The Ampersand

Bringing multitudes to life

Anonymous — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 17:52:48 +0000

Bringing multitudes to life Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 08/28/2024 - 11:52

From Oprah to Wakanda, CU Boulder alum Aba Arthur has charted a career in which the most impressive thing isn’t necessarily the glow of Hollywood, but the joy of finding her voice in a new world that hasn’t been universally welcoming

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From a fairly young age, Aba Arthur watched movies and TV with a critical eye. If something happened in a show that she didn’t agree with, well, she just marched right upstairs and rewrote the scene.

That early confidence in her storytelling, in her writing, in her ability to breathe life into a character who previously only existed on a page in her journal has supported her through a career whose highlights include major Hollywood films, books and one-woman shows.

Arthur, who currently plays the character Samara in the show Bad Monkey on Hulu, also appeared in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and the 2023 film adaptation of The Color Purple musical.

Despite her success—the kind that justifies a certain confidence—she still sometimes finds herself in her car, staring out the window and breathing deep. It’s when she reminds herself “who I am, where I’m going. My words are valuable. I have something to say that matters, and I’m going to kill it.”

Arthur, a 2005 University of Colorado Boulder graduate in theater and dance, recently joined host Erika Randall, associate dean for student success in the College of Arts and Sciences, on The Ampersand, the college podcast. Randall—who also is a dancer, professor, mother, filmmaker and writer—joins guests in exploring stories about “ANDing” as a “full sensory verb” that describes experience and possibility.

Their discussion roamed from the red carpet to the couch with a bag of Cheeto Puffs, with stops in between for mentorship, nostalgia, the joy of making art and what it was like stepping off the flight from Ghana to Colorado.

Aba Arthur (right) on the set of The Color Purple with Oprah Winfrey (left). (Photo: Aba Arthur)

Arthur: I have such a vivid memory of getting off the plane. I'm coming from Ghana and I'm coming to Colorado Springs, Colorado. So, I had only seen on TV or in pictures these guys, and they wear jeans, and they have these big hats. But I didn't know anything about them, so they felt like fictional characters. And I remember so well getting off the plane at the airport and I saw these guys, which I later learned the term was "cowboy."

Randall: In their Wranglers.

Arthur: Yeah:

Randall: In the hats.

Arthur: And the boots. And I remember getting off the plane and just being like, something just happened. Because these people are not where I just came from, and now there are a lot of them. And I've been watching them. So, this is so cool. I've stepped into something new. I think that is the first big memory that I have, period.

Randall: Changed your life. That's incredible. You arrive in the Springs, all the things happen. Next moment, where's the next postcard to yourself that says, ah, Aba, here we go?

Erika Randall (left) and Aba Arthur (right) discussing Hollywood and mentorship and the joy of making art. (Photo: Timothy Grassley)

Arthur: Oof. Oof. It’s a tough one. My first experience with racism. A young boy in my school told me that my skin was dirty. Yeah. I went back to class, and I was crying. My teacher asked me what happened, and I told her, and then she disciplined me. I had to sit in the corner, and I had to face the wall, because she said I was being a distraction. My crying was distracting the class. Yes, this is a true story.

So, I had to sit in a corner of the room and face the wall. And I remember so vividly at some point they were just continuing with class. And I was like, what? I don’t know how old I am. Let’s pick an age.

Randall: Say, 8 or 9?

Arthur: I don’t know, 8? (Laughs)

Randall: All on the Wikipedia page I’m building for you. Age 8.

Arthur: This is still elementary school, though—too young.

Randall: Too young to hear that, to feel that, to be put in a corner.

Arthur: And I’m listening to the class continue. She’s teaching, and I’m in the corner of the room. And so, at some point I turned around and I’m watching them, and they’re just having class. Everybody’s just continuing on like everything is normal. And that was a strong memory.

Randall: Is that memory as yet in a film? Because I’m watching that movie.

Arthur: It’s just going to take a second. Probably. That’s a tough one for me. It’s going to take me a second to work through that. Because I have to watch that scene, if they’re going to do it.

Randall: And hearing that story, sharing that story, is a critical action of undoing racism. And the work that you choose, you are writing critical stories about undoing racism. You are ANDing with political science the way that you’re in theater and political science. But your body politic is your body showing up as representation. Does that feel true for you?

Arthur: Yes, I love ampersands. And multihyphenate is a term that it took me a while to sink into. So, for me, it was always “&.” This & this & this. And I’m equally all of them.

Randall: And with that is engaging those identities to then bring forth new character into worlds. I’m listening to you and I’m watching your reel, and I don’t think you need confidence. Do you need confidence?

Arthur: No.

Randall: No.

Aba Arthur on the set of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. (Photos: Aba Arthur)

Arthur: I have a lot of it. (laughs)

Randall: Where did this come from, and can we bottle it?

Arthur: I wish. It comes from so many things. It comes from being the fourth-born child of a very high-achieving family. It comes from being the new kid a lot. You have to know who you are when you’re the new kid.

Randall: And in Hollywood, you’re the new kid in every room for a minute.

Arthur: Yes.

Randall: Are you not the new kid yet?

Arthur: I’m always the new kid, yeah. I’m the new kid a lot. And so, I didn’t realize at the time—another one of those life-changing things you don’t understand—as we were moving, I didn’t realize the effect that would have on my life in the future. The positive effect it would have on my life in the future. Because when you’re a kid, it’s hard. That stuff is difficult. And I didn’t want to be the new kid and I didn’t want to have to find that confidence. But I always felt like if I come in the room and I am as wonderful and as great as I am, the people that are supposed to be in my life will come to me.

Randall: You are a galaxy. Yeah.

Arthur: I really appreciate that. And I’m going to walk with that, because I feel like you have to protect your own peace and your own space. And coming into new environments over and over and over again, if you don’t know who you are, then you’ll get lost. And you’ll go with the trends and you’ll do what other people say, because it feels better to be a part than to be an outsider.

Randall: So be the new kid.

Arthur: I excel at being the new kid now. I excel because I’m coming in as who I am. So, rock with me or not.

Randall: That’s right. That’s right. Were you a journaler?

I excel at being the new kid now. I excel because I’m coming in as who I am. So, rock with me or not.”

Arthur: Uh-huh. Oh, my gosh.

Randall: Are you going to burn those or publish them?

Arthur: I have them all, yeah. You know why I have them?

Randall: I want to know.

Arthur: So, I would watch television and the audacity of myself as a child. I think about it now, I’m like, wow!

Randall: I love it.

Arthur: I would watch television, and I would be like, hmm, I don’t like the way that ended. And then I would go upstairs and I would rewrite it.

Randall: You would actually script it?

Arthur: Yes, I would rewrite it. I would write it like, hmm, “So, Chad walked in, and he saw Sarah, and then he walked over and kissed her.” But in the show, maybe he didn’t walk over and kiss her first. Maybe they just talked for a while. So, I just would rewrite it the way I wanted to see it. And I would do that a lot. I would write myself into the shows.

Click the button below to hear the entire episode.

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Top image: Photos courtesy Aba Arthur

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Hearing music, finding connection in many rhythms of life

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 19:19:59 +0000

Hearing music, finding connection in many rhythms of life Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 01/31/2024 - 12:19

Reiland Rabaka, a CU Boulder professor of ethnic studies, joins The Ampersand to discuss art, activism, the importance of building community and how his first-grade teacher introduced him to W.E.B. Du Bois and changed his life

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Would there be a Reiland Rabaka without music?

Maybe, but certainly one who is less joyful, less connected, less attuned to the ebbing and flowing of the world and the universe around him.

Of the multitudes he contains, music is his great love, the place he comes home to, the cadence of beating hearts and clapping hands and walking feet.

But musician is just one thing about him. Intellectual, activist, artist, writer and someone almost impossible to stump in a game of “Name the Back-Up Band.”

As a University of Colorado Boulder professor of ethnic studies and inaugural director of the Center for African and African American Studies, Rabaka exists at the junction of multiple disciplines, identities and interests—the epitome of “ANDing.”

Reiland Rabaka is a University of Colorado Boulder professor of ethnic studies and inaugural director of the Center for African and African American Studies. Photo by Kylie Clarke.

He recently joined host Erika Randall, associate dean for student success in the College of Arts and Sciences, on "The Ampersand,” the college’s podcast. Randall—who is a dancer, professor, mother, filmmaker and writer—joins guests in exploring stories about “ANDing” as a “full sensory verb” that describes experience and possibility.

Their discussion started at church and roamed broadly from there.

Rabaka: My first love is gospel music. So, I grew up as a youth minister of music. My mother is actually a theologian, so my mother is the minister, you know. Everybody kind of knows I'm a PK, which means a preacher's kid. I think they just assume that it's my pops, but it's actually my mom. So, that shapes not only your spirituality, but also a gender consciousness because of the way that women are treated in the church, the way that women are erased. And so, my first love remains Mahalia Jackson, Albertina Walker, Shirley Caesar, Clara Ward. These are the kinds of folks my mother and my grandmother were listening to. James Cleveland, Thomas Dorsey, I could do this all day.

Randall: But to get this litany out…

Rabaka: It's really important to roll-call that. I think that probably unlike a lot of other, you know, African-American musicians, my first musical love was, and remains, gospel music. Every day before I listen to anything secular, I listen to a gospel album. After my prayers and my meditation, I start with the music. So, African-American sacred song is my foundation.

I will be keynoting the National Spirituals Conference this month at the University of Denver, and they know that I have a love affair with, first and foremost, the spiritual. So, what they used to call Negro Spirituals, this is the music, the soundtrack of our enslavement. These are songs of not simply heavenly salvation, but earthly liberation.

For me, there's always been a connection, at least from the African-American church I come out of, there's always been a connection between the social gospel and social justice. There's no way we can talk about spirituality that is removed from the material, the actual physical world that we live in. And so, after gospel, Erika, I grew up so poor that as strict as my mother was, she allowed me to play jazz because when I was nine years old, I got my first $100 bill for playing a jazz gig. I thought it was monopoly money, I didn't know it was real money.

Randall: You hadn't seen $100.

Rabaka: Yeah. And I gave it to my mother. She hugged me. She held me. It was a bittersweet moment because when I look back, and just to be real with you, that's also probably the day my childhood ended. You can't just be a little kid when you’re fixing to help your mama make rent from now on. So, as long as you didn't miss Wednesday night prayer meeting, choir rehearsal and church on Sunday, then you can go and swing.

And I was part of a generation, what they were calling it, was a jazz renaissance going on. You know, with folks like Wynton Marsalis, Branford Marsalis, Roy Hargrove, who I went to high school with, by the way, Roy Hargrove. Growing up in Texas…

Randall: Yeah, Texas and jazz. How did that connect?

Rabaka: Well, you know, part of my family being Creole folk from next door in Louisiana, so going back and forth to the jazz and heritage festival. In Texas, hearing gospel, hearing blues just as much as I'm hearing jazz and R&B and funk and soul and hip-hop. And let's not forget the Caribbean-influenced reggae music.

Randall: That was in your house or that was in your head and heart?

Rabaka: That was in my head and heart more. I think that being a kid from the projects and going to all art conservatory schools—I didn't go to regular school, so I never went to a school with a football team or a basketball team or something like that. I went to all art schools and at the time, they would allow one African-American per grade. I literally spent the bulk of my youth training to be a musician. And the way that they trained me, Erika, you've got to be able to play everything.

So, I played klezmer. I played polka. I played country and western. I played Tejano. I played bar mitzvahs. On top of all of the jazz and the gospel and the blues and the soul and the funk, baby, the funk, baby, oh, the funk. You know? For me, it's that versatility, I think that's actually what allowed me to go from the projects to the professor where I'm at.

Randall: That versatility of thinking.

Rabaka: It opens you up.

Randall: Right.

Rabaka: Here's the thing, and I really, really want to stress this and I think maybe this is why somebody like me is able to be on the faculty at the University of Colorado for nearly 20 years. In the schools that I went to, especially by the time I get to junior high school and high school, there's this weird inversion of the junior high school and high school experience.

So, your popularity isn't based on what kind of car your parents drive or how much money they have in the bank account or how big your house is. It's based on your talent. It's based on your gift.

Guess who was the most popular? I said papa-la.

Reiland Rabaka has researched and written extensively about the confluences of music, civil rights, feminism, art and liberation.

Randall: Boom. Boom.

Rabaka: Kid is cool. I went to high school with Erykah Badu. I graduated from the same high school as Norah Jones.

Randall: Norah Jones went to Interlochen, which was my—that's my home.

Rabaka: You see what I'm saying?

Randall: I feel you.

Rabaka: I went to the same high school as Edie Brickell.

Randall: What?

Rabaka: You see what I'm saying?

Randall: I know. So, there was a lineage. There was an expectation or just a mentoring or it was a pressure in that world if you're coming through, or were you the pressure? Because you came through and set the stage.

Rabaka: When your family's depending on you to eat…I think for a lot of the other kids, this was a hobby. But for me, this was the way that I was going to literally swing myself from the projects into an arts conservatory university, an arts conservatory college, so on and so forth. Got accepted to Cal Arts. Got accepted to most of the… I mean, I don't know what school I did not get accepted to.

Randall: And at the end of the day, because you had all these capacities, did you feel like the pressure is on me to get a job in music or now I've got these opportunities, I need to shift to something more stable, air quotes?

Rabaka: If I can be honest with you, I think because I'm first generation, I think folks were just happy I was going. I did get some of the, "You sure you shouldn't be a business major?"

Randall: Was that mom, or was mom always in your corner?

Rabaka: No, it was more my grandmother. My mother's, in some ways, spiritually speaking, a very free spirit, interfaith, open to a lot of things. And to be honest with you, I'm probably the daughter my mother never had. I'm my mother's middle son. I have an older brother and a younger brother, shout out to Robert and Randy, those are their names.

Randall: The three R's.

Rabaka: Yeah. And they got the more conventional… I mean, both of them are named after their fathers. And my mother just went left field, you know? So, I can rock and roll.

Randall: That's why you're always going left.

Rabaka: You know what I'm saying? Because I'm left-handed and when I found out Jimi Hendrix was left-handed and Barack Obama was left-handed and W.E.B. Du Bois was left-handed.

Reiland Rabaka recently joined host Erika Randall in a wide-ranging conversation for "The Ampersand" podcast. Photo by Kylie Clarke.

Randall: OK. Bookmark on Du Bois. So, we're going to go back to Texas one more time and I want to talk about Mrs. Robinson. Because if you're going to say Du Bois, she was the first person to say that name to you. Can you tell me the story in a way you've never told the story before so you can hear it? Because it's a good story.

Rabaka: You know, I think that being precocious and really, when you when you grow up in the church like I did and you start playing, I mean, I was so young they sat me on phone books. So, in the African-American church, they actually cultivate, quote unquote, giftedness, talented-ness, I'm making up words for you.

Randall: We like that here.

Rabaka: And it's one of those things where there's a unique culture within the African-American church of, they say in terms of our gifts and our talents, and you can see this is what works for me as a as a professor. In African-American church culture, it's the cultivation, it's the nurturing of everybody is gifted. See? God don't play favorites.

But if you don't use it, you lose it if you don't consciously develop it. So, all those hours I'm sitting there practicing, when the other kids had video games. You know, I used to feel tight because they could play Sega and Atari and all the cool games. We didn't have that.

Randall: Commodore 64.

Rabaka: You see? So, we didn't have all of that kind of stuff. I wasn't able to see Jordan do all of those crazy… because the TV wasn't on most of the time. I mean, even if you have a TV, it's got the little antenna, you know, with the clothes hanging off it with the foil on the back of it and everything. But if you don't have your electricity on, if you don't have running water, so on and so forth. I think that a lot of the time where I felt tight, I felt maybe a little economically traumatized, humiliated, demoralized, I was in that practice room.

I was knuckling and brawling, attempting to evolve myself. And the reality of the matter is, I had a multiracial, multicultural group of teachers that nurtured this talent. So, on the one hand, the foundation is the African-American church. However, the church sends us out into the world. As you know, one of my favorite spirituals is called “Go and See the World.” And this is something my grandmother will sing to me, often, she sings it often.

Randall: She's still here to sing to you?

Rabaka: My grandmother—I'm sorry, this makes me emotional—my grandmother turns 96 tomorrow. And my grandmother is one of the great loves of my life. And the others, of course, being my other grandmother and my mama. My grandmother, I think you can do the math, if I'm from Texas, my grandmother's 96, Juneteenth was issued 158 years ago.

My grandmother's grandmother was enslaved. So, it's not a coincidence that I would come out an African-American studies professor, that I speak with love-laced words, that I'm trying to bring some level of human understanding to what's going on. Even the rapport, the bond that we have, that culture, Erika, taught me to also check for your life and your struggles. So, it's not just about me, it’s about you and we.

Randall: That's when you say “ubuntu” [a Zulu word roughly translated to “humanity toward others” or “I am, because you are] in your signature.

Rabaka: There you go. So, I am because we are. And how can you and I rescue and reclaim our humanity together? Instead of avoiding my Africanity, the fact that I’m African-American, what happens if we put that front and center and do it in a way that’s not antagonistic to you? And I acknowledge as I just spoke to you, asking about your mother, asking about your son, and so on. The humanity, the shared humanity that we have, for me, that’s what it means to come out of Texas. I mean, this is the state that Juneteenth is all about.

This is the state where I grew up with nine HBCUs that I could throw a rock out of my grandmother’s yard and break a window, and I didn’t do that, but this is how close the HBCU is. I grew up seeing African-American youth with books and dress smart and the richness of that, and also the fact that I didn’t grow up in an all-black neighborhood. I grew up surrounded by Mexican-Americans. I grew up surrounded by Asian-Americans, some Indigenous folks. Because again, you got New Mexico on one side, Oklahoma, Arkansas. I could just go on and on.

Randall: What corner were you?

Rabaka: Dallas.

Randall: Dallas. OK.

Rabaka: But let me answer about Mrs. Robinson, my first-grade teacher. I was, again, young and precocious, a ball of energy. My mother would always say, “Whatever you give the other kids, you need to give him three times as much.” Mrs. Robinson knew that she could speed-dial my mother. In fact, all she needed to say was, “Don’t make me call your mother” and I would back down.

So, it’s Black History Month, Mrs. Robinson has these little placards, larger than a postcard size, of different Black History Month figures. So, you know, Ella Fitzgerald was on one, let’s see, Billie Holiday, you name it. Jesse Owens, Paul Robeson, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes…

Randall: Jackie Robinson.

Rabaka: You see what I’m saying?

Randall: Yeah. Yeah.

Rabaka: I thought I should get Duke Ellington or Billie Holiday or Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, I could just do this all day long. And I sit up here, I thought at that time, this is my little first-grade mind so just bear with me, I got a Frenchman Du Bois.

Randall: Du Bois.

Introduced to W.E.B. Du Bois by his first-grade teacher, Reiland Rabaka has subsequently researched and written extensively about him.

Rabaka: Right? Because again, I got some Creole folk right on the other side. And I stormed up to Mrs. Robinson’s desk, you know how kids can be, and I can’t believe it, it’s Black History Month, everybody else got Black people and I got a white man, I got a French man named Du Bois, and everything. And she gave me a good talking-to that changed my life.

And this is the power of teachers. She said, “Reiland, if you spent as much time actually reading as you do sitting up here trying to criticize my teaching and what I’m doing, if you don’t go sit down, I’m going to call your mama, boy.” You know? So, I ran back to my desk, sat down, read the card and everything.

I still had my lips stuck out, but I read the card or whatever. And the more I read, the more fascinated, the more intrigued… It actually said that Du Bois went to an HBCU, Fisk University, in Nashville, Tennessee.

So again, my grandmother lives within walking distance of an HBCU. I’m thinking, “Wow, wait, what’s going on?” Then I come to find out that this person had achieved two bachelor’s degrees, two master’s degrees and the equivalent of two PhDs. One of them, he studied at the University of Berlin.

The fact that he was well-traveled, well-read. When I saw photos of him, he was well-dressed. And then there was a connect from the preachers that I’m seeing in the African-American church to the jazz musicians, Miles Davis got, what, GQ Man of the Year was it 10 times in a row? At least seven times in a row. I mean, this guy was clean.

Randall: Yes.

Rabaka: And so for me, learning about Du Bois and the fact that he connected his intellectual pursuits with his social justice pursuits. You know, he founded sociology in the United States of America, he also founded the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, February the 12^th, 1909. Mrs. Robinson walked me into the library, and she just said, “Hey, if you really want to read something, here's some of his books.” Of course, I couldn't make them through it at the first grade, so once they got the children's-level book about Du Bois’ life, I think I kept that checked out.

Randall: It just said stamp, Reiland.

Rabaka: You know what I'm saying?

Randall: Stamp, Reiland.

Rabaka: And it changed my life, to be perfectly honest with you. So not only was he an intellectual, not only was he an activist with the NAACP work,I find out that he wrote five novels.

Randall: The novels he wrote blew my mind. You introduced that to me. That was a gift from you.

Rabaka: Isn't that incredible?

Randall: Yeah, and in the novels, he's also bringing his story forward.

Rabaka: Historical fiction, sociological fiction. I didn't even know such genres existed.

Randall: And it feels like they really were born of the Black experience.

Rabaka: Absolutely. It’s what we would call Afro Modernism. And I think this would explain my preoccupation with the Harlem Renaissance, and in fact, many people say that Du Bois’1903 classic The Souls of Black Folk was a precursor to what happened 15 years later with the beginning of the Harlem Renaissance.

Randall: And when you talk about him being a proto-interdisciplinarian, proto-intersectionalist, and on this podcast, a proto-ANDer, because he is making it up, making it up and transforming through that need not to categorize.

Rabaka: For me, Du Bois is a model, an incessant model because Du Bois was able to be a social scientist, an intellectual, an artist, five novels, nine volumes of poetry, three dozen short stories, two dozen plays, I could go on and on and on, and an activist. So, for me, I mean, maybe those labels fit what I'm up to best—intellectual, artist, activist—maybe those three things, I'm kind of cool with. But I don't want people to silo me off into only one of those.

And I think, Erika, has academia forced folks like you and I to reduce ourselves in order to fit into these little tenure schemes?

Randall: Oh, yeah. I mean, I think that is one of the things where this notion of pushing the idea of we are more than just the category we got hired in has felt so critical to me. We have been stuck into a frame.

Rabaka: And they forced you to in order to achieve tenure. Now, the second some folks achieve tenure, they explode.

Randall: Yeah, and then you can kick back. And you're like, “I've always been into this. I was always doing this trouble.” Did you feel a freedom, or did you come in with it?

Rabaka: You know what, I think I'm not a good example, just because African-American studies is always left of field in the American Academy because of how Eurocentric, heteropatriarchal the American Academy can be. So, my field has always been transdisciplinary. By that I mean I'm in a field, I'm in a discipline that transcends and transgresses the borders and boundaries, the very artificial and arbitrary borders and boundaries of academic disciplines.

What if African-American studies is more about the community than it is the campus? What if African-American studies is actually about me literally being a bridge from the community to the campus, from the campus to the community?

Click the button below to hear the entire episode.

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Photos at the top of the page by Kylie Clarke.

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Counting to three and then flying

Anonymous — Tue, 02 Jan 2024 21:14:31 +0000

Counting to three and then flying Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 01/02/2024 - 14:14

Neuroscience and art practices major Rachel Suter joins The Ampersand podcast to discuss asking ‘Why not?’ and stepping into the unknown

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Rachel Suter steps to the precipice and looks over the edge. Below her, a glowing aqua pool that’s 30 feet down. As many times as she’s pushed off the edge, she still feels a little zing.

She dives into a pool at the newly renovated Casa Bonita restaurant in Denver. The way the water blends in and out of sapphire blue reminds her of her newest painting, exploring neurological degeneration, which reminds her, in turn, to finish her neuroscience homework before she can get to her next student body government meeting.

Amid the noise of the restaurant, the sweet fried scent of sopapillas, her fellow performer in a gorilla costume, she takes a breath, counts back from three and soars.

Rachel is a lot of things, not just a woman who flies. She crafts visual art based on scientific systems and principles she explores in her neuroscience coursework. She guides the College of Arts and Sciences student body as vice president. She's a model, she dives, she approaches new opportunities asking, “Why not?”

At the top of the page: Rachel Suter works on her art. Photo by Kylie Clarke. Above: "Vibrant" by Rachel Suter.

She recently joined host Erika Randall, associate dean for student success in the College of Arts and Sciences, on "The Ampersand,” the college podcast. Randall—who also is a dancer, professor, mother, filmmaker and writer—joins guests in exploring stories about “ANDing” as a “full sensory verb” that describes experience and possibility.

Their free-wheeling discussion addressed confronting fear, the mechanics of diving and oatmeal baths, among many other topics.

Suter: When I was younger, I always wanted to dive, but I couldn't because I have pretty bad eczema. I was a competitive gymnast, and then, following that, I did competitive dance. So, you know, just parallel sports, almost. And then senior year of high school, I just kind of decided, like, end of COVID, I'm really bored. I'm just going to give it a try, you know, just for fun?

Randall: Screw the eczema. There's oatmeal baths for that.

Suter: So true.

Randall: Yeah. (laughs) My kiddo has eczema. OK, so you're going to try it.

Suter: Yes.

Randall: You're going to go in.

Suter: Mm-hmm, and like, in the past, I had gone cliff-diving with friends just at lakes and vacations and…

Randall: See, again, you say that so casually: ‘In the past, I'd gone cliff diving.’ There isn't a world where I walk up to the edge of something and jump off of it. There was no fear for you there.

Suter: Yeah, I have two brothers, and they're the type that they see a cliff, and they will jump off of it. I just don't want to be left out of that, you know? And then, just having the gymnastics background, and the worst that could happen in gymnastics is you fall on a really hard surface, and that's really scary. But with diving, it's like you're falling on water, so there's only so much bad that could happen. And the hurt, it's going to hurt, but it won't last that long. And cliff diving, I don't go from too high, so the risk is minimal.

But I think the most important thing is when I do the one, two, three count, I have to trust myself that I'm going to go for it, you know? And it's like…

Randall: Is that what you say literally every time you get to the edge?

Suter: Yep.

Randall: OK, well, I want to hear it. Walk me through. Put me in your body.

Suter: Oh, man. Yeah, I think it's just a quick visualization of the dive. I mean, if it's a forward dive or a backflip, not too much. It's pretty simple. But if it's more of like a twisty dive, just stepping through what my arms are going to do and whatnot, and then standing on the edge, marking my place in the water. And if it's a smaller pool, just making a plan for what I'm going to do underwater because you can flip out of it either way.

So, choosing space and also choosing if I'm going to flip out of it right away or if it's safe enough to go and bounce off the bottom almost, which I can do at pools like Casa Bonita, but I can't at cliff diving spots like Paradise Cove. So, yeah, just making a plan, going through it, and then just counting off, like one, two, three, go, and just trusting that on three, I would go.

Randall: Life lessons with Rachel Suter, making a plan, trusting it. One, two, three, go. OK, so is that what took you to interview at Casa Bonita, that just one, two, three, go, let's do this?

Suter: Yeah. I mean, I didn't expect to get the job. So, it was more of a, ‘I might as well.’ That would just be so cool. I have a dance background, so I have the performance aspect.

Randall: And had you been there as a kiddo if you're from the Springs?

Suter: No, I'd heard all about it, but I had never actually been.

Randall: OK, so you heard the lore.

Suter: Yes.

Randall: But you had never been and had the terrible taco salad with the Pepto-Bismol chaser.

Suter: Never had it.

Randall: Never had it. And did you hear about how there used to be the electrical room at the bottom of the dive pool?

Suter: They fixed that.

Randall: OK. (laughs)

Suter: Yeah, so I ended up going because just so many of my friends and family had just been, like, oh, you have to. You dive. You just have to do it. I was like, OK.

Randall: So, when we think about this pattern of success, this way that you set up the visualization, all of the things, does this show up for you in other ways in your life? Because on top of being now this enigmatic Casa Bonita diver, you are also a neuroscience student. You're also a visual artist. You are on student government.

You are a leader in your community. You are one of the kindest humans I know. And, and, and, and then you tell me you model, and I just couldn't even put that part into the Rachel egg. Talk to me about if that method for getting to the edge and looking over, does that serve you in other spaces?

Suter: Yeah, it's more of like, I'm young and I know that this is the time in my life where I will most be able to try new things and pursue different things and have no consequences if it doesn't work out.

Randall: OK, wait a second. You really just have that freedom in your mind, like this is the time when I'm young. How good were your parents, or did they just never know if you were home?

Suter: (laughs) No, my parents are amazing. They’re very adventurous and pushed us, my brothers and I, all to try new things and just be confident in what we're doing.

Randall: Did they throw you into the pool when you were a little kid with all your clothes on and see if you would drown?

Suter: I don't know, but they might have.

"Too Much to Hold" by Rachel Suter

Randall: They might. They were that parenting book.

Suter: Yes. And if we had a little interest in something, they would help us and support us and provide the materials to do those, which I really appreciate and I know not everybody has. So, I think that definitely has allowed me to become a better artist and interested in sciences because they allowed me to have those resources as a kid. And so now that I have the freedom of my own time, I'm able to explore those.

Randall: Were science and art always married for you? Because when I look at your art, first of all, it's astounding to me.

Suter: Thank you.

Randall: I had seen the original piece that you shared with me with, this gesture of hands under the sternum and the heart dripping out of your cage. And then there were other things that showed up in your art, this perspective, detail, that kind of pencil sketch fury. Like, there's a quickness that also maybe is not showing how much time it takes. I mean, it's a lot of time.

Suter: Yes, quite. And a project will take probably 15 more hours. It really depends. But the more time-consuming part is the research and development portion.

Randall: Yes, and you can see that the science is in it. And the research is in the science.

Suter: Yeah, because a lot of my art does deal with scientific topics. A lot of times, I just don't even know what I want to do, and it starts with the research and just taking notes and deciding on a topic that I like and I'm passionate about. And so, I'll continue doing research and start with little one-inch by one-inch thumbnail sketches of little ideas I could do.

Randall: Kind of storyboarding?

Suter: Yes, so it starts with just a lot of research and then thumbnail sketches. And then it almost becomes a conversation on the page of, oh, I like this idea, but not this. So, it's a way to have a conversation with myself because I never know what it's going to be when I first start. And it goes through so many stages. And sometimes what I end up with is not even on the same topic as what I began with.

Click the button below to hear the entire episode.

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Neuroscience and art practices major Rachel Suter joins The Ampersand podcast to discuss saying ‘Why not?’ and stepping into the unknown .

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Treading softly with the soul of a Viking

Anonymous — Mon, 04 Dec 2023 22:04:40 +0000

Treading softly with the soul of a Viking Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 12/04/2023 - 15:04

CU Boulder researcher Mathias Nordvig joins The Ampersand podcast to discuss animism, Norse mythology and what it means to live on Earth

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It’s not hard to imagine Mathias Nordvig waking up under a thatched roof that doesn’t quite block the light of early morning stars. It’s easy to envision him waking in a Viking camp and taking his place in a snekkja longship, pulling hard on the oars as waves and the old gods roar all around him.

However, Nordvig, a teaching assistant professor in the Nordic Program of the University of Colorado Boulder Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literature, is not just the Viking guy who knows a lot about swords. He carries the past and present inside him as he treads softly on the Earth, feeling a soul-deep connection to the rocks and the plants and the animals with which we share this planet. He revels in the wild around and within him.

He's also the man who can teach you about witchcraft and magic in Scandinavia, though not, to the disappointment of some students, how to cast actual spells.

He recently joined host Erika Randall, associate dean for student success in the College of Arts and Sciences, on "The Ampersand,” the college podcast. Randall—who also is a dancer, professor, mother, filmmaker and writer—joins guests in exploring stories about “ANDing” as a “full sensory verb” that describes experience and possibility.

In a broad-ranging discussion involving dragons, Pearl Street, Viking camps and eyes of newt, to name a few, Nordvig and Randall discussed growing up in Greenland, alt-right appropriation of Viking lore and what it means to one part of the living, universal whole. Click the link above to hear the entire conversation.

Nordvig: I did an article on this alt-right manosphere personality called Jack Donovan, and I told him that I was doing research on his material, and then I wrote an article about him, and that article has been positively received by everyone including him.

CU Boulder scholar Mathias Nordvig's research encompasses not just Vikings, but thousands of years of Norse mythology and history.

From what he's said to me, he feels that it's the most fair, scholarly assessment of what he's doing and who he is, so.

Randall: Wow, that's actually incredibly beautiful,

Norvig: I think so.

Randall: Yeah. 'Cause when do we ever all agree?

Nordvig: Exactly.

Randall: Especially about hard things.

Nordvig: Yeah, and then I had very liberal, academic colleagues and friends who were like, "Oh, wow, you're really calling him out on this and this and this," and I'm like, "Well, yeah."

Randall: (laughs) That's my job. And he still felt like he was present in the conversation and not being attacked.

Nordvig: Yeah, he felt that it was a reasonable presentation of how he's thinking. There are things that he was like, "Oh, I didn't actually realize that that's something that I was doing or incorporating," but otherwise, yeah.

Randall: What is the primary language that you would use that gets usurped by alt-right when talking about your area of research?

Nordvig: Well, what we have is this set of texts, literature telling us about Nordic mythology, primarily written in Iceland, but otherwise, some of it is also written in Denmark in the medieval period. And this is a retrospective type of literature, looking back on what existed in the Viking age and before that.

Randall: Yeah, because it's badass? Is this why people are looking back all the time, not just people who are hailing from this land, but... (laughing) I love the stance that you’re doing.

Nordvig: (laughs) There's definitely a lot of people who are like, "Oh, this is badass” nowadays. Back then, in the medieval period, it was still cultural currency, even though people had converted to Christianity. It was still really important cultural material that told these people in Scandinavia something about who they were.

Randall: But then, the appropriation into the alt-right world.

Nordvig: Yeah, so what happens next is that we have a lot of historical interest at different times after the medieval period from the 1200s and onwards. In the 1600s, we have a lot of scholars in Sweden and Denmark who are very interested in this, and this has everything to do with propaganda and the emergence of nationalism in Scandinavia, where Denmark is one empire.

It's a conglomerate empire with Norway, Iceland, and then you have Sweden, that's another empire, a conglomerate empire with Finland, sometimes Estonia, parts of Poland, and even parts of Germany, and they're rivaling.

Mathias Nordvig co-hosts The Nordic Mythology Podcast with Daniel Farrand.

And so, the scholars are trying to come up with explanations for why they're the coolest... Then, what you have from that moment on is this link between national identity and the Viking age, Nordic mythology and all that stuff, and that then becomes useful in different groups that have very distinct political aims. And this is where you also see it coming into the alt-right, just like you do with the Greek history and Roman history as well.

I think with the alt-right, they're very focused on what it means to be a man, and that's the connecting point. So, they look to these old…

Randall: Kind of hyper-masculine.

Nordvig: Well, they are hyper-masculine-ing it…

Randall: Yeah, they're verbing it into hyper-masculinity.

Nordvig: Yeah, but then back then, it was a mode of existing.

Randall: It's just how you had to show up.

Nordvig: Yeah, especially like, I would say warrior ideals and not necessarily something that any man would consider being a man, really.

So, that's also important to consider that a lot of the material that we have from that past has something to do with elite culture, with warrior culture, not with everyday culture. So, we have 10% and the rest, like the 90% of the population, we don't know much about what they did and how they thought.

Randall: But you do.

Nordvig: I try to figure it out, at least.

Randall: Yeah, yeah, so you don't just stay in that realm of the warrior.

I love when we're sitting in a room face-to-face with one another, and I'm hearing these stories of these myths. And then you're kind of a larger-than-life human. Like, when you stand up, you would hit the ceiling maybe a little bit. Your tattoos make you look bigger. You are fitting in this room, like this incredible giant who cares about the 90%, not just the big Viking story, and about the land as we walk on it.

So, you're doing this beautiful translation of, you show up like someone who I might think is gonna just tell me about swords. But you know things that are a lot more delicate about the heritage of heathenism, of living on the land with care, of showing up with old-way traditions in this contemporary world. Can you talk about that? I mean, it's like a living, walking paradox from my vantage, and maybe it's not so paradoxical. Maybe it's exactly who you are and exactly just right.

Nordvig: Well first of all, thank you for this description of me. It's very flattering. I think, like so many other people, I've been through different kinds of transformations in life, figuring out who I am and what I am and how I am. And I'd say that one thing that's always been with me is love and care for nature and the natural world. If nothing else, just in appreciation of it being there and being a space I can enter.

And that comes all the way from my childhood when I lived in Greenland where there was a lot of nature around you, a space that is, even if you're living in an urban space in Greenland, you're living in what we would classify as a wild place, because there's so much happening that we're not exposed to when we live in urban spaces.

Among the books Mathias Nordvig has written is Norse Mythology for Kids.

Randall: And as a child… you had free rein; you could just go into the world.

Nordvig: Yeah, yeah, we grew up with hunting and fishing and camping out there in what we classify as the wilderness. And the reason I use these roundabout ways of talking about it is because I don't consider it wilderness in that sense. I don't wanna make that distinction between civilization and nature or civilization and wilderness. I don't like that distinction, because it alienates that world from us, and I think that's really generally problematic.

Randall: So, the term “wilderness” for you is...

Nordvig: It's either something that gives us an idea that it's dangerous or allows us to romanticize it to an extent that I would say is not appropriate. And that comes from my perspective, that, well, everything in existence belongs to a kinship with us. So, we are related to all existing entities out there. I think the best way to describe it is that if I walk out there in my world, I can encounter a rock and realize that it's a person.

That’s how it works for me, and so that means that going on a hike in the Rockies is similar to taking a walk down the street. I don't feel like a guest. I feel like, generally, I would say that I feel like I belong.

In what I classify as the animist perspective on the world, relationality that you're established with these different entities out there doesn't necessarily preclude that you can be mean to them or you kill them, right? And what it really comes down to is to maintaining balance between yourself and that community of other-than-human-beings out there. That's something that I also feel that we have generally lost in our world. And this is at the root of the climate crisis that we are experiencing, that we're seeing.

I think if we had approached the world with that perspective of relationality, which does not necessarily exclude using resources, but it does require that using resources comes with a high level of responsibility. If we had approached the world like that, then I think that we would probably be in a better place.

Randall: Yes, and you have found the vehicle for your caring is going back into the roots of yourself, your life, your family, even though it sounds like you could be an environmental scientist, you could be an urban architect, you could be, and you do, write children's books, that there are so many ways to get at this kind of care, but did you find yours in the classroom or through this particular study because of the going into the self or into your history? Or are you looking at it from a psychological perspective or from this historical, where anger has been held in the stories of...

Nordvig: Social, cultural, historical, psychological, mythological… the whole. And what I'm familiar with when it comes to going to the roots, what I'm familiar with as an alternative way of thinking about the world, and an alternative way of understanding your place as a human in the world, is this thing we call Nordic mythology. I like to call it the Nordic Story Worlds.

Randall: Great, that's what I wanted from you. That's the umbrella, the Nordic Story Worlds.

Nordvig: Yes, and the reason I like to call it that is because mythology nowadays has been merged with fantasy. And these story worlds were not fantasy to the peoples who used them in their everyday lives. I don't want to say believed in them, because that's really inessential. What is essential is that back in the day, people walked around on a piece of land and told stories like these, because they were meaningful to their existence in that plot of land.

A central aspect of Norse mythology is Yggdrasil, a sacred ash tree that encompasses all nine worlds. (Illustration: The Viking Herald)

Randall: They served the moment.

Nordvig: They served the moment, but this also served a relationship to the land. The relationship to the rock, to the tree, to the bird, to the fish, to whatever animal would come there, and of course, also to the family.

So, in that sense, these stories are expressions of our human kinship with the world.

Randall: That pulls me into that question about how you use these traditions in your life now.

Nordvig: So, the thing is that, a story can be loaded up with, I don't know, swords and horses and carts and thatched roofs, and I dunno, whatever else existed in a space way back when. But that doesn't mean that that story doesn't have what are essentially, eternal truths in a way.

Randall: Thatched roofs are not eternal truths.

Nordvig: No, they're a result of the technological level that they were at, and that's why I wouldn't wanna go back to anything, because I could probably do quite well in a hut like that, but-

Randall: Not so much.

Nordvig: No, see, that's the thing. There's some people out here that wouldn't be able to do that well in a hut like that. And also, although I've spent a lot of time in my teenage years doing Viking age reenactment and actually stayed in huts like that-

Randall: You did?

Nordvig: Yes, and tents.

Randall: And were there dragons?

Nordvig: There were no dragons, at least none that materialized…

Randall: That others could see.

Nordvig: (laughs) Yes.

Randall: But you fought them, nonetheless.

Nordvig: Yes, (laughs) and I've sailed on Viking ships and that kind of stuff, it was a lot of fun. But I don't know what that life actually was like. I have an idea, but I don't know what it was like, and that's why I wouldn't wanna go back. So, what I would like to do instead is I would like to take the wisdom that these people had back then, and then bring it into our present, because our present, when you look at it very broadly, it seems like is lacking a lot of wisdom.

Randall: Yes, so living in a modern world with traditions is not a, there's no odds there. You're not at odds with that. You just find different ways and the different things that you need. And so, I see that, like you were saying earlier, as separate and that to pull them together and to realize that you don't have to just be hardcore in a hut to be connected to things that will then change your care for the world that you live in.

Click the button below to hear the entire episode.

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Top image: Viking boat by Daniel Oxford

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CU Boulder researcher Mathias Nordvig joins The Ampersand podcast to discuss animism, Norse mythology and what it means to live on Earth.

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Dragons, the universe and everything: finding self through science and fantasy

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Oct 2023 16:40:27 +0000

Dragons, the universe and everything: finding self through science and fantasy Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 10/25/2023 - 10:40

CU Boulder PhD student Mikayla Huffman joins ‘The Ampersand’ podcast for a discussion about identity and discovery

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When she’s not mapping tertiary craters on the moon, Mikayla Huffman might be found on the battlefield, clad in armor and swinging a sword as tall as she is.

Her foes? A horde of pink brains skittering on taloned legs through acrid vapors around pools of lava. An ominous tendril emerges from the nearest brain, and Mikayla yells, “Get out of here, I got this!”

But in a flash of light, the battlefield disappears, and now Mikayla is at the end of a hallway of doors, each one labeled with what’s behind it. She stops in front of a particular door labeled simply “The Universe.”

"This is the most important one," she says. "It's where all of our journeys begin and end. It's what holds us together."

Mikayla Huffman is a PhD student in astrophysical and planetary sciences at CU Boulder.

She cracks it open and steps inside.

Mikayla Huffman is a leader and a question-asker. This particular alchemy has led her into fantastical realms as a Dungeons and Dragons dungeon master and into the galaxy as a University of Colorado Boulder PhD student in astrophysical and planetary sciences.

In a free-wheeling discussion, excerpted below, Huffman and Randall talked about overcoming science gatekeeping, making lunar discoveries and finding identity in realms where dragons fly. Click the link above to hear the entire conversation.

Huffman: I had a pretty rough experience the summer after my freshman year of undergrad, where I applied for a physics internship. I had good grades, so I got a phone interview with an unnamed chief engineer at large corporation.

He got on the phone and was asking me all these questions about physics history. And I hadn't taken a physics history class yet. And his tone changed immediately when I said I went to a liberal arts college. He was like, "Have you taken multi-variable calculus yet? Have you taken quantum mechanics?"

Randall: Checklist came out.

Huffman: Yeah, and I'm like, I'm a freshman. And then he started saying, "Are you sure you even wanna be a scientist? Like, do you know that atoms are made of protons and neutrons? Do you know what an electric field is?" Like, totally dismissive. And for a really long time, I was like, oh my God, I'm not good enough to be a scientist, 'cause this guy…

Host Erika Randall (left) and Mikayla Huffman discuss everything from gatekeeping in science to world-building in fantasy.

Randall: You took it as a critique of you?

Huffman: Yeah, yeah. Because I didn't know that that was complete nonsense that he was saying. Oh, and then he was like, "I'm not gonna give you the job, but you can come and meet the person I do give it to.” So, I came and met the guy, and it was a 14-year-old boy.

Randall: Hold the phone.

Huffman: I know.

Randall: I'm not gonna give you the job, but…

Huffman: Yep. I know, I know. Totally nuts. But because I was, you know, a young, impressionable undergrad, I was like, oh man, I am not cut out for this. And it was only when I talked to female mentors in the field—I had a great pre-major advisor, Patricia Valley, and she was like, "Why would he say that to you?" And I was like, "Yeah, why would he say that to me?" That's nonsense.

And that's when I started staying in the community. But I did pivot from pure physics to planetary science, which does have more women in it because of that.

Randall: So now that is a spark lit in you. That is a charge. And I felt even just looking at your materials, the way that you take out a lot of jargon so that folks can be present with the work. It's how I learned about tertiary craters.

Huffman: Yeah.

Randall: And I just, that was such a point of access. And so, for you, was this a turning point in your career, where you said, "Oh, I've gotta do things differently," or had you been working towards that already?

Huffman: Absolutely. So, part of it was, you know, that really sparked in me, I don't want this to happen to other early career women. Because if you lose gender minorities, racial minorities, out of science, you also lose the discoveries they would have made, you know what I mean? I think a big part of science is pulling others up into the field. And to do that, I need to excel. So, I made sure that I was in a place to excel so that I can mentor other gender minorities into the field.

Randall: So now here you are, you're in this field, and you honestly, I really did get lost in your research. What you have accomplished, that you got, well, they're not officially named, but I wanna talk about Wallace and Gromit.

Huffman: Yeah, absolutely.

Randall: Okay, so not just because they're great "Ampersand" characters, and I love them and have seen all of the things, but do you, you were the first. This is a new discovery that you have made, as you were transitioning into coming into your PhD, about a tertiary crater on the moon, that because of the way you math, the way you think and the patience you have, and then, are you gonna get to name it?

Huffman: Yeah, so let's talk about that. First of all, let's define what tertiary craters are.

Randall: Okay, I'm gonna let you do that.

CU Boulder PhD student Mikayla Huffman has mapped more than 6,000 seconary craters on the moon's surface.

Huffman: Oh yeah, for sure. When a big rock comes down from space, or a big chunk of ice, and hits the ground, it makes a hole. That's called a primary crater. That's the thing that you probably think about.

But when that happens, you throw out a lot of ejecta, a lot of ejected material, which can re-impact the surface, creating secondary craters.

Randall: And it gets us confused about time.

Huffman: Yes, so this is useful, but also not useful. It's not useful because the number of primary craters is pretty much constant throughout time. So if you go to a planetary surface and you count the number of primary craters on it, you can figure out how old that surface is without even going to it, which is super nice, 'cause it costs a lot of money to send people to planets.

Randall: Yes.

Huffman: But it's also a problem because if people can't distinguish between secondary craters and primary craters, which can be similar sized, if you have a large primary, you have large secondaries, which can be as large as small primaries, then you can severely overestimate the age of that surface.

But secondary craters are really useful, because they tell us some information about what happened during that cratering impact. So, tertiary creators are secondaries of secondaries. So, you have the primary, throw stuff out, make secondaries, which throw stuff out and create tertiaries.

It's really difficult to distinguish between a tertiary and a secondary crater, so that was a lot of my undergraduate thesis, was figuring out how can we make sure, follow these clues that these aren't just very small secondaries.

Randall: And did this come to you because you were a moon gazer? Because you love story? Because you saw that this was a gap in research? What were, how'd you get there?

Huffman: Yeah, so part of it was because of my amazing mentor at the Southwest Research Institute, Kelsi Singer, who I've been working with since, I think, the summer after my sophomore year of undergrad. And she's now a co-advisor on my PhD.

She had this idea that tertiaries might be a thing, and she said, "Hello, undergrad, who I'm paying. You get to sit down and map all of these craters, looking for tertiaries.

Randall: What a gift. What, I mean, that's a huge gift.

Huffman: Yeah, it was great.

Randall: That she had an idea and she said, "I'm gonna trust you to figure this out." And so then…

Huffman: And so, then I mapped, I think, about 6,000 secondary craters.

Randall: How long did this take?

Huffman: Oh, a while.

Randall: Like, until your senior year?

Huffman: Yeah. But I did do it while I was playing D&D, 'cause it's a pretty mindless thing, once you've got it down. So, I was DMing on one screen and mapping craters on the other one.

Randall: You were not.

Huffman: I was, yeah. And none of my players noticed. So that's good.

Randall: And the moon didn't know.

Huffman: No, no, of course not. But yeah, so I found these tertiaries.

Randall: Was this all online? This was COVID?

Huffman: Yes, this was during COVID. The campaign that I DM has been all online.

Randall: Oh, really?

Huffman: Yeah. There's this unnamed primary, which we call Wallace. We're actually working on naming it after Alan Hart, who's a trans man and pioneer who used X-ray screenings in tuberculosis detection.

Randall: Even cooler.

Huffman: Yeah, super awesome. And then the secondary crater, which we call Gromit—originally I was calling them 1P8, 'cause it was 1.8 kilometers in diameter. And then the secondary, I was calling 1P8A. But, you know…

Randall: Very Star Wars-y, but not as colorful as this world.

Huffman: And so, I found these tertiaries, and we think they're tertiaries, not small secondaries, for a couple of reasons. One, the size is right. The largest secondaries tend to be about 5% the size of their primary. And these are about the right size.

Randall: They're about 1.8.

Huffman: Well, 1.8 kilometers in diameter is the size of the primary. The tertiary craters are pretty small. We're talking, like, the size of a Volkswagen Beetle.

Randall: Wow.

Huffman: Yeah.

Randall: Wow, and you found that on the moon.

Huffman: Yeah.

Randall: Also, you just were such a good teacher. I don't feel like I am dissuaded from studying craters even though I got the answer wrong. It's so great. Okay, I'm so happy that you gave me the Volkswagen Beetle. That is an image.

Huffman: Yeah, for sure.

Randall: And you could be doing that while being a dungeon master.

Huffman: Yeah, absolutely.

Randall: Okay, you're a dungeon master.

Huffman: Yes.

Randall: And you are also an extrovert.

Huffman: Yes.

Randall: And this extreme geological and planetary astrophysicist. You are already used to doing the interdisciplinary thing, so you thought, why not just throw my campaign in here?

Huffman: Absolutely.

Randall: And create an entire new world while looking at a rock out from our world. How'd that go for you?

Huffman: Well, one thing that was really useful is I took a few remote-sensing classes in undergrad. And that was really neat, because it taught me how to use a software called RGIS. Super useful. You can use it to map craters.

But also, you can put your world maps for your homebrew D&D campaign in it. And this has been great for me because I have a little sub-routine that I run that tells me if they're trying to go from this town to this town along the roads, how many days it will take at various travel paces.

Randall: You are taking this next level.

Huffman: Yeah, well that's the point as a DM.

One of the appeals of Dungeons and Dragons for Mikayla Huffman is the game's inclusivity.

Randall: That's the point. Okay, how did you become a DM, and talk about women in STEM, women as dungeon masters, a thing, not a thing?

Huffman: Yeah, definitely a thing. There's a lot of great female DMs. And part of that is because D&D is such an inclusive sort of hobby, like, there's a lot of queer people, there's a lot of gender people in D&D, because it's such a great exploratory space.

Randall: I see this with my kid in the skins, and he's always playing in femme skins.

Huffman: Yeah.

Randall: And D&D kind of started this, right? Because you get to change, your body is a, it's more of a projection of your internal self than the body we might actually wear in the world.

Huffman: Yeah, so I'm gender fluid, so sometimes I feel like a boy. And so, I kind of explored that through D&D. I've only ever played male D&D characters.

Randall: Did you think of yourself as gender fluid when you started exploring through D&D? What kind of came first? Or did they just guide one another?

Huffman: Yeah, so, you know, I've always had inklings that I might be gender fluid, but really being able to explore using he/him pronouns in a safe space with my friends, super useful.

Randall: Has there been work done on this about D&D? And I know that cosplay, there's worlds where we've talked about this in queer studies, but I haven't heard about this in D&D as a path towards remaking identity and rehearsing and playing-

Huffman: Oh yeah, absolutely. I'm not sure if there have been any scientific studies. I was reading an article about how D&D can actually be used to help with social anxiety and depression, which, you know, that, it makes total sense to me, but I'm not sure if there have been any sociological studies about gender identity or sexual identity through D&D.

Randall: Well, I think that's just, it's, what a gift of this form. I remember, it was generally folks who identified as males playing when I was six, and all the others were like, on the side kind of being like, "What are those magical dice? I wanna play with it." But didn't feel like we had the authority to step in.

Huffman: Yeah, so you guys can't see, but I actually have two of my Dungeons and Dragons miniatures here with me that I 3D printed.

Mikayla Huffman holds figures of two of her Dungeons and Dragons characters that she 3D printed.

Randall: This you tiny-3D printed?

Huffman: Yeah, these are two of my characters.

Randall: Okay, this is amazing.

Huffman: So, the one in your left hand is Milky Way. I know, kind of on the nose. His real name's Delmir of Arakel. And this is the guy that I played for my boyfriend's campaign, which we just finished after 1,557 days of real time. I know, it's crazy. I'm still feeling weird about it. We just ended it last week.

Randall: Oh, do you get lonely for those and for the characters?

Huffman: Yeah, but you can always do one-shots, which are self-contained stories with those characters, so we get to revisit them. But Milky is a dragonborn, not like Skyrim. He's like a humanoid dragon character.

The other guy is Max, which is actually my masculine name… And Max is a tiefling, which is like, sort of a devil person conquest paladin. And tiefling are really interesting in D&D, because they've kind of been discriminated against in the canon.

And so, gender minorities, racial minorities, sexuality minorities, they can all kind of project that sort of conflict onto tieflings in the game.

Randall: So, a tiefling is kind of like a representative body. A representative outcast.

Huffman: Yeah, every queer person that I know loves playing tieflings.

Randall: Okay, when we think about how we move forward, it's all chance in these (Dungeons and Dragons) worlds, but in your world, in science, it's nothing is left to chance.

Huffman: Well, you'd be surprised. Statistics are a huge part of my research. So in D&D, you basically roll the dice, and then you add some modifiers, depending on your character. And then the DM sets what's called a DC. And if you're above that DC then you succeed. If you're below that DC then you fail at what you're trying to do.

In science, failure is a huge part of it. In science, your first hypothesis is never, ever, ever going to be right. And I talk about this a lot with undergrads. Because we're not taught that, you know? We're taught that you need to succeed on the first try, which is impossible.

Randall: Yeah. So, failure is a goal, 'cause it teaches you something.

Huffman: Exactly, and so, you know, when I give this talk to undergrads, I say, "Here's my resume, very impressive," and then they're like, "Oh my God, she's so impressive." And then later on, I put up my resume, and then in the next column, my failure resume. So, I say, yes, I got this, but I had to apply to 30 internships and get ghosted from 29 of them.

Randall: Oh, I love this.

Huffman: You know what I mean?

Randall: Yeah. And do you weave it with D&D when you're talking to folks? Is this something that's been ANDed for you for a while?

Huffman: Yeah, so I do talk about D&D a lot with respect to science as well, 'cause, you know, I oftentimes, for my world maps, will just steal the maps of other planets and then add some water to them. And I'm like yeah, this is my homebrew world. It's definitely not Mars, but you've gotta just add water.

Click the button below to hear the entire episode.

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CU Boulder PhD student Mikayla Huffman joins ‘The Ampersand’ podcast for a discussion about identity and discovery.

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Studying the best of humanity, even the darkest parts

Anonymous — Fri, 22 Sep 2023 21:58:36 +0000

Studying the best of humanity, even the darkest parts Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 09/22/2023 - 15:58

CU Boulder researcher June Gruber kicks off a new season of “The Ampersand” podcast in a conversation about all the feelings, not just the positive ones

When June Gruber was tackled by two grown men on the streets of Sao Paulo, Brazil, her fear and shock stood in stark relief to her gratitude as strangers stepped forward to offer help and to catch the assailants.

As overwhelming and scary as the experience was, it offered Gruber, a University of Colorado Boulder associate professor of psychology and neuroscience, opportunities to be curious.

Gruber studies and looks for the best in humanity, even in its darkest parts, and brings to light the complexity of the human brain and all the stories it has to offer. Her research has shown that a range of emotion, from bittersweet melancholy to nostalgic joy, is better for the human body than a “toxic positivity” insistence on a singular feeling of happiness.

She recently joined host Erika Randall, associate dean for student success in the CU College of Arts and Sciences, to kick off a new season of "The Ampersand,” the College of Arts and Sciences podcast. Randall—who also is a dancer, professor, mother, filmmaker and writer—joins guests in exploring stories about “ANDing” as a “full sensory verb” that describes experience and possibility.

Erika Randall (left) and June Gruber how the human body benefits from a range of emotions while recording "The Ampersand" podcast in Boulder.

In a broad-ranging discussion, excerpted below, Gruber and Randall talked about the full palette of emotions and how there’s connection to be found even in the worst moments. Click the link above to hear the entire conversation.

Gruber: A lot of the way we hear about happiness and positivity, especially in more westernized or individualistic context, is very self-centered. It's, "How can I feel better, and in particular, how can I feel these kind of exuberant emotions–joy, excitement, enthusiasm?"

Although those are certainly important feelings to have in part of the human experience, sometimes we push them too far or experience them in ways that put other feelings to the wayside. And so, when I think about that sweet spot of happiness, I think about a few different pieces. One is balancing the kinds of emotions you have so that you balance both the emotions that bring you pleasure, but also, you're experiencing those kinds of feelings that really orient you outwards towards other people.

So, we think of these as other-oriented feelings. This could be love, this could be compassion. We've even found … that a sense of awe and wonder, the science is telling us that gets us out of ourselves, that gets us into the great beyond and actually makes us really connect with others in the greater world. So, I think it's about also experiencing those emotions that engage us with the world and engage us with other people.

I also have found that happiness isn't about just feeling positive. And in fact, we've done some work looking at the diverse … menu of feelings you can have as a human being. We're built with all kinds of feelings, including sadness and frustration, at times embarrassment.

Randall: Melancholy is my favorite.

Gruber: Melancholy, yeah.

Randall: It's my fave, and my kid at 2 years old: “Mama, my favorite word is melancholy.”

Gruber: Such a good word.

Randall: Yeah, I'm like, okay, I'm done parenting. I've arrived. But yeah, these other feelings that connect us to a sense of ourselves and outward.

Gruber: And the world as it is. So, that means if experiencing what we call emotional diversity. There are times when it's completely appropriate to feel angry at social injustice, at the world, you know, not going the way it could or optimally ought to be. And anger can motivate us to sort of push towards social change or, you know, behavioral change. There's times when embarrassment, we find that it actually can be completely all right. Although it can feel painful. When you feel embarrassed, other people like you more, they trust you more. They laugh.

CU Boulder researcher June Gruber the complexity of human emotions.

Randall: Yeah, they see your humility, humanity.

Gruber: So, happiness is about experiencing all the different … The palette of emotions we find.

Randall: What brought you to this work? I think, for myself, I spend so much time as an artist and as a writer being with, and I wonder what it's like to be with on a neurological level, on a scientific level. What brought you to be with happiness so deeply?

Gruber: Part of it's … I always wanted to be a writer when I was in high school. I loved English literature. I loved reading about human experience. And all of them, you know, whether I was reading, you know, 1984 or Lord of the Flies, or you know, it was just learning about the human mind. And I knew that I wanted to try to study it more deeply in a way that I could also bring in math and I could also bring in running experiments, like to do all the things to be able to understand happiness.

But what got me interested in this in particular, actually, was not a class, but I actually was an undergraduate and I was shadowing a psychiatrist through an inpatient unit in the psychiatry unit. And I was following her around as she went on her rounds from patient to patient. And I remember one patient that we stopped and visited, and it was a woman in sort of the acute throes of mania. And I had never seen anything like that before.

Randall: And it was probably terrifying.

Gruber: It was terrifying, and it was also absorbing because here she was in this very fragile part of her life, and at the same time she was laughing, she was exuberant. And I wanted to understand what that was about, because all I knew at that time from my classes was in the positive psychology movement where we were trying to foster happiness, we were trying to think positive thoughts. And this didn't fit with that, and I wondered what could it tell us?

Randall: You said a sentence earlier on ... about what really is. How do we be with what is and still find pleasure, wonder and not just happiness at that edge?

Gruber: As a mom with two little boys, I think all the time about like, we have this opportunity, we can teach children and teach them these things young so it becomes part of the foundation of who they are and what they think about their own feelings. I think about that, especially as a mom of two young boys, where we need to foster greater awareness of feelings and all of them in a world that hasn't always supported men experiencing all their feelings.

Randall: So, I want to get back to the story about the bystander experience.

June: What's so interesting about it is it's one of these things you learn early on, and that when we're in a group and something happens, especially someone, you know, maybe they're being robbed on the street, that people, if they don't have to be involved, they just turn an eye and walk away. And that's what we're told to understand and believe humans are about. And it always made me sad. It always made me feel sort of cynical about humanity. And I think this experience showed me that that doesn't have to be the case. Like, there's hope for humanity, especially in these times when it can feel so challenging … There’s still like, inherent human goodness.

Randall: Yes, especially when you feel danger in your body. So, you were traveling?

Gruber: I was traveling. I was in Sao Paulo (Brazil) with my friend Sabrina. We were teaching a course to students there on creativity and happiness. So, like where art and psychology meet. It was a dream.

And one night, we were leaving dinner, just she and I, and we were walking up the street. And out of just ... literally, it was the blink of an eye. I couldn't have even described having an opportunity to react right away because it happened so fast. Two men just pushed my friend to the side and pushed me to the ground.

Two men, out of nowhere, you know, middle aged, like solid. Solid people. They had pushed me to the ground. So, I was on the ground and I had been holding my phone. I shouldn't have been holding it out. And as I was just gripped to it. I don't even think in that moment I quite knew it was happening. But yeah, they were sort of both ... One was like pushing, pinning me down to the ground, and the other was just like striking me with his arms. And I was just in the moment, in a blur like, what is happening? How much worse is this going to get? I believed it was going to be a lot worse. And when is this going to end? That's all I could think.

And my friend Sabrina, who is a very kind, very gentle, not physically aggressive person at all. She was standing back and watching these two men over me. I'm on the ground. And just, just in a moment, I don't think she even thought twice. She went and just like whacked him. She kicked him hard. She does play soccer, so we think that helped. But she whacked him with a foot.

Randall: Wow, she put herself in.

Erika Randall hosts "The Ampersand" podcast, now in its second season.

Gruber: She did.

Randall: Into the mix.

Gruber: She put her own safety at risk. And I asked her about this: “Why did you do that? Thank you, but why did you do that?” And she said, “What else could I have done? You were in a dire situation and no one else was reacting. No one else was there in that moment.”

And she said, “I honestly didn't think twice.” And the man she kicked kind of lost his balance and stumbled back. And then they both just took off. I think they didn't want to mess with my friend or us anymore.

Randall: I don't want to mess with her either. I love it.

Gruber: Yeah. We were floored what happened after that because we thought that was sort of the end of the situation … We then, like, were standing there and suddenly a man down the street yelled, "They've got him, they've got him!" And we walked down the street and one of the men was there, and suddenly there was a whole barrage of police there.

Someone else came up to us asking how we were doing. Another guy drives by on a motorcycle, “I'm going to catch the second guy.”

Randall: Whoa, just the world sprang into action.

Gruber: We were sort of in a little bit of shock, but, you know, everyone kept coming up to check with us. Another person called our friend Paolo, who had been our host for this workshop. And he asked if he could come get us. Everyone in that moment checked in on how we were doing.

They ended up catching both of them… and then they tended to us. We went to the police station, and they took care of us. They checked in on us and they took us back to our hotel later that night at 2 in the morning.

Randall: And I bet every single human who was in that situation with you, and for you, didn't leave feeling happy, but they left feeling something.

Gruber: And that's exactly it. No one felt happy in that moment. To feel happy in that moment, I would think would have been toxic positivity, right? Like, it wouldn't have made sense in that moment. It would've meant someone was really out of touch or insensitive, in fact. No one felt happy but I think everyone felt connected and got a sense of what we talk about as purposeful.

Randall: I love that so much. A sense of connected and purposeful.

Listen to The Ampersand here, on Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Episode: Studying the best of humanity, even our darkest parts

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CU Boulder researcher June Gruber kicks off a new season of “The Ampersand” podcast in a conversation about all the feelings, not just the positive ones.

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