's added scenes serve more to expand and flesh out what was already there as opposed to making any major thematic or narrative changes.

RELATED: Midsommar's Ending Explained: What Happened & What It Really Means

Most characters are benefitted by additional screentime, and the theatrical cut's cryptic plot is much more clear thanks to the added story, enhancing the movie in several ways, although it's not a clear cut improvement, as some viewers may still prefer the ambiguity of the version originally released in theaters.

Christian Gaslights Dani For Ruining Surprise Sweden Invite

In both versions of Midsommar, the inciting incident remains the same. Dani’s sister kills her parents and then kills herself. Naturally, the tragedy affects Christian’s relationship with Dani and his previously-arranged plans for a Swedish trip with only his male college friends. Christian refuses to abandon Dani at her lowest moment and invites her along. Through brief moments of exposition, Midsommar underlines Christian’s skepticism, but also his concern for Dani’s mental health.

From the start, the Midsommar Director’s Cut implies that Christian should not be trusted. During a party sequence, Dani learns about the scheduled trip to Sweden, and then privately questions Christian about his intentions. She describes Christian’s actions as “really weird” - twice - and the confrontation leads to two important revelations. First, Christian notes that he has no idea what to write about for his thesis. Then, Christian informs Dani that he’d planned a “romantic" invite moment, and that she’d ruined it. He gaslights her - meaning, he manipulates Dani by suggesting she's not quite thinking right; a recurring theme in Midsommar.

In comparison to the theatrical version, this new Midsommar scene immediately establishes even more sympathy for Dani. As for Christian, Aster implies that the character doesn’t have any direction in life, at least during this particular chapter. The new sequence builds suspense for the Swedish journey, and also informs audiences about Christian’s lack of preparation, which is crucial during a later confrontation scene with Mark; a character who’s been meticulously planning for his own anthropology research project.

RELATED: Why Midsommar's Reviews Are So Positive (But Audiences Are Divided)

Dani Reflects During Swedish Car Ride To Hälsingland

When the group arrives in Sweden, a brief car ride sets a specific mood in the Midsommar theatrical version. Aster literally turns the frame upside down, suggesting that the Americans (and the audience) are about to have an enlightening and awkward experience. This particular sequence highlights Aster’s visual artistry, but says little about the four-hour journey from the airport to Pelle’s commune.

In the Midsommar Director’s Cut, Aster extends the car ride sequence. As Marks continuously talks, Dani yawns. One character is the chatty member of the group, the other is emotionally exhausted. Dani also questions Josh about a “Nazi Language” book that he’s reading - “ask Pelle,” he says. As the group talks about thesis projects, Pelle informs Dani that her boyfriend “was already brainwashed when I found him.”

Aster further establishes Pelle as a questionable figure. He’s likable on the surface, evidenced by his early conversations with Dani. But Pelle clearly has ulterior motives, as he adoringly gazes at Dani while discussing the May Queen ritual prior to the trip. As a whole, Aster’s extended car ride sequence highlights character profiles for each individual: Mark is just along for the ride, Dani is tired and depressed, Christian is naive, Josh is passive, and Pelle just may be the mastermind of a secret plan (which proves to be true). For viewers that need a little extra narrative direction, Aster subtly guides them along with the Midsommar Director’s Cut.

Christian Researches For Anthropology Thesis

The Midsommar Director’s Cut shows Christian researching for his thesis paper. In this version, he’s not walking around aimless like Mark, but rather trying to accomplish specific goals. He asks locals about rituals and the grieving process. Christian is told that “We grieve and celebrate.”

RELATED: Midsommar Is Great Horror (But Hereditary Is A Better Movie)

In Midsommar’s theatrical version, Christian isn't so inquisitive. Dani and the others struggle with the shocking suicide ritual experience, and Christian suddenly informs Josh that he plans to focus specifically on Pelle’s commune for his thesis project. For dramatic purposes, Aster builds suspense and creates more conflict, but the original film doesn’t fully explore Christian’s motivations for the trip. Pelle reveals vague details about previous conversations that he’s had with Christian about research, but Aster never shows Christian’s academic pursuits.

The new Midsommar research scenes emphasize the distance between Christian and Dani, along with the idealogical differences between Christian and the commune. Pelle and the locals seem to understand that Christian can be easily manipulated, as detailed through a subplot involving a young woman’s ritualistic attempts to seduce him. Aster’s new scenes set up Christian’s tragic fate. Pelle and his Swedish peers see right through Christian. Ultimately, Christian is forced to wear a bear carcass during a ritualistic sacrifice. His “research,” as shown in the Midsommar Director’s Cut, is merely a self-serving and misguided attempt to make himself look better.

Dani Watches A Would-Be Suicide Ritual

Both versions of Midsommar feature a graphic ritualistic suicide scene, in which two 72-year-olds jump to their deaths to complete their seasonal life cycles. Given what Dani experienced back in America, she's obviously shocked upon being confronted with even more death. She stumbles away and cries, trying desperately to process what she's experiencing.

The Midsommar Director's Cut initially appears to double-down with another shocking suicide sequence. One of the commune members invites Dani to a "special ceremony" that first appears to be a play involving a tree. Soon, a young boy - dressed as a tree - volunteers for a ritual, and states "What's brave is going home." He's held up by two commune members and has a large rock placed on top of him. Just when it seems like he'll be tossed into a body of water, leading to his certain death, he's let go for proving his bravery. The moment precedes Dani's look of absolute horror, as it's not entirely clear if the ritual was staged or real.

RELATED: Midsommar: What The Real Life Swedish Festival Is Actually Like

In this case, the new Midsommar scene doesn't add much beyond what's already been established by the earlier suicide sequence. Prior to the event, Dani flippantly states "What's happening now?," almost like she's already moved past the horror she witnessed not long before. For Aster, he most likely incorporated the sequence for a proper psychological scare, and to set up the subsequent new scene involving Dani and Christian.

Christian Gaslights Dani One More Time

In the original Midsommar, Christian's actions often leave Dani speechless. She stares at him after questionable comments, and the subtext is thick. The same applies to the Midsommar Director's Cut, only Aster includes a conversation scene that complements the opening act conflict between Dani and Christian.

After the "special ceremony," Dani is purely freaked out after another bizarre experience. She then privately converses with Christian, who has fully shifted his attention to anthropological research. He talks about "the level of tradition" and "privilege," all the while unnerving Dani with his demeanor and insulting comments, specifically that Dani has been too nice (!) and trying to capitalize on the fact that Christian forgot her birthday. Soon thereafter, Dani asks for a sleeping pill, and Christian is targeted by the commune members, as shown in the original version.

For Midsommar's storyline, the new conversation scene further positions Christian as the obvious villain, even though he will ultimately be victimized by the Swedish community. His dismissive attitude creates more sympathy for Dani; a shot of cinematic adrenaline to get audiences ready for the final act. Aster makes the character dynamics clear as day. Overall, the new Midsommar scenes will please viewers looking for obvious narrative direction, though some may prefer the original theatrical version where specific moments are more cryptic. Still, there's much to enjoy in the Midsommar Director's Cut.

NEXT: Midsommar: 10 Hidden Details Everyone Completely Missed

source https://screenrant.com/midsommar-movie-directors-cut-new-scenes-meaning-explained/

#screenrant

0 notes

newidaho · 5 years ago

Text

19. Social Media, 2054

Don’t have the time/patience/desire to read with your eyes? Don’t have eyes? Well, have your friend read you this: You can check out the audiobook for free on Apple, Google, Stitcher, or Spotify. Subscribe for new episodes every Wednesday!

A Brief History of Social Media

As Researched by Steven Carki, UNI Class of ’56

Dated 24 November 2054

Sometimes it’s difficult to think back to the days of our grandparents, where social media was no more than a handwritten list of friends you could call on the telephone. Now online social networks have been a part of our every day lives for nearly fifty years. Clubhouse, the latest, greatest player in the game, just celebrated its twentieth birthday this past year.

Of course, social media didn’t always look the way it does today. While myself and many of my peers were raised on Virtual Reality, our parents were raised in the era of screens, with VR no more than a new fad, a technology they knew had potential, but did not yet know to what end.

Thus, for my final presentation in Modern Anthropology, I would like to discuss the history of social media in the world. Ideally, I would like to leave behind a transcript so that others may look back and remember where all this came from.

The first major surge in social media took place in the early ‘00s. The first notable social media giant was a company called MySpace, which debuted in 2003 and remained the largest social networking site in the world until 2009. Its replacement, Facebook, was founded one year later in 2004 and took the market by storm for the next couple decades. Other giants include Twitter, founded 2006, and Instagram in 2010.

For the 2010s, these companies would rule the social media market, especially after the advent of the smart phone in 2007. As the smartphone became more and more commonplace, social media apps became the go-to time-wasters on everybody’s glass devices, each with their own niche. Facebook, much like Clubhouse today, provided a central hub for all friends, where you could like different pages, post status updates, keep photo albums, and make your own clubs and events. Twitter’s interface prompted users to share short blurbs that their followers could scroll through. Instagram was similar to Twitter, but for pictures only (Hartford, 2045).

As the ‘20s approached, however, the fall of the social media giants appeared imminent to those who kept their eyes open. The influx of participants from the older generation on these applications signified the beginning of the decline. What once appealed to the younger generations was adopted by their grandparents, seriously cutting down the cool factor of the software. Though this trend was noticeable far earlier, the median age range of each company had grown to 46-52 by 2025 (Skaroff 2034).

In addition to the influx of older generations, privacy scandals started to plague the giants from the 2010s well into the ‘20s. What started as companies selling user information for ad revenue evolved into much more suspect behavior, with rumors accusing the companies of everything from colluding to form a national registry to selling information to hackers under the table.

Regardless of who the information was sold to, the increasingly sophisticated methods each company used to pry into their users’ lives made their followers increasingly uncomfortable. The result for social media companies was an immediate drop in reputation and a steady decline in market share as long-time users looked for more trustworthy alternative social media outlets.

Unfortunately for users, it was extremely difficult for any competing social media network to attain critical mass in the smartphone application market. Even amidst the controversy, social media companies continued to innovate and improve their services at a rate that no others could keep up with. Even with new features added to keep users on board, however, the companies continued to undermine their trustworthiness as they proceeded to sell their users’ information in creative new ways that inevitably made it above ground in due time.

Toward the end of the ‘20s, things were looking dire for the giants. With the continued growth of virtual reality, everyone could feel a sea change coming. To prepare for the new age, in 2027 each company decided, allegedly independently, to change their name, building what was later known as “The ’27 Club”. One after one, each tried to become known as something new—“F,” “Birdie,” and “QuickPic”.

Suffice to say, the rebranding tactic left much to be desired. Not only were users not fooled by the new branding, the new names were notably lamer than their predecessors. Add to this the aging demographic of the giants’ user bases, and the companies seemed destined for irrelevance.

The companies held on for about four more years until each of them finally went bankrupt in the “Social Crash of ’31”. It took a decade longer than many thought it should have, but people were finally done with the social media giants for good. The disappearance of the giants left a huge hole in the social media market, which many new companies tried to fill. The general populace, however, had apparently decided they were done, and refused to adopt any of the new players in the web-based social media market. Technology users returned to a world of group and personal messages, forgoing the need to broadcast their lives for a time.

This period after the Social Crash of ’31 was known as “The Great Purification”. Though the period of absolute social media abstinence lasted only three years, this time was generally viewed favorably by those who lived through it. A generation was perceiving the world and relationships in a whole new way. Like someone newly sober, there was an element of latent wonder in this new view, and many asked themselves why they didn’t get off the services sooner.

Even though many enjoyed their new perspective on the wagon, all it took was a new innovator for the great majority of consumers to fall off. In 2034, nine years after the Lucid Mask redefined Virtual Reality into a major consumer market, a new social media craze was born out of a dorm room on New Idaho University’s campus.

The new mastermind was Nathan Habernick, a prodigious English Major in his junior year. As he put it in a 2035 interview:

“I was always captivated by the worlds that authors and filmmakers would create. I wanted to do the same. For a while, I was just writing and writing, but that didn’t feel like quite enough. And I didn’t necessarily have a huge interest in gaining mastery over some other medium. I just wanted to make my own world and live in it. So I was getting high with my friends one day—come on, it’s 2035 and you’re gonna look at me like I can’t say that?—I was stoned, alright, and I was wondering why there wasn’t yet any easy way to create your own environment in virtual reality. And the applications that were out there just weren’t pushing it far enough. I wanted to make my own world, and I wanted my friends to be able to hang out in it. The market was ripe for a change. So, anyway, that’s how the idea of Clubhouse was born.” (Habernick 2035)

Clubhouse was the disrupter that should have taken down the social media market, had the world not already been in the middle of The Great Purification. Though it began humbly, Clubhouse scaled quickly, allowing users greater and greater freedom to build their own virtual space that their friends could enjoy with them.

Clubhouse eventually began to integrate all the features that the other social media giants had done before them. Users could personalize their own “Bulletin Board” for view by anyone specified in their privacy settings. “Walkie-Talkie” was added soon after launch as the native chat feature in the application. Users could even host Virtual gatherings in each of their Clubhouses.

It wasn’t until 2037 that Clubhouse hit the mainstream with its AR integration, implemented into the second generation of Lucid Lenses. Though the VR app was still popular, the AR implementation was much more useful day-to-day, leading to a surge in popularity similar to the one Facebook experienced when it expanded from desktop to mobile.

In addition to finding a comfortable home in the VR and AR market, Clubhouse made sure to avoid the downfall of its predecessors by brainstorming alternative streams of income to the sale of user data. From the application’s launch, Habernick made sure to emphasize the importance they placed on the privacy of their users. Instead of selling users’ information, Habernick set Clubhouse up with an eCommerce platform that allowed users to sell their own data, goods, and services. By taking a small cut from each interaction, Clubhouse was able to sustain comfortable profits. Though Clubhouse ads didn't start off quite as sophisticated as the social media companies of yesteryear, the surprisingly large amount of users that voluntarily sold their data allowed ad companies to attain approximately the same level of insight into their possible customer base, eventually netting Clubhouse notable ad revenue in addition to what they were gaining from eCommerce.

In 2054, at the time of this writing, Clubhouse remains the most profitable social media company on the market today. Though it has grown over the years, its primary principles have remained the same, which has led to a user loyalty that was never present in the old, dead giants.

After proving there was a place for social media in the new era, it didn’t take long for other companies to follow in Clubhouse’s footsteps. Many of these companies built their base on the new functionality allowed by AR technology. For instance, Infrariend, est. 2024, when activated, allowed users to spot consenting Clubhouse friends from miles away through what resembled an infrared headset. This technology came in handy for many AR games of the 21st century.

Another successful (though slightly more unnerving) company was Foot-Steps, founded in 2045. Foot-Steps allows VR and AR users to sync up with their friends’ AR glasses, literally giving users the chance to walk in someone else’s shoes. Oddly enough, even after the privacy scares of the ‘20s, consumers seemed to be willing once more to risk their privacy for the chance to try new technology. Though there is no conclusive evidence that Foot-Steps is or isn’t spying on their users, it would appear that the trustworthy precedent set by Clubhouse has lulled users into a false sense of security when trying new applications.

As of 2054, no social media application has approached the current success of Clubhouse. In fact, the social media market has remained relatively stagnant for the last decade or so. The reputation of Clubhouse is certainly in better shape after 20 years than the giants’ had been. For Clubhouse’s reign to be displaced in the future, it may be necessary for a disrupter in the tech market as a whole. Just as AR replaced mobile, whatever the next step for mass human communication is will likely be the spot to see major competitors.

Until then, Clubhouse holds a proud monopoly over social media, and few seem to mind. Habernick, in fact, has been guest teaching around a class a semester at UNI for the past five years or so. If you ever happen to run into him on campus, you can feel proud that a fellow Okapi has changed the world. We can only hope that the next disrupter comes from the same magical place.

Works Cited

Habernick, Nathan. Personal Interview. 20 Feb 2035.

Hartford, Melanie. A Generation of Socialites. San Francisco, New History Press, 2045.

Husk, Rajit. Hanging at the Clubhouse. New Idaho, New Idaho UP, 2053.

Skaroff, Nicholas. “Understanding the Social Crash.” Journal of Social Media, vol. 12, no. 1, 2034, pp. 13-16.

#New Idaho #Ben Vizy #New Novel #Writing #Writing Community #Novelist #Novel Writing #2054 #Augmented Reality #Futurism #social media #New Social Media

0 notes

9-11luria-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Week of: January 15th

9-11 Class Learning Highlights

Language Arts

Fourth grade: We took a break from the Units of Study on Monday to remember the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We listened to the I Have a Dream speech in its entirety and the students noted parts that were powerful to them. Afterwards, we discussed the following questions: Has Dr. King’s dream been realized or is it yet to come true? What still needs to happen in order to realize the dream and what can you do to make that dream happen? We wrapped up our nonfiction reading unit by thinking about the decisions that nonfiction writers make and the way those authors seem to want readers to think or feel about a topic. We also discussed how researchers become experts by evaluating the credibility and trustworthiness of sources.

Fifth grade: In celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, students learned about the power of peaceful protest through informational articles about nonviolent protests in world and American history. Friends wrote their opinion about the topic and whether peaceful protests are productive and lead to change or awareness. We wrapped up our informational reading unit with an opportunity to present research topics as experts. Students showed expert knowledge in their topics, using notes, visual diagrams and pictures, and their own opinions of their research topic to teach one another. They should be very proud of their accomplishments and hard work!

Math

Green & Blue: This week students used fraction and decimal multiplication to express equivalent measurements and used two-step word problems involving measurement conversions.

Purple: This week students formally connected models of fraction division to multiplication and the invert-and-multiply rule, in particular. We divided fractions by mixed numbers by first converting the mixed numbers into a fraction with a value larger than one and used equations to find quotients. Finally, students related decimals to mixed numbers and rounded addends, minuends, and subtrahends to whole numbers in order to predict reasonable answers.

Red & Orange: Students learned to find factor pairs for numbers to 100 and use understanding of factors to define prime and composite numbers.

Yellow: Students learned to divide decimals with a remainder using place value understanding and relate to a written method. They also began their End of Module Assessment.

Rainbow: Students learned to estimate sums and differences to the nearest ten-thousand. They also practiced the skill of rounding to the nearest ten, hundred, thousand, or ten-thousand within 5-digit numbers.

History

Fourth grade: Students completed their presentations on the Age of Exploration and we began our new unit on Native American history and culture. We discussed Native American civilization before the Age of Exploration and learned important terms related to archeology and anthropology.

Fifth grade: Students continued their learning about the Articles of Confederation with a simulation activity. Friends were divided into 13 groups to represent the 13 colonies and were given scenarios to decide whether congress should or shouldn’t grant rights to each state.

Science

This week students incorporated what the learned about in the nonfiction reading unit in language arts to science and read articles about astronomy. Fourth graders read an article about an exoplanet similar to earth that was discovered in outer space and fifth graders read and responded to a Time for Kids magazine with a focus on space.

Yahadut

Fourth grade: Students learned the third mishnah in the 6th perek of brachot, focusing on the hierarchy of blessings and which blessing to make if one is eating an assortment of different fruits or vegetables.

Fifth grade: Students learned and discussed the second Mishnah in the first perek of brachot, which discussed the earliest and latest times for saying the shemah in the morning. This specific mishnah is filled with different references to times of day and students spent time learning these concepts in relation to the Mishnah’s understanding of the times of the day.

In their learning for this week’s parasha, students tried to put themselves in the shoes of the Israelites and Egyptians, especially during the last three plagues. We also learned about the commandments for the first celebrations of Pesach.

Ivrit

Be’er Sheva: We went over what we do in the morning and what we eat, and also practiced conjugating verbs in present tense while having both group and pair conversations.

Yerushalyim: We went over our morning routine and started learning about Tu Bishvat. We spoke about the red festival of flowers in Israel and learned about the taftafot, the Israeli watering system that saves water.

Tel Aviv: We went over our morning routine and past tense conjugation. We described what we and what friends did in the morning, and specifically focused on the correct conjugation in past tense.

Haifa: We started learning about Tu Bishvat and described in past tense what happens on Tu Bishvat. We focused on writing short paragraphs using the correct conjugation.

Chumash

Rashi and Ramban: We spoke about Ya’akov’s preparation before he got the blessing, his concerns, and him actually getting the Bracha. We spoke about the phrase הקל קול יעקב, והידיים ידי עשו, and telling the whole truth versus just half of it. We learned some Rashi skills and practiced finding the question from the answer.

Eben Ezra and Sforno: We learned psukim 13-26. We spoke in depth about the developments in Yosef’s personality and his treatment of his brothers. We learned some commentary from Eben Ezra, Sforno, and Rashi, and used that to support our opinions and expand our details of the story.

Community Time: Our focus this week was on community awareness. The students participated in two activities that simulated what it’s like to have a physical challenge or cognitive challenge. We discussed the challenges we faced when we were engaging in the activities.

Technology: 9-11 students have begun an exciting program called Typing.com. This program is accessible at home, and assists students in developing and improving their typing skills, which will become so important as they advance through middle and high school, as well as college and the working world. In addition to typing exercises, students participated in a variety of typing based games and activities, and can even earn certificates as they progress.

Questions

Language Arts

Fourth grade: What powerful words and phrases did you underline in Dr. Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech and why did you underline them? What questions do researchers ask themselves when they are evaluating sources?

Fifth grade: Share what skills and knowledge you now have from this nonfiction research. What did you learn about your peers and their research topics during presentations?

Math

Green & Blue: A hippopotamus weighs 1,560,000 grams. Convert the hippopotamus’ weight to kilograms. Olivia needs 19 quarts more paint for the outside of her barn than for the inside. If she uses 107 quarts in all, how many gallons of paint will be used to paint the inside of the barn?

Purple: Does it matter which interpretation of division we use? Can we always invert and multiply?

Red & Orange: What is a prime number? What is a composite number? (Remember to use the word factor in your definition). What are the factor pairs of the number 10?

Yellow: Solve 435 divided by 7 using the long division model.

Rainbow: Find the sum of the following problem AND the estimation sum: 34798 + 23784 =

History

Fourth grade: What is one theory for how Native Americans and other indigenous peoples originally came to settle here thousands of years ago?

Fifth grade: Why were the Articles of Confederation ineffective? What was it like being part of the 13 colonies during this difficult time in American history?

Science

What was the author’s goal in writing the “Cosmic Critters” article in Time for Kids? In the article “Gravity Assist,” what does gravity assist mean for James Green? Which was the first space shuttle?

Yahadut

Fourth grade: What situation does the Mishnah explain to us at the beginning of mishnah 3?

Fifth grade: What was your favorite concept that we learned about in the 2nd mishnah this week and why?

Chumash

Rashi and Ramban: Is Ya’akov responsible for his actions? Why or why not?

Eben Ezra and sforno: How are the brothers different from when they threw Yosef into the pit? What does Yosef feel towards them? What in his actions tell you that?

Ivrit

Be’er Sheva: מה את/ה אוכל/ת בבוקר? מה את/ה לובש/ת בבוקר?

Yerushalyim: מה זה דרום אדום?

Tel Aviv: מה את/ה עושה כשאת/ה קם/קמה בבוקר?

Haifa: מה עושים בט”ו בשבט?

Community Time: How did your thinking change about people who have a difficult time learning or a difficult time communicating? What might you do think or say if you meet someone like this in the community?

0 notes