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On Wednesday, Oct. 6, Brandeis Women’s Network hosted a conversation with Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Margo Jefferson ’68. The event was held over Zoom and was moderated by Trustee Barbara Dortch-Okara ’71. Over the course of the event, Jefferson discussed her time at Brandeis, the trajectory of her career and answered some questions from the community.
TAMID Group at Brandeis, a “business organization that develops professional skills through hands-on interaction with the Israeli economy” as described on the club’s website, virtually hosted a guest speaker, Assaf Feldman, on Oct. 4. Feldman is the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Israeli security company Riskified. Feldman talked about his life and the circumstances that prompted him to found the company, lending insight into the realities of the Israeli entrepreneurial ecosystem.
“NOW IS ALWAYS.” Is our past always present and the future already here? On my computer screen I can see the photographs of Vaune Trachtman — a collection of fleeting, evanescent memories. In spite of its immaterial quality, NOW IS ALWAYS is more about permanence rather than loss; remembrance rather than oblivion. Mixing her father’s negatives from the Great Depression with pictures taken on her iPhone, the master printmaker created a series of photopolymer gravures that expand the concept of family memorabilia. Invented in the late 19th century by the photography-pioneer William Henry Fox Talbot and Czech artist Karel Klíč, photogravure belongs to the Intaglio family of printmaking. It consists of capturing an image on a plate that is printed by pressure through an etching press. Deceptively simple in theory, it is a photomechanical process of tactile delicacy and painstaking craftsmanship. Trachtman’s prints were showcased in a solo exhibition at the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, MA, from May 26 to July 9. “NOW IS ALWAYS” is a mystifying body of work that unbinds the constraints of time with exquisite texture and electrifying motion.
On the morning of March 17, 2020, I stood mindlessly scrolling on my phone in my high school hallway. I sighed in distress. COVID-19 had just taken the world by storm, and my hometown was close to a shutdown. That wasn’t what I was sighing about, though. On what would be my last day of school due to the pandemic, only one question was on my mind: Is Tom Brady going to stay on the New England Patriots?
Every year, autumn starts on my birthday. 29 big ones this time around. Things feel more or less the same. They also feel different. Despite the dawning of a pandemic, 28 felt important in other, more clearly positive ways. Like the beginning of a new era, it felt like some large but beneficial change I am yet to fully understand. 29 was a bit more of a shock to the system, its positivity less clear. It felt quick. It came fast. Whether or not it came “too” fast is up to interpretation, and maybe that is the point. Younger ones may roll their eyes at yet another cynical millennial, while older individuals will tell you 29 means “nothing” in terms of experience. Many of them perceive their age as having wed far more wisdom to their lives than your relatively shorter 29 years of life.
In this unprecedented year, students continue to grapple with mental health struggles. Although not foreign to most, mental health has come to the forefront of everyday life, but these issues have continuously been ignored.
I honor Halloween more than most holidays. The horror, thrilling and gory genres across movies, television shows, books and other forms of storytelling have provided me an outlet since childhood to dissect some of my most isolating and terrifying moments better than any other commemorative day or cinematic medium. Nevertheless, I regularly struggle with the available content I consume. I have never really wanted to dwell on it prior to this, because I do find it strange to enjoy Ryan Murphy’s gruesome “American Horror Story” as often as I do. To make myself feel better on rough days, it is normal for me to sink into the gore of “The Walking Dead.” For fun or introspection, I watch shows or films that come wrapped in titles like “Evil,” “Get Out” and “Hereditary” with daunting, foreboding advertisement posters of gloomy heads plastered over foggy skies or darkened rooms. On nights I cannot sleep, my partner often finds me dozing off to the ghouls of “The Haunting of Bly Manor” or finding solace in the vampirical frights of “The Frankenstein Chronicles” or “Penny Dreadful.” I am uncomfortable at how it comforts me to escape through characters’ gruesome tales of doom, with inconceivably harrowing endings and no relief in sight. In what universe would these tales comfort such an anxious heart? What does that say about me as a person? Am I simply an adrenaline junkie, or am I the “twisted” one?
For most of the world, Sept. 8, 2021 was not significant in any way. For the University of Wisconsin’s population of roughly 4,000 Jewish students and faculty, it was a day where they had to choose between spirituality and school. This year, Wisconsin’s first day of class — a day that appeared to be insignificant to the university’s administration — happened to fall on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year and one of the holiest days of the Hebrew calendar.
As if heading to college in the midst of a pandemic was not challenging enough, Hurricane Henri further complicated plans for first-year move-in and orientation. As the old saying goes, rain on a celebratory occasion is a sign of good luck, so fingers crossed that a great year lies ahead.
One of the concerns when a major American company like Marvel does a film about Chinese or Eastern cultures in general is that they will portray a stereotype of that culture or misrepresent it. In the past, white actors have been cast to play the roles that Asian actors should have played. Instead of being cast in the lead roles, the Asian actors were given supporting roles or extra roles.
This fall marks Professor Wendy Cadge’s first academic year as the University’s dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Her service as dean formally began on June 1.
Every year, a book forum is held for Brandeis' first-years. A book is chosen by the school, and sent to incoming first-years. It is supposed to be an intellectually stimulating book which the entire class can analyze and connect to. The forum includes receiving the book, reading the book and finally discussing the book in classrooms on campus with other first-years during orientation. On the University’s website, the event is described as “the first of many experiences that will begin to build your community and a sense of belonging at Brandeis. The forum is the only time your entire class will have a shared academic experience, reading the same book, and bringing you together for a meaningful connection with your peers and members of our outstanding faculty. This special experience is the beginning of creating a unifying connection that will last for years to come.”
Keynote speaker Bryan Stevenson, a human rights lawyer and the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, spoke to the graduating Class of 2021 about overcoming racial injustice and inequality.
Throughout his career, master wood engraver Barry Moser left his footprints in many categories of books, from children’s books to religious texts. He is accomplished not only in watercolor illustrations and wood engravings, but also as an “engineer” of books’ creation, as he described. On Friday, April 30, Director of Brandeis Arts Engagement Ingrid Schorr invited Moser — along with author, poet and gallery owner Rich Michelson — to talk about the new edition of Moser’s classic book, “The Art of Wood Engraving & Relief Engraving,” published by Brandeis University Press. In the event, Moser shared his experience and insights on his career.
According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, the history of efforts to end sexual violence in America and raise “awareness and prevention of sexual assault, harassment, and abuse" can be traced "from the civil rights movement to the founding of the first rape crisis centers to national legislation.” This year marked the 20th Anniversary of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, which is celebrated every April. On Friday, April 30, the Justice interviewed Tanashya Batra ’21 and Grace Lee ’22 from the Prevention, Advocacy & Resource Center over Zoom to learn more about their work, and what PARC has done to join with members of the Brandeis community during Sexual Assault Awareness Month.
Something that many people have been craving throughout the pandemic is the return of live music. Brandeis’ all-female a cappella group, Too Cheap For Instruments, helped satisfy this desire as a part of Brandeis’s annual Folkfest. On Thursday, April 29, the group put on a virtual concert via YouTube Live, and four members of the group performed their original songs.
On Tuesday, April 27, India reported 320,000 new COVID-19 cases and 2,771 deaths, as a second COVID-19 wave ravaged the country's healthcare system. The Indian government has responded to the crisis by restricting its own exports of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which has had drastic repercussions on impoverished nations. Last week, President Biden defended the current ban on exports of raw materials used in vaccines in response to urgent requests to lift it, citing obligations to prioritize vaccinating the American population first. In a recent turn of events, the Biden Administration proposed a plan to export up to 60 million AstraZeneca doses to India when available, and countries such as the UK have sent ventilators and additional medical equipment to assist in navigating the catastrophe. In light of the situation, some physicians have alluded to ‘vaccine nationalism’ — when nations procure doses on behalf of national interests at the expense of other countries. How does vaccine nationalism or pandemic profiteering factor into the current nature of global and domestic vaccine distributions, if at all? Many of our own community also have loved ones in the impacted area. At a local level, how can the Brandeis administration and faculty support South Asian students at this time?
Every year, Brandeis survivors and allies gather to raise awareness and strengthen solidarity among individuals impacted by sexual violence — to “Take Back the Night.” This year, the event took place virtually on Thursday, April 15, rather than in its traditional form of being an in-person community march.
On April 23, the Center for Spiritual Life hosted a memorial service for the lives lost within the Brandeis community over the last year.
This year’s annual Deis Impact festival of social justice showcased a wide variety of programs. Highlights from the event, which ran from April 7 to April 12, include: a workshop on the Migration of Caste, a keynote speech from Jose Antonio Vargas, a 7-Day Neurodiversity Challenge and a faculty panel that discussed immigration policy and social justice under the Biden Administration. This year’s Deis Impact theme was “Reflections on Im/Migration,” focusing on immigration, migration, asylum-seeking, refugee experiences, xenophobia, citizenship and nationality, according to the event website. Members of the Justice attended several of these events.