WBEZ | Northwestern University

Chicago Global Artist: Zimbabwean filmmaker and novelist Tsitsi Dangarembga

Mon, 06 May 2013 16:41:00 -0500

Chicago’s rich and lively arts and culture scene is due no doubt to our deep bench of homegrown talents.

However, our city has also been marked in significant ways by artists from around the world.

Many of their contributions have been grandly public. The Picasso sculpture in Daley Plaza and Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate are notable for their trajectory from daunting sculptural objects to beloved playground-style icons.

More ephemeral projects include Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s 1969 project to wrap the Museum of Contemporary Art, a move which made art history and elevated the reputation of both the artists and the MCA.

But we can’t always see the ways global artists work in Chicago. Some come for very brief spells. And as artists in residence at small cultural organizations or universities, their opportunities to meet with a broader public can be limited, or fly under the radar.

In an effort to give more visibility to their work and to provide opportunities for you to interact with these artists, we’re launching a new global arts initiative on WBEZ’s international affairs show Worldview. Every few weeks I’ll profile an artist who has made her way to Chicago, for a brief or longer spell.

First up: Tsitsi Dangarembga.

Dangarembga came to Chicago about four years ago, to give a talk at Northwestern University. Based on that appearance, along with raves from some of his graduate students (who said her novels changed their lives), Reginald Gibbons invited her back, as the 2013 Spring Writer in Residence at the Center for the Writing Arts.

Dangarembga’s career can be measured by a number of firsts. Her debut novel Nervous Conditions, published when she was only 25, was also the first novel written in English by a black Zimbabwean woman.

When she moved on to filmmaking she also broke ground. Neria (1992), based on her screenplay, became the highest grossing feature in Zimbabwean history. And when Dangarembga made her own film, Everybody’s Child in 1996, she became the first black Zimbabwean woman to direct a full length feature.

None of this came easy. Nobody in Zimbabwe would publish Dangarembga’s novel, apparently because her coming of age tale, about the treatment of women in a newly independent Zimbabwe, wasn’t deemed representative of African women.

And Dangarembga’s style is challenging. Take a look at the trailer for her film Kare Kare Zvako (Mother’s Day). The ‘folk tale musical’ is a fantastical tale with a lively soundtrack of an abusive man who attempts to satisfy his greedy soul by consuming his wife.

Still, Dangarembga continued to make art. Nervous Conditions, which is widely considered one of the greatest African novels, proved to be the opening salvo in what is now a trilogy. The second volume The Book of Not was published in 2006 and Dangarembga’s looking for a publisher for the final volume Chronicle of an Indomitable Daughter.

She’s also continued to develop an international presence. Dangarembga gave a Tedx talk in Harare, in which she used her cat’s behavior as an opportunity for an amusing take on the rather depressing state of Zimbabwe - and human nature more generally. And Kare Kare Zvako screened at Sundance in 2005.

But most importantly, she’s done a little institution building in Harare. After forming her own film company Nyerai, she merged it with Women Filmmaker of Zimbabwe to create a platform for women filmmakers. Since 2002, they’ve hosted the International Images Film Festival for Women.

That Dangarembga has been able to do that with the very limited means and opportunities available in Zimbabwe, is instructive as we ponder the role of artists in Chicago, and wonder if we’re creating the conditions which allow art to flourish.

By the way I’d love to hear your suggestions if you know of any global artists who are new to Chicago and working here on a temporary or permanent basis. Email me acuddy@wbez.org

Alison Cuddy is WBEZ’s Arts and Culture reporter. Follow her @wbezacuddy, on Facebook and on Instagram.

Report links Chicagoans' distance from trauma centers to higher mortality rates

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 16:31:00 -0500

Chicago-area gunshot victims who are shot more than five miles from a trauma center have a higher mortality rate, according to a new public health study released on Thursday.

Dr. Marie Crandall, a professor in surgery/trauma care at Northwestern University, analyzed 11,744 gunshot patients from 1999-2009. The data found 4,782 people were shot more than five miles from a trauma center. Those patients were disproportionately black and less likely to be insured.

“We have demonstrated that incident proximity to a trauma center has a positive effect on survival outcomes for gunshot wound victims,” says Crandall’s report, which the American Journal of Public Health published. Trauma centers take care of more severe injuries such as stabbings, car crashes and gunshot wounds (GSW). The Chicago area has seven Level 1 adult trauma centers.

Among the study’s findings: The crude mortality rate for blacks shot within five miles is 6.42 percent; whereas outside of five miles, it is 8.73 percent. This would translate into 6.3 excess deaths per year. Crude mortality is not adjusted for variables such as severity of injury. Crandall said previous research had shown difference in transport times but didn’t really affect survival. This new research drills down to Chicago and focuses solely on gunshot wounds.

“Our study is different. The heterogeneity of trauma patients are such that if you’re not specific about your research question, you might find different results,” Crandall said. “The vast majority of penetrating trauma in the city of Chicago is gunshot wounds and very relevant to our current crises, we decided to limit the data set and analysis to that population.”

According to the study, “We have identified the southeast side of the city as a relative trauma desert in Chicago’s regional trauma system that is associated with increased GSW mortality. We hope that the data presented will inform discussions aimed at optimizing regional trauma care in Chicago and will also aid in planning regional trauma systems in other urban settings.”

In 2011, a WBEZ analysis suggested that when it came to ambulance run times from the scene to trauma centers, there were disparities. Put simply, patients living on the Southeast Side face longer ambulance run times than other residents in the city. Specifically, they have to travel an average of 50 percent longer to get from the scene of an emergency to a trauma center. More than half of the trauma-related ambulance runs that originate in that part of town exceed 20 minutes, which is considered a professional standard within the city. Those neighborhoods include Hyde Park, Woodlawn, Pullman, South Shore and the Southeast Side.

Trauma center access has long been a contentious issue for some activists. And there have been questions about whether an additional trauma center would save lives on the South Side.

In 2010, a stray bullet killed youth activist Damian Turner. He was shot on the South Side, near the University of Chicago hospital. But he was transported approximately eight miles downtown to an adult trauma center at Northwestern University. Ninety minutes later he died.

A group called Fearless Leading by the Youth believes if the university had its own trauma center, Turner would have gotten treatment sooner and lived. For years, members have protested the University of Chicago, which had a trauma center for adults from 1986-1988. It closed after hemorrhaging $2 million a year, though they still serve children. At the time doctors said a majority of patients had no health insurance. Recently the issue flared up again when the University of Chicago opened a new $700 million facility with no additional trauma care.

Victoria Crider, a member of FLY, says the new study will help activists’ cause.

“We plan on using this data to show that this is exactly what it says: a relationship between whether or not you live or die and the time it takes you to get to the nearest trauma center,” Crider said.

The study acknowledges the costliness of trauma centers. Crandall writes that trauma centers could be rebalanced on the basis of volume and proximity as opposed to capacity. In addition, she writes that existing local hospitals could take in trauma patients in a possible Level 2 capacity.

Natalie Moore is WBEZ's South Side Bureau reporter. Follow her @natalieymoore.

The 6th Annual Spring Writers' Festival - A Reading by D.A. Powell

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 14:50:00 -0500

D.A. Powell gives a reading as part of the Northwestern University English Department 6th Annual Creative Writers' Festival. D. A. Powell is the author of a trilogy of books, including Tea (Wesleyan, 1998); Lunch (2000); and Cocktails (Graywolf, 2004), which was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His most recent book, Chronic (2009) received the Kingsley Tufts Award and was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award.

His subjects range from movies, art, and other trappings of contemporary culture to the AIDS pandemic. Powell’s work often returns to AIDS, and his three collections have been called a trilogy about the disease. As Carl Phillips wrote, in his judge’s note for Boston Review’s Annual Poetry Award, of Powell’s work, "No fear, here, of heritage nor of music nor, refreshingly, of authority. Mr. Powell recognizes in the contemporary the latest manifestations of a much older tradition: namely, what it is to be human."

Powell has received a Paul Engle Fellowship from the James Michener Center, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Lyric Poetry Award from the Poetry Society of America, among other awards. He has taught at Columbia University, the University of Iowa, Sonoma State University, San Francisco State University, and served as the Briggs-Copeland Lecturer in Poetry at Harvard University. He currently teaches at the University of San Francisco, and edits the online magazine Electronic Poetry Review.

D. A. Powell was born in Albany, Georgia on May 16, 1963. He attended the University of San Francisco, obtaining his bachelor's degree in 1991, and his master's in 1993. He then went on to receive his M.F.A. from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop in 1996.

Recorded live Tuesday, April 16, 2013 at the Hilton Orrington.

Northwestern to investigate founder’s connection to historic massacre

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 14:15:00 -0600

When Gary Alan Fine was named the John Evans Professor of Sociology at Northwestern, he wanted to know more about his title.

“I got on the internet and googled, and within 30 seconds I was shocked,” Fine said. He found out Evans was governor of Colorado in 1864, the year of the Sand Creek Massacre.

Colorado cavalrymen murdered more than 150 civilian Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians in one of the most notorious mass killings in U.S. history.

“Children killed in front of their mothers, women who had their breasts cut off, I mean just a horrific story,” Fine said, calling it one of most significant events of genocide in U.S. history.

Colorado’s frontier government was effectively at war with the Cheyenne’s and the Arapahoes, but the government had offered up the Sand Creek camp as a refuge for tribal members who were willing not to fight white settlers and railroad men. In other words, the massacre amounted to a bloody attack on a peaceful refugee camp.

Evans was not present at Sand Creek – he was out of the state on business – but as the territorial governor he somehow approved the action. He was removed from his post as governor after Congress caught wind of the events, but he remained president of Northwestern’s Board of Trustees for thirty years after the fact.

The City of Evanston is Evans’ best-known namesake, and his fortune as a railroad mogul played a major role in Northwestern’s early development. Multiple emeritus positions and the school’s alumni house all carry Evans’ name.

That’s why Northwestern Senior Adam Mendel took note when he saw Evans’ name connected to Sand Creek in readings for a class. After further researching Evans and finding out that he was considered culpable for the massacre, Mendel got together with members of the Native American and Indigenous Student Alliance to demand an explanation from the university as to why this part of Evans past was not in the biography of Evans on the university website.

Mendel said the students wanted “recognition of John Evans’ role in Sand Creek and the way in which his profits from clearing the land of the Native population led to the development of the school.”

They put together a petition that asks for the establishment of a Native American studies program and a scholarship fund for Cheyenne and Arapaho students. The group also wants a permanent memorial built on campus with input from the tribes.

The university responded in mid-February by announcing a committee of seven scholars to research Evans. The committee plans to release a report in 2014 on Evans’ connection to the massacre and on links between Evans’ financial contributions his policies towards Native tribes as governor of Colorado.

“The year 2014 will mark the 150th anniversary of Sand Creek, so it is appropriate to assess how and what we report about John Evans as part of our institutional history, and if and in what way we should continue to recognize his contributions to the University,” Provost Daniel Linzer said in a statement. “Although Sand Creek occurred 13 years after the establishment of Northwestern, we would like to know in detail the nature of John Evans’ relationship with the University when he was territorial governor and afterwards.”

“I’m ecstatic that the committee is going to be formed,” Mendel said.

He’s disappointed that the committee does not include students or any members of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, but said it’s a great start.

Fine has high hopes for where the research could take the university.

“What do we owe the Cheyenne and Arapaho, what do we owe native students, what do we owe the students today in terms of remembering our own traumatic history. How do you memorialize trauma?” Fine asked.

He cites the work of Brown University, which formed a committee in 2003 to address historic links to slavery at the university. In 2007, Brown announced it would give $10 million in an endowment to local public schools as a form of reparations.

Fine hopes Northwestern will eventually do something similar by helping Native American students get access to higher education. Recent numbers show just seven percent of Native American kindergarteners end up graduating from college.

Follow Lewis Wallace on Twitter.

Chicago students push for divestment from fossil fuels

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 05:00:00 -0600

Local students concerned about climate change are taking a cue from social action campaigns against South African Apartheid, urging Chicago universities to swap their investments in fossil fuel companies for stock in clean energy.

They are pushing for divestment, a movement active on 256 campuses to date and backed by national environmental organizations like Bill McKibben’s 350.org.

While common initiatives like energy efficiency challenges and green business competitions promote sustainability on campus, divestment has a broader scope.

“An issue like our endowment affects every single Northwestern stakeholder. That includes our alumni, people living on and off campus, all of our administration,” said Mark Silberg, vice president for sustainability in Northwestern University's student government, which recently passed a resolution supporting divestment. “This is a way for Northwestern to take the first step towards what we envision the future to be.”

Silberg heads the Northwestern University Responsible Endowment Coalition, which has gathered 1,300 signatures so far in support of divestment. Faculty response has been encouraging, he said, and there is precedent.

In 2005 Northwestern sold its holdings in four international oil companies active in the Darfur region of Sudan, becoming the third university in the nation to do so.

The students have tailored their message, focusing first on one particularly dirty resource: coal. In addition to coal’s well-known environmental hazards, its economic performance is flagging and likely to decline further as pressure mounts from environmental regulations and cheap natural gas. If Northwestern agrees to divest from coal, Silberg hopes, that opens the door to reinvesting in renewable energy and eventually pulling out from all fossil fuel companies.

Still, tinkering with Northwestern's $7.4 billion endowment is no small task. And at the University of Chicago, it’s an even taller order. The University never divested from businesses connected to Sudan throughout its human rights violations, or from South Africa during Apartheid.

In December Paul Kim was among 30 University of Chicago students who delivered a petition to the administration calling for divestment. The administration has not responded.

“We will have to deal with the irrevocable consequences of these decisions,” said Kim, a third-year math major. “And right now we have no input.”

Divestment campaigns are also active at Loyola University, Roosevelt University, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Columbia College, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the University of Illinois at Chicago. This weekend students from dozens of colleges across the country will converge on Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania to discuss the future of the movement.

The idea isn't limited to college campuses. The mayor of Seattle, Mike McGinn, recently called on his city's pension system governing board to divest from ExxonMobil and Chevron. Although Mayor Rahm Emanuel encouraged mayors nationwide to follow Chicago's lead in pulling from the city’s portfolio investments in gun manufacturers, he has not endorsed the tactic for action on climate change.

The Washington Post’s George Will called such campaigns "moral grandstanding," noting that even a wildly successful divestment campaign would not have a major impact on those companies’ bottom line since other investors will buy up the dumped stock. But Bill McKibben argues it would cut their “social license” to profit from pollution.

For Silberg and Kim, the economic argument is inseparable from the moral issues that give the campaign its urgency.

“Climate change action is an enormous challenge, but it's also an opportunity," Silberg said. "We have a choice as to where we allocate our money, and we make those decisions not just on short-term financial self-interest."

Follow Chris Bentley on Twitter at @Cementley.

Year 25: Bernardine Dohrn

Sat, 16 Feb 2013 13:57:00 -0600

Bernardine Dohrn is reaching a milestone this year: at the age of 71, she'll be retiring in August from her long career as professor, advocate, director and founder of the Children and Family Justice Center at Northwestern University.

But Dohrn, of course, also made a mark on the national and Chicago stages in her younger days, as leader of the radical group the Weather Underground.

She was instrumental in the Days of Rage demonstrations in Chicago in 1969.

And she eventually ended up on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List.

But before all that, Dohrn was law student, taking steps into the anti-war movement.

And that's where her year 25 story begins.

IOC could drop wrestling from Olympics

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 14:32:00 -0600

Local wrestling coaches are upset over the International Olympic Committee’s recommendation to cut the sport from the 2020 Games.

Drew Pariano is the head coach for Northwestern University’s wrestling program. He was excited to be in London this past summer to watch alumnus Jake Herbert compete in the games. The sport has a deep Olympic history going back to ancient Greece.

So it came as a shock to Pariano when the IOC announced it might cut the sport.

He says the Olympics are what wrestlers aim for.

"Those hopes and dreams are big in kids lives and it’s big in wrestling because that’s the pinnacle. It’s not the WWE or whatever you call it. True wrestlers love the idea that one day they could become an Olympian," he said.

Pariano says wrestling is an important sport around the world especially in countries like Uzbekistan and Iran. He says wrestling will likely continue to be popular in the U.S. and there will still be world championships even if the IOC eliminates it, but it would be a shame if it were no longer in the Olympics.

Wrestling joins seven other shortlisted sports fighting for a spot in the 2020 Olympics. Those include baseball/softball, karate, roller sports, sport climbing, squash, wakeboarding and wushu. Leaders of each sport will make their case before the Executive Board of the IOC at a meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia in May.

The IOC will decide later this year which events won’t make the cut.

State invests $1 million in NU Internet service

Sat, 19 Jan 2013 11:24:00 -0600

EVANSTON, Ill. — The state of Illinois is investing $1 million to bring ultra-high speed Internet service to the Chicago suburb of Evanston, which is home to about 160 technology startup businesses. Northwestern University will also benefit from the new service.

In a news release, Gov. Pat Quinn says the investment will help Evanston become what is called an Illinois Gigabit Community. Quinn's office says such a move is crucial in developing an "economic innovation corridor" that will attract more entrepreneurs who will create even more jobs in the region.

Quinn's office says the investment will help connect fiber optic gigabit Internet service from downtown Chicago to Evanston, where Northwestern is located.

Prentice is preserved, for now

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 13:00:00 -0600

Preservationists seeking to prevent the demolition of the former Prentice Women's Hospital were dealt a severe if not final blow today.

Cook County Judge Neil Cohen dismissed a lawsuit brought by two plaintiffs: the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois (LPCI).

Judge Cohen said a previous ruling by the Illinois Supreme Court does not grant him the power to overturn a decision by the Commission on Chicago Landmarks, even if, as the Judge appears to believe, the Commission violated its own rules in making that decision.

The Judge also dismissed the Landmarks Preservation Council as a plaintiff in the case, but gave the National Trust 30 days to file an amended complaint.

Michael Rachlis is one of the legal representatives for the preservationists. He said "the court articulated there was a problem in that process and it still allowed us to come back and deal with those issues."

Rachlis added "The stay is in place. If the case does not proceed forward in this capacity, in this building, there are appellate processes and other processes to be reviewed, down the road. This is not over, the court has indicated that."

Last November, the Commission of Chicago Landmarks granted preliminary landmark status for the building designed by famed architect Bertrand Goldberg but then revoked it in the same meeting.

In rescinding landmark status, the Commission cited a report from the city's Department of Housing and Economic Development that concluded "the civic and economic impact of Northwestern's proposed research program outweighs the relative importance of maintinaing the former Prenctice building as an architectural landmark."

Judge Cohen's ruling today means Northwestern University's hands are tied for another month. The university wants to tear down the building in order to construct a new research facility.

Alan Cubbage, a spokesperson for Northwestern, said the university would "abide by the stay" but is "very pleased with the ruling today."

Preservationists: Re-using former Prentice Hospital could mean more money, jobs

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 05:01:00 -0600

Preservationists who want to prevent demolition of the former Prentice Women's Hospital seem to be an unstoppable force.

They've argued for the architectural merits of the Bertrand Goldberg-designed building. When that didn't pan out, they went to court. Now, after winning temporary landmark status for the building in court, they've brought out a different tactic: re-examining the bottom line.

All along Northwestern University has said tearing down the old Prentice and building a new research facility would generate thousands of jobs and billions in economic investment.

Now the Save Prentice Coalition is following suit. This week they released a new economic impact study, commissioned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The study argues that re-using Prentice and developing a new facility would generate more money and jobs than demolition and new construction.

The study claims the rehab would generate one-time taxes and temporary jobs, in fields ranging from construction to finance and insurance. And a re-designed, multi-purpose Prentice would mean 980 permanent jobs and just over $1 million a year in local tax revenues.

In addition to the study, they put forth four different re-use alternatives for the site (one planning proposal and 3 building designs), which were originally submitted for a competition held last year by the Chicago Architecture Club.

In each of the designs, the Prentice building and its iconic, cloverleaf structure, play an auxiliary or supporting role to the main research facility.

Ed Torrez, principal architect at BauerLatoza Studio (and former Chicago Landmarks commissioner), says Prentice would still have an important function.

His design puts office and meeting spaces in Prentice. "That's where that exchange of ideas would happen. So it would support the research labs but it would support them in a very strong way."

The BauerLatoza design is called "Embracing Prentice." The signature element is a towering, concave, glass backdrop to the old Prentice building, which would also provide sweeping corridors to the new research building.

The Kujawa Architecture design involves a neat trick.The new building would be structurally independent, though anchored in a core that penetrates the base of the old Prentice. But as you can see, from certain angles it would appear to almost float above the base, like a card magically rising out of its deck.

The award-winning design by Cyril Marsollier and Wallo Villacorta also involves an optical illusion: kind of a now-you-see-it, now-you don't sleight of hand. Half of the old Prentice building would be encased within the new building (and visible via an interior atrium). But to a casual observer walking by outside, it would still appear as if it was still whole, thanks to its reflection in the new building’s glass exterior.

Whether this latest focus on the economics of re-use will prompt a different response from Northwestern University remains to be seen. But a reckoning is coming: lawyers representing a coalition of preservationists and the city of Chicago are scheduled to meet in court next week.