Author: The Women of Letters

Important Questions on Privilege and Power

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In the past few months, discussions of privilege and power have come up in both professional and personal aspects of my life. I feel I am in a position to see both sides, as I have been both treated well by white mainstream culture as a minority, but have also been in a very bad academic situation which was both racist and sexist (and just terrible to students in general), and experienced a lot of racism while growing up. I have been speaking with people who feel very wronged, and with people who have no clue about differences. Sometimes I have seen reverse racism, which I think is equally as destructive as racism. I have seen outright insensitivity—and also its variant of ignorance.

Over the years, I have worked with extremely diverse populations and done a lot of work with international education in addition to higher education (in which I hold a master’s degree). So how do we heal rifts and divides? These are very complex issues, and the unfortunate Trump regime has brought a lot of negative aspects of race and privilege out of the woodwork. This has shown us that many people feel there is a downside to diversity and political correctness, and perhaps teaches us that we have left some people out of the discussion, no matter how wrong we feel they are. We have to be careful to avoid simplistic and knee-jerk responses and actions as liberals. We cannot threaten or implicate people just because they belong to a certain background. Doing so only creates more animosity and tension. We all need to inform ourselves with hard data and statistics to get the facts straight. But then we need to act with empathy.

So here are some questions that I feel are important for discussion. Unfortunately, despite my best attempts to avoid dichotomizing, I have created a dualistic model here. However, this does not simply mean white man versus minority woman. There are many white men who are in disadvantaged positions, and the recent Chicago mayoral election of Black lesbian Lori Lightfoot has raised many qualms that she is not necessarily “of the people.” Many of us may be in situations where we are in a position of privilege as well as situations in which we are not.

For those in positions of power or privilege, or who may be PERCEIVED to be in such positions, consider the following:

-Is it possible that you are not aware of the fact that you do hold some privilege due to your birth, SES, race, or favoritism? Self-awareness is key.

-Are you aware that others may feel your privilege and power as a threat? This is not to fault to you, but just to make you conscious of how you are seen.

-You and your ancestors may not at all have played a part in it, but are you aware of the roots of racism in America, especially with regard to slavery, the extinction of Native Americans, and immigration policy?

-You and people in your circles may personally be wonderfully supportive, nondiscriminatory, and nonracist. However, there is such a thing as institutionalized racism and if we look at the statistics, we cannot deny that there is still a lot of discrimination toward minority groups.

-What you might consider an innocuous comment might be perceived as a micro-aggression by the other person.

-Skin color does indeed make a difference and hold an advantage in American society. If you have never been in the physical minority before, visit a country or culture opposite to yours, and you will understand.

-I personally believe as an artist or writer that you have the right to include other cultures in your work or to create things in a style of a culture that is not your own. However, have you done it in a sensitive, informed, and culturally-appropriate way?

For those who are part of any sort of minority group or PERCEIVE themselves to be in such positions, consider the following:

-While hard data shows us it is true that white people generally hold more power and advantages in American society, be careful not to lump all white people together and make assumptions. A power-hungry white male Ivy League dean is not the same as a second-generation Hungarian factory worker in Cleveland. Many white people who appear successful now have come from disadvantaged backgrounds and worked their way up the class system.

-Rude, hurtful, or unpleasant remarks people have made to you may have come from a place of malice. Or they may have come from a place of ignorance or without any ill will. Is it possible in some situations you may be reading into things due to previous bias and negative mental filter?

-How are people really treating you/what are their actions? They may not be using the right terminology that is considered politically correct or culturally sensitive, but are they ultimately respectful and goodhearted? Don’t get obsessed with language.

-What baggage are you carrying that may affect your day-to-day life? While I agree we cannot deny the statistics that show there still is indeed a disturbing amount of discrimination on many fronts, be sure to work on your own mind, body, and soul to be able to distinguish between what is self-caused unhappiness versus that from the outside world. This is a very Buddhist/Asian perspective, and it is most important to start with ourselves, to have peace of mind before we attack or accuse others.

-Just as all white people are not the same, not all minority groups are the same. While this might sound like a no-brainer, sometimes there is a conflation of too many issues that do not apply across the board. Some minority groups might be privileged in certain ways, while disadvantaged in others. For example, an upper-middle-class gay male will still enjoy advantages if he is white and male, though he may face discrimination for his sexual orientation, as we can see with dynamic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg. Indians in America are the most economically successful minority group in the country and are highly educated; however, we have a different skin color, and most of us do not practice the mainstream religion of Christianity, so we may experience discrimination in ways that other minority groups do not.

-Many minorities are of immigrant origin and have opted to come to the United States. So, their narratives are not necessarily one of oppression as they would be for other groups who were brought here against their will, or who were already here and exterminated through genocide.

-Hostility and anger will get us nowhere. Work in constructive, positive ways. Build bridges, find allies.

We still have a long way to go with healing a lot of rifts and divides in American society. But hopefully these questions can help foster peace, communication, and constructive action.

A Response to Richard V Reeves’s Op-Ed in The Guardian

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Just this morning, I read the article by Brookings Institution researcher Richard V Reeves on how elite university entrance is rigged, an op-ed written in light of the recent scandal with college prep fraudster William “Rick” Singer being caught for bribing and highly unethical activity to get children of the wealthy into prestigious universities.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/12/us-college-admissions-scandal-corruption-rigged
I am irate, as my alma mater of Stanford was one of the schools cited in “Operation Varsity Blues” (the FBI’s name for this bribing for admission scandal). Yesterday, the president of the Stanford Alumni Association sent out an email condemning what has happened:

Dear Stanford alum,

By now you may have seen news that the U.S. Justice Department has charged several dozen people around the country, including Stanford’s head sailing coach, as part of an alleged bribery scheme to try to win the admission of prospective students to a number of U.S. colleges and universities.

This behavior runs completely counter to Stanford’s core values. The university has consequently fired the head sailing coach, who later today pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit racketeering.

The university has issued a public statement here:https://news.stanford.edu/2019/03/12/stanford-statement/ and the President and Provost have published their own blogpost on this situation here: https://quadblog.stanford.edu/2019/03/12/the-sailing-case-and-our-resolve/

No evidence has been presented indicating that the conduct of the head sailing coach involves anyone else at Stanford or is associated with any other team at Stanford. However, we will be undertaking an investigation to confirm this.

As I hope you know, the integrity of our admissions process is absolutely central to the mission and purpose of our university. We will consequently continue working to actively address this situation so as to regain your trust in that process.

Sincerely,

Howard E. Wolf, ’80
Vice President for Alumni Affairs, Stanford University
President, Stanford Alumni Association

A necessary statement to assure is that the institution will not tolerate any sort of corrupt or unethical behavior.

I would like to comment on Mr. Reeves’s intelligent article. The key points he makes are that Singer’s behaviors were rightly caught and apprehended by the FBI, the whole system is corrupt and rigged in favor of the affluent, legacy children are admitted preferentially, as are the children of major donors, and that upper-middle-class families can afford to give their children tutoring, prep classes, and any sort of educational advantages possible. He also concludes by saying that these Ivy League and elite universities perpetuate socioeconomic inequality, and that the whole system is unfair. Mr. Reeves is British-educated, at the no-less-elite Oxford University (where I myself was an exchange student during my junior year, and which I would argue is even more unequal than any American Ivy League university), and holds a doctorate from the University of Warwick, a public research university. His body of work is quite impressive and is exactly the sort of highly-researched, intelligent, liberal writing that we need. He writes of his own background in a NY Times Op-Ed piece from two years ago:

which describes his own background, but again, makes some generalizations about American society. There were some things in The Guardian article that nettled me, a few sweeping generalizations again that seemed to ignore a more complex picture.

Both while at Stanford and after, I have sometimes felt that it is by and large an upper-middle-class institution, in terms of its ethos. The student body did seem to come from this socioeconomic stratum, and I have seen also how the upper-middle class is able to send their children to good private schools or live in wealthy areas where the school districts are very good but the housing costs are very high. The majority of my Indian-American peers were from well-to-do suburbs of big cities and from more prosperous families. I, in contrast, grew up in a very middle/lower-middle-class college town in the country in the Midwest, the daughter of Indian immigrants, and it was certainly a loving sacrifice for my parents to send me to a school like Stanford. I was fortunate that my parents valued education, that my father was a college professor, and that I got to visit a few campuses before applying for undergraduate admission. My public schooling was quite mediocre. My high school offered only one AP class, and I was able to take another AP exam on my own and do well enough to give me advanced standing in one subject in college. A number of students in my school did not go to college, or if so, they attended ordinary public institutions that were not at all selective. At Stanford, I often felt dazzled and bewildered, that I was truly on a different planet and with a very different social class of people. But the experience did indeed offer me mobility, as I had escaped my small town completely by my own efforts and volition. I also had other friends from the area in which I grew up who had a similar background, some of them children of immigrants, and some of them not. And some students who were quite bright were not able to apply to and attend private universities, so Reeves’s point does hold true in terms of economics playing a big part of one’s higher education.

But still, Mr. Reeves overlooks that quite a high number of students who attend the elite schools in America are children of immigrants, self-made, and whose parents made sacrifices to send their kids to top institutions of higher education. There are also a number of very ordinary middle-class and lower-middle-class students who attend elite universities (some of my closest college friends were from these backgrounds), and students who work during college in order to help support themselves. Also, the big schools’ large endowments mean that they offer loans and scholarships (if only Stanford’s generous package now offered existed when I was in college!), and the admissions are need-blind.

There is the issue of legacy students, but from what I have seen, the children are no less worthy of admission to Stanford than their parents and are highly accomplished in their own right. But I have indeed often questioned this system and felt it unfair, wondering if I did not get in to some universities because a legacy student who was equally or less qualified did. In terms of wealth, I had also wondered if I didn’t get into one of the Ivy League schools to which I applied because another girl with a similar profile came from a wealthy family. In the past couple of years, Harvard has come under fire and is being investigated for discriminating against Asian-Americans; having looked at some of the data from around the time of when I applied to college, I suspect I could be one of those who was not admitted due to this alleged racial bias. There is no question that children of donors and ultra-wealthy are being admitted and alarming fashion – Jared Kushner is indeed a prime, horrible example. At top public universities, there are also a number of very wealthy students who come from out-of-state and more and more, overseas. This has raised a lot of questions in places like California, where in-state residents have been protesting that they have been shut out due to wealthy internationals who pay more.

I can somewhat agree with Mr. Reeves’s point that these universities perpetuate elitism and inequality—but to a certain point and to a certain amount of the population. My feeling is that Mr. Reeves has commented on the recent scandal in a bit of a knee-jerk fashion, that he has overlooked the complexity of the picture of who attends Ivy League schools, that he does not see the subtleties of class mobility and class-crossing in the United States (would the son or daughter of an executive in Britain work at a pizzeria in the summer? I doubt that), and that he is overgeneralizing what is indeed true about the rich and upper-middle-class to all of the applicants to elite universities. Britain is an extremely class-conscious society, and though they acknowledge it openly unlike us here, there is a more ingrained sense of one’s place and perhaps even less mobility.

He fails to recognize that the top universities in the US also happen to draw the best minds and talents. If you are a physics genius, but happen to be the son or daughter of a doctor, are you admitted only because you are upper-middle-class? I think not. I recently have been involved with interviewing prospective Stanford students, and I have been impressed by the intelligence and ability and public service of these kids.

Stanford is very different from a Harvard which is very different from a Georgetown. This is very important to understand. Stanford is a younger university and an engineering school, and in any STEM-focused university, there is a no-BS atmosphere, due to the amount of work students must do.

In sum, does money contribute to and affect one’s higher education and class status? Absolutely. Is there inequality in the elite institutions? Yes, but not to the degree Mr. Reeves suggests, or at least not in the way he describes it. Do we need to do more as a society to work on reducing inequality? Absolutely yes, and it is dangerous how our society is becoming more and more class-stratified. Am I critical of Stanford University and other elite institutions? Yes. Am I a product of them? Yes, but I do think critically and don’t follow things blindly. And perhaps that is the first step toward reducing inequality and creating a more democratic society.

Oscars 2019: My Two Cents

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I found this year’s crop of Oscar nominees to be all very strong and enjoyable. Last year, though the premises of many of the films were good, I felt they didn’t deliver. Of course, there were certain films and performances I liked more than others. Let’s have a look at what I saw, and what I thought! In no particular order (SOME “SPOILER” INFO FOR SOME FILMS):

-Bohemian Rhapsody. Don’t mind what the critics say–this film was hugely enjoyable. Part of the difficulty may be that it has been billed as a film about Freddie Mercury, but if viewers perceive the film as a biopic about the entire band of Queen and it being a sort of musical biography, based around the songs, it makes a lot more sense. Queen fans and musicians will rejoice to see how various songs came about. That said, of all the members of the band, Freddie gets the most attention. Rami Malek deserves the best male actor Oscar. Not just for his musical performances and embodiment of Freddie Mercury, but also for the fact that his character has to cover a very wide range of emotions and scenes. He has to be shyly introverted, but also flamboyant, sexually avaricious, tender, and driven. Gwilym Lee as a dead-ringer for Brian May also does a wonderful rounded nuanced, subtle job, which should not go unnoticed. The film takes us right back into the 70s and 80s and the musical cultural that era. It’s what a great film should be–well done and very entertaining.

-Can You Ever Forgive Me? This is a gem of a film, well-crafted, well-acted, without a lot of flash, but so enjoyable from start to finish. Melissa McCarthy is absolutely terrific in this dramatic role, she creates a very rounded portrayal of Lee Israel, who is a most unlikable character. And it is no surprise that Richard E. Grant is nominated for an Oscar, because he absolutely steals the scenes playing the smooth-talking, gay English gentle(con)man. The on-screen chemistry between McCarthy and Grant is phenomenal, and this film should have been nominated for best picture, actress, and director.

-Roma. A stunner. This film deserves to go down not only in Oscar history, but in film history. It harkens back to the era of Italian neorealism films, and at the very least, it should be immortalized in the Criterion Collection ASAP. Visually, it is gorgeous to look at, and the emotion feels so close and real, thanks to the genius of Alfonso Cuarón (of whose films I am a fan). Certainly, Yalitza Aparicio does a marvelous job as a first-time actress and is a worthy contender for best actress. The simplicity of this film is deceptive, because it deals with a lot of complex subject matter, sophisticated themes, and issues of class and race. At times heartbreaking, at other times heartwarming. Note the symbolism of water associated with Aparicio’s Cleo. Marina de Tavira’s mother is certainly well done, but it is not extraordinary, and her part feels so minimal that I confess I’m surprised she was nominated for an Oscar.

-The Wife. I saw a slightly abridged version on an airplane, and I only wished for more. I confessed I was resistant, was afraid the theme was just clichéd. However, the film is the well-acted, and well-directed, that I was immediately hooked. It might remind viewers of an Ingmar Bergman film, which is not surprising considering that director Björn Runge is a Swede. Very tightly focused and intimate, both Jonathan Pryce and Glenn Close do a marvelous job as a longtime couple whose tensions come to the surface as they arrive in Stockholm for him to be honored with the Nobel Prize. Sometimes the story felt a bit thin, that it needed a little bit more to it, and Close’s scenes as Joan Castleman is a young woman were minimal, as were scenes about Pryce’s writing career. We truly feel what Joan feels; with a minimum of gestures, we see everything she’s experiencing through her facial expressions–we all know a Joan. The ending feels a bit odd and rushed (again, it may be due to the abridged version I saw). As above with Tavira, I think the role is well done, but not extraordinary.

-Green Book. This film drew out the most frustrated reactions from me. It is a very fascinating subject. Peter Farrelly has brought to the big screen a fascinating musical figure that even those of us were musicians have never heard of. And when he actually chooses to, he explores some complex topics related to race, especially in scenes between Tony and Don with good dialogue. Mahershala Ali is very well cast as the difficult, guarded Don Shirley, and brings a degree of nuance to the performance. Many people have commented that it is not entirely accurate, and Don Shirley’s family protested quite sharply. However, my problem with the film was that it was overall just very superficial. Farrelly could have dug deeper, gotten into more of the racial issues sooner–it was 2018/19 and we viewers know what has happened in history, so get us to the meat of the story ASAP! My other major problem with the film was Viggo Mortensen as Tony Lip. Mortensen is always a strong and interesting actor, but here I feel his portrayal of a Bronx Italian man did not move beyond caricature. He is certainly affable, and an interesting character, but the accent and the choices did not convince me Mortensen was really inhabiting someone else. To me, this was a casting problem. Bobby Cannavale or another Italian-American actor could have been a better choice. But we have to give Farrelly an A for effort, as it was a sizable task to take on a film like this–it was brave and necessary at a time like this in American history, where black-white relations are still under negotiation.

-The Favourite. I knew what I was getting into when I saw it. I knew it was a Yorgos Lanthimos film, and having seen The Lobster, my suspicions were correct: it is bizarre. The tone is just as dark and odd, as is the lighting. And overall, the film just feels at times silly. We don’t know anything about the backstory or history; everything is on the surface, it feels like it is there more to serve the director’s vision. What is this film supposed to be? A dark comedy? An Art Film? What are the motivations and reasons for things, beyond what we can see in Emma Stone’s Abigail? While Stone did a surprisingly good job and convincing English accent, and the always-wonderful Rachel Weisz was deliciously scheming, I did not feel Olivia Colman was regal enough to play Queen Anne. In this film, we see the what and the how, but never the why. The art direction was indeed superb, as were the costumes. But this kind of trying to be artsy for the sake of it comes across as pompous and annoying.

-A Star is Born. Mixed reactions. A writer friend had warned me that the script was weak, and I concur. Bradley Cooper is certainly an excellent actor, but the cause and effect (especially with how Jack and Ally fall in love) just doesn’t add up. At times the story just feels ragged and we wonder how things got to where they are. It feels like a collection of scenes, without a really through-composed storyline: scenes in search of a movie. Lady Gaga is surprisingly very good and deserves her Oscar nomination. When she is stripped of her fuss and feathers as a performer in real life, she truly has a vulnerability and ordinary girl-persona that is truly believable. (I have always felt that she is a better interpreter than she is an original artist; everything she does of her own accord as a pop singer is always derivative of someone else). We don’t get enough of her in the film, as the film focuses more heavily on Jack. Sam Elliott is indeed reliable and strong as Jack’s brother, but again, I think it’s nothing extraordinary. Overall, I felt this film was overrated.

I have to give a shout out to Mary Poppins Returns. Though the story is weak and odd (do kids really want to hear about mortgage payments?), the movie is pure entertainment and absolutely drop-dead gorgeous on the big screen. With a cast of superb actors (including a cameo from Dick Van Dyke!) and wonderful music, it’s a treat for kids of all ages. My elderly father said he was transported back to childhood and left the theater with a huge grin. Lin-Manuel Miranda really deserved an Oscar nomination (my father is a new fan), as did director Rob Marshall, and everyone who worked on any visual and costume elements.

I’ll stop here – it’s time to have dinner and watch the Oscars!

MLK Day: A Belated Tribute to My Black Mentors

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Greetings to my readers and Happy Belated New Year! My hiatus has a simple explanation: I was finishing all of my final work in order to graduate with my MFA on January 12. It’s been a challenging yet rewarding past two years in the Warren Wilson program, but I am grateful and have no regrets.

In a world where black people still face so much discrimination, where there is senseless shooting and violence against them, I would like to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by paying tribute to the black mentors I have had at almost every stage of my education. And even where black people are not facing violence, there is still subtle racism. I’m proud to say that I have had black mentors who dispel bad stereotypes and images.

In my undergraduate years, my departmental advisor in anthropology was Professor James Gibbs. I remember profoundly one of the most important pieces of advice he gave me was, “You must learn to develop a tolerance for ambiguity.” As an impatient 20 year old, it was a hard lesson to learn! His wife, Professor Jewelle Taylor Gibbs, herself an accomplished academic at Berkeley, was a guest lecturer in one of my classes. During my master’s degree program in higher education, I did not happen to have any black professors or advisors. However, what was significant and inspiring was the number of black students in my program who were in academia and doing graduate work in the field. During formal studies of music in musicology, I was very fortunate to have an advocate in a difficult time, Professor Naomi André, who had not only an impeccable pedigree and abilities, but also a tremendously classy and warm personality. I have been fortunate to study opera singing with Professor George Shirley, a legendary tenor, with whom I feel have only scratched the surface of all he knows as an artist. Rightly so, he was awarded the National Medal of the Arts in 2014 by President Obama.

More recently, in the Warren Wilson program, I had the young and brilliant Danielle Evans for an advisor my first semester, who is a first-rate intellectual and fellow Columbia lion! I was also fortunate to have a book discussion seminar just recently with T. Geronimo Johnson, who awed us all with his ability to be both didactic as well as inclusive with students’ feedback. I sincerely hope he writes a craft book for fiction writers. Also important to my writing training is auto-didact and encyclopedic-knowledged writer Keith Hood, a pillar of our local writing community.

I count myself fortunate in that I have had these great role models who are first and foremost artists and academics and teachers, beyond the label of “black.” I am fortunate that I have had so many great black role models, and only wish others could as well. That might help with alleviating some of the racism that still sadly pervades our society. Here is my gratitude to these women and men of letters, who just happen to be black.

Hamlet Redux

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(This post is adapted from an analytical journal entry I wrote this semester for my MFA program.)

We know John Updike from his Rabbit series (Rabbit, Run, Rabbit Redux, and the subsequent two novels and novella) and for his chronicling of suburban life. But one of his later works is a masterpiece, a prequel to Shakespeare’s Hamlet called Gertrude and Claudius. At the intersection of historical fiction and a retelling, the novel gives us the backstory to the play, and puts a unique feminist spin on it.

A major concept I have hit upon in my analyses of retellings is the idea of a “hinge.” In all of the retellings I have looked at, there is some element that connects the old work to the new one, some sort of a hinge. Very frequently, it is plot points, and almost inevitably, characters. But sometimes there are other elements that connect the retelling and the classic. Sometimes it is language or phrases, the use of diction. The novel makes frequent use of that, and the author adopts a very old-fashioned tone that seems fitting for Shakespeare.

Gertrude and Claudius is a masterwork that stands on its own as a successful “retelling” of  Hamlet. Structured in three parts, the novel is a prequel to Shakespeare’s play. It focuses on the backstory of two crucial characters, Hamlet’s mother Gertrude and his uncle-turned-stepfather Claudius. I have examined a number of retellings: how they function, how they are crafted, how they work. What strikes me so saliently about this novel is it is a retelling heavily built on character. Of course, this is only natural, given that it is a prequel; it cannot borrow the same plot as the original. But what the novel does so brilliantly is flesh out to key characters in Hamlet and show us their motivations for doing what they have done. This is not to say that there are not some overlapping plot points, especially at the ends of Part II and in Part III. But giving us the backstory of characters who have caused or triggered Hamlet’s grief makes the play so much more vivid. Showing us the actual murder scene with Claudius poisoning his brother is very satisfying, as we it learn only by hearsay in the play. Therefore, Hamlet is the aftermath of the novel, and it makes full sense when we know what evil machinations have happened before.

One of Updike’s motivations for writing the novel is to give the female character some agency. In general, Shakespeare’s plays heavily emphasize men; Hamlet is no exception. Gertrude is not a minor character, but she is not necessarily given her full due. In the play, she is a wife and mother. She is second to the men, and seems at times passive, an innocent victim, helpless in the sway of the powerful king, or too weak to stand up to her son. Gertrude and Claudius gives us the chance to see Gertrude as a key agent in her destiny and in the outcome that will happen in Hamlet. The title itself is a giveaway–she is included in the title and given top billing. Therefore, we can assume that Updike is taking a rather feminist angle upon retelling Hamlet. The presence of Ophelia also represents Updike’s woman-centered retelling.

Updike has essentially constructed the novel so that Parts I and II culminate in Part III, as any good novel should. Everything in the novel has been building up to the end. But what is especially brilliant is that Part III is building up to the play, so everything at the end of the novel will culminate in the actions of the play. “[Hamlet] was letting it be known that he resented his mother’s swift capitulation to his uncle’s suit.” Just before the end, we get the beginning of the play, where the watchmen see the ghost of the King. “It was rumored that battlement sentries on the midnight watch had been seeing an apparition in full armor.”

But the ending of the book belongs to Claudius: he has married his queen, he has been crowned, he has summoned Hamlet back to Denmark to train him to be the next King, and therefore has established his dynasty. Updike himself has lined up all the ducks, so to speak, in his novel, so that the play can shoot them all down. All of our expectations for a successful reign will be threatened by the vengeant Prince. The play is his story.

Foreshadowing is frequently used to hinge the two works: Updike is connecting us through the sense of doom. Also, there are frequent biblical allusions, especially to the Garden of Eden and snakes. The novel is also very much historical fiction, drawing on details of conquests and kingdoms. The sense of the past is palpable; we could truly imagine this love affair and murder happening as part of Danish royal history.

But none of these craft elements would matter, none of this analysis would hold any relevance if it were not for the fact that Gertrude and Claudius is just incredibly well written and a pleasure to read. We read the classics because they know they are time-tested and will please us. Hopefully the retellings should as well.

Nobel Laureate Frances H. Arnold’s Reply!

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I wrote to Prof. Arnold and the other 2018 Nobel Laureate women to congratulate them and included a link to my last post:
On Oct 5, 2018, at 11:43 AM, Sonja Srinivasan
> wrote:

Dear ladies,
I was so inspired to read about your wins that I blogged on it! Hugest heartfelt congratulations, and thanks for being so inspiring to women around the world, even in different fields (I am an opera singer and writer).
https://thewomenofletters.com/2018/10/05/women-nobel-laureates-the-ultimate-women-of-letters/
Very best wishes,
Sonja Srinivasan

And here was her response. I feel so lucky, grateful, and am thrilled beyond belief!!

Frances H. Arnold
Wed, Nov 14, 7:39 PM (19 hours ago)
to Sonja

Dear Sonja,

Thank you. I am still stunned by it all. And digging through thousands of nice messages.
It’s a good year indeed for recognition of women.
Viva la evolución!
Frances

Frances H. Arnold
Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry
California Institute of Technology 210-41
Pasadena CA 91125 USA

2018 Women Nobel Laureates: The Ultimate Women of Letters

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This week’s announcements of the 2018 winners of the Nobel Prize have been heartwarming and inspiring due to the three women who have been nominated. Groundbreaker Donna Strickland (one of only three women who have ever won the prize in physics), Renaissance woman Frances H. Arnold (one of only five women to win the prize in chemistry, and as much a hero in her personal life as she is in her career), and brave survivor-turned-activist Nadia Murad (one of the younger Nobel recipients at just age 25, mentored by another extraordinary woman, Amal Clooney). Evidently, the Nobel nomination committee is becoming more attuned to the aware of the dearth of talented women receiving prizes or even just receiving adequate acclaim for their work in general. Dr. Strickland was so generous as to compliment her male colleagues, saying that her co-recipients also deserved to win the prize – one can only wonder how many men would have done the same with their female colleagues. Consider this in light of physicist Alessandro Strumia’s comments at CERN. While I always try to look for a grain of truth in what the opposition says, and not immediately jump to a position, I do feel that his remarks and data were short-sighted, incomplete, foolish, poorly researched, and overall offensive to women and even the men who support us. Thankfully, CERN has suspended him. And sadly, he is not alone; there are numerous silent Alessandro Strumias out there, and cultures who subscribe to his viewpoint.

The other unfortunate occurrence, in my view, is the fact that the Nobel committee is not awarding a literature prize this year. This is due to the sexual assault scandal among the nominators. While I can understand there is turmoil on their end, this shortchanges writers who deserve to win the award. It shortchanges readers and literature-lovers all over the world who look up to the literary firmament to inspire them in their daily lives. It’s a shame when sexism has to get in the way of people getting their due credit, be it in physics or writing.

Let’s hope Monday’s announcement for the Nobel Prize in Economics includes a woman.

Celebrating 6 Years!!

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Dear Readers,
That time of year has come (well, came!) to remember the origins of this blog and celebrate another anniversary. Begun as a pet project and as a way to converse with a scholarly friend, the blog has taken me in greater directions than I could have imagined. Thanks to you, dear readers and writers, for making this blog a worthwhile endeavor. And to anyone thinking of blogging—do it!
Best wishes,
Sonja

Interview with Journalist Ian Shapira

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Today’s post is an interview with Washington Post journalist and fiction writer Ian (pronounced “eye-an”) Shapira. Journalism is its own unique form of writing, and fiction is as well. But is there any overlap between the two? How can one genre inform the other? We will explore this in depth below. I conducted this email interview with Ian, a classmate of mine at the Warren Wilson MFA program, who also shares my conspiratorial sense of humor!

TWOL: Tell us a little bit about your own background in journalism.
IS: I started out in the mid-1990s writing for my high school newspaper, Pandemonium, at the Louisville Collegiate School in Kentucky. My best friend and I were co-editors and we decided to have the staff do all sorts of hard-hitting pieces like testing which was better, Krispy Kreme or Dunkin Donuts. I think we also wrote serious stories — one was about Gorbachev’s visit to the city and I’m pretty sure we covered that. I do remember once that, in haste to make deadline, I misspelled the name of the newspaper in the banner at the top of the front page. “Pandemomium,” it said. Amazingly, “Pandemomium” came out on or about Mother’s Day.

When I got to college, I wrote for The Daily Princetonian, starting out as a news reporter before going on to write lengthy arts and pop culture essays. (Major shout-out to my editor, Marshall Heyman, who taught me so much.) During my summers, I interned as a reporter at a tri-weekly newspaper in Bardstown, KY called The Kentucky Standard (where I shot photos for my own articles and developed them in something called a “dark room”!), The Washington Monthly magazine in Washington, D.C., and The Boston Globe in its Living/Arts section. After graduating from Princeton in 2000, I got an internship in the Style section of the Washington Post. That fall, I was supposed to go Columbia University to attend its MFA program in non-fiction. But the Post hired me and [I ended up] forgoing an MFA program.

TWOL: Even in journalism, the best articles tell a story. How do you shape a nonfiction story?
IS: Whenever I’m writing a lengthy story for the Post, I think first about what point the story is trying to make. Then, I look at my reporting to see if there’s a pithy scene that I witnessed or can reconstruct that would make a good “lead” — the first paragraphs of an article that can draw readers in. From there, I tend to think about stories chronologically. How did it all start? And then go from there. But there’s no single right way to tell a non-fiction story, especially in books and literature.

TWOL: And now the flip side – you are also a fiction writer. How does your background as a journalist shape (or not shape) your fiction?
IS: Let me make it clear: I still consider myself very much of a hobbyist when it comes to fiction. I haven’t even published anything yet. At Warren Wilson, I feel a bit like an imposter, a basketball player, for instance, sneaking into a baseball team’s practice. I will say that my journalism career has given me a natural impulse to write “reality-based” fiction and pursue subjects that I’ve researched well. I have to know the language, the right verbs, nouns and adjectives, what people wear and what they eat. Once I feel fluent in the characters and language of a story, then I can feel like I have the authority and velocity to write. This is true for my journalism at the Post and very true for my attempts at fiction. If there’s any advantage to having been a Washington Post reporter all these years, it’s that I can write pretty fast. I can churn out the rough draft. And once I have a rough draft to work with, then the revision and the re-writing comes. This, frankly, is pretty fun. Especially cutting. I love to cut. (My editor at the Post may think otherwise, but I swear, it’s true!)

TWOL: You’re certainly not an impostor, though every writer feels that way! Do you see any overlap between fiction and nonfiction writing, personally, or are they two completely different things for you?
IS: I think the best narrative journalism tries to achieve the same goals as all fiction — making readers feel something deeply emotional. Short stories and novels are all about the pure story, the poetry of language, but much of journalism, especially in the age of Trump, is about accountability and setting facts straight. These are not so much “stories” but articles. And yet, some of the very best magazines and newspapers — The Washington Post, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Los Angeles Times, Wired, the list goes on — all routinely publish deeply reported “stories” that can feel like fiction but are, in fact, non-fiction. The structures and elements of those pieces will have traditional journalism nuggets like “nut grafs” high up in the article that explicitly tell you why the story is important, and might even give you a bunch of data — information that wouldn’t really necessarily be in a piece of fiction. So, if there’s overlap between the two genres, it’s that we both want to rip your heart out and keep you reading for as long as possible. Let me also add that I don’t think you need to write 8,000-word narrative articles to accomplish this. Some of my favorite “stories” in journalism are not that long at all, maybe 1,000 words or even less. But they still have a narrative arc.

At the Post, we have to be extremely judicious from paragraph to paragraph, making sure that the articles read fast and that we do the best we can to keep readers’ eyeballs moving. I think the same should be true for fiction, especially literary fiction, even “hard fiction.” So, I try the best I can to ensure that my attempts at fiction have a certain level of propulsion and momentum. The risk, obviously, is that you go too fast and you wind up writing stories or fiction devoid of any emotional power and character depth. Some of my favorite fiction writers are Adam Ross, Ottessa Moshfegh, Colum McCann, Sally Rooney, and Elena Ferrante. (I’ve been obsessed with this short story published this year in The Sewanee Review — edited by Adam Ross — called “Beautiful People” by Lisa Taddeo, a journalist/fiction writer.)

TWOL: Very interesting point about tradeoff between speed and emotional depth! With nonfiction and journalism, you already have a narrative arc laid out for you in that you know what has happened, so the task is how you tell it. However, with fiction, you have to create the narrative arc as you go. And also the characters. Can you talk a little bit about this?
IS: One of the reasons I like fiction so much — both as a reader and aspiring writer — is that I don’t know what will happen. I suppose that many fiction writers outline their stories or novels in advance, knowing what they’ll write every step of the way. I haven’t done this yet, mainly to avoid cornering myself and preventing twists and character development that might happen organically, from paragraph to paragraph. In my Post stories, I tend to know where things will go from start to finish mainly because I’ve done so much reporting and have sold my editor on a complete package. But in fiction, sometimes I don’t know where a story will go until I’ve got a rough draft and even then, I’ll take a look at it and say: This stinks. Let me re-write the last two-thirds so the story will end up in this new place.

TWOL: That’s always part of the fun of writing, seeing how a story unfolds on its own in ways you didn’t plan! Any other thoughts or comments?
IS: Since I write all my Post stories in the third-person, one of the things I am doing at Warren Wilson to make myself take even more risks is that I am working on a collection of short stories all written in the first-person. It’s rare that I pen first-person essays for the Post. (My favorite was this one about my late dad and daughter: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/parenting/wp/2014/06/11/my-dad-died-one-month-before-my-daughter-was-born-here-is-how-my-family-honors-him/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.0bc176212e56.) It feels very new and uncomfortable to me. And the longer I’ve been at Warren Wilson, the more I am learning about the craft of point of view and the pitfalls of first-person. This is where I must thank my first supervisor, C.J. Hribal and my current supervisor, Sonya Chung, for pushing me to make sure my narrators are not over-narrating and being annoying. Which brings me to my final point: I feel so grateful for the friendships and mentorship of Warren Wilson. I learn so much from fellow students, especially during workshop, and I take those lessons and feedback and incorporate them into my own work.

TWOL: I, too, have had to learn a lot about point of view as I had done a lot of academic and social science writing, which requires a very “neutral” or objective narrator. That’s very admirable and bold to take that risk to write in first person. Doing things like that is the sign of someone who is truly committed to art, in my opinion. Thank you, and happy writing, Ian!

The Silver Lining to the #MeToo Movement

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Would that it did not happen. Would that millions – no billions – of women did not face some sort of sexual harassment or discrimination or molesting on a daily basis around the world. If only it did not involve power, and women feeling threatened for their jobs or their lives. But unfortunately, this has been a part of women’s lives probably since the beginning of time, and we are in a period where so much of this sexual harassment has come to the forefront, starting with the Harvey Weinstein scandal. It was quite disturbing to see how many of my friends had posted “MeToo” on their Facebook pages, friends from all around the world. So the scale of this problem is immense and acute. But as with any bad or traumatic situation, is there something positive that can come of it? I think so. Here are some thoughts on the silver lining to the #MeToo movement and the spate of cases of sexual harassment that we have been hearing about so much lately.

-It cuts across class and all social differences. Everyone from multimillionaire Gwyneth Paltrow to a waitress at Denny’s can relate. It affects athletes (as we have seen in the Larry Nassar cases), young journalists (think Charlie Rose), seasoned professionals, and women of all colors. Therefore, we see the universality of the issue.

-It normalizes the experience of sexual harassment. Notice that I did not say it normalizes sexual harassment. What this means is that women do not need to feel alone in what they have suffered. One of the most difficult things for any victim of an abusive situation is feeling alone and isolated. Certainly nothing can take away our individual sufferings. But there is some healing that comes when we see we are not alone.

-It brings feminism back to its core values of gender equality and non-discrimination of women. In the recent decades, I feel that feminism has often gotten ridiculous, focusing on dissecting words (i.e. herstory instead of history, which if you know its Latin roots has nothing to do with gender), radical feminism, academic feminism, an obsession with sexuality and sex practices, and everything that is extreme, esoteric, and individualistic. Now that we see the widespread phenomenon of sexual harassment, we have to step back and ask ourselves questions about relations between men and women, and how women are treated as a whole in a society. It makes feminism accessible to everyone, not just someone who’s white and upper middle-class in an Ivy League school, or someone funky and pierced and tattooed in San Francisco. Therefore,

-It has a collective impact and makes institutions rethink policies. As above, since feminism in the recent decades focused so much on individualism, we are looking at women’s issues as a whole now and what kinds of programs and policies and rules will benefit the majority of women, and hopefully all women.

-It gets men involved with the discussion. I will say that there are and can be indeed gray areas in terms of male behavior toward women, and a range of behaviors that women will accept. (For example, some women may feel flattered when men comment on their body, but it can depend on whom, and some women may feel extremely harassed by such behavior.) However, men need to be aware of their own actions and behavior, the possibility that they will be misread, informed about respecting healthy boundaries and limits, and calling out other men who do not respect women and abuse their power. Many men are simply not aware of the power that they hold, that they are abusing it, or simply not aware of how women may feel inferior in certain situations. We cannot have a discussion about women without men. This was the great fault of radical feminism, not including men. Not all men are abusers or harassers. Many men are allies and supporters, friends and lovers.

-It has an impact on men who behave badly. They are getting forced from their jobs, positions of power, and most importantly, urged to seek treatment. While we have to be careful not to conduct a witch hunt and immediately oust men without hearing the full story and their side of the story (history is rife with examples of those accused being put to death or punishment very hastily), there are countless cases of multiple women coming forth with evidence against men, or even individual women who have proof. Women need to be believed when they come forward with a report of harassment. Institutions need to trust in them, rather than covering up, as Michigan State so sickeningly did with Larry Nassar. Consider the Stanford rapist case with Brock Turner and Judge Aaron Persky. After his lenient sentencing of the rapist, people protested and eventually voters in California recalled the judge. This was a successful move by the people and the law. We mustn’t have knee-jerk reactions to things. But we have to understand cyclical behavior in men, the abuse of power, and be aware of the existence of predators.

-Women do not have to feel guilty for their sexuality and sensuality. A woman has a right to be beautiful in whatever way she sees fit, be it high hemlines or a hijab. We need to take the onus off of women for the predatory behavior of men. This is not to say women should not be wise; I am still an advocate of young college women not getting drunk and going off with men at parties or otherwise, and believe in personal responsibility. There is some truth to what Camille Paglia has long said. But a woman should not feel that she does not have the right to express herself just because some creepy man will make comments or make her uncomfortable. Female sexuality holds tremendous power, and that is a universal truth. Men should not punish women or make them and feel comfortable for that power.