The Best of the Whitesell Prize Competition



The Best of the Whitesell Prize Competition

2017–2018

The Writing Center’s Phyllis C. Whitesell Prizes for

Expository Writing in General Education

15th Edition, Fall 2018

The Writing Center at Franklin and Marshall College

Lancaster, PA 17604-3003

717.358.3866

Preface

The Writing Center’s Phyllis C. Whitesell Prizes honor excellent student writing in Franklin and Marshall’s General Education curriculum. Each year the Writing Center invites submissions and awards a prize for the best essay in both Connections I and Connections II. This booklet contains the prize-winning and honorable mention essays from this year’s competition.

Named for the emerita Director of F&M’s Writing Center, the Whitesell Prizes serve several goals. In addition to honoring both Phyllis’s dedication to teaching writing and the achievements of the College’s student writers themselves, the Whitesell Prizes seek to add to the vitality of the College’s General Education curriculum by getting students to think of their intellectual efforts as ongoing enterprises (revision, often after the essay has been graded and the class is completed, is a requirement of the competition). Also, by involving faculty and Writing Center tutors in the judging of the essays—and by making this booklet available to the College community—the Whitesell competition hopes to foster a fuller awareness of the interesting work being done in our First-Year Writing Requirement courses.

My great appreciation goes to this year’s Whitesell Prize judges. Professors Karen Leistra-Jones and Joseph Thompson and tutors Indira Rahman ‘18 and Thomas Fogel ‘18 awarded the prizes in Connections I. Professors Kabi Hartman and David Merli and tutors Lin Phyu Sin (Betty) ’19 and Lior Wolf ’19 awarded the prizes in Connections II.

Many thanks go to Dave Mix ‘17 for compiling this booklet.

Daniel Frick

Director, Writing Center

January 2019

Table of Contents

Connections I Writing

Whitesell Prize Co-Winner 3

“Iphigenia is Not a Hero; She's a Heroine: The Other Half of the Hero's Journey”

By Braden Muscarello for Professor Hall

CNX184

Whitesell Prize Co-Winner 8

“Opiates and Obesity: The Problem with Chronic Pain Patients”

By Liliane Watkins for Professor Lacy

CNX186

Honorable Mention 17

“The Imperious Portrayals of Gender in ‘The Road Goes On Forever’”

By Bette Scher for Professor Butterfield

CNX120

Connections II Writing

Whitesell Prize Winner 25

“My Queer Self: An Autoethnography”

By Brynne Geisel for Professor Hopkins

CNX250

Honorable Mention 48

“Views from outside of Africa”

By Rasheed Adewole for Professor Hopkins

CNX233

Honorable Mention 60

“Is Social Identity More Influential on Climate Change Beliefs than Scientific Literacy?”

By Bonnie Page for Professor Ciuk

CNX245

Connections I Category

Whitesell Prize Co-Winner

“Iphigenia is Not a Hero; She's a Heroine: The Other Half of the Hero's Journey”

Braden Muscarello

CNX184; Professor Hall

…

The defining qualities of a hero have been long contested in history and literature. More recently, the definition of a hero can be explained as anyone who follows the Hero’s Journey and thus transforms themselves into the master of two worlds. Male or female, the seventeen steps outline what it means to achieve material success, harrowing adventure, and the status of hero. But what about those who embark on a different, more metaphysical type of transformational journey? Are they still heroes? No—they are heroines. Iphigenia from Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis is a prime example. She doesn’t obtain an ultimate boon or slay a dragon, but embodies the Heroine’s Journey as described by Maureen Murdock by venturing through a series of the more subtle, personal steps of transformation and adventuring usually missing from typical hero stories.

While the Hero’s and Heroine’s Journeys occasionally overlap on certain aspects, such as the road of trials, the Heroine’s Journey has many unique features that focus more on transformation and mastery of both the masculine and feminine sides of the self rather than the surrounding worlds. Although the Heroine’s Journey is studied significantly less than its counterpart, it is an incredibly vital part of story-telling that adds not only emotional depth to characters, but also a sense of spiritual wholeness and fulfillment that the more materialistic success of the Hero’s Journey lacks. Where the hero goes through steps such as the call to adventure, crossing the threshold, atonement with the father, and apostasis, the heroine’s most notable steps are separation from the feminine, identification with the masculine, betrayal by the father, initiation and descent to the goddess, and integration of masculine and feminine. It is these steps exclusive to the Heroine’s Journey that have the power to turn a person into something greater than themselves, and it is these steps Iphigenia ventures through to transcend her ordinary character and become a true heroine.

Iphigenia’s heroinism is proved not through amazing feats of strength like her hero equivalents, but through small actions that carry immense weight. The separation from the feminine and identification with the masculine, for instance (steps one and two in the Heroine’s Journey), happen only in the span of a few lines exchanged between Iphigenia and her mother, Clytemnestra. Iphigenia states, “Mother, don’t be angry/if I run from you/to be the first to embrace him [Agamemnon]… Clytemnestra: …You were always,/of all the children I bore him, the one/who loved your father most” (Iphigenia 826-838). However brief, this short conversation shows Iphigenia’s identification with the masculine figure in her life and desire for her father’s approval (or at the very least, affection) rather than the atonement with the father we see in the Hero’s Journey. Even more poignant, Iphigenia’s running toward Agamemnon and away from Clytemnestra is indicative of so much more than just a loving greeting after a long time apart. It is a representation of her wanting to leave her mother’s rigid confines of the feminine sphere and enter the world of the powerful father. However, as we see in the end of Euripides’ play, Iphigenia cannot successfully cross into the realm of the masculine and is forced to come to terms with her own femininity and complete the Heroine’s Journey.

Another distinct marker that proves Iphigenia’s heroinism is the betrayal by the father, a subset of the fifth step in the Heroine’s Journey, awakening to feelings of spiritual aridity. Iphigenia, ever the “father’s daughter,” wishes to please Agamemnon and agrees to a marriage between herself and Achilles. But instead of a marriage Iphigenia finds she has been brought to Aulis like a lamb for slaughter, having been deceived by her father in a most heinous way. Maureen Murdock in her book The Heroine’s Journey says it best, “Iphigenia looked at the spiritual aridity of the male quest in its most fearsome form and lost her faith in her father” (76). The “spiritual aridity” Murdock refers to is the condonation of the sacrifice of an innocent girl by her father and his army for the sole purpose of causing more slaughter through warfare. The illusion of the perfect benevolent male figure she has been taught to believe is shattered and she must now explore the fertile spirituality of the feminine she has been told to abhor her whole life.

Facing an internal rejection of traditional patriarchal values, Iphigenia must now go through the sixth step in the Heroine’s Journey known as initiation and descent to the goddess:

Women often make their descent when a particular role, such as daughterhood, motherhood…comes to an end…This journey to the underworld is filled with confusion and grief…To make this journey a woman puts aside her fascination with the intellect and games of the cultural mind, and acquaints herself, perhaps for the first time, with her body…her values (Murdock 88-90).

This short period before making the decision to be sacrificed is Iphigenia’s darkest point. She weeps at the prospect of her death at the hands of a loved one, implores her father to spare her, and throws off what she is being told to do in favor of what she feels. She doesn’t want to die, even though she chooses to sacrifice herself in the end. With the conclusion of her daughterhood she is now an independent and free-thinking woman who must ultimately make her own choice. This is much different than the hero’s apostasis. Rather than transcending good and evil and achieving an almost a divine state of knowledge by slaying the clearly malevolent forces at work, the heroine is forced to reckon with the earthliest and most morally gray of demons —in this case, the Greek army’s bloodlust and Agamemnon’s reluctant but steadfast determination to sacrifice her. The transformation is not one of physical enlightenment but emotional clarity, where the heroine realizes the feminine qualities she ran from she must now make peace with as well as a realization of the hollowness of the pursuit of the hero’s quest.

Having successfully journeyed through the initiation and descent to the goddess, Iphigenia now must go through the final step: integration of masculine and feminine. She does this not by fighting the entire Greek army, as the classic hero Achilles offered, nor does she refuse to die like her mother would have her do. Instead, she gives an impassioned and logical speech to the both of them combining aspects of both the glorified death that might have been Achilles’ and the dignity of Clytemnestra. “Iphigenia: I want to carry out this same act/in a glorious way, casting all lowborn behavior aside…that will be my monument, my children, my marriage, my fame!” (Iphigenia 1375-1397). In this moment, Iphigenia proves not only her bravery, intelligence, and wisdom, but her heroinism. After rejecting her initial femininity, the betrayal by her father, and her transformation into a person who accepts her whole being, she is able to sacrifice herself even though she knows she is innocent. It is this journey that makes a true heroine.

The Heroine’s Journey, much like the Hero’s Journey, is not exclusive to female protagonists. The “male” and “female” actions that characters take are not literally representative of the sexes, but rather the battling dual nature between the physical and the spiritual inside every living person. Edmund Pevensie is as much a heroine as Iphigenia, just like Katniss Everdeen is a hero like Odysseus. While the Heroine is harder to find in literature than in real life, it is important to recognize the significance of the journey the heroine undertakes in stories and the transformation that happens when they realize the masculine version of success leaves them spiritually hollow. So while Iphigenia may not be heralded as a great Greek hero, she is a heroine with just as much importance to the staying power and relatability of myths. Sometimes, as readers, we don’t need to see another hero save the world, but we might just need to see a heroine save herself.

Connections I Category

Whitesell Prize Co-Winner

“Opiates and Obesity: The Problem with Chronic Pain Patients”

Liliane Watkins

CNX186; Professor Lacy

…

Opiates and Obesity: The Problem with Chronic Pain Patients

Liliane Watkins

17 December 2017

Jennette Fulda gained renown in 2005 for her blog chronicling her remarkable 197 lb. weight loss. At the end of her two-and-a-half year journey (and to promote her book), Jennette trained for and ran a half-marathon. In February of 2008, however, she acquired an enigmatic headache that plagued her for days. Doctors soon diagnosed her with New Daily Persistent Headache, which, as Jennette would learn, is a catch-all diagnosis for when a patient begins having daily headaches (most people can remember the onset date), that persist in someone with no previous history of neurological issues (Li & Rozen, 2002). Unfortunately, Jennette suffers from the same headache to this day, and it has caused her to gain back almost all of the weight she had lost. In the words of Jennette:

“Obviously, I would rather have maintained my weight loss, but I’ve been dealing with chronic pain for nine years now which complicated things. I definitely turn to food to feel better, and if my weight is any indication, I’ve been feeling REALLY, REALLY, bad” (Fulda, 2017).

In her book, Chocolate & Vicodin, Jennette claims that despite experimenting with an array of medications, acupuncture, massage therapy, chiropractics, and marijuana products, the only viable temporary remedies she found involved either leftover Percocet she bought from friends (Fulda, 2011) or “sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and lots of whipped cream” (Fulda 2011, p. 243). She expresses frustration throughout the book and on her blog about the seemingly endless ineffective treatments, the expenses she must undertake, and the negative stigma she perceives in coworkers, friends, and doctors about her “invisible” illness. Sadly, these are prevailing complaints among chronic pain patients of every category (Werner & Malterud, 2003).

A sense of urgency regarding two distinct “epidemics” has surfaced in our public discourse: the “opiate crisis” or, more specifically, the “heroin epidemic,” and the “obesity epidemic.” While neither are contagious, we still use the terminology of disease to describe them. The former crisis developed when doctors and pharmaceutical companies began cutting back on painkiller prescriptions, many of which were for chronic pain (Kertesz & Satel, 2017). The latter has grown in scale and prevalence since the 1970s, when Americans in particular began to have greater access to processed, “vanishing calorie-dense” food products (Moss, 2013). There is an unexpected comorbidity, however, because both food and opiates operate on the same mechanism in the brain -- i.e., the one that reduces pain. In this paper, to assist the explanation of this phenomenon, I will begin with a breakdown of the mechanism of endorphins, discuss current rationale behind the connection between chronic pain and obesity, and finally argue that patients use high-carbohydrate foods as a substitute for opiates, precipitating the high rates of obesity among those suffering from chronic pain. The crucial conjunction between the way both food and opiates affect our brains, leading to obesity, cannot be overlooked as we proceed in the treatment of chronic pain patients.

Understanding the connection between these two purported epidemics lies in one fundamental concept of neuroscience: neurotransmitters, specifically endorphins. Neurotransmitters are compounds in our brains that affect and are affected by our perception and experience of the world (Snyder & Innis, 1979). Endorphins, in particular, are responsible for pain relief. They occur naturally, especially when we exercise (i.e. “runner’s high”) (Partin, 1983). Opium, derived from poppy flowers and synthesized into morphine, codeine, and heroin, binds to the same receptors as endorphins. This property is the reason these substances are dubbed “painkillers,” and why they produce the emotional bliss of a “runner’s high.” In recent years, neuroscientists have found that high carbohydrate foods -- those replete with sugar, corn, processed wheat, white potatoes, or a combination thereof -- also produce endorphins when we consume them (Fullerton et al., 1985). These “junk foods” or “white carbs,” therefore, have the potential for physical and emotional pain relief, but also for the strains of abuse associated with painkillers and heroin (Avena et al., 2008).

Research suggests that those who suffer from chronic pain are more likely to be overweight or obese (Okifugi & Hare, 2015). Having one malady predisposes you towards the other; for example, those struggling with obesity are more likely to suffer from headaches and migraines (Chai et al., 2014), as well as lower back pain (Smuck 2013), and those with chronic pain issues like fibromyalgia (Yunus et al., 2002) or pelvic pain (Gurian et al., 2014) are much more likely to be obese. But chronic pain, as opposed to overeating or hormones, is not itself a direct cause of obesity. There are other events occurring alongside the enduring pain, such as overeating, that cause weight gain (as they did in Jennette Fulda’s case). The assumption is that, if a patient has back, knee, or hip pain, they are not walking, biking, running, or going to the gym regularly, and as a result, they gain weight. This factor is a worthy consideration in studying the confluence of these two issues, but I argue that it is not the only problem. In patients struggling with both obesity and chronic pain simultaneously, it is critical to consider all potential circumstances.

Sugar is as addictive as opiates because both operate on the brain using similar mechanisms. In a study performed in 2007, researchers found that given the choice between two levers -- one dispensing saccharine-infused water and the other intravenous cocaine -- 94% of rats preferred the sweetness of the sugar water to a hit of cocaine (Lenoir et al.). It seems that sugar is just as powerful, if not more so, than any other drug, and yet added sugars are present in 74% of the food on American shelves (Popkin & Hawkes, 2016). Sugar generates the symptoms of addiction -- i.e., tolerance, craving, and withdrawal (Avena et al., 2008) -- with its use (Wise & Koob, 2014). If chronic pain patients can become addicted to painkillers while using them to manage pain, the logical leap is that they can, and often will, follow the same behavioral sequence with sugar. In Jennette Fulda’s case, she tried a panoply of medication and therapy to mollify her headaches, but the only effective treatment was ice cream or chocolate. By 2008, doctors and pharmaceutical companies had already begun decreasing available painkiller prescriptions, so Jennette did not have access to opiates as she might have ten years before. Like many before her, attempting to assuage the pain of everything from removed tonsils to a broken heart, she self-medicated with food. Unfortunately, patients must consume sugar and carbohydrate-laden foods in much higher quantities to produce the same effects as the synthetic endorphins in an OxyContin tablet. And, unlike prescription pills, these foods come with superabundant calorie counts, which, as tolerance increases, will necessarily increase in order to achieve the same degree of pain relief. Following this logic, chronic pain patients have increased susceptibility to two additional conditions -- obesity, and, when framed in this understanding, addiction.

As we move forward in finding a better solution to chronic pain, we must attempt to understand the relationships between chronic pain, obesity, and addiction. As Jennette Fulda found, doctors, coworkers, and even family members perceive chronic pain patients as whiny or dishonest. Oftentimes, the proof for their condition does not manifest itself in bloodwork or scans. As the pain progresses and inhibits their ability to function at work or to maintain an exercise regimen, the other people in their lives pin them as lazy, unmotivated, or lacking self-discipline. Even doctors complain about chronic pain patients, halfheartedly treating them and sending them away (the very act of which facilitated the initial rise of opiate prescriptions in the 1990s (Kertesz & Satel, 2017)). While little research exists explicitly corroborating the connection between food-mediated endorphin release and its use as a painkiller for medical purposes, the link remains. A better understanding of this phenomenon, strengthened through research, would help doctors effectively serve patients through the stress and discomfort of chronic pain issues until a non-opiate pain treatment becomes available. For that to happen, however, pharmaceutical companies and research institutions need to focus their efforts on finding such a treatment, instead of ignoring the 25.3 million chronic pain patients in the U.S. alone (Nahin 2015), and profiting on patients who buy opiates in the hope of mitigating their pain. Cooperation on the part of doctors and pharmaceutical companies could help chronic pain patients avoid the additional problems of weight gain and addiction that compound their condition.

References

Avena, N. M., Rada, P., & Hoebel, B. G. (2008). “Evidence for sugar addiction: Behavioral and neurochemical effects of intermittent, excessive sugar intake.” Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 32(1), 20–39.

Chai, N. C., Scher, A. I., Moghekar, A., Bond, D. S., & Peterlin, B. L. (2014). Obesity and Headache: Part I – A Systematic Review of the Epidemiology of Obesity and Headache. Headache, 54(2), 219–234.

Gurian, Maria B. F. et al. (2014). “Measurement of pain and anthropometric parameters in women with chronic pelvic pain.” Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 21(1): 21-27.

Fulda, Jennette (2011). Chocolate & Vicodin: My quest for relief from the headache that wouldn’t go away. New York: Gallery Books.

Fulda, Jennette (2017, April 24). My body, my blog, and the Untitled Town Book Festival. Retrieved from .

Fullerton, D., Getto, C., Swift, W., & Carlson, I. (1985). “Sugar, opioids and binge eating.” Brain Research Bulletin, 14(6), 673-680.

Kertesz, Stefan & Satel, Sally (2017). “The opioid crackdown is making life miserable -- even untenable -- for people with chronic pain.” Slate. Retrieved from .

Janke, Amy E. & Kozak, Andrea T (2012). “‘The more pain I have, the more I want to eat’: obesity in the context of chronic pain.” Obesity (Silver Spring). 20(10): 2027-2034.

Lenoir, M., Serre, F., Cantin, L., & Ahmed, S. H. (2007). “Intense Sweetness Surpasses Cocaine Reward.” Public Library of Science ONE, 2(8), e698.

Li, D. & Rozen, T.D. (2002). “The clinical characteristics of New Daily Persistent Headache.” Cephalagia 22(1): 66-69.

Moss, Michael (2013). “The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food.” The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved from .

Nahin, R.L. (2015). “Estimates of pain prevalence and severity in adults: United states, 2012.” The Journal of Pain: Official Journal of the American Pain Society 16(8), 769-780.

Okifuji, Akiko & Hare, Bradford D. (2015). “The association between chronic pain and obesity.” Journal of Pain Research 8: 399-408.

Partin, Clyde (1983). “Runner's ‘High’.” The Journal of the American Medical Association. 249(1):21.

Popkin, Barry M. & Hawkes, Corinna (2016). “Sweetening of the global diet, particularly beverages: patterns, trends, and policy responses.” The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology 4(2): 174 - 186.

Smuck, Matthew (2013). “Does physical activity influence the relationship between low back pain and obesity?” The Spine Journal 14(2): 209-214.

Snyder, S., & Innis, R. (1979). “Peptide neurotransmitters.” Annual Review of Biochemistry, 48(1), 755-782.

Werner, A. & Malterud, K. (2003). “It is hard work behaving as a credible patient: Encounters between women with chronic pain and their doctors.” Social Science & Medicine 57(8), 1409-19.

Wise, Roy A., & Koob, George F. (2014). “The development and maintenance of drug addiction.” Neuropsychopharmacology: Official Publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology 39(2), 254-62.

Yunus, Muhammed B., Arslan, Sule, & Aldag, Jean C. (2002). “Relationship between body mass index and fibromyalgia features.” Scandinavian Journal of Rheumatology 31(1): 27-31.

Connections I Category

Honorable Mention

“The Imperious Portrayals of Gender in ‘The Road Goes On Forever’”

Bette Scher

CNX120; Professor Butterfield

…

He took the pool cue and swung it hard. He aimed his fury at the man who was assaulting an innocent woman. He knew it was his duty to stick up for Sherry, the helpless lady working behind the bar. Sonny could not join the navy, run an honest business, or turn away from a life of crime, but he could save someone who could not save herself. “The Road Goes On Forever” by Robert Earl Keen provides a clever demonstration of the role gender has in our society and how it perpetuates gender normative behavior. As we listen to the song, we can conclude that Sonny and Sherry represent tropes of ideal masculinity and femininity. Robert Earl Keen panders to this human fallacy, this blinding need to measure up to the ideal. He subtly notions that all men must be Sonny and all women must be Sherry: men as martyrs and women as eternal damsels. As an audience, we can conclude that Sonny’s decision to accept the blame for Sherry’s actions is expected of him, not because of his character, but because of his masculinity. Similarly, Sherry’s femininity renders her helpless for the duration of the song; she is never truly liberated until Sonny takes action in taking the blame for her. In this essay, I will explore the ways in which Robert Earl Keen’s “The Road Goes On Forever” both subjugates its characters and the general public. Through analyzing the song’s lyrics, its format, and its “concert culture,” we can observe the oppressive nature of gender normativity; it not only inhibits the mobility of people who should have agency, but also continues the imperious, perennial narrative of patriarchy in human society.

Gender is a subject matter ingrained within the lyrical composition of “The Road Goes On Forever.” From the song’s beginning, we see Sonny illustrated as a subject: a loner, a naval reject, and an outlaw. In contrast, Sherry’s character is comprised by hypersexualized notions geared towards the male audience, evidenced as Keen describes Sherry as a “girl who’d been around” (line 2). She seduces Sonny with a “brand new pack of cigs / A fresh one hangin' from her lips and a beer between her legs” (lines 3-4). Not only do these lyrical depictions reduce Sherry’s intrinsic personhood, but this sense of hypersexualizing limits Sherry’s ability to possess a personality separate from Keen’s sexualized depiction.

Keen’s tendency to subjugate female characters extends into the lyrics of the following verse, when Sherry is groped by a masculine attacker. In this moment, she is depicted as a damsel, intrinsically helpless and unable to help herself out of this precarious situation. Instead, she relies on heroic Sonny’s strength to save her: “Sonny took his pool cue laid the drunk out on the floor / Stuffed a dollar in her tip jar and walked on out the door.” As Sonny leaves the musty bar, Sherry decides to follow her hero. She abandons her job, her family, and her friends, all of which are implied to be inconsequential to her and her character development. She blindingly follows Sonny for a chance of a new, fast-paced life of crime. Keen summarizes his thoughts of the Sherry’s social status with a simple lyric: “She's runnin' right behind him reachin' for his hand.” The use of “behind him” indicates a Keen’s nuanced notions of female positions in a sexist society. According to Keen, the woman is underneath the man; she lacks independent thought, agency, strength apart from her patriarchs, and true agency. Keen subtly solicits the idea Sherry is chasing her patriarch, foregoing her own life, wants, and desires, to exist in the shadow of Sonny, her new patriarch. Based on the song’s lyrics, we can speculate that Keen views women to be subservient towards men: whose only function is to exist as objects hyper-sexualized or only relevant in terms of the male hero, who writes and narrates the story in terms of himself only.

In the song’s climax, Sherry has shot the police officer and is about to take the blame for Sonny’s lawless actions. Sherry, in what seems to be the moment of her personal liberation, comes to save him, demonstrating full control as she compels herself to take the blame. Instead of letting Sherry be the hero she was so destined to be, Sonny’s male chauvinism compels him to come forward. He takes the blame for Sherry, consequently dying by the electric chair in an act of tropic, if utterly expected, masculine heroism. His omnipresent masculinity compels him to save Sherry, even though she didn’t ask for saving or indicate a need to be saved at all. Sherry’s moment of liberation would have been her death by electric chair. It would have broken her from her tropic chokehold, transforming her into a multifaceted character who finally chooses a path beyond dependence on male figures. Her choice to run away with Sonny, fire the shotgun, and ultimately ride off into the sunset, were all made with her patriarch in mind. Sherry’s “choices” were merely responses to Sonny’s thoughts, desires, and conflicts, like most women in literature and music. Keen, like society as a whole, presents us with the deception of free will and personal agency. The harsh reality lies within acknowledging the roles predetermined for us, the tropes reinforced, and our willingness to break through the chokehold. The lyrics present us with the narrative which Sonny and Sherry exist in, one where Sherry is objectified based on her sexuality and inhibited by her gender. Keen’s choice to portray men as subjects and women as objects, evidenced by his lyrics, continues the systems of oppression which facilitate patriarchy.

Further, Keen’s projection of socially constructed gender behaviors not only constrain Sonny and Sherry’s movement as multifaceted beings, but also immortalize them in the eyes of listeners. This is evidenced by the formal structure of the song, AAA, formatted with verses which repeat. Also known as strophic songwriting[1], this medium of musical composition is used in the aim of storytelling, historically rooted in traditional poetry set to music. The one-part format of “The Road Goes On Forever” preserves the tone of the speaker as omniscient, distinct from the protagonists. The narrator can be viewed as not only a reflection of Keen’s personal beliefs, but a reflection of the societal values and constrictions in which men and women exist.

Use of the strophic form in “The Road Goes On Forever” make the song feel akin to a story our mother has just told us before bed; young boys idolize Sonny for his heroism, and young girls wish to be Sherry, rescued from their hum-drum lives. Keen delegates young boys to be subjects of stories and young girls to be objects; impressionable young children absorb this information, processing it as part of their personal identity. The authoritative speaker in the song retells a story of traditional gender conventions; a story which subtly, but concretely normalizes the acceptance of male chauvinism and female objectification.

This facilitation of gender normative behavior is emphasized by Keen’s repeated major chord progressions. The musical structures in “The Road Goes On Forever” play a fundamental role in deciphering the tone in which audience perceives the narrative. The chords are predominantly major: D major to G major to A major. Major chords are traditionally associated with positivity: happiness, resolution, and consonance. As the song departs from verse two, the audience is introduced to the drums which keep an up-tempo rhythm, a steel guitar, and a bass, all of which make “The Road Goes On Forever” the ultimate barn-burner and feel-good anthem. All of these features deceive the audience, concealing the true meaning of “The Road Goes On Forever.” Without critically analyzing the song and its lyrics, one would believe what the chord progression is telling us: that this is a story of freedom and happiness. Reality, found through deeper investigation, offers a rude awakening; the lyrics perpetuate rigid ideals of what men and women are supposed to be, according to society, and according to Robert Earl Keen. The musical components which makeup the physical composition of the song furthers the notion that Sonny’s decision to accept the blame for Sherry was the right thing to do because of his obligation for his masculinity. Conversely, the major chords’ association with positivity reinforce the audience’s acceptance Keen’s lyrics which guide Sherry’s nature of complacency. Both the lyrics and the musical composition encourages her not to be an agent of volition, but a plot device and space for Sonny to live within his masculine prison of the “hero.”

Proper analysis of any kind of music lies within exploring the relationship between the music as text, the performer, and the audience. After listening to the live version of “The Road Goes On Forever,” I can speculate the social and musical context of the live concert, observing through the lens of the recorded version. Filmed in a storied honky-tonk in Helotes, Texas, the raucous crowd cheers deafeningly, as Keen introduces the crowd-favorite, “The Road Goes On Forever.” Drunk, both on the flowing beer and the distinct feeling of being enchanted by a musical performance, the crowd sings along to words they know so well. In doing this, they unknowingly subscribe to an oppressive culture which reinforces gender normative behavior. Keen, the performer, the “I,” becomes a spokesperson of society, simultaneously projecting gender norms and absorbing them. This infinite loop of internalized gendered behavior both oppresses the audience, to which he performs, and himself as these behaviors are projected back on to him. These subversive actions go unnoticed by the drunken bar-goers who came out for a good time. The “concert culture” we feel present, the sensation of being one with a group of strangers, singing the same song, condition people absorb the messaging of the artist. In this case, the audience is compelled to buy into oppressive roles of femininity and masculinity, predetermined by society. I doubt Keen possessed any ill-intent in performing this song; he too subscribes to Sonny’s notions of oppressive masculinity as a man himself. As an artist, Keen has interpreted the world he perceives, reflecting it back onto the audience, creating art from what he knows.

For every performance which in Keen’s 1995 tour, we can assume that both men and women saw themselves with Sonny and Sherry. An audience member, a simple honky-tonk resident, immediately identifies with Sonny’s obligatory masculinity. At some point, this man must have felt rejected in some capacity, while also feeling the urge to navigate what it means to “be a man” in his everyday life. Likewise, a woman existing within the patriarchy knows nothing else. She, like Sherry, has always existed within the confines of oppression, objectified and limited based on her gender. As Keen sings, he normalizes the culture which deems Sherry, and every other woman, a sexual object, void of agency and thought independent from her patriarchs. As the crowd sings along to Robert Earl Keen thirty minutes outside San Antonio, both men and women identify with the characters, associating them with the society which surrounds them.

We constantly look to music to identify ourselves; we seek to assign familiar structure and archetypal characters. The role of the “hero,” as portrayed through Sonny, was crafted to be universally applicable. We all need to be able to see ourselves in Sonny and Sherry in some capacity. Not only does that sell records, but it also continues the human narrative of the complex navigations which come from gender. Collectively, we look towards music as social commentary. The characters of Sonny and Sherry represent society’s views of men and women: men, as compulsory heroes and women as helpless damsels. Though this worldview may seem archaic, it is indicative of our societal values and perceptions of gender, which continue into the present.

One might wonder the importance of inquiries like these, of speculation on what we deem to be acceptable behavior. By observing the patriarchy in Robert Earl Keen’s “The Road Goes On Forever,” we start to address it, beginning to challenge it. By commenting on a fundamental problem in the power distribution of men and women, by noticing who speaks, and more importantly, who does not, we are able to facilitate a more equalized society. As evidenced through the lyrics, physical structure of the song, and an omnipresent, masculine speaker, we can finally conclude that Keen justifies Sherry shooting the police officer and Sonny taking the blame because of expectations predetermined by their genders. In the urge to prove what it means to “be a man” Keen perpetuates aggressive and autocratic normative behaviors onto both characters, and therefore his audience as well.

Works Cited Page


1. Moxey, John. “A Guide To Song Forms – AAA Song Form.” . 17 October 2017.

Connections II Category

Whitesell Prize Winner

“My Queer Self: An Autoethnography”

Brynne Geisel

CNX250; Professor Hopkins

…

My Queer Self: An Autoethnography

Brynne Geisel

Franklin & Marshall College

Abstract

“My Queer Self” is an autoethnography that recounts experiences from roughly seven years of my life—from seventh grade through freshman year of college—that have shaped my life as a queer youth. I share my stories in both second and first-person narratives. I use second to hypothetically bring the reader into the position I was in during each point in time while using first person to establish the reality of the stories. “My Queer Self” is arranged into sections where experiences are examined in terms of a theme. Then, I incorporate research on queer people and queerness to connect my experience into the cultural experiences of others both alike and different. Through this piece I hope to make a meaningful contribution to queer representation by sharing my stories, both good and bad, while also connecting my own life with the larger themes of queer experience.

The Introductions

I’ll be straight with you—I’m queer.

There’s no reason for me to add frills to it or explain it slowly; I’m used to coming out of the closet over and over again. Often, I wonder if my queerness is essential information when introducing myself. Who do I tell? When do I tell them? How do I put it? But this is an autoethnography about my queer self, a story I knew I would tell from day one of this course. By choosing to tell the story of my queer self through autoethnography I seek to connect personal stories and research to find meaning in the experience.

The Why

Why does autoethnography suit my story? As a queer person, I have seen only a few queer representations in any form, and even fewer examined both artistically and academically at the same time. With autoethnography, I can bring the queer in academia and the queer experience together in a way that blends scholarship with art. Additionally, Adams et al. (2015) name “disrupt[ing] taboos, break[ing] silences, and reclaim[ing] lost and disregarded voices” (p. 36) as one of the main reasons to practice autoethnography. Queer voices have clearly been tabooed, silenced, and lost throughout history. By writing autoethnography, I can add queer representation to a world that lacks it.

The Ethics

Personal stories always implicate others. This is unavoidable when writing autoethnography. Tolich (2010) guides autoethnographers to practice “anticipatory ethics” (p. 1600) and critically examine what the ethical complications are when telling their stories. My first step was to gain consent from those I have contact with, which includes my friends, my parents, and my boyfriend. Although Tolich (2010) asserts that pseudonyms are a weak way to protect identities (p. 1606), for those I have no contact with, I have chosen to use pseudonyms for some because giving them names allows for a clearer narrative. Others I have chosen to leave nameless and vague because who they are is not so important to the narrative; only their actions are essential. These people do not deserve to have the misdeeds of junior high and high school permanently tied to their name or major identifying factors.

The Queer

What is queer? To begin to understand queer on a basic level, turning to formal definitions is a reasonable way to start. In her entry on queer theory in the New Dictionary of the History of Ideas, Jagose (2005) defines queer as a word that “has been strategically taken up to signify a wide-ranging and unmethodical resistance to normative models of sex, gender, and sexuality” (p. 1981). Reading further will reveal the negative history the word queer carries with it: “this use of queer marks a process of resignification as new meanings and values are associated with what was once a term of homophobic abuse” (Jagose, 2005, p. 1981). I have never had queer used against me, although stories told to me by older generations of queer people recall violent “games” they or those suspected of being queer endured, such as “smear the queer”, which involved ganging up on someone and beating them. The shame associated with the word queer has not fully faded, which is what Jagose (2005) asserts when she elaborates on queer shame: “there is always an important sense in which queer maintains […] its original charge of shame” (p. 1981).

***

I’m attending a SAGA (Sexuality and Gender Alliance) meeting, fall of freshman year in college. The word queer is used freely in the space in a positive way; one of our biggest events of the year is titled “Queer Visibility Week”. One day, however, a newer member asked for everyone’s attention before she left. She lamented that being referred to as queer made her uncomfortable and that “no other group refers to themselves by their slur”. We ask her what word she would be more comfortable with. She simply says, “I don’t know. The community or something”. Then she storms off, never to come back. I now realize queer isn’t a positive word to everyone in the LGBTQ+ community.

***

Beyond definitions concerned with unconventional sexualities and gender identities and shame, queer holds meaning beyond its definition which is both personal and emotional. For me, queer is personal word. I identify with queer over any other term used to describe sexuality, such as lesbian, gay, or bisexual. As one of the participants in Gonzalez et al.’s (2014) study explains, “my sexuality in general is just really fluid and it’s really hard to identify myself in one particular box for very long at all” (p. 425). I have always felt the same way and I cope with this by labeling myself as queer. Queer offers me flexibility in my identity while the set definitions of lesbian, gay, and bisexual do not suit me. Queer is how I live my everyday life. I see and examine all things through queerness; it is my pride-flag-lensed glasses which I cannot remove, which I would not want to remove. I can recall many stories that revolve around a feeling I would characterize as Adam’s (2014) “queer melancholy” in which a queer person experiences “a prolonged sadness heavily informed by [their] same-sex attraction and others’ reaction to/lack of acknowledgement of this attraction” (p. 70). Despite this, I would never characterize my queer experience in a negative way. There is also queer pride, queer happiness, and queer love, each of which is perhaps more important than any queer suffering. These attributes humanize the queer and make it existence that is not solely about struggling and suffering.

Who is queer? My simple answer is anyone who self-identifies as such. However, pinpointing the exact number of queer people is an extremely difficult task. Numbers that float around popular culture such as “10 percent of the population is homosexual” (Serwatka 2010 p. 26) come from a study whose samples did not accurately reflect the population. These participants “were predominantly white, they voluntarily signed up to be in a study on sexual attitudes and activities, and they included a higher percentage of college students […] as well as an overrepresentation of volunteers who had been in the prison system” (Serwatka 2010 p. 26). One of the main challenges in counting queer people is that some queer people would not like to publicly disclose themselves as queer for a variety of reasons such as reputation, shame, or fear.

Why does having a statistic to point to matter? Even with an accurate statistic, pointing out the flaws in someone’s own perception rarely ends with them believing differently. A population statistic would not win over any extra support for the queer community and it would not win us greater rights. Serwatka (2010) asks the question: “Would we as a society predicate granting civil rights based on the percentage of population that fits into a given category?” (p. 31). Even if the queer people could be precisely counted, would it matter since personal perspectives dictate perception? Some environments cause people to believe queerness is incredibly rare, even nonexistent. What use would it be for someone who does not know a single queer person and does not care to know that somewhere out there exists some number of queer people? Others are surrounded by mostly queer people. What would it matter to a queer person surrounded by queer friends that they are just a sliver of the population?

I have been in both places. My graduating class in high school had forty people in it and the entire school just 280. It served mostly poorer students from four somewhat urban neighborhoods and one rural one. Most of the students had no thought of attending college of any kind. During my time there, I was the only queer person I knew. I often wondered how I would find anyone like me. Then, I started attending a college-prep program. I quickly made a friend group of a dozen students, seven of which—over fifty percent–identified as queer. This program was strictly poorer students from a variety of urban, suburban, and rural areas. However, all students in the program were seeking a college education. Serwatka (2010) points out college education as one of the factors the flawed study on the queer population focused on too heavily, which possibly caused an overrepresentation of queer people (p. 26). This logic could also account for the high number of queer students I met in my college prep program.

The Misunderstandings

You attend a tiny, decaying school. There are less than 300 students in seventh through twelfth grade. You enter the cafeteria and sit alone at your table until they make everyone return to their assigned seats. You wish that they didn’t. The five seventh grade boys also assigned to your table return. The chatter of your peers bothers you. It’s too gossipy and sexual.

“Did you hear that Jasmin in pregnant?”

“Kay and I are really getting close if you know what I mean.”

And then they turn to you when you ask them to stop being so disgusting.

“You’re just a lesbian, just shut the fuck up.”

Why do they call you this awful word? You are not this word. You know they use it to mark you as different and you know that you are different from them. But this word, lesbian, that is not you and you hate that they use this word.

***

When I was experiencing this scenario almost daily, I had no formed thoughts and statements to defend myself with. At this point in seventh grade I only knew I was different somehow. I had no way of countering their assertions that I was a lesbian other than a defeated “No I’m not”. I had yet to form a coherent idea of my own sexuality, I simply knew I was not straight. However, in the minds of the boys that called me a lesbian, not straight was always equal to being gay (or in the case of a girl, a lesbian). Telling them I was “not straight” would be the equivalent of agreeing that I was a lesbian.

Many queer youths experience a struggle somewhat like this when their identity is not fully formed. A participant in Higa et al.’s (2012) study on queer youth recalled their own experience of being misunderstood yet not being able to defend their identity:

And I was like “Did you just call me a faggot?” And he’s like, “So, you are then?” I was like, “What does it matter?” because in my mind maybe I was bi but it wasn’t like a fully developed thought. I wasn’t out to myself yet and I wasn’t out to anyone else yet. (p. 673).

Not knowing fully who you are and being unable to defend yourself against others’ assertions about your identity are common experiences in queer youth culture.

***

It was in February of 2013, during the middle of eighth grade, that I started realizing it was indeed my sexuality that made me different. I spent hours googling on my iPod touch.

“why don’t i like boys yet”

“is it normal for girls not to like boys”

“is it normal to have a crush on your best friend (girl)”

and eventually

“what is a lesbian”

“what is bisexual”

Although I had never had a crush on a boy in my life, I felt that the word lesbian wasn’t right. I chose to call myself bisexual. The first person I ever told was my same-age neighbor James while we were sled riding. It went like this:

Me: Hey James.

James: Yeah?

M: You want to know something about me?

J: What?

M: I’m bisexual.

J: … Does that mean you want to date my sister?

M: Your sister is nine…

J: Is that a yes or a no?

M: It’s definitely a NO!

This was my first “coming out” experience. It wasn’t emotional or traumatizing, yet it wasn’t happy and positive. It was incredibly frustrating. I sat at home for days while his reply stewed in my mind— “Does that mean you want to date my sister?”. I was thirteen years old, why on earth would anyone think that I would have a crush on a nine-year-old? This and my constant torment for “being” a lesbian, although I would fight that label constantly, were my first tastes of being misunderstood.

***

You just want to hide your face. Health class is the worst class for all ninth-grade students, but it is especially horrible for you. Your teacher is talking about sex, pregnancy, and childbirth. It tortures your bisexual-but-never-ever-wanted-anything-to-do-with-boys mind to hear her talk and include you in a group you are not a part of.

“Okay girls, so when you get pregnant, this is what happens to your bodies.”

She shows an illustration of a pregnant woman’s profile that shows her internal organs smashed together to make room for her fetus.

“And when it’s time for you give birth, the baby’s head, which is the size of this ball…” She holds up a foam basketball, meant to approximate the size of an infant’s head.

“…Has to fit it through your cervix, which is, guess how big it is before it dilates.”

She looks around the room of boys and girls avoiding eye contact with her. She takes a pencil from the cup on her desk.

“It is as big as the eraser of this pencil.”

The words she uses that sound so sure of your future as a mother just because you’re female make your stomach turn. Why does everyone think they know your future? They don’t even know you.

***

Health class, where anatomy and sexual are formally discussed in school is difficult for queer students for a variety of reasons. Gowen and Winges-Yanez (2014) define three challenges that queer students face in their sexual education in school: “silencing”, “heterocentricity”, and “pathologizing” (p. 791-792). Silencing occurs when either “LGBTQ discourse [is] completely absent from the sexuality education curricula” (passive silencing) or “LGBTQ youths were silenced by another” (active silencing) (Gowen & Winges-Yanez, 2014, p. 791). Heterocentricity is when “heterosexuality [is] the perceived norm” (Gowen & Winges-Yanez, 2014, p. 792). Pathologizing is when “sexual orientation [is] addressed in classrooms but with a pathologizing narrative, pairing sexual orientation […] with being at risk for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) or other STIs” (Gowen & Winges-Yanez, 2014, p. 792). In my health class I encountered passive silencing and heterocentricity. Queer people were never mentioned in my class. It was as if we didn’t exist. Like many queer students, I felt completely erased by a class about sexuality that only focused on one type of sex.

From personal interactions to the larger systems at work, queer people are often living through many misunderstandings. The middle/high school environment are especially prone to misunderstandings of queer people since the students are often misinformed or ill-informed on queerness. Here I have illustrated three of my experiences of various forms of misunderstandings, from simple confusions about the meaning of my queer identity to complete erasure of queer identities in school, which (wrongly) implies queerness is an oddity and promotes further misunderstandings later in life due to lack of education. To avoid misunderstanding, or better, to promote understanding, the queer students in Gonzalez et al.’s (2014) study “described wanting educators to support TQQ [transgender, queer, and questioning] students to start a Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) organization” (p. 429). However, in my experience GSAs are only as helpful in promoting understanding as much as the straight and cisgender students will allow it to be. My school did not have a GSA. I often wondered what school would be like if we did. Who would run it? Which teacher is the most open-minded here? Ms. R, probably. Who would be in it? Would any straight and/or cisgender students come? Probably not many. Would it even help this school become a better place, then? Probably not.

The Sleepover

Your best friend Blaise meets you at your locker. Your other friend Rowan follows behind her.

“Both of you, text your moms now to make sure you can sleep over,” Blaise commands once she has your attention.

When you and Rowan each receive the okay from your mothers, Blaise leads you up the small hill to her house. The Philip’s home stands out from every other home on the street: pink, with a green roof and a red front porch. You march in the house and go immediately up the stairs while Blaise’s father stands by, handing each of you a can of your favorite sodas as you pass.

“There’s my girls! How was school?” he coos over all of you as if you are all his own triplet daughters. You each mumble “good” as you reached the top of the stairs and enter your middle school girls’ paradise.

This room is the dream sleepover spot to the three of you at thirteen years old. The master bedroom is alone on the second level of Blaise’s family home. It is filled with old wooden furniture with ornate carvings that once belonged to her great grandmother who had lived in the same house. Everything on the side of the room facing the street leans slightly forward because the floor beneath your feet bowed slightly with age. The walls are paneled with a light-colored wood and then finger-painted over with the creations of the four Philip’s children’s imaginations. At the foot of the king-sized bed there is an air mattress perpetually inflated because of the frequency of your sleepovers. The air mattress is yours—Blaise and Rowan share the bed. You enjoy the company of you two friends, however, you tend to feel like an outsider. This is not because of the bed situation, nor is it because Blaise and Rowan already had a five-year friendship when you came into the picture. Despite your close bond, there is one thing that the two of them enjoy that you do not.

“I know! Let’s go on Omegle!” Blaise exclaims after you have had your fill of watching “My Strange Addiction” for a few hours.

“Yes! Oh my god! I love to meet boys on there!” Rowan replies as they open their laptops and go on the website.

You see the familiar header load on their screens: “Omegle: Talk to strangers!”. This is the point at which you retire to your air mattress for the night as they inevitably choose this activity every weekend. You lay down using the three-foot-long stuffed pony as your pillow and go on Tumblr on your iPod touch. Some time passes before your friends suddenly pounce on your air mattress, startling you from your sleep.

“Why are you sleeping?” they whine in unison, “Be fun! Omegle with us!”

“I don’t want to do that,” you tell them, offering no other explanation.

“Why not?” Blaise asks, her voice now less whiny and more demanding.

“Because I don’t like to do that. I don’t like talking to strangers…” a moment later you daringly add on

“And I don’t like talking to boys!”.

***

This was the moment of my first, small act of rejecting the heteronormativity that surrounded me, but it was not interpreted as such. In fact, it seemed to have an opposite effect.

“Why not?” Blaise pried, “Is it because you have a crush on a boy at school?”

“No,” I replied.

I thought to myself about how I just didn’t like any boys and I never had, but these two just didn’t get it. Maybe it was because I had never outright told them at that point. Rowan stared at me for a moment before her face lit up like she had just made a scientific breakthrough.

“I think Brynne likes Jacob! You know the way she laughs at his jokes!” she giggled.

“But do you know the way she laughs at David’s jokes?” Blaise giggled along with her.

“I think she likes him!”

I resented this. Why couldn’t I just laugh at a boy’s jokes without it having to be a crush?

They looked at me to confirm their suspicions or defend myself against them. But because of my embarrassment and my anger for being interrogated and implicated in the culture of middle school crushes like this I couldn’t say anything.

“Jacob AND David!” they chanted.

“Jacob AND David!”

“You like Jacob and David!”

I had no ability to defend myself from these antagonizing accusations of heterosexuality, and even if I had attempted it would have only intensified the taunting. That is how my “crush” on James and David that lasted throughout eighth and ninth grade came to be; I was not assertive enough to tell my friends that I was never attracted to any boy. I used this crush they created for me as a façade throughout those two years, because it was easier to just nonchalantly tell other girls who questioned me “Yeah, I have a crush on James” than to try and explain that I was not like them, that I wasn’t straight.

***

This passage is an interaction between three cisgender girls at age thirteen. It reflects what I have experienced as typical “sleepover talk”, which is ubiquitous among this gender and age group. The expectation of thirteen-year-old girls at sleepovers is that they will talk about their crushes on boys. My queerness conflicts with the expectation of attraction for my gender. Most people expect that I am attracted to males by default and that anything else is at best unusual and at worst unnatural or an abomination. My main concern with revealing my queerness to my friends at this time was fear that they would dismiss my queerness altogether. Like the queer students participating in Gonzalez et al’s (2014) study I “[was] concerned that because [I] did not want others to minimize [my] experiences and expressions as ‘trends’ or ‘fads’ or less than valuable” (p. 425). Some of the most frustrating experiences concerning my sexuality were when others claimed that my identity wasn’t “real” or that I “would change my mind eventually”.

The Queer Resiliency

During your senior year you are repeatedly bullied by a guy who had graduated the previous year. He had never liked you, and you had never liked him. When he found out you were queer, his taunting went from solely appearance-based to appearance and sexuality based. Like many he asserted that you were a lesbian. However, his taunts included claims your queerness was caused by men having no interest in you. When you asserted that you did not care whether men were interested in you or not he moved on to claiming no woman would ever be attracted to you either because “even lesbians have standards”. You find this taunt to be entertaining because little did he know that you had had two different partners that year, one female and the other gender nonconforming.

***

Resiliency—being able to bounce back from times of emotional distress or other hardship—is a key trait that the queer community shares. This idea often discussed in SAGA meetings and framed as a way to cope with living as a queer person: most queer people will face some sort of hardship relating to their identity in their lives and learning to live through it is a survival skill. This is especially true when it seems that the whole world is against you, in cases of legal or widespread social stigma. A participant in Higa et al.’s (2012) study wonderfully summarizes their experience of queer resiliency: “I have strong internal principles. I have faced enough adversity over the years in various forms […] I owe it to myself to make something out of it” (p. 673). However, resiliency does not always equal relief, especially in cases of legal obstacles. Sometimes the world must change and change it does.

***

I sit with my twelve friends at dinner in Torvian Hall on the campus of Saint Francis University, it is June 26th, 2015. Our Upward Bound summer program had just started. We were excited for our six weeks of college prep. My friend Maddy gets up to fill her plate Something catches our attention on the TV above our heads. CNN plays at every meal but this time there is something interesting to hear. The eleven of us still at the table, six queer, five straight, stare up at the TV in disbelief.

We look at each other.

It can’t be real.

The best news of the decade!

The best news of the century!

And we’re hearing it live on TV!

It’s a day to remember.

Maddy returns to us with a full plate. She looks around and sees the joy on each of our faces.

“What happened?” she asks.

“The Supreme Court just legalized gay marriage today,” Abby smiles at her as she delivers the news.

Maddy sets down her plate and puts her hands to her face as joyful tears fill her eyes.

“So that means… I can actually get married…” she says softly.

June 26th, 2015 was a day when we did not have to be resilient in the face of oppression. It was a day of queer joy in my group and for people across the country. The decision in the case Obergefell v. Hodges changed my view of my future. It was my first experience where it was proven to me that the world can change for the better.

The Queer Melancholy

You lay in your bed as the tears pour from your eyes. It is the night of prom your senior year. Why are you crying? You didn’t want to go anyway. Or did you just tell yourself that because you knew no one would go with you? Or that you knew you couldn’t really be considered “with” the person you would have gone with? Or was it because the girl you would have gone with went behind your back with another girl and you were left behind? You know you have to break it off with her but you’ll wait until the morning so you don’t ruin her night; you’re so polite like that. But what does it matter if you’re “together” or not if you’re not even out? You cry some more and when you finally get up to get ready to do your mandatory service hours at post-prom your head will not stop pounding.

***

Why did I cry that night? I am not the person who would care about missing prom. I would characterize it as a bout of what Adams (2014) calls “queer melancholy, a prolonged sadness heavily informed by my same-sex attraction and others’ reaction to/lack of acknowledgement for this attraction” (p. 70). I felt defeated. I was having a relationship problem and had nowhere to turn where I could find support because that relationship was a queer one. That relationship was detrimental to my wellbeing and unlike many of my straight peers, I couldn’t talk to anyone about how it was hurting me. At the time, I certainly had the opposite experience of this participant in Higa et al.’s (2012) study on queer youth who said, “I think that your best bet for people that are going to accept you and that are going to help you out— when you’re going through trouble is going to your friends” (p. 673). My friends did not outright reject me, but their lack of acknowledge of my queer identity after years of bringing it up assured me that they would not be the people to help me out.

The Queer Joy

You sit in your weekly SAGA meetings. Over and over again the group discusses queer representation in the media.

“I just want queer characters that aren’t sad,” someone comments.

“And don’t die,” another adds.

They throw around the phrase, “the tragic queer”. You see it everywhere in media. Queer people not finding love or even dying, anything but happiness. Anything but a joyous representation of a queer person. You just want a wide variety of representation, but little seems to exist. The group is fed up with it. You’re fed up with it. It’s time that people begin to add queer joy to the media. But you’re not a part of the media. So, you write it here instead.

***

Earlier, I explained my struggle to find a label that suited me and have shown myself move between labels: lesbian (even though it was forced on me), bisexual (although it seemed to imply more attraction to males that I had experienced), and finally queer. One of most joyous queer stories involves myself coming to the word queer through the developing relationship between me and my boyfriend, Calvin.

***

At age fifteen I attended a trip to Cedar Point with the Upward Bound Program, a college-prep program for low-income high school students. The student body poured out of Torvian Dining Hall early that Thursday morning. Boarding UB buses was always an ordeal. Everyone wanted to make sure they got on the bus with their group of friends or their favorite staff members. Suitcases and backpacks in tow, I followed my friends outside. The first bus, with our favorite staff member, Kim, was rapidly filling up. Seven of us trying to get good seats on Kim’s bus would never happen.

“Guys, there is no way we are going to fit on Kim’s bus. We should all just get on the second bus,” Shelby addressed the group.

Everyone murmured in agreement, after all Shelby was the de facto leader of the group. Our group began to board the second bus, but Calvin was ready to board the first bus on his own. I decided to follow him; I didn’t want him to spend two days riding alone. This decision lead to hours of conversation.

I caught myself falling for Calvin by the time we arrived at the hotel in Michigan for the night. He allowed me to be myself unlike anyone ever had. I was loud, I had a dirty sense of humor, I thought that a cheap water wiggler toy, a tube of thin plastic filled with colored water, was the most hilarious item in existence. And so did he. After spending an entire three-hour bus ride to our destination crying from laughter over a cheap toy together, I knew that he was a special person.

***

At the time, Calvin was presenting female. I was so used to being told by everyone who wanted to label me that I was a lesbian, yet I rejected that word and I rejected it fiercely. I fell for Calvin before I was aware of his transgender male identity and was still attracted to him after he came out. It was plain to me that since I am attracted to him that I am not lesbian at all. After years of it being asserted that I was a lesbian, having something as concrete as my attraction to a masculine person is validating.

My experiences with Calvin from that day through the present exemplify the potential of queer joy, an experience that once seemed so rare. Defining my attraction to him as a masculine person who is not a cisgender male lead me to use the label queer, a word I feel right using to describe myself and allows adequate room for my sexuality to be fluid. As a queer suburban youth in Gowen & Winges-Yanez’s (2014) study put it, ““Everyone’s on a spectrum, which I really think is important to get across to people” (p. 788). Unlike other terms (gay/lesbian, bisexual, straight), queer allows me to be where I am comfortable—pinpointed nowhere and allowed to exist everywhere on the spectrum. After five years I no longer feel like I am settling on an identity that doesn’t suit me. Finally being comfortable in a label and finding happiness are examples of the queer joy that the media ignores. If more joyful queer stories, such as mine, perhaps real-life occurrences of queer melancholy and the tragic queer would be less common.

The Coming Out

You avoid eye contact, you hardly speak, your parents look at you and you feel fake. You’re seven months into a relationship and you know you want this one to last forever. But is telling your parents an option when you’re queer? You’re not out to them yet, after all. You stand in the parking lot, ready to say goodbye until May. Your mother starts to cry. You ask her what’s wrong. She reveals to you that she can tell something is on your mind. She thinks that it is you don’t want to stay at college anymore. You tell her that’s not it. You stare at your feet.

You’ve made your mother cry.

The truth spills from your lips. Five years of queerness, five years of secrets, five years of shame. You tell the story of how you came to love a transgender guy who your parents thought was a female best friend. Your parents hug you in the parking lot.

They accept you, they understand, they love you.

You cry louder and tell them your biggest fear: that they would leave you at college and reject you forever. They promise that they’ll be back in May. You return to your dorm and cry more. You cry from relief. You cry because maybe five years of secrets and shame didn’t have to be.

***

I finally came out to my parents on March 18th, 2018. It was a five-year long journey from discovering my own queerness to reaching the point I couldn’t keep it inside any longer. The biggest obstacle that kept me from coming out was the shame that is associated with queerness. In her book, “Queer Attachments: The Cultural Politics of Shame”, Munt (2008) asserts that “[s]hame can become embedded in the self like a succubus” (p. 2). Shame in my family life was certainly a succubus in my life and a factor in my long-standing closeted-ness. As Munt (2008) describes “[Shame] is characterized by a fall from a higher status to a perceived lower, adverse one” (p. 80). I feared losing my much-valued status with my parents. I feared losing their support, their pride, and their love, all things that I have seen and heard other queer people lose from their own parents. The shame of not being good enough to keep my status with my parents weighed on me for years. Being queer exposed me to additional risk of shame because “internalized homophobia causes us to suffer (rightly) in the belief that we are not absolute citizens, that the entitlement to participate in the fully human has been denied” (Munt 2008, p. 80). Embracing one’s queer identity personally does not mean that the queer person is not fearful for their position in their family or society.

The Ongoing

Being queer is part of my life that will never end. I will always make choices between silencing part of my identity or explain myself to others. I am used to coming out again and again. As Adams (2014) explains, “[o]ut-ness is not a one-time affair but is instead contingent upon relationship” (p. 62). Each new person I meet will come with a choice: come out or stay in? It is impossible for this autoethnography to have a solid conclusion. How could a story that is still being written be concluded? Just as coming out in an ongoing process, my queer self is an ongoing story. It is a story of misunderstandings, melancholy, and most importantly, joy. But unlike my queer self, my queer autoethnography comes to a close.

References

Adams, T. E. (2014). Post-coming out complications. In R. M. Boylorn & M. P. Orbe (Eds.) Critical autoethnography; Intersecting cultural identities in everyday life. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, Inc.

Adams, T. E., Holman Jones, S., & Ellis, C. (2015). Autoethnography. New York, NY: Oxford

UP.

Gonzalez, M., Johnson C.W., Singh A.A. (2014). It’s complicated: Collective memories of transgender, queer, and questioning youth in high school. Journal of Homosexuality, 61(3), 419-434. doi:10.1080/00918369.2013.842436

Gowen, L.K., & Winges-Yanez N. (2014). Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning youths’ perspectives of inclusive school-based sexuality education. Journal of Sex Research, 51(7), 788-800. doi:10.1080/00224499.2013.806648

Higa, D., Hoppe M.J., Lindhorst T., Mincer, S., Beadnell, B., Morrison, D.M., ... Mountz, S. (2012). Negative and positive factors associated with the well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth. Youth & Society, 46(5), 663-687. doi: 10.1177/0044118X12449630

Jagose, A. (2005). Queer Theory. In M. C. Horowitz (Ed.), New Dictionary of the History of Ideas (Vol. 5, 1980-1985). Detroit, MI: Charles Scribner's Sons. Retrieved from



Munt, S.R. (2008). Queer attachments. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company.

Serwatka, T. (2010). Queer questions, clear answers. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, LLC.

Tolich, M., (2010) “A critique of current practice: Ten foundational guidelines for autoethnographers. Qualitative Health Research, 20(12), 1599-1610.

Connections II Category

Whitesell Prize Honorable Mention

“Views from outside of Africa”

Rasheed Adewole

CNX233; Professor Hopkins

…

Our perspectives are shaped by the environment and what revolves around us. It is easier for a native African “insider” to write from the perspective of an outsider – one who is not African or who have been away for a period -- than for an outsider to narrate an insider’s perspective. Léopold Sédar Senghor was born in Senegal but spent most of his adult life in France. Senghor’s intellectual development included reading influential European poets such as “Baudelaire, Paul Claudel, and Saint-John Perse,” whose works Senghor used as “scholarly and artistic support” for his developing ideas (Dixon, xxvii). It was nonetheless important to him to try to retain a connection to his African origins, as exemplified in his famous quote, “assimilate, but don’t be assimilated.” (Dixon, xxii). Despite his desire not to be assimilated, his poetry shows his strong stylistic connection to the European poets who influenced him and his experiences as a naturalized citizen of France. Senghor’s poems “Black Woman” and “In Memoriam” betray the way his long residence in Europe and assimilation into European culture turned him into an African outsider – although one who struggled, ultimately, with his dual identity.

In the poem titled “Black Woman,” Senghor writes about black women, while referring to African women, with the comparison and writing style of an outsider. Writing “[r]ipe fruit with firm flesh, dark raptures of black wine,” Senghor compares black women’ skin to a dark wine (Line 12). Although Africa today is not without some wines, at the time the wine metaphor was much more in line with the culture and literature of Europeans, and countries that are famous for wine production, such as France and Italy. An insider, a person born and residing in Africa, would be unlikely to use wine metaphors, as opposed to something more strongly associated with Africa. Senghor makes the same kind of comparison when he writes, “before jealous Fate reduces you to ashes to nourish the roots of life” (Line 33). Burning corpses as a way to cremate individuals is not a widely common practice in African countries, rather cremation is a long tradition of Europeans.

Senghor’s poems do not exhibit the perspective of an insider because the poems lack authentic African imagery. To begin with, Senghor’s decision to title his poem “Black Woman” gives the impression of an outsider. An insider knows that there is no such thing as being a “Black Woman” in Africa – African women are black – but Senghor has chosen to write about their color as if it were somehow an alien attribute to be appreciated. The color problem is a European invention and is almost always used by Europeans or an outsider when referring to people from sub-Saharan Africa and their descendants.

Senghor writes about Africa in ways that he can relate to as an outsider. He seems to have been stripped of his insider perspective as he describes Africa to his readers (predominantly Europeans), particularly in the visual representations he uses – things that European readers would understand, such as “pearls” (Line 24). An insider perspective, on the other hand, would associate a black woman with visual images of staples that are more identifiably African. Similarly, an insider’s way of communicating to the outside continents would use native tone or unique words that insiders would immediately understand. An outsider trying to use words that only insiders will understand must dig deeper and try to understand the etymology of the words, which leads to more uncovering of a culture by an outsider. Senghor’s perspective of Africa has been shaped by most of his time spent outside of Africa, therefore he is inclined to speak from an outsider perspective.

Senghor’s poem, “In Memoriam” seems to show Senghor struggling with this very outsider status. In Memoriam is about Senghor and his struggles with trying to reach the insider perspective which he once had as an African. When he writes, “I contemplate my dreams lost along the streets,” Senghor is thinking deeply, as he contemplates, of many things that he wished to accomplish as an African immigrant, but he has “lost” because of his assimilation and the new conditions he has to face (Line 10). His point of emphasis is on the frustration of losing a personal connection to something. How could he have lost this? Perhaps there is a higher power controlling a certain aspect of his life or trying to deter him from his dreams. This sounds to me like the condition that blacks in countries outside of Africa have been faced with.

The poem “In Memoriam” also depicts Senghor as an imposter trying to write like an insider with an outsider perspective. Senghor writes, “[f]rom my glass tower filled with headaches and impatient Ancestors” (Line 3). He is in a glass tower that separates him from the “dead [who] are asleep and [his] dreams [that] turn to ashes” (Line 6). In other words, Senghor reveals how his privilege as an educated descendant of Africans separated him from his dead ancestors, who are black, and other living descendants in Africa. If he chooses to live like the rest of the Africans abroad whose “dreams [were also] lost along the streets], he assumes that his ability to impress his dead ancestors will turn into “ashes,” hence unachievable (Line 6). Furthermore, he writes “let me leave this tower so dangerously secure, and descend to the streets, joining my brothers, who have blue eyes and hard hands” (Line 23). In this line, Senghor finally stops shielding away from his reality and starts to confront his new reality as an outsider, while suggesting the need for Africans (black people) and Europeans (white people) to exist side-by-side. He knows he is African and his attempts to learn about his new environment without being assimilated have cut him off from his African self. He thinks he is just a human amongst humans, by going among the Europeans as an African and not assimilating or cutting himself off from his African dead, he may be subjecting himself to the hatred or “stone” indifference of the men with blue eyes and hatred in their hearts. His new found struggles transcend borders and helped him realize that he is now a citizen of the world while writing from the European (outsider) perspective in “In Memoriam.”

  The transition from “Black Woman” to “In Memoriam” divulge Senghor’s outsider perspective. Not only did Senghor make several comparisons in the poems with a false sense of Africa, but he also wrote about his struggle with finding the insider perspective he once had as a Senegal native. The poems were an insight into his European experience and written from an African poet trying to write about Africa the way a European would write about Africa– an outsider’s perspective.

Cited source:

Dixon, Melvin. “The Collected Poetry.” University Press of Virginia 1991. Print.

Connections II Category

Whitesell Prize Honorable Mention

“Is Social Identity More Influential on Climate Change Beliefs than Scientific Literacy?”

Bonnie Page

CNX245; Professor Ciuk

…

In modern United States society there is an overwhelming amount of disagreement and partisanship amongst a wide range of societal issues. From the topics of gun rights, to international affairs, and to reproductive rights, there is a distinct level of division between the Conservative and Liberal sides of American politics today, and the divide only appears to be exacerbating. Amongst these highly debated topics resides anthropogenic climate change, the belief that climate change is a human caused phenomena. Although there are copious amounts of scientific research and a strong scientific consensus that anthropogenic climate change is not only real but also a major threat to humanity and the diversity of life, it is a heavily debated and politically heated topic that receives immense amounts of criticism.

The topic of climate change originated from the discovery of greenhouse gases by Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier, a French mathematician and physicist (Harding, 2007). Fourier was curious as to how the earth could keep a steady temperature, and why the sun did not simply heat earth until it reached the same temperature. Fourier then theorized that the heated surface of the earth emits invisible infrared radiation, which carries the heat energy away into space. Additionally, and most importantly, Fourier recognized that certain gases in the atmosphere worked to trap these heat particles, which is why not all of the heat is released from the earth’s surface and the climate is kept at a relative average of approximately 59 ℉. Although his theory was fairly elementary due to Fourier’s lack of theoretical tools and information, society began to follow this idea that the atmosphere acted like a greenhouse when regulating its temperature. While the Industrial Revolution was growing however, the majority of the public did not focus as much on the potential for climate change, nor did the average person consider the consequences of a warmer climate. Thus, the idea of climate change lost its relevance until 1938, when Guy S Callender suggested that the warming trend revealed in the 19th century had been caused by a 10% increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels (Harding, 2007). However, there was still little concern due to the fact that many scientists still believed that the ocean was entirely capable of absorbing and utilizing the excess CO2 emissions. It was not until the 1950s that broader scientific research was implemented, such as regular and accurate measurements of CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere, and scientists began to believe that the industrialization of society could have a significant effect on the carbon cycle, and thus the climate (Baes, 310).

With a plethora of evidence from experienced researchers that range from fields of astrophysics to biology and a miniscule amount of climate denial from qualified scientists, it is a wonder as to why over 50% of the United States population is not concerned about the effects of climate change, while a shocking 37% actively deny climate change (The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, 2014). Despite the strong scientific consensus that climate change is a dangerous threat that is believed to be induced by humans, the public is still unconvinced that there is any preventable threat on the rise (Oreskes, 2004). Many researchers question which factors are most effective in creating the divide between the scientific consensus and the majority of the population in regards to climate change denial. There are many determining factors at hand, however it seems that the most influential ones focus upon political stance, education, religion, and scientific literacy. While these topics are all intercorrelated and nuanced, there appears to be a divide amongst researchers in terms of which elements need to be addressed when fighting the battle of climate change denial.

The factors that affect climate change beliefs within this realm of research can essentially be summed into two categories; scientific literacy and social identity. It is generally believed that scientific literacy or science education is the pathway to ending bias and apathy in regards to scientific beliefs. Typically, it is assumed that the more fluent an individual is within their scientific literacy and abilities to critically analyze data and use logic and reasoning skills, the more likely they are to come to a consensus with the findings. Additionally, logic and reasoning seem to be fairly explicit in terms of their definitions, being the ability to follow valid reasoning and use said reasoning to come to a conclusion. However, this is not the case, and the researchers that study scientific literacy understand this. Some researchers believe that scientific literacy is still a very relevant force for teaching the general public about the importance of science for coming to a well-reasoned consensus (DeBoer, 2000; Norris, 2003; Anderson, 2013).

One of the main issues with scientific literacy is that it has yet to be defined by the scientific community, despite various efforts. DeBoer claims that there are a number of reasons that scientific literacy has escaped a precise definition, one of the most important being “the fact that scientific literacy is a broad concept encompassing many historically significant educational themes that have shifted over time” (DeBoer, 2000). Additionally, some writers have even admitted that it may be no more than a useful slogan to rally educators to support more and better science teaching (Bybee, 1997). Thus, it is believed that scientific literacy is still highly relevant and important, however it must be communicated in its most fundamental sense, rather than a derived sense that is only relevant to science knowledge instead of literacy (Norris, 2003). It is believed that with a proper definition of scientific literacy that scientific education and scientific literacy could act as a unifier between partisan communities.

The divide in opinion becomes relevant when it polarizes the approach to the solution. Social identity theory says a lot about citizens make difficult decisions, and it is believed that these personal decisions are affected much more by the biases of their community than their own personal beliefs and experiences (Caplan, 2007). Many researchers have devoted their time to discovering how social identity and partisanship affects the decision making abilities of an individual in a community, and they believe that scientific literacy is not the determining factor in how one perceives climate change and related scientifically based phenomena (Kahan et al, 2012; Benjamin, 2016). Instead, this perspective indicates that climate change denial is a direct effect of social identity instead of an issue of scientific literacy. These researchers claim that the human desire to be accepted is so intrinsic to personal decision making that the decisions ultimately become impersonal, and the beliefs in climate change become a matter of what an individual’s community perceives as the truth, rather than what the individual has encountered through educational means. Therefore, this perspective views the issue as being much more easily resolved if the scientific community did not focus as much on the factor of scientific literacy, but instead on pursuing how to disengage social frames to aid the public in their interpretation of scientific literature.

Although both sides of the debate are ultimately fighting for the same outcome—being the formation of a society that actively condemns climate change denial instead of pursuing it—they are pursuing different routes to reach the solution. With significant research being performed within both realms of the issue, it is clear that both are relevant and make informed and analyzed claims about the solution. However, considering the multitude of studies and articles that have evolved from this discussion, it is a wonder as to why there is such a strong lack of consensus on the topic of climate change and many other scientifically based issues. Is scientific literacy still a relevant topic today that can be redefined in order to combat climate change denial? Or, is social identity a much stronger component than scientific literacy, and is the solution best discovered through the analysis of social frames and partisanship? These questions appear to be left unanswered, and a link between them is quite necessary in finding a permanent solution to the deactivation of climate change denial. Thus, the question proposed in this essay focuses on whether or not social identity is more influential than scientific literacy when addressing climate change beliefs.

The researchers who claim that scientific literacy is still a relevant and useful tool for combating climate change denial claim that there needs to be a comprehensive definition that encapsulates the goals of the scientific community. Despite that scientific literacy still lacks a clear definition today, there are expert claims regarding what the definition should capture. Essentially, scientific literacy should focus upon the abilities of individuals to analyze and interpret the data provided as well as be a tool for recognizing faulty information that is not backed by significant claims built on scientific reasoning. One source defines scientific literacy as “being able to read with understanding articles about science in the popular press” (Shortland, 1988). Another source claims that the “science curriculum should provide sufficient scientific knowledge and understanding to enable students to read simple newspaper articles about science” (Millar, 1998). Essentially, these definitions imply that scientific literacy is about reading and understanding scientific material in the clearest and most unbiased way attainable. It is not a matter of only hearing perceived beliefs about science, but it is a matter of having the ability to decipher and interpret a scientific literary piece and thoroughly understand the piece as the author/researcher intended. One cannot simply interpret the piece in a way that obscures the meaning in order to fit it to their own prior and biased opinion about a topic. True scientific literacy is being able to have any individual read an article about climate change and have them reach the same conclusion. It does not necessarily mean that they cannot question said conclusion, but they absolutely must be interpreting it correctly and wholly as the author intended before they criticize it.

Furthermore, scientific literacy is something that must be developed. In order to be literate, one must be experienced with reading scientific text and understanding scientific connections through knowledge. Without this fundamental aspect, scientific literacy can be condensed into mere scientific knowledge alone. Norris and Phillips, researchers who described the fundamental basis of scientific literacy as literacy in the sense of reading and writing, believed that “traditional science education does not attend to literacy in the manner we have described, at the risk that students never will fully grasp the point and significance of scientific knowledge” (Norris, 2003). To know about an isolated component within a scientific topic, such as climate change, is not what constitutes as scientific literacy; it is being able to understand why a topic is important, what its antecedents were, and how it is connected with other disciplines in science. It is firstly being able to read and write effectively, and secondly being able to use that primary sense of literacy to transcend into scientific literacy, the development and continuation of scientific knowledge through an unbiased and curious approach.

Lastly, scientific literacy is not isolated only to those who desire to work in scientific realms. In 1982, the National Science Teachers Association stated that the goal of science education was “to develop scientifically literate individuals who understand how science, technology, and society influence one another and who are able to use this knowledge in their everyday decision-making”' (NSTA, 1982). Ultimately, scientific literacy is one of the main goals of education, and in its purest sense it can be utilized to develop society and help humanity reach conclusions that are not distorted by emotion or cognitive bias. In theory, if scientific literacy were utilized properly, it would extend towards all disciplines and help create a culture of reasoning based on fact, not on biases and personal perceptions only.

For the case of social identity, there is much less faith in pure scientific reasoning and an emphasis on how social frames impair the very nature of scientific literacy. Social identity, being defined as how an individual categorizes themself in correlation with their respective communities, is considered to be the motivating factor that makes an individual choose one side over the other. With voting as an example, it has been theorized by many researchers that voters do not act “rationally” and pick the candidate they believe to be the most qualified or most logical, but instead they pick the one that best aligns with their social identity (Caplan, 2007). Thus, there is a distinct connection between partisan identity and the way that one makes their decisions. Dan Kahan, professor of law at Yale Law School, sees a discrepancy between the way that climate scientists and other environmental activists ask their questions about climate change. Kahan and several others theorized that the issue does not lie within the partisan individual’s ability to understand the information, but instead it is within the risk of identity loss (Kahan, 2015; Saunders, 2017; Nisbet, 2009).

Through a study conducted on 1,540 United States adults, it was concluded that there is no correlation between comprehension of science and concern about climate change. Instead, results showed that “members of the public with the highest degrees of science literacy and technical reasoning capacity were not the most concerned about climate change. Rather, they were the ones among whom cultural polarization was greatest” (Kahan et al, 2012). This result suggests that such strong divisions over climate change stem not from an individual’s ability to understand science, but instead from a conflict of interest, being that of the “personal interest individuals have in forming beliefs in line with those held by others with whom they share close ties and the collective one they all share in making use of the best available science to promote common welfare” (Kahan et al, 2012). After these results were discussed, it was determined that because the issue stems from the necessity to protect one’s social identity, the issue lies not within the scientific questions being asked, but how they are being asked.

Further studies were conducted to support this point, and was concluded that individuals will answer scientific questions correctly if they are framed in a way that does not threaten their social identity (Kahan, 2015). Other studies showed social impacts as well, such as one where conservative white men were determined to be more likely than other Americans to report climate change denial. The conservative white men who reported that they had a strong understanding of science were even more likely to deny climate change (McCright, 2011). With what is known about identity protective theory, this study aligns well with the information provided about the social factors that create climate change denial. Thus, it is believed that if scientists and other climate activists could find better ways of asking climate related questions that do not imply a risk of identity defense, then more people would believe the effects of climate change.

Considering both sides of the climate change denial debate, it appears that the solution is not as simple as changing education reform or asking scientific questions in a way that protects an individual’s identity. Although social identity plays a distinct role in climate change beliefs, it is too simple to state that it has more of an effect than scientific literacy, especially considering that “social identity” is more clearly defined than “scientific literacy”. There is significant and relevant information on each side, and instead of polarizing the issue, it would be more helpful to combine the essential components of each side to reach the most effective solution. The focus cannot revolve on scientific literacy or social identity alone; there needs to be a collaborative effort that not only relates, but also unites the factors of identity, social interaction within community, scientific communication, and the goals of education. Initially, it may seem that the two sides are too polar to be combined. However, there is a strong potential for connections to occur and overlap, such as in the realm of science education focused on community identity.

In terms of science education, scientific literacy must be a personalized effort. Some researchers suggest that there is simply not enough effective environmental education programs in the country, and that in order to change climate change beliefs, people need to interact with their environment and be convinced that the science can be trusted through active analysis and scientific inquiry. Allison Anderson, a researcher who has worked with UNESCO to develop their climate change education for sustainable development strategy, claims that “climate change educational interventions are most successful when they focus on local, tangible and actionable aspects of climate change, especially those that can be addressed by individual behaviour” (Anderson, 2013). Considering this information, a connection between scientific literacy and community does not seem as polar as before. Instead, the elements of scientific literacy and and social identity could be combined. By implementing science-based learning through community-based efforts that not only build science literacy but also connect individuals to their community, perhaps the denial of climate change could be mitigated.

Additionally, no matter which side of the debate is being addressed, there is a necessity in redefining the importance of science in society. The discrepancy between the scientific community and the general public is prevalent, and there is a stigma that science is not a topic that is free of bias, but instead it is a vessel corroded with lies to manipulate and convolute the truth. Although there will always be cases in which individual scientists participate in fabrication or falsification of data for personal gain, those cases are few and far between, and they are most likely to be disrupted by scientists who are not burdened by a conflict of interest. The negative stigma that scientific consensuses are faulty or based on biased data must come to an end if society desires to progress in ways that are permanently beneficial. If science-based analysis was integrated as an essential aspect of growth, social interaction, and literary comprehension, the exacerbation between social and scientific frames could come to an end, and climate change denial would end with it.

When addressing the topic of climate change denial, it goes beyond a simple answer for the question of whether or not social identity impacts beliefs in climate change. There is evidence in support that social identity is a factor that affects climate change beliefs, however it cannot be defined as the most influential factor when assessing climate change denial. At the surface of the debate, it may seem as if the two issues are entirely disconnected. However, there are components in which overlap and correlation are apparent, such as the necessity in making science education a personalized effort.

To discover solutions that could most permanently end climate change denial, the two sides of the debate would need to incorporate their most significant findings. The most effective measures would come from a combination of expert teaching skills based on scientific reasoning and the implementation of science comprehension techniques that would not directly affect an individual’s social identity. Furthermore, there is little research within the field that focuses on directly addressing individuals about their climate change stance and correlation with social identity. Although it has the potential to be somewhat invasive of a study, if executed carefully it could provide some insight about how individuals perceive their own social biases and scientific literacy. Ultimately, social identity has a clear effect on individual climate change beliefs; if an individual is threatened or feels a disconnect from their community because of the scientific means, they are more likely to deny it. However, if proper education is combined with the ability to think independently of one’s social biases, there is a better chance that individuals could separate the scientific aspect of the issue from the social, and perhaps even enlighten their own community about the threat of climate change.

References

Anderson, A. (2013). Climate Change Education for Mitigation and Adaptation. Journal of Education for Sustainable Development, 6(2), 191-206.

The article presents evidence-based findings on the factors that influence skills, attitude and behaviour change the most, in order to determine what works for formal and non-formal climate change education content, including environmental education, climate change and scientific literacy, and education for sustainable lifestyles and consumption. The evidence shows that educational interventions are most successful when they focus on local, tangible, and actionable aspects of sustainable development, climate change and environmental education, especially those that can be addressed by individual behaviour. The article highlights remaining questions and areas of research that need to be investigated in order to guide effective climate change education policy and practice.

Baes, C., Goeller, H., Olson, J., & Rotty, R. (1977). Carbon Dioxide and Climate: The Uncontrolled Experiment: Possibly severe consequences of growing CO2 release from fossil fuels require a much better understanding of the carbon cycle, climate change, and the resulting impacts on the atmosphere. American Scientist, 65(3), 310-320. Retrieved from

This article asks about the complexities of the carbon cycle, and what information is essential for understanding how we affect it and how it affects us. Although during the 1970s it was unknown how much the CO2 emissions would increase the heating and radiation of heat on the earth, it was considered to be known that it did have some effect, which could have had larger implications (which is known today to be true). The author determines that it must be a universal effort to avoid the consequences that ensue, however they claimed that it would’ve been completely necessary to take action as far back as 1980. Whereas we are far beyond that mark today, the question is raised of what the consequences may look like today considering the lack of action taken.

Benjamin, D., Por, H., & Budescu, D. (2016). Climate Change Versus Global Warming: Who Is Susceptible to the Framing of Climate Change? Environment and Behavior, 49(7), 745-770. doi:

The authors question what the effects of partisan labeling are on climate change beliefs, as well as the framing effects of the use of the phrase "climate change" versus "global warming" and why the former tends to be correlated with those who believe in climate change. Political Independents and those with moderate beliefs are more susceptible to labeling and framing effects. This is important for understanding the implications of language and framing when it comes to convincing less polarized members about the effects of climate change.

Bybee, R. (1997). Toward an understanding of scientific literacy. In W. Graber & C. Bolte (Eds.), Scientific literacy, (pp. 37 ± 68). Kiel, Germany: Institute for Science Education (IPN).

Excerpt from Toward an understanding of scientific literacy; gives an educator’s perspective on the idea of scientific literacy and what needs to change in order to better implement it. Bybee discusses that scientific literacy is often used as a term to rally for better scientific education. With this in mind, the disparage between scientific literacy and science education becomes apparent.

Caplan, B. (2007). The myth of the rational voter: Why democracies choose bad policies. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Claim that “the greatest obstacle to sound economic policy is not entrenched special interests or rampant lobbying, but the popular misconceptions, irrational beliefs, and personal biases held by ordinary voters”. Caplan argues that voters continually elect politicians who either share their biases or else pretend to, resulting in bad policies winning again and again by popular demand.

DeBoer, G. (2000). Scientific literacy: Another look at its historical and contemporary meanings and its relationship to science education reform. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 37(6), 582-601.

A review of the history of science education shows that there have been at least nine separate and distinct goals of science education that are related to the larger goal of scientific literacy. It is argued in this paper that instead of defining scientific literacy in terms of specifically prescribed learning outcomes, scientific literacy should be conceptualized broadly enough for local school districts and individual classroom teachers to pursue the goals that are most suitable for their particular situations along with the content and methodologies that are most appropriate for them and their students. This would do more to enhance the public's understanding and appreciation of science than will current efforts that are too narrowly aimed at increasing scores on international tests of science knowledge.

Harding, S. (2007). The Long Road to Enlightenment. The Guardian. Retrieved April 10, 2018, from

Harding gives a brief history about the origins of climate change and why its scientific significance was delayed so long in common society. Describes Fournier’s discovery of climate change as well as the progression of greater scientific implications that were discovered by other scientists. Ultimately concludes that climate change took a significantly long time to become relevant in science discussion, however it is now viewed as one of the most relevant issues facing society today.

Kahan, Dan M. (2015). Climate-Science Communication and the Measurement Problem. Advances in Political Psychology, vol. 36, 2015, pp. 1–43., doi:10.1111/pops.12244.

Is there an issue with science communication for climate change, or is it a matter of asking the right questions? Kahan sees a discrepancy between the way that climate scientists and other environmental activists ask their questions about climate change. The issue is not within the partisan individual’s ability to understand the information, but instead it is within the risk of identity loss. If scientists and other climate activists could find better ways of asking climate related questions that do not imply a risk of identity defense, then more people would believe the effects of climate change.

Kahan, DM, Peters, E, Wittlin, M (2012) The polarizing impact of science literacy and numeracy on perceived climate change risks. Nature Climate Change 2: 732–735.

It is believed that climate change skeptics are not numerate enough within scientific knowledge and thus do not place emphasis upon climate change the way scientists do. This idea also correlates with Kahneman’s ideas of Systems, whereas those who do not believe in climate change rely too heavily on System 1 and psychological heuristics. There are two sides between the science comprehension thesis (SCT) and the cultural cognition thesis

(CCT). Surprisingly, studies found that members of the public with the highest degrees of science literacy and technical reasoning capacity were not the most concerned about climate change, but instead were the ones that were most polarized. This suggests that public divisions over climate change stem not from the public’s incomprehension of science but from the personal interest individuals have in forming beliefs in line with those held by others with whom they share close ties.

McCright, A. M., & Dunlap, R. E. (2011). Cool dudes: The denial of climate change among conservative white males in the United States. Global Environmental Change,21(4), 1163-1172. doi:

The question is asked whether conservative white males are more likely than are other adults in the U.S. general public to endorse climate change denial. It was determined in this study that conservative white males are more likely than other Americans to report climate change denial, which is an example of identity-protective cognition. Conservative white males who self-report understanding global warming very well are even more likely to deny climate science.

Millar, R., & Osborne, J. (Eds.) (1998). Beyond 2000: Science education for the future (the report of a seminar series funded by the Nuffield Foundation). London: King’s College London.

Particular attention is paid to the aims of science education, to the relationship between the content of a syllabus and its assessment, and to the suggestion that the science curriculum would be better presented as a relatively small number of explanatory stories rather than as a mass of detail. Defines the necessity in proper scientific literacy.

Nisbet, M. C. (2009). Communicating Climate Change: Why Frames Matter for Public Engagement. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, 51(2), 12-23. doi:10.3200/envt.51.2.12-23

This article discusses how reframing the relevance of climate change in ways Americans can relate to and the use of repetitive communication of their meaning, through trusted sources, can generate the public engagement required for effective policy action. The public frames focus on partisan implications and what that means for climate scientists and educators.

Norris, S., & Phillips, L. (2003). How literacy in its fundamental sense is central to scientific literacy. Science Education, 87, 224-240.

A notion of literacy in its fundamental sense is elaborated and contrasted to a simple view of reading and writing that still has much influence on literacy instruction in schools and, we believe, is widely assumed in science education. We make suggestions about how scientific literacy would be viewed differently if the fundamental sense of literacy were taken seriously and explore some educational implications of attending to literacy in its fundamental sense when teaching science.

Oreskes, N. (2004). The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change. Science, 306(5702), 1686. doi:DOI: 10.1126/science.1103618

The article manages to address the issues amongst the scientific consensus and the discrepancies amongst the rest of the government and policy makers. 928 scientific papers about climate change were analyzed and divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. None of the papers disagreed with the consensus position, which appears to contrast climate deniers beliefs.

Saunders, K. L. (2017). The impact of elite frames and motivated reasoning on beliefs in a global warming conspiracy: The promise and limits of trust. Research & Politics. doi:

Climate change is perceived as less severe than global warming to Republicans and is therefore less identity threatening amongst them. Thus, it is hypothesized that trust will moderate hoax beliefs among Republicans. In the case of using the phrase “climate change”, trust will moderate conspiracy endorsement, however “global warming” is heavily based off of motivated reasoning and trust will not have an effect against the conspiracies. Ultimately, trust can be helpful it is not a panacea since elite partisan cues uphold pre-existing attitudes/identities and arouse a strong desire to engage in motivated reasoning.

Shortland, M. (1988). Advocating science: Literacy and public understanding. Impact of Science on Society, 38, 305 – 316.

This article reviews several arguments deployed in favor of promoting the public understanding of science. Examines assumptions embodied in these arguments. An introductory discussion of scientific literacy is given and suggested as being a more appropriate goal because it provides more criteria for assessing the nature and understanding of science.

The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research (2014). Public Opinion and the Environment: The Nine Types of Americans (Tech.). Retrieved April 1, 2018, from

This report raises the question about national climate change beliefs. The report surveyed 1,576 adult Americans about their opinions on climate change and separated them into nine different distinct types. The study finds that most Americans say the United States ought to take a leadership role in combating global warming, and twice as many Americans think the country should participate in international treaty negotiations aimed at addressing its effects as oppose it. However, Americans tend to place a low priority on addressing global warming when compared with other environmental concerns. And few Americans believe that protecting the environment needs to come at a cost of lost economic growth.

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[1] Moxey, John. “A Guide To Song Forms – AAA Song Form.” . 17 October 2017.

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