BY CASEY ROEPKE '21
On Saturday, April 21, students from the Five Colleges gathered on the Hampshire College Library Lawn to celebrate Holi. Students threw colored powder at one another, soaking their clothing with blue and green and filling the sky with bright plumes of pink and orange. The water gun fights and hoses sprayed festival-goers with plenty of water, ensuring the rainbow of powdered colors saturated the skin of the students themselves.
BY MAYA HOFFMAN ’20
The Mount Holyoke College Arab Student Union (MHCASU) hosted “Queer Arab Narratives -‑ Past and Present” in the Mead Common Room on Wednesday, April 18. The event was meant to “explore stories, organizations, works and personalities that have dominant, explicit or implicit, queer associations throughout history in Arabic culture, literature and music,” according to the event’s Facebook page.
EMMA COOPER ’20
Ìrìn Àjò, an opera composed, written and directed by Five College music professor Bode Omojola, debuted on April 12 and 13 in Chapin Auditorium. The title of the opera is a Yoruba phrase meaning “life’s journey,” which is fitting as the opera details the story of Káyòdé, a Nigerian engineer who leaves his fiancée Ìyábò to immigrate to the United States in search of a better life.
BY MAYA HOFFMAN ’20
On Wednesday, April 11, Maurice Carney gave a lecture titled, “Conflict in the DR Congo: What Hinders Peace?” which addressed the relatively unrecognized conflict currently happening in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The departments of politics and international relations, as well as the McCulloch Center for Global Initiatives, sponsored Carney, the co-founder and current executive director of Friends of the Congo. The nonprofit organization was formed in 2004 “to work together to bring about peaceful and lasting change in the Democratic Republic of Congo,” according to the organization's website.
EMMA COOPER ’20
Mita Hosali gave a presentation on her position as the deputy director at the United Nations News and Media Division on Thursday, April 5 in Gamble Auditorium. Hosali began with a quote from Dag Hammarskjöld, who served as the United Nation’s second security-general: “The United Nations was not created to take mankind to heaven, but to save humanity from hell.”
BY MAYA HOFFMAN ’20
La Unidad MHC hosted “Noche Latina” on March 24 as a fundraiser to help Puerto Rico deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, on Mar. 24. The event, which included dinner and after party, aimed to “educate the public about Latinx culture and the natural disasters that affected Puerto Rico,” according to the event page.
BY EMMA COOPER ’20
President Trump announced that the United States will impose trade restrictions on China in a speech last Thursday, according to The New York Times. The decision came after the conclusion of a seven-month governmental investigation, which concluded that Chinese companies have engaged in intellectual property theft of American technology and trade secrets.
BY CASEY ROEPKE ’21
The phenomenon of fake news, spotlighted recently in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, is not a new occurrence. Russia’s alleged interference during the campaign, via Facebook and other social media sites, was not the first time news was fabricated to alter the results of an election. In an episode of “Backstory,” a weekly history podcast, historian Mark Summers discussed the practices of “Gilded Age-era elections” and argued that past politicians consistently published lies about their opponents in newspapers in order to sway public opinion. However, before examining the effects of fake news in the U.S. and around the world, it is important to precisely define “fake news.”
BY MAYA HOFFMAN ’20
Stephen Biddle, professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University (GWU), gave a talk on “U.S. Policy and Strategy for Syria and ISIS” on Feb. 23. Biddle’s areas of expertise are “U.S. National security policy, military strategy and the conduct of war, technology in modern warfare [and] recent operations in the war on terror,” according to the GWU website. He has a Ph.D. from Harvard University and has been on the GWU faculty since 2012.
BY SAVANNAH HARRIMAN-POTE ’20
Feb. 12-18 — Maslenitsa
Maslenitsa is an Eastern Slavic folk holiday that takes place one week before the Russian Orthodox Lenten. According to NPR, the holiday is now tied to Christianity, but was initially celebrated by sun-worshippers to commemorate the lengthening of days and upcoming harvest of the spring season. Maslenitsa is often referred to as “Butter week” because of the abundance of blini, a warm, round Russian crepe that symbolizes the sun; they are usually drenched in butter.
BY MAYA HOFFMAN ’20
On Jan. 30, Donald Trump delivered the State of the Union in the chamber of the United States House of Representatives. The speech was long, lasting approximately an hour and 20 minutes. Pauses were filled with loud standing ovations from one half of the room, while the other half remained seated. Despite the theatrics of the ceremonial event, Trump had a somber task at hand; as the second year of his term began, the president attempted to establish the State of the Union, the goals of American foreign policy and the fate of immigration under his administration.
BY GABBY RAYMOND ’20
The introduction of the Mi Gente floor will mark the third Living Learning Comminity (LLC) which welcomes students of Lantinx descent. This floor will join two floors opened in the fall of 2017: Mosaic floor, which welcomed all people of color (POC), and the Shirley Chisholm floor, which was specifically for students of the African diaspora.
