Denison University

Fischel, Mia

Exile Volume 72 Number 1 Article 17 Paint Peels Mia Fischel Denison University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.denison.edu/exile  Part of the Creative Writing Commons Recommended Citation Fischel, Mia () "Paint Peels," Exile: Vol. 72: No. 1, Article 17. Available at: https://digitalcommons.denison.edu/exile/vol72/iss1/17 This Image is brought to you for free and open access by the English at Denison Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Exile by an authorized editor of Denison Digital Commons. For more information, please contact eresources@denison.edu. 22 Paint Peels Mia Fischel   

English

Paint Peels

Pandaleon, Julia

Exile Volume 72 Number 1 Article 29 Look! The Swan is Out Julia Pandaleon Denison University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.denison.edu/exile  Part of the Creative Writing Commons Recommended Citation Pandaleon, Julia () "Look! The Swan is Out," Exile: Vol. 72: No. 1, Article 29. Available at: https://digitalcommons.denison.edu/exile/vol72/iss1/29 This Image is brought to you for free and open access by the English at Denison Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Exile by an authorized editor of Denison Digital Commons. For more information, please contact eresources@denison.edu. 34 Look! The Swan is Out Julia Pandaleon   

Look! The Swan is Out

Stauffer, Maya

Exile Volume 72 Number 1 Article 16 Floral Fireworks Maya Stauffer Denison University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.denison.edu/exile  Part of the Creative Writing Commons Recommended Citation Stauffer, Maya () "Floral Fireworks," Exile: Vol. 72: No. 1, Article 16. Available at: https://digitalcommons.denison.edu/exile/vol72/iss1/16 This Image is brought to you for free and open access by the English at Denison Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Exile by an authorized editor of Denison Digital Commons. For more information, please contact eresources@denison.edu. 21 Floral Fireworks Maya Stauffer            

Floral Fireworks

Exile Volume 72 Number 1 Article 11 Slumber Mia Fischel Denison University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.denison.edu/exile  Part of the Creative Writing Commons Recommended Citation Fischel, Mia () "Slumber," Exile: Vol. 72: No. 1, Article 11. Available at: https://digitalcommons.denison.edu/exile/vol72/iss1/11 This Image is brought to you for free and open access by the English at Denison Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Exile by an authorized editor of Denison Digital Commons. For more information, please contact eresources@denison.edu. 15 Slumber Mia Fischel                     

Slumber

Volume 30

Lee, Grace

Stocker, Charlie

Prologue: A First-Year Writing Journal Volume 16 Article 10 Consultation & Writer Reflections on Memory Wars: Korean Popular Culture and the Politics of Historical Justice with Japan Grace Lee Denison University Charlie Stocker Denison University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.denison.edu/prologue  Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons Recommended Citation Lee, Grace and Stocker, Charlie () "Consultation & Writer Reflections on Memory Wars: Korean Popular Culture and the Politics of Historical Justice with Japan," Prologue: A First-Year Writing Journal: Vol. 16, Article 10. Available at: https://digitalcommons.denison.edu/prologue/vol16/iss1/10 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Writing Center at Denison Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Prologue: A First-Year Writing Journal by an authorized editor of Denison Digital Commons. For more information, please contact eresources@denison.edu.  Consultation Reflections  Grace Lee                    Writer Before Denison, I mostly wrote in a diary or short articles for fun. Since coming to Denison, academic writing has taught me to think more critically, structure my ideas better, and support arguments with evidence. For my Writing 101 paper on power, justice, and ethics, I drew inspiration from performing in the 2022 Korean musical The Hero, which portrays Japanese colonization. The frequent mention of “justice” led me to explore how Koreans' views on justice have evolved, using personal experiences, films, and conversations alongside research to shape my argument. My editor encouraged me to read my essay from the reader’s perspective. This shift helped me realize the importance of clarity and coherence, not just for myself as a writer, but for the audience. His advice guided me to revise to make my ideas more accessible and easier to follow.   Charlie Stocker                  Writing Center Consultant When Grace and I sat down together for our consultation, I was reminded of why I love my job. She asked loads of questions, and listened eagerly. I could see her learning, adjusting, and growing just within the space of our consultations.  Her passion for this essay shines in its personability, nuance, and relevance. Her first draft was jam packed full with fascinating detail, and she was having a little trouble containing it. Our first consultation was spent identifying those areas that we thought could use some thinning, and talking about where she might be able to go a little bit deeper. Grace scheduled a second consultation with me the next week to go over the revisions she had made, and I was left astounded by just how much she had dedicated herself to the project. My experience working with Grace perfectly captured what is so fulfilling about working at the Writing Center. Our consultation was a mutually educational environment, where I gained just as much from her as she might have from me. What brings me the most joy is getting to understand how another person thinks, because there is always so much to learn!         36 

Consultation & Writer Reflections on \u3ci\u3eMemory Wars: Korean Popular Culture and the Politics of Historical Justice with Japan\u3c/i\u3e

Altizer, Eva

Prologue: A First-Year Writing Journal Volume 16 Article 11 Hrdy and Wrangham: What Erectus Says About Us Eva Altizer Denison University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.denison.edu/prologue  Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons Recommended Citation Altizer, Eva () "Hrdy and Wrangham: What Erectus Says About Us," Prologue: A First-Year Writing Journal: Vol. 16, Article 11. Available at: https://digitalcommons.denison.edu/prologue/vol16/iss1/11 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Writing Center at Denison Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Prologue: A First-Year Writing Journal by an authorized editor of Denison Digital Commons. For more information, please contact eresources@denison.edu.  Hrdy and Wrangham: What Erectus Says About Us Eva Altizer This paper was originally developed for an ANTH 202 course taught by Dr. John Soderberg.  It certainly is and has been a strongly debatable subject -- what does Homo erectus contribute to our understanding of human origins? Despite the same evidence being presented  under scrutiny, many anthropologists have come to vastly different conclusions on the bigger  picture of what Homo erectus represents to human society. With Homo erectus came the  discovery of fire, cooked food, advanced tools and more important milestones, and yet not many  can agree on what all of it means. There are two anthropologists in particular who have popular  and opposing views – Sarah Blaffer Hrdy and Richard Wrangham. Hrdy and Wrangham’s  perspective on Homo erectus differ because of the complexity of human empathy, the sexual  division of labor, and interpretations of human society. To understand why, both arguments must  be laid out in their entirety.  To start, Wrangham’s hypotheses about Homo erectus comes from a seemingly  mechanistic, though it may be more accurate to call it utilitarian, perspective. One of the theories  Wrangham is the most concerned with is how fire plays into the development of complicated  social relations and overall decreased mortality in Homo erectus. He believes that fire is what  freed men to carry out tasks while women attended to preparing and cooking food (Wrangham  2009, 136), and that this was a purely transactional and logical operation between group  members. Cooking food allowed Homo erectus to spend less time chewing and more time on  other pursuits, as the food was softened by fire, making it more digestible and nutritious, and  safer to eat as it became significantly less likely to contain diseases.  While cooking food was a net benefit for Homo erectus, it had different impacts on the  respective sexes. The other half of Wrangham’s thoughts relating to fire are about what he  believes to be the nature of human families: “Human families are unique compared to the social  arrangements of other species because each household is a little economy” (Wrangham 2009,  136). It mostly boils down to the assumed “sex contract,” where a male provides food for the  family in exchange for sexual fidelity from a female mate (Hrdy 2009, 147). A more recent build  on this idea is one where the male hunts while the female gathers, and they each provide to the  “household” food supply in a different but established manner; males hunt what is considered  valuable meat that is the main source of calories (Wrangham 2009, 137), while the females make  37  up for his shortcomings with gathered food, and each sexes’ contributions can vary based on  environment and season (Wrangham 2009, 137).  Wrangham claims that sexual division of labor helped Homo erectus develop emotional  and intellectual skills because it relies on other members in the group, which requires  cooperation and “exceptional intelligence,” and that the sexual division of labor is the big  altering difference between humans and apes (Wrangham 2009, 137). This idea explains that  cooking is an agreement – females spend time cooking and preparing food while males protect  their mates from food thieves, in exchange for food themselves (Wrangham 2009, 154).  Consequently, females would have no choice in this agreement, because of the physical and  social protection that males provided and was required for survival (Wrangham 2009, 155).   While a grim picture, this is what Wrangham paints as being Homo erectus life – Homo  erectus had become patriarchal because of males exploiting female labor, and human society  built itself on this foundation of the “family.” He draws these conclusions from evidence of  human reliance on cooked food and examples from modern human societies, such as the real world phenomena of raw foodists, stating that they were unable to have healthy, sufficient diets  without cooked food, usually developing cases of amenorrhea (Wrangham and Carmody 2010,  188). Wrangham also pulls evidence from examples regarding the sexual division of labor,  including but not limited to hunter-gatherer societies:  Although men often like to cook meat, overall cooking was the most female-biased  activity of any, a little more so than preparing plant food and fetching water. Women were  predominantly or almost exclusively responsible for cooking in 97.8 percent of societies. (Wrangham 2009, 149) Another stark example comes from the people of Vanatinai, of the South Pacific, who  were studied by cultural anthropologist Maria Lepowsky (Wrangham 2009, 150) where women  seemingly have more autonomy than in other hunter-gatherer societies, but still get straddled  with “low grade” work such as finding water, gardening, looking for firewood, looking after  children, and cooking and cleaning: “…when they asked for help with these tasks, ‘The men,’  wrote Lepowsky, ‘usually retort that these are the work of the women’” (Wrangham 2009, 151).  Ultimately, Wrangham believes the sexual division of labor was created by cooking and  consequently created the enduring structure of the human family.    38  But, while being mostly but not entirely contrary to Wrangham, Hrdy’s arguments are  departing from these ideas. Hrdy says that empathy was the key to Homo erectus life, and that it  shaped what human society became in the future. The question of human compassion is a  difficult one, because attempts at objectivity on the issue come out seemingly biased regardless  of the evidence surrounding it. What exactly is human compassion? What is its purpose? Is it a  product of natural selection as a very specific tool, or is there some other reasoning to this  (apparent) altruism? Hrdy attempts to answer this rather convoluted set of questions with an  argument concerning cooperative breeding. A building block of Hrdy argument is the theory of the mind – which is the inherent  ability/desire to know what someone else is thinking, as in “reading their mind,” a trait which is  present in humans (Hrdy 2009, 2). Another term for this is intersubjectivity, which has almost  the same meaning as the theory of the mind, but with emphasis on the desire to share emotions  and experiences with others (Hrdy 2009, 2). Humans display behaviors indicative of a need to  cooperate, as seen every time someone responds to a call of distress or shares a piece of food  with someone else, common acts in our everyday lives. Hrdy says of it: “This ability to identify  with others and vicariously experience their suffering is not simply learned: it is a part of us.”  (Hrdy 2009, 4). Hrdy claims that this is the key development that takes us from Homo erectus to  Homo sapien.  This altruism has a distinct use. Investing time and effort into relationships reap better  rewards than those who do not have prosocial tendencies (humans’ high social aptitude) (Hrdy  2009, 4). If you help someone else out in their time of need, you are much more likely to receive  that sort of help yourself, and this is a net benefit for everyone – that is a common and well  understood construct of human society. It is quite a practical system, but it relies on playing this  long-term game of investment and navigating the complexities of the human social world, and it  is difficult to imagine how these traits came to be in natural selection with no immediate rewards  coming from it (Hrdy 2009, 67). According to Hrdy, the positive reinforcement for this came  from alloparenting, the practice of caring for offspring that is not yours, and it was the catalyst  for our intense reliance on community. Unlike possessive and protective ape mothers, human  mothers tend to be a lot more open to sharing a baby among caretakers, as seen in African  hunter-gatherer societies such as the Aka and Efe, whose babies are known to be handed off to  39  close family and friends soon after the mother gives birth (Hrdy 2009, 76) – Efe babies have a  close connection to their community from the very beginning.   The infants are passed through fourteen caretakers in the days following birth, on average  (Hrdy 2009, 79), and this behavior continues throughout childhood. This encourages social  bonding between group members and causes the group to create support systems of alloparents.  Sharing is quite important in these societies, as resources tend to be well distributed in the group,  perhaps as a result of alloparenting, and is a lesson taught to children early, as with the  Ju/’hoansi, who first learn to say words like na and i when they are very young, meaning “give it  to me” and “here, take this,” respectively (Hrdy 2009, 23). It shows how important the bonds of  cooperative breeding are, and how that shapes our social tendencies.  A considered explanation for human alloparenting is found among extreme examples of  cooperative breeders, like the naked mole rat – in their colonies, alloparents carry the burden of  caring for offspring rather than the biological parents (Hrdy 2009, 185), to the point where only  dominant female mole rats get to reproduce, leaving less than five percent of all mole rats able to   reproduce at all, providing labor to the group offspring instead (Hrdy 2009, 186). This is an  example of a eusocial species, meaning a species in which “alloparents routinely put survival of  group or hive ahead of their individual interests” (Hrdy 2009, 184), which may sound like human  alloparenting. For a species to be eusocial, they must live in a group with overlapping  generations, have alloparents, and have these alloparents be so limited by caring for others’  offspring that they do not reproduce much themselves (Hrdy 2009, 184).  These alloparents may be prevented from reproducing by being forced to care for other  offspring from dominant group members, or simply not have enough resources to reproduce, and  it is less costly to further the genes of kin (who may or may not actually be related to them), as  according to Hamilton’s rule (Hrdy 2009, 186). What alloparents are doing is avoiding a  negative consequence that is usually enacted by a dominant member of the group, which is  keeping alloparents from reproducing.  As a consequence of the similarities human alloparents share with eusocial community  structures, it may be easy to look at humans and say we are a eusocial species and that explains  away the strange, seemingly altruistic traits we have, but that idea takes away from the fact that  human alloparenting is not contingent on “dominant” group members, and that it is actually quite  strange when compared to other species. It is not done through coercion, but social pressures that    40  conform us to the needs of the group, even when it does not seem like the logical thing to do  (Hrdy 2009, 205). Aka children interviewed by Adam Boyette answered the question of what  would happen if they refused to care for younger kin, and 57% answered their mothers would  refuse them food, and 30% said their mothers would hit them, even though Boyette recorded that  he never saw these forms of punishment being used (Hrdy 2009, 205).  Humans manage to maintain a sense of negative consequence for acting out in the group,  while not having the same rigid structure or dominant hierarchy of a eusocial species. Social  pressure is clearly important here and may be the key to cooperative breeding in humans, and  what makes human groups so flexible and attentive to the needs of costly human children  (Soderberg 2024). Intersectionality paves the way for this social pressure, as it creates a  desire for humans to understand and interact with each other in the first place, especially in  groups trying to work together – and allows the complex workings of social pressure to take  hold.  The idea that pressuring members of a group to behave in the interests of the group even  works as a tactic to maintain stability, would speak highly of humans’ social nature, and how  mind-reading affects the dynamics of group survival. This is Hrdy’s hypothesis, and it is a much  different view than the ones that have dominated the study of human origins for a long time.  Hrdy’s hypothesis is a stark contrast to Wrangham’s -- one sees Homo erectus social dynamics  as a small family made from sexual division, while the other sees bigger, supportive  communities as a result of alloparenting.  How did Hrdy and Wrangham come to such different conclusions with such similar  evidence about Homo erectus? It is not a stretch to say the influence of Charles Darwin has far  exceeded his time in the sun, and he himself was influenced by personal beliefs about men and  women and how society works. He once wrote, “The most able men succeeded best in defending  and providing for themselves and their wives and their offspring,” concerning human origins  (Hrdy 2009, 147), which is an assumption based more on how his society worked in his time  than the ancient complexities of Homo erectus. As Hrdy points out, the nuclear family has been  pushed as the ideal of human existence that has always prevailed, despite the lack of serious  evidence to back this up and its fairly recent development as a widespread family unit (Hrdy  2009, 144). It is an assumption born of the social conformity of modern humans, especially in Western society, that ended up impeding research:  41  Once the idea took hold that the nuclear family is ‘at the heart a biological arrangement  for raising children that has always involved fathers as well as mothers,’ even otherwise very  thoughtful researchers overlooked the need to continuously challenge their underlying  assumptions about what children need in order to prosper. (Hrdy 2009, 146)  On the other end of the spectrum, it can be argued that in the study of our own species,  we exaggerate our own nature as being kind and compassionate and inherent. Sentimentality may  creep in, (with notable hints of organicism,) despite how natural selection works in its random  and relentless ways. Empathy is likely a tool that exists to serve our own selfish goals, and it  might be easy to forget that, despite the strength of human social bonds. Perhaps Homo erectus  worked in the more methodical and seemingly ruthless ways of other species that Wrangham  describes and had no need for such a tool to function. Empathy is a strange trait for any species,  and the circumstances in which it came to be in humans are shrouded in mystery. It is wise not to  rely on our own perceived experiences too much in the study of human origins.  In displaying these lenses on human origins, one could see how these ideas work in the  context of the 2024 United States election. While a complex and nuanced issue, there is certainly  much to be said on what it represents about human society, especially in a modern context.  Different perspectives of how the United States should function have come to clash in brash and  unexpected ways, deeply dividing the population, with two major distinct sides; first, there is a  version of the country which desires stability in the “economical family” structure Wrangham  proposes, with emphasis on how the surrounding group maintains this system, focusing on  competition and limited resources, such as money and jobs. It is distinctly individualistic and  aligns well with Wrangham’s idea of Homo erectus society, and there are certainly social and  political parallels that can be drawn in this theory to begin with.  This idea is mostly about maintaining familial stability, that it is the best avenue to  human progress, and conforming the new complexities of human society to uphold this ideal, in  reaction to vastly changing views and ideas. They believe in protecting the group by protecting  individual interests. On the other side, there is the lost art of alloparenting and group care, which  Hrdy notes has been declining: The modern emphasis on individualism and personal independence along with  consumption-oriented economics, compartmentalized living arrangements in high rise    42  apartments or suburban homes, and neolocal residence patterns combine to undermine social  connectedness. (Hrdy 2009, 286) This side of the country has more concern for the group as a united unit, and how we all  contribute to its upkeep. No longer does humanity depend so heavily on neighbors supporting  each other as was so common with alloparenting, and this has caused distress in a population  who seeks the United States to function as an affected whole, rather than individuals pursuing  their own needs, as they believe acting on the interests of the entire group will protect individual  interests as well. This group seeks, perhaps ironically, a return to the past values of alloparenting  that theoretically were the most effective at progressing humans forward.  Regardless of these differing points of views, there is something to be said about how  each argument has its own roots in humanity, whether or not it was present in Homo erectus. The  nuclear family is a real social structure that clearly still influences how society is run, and how  individualism has been budding over the centuries. Alloparenting is certainly real and important  to the foundations of human society, having played its part in ancient history, despite us not  knowing how far back it goes. Hopefully Homo erectus will soon reveal its nature in human  origins.  Works Cited Carmody, R., and R. Wrangham. 2010. “Human Adaption to the Control of Fire.” Evolutionary Anthropology. Hrdy, S. 2009. Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding. Harvard University Press.  Wrangham, R. 2009. Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human. New York: Basic Books.         43 

Hrdy and Wrangham: What Erectus Says About Us

Burke, Lila

Exile Volume 72 Number 1 Article 36 All I Have/All I Am Lila Burke Denison University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.denison.edu/exile  Part of the Creative Writing Commons Recommended Citation Burke, Lila () "All I Have/All I Am," Exile: Vol. 72: No. 1, Article 36. Available at: https://digitalcommons.denison.edu/exile/vol72/iss1/36 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the English at Denison Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Exile by an authorized editor of Denison Digital Commons. For more information, please contact eresources@denison.edu. 44 All I Have/All I Am  Lila Burke  Dearest Thighs,   Before I learned that my body was something to fear, I loved you for your functionality. I loved putting on my favorite polka dot skirt and twirling my worries away. I loved climbing the small tree in the orchard, propping myself against sturdy branches with a plum and my newest book from the library. You were always the perfect shelf. Somewhere along the way, though, I forgot about loving you and began trying to erase you. If I could, I would have flipped my pencil and rubbed until nothing remained but shreds of pink rubber and faint smudges of graphite. At 11, I noticed that my friends had a space between their thighs. They didn’t touch like you, didn’t get bigger in the middle like you. At 13, I loathed how you hurt me. The chafing never seemed to stop. With every step, as you rubbed my skin raw, I thought something must be wrong with me. At 16, you were a sign of my ineptitude. You slowed me down in the pool, made me fall behind the other girls. I went home burning. I could list thousands of ways I’ve been unkind to you. Instead I’ll just say, I’m sorry.  Now, at 20, I wish on every spare penny for a time machine. I’d be so much kinder to you–to myself. I’d be gentler with my words, more cautious with my hands. I can’t go back, so I’ll do all of this now. I love so much about you.  I love feeling your presence. In a frigid mountain lake, the flexing of our muscles reminds me I can rely on you to keep my head above water. I love when you’re tired. After a long day, you are proof of the work I’ve done. You shuttle me from class to class, up and down and back up the never-ending stairs of my dorm. In the evenings I relish in your aching, a reminder of my mere humanity. I think I love you most in the summer. As days get longer and warmer, you rarely find yourself hidden. You catch droplets of fruit juice, the nectar of blackberries, strawberries, peaches, plums seeping in just above the knee. If I were a fruit, if someone took a bite of me, would they wipe me away or let me sink in?  In the end, you might be all I have. What choice do I have but to love you? You are of me, and I of you. You remind me that maybe I’m not so far from that little girl twirling endlessly in a polka dot skirt.   Love always,  Lila    

All I Have/All I Am

Adams, Robin

Exile Volume 72 Number 1 Article 28 Don't Ask, Don't Tell Robin Adams Denison University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.denison.edu/exile  Part of the Creative Writing Commons Recommended Citation Adams, Robin () "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," Exile: Vol. 72: No. 1, Article 28. Available at: https://digitalcommons.denison.edu/exile/vol72/iss1/28 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the English at Denison Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Exile by an authorized editor of Denison Digital Commons. For more information, please contact eresources@denison.edu. 33 Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Robin Adams  If I could let you know (and I couldn’t) You’d still flatten your head on my shoulder Clamping down into my clavicle with your teeth It becomes a blade in your mouth Taking up space previously used for questioning Whether chain tangles of sticks and twig pose A threat to your forest Or simply a change in the ecosystem A source of warmth You question me a bit less now as I climb into the sockets of your eyes And you take watch through me Our symbiotic union, bone sawing through Thick, fibrous optical cord Then fusing our nerves together into rope, binding me You need me to shut the fuck up And to draw your eyelids closed As you Tear away at my wool coating Plummet into my acupunctured skin Lace it with fragments of bone and carrion I give my body to you fully You use me as you need me            

Don\u27t Ask, Don\u27t Tell

Sarupria, Manan

Exile Volume 72 Number 1 Article 15 Unfamiliar Manan Sarupria Denison University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.denison.edu/exile  Part of the Creative Writing Commons Recommended Citation Sarupria, Manan () "Unfamiliar," Exile: Vol. 72: No. 1, Article 15. Available at: https://digitalcommons.denison.edu/exile/vol72/iss1/15 This Image is brought to you for free and open access by the English at Denison Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Exile by an authorized editor of Denison Digital Commons. For more information, please contact eresources@denison.edu. 20 Unfamiliar Manan Sarupria   

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