For the last four months, gasps could be heard in the second floor of the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. Those gasps ceased when the 17th century tapestry series “The Life of Christ” left the University of Oregon on Jan. 21.

The art exhibition “The Barberini Tapestries: Woven Monuments of Baroque Rome” is the first time the tapestries commissioned by Cardinal Francesco Barberini — nephew of Pope Urban VIII — have left New York City since they arrived in 1889. The series depicts pivotal moments in the biblical story of Christ, such as Crucifixion and The Nativity through elaborately woven and dyed tapestries by Pietro da Cortona.

On loan from the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, the tapestries are taking a triumphant tour of the West Coast. In 2001, a devastating fire in the Cathedral destroyed two of the original 12 tapestries, but it prompted extensive conservation efforts to restore the remaining 10 pieces. Now, average viewers cannot tell that they hung in a burning building.

The Barberini Tapestries are displayed in the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art in Eugene, Ore. on Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2018. (Adam Eberhardt/Emerald)

Associate Professor of Art History James G. Harper, who authored a comprehensive book about the tapestries in May 2017 and curated the Schnitzer Museum exhibit, estimates that it would have cost Barberini the equivalent of about $16 million to commission this series.

As a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania, Harper was on a trip around Italy viewing art and thinking about what his dissertation topic would be. “You always want to do something no one has done before,” Harper said.

At the time, art historians didn’t pay a lot of attention to Baroque tapestries. That didn’t make sense to Harper. How could such intricate works of art that were substantially more expensive and versatile than their ceiling painting cousins — the tapestries could be in a church one week and line a parade the next — be so unstudied? Harper has since filled that academic void.

According to Harper, Barberini wanted to emphatically demonstrate the magnificence and generosity of his family. The tapestries, which once hung in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, were an invaluable part of propagandizing the masses of Rome in the 17th century. Barberini used the tapestries to show people that faith and reverence for his family would be rewarded with the immense wealth he had at his disposal.

Harper says creating an awe-inspiring, sensorial experience was of utmost importance to Barberini. People who have seen the nearly 16 feet tall and 12 to 19 feet wide tapestries today can vouch for Barberini’s success in that goal. Surrounded by the tapestries, the faint smell of old books emphasizes the age of the art.

Harper said he has reached a new level of understanding the tapestries since they have been on campus. “They look better here than I have ever seen them look,” Harper said.

Museum staff arranged the tapestries in the museum as closely to how they would have been displayed when they were first created, Harper says. The museum constructed temporary walls to shorten the gallery’s dimensions so that the tapestries would be as close together as possible. The 17th-century churches that first displayed these works arranged the tapestries without any space between them. Harper says viewers had to feel completely enclosed in the life of Christ.

17th century Romans didn’t see the tapestries with carefully placed electric lights. But Harper called the lighting work by museum Assistant Director Kurt Neugebauer “genius.”

“There is a value to having your name on the lips of everybody,” Harper said, referring back to Barberini’s intentions. “While the people don’t have a functional role in making the next Pope, there is less tangible value in doing something like this.”

The post The Baroque Tapestry exhibit at the Schnitzer Museum comes to a close appeared first on Emerald Media.

For the last four months, gasps could be heard in the second floor of the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. Those gasps ceased when the 17th century tapestry series “The Life of Christ” left the University of Oregon on Jan. 21.

The art exhibition “The Barberini Tapestries: Woven Monuments of Baroque Rome” is the first time the tapestries commissioned by Cardinal Francesco Barberini — nephew of Pope Urban VIII — have left New York City since they arrived in 1889. The series depicts pivotal moments in the biblical story of Christ, such as Crucifixion and The Nativity through elaborately woven and dyed tapestries by Pietro da Cortona.

On loan from the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, the tapestries are taking a triumphant tour of the West Coast. In 2001, a devastating fire in the Cathedral destroyed two of the original 12 tapestries, but it prompted extensive conservation efforts to restore the remaining 10 pieces. Now, average viewers cannot tell that they hung in a burning building.

The Barberini Tapestries are displayed in the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art in Eugene, Ore. on Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2018. (Adam Eberhardt/Emerald)

Associate Professor of Art History James G. Harper, who authored a comprehensive book about the tapestries in May 2017 and curated the Schnitzer Museum exhibit, estimates that it would have cost Barberini the equivalent of about $16 million to commission this series.

As a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania, Harper was on a trip around Italy viewing art and thinking about what his dissertation topic would be. “You always want to do something no one has done before,” Harper said.

At the time, art historians didn’t pay a lot of attention to Baroque tapestries. That didn’t make sense to Harper. How could such intricate works of art that were substantially more expensive and versatile than their ceiling painting cousins — the tapestries could be in a church one week and line a parade the next — be so unstudied? Harper has since filled that academic void.

According to Harper, Barberini wanted to emphatically demonstrate the magnificence and generosity of his family. The tapestries, which once hung in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, were an invaluable part of propagandizing the masses of Rome in the 17th century. Barberini used the tapestries to show people that faith and reverence for his family would be rewarded with the immense wealth he had at his disposal.

Harper says creating an awe-inspiring, sensorial experience was of utmost importance to Barberini. People who have seen the nearly 16 feet tall and 12 to 19 feet wide tapestries today can vouch for Barberini’s success in that goal. Surrounded by the tapestries, the faint smell of old books emphasizes the age of the art.

Harper said he has reached a new level of understanding the tapestries since they have been on campus. “They look better here than I have ever seen them look,” Harper said.

Museum staff arranged the tapestries in the museum as closely to how they would have been displayed when they were first created, Harper says. The museum constructed temporary walls to shorten the gallery’s dimensions so that the tapestries would be as close together as possible. The 17th-century churches that first displayed these works arranged the tapestries without any space between them. Harper says viewers had to feel completely enclosed in the life of Christ.

17th century Romans didn’t see the tapestries with carefully placed electric lights. But Harper called the lighting work by museum Assistant Director Kurt Neugebauer “genius.”

“There is a value to having your name on the lips of everybody,” Harper said, referring back to Barberini’s intentions. “While the people don’t have a functional role in making the next Pope, there is less tangible value in doing something like this.”

The post The Baroque Tapestry exhibit at the Schnitzer Museum comes to a close appeared first on Emerald Media.

For those who don’t want it, and sometimes even for those who do, fame can destroy careers and make life after those careers unbearable for people. Add a criminal investigation into the mix, and the chances of that scenario occurring skyrocket. The new film “I, Tonya” forces viewers to examine how mass media attention played a role in the downfall of former Olympic figure skater and Portland native Tonya Harding.

Harding remains a cultural icon across the U.S., and especially Oregon, where her unconventional and controversial skating career took off and ultimately ended wrapped in negative media attention.

The film is a dark comedy, drama and documentary rolled into one high energy, sports story. It’s driven by the wrenching, but comic performances of Robbie and her supporting cast. The acting is magnified by the film’s rollercoaster tempo and accentuated by asides, in which characters look at the camera and talk directly to the audience. The asides clarify individual characters’ questionable perspectives in a way similar to those in the NBC hit TV series, “The Office.”

“I, Tonya” sheds light on Harding’s formative, young years. It contrasts with the plethora of documentaries, TV specials and interviews — among them are E! True Hollywood Story and The Oprah Winfrey Show — that were solely concerned with the most notorious aspect of Harding’s career: the assault on rival skater Nancy Kerrigan prior to the 1994 Winter Olympics and the ensuing criminal investigation into Harding and her circle.

Throughout Harding’s young life, she endured her parents’ divorce and then constant physical and emotional abuse by both her mother and her former husband, Jeff Gillooly. At times it’s hard to watch. The film doesn’t shy away from depicting those abuses repeatedly and in a graphic way. Allison Janney received Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture at the Golden Globes on Jan. 7 for her portrayal Harding’s mother, LaVona Golden.

Director Craig Gillespie has received both praise and criticism for juxtaposing the violence in Harding’s life with an overarching sense of humor. Since Gillespie based the film on various previously recorded interviews with Harding and the people around her at that time, the accuracy of some depictions simply depend on which character is most believable.

But the humor does justice to a number of bizarre characters in Harding’s life. Childhood friend of Gillooly and Harding’s former bodyguard, Shawn Eckhardt, publicly lied about his credentials as a counter-terrorism expert. He is beautifully portrayed as a conspiracy-theorizing imbecile by actor Paul Walter Hauser.

By the end of the film, viewers are left to grapple with the idea that Harding was a victim and never got a fair shake in both her professional and personal lives. It calls into question Harding’s court-ordered banishment from all competitive skating following the Kerrigan assault investigation.

“I moved from Oregon to Washington because Oregon was buttheads,” Tonya Harding told The New York Times during a recent interview following the release of the film.

“I, Tonya” is now playing at the Broadway Metro theater in downtown Eugene and is well worth the ticket price for anyone interested in Oregon’s recent pop-culture history.

The post Review: ‘I, Tonya’ and the latest take on a classic Oregon story appeared first on Emerald Media.

College students have been growing less traditionally religious for decades. But some religious students at the University of Oregon are finding their faith growing in ways they didn’t anticipate.

Young people are substantially less likely than their predecessors to say that religion plays an important part in their lives, pray and regularly attend a place of worship, according to a study published in 2015 by researchers at San Diego State University. The study analyzed results from four national surveys of 11.2 million people ages 13 to 18 between the years 1966 to 2014.

Each year, more young people at colleges and universities say they do not affiliate with any religion. In 2005, one in six college students marked “none” when asked their religious preference compared to one in four in 2014, according to a separate survey from the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA.

Despite the downward trend, many students at UO say the religious communities they find on campus revitalize their faith and allow them to grow through their religion. These students revel in a diversity of religious interpretations, more opportunities for leadership among their religious peers and a culture of thinking critically about their faith and its role in society.

Mohammed Zaidan

Mohammed Zaidan, junior, stands in the Contemplation Room just outside the Multicultural Center in the EMU. (Sarah Northrop/Emerald)

As a kid, Mohammed Zaidan, a junior at UO, was passionate about his Islamic faith. He is a first generation American, and growing up he had questions about where his family came from and who he was. He used Islam to help him answer those questions. His mother is from Jordan and his father is from Kuwait, but he has lived in Portland and then in Oregon City his whole life.

Zaidan’s relationship to his faith evolved as he grew older and was exposed to new ideas about his religion and new people. Now he is more engaged in his faith and his community than ever — but there was a period before adolescence when he was put off by the way some of the people at his mosque practiced Islam.

“I saw people practicing in a way that I didn’t agree with, and my place of worship at the time back in Portland wasn’t one of my favorite places,” Zaidan said. “At a young age I felt comfortable at one point, but as I grew up I started to feel like their approach was a bit too hard. It started to seem like it was passing moderate and entering conservative.”

Zaidan felt discouraged by the more rigid rules some people at his mosque told him to abide by. He felt especially conflicted by the ones dictating when and how men and women could interact. When people at the mosque recommended that he shouldn’t watch certain American TV shows and movies, it seemed like they didn’t want him to integrate into a society that he had been a part of his whole life.

As soon as Zaidan arrived at UO, he started attending a local mosque. Those questions about his cultural identity and his place in the community that sparked his initial engagement with Islam stayed with him through his teens. But during his first term, he did not want his social life on campus to be defined by Islam. At first he chose not to get involved in the Muslim Student Association.

A friend Zaidan made at his mosque, who was a member of the MSA, ultimately convinced him to join the organization during winter term of his freshman year. Zaidan says since joining the group, he has become more passionate and involved in his religion than ever. Now he’s vice president of the MSA and he sees his religious engagement on campus as crucial to learning about himself, his community and the Muslim world as a whole.

“I have to say that there has been a shift since being here,” Zaidan said. “I saw that people did want to broaden their view. They wanted to educate people about how they saw the religion, and because of that I’ve seen people both within our group and outside of it want to learn and get more involved.”

Students in other faith-based organizations on campus have also seen a greater emphasis on openness and understanding than they experienced in their religious communities growing up.

Taysha Damian

Taysha Damian poses in front of the catholic campus ministry. (Adam Eberhardt/Daily Emerald)

Junior Taysha Damian grew up going to her family’s Catholic Church in Springfield, Oregon, every Sunday as she says many Mexican-American families there do. Her community was closely woven together by religion. She says it allowed everyone to know each other and support one and other.

“Growing up in a Latino community, faith was a huge thing,” Damian said. “It was everything. It’s part of who you are and part of your community.”

But Damian says she felt like there was a pressure in that community to hide ups and downs in the strength of her faith. At UO, she is a peer minister at the St. Thomas More Newman Center. Her work at the Newman Center has shown her that fluctuations in the strength of faith are common among Catholic students. She works hard to show her peers that everyone has moments of doubt in their faith and that there’s nothing wrong with it.

“I tell this to anyone in their faith that those moments are the time to reflect and talk openly with someone about it,” Damian said. “Because I’ve been there before where I say, ‘You know, I’m not feeling this today or I haven’t been feeling it for a week or a month,’ and a lot of the time it just comes down to someone else being able to tell you to persevere and keep going.”

Some religious students at UO grew up in communities that were not bound together by common religion like Damian’s.

Alana Green

Alana Green, senior, stands outside the Oregon Hillel located off 11th Avenue and Hilyard Street. (Sarah Northrop/Emerald)

Senior Alana Green says that it was often difficult to be excited about her Judaism growing up in Orange County, California, where there simply weren’t many Jewish people in her community. She added that many people in Reform Jewish communities like hers across America gradually become less engaged in the faith after their Bar or Bat Mitzvah because of the relaxed nature of their practices.

“I went to a Jewish summer camp called Camp Kramer when I was a kid and I really loved being involved in Judaism through camp,” Green said. “That’s where I found my Judaism.” As a kid at camp, Green bonded with other Jewish people from all over California because the atmosphere was more intimate than what she had previously experienced at her synagogue.

The camp embraced a philosophy of religion that, as Green says, “allowed kids to interpret Judaism in a way that worked for them,” while instilling a strong sense of community in campers.

Green is now the Student Board President of Oregon Hillel and has been a camp counselor at Union of Reform Judaism Camp Newman in Santa Rosa, California, for the last three years. She says that without the connections she made early at Hillel, she would not have had the opportunity to be a counselor. Since coming to UO and working as a camp counselor, Green has started to consider pursuing a career in Jewish youth groups. The positive experiences she had in that religious community gives her a feeling of connectedness, even in other spaces.

Each of the students in this article told the Emerald that they strive to keep their faith-based groups accessible to all students no matter their religion or lack thereof.

Rishika Krishna

UO student Rishika Krishna took a leadership role in UO’s Students of the Indian Subcontinent and hopes to share her culture and religion with others on campus. (Adam Eberhardt/Emerald)

Senior Rishika Krishna, who moved to Idaho with her family from India when she was seven, grew up practicing Hinduism and is now president of UO’s Students of the Indian Subcontinent. She says that due to the current divisive social and political climate, students in her group feel an added responsibility to welcome people of other faiths. They use campus visibility to show that learning about cultures through events and celebration is rewarding.

“It’s been scary sometimes reading articles about people getting discriminated against in places like London,” Krishna said. “You can’t just not think about the implications of those events and how the opportunity is there for someone to do that to someone like me or my family or my friends or my community. The only thing I can do is keep sharing my culture with others and hope that people will see the reality of who we are.”

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Students planning to spend their winter break on the Oregon coast should keep a lookout for some shark species with unexpectedly long lifespans swimming near the beach.

New research suggests that sharks can live much longer than scientists originally believed. Four shark species analyzed in a recent study published in the journal “Fish and Fisheries” (Great White, Common Thresher, Soupfin and Tiger) often swim in Oregon’s coastal waters.

But don’t worry, the odds of becoming a shark attack victim are minuscule. There have only been 29 shark attacks off the Oregon coast since 1974, and only one has been fatal.

Earlier this month, the Tillamook County Sheriff’s office issued a warning to swimmers, surfers and fishermen, which said that multiple people reported seeing several large sharks near Cape Kiwanda, about 50 miles northwest of Salem. There were also multiple shark sightings off Cannon Beach last July.

While shark sightings can instill fear in Oregon beachgoers, the intrigue surrounding sharks has escalated in recent years, as scientists begin to understand their lifespans more accurately. Last year, researchers in Denmark determined that the Greenland shark — a species that can grow as large as a Great White shark — can live at least 272 years. The study also found that they don’t reproduce until they’re about 150-years-old.

“We had an expectation that they would be very long-lived animals, but I was surprised that they turned out to be as old as they did,” the leader of the Greenland shark study, Julius Nielsen, told National Geographic magazine.

The old method of determining the age of a shark relied on researchers counting calcified growth bands on a shark’s vertebrae. In many cases, counting a band is up to the judgment of the researcher, which has led to counting discrepancies between scientists looking at the same bands.

The new method of determining a shark’s age is based on radioisotope dating from carbon released into the atmosphere by nuclear bomb tests in the 1950s and 60s. This method is much more accurate, and it has substantial implications for how people research and treat sharks in the wild.

Shark conservation decisions are largely based on the lifespan of sharks. And although no shark species are currently listed as “endangered” under the Endangered Species Act, many species are vulnerable to becoming endangered as a result of overfishing and human ecological impact.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, data about sharks’ lifespans can inform scientists about their ecological role, feeding habits and reproductive tendencies. This information is crucial to improving regulations intended to ensure sustainable shark populations for years to come. Further shark research like these studies will better inform about how to address their declining numbers in the future.

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Ever since he was a child, Tony Kern, a young blues musician from Camas, Washington treated his bipolar disorder by relying almost entirely on traditional prescription medications. After consistent periods of manic depressive episodes, Kern started losing faith in his medication’s ability to regulate the disorder. “American Bipolar,” a documentary film by University of Oregon alum, Allan Luebke, highlights Kern and his struggle to find effective treatment for bipolar disorder.

Kern is one of an alarming number of Americans who face similar struggles with treating a mental disorder. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, one-in-five adults in the U.S. suffers from mental health conditions. But only 41 percent of those individuals received mental health treatment in the past year.

And even those who do receive traditional medical treatment often see little meaningful improvements to their mental state.

“When we first shot the trailer and I met Tony, he did not look like he was in good shape,” Luebke said. “The people around him were getting really worried he might try to take his own life. After that, his mom’s best friend did some research and suggested that Tony get in touch with a naturopath.”

About six months later, when Luebke returned to start filming for the documentary, Kern had started holistically treating his illness. Luebke said he looked and sounded extraordinarily better.

According to Luebke, Kern’s treatment still involved medication, but it arranged every other aspect of his life as part of the treatment too. Kern concentrated on his diet, exercise, personal relationships and hobbies — in his case singing and playing guitar. His focus on leading a balanced life, with medication as just one part of his treatment, made all the difference.

“Our society demands quick fixes,” Luebke said. “We assume all health problems have an equivocal pharmaceutical solution when that’s almost never the case. For a lot of people like Tony, the heavy emphasis on traditional medications just doesn’t work.”

Luebke wants to raise awareness about mental health and destigmatize the loaded term “holistic medicine.” “People think it’s about magic crystals when it really just acknowledges that every aspect of our lives impacts our mental health,” Luebke said.

Luebke said his primary duty as a filmmaker is to help people tell stories that could help others.

At this point, production of the film has stalled. Luebke and his colleagues are independently producing the film, making it hard to secure enough funding to continue filming and editing the documentary. Luebke initially went to mental health organizations in search of support, but their nonprofit status prevented them from donating.

“Now we’re trying to raise money with the grassroots method and it’s been tough,” Luebke said. “We really just need people to share content about the film with their friends and family and on social media so that it gains enough traction for us to finish and put it out there. It will help people learn about an issue all communities need to address”

Luebke is hoping to have the documentary out by this summer. People can donate to the film’s production at www.indiegogo.com.

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Science Pick of the Week is a new column co-written by Max Enger and Frankie Lewis dedicated to analyzing science news relevant to the University of Oregon campus community.

Max Egener is an Arts & Culture writer at the Daily Emerald covering documentary films and food. He has a bachelor’s of science in environmental science from Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and is a graduate student of journalism at UO. Frankie Lewis is a senior writer at the Daily Emerald covering campus culture. He is also an undergraduate biology major and anthropology minor at UO.

Many high school counselors have warned of the dangers of alcohol abuse. One of their classic arguments is that the alcohol use will lead an individual to try riskier behaviors, such as abusing highly addictive drugs like cocaine or heroin. While alcohol certainly leads to questionable decision making, no data has ever been presented that suggests alcohol could have a “gateway drug” effect.

Until now.

A  study published in Science Advances on Nov. 1 may display a connection between alcohol and future drug use. Researchers at Columbia University demonstrated that prior alcohol consumption by laboratory mice increased the mice’s likelihood of becoming addicted to cocaine.

Researchers created three mice groups: alcohol primed, alcohol concurrent and alcohol naive. The alcohol primed mice had voluntary access to alcohol for ten days prior to 21 days of voluntary access to cocaine injection. Alcohol concurrent mice could simultaneously access alcohol and cocaine for 31 days. The final (control) group, alcohol naive mice, had water ten days prior to voluntary access to cocaine for 21 days.

The study found that the alcohol primed mice exhibited significantly more addiction-like behaviors than the other two groups. The alcohol primed mice also demonstrated a willingness to seek out cocaine despite negative consequences. Analysis of the chemical pathways involved in the cocaine reward system in the mice’s brains found that prior alcohol use inhibits proteins involved in regulating reward responses to cocaine.

To test the mice’s level of cocaine dependence, the researchers set up a lever-pressing mechanism that automatically injected the mouse with cocaine. Once the mice had become conditioned — in other words, addicted — to the cocaine injection, they removed the injection from the mechanism, leaving just the lever. Then, they monitored how many times each group of mice tried the lever before giving up.

When the alcohol-primed mice were deprived of access to cocaine, they pushed the lever that had administered the cocaine in the first stage of the study an average of 563 times before giving up. The alcohol naive and alcohol concurrent groups pushed the lever an average of 310 times and 317 times respectively before giving up. The alcohol-primed mice showed a greater persistence and motivation for cocaine than the control groups.

In order to test whether mice in any of the groups would continue using cocaine despite negative consequences, the researchers shocked the mice’s feet when they began pushing the lever that administered the cocaine. The alcohol-primed mice showed a significantly greater resilience to each of three increasingly intense shocks than mice in the other groups. The alcohol primed mice were more willing to take negative consequences as a result of their cocaine use.

These results were also not reversible. When mice were primed with cocaine prior to alcohol using the same experimental design, they did not exhibit addiction-like behavior for alcohol. This test showed that specifically alcohol creates these conditions in the brain.

The researchers found that these groups didn’t differ in their ability to figure out the mechanism that administered the cocaine injection, and there was no difference in the sheer amount of cocaine that these groups consumed daily. In short, individuals are more likely to develop an addiction to cocaine after alcohol consumption, not more prone to trying cocaine for the first time or indulging in large doses.

While a study of this type is unlikely to ever be tried on humans for ethical reasons, it is significant because it is the first observed case of a direct “gateway drug” effect. Not only did the researchers show how previous alcohol abuse caused the mice to have a greater craving for cocaine, the alcohol primed mice displayed a clear disregard for a harmful side-effect in order to consume the drug. If the findings are expanded upon and one day applied to humans, it could change the way we think about and regulate alcohol and drug consumption.

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Performers bravely discussed the wretched consequences of destructive masculinity in U.S. culture at the event Speak Easy: A Spoken Word Open Mic in Support of Men’s Health on Nov. 9 in the Common Grounds Cafe in Hamilton Hall. For nearly two hours, students — the majority of whom had never performed their poetry for an audience before — revealed their struggles with identity, sexuality, divorce and rape.

The University of Oregon Counseling Center organized the event in accordance with “Movember,” which is global campaign to raise awareness and promote dialogue about men’s health. Spencer Atkinson, the Hamilton Hall community director who organized the event, said the events hold particular significance this year. Recently Americans have seen of a spike in powerful men being accused of sexual assault — from Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein to Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore. Many people associate these crimes with masculinity according to Atkinson.

Fifteen minutes before the event started in the dimly lit cafe, which smelled of french fries, burgers and coffee, students who had not intended to watch slam poetry ate and chatted amongst themselves. Songs like “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” by James Brown and “Hit The Road Jack” by Ray Charles played in the background. By the time the event started at 8 p.m., the room was filled with about 50 people.

Atkinson started the show by sharing memories about the ways in which people shaped his childhood ideas about masculinity. When he was a kid, he told his mom’s boyfriend he wanted to be an interior designer. His mom’s boyfriend replied by saying, “Interior design isn’t a guy thing.” Then, in the sixth grade, Atkinson won a drag show at a summer camp. When he told his friends they replied, “That’s kind of gay.”

“We don’t have a good way to hold men accountable for their actions right now,” Atkinson told the Emerald after the show.

He says that destructive ideas about masculinity are woven into the power structure of our society and as a result, dialogue about those ideas is suppressed. Events like these give people the opportunity to creatively express the role masculinity plays in their lives in a supportive setting.

Atkinson acknowledged that if someone attends an event like the open mic, they are probably already savvy to the ways in which some forms of masculinity can cause people harm. But he still says the event serves a crucial role on the UO campus.

“We might be preaching to the choir,” Atkinson said. “But it’s important that everyone here develops the vocabulary and the tools necessary to go out and talk about this to people who didn’t come.”

Halfway through the show, Atkinson went up to the mic and said, “I’ve noticed how few men have been taking the stage, which is deeply ironic given the topic of the event.”

One performer, Andreas Neves, a Hamilton Hall resident assistant and junior Family and Human Services major, said he hopes male first-year students encounter an environment in which they can be open with other men about their emotions. Neves said American culture bars men from sharing their feelings with each other.

Neves’ poem detailed how men’s cultural imperative to hide emotion leads to a form of misogyny in which men use women to dump all of their vulnerability.

“That situation hurts both parties involved,” Neves said. “I want to be the person who encourages my residents to be vulnerable with people whom they aren’t having romantic relationships.”

Follow Max on Twitter @maxegener.

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Filmmaker Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s 2015 documentary, “The Mask You Live In,” is a provocative assessment of the narrow definition of masculinity in the U.S. The film features discussions by social scientists, psychologists and educators about how masculinity in American culture is defined by physical strength, sexual dominance and economic success. Experts assert that these potentially toxic norms have dire consequences and are perpetuated by violent video games, pornography and sports.

The University of Oregon Counseling Center’s Be Well program screened the film in the Erb Memorial Union on Wednesday, Nov. 1. The screening marked the beginning of “Movember” events, which focus on men’s health education for UO students.

But the film loses credibility by suggesting that American society’s perception of masculinity is the root cause of some of the worst mental health and violence issues in the U.S. The film implies causality without adequate, research-based substantiation.

Throughout the film, viewers hear a deluge of alarming statistics surrounding the topic of masculinity. Boys are four times more likely to be expelled from school. They are three times more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD. Suicide is the third leading cause of death for young men.

These statistics are certainly dismaying, but the film doesn’t adequately put them in context, and sometimes they are detached from the moment in the film in which they are placed. The documentary also displays them without citations. Citations are available for some — though not all — of the statistics on the website of the nonprofit that produced the film, The Representation Project.

The most salient parts of the film are those that show activists’ work in California schools and prisons. The activists encourage young men and inmates to reflect on the role ideas about masculinity plays in their lives. Participants build emotional support systems in ways that typical masculinity would prevent. The film proposes we desperately need more of in this kind of reflection in America.

One particularly captivating moment of the film focuses on the work of the Oakland-based educator Ashanti Branch, who founded a youth-advocacy group called The Ever Forward Club. The group supports young, vulnerable African-American and Latino boys by helping them reshape their ideas about masculinity.

In the film, Branch gives paper masks to a group of his boys and asks them to write on the front words that represent the image of themselves they think they need to display every day. The boys write words like “cool” and “funny.”

On the back of the mask, the boys write feelings they are pressured to hide. Almost all of the boys write words like “anger” and “pain.” After the activity, with some boys teary-eyed, Branch tells them about the value of simply being able to ask another male friend, “What’s up with you man? How are you doing? How can I support you?”

The feature-length documentary is now available to watch on Netflix

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Last year’s divisive political season left many Americans feeling like it is hopeless to discuss the local implications of national issues with people who have different opinions than them. Even on a largely progressive college campus like the University of Oregon’s, these topics can be difficult to discuss candidly. But the UO food studies program uses food as a way to talk about issues of sustainability, class and race. The program embraces the idea that food can spur important conversations because food encompasses economics, science and culture. Ultimately, everyone needs to eat.

The program began in 2013 as a specialization for graduate students, but as of fall 2016, undergraduates can earn a minor in food studies.

Students in the 24-credit undergraduate minor and the 18-credit graduate specialization take electives like Civic Agriculture, Gender Issues in Nutritional Anthropology and Soil Science. The program also centers around hands-on work and community engagement, encouraging students to learn and work at the UO Urban Farm.

Kassandra Hishida graduated from UO in 2017 with her masters in environmental studies and the food studies specialization. She grew up in California’s San Joaquin Valley where industrial agriculture is omnipresent. It made her interested in farmworker justice. She wanted to learn how our food system could become more sustainable for people and the environment.

“I started learning about how many farm workers in the area where I am from were facing food insecurity,” Hishida said. “It didn’t make sense to me that the people who do all the work in food production had trouble feeding themselves and their families. The very people who have the cultural and historical knowledge to make our food system more sustainable are being prevented from getting the economic and political resources to do so.”

Hishida found that in her food studies classes students were pushed to have conversations they wouldn’t have otherwise. People were discussing the hidden consequences of the food they ate every day.

Both Hishida and one of the undergraduate students she worked with, Justin Knowles, who finished his geography major with the food studies minor, realized those often uncomfortable conversations were the first step toward change.

“As I was building a relationship closer to food, I would start to talk about it more outside of class with my friends too,” Knowles said. “I brought up issues that wouldn’t normally be on a busy college student’s mind. The conversations led to more informed decision-making for myself and people around me.”

Knowles grew pessimistic in the environmental studies department constantly learning about environmental problems, which is why he switched his major to geography. He was eager to focus on solutions. The food studies program showed him that talking about these complex issues is the first step to finding those solutions.

Emily Jenkins, who also graduated from UO in spring 2017 became involved in the UO Environmental Leadership Program through her food studies minor. The program — which partners students with nonprofits, government agencies and businesses to address local environmental issues — showed Jenkins how she could make a difference with youth food education.

“Learning about issues in our food system seemed like a daunting task, but I felt really empowered by seeing kids learn about sustainable food production and consumption,” Jenkins said.

She questioned whether or not she even wanted to attend college and instead pursue her childhood dream of becoming a pastry chef. Now she’s trying to take her skills as a food educator to her hometown of Seaside, Oregon. Like others from the university’s food studies program, she has experience in starting conversations about complex issues.

If university programs, like the UO food studies program, prioritize training people to initiate difficult conversations, the country might be able to avoid such divisive political seasons in the future.

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