This weekend, as most of us are heading home for Thanksgiving, Joy Joung’11 will be heading into the woods. She’ll have a protractor, a map, a compass, and a flashlight.

Joung is currently the only Brown student enrolled in the University’s Reserve Officer Training Corps, and this weekend is her first weekend field training.

Three days a week, she wakes before dawn, borrows her roommate’s car and drives the fifteen minutes over to Providence College for physical training—a combination of running, push-ups, sit-ups for an hour. “It is the army,” she laughs. “So there is some yelling involved.” She also has a military-science lab, field training over extended weekends and, back at Brown, five academic courses and ice hockey practice for five hours a day.

Joung is one of a handful of Brown students in recent years to take on a controversial commitment. As the discussion buzzes on campus, the debate often centers around the big-picture context in which ROTC occurs: war, peace, and the university’s role in society. Lost in the chatter surrounding Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and the military-industrial-complex, however, are individuals like Juong and Adam Swartzbaugh ’09, for whom the issue is anything but abstract. For Swartzbaugh, ROTC is “not about guns and tactics and marching around.” Rather, it’s a mode of study like any other; “it teaches the skills we need to apply the knowledge we freely explore here.”

As a university that values openness of our curriculum, is there a place in our studies for military science? Or, as some would argue, is ROTC a necessarily political, non-academic extracurricular? Fundamentally, these questions drive at the present status of ROTC in practice at Brown. Because the thing about the ROTC debate is that it’s not really about ROTC—or rather, it’s about much more than ROTC.

Students like Juong and Swartzbaugh have committed themselves to three years of active duty and five years in the Army Reserves in exchange for substantial scholarship. In the past three years, the army has nearly tripled the amount of funding it puts into these scholarships, which any student entering the third-year must accept with commission.

However, according to those close to the program, significant institutional obstacles—as well as a general lack of information about the program—still stymie student involvement.

To Swartzbaugh, the gulf between Brown’s culture and that of ROTC was huge: “It’s two totally different worlds,” he recalls. “I felt like I was running across a suspension bridge of sorts. I felt like I was dividing myself in two different pieces.”

According to a recent Herald poll, Brown students are divided as well: 41.3 percent of those polled said that they’d support the reinstatement of ROTC, while 24.9 percent said they’d oppose it, and 33.8 percent said they didn’t know.

Presently, Brown students must enroll in Providence College ROTC and receive no administrative support in the way of credit for full-time courses or transport services back and forth.

Lieutenant Commander Matthew McKinley, who leads the program, tells Post- that all of the other colleges that participate in PC’s Providence Battalion—which has 86 participants from seven local schools—offer their students some kind of credit. McKinley—who himself came up through ROTC while at the University of Maine and completed a tour in Iraq before coming to PC just after a year ago—Brown, however, does not, and, according to McKinley, would require a review of PC’s Military Science curriculum before it would be willing to. For McKinley, who has been faced with personnel cuts and has no trouble filling a battalion with students from other schools, undertaking such a review is simply not worth the time and energy. “There’s no compelling reason to extend so much effort over there, at least right now,” he says. “While I want Brown to be a more full participant, I’ve got schools that are running with me.”

According to Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron, the University is interested in working with McKinley to strengthen the relationship between Brown and the Battalion. “We’ve only recently begun to explore the different types of leadership opportunities available on campus.” “The issue is how to appropriately recognize students for their involvement in [such] activities.”

For his part, McKinley says he “doesn’t sense any kind of ulterior motive or hidden agenda on the part of Brown.” Both Swartzbaugh and Joung say that they’ve never experienced even a trace of hostility from their peers or professors. Yet, the debate remains centered around the politics rather than the practice. Even if incorporating military science into Brown’s undergraduate liberal arts curriculum were easily feasible, there is still some widespread resentment of university complicity. Bill Simmons, who teaches “Transformation of the Research University,” says. “I’m questioning why we want to bring the university into the orbit of how we train people for this,” he says. “It’s not the university’s job to be patriotic. It’s the university’s job to help students figure through the world’s problems.”

Swartzbaugh, however, disagrees: “It’s about creating strategies for getting things done. Whether you want to save the whales or start your own business, that’s valuable.” So how do we move past this background talk about purpose? The question is about whether this program has value for one or both institutions, and more specifically, whether the option is even on the table. How do we balance the liberal arts with liberal politics? Divorcing these definitions is at the core of changing the campus discourse around ROTC—until then, an army of one is more literal than some would like.

Filed under: Features by Ellen Cushing
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When Hannah Moskowitz ‘13 eats pizza at the Gate, she brings her laptop, her headphones, and the phone number of her agent, Brendan Deneen of the New York City literary agency FinePrint. When she sits down on one of the plushy couches in the Gate’s dining area—one of her favorite places on campus to write, along with the Brown bookstore—she transforms herself from a Brown student into a professional author.

Hannah’s first novel Break was published this past summer after selling to Simon and Schuster’s Young Adult imprint in mid-July 2008. Since then, it has received rave reviews from young adult readers and from professional critics, including a starred review from Booklist. Though she had a difficult time finding an agent at first, she found more success when she began sending out the manuscript for Break. “I started sending letters to agents around the middle of November 2007, and I had four offers of representation by February,” she remembers.  Part of the success of Hannah’s book could be attributed to her unique understanding of the genre of young adult fiction and the particular demands of its readers. “I write books for young adults because that’s what I like to read, and it’s what I know,” Hannah says. “YA literature exploded when writers started writing real teenagers instead of idealized miniature adults. And that’s huge.”

Break, in its insistence on encapsulating the pain and trauma of high school, the commonplace with a twist, reflects this understanding of audience and character dynamics. In it, Hannah portrays a troubled teenager, Jonah, who is determined to break every bone in his body so that each bone will grow back stronger than it was before. As the novel follows his struggle—the relentless tally of bones broken and bones still to be broken—it also delves into the logic of his decision and the difficulty of dealing with a newborn brother and another brother who suffers from severe allergies.

In her debut novel, Hannah’s voice is genuine and approachable. Her book reads like a personal aside, an intimate reflection of the lives and feelings of its characters. In its honesty, it is like a validation of the experience of living, and its metaphors and descriptions represent a smart sense of humor and an appreciation for novelty. “[Young adult books are] almost like a hand to hold,” she says. “The best YA books, in my opinion, are the ones that tell you that you’re not insane for feeling what you’re feeling.” One of Hannah’s favorite young adult books is the cult classic The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, which she carries around with her most of the time.

A series of articles in recent years has documented the increasing publishing trend of marketing novels originally intended for adults as young adult fiction. The New York Times July 20, 2008 Sunday Book Review essay, “I’m Y.A., and I’m O.K.” by Margo Rabb, described in personal terms the marketing decisions that turned her novel Cures for Heartbreak into a Random House young adult book, as well as the similar experiences of bestselling authors like Curtis Sittenfeld, author of Prep, and Stephanie Meyer, author of the Twilight trilogy. While many of these authors have found significant commercial success in the young adult market, they were initially insulted by their publisher’s decisions. The idea that novels originally intended for adult audiences have found a home on the young adult shelves of libraries and bookstores strikes some as a downgrade, or at least a sad effect of the market. Yet for Hannah, writing young adult novels is a choice, not an eventuality. When her agent recently suggested she try her hand at writing a novel for adults, she initially felt uncomfortable by the prospect. “I’m 18. I’ve been an adult for all of five minutes.” Her modesty and deep understanding of genre and generation dynamics lend her novel much of its credibility among its audience.

At Brown, Hannah has found it difficult to juggle writing, schoolwork, and a social life. “I don’t like that I feel like I’m being antisocial whenever I need to get a chapter done. It’s hard. It’s a lot harder to withdraw and get that alone time without being an outcast here,” she says. Though she hasn’t yet taken a Literary Arts class at Brown, she is taking a class on the literature of children and young adults. “Unsurprisingly,” she says, “[it] is my favorite.”

While finding time to write has been difficult, Hannah continues to produce more work. Her next book, another young adult novel called Invincible Summer, will be published in Spring 2011, and after that, she has another book in the works. Despite distractions, she maintains an unusually efficient writing schedule. After assembling the proper mood music—“I usually have to build an iTunes playlist for a book before I really feel like I’m going to succeed with it”—and planning out the beginning and the end, Hannah writes quickly, finishing the first draft of her first two books in under a week.

The extent of Hannah’s imagination becomes especially clear when considering the difficulty of her subject matter. Though Break details, in painstaking and often traumatic prose, the process of self-inflicted injury, Hannah herself has never broken a bone. Indeed, in many ways Jonah’s experience is entirely different from her own: “I have all male friends, and my only sibling is an older sister…[The book] is completely fictionalized,” she says. Yet despite differences in details, Hannah has established herself as a writer with an understanding and genuine voice. Though she hasn’t broken a bone, the pain she feels for Jonah is legitimate and sincere, derived from her insistence on portraying characters who are messy and flawed but entirely real.

She finds inspiration for her writing by reading books, watching movies, and listening to songs. “If there are new ideas out there, I don’t think I’m the one coming up with them, but I do a good job combining the moods or feels of two or three disparate pieces of media. And I do seem to luck into thinking of good stories to go with those moods,” she explains. She shares her work with her best friend and with an online writer’s group. “[My best friend's] only job is to tell me it’s perfect and beautiful and the best book ever written, while my writer’s group rips it to shreds.”

Besides Chbosky, some of her favorite authors include Chuck Palahniuk, John Irving, and Laurie Halse Anderson—veterans of literary pornography, the intense character profile, and the young adult novel. Hannah’s own writing has been described as “trauma porn,” a new genre of young adult fiction notable for the ways it contrasts with theBabysitters Club and Gossip Girl series of our youth. According to Katie Roiphe, author of the young adult novel It Was, Like, All Dark and Stormy, books written for young adults used to depict “a sea of nubile midriffs set against pink and turquoise backgrounds.” Now, they are more like Hannah’s—disturbing, often dark, but ultimately hopeful.

Watching Hannah type on her computer, it is difficult to grasp the importance of her work. Not only do the words on her page generate income, but they also inspire readers from Wisconsin to Washington to write about her book on Amazon.com. Yet beyond that, and maybe even more importantly, Hannah’s words make strangers feel something, which is a tough and impressive accomplishment for anyone—especially a freshman in college

Filed under: Books by Allison Zimmer
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Stopping by Jo’s on a Snowy Evening, Robert Frost

Whose fries these are I think I know,

His dorm is off in Pembroke though

He will not see my stopping here

To snatch his golden fries from Jo’s

The guy from BuDS must think it queer

To stop without the SciLi near

Between the drinks and frozen treats

The darkest evening of the year.

He lets our eyes awkwardly meet

As fries lose their precious heat

The only other sound’s the beep

Of car horns out on Thayer Street

The fries are lovely, hot and cheap.

But I have promises to keep,

And pages to write before I sleep,

And pages to write before I sleep.

The Rave in New Dorm, Edgar Allen Poe

Once upon a midnight blurry, Dancing in ecstatic hurry,

Over many a quaint and curious track on the sweaty dance floor,

The beat I nodded, also clapping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my New Dorm door.

`’Tis some visitor,’ I muttered, `tapping at my New Dorm door -

Not DPS, and nothing more.’

Jose at the Rat’, Ernest Lawrence Thayer (do we need é in his name?)

The Outlook wasn’t brilliant for Roots and Shoots to go:

The line ran out the door, with five minutes before close.

And then when Gail ceased swiping, and Fatima stopped and sat,

A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the Rat’.

…

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;

The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,

And somewhere men are eating, and plates somewhere overflow;

But there is no joy on Wriston – mighty Jose swipes too slow.

Filed under: University by Ben Schreckinger
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As I was watching the now infamous 2009 VMAs (Kanye West, I’m-a to let you finish), I saw a promo for a certain “reality” show featuring one of the more vile creatures known to man. In this promo, Kristin Cavallari, noted she-devil returning to The Hills his fall, lights up a sign proclaiming, “The Bitch Is Back.” While I neither watch nor care to watch the Hills, I do have a penchant for awful TV and boast an intimidating, embarassing compendium of Soap-ish television knowledge. So, to commemorate our Soapiest and guiltiest pleasures of the recent past, let’s take a look at some of the more salacious conflicts—and their players.

First, some vocabulary. The word “frenemy” refers to a relationship between two people, usually teenage women, who are painstakingly devoted to interacting as friends, but who both harbor not-so-secret distaste and disdain for the other party. You know these girls. Any gaggle of chicks—usually with perfect bone structure—who dedicate time to subtly sabotaging each other socially. They voraciously feed off the conflict, like beautiful drama-vampires, sustained by attention and tears.

Two words, three syllables: The O.C. Unless you’re from Guam, you’ve undoubtedly heard of this juicy slice of Orange County, California. It was the best example of the first classic-yet-trashy new TV show. We were all captivated by the weekly drama between the “tortured” and unreasonably attractive Marissa, Summer, Seth, and Ryan. While not all of us could relate at the time to the teens’ problems—rogue pearl-wearing cougars and other afflictions of the über-wealthy—we were able to identify, perhaps superficially, with at least some of the high-school fuss.

The O.C. foursome was a constant volley of conflict. There was enough beef going around to open up a McDonalds (oh snap!). While Seth and Ryan had their share of spats, theirs were never as bad, or as frequent, as Marissa’s and Summer’s catty warfare. The girls went from being BFFs to “oh my gawd, we’re like totally sisters” to frenemies and then back to just sort of friends again. They employed the art of mental manipulation, like only girls in high school (or girls in the high-school mindset) can. This, coupled with their bad acting, skyrocketed the novelty of the show, making it the Soap to watch. But—spoiler alert!—once Marissa died in 2006, we were left without the ever-captivating bitch dynamic.

That is, until the fall of 2007, when we were graced with Blair and Serena, our Gossip Girl darlings.

Along with the rest of their friends (Dan, Chuck, Nate, and Little J), the girls filled the agonizing drama void. Blair and Serena’s relationship in particular has been riddled with fierce—that’s right Tyra,fierce—social skirmishes since day one. After a slew of fights, they make up and are friends again. It’s tender, but boring.

Fortunately for us, peacetime is short. While they’re both at Yale, Blair tells one of Serena’s dirty little secrets, they take it outside, and Serena ferociously rips off one of Blair’s precious headbands – the Upper East Side equivalent of a hair pull. Sadly, they make up—again. Yawn.

Thankfully though, with this fall’s return of Gossip Girl, we’ve been able to enjoy a whole new slew of drama. While we may have to wait a bit for the combustible ball of estrogen and vodka tonics better known as Blairena to fully implode, the ever-benevolent TV gods have delivered the sexy-ish Georgina Sparks to stir up some more trouble. And a new pair of frenemies to love is Annie and Naomi from90210. So go forth and watch your favorite frenemies duke it out with “nairtinies.” But remember folks, keep the drama on TV.

Filed under: Film & TV by Kelly McKowen
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There’s the guttural thump of the bass; the heavy, throbbing line that punctuates the slick electronic grooves that sweetly whine and meld with the hard-hitting voices of Sean Foreman and Nathaniel Motte. 3oh!3 is an electronic rap duo from Boulder, Colorado (which is in the area code that shares the outfit’s name). Their sound is abrasive and sexist, booze-fueled misogyny—music that’s at home on a lit-up dance floor. But the pair seems to inject a fair amount of levity in their image, less thuggin’, more tongue-in-cheek. Which is probably not a bad move: it’s not exactly the thugginest-life for a hip-hop group to be born out of two scrawny white boys who met in their college physics class.

3oh!3’s hit song, “Don’t Trust Me,” received exhaustive radio play (and was a FishCo favorite last winter). With the band’s newfound popularity comes a genre-shaking question: is hip-hop still limited to its current mainstay? 3oh!3’s success may be the new model for musicians outside the narrow tradition to make hip-hop music.

3oh!3 is not the first niche-defying ensemble. Bands such as the Beastie Boys, a Jewish hip-hop trio from Brooklyn, have had a great deal of success. But their rhymes are faux-feisty and self-conscious. And while they emceed about things like objectifying women—see “Hey Ladies”—the Boys are careful to make sure they never take their songs without a grain of salt; they know they’re out of their league here. And their early nasally rapping over their instruments (which they play with exceptional mediocrity) alludes to their hard-core punk roots. In other words, they gained a gait as a punk outfit before genre-hopping to hip-hop. And while their first hit single, “Fight for Your Right to Party,” is a catchy anthem for all impish 14-year-old boys, the group has evolved into a more electronic sound in the last decade—a precedent and a foundation for newly-emerging bands like 3oh!3.

What makes 3oh!3 different from the Beastie Boys and the like is that 3oh!3 is not ironically detached from the veracity of hip-hop—it is ironically attached. They are unapologetically rap-ruffians, with lyrics like “I got yo’ dogs on a collar, baller, so how you like that?” But they are not attached, whatsoever, to the current hip-hop scene. Like the Beastie Boys, 3oh!3 maintains a tenuous connection to punk rock—they’ve ripped up the Vans Warped Tour (twice now). And while 3oh!3 may be bursting out of the hip-hop box, they’re unlikely to get any real “cred” anytime soon. Especially if they keep touring with Katy Perry.

Filed under: Music by Marshall Katheder
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