Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder visited the Odyssey Bookshop on April 18 to speak on his newest book “Rough Sleepers: Dr. Jim O’Connell’s Urgent Mission to Bring Healing to Homeless People,” published in Jan. 2023 by Random House. The novel details Dr. O’Connell’s life’s work: creating a healthcare program for the homeless community in Boston, Massachusetts.
Karla Biery ’23, a critical social thought major and Spanish minor, is always thinking about “how our communities are built … and the ways that they’re split up.” Throughout her three years at Mount Holyoke, Biery has taken a combination of dance, art, religion and Spanish courses, eventually deciding to major in CST with a focus on how people connect with one another, as well as what divides them.
The Five College Film Festival returned for the first time in person since 2019, featuring screenings of films made by students and recent graduates of the Five Colleges on April 1, 2023, at Amherst College. An awards ceremony was subsequently held, in which two Mount Holyoke students were awarded prizes. Ayu Suryawan ’23 won Best Documentary Prize for their film “Loving, Moving Boy” and Olive Rowell ’24 won Best in College for Mount Holyoke with their film “Photo Album.”
On Friday, April 7, students, faculty and staff gathered in Hooker Auditorium to listen to Mei Lum ’12, the keynote speaker for Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Heritage Month. While AANHPI Heritage Month is usually celebrated in May, Mount Holyoke celebrates it in April while students are still on campus. This year’s theme is “Rewriting the Narrative.” The goal is to fight against Asian hate and emphasize the achievements, resilience and joy of the AANHPI community.
Over the last 100 years, the Mount Holyoke College English department has invited college-aged poets and professional poet judges to the College to participate in the Glascock poetry contest. This year the judges — poets Hoa Ngyuen, Eileen Myles and Evie Shockley — split the prize and awarded it to Dartmouth College senior Tom Bosworth and Pratt Institute senior Portlyn Houghton-Harjo.
On March 29, the department of film, media and theater hosted a screening of the film “Where the Pavement Ends,” followed by a student-moderated discussion with filmmakers Jane Gillooly and Khary Saeed Jones. “Beginning with a 1960s roadblock that divided then-white Ferguson from black Kinloch, the film depicts a micro-history of race relations in America.”
As a part of Building On Our Momentum Community Day, on March 28, 2023, Gaye Theresa Johnson gave the inaugural lecture for the critical race and political economy department. Johnson is the author of multiple books and an associate professor at UCLA, teaching courses in the departments of African American studies and Chicana/o studies. She specializes in topics of cultural history, spatial politics, race, racism and political economy.
Newbury, a senior at Suffolk who is majoring in English with a creative writing concentration and a minor in philosophy, says that he has been interested in poetry since the age of thirteen thanks to Savannah Brown, who posted her poetry on Youtube when Newbury came across it. Poetry with a “tragic element” also inspires Newbury, who cites Plath and Keats as other inspirations for the way he writes his poetry.
On March 2, the Odyssey Bookshop hosted Lydia Moland, author of “Lydia Maria Child: A Radical American Life,” published in October 2022 by the University of Chicago Press. Moland, a professor of philosophy at Colby College, provided a brief but comprehensive overview of Child’s work as an active proponent of abolition in the 19th century.
Thomas Bosworth, a senior at Dartmouth College, always knew that he wanted to be a writer. He never expected to become a poet, but after taking a creative writing class he “was bitten by the [poetry] bug and couldn’t stop” discovering new passions and interests through his craft. Now, his work has made him a contestant in the 100th annual Glascock Intercollegiate Poetry Competition.
Photo courtesy of Jonathan Michael Square.
Jonathan Michael Square, above, talked to Sandra Russell’s gender studies and art class on Zoom.
By Jesse Hausknecht-Brown ’25
Managing Editor of Layout & Features Editor
Content warning: This article mentions slavery.
Jonathan Michael Square, an assistant professor of Black visual culture at Parsons School of Design, believes in “democratizing higher education.” His avenue of doing so was to turn one of his classes, Fashioning the Self in Slavery and Freedom, into an ever-evolving social media-based project. He uses social media platforms — including Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube — to share the work he has done around slavery and fashion, which he believes allows for more engagement than traditional styles of teaching. Square visited Professor Sandra Russell’s class Art, Public Space and Social Justice Activism via Zoom on Wednesday, Feb. 22.
As described on its website, “Fashioning the Self in Slavery and Freedom predominately explores the intersections between slavery and fashion. This digital humanities project is also an entry point for exploring larger questions of race, identity and equity.” During the talk, Square defined digital humanities as “the use of the internet or digital platforms as an educational tool,” although he stated that the kind of work he does is “a little more dynamic” than traditional digital humanities practices.
“Sometimes you have to use terms to make yourself legible to academics, so sometimes we find ourselves using the term digital humanities even though it’s more social media,” Square said.
Russell has wanted to have Square talk to one of her classes for some time, but the timing never worked out. She has been inspired by Square’s work for years and was grateful that he was able to visit.
“One of my goals in designing this course was to foreground artists, academics and activists’ utilization of public spaces — be they brick and mortar, digital or otherwise — to engage audiences’ political, social and historical imaginations,” Russell said. “Jonathan’s work across digital platforms, as well as his curatorial work, does exactly this, and I think this is a real way to build solidarity and resistance.”
In an interview with Mount Holyoke News, Square explained that he is usually asked to present research from his upcoming book and doesn’t often get to give a talk about his methodologies. “I love presenting my work to new audiences because it forces me to clarify my thinking on my own practice,” Square said. “It was a real treat to be able to stand back and reflect on how I use social media as an educational tool.”
Square was also a 2021-2022 Curatorial fellow at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and formerly instructed at Harvard University, where he taught versions of the Fashioning the Self course.
“Fashioning the Self” also exists in the format of two zines, one of which can be viewed online. The other is available for purchase in print. “I also have a bone to pick with academia. I think academic writing is a bit dry and sometimes inaccessible and many academics aren’t really interested in engaging with larger audiences,” Square said. “I wanted to create content that to me felt academically rigorous but was also interesting and readable and even fun.”
Madeline Greenberg ’26, a student in Russell’s class, enjoyed the content of Square’s talk and described his work as “incredible.”
“Square also has his course syllabi available on his website, so anyone is able to almost take the class themself,” Greenberg said. “This aspect of his work is incredibly interesting to me as it feels like we learn right alongside him and that his work is pushing against traditional and elitist ideas of higher education.”
Siobhan Meï ’11, a lecturer at Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, also visited the class during Square’s talk. She and Square co-founded a digital humanities project called “Rendering Revolution: Sartorial Approaches to Haitian History,” which is, as described on its website, “a queer, bilingual, feminist experiment in digital interdisciplinary scholarship that uses the lens of fashion and material culture to trace the aesthetic, social and political reverberations of the Haitian Revolution as a world-historical moment.”
Meï first conceptualized “Rendering Revolution” and then shared her idea with Square when she invited him to give a talk at UMass. They then began to work together to create the project which launched in summer 2020.
In his interview with Mount Holyoke News, Square described “Rendering Revolution” and “Fashioning the Self” as “sister projects,” with three important differences. “‘Rendering Revolution’ is focused on Haiti and, to a certain degree, the wider Francophone world. Secondly, ‘Rendering Revolution’ is supported by a transnational team of scholars that includes Siobhan, me, and a number of other Haitian and Haitianist academics and translators. Thirdly, ‘Rendering Revolution’ is a bilingual project. We publish all of our content in English and Haitian Kreyòl,” Square said.
During the talk, Square discussed the curatorial work he does, focusing specifically on an exhibit called “Slavery in the Hands of Harvard” which was housed in the Center for Government and International Studies at Harvard. Square talked about how using a non-traditional space forced people to engage with the work between activities or on their way to class.
“The show used contemporary art to explore Harvard’s connection to slavery. … The exhibition was in the hallway of a public building on Harvard’s campus … so it had a wider reach than a show in a traditional gallery space,” Square said.
Toward the end of the talk, students and participants joining on Zoom were invited to ask questions. One person on the Zoom call, who identified themself as a professor based in Florida, asked Square about the trend of race-related scholarship being politically repressed. “The study of Black history is underfunded and under assault, which certainly makes my work feel more necessary,” Square said in his interview.
Greenberg had an interest in fashion and social justice prior to the talk but hadn’t been sure how they could work together. “I had actually been discussing with my parents how on earth I plan to combine those interests. It seemed that I was trying to bridge an impossible gap but once I started learning about Jonathan Michael Square I realized that there is a world of possibility for the combination of fashion and social justice,” Greenberg said. “I am thrilled that the gender studies department hosted his visit and I look forward to following his work in the future through Instagram and Facebook.”
“Once I started learning about Jonathan Michael Square I realized that there is a world of possibility for the combination of fashion and social justice.
”
Russell’s only wish was for more time, given that not all the participant’s questions got answered. She was also grateful for the hybrid model which allows for people to visit a classroom space who may not otherwise be able to.
“I see Jonathan’s work as such a generous and hopeful way of reimagining and re-rendering ideas and histories. Part of the challenge of doing transformative intellectual work involves telling better, more accurate — and thus more liberatory — stories. This means finding ways to decenter hegemonic narratives and center the experiences of those who have been historically marginalized, silenced and erased. Jonathan’s work does exactly this,” Russell said. “By bringing it to wider audiences, I see him creating and co-creating powerful spaces for community, liberation and worldmaking.”
Dan Pagis’ poem entitled “Written in pencil in the sealed freight car,” which he wrote when he was 11 years old, is displayed in English, Hebrew, and Polish at the Belzec Victims Memorial. Photo courtesy of Mark Auslander.
By Emma Quirk ’26
Staff Writer
Content warning: This article discusses the Holocaust.
Dr. Mark Auslander gave a lecture entitled “Here in this Train Car: Holocaust Family Memory, Art-Making and Struggles for Justice” on Feb. 15, 2023. During the event — held virtually — he discussed his family’s history and the connectivity between marginalized communities. He also explored the impact and importance of the arts when it comes to culture and tragedy.
Auslander is a sociocultural and historical anthropologist, award-winning author of “The Accidental Slaveowner: Revisiting a Myth of Race and Finding an American Family” and visiting lecturer in anthropology at Mount Holyoke College.
This event is one of MHC’s antisemitism teach-ins that were launched in January of 2021. In her introduction to Dr. Auslander’s event, Vice President for Equity and Inclusion Kijua Sanders-McMurtry said that the College community has been “engaged in deep dialogues and interrogation of our own everyday work to disrupt and resist antisemitism,” for several years.
Auslander’s talk, held during Black History Month, touched on the similarities and linkages between antisemitism and anti-Black racism. Auslander also discussed the way white supremacist ideology harms both of these communities as well as the intersections between them.
The lecture began with Auslander speaking about his own family, particularly their experiences in the Holocaust. “Here in this Train Car” is a reference to “a terrifying moment in my family’s history,” where thousands of Romanian Jewish people, including his relatives, were forced onto cattle cars during a mass deportation to Transnistria concentration camps in the 1940s, Auslander explained. His father’s first cousin, Dan Pagis, was 11 years old at the time.
Pagis wrote a now famous poem about the car, called “Written in Pencil in the Sealed Freightcar.” The poem goes as follows: “Here in this carload / I, Eve / with my son Abel. / If you see my older boy, / Cain, the son of man, / tell him that I” — Auslander explained that it can provide different messages for readers.
“The text I’d like to suggest can be read in part as a powerful testimony of what it means to be Jewish in a post-Holocaust world. … Even in places of relative sanctuary, the possibilities of mass violence never seen entirely removed or off the table. … But at the same time, the poem … emphasizes the universality of the story of brothers,” Auslander said.
Auslander explained that neither Pagis nor his grandparents “[ever] discussed with anyone what transpired on board those terrible unheated trains … the poem is the only trace we have whatsoever.”
He is inspired by the way his cousin has fought for peace and justice and wishes to do the same. Art is a way to share, connect people and remember historical moments, both benevolent and malevolent. Auslander explained that it is vital in both “helping us reflect on unspeakable acts and struggles for tolerance and justice even or especially with the darkest walls of the sealed railway car,” but it can also remind us of “this world before the Holocaust.” The people, places and things that existed before are still important memories and aspects of culture.
Another notion that Auslander emphasized was the close tie between the fight against antisemitism and anti-Black racism, and that one of the ways to combat this struggle is through partnership. He shared an anecdote of his connection to Black poet, storyteller and essayist André Le Mont Wilson who gave his own book talk to MHC on Feb. 20, 2023. Auslander explained that the two found connections between their own family histories, and have since been “working together collaboratively, documenting [their] respective family narratives to a writing project that [they] hope to be a book.”
While there is a lot of tragedy in the history of the Jewish people, there is good that can be pulled out of it in the ability to empathize with and support others who are fighting for their own liberation, especially those who have experienced a similar nature of historical oppression.
“The very essence of our beings is not entirely grim or hopeless, which may seem paradoxical, but it’s the paradox that is life-sustaining. Because this experience can yield the most remarkable gifts, as is the case, for example, with my new friendship with André Wilson,” Auslander said.
Throughout his talk, Auslander spoke with candor about his privilege as a white man, and how he is working to better understand communities of color, particularly Black communities.
“I’m not joking when I’m speaking [of] myself as a recovering white guy, because I mean, I grew up in Washington, D.C., but I grew up in white Washington, D.C., and I knew very little of the Black majority city, even though my parents [and] grandparents and so forth, had been actively involved in the civil rights movement,” Auslander said. “I didn’t think of the centrality of race or anything like structural racism in other words, and so that was a process.”
In living in Central Africa for some years, connecting with his Black family members and with people like Wilson, he is working to combat his personal biases. He stressed that he believes this type of work is “a continuous process of learning.”
Toward the end of the talk, Sanders-McMurtry highlighted the work that the Jewish Student Union, the Association of Pan-African Unity and the Office of Community and Belonging have been doing to foster dialogue on campus. They then asked Auslander to discuss a bit more about the “importance of these ongoing efforts to bring groups together.”
He replied that interpersonal work is vital, but it is only the start. “It has to be sustainable, there really has to be groups working together, and everybody knowing that there’s gonna be a space when these groups come together for frank disagreements and discovery,” Auslander continued. “It’s very hard work to do this type of collaborative work because we are all exposing our most fundamental vulnerabilities. And it doesn’t seem fair to each party that we’re being asked to account for things that we don’t feel personally held [responsible] for. But we can’t make progress if all we do is go into a defensive crouch.”
One student who attended the talk appreciated this appeal for intergroup collaboration and the candor about inevitable obstacles. “I am a prospective history major so I think it is so important to, as Dr. Auslander discussed, push through the friction that arises when two very different groups work together and have conversations that deepen compassion and spark change,” Caroline Lamb ’26 said. “It is vital to future generations, and current ones, to work together and learn from our past mistakes so that we can all better understand that we share one world and can make it a better place.”
Auslander believes that students, faculty and staff must all put in consistent effort to do their parts to make change. “We’re extremely lucky that at a place like Mount Holyoke, there are so many people committed to making this happen, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy here, it just means that we have the freedom and the space to do some of the really hard work,” Auslander said.
Michael Wejchert discussed his book “Hidden Mountains” at the Odyssey Bookshop on Jan. 26. Photo by Lucy Isaacs ‘25.
By Lucy Isaacs ’25
Staff Writer
On Jan. 26, the Odyssey Bookshop hosted Michael Wejchert, author of “Hidden Mountains: Survival and Reckoning After a Climb Gone Wrong,” published in January 2023 by Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishing. Wejchert opened the event by sharing an excerpt from the book, described by his website as “the story of a climbing adventure gone wrong in a remote Alaskan mountain range, the impossible rescue attempt that followed and the fraught cost of survival.” After the reading, he fielded questions from the audience, many of whom identified themselves as recreational climbers, and went on to explore ideas relating to faithfully capturing true tales of survival.
Although Wejchert was not involved in the accident that his book recounts, he is a climber himself, having traversed mountains from Alaska to Peru, and is currently serving as a climbing guide with Cathedral Mountain Guides, based in New Hampshire. “Hidden Mountains” is Wejchert’s first book, but he is hardly a stranger to writing and publishing about adventure, having had articles featured in publications like The New York Times, Alpinist and Ascent.
His recent book recounts the true and harrowing story of four climbers who experienced tragedy while making their way through the Hidden Mountains of Alaska when a potentially fatal accident prompted a rescue mission that would last nine hours. Though he only read a few pages aloud, the atmosphere in the room was palpably tense as Wejchert described the conditions under which Emmett Lyman became severely injured, falling out of the view of the three other climbers with whom he had embarked on this journey.
After reading the passage, Wejchert was quick to reassure the audience that Lyman had survived the ordeal, though stated that he could not resume climbing as a result of injuries to his brain and spinal cord. Wejchert reported that Lyman stated that he would still climb if he were physically able to, and the other three people involved in the incident remain recreational climbers today, undeterred by the traumatic event.
Wejchert retold the story faithfully, choosing not to shy away from the more horrifying details of the accident. He chose to share that the other climbers had admitted to him that they were initially determined to make their way to Lyman, not to save his life, but to be with him when he died. Wejchert spoke about the difficulty associated with interviewing the survivors of such a traumatic event, stating that one of the four climbers had requested their name be changed in the book for the purpose of anonymity.
Wejchert gave immense credit to the satellite messenger device used by one of the climbers, which allowed the group to communicate a distress signal to rescuers. Wejchert extended further praise to the rescue team, who made their way to Lyman despite perilous conditions. They recalled a conversation with the pilot in which they were told that the fog was so thick that he had almost no visibility as he attempted to lower down a pararescueman.
When describing what he believes to be his primary responsibility as the author of another person’s story, Wejchet stated that his paramount concern was honesty. However, he admitted that despite his dedicated and detailed reporting, he can never know with absolute certainty what details of the event his book omits or mischaracterizes.
“It could have been more exciting, like a traditional thriller, but I appreciate the way he wrote it. It was clearly more important for Wejchert as an author to stay true to the story instead of throwing in a little extra flair as a means of engaging the reader,” Katharine Kurdziel ’25, who attended the event, said.
Towards the end of the evening, Wejchert expressed a desire for his book to initiate conversations concerning wilderness rescue resources and how they might be updated. Characterizing the outdoors as “trending,” Wejchert argued that an increased number of climbers necessitates a more modern approach to search and rescue, while also urging all climbers to be thoroughly prepared before attempting potentially dangerous excursions. Describing his own experience with search and rescue, he admitted that there's only so much small groups like his can do for injured hikers and climbers.
“It was definitely a little aggressive, but I think it’s also a necessary and effective commentary about how little funding goes into these projects,” Kurdziel added in reference to Wejchert’s stark honesty.
After the event concluded, Wejchert conversed with members of the audience and signed physical copies of his book, which are currently for sale at Odyssey Bookshop.
Throughout her life, Coretta Scott King wholeheartedly devoted herself to her politics. As an activist, King supported many social issues including the civil rights, feminist and queer rights movements. Understanding the interconnected nature of oppression, she believed that it was important to support and work alongside all minority groups in order to reach equality. She continued to choose self-love and kindness while fighting fiercely for an equal world for all.
Anyone can be a victim of a cyber attack. From targeted international students in November to Visiting Professor in International Relations Cyrus Vance and practicing diplomat Natalie Sabanadze, Mount Holyoke’s own community has lost information and money to scammers. On Friday, Jan. 27, students and faculty gathered in the Stimson Room to listen to author Keir Giles talk with Sabanadze about his new book, “Russia’s War on Everybody and What it Means for You.”
On Nov. 29, a workshop titled “Queer and Trans Inclusion in the Classroom and the Workplace” provided students and faculty with an opportunity to build community on campus. The event was described on Embark as one in which “participants [would] explore relevant LGBTQ+ history, contemporary LGBTQ+ dynamics within the educational context — including identity development theories, educational and social trends, and more — engage [with] concepts of allyship and advocacy and have the opportunity to apply these learnings to the Mount Holyoke community past, present and future.”
Roughly 50 Mount Holyoke students piled onto a bus to head to New York City on Sunday, Dec. 4, to see “Topdog/Underdog,” a play written by Suzan-Lori Parks ’85. The show is currently being revived at the John Golden Theatre after premiering off-Broadway in 2001 at The Public Theater and then first showing on Broadway in 2002. Parks won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the play, becoming the first Black woman ever to do so, New York Theatre Guide reported. Interim President Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum facilitated a talkback after the show with Parks and producer Debra Martin Chase ’77.
