Outraged at bigotry and insensitivity

Roger Bondeson: Your letter to the editor in Wednesday\u27s paper concerning the Wilde-Stein Club\u27s ingenious cheap shot on innocent people (innocent of what, Roger?) evoked in me, first feelings of outrage, and then of pity—for such ignorance and blindness

Alternative Futures: The Creative Reconsideration of Fashion Objects

This project is the beginning of what I intend to be a larger, evolving work that seeks to marry the theoretical with the practical when considering fashion objects that have “served their purpose”. The object at the project’s focal point: a worn out pair of blue jeans. My particular focus on jeans is based on the fact that they, alongside the t-shirt, are one of the most ubiquitous and commonly owned pieces of clothing for people all over the world. This wardrobe staple transcends age, race, and class, as it occupies an iconic status that has made them invulnerable to trends. It is that very same popularity which has caused denim to create a staggering amount of pollution, both when it is produced, and at the time it is discarded. The project I am proposing will be an educational workshop that provides information on what really happens to our clothes when we get rid of them, in addition to hands-on workshops where participants are tasked with contemplating and then executing possible new uses for a single pair of blue jeans. In short, the old jeans will be reimagined and refashioned into new objects. There will also be some workshop offerings that will be solely devoted to learning a variety of mending techniques. Since space constraints and availability often limit in-person workshops, I have also incorporated my work within the ITP program to create a supplemental online component in hopes of giving the workshop a digital life, thus broadening the boundaries of the classroom. This chance to learn more about our clothing while crafting as a group within the workshop, is offered in the spirit of creativity and fun, while also intending to add dimension to the critical dialogue around the environmental implications of the fashion industry

Writing “Other Spaces”: Katherine Anne Porter’s Yaddo

Drawing on Michel Foucault’s concept of the heterotopia, this essay argues that modernism was a heterotopic movement, in which the creation of alternative social environments (such as Gertrude Stein’s atelier or the writers’ colony), and the imagination of alternative forms of social life in literature, were mutually informing, and inextricable, activities. Focusing on the heterotopic nature of modernism helps clarify both literary historical changes—especially the concept of “late modernism”—and the relationship between literary institutions and literary form. Katherine Anne Porter’s 1947 essay attacking Gertrude Stein is highly attentive to the social configuration of the atelier in Rue de Fleurus: a world of “wives” and “geniuses,” with Stein at its center, modernism’s most famous celebrity. The essay argues that Porter’s long-term affiliation with Yaddo, the Saratoga Springs, New York writers’ colony, set the terms of her critique of Stein; moreover, the colony shaped the form of Porter’s late fiction, which revises the genre of the expatriate autobiography by recapitulating the social structure of the writers’ colony in seemingly disparate “other spaces,” such as the hotel and the passenger ship. Whereas canonical modernist autobiographies, such as The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, take the form of single-protagonist celebrity narratives, Porter’s fiction de-centers the portrait of the artist, imagining a wider collectivity that radically distorts the novel form. Porter’s mode of late-modernist narration in Ship of Fools has affinities with the affective labors of the colony manager, orchestrating the delicate harmony of a pluralistic collective

Our Town, the MacDowell Colony, and the Art of Civic Mediation

Thornton Wilder’s Our Town (1938) has found unusual currency of late. In 2011, the play lent its name to a major funding program launched by the National Endowment for the Arts; in 2017, it appeared in the center of a popular podcast and was revived by a British theater company in the wake of a terrorist attack. These productions recognize what terms like “middlebrow” obscure: Our Town is a civic mediator, a performance that installs art at the center of community life and community at the center of art. Taking inspiration from Antoine Hennion’s sociology of music, this essay ventures into the archive to trace an unfamiliar origin story for Our Town, involving a turn-of-the-century writers’ colony, a Progressive-Era historical pageant, and Wilder’s self-understanding as both confirmed bachelor and “community man.” Through the trajectory of a single play, civic mediation emerges as a pervasive strategy and ethos of American cultural practice, connecting diverse media through time and space

Exploring the mental health of adolescent parent families affected by HIV within the Eastern Cape province of South Africa: Addressing a critical evidence gap

Adolescent (10-19 years) pregnancy and poor adolescent mental health remain prominent global health issues. Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest rates of adolescent pregnancy globally and is the epicentre of the global HIV epidemic – both phenomena are associated with poor mental health. This thesis explores the potential synergistic impacts when adolescent pregnancy and HIV co-occur by examining i) prevalence and correlates of likely common mental disorder (CMD) among adolescent mothers, ii) the association between likely maternal CMD, HIV, and child cognitive development, iii) likely paternal CMD among the fathers of children born to adolescent mothers, and iv) whether fatherhood characteristics differ according to core maternal characteristics (e.g., HIV and mental health status). Cross-sectional data were drawn from two linked studies: the Adolescent HIV study (n=1059 adolescents living with HIV and a comparison group [n=467]), and the HEY BABY study (n=1046 young mothers and their child(ren)), undertaken between 2015-2019. Participants completed validated and study specific questionnaires including items on sociodemographic information, health and wellbeing, and parenting experience (within the HEY BABY study). Child development was assessed utilising the Mullen Scales of Early Learning (HEY BABY study). Likely CMD was measured utilising a battery of validated symptomology scales (depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress, suicidality). Quantitative methodologies including regression modelling are utilised to explore data. Prevalence of likely CMD among adolescent mothers was 18.8% (Adolescent HIV) and 12.6% (HEY BABY). Compared to adolescent mothers not living with HIV, adolescent mothers living with HIV were more likely to report probable CMD (HEY BABY: 16.2% vs. 11.2%, X2=4.41, p=0.04). Identified risk factors (correlates) for likely CMD among adolescent mothers included violence exposure (verbal, physical or sexual abuse; OR=2.54 [95%CI:1.20-5.40], p=0.01]), exposure to community violence; (OR=2.09 [95%CI:1.33-3.27], p=0.001), and perceived lack of social support (OR=4.09 [95%CI:2.48-6.74], p=<0.0001). There was limited evidence of interactions, suggesting that the risk factors for likely CMD are similar among adolescent mothers living with and without HIV. When considering child cognitive development, maternal HIV was found to be associated with reduced child gross motor scores (B=-2.90 [95%CI:-5.35,-0.44], p=0.02), however, no associations were identified with either maternal likely CMD, nor maternal HIV status (inclusive of interaction terms). Prevalence of likely CMD among adolescent fathers was 12.5% (Adolescent HIV: n=8). Father involvement was low (HEY BABY: 19.5% were involved with their child at least once every two weeks). Adolescent mothers reporting probable CMD were less likely to be in a relationship with the father of their child (41.8% vs. 54.1%, X2=7.32, p=0.03), more likely to experience domestic violence perpetrated by the father of their child (8.2% vs. 3.3%, X2=6.07, p=0.01), and more likely to engage in arguments about finances with the father of their child (30.0% vs. 17.0%, X2=10.8, p=0.001). Findings highlight the commonality of mental health burden within the context of adolescent pregnancy and HIV, and the urgent need for effective evidence-based programming for adolescent parent families living with and affected by HIV within South Africa

Navigating the Chasms Between Real and Ideal Literacy Professional Development

In this study, we examine the supportive and hindering factors that influenced 26 teachers’ implementation of pedagogy learned through a research-based, resource-intensive literacy PD initiative (100+ hours). Through post-intervention interviews, we explore the space between learning and enactment of new practices for literacy teaching and learning. Specifically, we ask, What are teachers’ perceptions of the contextual factors that support and hinder their moving from learning to implementation of literacy PD? Results indicate four primary supportive factors (PD facilitators, communities of practice, schools/administrators, and student affective responses) and three primary hindering factors (circumstantial factors, lack of resources, and mismatches between school or district demands). Identifying and considering these factors is an important step toward increasing implementation, which serves as a gatekeeper between teacher learning and student outcomes