^{After a full day of visiting classes and meeting with faculty, Religious Studies alumnus Reza Aslan '95 engaged an audience of close to 100 students, alumni, and friends on October 27. On campus to discuss his new book, An American Martyr in Persia: The Epic Life and Tragic Death of Howard Baskerville, Aslan's style of storytelling mixed with humor and compassion, immersed the audience in Baskerville's missionary service in Persia at the height of the 1907 democratic revolution, joining his students on the battlefield. 
(L-R) Boo Riley (Religious Studies), Daniel Martinez '24 (Religious Studies), Reza Aslan, Jim Bennett (Religious Studies). Photo by Marie Brancati.}

Dear College Faculty and Staff,

Happy end of Week 7! It feels very much like late Fall Quarter, with rain (yay!), midterms just past and December rapidly approaching. 

But first, an Election Day with a lunar eclipse next week…is there significance in a lunar eclipse on Election Day (apparently the first in US history); will the moon’s hidden face prompt us to see each other differently? Maybe not, but I pray for a peaceful, just election, with or without Selene driving her chariot across the heavens.

If politics is causing you anxiety, I prescribe poetry! Below is Maya Angelou’s inauguration day poem, delivered in 1993. As she writes in the full text, 

History, despite its wrenching pain
Cannot be unlived, but if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.

I am grateful to you, our College community, for your gift of a better history in the making.

I wish you a peaceful week,

Daniel

On the Pulse of Morning

By Maya Angelou

A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Marked the mastodon,
The dinosaur, who left dried tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.

But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow,
I will give you no hiding place down here.

You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness
Have lain too long
Facedown in ignorance,
Your mouths spilling words
Armed for slaughter.

The Rock cries out to us today,
You may stand upon me,
But do not hide your face.

Across the wall of the world,
A River sings a beautiful song. It says,
Come, rest here by my side.

Each of you, a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.
Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.
Yet today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more. Come,
Clad in peace, and I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I and the
Tree and the rock were one.
Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your
Brow and when you yet knew you still
Knew nothing.
The River sang and sings on.

There is a true yearning to respond to
The singing River and the wise Rock.
So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew
The African, the Native American, the Sioux,
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheik,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the Teacher.
They hear. They all hear
The speaking of the Tree.

They hear the first and last of every Tree
Speak to humankind today. Come to me, here beside the River.
Plant yourself beside the River.

Each of you, descendant of some passed
On traveller, has been paid for.
You, who gave me my first name, you,
Pawnee, Apache, Seneca, you
Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, then
Forced on bloody feet,
Left me to the employment of
Other seekers—desperate for gain,
Starving for gold.
You, the Turk, the Arab, the Swede, the German, the Eskimo, the Scot,
You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, bought,
Sold, stolen, arriving on the nightmare
Praying for a dream.
Here, root yourselves beside me.
I am that Tree planted by the River,
Which will not be moved.
I, the Rock, I the River, I the Tree
I am yours—your passages have been paid.
Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.
History, despite its wrenching pain
Cannot be unlived, but if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.

Lift up your eyes upon
This day breaking for you.
Give birth again
To the dream.
Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands,
Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts
Each new hour holds new chances
For a new beginning.
Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.

The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out and upon me, the
Rock, the River, the Tree, your country.
No less to Midas than the mendicant.
No less to you now than the mastodon then.
Here, on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister’s eyes, and into
Your brother’s face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope—
Good morning.

Highlights

^{Mural of Nicaraguan co-op members making organic compost and tending diversified farms.}

 
Christopher M. Bacon (Environmental Studies and Sciences), Alejandra Guzmán Luna (Universidad Veracruzana, Mexico), V. Ernesto Mendéz (University of Vermont) and co-authors from cooperatives and universities in Nicaragua and Chiapas Mexico recently published an article in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems assessing the extent to which diversification among coffee smallholders in Mesoamerica can contribute to a transformative agroecology and improved livelihoods. The study also analyzes the potential role of participatory action research (PAR) in fostering diversification and food sovereignty. The research teams replicated methods in both locations embedding a mixed methods study within a PAR approach to conduct 338 surveys, 96 interviews, 44 focus groups, and participant observation during two international farmer-to-farmer exchanges. Findings show that although coffee-producing households in both locations report several diversification activities, more than 50% still experience annual periods of food scarcity. Discussions of findings with study participants suggest that farmers and co-ops are in the early stages of developing transformative agroecology initiatives for food sovereignty. Leverage points to advance this goal include increasing land access, farm diversification for subsistence, native seed conservation, and diversifying diets. Significant challenges to these efforts include decades of political economic exclusion and dependence on coffee sales.

John Hawley (English, emeritus) published a chapter, "The Precarity of the Urban Spirit: Abha Dawesar’s Babyji, Diksha Basu’s The Windfall, and Vivek Shanbhag’s Ghachar Ghochar," in O. P. Dwivedi (ed.), Representations of Precarity in South Asian Literature in English, Palgrave Macmillan.

This November, Robin Tremblay-McGaw (English) will introduce the members of OLLI@SCU to the art of poetry. Her course, “Explorations in Poetry,” will introduce the students to the world of non-narration poetry through practiced techniques in writing and reading, rather than listening to oral lectures. Students will take inspiration from classic poets such as Emily Dickinson and Shakespeare to develop their works of poetic creation.

OLLI@SCU will be featuring SCU instructors periodically in the College Notes. The average course ranges from 4 to 10 hours of instruction per quarter. We hope this will inspire you to stay updated on OLLI news and possibly teach a class for our members. To learn more about the joy of teaching adult learners, contact olliatscu@gmail.com.

Maggie Levantovskaya (English) read an essay about the war in Ukraine at the Litquake literary festival in San Francisco. She was part of a panel titled "Embattled Homeland," which featured Bay Area authors born in Ukraine, Russia and Moldova when the countries were part of the USSR. All the essays dealt with personal experiences, family stories and cross-historical connections between the current war of aggression and previous wars in the region.

^{Faculty Offices and Classrooms in the replica of Fort Burgwin on the SMU at Taos Campus.}

James Bennett (Religious Studies) presented at paper at the first meeting of the 2022-2023 Symposium on Religion in the North American West, which took place Sept. 29-Oct. 1 at SMU's satellite campus in Taos, New Mexico. His paper was titled "The West Coast Origins of the Modern Anticult Movement." He also served as a respondent for one of the sessions. The Symposium is sponsored by the The Williams P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University and the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in Indianapolis. The cohort will meet twice and produce an edited volume based its work.
 

College of Arts and Sciences Calendar