Author: slattia

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Looking at the Past in the Present

Elizabeth J McGrath’s presentation last night of “Using Distant Galaxies as Cosmic Time Machines” was very interesting, especially as a student who has never studied astronomy or physics. She began her presentation with a large photo of galaxies combined together which was not only beautiful but also a nice way to begin talking about the big picture. Although I do not have a strong interest in astronomy (mainly because I find it too big of a concept to grasp my head around), I still learned a large amount of information last night.

One student asked if she ever became frustrated working with such concepts that were so out of her hands and so far away. Of course, she was not frustrated with this, or else she never would have entered the field, but I thought that was interesting because that is an issue I have with learning about space. It is too far away and large for me to wrap my head around so I often get frustrated and overwhelmed with the information I am learning. However, I thought Elizabeth J McGrath did a great job of breaking down concepts for me to understand.

For starters, I did not know what galaxies were made of, so learning that galaxies are made of ordinary matter, dark matter, and dark energy was enlightening. I also thought it was interesting that relative quantities of dark matter and dark energy affect predictions for the growth of galaxies and large scale structure in the Universe. Speaking of growth of galaxies, the color implication was also fascinating. I had no idea that the color of a galaxy actually implies the age of that galaxy, for instance blue stars live short lives, so that galaxy would be relatively young, as opposed to red stars which live long lives, which would be an older galaxy. This color differentiation was especially interesting when relating it back to the first photo she showed us at the beginning of the presentation, which she then showed again, so we could actually see which galaxies were older and which were younger.

The information she shared about light speed was incredibly interesting. I knew that it took 8 minutes for the light from the sun to get to us, but I had no idea that light takes 4 years from closest star (other than the sun), 27,000 years from center of our galaxy, and 2.5 million years from another galaxy (Andromeda Galaxy). This timescale is crazy, but also so fascinating when thinking about “looking back in time”. When I think of a “time machine” I think of a crazy scientist making a machine to go into the future or past, when in reality by looking at other galaxies we are using a Time Machine. When thinking about the presence of the past, looking at distant galaxies is doing exactly that, because by the time the light travels to Earth it is far in the past. I thought this was a very unique way of thinking about the presence of the past and an especially interesting way to wrap up all of these lectures.

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Learn from the Past

Loren McClenachan’s presentation of: “Historical Marine Ecology: Informing the future by learning from the past” was extremely interesting and relevant to the theme of this class. These conversations are happening all around us all the time—topics such as global warming, climate change, changing ecosystems, etc. but she dove into a specific area of maritime history. I thought it was very interesting and unique that she decided to focus on the link between social history and changing marine environments, rather than just one or the other. It is important to note that social history and environmental history go hand and hand, a comparison that people sometimes have trouble understanding.

Dr. Loren McClenachan focused on three main aspects that the Florida Keys marine ecosystems were facing: decreasing size of trophy fish, importance of coral reefs, and the damaging nature of boom-bust fisheries. These differentiations were interesting because many conversations about climate change and the environment do not typically focus on these topics, but rather melting ice caps, a person’s carbon footprint, burning fossil fuels and the ozone layer, etc. but this was a nice change. Talking about fish was enlightening because I have learned very little about marine life in my college career. I have taken a climate change class both at Colby and in Australia, but neither of these classes ever focused on marine ecology, so I was excited to learn about something new. While this discussions was common in the fact that many people are having discussions on climate change and sustainability, this one shed light on a mores specific topic.

I found it particularly interesting when she shared the photos of different ecosystems and asked how distressed each ecosystem was. Obviously, if we were given pictures of factories and garbage, we would say that the ecosystem was in danger. However, when given a picture of an underwater ecosystem, it is much harder to tell. I think this was especially interesting when thinking about the history of ecosystems, because from the naked eye an ecosystem might look completely healthy, but when compared to its prior state you can see a clear difference and how it make be in danger. For instance, I recently was at the Great Barrier Reef with my parents, who had traveled there 30 years prior. I was astonished by the coral I saw, for to me it looked like an incredible aspect of nature. To them, they were unimpressed and concerned, for the last time they observed the reef was before the climate had changed so significantly. Although they are not experts in environmental studies and climate change, their perspective was different from mine because of their knowledge on the reef’s history. Linking the history with the current state is quite important, for how could someone who doesn’t study this topic be able to understand the magnitude of the situation by just observing an ecosystem’s current state. This has an extreme relevance to our lecture series, for you can’t understand a current ecosystem without understanding it’s prior ecosystem, so fully connecting the presence of the past.

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Teaching History

Heather Streets-Salter began her talk by discussing the Noulens Affair in 1931 in Shanghai. I appreciated that she did not jump right into her presentation, but rather took the time to explain what the Noulens Affair was and who was involved in it. I had never heard of the Noulens Affair before this lecutre, so all of this information was new to me and quite interesting.

Heather Streets-Salter went into detail about the events in Shanghai and how the events spread communism across Asia. She explained the networks within Asia and their connections with the Soviet Union, and how these connections led to hundreds of arrests and an intense investigation. This investigation spread around the world, threatening other countries by the introduction of communism.

I thought it was interesting what Nathaniel Dowd touched on his post when he said this talk gives a slight critique on how we study history, and how educators teach it. He said the study of history treats historical events often as singular bullet points in time, which makes it hard to study the overlap of certain events and how different events interact with each other over time. I found this particularly interesting, for I think that is my difficulty with studying history, that I can’t just look at something on it’s own, but need to understand the situation in it’s larger context. We could not understand the Noulens Affair without understanding the magnitude of the situation and the Cold War. Going along with this thought, I think it’s very interesting to think about the larger context for our Presence of the Past lecture series. A professor or lecturer can’t just introduce a topic without giving the background to it, or else we would not understand the full extent of the situation. It is very difficult when teaching a topic that we may not be familiar with, such as a few weeks ago when we learned about genetics and genomes, since that topic was new for many students. Understanding the larger context is necessary when teaching a topic, especially for interrelating and connecting ideas.

After this discussion, I tried to do some research on the Noulens Affair and there was very little information available. I know Dr. Streets-Salter mentioned that there was not much literature regarding the Affair, but it is shocking being that it was such an prominent and important story at the time and there is so little documented about it. This also relates to my previous point about teaching history, since having information on the Noulens Affair deepens our understanding of the Cold War and international relations at the time. We can’t fully understand the present if we do not understand the past, so having limited information on such an important topic in history is detrimental to our whole current understanding. I appreciate that Dr. Streets-Salter was able to research such an un-researched event, giving us the information to build on top of the information we already know about the Cold War and the spread of communism.

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Art and Science

I thought Carin Berkowitz’s lecture of “Anatomists and the Stolen Statues: Stories of Science, Art, and Religion” was very interesting and discussed two areas of study that I always separate into very different categories: art and science. When growing up, I was always told there were “sciency” people and “creative” people, and usually people stuck with that category. Obviously I knew there were exceptions to this, but still today you see most scientists sticking with math and numbers and most artists sticking with photography, drawing, painting, etc. This lecture was very interesting because in the history of anatomy, there was no division between the two fields. Both art and science were combined in everyday learning which is something I thought was particularly intriguing about this whole presentation.

I thought the Philosophy of Learning section Carin Berkowitz discussed was most interesting because she went into detail about how Bell would show his students the human body with visual displays and then have the students prepare their own learning. I question if this practice was beneficial, since I would imagine that not all people who were studying to be a doctor had artistic skills. It is clear that Bell was an incredible artist and was an incredible doctor, but what if his students weren’t as gifted? Did this type of learning deter students from entering the medical field? If students were only artistic or only interested in science did they then not enter the medical field because they didn’t have both aspects? That is something that I found very confusing, for I know that it is hard to be both incredible at art OR science let alone art AND science.

I always find that I learn better by actually participating in the work I am doing and learning via experience rather than just listening to a lecture. I agreed with Bell’s idea that there should be hands on learning spaces and hospital schools for students to understand the human body. I can’t imagine that the doctors knew what they were doing at all before this idea came to place, since it is very hard to transfer book knowledge into practical knowledge.

It is incredible that some of his artwork is still preserved today since it is not only accurate but truly a beautiful piece of art. Of course now our medical students learn off diagrams and photos, but this was the beginning of that creation. It is very unique that Bell didn’t have an artist creating these pieces for him but rather created them himself, replicating the exact features of the human body. It is also nice how instead of giving up with the idea of understanding the human body because it was difficult to get an actual anatomy to work with, he figured out a way to understand it in a different light. I thought this lecture was very relevant to the Presence of the Past lecture series because it provided an understanding of the past and how it effects our future, in the medical world and in the artistic world. It is important to preserve this knowledge and memory for our current society as well as our future societies.

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Hard Science and Social Science

Professor Noh’s presentation: “How current genomes are shaped by evolutionary pasts” was interesting and insightful. It is always a treat to have Colby professors lead these lectures, especially when it is a professor that Ihave never had any contact with. I have never taken a biology course at Colby so it was nice to hear from someone that I am so far removed from. That being said, since I have never taken biology class at Colby and the last time I took biology was early high school, I had a hard time following along. She broke down some of the terminology, however there was still many concepts that I did not understand and had trouble wrapping my head around. I probably should have asked some questions, however I was at that point where I had so many little questions that I couldn’t even come up with an insightful question to ask.

I must say, it must be difficult for Professor Noh to create a presentation for students and faculty that have little to no experience in biology. In most places where she presents her work, I’m sure she has a group of biology students and faculty who are very well aware of the implications of her research and the background knowledge to understand the research. This, however, was different in the fact that she had a room full of mixed majors, many humanities, and many students who have never taken a biology or similar course at Colby. So, being that she was able to share her research with us and us understand it (for the most part) was very impressive, and I am in awe of that skill.

One topic she brought up was how competition between amoebas drive a genetic modification and affects evolution. Although I was unfamiliar with amoebas, I found it interesting when she related it to social conflict, a topic that I do talk about often in my sociology and education classes. She discussed how social conflict within the body changes how amoebas form, creating different DNA sequences. Since I had a hard time picturing what was happening in the body with these small organisms, I pictured this in the way that I knew how to understand it, with social groups in a society.

Although I had trouble following along, I thought it was intriguing that this research she was doing, which would typically be considered a hard science, can be translated to humanities. Many of our other lectures have been clear social science and literary studies topics, but this biology discussion was also related in the fact that it supported evolution and changes over time. She discussed just how adaptive organisms can be  to their environments, such as dicty changing in size over a small period of time. Although this is very different, our last lecture also discussed how species can adapt to their environments, but that talk being humans and this being much much much smaller organisms. Still, it relates, and comparing and contrasting all the information from multiple lectures provides new insights to these ideas that we are learning throughout the semester.

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Climate Theory of Sexuality

I found Greta LaFleur’s presentation “Toward an Environmental Theory of Early Sexuality” on April 1 quite enlightening. I believe the topics she discussed are very relevant in our modern day discussions and as someone who has recently taken a Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies course at Colby I found that it connected and intertwined to what we would talk about in class. I also thought it was very interesting how she connected the theory of sexuality to the environment and climate, since that is a theme we have been seeing in nearly all of our Presence of the Past lectures (unsure if that was some kind of necessary requirement to be included in the lecture series but regardless it’s nice how they all connect in some way).

The theories Greta LaFleur covers were interesting because I had never heard of some of them before. I like that she defined all the theories before she went into detail on them, for that was very helpful as an audience member. She started with Humoral Theory which understood the human form as a “porous envelope” and was vulnerable. She then went into Climate Theory which is the idea that particular bodily arrangements and types, particular characters, and particular qualities were endemic to (and perhaps produced by) the relative heat or cool of different regions. I found this theory most interesting because it was the most relevant to modern times. For instance, within this theory she talked about “cuffing season” which is where people get into relationships in the colder months and then break up during the warmer months. (I still remember David Greene telling us on our first day that Colby has a high marriage rate, probably because it gets cold here—cuffing season!). She also talked about the Geography of Questionable Sexual Decisions which means that people’s sexual decisions change based on where they are located. The modern day example of this was Vegas, and what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. I also found this example interesting, because we have all heard that phrase before but don’t really think about the underlying theories of it. That example was also interesting when someone in the audience asked about how environmental things and geographic locations could have an effect on people. Greta LaFleur explained that architecture, state, or location, can all have an effect on people and their view on sex and sexuality. Once again, an example of this was Vegas and that the atmosphere and environment of Vegas may have that effect on altering people’s views on sexuality for while they are there.

All of these examples were enlightening, for it allowed us to see that sexual decisions can be the products of the environment around us. Also, the presentation pulled real life examples to make it fun and interesting to listen to. She ended by saying “ how sex becomes sexuality and how sexuality became human” and i thought that was an interesting way to end the presentation, wrapping up everything. I thoroughly enjoyed Greta LaFleur’s presentation and think it was an excellent addition to our presence of the past lecture series.

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Science of Race

Projit Bihari Mukharji’s “Collecting Bodies, Bodily Collectives” was very interesting and unique from our other presentations, being that he approached the topic of “presence of the past” differently. As opposed to our other presenters, Projit decided to start with the presence and work his way backwards to the past, which was an interesting approach compared to our other presentations who have started in the past and worked their way to the present.

This lecture provided a very interesting to view of racism, looking at it in a biological way that I am not familiar with. As an Education major and a Sociology minor, I constantly read about societies’ view of races and racism and how it is socially constructed. However, this view was different in the fact that science was involved. Isabella Scribano’s post was interesting, particularly in her example about the anthropology class she took and how intelligence was measured with head size. Since different races had different measurements, it was perceived that some races were overall smarter than other races. It is interesting in this example, and others, that genetics can be used in a society to marginalize a race, even though it could be completely unrelated.

One of Projit’s examples was that there was an advertisement for “BiDil”, a drug that targeted African American hearts and no other hearts…this was very interesting and absurd, since all hearts are the same. Also, what’s concerning about this is that it is very recent. This drug was created and advertised in 2005, making people believe that there are big differences between white hearts and black hearts, which are clearly not true. I thought “gohwil21’s” questions of “whose responsibility is it to stop (or at least inform the public about) questionable science like this- especially when it’s deeply entrenched in cultural norms? Do we have to perform racial experiments to disprove science like this?” was particularly interesting, since I also found myself asking those questions when I learned this information. Is racism just reinforced when drugs and ads like these are made because they have “scientific evidence” to back them up?

Projit’s discussions of the importance of ethics in data collection was very interesting, especially since my current classes are talking about ethics in research. Of course my research is sociology, a very different approach to research, but still ethics apply. The story of  the scientist who used lies and coercion to get bones from the graveyard was wild, because in my mind that was clearly unethical, but that information helped the future of genetics. Ethics is tricky because there is no correct answer, it really depends on who is looking at the situation. Since genetics is often studied after a person has passed, it is very hard to figure out what is ethical and what is not, when you can’t directly talk to the person being studied.

It is interesting that some of these data pools that Projit touched on were very small but lead to giant conclusions to be made. For all we know the information provided actually provides no applicable information for future generations and communities, however is still the current science we educate ourselves with. We have to look at science with a critical eye and not believe everything we read/we are told, just because it is “science”.  There are clearly errors in the past, through poor research studies and techniques, which are currently affecting the present.

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Our Society is in Wonderland

Going into this lecture given just the name, I thought this presentation was going to be different from what it actually was. I imagined a typical climate change talk, discussing the impacts of climate change, what it’s doing to our society, and the measures we can take to lesson the disastrous impacts/push it off for longer. I was surprised, however, to find that it was nothing like I expected.

Nathan K. Hensley’s Action After Nature: Climate Crisis & the Force of Literature, was an interesting approach to climate change, pairing the study of climate change with literature. To be honest, I thought the pairing was a little bit of a reach, and actually confused be quite a bit. Maybe I am just not educated enough on climate change or literature or am just having trouble grasping the idea of combining the two, but I left the lecture feeling quite confused. Reflecting now, however, I am starting to better understand what he was trying to say. His use of Alice in Wonderland as a metaphor at first seemed like a big reach, but now I understand that Alice was living in world that she was unfamiliar with—just like we are currently living in a world that is new and changing.

The comparison of literature to climate change made sense in the fact that literature is formed within the context of contemporary issues. When talking about Alice and Wonderland, it was interesting to think about it in a different way, since the last time I read/listened to the book was when I was a child. He talked about how Alice tried to apply the same rules from her own world to this new world she entered, which was a mistake. This comparison made a lot of sense to me. In contemporary times, we act as though nothing has changed and all rules remain the same, even though they clearly don’t. The world is an ever-changing place and new ways of being come and go—we can’t just live the same way our grandparents lived anymore, we must change our way of doing things. Alice realized her way of being no longer worked in this new world and had to change in order to fit in and understand the new world. Climate change is changing our world—stronger storms, increased temperatures, rising sea levels—are all becoming more prominent. As a society we need to understand that this is the new world we lived in, not the past world, and go from there. Hensley refers to Hurricane Harvey here, and how Harvey was a storm that would occur very infrequently, maybe even every 1000 years. However, storms like Harvey are happening more and more often, and our society has to adjust to this new climate that is creating these disastrous storms.

This lecture, although it confused me a bit, was a very relevant and an important discussion for this lecture series. This related greatly to the “Presence of the Past” because he talked about the current world we live in by understanding the past, through literature.

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“Insider” in Research

Sonja Thomas’s presentation on “Indians on the Reservation: Missionary Priests from India and Catholic Settler Colonialism” was very interesting and brought about topics that I realized I  really don’t know much about. First and foremost, I feel guilty that I don’t know much about Native American issues and struggles, but I also question the American education system for not teaching me more about this important subject.

To start off, I appreciated that Sonja Thomas began with an expert from current events related to the topic. The first slide was about Nick Sandmann, the student at Convington Catholic High School who was recently in the news for laughing at a Native American man. This opened up the presentation in a intriguing way, for probably everyone in the room has seen that video/heard about Nick Sandmann/are interested to know more.

One piece of information that I thought was extremely interesting was that when American priests set out to other places they are called missionaries but if priests from other countries, such as Asian countries, come to America they are called “imported goods”. This difference in language has created a great misunderstanding and extreme racism. As Isabella said in her post, there are definitely some parallels with how America looks at immigration these days, also being racist to those who come to America/acting like they are “imported goods”.

Thomas explained her background, coming from a very Catholic family in a predominately white town in Montana. The town was located near Native People’s Reservations and she was constantly surrounded by Indians Priests who were friends of her family. When listening to her ethnographic research it made me think a lot about my current class, Sociology Research Methods, and how we are learning that it is so difficult to do research from both an insider and an outsider perspective. Sonja is both an insider and an outsider in this research, since she is going home and researching her family friends/neighbors/teachers/etc. She is an insider because they trust her and she knows them but she is an outsider because she is doing research. As she was saying, one person she interviewed was very racist and she didn’t know if they were telling her those things because she was an insider to them, or because she was an outsider. That is a common dilemma, and I wonder if she would have had the same powerful interviews if she was a complete stranger coming in trying to get information (probably not).

The way Sonja Thomas wrapped up was enlightening. She first talked about how the Montana archives are very frustrating and it is extremely difficult to find information which brought her to the topic of the presence of the past. She said there is an effort to erase the presence of the past but instead we need to focus on the presence of the past. She ended by saying that history promotes world understanding and fosters peace, which I think she is doing a great job by studying this topic and continuing her research.

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Invoking the Past for the Future

Professor Yoder’s presentation on ‘The Presence of the Past in Angela Merkel’s Political Discourse’ was very insightful and brought about ideas I had never really given much thought to. I obviously know about Germany’s past in the World Wars, but had never thought much about how Germany handles their past in their current political era.

Professor Yoder focused her presentation on Angela Merkel, the current Chancellor of Germany who has been serving since 2005. Besides being the first female chancellor, and the first chancellor to have grown up in the former East Germany, something that really stands out about Merkel is that she was the first chancellor to be born after World War II, making the use of the past in her political speeches that much more interesting.

Merkel constantly refers to Germany’s past using memory politics, invoking or incorporating the past into a speech. Here she acknowledges the mistakes her country has made and how they have moved on and bettered themselves since then/how they are bettering themselves everyday. In her speeches, 67% of them invoke the German past, often including the war and the Holocaust. Some of her speeches includes sentences such as “only if Germany accepts its responsibility for the moral disaster in its history will it be able to build a humane future” and “it’s about people at the end of the day”. This is extremely interesting for many reasons, one because she was not alive during this era and two, that she is acknowledging, not defending, the past of Germany, something many leaders are not capable of.

Acknowledging and agreeing with your country’s mistakes is a fairly uncommon tactic. One student in the class asked if this could make Angela Merkel lose her support for being called anti-German. I personally think this tactic is prideful and empathetic for those Germany has affected, as opposed to disgraceful and anti-German. As Jack Macphee says in his post, an unapologetic leader who refuses or elects not to acknowledge their country’s past could leave a poor impression on other world leaders and members of the public. I think this is an issue our country is dealing with right now with an unapologetic leader who is leaving a poor impression on other leaders as well as the general public. I do wonder how other countries, including our own, would deal with memory politics in a more emotional, empathetic way, such as Merkel. I think in order to movie forward you have to acknowledge the issues and wrongdoings of the past, in order to better the future.

I hadn’t thought much about the name of this class “The Presence of the Past” before showing up to the first presentation, but I understand why it is called that now. Professor Yoder did an excellent job digging into the speeches of Angela Merkel and how Germany is using the presence to invoke the past. Through pictures, quotes, and humor, Professor Yoder shed light on this dense topic and made an excellent first presentation for this course!