MARSHALL INSTITUTE Blog

UCSD’s Dr. Danny Widener is faculty director of African American Studies Minor and teaches African American history, cultural studies, and twentieth-century political radicalism.  He began his educational career at the Echo Park-Silverlake Peoples’ Childcare Center.  He studied at Berkeley and New York University.  He has written on the politics of black culture in postwar Los Angeles, black-Latino and Afro-Asian issues, and the Korean War.

“Focusing on the lives and work of black writers, visual artists, musicians, and filmmakers, Daniel Widener tells how black cultural politics changed over time, and how altered political realities generated new forms of artistic and cultural expression.” More…

A section from Dr. Daniel Widener’s Duke University Press book:

In a letter addressed to his friend Arna Bontemps dated 1926, Langston Hughes declared, ‘‘Only a subsidized Negro Film Institute, or the revolution, will cause any really good Negro pictures to be made in America.’’8. Although the 1970s arrived without the revolution in tow, something akin to the former took hold with the development of a community of independent black filmmakers a˜liated with the University of California, Los Angeles, film school. Known variously as the ‘‘L.A. School,’’ the ‘‘L.A. Rebellion,’’ or simply as an informal grouping of African and African American film students present and active in Southern California between 1970 and 1982, this creative cohort marked a milestone in black cultural politics in general and the history of black arts in California in particular. For while poetry projects, jazz collectives, and community arts projects existed throughout the country, only Southern California produced a sustained, multigenerational community of black artists working in the medium of film. Beyond this, the working-class, Third Worldist orientation of the Los Angeles school, its dual concerns of experimental aesthetic strategies and openness to radical politics, and its commitment to developing a black cinema beyond and opposed to commercial filmmaking content and techniques, avected a fundamental transformation in the character of black evorts to contest the visual representation of African Americans by Hollywood. 

The general outline of the Los Angeles school has been told elsewhere and requires only brief recapitulation here. As Ntongela Masilela notes, the Los Angeles school incorporated two overlapping groupings that took hold following the establishment of the ethno-communications program at UCLA.

The first included Burnett, Haile Gerima, Ben Caldwell, Larry Clark, Jama Fanaka, Pamela Jones, and Abdosh Abdulhafiz, among others, while the second, later, cohort included Billy Woodberry, Julie Dash, Alile Sharon Larkin, Zeinabu Irene Davis, Barbara McCullough, and Jacqueline Frazier. Generating approximately two dozen films between 1970 and 1982, the Los Angeles school achieved an unusually direct link between African America and the revolutionary energy of the Third World. Incorporating elements drawn from post-revolutionary Cuba and Brazilian Cinema Novo, as well as British documentary realism and Italian neo-realism, the films of the Los Angeles school were produced in an explicitly politicized context characterized by excitement at the films emerging in the course of the worldwide struggle for national liberation, a parallel disgust with the blaxploitation fare of Hollywood, and ongoing intellectual engagements with Third Worldist theorists such as Frantz Fanon and Amilcar Cabral, as well as critical European thinkers such as Georg Lukács and Bertolt Brecht.

As nearly all of the scholarly studies on the Los Angeles school observe, the films made by this cohort demonstrate a relationship with the revolutionary engagements of third cinema.  As an artistic form developed by cultural producers embedded within an unfolding moment of mass political activity, third cinema shares more than a few points with the history of avant-garde jazz. Like free jazz, third cinema was cast as inherently revolutionary in both content and form. Like proponents of free jazz, proponents of third cinema produced manifestos, challenged the economic structures that retarded artistic production, and proposed a redefinition of the artist from an individual to a part of the collective. Both set ideological standards that proved di˜cult, ultimately, to achieve. Both cast originality as a fundamental imperative. Bob Bradford and John Carter decided to play original compositions exclusively. In a similar vein, Charles Burnett recalled the ‘‘tremendous pressure’’ to be original that he and his peers placed on each other, describing the sanction they placed on those who came back with ‘‘a film that was a cliché or ordinary or something that someone had seen before.’’  Both third cinema and avantgarde jazz established links between Third World decolonization and the antiracist struggle of the internal colonies of North America, and it is relatively easy to draw a link between the a˜nity of a figure such as Haile Gerima for black America’s ‘‘historical credentials of revolt’’ and the inspiration artists such as Ahmed Abdul Malik, John Carter, and Horace Tapscott found in Africa. It is unsurprising, then, that the works of the jazz avant-garde would occupy an important place in the films of Billy Woodberry, Larry Clark, and Barbara McCullough.

Perhaps more important, third cinema sought to turn unequal circumstances of production from a disadvantage into a principle. Rejecting both the commercialization of Hollywood and the quest for artistic ‘‘perfection’’ of the European avant-garde, filmmakers such as Julio García Espinosa called for an ‘‘imperfect’’ cinema for ‘‘those who struggle’’ that would highlight the process of social contradiction over the celebration of results. Part of this process would involve the broadening of who would make films, how they would be made, and by which criteria they would be evaluated. Films concerned with social reality were more than likely to have a documentary dimension and to use lighting, shot composition, and editing choices that reflected the financial and material conditions of their production. Here it is easy to see a link between third cinema and Burnett and Woodberry, with their semiprofessional casts, nontraditional cinematography, and narrative irresolution. It is also easy to understand how a New York Times critic could dismiss Killer of Sheep as ‘‘amateurish’’ and ‘‘arid.’’ Americans are as unused to films about real people as they are to dignified and serious depictions of African Americans.  Even before the inclusion of atypical forms of cinematic presentation, the combination was too much. 

The films of the Los Angeles school thus emerged from a setting in which the possibilities for an art of liberation, as well as the boundary between ‘‘art’’ and ‘‘life,’’ could be debated and assessed. The latter concern animated the formal properties and circumstances of production. As Clyde Taylor and James Snead observe, Los Angeles police o˜cers interposed themselves as extras in Haile Gerima’s production Bush Mama (1979). In a film partially about police repression, lapd o˜cers searched and interrogated the cast and crew as they set up their equipment one day, unwittingly providing a cinema verité opening for the film.  Mike Murashige has criticized the scholarly tendency that cites this anecdotal aspect of Gerima’s production at the expense of assessing the full complexity of representational strategies in the film. 

Although this critique has merit, the story of the lapd’s interference with Gerima’s film is important, both because it reflects the continuing problem of a police force bent on behaving as an army of occupation and because it reflects a long history of police interference in the avairs of black artists.

Without great evort one can find fifty years of organized hostility, whether in the form of Chief Parker’s assaults on the interracial jazz world of Central Avenue, police surveillance of the Pan Afrikan People’s Arkestra, or the FBI’s ill-fated and embarrassing evort to intimidate the rap group N.W.A. following the release of the song ‘‘Fuck tha Police.’’

 EXCERPT – Chapter 8: How to Survive in South Central: Black Film as Class Critique

about Lou-Lou Igbokwe-

I was born and raised in New Jersey, the fourth of five children of two Nigerian immigrants.  I am currently a senior at Dartmouth College, where my concentration is African and African-American studies, English, and Theater. I am the chair of the Black Underground Theater Association (BUTA), and editor-in-chief of Black Praxis Literary Magazine.  I was awarded a Senior Fellowship to write and produce a play about the constructions of black womanhood.  “Obamanation” is the second play I’ve ever written, and the first I’ve submitted to a national contest.  I’m extremely thankful for the opportunity.

In your award winning play, “Obamanation”, you have put a laser pin spot on two individuals the day of President Obama’s inauguration.  Cleo is a black woman and Peter is a white man.  You have even cited Amiri Baraka’s landmark play “The Dutchman” as inspiration for your script.  Did you achieve what you set out to accomplish?

With “Obamanation,” I set out to critique the idea that we were suddenly in a post-racial America.  I think I can say I accomplished that, but I realize I did so by invoking age-old conversations about interracial dating and employing various stereotypes.  It’s always interesting to see what aspects of the script people react to, whether it’s Cleo’s blunt word trauma or Peter’s unbridled, almost naïve, idealism.  People want to know who is right, whom they should identify with, and whom I identify with.  But what Cleo and Peter say to each other isn’t as significant as the moment in which they say it.  The fact that we still laugh, scoff, or cringe at some of the dialogue means we haven’t really transcended this thing called race.

If you were alive at the time to have been able to see the 1964 premiere of “The Dutchman”, what would you imagine to have been your response?

I first read “Dutchman” my sophomore year of college.  I hated Lula, pitied Cliff, and sensed trouble from the very beginning.  I finished it with a sense of uneasiness; Baraka had successfully enraged me in 2007.  In 1964, mid-Civil Rights Movement, I can only imagine it would have roused my inner revolutionary.

Did you happen to see the 2009 film “Obsessed” starring Beyoncé Knowles?   Any thoughts on the political message or the so-called irresponsible aspects of the thriller plot?

Honestly, I hesitate to even attempt to answer this question because I thought the movie was pretty ridiculous. One-part-beautiful-two-parts-crazy-blonde-woman is so enamored with handsome-professional-black-family-man that nothing can stop her except super-loyal-sassy-beautiful-but-equally-crazy-black-woman.  Is there a political message?  Perhaps.  Was it intentional?  Probably not.  Were there irresponsible aspects to the plot?  Most likely.  Did I expect otherwise?  Not really.  There’s a lot there I could attempt to unpack, but at the end of the day it’s a “thriller” starring Beyoncé Knowles.  This is the same woman who made “Carmen: A Hip Hopera,” I’m not sure socially responsible movies are on her list of priorities.

What draws you to write for the theatre and what writers do you admire?

There’s nothing like writing for theatre.  To experience people speaking your words, living in a world you created, and seeing others react to that world is absolutely thrilling and completely gratifying.  I’ve always loved writing, but I wasn’t really introduced to theatre until college so I must admit that I draw most of my inspiration from television.  With that said, Larry David is absolutely brilliant in my book.  But my greatest theatrical influence has to be Suzan-Lori Parks; I adore her work especially because it’s just as alive on the page as it is on stage, and that to me is the sign of fantastic writer. 

If you had thirty minutes with Michelle Obama, what questions would you ask her?

I actually had the opportunity to speak with Michelle Obama very, very briefly.  A perk of going to school in New Hampshire, when President Obama first announced he would run for office, Dartmouth was an official stop on the campaign trail.  There was a massive crowd, but somehow my friends and I managed to be front row.  Good thing too because Michelle Obama approached us.  It was surreal.  She asked us what it was like to go to Dartmouth, and said she knew what it was like to be a black woman at an elite institution.  Then with a wink urged us to use every resource our school offered and moved on to shake hands with the rest of the screaming crowd.  It was a transformative moment for me, and if I could get thirty minutes with her I’d thank her for the advice, and continue that conversation.  But then I’d want to lighten the mood so I’d probably ask.  What is her favorite episode of Cosby Show?  Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye?  Big Luther or Skinny Luther?  ”Do The Right Thing” or “School Daze?”  Denzel or Will Smith?  You know, stuff like that. 

What are your ambitions in life?

Career-wise, I’d like to be a successful writer. I want to write sitcoms, continue with theatre, and maybe write novels someday. Overall, I’d like to become the woman my mother raised me to be. I’d like to never resign in the face of adversity, laugh more than I probably should, and remember that the difference between a blessing and a burden is the grace with which I carry it.

Do you believe in luck?   Do you believe in destiny?   Do you believe in the significance of coincidence?

I believe in each of those. I think my relationship with God has something to do with that. I think He has a plan for all of us, greater than even we can imagine. So to me luck, destiny, and coincidence are just different words to express what is beyond our comprehension.

Roger Reynolds

“Of all American composers now active on the scene, none possesses a voice more distinctive or sense of purpose better defined than does Roger Reynolds… [His] rhythmically fluid manipulations of wondrous textures more than meet a mere sybarite’s needs.”     Mike Silverton, Fanfare, November/December 1996

So many of your compositions apply threads of theatre, digital signaling, dance, performance video, and real-time computer “spatialization”, can you please describe how does this mix organically come into multidimensionality synthesis?     

It is often stated that you meld language with the spatial aspects of music.

My exposure to music began at a rather late stage of life (for any life engagement requiring a high level of skill). I was fourteen when I first heard a recording of pianist Vladimir Horowitz playing a Chopin Polonaise. It quite literally stopped me in my tracks. 

As it happened, then, I went through a degree program in Engineering physics before finding my way back to music, discovering that I could actually write it more successfully than I could perform it.

This rather a-typical path meant that a number of things were true: I brought to my music making a larger, less musico-centric view both of expressive content and of methodology.

It was natural for me to draw quasi-architectural plans for the pieces I wanted to write, to draw on anything in the world that interested me and to find a way to convert these engagements with the world (especially perplexing ones) into music.

In short, music was a large metaphorical “space” for me. Sounds move around us in life. Why should they not move around in music? My non-traditional background caused me to ask unconventional questions, and put  things together that might not normally engage. And of course my engineering background caused me to plan engagements carefully rather than to wander into them by chance.

Your landmark piece from 1961-62, The Emperor of Ice Cream, startled many music critics and much of the serious music world.  Can you reflect on how the work was misperceived?

I don’t think it was mis-perceived so much as not expected. I was a co-founder of a notorious new music festival in Ann Arbor: ONCE.  In this context, rather unconventional theatrical work would sometimes occur, and I wanted to explore music-theater for myself. I looked through books of American poetry and came upon a short and evocative poem by Donald Hall. He was teaching at the University of Michigan (and has become a major figure now). I went to him with my ideas. He blessed the project and so I began.

Hall’s text became a template for the musical form, and I used a “glossing” technique to elaborate the images of the poem sonically. Several of the eight vocalists would sing similar phrases at the same time. Rhyming but not identical words. The singers were also moving on the stage, and the musical score specified where everyone was (as well as what they were doing) at every moment. It was, at that time, unprecedented. Interestingly, one of the Twentieth Century’s major European figures, Gyorgy Ligeti, did a similar sort of piece just about the same time …  but slightly later: Aventures

In 1988, you created Whispers Out of Time, an experimental string orchestra work which earned the Pulitzer Prize.  How did John Ashbery’s poem figure into your composition?

When I go to a new environment, I try to do something there that connects me to the character of the place. In the late 80s, I was offered the Valentine Professorship at Amherst College. Emily Dickinson had been an Amherst resident, so, when Karen and I went there, we visited her house, and I started reading through Helen Vendler’s book of American Poetry. I came upon Ashbery’s “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror” and was stunned. I realized that, reading in the evening, I would think that I had grasped what a passage meant. The next morning, that “understanding” would have evaporated. The poem was maddeningly interesting and elusive.

As I have noted, I like to write music – or try to – about things in the world that are perplexing. Ashbery’s poem concerns an encounter that he had with a work by the Italian Mannerist, Parmigianino, a work to which his poem’s title refers. Parmigianino’s idea was to cut a wooden sphere in half and to paint upon it, an optically distorted self-portrait, as though one is looking into a barber’s mirror.  Ashbery’s poem concerns the relationship between an artist and his or her world, also the way that memories and portrayals shift over time.

At one point in his poem, Ashbery refers to the Mahler Ninth Symphony as “death itself”. I looked for the passage that he cited and realized that it was itself a quote from Beethoven. So my approach was to name and shape each passage in my work in accord with a succession of ideas in the poem, and to shape the harmonic pallet so as to bring into my contemporary world, the sensibilities of these composers from the past. I would never have, could never have thought of the subject or its treatment were it not for John’s poem.

Roughly ten years ago, Mode Records released Watershed, the first DVD in Dolby Digital 5.1 to feature music composed expressly for a multichannel medium.  What were the challenges specific to your idiom while designing a composition for multi-channel performance?

Since the time of Emperor, I have been continuously interested in the spatial dimension of music. I read a lot in the psychoacoustics of spatial perception. When I started the Center for Music Experiment at UCSD in 1972 (It has now become the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts which resides at UCSD’s Calit2 facility.) I began to experiment with making music for quadraphonic tape machines, which were fairly common then. I did a set of experimental compositions called VOICESPACE, using unusual vocal production and texts that were spatially distributed in a manner meant to increase the structural and expressive impact of the music.

One longed, then, for the possibility of high quality multichannel playback, but it was difficult to achieve. Later, with the introduction of home entertainment systems and DVDs in the mid-90s, it became practical to make widely available music conceived and realized as spatially choreographed. So, in truth, there was no “design” necessary at all. I have been doing this sort of thing, literally, for decades before 5.1 surround sound systems became available. The DVD medium simply presented that work already done and that in progress.

The thing that was really demanding was editing the three videotapes so as to create an interesting flow of visual perspectives. I had worked closely with my friend and colleague, Steven Schick in developing Watershed, and wanted to make sure that the representation of his performance (UCSD TV had, by chance, taped his première performance at the Mandeville Auditorium.) was elegant. Making a script as to how the three tapes were to be intercut was an interesting challenge. One does not normally realize how very rapidly the point of view in a contemporary visual medium changes.

Check it out some time. It’s very fast.

You have given highly celebrated master classes to many generations of composers and musicians.  What have you noticed in passing years with respect to the thinking of younger musical artists?

The sense “in the air” of what it is appropriate to be doing shifts continuously, though rather slowly. Social and cultural contexts are also understandably powerful. So what young composers in one decade would have felt imperative might seem irrelevant to those in another. It is certainly the case that young composers in the US do not have the same sort of prospects, of social acceptance, of career path, as those, say, in Europe. American society, as is obvious to all, I would think, has a deeply utilitarian attitude towards everything, including art. Musicologist Richard Crawford pointed out in his Bloch Lectures at UC Berkeley, that even in Colonial times, American musicians were paid for their direct services (conducting choirs in churches or bands in town squares on Sunday afternoons) but not for writing the music played then.

So the main thing I would say about generations of musicians over the years not so much the way they have changed, but rather the way in which they have not. There is still – and this is especially so at UCSD – a bracing presence of idealism and dedication that seems never to wane. Of course, one also needs to grant that there is less security now about probable (as distinct from possible) futures. Young musicians recognize that what they are doing is not likely to bring them terribly reliable or comfortable lives. They do it anyway.

What new compositions are you addressing in 2010?

Over time, in many creative lives, the interest in innovation wanes with time, and one becomes more concerned with “mastery”, with doing what one already knows, but doing it better. I am not immune from that tendency, but I try to keep it, and myself off balance in various ways.

Over the past decade and a half, for example, I have gotten engaged in a number of areas that were new for me. I began to collaborate with perceptual and cognitive scientists about what listeners actually hear (as sometimes in marked contrast to what composers and theorists of music believe ought to be heard). I have also become more interested in the production of musical events in non-standard spaces, especially, for example, in the great public spaces that exist, for example, in Washington. I have written works for he Great Hall of the Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress, and for I. M. Pei’s East Wing of the National Gallery of Art. The impact of hearing music in such majestic (and unlikely) venues – with the indispensable assistance of contemporary dissemination technologies – is a fascinating way to revitalize our sense of the dimensions (literal and figurative) of musical experience, and also to attract listeners who would not be likely to attend traditional concerts in traditional venues.

Just now, I am preparing the first large section of a work called SEASONS for a première in Washington on the 7 March. It will be in the atrium of the National Gallery’s East Wing, and the individual performers will be widely separated, their sounds transformed and distributed over a 12-channel sound system. This is the culmination of work I have been doing as Composer-in-Residence at Calit2, particularly with Music PhD student, Jaime Oliver.

At the same time, I am working on a collection of short works for solo instruments. For each, there is a pair of pieces I call “images” to suggest that they are meant to be more evocative than to connect in narrative fashion. The members of each pair are complementary: “articulate” or “evocative”. So far, I’ve done cello, contrabass, and piano. Soon, guitar, flute and violin will follow.

There are various other projects, a cello concerto, a set of piano études, completion of SEASONS, a new string quartet entitled not forgotten, and so on. What most interests me at the moment is the process of collaboration and the rewards of risking a relaxation in control or authority (individual autonomy) in return for being able to venture with new allies into previously unknown territories.

http://www.rogerreynolds.com/

http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/arts/08-09RogerReynolds.asp

http://musicweb.ucsd.edu/people/people.php?cmd=fm_music_directory_detail&query_Full_Name=+Roger+Reynolds

Kelly Kovacic, Finalist, National Teacher of the Year

 You have taught at Preuss Charter School at UCSD for seven years and have witnessed firsthand the dynamic success of Preuss students – all from underprivileged, low-income homes and destined for college.   What are the essential ingredients to the Preuss “magic formula?”?

I would not call it “magic” because it involves vision, planning, dedication, and a lot of hard work.  First, we provide smaller learning communities and smaller classes for students. Second, we prioritize and support professional development and collaboration. Third, we invite parents and guardians into the educational system, recognizing the vital role they play in their child’s education.  Fourth, we set high academic and community service standards for students, while providing the proper support for success such as after-school and Saturday tutoring and study sessions.

What we do at Preuss demonstrates what can be done to close the achievement gap. It takes the tireless and enlightened effort of our teachers, administrators, parents, peers, and surrounding communities, but our students deserve nothing less.  Our nation’s public education system faces some extraordinary hurdles. The strategies we apply to make Preuss a functioning and successful educational community can be used by other schools and communities throughout the nation wishing to close the achievement gap.   

How did you choose the study of History when you were a student a Thurgood Marshall College?

One important reason I chose to major in History was because of the wonderful social studies teachers I had in high school. In addition, I was drawn to the discipline of History because it engages and encourages students to think critically and look at the complexities of our society through multiple perspectives.  As a History teacher, I likewise encourage my students to explore, question, and grapple with historical events and their enduring social and cultural impacts.

Now that you are one of four Teacher of the Year finalists, will there be changes in your work and in your life during the next twelve months?

As a California Teacher of the Year and one of the four finalists for National Teacher of the Year, I have had and will have the opportunity to do quite a bit of traveling to speak on behalf of our students, teachers, and public education.  I just returned from a week in Dallas, Texas, where Teachers of the Year from every state met to discuss education policy and best practices.  I will also be traveling to Washington D.C., Space Camp in Alabama, New York City, and Japan, and to schools throughout California.  This is all in addition to my teaching schedule and responsibilities at Preuss.  It’s a busy but exciting time.

Do you think the Charter School movement will impact educational methods and institutions across the nation?

The Preuss School UCSD is a public middle and high school chartered by the University of California, and the San Diego Unified School District.  It challenges traditional education models in its dedication to provide an intensive college preparation curriculum for students below the poverty line who will become the first in their families to graduate from college.  Our students come from communities scattered across San Diego County and represent a rich diversity of cultures, languages, traditions, and academic skills.

Effective and quality charter schools definitely have the ability to influence educational methods. Due to the fact that charter schools often operate with greater autonomy, school communities are able to mobilize and work together in new ways to achieve success.  As laboratories for innovation, they offer the opportunity to create and try new programs and strategies that can develop into best practices, and can be disseminated to other schools for implementation.

Should more college students think about going into teaching, knowing salaries are not stellar?

Definitely.  I am extremely proud to be a teacher and I take every opportunity to promote my profession.  But, like most teachers, I meet people who have a perplexing view of our profession.  They understand the importance of education, but fail to see the connection between a quality teaching environment, student achievement, and a healthy nation.  They expect professional performances by teachers, but do not view them as full-time professionals.  They entrust their child to teachers throughout the most formative years, but do not encourage that child to choose teaching as a viable and meaningful career.

The future of our nation is dependent on qualified, well-educated, and well-trained teachers entering the profession.  It is an incredibly powerful experience to make a difference in a child’s life, to see a student’s light turn on, and to be part of a journey from the neglected neighborhood to the university and beyond.  Do I wish I made more money?  Sure.  But having the opportunity to help a young woman who has been shuffled from foster home to foster home, or a young man who lives with his family in a homeless shelter, successfully navigate a rigorous academic curriculum to become the first in their family to graduate from high school and attend college is a form of compensation that cannot be equaled.

If you were to write your memoir at age 50 or 60, what title would you choose?  Or if not a memoir, what about a manifesto?

“Keep on Teaching:  My Life of Learning in the Classroom”

 For more information, please visit http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/awards/01-10Kovacic.asp and http://preuss.ucsd.edu/

If this is your first time visiting or living in California, what are your impressions after two months of San Diego and UC San Diego?

Seeing that it is my first time visiting California, I often find myself in awe of its magnificent scenery. Although I attend school in Atlanta, GA I am originally from Chicago, IL. Both locations are considered big cities, and neither consists of mountains or “real” beaches.  In Chicago, beaches surround Lake Michigan and Atlanta has no beaches at all!  I must admit that I’ve enjoyed all of the bonfires.

How do you view the League of Historic Black Colleges and your primary experiences at Spelman or Morehouse Colleges?

My attendance at an HBCU has become pivotal to my identity in the sense that HBCU institutions educate their students about their history; a history often overlooked in many other institutions.  As a student at Spelman College, I have been made aware of the lack of minorities in the corporate world.  Spelman College and other HBCUs alike serve to decrease this deficit by creating and inspiring black intellectuals.

With the advent of the Obama Presidency, many political analysts have hailed this American era as “Post-Racial”.  Do you endorse the description and the assessment?

It is ludicrous to assert that the Obama presidency has evoked an era that is post-racist. Although Obama’s election became a pivotal stepping stone for the African American race and the past efforts of our ancestors, it does not contribute to the cease of racism in America nonetheless.  What about those who voted against Obama, solely as a result of his skin color?  We must not forget about the racist cartoon that depicted two policemen killing a monkey in response to Obama’s new stimulus plan.  Although, racism may not be as overt as it was in past American history it is still intricately woven within the process of American standardization; a reflection of American ideology.

What book, film, or any specific college research made a big impact on your thinking in the last twelve months?

During Spring semester 2009, I researched Western ideology and it’s affect on the African American conceptualization of beauty. It was during this time that I fell in love with presuppositions and their invert presence within our everyday lives. Upon the completion of my research, I was inspired to continue research on the topic and others alike upon graduation.

How can UC San Diego students become more motivated to attend Spelman or Morehouse in our on-going exchange program?

Show the students video of HBCU life! Although the notion may seem rather simple, it is true that many are often convinced by visualization.  As exchange students, we can ramble on ALL DAY about how Spelman/Morehouse College is the best institution in the world, but actual video or footage would essentially prove our point.

Should Rap Music fade away or reinvent itself in 2010?

As a Spelman woman, I can go on and on about how rap music is degrading and the dire need for some kind of reinvention, but at the end of the day I will continue to listen to it because it is essentially inescapable. Rap music and other music as well have become engraved within American culture and society. Therefore, it is not a matter of reinventing “rap music,” but rather a matter of reinventing society and its train of thought.

Were you surprised that Oprah decided to end her show after 25 years?  Has Oprah changed American TV and cultural affairs by and large?

As a Chicagoan, I must admit that I was rather disappointed upon hearing the news of her show’s cancellation, but as I reflected over Oprah’s accomplishments within and outside of the show, I realized that it is indeed time for her to branch out with other endeavors. Similar to Alexander the Great, Oprah “came, saw, and conquered”. The success of her show was vital in the sense that it showed African Americans, particularly African American women, that the sky is the limit. She changed American TV by paving the way for other African American talk show hosts/hostesses such as Tyra Banks.  Beware Oprah!  Tyra is coming for your crown!

What were your thoughts when President Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize?

I must admit that I was rather shocked after he was awarded, but I think it is ironic for people to create ruckus over an award that recognizes peace efforts. Complaining about Obama’s recognition will not revoke his award. Americans should just state their opinions and move forward. Hopefully, future efforts towards peace will assist in Obama “earning” this recognition.

Is surfing an over-rated activity? Certainly, that must be the view in Atlanta?

Unfortunately, I have not had a chance to surf during my stay.  Therefore, it would be unfair for me to judge the recreational sport.  However, I’ve heard that the best waves come in the morning!

In Memory of Eric Bowling (UC San Diego B.A. ’04)   

A Human Tornado of Creative Energy

 There will never be another Eric Bowling, a young playwright, theatre artist, children’s literature advocate, and aspiring author.   For his age, he redefined the word prolific.  He was a human tornado of creative energy.  By anyone’s count, Eric Bowling completed nearly thirty full length plays plus two screenplays, and one musical book (“Star Wars: The Musical Comedy”).  Some of his significant play titles:  THE STARS, TORN ASUNDER (about astrophysics and social action on campus), LAW AT THE END OF THE WORLD (a spiritual journey through Judaism against a backdrop of modern terrorism), and SARCOPHAGUS (an existential drama with bold, jagged imagery).  In addition to that splendid output, Bowling gave generous production dramaturgy to twenty three shows in and around San Diego.   Within the greater UC San Diego community, Eric Bowling had dramaturged Shakespeare’s A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM for Professor Jim Winker, THREE SISTERS for director Kyle Donnelley, Lanford Wilson’s FIFTH OF JULY for Professor Steven Adler,  Allan Havis’ RESTLESS SPIRITS at San Diego Rep in 2005,  Sarah Ruhl’s CLEAN HOUSE for Sam Woodhouse at San Diego Rep in 2008,  and most recently Todd Salovey’s San Diego Rep production of John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer Prize play DOUBT.  Eric Bowling went into the hospital on Christmas morning 2009 with a high fever.  Sad to state that he fell into a coma and passed away the next afternoon.   

For most of his life Eric Bowling had health challenges and he was valiantly undeterred as he gave to the performing arts and to many friends, colleagues and mentors.  Mr. Bowling (UC San Diego B.A. ’04 Magna Cum Laude and Highest Departmental Honors)  directed his dramatic stories toward serious moral, psychological, and civic ideas.   His plays command respect for their strong ambitions, earnestness, and philosophical complexities.  He had found enduring inspiration from Ibsen’s ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE, mythology, and the contemporary political dramas of Athol Fugard.   Mr. Bowling had an unstoppable talent toward extended dialogues about the nature of life’s meaning and also the common transparencies of human folly.   He loved all regions of good and popular literature from J. K. Rowling to Lanford Wilson and he was a vital enthusiast of Star Wars culture.   At UC San Diego, Mr. Bowling had been exceedingly active in UC San Diego’s theatre program and also in the professional theatres in town (e.g. San Diego Rep,  San Diego Black Ensemble,  Compass Theatre, Moonlight Stage, Cignet Theatre).   Mr. Bowling worked extensively with UC San Diego graduate playwrights  Mat Smart, Ken Weitzman, and Rachel Axel.  He had many important faculty connections including Professors Marianne McDonald, Athol Fugard, Kyle Donnelly, Les Waters, Jorge Huerta, Adele Shank, Jim Winker, Todd Salovey, and Allan Havis.   Besides the aforementioned artist names, Mr. Bowling collaborated with other leading names in California theatre:  Brendon Fox, Delicia Turner-Sonnenburg, Antonio “T.J.” Johnson, Ruff Yeager, George Ye,  Sean Murray, Michael Schwartz, Amy Scholl, Henry Jordan, and Carolyn Keith.    Mr. Bowling took on numerous  crew assignments and cabaret duties at UC San Diego.    

Mr. Bowling rallied to support his classmates, his colleagues, his friends, and anyone in need of a shot in the arm.   He was always unpredictable, self-effacing and wise, often tender, sometimes shocking, and at rare moments thoroughly magical.  Last autumn, he had entered San Diego State’s graduate program to study children’s literature.   He was a guest lecturer and a teaching assistant at Grossmont College.  Further,  Mr. Bowling was an elected associate member of Comic-Con International (CCI) and lent so much energy to  CCI.  His first publication of a serious essay (on the fictional life of Harry Potter) is found in Scribbulus and can be accessed by the following link:

http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/features/essays/plotholemotherfather

Mr. Bowling was 32 years old and hailed from Lakeside, California.  He received a UC San Diego Theatre & Dance Department Chair’s Award for Distinguished Service Award upon graduating.  His list of favorite plays include Rice’s THE ADDING MACHINE, Sophie Treadwell’s MACHINAL, Tony Kushner’s ANGELS IN AMERICA , Paula Vogel’s HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE and Chekhov’s THREE SISTERS (he owned 27 translations of that classic).  Although he was a Warren College graduate at UC San Diego, knowing the many years he had corresponded with playwright Allan Havis (Marshall Provost),  the Marshall Institute is extremely proud to give tribute to Eric Bowling’s memory.

Your undergraduate research investigated stratification mechanisms “beyond race and class” in a homogeneous, newly-restructured urban high school.  What were the challenges to this exploration and how did you tie in social networks and social capital?

Social networks, and the social capital that often is gleaned through membership in social networks, are key concepts that underlie my senior thesis (Making Plans: Educational Stratification Beyond Race and Class). I became interested in these issues through volunteering at local schools in the community through Thurgood Marshall College and through working with Dr. Bud Mehan at UCSD CREATE. Through talking to students before I even thought of doing a thesis, I noticed that even though they came from similar (low-income minority) backgrounds, there were noticeable differences in how they talked about the future and the kinds of decisions they made relating to their futures). This catalyzed my desire to learn more about inequality within socioeconomic groups. Building from my interest in learning more about the often- overlooked subtleties underlying educational inequality, I asked: holding demographics constant, what contributes to educational stratification? I was particularly interested in the pivotal adolescent-to-adulthood transition and its lifelong consequences on individuals’ life trajectories, I examined stratification mechanisms at play as high school students planned and prepared for their futures. Mostly through interviews with students in an academically-rigorous urban high school homogeneously comprised of low-income minorities, I found that social capital and informal social networks outside the school exerted a powerful dominance on students—over and above race and class. Most students expressed “high-status” post-secondary aspirations (I was amazed at the number of students want to be doctors and lawyers), yet had limited knowledge about how to actualize them; in contrast, the few students with “lower-status” aspirations (such as hairdresser or car mechanic) demonstrated expert knowledge on how to realize them. Most of the low-aspiring students’ information was passed down from members of their proximal social networks (like relatives and family friends), who typically held lower-status occupations. Importantly, high aspiring students’ limited knowledge was gleaned from distal sources such as the media. Thus, I argued that although the study of “between-group” inequality is essential in closing the achievement gap, more attention to subtler “within-group” stratifying agents like social capital, cultural capital, and social networks is also crucial in obtaining a more comprehensive understanding of educational inequality. In better understanding what stratifies students within groups, we can also narrow inequality between groups.

The main challenge during the course of my research was trying to put everything I learned into a cohesive, organized form—there was a staggering amount of interesting findings and patterns I encountered throughout my fieldwork and my number-crunching, and it was hard for me to condense it into one senior thesis. But while the flood of information was definitely a challenge, it’s also the beauty of research: it’s such a wonderful feeling when you go into the field—or find really good datasets—and become inundated with so many interesting, valuable, and important issues to be studied. Sociological research is especially fascinating—essentially, your “lab” is ubiquitous. It’s all around you. And part of the challenge—and fun—is to try to piece things together, or notice patterns, or somehow make sense of things and contribute to a better understanding of the very complex world around us.

Before Harvard, you worked at UCLA’s Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access (IDEA).   Was that experience mostly off campus and data related?

Most of my work at UCLA IDEA was on campus, at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education and Information Studies (GSE&IS). It was heavily data related and quantitative, as I worked with various state and national education databases and collaborated on multiple projects regarding educational access and equality for California’s underserved public school students with researchers, faculty, and graduate students at UCLA.

Our projects and publications targeted a wide array of audiences, and spanned multiple topics in education. For example, one thing we dedicated our work to was making data about California’s public schools (and about access and equality) accessible to the public—in particular, to parents, community organizations, and grassroots organizations. There is also very interesting work being done on the concept of “multiple pathways” to education—the idea that schools should provide students with skills for both college and careers, and not just one or the other.

One of my main involvements with IDEA was the publication of the 2009 California Educational Opportunity Report, where we highlighted the serious problems of educational access, opportunity, and mobility low-income students of color in California face. We discussed such problems in light of the current economic situation, and presented the report before legislators at the State Capitol. This was a very valuable experience because it demonstrated the powerful connection between research and practice/policy, which is, to me, an extremely crucial connection that I plan to be mindful of through my future research.

Frequently social theorist and media pundits bring up the notion that, with the Obama Presidency, we are now a post-racial society.  How do you view that idea?

I find the post-racial debate in light of the Obama presidency an interesting one, but ultimately disagree with the notion that we now live in a post-racial society. In fact, I think the overwhelming public attention on Obama’s race during his campaign and following his victory is, in itself, testament to the idea that race is still very salient today, and that we indeed do not live in a post-racial society. The sheer amount of contention in the post-racial debate also reinforces this idea. While it may be argued that progress in eliminating racism has been made and that the average individual in society may not identify as being a “racist,” racism still exists in society, albeit through subtler forms. This is evident, for example, through the housing market (where African-Americans are likely to be steered away from residing in predominantly non-minority neighborhoods through efforts of landlords and real estate agents), the job market (where audit studies have shown that African-Americans are significantly less likely to be hired even when they have identical credentials as their White counterparts), and schools (where test score gaps and college attendance rates by race speak for themselves). The Obama presidency is by no means an indicator that race issues are less important today. There is still much progress to be made to narrow racial inequalities in society.

Many academics wonder if there is any significant difference between East Coast and West Coast higher education.  What are your thoughts on the question?

This is a very interesting question—and perhaps one that I haven’t yet figured out entirely for myself. I have noticed, however, that the Ivy League tradition and identity are very salient here in the East Coast—there’s a very classic, traditional, and unique “Ivy League” culture that I’ve noticed here, as evident through, for example, very well-preserved and very old traditions. I don’t think we have such a culture back at the West Coast. It seems to me that something that stands out in West Coast higher education is the excellent quality of the public higher education system, as evident through the University of California system (which has been referred to as a “model” for U.S. public institutions). Personally, I strongly feel that my experience at UCSD strongly attests to that.

Superficially, there’s an entirely different feeling I get from the physical surroundings of UCSD versus Harvard (which are my two main units of comparison when I think of “East Coast higher education and “West Coast” higher education). When I walk around UCSD, I see modern and unique buildings and structures (the Marshall dorms, Bear statue, Geisel, and the Biomedical Library immediately come to mind) and a campus that is very spacious and quite enormous. When I walk around Harvard, I am surrounded by very traditional buildings made of red brick, some of which are older than the country itself! Buildings here don’t seem to be as diverse as those at UCSD, but there is a very classic kind of charm to them. Architecturally, this makes for a very interesting contrast.

And, of course, there’s the weather. There is just about no other place in the country with weather as beautiful as breezy, sunny San Diego.

Do you believe that in the next twenty five years our country will make considerable positive strides to addressing the problems of latitudinal status and inequality in schools and in our communities?

Yes. Despite the vast inequalities that exist in our schools and communities today, I believe it’s important to remain optimistic (though realistic) and continue striving to make these positive strides towards obliterating social injustice. Of course, given that inequality is so deeply rooted in our society, this will be no small feat. However, my experiences so far as someone dedicated to these issues convince me that there is a substantial body of scholars, community members, policymakers, and other leaders dedicated to this cause. The fact that the dedication to dismantle social inequality in schools and communities permeates beyond academic disciplines and beyond the walls of academia is, I think, extremely valuable. I believe it is key for us to approach these issues from multiple angles and strategies. And although there is a great deal of very impressive work being done towards this cause, as I have seen through my experiences at UCSD, UCLA, and now at Harvard, it’s important to increase awareness of educational and social inequality to the greater population. This sense of civic duty and social responsibility and awareness is something that I felt was such a valuable asset of Thurgood Marshall College’s philosophy. I learned a lot about addressing issues of social change through my involvement with The Preuss School and at UCSD CREATE. And I have seen the power of this social commitment through non-academic avenues as well—through community grassroots organizations, community outreach programs, parental activism, and social policy. So yes—while there is much progress to be made, I believe we will see significant social change in the next twenty-five years, and I look forward to witnessing and contributing to this change throughout the course of my career.

Queenie Zhu graduated summa cum laude from the University of California, San Diego with dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in Sociology and Human Development and a minor in Education Studies. Guided by Professors Hugh (Bud) Mehan and Jeff Haydu, her Sociology honors thesis explored stratification mechanisms “beyond race and class” in a socioeconomically homogeneous, newly-restructured urban high school, and investigated the powerful influence of social networks and social capital on students’ post-secondary trajectories. As an undergraduate, Queenie was also actively involved in research at UCSD’s Center for Research on Educational Equity, Assessment, and Teaching Excellence (CREATE). Prior to joining Harvard’s department, she worked at UCLA’s Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access (IDEA). Queenie’s academic interests include urban sociology, stratification and inequality, social networks, race and ethnicity, and education. Specifically, she is interested in employing mixed-methods to study the intersection of socioeconomic status, social networks, neighborhood, culture, and education, and how these are manifested in life chances. (Courtesy of Harvard Sociology Department)