rebecca coleman visual studies notebook

Thank you (Tony) for all of the reading materials about processing election results. The aftermath of the election has continued to feel strange and disturbing. Of course on campus in the days following the election we have been organizing against sexual assault in the College of Environmental Design following the Chronicle  story that broke news of the case in our department last weekend. Prof Nezar wrote a note to our class in which he said that he was the victim in this case: I believe the campus’ current hyper climate has encouraged the filing of exaggerated complaints of which I am now a victim as time will ultimately tell.  During the same week, my coop had our own regular election for house leadership positions and the election had some odd and upsetting parallels with the national election -- in terms of displays of sexism/misogyny in discussions by and on behalf of candidates. A woman at my coop, who is a PhD in the math department at Berkeley, put it all best ...

What a disturbing week. I am glad that we spent election night in class together. Particularly, I am glad that we read "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" the night of the election. We read it before we knew the results, but you seemed to know what would happen. Or maybe you thought it would make sense to read it regardless of the outcome, because it would still apply in a tight race. In the poem, Icarus drowns, and everyone is too preoccupied by the beauty surrounding them to notice. Further, Icarus drowns because of his own hubris. The poem is so disturbing to me because I recognize myself as the farmer. And I see many on the political left as Icarus -- because we dreamed big dreams (some even hoped for this outcome so that we might see more grassroots organizing and a political revolution) but were at the same time complacent. As a Hillary supporter since 2008, I have felt like I didn't do enough during this election cycle. I haven't felt like drawing hill...

The word for this week is "Love." The team that manages UC Berkeley's social media accounts posted something on Instagram this week that I think perfectly explains why I love it here so much, and why I missed it so much during the time I was gone (in between undergrad and grad school): "You'll get a strange feeling when you leave a place. You'll miss the people you love, as well as the person you are at that time and place. Everything changes and yet, I am more me than I've ever been."