How to Hack Christmas

Creative solutions for a girl who doesn't quite get into the Christmas cheer

Christmas is a cultural script we know well, from the mall Santa's red cap and beard right down to the toasty roasted chestnuts and fuzzy stockings hanging on the mantel. Picturing it could just send shivers through my snow-boots ... except I'm in Southern California.

1. Food and Drink

For many, Christmas is a time for the tacit celebration of overabundance—and a reprieve of Thanksgiving—or the supermarket's second chance to sell off the last of its frozen turkeys and pies. Not for Tristam Stuart. Stuart has long decried food waste in the U.K. and internationally, and as the Financial Times reported today, last week this self-professed freegan fed 5,000 people in Trafalgar Square to demonstrate just how far food can stretch and still satisfy.

As it turns out, the answer is quite a lot: "people were queuing up [on December 16, at the Square] and taking away bagfuls of free groceries. And when they got to the front of the line – it’s just a joyous sight – people were saying, ‘What’s wrong with this? Why was this going to be wasted?’ I didn’t need to say any more. Exactly.”

How does Stuart's theory bear on your Christmas holiday or mine? It's fundamentally about rejecting the notion that we must consume or purchase more than we need in the spirit of the season. And if you really must have that whole, roasted turkey (like my mom did) then make sure it doesn't go to waste—I can promise you there's going to be a lot of turkey broth, turkey lasagna, and turkey enchiladas from now through New Years'. That's the price you pay.

And ethical consumption is not just about reducing food waste. It also means laying off the eggnog, or else taking yourself off the roads entirely on Christmas Eve, when drunk driving accidents and rates soar.


2. Company

The holidays are about family, love, joy, and togetherness. This is a beautiful farce that leads plenty of otherwise functional people (like yours truly) to contemplate sitting in bed with a bowl of popcorn watching a celebrity match-maker show. But not you.

As Dan Savage so brilliantly points out in his podcast this week, "I guarantee you that bars and nightclubs in the town on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are packed with other people who ...needed to get away and are also single, like you! So put the iPod down, put the cookies down, go to a bar, have a drink, flirt, and get yourself some Christmas fucking." Thank you always, Dan, for your unflinching lucidity.

And not me, either. I am spending my Christmas weekend with other Jews, heretics, and maybe a couple of Christians who have fallen off their parents' church-going bandwagon. We're cooking and watching movies together (tonight was the Matrix, hence allusions to hacking a system built on comfortable lies)

3. Gifts
And speaking of comfortable lies, I give you gift-giving! I'm a college student, who works 15-hours a week and dreams of working in a bankcrupt industry, so obviously I enjoy what financial help I can get. But I don't think Christmas is an appropriate occasion for anyone to help me get one step closer to financial independence from my parents.

But with money tight for everyone these days, I more than appreciate NY Times columnist Nick Kristof's take on the adage, "it's the thought that counts." Yeah, why not put that cashmere scarf back on its shelf and send a little something the way of Deworm the World, or the World Wide Fistula Fund?


4. Family, hope, and all the trappings of the season

It would be wrong to leave out any mention of my family from a post on how to fix Jesus' birthday for non-believers, as though after all this talk of charities and slow-cooked tomato broths, a reader could only picture my family gathered around a fireplace, holiday-sweater-clad, arm in arm. In truth, Christmas has not been much of a family affair since before I was a teenager, and it's even less so this year.

My parents' house (my house? This I've been less sure of for more than a year now) is full of unease this year. It's usually filled with the busy hum of people whole-heartedly committed to their individual routines: my dad in the backyard watering the plants, my mom folding laundry, my brother in his room slouching over his laptop. the devotion to efficiency.

But today is different, because my 16 year-old brother spent the past year battling colon disease. He missed out on most of his sophomore year of high school and a period that is by many accounts the capstone of the teenage years, and we're still waiting to learn whether or not he has really beat it. Some bad symptoms resurfaced yesterday, sending both our parents into all their rituals of worrying.

I want to be supportive, but there are so many limitations. Chief among them is a year-long conflict between my parents and me that I only I am now beginning to overcome. It's about my identity and my ability to make decisions as an adult, 20 years old, and how at this age their so-called protection could be hurting me. It's tough stuff for a parent to stomach, I'm told, but it isn't easy for me, either, to think that even though I have achieved personal successes and dreamed dreams that make me the happiest I've been in my life, I'm a disappointment to them.

But it's Christmas, a holiday so glittery and cheery that it could make anyone without a turkey drenched in cranberry sauce on their table feel a little lonely, so here I am; making soup that maybe nobody will want to eat, renting DVDs and hoping that this house will allow itself some happiness—and feeling more than a little guilty that I get to leave for my home again in just another week.

Hitting the Books in Harper

I tried to make finals week in Harper Memorial Library into an interesting story. Hey, news is slow in December, okay?

When Alex Gleckman really wants to focus on his schoolwork, he paces up and down the center of the Harper Library reading room.

"I think he looks ridiculous," his friend Jean-Michel Hoffman teased, as the two spread out their notebooks beneath one of the many desk lamps illuminating the room.

Since the University of Chicago renovated Harper Memorial Library, it has become an increasingly popular study spot for students like Gleckman and Hoffman, both first-years, who want to bury themselves in their readings or problem sets. The University closed Harper Library over the summer to begin its transformation into a 24-hour study space and café. When it reopened in September, the worn carpeting and threadbare chairs were gone, replaced by plush seating and improved lighting.

Four months later, at 4:00 p.m. on Thursday of finals week—with just 20 hours left until the end of exams—the new study space is humming with activity.

Gleckman and Hoffman are hard at work, studying for a morning calculus exam. "I'll be here for a while," Gleckman speculated. "Probably until 9:30 a.m."

"That's just him; I can't do that," said Hoffman, a first-year who has pulled "some pretty late ones" for his Human Being and Citizen class, but no all-nighters to date. They both turn back to their textbooks with grim determination.

The mood is livelier (and more caffeinated) in Common Knowledge, a new student-run coffee shop next to the library's reading room. The dozen students who populate the cavernous vestibule-turned-café have their books and laptops open. A graduate student is conducting office hours at a corner table. All have coffee. Two friends greet each other with a quick embrace in front of the bar. "Hey! I haven't seen you...or any other humans, really."

That sentiment may be common among the library denizens four and a half days into their final exams, but third-year Matthew Carville, his finals long completed, is going home to play video games after his shift at the café is over.

Carville, assistant manager of Common Knowledge, says Harper's atmosphere—with its gothic architecture and a pastry selection that evokes afternoon tea more than late-night cram sessions—is the reason he forgoes other student-run coffee shops like Cobb and Hallowed Grounds.

"This is such a beautiful place," he said. "I think students come here to get a break from going at it in the main room."

Carville says the library is now his first choice for "going at it." "[T]he new reading room is really wonderful," he said.

And he isn't the only student to add Harper to his routine.

"We can see by our returns that [the café] gradually got more and more popular, and more and more people bought stuff as the quarter went on," he said. "And the fact that we were one of the only coffee shops open during reading period meant a huge boost in sales."

These days, the library and café are frequented by a combination of undergraduates with morning classes in the classrooms below, College advisors with offices throughout the building, and graduate students, who third-year Liz Kerr claims are infamous for their coffee habits.

"All the graduate students come up at the same time in the afternoon. They ask us what time we're open until"—1:00 a.m.—"and they say 'Great, I'll get three shots of espresso,'" said Kerr, another café barista.

But fourth-year Emily Chase doesn't come to Harper for the coffee.

"All through college, I spent pretty much every night in the Reg," the political science major explained, reluctantly pulling herself away from a research paper on the evolution of the United States' wilderness policies. "But now I spend maybe 80% of my time in Harper. This is my last year here, so I really thought I should enjoy the architecture of this great space while I still can."

The City is a Laboratory: Chicago Studies Winter Courses

What I like best about Winter Break is the three weeks of joy I can experience over choosing my classes, unadulterated by the notion that once the quarter gets underway I will be too busy/stressed/freezing cold to tell the difference between Phy-Sci Core and Spanish Literature anyway. So on that note, let's get excited about the new crop of Chicago Studies courses being offered this Winter:

This winter, UChicago students will advise local non-profits, drive along 100 miles of the Michigan-Illinois Canal, and study the community organizing tactics of Saul Alinsky.

These are just a few of the topics covered in next quarter’s Chicago Studies courses. The classes will allow students to engage with the city of Chicago through everything from geography to philosophy.

According to Bart Schultz, the director of the Civic Knowledge Project and the teacher of next quarter’s “What is Civic Knowledge?” and “The Chicago School of Philosophy” the city of Chicago is a critical resource for students of political and social movements.

Schultz is team-teaching “What is Civic Knowledge?” a special course in the Big Problems department, with Margot Browning, Assoc. Dir. of the Franke Institute for the Humanities.

“We’re not interested in teaching ‘here are the three branches of government.’ [“Civic Knowledge”] is about the actual basis for community organizing, civic friendship, a healthier and more participatory democracy,” Schultz says.

“We really range across the history of Chicago and the history of the University of Chicago from the original settlements in the Pottawattamie to looking at future plans for 2020 and 2040,” he explains. “We read a lot of absolutely wonderful material, everything from [President Barack] Obama’s Dreams From My Father, to classic Chicago authors with an emphasis on political mobilization.”

In Debra Schwartz’s class, “The Business of Non-Profits,” students will do more than study community activism. They will consult with and advise local non-profits, then present their work to the rest of the class, she said. Schwartz will also bring local non-profit leaders to speak to the class, which is limited to members of the RSO-branch of the non-profit consulting group Campus Catalyst.

Like Schultz, Schwartz links her course material to Chicago’s rich history of public service work and University research.

“Some of the most influential leaders were Jane Addams and her colleagues, some of whom were on our faculty. One of the great insights they had at the time was that Chicago was tremendous urban laboratory. [This city] gives us the opportunity to really see upfront the kinds of problems we’re trying to address through social policy,” Schwartz explains.

“I don’t think you can get quite the depth of experience without this hands-on piece, if you want to really understand the role that a nonprofit plays and how difficult it is to do nonprofit work well,” she adds.

The non-profits range from the Hyde Park Art Center to tutoring and childcare organizations. Because of this diversity, Schwartz said the class attracted a broad range of students, including Economics majors, as well as Public Policy, Art History, and Physics students. “I think it’s great, because the kind of organizations we work with have diverse [services and goals],” she says.

Judy Hoffman is also bringing inspiration from the city to her Documentary Film Production class. As part of this two-quarter-long sequence, students will work in groups to document either a portrait of a Chicagoan, a social issue, or an historical narrative.

“This is a cinematic social inquiry, using the city as a laboratory for investigation,” Hoffman says. “I try to encourage [my students] to get off campus and look at the city and its people, to figure out what really needs to be said.”

Past projects have ranged from profiles of Chicago political figures to more experimental meditations on the city’s landscape. Hoffman considers her students fortunate to have the entire city as inspiration and stomping-grounds for their documentary shooting.

“Chicago has I don’t-know-how-many ethnic groups, around 140; so it’s an opportunity to clearly to explore the landscape of the city and how a built environment informs how people live. Ranging from Mies Van der Rohe to the Chicago Housing Authority, there’s a lot of different ways to look at the city,” Hoffman says.

Chicago’s diverse landscapes also inform Michael Conzen’s upper-division class, “Urban Geography.”

According to Conzen, the course will examine the role cities play in national and regional urban networks. He will lead students to the Regenstein library to view its collection of historical Chicago maps and documents, and on a hundred-mile field trip along the historical Illinois-Michigan Canal.

Why make Chicago a focal point of the course? Conzen says the benefits are clear.

“Being a geographer, I believe very strongly that the visual landscapes around us [help students] put their book learning on the line; they see what works terms of the consequential landscapes and environments that have been created as a result of the forces that they’re reading about.”

Martha Nussbaum talks marriage, revulsion, and wearing leather

Professor Nussbaum (of the Law School, the Philosophy Department... anywhere in the University that can get its hands on her) has an interview with Deborah Solomon of the New York Times this week.

It looks like she has a book coming out in February about sexuality, disgust, and the opposition to same-sex marriage!

Your inquiries have lately revolved around the politics of physical revulsion, which you see as the subtext for opposition to same-sex marriage.

What is it that makes people think that a same-sex couple living next door would defile or taint their own marriage when they don’t think that, let’s say, some flaky heterosexual living next door would taint their marriage? At some level, disgust is still operating.

In your book “From Disgust to Humanity: Sexual Orientation and Constitutional Law,” which will be out in February, you draw a distinction between primary disgust and projective disgust.

What becomes really bad is the projective kind, meaning projecting smelliness, sliminess and stickiness ontoa group of people who are then stigmatized and regarded as inferior.

I don't have a lot to say right now about her theories on the relationship between revulsion and bigotry, but I am really excited to get this book because I think it could help me flesh out my B.A. topic. Currently, I'm planning on writing an extension of that research paper I wrote last Spring on the VA court case Bottoms v. Bottoms—a custody battle between a lesbian and her mother. What fascinated me about this case was how the courts conflated sexuality with one's ability to parent a child—when one would logically seem to me to have nothing to do with the other. Likewise, a certain negative association against any non-normative sexuality can lead people to demonstrate prejudice in the working world, the family/legal arena, and virtually all walks of life.

Earth Gaze

According to some historians, the publication of the first image of from outer space transformed the way Americans viewed their place on our planet. Once we could gaze back on the Earth from the moon, Earth no longer seemed like a place of abundant resources, but a small and finite dot suspended in a vast emptiness, entirely responsible for its own continuation.

That shift, according to "Earth Days," a documentary currently screening at the Siskel Film Center in the Loop, spurred the modern environmental movement that has been questioning how, and at what cost, we fuel our cars, heat our homes and feed our families, since the 1970s. Weighing the short term gains and long term consequences of everything from spraying DDT and other pesticides to placing solar panels on the roof of the White House, has led to some amazing innovations, and understandably, the sobering realization that "healing" the planet will take a lot more work still.

The environmental movement was one strong voice among the readings I was assigned in Losing the Farm: the Globalization of Food Production in the 20th century, and will inform my final paper for that class.


A photo I took of farmer Steve Tiwald, founder of the Green Earth Institute, with a row of dino-kale, while on a Losing the Farm field-trip. I love kale!

Are we chemists, taming the natural world with new technologies like genetic modification that can increase yields and farm efficiency and cheapen the cost of mono-cropping, or is it time to "make peace with nature," as President Richard Nixon (who surprisingly signed the Clean Air Act into law) advocated in early 1970s?

Is a new era of innovation just around the corner, promising to increase the urban standard of living by exponential degrees, or is the future of a prosperous and healthy human race actually tied up in the trope of the New England village, where everyone knows their neighbors, has a real stake in community affairs, and strives for communal sufficiency?

These are a couple of the very difficult conceptual questions this movie and my class are concerned with. Answering them is a tall order (made taller still by the pressing issue of over-consumption--Uh, can I super-size that conceptual question?) I'm writing my final paper about the farmers' market as a tool to reconcile the community, environmental and personal health benefits of receiving locally-produced goods with the autonomy of the urban sprawl. To have your city, and eat your farm too, so to speak. I'll post my findings later.

Regardless, I took away from this movie that it's time to change the rhetoric of sustainability from "Stop what you're doing, you bad person, you!" to one that is constantly and non-judgmentally suggesting alternatives, suggesting that yes, you really can drive an electric car around the world; yes, we really can reduce air and water pollution without sacrificing our quality of life.

It amazes me how much I am, especially at the University of Chicago, limited by institutional imagination, or lack thereof; there are so many aspects of life directly tied to mental and physical well-being here I would change if I could, but how often do I question that they don't necessarily have to be so? For example, I have a lot of criticism about the Core curriculum, which I hope to write about after finals week. Well, Femmaj, one of the RSOs in which I'm involved, is starting a campaign to change diversity in the Core, which we believe is riddled with tokenism and unimaginative curricula for engaging with big picture concepts like "Power, Identity and Resistance." What made me think I couldn't criticize this before now? What makes me think there are other parts of this University that are immutable, like the almost-universally decried dining hall food?

A University with this kind of intellectual clout, money and resources should not be stuck with archaic practices, like the mass-waste generated by 3 inefficient dining halls that serve low-quality, conventional produce and over-processed frozen foods. Could change really be as simple as standing up and suggesting an alternative?

"Arrr, Matey!" Cascade students dive in

Cascade program offers public school students quirky classes on everything from Batman to pirates.

Submitted by Rachel Cromidas, Class of 2011 | New Media Editor

"Today we are gonna go a'pirating, and you are all sea dogs," second-year Amy Woodruff said to her classroom of 30 high school students. The kids took turns applying temporary tattoos of skull and crossbones while she explained their plan to raid another classroom.

The "sea dogs" were enrolled in Woodruff and second-year Brooke Slawinski's class on "Pirate Culture and Democracy" for Cascade, a seven-week program in which University of Chicago students teach ninth through twelfth graders.

Cascade is run by an RSO called Splash!, based on an MIT program of the same name. The one-day Splash! program was so successful that the organizers decided to create the seven-week Cascade program. The majority of Cascade's roughly 60 students are enrolled in public schools in Kenwood, Hyde Park and Woodlawn. Cascade's eclectic courses have ranged from an introduction to neuroscience to a class on Batman called "The Dark Knight Abides."
That 'wow' experience in the classroom

Slawinski and Woodruff say their class was inspired by Asst. Prof. Shannon Lee Dawdy's course on pirates last spring. Their offshoot class explores how pirates across history have organized their crews and communicated with each other.

Though the high schoolers were batting each other playfully with foam swords, the scene wasn't too foreign from a University of Chicago seminar class. "We're not going to just tell you where the treasure's at," Woodruff and Slawinski insisted, sounding like professors who probe their students with questions rather than simply giving them answers. "You're going to have to find it yourselves."

After a pop quiz on the Golden Age of piracy, Slawinski led her students out of the classroom and toward the lecture hall that harbored fourth-year Amy Estersohn's journalism class. "Ahoy! Avast!" they chanted.

The pirates burst through the doors, cheering. Estersohn, ready to make the outburst into a learning experience, calmed them down. "We ask that in return for disrupting the journalism class, we get to interview you about your pirate practices."

The journalism class immediately began to lob questions at the pirate crew—Why did you become a pirate? Why are you wearing an eyepatch? The classroom material regularly becomes a backdrop for these kinds of hands-on experiences, according to Estersohn, and that's what keeps the students engaged.

She said Cascade owes its success to passionate teachers and volunteers who prefer to teach with projects rather than lectures. "We've all had that 'wow' experience in the classroom, we've all had that teacher who inspired us. We love learning, and want to share that with others," Estersohn said.
An introduction to college life

The proof of Cascade's success is its ability to bring enrolled students back for classes week after week, even though no one is taking attendance or handing out grades. "We get emails from parents thanking us, because they see the long-term investment we've made here," Estersohn said. Parents know that Cascade is more than an after-school activity—it's an introduction to college life.

"A lot of these students might not be familiar with [the University of Chicago], but this is a terrific opportunity for them to feel less intimidated by the idea of college," Estersohn explained. "They walk through our hallways, they have pizza with us, and they get to know who we are."

The University has supported Cascade in many ways, according to Estersohn. In addition to providing equipment and meals for Cascade students, the University has opened up classrooms for Cascade. "We've used Ryerson for an astronomy class, we've used the [Biological Sciences Learning Center]. It's so terrific that the University's resources are open to students," she said.

Thanks to this support, Estersohn added, Splash! and Cascade can provide programming to high school students at no cost. "Whenever I talk to guidance counselors, their jaws drop. They ask, 'Where's the application, what's the cost?' I tell them there is no application, no cost, and they almost can't believe the University of Chicago and its students do this."