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Arts & Entertainment, Pop Rhetoric

The renaissance of Andrew Garfield

by Dana Prather on

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2022 is, without question, an excellent time to be Andrew Garfield. At 38 years old, the British-American actor is having a remarkable resurgence in his career: In the past 12 months alone, he’s starred as real-life televangelist Jim Bakker in The Eyes of Tammy Faye, reprised his role as Peter Parker in the Marvel/Sony blockbuster movie Spider-Man: No Way Home, and is garnering Oscar Buzz for his turn as Jonathan Larson in the film adaptation of the late Rent-creator’s semi-autobiographical musical tick…tick…boom!.

So what’s responsible for sending this fan-favourite actor back into Hollywood’s stratosphere? The answer is simple: A perfect combination of vulnerability, a wealth of critically acclaimed performances, and an unexpected boost from the TikTok algorithm.

Garfield’s breakout role came in 2010’s The Social Network, the fast-paced origin story of the world’s largest social media company. He played the ousted Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, an embittered but likeable counterpart to Jesse Eisenberg’s cerebral, arrogant Mark Zuckerberg. Though the story necessitates that he play second-fiddle to Eisenberg, Garfield’s acting steals the show, and his now-famous, “Sorry my Prada’s at the cleaners, along with my hoodie and my fuck-you flip flops” outburst remains one of the movie’s best-loved scenes 12 years on. 

While The Social Network earned Garfield critical acclaim, The Amazing Spider-Man made him a household name. Stepping into the iconic dual role of Peter Parker/Spider-Man meant filling some big shoes, especially considering that original Spider-Man, Tobey Maguire, had only hung up his Spidey suit five years earlier. Full of witty one-liners and palpable chemistry with co-star-turned-girlfriend Emma Stone, Garfield’s Peter Parker proved a more suave version than Maguire’s. Still, reactions to the first two instalments were lukewarm from fans and critics alike, and plans for The Amazing Spider-Man 3 were ultimately cancelled. Between fan loyalty to the original and the immense popularity of the latest reboot starring Tom Holland, Garfield was left as the mostly forgotten middle child of the live-action Spider-Man lineage. However, his reappearance as Peter Parker in No Way Home sparked renewed interest in both The Amazing Spider-Man franchise and Garfield’s acting career as a whole.

Recently, TikTok’s “For You Page” has become inundated with scenes from his time as Spider-Man, videos of people lip synching to his Eduardo Saverin outburst, and clips emulating the frenetic energy of his tick…tick..boom! musical numbers. As a result, both his recent work and his formerly overlooked career years populated with gems like his Oscar-nominated role in Hacksaw Ridge and Tony award-winning performance in the revival of Angels in America have received renewed widespread attention. On a platform that feeds on our increasingly short attention spans, the fact that these longer, Garfield-inspired clips garner so much attention speaks volumes about the actor’s engaging performances.

Garfield’s performances aren’t the only thing grabbing his ever-growing fanbase’s attention; his vulnerability is equal parts endearing and compelling. Compared to the banter and charming anecdote-filled talk-show interviews common of most Hollywood actors, Garfield is unflinchingly honest and unexpectedly sincere. In a recent interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, he opened up about how playing mortality-obsessed Jonathan Larson helped him reckon with the recent passing of his mother.

“I hope this grief stays with me,” he said, tearing up. “Because it’s all the unexpressed love I didn’t get to tell her.” 

This earnest admission has been viewed over 1.3 million times, demonstrating just how far his vulnerability goes.

After such a whirlwind of a year, some might question where Andrew Garfield’s career will go next. If this powerful mix of dedicated performances, loyal fanbase, and penchant for vulnerability keeps up, there’s nowhere to go but up. 

McGill, News

Black students and organizations reflect on Black History Month ahead of the annual programming

by Elena Lee on

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February 2022 marks the sixth official celebration of Black History Month at McGill, though members of Montreal’s Black community, including student groups at McGill and Concordia University, have been leading the occasion for more than two decades. This year’s celebrations were organized by the Office of the Provost and Vice-Principal Academic (OPVPA) in partnership with the Faculty of Science and will include four main OPVPA events and more than 10 general events spearheaded by students, staff, and faculty. 

Since 2020, McGill’s Equity Office has partnered with a different faculty each year to organize Black History Month events. This year, the Faculty of Science teamed up with student groups such as the Black Students’ Network (BSN), Black Students Financial Society, and the African Studies Students’ Association.

In addition to events organized by the McGill administration, the McGill African Students’ Society (MASS) hosts their annual Africa Speaks Conference, which covers a variety of contemporary Afrocentric issues, and aims to expand discussions about African society and culture beyond the oft-discussed topic of “development.”

According to Joy Sebera, U2 Arts, this year’s theme is “Africa in the Media.” As MASS vice-resident Education, Sebera is the lead organizer of the Africa Speaks Conference 2022, which will explore the evolution of Africa’s creative industries.

“‘Africa in the Media’ aims to engage content creators, authors, entrepreneurs, and more in conversation about African media and art as well as the African presence, or lack thereof, in Western media,” said Sebera. 

Hassanatou Koulibaly, MASS president and U2 Arts & Science, appreciated the administration’s inclusion of student groups in the planning process of Black History Month 2022 was welcomed, but says that more needs to be done to spread the word to the wider McGill community.

“I think generally we appreciate the efforts made and the events planned and the consideration for student groups and the activities we may have individually planned,” Koulibaly said. “But we feel that visibility and awareness of these events definitely need to be worked on so that students and faculty at McGill are aware.”

Beulah Omo-Idowu, U3 Science, however, believes the problem extends beyond a simple lack of awareness about Black History Month. Omo-Idowu told the Tribune she had attempted to organize a Black History Month movie night for La Citadelle residence, where she is a floor fellow, but that it never came to fruition.

“People don’t like to be confronted with conversations about race, because, especially in spaces like McGill where it emphasises how diverse it is and how diverse we are, no one ever wants to examine where maybe they’re not being exactly inclusive,” Omo-Idowu said. 

When it comes to McGill as an institution, James McGill’s racist and colonial history, alongside the administration’s efforts to downplay it, have been well–documented and protested. While McGill’s Action Plan to Address Anti-Black Racism 2020-2025 discusses the university’s problematic glorification of James McGill, the Strategic Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Plan 2020-2025 makes no direct mention of his connection to the enslavement of Black people.

“[McGill is] lacking in terms of actually doing things outside of February,” Omo-Idowu said. “[Black History Month] celebrations are nice but [in regards to] the policies in this school, […] at least in my program, I have not seen any Black staff or professors.”

There remain few Black faculty and students at McGill. As of September 2020, only 14 of approximately 1,750 tenure-track and tenured professors—0.8 per cent—were Black, and during the Spring 2019 convocation ceremony, a total of 40 Black students accepted diplomas on stage. Black students and staff, who often report feelings of isolation and lack of representation, would benefit from a designated space in which they could bond and interact, suggested Koulibaly. 

“I think also creating a space for discussion with non-Black persons at McGill in a less formal setting than a town hall, for example, would also help bridge a gap at McGill,” Koulibaly added. “Beyond just the month of February, it would be nice to still see some of the excellence that exists in the Black community recognized.”

Science & Technology

Projecting global temperatures more accurately

by Sonja Soo on

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Estimating global climate change with any degree of accuracy is no easy feat. Although climate models all agree that global temperatures are increasing, the rate and extent to which predictions differ leaves us with uncertainty. For example, it is unclear when the Earth will surpass key temperature thresholds, such as the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit set out by the Paris Agreement, past which a slew of negative climate impacts will become inevitable. 

A group of scientists at McGill found a new way to project climate change more accurately using new mathematical equations that incorporate the Earth’s energy balance. These results were recently published in the journal Earth System Dynamics in a study led by former graduate student Roman Procyk and professor Shaun Lovejoy from the Department of Physics. 

“It is common in geophysics to start with a mathematical result or model and then try to find an application,” Lovejoy said in an interview with the McGill Tribune. “I proceeded in the opposite manner.” 

Early in his career, Lovejoy focussed on discovering scaling relationships between large and small structures, such as weather systems and clouds. This symmetry principle can be seen in objects such as “fractals,” which have patterns that, when zoomed in, repeat exactly the same pattern ad infinitum. For example, a tree has branches that also have smaller branches, and those branches have even smaller branches, all of which resemble trees at different scales. Understanding these scaling relationships in the atmosphere helped Lovejoy discover the macroweather regime—an intermediate period that is distinct from short-term weather, or atmospheric conditions in periods of less than 10 days, and long-term climate, or atmospheric conditions over decades. 

While other models projected climate by simulating weather in the long term, Lovejoy and his group projected their climate model based on this macroweather regime. To simulate weather, researchers must take many details into account, such as the shapes of clouds, altogether resulting in a huge computational burden. But by making the model directly in the macroweather regime, these details become irrelevant because variations in these details will average out over a long period of time.

Additionally, this new model incorporates equations for the Earth’s energy balance—an energy exchange between the solar energy input from the sun and thermal energy output to outer space. However, because of greenhouse gases which trap heat due to their molecular structures, there is less energy leaving than coming in, disrupting this balance and contributing to global warming. The key aspect of this new model is that it takes into account this extra energy stored on Earth by applying principles of scaling. Adding in the collective behaviour of other atmospheric structures such as clouds and weather, Lovejoy and his group were able to project climate temperatures to 2100.

 “Our projections overlap a huge amount with the IPCC projections,” Lovejoy said, referring to the projections used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “They fundamentally agree with each other, but our uncertainty range is quite smaller.”

This means that there is a narrower timeframe for reaching the 1.5 C limit. To date, human activity has caused global warming to reach 1 C above pre-industrial times. Many people have witnessed and suffered the effects of climate change in the last few years, with wildfires in California and severe floods in Europe. Lower-income countries have experienced food insecurity, increased poverty, and climate migration as a result of these extreme weather changes. Exceeding the 1.5 C threshold would mean that heatwaves, storms, and floods will become more and more frequent.

Climate projections have important implications for individuals’ everyday decision making, from planning what crops to grow to choosing where to live. At the infrastructure level, climate predictions guide mitigation policies, such as for managing floods or building seawalls. With the smaller uncertainty range projected by this new model, Lovejoy says that this means less “wiggle room” for politicians when it comes to reaching their targets—policies will have to be more stringent about reaching their goals.

With these promising results, his group hopes to extend this model to make regional climate projections. But first, they aim to further understand and improve the model by trying techniques such as testing its accuracy against satellite data. 

“This [model] is the beginning of something that will be going on for a long time,” Lovejoy said. “It’s going to be really interesting times.” 

McGill, News

Reddit posts show student restlessness and deliberations about dropping out of McGill

by Sabrina Nelson on

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On Jan. 30, Chloe Legault, U1 Arts, made a reddit post asking whether it was too late to request a leave of absence due to her mental health. Subsequent discussion threads posted to the McGill subreddit have revealed that a number of students are considering dropping out, deferring, or taking a leave of absence due to mental health issues. 

Simon Kidd, U4 Arts and a moderator for the Reddit thread, has noticed the number of posts related to mental health issues steadily increase over the pandemic—though he says they have recently decreased since the return to in-person teaching. Posts from students contemplating dropping out were nothing new, however: Kidd says they were only frequent during stressful academic periods of the semester prior to the pandemic, whereas now they trend throughout the year. 

“Often mental health, physical health, or loss in the family is the driving force behind dropping out,” Kidd wrote in a message to The McGill Tribune. “The pandemic has led to an uptick of posts with users expressing their desire to drop out of McGill.”

Though most of her classes are currently delivered in a hybrid format, Legault says she is experiencing burnout, and that taking a break from school would be beneficial for her mental health. She says that McGill has not been very accommodating throughout her struggles with depression and anxiety, citing a lack of accessibility to the Wellness Hub.   

“I wish I could say the university is accommodating,” Legault said. “They offer the idea, ‘Here are some mental health resources on the Hub,’ but usually the counselors or psychiatrists are too busy.”

Olivia Bornyi, U2 Arts and the mental health outreach coordinator for the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU), told the Tribune in an email that she, too, has noticed an increase in burnout and hopelessness due to the unique circumstances of the pandemic. 

“I think everyone is tired of feeling uncertain and having to constantly adapt,” Bornyi wrote. “I definitely believe that students feel overwhelmed during online classes with an ever-growing workload, not to mention other responsibilities such as clubs or part-time jobs.”

Bornyi noted that difficulty accessing mental health services has only compounded the struggle.

“Accessing student mental health services has been hard, with both the Wellness Hub having long wait times and provincial services lacking in accommodation for students that need immediate assistance,” Bornyi wrote. “Throughout Mental Health Action Week, the general sentiment seemed to be that people were feeling lonely and missing social interaction.”

Frédérique Mazerolle, a McGill media relations officer, stated in an email to the Tribune that the university had not observed a rise in university withdrawals throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“Fall 2021 enrollment (39,267 students) is comparable to Fall 2020 (39,736 students) and Fall 2019 (39,664 students),” Mazerolle wrote. “In fact, withdrawal numbers are, since the first semester impacted by the pandemic (Winter 2020), down compared to the terms preceding the pandemic.”

Legault has, however, abandoned the idea of taking a leave of absence. Since the Arts OASIS notes that the request must be made before the withdrawal with a full refund deadline, she assumed that it was too late. 

“There is no definitive statement from McGill that I can find, but what I gathered is that you can probably get a leave of absence for mental health issues provided that you get the proper documentation,” Legault wrote. “If McGill wants to be more progressive about mental health issues, they must be more forward and transparent about [leaves of absence].”Students seeking support can contact the SSMU Mental Health team, and Keep.meSAFE. Students can also consult the McGill mental health webpage.

Album Reviews, Arts & Entertainment, Music

Saba’s ‘Few Good Things’ is a musical scrapbook

by Isabella González on

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Four years after the release of his second studio album, the pain-ridden CARE FOR ME, Chicago-based rapper Saba has returned with Few Good Things, released on Feb. 4. This new project takes a refreshing step away from the despair of its predecessor, with Saba reflecting upon what he loves and appreciates in his life through his lyrical storytelling. Although the songs lack musical cohesiveness, Saba’s exploration of new themes and emotions makes up for it, creating a stunning album packed with stories of his life.

For most of the 48-minute project, Saba remains in his comfort zone of melodic beats and rhythmic flow. In “Still,” guest features Smino and 6LACK flow well with Saba as he explains his fast-paced life, over airy percussion and a mellow bass line. However, Saba does occasionally venture into uncharted territory. Unlike his more mellow tracks in past albums, Saba successfully creates a joyful tone in “Fearmonger.” Here, he juxtaposes the bright beat of the song with an amusing monotone flow, a perfect addition to the playful character of the track. While Saba’s mix of style is generally pleasant, his experiments with rhythm and percussion in “A Simpler Time” are sloppy at best. Saba’s verses provide some stability in the song, but overall, the beat feels disjointed, with just a few ad libs, drum beats, and sound effects thrown around randomly.

The lack of sonic consistency in Few Good Things ideally paints Saba’s changing emotions and perspectives, despite the new musical endeavours not always succeeding. Saba contrasts hard-hitting, drill inspired songs like “Survivor’s Guilt,” which vividly details his adolescence in disadvantaged, marginalized Black communities, with ambient pieces like “2012,” where he candidly reflects on his meaningful and affectionate childhood. Thematically, the album is very consistent, exploring the topics of money, gratitude, and fame. On “Make Believe,” one of the most stunning songs off the album, Saba raps solemnly over fluttering synths about making it in the music industry: “Cause Black boys on this side of town not supposed to be on / the front page of the newspaper / For doing greater.”

Few Good Things feels like a scrapbook. Saba experiments with new sounds and instrumentation, sometimes succeeding and other times falling short. Although the album is slightly disjointed, overall it is an honest reflection of Saba’s emotions, capturing him doing what feels right musically. 

Art, Arts & Entertainment

‘Landscapes, Colour and a Portrait’ exhibit adds colour and vitality to winter days

by Anna Berglas on

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Landscapes, Colour and a Portrait is a one-room exhibit currently hosted by Bradley Ertaskiran, a gallery nestled in the Saint-Henri area. Featuring pieces painted by Toronto-based Canadian artist Kim Dorland, the exhibit portrays 13 forests and a single portrait. As traditional depictions of winter landscapes are often seas of grays, the brightly coloured oil paintings of foliage and sky are an especially compelling collection. 

Dorland employs three-dimensional aspects of visual art to create a diverse array of texture-based effects, which add dimensionality—literally—to the viewing experience. Many of the artworks invite viewers into a dense, deep forest.  For instance, his large painting Black depicts a forest in monochrome black, with brush strokes creating tree-like shapes amongst what is otherwise a homogeneous canvas. Additional techniques are featured in Orange and Pink, which has globs of thick paint that curl downwards to resemble shrubbery. In The Fence, the paint is a translucent wash which reveals the canvas underneath.

Contrasting colours are also a focal point of Dorland’s work. In Pink and White, for instance, a neon pink background affronts the eyes, and the whiteness of the trees contrasts with a psychedelic sky behind it. The landscapes aren’t realistic, nor can they be tied to specific locations, but they nevertheless possess an air of nostalgia for a viewer familiar with the Canadian winterscape. The depth of paint strokes, as well as their wild direction, is reminiscent of thick foliage. The absolute white emerging from harsh colour is similar to the blinding reflectivity of freshly fallen snow. 

Viewers can then turn their attention to the uneasiness present in many paintings, which surfaces through the tangles of brushstrokes and unnatural neons. As written in the exhibit description, Dorland’s landscape follows the stakes of the climate emergency from vague concern to approaching palpable reality. In light of this helpful interpretive guide, one can see an undercurrent of climate crisis-related panic running through many of Dorland’s pieces. A particularly striking example is Smoke, which depicts the sky above a burning forest. At the bottom of the painting, the top of a black treeline lies beneath a red sky with trails of white smoke. Rather than drawing the viewer’s eyes to the forest below, the smoke situates the viewer’s perspective into the atmosphere, where the smoke from forest fires, which are ironically also often exacerbated by climate change, further contribute to the greenhouse effect. In Smoke, Dorland makes subtle, but poignant, social commentary: Just as a fire rages beyond the painting’s frame, the forces propelling climate change, such as the emission of greenhouse gases and building of pipelines, are invisible to many. 

The final photo, if viewers circle the room, is a portrait of a girl called Lori. She is bisected by different colours, and her face is demolished with thick paint smears. The brushstrokes leave traces of the canvas underneath, and there is a troubling sense of incompleteness as the featureless face confronts viewers at eye level. 

The masses of oil pants Dorland works with artfully impress depth and chaos to the forests and Lori. The journey from deep pink to pure black to olive green is a reflection of the turbulence witnessed in the environment today. The more time spent in Landscapes, Colour and a Portrait, the more the paintings reveal themselves to be a dreamlike meditation on the tensions of our relationship with the outside world. It is a thought-provoking and moving experience.

The art gallery is free and open to the public without reservation and can be visited during 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, and 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays, until Feb. 26.

Science & Technology

Getting to the roots of hair loss

by Marion Laurençon on

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Hair loss and hair shedding are very common in times of stress and can affect anyone—even those who have no family history of either condition. Apart from genetics, other factors, such as medication, stress, birth control, or lack of sleep can kill the stem cells inside hair follicles. 

Stem cells have the potential to differentiate into a variety of subtypes, including hair-follicle stem cells, which are responsible for the formation and growth of hair. Unfortunately, hair follicles are similar to eggs in female mammals: Individuals are born with a finite amount and the number only keeps decreasing. Therefore, the production of new hair follicles in labs is of huge import to those who suffer from hair loss. 

Biologist Ernesto Lujan launched the start-up dNovo in 2018 in an attempt to genetically reprogram blood, skin, or fat cells into hair-forming cells to treat hair loss. The process of reverting mature, specialized cells into induced pluripotent stem cells, called “reprogramming,” is slowly emerging across the globe as a way to treat patients. dNovo is currently testing the technology on mice and pigs. 

The process consists of collecting cell samples from a patient, reprogramming them into hair-follicle stem cells, growing these genetically manipulated cells in the lab, and adding them to the scalp of the patient, who should see hair growth one to three months after the procedure. 

Even though the procedure may seem simple, hair follicles are complicated organs and their formation is not yet fully understood. Tamara Ouspenskaia (BSc ’09, MSc ’10), who completed her PhD on the mechanisms involved in the specification of stem cells during mouse development in 2016, was part of the Fuchs lab that succeeded in growing hair on a nude mouse. The lab purified hair stem cells and injected them into the skin of the mouse, and the experiment succeeded, in part, because it chose nude mice as its subjects.

“[Nude mice] lack an immune system and thus don’t reject the injection as they can’t recognize the stem cells as foreign,” Ouspenskaia said.

The scientists then used lentiviruses to inject the reprogrammed cells into the amniotic cavity of mice. Since mice are only embryos at this stage, the reprogrammed cells will pass down their hair-growing abilities to all their descendant cells. Another way to grow a hair shaft and transplant it onto nude mice is by growing organoids—3D structures made from pluripotent stem cells. 

“If conditions of growth are right, [organoids] will try to replicate the tissue normally present in the body,” Ouspenskaia said. 

There are different ways to grow hair stem cells in labs, but the more complex part is ensuring that the patient’s immune system does not reject the new cells. One solution is to take functional hair follicles from other parts of the body and to transplant them onto the scalp—but this raises questions about the best regions to take the hair from.

Apart from growing the hair shaft of nude mice, the Fuchs lab showed how a mouse embryo grows hair. From day zero to 10, the embryo is surrounded by identical cells which then become clusters of cells expressing markers of future hair follicles that eventually stop dividing. 

Stem cells at this stage of a mouse are called embryonic stem cells and present unique properties, as opposed to adult stem cells.

“Something special about embryonic hair-follicle stem cell[s] is that they can regrow hair follicles, [whereas] adult hair-follicle stem cell[s] can’t,” Ouspenkaia said. “If we could understand more differences between embryonic and adult hair-follicle stem cell[s], maybe we could reprogram them to grow hair again.” 

Commentary, Opinion

Spotify has a responsibility to protect its listeners from inaccurate information

by El Bush on

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Recently, The Joe Rogan Experience, now a Spotify-exclusive podcast that brings in an estimated 11 million listens per episode, has come under scrutiny for platforming COVID-19 misinformation. The episode that initially spread controversy featured an interview between host Joe Rogan and Dr. Robert Malone, in which the pair discussed multiple conspiracies involving mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines. Following the release of the episode, Rogan and Malone faced backlash from both the medical community and the general public for their discussion of the subject, where they discouraged healthy young people from getting the vaccine and claimed that mRNA vaccines are gene therapy. 

In the days following, Spotify listeners and artists alike demanded that the platform take action to combat the spread of misinformation. On Jan. 24, artist Neil Young asked the service to choose between him and Rogan—Spotify removed Young’s music from the platform. His departure was followed by Joni Mitchell’s soon after. After the public outrage, Spotify added disclaimers on Rogan’s podcast and created a COVID-19 information hub in an effort to facilitate access to accurate information. Despite these surface-level actions, Spotify remains above all committed to profit in refusing to reconsider its partnership with Rogan. In order to show a real commitment to combating misinformation, the platform should condemn and demonetize this kind of content. 

In the statement it released as part of the launch of its information hub, Spotify did not address the issue with Rogan’s content specifically, nor did they acknowledge their policies surrounding the monetization of harmful misinformation. Indeed, Spotify should follow the lead of other streaming services, such as YouTube, which have policies in place to demonetize content that could be considered harmful. In Spotify’s case, acting responsibly would include revoking their exclusive $100-million podcast deal with Rogan that currently remains in effect. 

Beyond demonetizing harmful content, Spotify has an obligation to its platform’s users to promote and provide information in line with science. While creating a COVID-19 hub is a welcome start, they must also invest in creators who are working to educate the public. Take, for example, Foreign Policy’s podcast Don’t Touch Your Face: Spotify could make this accurate information more accessible by advertising it on the main pages of its platform. The streaming service must realize that the safety of its listeners—and of the public, more broadly—should come before sensationalist anti-science content creators who cause harm by spreading misinformation.

Although the onus is on Spotify to take action to protect listeners, Spotify users themselves have a role to play as conscious consumers. Since many McGill students are active Spotify users, it is important for them to employ a critical ear when consuming the platform’s content. This means actively engaging with creators who spread accurate information. While everyone has different listening preferences, it is important to seek out multiple––factual––perspectives while gathering knowledge, especially knowledge related to health and science. Moreover, from the listener’s perspective, demanding more of creators and platforms will only help produce better content. Having high expectations would mean recognizing and promoting creators who create accurate and reliable content, and protesting those who do not. 

Ultimately, it is the responsibility of streaming and social media platforms to help combat misinformation by promoting reliable content and creators. However, if the platform itself refuses to do so, it is integral that its users consume media through a critical lens and actively promote correct information within their communities. What the Joe Rogan conflict has revealed is that now more than ever, creators, streaming platforms, and consumers must intentionally seek out and share reliable information.

McGill, News

Black History Month keynote highlights Black voices in STEM

by Joseph Pappas on

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McGill held its virtual opening ceremony for Black History Month on Feb. 1, featuring keynote speaker James Jones. Jones is a distinguished professor emeritus of psychology and Black American studies at the University of Delaware, as well as the director of its Center for the Study of Diversity. The event, titled “Diversity within Psychology,” was the first of McGill’s Black History Month series, which, in collaboration with the Faculty of Science this year, is centred on celebrating Black scientists at McGill and beyond.

The ceremony began with remarks from several guests, including Gracia Kasoki Katahwa, the borough mayor of Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. Katahwa highlighted the measures that the current Montreal government is taking to build a more equitable future for Black communities, but acknowledged that more needs to be done.

“It is clear that as a society, we still have a lot of work to do to fight systemic racism and inequalities,” Katahwa said. “We are strongly committed to affecting these changes within our city with concrete actions. We have started by recognizing the existence of systemic racism and creating the Office of the Commissioner to fight against racism and discrimination to help our public services in this inclusive transition.”

Jones began his keynote address by expanding on the idea that Black History Month must go beyond the celebration of select Black achievements.

“Black History is more than celebrating consequential Black people,” Jones explained. “That is important, but it is more than that. Black history is the story of the human spirit, the will to live, the capacity to love, and the fortitude to endure. Black joy balances out Black trauma.”

Jones underscored the importance of diversity within the field of psychology, emphasizing that it is more than a mere box to check off; it is a crucial component in fostering scholarship in the field. Jones introduced what he described as one of his favourite concepts: Full participation.

“Full participation is a product of diversity, it’s not diversity itself,” Jones said. “It is an affirmative value focussed on creating institutions and societies that enable people, whatever their identity, background, or institutional position, to thrive, realize their capabilities, engage meaningfully in institutional life, and contribute to the flourishing of others.”

McGill’s dean of science, Bruce Lennox, offered the closing remarks, reflecting on his personal experience attending one of the first desegregated schools in New Orleans.

“As we celebrate Black History Month, I recognize that although we might have come far, at least from my first day of school, in New Orleans, we certainly haven’t gone far enough,” Lennox said. “In the present and future, I can certainly pledge that McGill’s Faculty of Science is going to be an active partner and leader in bringing the joys of STEM [and] the societal imperatives of STEM to Black students in the Montreal community, the academic communities of Quebec, and worldwide.”

Art, Arts & Entertainment

McGill professor examines elitism and pastoralism in 16th century Venetian art

by Suzanna Graham on

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On Feb. 3, Chriscinda Henry, one of McGill’s associate professors of art history, delivered a lecture for The Courtauld Gallery’s online speaker series on Concert Champêtre, a famous painting by Venetian Renaissance painter Titian. Henry exposed how Concert Champêtre, the title of which translates to “pastoral concert,” offers a window into how the elite youth in Renaissance Italy chose to spend their leisure time. 

Painted between 1509 and 1511, Concert Champêtre depicts a young man adorned in a lavish red outfit, playing his lute alongside a more simply dressed man and two semi-naked women. Although seemingly at ease, several qualities hint that the youth in the painting does not belong. Besides his clothing, his elaborate instrument is grand compared to the simple pipe that one of the women holds, suggesting his capability to create complex music compared to her simple tunes. Henry attributes his out-of-place persona to some art historians’ assumptions that the lutenist was a real, yet unidentified patron who commissioned Titian to insert his image into the pastoral scene. This artistic self-insertion was popular among the elite in the 16th century as a form of informal self-representation. 

“In the homes of certain Venetians, who might be considered as a cultural avant-garde, novel forms of intellectual exchange, music-making, theatrical performance, and collecting came to articulate a new mode of poetic self-fashioning and generational distinction on the part of young Venetian patrons,” Henry said. “The shepherd maschera, or persona, […] provided the ideal vehicle for a liberating poetic form of self-expression steeped in classical literary and theatrical culture.”

While he is participating in an artistic movement celebrating self-expression and leisure, the patrician’s outfit clearly boasts his high position in the Venetian political society. Henry noted that the youth wears Compagnie della Calza attire, identified by his cloak and subtly striped hose. The group, called “Company of the Hose” in English, was a fraternal youth society that collected and refined the sons of Venetian elite by having them host lavish spectacles for the public. The company included several different groups, all of whom sported distinguished colour combinations of hose. The youth in Concert Champêtre wears a white and grayish-green striped hose on his right leg and rose-coloured hose on the left—which is hidden in the painting—representing the so-called “happiness group.” This group prioritized the reciprocal exchange of friendship among guests and fellow patricians alike. 

The painting itself features the homosocial—or, as Henry argues, potentially homoerotic—friendship between the central youth and his pastoral companion, showing that the friendship has transcended beyond elite status. However, Henry argued that the similar body positioning between the urban elitist and pastoral shepherd reflects a sense of alter-ego. Therefore, Concert Champêtre reflects both the youth’s pride in his political status and the equal passion he feels for simple, pastoral life. 

“[There is an] intimate gesture of homosocial fellowship, almost fusion, between the two young men seated at the center of the composition—the elegant compagno, and his rustic shepherd counterpart,” Henry said. 

Although Venetian elite were free to live joyously and abundantly in their youth, their powerful parents expected them to renounce these luxuries and take on a more serious and political role upon reaching adulthood. In 1509, the youth had to abandon their lifestyle due to the War of Cambrai, instigated by a European alliance led by Pope Julius II and Louis XII of France, who aimed to disassemble the Republic of Venice. At that time, the Venetian government forbade all festivities and colourful hose to facilitate focus on war planning. Although the war ended in 1511—once again permitting festivities—the previous generation of elite youth had become Fausti, meaning soldiers, outgrowing the carefree privileges of their adolescence. Henry acknowledged that the pastoral theme of Concert Champêtre represents the generational nostalgia for both a simpler rustic life without war and for an adolescence celebrating life and art.

“If one of the young men of the Fausti had proved to be not only the central subject, but also the patron of the Concert Champêtre, this prompts questions about the painting, as a work that captures and commemorates for posterity, a brief and liminal stage of life that was already nearing its end for the Fausti by 1509, when the painting was likely commissioned and begun.”

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