Articles from: 2017

Bookmarks Fall 2017

November 16, 2017 by Staff Comments Off

The Wolf, the Duck, and the Mouse

The author of the acclaimed children’s book Sam and Dave Dig a Hole, Mac Barnett ’04, again joins illustrator Jon Klassen for a fable with a twist and a wink—in this case, a mouse and a duck who set up housekeeping inside a wolf.

Return

Illustrator and Caldecott honoree Aaron Becker ’96 completes his epic children’s trilogy with a third wordless journey through a hidden door into a visually stunning realm of enchanted landscapes and strange creatures.

Displaying Time: The Many Temporalities of the Festival of India

Rebecca M. Brown ’93 uses archival research and interviews with artists, curators, diplomats and visitors to analyze a selection of museum shows that were part of the Festival of India.

Come As You Are

Steven Ramirez ’74 writes a young-adult supernatural horror novella about a middle schooler and the terrifying evil forces he unleashes from the pages of an old notebook.

Roadside Geology of Southern California

Award-winning Santa Barbara geologist Arthur G. Sylvester ’59 offers a tour of the iconic features of the Golden State, combining science and stories about its rocks and landscapes.

The Silly Parade and Other Topsy-Turvy Poems

Inspired by the book art of Nikolai Popov, Associate Professor of German and Russian Anne Dwyer translates and retells traditional Russian songs and folk poetry for children.

Real Deceptions: The Contemporary Reinvention of Realism

In her third book, Pankey Professor of Media Studies Jennifer Friedlander explores a new theory of realism, examining a range of contemporary art, media and cultural practices to argue that our sense of reality lies within the deceptions themselves.

Money Machine: The Surprisingly Simple Power of Value Investing

Fletcher Jones Professor of Economics Gary Smith offers expert guidance on value investing to beginning investors and veterans alike, debunking current strategies and promoting what consistently outperforms the market.

Surf’s Up!

November 16, 2017 by Staff Comments Off

Camille Molas ’21 begins her first year at Pomona College in uniquely Southern California fashion, with surfing lessons at Mondo’s Beach in Ventura. Again this year, as part of New Student Orientation, the Orientation Adventure program, usually known simply as “OA,” offered a list of 11 outdoor opportunities across California, ranging from hiking to surfing, rock climbing to volunteerism. “What I’m really excited about,” Molas says, “is continuing to build the relationships we made at OA. You know, it’s really different having your first moments together out here on the beach or out here camping. If we can be there for each other out in the outdoors, we can be there for each other when school comes around.”

A Gift of Wilderness

November 16, 2017 by Patricia Zurita Vest Comments Off

Pomona College is expanding the Claremont Hills Wilderness Park with a gift of 463 acres to the city of Claremont. The land, including Evey Canyon and three Padua Hills parcels, is to be preserved in its undeveloped state and remain available to the members of the public for hiking, biking, horseback riding and other passive recreational uses. With the new addition, the size of the park will increase to nearly 2,500 acres.

“The Claremont Wilderness area is a natural jewel and provides an important connection to nature,” says G. Gabrielle Starr, president of Pomona College. She adds that the commitment to sustainability of her predecessor, David Oxtoby, “is reflected in his important work to bring this agreement forward and enhance the College’s and community’s commitment to open spaces for all.”

Evey Canyon is home to the Herman Garner Biological Preserve, used by the College’s Biology Department for research. The lower portion of the canyon consists of a type of riparian woodland that is becoming rare in Southern California. Evey Canyon’s varied topography and vegetation, combined with a permanent stream, result in a rich bird and insect diversity.

Jobs for the Homeless

November 16, 2017 by Staff Comments Off

Pomona’s efforts on behalf of the homeless expanded this semester with the launch of the Pomona Employment Partners (PEP) initiative by the Draper Center for Community Partnerships. It’s the newest of three programs that make up the Center’s Hunger and Homelessness Initiative.

Unlike its sister programs—the Food Recovery Network and the Homelessness Action Team—which focus on such urgent needs as food and shelter, PEP will focus on long-term solutions by connecting the homeless with actual employment opportunities.

Co-directed by Sophie Roe ’19 and Marisol Diaz ’18, the program will combine the work of job researchers with that of on-site volunteers to locate possible job openings and help homeless clients create résumés and apply.

“Most employers don’t like being asked whether they do drug tests on applicants or whether they are felon-friendly,” job researcher Sarah Burch ’21 told Pomona’s student newspaper, The Student Life. “Coming out of jail definitely brings many barriers to getting a job. We try to find specific jobs that meet the needs of the homeless community, taking into account the obstacles that formerly incarcerated people have.”

Of Record Books and Lab Books

November 16, 2017 by Patricia Zurita Vest Comments Off

Birir sets the all-time Sagehen career rushing record in the 2017 season opener.

AS AN ATHLETE, Aseal Birir ’18 has made his mark as the leading running back in Pomona-Pitzer history. At the same time, as a senior chemistry major working on his last research project, he is also leaving his mark in the laboratory.

On the athletic side, Birir was named Rookie of the Year in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) during his first year of college. Since then, he has validated that award by going on to claim team records both for career rushing and for single-game rushing.

He became the football program’s all-time leading rusher during the team’s home opener this fall against Lewis & Clark, surpassing the previous record of 3,004 yards set by Luke Sweeney ’13 and becoming only the second Sagehen ever to eclipse the 3,000-rushing-yards mark.

“The all-time rushing record was a satisfying record to break,” says Birir. “I think it is a great reflection of what our whole team has accomplished over the past four years. Football truly is a team sport, and I have received a lot of help from teammates along the way to get to the record.”

Then, for good measure, on Oct. 7, Birir also set the record for most rushing yards in a single game, with 275 yards against Cal Lutheran. His achievement was recognized by the conference, which named him SCIAC’s Athlete of the Week.

“The single-game record is somewhat bittersweet for me,” says Birir. “I am very proud of my individual effort, but it stings to know that I broke the record in a game that we lost in the last minute. However, it will probably be the game that I remember the most 10 years from now when I reflect back on my football career at Pomona.”

Voted captain by his peers as a junior, Birir also serves as captain during his senior season.

“Aseal’s athletic abilities and his leadership on and off the field have been instrumental in the improvement of our entire football program,” says Sagehen Head Football Coach John Walsh, who recruited him in 2013.

Birir works in the biochemistry lab on a medical research project with Professor Charles Taylor.

On the academic side, under the guidance of Chemistry Professor Chuck Taylor, Birir, who hopes to become a doctor in the future, is focusing his research on reducing the risk of bacterial infections in hospitalized patients. The goal is to understand the types of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released by bacteria that are known infectious agents for many hospital-acquired infections. Working with Soleil Worthy ’18 in an ongoing project led by Professor Taylor, Birir aims to use the VOCs as biomarkers in a breath test, offering a quicker way to test patients for infectious disease.

Birir’s scientific journey started early at Pomona after his senior year at Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley, Calif. As an incoming first-year student, he participated in the summer High Achieving Program (HAP) for minority students interested in pursuing a career in the STEM fields.

The HAP experience in Professor EJ Crane’s biochemistry lab provided him with an eye-opening introduction to scientific research. It also laid the foundation for the academic support that would be key to balance his rigorous curriculum and a full athletic schedule with the Sagehen football team.

Professor Taylor points to Birir’s perseverance in the lab and on the field.

“When experiments don’t go as planned, extra work is needed reviewing the data and conditions to determine why the experiment didn’t work out as expected,” says Taylor who has worked with Birir since he entered Pomona. “Some students would throw up their hands and say ‘I’m done,’ but Aseal would come back and we’d work through the problem together.”

“You can’t teach a person to have this kind of drive, but by getting to know them, you may be able to learn what gets them excited and tap into that,” adds Taylor. “Ultimately, the drive comes from within and is a combination of intellectual curiosity and willingness to learn from one’s mistakes. This is probably the trait that makes Aseal a great football player and what will make him an excellent physician.”

On top of his athletic and academic commitments, the Novato, Calif., native finds time to mentor young men at a local high school. On Fridays, he volunteers for the program Young Men’s Circle at Pomona High School through the Pomona College student group BLOC (Building Leaders On Campus). The program involves college volunteers meeting with high school students and encouraging them to pursue their goals through either workshops or conversation.

“We try to use what we have learned about our own paths to college to help these students purse whatever goals they have—may that be college or something else,” says Birir. “Young Men’s Circle works to bridge that opportunity gap by providing the kids access to volunteers who were in similar situations to theirs not too long ago.”

Another factor in Birir’s success is the ability to forge relationships with his mentors. Two high school coaches greatly influenced him to pursue a college football career and to follow his dream of becoming a doctor. Coach Mark Ridley put him in contact with college coaches, while Mick O’Mera was his coach and his AP chemistry teacher—and one of the reasons why Birir is a chemistry major today.

“Without him [Ridley], I probably would not have even realized that I could play football in college or even how to go about pursuing it,” says Birir. “He still keeps in contact with me and is planning on coming to Claremont this year to see me play.”

What does Birir want to accomplish in his final year as a Sagehen?

“I guarantee if you ask Aseal what is more important—his personal record or for the team to win games—he will always want team success,” says Walsh.

“Win SCIAC and beat CMS [Claremont-Mudd-Scripps],” Birir responded.

Bulletin Board

November 16, 2017 by Staff Comments Off

Welcome, 2017–18 Alumni Board

Attendees of the 2017–18 Alumni Board Kick-Off Meeting: (top row, left to right) Lazaros Chalkias ’16, Craig Arteaga-Johnson ’96, Jon Siegel ’84, Matt Thompson ’96, Kayla McCulley ’09, Alfredo Romero ’91, Harvey Alpern ’60, Don Swan ’15; (bottom row, left to right) Rocio Gandara ’97, LJ Kwak ’05, Jumal Qazi ’02, Maria Vides ’18, Jan Fukushima ’72, Stacey Abrams ’16, Diane Ung ’85, Jahan Boulden PZ ’07, Belinda Rabano ’88

THE ALUMNI BOARD welcomed President Starr to its first meeting of the year with a basket of gifts sent by alumni authors, filmmakers, poets, musicians and vintners. President Starr and members discussed priorities for the year and topics important to on- and off-campus Sagehens, including free speech and alumni-student mentorship. During lunch, the board heard from Elvis Kahoro ’20, who was featured in the recent New York Times article “When Affirmative Action Isn’t Enough.” Working committees met, including Alumni Engagement, chaired by Don Swan ’15, which focuses on learning and career programs for alumni; Athletic Affinity, chaired by Mercedes Fitchett ’91, which supports events such as Rivalry Weekend and promotes the Champions of Sagehen Athletics fundraising initiative; Current Matters, chaired by Rocio Gandara ’97, which responds to time-sensitive issues within the Pomona alumni community as they arise; and 4/7, chaired by president-elect Diane Ung ’85, which organizes community service events around Pomona’s “special day” in April. The Alumni Association president for 2017–18 is Matt Thompson ’96. A complete list of members and a nomination form.

Fall/Winter Book Club Selection: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

GRAB A BLANKET (or, if you’re in Claremont, maybe a fan) and cozy up with The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, the Pomona College Book Club selection for fall. This New York Times bestseller was adapted earlier in the year into an Emmy-nominated HBO television film, directed by Tony Award–winning playwright and director George C. Wolfe ’76. In a September 2017 interview for the website Shadow and Act, Wolfe spoke about the project: “I think it is a phenomenal story. Henrietta Lacks, a woman who, with limited education and a vibrant and colorful personality, transformed modern medicine. When she died, her cells gave birth to the biotech industry. I found it so fascinating that someone who on paper had limited power, in death had tremendous power and that her family knew nothing about it.”

To join the Book Club, learn more about in-person discussions in your area, and access exclusive discussion questions, faculty notes and video content, visit pomona.edu/bookclub.

Mentor Current Students with Sagepost 47

DO YOU REMEMBER feeling unsure about your path after Pomona? Are you interested in ways that you can give back to the student community? Sagepost 47 is Pomona’s alumni-student mentorship program, founded by a team of students and alumni in 2014. The program connects alumni mentors with students, provides support for career and graduate school exploration and allows students to participate in mock interviews in a variety of fields. Visit sagepost47.com to learn more or sign up to become a mentor.

Sagehens Bid a Fond Farewell to Prof. Lorn Foster

LORN FOSTER, Pomona’s Charles and Henrietta Johnson Detoy Professor of American Government and Professor of Politics, has announced his retirement at the end of this academic year—his 40th at the College. A special fund supporting student internships and Pomona’s golf program has been established in his honor. Foster fans who wish to honor his legacy with a gift should visit pomona.edu/give and select the “Lorn S. and Gloria F. Foster Fund” from the gift designation menu. To hear about events celebrating Professor Foster, make sure your information is up to date.

Show Your Sagehen Pride with New Pomona-Pitzer Athletics Gear

BIG NEWS FOR Sagehen fans: Announcing the launch of a new online Nike store for Pomona-Pitzer Athletics! Get in the game with your favorite gear at sagehens.com—just click the “Nike Store” tab on the navigation bar. Your order will be shipped directly to your door. And don’t forget to support your favorite team with a gift to Champions of Sagehen Athletics!

New Pomona-Pitzer Athletics Filter in the Mobile Alumni Directory

SAGEHEN CONNECT—a free app featuring an alumni directory and mapping resource to connect you with Sagehens in your area—has been bringing alumni together since 2013. Now, a new filter allows users to search by athletic participation from the Directory search tool. Visit pomona.edu/sagehenconnect to find out how to download the app to your iOS or Android device.

Alumni Travel/Study

April 4–11, 2018
Explore Cuba with the Claremont Colleges
Join CMC and Pitzer alumni on this three-college tour as we cross a cultural divide, exploring the art, history and culture of the Cuban people.

May 25–June 4, 2018
The Camino de Santiago: A Pilgrimage into the Past
Join John Sutton Miner Professor of History and Professor of Classics Ken Wolf on one of the great journeys of the world, the Camino de Santiago, done in the way it was meant to be traveled: on foot.

For complete tour information, please visit pomona.edu/alumni/lifelong-learning/alumni-travel-program or email alumni@pomona.edu.

Tributes

Pictured are: (top row, left to right) Frannie Sutton, Maia Pauley, Martha Castro, (bottom row, left to right) Claire Goldman and Lianna Semonsen.

FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS whose parents are alumni were invited to swing by Seaver House to say hello and snap a photo. Thanks to those who took part, and welcome to the Pomona family.

Roads Less Traveled

November 16, 2017 by Bryan Kevan ’14 Comments Off

Bryan Kevan ’14 at the Mirador Cuesta del Diablo, just off the Portezuelo Ibañez, the highest pass on the Carretera, in 2014.

IF A ROAD can be a political statement, then the Carretera Austral—stretching 1,200 kilometers, the majority of the length of Chilean Patagonia—is just that. Started under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in the 1970s, it checked all the boxes for a military dictator seeking to exert political and economic control over the country’s most remote and inaccessible territory.

Many of the towns along the road had previously been connected to the outside world only through towns across the border in Argentina, a dependence that Pinochet sought to eliminate. Snaking around narrow fjords, over high mountain passes and through dense, seemingly impenetrable forests, the road was a symbolic statement that not even nature could stop Chile from policing its borders. The road unofficially carried Pinochet’s name for years, an indication of its strategic military importance in the historically poor relationship between Chile and its neighbor to the east.

As Pinochet’s reign continued, so did construction of the Carretera Austral. Over decades, the road inched farther and farther into the Patagonian wilderness. Signs along the road still carry a Ministry of Public Works slogan harkening back to the road’s original political significance: “Obras que Unen Chilenos” (“Works That Unite Chileans”).

The spirit of the Carretera Austral remains, embedded in a thin ribbon of gravel road connecting Chilean Patagonia to the rest of the country. In 2000, workers finally reached their limit, a dead end at the town of Villa O’Higgins. The terrain was just too rough after that point, and the territory too remote. With no more towns, the Carretera Austral had reached its terminus. Two small border crossings into Argentina, complete with posts and military barracks, were constructed at the end of the road, neither passable by car.

When I graduated from Pomona in 2014, my mom told me to go out and take a new risk. Confined to the Pomona bubble for four years, and to the bubble of small Eugene, Oregon, for my life before that, I was hungry for something different. Something new, challenging and, most importantly, something not academic. I didn’t, and still deep down don’t, consider myself particularly athletic or adven- turous. I ran cross-country in high school, but not particularly well. I enjoyed hiking and camping, but it was clear at least to me that I didn’t share the single-minded passion for it that many of my classmates had. I replied to my mom over text with a picture of a motorcycle, and she responded with a picture of a bicycle. It was decided.

So I packed up the things I thought I would need for a few weeks on the road, never having camped for more than a handful of nights in a row, and set off to Patagonia. Everyone on the Internet’s various bike-touring forums raved about this gravel road in Chile, and I felt like I just had to do it. I didn’t expect to make it far. Maybe go out for a week or two, have a fun experience and then come back.

I quickly realized upon my arrival that I had timed it all wrong. It was September, very early spring in Patagonia, and most towns, campsites, hostels and even some border crossings into Argentina were still closed. It rained pretty much constantly for the first two weeks of my trip, and the state of the road left my body broken and bruised every night from hour upon hour of riding on rocky, muddy gravel.

My tent was hardly waterproof, my rain jacket even less so. For a road that was supposed to be so popular with touring cyclists, it was surprisingly little-traveled; I finally saw another cyclist after a month. It was a struggle. I learned to live with myself, camped alone for weeks in the middle of nowhere. But it was exciting, it was new, and I loved every second of it.

Kevan sitting on a marker identifying the peak of the Tizi n’Isli Pass while riding along the spine of the Atlas Mountains in Morocco in 2017.

At Villa O’Higgins, a month into my trip, I reached the dead end, and the two roadless border crossings, only one of which was open during that season. The Chilean post was unassuming, to say the least—just two small buildings and a helipad at the dead end of a rough gravel road. Three policemen manned the post, sitting around a fireplace stamping passports and making snide remarks about the Argentines 15 kilometers away. I stayed the night in the barracks next to a nice, warm fire and stamped out of Chile the next morning. Between passport stamps, it took 14 hours of navigating the roadless swamp of backwoods Patagonia to reach Argentina. I cursed and yelled my way through dense forests, over swinging sheep bridges, through bogs and through glacial streams, all on the very imprecise directions received from a very inebriated gaucho living on the border.

I eventually found a road that led to the Argentine border post. As I stumbled out of the wilderness, a policeman came out to meet me, clearly concerned for my safety. I was quickly stamped into the country and shown where to set up camp.

In a poetic turn, I experienced the same thing at the Argentine border as I had at the Chilean one, but in reverse—just three policemen stamping passports and making snide remarks about Chileans. After the decades of antagonistic relations and political symbolism that surrounded the road’s construction, all that remained at road’s end was a remote border crossing, a few half-rotted military barracks and a handful of policemen taking half-hearted verbal shots at one another across the border.

I was sold. These were the genuine travel experiences I wanted in my life. I continued my trip, eventually ending up in Tierra del Fuego, at the tip of South America. More trips soon followed—Southeast Asia, the Pacific Northwest, Iceland, and Morocco, all since graduation.

I am now in the planning stages for a trip spanning the entirety of the Silk Road across Central Asia, starting in 2018. I encourage interested readers to follow along at my blog starting next March at venturesadventures.wordpress.com.”

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

November 16, 2017 by Staff Comments Off

AS SUMMER CAME to a close, many Pomona students returned to campus with new career experiences, thanks to internships across the country and around the globe. Through the Pomona College Internship Program (PCIP), 68 students received funding to participate in work opportunities that would otherwise be unpaid, while others found paid internships that also allowed them to live in new cities and gain new experiences. Here are six of their stories.

Marisol Diaz ’18

Major: American Studies

Internship: Legislative intern with California Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia ’99

Location: Sacramento, California

“Interacting with staffers in Assemblymember Cristina Garcia’s office has been great. She has such a wonderful team of people; specifically, in her office, there are a lot of women and women of color. It’s very encouraging to me, and it’s very important in shaping my experience to be surrounded by women.”

Jacob Feord ’18

Double Major: Economics and Japanese Language and Literature

Internship: Intern with the United States Department of State at U.S. Embassy Tokyo-Akasaka

Location: Tokyo, Japan

“A U.S. government institution managed by Americans, located in Tokyo and staffed largely by Japanese local staff makes for a very unique workplace culture. The mixture of languages and business ideologies is a concoction absolutely unique to the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo. At first it seemed difficult to navigate, but I ended up having a lot of fun getting to know the quirks of the embassy system.”

Pablo Ordoñez ’18

Major: Public Policy Analysis

Internship: Policy intern with the United States

Department of Commerce Census Bureau

Location: Washington, D.C.

“Everyone has this big misconception about the government: It’s a very slow, monotonous, perfunctory place. But like any company, it has a CEO and high-level executives, meetings, people very connected to the mission of the bureau—and that’s helpful to me for any industry I’ll go into. Government could be slow and inefficient, but there are people there who are very committed to the work they are doing who have extremely innovative ideas.”

Carly Grimes ’18

Double Major: Cognitive Science and Politics

Internship: Intern with the Yale University Canine Cognition Center

Location: New Haven, Conn.

“My favorite part of this internship was interacting with the dog’s owners, since I love communicating science research to the general public. The owners were always very interested and would ask great questions that sharpened my ability to make complex scientific theories more easily digestible for people with vastly varying scientific backgrounds.”

Sylvia Gitonga ’20

Major: Economics

Internship: Investment analyst intern with the East African Reinsurance Company

Location: Nairobi, Kenya

“I learned how to establish and maintain relationships not only with clients but also with the company’s employees. I also became more vocal and confident in terms of presenting ideas to people. Although I secured this internship by myself, the one-on-one meetings with Wanda Gibson in the Career Development Office, with regard to my career path, really played a huge role in acquiring the internship. The PCIP funding, however, is what really enabled me to carry out this internship. If not for that, my career growth would be stagnant. ”

Samuel Kelly ’18

Major: Media Studies

Internship: Intern with The Daily Show with Trevor Noah

Location: New York City

“I’d say one of the biggest things I’ve learned at this internship is the level of professionalism necessary to make a massive production like The Daily Show operate smoothly and at a high level. It takes a lot of people to get The Daily Show on the air every night, and I’m always impressed at how everyone in the office knows exactly what they need to do to make it successful.”

Sea Chanties

November 16, 2017 by Patricia Zurita Vest Comments Off

Professor of Music Gibb Schreffler (right) and class aboard the Exy Johnson. Photo by Lushia Anson ’19

TO HELP HIS students get on board with one of his chief research interests, Music Professor Gibb Schreffler got them out of the classroom and out to sea.

On a breezy spring afternoon, aboard the two-masted sailing vessel Exy Johnson in Los Angeles’ San Pedro Bay, Ranzo—Schreffler’s chantyman alter ego—led a group of Pomona and Claremont Colleges students in singing “Goodbye, My Riley” and “Tom’s Gone a Hilo,” traditional work songs known as “sea chanties.” Adding the physical labor and rhythm of pulling halyard lines gave the students a sense of how chanty singing once fit into the work of the crew on a traditional sailing vessel. As the hoists grew more difficult toward the end of the lines, the chanty leader shifted to a “short drag” chanty such as “Haul Away, Joe” and “Haul the Bowline” to reflect the cadence of a more demanding physical effort.

The half-day sailing field trip was part of Schreffler’s special topics course, American Maritime Musical Worlds, where his class explored America’s musical development from the perspective of those who have lived or worked near the water. The goal was to better understand the context and function of the shipboard work songs prevalent in the 19th century.

According to Schreffler, the topic of American maritime music is not well-documented or researched. His scholarship focuses on the musical experiences of African Americans, and his findings place the tradition of sea chanties within the larger umbrella of African American work songs. The epicenter of the chanty genre, he explains, was not Great Britain but America—or, more precisely, the western side of the “Black Atlantic,” rimmed by Southern U.S. ports and the Caribbean.

Schreffler’s research also found that chanty singing by sailors at sea represented just one branch of a larger network of work-singing practices, most of which were performed on terra firma. In fact, far more chanties were sung by stevedores—the workers loading ships—than were ever sung by sailors. Sailors’ labor tended to be associated with white workers, and stevedores’ labor was associated with Black workers—which partly explains the neglect of the latter’s story in ethnocentric narratives told by English and Anglo-American authors of the last century.

Schreffler’s research has been challenging, in part, because much of what has been presented in the last century has created a strong bias against recognizing African Americans as creators of the sea chanty genre. His published work on the subject includes the article “Twentieth Century Editors and the Re-envisioning of Chanties,” in the maritime studies journal The Nautilus.

His research takes him to archives and ports in cities around the country that were centers of maritime commerce, such as Mobile, Alabama, and Galveston, Texas. He also has traveled internationally in a traditional sailing ship from the Azores, in the middle of the Atlantic, to the coast of France, to study applied seamanship in order to better understand the historical texts he studies.

Since the maritime work songs Schreffler studies are not used in today’s sailing, recreating their performance helps him imagine them and find answers, despite the lack of detailed information available. Since 2008 he has been working on posting online his renditions of every documented chanty song he has encountered. His purpose for the recordings is to simulate psychologically the process of acquiring a repertoire and learning the genre’s method and style.

“Scholars in my field, ethnomusicology, traditionally employ fieldwork to interpret living culture as ‘text,’” he explains. “In order to study culture of the past in this fashion, I try to convert history into a sort of living text in the present.”

Last spring was his first time teaching the course, but Schreffler previously brought chanties to Pomona College and The Claremont Colleges through the Maritime Music Ensemble he founded and directed in 2013. In the ensemble, all songs were taught orally to simulate a realistic way of acquiring the tradition. Students needed no prior formal training and took part in engaging sessions of rehearsals or jam sessions as well as performances.

Experiencing music in order to understand it is at the core of Schreffler’s teaching and research. Also a scholar of the vernacular music of South Asia’s Punjab region, he learned to play the large drum known as the dhol. “Without my doing this, many of my interlocutors would have had no idea how to relate to what I was doing in studying Punjabi music,” he says.

Schreffler has plans to return to his Punjabi research and work on a forthcoming book during his upcoming sabbatical year. In addition, he headed to the Caribbean during the past summer to get reacquainted with the Jamaican music scene in order to prepare his next spring course. Among the topics he will explore in that class, he says, is the connection of Jamaican music to the beginnings of hip hop and electronic music.

“Some of my students are very interested in producing or becoming DJs, so this course could be of special interest to them, given the connection to the origin of hip hop and dance music.

“My goal with this class, as in all of my classes, is to give them information and lively discussion that will challenge them about something that is related to a topic they’re interested in to begin with. I don’t necessarily tell them that it is related, but I drive them to make the connection. Once they see the connection, it transforms their learning about the original topic of the class.”

At Home with Mark Twain

November 16, 2017 by Susan McWilliams Comments Off

Mark Twain at Quarry Farm

I HAVE A PICTURE of myself as a child, sitting on the very porch where, 30 years later, I am writing these words. Quarry Farm hasn’t changed much since my last visit, although most of my life has.

As a kid, I spent a couple of summers at Mark Twain’s Quarry Farm—the house in Elmira, New York, where Twain lived and wrote books like Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Life on the Mississippi, and Tom Sawyer—because my father, Wilson Carey McWilliams, was a great teacher of Twain’s work and a scholar-in-residence here. During the days, my sister and I romped around the grounds while Dad held seminars.

At night, just as Twain had done for his own daughters, Dad made up stories for us based on the pictures on the fireplace tiles in the parlor. And he read us Twain, of course: the stories and the novels and the bull’s-eye critique of James Fenimore Cooper that always made me laugh, even though I’d never read anything by James Fenimore Cooper.

Susan McWilliams in her office with her father’s manuscript and files

My father dropped dead 12 years ago, on a sunny Tuesday morning, leaving behind notes on the manuscript about Mark Twain that he’d been working on for decades. His friends and colleagues mourned the lost book, but of course the manuscript was not the main thing. The more pressing concern was just getting through the day; Dad, a big-hearted, big-hugging, big-thinking man, left an absence that felt even bigger than his presence. Grief had me by the throat.

I got my dream job, teaching at Pomona College, a few months later.

I tell my students, sometimes, that grown-ups are not lying to you when they talk about how fast life goes. You wake up and really do wonder where it all went—which is why one of the great luxuries afforded Pomona students is the freedom to sit down on Marston Quad or in a dorm room and to talk with friends, or to think for yourself, about where you want to be and, more importantly, with whom you want to be there. Your job isn’t just to learn a subject. It’s to learn to live a good life.

And so it is years later, and I have my own children now, and they are almost the age that I was when we spent that first summer at Quarry Farm. And they love stories that are the stuff of Twain: kids getting in trouble, kids being sneaky, kids in danger, knights, tricks, grownups who do stupid things, those rare acts of true bravery and courage that make you believe human beings might be worth something, after all.

Perhaps all that storytelling has something to do with why I finally picked up those old manuscript notes—and why this summer, I’m the professor working at Mark Twain’s house, as a fellow of the Elmira College Center for Mark Twain Studies, trying to finish a book that my father was writing before I was born.

One of Twain’s great themes was that the American myth of individual autonomy and self-creation is a lie—a lie that enabled the great moral evil of slavery, for one thing, but that also impoverishes our lives in subtler ways. Huck Finn has a lot of adventures, but other Americans are always trying to get one over on him, and Huck feels “awful lonesome” most of the time.

The truth about us humans, Twain taught, was that we are social and political creatures who are inextricably bound to other people. Love calls us and can ennoble us, and Twain was “confident,” my father wrote, “that the comradeship of honorable love is the clearest human instance of what is divinely right.”

Twain knew that we have to admit our connection and indebtedness to others if we are ever to know ourselves. And we have to be willing to dedicate ourselves to others, and to do so out of love, if we are ever to be truly free, to smile in the face of our certain deaths.

My father wrote this: “Love, particularly when it is linked to the rearing of children, can nurture and sustain the spirit, even in a gilded age, just as a great storyteller can help us to hear the music in our souls.”

And so it is that here I am, on this front porch looking out at the hills of upstate New York, at home again with my father, and at home again with Mark Twain, with the abiding refrain in my ears.

Susan McWilliams is associate professor of politics and chair of the Politics Program at Pomona College. The author of Traveling Back: Toward a Global Political Theory, she has two books in the publishing pipeline ahead of the Twain book.

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