In PLACE is a newsletter designed to keep the Linfield College community apprised of information related to PLACE activities, as well as ways to bring the program into classes. Included in this issue:   Spotlight On: The Politicization of Science, P. II Upcoming Events PLACE in the New

PLACE

English

DigitalCommons@Linfield

Linfield College DigitalCommons@Linfield PLACE Historical Documents PLACE (Program for Liberal Arts and Civic Engagement) 4-16-2018 In PLACE: April 16, 2018 PLACE Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.linfield.edu/place_docs  Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons, Civic and Community Engagement Commons, Life Sciences Commons, Medicine and Health Sciences Commons, and the Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons Recommended Citation PLACE, "In PLACE: April 16, 2018" (2018). PLACE Historical Documents. Document. Submission 2. https://digitalcommons.linfield.edu/place_docs/2 This Document is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It is brought to you for free via open access, courtesy of DigitalCommons@Linfield, with permission from the rights-holder(s). Your use of this Document must comply with the Terms of Use for material posted in DigitalCommons@Linfield, or with other stated terms (such as a Creative Commons license) indicated in the record and/or on the work itself. For more information, or if you have questions about permitted uses, please contact digitalcommons@linfield.edu.  1IN PLACE April 16th, 2018Welcome back to the PLACE newsletter! We will send out semi-monthly emails during the 2017-18 academic year to keep you informed about everything PLACE-related. We’ll try to keep these relatively short and focused, while also providing useful information about PLACE activities happening throughout the Linfield community and ways to bring the program into your classes.Want a primer on PLACE? Check out the description here. If you want more frequent updates, follow us on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.Spotlight On: The Politicization of Science, P. II  This week’s feature is on the follow-up Pizza & Politics on Politics and Science. This semester’s event focused more on the role of scientists as advocates, as opposed to politicians politicizing science for their own benefit. The conversation started with a show of hands, displaying that the conversation was split nearly fifty-fifty, scientists versus not.Students were broke into groups and asked the question: “should science be partisan?” The answer was met with a resounding no from every group, and so the question was flipped: “why is science partisan?” This question proved more diﬃcult. Students pointed to moneyed interests, like Exxon, that act based on their own benefit and whose general alliance with the Republican Party led to both groups being climate change skeptics. Professor Tillberg pushed back on this, reminding students of the current  2research from such companies that does confirm the existence of climate change. This was countered by the fact that this has not always been the case, despite oil companies being faced with the facts of climate change for decades.The discussion then pivoted to the March For Science as Professor Tillberg asked what the advantages and disadvantages of scientist serving as advocates—whether as a marcher or in other capacities—are. Students pushed back on the idea of marchers being ‘political but not partisan,’ saying that the flaw in this logic was that by marching you are implicitly opposing the party in power. Despite this distinction (which was made by marchers in a brief viewed shown at the event) facing opposition, students were able to find a myriad of benefits for scientists being advocates. From the expert authority scientists wield being more valuable than the words of policy-makers to the increased public awareness provided by their actions, it seemed that the consensus opinion supported scientists serving as advocates.Those who did venture into the disadvantages of advocacy were worried with the perspective of scientists that might develop. For instance, if a scientist’s partisan advocacy displeased funders, they could eﬀectively stifle their own research, unable to find funds. Regardless of the consequences, however, students remained adamant that scientists must at the very least develop a method of eﬀectively communicating their findings to the general public, advocating for policy changes based on their findings if necessary.Upcoming Events Monday, April 16th: TED Cred: The Art of Owning Public Speaking with Professors Daniel Pollack-Pelzner and Lindsey Mantoan. 5 PM to 6:30 PM, Jonasson Hall  3Tuesday, April 17th: Pizza & Politics, Frederick Douglass and the Meaning of Patriotism Join Nicholas Buccola and the Political Science department for a special lunchtime edition of Pizza & Politics! This event will prime students to think of Frederick Douglass prior to the upcoming symposium, engaging with his critique of patriotism in light of the glorification of forefathers typified by the Fourth of July.11:30 AM to 1 PM, Jonasson Hall Wednesday, April 18th: Game of Tweets, Graphics of Thrones — Going Viral with Medieval Fantasies  Join Professors Lindsey Mantoan and Daniel Pollack-Pelzner in a PLACE-themed discussion about HBO’s Game of Thrones. With over 12 million viewers worldwide, Game of Thrones is one of the most successful television series of all time. Set on the medieval fantasy continent of Westeros, it tells the story of many houses vying for power in an unforgiving world. But how does Game of Thrones use CGI, streaming services, and avatars to interact with the digital world? The show is set in a medieval time, but we take it to other realms, including the virtual. Through several essays forthcoming in Lindsey Mantoan’s anthology, Dragons, Queens, and Faceless Men, Professors Mantoan and Pollack-Pelzner will examine what it means to represent a medieval world in a digital age.4:30 PM to 6 PM, Riley 201 Thursday, April 19th: Let’s Talk About Guns Join the national conversation about guns with a town-hall discussion at Linfield. First, Linfield students will stage a reading of Lauren Gunderson’s short new play, “Natural Shocks,” about guns, risk, gender, Shakespeare, and violence. Then faculty panelists from a range of disciplines will share responses to the play, before we break into small student-led groups to talk about a range of related topics: activism and social media; hunting, sport, and terrorism; schools and no-gun zones. 43 PM to 5 PM, Fred Meyer Lounge Monday, April 23rd: Remembering the Past in a Digital Age How do countries remember their past in the digital age?  Please join special guest Dr. Jelena Subotic for an exploration of how Eastern European countries after the end of communism have begun to revise their remembrance of the Holocaust. Specifically, she will discuss how Holocaust memories are especially diﬃcult ones in Eastern Europe, the region that was itself the site of the Holocaust. After the end of communism, many of these countries objected to growing international pressure to deal with legacies of the Holocaust, and instead used Holocaust memory to equate crimes of communism with crimes of Nazism. To preserve some of the lost memories of the Holocaust, activists and scholars are creating digital depositories of Holocaust memories, working across borders and diﬀerent regimes to create knowledge that resists the pressures of nationalism and ongoing prejudice.5 PM to 7 PM, Riley 201  Wednesday, April 25th: Leadership and Identity 12 PM to 1 PM, Riley 201 Friday, April 27th: Why Douglass Matters, A Bicentennial Symposium The Frederick Douglass Forum on Law, Rights, and Justice will be hosting the Why Douglass Matters: A Bicentennial Symposium on Friday, April 27th marking the bicentennial of the Frederick Douglass birth year. The event is free and open to the public. Speakers include:• Ibram X. Kendi (American University), whose Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America received the National Book Award• David Blight (Yale University), whose much-anticipated biography of Douglass will be published by Simon & Schuster later this year 5• Leigh Fought (Le Moyne College), whose Women in the World of Frederick Douglass was published by Oxford University Press last year to much acclaim• Melvin Rogers (Brown University), whose forthcoming book The Darkened Light of Faith: Race, Democracy, and Freedom in African American Political Thought examines Douglass and several other major figures in the African American canon• Diana Schaub (Loyola University of Maryland), who is the author of Erotic Liberalism: Women and Revolution in Montesquieu’s Persian Letters and is engaged in ongoing research on the relationship between Douglass and Abraham Lincoln PLACE in the News: In light of the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal, which allowed Donald Trump’s campaign access the information of 50 million users, what are your thoughts on Facebook agreeing to share user information with a Stanford study on income inequality? Does a corporation sharing your data with political implications, regardless of whether you agree with the cause, warrant outrage? Or does the side of the political debate that uses your personal information matter? Let us know on Twitter!An NFL cheerleader fired for posting a photo that was less revealing than those of her posted by the NFL team’s Instagram reveals the degree of control that the NFL holds over their cheerleaders’ ability to portray themselves. Has the digital nature of today’s world made the interesting, tense relationship between sports and cheerleaders worse or better? Let us know on Twitter!In the face of new chemical weapons attack allegations in Syria, supporters of the brutal dictator Bashar al-Assad including Russia have turned to calling such accusations “fake news.” The term ‘fake news,’ oft-discussed on campus in the past year, has first been co-opted by Trump and now Russia—is it still a useful term at all? Or should we look to use a  6diﬀerent term than ‘fake news’ to express the dangers of misleading reporting? Let us know on Twitter!Watch for future newsletters to learn more about PLACE events, teaching resources, and details on your PLACE Faculty/Student Fellows! Thanks for reading, and please feel free to send me questions and suggestions at pcottre@linfield.edu. 

In PLACE: April 16, 2018

https://digitalcommons.linfield.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&amp;context=place_docs

In PLACE: April 16, 2018

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

DigitalCommons@Linfield