Thursday, October 2, 2003

by Pei Pei Liu
Managing Editor

Over the past two weeks, several incidents targeting Swarthmore Queer Union
events and the queer community on campus have incited members of the Intercultural
Center student groups and prompted a response from the administration.

Flyers and posters advertising SQU meetings and the queer-themed film “Happy
Together” were removed from walls, and in the most drastic incident, the
SQU logo and name were ripped off the wooden sign outside of the Intercultural
Center this past Sunday morning, sometime between 1:30 and 5:30 a.m.

Student representatives from the IC groups and Student Council pointed out
that these incidents are not isolated; the College Republicans’ bulletin board
in Parrish was also defaced recently, and historically, the College has had
to address hate messages being chalked on campus pathways and groups having
chalkings scuffed out or washed away. But though the recent incidents are not
unique, they have sparked a renewed effort by students and administrators to
address the sources of the vandalism and open up dialogue about the issues.

“Clearly, such behavior is unacceptable in a community that strives to
not simply tolerate, but also respect and constructively confront difference,”
said Rafael Zapata, Director of the Intercultural Center. “Indeed, the
Intercultural Center was established under such a mandate. We [must] reaffirm
our commitment toward maintaining the integrity of our community’s ethical and
moral ideals.”

ADVICE member Aparna Kishor ’05 added, “These acts not only destroy property
but also a sense of physical and emotional safety… We need to examine the
way in which our community responds to such incidents.”

On Monday, Vice President Maurice Eldridge released a statement to the campus
community on behalf of the deans, saying, “We strongly condemn these acts
and call upon the entire community to reassert the primacy of respect and civility
as core values here at Swarthmore.”

Eldridge also cited the Code of Conduct in the College Bulletin, urging students
to actively sustain a supportive and respectful community in which “the
expression of dissent and the attempt to produce change…may not be carried
out in ways that injure individuals or damage institutional facilities or disrupt
the classes of one’s teachers or colleagues.”

Yet students are advocating a coordinated, community-wide effort to address
the issues. ADVICE member Powen Shiah ’06 said, “A wide-reaching response
is in order to address these past events, as well as preventative measures to
ensure that the Swarthmore campus becomes and remains a safe place for queer
students and expressions of alternative genders and sexualities.”

Student Council co-president Anna Morgan ’04 also emphasized that events such
as these are a problem for the entire student community, not just the targeted
groups. “Events like these ruin the security of the campus,” she said.
“Students should not have to feel threatened on campus.”

Student Council is currently working with the administration to plan a series
of events in response to the incidents. Among the events being planned are a
forum for discussion sponsored by the administration and a SC-organized fireside
chat centered on these incidents as well as free speech in general. Morgan said
SC may try to schedule the fireside chat before fall break, but it depends on
the administrator’s schedules.

A statement from Student Council is also forthcoming to frame the impact of
the incidents on all students and to urge students not to defer responsibility
for the incidents onto the IC and the administration. “Any action [in response
to the incidents] needs to be student-initiated and student supported if it’s
going to work,” said Morgan.

*****

by Kyle Khellaf
Gazette Reporter

“If I could sing like Orpheus, who touched the hearts of stones, I’d sing
so every rock and stone would beg you not to kill me,” reads Colin Teevan
in media re of his guest lecture for Edith Hall’s “Greek Tragedy: Murder
in the House of Atreus” class, which took place last Tuesday afternoon.
By allowing the syntax and meter of the work to guide his recitation, Teevan
demonstrated how the work comes to life without forced acting.

Teevan began the lecture with a short explanation of how he began his theatrical
life. He studied theater for six or seve years after following a course of study
in linguistics and history. His roots in ancient Greek, however, go back much
further, having studied it in Jesuit school for seven or eight years. Because
Professor Hall’s Greek tragedy class had recently read Teevan’s modern adaptation
of Euripides’s “Iphigenia at Aulis,” entitled “Iph…,”
the remainder of the lecture focused on this piece.

As the first person to reinterpret Iphigenia at Aulis since it was done in
Victorian England, Teevan explained “Iph…”‘s significance in modern
society. “[‘Iph…’] fixed Victorianizations and sanitizations of [this]
Greek tragedy, [because they] had been rewritten without consulting the actual
Greek text.” Teevan also mentioned that he added the frame scene based
upon Aeschylus’s Agamemnon for audiences unfamiliar with the mythological background
of the work. Furthermore, he tells the class that one reason for choosing the
title “Iph…” was to draw audiences who had not been keen to attend
certain previous performances due to their long titles, no matter how good the
reviews.

More importantly, Teevan illustrated how “Iph…” stresses the connections
between the themes in the original work by Euripides and the ongoing conflict
in Northern Ireland: the relationship between Northern and Southern Ireland
and the concept of self-sacrifice in Irish nationalist myth. According to Teevan,
“You would sacrifice almost a generation [of lives] to achieve freedom
in Northern Ireland.”

Teevan went on to explain the relationship between Agamemnon’s actions in the
play and those of David Trimble in Ireland; the teeter-tottering by Trimble
between the Ulster unionists and Irish nationalists can be alluded to through
Agamemnon’s constant changes of mind over whether or not he will sacrifice his
daughter Iphigenia for the Greek cause. Teevan’s main reason for changing the
composition of the chorus from married women to teenage girls, so he states,
is to stress the dilemma of Iphigenia having to be killed at so young an age,
as well as alluding to the large number of teenage boys who join the IRA cause
and die for it.

Near the end of the lecture, Professor Hall and Colin Teevan had an entertaining
argument over why Teevan believes that Aeschylus is too longwinded for the modern
theater. Hall stated that Teevan’s problem was that he likes naturalistic theater
too much, which Teevan argued is not at all the case. After the lecture, Teevan
signed books for the various students in the class and had his photograph taken
with various members of the class.

Teevan is currently working on a modern comical opera about the fourth wise
man who misses out on important Biblical events because he is always late, blinds
himself in order to save a child, and ends up working in the Gaza sulfur mines.

*****

* The Bureau of Labor Statistics attributes the lack of new jobs being created
for the current sag in the American economy, according to a survey released
yesterday. According to the New York Times, “in the last three months of
2002, 7.8 million jobs were eliminated, while 7.7 million were created.”
Layoffs were previously thought to be the reason so many Americans are unemployed,
but the study found that hiring is at its lowest level since 1995. On average,
Americans are unemployed for about 19 weeks now, compared to 13 weeks in the
late 1990s.

* Chinese President Hu Jintao called for more democracy in the Chinese government
in his speech on Wednesday, China’s National Day holiday. While Hu’s speech
did not contain any specific plans, it is speculated that democracy will be
extended into township and county elections; China already allows democratic
elections on the village level. Many also expect multiple candidates will soon
be able to vie for positions in the Communist Party. The topic is expected to
be discussed in mid-October during China’s plenum, a “national planning
session” for top Chinese leaders.

* A panel appointed by the Bush administration stated that “the United
States must drastically increase and overhaul its public relations efforts to
salvage its plummeting image among Muslims and Arabs abroad.” The panel
is led by Edward P. Djerejian, an Arab specialist. According to the New York
Times, the panel suggested that the United States build more libraries in Muslim
countries, translate more Western books into Arabic, increase scholarships and
visiting fellowships, upgrade the American internet presence, and train more
Arabists.

*****

IC Brown Bag Series — Book Reading by Norma E. Cantu: “Canicula: Snapshots
of a Girlhood en la Frontera”
Intercultural Center, 12:00 p.m.

Lecture by Carmen Lomas Garza: “Chicana Art: The Aesthetics of Politics
and the Politics of Aesthetics”
Scheuer Room, 4:15 p.m.

Upward Bound Counseling Workshop
Hicks 211, 6:00 p.m.

Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Info Session
Bond, 6:30 p.m.

Lecture by Damien Schnyder: “Rap Musicians, Antonio Gramsci and the Organic
Intellectual”
Scheuer Room, 7:00 p.m.

College Bowl Meeting
Kohlberg 202, 7:00 p.m.

Kaori Kitao Gallery Opening: “The MAXIMALIST Show”
Kaori Kitao Gallery, 7:00 p.m.

Scott Associates’ Trip to Japan Lecture
LPAC Cinema, 7:30 p.m.

Russian Study Abroad Info Session
Trotter 301, 7:30 p.m.

English Folk Dancing
Upper Tarble, 7:30 p.m.

Shakespeare in the Crum Auditions
LPAC 301, 8:00 p.m.

Film Screening: “September 11th”
Science Center Lecture Hall, 8:00 p.m.

SIRO Meeting
Kohlberg 226, 9:00 p.m.

SASS Open Movie Night: “Undercover Brother”
BCC, 9:00 p.m.

*****

SPORTS UPDATE

Colton Bangs ’07 scored his first career goal as the Garnet snapped a 17 game
Centennial Conference (CC) losing streak with a 1-0 victory over Washington
on Clothier Field.

The Garnet outshot Washington 15-9. Nate Shupe ’05 made five saves for the
shutout. Swat improves to 3-7-1 overall, 1-2 in the CC.

The Garnet next play at Franklin & Marshall on Saturday at 2:30.

*****

The Garnet rallied from a 10-5 deficit in game five to pull out the match at
Widener. The two squads alternated games as the Garnet won, 30-28, 21-30, 30-23,
21-30, 15-11.

Emily Conlon ’06 had 39 assists, four aces and seven kills and Erica George
’07 and Emma Benn ’04 posted doubles with 15 kills and 18 digs and 11 kills
and 24 digs respectively.

The Garnet improve to 8-11 on the season. They next play at Muhlenberg in an
invitational tournament, which includes McDaniel.

*****

Today
No contests are scheduled for today.

Tomorrow
No contests are scheduled for tomorrow.

*****

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value.”
–Albert Einstein

*****

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