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Letters to the Editor, Opinion

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Help make McGill sustainable

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The first deadline to submit a project application to the Sustainability Projects Fund is almost upon us. April 2 will be the first of many landmarks after students and the administration formed an unprecedented partnership to create this fund last semester. In what we hope will be a story of transformation, both individuals and groups will be submitting proposals for projects that will help create a more sustainable campus.

The Sustainability Projects Fund was created to facilitate the effective and coherent planning, financing, and implementation of projects to promote sustainable practices at McGill. The intent of this fund is to fully finance or provide seed capital for dynamic, innovative sustainability projects, thereby allowing such projects to be implemented more quickly and effectively than might otherwise have been possible. All proposals from students, staff or alumni are welcome and may be submitted at any time, to be evaluated at regular intervals throughout the calendar year. The first of those deadlines is April 2. The estimated annual value of the fund is $800,000.

This is especially exciting for any clubs on the Macdonald and downtown campuses that are involved in sustainability. Each and every one of these 30+ groups have had tons of ideas that they want to see get off the ground. The fund provides a great opportunity for these groups to look past the obstacle of funding and turn their years of effort and volunteerism into concrete actions that create a more enjoyable campus. However, the strength of this fund is that it is truly collaborative and accessible. Any member of the McGill community can apply, and with the aspiration of becoming an institutional model of sustainability for society, we certainly need the entire community to get there.

Applications to the fund can be emailed to [email protected]. More information can be found on the club’s website: www.mcgill.ca/sustainability/projectfund.

– Monika FabianU1 Environment

Letters to the Editor, Opinion

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Crime and punishment

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Re: “National Insecurity” by Brendan Steven (16.03.10)

In his article “National Insecurity,” Brendan Steven irresponsibly conflates two serious issues: counter-terrorism practices and the lengthening of prison sentences in Canada.

After a lament about the difficulties of conducting counter-terrorism operations in Canada, Steven cited Stephen Harper’s attempts to increase prison sentences for crime among “actions that make Canada safer.”

I invite Steven to consider that, according to a recent Statistics Canada publication, “the crime rate has decreased by about 30 per cent since peaking in 1991” (Juristat: “Crime Statistics in Canada” Vol. 27, no. 5). The length of prison sentences has little to do with crime trends, much less terrorism.

If Steven still wants to argue for a postive correlation between increased prison sentences and security – especially in the context of terrorism, I hope he reflects on the situation of my homeland, the United States. My people have languished under the harshest prison sentences in the Western world. We have also suffered from the most heinous acts of terrorism, perpetrated by the likes of Timothy McVeigh, Mohamed Atta, and, just last month, Joseph Stack. It would be nice if increasing security was as easy as increasing prison sentences. Unfortunately it’s not, and implying the contrary while politicizing the issue is irresponsible.

– William HahmU3 Arts

Opinion

PIÑATA DIPLOMACY: Obama’s declining support

by Ricky Kreitner on

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From the time I arrived on campus in August 2008 to the U.S. presidential election that November, I didn’t meet a single John McCain supporter. I don’t think this was because I had a disproportionately Obamaniacal group of friends. Nor was it because we viewed him as somehow the lesser of two evils – the tone of his supporters during the campaign was hardly reflective of that kind of aw-shucks-he’s-the-best-we-have mentality that you get with someone like Michael Ignatieff. Rather, it was an intense feeling of deliverance. I was surprised on election night to see Canadians in my residence – admittedly under the influence of certain substances – sobbing sweet tears of joy, demanding embraces from anonymous passers-by.

Yet it has become standard practice in classes and in conversation to speak negatively of Barack Obama, usually without mentioning any specific grievances. Why the change?

First of all, we are highly disingenuous creatures. I don’t mean human beings – I mean undergraduates, and specifically McGill undergraduates.

There’s enormous pressure on university students to speak with an authoritative tone, especially for those of us engaged in the manufacture and dissemination of opinions on campus, as if to give the impression that after years of deliberation, and the perusal of all the necessary literature, this is the definitive conclusion.

We live in a culture – and I don’t just mean here at McGill – in which it’s considered immoral not to have an opinion on something. “Apathetic” is just about the worst epithet you can throw at someone these days. Remaining silent is considered “being complicit.” So we’re forced to attempt endless explanations of things we really don’t know about or, in all honesty, care very much about. I’ve meandered away from Barack Obama and his expired popularity among McGill students, but there is a definite connection – when pressed for an opinion about something you are not really familiar with, there’s always an easy way out: adopt the opinion of those around you.

Which leads me to the second reason why Obama is no longer popular at McGill. Not only are we generally disingenuous creatures, but by and large we’re extremely impressionable ones as well. Similarly to how we’re insecure about the depth of our knowledge or the conclusiveness of our conclusions, but pretend outwardly that we aren’t, we pretend immature things like friends or fashionable trends do not sway us. We like to pretend that our 18th birthdays marked our liberation from those baser desires to conform and be accepted by our peers. The truth is very much the opposite.

If you hang out with a certain group of friends whose tastes in music, fashion, lifestyle, whose general sensibility you very much admire, and you sense them starting to sour on Obama (whose policies and actions in office you might, in an unguarded moment, admit to not knowing very much about), what are you going to do when the president’s name comes up in a conversation? You’ll grunt. Maybe you’ll manage to spit out a couple words like “inevitable disappointment.” But, in truth, the inevitability is as fake as the disappointment, because you have no idea what you’re talking about.

The close reader should be thinking that my roughly sketched syllogism requires a prime mover, someone to first sour on Obama without having adopted that opinion from someone whose sneakers they admire. Fine. Obviously it is possible for a reasonable and intelligent person to not be as excited by Obama as they were two years ago. But this doesn’t account for the massive change in opinion about him at McGill.

So what does? I can think of two possibilities. Either there’s a conspiracy afoot, perhaps involving the water supply, or McGill students vastly underestimate the extent to which they permit themselves to be herded this way and that by even the gentlest nudge.

Off the Board, Opinion

OFF THE BOARD: My first mugshot

by Alice Walker on

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As a recent martyr for student journalism, I can say that getting arrested sucks.

I attended the 14th annual March Against Police Brutality on March 15 with two other Tribune photojournalists to get some shots of the inevitable violence and rioting that occurs during the event.

The protest started peacefully as the 900 attendees, clad mostly in black, expressed their discontent with police tactics. Eventually, the police blocked the path of the protest and the event turned violent. Bottles, fireworks, food, and profanities were hurled at the ever-growing number of police officers. Suddenly, all hell broke lose as riot police charged into the crowd, pushing people out of the way with their shields. As the police moved in, protesters scattered and the Tribune photo team scurried around collecting shots of the chaos. Unannounced to us, the protest has been declared an “illegal gathering,” which means that being in close proximity to the demonstration was a crime. In a matter of minutes, riot police had secured the area and anyone within this boundary was forbidden to leave. With this strategic move, the police had captured three Tribune photographers, a couple guys from the Concordia Link, high school kids, and plethora of confused hipsters. Noticeably missing from the imprisoned group were most of the anarchists carrying baseball bats, firework-wielding idiots, and beer-drinking street punks.

We were all handcuffed, patted down, searched, and identified. I was paraded past a slew of news cameras before being deposited on an STM bus with my fellow detainees. The most hilarious moment of the night came when the bus started moving and almost immediately the “stop requested” light was illuminated by one of the arrested protesters.

At the station, I was interviewed and issued a $144 fine for “participating or being present at an assembly, march, or parade that endangers the peace or the security or order in a public place.” This serious crime requires a municipal headshot in which I did the best that I could to give a big smile and pose with my hands still restrained behind my back. After being processed I was led to a different STM bus that began to drive around the empty streets of Hochelaga. Eventually the cops dropped us at random street corners in groups of four. There I was, at 11 p.m., fresh out of the Canadian legal system, with no idea where I was.

This rant has two points. First, journalists have a huge role in documenting and reporting on controversial events. Arresting student journalists creates a disincentive for campus papers to report on important community issues. The fewer papers that report, the less information will be published about the grievances that caused the protest, and the police tactics used to deal with demonstrations.

Second, mass arrests at an anti-police brutality march are not the best way to foster relations with the Montreal community. I can see why there are bylaws that make it illegal to remain in the vicinity of a dangerous situation, but I don’t think the declaration of illegality was explicit enough. If I had known it was illegal to be there, and was afforded an opportunity to leave, I probably would have left. Many people were committing crimes at the protest, but very few of them were arrested on an individual basis. Arresting 100 people makes the police department seem in control, but in reality, they managed to ticket a bunch of kids who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. This year, the police started shooting violent individuals with a paintball gun to identify and arrest them later. I think this is a much more effective system to arrest dangerous protestors and should be used more in future years. This way, journalists can report, protesters can peacefully protest, and police can maintain order without arresting bystanders.

Nevertheless, I’ll be at next year’s protest – only this time, I’ll make sure I do my hair beforehand so I look great in my mugshot.

News

Newburgh to face J-Board

by Tori Crawford & Steven Hoffer on

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Four weeks after the Students’ Society’s Winter General Assembly, the SSMU Judicial Board has accepted a submission from members of Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights concerning the impartiality of Zach Newburgh, the current speaker of SSMU Council and next year’s SSMU president.

In the petitioner’s factum, which was submitted on March 17, SPHR claims that as chair of the GA, Newburgh “placed himself in a serious conflict of interest, making it impossible for him to perform his task in an impartial manner,” particularly during the debate over the motion re: The Defence of Human Rights, Social Justice, and Environmental Protection. The group asserts that there were three main factors which made Newburgh an unsuitable mediator for this semester’s GA: his association with Hillel Montreal as the orgainization’s president; his friendship with Mookie Kideckel, the president of Hillel McGill (and a Tribune columnist), and his previous role in opposition to the Gaza motion at the Winter GA last year.

“We have a lot of facts that show that Zach is biased, in particular in which he shows that he was involved as a representative of Hillel in trying to negotiate a settlement before the GA,” said Raed Khuffash, a member of the SPHR executive. “So this shows that he was already involved in the process which makes him unfit to be the speaker at the GA.”

Newburgh, however, questioned the validity of the accusations levied against him.

“I’m surprised that my impartiality is being put into question, especially given the impartiality I’ve displayed during my tenure as speaker of Council,” he said. “As speaker, I have displayed throughout my term that I am able to be impartial in matters of personal interest and in matters of a personal stake that are up for debate.”

In the factum, SPHR alleges that Newburgh’s bias led him to allow “a vote to proceed calling for the striking of clauses 6 and 7 of the preamble,” as well as his decision to disallow debate and discussion prior to the vote. The group is arguing that, by allowing these preamble amendments, Newburgh broke four years of precedent at SSMU GAs. Newburgh, however, said that after consulting with co-Speaker Lauren Hudak, SSMU President Ivan Neilson, and Vice-President Clubs and Services Sarah Olle, he decided to follow the procedure as laid out in Robert’s Rules of Order.

“We decided it was something that, yes, would make precedent, but amending the preamble to a resolution is indeed possible, and we should be following Robert’s Rules,” Newburgh said. “I have an obligation to uphold Robert’s Rules to the best of my ability.”

In their factum, the remedies proposed by SPHR are that the Judicial Board “Declare that the Respondent has acted in dereliction of his official duty as Speaker of the General Assembly and with a reasonable apprehension of bias and a conflict of interest,” and thus issue a public censure, and that Newburgh issue a public apology acknowledging that he acted in “dereliction of duty.”

Although the Judicial Board Terms of Reference state that any submission must be submitted within 10 days of the incident, the group was granted an extension after approaching the Board approximately a week after the GA. Neilson explained that it is within the purview of the Board to grant such extensions.

“The Judicial Board procedures are really just suggestions,” he said, “because according to the constitution, they can establish their own rules of order, which they actually have done in this case by accepting an application more than 10 days after the event in question.”

Both Khufash and SPHR VP Internal Urooj Nizami said that if they could secure the same remedy through mediation, SPHR would be willing to settle the case outside of Judicial Board.

“This is not a personal case of SPHR against anyone. We feel like we are representing the student body in this case,” Nizami said. “SPHR’s name is on [the factum] and I signed it, but we feel that … SSMU affects the entire student body and we feel that what was done affects everyone.”

– Additional reporting by Theo Meyer

Montreal, News

STM to launch new express bus service to Trudeau Airport

by Matt Essert on

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At the end of the month, the Montreal Transit Association (STM) will launch a new bus service providing direct transportation from downtown Montreal to Trudeau Airport.

Service on the 747 Express bus starts on March 29. The bus will offer rides to and from the airport 24 hours a day, and will cost $7 each way.

Michel Labrecque, the chairman of the STM Board of Directors, announced the new bus line at a press conference on March 11. Labrecque said that the 747 would offer increased service for Dorval residents, easier transportation for tourists, and a more efficient method of travel between the city and the airport. He predicted that the service would attract some 10,000 riders every day.

“With this new service, we hope to create an awareness about public transit among airport clients and employees so that they make a habit of using it for their transportation needs,” Labrecque said at the press conference.

Marianne Rouette, a spokesperson for the STM, pointed out that airport employees and employers will benefit from the new express service.

“Most employees have to take their car to go to work, so it was done mostly for them,” Rouette said.

“Airport employers are finding it hard to recruit staff because of the difficulty, or high cost of, getting to and from the airport,” she added. “If you don’t have a car, you have to take the regular bus, which takes a long time, and the hours are not very good for [most employees].”

Previously, travellers had only two options: take a taxi to the airport for the flat rate of $38 one-way, or take the Aérobus, a private bus line operated by Groupe La Québécoise, for $16 one-way. According to an employee of the Airports of Montreal who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the Aérobus service will be discontinued on March 28.

According to Rouette, however, the Groupe La Québécoise had a contract with the Airports of Montreal that was expiring, and the decision to cancel service was more of a coincidence than in direct response to the 747 Express.

The 747 Express’s $7 fee can be paid in cash on the bus. This ticket also gives riders unlimited access to the bus and subway systems of Montreal for the following 24 hours. Additionally, holders of weekly or monthly Opus cards, as well as one-day and three-day fare cards, can ride the 747 at no extra cost. The monthly one to eight TRAM card, which provides access to Montreal’s commuter rail lines, metro and bus system, can also be used.

The new bus’s route will not be particularly convenient for many McGill students, however. The 747 Express will leave from Montreal’s main bus terminal, located on Berri Street and de Maisonneuve Boulevard, and then travel mainly along René Lévesque Boulevard.

“I think it’s difficult to take the bus from a student’s perspective,” said Braden Touche, U1 economics, who regularly travels to the airport when flying home to Calgary. “I have to get to the bus station, which means that I have to take the metro, but in the winter I cannot do that because I will probably have a big bag.”

Students such as David Midgley, U2 accounting, however, see the service as too cheap to pass up.

“[The subway station] is kind of out of the way,” Midgley said. “But, [given the price], it’s definitely going to appeal to some people, myself included.”

The 747 Express will leave every 20 minutes during rush hour, every 30 minutes during off-peak hours, and every hour between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. Service to and from the airport will take between 20 and 50 minutes, depending on traffic.

News, SSMU

Motion moves SSMU towards vegan-friendly Shatner Building

by Steven Hoffer on

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Thanks to a motion passed last Thursday by the Students’ Society Council, McGill vegans may soon have more food options available to them in the Shatner Building.

The motion, put forward by Emil Briones, the representative from the Faculty of Music requires SSMU to encourage its food service tenants to offer more vegan-friendly choices, though it does not mandate tenants to provide vegan options.

“I worded the motion very carefully,” Briones said. “I just wanted action to be [taken] in terms of making sure the vegan food options are visible in the Shatner Building without pressuring food services into doing something that they can’t be forced to do.”

SSMU Vice-President Clubs & Services Sarah Olle echoed Briones’ sentiments.

“We discussed a requirement to mandate our tenants to have at least one vegan food item,” Olle said. “However, we felt that, first of all, it would be too hard for our tenants, and second of all, that wouldn’t actually be as effective as the way the motion is written now.”

Currently, Midnight Kitchen is the only food service in the Shatner Building that offers vegan-friendly meals on a daily basis. The student-run organization is only available during lunch hours, though. With the passage of the motion, current tenants will be encouraged to take steps toward offering vegan options without overhauling their menus.

“This is really a customer-focussed motion,” Olle said. “It shows our tenants that having vegan food options is not really a requirement, but is something they should do for their customers because it is important to them and it will increase their business.”

While preparing the motion, Briones and several other vegan students visited Shatner’s food service tenants to investigate the current options for vegan students, in addition to holding discussions with current councillors and incoming executives. Briones said that he expects next year’s executives to carry out the terms of motion.

“I think the main implication would be if right now [the tenants] may be a little sloppy in how they are preparing something – where it would be almost vegan if they changed one ingredient or one procedure of cooking – they would now be encouraged to change so that an item could get the vegan sticker of approval,” Olle said.

Simin Sattari, the manager of Café Supreme in the Shatner Building, explained that Café Supreme currently offers several vegetarian options, but changing their menu to offer vegan options could be problematic.

“About changing, you’d have to talk to the company,” Sattari said. “We don’t choose the food ourselves. They mandate our recipes. If we’re going to change anything, they’re going to charge us. We have to serve what they offer because we are a franchise. We don’t have the power to change the menu.”

The motion also mandates SSMU to move toward improving the visibility and labelling of vegan food products in the Shatner Building, in addition to taking the vegan issue into consideration when 2011 lease renegotiations with food service tenants.

“Right now in the music cafeteria there are little tags that say ‘This soup is vegan-friendly,'” Briones said. “Little things like that will make a lot of difference because being vegan personally, I don’t feel comfortable eating anywhere in the SSMU building aside from Midnight Kitchen. I don’t know if a knife, say, touched something with meat in it or chicken broth in it. I just want to make sure that vegans are comfortable eating in the SSMU building while Midnight Kitchen is not operating.”

– Additional reporting by Tori Crawford

Montreal, News

MUHC and unani.ca launch patient self-management platform

by Sean Wood on

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Last Monday, the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) and a medical-technology company launched unani.ca, an innovative new personal health record (PHR) system. The interface allows patients to store all of their medical information in one place, and its developers hope that it will contribute to a growing trend of patient self-management.

“The time has come for people to partake in the management of their health,” said Philippe Panzini, the co-founder and chief technology officer of Medforyou, the Montreal medical-technology company that helped develop the new website.

The free site, which is named after the Unani healing system developed in the 11th century, allows patients to list long-term health conditions, medications, upcoming appointments, and other health information in an organized web profile. Patients can then print off sections and bring them to appointments.

“We hope that it becomes commonplace for people and families to keep medical information themselves … because currently it’s all spread around in paper or folders,” Panzini said.

Reflecting its new-generation outlook, the site’s graphics are glossy and smooth. When users register, they pick one of 10 “secret images” to click on as an additional log-in ID.

The site has not received overwhelming traffic in its first week, but its creators are planning to add a number of new features to sophisticate and optimize its performance. Panzini said that before the year is over, there will be more “eye candy and flexibility.” He also hoped to have the system translated into multiple languages, in an effort to make it globally marketable.

“Our statistics show that about 75 per cent of the people hooking up are from Quebec, but there are people from everywhere else [as well],” he said.

In 2007, Medforyou approached Arthur Porter, the MUHC chief executive officer, who had been looking for a patient self-management tool. The partners began work on the project the following year.

The MUHC did not return the Tribune’s request for comment, but according to a press release, unani.ca is “the first consumer-minded personal electronic health record in the Canadian marketplace that combines the expertise of a world-class academic health centre with that of award-winning information technology developers.”

The finished product is not the only one of its kind, but rather a new variation on an existing theme. Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto has a similar plarform, and there are a number of other PHR systems that charge users.

Andrew Helmers, a second-year McGill medicine student, praised the system but said that it had certain limitations. He said that the site’s journal function, which allows users to track symptoms on a daily basis, is too general.

“I couldn’t find an easy way for a diabetic to track their blood sugar every day,” Helmers said. “They should have more templates for journals specific to patients with chronic conditions.”

Panzini said, however, that the system is deliberately simple – at least for now.

“We know that people have a hard time understanding health issues,” he said, “so we made the system look deceptively simple.”

Despite his criticisms, Helmers said that in general, the interface is a good thing.

“I would use it, just because I have trouble keeping track of those types of things,” he said.

Opinion

BLACK & WHITE: Miss manners for Facebook

by Mahak Jain on

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The embarrassing number of hours I’ve spent trolling Facebook profiles have convinced me we need a Facebook etiquette handbook. You know, the sort of pamphlet that would’ve circulated in the 19th century: an almanac of do’s and dont’s for ladies and gentlemen who wish to participate in civil society.

It all started when a Facebook friend updated her status to inform me – and anyone else who had the privilege of seeing her updates – that she had recovered from a urinary tract infection. Her status received a number of comments cheering her recovery. And, indeed, what’s not to celebrate about regaining your ability to pee with pleasure?

But I’m not sure it’s a good idea to leave behind all vestiges of Victorian propriety. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not the type of person who balks when any of my close friends share too much information about their bodily functions. But I know very little about this individual. We once had a meaningful conversation that was lovely enough to justify Facebook friendship. Now, alongside some snippets about her career and ambitions that I had gathered, I have this odd piece of information about her medical history that’s demanding way too much attention and threatening to thrust aside everything else I know about her.

In truth, oversharing likely won’t hurt anyone, despite the awkwardness it can lead to. However, there are other things people do on Facebook that can cause problems. For example, posting sexual innuendos on a friend’s wall, which someone did to a friend of mine. From what I understand, it was done as an attempt to display wit, not cause discomfort. While my friend herself didn’t care, she was concerned about the family members who could see her Facebook wall as well.

I don’t mean to be the Facebook police here, but we need to be careful. This isn’t a chat room where we can swap playful innuendos without risk of being overheard. Facebook is a public forum.

And I’m not that adept at the Facebook do’s and dont’s myself. I learned a hard lesson about presenting your political views on Facebook when I decided to post an article about Roman Polanski, along with my cursory views on the subject in the accompanying status update.

I learned that Facebook is a great forum for sharing news, but it is not an appropriate place to have a thorough discussion about controversial topics. My pithy statement about Polanski’s wrongdoings, presented without an appropriate amount of substantiation, sparked a flame war in my comments section that still makes me cringe. Things ended well, but since then I’ve wondered: what are the rules about posting on controversial subjects on Facebook?

These concerns could be mediated if we limited our Facebook profiles to close friends, not acquaintances. But, in reality, many of us use Facebook as a networking site – I have several “friends” that are actually acquaintances from high school who I don’t talk to anymore. So maybe, in a way, that’s my fault. But, still, I’m not suggesting we need strict guidelines – or to censor certain status updates or whatnot – but I think a guide might help us avoid uncomfortable situations in the future.

Facebook etiquette also means that I probably need to stop creeping on people’s pages like a modern-day peeping Tom. I’ll work on that.

Art, Arts & Entertainment

Caravaggio vs. Michelangelo

by Steven Hoffer on

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Although art historians and casual tourists probably won’t stop peering up at the brilliance of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, the 16th-century Italian Renaissance man may find himself looking up at another art world rival as the top Italian artist in history, according to one renowned art historian.

Phillip Sohm, an art history professor at the University of Toronto who specializes in the Italian Renaissance and the Baroque period, believes that Caravaggio has surpassed Michelangelo in scholarly discourse. Sohm recently presented his findings at the annual College Art Association conference in Chicago.

Sohm’s research tracks the frequency of scholarly publications concentrating on each of the two artists over the last 50 years. The research demonstrates a widening gap around 1996, with Caravaggio garnering over 55 scholarly documents.

Sohm described the phenomenon as “Caravaggiomania.”

“Caravaggiomania appealed to me for its suggestion of obsession and psychological imbalance, thus knitting Caravaggio and his fans together,” Sohm wrote in an email to the Tribune.

Caravaggio is known not only for his artistic ability, but also for his reputation as a recalcitrant rascal.

On May 26, 1606, Caravaggio killed a man named Rannucio Tomassoni over a tennis match and gambling debt. Although historians believe that the murder may have been unintentional, Caravaggio nevertheless fled to Naples. Before he passed away, it was reported in Rome that Carravagio had already died, while in fact he had merely been attacked, leaving him significantly disfigured in the face.

“Would we have Caravaggiomania if Caravaggio had not thrown artichokes at a waiter, swaggered with a sword, trashed his landlady’s place, killed an acquaintance, escaped from prison, and died on a beach?” Sohm asked in his CAA lecture.

Some scholars believe that after Michelangelo’s 500-year reign at the top, art history doctoral candidates are simply struggling to generate original readings of his catalogue. But Sohm does not completely agree with this sentiment.

“Actually, I think that fresh readings of Michelangelo’s work are still possible, but at times areas of study become exhausted, perhaps from the grueling and dispiriting effort required by piles of complicated and incompatible theories,” Sohm said. “This happens in other fields of art history – 19th-century French art studies is now in hiatus after leading the discipline with innovative studies during the 1980s and 1990s.”

So why the extended period of “neglect” and recent emergence?

“Fashions change,” Sohm said. “Those artistic values that Caravaggio challenged, those that took complex compositions with classical references, clarity of expression, and a privileging of the idealized human body as the height of artistic achievement, never disappeared in the 17th century and reasserted themselves as art academies became more dominant.”

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