(09/03/12 4:00am)
The camera zooms in on his hospital ID badge, pans slowly up his reclining body and focuses on the ever-present stethoscope of a doctor. For a moment, Dr. Martin Blake (Orlando Bloom) looks like he is the patient lying sick and vulnerable in a hospital bed. His face is pale, almost ghostlike against the white sheets, and his eyes are glazed over in a state of emptiness. But he is the doctor. He is the one who so carefully balances life and death in his hands. This is how we first see Blake in The Good Doctor, a 2011 Magnolia Pictures film that has finally been released on-demand and in theaters. The movie begins on the first day of Blake's residency in a southern California hospital. He is nervous and wants to prove himself to his coworkers. He prescribes medication to one of his first patients, Diane Nixon (Riley Keough), an 18-year-old suffering from a kidney disorder, and releases her from the hospital with strict orders to finish her medicine. To thank him for saving his daughter, Nixon's father (Wade Williams) invites Blake over for dinner. But Blake's feelings have grown for Nixon since the last time he saw her, and this peek into her home life only feeds his interest. Blake soon becomes obsessed with Nixon and when he visits her home again, he replaces her medication with sugar pills. She winds up in the hospital and Blake secretly continues to make her sicker, while at the same time developing a closer relationship with her. One night, Nixon suddenly dies from heart failure and Blake is left an emotional wreck. However, Jimmy (Michael Pe?+/-a), an orderly, finds Nixon's diary and reads all about her relationship with Blake. The film's trajectory changes and we watch as Jimmy blackmails Blake into giving him prescription painkillers. After watching The Good Doctor, I am torn. At its core, it is a demented and warped love story. It marks the invisible line where desire becomes obsession, leading to Blake's undeniably inhumane actions. In some ways, this works against the movie, as we are given no character to cling to throughout; we do not feel attached or responsible for anyone, not even the victims of Blake's cruelty. Bloom's acting was outstanding, especially because it is so different than some of his typical roles. He achieves a certain level of "creepiness" yet does not alienate the viewer. Keough's role was less memorable because she is in a hospital bed for most of the movie, but I feel like her role is less memorable and pronounced because it is not about her; she is a victim of Blake's actions and, therefore, fades into the background. Bloom fully supports the movie on his own, and the other actors, especially Keough, bring more out of his character and enhance the story, exactly what supporting characters should do. Pe?+/-a plays Jimmy as a dynamic and interesting supporting character. His role evolved as the movie progressed; he perfectly depicted the fun, lighthearted and joking orderly, but flawlessly transitioned into a deceiving character who took advantage of Blake's situation. The Good Doctor is a foray into the abuse of power, especially when blinded by obsession. But the film reminds us that love is not infallible. Once Blake gets hold of Nixon's diary, he destroys it, just like he destroyed her. He moves on with his life and she is forgotten, a silent victim in the ongoing tragedies of love.
(09/03/12 4:00am)
JustArts sat down with Associate Director of the Office of the Arts Ingrid Schorr who was eager to discuss several arts faculty members who will be joining the Brandeis community this semester. "My aim is to get them involved," Schorr told JustArts. "They're all collaborators and they all are interdisciplinary." Starting this year, Elizabeth Bradfield will serve as the Jacob Ziskind Visiting Poet-in-Residence and will also teach "ENG 109a: Directed Writing: Poetry." She is the author of two poetry collections, Interpretive Work (2008) and Approaching Ice (2010), and also has two more books coming out within the next year, along with several pieces that have been published in anthologies and journals. Bradfield's work has received widespread recognition, having won the Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry for her poetry in Interpretive Work and also receiving fellowships from many places, including Stanford University's Wallace Stegner program. In 2005, Bradfield founded Broadsided, a collaborative online press that brings literary work from journals into the streets to be shared with the public and posted around the world. Taking leave from Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Deb Todd Wheeler will spend the year working within the Fine Arts department and teaching "FA 4A: Three-Dimensional Design I" and "FA 110A: Senior Studio." Brandeis has also commissioned Wheeler to create large-scale public artwork on campus. Wheeler's gallery exhibits have consisted of work ranging from an installation of live ants to interactive power-generating pieces. According to Schorr, Wheeler is truly passionate about sculpture: "She's really interested in using spaces that she thinks are inert and putting artwork in them, like spaces on the staircases between the railings. That's what excites her." Lori Cole is the inaugural Charlotte Zysman Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities. Having earned her bachelor's degree from Brown University and both her master's and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from New York University, Cole is no stranger to academia. Her work at NYU included research on the artistic interaction between Europe and Latin America. She studied questionnaires about art in these locations in order to find out more detail about this transatlantic exchange. In addition to teaching, she is also a translator, and has written art criticism for artforum and the Journal of Surrealism and the Americas. Her class, "FA 160A: Global Surrealisms" will demonstrate her expertise in the art movement of surrealism and is only being offered this semester. Soyeon Lucia Kim comes to us primarily as an artist. She was born in Seoul, Korea and raised in Korea, Myanmar and the United States. She has had several exhibitions in New York and was most recently awarded the Carol Schlosberg Memorial Prize from the Yale University School of Art in 2007. She will be teaching "FA 3a: Introduction to Drawing I," "FA 3b: Introduction to Drawing II," "FA 107a: Beginning Painting" and "FA 107b: Beginning Painting II." She earned her B.F.A. from Rhode Island School of Design and her M.F.A. from Yale University. A statement from Kim on the Museum of Modern Art in New York's website reads: "It is the errors in communication that I find particularly interesting, and exploring the gap between the physical and the literal is at the crux of my work. ... Between that transitional gap lies the site of comedy and tragedy, function and dysfunction." Schorr has enjoyed meeting with several of the new professors, but has yet to have a chance to speak with each personally. One of the best parts for Schorr about getting to know these four artists (along with Cameron Anderson, about whom you can read in the interview column on the opposite page) is "see[ing] the campus through a newcomer's eyes," she said. "I gave Deb [Todd Wheeler] a tour of campus. We walked up the hill past Usdan and she just stops in her tracks and goes, 'they didn't tell me there was a castle here.'"
(09/03/12 4:00am)
Friday night on the Great Lawn, Carly Rae Jepson's "Call Me Maybe" played and groups of students stood in clusters on the grass. First-years, orientation leaders and other students all mingled together and checked out the different stations made available to them. The event, titled, "The Hitchhikers' Guide to Student Events," was designed to showcase all that the club, which sponsors programming throughout the year, has to offer. Student Events Executive Director, Rachel Nelson '13, explained to JustArts, "We just want them to know right off the bat [what] we do." At one table, there were Dunkin' Donuts munchkins and drinks set up. The table one over had carnival-style popcorn, already popped and bagged. Across the lawn, a table was set up to promote Thirsty Thursdays, an event in The Stein that serves beer and wine to upperclassmen, but also has plenty of food for other students. Student Events members dished out Stein classics, like onion rings and fries, and promoted this semester's Thirsty Thursdays, set for Sept. 13, Oct. 11 and Nov. 15. There were also two Twister mats laid out in the center of the lawn. Though mainly orientation leaders were playing at first, other students joined in as the night progressed. Student Events also parked their beloved Munchie Mobile, this time in the form of a mid-size SUV with the trunk popped open, at the event and enthusiastically explained to first-years that they drive around to each quad bringing late night snacks, like pizza, chips, drinks and candy. Andrew Flagel, senior vice president for students and enrollment, was also in attendance Friday night. In an interview with the Justice, he stated his support for Student Events: "This driving force of students being at the center of event planning itself breeds an amazing sense of spirit and these events really embody that," he said. "So, attending [their programming] is important but even their existence itself is so different than what other schools have during their welcome weeks, which are largely staged by administrators. Instead, what we have is really an expression of what we love most about Brandeis, selected, executed and designed by our students." This night was just the beginning for Student Events, who have many more exciting events planned for the year. Says Nelson, "I'm looking forward to the [fall] concert on Sept. 29 ... and for Louis Louis, our spirit week, in November because we have a lot of exciting and new things for that as well." Besides the organized activities, attendees also made their own fun. Groups of orientation leaders and first-years broke off into smaller groups and socialized on their own. Others circled up and started playing Mafia, an ice-breaker game where someone plays the murderer and the group tries to solve the mystery of who it is. When asked about the event, Tommy Clifton '16 said, "It's awesome. I had fun bonding more with my orientation leader and friends." Hitchhiker's Guide to Student Events was a great night for everyone involved, but the event really was another part of orientation designed to welcome the incoming class to Brandeis. "I hope that the first-years learn that Student Events is awesome and that we are always there to brighten your day," Nelson said. "We're there as a club to make the overall campus experience more bright, especially when you're tired walking to class early in the morning, but then you see donuts and your day is made."
(08/27/12 4:00am)
JustArts emailed with Prof. William Flesch (ENG) who teaches one of the most popular classes among humanities students at Brandeis, "ENG 33a: Shakespeare:" Flesch earned his B.A. from Yale University and his Master's and Ph.D. from Cornell University. He has been awarded several prizes, including the Lerman-Neubauer for Excellence in Teaching and Mentoring. JustArts: How long have you been a professor at Brandeis? William Flesch: Since, I am amazed to say, 1985. But don't tell anyone: they might think I was older [than] I really am. JA: What is your favorite class to teach? WF: "English 11a: [Close Reading: Theory and Practice]," which is a course on close reading: it's not how much you read but how deeply. We'll sometimes spend a month on a single poem. And that will feel rushed. JA: Why do you think it is important to study literature, for example Shakespeare? WF: Life is hard and gets harder. One of the things that make it worth living is thinking. Thinking can be about any number of things: poetic meter, math, philosophy, jazz, love, time, God, loss, art, Nash equilibria, political history, the physiology of vision, for example. Learning how to think about them deeply, to love thinking about them, is what education is about. If you do learn to love thinking about them, you'll get through many dark nights of the soul, and will have much to offer those you love as well. And, I firmly believe, you'll value more what should be valued in the world, and will tend more to do justice and love mercy (to quote the prophet Micah). JA: What makes your Shakespeare class so popular to Brandeis students? WF: Shakespeare! JA: What is your favorite work of Shakespeare's? WF: I go back and forth between King Lear and Antony and Cleopatra. JA: What are the highlights of your Shakespeare class this semester? WF: King Lear and The Winter's Tale. JA: Have you read any interesting books over the summer? WF: I am finally reading, and loving, Antony Powell's twelve-volume cycle [A] Dance to the Music of Time. And I thought Suzanne Collins' [The] Hunger Games trilogy, especially the first novel, was, though badly written, brilliantly plotted and worth, well, thinking about (talk about Nash Equilibria!). I liked Steve Erickson's These Dreams of You, about the arc of history from [Robert F. Kennedy] through [Barack Hussein Obama] via David Bowie and Addis Ababa with a little time travel thrown in. I read some Naguib Mahfouz and a really good story by Jeanette Winterson, "The Green Man." The always amazing Alice Munro had two stories in the New Yorker. So did F. Scott Fitzgerald, seventy-six years after he submitted it. And an unknown story by Sylvia Townsend Warner, author of the wonderful Kingdoms of Elfin, was recently found and published. Richard Moran's philosophical treatment of first-person experience, Authority and Estrangement, is pretty astonishingly good. JA: If you could be any literary character from any novel, who would it be? WF: Psmith, from P.G. Wodehouse's Psmith books, especially Leave it to Psmith. Psmith is better even than Jeeves, and Wodehouse (the inventor of both) is one of the great geniuses of twentieth century literature. JA: Why do you think Shakespeare's work has had such a lasting impact on world culture and literature? WF: Because it's the best thing ever. Because Shakespeare thought more deeply than anyone about the intersection of art and craft, depth and sheer skill, that's the center and origin of all our experiences as humans in a human world. JA: What do you think of modern remakes of classic Shakespeare plays, like West Side Story, Shakespeare in Love, Romeo & Juliet and other modern movies influenced by his plays? WF: I am all for them. I have to say I think Kurosawa is the best. And Kiss Me, Kate. I do like Susan Cooper's [Young Adult] novel King of Shadows. JA: What is your opinion on the conspiracy theories that Shakespeare was not who he claimed to be or was not the real author of the plays? WF: I heard he was born in Kenya.
(08/27/12 4:00am)
What do you get when you combine furry four-legged animals, marijuana, a unique family dynamic and a desert landscape? Well, I suppose you could get lots of results, but you also get Goats, a limited-release film that first premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January and premiered theatrically in early August. I had high hopes for Goats, mostly because I thought it would be a fun, learn-an-amazing-life-lesson type of movie. It turned out to be neither of those things. I spent most of the movie wishing something would happen and that someone would become more of a dynamic character. The plot of the film is fairly basic: Ellis Whitman (Graham Philips), 15 years old, is spending his last few days in Tucson, Ariz. before heading off to a prestigious East Coast boarding school. In Tucson, Ellis lives with his mother Wendy (Vera Farmiga), who is divorced from his father, Frank (Ty Burrell). Self-absorbed and seemingly unaware of the outside world, Wendy's laissez-faire parenting style often leaves Ellis to handle his own upbringing. She lives off of a trust fund and is more interested in mystical forces than paying the bills, which she leaves for Ellis to do. An already-strained relationship becomes even more difficult once Ellis leaves for school, which happens to be the same boarding school his dad attended. As in many divorced families, Goats shows how Ellis is caught in the middle of his parents, choosing between staying home in Tucson with his mother or attening the same boarding school as his father. By choosing boarding school, he alienates his mother, but he does not fit perfectly into his father's world either. The saving grace of this broken family is Goat Man, a house guest-turned-gardener turned pseudo-father figure to Ellis. Goat Man moved into the pool house and never left. After Ellis' real father left, Goat Man filled the void and became the only real father Ellis has ever known. Eccentric, free-spirited and earthy, Goat Man spends his time, besides growing marijuana, taking the family's two pet goats on long treks through the Arizona desert. Ellis joins Goat Man on his treks, bonding over a joint and having feeble conversations about the future. Goat Man does not hesitate to carry him on his back when Ellis' new hiking boots give him blisters. Yet, even though they obviously share a strong bond, while Ellis is away at school, neither Ellis nor Goat Man write letters nor pick up the phone, despite how much they both long to communicate with each other. But this already weird scenario isn't enough. Of course, a little teenage attraction is thrown in for good measure. Once Ellis gets to school, he encounters Minnie (Dakota Johnson), a "townie" who works in the dining hall and secretly borrows classic novels from the school library. Their relationship never takes flight, though Ellis acts interested and they share a few special moments. The movie plays up his interest in her, but leaves Minnie characterized as the local school whore. Minnie's character, much like Frank's, is an addition to the film that seems important, but adds nothing to the story. Instead, both characters detract from the relationship between Goat Man and Ellis, an unrealized father-son bond. Wendy never takes off her parenting horse blinders. At the end of the movie, Ellis is still just as confused and alone; there was struggle, but no growth. Unfortunately for first-time director Christopher Neil, who had previously served as a dialogue and acting coach on the sets of Star Wars and The Virgin Suicides, the best scene of the film was the backdrop for the credits: home videos of baby Ellis, Goat Man and Wendy laughing, playing and acting like a real family, which were so completely different than the absentee mother and almost-father in the rest of the movie. The film was disjointed and messy, this is true. But maybe that's the way it should be, leaving life unsettled and messy, just like the real world.
(05/01/12 4:00am)
Outside the Rose Art Museum, shaded by the trees, a dance interpretation of visual artist Kiki Smith's very original artwork fit perfectly into the surrounding nature and marked an interesting start to my first Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Creative Arts weekend. The dance piece, entitled "Rivers are Lost in the Sea" and choreographed by Rachel Klein '12, started promptly on Friday afternoon, and the entire dance was over in mere minutes. Along with fellow dancers Diana Flatto '12 and Alexandra Patch '14, Klein transformed Smith's screen-printed "Lucy's Daughters" into an interpretative surrealist dance piece. Because there was no formal stage or seating, the audience mainly clustered around a large wooden structure that resembled stacked shipping pallets and served as the dance's focal point. A large sheet with two shadowed figures painted on it covered one side of the platform. The dance began in silence, and Klein danced to unheard music alone on the stage. Moments later, Flatto and Patch emerged-each wore a simple white dress with a thick rope tied from her wrist to her ankle. Klein's black dress contrasted with the white clothing of the other two dancers. At first, the dance seemed choppy. It was merely a series of movements and the dancers appeared disassociated from one another. However, the dancers became more unified, and their interactions began to depict a closer connection as they moved at the same time like one fluid body. Towards the end of the piece, Klein took the sheet off the wooden figure, spread it on the ground and lay down on top of the shadowed figures. The other two dancers gingerly wrapped the sheet around her body and exited, leaving her as a shrouded figure at center stage. At first, I had no clue what the dance meant, but luckily, Klein led an interactive discussion inside the Rose Art Museum in front of the original Smith screen print following her performance. I stood towards the back of the exhibit, listening and drawing my own conclusions about the piece. Smith's original silkscreen resembles the sheet Klein was wrapped in and has dozens of naked female figures printed on it in an arrangement similar to an upside down triangle. If you look closely, you can see thin strings connecting many of the women at the belly button. I recalled how at one point during the end of the dance piece, Flatto and Patch tied their ropes together, alluding to the strings that connect the daughters on the silk screen. The piece in its entirety somehow reminded me of Plato's "The Cave," which reveals truths about the universal human condition. The dancers looked like they too were emerging from a cave and realizing their own strength as individuals and dancers, breaking free from the constraints society places upon them as women or humans in general. Like "The Cave," the people are anonymous and have a sense of longing in their actions, meaning that they are trying to transcend the shackles and explore outside the cave. Having also studied Smith in an art history class on Frida Kahlo, it was interesting to see how Klein portrayed the dancers with rope, like shackles, tied around their arms and legs. To me, the restraints represented powerlessness to the desires of others, and this contrasts with the feminist nature of Smith's work. Other than the relationships between the dancers, I didn't see many obvious similarities between the two art forms. I think this was done purposely to show how art is open to interpretation and takes many forms. I thoroughly enjoyed the piece and I think having the dance outside made a huge difference in its success. If it had been on an indoor stage, the dance would have looked too simple and abstract; outside, there was an amazing contrast between the freedom and pure beauty of nature and the constrained rigidity and colorlessness of the dance. Maybe I'm biased because I love Smith's art or because I know Klein is a great choreographer after having seen her Liquid Latex piece this year, but "Rivers are Lost in the Sea" was a thought-provoking addition to the Arts Festival. I appreciated the way that, instead of Klein and her dancers bluntly throwing their interpretation at the audience, we were left to contemplate its meaning on our own.
(04/24/12 4:00am)
Brandeis is known for its many talented and diverse a cappella groups. We go to their shows, applaud for our favorite songs and hum the tunes stuck in our heads. Music has the power to bring a community together, even just for a moment, but music can also touch people in a different way. On March 30, the singing group Starving Artists performed for Andy, whose last name is not given to protect his privacy, a Waltham resident living in a group home for those with traumatic brain injuries.
(02/05/12 5:00am)
On the southern coast of India, in the state of Kerala, is a town called Kasaragod. There David Wilkerson '12 discovered a rich and vibrant Hindu culture on an excursion during his trip to the city of Banagalore this past summer. He experienced visiting with a family of strangers amid the sound of pots and pans banging together and the smells of delicious food being served for Durga Puja, a festival in honor of the goddess of destruction.
(01/23/12 5:00am)
Study abroad options at Brandeis span the map from Amsterdam to Australia. We arrive in an unknown country and hope for the best. We occasionally mingle with the locals, testing our broken Chinese or Spanish in brief interactions. We take one or two classes in the country's language, but often find ourselves reverting back to the comfort of the English language. But as part of a new program this semester, Heather Stoloff '13 has been forced to leave her English behind for a semester solely of Hebrew in Be'er Sheva, Israel.
(12/05/11 5:00am)
While most 11-year-olds spend their summers running around outdoors, swimming in the neighborhood pool and hanging out with friends, Julian Olidort '11 spent his summers as a kid learning the art of glassblowing at Buck's Rock Camp. Despite getting heat exhaustion on his first attempt molding glass at a temperature of about 2,400 degrees Fahrenheit, Olidort has since spent his time pursuing his passion and this year is studying glassblowing in Sweden as a Fulbright scholar. Over the course of his undergraduate studies at Brandeis, Olidort, a triple major in Economics, European Cultural Studies and English and American Literature, became interested in the history of the Swedish glass industry and how it has evolved to the present day. "I did this independent study that looked at the history of Swedish glass in European modernism and how it developed out of an art history," Olidort says. "That research was picked up by a glass museum here, the Swedish Glass Museum, and the way Fulbright works is you get an invitation from a host institution, so they were nice enough to invite me for the year to continue my research," explains Olidort. He then spent the next few months perfecting his personal statement, research proposal and letters of recommendation for the Fulbright Scholarship, which is designed to "increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries," according to its website. Olidort's research proposal, which he wrote in summer 2010, introduces his idea "to study the history of the Swedish glass economy and look at how it developed and why it's in decline right now," he says. Following a lengthy process, Olidort was accepted as a Fulbright scholar to journey to Sweden this September. Now he is spending the year in Sweden blowing glass in "a traditional setting, getting some hands-on experience in the glass community," he says. He is also continuing his research, though it has evolved more to "looking at the evolution of consumer interest and consumer education and … how [glass factories] have evolved to interact with this change," says Olidort. As a Fulbright scholar, Olidort says he has the responsibility to "really represent our country and to give it a positive image in the world of education among students." He regularly travels up to Stockholm and meets with the Fulbright embassy in Sweden to discuss how his research is going. Olidort is currently living in Växjö, a forest region in the south of Sweden. "The glass community and industry have a special name here called the Kingdom of Crystal because it's such a unique cluster of glass factories in one region," says Olidort. "One hundred years ago, the industry first developed here when the Swedish Council of the Arts part of the government here had a way to stimulate both supply and demand of the designer art glass, which was kind of a revolution," he adds. The popularity of glassblowing soon spread to other countries, and the Kingdom of Crystal became an internationally recognized center of glassblowing. Because of the recent decline in the demand for hand-blown artistic glass, Olidort says his research "is really focused on evaluating how the companies are doing something similar today, trying to stimulate demand for their product. I'm kind of straddling the history and modern-day industrial equivalent," explains Olidort. He spends his time blowing glass in various factories and traveling around to different areas of Sweden to experience the culture as well. "I'm traveling around to the glass factories, and I've been blowing glass at a few of them as a guest. They invite me to be a guest assistant, and we hang out," he adds. He also has an office at the glass museum where he talks to his supervisor, who works as the curator of glass at the museum. He also spends time traveling to different archives to conduct his research. "The museum has an archive, and some factories have archives that have financial records that I track. I've been pulling out some statistics and also looking at marketing research," says Olidort. As another aspect of his research, Olidort conducts interviews with various people related to all different angles of the glassblowing industry, including "academics, the professors at the university here, the industry executives [and] some of the business people that are in charge of the glass companies." He has also interviewed students who are studying at the glass school in Stockholm and owners of auction houses that sell glass. "I'm looking at everybody's perspective on how glass is being produced and how it's being sold," Olidort adds. With glass being produced at lower costs today by machines or overseas, Western glass factories have become rare, and the glass industry has begun to decline, according to Olidort. "It's shrinking rapidly for very obvious reasons—the cost to produce glass is rising, and sales fall because people aren't interested in buying glass," Olidort says. "Sweden is one of the last countries to have a really successful glass industry because they have one thing that others don't: a design history. Design can't be copied by machine," explains Olidort. As for his plans for the future, Olidort isn't sure what he will do next year, though he hopes to continue glassblowing and possibly pursue a career with the skill. Interested in "where glass artists come from [and] where they go," Olidort explains that glass artists are "born in the glass schools that are here but don't have a direct route to be a glass blower," much like the situation in which he now finds himself. For now, he is exploring ideas for further study next year, as well as various career and academic paths both back home in New York and abroad.
(11/07/11 5:00am)
Today's economic crisis is all around us. Millions of Americans are facing housing foreclosures across the country. Along with losing their homes, families are losing access to the American dream and will suffer the consequences for many generations to come.
(10/11/11 4:00am)
Hundreds of people, including both supporters and dissidents, crowded a Rhode Island College field house, eagerly awaiting a decision that could change the lives of thousands of illegal immigrants. People paraded signs declaring their views, asking for change or voicing their disapproval. Their boisterous chants and protests echoed across the room as final testimonials were spoken from the podium. After years of anticipation and tension, a vote would finally decide the verdict.
(09/20/11 4:00am)
For the past 18 years, Prof. Thomas King (ENG) has seen the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community at Brandeis grow and become more active on campus through various programming and student resources. And when the students began to demand an academic program that "focused on their own culture," he supported them. Among other faculty, King became an influential force behind the recently created minor in Sexuality and Queer Studies.
