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News, The Tribune Explains

Tribune Explains: The Montreal wastewater system

by Kyle Dewsnap on

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With the spring thaw on the horizon, students are already swerving away from massive puddles on street corners and sidewalks. To better understand why the temporary flooding is so severe, The McGill Tribune looked into how Montreal handles its wastewater.

Where does the water go?

According to the City of Montreal, the city’s drainage system gathers 2.5 million cubic metres of wastewater on a normal day and up to eight million cubic metres on a wet day. Almost all of this water is treated by the J.R-Marcotte water treatment plant located at the base of the Island of Montreal, which is also the third largest water plant in the world. Every litre of water that flows through the plant is filtered for garbage and particles then given a chemical treatment that binds smaller particles together so that they too can be filtered out. Once treated, the water is dumped into the Saint Lawrence River. Currently, Montreal does not sanitize its wastewater, although there are plans to open a new sanitization plant within the next three years.

Why isn’t the water sanitized?

Sanitizing millions of litres of wastewater is expensive, time-consuming, and has its own environmental impact: Nature Education estimates that wastewater sanitization accounts for three per cent of global electricity production and five per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Professor Jim Nicell, dean of the Faculty of Engineering at McGill, explained that the most sustainable solution for an environmental problem may not be the obvious one.

“A few years ago, there was an issue where [Montreal] needed to divert wastewater directly into the St. Lawrence river in order to repair a pipe,”  Nicell said. “From an engineering perspective, that’s a non-issue: You look at the size of the river, you look at the level of dilution, [and you find that] nature’s not going to feel it. Now, consider someone that would instead want to build a giant basin to hold the dirty water because they were really concerned about the environment. But, what about the environmental and economic resources that would be required in order to build a temporary structure to hold this water? That’s not a wise use of resources in our efforts to protect the environment.”

How is the water transported?

Most of the city is serviced by a combined sewerage system which transports both sewage and storm water. There is a drainage pipe underneath every street in Montreal, the smallest of which are only 30 centimetres in diameter and the largest being over four metres wide. All of the water in the combined system is eventually moved into one of two massive pipes. These underground rivers, called interceptors, are over five metres wide and, ultimately, transport the water to the treatment plant.

Why are there massive puddles on every street then?

Sewerage systems have a maximum capacity and, when reached, the system must either dump untreated water directly into a holding facility or water source or else risk flooding thousands of businesses and homes. Nicell, who has worked in environmental engineering for over 25 years, explained that engineers try to avoid this issue by intentionally designing storm drains and streets to drain water at a slow rate.

“If you allow the water to flood as quickly as possible down the sewer in order to keep everyone’s feet dry, that creates a massive peak of flow that may overflow the sewer […and] flood businesses and homes that are blocks away,” Nicell said. “So, what we’ll do is purposely allow the water to pool and then slowly drain down into the system so that it doesn’t flood.”

However, he also pointed out that the flooding near campus can be excessive.

“I can’t always say [the flooding] is by design,” Prof. Nicell said. “For instance, the [drain] by the Roddick Gates is not good [….] Sometimes, the design is good, but the contractors make a mistake during construction.”

Student Life

To double major or not to double major

by Gabriela McGuinty on

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The number of McGill students partaking in double majors or joint honours degrees has risen in recent years. As of 2017, approximately one in five McGill students were expected to graduate with a joint degree. Yet, despite a trend toward interdisciplinary education, many continue to question the value of pursuing a double major.

In a 2018 New York Times article, David Leonhardt argued that students should avoid double majoring, rationalizing that though dual concentrations encourage students to familiarize themselves with two academic fields, it also gives them less flexibility to diversify their programs through electives. Despite Leonhardt’s warning, universities have increasingly promoted interdisciplinary study. At McGill, the Faculty of Arts and Science was founded in 2005 to enable students to major in both a science and a humanity discipline. Similarly, across North America, universities are offering interdisciplinary programs: through New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study students can curate their own major according to their interests and Middlebury College’s winter term program allows them to take month-long classes outside of their major.

Many students feel that this holistic approach to education exposes them to a wider breadth of classes and allows them to explore more of their scholastic interests. Kate Englehutt, U1 Arts, majors in geography and double minors in political science and religion and globalization. In her experience, taking a diverse selection of classes has enriched her understanding of each concentration.

“I found that [pursuing a double minor] was the best way to specialize what I was studying to best suit my interests,” Englehutt said. “My courses overlap in really interesting ways, like some urban geography courses have a lot to do with politics and policy, for example. I think it impacts my life at McGill positively because I get to dip my toe into a few different departments and diversify my undergrad classes.”

In response to multidisciplinary programs, economists have worked to determine the value of a joint degree. In a 2016 study conducted by the Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis, scholars noted that many students who double majored did so, in part, because they expected to earn a higher salary after graduation. Though many students initially pursue interdisciplinary study to satisfy their diverse interests, there are also perceived professional advantages to earning a joint degree.

Some believe that students who take double majors work harder or are more driven, attributes that employers view as indicators for professional success. Fernando Nunez-Mietz, an assistant professor in the political science department and joint honours advisor, has observed that the double major students he supervises can sometimes have an advantage in the increasingly competitive job market because of their unique interests and skills.

“My presumption [about why students double major] is that it has to do with the signal it sends to future employers or future institutions that students are looking to apply to,” Nunez-Mietz said. “Basically [it shows] that you are above the average, that you are an overachiever or that you basically stand out from the crowd.”

At McGill, double majors require that students take on a heavier course load and attend additional required classes. While the extra hours of studying that come with a double major degree can cause a strain on students, many of them believe that the unique skill sets they develop from their joint programs will aid their academic and professional growth. According to Leanne Young, U1 Science, who is earning a joint honours degree in computer science and biology, pursuing two seemingly unrelated disciplines has helped her develop the necessary skills to succeed in academia.

“This specific joint degree opens so many more windows to both the technological world and the research world,” Young said. “Science students who do not possess any mathematical [or] computational knowledge […] are greatly missing out on [a range of] opportunities and research that can be done.”

Nonetheless, some students find that the sacrifices they make to complete a joint degree can take a toll on their personal and academic lives. Many double majors note that they struggle with heavier course loads and inflexible course schedules. These challenges can prove especially difficult when the student loses interest in their course material. McGill Career Planning Service (CaPS) director Darlene Hnatchuk explained that despite these obstacles, many disillusioned students persevere with their double major because they believe it will guarantee professional success—an outlook she finds unproductive.

“I think that if students choose to do a double major it should be because they’re equally passionate or very keen about the two topics they are choosing to double major in,” Hnatchuk said. “The best reasons are because you can’t figure out what you’re most intensely interested in, and some of the worst reasons are because you think it’s going to guarantee you certain types of positions or employment outcomes.”

Many double majors hope that interdisciplinary study makes them adaptable job candidates, however research indicates no correlation between double majors and higher salaries. Though interdisciplinary majors can help students develop a diverse skill set, Hnatchuk explained that students enrolled in other programs can gain comparable experience in other academic fields through extracurriculars or electives. Increasingly, she noted, employers seek prospective employees that add value their companies, which can be measured by a candidate’s demonstrated abilities, rather than simply the degree they carry.

“Employers aren’t saying that they’re looking for students that have done double majors, they’re looking for skill sets,” Hnatchuk said. “Whether you develop the skills that they’re looking for through your academic or co-curricular […] doesn’t really matter to them, what matters is that you have those skills, that you can demonstrate those skills.”

Over the course of their undergraduate degrees, students enrolled in multidisciplinary programs find that the work ethic and diverse skill-sets required to succeed in double major programs have also aided their personal development. Caitlyn McConnell, U1 Arts and Music, studies classical vocal performance, economics, and computer science. She explained that balancing the workload required to complete a double major challenged her to develop stronger organizational skills. She also believes that this experience has helped her become a more versatile thinker.

“The benefits [of a dual degree] are being able to take a huge variety of classes,” McConnell said. “I have to take, music, math, three languages, computer science and economics courses [….] I think it prepares you to enter [the] ‘real world’ by forcing you to apply your skills over a wide range of subjects and teaching you to think in a completely different way because you have to juggle so many subjects at once.”

In their efforts to come across as ideal candidates for job opportunities, students can sometimes forget the underlying role of gaining a university degree: to highlight and expand on knowledge and skill sets that are beneficial for both personal and professional growth. While some view double majoring as time-consuming, McGill students pursuing joint degrees believe that double majoring can educate them on a range of issues, open doors with the university’s ecosystem, and teach them skills that serve them long after graduation.

Student Life

From Away

by Zoë Yalden on

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Over 27 per cent of the McGill student population is international, more than any other university in Quebec. For many, it can be difficult to feel comfortable in a new country. In “From Away” The McGill Tribune asked international students: Where do you feel most at home on campus?

Saruul Khishigjargal, U2 Political Science, Mongolia

“There is really only one place I truly feel at home on campus, Rutherford Park. Sitting on that open expanse, watching the city skyline, I feel as though I have a piece of nature all to myself. I feel free and that’s home to me.”       

 

 

 

 

Jeanette Zhong, U2 Philosophy, China  

“The Nahum Gelber Library. It is so close to my apartment and I spend most of my time studying there. It is a quiet area where it is usually easy to find seats. Despite the construction surrounding the library, it is a beautiful building where I feel the most at home on campus.”

 

 

 

 

Eve Cable, U1 Cultural Studies, London

“I feel most at home in my dorm room in RVC, because I feel like I made it into a place where it’s a home for all my friends and me, not just me. Most people think my dorm room is super cluttered, and it is, but that’s because I have millions of photos of my friends from home and my family on the walls, as well as lots of tickets and posters from my walls in my old bedroom [….] My favourite part of my dorm room is the huge rainbow ‘Happy Birthday’ sign I taped up to the wall. All my friends here had their birthdays in November and December, and I decided to keep the sign up so that anybody having a birthday can use my room as the birthday room.”

 

Priyanshi Sharma, U1 Psychology, India  

“It’s mainly the people I surround myself with, my roommate, girls from my sorority, AOII, and my friends. I thought it would be hard to settle here when I first got here but it hasn’t been like that at all.”

 

 

 

 

Soukaina Amrani, U3 English Literature, Morocco

“The things that make me feel most at home are my friends, my sorority, and my sister since she lives here. Without them I would be homesick and sad, especially with how cold and dark winter is here.”

 

 

 

 

Mohammed Haj Ali, Second year Masters in Environmental engineering, Syria

“I’m part of WUSC [World University Services Canada] McGill, a university club that helps McGill students […] sponsor refugees from conflict zones to pursue their education at McGill. It’s where McGill empowered me to transform the lives of individuals who suffer [from the same] conflicts […] my home country is currently suffering from.”

 

 

Navoneel Chakraborty, U2 Physics and Philosophy, India

“My favourite place on campus is McGill Pizza. Nothing like one-for-one beers and all day breakfast.”

Commentary, Opinion

Campus Conversation: Apartment hunting trials and tribulations

by Makena Anderson & Leina Gabra on

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It’s springtime in Montreal: The days are getting longer, the weather is just slightly getting warmer, and thousands of students are rushing to find a new place to live. Contributors Makena Anderson and Leina Gabra detail the trials and tribulations of apartment hunting as McGill students.

Exploitative landlords and annoying age limits

Makena Anderson, Contributor 

It’s no secret that good landlords are few and far between, but they seem especially scant in the Milton-Parc area. Between broken dishwashers, missing doorknobs, and unreturned phone calls, nearly every student has horror stories about their landlord.

Following a two-year tenancy in the Plateau, I came up against some surprising troubles as I began my search for a new home. While on the hunt for an apartment, I discovered that—at age 20—I was too old for some landlords. By their second and third years, many students are unappealing candidates for potential landlords because they are less likely to renew their leases for the following year. As a result, some landlords will opt for younger prospects, which is illegal.

Even if you belong to the lucky group of students who are invited to sign a lease for their apartment of choice, you may find that your potential landlord has tacked on extra fees like illegal security deposits. Quebec is the only province in which landlords are not allowed to ask for a security deposit; however, they have been known to circumvent this law by exploiting students’ naïveté.

With hundreds of students hunting for housing near campus, landlords are afforded substantial power. As students desperately look for an apartment before the Apr. 30 deadline, landlords have the opportunity to bypass certain regulations and are still likely to find a tenant. By the time students file a complaint, landlords will likely have found a different signatory for the lease. The future of renting may seem unpromising to many students, and, moving forward, the Régie du Logement should take a more active role in advocating for student renters and condemning landlords who partake in illegal renting practices.

The stress of finding and living in a Milton-Parc apartment

Leina Gabra, Contributor 

The Milton-Parc area is home to over 11,000 residents, thousands of whom are McGill students. Many students live in the neighbourhood because they enjoy the convenience of being able to leave home 10 minutes before classes begin. Affordable units in this densely-populated area are snatched up within minutes: I had Craigslist and PadMapper bookmarked for months because apartments were being rented out as soon as they were listed.

McGill Student Housing offers a webpage with some online resources and a handful of workshops and Q&A events to assist its community in finding off-campus housing and understanding the law. However, this still does not fully prepare students for all of the headaches that come with apartment hunting. Unprepared second-year students are thrust into the big, scary world that is apartment hunting with few tools to guide them, especially regarding their rights as tenants. Although McGill does provide some resources, they do not assist in finding apartments in concentrated and highly-popular areas like Milton-Parc.

On top of the difficulty of finding a satisfactory apartment in Milton-Parc, for many students, this is their first time renting. For those who are especially unaware of Quebec’s renting laws, such as international students, this highly-concentrated neighbourhood of students allows landlords to take advantage of oblivious McGill students for their own profit through illegal deposits, hazardous living conditions, and unfair rent prices. Besides exploitation, some students living in Milton-Parc have reported burglaries, trespassing, or peeping—especially female students.

Apartment hunting as a McGill student is no easy feat, especially when students are all looking in the same neighbourhood. Students who are tired of the struggle that is apartment hunting in Milton-Parc and don’t mind a short commute should consider renting in other neighbourhoods outside of the ‘McGill bubble’ such as like Atwater, Saint-Henri, or the Mile End.

Science & Technology

People are rational—wanna bet?

by Morgan Sweeney on

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It’s the final round of Jeopardy! and the stakes are high. Martha wipes a bead of sweat off her face, her fingers descending to trace the pearls around her neck for good luck. Despite holding a bank account several orders of magnitude smaller than her opponent Patricia, both women bet approximately the same amount in an attempt to win the game. Irrational though this might seem, there is a whole subfield of economics dedicated to similar forms of decision-making.

In a paper from 2003, researchers explored a slightly different gamble: A single bet with a 50 per cent chance of winning $550 and a 50 per cent chance of losing $500. In the scheme of things, the $50 difference is negligible. However, despite the probabilistic promise, very few participants chose to take the bet.

The explanation for why people did not want to take the bet relies on a distaste for uncertain risks. The formal term for this phenomenon is risk aversion, a situation wherein people try to minimize uncertainty even when the odds are in their favour. This works in parallel with the endowment effect, where people tend to see losing something as more consequential than gaining a reward. This study, and many like it, explore the motivations that drive individuals’ decisions.

Perhaps less intuitively, the study also found that risk aversion to the 550/500 bet did not change based on overall wealth. This is as a result of a phenomenon known as narrow framing, which causes people to evaluate gambles in isolation, without taking information from other parts of their lives into consideration. In the Jeopardy! scenario, narrow framing would push Martha to match Patricia even though her bet had greater consequences for her outside of the game.

Risk aversion research is most relevantly applicable in the stock market. Although investing in the stock market generally produces returns, this does not inspire much interest in investment among the general public. The reasons behind this disinterest are similar: People are generally risk-averse and tend to frame situations narrowly. The stock market is perceived as risky, and, while it has relatively low returns on the day-to-day scale, even small returns can build over time. Meanwhile, most people do not evaluate their finances holistically when considering opportunities to spend. For those who already have money in bank accounts and real estate, it makes sense to diversify their wealth and invest in stocks, yet most people avoid investing.

Even though people generally like to think of themselves as rational agents who make good decisions,  an individual’s judgement is, more often than not, heavily swayed by factors they would think irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

Science & Technology

Freedom is worth more than a billion dollars

by Margaret Wdowiak on

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Canadians typically enjoy high living standards yet tend to suffer from weaker social support networks than countries such as Mexico where, despite having much lower standards of living on average, residents often live in very tight-knit communities. According to a new study conducted by a pair of researchers from McGill and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, tight social circles in Mexico several important advantages.

“The aim of our study was to take a literature which is now firmly well-developed about the determinacy of happiness […] and think about what the implications were for the future,” Christopher Barrington-Leigh, associate member of McGill’s Department of Economics and associate professor in the McGill School of Environment and the Institute for Health and Social Policy, said.

The researchers used a statistical model which combined two sets of measures. The first set measured objective, material factors: Per capita gross domestic product (GDP) and life expectancy. The second set was based on social factors including corruption, freedom, charitableness, and social support. The researchers then observed the global changes in the well-being of individuals between 2005 and 2016, as self-reported by evaluations from the Gallup World Poll, a global poll created in 2005 which tracks quality of life statistics in more than 160 countries. Based on the changes to the measures over time, the study projected self-reported quality of life for the year 2050.

The researchers found that changes in ‘material’ variables produce modest improvements in global quality of life. These changes varied from an increase of zero to 10 per cent above present levels. Meanwhile, changes in the non-material factors showed up to a 30 per cent increase in quality of life. The greatest potential for such improvement was found in India, China, Eastern European countries, and sub-Saharan African countries. The most pessimistic scenario, on the other hand, showed a decline in non-material factors leading to a decline in quality of life of 35 per cent. The survey also showed that global improvements in material conditions were more significant when paired with enhanced average freedom and corruption scores and were negligible when accompanied by declining average social support scores.

This study suggests that the greatest benefits to well-being in the upcoming decades lie in the non-material realm, suggesting that states should focus their resources on explicitly social aims. This conclusion has interesting ramifications for public policy.

“Governments need to start thinking about cost-benefit analysis differently,” Barrington-Leigh said.

Certain countries have already started to weigh policy alternatives based on residents’ well-being.

“New Zealand has just started to implement cost-benefit analysis for its budgeting processes in terms of human well-being, so this, I would say, is the beginning of a revolution,” Barrington-Leigh said. “Wales has also done something similar by passing a piece of legislation which says that governments should be accountable to future well-being. In that sense, the implications for governmental policy are very radical, [and] they could really eventually change how things are happening in the world.”

Barrington-Leigh hopes that other countries will join New Zealand and Wales in considering non-material well-being in cost-benefit analyses. However, despite the many new insights provided by this study, its model is far from perfect.

“Implications for future research are to start being much more quantitative and predictive,” Barrington-Leigh said. “We painted two scenarios, but they were not predictive.”

Increased predictive power is crucial for shaping future governmental policy.

“Future research [should investigate] what policies […] we should be following in order to get one of those scenarios in 2050 versus another,” Barrington-Leigh said.

Utilizing the right policies will help to achieve the optimal scenario in 2050 in a world with increasing material standards and decreasing social well-being.

Album Reviews, Arts & Entertainment, Music

Solange’s ‘When I Get Home’ is an avant-garde celebration of black excellence

by Nicholas Raffoul on

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Three years after the striking A Seat at the Table (2016), Solange released her fourth album, When I Get Home, on March 1. Accompanied by a short eponymous film, the album is an homage to the artist’s Houston roots, her birthplace, and the city’s black pioneers.

A notable departure from her last studio album, When I Get Home offers a collection of brief, episodic thoughts, with 14 of the 19 tracks clocking in under three minutes, rather than the concentrated black power anthems of A Seat at the Table. Much like in her previous works, black solidarity is at the core of many of the album’s tracks, including “Almeda” and “My Skin My Logo.” The album is meditative, transitioning beautifully from song to song, with brief yet impactful interludes, including “Can I Hold the Mic” and “Nothing Without Intention.”

The album was released with a 33-minute short film featuring Solange and an all-black cast of performers, reimagining Houston through the artist’s eyes. Rather than reconstructing the Houston of the past, the film envisions the city’s future, depicting cowboys and futuristic technology in Solange’s imagined home with an Afrofuturist aesthetic. The film’s choreography is elegant but impassioned. Solange challenges herself by producing more experimental work and in the process challenges her audience: The video’s avant-garde sensibilities might render it bewildering and difficult for some viewers, but the dazzling aesthetics qualify it as a masterpiece.

When I Get Home transports the listener—and viewer—to Solange’s childhood and home, a visceral, culturally-rich, site-specific experience. Solange names some of her tracks after Houston streets and references the city in many of the album’s songs, adding to the complex layers of the album and accompanying video. Through experimental Rhythm & Blues, Solange reclaims and creates space for black artistry and experiences. The album and short film are equally eccentric and avant-garde, paving the way for a completely new genre of art and music.

The album represents the beginning of a new chapter for Solange. The artist’s last two albums, according to her, have one significant difference: “With ‘A Seat at the Table,’ I had so much to say,” Solange said in an interview with The New York Times about one of the collection’s tracks. “And with this album, I have so much to feel.”

Rating: ★★★★★

Sports

U.S. Olympic athletes move towards unionization

by Ender McDuff on

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On Jan. 24, 2018, Dr. Lawrence Nassar, a former United States gymnastics team physician, was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in a Michigan state prison for sexual abuse. One hundred fifty-six women testified against Nassar, recalling how he had abused his position for decades to sexually harass and assault young female athletes. The case highlighted the institutionalized separation between American Olympic athletes and the United States Olympic Committee (USOC), the organization that oversees U.S. Olympic competition. To meaningfully address this, as well as the financial challenges that the athletes face, the Athletes’ Advisory Council (AAC) met to consider a solution: Unionization.

Donald Fehr attended the meeting between the AAC and the newly-hired CEO of the USOC, Sarah Hirshland, underlining the seriousness of the issue at hand. Fehr is the former Executive Director of the MLB Players’ Association and current Executive Director of the NHL Players’ Association. With his career’s worth of experience in the field, Fehr joined the AAC’s side of the table to help secure greater power for U.S Olympic athletes in negotiating with their Olympic committee.

Beyond addressing the many physical and legal concerns athletes may have, the call for unionization also seeks to resolve long-standing concerns surrounding athletes’ compensation and quality of life. In 2014, NBC paid $7.75 billion to secure American television broadcasting rights for all Olympic programming through 2032. Meanwhile, the U.S. Olympic athletes who generate the revenue are not earning dependable incomes; they are forced to rely on performance-based stipends from preliminary events and cash prizes from their home countries. The U.S. award bonuses fall well below those of countries like Singapore, Russia, and France and help only a few fortunate athletes—often those who are already benefiting from hefty endorsement deals. As such, most U.S. Olympic athletes struggle to cover expenses, forcing them to resort to part-time jobs, crowdfunding, or ending their Olympic careers early.

Throughout American history, labour has evened financial imbalances through the collective bargaining power of unions; for Olympic athletes, it could do the same. A scathing article in the Washington Post exposed how in 2016, the non-profit USOC had 129 employees make over six figures, 14 of whom took home salaries above $200,000, with the top paycheque peaking at $1 million. If U.S. Olympians collectivized as a singular bargaining body, their action could help ensure that revenues are more evenly distributed from the USOC to athletes. The credible threat of an Olympic Games boycott—not unlike lockouts in other professional sports—could prove greatly effectual, especially with the pressure an already-contracted NBC would put on preventing such an outcome.

Nevertheless, it remains challenging for Olympic athletes to unionize. With so few chances to compete, athletes have limited power against the USOC: Speaking out can cost athletes their spots on the Olympic team. Furthermore, athletes are usually not treated as actual employees, but instead as individual contractors, leading to further isolation and difficulty in unionizing.

After the Chicago meeting, Hirshland promised that the USOC will work to fix the current system. While Hirshland should be given a fair opportunity in her new position to keep this promise, she should also support immediate steps toward unionization. A healthy athletes’ union serves all who wish to see Olympic athletes at their best. Hirshland, the USOC, and Olympic athletes should go all in to make it happen.

Arts & Entertainment, Books, Private

Marlon James delves into fantasy with ‘Black Leopard, Red Wolf’

by Jonathan Giammaria on

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In an entertainment market dominated by superhero blockbusters and binge-worthy streaming services, audiences often overlook the fantasy genre’s literary counterparts. On March 5, Dimitri Nasrallah, author of The Bleeds, joined Marlon James at the Rialto Theatre to discuss his new novel, Black Leopard, Red Wolf. The novel has become a phenomenon in the fantasy world, achieving both popular success and critical acclaim. Hosted by Librairie Drawn & Quarterly, the sold-out event attracted an audience eager to see the literary powerhouse.

Set as the first instalment in a trilogy, Black Leopard, Red Wolf is a stark departure from James’ previous novel, the 2015 Booker Prize winner A Brief History of Seven Killings, a realist story revolving around the attempted assassination of Bob Marley. For his foray into fantasy, James adopts the same explorative view he uses in A Brief History to construct a world populated with diverse characters and settings. The story follows Tracker, a solitary protagonist who begrudgingly joins a mercenary group in order to hunt down a missing boy presumed dead.

When Nasrallah commented on the novel’s seemingly straightforward premise, James contested his claim, explaining that he intended to challenge readers’ notions of what a fantasy story should be. From its onset, Black Leopard, Red Wolf does away with tropes of the hero’s journey and the traditional three-act literary structure, and rejects the genre’s tendency to borrow from European mythology. James abandons familiar eurocentric settings and archetypal characters and instead spotlights uncharacteristic heroes in a dense African mythos.

“[Tolkien] had myths to go back to,” James said. “We need myths to create myths. In the absence of me knowing what those are, I couldn’t create a mythology [….] The initial stories are essential, but I had to search for them.”

Beyond the novel’s cultural inspiration, James sought to distinguish his work by experimenting with the narrative style that dominates the current literary scene. Fantasy writers often employ world-building to capture readers’ attention, though it often tests readers’ concentration when communicated through unwieldy blocks of text. James deviates from the exposition-heavy tradition by employing unreliable narration. His prose is sparse and kinetic, and he uses vague terminology in compact sentences that allude to a rich world instead of providing a complete picture for his audience. If readers don’t slow down to read between the lines, Tracker’s deliberately confusing narration will leave them feeling lost.

“I wanted to write a novel where everything is up for grabs, including reality, including identity,” James said. “Everything is fluid, everything is precarious, everything shapeshifts, and nothing is a given, including whether you should believe this novel or not.”

Near the end of the talk, Nasrallah inquired about how James’ transition into genre fiction clashed with his literary identity. Though James was quick to dismiss the literature versus genre fiction bias, Nasrallah remarked that perhaps the literary world only allowed authors of James’ renown to navigate the genre spectrum without consequence because of their reputation. James rebuked the idea, recognizing it as a uniquely western ideal that replacing make-believe with realism is a sign of intellectual maturity. James explained that he owes his literary imagination to the genre fiction of his childhood and that none of his previous works were without fantastical elements.

“I’ve always been in awe of fantasy,” James said. “Comics pretty much saved my life when I was a teenager. To me, it doesn’t feel like a change of direction, it feels like I was always headed there.”

Art, Arts & Entertainment

Thierry Mugler’s couture makes its world debut at the MMFA

by Jonathan Giammaria on

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Continuing the trend of haute-couture exhibitions like Balenciaga, Master of Couture at the McCord Museum, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) debuted Thierry Mugler: Couturissime, a landmark exhibition which features 150 of the designer’s designs. Though he began as a professional dancer, Mugler entered the world of fashion in the late 1960s, first producing ready-to-wear garments in Paris, and eventually distinguishing himself with his 1973 collection Café de Paris.

“The MMFA [… had] the right people, with the right approach, to reinvent the past with innovative staging, eclectic mélanges, and a new vision of my work,” Mugler wrote in the press release for the exhibit.

To cover the breadth of Mugler’s work the MMFA foregoes chronology, opting instead to group the designer’s pieces by motif, a choice which highlights the timeless nature of Mugler’s style. The MMFA compare their sequencing of Mugler’s work to an opera in six acts, each concentrating on the themes permeating throughout Mugler’s design: Theatre, celebrity, urban style, photography, metamorphosis, and futurism. No two outfits better exemplify Mugler’s range than La Chimère’s rainbow bird-like dress, with a rugged silhouette that uses bright, wild colours and feathered accents, and Anniversaire des 20 ans’s metallic bodysuit, which harkens back to a medieval knight revolutionized with a flare of 21st century eroticism.

Throughout his career, Mugler has worked with the likes of Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, and David Bowie. In the portion of the exhibition dedicated to his celebrity pieces, mannequins wearing his designs form a conga line down a mock runway.The celebrities listed are a testament to Mugler’s continued mainstream relevance. Notably featured is Cardi B’s peacock dress, which she wore to the 2018 Grammy Awards. The garment’s leopard print and glittering silver accents command attention among the extravagant dresses and costumes that crowd the room.

In Mugler’s work, grandeur often takes precedence over modesty. His eye for elaborate experimentation is seen in his costuming for the 1985 Comédie-Francaise production of Macbeth, in which Mugler adorned his witches in charred dresses with massive bustles and thicks ruffs. Mugler also designed an outfit for George Michael’s “Too Funky” music video, in which the singer sports fiery decals and is fitted with rear-view mirrors, transforming Michael into a motorcycle. The choices, though bombastic, are indicative of a creative voice that strives for showmanship rather than convention.

In conjunction with their celebration of Mugler, the MMFA has also decided to highlight several contemporary designers with Montreal Couture. A worthy adjunct to the main exhibition, this gallery recognizes local artists who seek the same worldwide renown Mugler has attained. The gallery also features seasoned professionals like Marie Saint Pierre and Philippe Dubuc, and offers snapshots of these designers’ unique takes on fashion. Variety is paramount here and though several of the garments harken back to Mugler’s aesthetics, each designer carves their own niche. In one corner of the exhibition, Ying Gao’s dresses, which look as though they are made from electrical wiring, shift and contort autonomously when viewers pass by. In another, Atelier New Regime’s branded orange jumpsuits blend sporty chic and metropolitan consumerism.

Bringing together a host of creatives both seasoned and new in Thierry Mugler’s: Couturissime, the MMFA popularizes high fashion, a craft that often seems inaccessible, reserved for the fashion elite of New York City or Paris. Fashion, though rarely exhibited in museum galleries, is at home here because, unlike on runways, the garments are stationary and available for close examination, engaging audiences more personally with the work than ever before. Much like a painting or a sculpture, the MMFA celebrates couture as the work of art that it is.

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