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Cross-Country / Track, Sports

McGill track team impresses at Redbirds Last Chance meet

by Sarah Farnand on

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On March 10 and 11, the McGill track team hosted the Redbirds Last Chance meet, their final competition before the RSEQ Championships this upcoming weekend. On Friday, McGill’s Jorden Savoury finished first in the women’s 60m, and Matthew Beaudet finished first in the men’s 1,000m. Savoury ran a blistering 7.47, dominating the race and beating her personal best by 0.03 seconds. Beaudet led a McGill one-two finish in the 1,000m, with a time of 2:26.70, edging out teammate Markus Geiger by less than a second. 

After breaking four minutes in the mile earlier this season, Beaudet was less worried about his splits and more focussed on using this weekend’s race to improve his pacing and positioning in preparation for the RSEQ and USports championships. 

“The goal was to close the last 400[m] pretty quickly, but I had some trouble with getting boxed in at that point, so I had to find a way to take the lead with 300m to go before accelerating into the last lap,” Beaudet said. 

In addition to Beaudet, McGill’s distance squad had several other impressive performances. Jack Stanley and Felix Bedard went second and third for McGill in the 1,500m race, with Stanley breaking four minutes and Bedard outkicking Miles Brackenbury of Queen’s by 0.3 seconds.

Chloe Fleurent-Gregoire also had a strong race, placing second in the 3,000m on Friday night with a time of 10:00.28. However, on Saturday, the 1,500m had a rabbit who paced the start very poorly, eventually leading Fleurent-Gregoire to drop out of the race around halfway through. Nevertheless, Fleurent-Gregoire was grateful for the chance to compete again.

“[It] was really nice to get back into the competitiveness of racing again,” she said. “I feel like my confidence is slowly building back up from the cross-country season, after the break [due to COVID-19]. I am happy to be racing again and excited for the 1,500 and the 3,000 at provincials.”

On Saturday, McGill dominated the men’s 600m race, with Nicholas Bernard, Alexander-Jullian Bimm, and Sebastian Danson placing first, second, and third, respectively.

McGill also put in a strong showing in relays, with the women’s 4x400m team, composed of Marianne Djigo, Chloe Morrison, Audrey Gilmour, and Eden Muyard, coming from behind in the last leg of the relay to finish first, beating out the University of Montreal by half a second. Savoury led off the Martlets 4x200m relay to finish second, just over two seconds behind the University of Laval. The men’s 4x200m relay, consisting of Diego Dorantes-Ferreira, Jonas Schweiger, Jeremi Kolakowski, and Asad Bilal, also finished second overall. Schweiger finished second in his 300m race with a time of 36.76 seconds—the only male McGill athlete competing in that distance. 

Vanessa Lu Langley, a second-year engineering student, narrowly took second to Carleton’s Alexandra Telford in the 60m hurdles after beating Telford by 0.08 seconds in qualification. 

Next up for the track team is the RSEQ Indoor Track and Field Championships on March 20 and 21 at Sherbrooke University. 

Moment of the meet: After slipping to nearly last place during the women’s 4x400m relay, Eden Muyard passed the competition to win in the last leg of the race.

Quotable: “A lot of us have made personal bests this season, so I’m really proud of what the team has accomplished. I think performance aside, the highlight for me this season is definitely being around my teammates. I’ve found everyone to be so incredibly supportive and I’m beyond grateful for such an inclusive and positive atmosphere and training environment.” — Second-year high jumper Emily Roest 


Stats corner: Jorden Savoury ran the 60m in 7.47 seconds, breaking her own personal best and the school record.

Album Reviews, Arts & Entertainment, Film and TV

‘The Batman’ is DC’s very own horror blockbuster

by Karthikeya Gautam on

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Scattered whispers and occasional chuckles echo hollowly through the cinema’s depths, jittery in their disposition and nervous in their delivery. Excited eyes dart back and forth between the screen and the faces surrounding them. A nearly three-year anticipatory build-up is culminating into a gentle frenzy—a feverish apogee. This is the scene my friends and I hurriedly walked in on for a Friday night screening of director Matt Reeves’ long-awaited The Batman.  

His take on the Dark Knight (Robert Pattinson)—vengeance personified—features a horrifying storyline captured through staggering cinematography and a chilling score. Released on March 4, the film takes a grim approach to the beloved character, making him anything but the classic superhero archetype. In fact, the movie would be more aptly categorized under the bracket of “action/thriller” than “action/adventure.” Its stern and steely Bruce Wayne personifies Gotham’s ruin through his disheveled appearance and stony demeanour. The story revolves around him investigating a series of mysterious deaths, each connected by a trail of riddle-filled letters addressed directly to The Batman. With Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy’s legacy serving as a Goliathan precedent, The Batman surely serves as strong proof that the future of DC’s most iconic character is in safe hands.

The filming locations of London, Glasgow, and Liverpool create a noir backdrop with sweeping grandeur that ironically contrasts with Gotham’s crumbling morale and murky back alleys. Colossal aerial cinema-shots beautifully capture the city, gripping the audience with every fast-paced camera-flight along Gotham’s night-slash-sky-line. The symphonically chilling musical score complements the film by darkening every scene with a cold and calm tone, warning of dread with every note. These storytelling elements conjure up a horrifying iteration of Batman, turning him into the perfect anti-hero—a character just as terrifying and unpredictable as the movie’s villains, if not more. 

The movie pits some of DC’s most recognizable antagonists against the Bat, such as the Penguin (Colin Farrell) and the Riddler (Paul Dano). The complex personalities channeled by these bad guys present a harrowing depiction of Gotham’s decaying underbelly, fleshing out its fractured social setting. They are the result of everything wrong with the city, giving reason for Batman’s vengeance to rise. 

Other supporting characters include some fan-favourites: Bruce’s butler and father-figure Alfred Pennyworth (Andy Serkis), good-cop James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright), and the mysterious Catwoman/Selina Kyle (Zoë Kravitz). Each of these characters have their own personalities, flaws, and motivations, much like Batman himself. These complexities make The Batman about more than just Bruce Wayne. The film celebrates its secondary characters in a Shakespearean manner, ensuring that they offer more than just development for the troubled protagonist. That being said, rest assured, the film’s three hours offer more than enough Batman.  
With unbridled commercial success—opening up with a global box office chart of $258.2 million in its debut week—The Batman translates the hype into reality. The film’s neo-noir theme keeps audiences on edge, providing them with a gloomy and rain-battered setting for potential future installments. Notwithstanding early casting criticism, Pattinson’s gripping performance makes him a deserving inheritor of the dark cape. With such a forceful film, it is difficult to wait for the next sighting of Gotham’s Caped Crusader.

News, SSMU

SSMU Legislative Councillors take issue with Society’s prevalent use of confidentiality

by Elena Lee on

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Another turbulent Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) administration nears the end of their tenure as the Winter semester draws to a close and students head to the ballot boxes once again. From March 14 to 18, students will get the chance to vote on a new SSMU executive council and on seven referendum questions. Though each executive position specializes in different areas, there were common threads throughout all candidates’ platforms and pen sketches: Accessibility, communication, transparency, and accountability. 

Criticisms levelled at the SSMU’s increasing privacy and alienation from the student body have been met with inaction and repeated deference to internal regulations and policies. Recent events, such as the return of SSMU President Darshan Daryanani, saw the SSMU Board of Directors (BoD) and executive officers meet increasingly in confidential sessions. In the Feb. 17 ​​Legislative Council meeting, the words “confidential” or “confidentiality” were mentioned at least 24 times over the course of the announcement and question periods alone. 

Legislative councillor Andrés Pérez Tiniacos believes the bureaucratic roadblocks he witnessed in past Legislative Council meetings are deep-rooted, but not beyond reason. 

“It was frustrating for us [councillors] to ask and not be given any information, but we do have to understand that this confidentiality is there for reasons,” Tiniacos said in an interview with the Tribune. “[The SSMU] simply cannot break the law. All of these decisions are made following the advice of the SSMU legal advisors.”

The SSMU’s confidentiality policy protects any and all information disclosed to the Human Resources committee (HRC), their appointed representative, and the general manager, unless otherwise authorized by the individual involved. Section 12.1 of the SSMU’s BoD policies further stipulates that ultimately SSMU’s general manager has final say on the decision to disclose information on matters like financial statements, ongoing legal action, and negotiations with SSMU employees.

Tiniacos explained that confidentiality is meant to safeguard everyone involved in an investigation—such as those who came forward during the investigation into the doxxing and harassment of Palestinian students at McGill. In this case and others like it, SSMU legal counsel bars executives from sharing any information that could lead to further targeting. Though the SSMU has dealt with legal proceedings in the past, Nathaniel Saad, a management representative on the Legislative Council, believes that SSMU’s increasingly corporate mindset has overshadowed its basic foundation as a student union. 

“The things that SSMU does are important and affect us, but I feel as though a lot of times people take SSMU too seriously,” Saad said. “Lawsuits are a dangerous thing, and I understand that the executives and SSMU want to protect themselves and the funds that SSMU has. But there has to be some way to avoid the political toxicity that we are completely embedded in right now, and just tell people what happened [….] At the end of the day, student government is not supposed to be this ridiculous.”

Asma Khamis, U2 Science and Legislative councillor, has hope that SSMU will work toward improving its workplace dynamics from the inside out to address its myriad of issues before they escalate to independent investigations or litigation.

“The issue of confidentiality itself is a difficult thing to address, especially since it pertains to a legal framework that SSMU has to follow as a legal entity,” Khamis said in an interview with the Tribune. “However, I do think it is within our grasp to address the underlying issues before it leads to confidentiality becoming a stumbling block—for example, trying to prevent circumstances from happening that would necessitate these types of confidential investigations or information.”

Science & Technology

Astronomers identify new a star coated in helium-burning ashes

by Chloe Gavrilovic on

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A recent discovery among the stars has caught the global attention of many astronomers and astrophysicists, as its existence challenges the fundamental theories of stellar astronomy.

The new star is coated in oxygen and carbon, elements that form when helium is burned, as discovered by German astronomer Klaus Werner and his team at the University of Tübingen. Their findings conflict with the previous understanding of stellar evolution and the formation of white dwarfs.

When larger stars that have exhausted their nuclear fuel collapse inwards on themselves, they form small dense bodies of carbon and oxygen known as white dwarfs. Typically, stars are covered in layers of hydrogen and helium and only become coated with carbon and oxygen after undergoing a nuclear collapse. However, this new star has layers of these elements on its surface—the “ashes” of helium burning. It also has temperatures and radii that are indicative of continuous helium burning at its core, meaning that the surface of the star is somehow expressing the products of a nuclear reaction occurring within its core without having to use the rest of its helium fuel.

Scientists speculate that this strange occurrence is a result of a rare stellar merger event between two white dwarf stars. White dwarfs in close binary systems tend to shrink their orbit as a result of emitted gravitational pull and eventually crash into each other, causing a stellar merger event. But these events don’t usually lead to a carbon and oxygen-covered surface like that of the star discovered by Werner.

Professor Victoria Kaspi, an astrophysicist at McGill, researches highly magnetized and rapidly rotating neutron stars. In an email to The McGill Tribune, Kaspi explained the novelty of this new star and the theory behind its formation.

“Seeing heavier elements in more than merely trace amounts is unexpected because they are thought to be created only deep in the interior of the star, and not easily escape from there,” Kaspi wrote. ”How do you turn a star inside out? The idea here is that if a merger had happened, it would have torn apart the star so the interior would mix with the exterior, then settled into a new configuration with some of the insides on the surface.”

This phenomenon further muddles scientists’ current collective understanding of stellar merger events, since they cannot be explained by current stellar evolution models. Discoveries like Werner’s, then, can help develop new theoretical models and lead to breakthroughs in the field.

“Interesting stars like these reveal the full range of possibilities in the structure of stars, and how they evolve and interact in binary systems,” Kaspi wrote. “They show that nature is capable of a very rich phenomenology.”

New technologies, such as high-performing telescopes, are allowing astronomers to record the temperature and size of these stars using their emitted radio waves or X-rays. Recording these waves is a critical component of stellar observation and is necessary for any analysis of the structure and formation of stars. Werner’s lab used a Large Binocular Telescope for this particular discovery, allowing the researchers to identify the high abundance of carbon and oxygen instead of hydrogen and helium.

Beyond piquing the interest of many astronomers, the hydrogen-deficient star could also be a key piece of evidence explaining newer stellar theories of star formation, especially when combined with previous discoveries. 

“These observations also give us a new angle with which to understand stellar mergers; computer simulations of merging stars will now have to sometimes result in this sort of configuration,” wrote Kaspi. “This will help us understand the physics of the merging process.”

Arts & Entertainment, Pop Rhetoric

While some see comedic actors as uncut for drama, their performances can become gems

by Charlotte Hayes on

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Comedy is said to stem from tragedy, so it isn’t too far of a stretch to suggest that a great comedic actor could be an equally great dramatic actor. In fact, many performers have proved this hypothesis, from Adam Sandler’s tremendous performance in Uncut Gems to Steve Carell’s captivating role in Little Miss Sunshine. While some would expect skilled comedy actors to have little talent when it comes to serious dramas, many have delivered phenomenal performances that would rival some from the all-time greats. When artists subvert expectations in their performances, it demonstrates how creative labels can block actors from breaking out into great roles in different styles of film.

While not all of the more serious performances from comedy actors are successful—see Amy Schumer in Thank you for Your Service—others have surprised audiences with their impressive dramatic acting. Like Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting, some of comedy’s biggest names have prospered and been warmly received by critics and audience members alike. But this should not be surprising: Comedians and comic actors often make light of their own tragedies or suffering to fuel their comedic work. This, in combination with the need for a strong sense of performance timing and awareness, makes many comedic actors particularly adept at working in more dramatic settings. The natural instinct for knowing when a comedic beat will hit parallels a seasoned actors’ instinct for recognizing where a particularly tense emotional beat should land. Many comedy actors also have a deep commitment to their bits, no matter how ridiculous or melancholy the subject matter. Translating that into a dramatic performance creates mesmerizing characters that are often magnetic to watch. 

However unsuccessful some may be at transitioning into dramatic roles, comedic actors seem to do drastically better than one group in particular: Musicians. Countless musicians have found their way onto the big screen, with varying levels of success. Occasionally you end up with electric performances like those from Lady Gaga in A Star is Born or Justin Timberlake in The Social Network. These musicians play off of their strengths as stage performers to deliver exhilarating performances on screen. Although they are by no means the same thing, the ability to entertain an audience at a concert can translate well to charming audiences on the big screen. However, for every good transition into Hollywood, there are a thousand bad ones: Artists like Taylor Swift in Cats and Adam Levine in Fun Mom Dinner maybe should’ve just stuck to working on their next albums. Some musicians, even with prior acting experience, seem almost too famous to play anyone other than themselves—a category that doesn’t really have a comedic counterpart. Ariana Grande’s appearance in Don’t Look Up and Harry Styles’ in Dunkirk, although not necessarily bad, could sometimes distract from the plots of their respective films.

Although many actors could be considered mixed bags, comedic actors generally fare better than dramatic ones in delivering powerful performances against type. With such great roles in multitudes, it is beyond time to stop putting performers in creative boxes and put more faith in their varied talents. Although seeing one act against their usual type can be a wonderful surprise, imposing unnecessary labels can prevent them from accessing breakout roles in different genres. Audiences are missing out on fresh and innovative performances by pigeonholing and typecasting artists as either funny or serious, rather than a more important trait: Talented.

Research Briefs, Science & Technology

Excavating Earth’s history through ancient rock formations

by Adam Matthews-Kott on

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Scaling mountainous terrain or keeping an eye out for grizzly bears and moose while wading through the flowing rivers of the Yukon may not seem typical of academic work. But these were only some of the many challenging conditions McGill researchers endured while conducting a recent study looking at  oxygen levels on Earth before they started rising roughly 2.43 billion years ago.

Maxwell Letche, a postdoctoral researcher in Earth sciences at McGill and lead author of the study, explained that the redox state of iron-rich sedimentary rocks can tell us about atmospheric composition long ago. 

 “When the earth first formed, we didn’t have photosynthesizers around, so the atmosphere must have been anoxic,” Letche said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “We’re trying to look at the transition from no oxygen to lots of oxygen on the earth.”

Nearly all of the life on Earth owes its existence in part to oxygen. If a human doesn’t receive enough oxygen, they will die. If the grizzly bear currently stalking that human doesn’t receive enough oxygen, it will also die. Understanding the oxygen levels at different points in the Earth’s history, coupled with the evolutionary timeline of life on Earth, provides valuable insight into the development of life as a whole.

“When you’re looking at sedimentary rock, you’re looking at a collection of minerals and rocks that have accumulated in a depositional environment that has been influenced by a number of different surface processes, like weathering, transport, and changes that can occur as that sediment was converted […] into rock,” Letche said.

This aggregated collection allowed Letche and his team to simultaneously study a variety of different minerals and their reaction to oxygen levels at their time of formation. Such an analysis required gathering a variety of samples, which is why Letche found himself in remote, untarnished parts of the world such as the Eastern Yukon.

The study gives us a more accurate understanding of the relationship between oxygen levels across the planet and the formation of early life forms. One finding was that the Earth experienced a period of low atmospheric oxygen levels. Previously, scientists had assumed that the Earth either had no oxygen or a large abundance of oxygen later on, in response to photosynthesis.

“What we argue is […] if the earth was capable of maintaining a small but non-zero level of oxygen, this could be completely consumed by surface reactions [and] these oxygen levels could be below what is detectable by telescopes,” Letche said. “Another potential suggestion being made is we could instead look for ozone. We only need a small amount of oxygen in the atmosphere in order to produce ozone.”

As ozone is more detectable than oxygen, searching for this compound could allow scientists to screen more planets for potential signs of life. Understanding of the relationship between the development of life on Earth could even prove useful in the ongoing search for life on other planets.

McGill, News

Student-led Week for Solidarity Against Authoritarianism in Asia aims to inform and mobilize McGill community

by Lily Cason on

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A group of McGill students held a “Week for Solidarity Against Authoritarianism in Asia” from March 7 to March 11, aiming to raise awareness and foster discussions about the realities of ongoing authoritarianism in parts of Asia. Students, activists, academics, journalists, artists, and more convened to discuss the many ways authoritarian regimes can disrupt and endanger lives, and to stand in solidarity with those resisting it. The first three events, which were held on Zoom and streamed on Facebook, navigated anti-authoritarian activism, the intersections of gender and migration, and the role of media and threats to press freedom, respectively. The final event, a screening of the student films “Naglalahong Pamana” and “Women for Yangon,” was held in person in the McCall MacBain Arts Building. 

Two of the organizers, Pratik Mahajan and Kai Scott, both U3 Arts, explained in an interview with The McGill Tribune that the team made a conscious effort to platform individuals from a variety of professions and backgrounds—as opposed to solely centring academic voices. By inviting guests across diverse domains, they hoped to engage discussions about the wide-reaching, often intersecting consequences of authoritarian governance.

“There’s no way you can throw around these really abstract terms like ‘authoritarianism.’ And it can be quite hard to pin down what exactly that looks like,” Scott said. “The goal was [to] see each [of the events] as anchors, where we will get a bunch of people […] with lots of different angles focussed on this one particular manifestation. Then from there, hopefully, we can have really interesting discussions about what actually getting actively involved with that looks like.”

During the “Journalism and Freedom of the Press in Authoritarian Contexts” round table, Naw Hsa Moo spoke to the sobering realities of reporting in Burma. Hsa Moo, a journalist, a human rights, peace, and environmental activist, and member of the Karen ethnic minority, spoke to the heightened terror and danger she faces reporting on the ground.

“The situation for journalists in ethnic areas, especially in the conflict zone, is even worse,” Hsa Hoo said. “In Karen State, I witness first-hand experience of Burmese military attacks against Karen civilians with heavy artilleries and air strikes. When I travel to report in areas of Karen State […] I have to tell the stories of what the Burmese military is doing. The world needs to know. But there is constant fear. Fear of an airstrike. Fear of being shot. Fear of being arrested.”

In line with the ethos for the week, many of the speakers provided calls to action. Mahajan found social activist, politician, and academic Yogendra Yadav’s notion of creating a “truth army” to combat misinformation particularly compelling. 

“A lot of authoritarian regimes are relying on social media manipulation, especially with their troll armies […] engaging with activists and opposition leader politicians, just [having] debates in bad faith​,” Mahajan explained. “Yogendra Yadav’s suggestion was that in our own capacity we try to stick up for the truth, take that pledge.”

Throughout the week, many speakers and organizers mentioned financial support as a way for students to support resistance against authoritarianism. At the “​​Intersections of Gender, Migration, and Authoritarianism” round table, which took place on International Women’s Day, attendees were encouraged to donate to the South Asian Women’s Community Centre, a Montreal organization that aims to support and empower South Asian women and families. And at the “Journalism and Freedom of the Press in Authoritarian Contexts” roundtable, independent media outlet Harbour Times and the Karen Environmental and Social Action Network—where Hsa Moo works—were also spotlighted.

Niranjan Takle, an Indian journalist who has worked to expose corruption and injustice throughout his career, noted that critical thinking, especially on the part of students, is crucial in combating authoritarianism. 

“I would say that since you are all in your youth, and the youth do not have a fixed frame of thinking, they can think out of the box,” Takle said. “After working for a number of years, we kind of developed a frame within which we tend to think and imagine. But, since you don’t have a fixed frame of thinking, or you can think out of the box, probably you will be more helpful in suggesting innovations or innovating our stories.”

Yadav stated that those interested in getting involved can reach out to him directly by email at yogendra_yadav@hotmail.com.

Science & Technology

Six McGill undergrads win UofT international artificial intelligence competition

by Mikaela Shadick on

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A team of six undergraduate McGill students placed first in the International Artificial Intelligence Competition ProjectX, which ran from Sept. 1 to Jan. 31. Hosted by the University of Toronto, the annual competition challenges students to develop new models of machine learning with practical, real-world applications. Of the three categories open for submissions, including clinical practice, epidemiology, and genetics, the group placed first in clinical practice and received $25,000 in prize money. 

The team worked to create DeepVent, a patient ventilator model that operates through reinforcement learning (RL)—a type of artificial intelligence (AI) that aims to recognize patterns in data to improve subsequent decision making. 

Reinforcement learning is a small, yet rapidly developing subfield of AI and machine learning. When provided with a dataset the algorithm can begin to recognize patterns so that it can learn which decisions are more beneficial to reach a certain goal, similar to the way humans learn a new skill. Reinforcement learning is the same type of AI which now holds the title of best chess player in the world.

“It’s really impossible to [teach] all the different moves in chess,” Flemming Kondrup, U4 Science student and member of the winning team, said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “So what you do instead is you play the agent against itself, and […] it learns a general pattern of how to play. That’s how humans learn as well, [because] they develop an intuition of what’s a good move and what’s a bad move.” 

With this type of ‘intuitive’ analysis, RL can be used in medicine to learn from historical health data so that doctors can find the best, most personalized long-term treatment for individual patients. 

“RL also looks into the future, and predicts how the treatment it’s going to give now is going to affect future treatment options,” Kondrup explained. “A really good chess player doesn’t just do a move that’s good now, but sometimes they might sacrifice a move now for a better move later. And the same thing applies to health care.” 

The DeepVent team plans to use their model to regulate the dynamic ventilation needs of patients in hospital intensive care units. ICU doctors, who are often overworked and overwhelmed, may find it difficult to monitor the ventilation settings of multiple patients at once. DeepVent provides a solution to this through its personalized ventilation system that would adjust to changes in a patient’s breathing. Their results have shown a 59 per cent expected enhancement in overall treatment quality. 

“As a disease evolves, you need to adjust the settings on the ventilator,” Kondrup said.“Doctors have to constantly monitor patients and adjust these settings, and that can be pretty challenging.”

The average hospital ventilator settings include functions to manage the fraction of oxygen inhaled from the surrounding environment (FIO2), the expiratory pressure when a patient breathes out (PEEP), and the volume of air inhaled (tidal volume), all of which can impact a patient’s respiration—and as a result, their overall health. DeepVent envisions a ventilator with a built-in feedback mechanism that self-adjusts the settings without doctors having to intervene.

Another challenge the team addressed is the extensive training and experience health-care professionals need to effectively manage ventilated patients. 

“In order for a health-care practitioner to treat patients well, they need […] years of experience,” Kondrup said. “You can train AI on data of tens of thousands of patients [and] on what a real human being would need years to experience.”

As ventilators have been so central during the pandemic, it will be important to continue advancing the field of respiratory technology, both to help our intensive care units now, and into the post-pandemic future. 

“The idea of DeepVent is that instead of just focussing on the present, it tries to promote long-term health and survival,” Kondrup said.

Arts & Entertainment, Books, Pop Rhetoric

The young adult dystopian genre is too close for comfort

by Suzanna Graham on

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When many think of the young adult (YA) dystopian genre, both in literature and in film, The Hunger Games immediately comes to mind as one of the defining trilogies of the category. The Hunger Games hit the big screen 10 years ago and made nearly $700 million in worldwide sales. In the late 2000s and early 2010s, the YA dystopian genre reached peak popularity, and as a young tween in its target demographic, I remember just how captivated my friends and I were with tales of teenagers sparking revolution.

Books like The Hunger Games caught our attention for more than just their flashy book covers. For one, the protagonists were young kids and teenagers, just like us. But they had the power, through ability or circumstance, to change the world. As young people who just wanted to find a place where we fit in, we looked up to these characters who played vital roles, who were heroes that saved society from injustice. The characters were brave in their dangerous fictional worlds: While Katniss Everdeen competed in a deadly competition in the Hunger Games, Tris from Divergent jumped out of trains for thrills, and Thomas from The Maze Runner sprinted for his life through a murderous maze. Each protagonist found themselves in life and death scenarios, which kept young readers and adults alike flipping the pages in suspense. 

Despite the surge in YA dystopian novels during the 2010s, the genre is nothing new. Novels such as Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1931), George Orwell’s 1984 (1949), Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 (1953), and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) laid the groundwork for this 21st-century fad. All of these stories follow protagonists navigating oppressive systems that use systems such as surveillance and social pressures to force conformity.

Unfortunately, many YA dystopian books that capitalized on the success of their more thoughtful predecessors dumbed down their dystopian elements to attract young readers. This surface-level writing in terms of world, plot, and character-building caused the genre to lose what little critical respect it had. Series such as Divergent copied the idea of splitting society into groups called “factions” from The Hunger Games’“districts” and Harry Potter’s “houses,” where characters belong to a group based on a single value or skill.  Main character Tris leaves her family’s faction, Abnegation, to enlist in the exciting yet dangerous faction, Dauntless. Unlike The Hunger Games, where Katniss’ involvement with war is a result of self-sacrifice and need for rebellion, Tris has little motivation or character development throughout the series. The Hunger Games challenges young people to question the systematic oppression around in a way that realistically explores corruption and injustice – a domain these copycat novels tend to gloss over. 

The YA dystopian genre now seems less far-fetched, with young people becoming more politically active in the face of real threats of climate change, tyrannical politicians, and global conflict. These activists are applying the original YA dystopian message—that young people have power to change the world they live in. Novels have always incorporated political messages, whether to destigmatize mental illness, challenge racial biases, give voice to 2SLGBTQIA+ characters, and more. Nonetheless, YA dystopian literature so clearly reflects social oppressions in the world that it becomes difficult to enjoy the “fiction” as we could when we were younger and more ignorant. Fantasy no longer sugarcoats these books; the similarities between fact and fiction are more obvious. 
The YA dystopia genre may be less popular than it was 10 years ago, but it truly shaped what my generation was reading in adolescence. Now older, we can no longer see The Hunger Games as fantasy—oppressions endorsed or even enacted by governments around the world are an inherent part of the world we live in. Yet young adults can still look to literary figures, like Katniss, as inspiration in the fight against injustice in our world.

McGill, News

QPIRG-McGill’s panel on labour exploitation at McGill discusses ongoing contract negotiations and unionization efforts

by Ella Fitzhugh on

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The annual Social Justice Days event series, organized by the Quebec Public Interest Research Group at McGill University (QPIRG-McGill) and the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU), was held from March 7 to 12. Centred on themes of harm reduction and sustainability, the series featured interactive workshops and panel discussions such as “Building care into anti-violence advocacy that sustains us” and “Supporting prisoners and parolees in their transition as returning citizens” with the purpose of engaging McGill students in community activism.

“The labour crisis at McGill” panel on March 9 underscored key issues that McGill’s labour unions have faced throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The panel brought together Evan Fox-Decent, McGill law professor and interim president of the Association of McGill Professors of Law (AMPL); Simon Deverson, chair of the McGill University Non-Academic Certified Association (MUNACA) solidarity committee; and Christian Tonnesen, U4 Science and vice-president (VP) for the floor fellows at the Association for McGill University Support Employees (AMUSE) Unit B. The featured guests each gave 10-minute speeches highlighting the changes their respective organizations are rallying toward, among them contract negotiations and unionization.

Fox-Decent kicked off the event with a presentation detailing the ongoing effort of many law faculty professors to unionize. He traced the origins of the movement to the memo Provost and VP (Academic) Christopher Manfredi sent to faculty deans and department heads on Aug. 29 requesting the names of professors who did not want to return to in-person teaching. The memo came after a group of law professors penned an open letter demanding that the university implement a campus-wide vaccination mandate soon before the Fall 2021 semester. After receiving the memo, law professors agreed that they wanted a union to represent them in their relations with the administration moving forward—which would be a more specific unit than the broader, non-unionized McGill Association of University Teachers (MAUT) currently representing them.

“The most difficult part of this for us so far has been that unfortunately, McGill is fighting us tooth-and-nail,” Fox-Decent said. “They’re challenging our bargaining unit, saying with a straight face that it should be all professors who unionize at McGill […] and that it should not be a single faculty, the Faculty of Law.” 

Quebec’s Tribunal administratif du travail (TAT) will determine whether the union will include all professors at McGill or solely law professors, with two days of hearings already completed and two more hearings dates set for this coming May.

Following Fox-Decent’s presentation, Deverson spoke about MUNACA’s contract negotiation standstill with McGill. MUNACA is a union that represents non-academic workers, such as clerical workers, librarians, and technicians. Deverson explained that the union’s contract expired in Nov. 2018, and that since Sept. 2019, MUNACA has met with McGill representatives a total of 48 times, which Deverson noted was “a large number” for such negotiations.

Some changes MUNACA would like to see in the new collective agreement include a retroactive wage increase—since employees are still being paid the salary scales stipulated in the expired 2018 agreement—pay increases that keep pace with inflation, and the maintenance of the top of workers’ salary scales. 

Deverson also mentioned that McGill did not provide MUNACA workers with a COVID-19 bonus, despite the gesture becoming commonplace in Quebec throughout lockdown periods.

“Given the labour crisis that exists in Quebec, wouldn’t it be better to have a fair and just collective agreement for its workers?” Deverson asked. “Wouldn’t that retain staff? I mean, we have people at McGill whose job title is talent acquisition advisor, wouldn’t it make their lives easier if we had good working conditions?” 

The panel then turned to Tonnesen for his presentation on AMUSE. Tonnesen explained that AMUSE comprises two units: Unit A, which represents front desk staff workers, library workers, and other similar positions, and Unit B, which represents floor fellows. While Unit A’s new collective agreement is set to be signed soon, it has been 18 months since Unit B’s previous collective agreement with McGill expired. Tonnesen explained that the money floor fellows make is insufficient as a living wage, so among other requests, AMUSE is bargaining for a pay increase. 

“As it currently stands, the money we make is not enough to cover the rent in taxes, so floor fellows are essentially working for free,” Tonnesen said. “So, the next steps as we go are to attempt to get some sort of a better pay and get our collective agreement hopefully signed such that we have full retroactivity […] and also to bring in hazard pay for those that worked during covid.” 

During the question and answer period, when asked about how McGill students can support the workers in the various ongoing campaigns, Tonnesen suggested that speaking to those with financial influence to induce change.

“McGill very much loves money,” Tonnesen said. “So, if you are dissatisfied with the way things are running, talk to someone who is paying the bill and McGill will […] respond to you [much faster].”

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