concerns - USC Dornsife - University of Southern California

F O R A L U M N I A N D F R I E N D S O F U S C D A N A A N D D AV I D D O R N S I F E C O L L E G E O F L E T T E R S , A R T S A N D S C I E N C E S

MAGAZINE

FALL 2017 / WINTER 2018

The (Im)mortality Issue

GRAVE

CONCERNS

We examine one of life’s two certainties. (Hint: We’re not talking taxes.)

CON T R I BU T OR Safiya Sinclair Ph.D. Student in Creative Writing and Literature

Blooming with intense lyricism and fertile imagery, Safiyah Sinclair’s poems confront postcolonial identity as they explore her Jamaican childhood in a strict Rastafarian family, Jamaican history, race relations in America, womanhood, otherness and exile. The prize-winning poet, added another laurel to her literary crown in 2017 by winning the renowned Addison M. Metcalf Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Sinclair received the biennial $10,000 award, “intended to encourage a young writer of great promise,” for her debut collection, Cannibal (University of Nebraska Press, 2016). She will use the award to work on her next book, a memoir of growing up as a young woman in a fiercely patriarchal society. “I feel extremely encouraged by this support and belief in my work,” Sinclair said. “I see this award as another bright spark in the night sky, a signal that I must keep working and continue writing myself into a space that I can finally feel at home in.” Video: Learn more about Safiya Sinclair at dornsife.usc.edu/safiya.

PHOTO BY MIKE GLIER

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SINCLAIR PORTRAIT BY WILLY SOMMA

Contents

A Transcendent Life SENIOR ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR STRATEGIC INITIATIVES AND COMMUNICATION

Lance Ignon

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF PUBLICATIONS / ART DIRECTOR

Dan Knapp

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Darrin S. Joy

WRITERS AND EDITORS

Susan Bell Michelle Boston Laura Paisley DESIGNERS

Letty Avila Matthew Savino VIDEOGRAPHER AND PHOTOGRAPHER

Mike Glier

COMMUNICATIONS ASSISTANT

Deann Webb

CONTRIBUTORS Ian Chaffee, Joanna Clay, Emily Gersema, Stephen Koenig, Zen Vuong, Susan L. Wampler, Mira Zimet USC DORNSIFE ADMINISTRATION Amber D. Miller, Dean • Stephen Bradforth, Divisional Dean for Natural Sciences and Mathematics • Steven Finkel, College Dean of Graduate and Professional Education • Andrew Lakoff, Divisional Dean for Social Sciences • Stephen Mackey, Vice Dean for Administration and Finance • Eddie Sartin, Senior Associate Dean for Advancement • Andrew Stott, College Dean of Undergraduate Education • Sherry Velasco, Interim Divisional Vice Dean for the Humanities

We humans are prone to think in terms of opposites. Light and dark. High and low. Hot and cold. Each seemingly battles the other. But when we take a closer look, we see that these opposed pairs are, in fact, merely two extremes of a continuum. Dark is simply less light. Low is another level of high. Cold a less energetic form of hot. This interdependence and interconnectedness is true of almost any pair that we may, at first, set apart as opposites.

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From the Dean

4 COVER STORY Discover the mythos of the exotic fruit that inspired our cover.

5 SOCIAL DORNSIFE Find out how to participate in our first readership survey to give your take on USC Dornsife Magazine.

In much the same way, our mortality drives us to seek some kind of immortality. Each of us strives to extend our mortal lives, to find a measure, however small or large, of lasting presence. At USC Dornsife, we see this in the knowledge we hand down through the generations. Our faculty, as teachers and mentors, extend the continuum of progress and insight by training the next generation of scholars. As researchers, they contribute to an ever-evolving process of discovery and a continuously expanding reservoir of human knowledge. We also see this in the impact we’re making in our community and the planet at large. Our world-renowned scientists are developing new ways to extend and improve life. Other faculty are working on sustaining the Earth’s natural environment. Still others delve into historical research that preserves and adds context to the stories that define humanity. We have made it our highest value to ask the most difficult questions and to consider the perspective of others. By relying on the authority of evidence and ideas, USC Dornsife is making a positive impact on society today that will last long into the future — an impact that transcends the life of any one individual or any one moment in time.

6 FROM THE HEART OF USC Researchers track emotions to understand food consumption; Kids test-drive tech; Students put age-old skills to work; Scientists uncover possible solution to greenhouse gas.

7 8 THE (IM)MORTALITY ISSUE

Amber D. Miller Dean of USC Dornsife Anna H. Bing Dean’s Chair

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Memento Mori

USC Dornsife scholars explore our dramatically evolving attitudes toward death and mortality. By Susan Bell

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USC DORNSIFE BOARD OF COUNCILORS Robert D. Beyer, Chair • Wendy Abrams • Robert Alvarado • William Barkett • Leslie Berger • Susan Casden • Richard S. Flores • Shane Foley • Lisa Goldman • Jana Waring Greer • Pierre Habis • Yossie Hollander • Janice Bryant Howroyd • Martin Irani • Dan James • Stephen G. Johnson • Suzanne Nora Johnson • Peter YS Kim • Yoon Kim • Samuel King • Arthur Lev • Robert Osher • Gerald Papazian • Lawrence Piro • Kelly Porter • Michael Reilly • Harry Robinson • Stephanie Booth Shafran • Carole Shammas • Glenn A. Sonnenberg • Kumarakulasingam “Suri” Suriyakumar

Immortal. Beloved.

Alumna Kathryn Sermak recounts her decade-long association with one of the most celebrated actresses in Hollywood history, and how it helped to shape her career and her ideas about aging and death. By Dan Knapp

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What Lies Beneath

As researchers explore ancient fossils and artifacts, they look to this immortalized record of what once was to understand the future and how we can act to ensure we remain a part of it. By Laura Paisley

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USC DORNSIFE MAGAZINE Published twice a year by the USC Dornsife Office of Communication at the University of Southern California. © 2017 USC Dornsife College. The diverse opinions expressed in USC Dornsife Magazine do not necessarily represent the views of the editors, USC Dornsife administration or USC. USC Dornsife Magazine welcomes comments from its readers to [email protected] or USC Dornsife Magazine, 1150 S. Olive St. T2400, Los Angeles, CA 90015

50 PHOTO BY DAMON CASAREZ

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Curriculum Archive Profile

Lexicon

The Bench

Our World Legacy

60 DORNSIFE FAMILY Three faculty earn Guggenheim Fellowships; Alumna empowers women; Physics grad perfects martial arts skills; Alumna’s scientific contributions are out of this world.

Hanging by a Thread?

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Nobel Prize–winning economist Angus Deaton has uncovered startling data that show mortality numbers are climbing for certain groups of Americans. How can we buck the trend? By Michelle Boston

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Power to the People

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Faculty Canon

Faculty News

Alumni Canon Alumni News

Remembering

Imaginative new approaches to battery technology may give us longer-lasting power in smaller packages. More important, they may give renewable energy the charge it needs to finally succeed on a wide scale. By Darrin S. Joy

70 IN MY OPINION

Dying to Talk

71 READERSHIP SURVEY

Alumna and radio talk show host Dawn Gross aims to revolutionize how we talk about death, hospice and palliative care. Oh, and she also teaches death ed to teenagers. By Susan Bell

Youth to Power

Cover Story

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CLASSICS

Twitter

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MAGAZINE

SPRING / SUMMER 2012


MAGAZINE



MAGAZINE



MAGAZINE


The Memory Issue

REMEMBER

@just_quia: I started my college career in community college and now I’ll be attending USC (my dream school) in the fall. Beyond grateful. #IGotIntoUSC

THIS

USC Dornsife researchers investigate how memory works and why we forget.

@DrCarlsHorn: I’m now officially a #newPI @USCDornsife! #MarineInverts adorn my bldg door. I think I’m going to like it here

The Intersections Issue

PERFECT VISION USC Dornsife 2020 dares to tackle the problems of the world with rigorous and relevant research.

The Sustainability Issue

The Creativity Issue

FREE YOUR

IMAGINATION

TURNING THE TIDE

Our researchers are transforming environmental woes to wins.

Experience the originality and flair of USC Dornsife’s masters of ingenuity.


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MAGAZINE


SPRING/ SUMMER 2015

MAGAZINE


MAGAZINE


@nolahtheveil: Recalling how powerful coordinating the diversity predoctoral institute was last wknd w/ @christiangrose & @USCDornsife support. #PhDlife

The Food Issue

FACING

@JulesDeep: Congratulations to colleague & friend Steve Finkel fm @USC @deepbiosphere who received @ASMicrobiology research training award! #asmicrobe

THE FORK At the crossroads, USC Dornsife researchers tackle food scarcity and our eating culture.

The Frontiers Issue

TRAVERSING

POSSIBILITY Our pioneering scholars link the past and present to a better future.

The Community Issue

PEOPLE

BUILDING

USC Dornsife’s impact begins in Los Angeles and stretches around the globe.

e Reality Issue

CUTTING THROUGH

THE STATIC

Exploring the world around (and within) us, USC Dornsife scholars look for answers.

Fall 2015 / Winter 2016 1



MAGAZINE



MAGAZINE



@iseehawksinla: Fantastic to hear @viet_t_nguyen reading from his new book “The Refugees” tonight at Shakespeare and Co in Paris

OF A NATION USC Dornsife scholars examine the modern political landscape to get a read on the country’s pulse.

The Identity Issue

WHO WE ARE.

WHO ARE WE?

From the cell to the pixel, explore how we understand ourselves in the modern world.

@nathanmasters: Production is underway on #LostLA’s second season. Today we’re interviewing historian Bill Deverell of @HUSC_ICW.

MAGAZINE

The Politics Issue

HEARTBEAT

The Visionaries Issue

SHOOT

THE MOON

Vision is the driving force behind change. USC Dornsife’s world-class scholars demonstrate the power of vision to make a better community, country and world.

The current iteration of USC Dornsife Magazine was launched in 2012 as a way to discuss research and events across disciplines, and to offer alumni, faculty, staff and friends of USC Dornsife — as well as readers beyond our university — lively and compelling articles and information covering the breadth of intellectual pursuits at USC Dornsife. Please take a few moments to answer some brief questions about USC Dornsife Magazine. Your feedback will be of tremendous help to the magazine staff as we work to ensure the publication meets your needs and interests.

ART WORK BY IRINA VINNIK

FRUIT OF THE AGES The pomegranate is a highly evocative fruit. With its jewellike seed pods, or arils, it has long been a symbol of fertility — reaching back to the mythology of ancient Greece. “In the Greek imagination, fertility was the form of immortality that was available to human beings,” explained Daniel Richter, associate professor of classics at USC Dornsife. Pomegranate seeds figure prominently in the mythological tale of Persephone, which is found within the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, the goddess of agriculture and fertility. The Homeric Hymns are a collection of 33 anonymous writings from ancient Greece celebrating individual gods. Demeter’s daughter Persephone was kidnapped by Hades, the god of the underworld, who took her as his wife. When Demeter learned of this, her despair halted the growth of all living things. Hades tricked Persephone into eating six pomegranate seeds in the underworld. Little did she know that anyone who ate or drank while there would be doomed to remain eternally. Luckily, through the intervention of Zeus, Persephone got off with a lighter sentence, spending just six months a year in the underworld (a period known as winter). This mythology led ancient Greeks to proffer pomegranate seeds to Demeter in the hope of receiving fertile land in return — and colored their understanding of seasonal mortality connected with the cycle of growth. —L.P.

SOCIAL DOR NSIFE

To help compensate for your time, all completed surveys will be entered into a series of random drawings for prizes that include: • 2018 USC football season tickets • An Apple iPad • A library of autographed books by renowned USC Dornsife faculty and alumni • A USC Bookstore gift certificate • An Apple Watch

@parisreview: “You need to retain a certain confidence in order to keep working.” —Geoff Dyer

CONNECT WITH USC DORNSIFE Check us out on your favorite social media sites. We welcome your posts and tweets for possible inclusion in the next issue of USC Dornsife Magazine. dornsife.usc.edu/facebook Become a fan and get updates in your news feed.

dornsife.usc.edu/twitter Follow our tweets for the latest USC Dornsife news.

dornsife.usc.edu/youtube

To fill out the survey online visit:

Watch the latest videos from the USC Dornsife community.

dornsife.usc.edu/reader-survey

dornsife.usc.edu/instagram

Or you can fill out the survey on pages 71–72 of this issue and mail it to us at the address listed.

Follow our feed for snapshots of the #DornsifeLife.

Fall 2017 / Winter 2018 5

Curriculum

FROM THE HE ART OF USC Viewpoint EXPERT OPINIONS

“ … gender-diverse people have in all ages been capable of some mighty remarkable things. Like the victorious soldier cinaedus, they can confound expectations and achieve results in some of the most extremely adverse situations.”

THOMAS SAPSFORD, classics lecturer, in an Aug. 1 op-ed in The Conversation about the cinaedus — a fabled ancient Roman figure who played a decisive role in combat but whose gender identity raised concerns in the military similar to those in current times.

“Book burnings may be relatively rare in modern America, but efforts to protect young readers from ‘ dangerous’ texts are not.”

“North Korea isn’t unpredictable; rather, it is the most predictable country on earth.”

DAVID KANG, professor of international relations, business and East Asian languages and cultures, in a July 5 op-ed in The New York Times about the ongoing volatile situation in North Korea.

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A new way to track how you feel when it’s time for a meal could give clues on how to develop eating habits aimed at better health. By Emily Gersema Many of us lie or can’t remember what we ate when asked to reveal our eating habits. That makes it difficult for doctors and researchers to guide us toward better diets and behaviors. But what if there was a way for them to monitor us? Donna Spruijt-Metz, director of the mHealth Collaboratory at USC Dornsife’s Center for Economic and Social Research, and her team are testing an innovative approach to address obesity. They are using devices that measure mood and eating behaviors rather than focusing on dietary intake. Researchers normally measure food intake by asking people to remember what they ate over a three-day period, but the method is uncertain. “We really have no idea what people eat because people lie,” said Spruijt-Metz, who also is professor (research) of psychology. “People don’t remember.” In 2015, Spruijt-Metz and her colleagues received a grant from the National Science Foundation to study obesity and eating habits within families through wearable, mobile health devices. The approach, called M2FED, monitors mood and food, enabling the researchers to detect eating behaviors and emotional responses of study participants. The researchers aim to develop a realtime method that could stop unhealthy behaviors and reduce obesity, which affects more than one-third of adults and 17 percent of all children and teens in the United States, according to federal health statistics. “As a behaviorist, I began thinking that we do know that behaviors affect eating, such as the attitudes around the table, whether or not you are angry or if you are depressed or you don’t like what your mother said,” Spruijt-Metz said. “We can now reliably measure that with sensors. Forget measuring dietary intake.”

The system uses audio data collected by in-home microphones, and the researchers developed algorithms to determine the mood and stress level of study participants and their families. The system also detects eating behaviors based on signals from a wrist-worn smartwatch. The device sensors pick up wrist movements to detect a person’s eating behaviors, including when, how long and how fast they eat. Tested on participants — five female and five male — the devices can gauge the following moods with high accuracy: anger, anxiety, boredom, happiness and sadness. Spruijt-Metz said that the literature has shown that food intake and mood go hand in hand. “There is scientific literature showing that people are stress eaters,” she said. “The culture at home, within the family, can affect how people eat.”

PSYCHO PHOTO COURTESY OF GET T Y IMAGES / BET TMANN; BL AINE PHOTO BY MIKE GLIER

TRISHA TUCKER, assistant professor (teaching) of writing, in a June 25 op-ed in The Conversation about the protests around the 20th anniversary of the publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

Mood-Food Connection

GESM 120

DEATH AND GENDER IN MEDIA AND SOCIETY Instructor: Diana Blaine, professor (teaching) of writing and gender studies

Diana Blaine’s freshman seminar asks, “Why are Americans so afraid of death and dying?” “Death is an inevitable fact of life, but what we know about it comes through the stories we tell,” Blaine said. “These stories have a profound influence on our understanding of what it means to be mortal. And death may be objective, but the meanings we attach to it are always subjective.”

Interpreting the concept of death, “the ultimate metaphor” since none of us has yet experienced it ourselves, allows students to hone their critical thinking skills and, she said, cultivate sophistication regarding a topic that permeates the world but goes largely unexamined. The course looks at death through the lens of gender, race, class and sexual orientation as students work toward

understanding the ways that stories and representations in culture and the media make death comprehensible. “On a more personal level, my class gives students a chance to consider death as something more than a monstrous thrill or a plotpoint in an episode of a crime show,” Blaine said. “They get to ponder a topic that is so rarely spoken of except in those imaginary and artificial ways,

and I find they are hungry for this, for the permission to have death be a part of the human experience.” —L.P.

This well-known image of actress Janet Leigh comes from the 1960 Alfred Hitchcock thriller Psycho. In one of classic cinema’s most famous scenes, Leigh’s character, Marion, is murdered while taking a shower — an iconic representation of female death in the media. Fall 2017 / Winter 2018 7

Archive

Fungal Foe Found

Researchers identify a protein that is critical for the survival of a disease-causing fungus.

F U N G A L F O E I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y I L L U S C I E N T I A F O R G R E N O B L E A L P E S U N I V E R S I T Y ; P H I L L I P S P H O T O C O U R T E S Y O F C A R O LY N P H I L L I P S ; J O R D A N P H O T O B Y M AT T M E I N D L ; M E E K E R P H O T O B Y P E T E R Z H A O Y U Z H O U

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Recognition

ART HISTORY

I L L U S T R AT I O N BY G EO R G E B A R B I E R

THE DESIGNS OF GUSTAV BEER Paris, 1922 Flip through recent pages of Vogue or Marie Claire and the names of iconic European designers from the 1910s and ’20s abound, demonstrating that style is at once ageless and ever-evolving. Balenciaga, Chanel and Prada are among brands that weathered decades of fickle consumer taste and flourished on into the 21st century. Not all design houses, however, adapted with the times. Many, like the House of Beer, are now largely forgotten. “Maison Beer was a couture house located in Paris, the center of fashion in the early 20th century,” says Professor of Art History Amy Ogata. “The firm specialized in high-end leisure wear, and although prestigious, it never had the kind of longterm name recognition that its peers such as Mme Paquin or Jeanne Lanvin enjoyed.” Gustav Beer — a German designer who set up shop in 1905 in Paris’ famed Place Vendôme — was among France’s most expensive couturiers. Luxurious fabrics blended with decadent jewels to outfit the European elite, including Empress Frederick of Germany. George Barbier’s illustration of one of Beer’s 1922 designs appeared in the influential publication Gazette du Bon Ton. It depicts a model draped in chiffon and lace adorned with diamonds and pearls. “The stylized phoenix device with its extravagant, decorated wings and long tail feathers may suggest associations with exoticized luxury, or even a return to finery after the destruction of World War I,” says Ogata. “Indeed, it may have singular resonance for a firm that was shut down during the war because the founder of Maison Beer was German.” —D.K.

FROM THE HE ART OF USC

Each year, invasive fungal infections sicken about 2 million people worldwide and kill nearly 800,000. A team of international scientists has discovered a new approach for antifungal drug treatment. The scientists found that Bdf1, a gene-regulating protein, is critical for the survival of the pathogenic fungus Candida albicans. Charles McKenna, professor of chemistry at USC Dornsife, said the protein offers promise for drug development. “Our findings show that compounds that bind to this target will disrupt the growth of the fungus, opening the way to novel drug treatments for fungal disease.” C. albicans is an aggressive pathogenic fungus that in healthy people is normally held in check by the immune system. However, people with a weakened immune system, including patients who have cancer, HIV or autoimmune diseases, are susceptible to the infection, which can be lifethreatening, McKenna said. The team’s findings may prove timely: Fungal infections are increasingly resistant to drug treatments. “When susceptible people develop Candida infections, the fungus may enter the bloodstream. If treatment is unsuccessful, it has a very high mortality rate — in the 40 percent range,” McKenna said. Few drugs are available to fight the disease, and the fungus is becoming increasingly resistant to treatment, raising the need for fresh approaches. Many scientists are looking for new treatment methods by manipulating gene expression. The current research is the first to prove that this approach is feasible to target fungal infections. French scientists Jérôme Govin and Carlo Petosa from Grenoble Alpes University co-led the study with McKenna. “The idea is that if you shut down this specific protein, Bdf1, you totally disrupt the whole process of gene

expression and it becomes impossible for the fungus to grow,” Govin said. “Moreover, the fungus is no longer virulent when injected into mice.” The challenge for the scientists was finding a compound that shut down the Bdf1 protein without mistakenly affecting any similar proteins in humans. “Using a technique called X-ray crystallography, we showed that the fungal Bdf1 protein and corresponding human proteins are very different at the atomic level,” Petosa said. This means that compounds may inhibit the fungal protein without affecting similar human proteins. The researchers have already identified one compound in particular that selectively inhibits Bdf1. The finding holds great promise for future drug development. “It shows that a whole new class of antifungal drugs is possible,” McKenna said. —E.G.

Your Cortex on Comedy

Neuroscientists pinpoint the regions of the brain that spark when humor is made. What is going on in your brain when you come up with a joke? Well, that appears to depend on whether or not you tell jokes for a living. Researchers in the Image Understanding Laboratory at USC Dornsife, led by neuroscientist Irving Biederman, studied professional and amateur improvisational comedians, as well as non-comedians, in the act of coming up with a quip. Participants created both a funny and a mundane caption for a cartoon while functional magnetic resonance imaging machines scanned their brain activity. The results showed that two regions of the brain were activated when participants came up with jokes — the medial prefrontal cortex and the temporal association regions. However, the regions activated were different depending on the person’s level of expertise. “The amateurs and non-comedians engaged the prefrontal cortex, which is a more deliberate attempt at deriving a funny interpretation of a cartoon,” explained Biederman, Harold Dornsife Chair in Neurosciences and professor of psychology and computer science. Meanwhile the professionals engaged their temporal lobe, which receives sensory information such as sound and vision. It’s also where abstract information, semantic information and remote associations meaningfully converge. Said Biederman: “The professional improv comedians let their free associations give them solutions.” —M.B.

CAROLYN PHILLIPS Pew Scholar Phillips, Gabilan Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences, was named a 2017 Pew scholar in the biomedical sciences. The class of scholars are earlycareer researchers selected for their commitment to investigating health challenges in the brain as it ages.

THOMAS JORDAN Bowie Medalist Jordan, University Professor, William M. Keck Foundation Chair in Geological Sciences, and professor of Earth sciences, received the William Bowie Medal from the American Geophysical Union. The award recognizes outstanding contributions to fundamental geophysics.

NATANIA MEEKER Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes académiques Meeker, associate professor of French and comparative literature, was named a chevalier, or knight, of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques by the French Ministry of Education. This distinction acknowledges academics who significantly contribute to the expansion of French education and culture throughout the world. Fall 2017 / Winter 2018 9

Profile

FROM THE HE ART OF USC A N T H O N Y S PA R K S REACHING FOR THE STARS As a skinny kid growing up in a working-class family on Chicago’s South Side, the closest Anthony Sparks ever got to television star and media magnate Oprah Winfrey was glimpsing her multimedia production company, Harpo Studios, through the grimy window of the bus he rode home from school. For Sparks, who earned a BFA from USC School of Dramatic Arts in 1994 and an M.A. and Ph.D. in American studies and ethnicity from USC Dornsife in 2009 and 2012, rubbing shoulders with stars is now a frequent occurrence. Talent, education, ambition and hard work have propelled him from his humble roots to a glittering career as an awardwinning television writer, producer, Broadway actor and respected academic. Sparks is a writer and the coexecutive producer on Queen Sugar, Winfrey’s acclaimed project with director Ava DuVernay. Earlier this year, he was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Writing in a Dramatic Series for his work on the show, which airs on Winfrey’s OWN network. When he isn’t filming Queen Sugar in New Orleans or working on other television dramas, the former Broadway actor (he also starred in the hit musical STOMP for six years) is teaching at California State University, Fullerton, where he is a professor in the Department of Cinema and Television Studies. How did Sparks get here? And equally fascinating, how does he juggle it all?

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P H O T O BY M AT T G U S H

Alumnus Anthony Sparks, writer and co-executive producer on the acclaimed TV drama series Queen Sugar, credits USC Dornsife for his successful career.

HUMBLE BEGINNINGS Sparks was the first in his family to be born outside Mississippi. His mother, Pearl, left school after sixth grade to work as a sharecropper and domestic servant before

moving to Chicago in 1968. There, on her own, she raised Sparks, who discovered an early love of language and performing while at church. “We used to do Easter and Christmas plays and speeches for Mother’s Day,” he said. “I loved it. I’d ask if I could recite poems in church.” Sparks attended neighborhood schools until testing as a gifted student in seventh grade earned him a place at former First Lady Michelle Obama’s alma mater, Whitney Young Magnet High School. He immersed himself in theatre and dance, winning numerous honors, including two golds for writing and speech oratory and a silver for acting in the NAACP’s prestigious ACT-SO national awards. After receiving offers from the nation’s top drama schools, Sparks chose the BFA program at USC, drawn by the program’s reputation and his mother’s wise counsel. Sparks credits his mother as a major inspiration. “She always had a larger vision for her children — and for me especially — than she was given the opportunity to live,” he said of Pearl, who passed away in May. “My mom had drilled into me that I should see college as an adventure, an opportunity to move away from home and learn how to grow up. It felt like if I went to USC my horizons would be blown open.” His classmates viewed him as a driven actor. “What they didn’t know is that privately I was electrified by the literature and criticism I was being exposed to at USC,” Sparks said. The result? He started to write again. “I felt if I had a talent, I was supposed to do something with it. I was never an actor who thought that academics weren’t important. As an

African-American artist, I knew that opportunities would be different for me, so I wanted to be prepared for that.” CAREERS BLOSSOM Once he graduated, Sparks moved east, performing at Massachusetts’ prestigious Williamstown Theatre Festival. He got his Equity Card — attesting to his standing as a professional actor — in 1995, after being cast as Cordelia alongside Viola Davis as Edgar in a gender-reversed production of King Lear at New York’s Public Theater. Then came STOMP. Sparks loved the show and was grateful for the work, but admits it was grueling. He suffered two knee injuries that required surgery and lengthy periods of recuperation. He also had bigger ambitions and was frustrated at the limited roles available to him as a young, black actor. So, even while performing in seven to eight shows a week, he made time to write during the day. Then his solo play, Ghetto Punch, caught the attention of NBC executives, who optioned him as a writer and an actor. When those options expired, NBC renewed just one: as a writer. “I went, ‘Aha! Let’s ride this horse in the direction it’s going,’ ” Sparks said. “I had to put my actor’s ego down and say, ‘Is writing and producing what you want?’ The answer was, ‘Yes.’ ” The idea that moving back to Los Angeles might allow him to pursue both an entertainment career and higher education also appealed to him. “I wanted to explore how the production of television programs impacts the way we construct our social and racial categories in this country,” he said. “That had really never been done before. USC Dornsife and the Department of American

Studies and Ethnicity understood the value of the project and supported it.”

children, including twins. His secret to keeping so many balls in the air at once?

“All the different things I do are driven by this core belief that the humanities matter. The arts matter. Education matters.” But Sparks delayed his enrollment. After five years chasing the dream, he had landed his first job as a television writer in 2003 on the CBS drama The District. Working on that show gave him valuable access to aspects of the industry he wanted to research. He then enrolled and successfully juggled his doctoral studies with his career as a television writer as the latter took off with work on Lincoln Heights, Undercovers and The Blacklist. A TROJAN LIFE USC ended up playing a far larger role in Sparks’ life than he ever imagined as an undergraduate. After receiving his doctorate, he taught American studies and African-American studies at USC Dornsife from 2012 to 2015. His wife, actress and director Anita DashiellSparks, whom he met in New York under the STOMP theatre marquee, is now associate dean of diversity, equity and inclusion and associate professor of theatre practice at the USC School of Dramatic Arts. “There’s a lot of USC paraphernalia around our house. I’ll just put it that way,” Sparks said. In addition to juggling his demanding career, Sparks is the father of three young

“It’s not easy,” he admits. “I’m a person who tries to use every minute of every day.” He also has one guiding principle. “All the different things I do are driven by this core belief that the humanities matter. The arts matter. Education matters.” In fact, Sparks says there is “no way” he could be the kind of television writer and producer he wants to be and a writer on Queen Sugar today without his USC Dornsife education, which, he believes, made him a more committed artist by turning him into a scholar. “For me, there is no real separation, it all feeds into each other,” he said. Sparks notes that USC taught him to cultivate an educated point of view on the world and on his life — something he says is invaluable for a would-be writer. “It’s about finding your voice, and the only way to do that is to begin to think seriously about the world,” Sparks said. “Do the work, take the work seriously and have a point of view about the work. Find your voice. I know it sounds sort of cheesy, but I’m a living witness that it pays dividends eventually — if you stay at it long enough.” —S.B. Fall 2017 / Winter 2018 11

Lexicon

FROM THE HE ART OF USC Word IN THE NEWS QUOTABLES

“You can only be smacked in the face by evidence so many times and not see some kind of pattern.”

First Touch of Tech

Inner-city grade school students learn about emerging technologies, including 3-D printing, drones and virtual reality, as part of a Joint Educational Project Young Scientists Program event. By Susan Bell

JULIEN EMILE-GEAY, associate professor of Earth sciences, in a July 12 The Independent story featuring his research suggesting Earth is at its warmest in 2,000 years and supporting similar conclusions from a study published 20 years ago.

“Science should be part of our culture. ... If it’s not up there in our entertainment alongside everything else, we’re the poorer for it.”

CLIFFORD JOHNSON, professor of physics and astronomy, in a June 12 CBC Radio interview about his consulting work for major superhero films and other movies and television programs.

“When people ask me, ‘What’s the biggest thing I can do to avoid dementia?’ my answer is ‘exercise.’ ” MARGARET GATZ, professor of psychology, gerontology, and preventive medicine, in a June 21 Sacramento Bee story on the importance of staying active to prevent the onset of dementia.

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Video: Learn more about the Young Scientists program at dornsife.usc.edu/JEP-tech.

BAKER PHOTO BY PETER ZHAOYU ZHOU

STANLEY ROSEN, professor of political science, in a June 24 Los Angeles Times article on China’s censorship of livestreaming services.

At the 3-D printing station, students designed objects in a virtual space using the 3D Slash computer program. This gave them firsthand experience of how architects and engineers, who work with 3-D concepts, think and design. Students watched an aerial drone demonstration, then built fan-driven drone cars of their own. They created holograms and learned about erosion by playing with an augmented reality sandbox. After experiencing a virtual safari, a roller coaster ride and a dive to the depths of the ocean, they received virtual reality cardboard headsets to take home, courtesy of WeLens. “I want to show the YSP students what’s possible and introduce them to potential careers that could spring from what they’re learning about today,” said JEP STEM Program Manager Dieuwertje “DJ” Kast, who organized the workshop. “I also want to help level the playing field by giving them the opportunity to get exposure to this technology now, while they’re young.”

PHOTO BY MIKE GLIER

“Anything live, the government is frightened by — anything they can’t control. By the time they crack down, the damage is done.”

La Bella Saunders gasped with delight as she took a step toward the giant fuchsia nucleus floating just inches in front of her like a surreal planet from a sci-fi movie. Reaching out in wonder to touch two, oblong, orange mitochondria and an electric-blue ball of protein, the fifth-grader then peered through a small nuclear pore in the envelope of the nucleus to spy the DNA at its center. Saunders, a student at Foshay Learning Center near USC’s University Park campus, was exploring human biology using a virtual-reality headset that put her right inside a cell. The experience was part of a Young Scientists Program (YSP) after-school workshop on emerging technologies, held at the inner-city K-12 school. YSP is a STEM learning initiative hosted through USC Dornsife’s Joint Educational Project (JEP), one of the most respected service learning institutions in the nation. In addition to exploring virtual and augmented reality, the 25 fourth- and fifth-grade participants experienced 3-D printing and drones — most for the first time. YSP teaching assistants, many of them USC Dornsife undergraduates, were on hand to ensure the youngsters had fun while also understanding the underlying science.

PSYCHOLOGY TRIGGER trıgər/ verb / trans 1.1 Cause (an event or situation) to happen or exist. 1.3 (especially of something read, seen, or heard) distress (someone), typically as a result of arousing feelings or memories associated with a particular traumatic experience. noun/ 1.1 An event that is the cause of a particular action, process, or situation. Origin: Early 17th c: from dialect tricker, from Dutch trekker, from trekken “to pull” Usage: In psychology, the term trigger has become widely used since the 1970s to refer to a stimulus such as a smell, sound or sight that activates memories or feelings associated with previous trauma, such as flashbacks or overwhelming sadness, anxiety or panic. The term is also used loosely to refer to stimuli that lead to negative feelings or unhealthy behaviors, including substance abuse, anger and depression. The brain mechanisms underlying triggers are becoming understood through research in psychology and neuroscience.

Laura Baker, professor of psychology, studies how heredity and the environment affect individual differences in human behavior, including cognitive abilities, personality and psychopathology. She is particularly interested in the roots of aggression and antisocial behavior, and their underlying social and biological risk factors.

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The Bench DIMINUTIVE DANGER

Tiny particles that pollute the air — the kind that come mainly from power plants and automobiles — may greatly increase the chance of dementia. This includes dementia caused by Alzheimer’s disease. Caleb Finch of biological sciences at USC Dornsife, holder of the ARCO/William F. Kieschnick Chair in the Neurobiology of Aging, and a team of researchers found that older women who live in places with fine particulate matter exceeding the Environmental Protection Agency’s standard are 81 percent more at risk for global cognitive decline and 92 percent more likely to develop dementia. If their findings prove to be true for the general population, air pollution could be responsible for about one-fifth of dementia cases, according to the study.

FROM THE HE ART OF USC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES

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“Cells in the brain treat these particles as invaders and react with inflammatory responses, which, over the course of time, appear to exacerbate and promote Alzheimer’s disease,” he said.

The adverse effects were stronger in women who had the APOE4 gene, a genetic variation that increases the risk for Alzheimer’s. The study provides the first scientific evidence showing how a critical Alzheimer’s risk gene may interact with air particles to accelerate brain aging and adds to an emerging body of research that links air pollution to dementia. The researchers analyzed data from more than 3,600 women ages 65 to 79 from the Women’s Health Initiative Memory Study. They also exposed female mice carrying the APOE4 gene to nano-sized air pollution for 15 weeks. They found that mice predisposed to Alzheimer’s disease accumulated as much as 60 percent more amyloid plaque — the toxic clusters of protein fragments that further the progression of Alzheimer’s — than normal mice.

20% Pollution may be at the root of 1/5 of all dementia cases.

Pollution particles are 2.5 micrometers or smaller. Thirty or more can fit across a human hair.

92% Older women who live where fine particulates exceed government standards are 92 percent more likely to develop dementia.

DIRECT THREAT

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JUST THE BEGINNING

3,600 Researchers analyzed data of more than 3,600 women ages 65 to 79.

O C E A N I C A N TAC I D P H O T O C O U R T E S Y O F A DA M S U B H A S

“Microscopic particles generated by fossil fuels get into our body directly through the nose into the brain,” said Finch, who is University Professor, professor of gerontology at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, and professor of biological sciences, anthropology and psychology at USC Dornsife. The offending pollutants, known as PM2.5, are fine particles with diameters of 2.5 micrometers or less. Resting side by side, more than 30 would fit across the width of a human hair.

Scientists crack secrets of undersea chemistry that may reduce a greenhouse gas.

USC researchers and others in this field said more research is needed to confirm a causal relationship and to understand how air pollution enters and harms the brain. While this study examined only women and female mice, future research will include both sexes to determine if men are affected the same way. It will also explore how PM2.5 interacts with cigarettes and other pollutants.

“It isn’t lost on us that this may hold some really important role, sooner or later, in helping mitigate atmospheric CO2,” Berelson said. —I.C.

Protein Surprise

Unexpected structural findings could lead to new therapies.

FIRST CLUES

Every 66 seconds someone in the United States develops Alzheimer’s disease.

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Oceanic Antacid

Scientists at USC Dornsife and their colleagues at Caltech have accelerated a normally slow, natural chemical reaction by a factor of 500. The process could store and neutralize carbon in the deepest recesses of the ocean without harming coral or other organisms. “There’s a chemical reaction involving calcium carbonate and carbonic acid that we know about, but people studying it before had kind of dismissed it,” said William Berelson, professor of Earth sciences and environmental studies at USC Dornsife. “This carbonate material that’s all over the ocean floor has been neutralizing ocean CO2 for billions of years. Yet, the uncatalyzed reaction is quite slow. Remarkably, nobody has quite understood how to speed up this process. Now, we’re beginning to figure it out.” The oceans contain about 50 times more CO2 than the atmosphere, causing ocean acidification. However, when acidified surface waters make their way to deeper parts of the ocean, they are able to react with the calcium carbonate in shells of dead organisms like plankton and coral that have settled on the sea floor. The process neutralizes the extra carbon dioxide. This is part of the natural buffering process that allows the ocean to hold such a large amount of carbon dioxide safely, at least in those parts where acidification isn’t touching and eroding structures like coral reefs. “The dissolution of calcium carbonate in the ocean is what we call in chemistry a buffer. It’s very much like when you take an antacid for an upset stomach because it is neutralizing the acid in your tummy,” Berelson said. Now, thanks to the USC-Caltech team, the process to safely convert CO2 to bicarbonate that would normally take tens of thousands of years can be replicated in a fraction of the time.

Scientists have found unexpected properties of a key protein linked to blood pressure control, nerve growth, pain control and heart tissue regeneration. The findings could lead to new therapies to control cardiovascular disease and pain. Vadim Cherezov, professor of chemistry, biological sciences, and physics and astronomy, Vsevolod Katritch, assistant professor of biological sciences and chemistry, and their colleagues used X-ray crystallography to visualize the protein, called AT2. The results showed surprising and significant differences between AT2 and other similar proteins. While noting that further research is needed, Cherezov and Katritch — both members of the Bridge Institute at the USC Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience — said the current discovery is an important first step both to understanding similar proteins and to developing potential new therapies. “The structure gives us the first clue of what’s happening on a molecular level,” Cherezov said. The information then could be used to design selective drugs that specifically target AT2. That may be good news for patients coping with chronic conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and pain. —D.S.J.

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Numbers DE-GREENING L.A. The amount of green cover in Los Angeles has dropped sharply since 2000, according to a study by USC Dornsife researchers Su Jin Lee and Travis Longcore. But why? Much of it is the result of adding square footage to single-family homes. What’s interesting is that Lee and Longcore found that the decrease in greenery affected all neighborhoods, regardless of socioeconomic status.

Diversity Denied

Range of green cover that has disappeared from L.A.-area neighborhoods

Number of land cover types researchers tracked for the study including buildings, hardscape, swimming pools, shade, grass, and trees and shrubs

1.2% Annual decrease in tree and shrub coverage year-to-year from 2000 to 2009

The average square footage of a single-family home in 1950 and 2004, respectively

1 Million Target number of trees the city of L.A. aimed to plant as part of a campaign launched about a decade ago 16

Stiff vessels and low blood flow in the brain forewarn of Alzheimer’s.

White families with children continue to live in largely white neighborhoods, in part to send their children to predominantly white schools, a new study on racial segregation finds. “Neighborhood racial segregation has been in decline since the 1970s, but my findings show it declined more slowly among families with kids,” said Ann Owens, assistant professor of sociology and spatial sciences. She analyzed recent United States Census data to examine racial segregationtrends in 100 major metropolitan areas. As a result, children see less diversity in their neighborhoods than adults do, Owens said. “A lack of diversity could have a significant effect on the development of their racial attitudes and future education and employment.” Owens also measured “evenness” — how whites, blacks, Latinos, Asian Americans and others sort across neighborhoods. Both measures of segregation indicate that children are more racially segregated between neighborhoods than adults. School district boundaries are a key factor. Owens found that neighborhood racial segregation across the country appeared to be driven largely by white parents with children choosing, consciously or not, to move to neighborhoods and school districts with fewer minorities.

Scientific research has shown that low-income and minority children who grow up in segregated neighborhoods and attend segregated schools have worse educational and economic outcomes than children in more integrated areas, she said. High levels of residential segregation have been linked to lower levels of income mobility across generations. Neighborhood racial diversity is also influenced by the factors that families, with and without children, consider when selecting where to live. Families with children appear more concerned about what school district their neighborhood is linked to, and they may even consider race as a factor, Owens said. “White parents may be avoiding school districts where black and Latino children live because they use racial composition as a proxy for quality of a school and a neighborhood,” she said. Minority families may have different priorities in deciding where to live, Owens suggested as an explanation for the differences between households. “Black and Latino families have lower incomes on average than white families, and they face housing market discrimination that influences where they live, regardless of the high value that they may place on school options,” Owens said. When choosing a home, minority families may prioritize safety, amenities and the home’s proximity to child care and employment over schools or other considerations. “Minority parents also may evaluate schools differently than white parents and prefer schools where their children are not the minority,” Owens wrote. “As long as neighborhoods are demarcated by school district boundaries limiting enrollment options, parents will take these boundaries into account when making residential choices, which may contribute to segregation between white and minority children,” Owens wrote.

Recent studies suggest drugs already approved and on the market may be beneficial. Among the most promising are cholesterol-lowering statins and some blood pressurelowering drugs. Nation said he aims to refine how he measures vascular resistance. Then, he will work toward answering the next important question: If vascular resistance can be treated, will that lower someone’s risk for developing dementia? —M.B. and E.G.

Classic Victory

Age-old skills give USC classics students a big win over their contemporaries.

ULKUMEN PHOTO COURTESY OF SERHAN ULKUMEN

984 → 2,349

Alzheimer’s Omen

White families with kids are drawn to less diverse neighborhoods and schools, possibly leading to negative effects on future education and employment. By Emily Gersema

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Spotlight

A combination of high blood pressure and decreased blood flow inside the brain may spur the build-up of harmful plaque and signal the onset of dementia, according to Daniel Nation, assistant professor of psychology. The brain’s blood vessels function as a plumbing system that delivers nutrients and oxygen to feed brain cells and then flushes away waste, which includes protein fragments called amyloid. Nation explored whether constricted blood flow contributes to the buildup of amyloid plaque and, consequently, to the onset of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. He also determined a new way to calculate cerebrovascular resistance — a stiffening of the vessels that results from high blood pressure and low blood flow. The brain tightens or relaxes its vessels to maintain blood flow as it adjusts for changes in blood pressure. However, the brain vessels in Alzheimer’s patients are stiff and tight, inhibiting blood flow and enabling the sticky amyloid to accumulate, Nation found. “For many different reasons, the contracting blood vessels are resistant to opening up and really letting the blood in,” he said. Nation developed an index that measures resistance in the brain’s vessels. A high index ranking indicates that amyloid is building up and that the patient is progressing toward dementia. Nation found that people with Alzheimer’s disease had lower blood flow in their brains than people without dementia. These blood flow changes were undetectable in the earlier stages of disease. People with Alzheimer’s disease also measured much higher on the cerebrovascular resistance index.

Students from USC Dornsife’s Classics Department recently put their knowledge to the test — and came out on top. The students took on their counterparts from nearby universities in the region’s first Classics Olympia competition. The students competed in four categories — trivia, Greek translation, Latin translation and debate — and took home the win in each one. “Our strongest point was definitely the translation,” said Zoie Petrakis, a double major in classics and international relations. The Trojans even took to speaking ancient Greek and Latin among themselves, which they said seemed to throw the competition off a bit. “People can read it really well usually, but once you try to speak it, you get kind of tongue-tied,” said Emma Dyson, a classics major who started the Spoken Latin Club last year. Students say the department’s small class sizes and camaraderie are perhaps its greatest assets. The department is very focused on making classics a discipline of the 21st century. Its courses analyze the ancient civilizations not simply to understand them but also to provide context for analyzing the Western world. Mehak Khan took Latin in middle school and high school, but when she began science courses early on at USC, she found she missed the ancient cultures. She graduated in May — majoring in neuroscience and minoring in classics. “If anything, I wish I had majored in classics,” Khan said. “A little bit of regret there.” —J.C.

SERHAN ULKUMEN ’18 Computational Neuroscience

“I end up having to schedule my life around the chemotherapy, and not just the infusion dates but also the effect that it’s having on my body after that.” Diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma while a USC Dornsife junior, Serhan Ulkumen received biweekly infusions of anticancer drugs over six months. The powerful medicines came with debilitating side effects, which he found could interfere with important life events such as birthdays and weddings. The experience inspired Ulkumen and two fellow students to develop a tool for patients like him as part of USC’s inaugural Hack for Health. The April event drew students from USC and other schools to develop technological solutions for cancer patients during a three-day “hackathon.” Dubbed “Infusion,” the calendar app Ulkumen co-created allows patients to input social events and treatment dates, as well as side effects and adverse events that arise following treatment. It then shows when various symptoms begin, peak and subside so patients can plan accordingly. Ulkumen, who put his studies on hold while undergoing treatment, is now a senior, and his cancer is in remission. He found creating the app to be a moving experience. “I’ve been feeling like my life has been on standby and that’s part of the reason I wanted to do this hackathon,” he said. “I’ve been inspired to do something again.” Fall 2017 / Winter 2018 17

Our World STUDENTS Cuba

FACULTY Greece

So Close, Yet So Far

Students explore island nation’s culture firsthand.

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STUDENTS Los Angeles

FELLOWS Manchester

ALUMNI Bhutan

The Paper Trail

Asheesh Siddique is tracing the British Empire’s history through its documents. Maddy Hinck ’17, then a senior, sampled mole and pupusas while touring historic Grand Central Market as part of Sarah Portnoy’s course “Latino Food Culture in Los Angeles.” Portnoy, assistant professor (teaching) of Spanish, leads innovative courses that teach the language through the lens of Latino food culture and food justice. Students write food blogs in Spanish while those in Portnoy’s “Latino Food Justice” course intern with local nonprofits. “This is an excellent way to use our Spanish out in the real world,” said Hinck, who majored in political science with a Spanish and business minor.

M A N U S C R I P T C O U R T E S Y O F A S H E E S H S I D D I Q U E ; B H U TA N P H O T O BY B A R RY S H A F F E R

Video: Learn more about the Cuba Maymester at dornsife.usc.edu/Cuba.

STUDENTS Ireland Last summer, USC Dornsife undergraduates traveled to Ireland and Northern Ireland to explore the politics of language revitalization, learning how language impacts cultural and national identity. Tok Thompson, associate professor (teaching) of anthropology and communication, led the Problems Without Passports course. The students interviewed Irish citizens about differing attitudes toward the Gaelic language, analyzing the mixed success of language revitalization efforts in the two countries. “I wanted students to look at what works, what doesn’t work, and how we can bring some of those lessons home,” Thompson said. “America is No. 2 in the world for language loss.”

GREECE PHOTO COURTESY OF C.L. MA X NIKIAS; LOS ANGELES PHOTO BY SUSAN BELL

Ivette Gomez, assistant professor (teaching) of Spanish, led 21 undergraduates and one graduate student, all from a wide range of majors, on a two-week stay in her native Cuba. The students immersed themselves in the island’s vibrant culture as part of the Maymester “Visualizing Cuba: Arts, Politics and Society in Today’s Cuba.” They explored Old Havana, rode along the Malecón in vintage American cars and experienced the harmonious beauty of the architecture. They also visited Ernest Hemingway’s house, met a female rap duo, sang “Amazing Grace” a capella for residents of a senior living facility and discussed Cuba’s upcoming elections with a Cuban political science professor.

Jacob Soll’s master work, The Reckoning: Financial Accountability and the Rise and Fall of Nations (Basic Books, 2014), cast a stark light on the financial world as national economies recovered from the Great Recession of a few years earlier. The book has now been translated into Greek, and Soll presented the updated version at Greece’s National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in July. Soll, professor of history and accounting, was joined by USC President C. L. Max Nikias as well as Greek scholars, government dignitaries and global business executives. The group discussed the book and its continuing importance in a dynamic global economy. Nikias and Soll also met with Alexis Tsipras, prime minister of Greece. Soll presented the Greek translation of his book to Tsipras, and the trio discussed Greece’s debt crisis, progress made in recent negotiations and plans for improving the country’s economic situation.


Postdoctoral scholar Asheesh Siddique is investigating how the British Empire used documents to administer its territories in India and the United States in the 1700s. “I’m interested in what it means to be obedient at a distance to a sovereign power that’s governing from an imperial capital that you may never really see except for once or twice in your life, but nevertheless has an enormous power over you, and where records are being used to embody that power,” he explained. Siddique has immersed himself in British imperial archives at libraries around the United Kingdom and the U.S. to get a better sense of the inner workings of the bureaucracy. As a member of the USC Society of Fellows in the Humanities, he receives funding as well as interdisciplinary mentorship for his research from an intellectual community of postdoctoral scholars and faculty at USC. “It’s been an amazing opportunity in so many ways,” said Siddique. “The support has enabled me to do a lot of the nitty-gritty, granular work that good historical research comes from.”

With its steady rumble of traffic, Encino’s bustling Ventura Boulevard in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley could not seem farther removed from the peace, pristine air and sweeping mountain views of the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. Alumnus Barry Shaffer, however, feels at home in both these contrasting worlds. After practicing dentistry for more than 40 years in Encino, his second career as a photographer is blossoming with the publication of his first major fine-art photography book, Echoes of Bhutan (EBS Editoriale Bortolazzi Stei, 2017). The book was launched in May at the prestigious Mountainfilm festival in Telluride, Colo. The photographs featured in the book span a period of 15 years and were selected from more than 5,000 taken over the course of three trips Shaffer made to Bhutan. Initially inspired by hearing renowned Indo-Tibetan-Buddhist scholar Robert Thurman speak at Telluride in 2000, the following year Shaffer flew from L.A. to Bangkok and then on to Bhutan’s tiny Paro Airport, nestled among the Himalayas. Hearing Thurman describe a pure Buddhist culture — a place he portrayed as “the land of the thunder dragon” — made it sound like a kind of Shangri-La, said Shaffer, who earned his bachelor’s in history in 1970 and his USC dentistry degree in 1974. “Coming off the plane the first time was just like nothing I could have ever thought actually existed,” he said. “It’s a land of ancient monasteries, fluttering prayer flags and unforgettable beauty, where one cannot help but feel a lasting sense of peace.” Shaffer spent weeks camping as he trekked to remote parts of the country to photograph Bhutan’s landscapes and people, returning as a photographer for the Tribal Trust Foundation in 2014 and again in 2015 at the invitation of Bhutan’s government and travel industry — a rare honor. His book features written contributions from illustrious members of Bhutan’s ruling class including its queen mother, fourth king, and prime minister, as well as a foreword by Thurman. All proceeds from sales of the book will benefit the Tarayana Foundation, a nonprofit established by Bhutan’s queen mother. Fall 2017 / Winter 2018 19

M E M E N TO

From the Victorians’ morbid fascination with death to the Civil War’s profound influence on American mourning rituals to our current tendency to ignore or deny the inevitability of our eventual demise, USC Dornsife scholars explore our dramatically evolving attitudes toward death and mortality. By Susan Bell

MORI

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Fall 2017 / Winter 2018 21

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DEARLY BELOVED A post-mortem photograph of a grieving mother with her deceased child, taken ca. 1850.

n its ornate, gold frame, the 19th-century photograph shows an infant cradled in its mother’s arms, its eyes closed, its lips slightly parted. The mother’s cheeks blush rose beneath the smooth, dark wing of her hair. Clothed in gauzy white muslin embellished with lace and blue ribbons, a coral necklace at its throat, the cherished child clasps pink and cream flowers in a tiny fist. The infant’s summery clothes contrast with the heavy, shapeless black cape that envelops the mother, who gazes, not affectionately at her child or even shyly at the photographer, but out and down into space, her deep, empty eyes expressionless. “Look at her shock,” said William Deverell, professor of history at USC Dornsife and director of the HuntingtonUSC Institute on California and the West. “A very young mother, but that child is no longer alive. “When I show a post-mortem photograph of a child in the arms of its mother, my students hesitate because they of course want to think that baby is sleeping, but if they look closer, they begin to notice that something is not quite right,” he said. Deverell teaches the popular 19th-century practice as part of his undergraduate course “History of American Childhood.” “Undergraduates are initially shocked that the mother would hold the dead child in such a loving embrace, but once we discuss it, it begins to make sense for them,” he said. Post-mortem photography often represented the only image of that human being ever taken, he explained. This was especially true for infants and young children. “The child had to hold still for too long for parents to be willing to purchase expensive portraits of their children when they were very young,” Deverell added. “But if the child died, there was often a desire to commemorate his or her life, or even death, by having a photograph taken.” As the only visual remembrance of the deceased, postmortem photographs helped families grieve and were considered among a family’s most precious possessions. AN INTIMATE FAMILIARITY WITH DEATH

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COMPLEX MOURNING RITUALS

Death rituals previously reserved for the upper classes developed into a complex and widely adopted series of mourning rituals. This highly choreographed set of protocols included lengthy prescribed mourning periods that required widows to wear black for a year and a day while men pinned black ribbons to their clothing. Black-edged mourning stationery was used for correspondence, and tresses of the deceased’s hair, sometimes twisted and teased into elaborate sculptures, were framed and displayed in drawing rooms, alongside death masks — wax or plaster impressions of their faces made after death. Opulent funerals featuring elaborate processions, ideally led by a glass carriage bearing the coffin and drawn by prancing black stallions, their heads adorned with black ostrich feathers, became de rigueur. The more ostentatious the funeral, the more it proclaimed the wealth and status of the bereaved. The poor, for their part, joined burial clubs, allowing them to buy their own funerals on layaway for a few pennies each week. Undertakers flourished during the Victorian era and death became a business, professionalized and commodified as never before. This was manifested by the shift away from old churchyards, viewed as dangerously unsanitary, to the new “garden cemeteries.” These commercial enterprises began opening in semi-rural suburbs in the first half of the 19th century in response to mounting concerns over public health. Victorians erroneously blamed what they called “miasma” — a pestilent stench they associated with decomposing bodies piling up in the old, overcrowded churchyards — for causing epidemics that killed tens of thousands of people in the newly congested cities of the Industrial Revolution. “A big fear during London’s 1854 cholera epidemic was that plague bodies had been uncovered,” O’Neill said. “In Britain there is connection to past moments of death because churchyards are filled with graves dating back to the 14th and 15th centuries, many holding victims of the plague.” The most famous of the new Victorian garden cemeteries was London’s Highgate — the final resting place of Karl Marx, novelist George Eliot, scientist Michael Faraday and Elizabeth “Lizzie” Siddal, the Pre-Raphaelite muse and wife of artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Grief-stricken by his young wife’s untimely demise, Rossetti slipped the only manuscript of his poems into her coffin before burial. Seven years later, in 1869, he had her coffin exhumed under cover of darkness so he might publish them. Witnesses reported that the luxuriant auburn locks for which Siddal had been celebrated in life had continued

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE HUNTINGTON-USC INSTITUTE ON CALIFORNIA AND THE WEST

“We always associate the Victorians with morbid, dark, weird attachments to death,” said Lindsay O’Neill, assistant professor (teaching) of history. “But it’s not just that the Victorians were morbid people, it’s that their key values are tied up with new conceptions of death that emerged in the 19th century.” The Victorians’ intimate relationship with death is almost unthinkable to people today. “For us, the idea of laying out a corpse, attending a wake or seeing a dead body is traumatic,” said O’Neill, a specialist in British history. “We just don’t want to think about it.” In the 19th century, people had no choice. Death was an ever-present reality. Death rates soared as a result of increased urbanization brought about by industrialization. Workingclass parents could expect to lose one in two children at a young age, while middle- and upper-class families lost on average one in five. “On any stroll through a 19th-century cemetery, we would be shocked at the number of gravestones marked ‘baby,’ ‘infant’ or ‘child,’ ” Deverell said. What’s astonishing to modern eyes is that these children were buried unnamed. It was not uncommon in the American past, Deverell explained, for parents not to name a child until it had safely passed through a predetermined ‘seasoning period’ of up to four years, lest they attach personality and personhood to that child. Until then it would simply be called

sister, brother, baby. If a named child died, that name might be given to the next sibling born of the same gender. “There’s a fluidity with the personhood of that child, but an attachment to the name,” Deverell explained. “If you poke at that, it shows a tragic familiarity with death.” O’Neill suggests that what we find morbid today in Victorian attitudes toward death originates from this very familiarity, the acceptance of mortality and the comfort found in keeping the dead within the family fold. “Because family is so important to the Victorians, they want to include the dead among the living,” O’Neill said. “This translates into wakes held in the parlor while children play around the corpse, picnicking with deceased relatives in the family crypt and wearing locks of [the deceased’s] hair in lockets or brooches.”

growing in death, so when the coffin was prized open, it was found to be filled with her coppery hair. Rossetti retrieved his poems, although legend has it a worm had burrowed through them, leaving many illegible. “There are plenty of cases in the 19th century of people, who for reasons generally tied to love and not a weird eeriness, dug up the dead,” Deverell said. “Ralph Waldo Emerson famously opened up his wife’s coffin because he missed her so.” USING CORPSES TO INTERPRET A GLORIFIED PAST

Thea Tomaini’s new book, The Corpse as Text: Disinterment and Antiquarian Enquiry, 1700-1900 (Boydell Press, 2017), explores the two centuries-long vogue for digging up important historical figures to “read” their corpses, as though they were documents describing an idealized past. By “interpreting” the corpses of the historically dead, antiquarians attempted to validate English nationalist ideals and to establish the past as a Golden Age of unimpeachable superiority. “What’s fascinating about this is that a person of historical importance — be they literary, royal, a member of the church, a politician, or a national hero — remains almost as important in death as in life,” said Tomaini, professor (teaching) of English. “There is a continued relevance, not only for the dead, but for the actual corpse.” In her book, Tomaini illustrates how “reading” corpses was used to support political argument by chronicling the disinterment of Charles I, the Catholic Stuart king executed for high treason by Oliver Cromwell in 1649. Hastily buried in secret in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, IL L U S T R AT I O N S BY R I C H A R D M I A F O R U S C D O R N S IF E M AG A Z IN E

to prevent royalists from stealing relics and Cromwell’s supporters from vandalizing the tomb, Charles’ final resting place was soon forgotten. “Ten years after Charles’ death, among the handful of people who knew his burial place, several had died and the others couldn’t recollect where they had put him,” Tomaini said. “They knew he was under the nave somewhere, but they’d forgotten exactly where. It wasn’t until 1813 that his body was accidentally discovered by workmen.” Amid great excitement, the great and good, including King George IV, the Prince Regent and their personal physician, gathered for the opening of Charles’ coffin. Much to everyone’s satisfaction, he was found to be in tremendously good condition. “His skin was supple, and he looked very good,” Tomaini recounts. “They brought the head up out of the coffin, noting that it had been sutured back on to the body with black silk thread and the mark covered with a black velvet ribbon. And they picked up the head and passed it around and all agreed that it was him and that the majesty was still clear on the king’s face.” This was immediately politicized to validate the monarchist argument that royalty was ultimately unassailable. With King Henry VIII, whose burial place — also forgotten — was discovered next to Charles, it was a different story. Inside Henry’s outsized coffin, nothing remained of the larger-than-life monarch, notorious for his excessive and often violent appetites, but a tiny shriveled skeleton and a few tufts of ginger beard. His less-than-imposing remains were interpreted as a sign that tyrants never win — even in death.

MIRROR MIRROR Art executed in the vanitas style incorporates symbols of mortality, thereby reminding viewers of life’s transience.

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DANSE MACABRE

For centuries, cemeteries served as a powerful reminder of the importance of living a morally righteous life. Deverell notes that in the 17th and early 18th centuries, Puritan parents frightened young children into righteousness by urging them to walk through graveyards, past tombstones carved with skulls and crossbones, to make them understand that death, their inevitable companion, was stalking them. In 15th-century Europe, even more explicit memento mori (reminders of death), or cadaver tombs, featured transi sculptures showing the body in an advanced state of decomposition, often complete with worms or other flesheating creatures. Nor were memento mori limited to cemeteries. Another example, the danse macabre, shows a dancing grim reaper carrying off rich and poor alike. Chapels constructed from bones, such as the 16th-century Capela dos Ossos in Evora, Portugal, inscribed with the words, “We bones, lying here bare, await yours,” served as a silent reminder of mortality. Paintings executed in the vanitas style featured symbols of mortality such as skulls or, more subtly, a flower losing its petals and were meant to remind viewers of the transience of life, the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death. Public clocks often bore such cheery inscriptions as ultima forsan (perhaps the last [hour]), while people carried smaller, portable reminders of their own mortality. Mary Queen of Scots owned a large watch carved in the form of a silver skull, which counted down the minutes until her beheading on Feb. 8, 1587. THE GENTLE GOODNIGHT

Victorian cemeteries, however, were less about morbid reminders of mortality and more about reunions, O’Neill notes. While we might find it slightly macabre to take a Sunday walk, much less stop for a picnic, in a graveyard, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, American cemeteries were regarded as parks, places to relax and repose in nature. In Britain, a similar story unfolded. At Highgate, families — children included — dressed in their Sunday best to take tea with their dear departed in the family crypt. “Victorians start to emphasize less the previous personal battle for the soul and more the loss of a cherished individual to the family unit,” O’Neill said. Heaven for Victorians no longer represented only the place where they would be united with God, but also the place where they would be reunited with their family after death. Victorians found comfort in the idea of having a crypt where their family would visit them, thus perpetuating beyond the grave that sense of inclusion and continuity that the family personified to them so strongly. As the connection with the church lessened, paintings of the period depicting death scenes showed doctors and families in attendance, rather than priests. “A strange separation of death and church is taking place, and what replaces church is family,” O’Neill said. “Victorians aren’t becoming less religious, but the nature of their religion is changing. ... The vengeful God of previous centuries is replaced by a more forgiving God and death is sentimentalized as a smooth, sweet passage, a homecoming.” Highly valued, this idealized concept of a “good death” meant dying peacefully surrounded by family and friends, with time to say goodbye and doctors in attendance to ease any pain. It was a time of acceptance, family bonding and meaningful last words. Unexpected, messy and uncontrollable, cholera represented the worst kind of death to 24

Victorians, while tuberculosis, a wasting disease to which many young Victorian women succumbed, offered the possibility of an idealized, lingering demise. Romanticized by Victorians as “angels of the home,” such young women embodied the perfect death.

“Because family is so important to the Victorians, they want to include the dead among the living.” Such gentle ideas about peaceful death were shared in the U.S. until they were savagely disrupted by the Civil War. More than 700,000 Americans lost their lives, raising the question of how to deal with death on such a massive scale. “[The war] helped drive home this tragic, romantic notion of the good death, a brave death, a resigned death, a religious death, a poignant death, all wrapped up into notions of nobility, chivalric masculinity, patriotism, and filial loyalty to one’s parents, as soldiers die with the names of their mother and father on their lips, or a picture of their children pinned to their chest,” Deverell said. As Americans struggled to cope with traumatic death stripped of all desired aspects of parlor comfort, they nevertheless clung to the idea of the idealized death, striving to stage it wherever possible, even in Civil War hospitals. There, nurses — among them poet Walt Whitman, whose Civil War nursing diaries are preserved at the Huntington Library — play a critical role in recreating this almost romantic view of death, of being present at the moment of passing, of tenderness, the kiss on the cheek and the gentle goodbye. EMBALMING LINCOLN

If any single death can be considered to have most deeply affected Americans’ view of mortality, it is the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. “Regarded both as a sacrificial Christian martyr and a republican hero who gave his life for the people, Lincoln came to stand for all of the dead of the Civil War,” said Richard Fox, professor of history and author of Lincoln’s Body (W.W. Norton & Company, 2015). “Americans identified personally with his death as if he were a family member, sometimes even leaving a symbolic empty chair at the dinner table they called ‘Lincoln’s place.’ ” In response to public demand, the funeral train bearing Lincoln’s body traveled 1,654 miles, through seven states and 180 cities from Washington, D.C., to Springfield, Ill. Twelve cities held public viewings of his body. “It’s estimated that a million people saw his body and another six million saw the train — more than a quarter of the Northern population,” Fox said. “Even in cities that only obtained a stop in the middle of the night, thousands turned out, dressed in their Sunday best, while women decorated the train with garlands of flowers to show their respect.” All this was made possible by the embalming of Lincoln’s body. This process — brought from France — became popular during the Civil War because it allowed grieving families to bring the bodies of their fallen sons home to recreate the idealized deathbed experience.

PRESENT ARMS More than 700,000 Americans perished in the Civil War, transforming the nation’s experience of death.

S T O R Y C O N T I N U E S O N P A G E 2 7.

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Scary Monsters and Super Creeps

by Susan Bell

WHAT DOES OUR ENDURING LOVE OF GHOSTS, ZOMBIES AND VAMPIRES REVEAL ABOUT OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH MORTALITY? USC DORNSIFE’S RESIDENT MONSTER EXPERT LEO BRAUDY EXPLAINS.

Almost 35 years have passed since a ragtag troupe of gyrating zombies first captivated audiences worldwide, helping to propel Michael Jackson’s 1983 hit “Thriller” to the coveted position of greatest music video of all time. Our appetite for all things associated with the undead has only grown more pronounced since. World War Z, The Twilight Saga, The Walking Dead, True Blood, the White Walkers from Game of Thrones — our current obsession with monsters seems to be at an all-time high as we binge on a raft of popular movies and TV series dedicated to vampires and zombies. In today’s youth-obsessed culture in which we are reluctant to even acknowledge our own mortality, much less discuss it, does this fascination with monsters signal a need to confront our fear of death? First, there is nothing new in our love of monsters, notes Leo Braudy, University Professor and Leo S. Bing Chair in English and American Literature. “We have told each other scary stories since the beginning of time. Ghosts, for instance, have been around since the start of civilization,” he said. Braudy, professor of English, art history, film and history, is a monster expert and the author of Haunted: On Ghosts, Witches, Vampires, Zombies, and Other Monsters of the Natural and Supernatural Worlds (Yale University Press, 2016). Our fascination with monsters, he says, begins in childhood with the fairy tales we hear at our mother’s knee. “Children love fairy tales for the same reasons we all love frightening stories — because they allow us a kind of mastery,” he said. “They’re comforting, but also titillating, certainly for adults. It’s that idea of ‘you escaped.’ ” RECOGNIZING THE FOUR CATEGORIES OF MONSTERS In Haunted, Braudy divides monsters into four categories. First, “the monster from nature” embodies our fear of an uncontrollable natural world. Examples fall into two groups: mysterious, elusive but ultimately less threatening monsters like Sasquatch, the Yeti or the Loch Ness Monster; and more menacing specimens, like Godzilla or King Kong, that embody the fear that nature will take her revenge for our transgressions against her. The second type of monster is associated with the fear of science. Frankenstein is an example of this kind of monster, created purposefully by a scientist whose hubris leads him to believe he can rival God’s creativity to bring to life an unprecedented being. Third, comes the Jekyll and Hyde monster. Appearing in the 26

late 1880s, it is one of several doppelganger figures — people with double lives or double selves — that reflects the more complex, late Victorian view of human psychology. This is rendered not necessarily in terms of Freudian psychoanalysis or depth psychology, but in terms of fears of the monstrousness of one’s otherwise repressed self. This psychological monster-from-within nevertheless coincides with Freud’s early development of his theories of psychology and the inner self. Finally, there is the monster from the past that arrives to take revenge on us and our modern cult of progress, improvement and change. “Dracula, who comes out of a very distant, even pre-Christian past, is a prime example,” Braudy noted. “He promises immortality.” VAMPIRES AND ZOMBIES Our modern-day enthusiasm for vampires stems from our desire to avoid confronting our own mortality, Braudy believes. “Vampires have lived for thousands of years, have survived history, so they are simultaneously feared but admired, because they represent, for the moment, a liberation from mortality.” On the other hand, the current zombie craze, Braudy argues, reflects our present-day fear of groups. This is an era where we’re less afraid of James Bond-type villains — those descendants of Hitler and Mussolini who want to rule the world — and more afraid of the faceless, shadowy, anonymous groups we can’t pin down. “What’s really different about the zombie and what separates it from most of the classic monsters is that it’s part of a collective, while other monsters are individuals,” Braudy said. “There’s no hierarchy in the zombie world, no ‘king zombie,’ so fear of zombies represents a modern fear of groups. They might be Islamic fundamentalists, immigrants, Republicans, Democrats — you name it, whatever group frightens you.” A REVEALING OBSESSION Our love of monsters is revealing, Braudy argues, showing us how preoccupied we are with death and mortality. Our obsession with monsters provides the counterbalance to our own change in funerary practices as described in Jessica Mitford’s celebrated book The American Way of Death — medicalized, sanitized death that now takes place mostly in hospitals, far removed from our daily lives. “What horror does,” Braudy said, “is keep our mortality squarely in front of us.” Popular culture, he argues, essentially allows us to indulge our fears and desires without penalty, and that explains the pleasure we currently derive from watching films or TV shows featuring monsters, including zombies and vampires. “Popular culture is, to a certain extent, emotionally compensatory,” Braudy said. “It allows us to indulge those fears and desires that medical science has deprived us of by de-sentimentalizing or de-emotionalizing death.” “Scary monsters, super creeps / keep me running, running scared,” David Bowie sang on his hit from the 1980 Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) album. His words still ring true today and, according to Braudy, will likely continue to do so for generations to come. “Our fascination with monsters,” Braudy said, “is perpetual.”

“In Lincoln’s case, it didn’t work out as perfectly as the embalmers predicted because his body was jostled too much and too much dust descended upon it during the trip,” Fox said. “But, for two weeks it looked very presentable. Only in the third week did it start to turn in ways that were unpleasant for viewers.” By the turn of the 20th century, embalming was so popular in the U.S. that it enabled the funeral home to replace the home as the place where people grieved, Fox said. As a result, death became increasingly commercialized as it was taken out of the domestic setting and put into into a commercial one. After the Civil War, a movement grew to rebury in marked graves those hastily laid to rest on the battlefield. Led in the South by private associations of women, in the North this push constituted the largest federal government initiative of its time. What started as a reburial movement for soldiers grew to provide care for their widows and orphans, then spread to the general population, thus sowing the seeds for the birth of the welfare state and the New Deal. AN AMERICAN TABOO?

Today, better health care, lower infant mortality and longer life expectancy mean that death has receded in familiarity for everyone except the very ill and very old. Does that modern lack of experience with death translate into our unwillingness to talk about it or accept it? “Death is more removed from our daily experience than it was in the past,” Deverell noted. “While it once had its chin on the shoulder of people as they walked through life, death is now, for the lucky majority, a step behind us. It’s only when we think about those among us who are elderly or ill, that we then start to see death take a step forward.” O’Neill argues that behind falling mortality rates and increased secularization lies a growing faith in science and our ability to control and even cheat death. “Previously death was inevitable. It was more about how you died, whereas now we’re much more interested in prolonging life,” O’Neill said. “When death happens now, it’s a recognition of the limits of our abilities to control life. Death becomes perceived as a failure, feeding into the taboo that we don’t really want to talk about it or recognize it.” The fact that we often characterize Victorian attitudes to death as morbid and obsessive offers telling insights into our own often uncomfortable relationship with mortality. It’s a relationship that Jody Vallejo, for one, doesn’t consider any healthier. “There’s an obsession in America with not acknowledging mortality or aging,” observed Vallejo. The associate professor of sociology and American studies and ethnicity researches immigrant integration with a particular focus on the Mexican-origin middle class in the U.S. “Since the 1960s, there’s been a national obsession with looking youthful, reflected by the surging demand for plastic surgery and Botox,” she added. In the meantime, death in America has mostly been removed from public view, taken out of the familiar and intimate confines of the home and transferred into the antiseptic, sterile environment of the hospital, where it is managed by medical professionals. At one end of the spectrum, the elderly are hidden

away in retirement homes, and at the other, children are sheltered from death by well-meaning parents who believe their offspring need protecting from the reality of mortality. That doesn’t happen in Mexico, Vallejo says, where beliefs and practices about death are integrated into everyday life.

“People always have death on their mind, whether they admit it or not.” “Kids attend funerals from the time that they are young children. The novena — a prayer ritual practiced by Mexican Catholics — is held for nine consecutive days, often in a family member’s home, where relatives and friends mourn and pray. It’s just part of life,” she explained. “The U.S. is generally a death-denying society and we are failing to see that the dying and the dead have a legacy to offer — connection to our past, to our roots, not just our family, but our community, our society.” If death is a taboo subject in the U.S., Vallejo says, that doesn’t mean Americans aren’t fascinated with it. All you have to do, she says, is look at entertainment. “We live in a society that’s obsessed with violent death in movies, TV shows and video games, but that doesn’t really acknowledge death and mortality except in these fantastical ways,” she said, referring to the current wave of vampire and zombie dramas. “We are constantly confronted with death in American society. However, it’s present in ways that aren’t discussed or that allow people to actually think about their own mortality in a spiritual or contemplative way that could help them make sense of their own lives and the world around them.” Vallejo believes that the growing popularity in broader American society of Mexico’s Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) — a celebration to remember and honor the dead — is partly rooted in how it allows people to think about death in ways made difficult by their own culture. In Los Angeles alone, some 40,000 people attend the annual Dia de los Muertos celebrations at Hollywood Forever cemetery. “You see Dia de los Muertos celebrations and symbolism everywhere in the U.S. now,” said Vallejo, commenting on the prevalence of Dia de Los Muertos folk art, costumes, tattoos and skateboarder imagery. “It’s yet another example of how death inevitably becomes commercialized in American society. Even Walmart sells sugar skulls. But it’s also emblematic of the ways in which immigrants help to remake societies.” Death rituals differ across time and cultures, between classes and races, but all are endlessly interesting in terms of narrative, drama, poignancy, love, faith, grief, goodbyes and loss, Deverell noted. “People always have death on their mind, whether they admit it or not,” he said. “I find comfort as a historian in the river of humanity and mortality that we’re all in. No one gets out of it, and there are lessons to be learned and inspirations to be gathered from those that came before us for all kinds of reasons.” Fall 2017 / Winter 2018 27

Kathryn Sermak ’77 recounts her decade-long association with one of the most celebrated actresses in Hollywood, and how it helped to shape her career and her ideas about aging and death. By Dan Knapp

Immortal. Beloved.

Her hair is Harlow gold Her lips sweet surprise … I’m in the middle of an ’80s flashback.

P H O T O BY J A M E S- DA N I E L R A D I C H E S ; A L L O T H E R P H O T O S C O U R T E S Y O F K AT H RY N S E R M A K U N L E S S O T H E R W I S E N O T E D

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Her hands are never cold She’s got Bette Davis eyes. Singer Kim Carnes’ 1981 smash echoes through my mind. And why not? I’m surrounded by mementos from Bette Davis’ life and film career. On the wall of Kathryn Sermak’s home office hangs a pastel illustration of Davis, star of such Hollywood classics as Dark Victory, Jezebel and All About Eve, a personal favorite of mine since film school. (I often shamelessly appropriate razor-sharp quips from the film.) Drawn by an ardent devotee, the portrait arrived at Sermak’s mailbox three months after the star succumbed to cancer in October 1989. The eyes seem to follow me throughout the room, as if a villain in some Scooby-Doo cartoon was hiding behind the artwork, watching my every move. Davis’ omnipresence is impossible to avoid. Sermak seems comforted by it.

A PARTING GLANCE Photographer James-Daniel Radiches photographed Kathryn Sermak and her mentor and friend Bette Davis at the Hôtel Plaza Athéneé in New York City in April 1989. It was Davis’s last formal portrait sitting.

Fall 2017 / Winter 2018 29

After all, most of Sermak’s adult life has been caught up in the star’s gravitational pull. Sermak was student, Girl Friday (a term Davis preferred to secretary), personal assistant, friend, confidant, caretaker, and heir to the movie queen. Following Davis’ death, she was charged with preserving the actress’ legacy, both by cofounding and serving on the board of directors of the Bette Davis Foundation and, more recently, publishing a memoir of her relationship with “Miss D.” Miss D & Me: Life with the Invincible Bette Davis (Hachette, 2017) is the fulfillment of a promise Sermak made to her friend and sometime employer three decades ago. Although she has worked with other noted, influential people throughout her career as a personal assistant, Sermak’s loyalties clearly remain with Davis. Every room of her West Los Angeles home contains some memento of her career with the actress — a career that might not have happened, she believes, had it not been for her USC Dornsife education. “FASTEN YOUR SEATBELTS …”

MOMENTS IN TIME Clockwise from top left: Kathryn Sermak today; Bette Davis checking out motorcycles in the Loire Valley, France; Davis at a French roadside cafe; Sermak and Davis arrive at the San Sebastian film festival; Davis with friend and fashion designer Patrick Kelly; the USC Trojan Marching Band flanks Davis on her 76th birthday; Sermak and Davis sun themselves in Biarritz, France.

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The year was 1979. Sermak had graduated from USC with a bachelor’s degree in psychology two years prior. As she contemplated enrolling in graduate school, she accepted a job in Beverly Hills as a personal assistant to Princess Shams Pahlavi, eldest sister of the last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. When the princess relocated to Acapulco, Mexico, Sermak, a self-described surfer girl from San Bernardino, Calif., chose to stay behind and parlay her recent prestigious experience and education into a job interview with Davis. “One of the reasons [Davis] hired me was because I was able to state on my résumé my extensive foreign travel — all of it through USC study abroad language programs — which made her think I was a sophisticated, multilingual young lady,” Sermak explains, running her fingers through her hair as she speaks. She says that when she accepted the job at age 23, she had no idea she would learn a lifetime of lessons during the following 10 years. “Miss D taught me everything,” Sermak says. She begins speaking at an increasingly rapid pace, clearly exuberant about the attention Davis devoted to her. “Yes, I learned a lot about film, but I learned more about life.” Davis instructed her pupil on how to dress, how to eat, how to interact with people — both privately and publicly. When Davis thought Sermak’s handshake was lacking, she grabbed her hand and insisted that her employee of two days practice until it was perfect. She expected meticulous attention to detail from Sermak. She even suggested that Sermak alter the spelling of her given first name, Catherine. “If you spell it K-A-T-H-R-Y-N, it’s more distinctive,” Davis counseled Sermak. “The way your parents chose to spell it is so much like everyone else in the world. I want to advise you that one of the big battles in life is to stand out from the crowd.” As if directly taken out of a script for My Fair Lady – with Davis assuming the Henry Higgins role and Sermak as Eliza Doolittle – Davis gave her protégé lessons on how to walk and how to speak. Davis even fined Sermak a quarter each time she responded to a request with a “low-class ‘okay.’ ”

More than anything, though, Davis nurtured in Sermak an unwavering sense of devotion and perseverance. “That first year was what I call boot camp — and it was very difficult because she kept testing me,” Sermak says. “A lot of people would have quit; a lot of people would have said, ‘I’ve had enough.’ But if you can persevere and go beyond, you succeed, and that’s basically what she taught me.” Sermak retrieves her reading glasses for the third — perhaps fourth — time during our interview. She jokes about how she is always misplacing them as she scrutinizes the photograph I hand her. In the photo, a woman with cascading chestnut tresses and luminous eyes stands next to Davis. “I was never happy with how I looked back then,” Sermak says. “But now, I don’t know ... .” She trails off for an instant as she reflects on the image. “I can’t imagine what I was thinking.” The picture was captured in New York City in April 1989 — the last professional image of the screen icon. This photo — along with the portrait in Sermak’s office with the watchful eyes — appears on the book jacket for Miss D & Me. Certainly, though, Sermak had seemingly unlimited options from which to choose: Her small but remarkably organized office contains thousands of photographs — both loose and in scrapbooks. As we thumb through her photo albums, most of which are bursting at the seams with a mix of professional portraits and amateur shots, I’m in disbelief over the multitude of Polaroids she’s retained. Instant cameras, it turns out, were crucial to her ability to properly assist her employers throughout the years. Whenever there was a personal appearance to be made, Sermak would use her camera to map the route to where Davis would make her entrance so that the aging star would be familiar with the location. I imagine how formidable Sermak would have been if she’d had an iPhone back then. Mixed among the photos are other treasured possessions that guided Sermak as she wrote her book. She has saved numerous diaries and notebooks, yellowing newspaper clippings and birthday cards. There are audio recordings she and Davis made for one another over the years. Sermak started taping messages to her family and friends as a USC student studying in Spain because telephoning home was prohibitively expensive. The habit stuck. Other one-of-a-kind items include a recently digitized video of an interview Sermak conducted with Davis toward the end of her life. Sermak hopes to one day edit the footage and have it appear on television. Those recordings lie on the bookshelf, directly beneath her prized antique dictionary, given to her by Davis, naturally. Perhaps aided by the dictionary, Sermak jokes that she is seldom at a loss for words. So when we finally sit down in her home — a refuge she calls Casa Bella — to discuss her book, she begins to answer questions even before I’ve had a chance to ask them. “Miss D. was furious — she loved her dining room table,” Sermak says as she sees me glimpse a rough knife carving in the table top. It reads, “Bette + Sherry 1945.” It was etched by Davis’ third husband, William Grant Sherry. I notice the blue-and-white chaise in her living room. Sermak mentions that it was custom made for Davis back when she was working at Warner Bros. and simultaneously filming two movies at the studio. Fall 2017 / Winter 2018 31

Sermak details how Davis’ will bequeathed to her specific pieces of furniture — like the table and chaise — and how she left explicit instructions on how they should be cleaned and arranged. Think of it as interior decorating from beyond the grave. “… A BUMPY NIGHT”

BOOK SIGNING PHOTO COURTESY OF GET T Y IMAGES / TIME & LIFE PICTURES

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“Miss Davis might have been 71, but let me tell you, ... she could run circles around me, and I had a lot of energy,” says Sermak, describing her first years with the screen legend. “She could run circles around four people in their 20s.” Davis and Sermak are not dissimilar in that regard. Nearly four decades since she went to work for Davis, Sermak still thrums with energy. She is the proverbial whirling dervish throughout our conversation, frequently ascending the stairs to her second floor office to retrieve more mementos of her career. Sermak says that Davis only slowed down when she was felled by a stroke nine days after a mastectomy to treat her breast cancer in 1983. It was in Davis’ New York City hospital room that Sermak says the dynamic shifted between the duo. “Those first five years, I was young, kind of weak,” Sermak explains. “She was the one who taught me how to walk and talk.” But following the stroke, they switched roles, with Sermak helping Davis relearn how to use her body. “It’s almost like a life reversal,” Sermak says. Sermak played an integral role in Davis’ recovery, overseeing every aspect of it, from diet to doctor’s appointments to making sure the star balanced rest and activity. Although it was months before Davis returned to her apartment in West Hollywood, and still more months before she ventured out in public, she eventually resurfaced with the help of Sermak — and the USC Trojan Marching Band. Producing photos of Davis in a USC sweater with a color-coordinated hat, Sermak excitedly explains how she and Davis’ attorney arranged for the band to serenade the icon on her 76th birthday. The entire neighborhood came out to see the band march down Havenhurst Drive in West Hollywood, Calif., to Davis’ residence at the landmark Colonial House building. Sermak and Davis looked on from their terrace. When the band finished playing, Davis blew the band members kisses from the balcony and despite having impaired mobility due to the stroke, asked Sermak to take her outside. “She yelled down to the band from the fourth floor, ‘You stay right there. I’m coming down,’ ” says Sermak. “She went down and she shook everyone’s hands, thanking them. And it was the first time, really, that she came out [following the stroke].” “WE’RE ALL BUSY LITTLE BEES …”

As Davis recovered, Sermak went to France as the actress’ emissary, and wound up falling in love with a young lawyer. Sensing that her protégé needed to experience a life outside of Hollywood, Davis encouraged Sermak to leave her employ and move to Paris. “Miss D said, ‘You’ve got to go. You’ve got to go see this man in his own country. I don’t think he’s right for you, but you need to get it out of your system.’ ” “As it happened, she was right on both counts,” Sermak laughs. While in France, Sermak worked for politician and journalist Pierre Salinger, but her loyalty to Davis never

faltered. Whenever Davis needed anything, Sermak was promptly on a jet back to the United States. She helped Davis through a litany of health issues, assisted with the publication of Davis’ second autobiography, This ’n That (Putnam Publishing Group, 1987), and escorted the legend to important public engagements.

“… if you can persevere and go beyond, you succeed, and that’s basically what [Davis] taught me.” However, in 1985, when Davis’ daughter Barbara Davis “B.D.” Hyman published a scathing tell-all book about her mother that deeply affected Davis, Sermak suggested Davis instead join her. “That’s when I said she needed to come to France,” Sermak says. “I’d work on the [This ’n That] galleys and then we’d take this motor trip from Biarritz to Paris.” It is about this trip abroad that Davis — still reeling from Hyman’s character assassination — insisted Sermak write a book. During their four-day excursion, Sermak unknowingly accepted the role of de facto daughter as their bond strengthened along the way to the City of Lights. The duo sunned themselves by the pool at the historic Hôtel du Palais on the Bay of Biscay and shaded themselves under a café umbrella at a roadside restaurant. Sermak says Davis smiled at the fact that the umbrella was emblazoned with the Coca-Cola logo. Sermak recalls Davis saying, “Ah, if Joan Crawford could see me. She’d be so angry,” alluding to the pair’s bitter rivalry and the late Crawford’s ownership stake in the rival soft drink Pepsi. (Some feuds simmer long after death.) Davis donned a head-to-toe leather ensemble and checked out motorcycles in the Loire Valley, to the enthusiastic cheers of local onlookers. Sermak shares these and other Polaroid memories of their trip. The jaunt was not all fun and games; it also allowed the two time to discuss hard subjects. Each shared what they wanted to happen upon their respective demises. “Whichever of us dies first, the other will see to it that we look beautiful at the last,” Sermak recalls Davis saying. Many years before Davis had purchased her sarcophagus which overlooks Warner Bros studios at the Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills cemetery; she would be buried beside her mother and sister Bobby. Davis had told Sermak she wanted the burial to take place at 4 a.m. when there would be less chance of paparazzi skulking around. Another of the directives Davis made was for her own memorial: She forbade a hoard of celebrities offering insincere tributes. “Miss D knew Hollywood,” Sermak says. “Somebody passes and all of a sudden they’re doing these memorials, and all these people come up and they start talking about how they were best friends. Davis told Sermak, ‘They’re all doing that because they need work, and they all want to be seen. And don’t you dare allow this to happen.’ ” Sermak would find herself following through on her friend’s request four years later.

OUTGOING ’TIL THE END Clockwise: Sermak assists Davis at a book signing for This ’n That in February 1988; the last snapshot ever taken of Davis, mere days before her death; Sermak, Elizabeth Taylor and Roddy McDowell along with other friends surround Davis at her birthday party in 1987.

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“SLOW CURTAIN, THE END”

In the early fall of 1989, Davis lay dying in a hospital on the outskirts of Paris, her frail body ravaged by cancer. Only a select few — including Sermak — had been aware that Davis had been undergoing radiation treatment; no one expected her health to deteriorate so quickly. “There was no way in the world we ever thought she was going to pass,” says Sermak as she holds up a faded Polaroid, shot in Spain, of Davis and herself — the last photo of Davis ever taken. “She looked the best I had ever seen her back then. It’s just like she blossomed.” When the time came, Sermak volunteered to relay the grim prognosis to Davis that there was nothing more the doctors could do. A physician later came to Davis’ room to check on her. Instead of pleading for some last reel miracle that might have appeared in one of her films, Davis’ celebrated eyes stoically fixed their gaze on the doctor. “She apologized to him for having to put him in that situation — his hospital,” Sermak says. “She knew who she was. She knew the amount of press that was going to be there and how it was going to swarm. He was in tears. He had to leave the room.” At the end, it was just Davis and Sermak; the actress wanted only the person who had become her closest friend and confidant to be with her when she died. Sermak remembers placing farewell phone calls to family and friends for Davis, but the dying star did not want them to make the trip to France. Sermak says that Davis did not want their last memory of her to be, as Davis described it, “a bedraggled body and the look of death” reasoning that “they don’t see me every day like you do, Kath.” Sermak took care of the funeral arrangements for the star. She selected a black evening dress and matching black fur hat created by designer and friend Patrick Kelly in which to bury Davis. Sermak made sure that Davis’ tomb at the cemetery was inscribed exactly as the actress explicitly requested: “She did it the hard way.” Sermak offers that she does not profess to know what happens when someone dies, but she does feel that Davis’ spirit is still watching over her all these years later. “People often ask me if I miss her, and I say that I still feel her presence around me.”

“People often ask me if I miss her, and I say that I still feel her presence around me.” Sermak says she was bombarded with requests to write a tell-all. “That’s cashing in. They wanted scandal ... and that is not who I am; that is not who Miss Davis was; that’s not how I was trained.” As our interview concludes, Sermak offers me a red and yellow bloom — one of her USC roses. It’s a classy gesture — one seemingly plucked from Davis’ instruction manual. I rush to my car, throw back the top, and scramble to find my long-forgotten Time Life Sounds of the Eighties CD. Her hair is Harlow gold …

“A GIRL OF SO MANY RARE QUALITIES …”

After Davis’ death, Sermak continued her career, working for a who’s who of famous faces: astronaut Buzz Aldrin, actress Isabelle Adjani, music impresario Berry Gordy Jr., and Michael Gornall, the creative director of the Where’s Waldo television series. But it is her relationship with Davis that continues to define her career. Up until now, with the exception of an appearance in the award-winning Spanish documentary El Último Adiós de Bette Davis, Sermak has been reluctant to discuss her work with Davis, despite numerous inquiries. “Being a personal assistant and to have the respect that I do, you never gossip, you never say anything,” Sermak says. “I see behind a lot of doors, but it stays with me. The only time it didn’t is for this book because [Davis] told me, ‘You need to set the record straight. And, more importantly, it’s a great story and one day would make a great film.’ ” Sermak felt unready to write the book, citing a need to reach a certain level of maturity before diving into the project. Immediately after Davis’ passing, in particular, 34

TO THE POINT (Opposite page) Sermak records her segments for the Spanish documentary El Último Adiós de Bette Davis (Bette Davis’ Last Goodbye). Released in 2014, it chronicles Davis’ final public appearance at the 1989 San Sebastian film festival. The documentary was nominated for a Goya Award, Spain’s equivalent to an Oscar. Video: Learn more about Kathryn Sermak at dornsife.usc.edu/sermak.

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Beneath our very feet — and below the vast oceans — the past lies preserved, waiting for its dormant wisdom to be unearthed once again. As USC Dornsife researchers explore ancient fossils and artifacts, they look to this immortalized record of what once was to understand the future and how we can act to ensure we remain a part of it. By Laura Paisley

SPONGE FOR THE AGES This ancient Doushantuo sponge, only half a millimeter across, is among the fossils studied by David Bottjer at the Weng’an site in China. At 600 million years old, it may be the world’s oldest sponge. After the organism died, phosphate replaced its tissues cell by cell, creating a perfectly preserved relic.

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“Ancient” means something different to everyone. For some, it’s anything pre-internet. For others, it conjures Roman aqueducts or the pyramids. When Bottjer says “ancient,” he’s talking 600 million years ago. As a paleobiologist — the newer, more interdisciplinary version of a paleontologist — and professor of Earth sciences, biological sciences and environmental studies, he knows it can be difficult for people to get their heads around time on this scale. “The Earth is 4.5 billion years old, but life has been on Earth for about three and a half billion years,” he said. “So 600 million is actually not that far back.” It was around this time, he said, that the first animals — simple ones like sponges — began to evolve. A record of fossilized life forms spanning several billion years — a mind-boggling timeframe referred to as “geological” or “deep” time — lies buried beneath our feet within layers of sedimentary rock. Bottjer likens these layers to the teetering stacks of paper on his office desk, explaining that within them are clues about what Earth’s environment was like in the past, and how conditions have changed over millions of years — the blink of an eye in geological time. Bottjer has been doing paleobiology research in China for nearly 20 years. He works with scientists from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and elsewhere at the Weng’an site in the Guizhou province of southern China. They study some of the oldest known animal fossils on Earth. “If you want to know about how animals evolved on Earth,” he said, “this site is the most important one we know of.” Two years ago, Bottjer and international colleagues

‘THE EXPERIMENT HAS BEEN RUN’

Over the course of its long history, Earth has experienced a number of dramatic climatic shifts. Their impact on the evolution of plants and animals can be traced through the fossil record. Different climates gave rise to different environments and living organisms. However, periods of rapid warming due to natural phenomena such as intense volcanism sometimes resulted in mass extinctions. A growing body of scientific evidence suggests that we are headed toward another mass extinction, this one caused by human activity, including human-induced climate change. Bottjer and his USC colleagues, thanks to a $1 million National Science Foundation grant, have spent the last few years looking at a mass extinction that took place 250 million years ago, on the border of the Triassic and Jurassic periods. The supercontinent Pangea was breaking apart along tectonic lines, resulting in a time of intense volcanic activity. This led to a dramatic increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases and a corresponding warming effect. USC Dornsife faculty and graduate researchers have been studying this period at sites high in the Andes Mountains in Peru. Within the layers of sedimentary rock in that region, limestones contain fossils whose age can be determined by measuring radioactive decay in adjacent volcanic ash beds. This allows scientists to observe the impact of the warming on ancient ecology, portending possible challenges ahead for humanity. Researchers are interested in the Triassic-Jurassic extinction in particular because the rapid climate change and dramatic rise of carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere during that period are quite similar to what is happening today. Their research addresses pressing questions about how climate change might affect our planet in the very near future. “Right now is the fastest the temperature has ever increased in geological time,” Bottjer said. “We want to see if [the Triassic-Jurassic extinction] can help us learn about what’s happening today, because the experiment has already been run. So, we’d like to think that we can at least provide some general predictions about where things might be going.” OUTPACING EVOLUTION

In that ancient experiment, Earth got hot quickly — over the course of less than 10,000 years — killing off about half of the Earth’s species. Among the first to die were the ocean’s coral reefs — often thought of as the canary in the coal mine due to their sensitivity to climate shifts — which all but disappeared for roughly 400,000 years. Eventually the Earth cooled down and animals began to repopulate, though in this context, “eventually” means 700,000 years later. Now history is repeating itself. The Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia, the largest living organism on Earth, has been ravaged by rising ocean temperatures in recent years. Normally hubs of biodiversity, these coral reefs have experienced unprecedented episodes of mass bleaching for the past two consecutive years.

PHOTO BY DAMON CASAREZ

AT THE SOURCE (Opposite page) Lynn Dodd, right, and her students map a recently reappeared catch basin on Catalina Island this past summer by recording GPS data and collecting hydrology measurements of the water.

IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE

unearthed a tiny sponge fossil that was determined to be 600 million years old. Roughly the size of a grain of sand, the fossil proved that the animal’s evolution began millions of years earlier than previously thought, imparting an ancient lesson that sheds new light for today’s scientists on how evolution takes place in organisms.

PRE V I O U S PAG E PH OTO A ND S P O N G E IM AG E C O U R T E S Y O F DAV ID B OT TJ ER

DIGGING FOR DATA (Previous page) USC Dornsife Earth sciences graduate students conduct field research in Nevada, analyzing fossils from the era of the TriassicJurassic mass extinction, which occurred more than 200 million years ago.

There’s a philosophical dimension to looking at the very distant past. It gives us an opportunity to reevaluate our relative significance in the grand scheme of life. In terms of the Earth’s entire history, humans have inhabited this planet for barely a moment. The vast stretches of time that preceded us were filled by other forms of life, and their existence — and the clues their remnants hold — offer valuable insight into our current circumstances. For USC Dornsife scientist David Bottjer, who, as a young student, was as much interested in history as natural sciences, the clues within the fossil record can provide a foundational lesson on how we came to be. “[Paleobiology] is not learning about the British Empire, but in a lot of ways it’s the same kind of thing,” he said. “Why did life succeed or fail? How did it evolve and change? Just like a lot of the questions you might ask about human history.” The answers may foretell the many possible futures that await us, and the impact our choices today will have on each. But there’s more to it than that. Beyond the past’s potential to inform us of what may lie ahead, Lynn Dodd of USC Dornsife’s archaeology program sees another kind of value in studying remnants of history — an intrinsic significance that speaks to the heart of humanity. “If we live without any sense of our past — the richness and diversity and possibility of how we lived — we’re impoverished,” she said. “We’re adding to the richness in our own mental treasure chests by investigating and trying to answer questions about the past and the people who lived in it.”

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Ideally, changes in climate occur at a rate that allows life on Earth to adapt to the changing conditions. “We know that when climate change goes really fast, evolution can’t keep up,” Bottjer said. “If it goes slowly, evolution is a process that can make adjustments, and animals and plants can sort of manage and not go extinct. But if it goes faster than evolution can chase it, that leads to a mass extinction.” Obviously we’re powerless to prevent rapid climate change caused by processes such as volcanic eruptions. But, Bottjer said, since humans are expediting the process of climate change, and given the serious consequences, we should acknowledge that in this case we can potentially do something about it. This is part of what motivates Bottjer in his research. And as a professor, he is sharing this important motivation with the next generation. “Maybe we won’t get ourselves into such a jam again if we study how this happened in the past,” he said. “This stuff will be the biggest challenge for the lives of the students we are currently educating.” TAKING A LONG VIEW

NORTHERLY FOSSILS Geologist Lou Marincovich spent his career researching fossils in the wilds of Alaska. He recently documented his experiences in a memoir, True North: Hunting Fossils Under the Midnight Sun (Bering Press, 2017).

Along with the histories of ancient animals on Earth, early humans and the ways of life they adopted thousands of years ago also offer us wisdom today. The USC Archaeology Research Center houses an impressive collection of artifacts, and offers opportunities for students to get firsthand fieldwork and research experience in Los Angeles and other parts of the world. “Looking to the past, we can learn some very interesting things that give us a long-term perspective on problems we continue to face,” said Dodd, associate professor of the practice of religion and curator of the collection. “As an archaeologist, I tend to look at things with a long view, and that’s 1,000 or 10,000 years in the past. But it’s also 1,000 or 10,000 years into the future.” Dodd directs the interdisciplinary archaeology program at USC Dornsife. She is fascinated by holy land, sacred territory and the persistent question of why the past matters today. Right now, the focus of her archaeology research is Santa Catalina Island, located 22 miles off the Southern California coast. The land is sacred territory for the Tongva, or Gabrielino, Native Americans, who have a history there stretching back at least 8,000 years and who today often refer to the location by its traditional name: Pimu or Pimunga. “Catalina is compelling because it’s a place where we can see the early peopling of this continent and the ways that inhabitants adapted to a coastal lifestyle in the region,” Dodd said. “We want to know, how did they live in a way that enabled them to sustain that way of life for thousands upon thousands of years? Are there lessons we can learn from that?” CHANGING THE COURSE OF HISTORY

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FROM SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA TO THE ARCTIC

In addition to fossil discoveries made on land, the planet’s oceans also have a rich past to reveal. Long before earning a Ph.D. in geology in 1973, USC Dornsife alumnus Lou Marincovich remembers receiving a children’s book from his mother called All About Dinosaurs that ignited his fascination with fossils. Eventually, though, growing up next to the ocean in San Pedro, Calif., caused his focus to shift. “My boyish enthusiasm switched from dinosaurs to seashells over time because I could actually collect fossilized and modern shells in my neighborhood,” Marincovich said. His abiding interest in ancient life led him to attend graduate school in the late 1960s. To earn money for tuition, he spent eight months working on offshore oil drilling platforms in Alaska and was captivated by the far north. As a newly minted Ph.D., he got a job at the oil company Texaco and was dispatched to a tent camp in northern Alaska. “We camped out for months in absolute wilderness while I looked for fossils and collected rocks for oil company purposes,” Marincovich said. “I was in hog heaven; I was finally studying fossils in the wilderness, which I had dreamed of as a boy.” It was the beginning of a fruitful career in paleontology that took him from Alaska to Siberia and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, near the North Pole. After his stint with Texaco, his research for the U.S. Geological Survey and the California Academy of Sciences documented the changing climate of the Arctic over 60 million years, based on the migration patterns of mollusks between Asia and North America.

INTO THE BLUE

In trying to understand the island’s human history, Dodd and several student researchers are looking at the key resource required to sustain life: water. When people first arrived on Catalina Island at least eight millennia ago, the sea level was several hundred feet lower than it is today. Historically, Catalina had more freshwater sources than it currently does, because some of them are now submerged beneath the sea. The apparent dearth of water today is proving a challenge to present-day island residents and businesses, and overcoming that challenge is the focus of significant study and conservation efforts at the USC Wrigley Institute. Dodd and the student researchers, for their part, are creating maps that show where water has flowed in the past. An interdisciplinary team can gather clues by digging soil core samples in ancient lakes and beneath old and existing streams. They use hydrological measurements and GPS data, and look for evidence of water-loving plants like cattails. They also note where freshwater flows out into the ocean.

TROPICAL PARADISE IN THE ARCTIC

SEEKING ADAPTIVE SOLUTIONS

It’s worth noting that those sea levels are still rising — and quickly — as a result of climate change. A lot of creative thinking is required to tackle this problem. Having a good understanding of how past humans have successfully adapted — what kinds of systems and thinking motivated and sustained them over thousands of years — should not be overlooked. For example, the Tongva relied upon a diverse resource base in addition to cooperation and alliances between different social groups, which created other options to fall back on in times of drought or disease. “These are lessons that are extremely important to teach people and give them an opportunity to think about,” Dodd emphasized. She acknowledges that there is not a direct analogue between a highly industrialized, urbanized society and the way of life of a band of hunter-gatherers. Nonetheless, there are still valuable lessons we can learn from people in the past. “[This research] highlights the concept that we as a community have the capacity to live in a sustainable way, much more than we do now,” she said. “And also, that we can effect change to incorporate those principles and ways of thinking that will benefit us not only now, but for generations into the future.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF LOU MARINCOVICH

Dodd and her students are studying how humans interacted with the natural ecosystem when they first came to the island. She’s also intrigued by how the arrival of other groups of humans can affect, or even erase, ecosystems and ways of life that had persisted for millennia. Their archaeology work on Catalina helps bring to life a portrait of how people lived in that environment for generations in a largely sustainable way. According to Dodd, everything changed in the 17th century, when Spanish settlers arrived on Catalina and the Channel Islands to the north. They set the environment on a new course toward

population growth and introduced new, invasive species. Domesticated animals like cattle, sheep and pigs grazed the native plants. Ranching and fishing activities eventually led to the extinction of certain native species. And yet, she points out, this is not an irreversible process. Most of the Channel Islands are now national park land, managed by federal agencies and conservation groups. In 1975, Philip Wrigley and his sister Dorothy Wrigley Offield donated 42,000 acres to the Catalina Island Conservancy to promote conservation over development and to house USC Dornsife’s Wrigley Marine Science Center on the island. In recent decades, there has been significant progress in restoring native ecosystems. “When [grazing animals] were removed from the Channel Islands, the denuded landscape started to rebound,” Dodd said. “And if you go to Catalina, you can see that playing out now — native plants being allowed to flourish again — and that’s a really exciting and informative result.”

Marincovich specializes in the Cenozoic Era, which began about 65 million years ago, following the demise of the dinosaurs. “At that time you started seeing modern types of animals proliferate, such as mammals and seashells, that look like the ones you could find on the beach of Santa Monica instead of weird-looking things that look really ancient,” he said. Marincovich’s research examines how today’s seashell faunas have evolved over millions of years, which also helps scientists interpret historical climate shifts. Studying Arctic fossils has helped him identify notable cycles of warming and cooling in the far north. “At times in the past, the seas in southern Alaska that are frigid today were subtropical,” Marincovich said. “[Through the fossil record] you can see the shells migrating up the west coast of North America, and also coming over from Japan and Siberia, and meeting in Alaska.” Periods of warmer climate in the Arctic region are corroborated by terrestrial fossil evidence. “Fifty million years ago there were a lot of animals and plants living on land that couldn’t have lived there if it was the frozen waste that it is today,” he said. “Fossils provide the only record of what really happens when nature shifts one way or the other.” Analyzing oceanic fossils and tracing temperature shifts in the environment allow scientists to map climate conditions for that part of the world, which they can then correlate with lower-latitude places like California, Mexico or Japan. In this way, scientists like Marincovich are helping to put the puzzle pieces of climate history in place.

Marincovich’s research also helped him determine the age of the Bering Strait, the last of the Earth’s seaways to be definitively dated. Scientists had grappled with the question for a century. He fortuitously discovered an Alaskan fossil clam, a specimen of the genus Astarte. The age and the location of the fossil helped him solve the mystery: The strait is 5.5 million years old. The discovery allows evolutionary biologists to calculate rates of evolution for mammals and plants on both sides of the strait since the populations were separated into Asia and North America. For Marincovich, it’s just another example of the wisdom we can glean from the Earth’s past — and the implications for its future — if we listen more closely to the soothsayers right beneath our feet. “We have to piece together the history,” he said. “The shells were mortal, but their value as messengers of the past is immortal.” Fall 2017 / Winter 2018 41

Assembling the Puzzle

By Laura Paisley

YOUR ALARM WAKES YOU WELL BEFORE SUNRISE, AND IT’S COLD WHEN YOU ROLL OUT OF BED. YOU’RE IN THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE, ARGENTINA TO BE EXACT, AND IT IS WINTER. YOU HEAD TO WHERE BREAKFAST IS BEING SERVED AND EAT FRENCH BREAD WITH DULCE DE LECHE, A CARAMEL-LIKE SPREAD THAT IS TRADITIONAL IN THE REGION.

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You pack a simple sack lunch and gather your compass, GPS device, field notebook and water — at least two liters of it. Next comes the bus ride, which can take up to two hours depending on which site you’re working at that day. Luckily, the views are spectacular. Once you arrive at your destination, seven to eight hours of hiking across varied terrain while taking measurements and plotting them on a map awaits. This represents a typical field day for a geologist studying volcanic arcs in Argentina. USC Dornsife students got to experience this life firsthand last summer as part of the Maymester course “Geological History of the Argentina Andes.” After preparatory coursework at USC, 10 undergraduates and three doctoral

students traveled to Argentina for three weeks of hands-on geology research. Working on two primary sites, they were collecting field data to help them create geologic maps related to the structure of the region. Their home base was a research center in Anillaco, a town of some 1,600 souls in northwestern Argentina known, among other things, for its proximity to a boulder that locals say resembles the profile of Jesus Christ. Senior Madelina Pratt, originally a biomedical engineering major, recently shifted her focus and enrolled in the progressive master’s degree program in environmental engineering. She said she chose this class “for the joy of learning geology.” “We had nine field days and we went out to this rugged, untouched terrain,” she said. “It was fun to hike through the beautiful Argentine countryside and look down at what we were standing on, trying to understand the history of the area and the composition of all the things we were walking across.” The terrain is indeed rugged, with giant rocks sprinkled over open plains right up to the base of distant mountains that look

P H O T O S BY TA R RY N C AW O O D

FROZEN IN TIME Although the Argentina researchers had comfortably chilly weather for most of the trip, one day they encountered a localized mountain snowstorm, “complete with eerie winter scenery and icicles in our hair,” according to one student.

so magnificent with their muted, earthy colors, it’s almost like a painted background on the set of a play. A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF VOLCANIC SYSTEMS Most of the team’s research focused on the approximately 470 million-year-old Famatinian Arc, once a chain of volcanoes that formed above a subduction zone where an oceanic tectonic plate is sliding under a continental one. The interplay of heat, gases and fluids in this dynamic environment literally melts rock, creating magma — melted rock with crystals in it — that eventually moves up through the crust. Sometimes the magma solidifies while it is still deep, forming masses called plutons, and sometimes it emerges at the Earth’s surface in the form of volcanoes. The students studied this underground “plumbing” system of molten rock, from the source deep below the Earth’s crust all the way to the surface. The Argentina sites are ideal because there are different depths of the crust exposed, said Professor of Earth Sciences Scott Paterson, who co-led the trip. At one site you can see the roots of old volcanoes just below the Earth’s surface and the plutonic plumbing systems that were feeding them. At the other site, a deeper plutonic section has been uplifted and exposed so that it is now visible to scientists. “We want to understand the long-term history and evolution of our planet,” Paterson said. “This helps us learn about past activities, but it also allows us to understand modern systems where volcanoes are forming and erupting.” Reconstructing the history of these geological landscapes requires hundreds of careful measurements, an abundance of meticulous notes, hours of drafting maps and the collection of dozens of rock samples. At one site, students took structural measurements of folded rocks, which were once below the sea, to investigate whether collision with a neighboring micro-continent caused the folding. “We were also treated to spectacular views of more recent geology in the high Andes, like the black lava flows and basalt dome-volcanoes,” said Tarryn Cawood, a Ph.D. student in Earth sciences. Field days varied in character depending on the elevation and weather conditions. Most days were chilly, and one morning the group worked through a mountain snowstorm, “complete with eerie winter scenery and icicles in our hair,” Cawood said. There was also the sand-blasting wind. On the very first day of mapping, senior Taleen Mahseredjian lost her smart phone when strong gusts blew it out of her backpack pocket. (She never found it.) The researchers gathered data at elevations ranging from 8,000 to 12,000 feet, and the students hiked up and down many hills and across ridges and flat land. After a day of data collection, the group would reassemble back at home base to examine the day’s findings and plot them on a collective map. “We’d have all these puzzle pieces and the group would put them together at the end of the day,” said Mahseredjian, a double major in geology and neuroscience. Relatively new to geologic field work, she said she was blown away by how much she learned in three weeks.

THE WORLD IS YOUR CLASSROOM Paterson’s primary goal for the class was getting students out to do real geology research. “They get all this class learning, but it’s so different to be out in the real world and have to apply it,” he said. “Watching them grow intellectually when they’re having to use their skills is really rewarding.” Learning how to work together and function smoothly as a scientific team, as opposed to working independently in a lab, was another important goal for the students. While doing so they also had the opportunity to interact with student scientists from another culture, who spoke a different language, which added an extra layer to the learning experience. And then there was the location. “I honestly marveled at the things we saw, the beautiful views and incredible structures,” Pratt said. “[In our academic careers] we don’t have a chance to marvel very often at this incredible world that we live in and the amazing stuff we are learning. In Argentina, we did it on a daily basis.”

“We want to understand the long-term history and evolution of our planet. This helps us learn about past activities, but it also allows us to understand modern systems where volcanoes are forming and erupting.” SCOTT PATERSON, professor of Earth sciences

CLUES FROM AN ANCIENT SEA Students take structural measurements on folded rocks, which were once below the sea, to investigate whether the rocks’ collision with a neighboring micro-continent caused the folding.

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Why are middle-aged white Americans dying at increasing rates? Nobel Prize–winning economist Angus Deaton has uncovered startling data that show mortality numbers are climbing for this group. How can we buck the trend? By Michelle Boston

Start tugging at a thread and you never know what will unravel. Economists Angus Deaton and Anne Case understand this all too well. Three years ago, they began pulling statistics for a study on happiness. The two researchers were curious to see how data about people’s happiness lined up with instances of suicide. Surprisingly, they found that suicides for middleaged men and women were on the rise. So they plucked on the thread a little harder. Deaton, a Nobel Prize winner and Presidential Professor of Economics at USC Dornsife, and Case of Princeton University gathered data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on all-cause mortality rates, aiming for a broader picture. They made another startling discovery: Since the late 1990s, the death rate for white, non-Hispanic men and women in their 40s and 50s was climbing, reversing a century-long downward trend. The bulk of cases were from drug overdoses, suicides and alcohol-related liver disease — “deaths of despair” as the researchers came to call them — and not the usual suspects like cancer and heart disease. The mortality rates were highest and rising most rapidly for those with a high school degree or less. From 1978 to 1998, the mortality rate for white men and women age 45 to 54 fell on average by 2 percent each year. That matched the average decreases in mortality rates for Hispanic and black Americans, as well as those of residents of other wealthy countries such as France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and Sweden. Then, in 1998, the mortality rate began to veer upward for midlife white American men and women without a college degree. 44

What was going on? First, let’s step back 250 years. Deaton, who is known for his research into poverty, inequality, health and well-being, argues that around 1750, the world began to get better for almost everyone. In his book The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality (Princeton University Press, 2013), Deaton traces the upward trajectory of society from a time when poverty and low life expectancy were pervasive, to the present, when most people lead healthier and wealthier lives. Specifically, Deaton pinpoints the Enlightenment as a watershed after which people sought out ways to improve their lives by gaining a better understanding of the world around them. This led to the development of medicines and other treatments for diseases, and eventually vaccines for common deadly ailments. Those, plus safer medical practices, readily available nutritious foods, clean water and improved sanitation, resulted in longer lifespans. “So you can imagine how surprised I certainly was by this recent turnaround, which seemed like a long-term reversal,” Deaton said. In truth, the numbers had been hiding in plain sight for some time. The CDC had been reporting on the uptick in deaths for this group, but those reports were released piecemeal as data became available. It wasn’t until Deaton and Case went searching for all-cause mortality numbers that they put the puzzle pieces together and shared their findings. “The New York Times was calling us every day asking, ‘Can we put your chart on the front page?’ And we said not until we get it published somewhere,” Deaton said.

TROUBLING TREND For the first time in a century, the death rate for midlife white Americans without a college degree is on the rise, but the usual suspects like heart disease and cancer are not to blame. Instead, drug overdoses, suicides and alcohol-related liver disease are causing these “deaths of despair.”

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“Today a person dies from prescription opioid poisoning every 29 minutes. Annual opioid sales are enough to keep every American on opioids around the clock for one month.”

Their initial findings were published in a brief but influential paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (Soon after, they did land that cover story in the Times). Just a few weeks prior to the paper’s publication, Deaton was named the 2015 Nobel laureate in economic sciences for his work studying consumption, poverty and welfare. Deaton’s prestigious accolade and the powerful study findings garnered an avalanche of media attention. While it’s still unclear exactly why mortality rates are on the rise for midlife white Americans without a college education, Deaton and Case have found a thread connecting their experiences. This group has seen their economic and social well-being diminish. Their median earnings have decreased 46

and job prospects have dwindled. Meanwhile, they report higher prevalence of physical pain and mental health problems, as well as fewer ties to supportive social structures such as religion and marriage. Their challenges are further fueled by the escalating opioid epidemic in the United States. “Life has not been so good for these people for the last 40 years or so,” Deaton said. THE DEATH OF THE BLUE-COLLAR ARISTOCRACY

In the 1980s, fourth-generation autoworker Ben Hamper was in his 30s. He had been laid off from General Motors manufacturing jobs five times in five years. Expecting to be laid off again due to the company’s downsizing, he suffered

a panic attack that forced him to leave his post on a GM assembly line mid-shift. Hamper’s plight is recounted in Roger and Me, Michael Moore’s 1989 documentary film chronicling Moore’s attempts to meet with GM’s then-CEO Roger Smith, who had closed a number of auto plants in Flint, Mich., laying off thousands of employees. Hamper, who meets with Moore on-camera at a mental health facility where he is receiving treatment, describes how he retreated to his car during the panic attack. Buoyant lyrics from the Beach Boys’ “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” rang from his speakers: Maybe if we think and wish and hope and pray it might come true. Baby, then there wouldn’t be a single thing we couldn’t do. But in that moment, without prospects for the future, any optimism Hamper had was gone. “I was just trying to rationalize with those lyrics, just trying to think ‘Wouldn’t it be nice?’ and it just wasn’t working,” he told Moore. For much of the 20th century, the best blue-collar jobs offered a steady and secure route to the middle class. People who entered the labor force out of high school could expect to find well-paying jobs with a clear path for advancement. “They belonged to a union, they had pay raises ahead of them. They could build a middle-class life, have a home, a car. They could get married and have kids,” Deaton said. But now those jobs exist in far fewer numbers. Workingclass wages hit a pinnacle in the 1970s, explained Deaton, but that marked the beginning of the end of the “bluecollar aristocracy.” Jobs have been moving overseas, wages are declining and, above all, automation is replacing workers, meaning fewer job opportunities and increased poverty. “So what’s happened is that life has come up hard, especially for those who don’t have a university degree,” said Deaton. For middle-aged white Americans, those economic hardships translate to instability in other areas of their lives. Lower wages for men, for instance, make them less desirable marriage partners. As a result, they are less likely to marry and instead cohabitate with their partners. Meanwhile, evolving mores have made it more socially acceptable for unmarried couples to have children. However, cohabitating relationships are less stable than marriages and often do not last. “One statistic that really blew me away was that the majority of white mothers in America had at least one child out of wedlock,” Deaton said. “And then you get children who have had three or four different ‘dads’ by the time they’re teenagers. “So you can imagine, you’re a working-class guy with a high school degree but no university degree. And instead of getting the nice union job in the steelworks that your dad or grandfather had, you’ve moved around from one short-term job to another. You’ve had a couple of kids, but you don’t know them anymore because they live with another guy. You’ve never settled down to a stable marriage or a stable job. And as you get into your mid-50s, life looks pretty bleak.” John Monterosso, associate professor of psychology at USC Dornsife, studies decision making and addiction. As he explains it, being part of a community is an important factor in our well-being. People need others to depend on them whether it is to show up and do a job or as part of a relationship. “People need obligations and purpose,” Monterosso said. They give people meaning and structure in their lives. IL L U S T R AT I O N S BY J O N R E IN F U R T F O R U S C D O R N S IF E M AG A Z IN E

The stress of life not turning out as planned combined with additional hardships for this group have led to risky behaviors that have put many on the path to alcohol and drug use, with severe consequences. DULLING THE PAIN

In the course of their research, Deaton and Case also discovered that the increasing mortality for white men and women age 45 to 54 was matched by increasing illness. Beginning in the mid-1990s, middle-aged whites began to report more incidences of pain — joint pain, neck pain, sciatica, it runs the gamut — as well as more mental distress, according to the CDC. Around the same time, opioids became a popular way for doctors to treat pain, explains behavioral scientist Joan Broderick, associate director of the Center for Self-Report Science at USC Dornsife’s Center for Economic and Social Research. Previously, chronic pain was primarily treated by teams of occupational and physical therapists, social workers, physicians and psychologists. Treatments would take place over several months and they would be tailored to a patient’s needs, using different therapies such as exercise, biofeedback and stress reduction. While that model was effective, it was also expensive. Doctors shifted toward pharmaceutical therapies, which were quicker to administer and showed promising results for palliative care patients in hospice. The problem was that these physicians failed to observe any dependence on these highly addictive medicines — mostly because their patients did not live long enough to exhibit any. “They wanted to be merciful and bring the same treatment to patients who had chronic pain and perhaps many more years of life ahead them,” Broderick said. “So it was all with good intentions, but there was insufficient evidence to support it.” In recent years, the U.S. opioid epidemic has ballooned. “Today a person dies from prescription opioid poisoning every 29 minutes,” Broderick said. “Annual opioid sales are enough to keep every American on opioids around the clock for one month.” And unfortunately, many people who suffer from pain are turning to the streets, where drugs like heroin are readily available and cheaper than prescription medications. Some patients also turn to alcohol or even suicide. Broderick, who studies pain management techniques, offers a path toward pill-free pain treatments. She has developed the Pain Coping Skills Training program, a special regimen of strategies that health practitioners teach their chronic pain patients. With this approach they coach patients on progressive-muscular relaxation methods, guided imagery, activity pacing, distraction techniques and other problem-solving strategies patients can use both to stave off flare ups and deal with them when they happen. A MATTER OF CHOICE AND CONTROL

Another common thread for white Americans dying in midlife is their level of education. More often than not, they have achieved, at most, an associate degree from a community college. Could their rising mortality rates somehow be connected? People with more education tend to earn more money and have more power to shape their lives while those who earn less have less control, said Daphna Oyserman,

PILL-FREE PAIN REDUCTION USC Dornsife’s Joan Broderick has developed a protocol to help patients manage their chronic pain without the use of drugs.

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Dean’s Professor of Psychology, and professor of psychology, education, and communication. “So, for instance, if you work hourly and you don’t have a set schedule, that makes it harder for you to manage your budget and your family. That sense of uncertainty then trickles down to your kids. It’s also harder to invest in a long-term strategy for yourself and your family when the long term is highly uncertain.”

“If solutions are going to get into schools, the medical community and elsewhere then it’s going to have to come from the grassroots up.”

A WAY FORWARD Community efforts, coupled with action from policymakers and practitioners, will be key to stopping the rising rates of midlife mortality of middleclass white Americans with less than a college degree, argues study co-author Angus Deaton.

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Low levels of education can also influence successive generations. Oyserman, who co-directs the USC Dornsife Mind and Society Center, notes that a mother’s education is a predictor of the level of education her child will achieve, which in turn affects her child’s potential income. Societies with higher levels of education are also typically better functioning, and are associated with more civic engagement, less crime and more stable families, Oyserman said. Oyserman’s research focuses on how small shifts in a person’s mindset can have a meaningful influence on their behaviors. Specifically, she studies ways to close racial, ethnic and social-class gaps in academic achievement and health. Her 12-week School-to-Jobs program helps disadvantaged students create plans to accomplish their goals and to help them accept and believe that “someone like me” can reach their target. They are guided to form a mental image of adulthood, identify concrete steps to achieve their objectives and discuss any concerns they might have. So far, the program has been successfully implemented in Detroit and Chicago middle schools as well as schools in Singapore. Students who participated in School-to-Jobs earned better grades, were less likely to have unexcused absences, saw their standardized test scores rise and reported that they spent more time on homework. Oyserman is now scaling up the program in other U.S. schools through teacher training programs and by developing websites and other digital platforms to deliver the intervention. She has also proposed health-care interventions that tap into a person’s identity to tackle the health issues that are plaguing midlife white Americans. In the journal Behavioral Science & Policy, she lays out recommendations that include designing public health campaigns that target a person’s identity, tailoring health treatments to individuals and making sure doctors and nurses explain how the information they gather from patients will help them. To incentivize these techniques, she suggests insurance companies reimburse doctors for using them. Beyond creating interventions and public health campaigns, Oyserman says that public policies can also have a powerful effect on well-being. This is especially significant right now as politicians in the U.S. debate how to deliver health care, for instance.

Withholding or providing health care communicates an idea about a person’s future and his or her potential worth that has both an economic and a psychological impact, she explained. “Someone saying, ‘I’m going to invest in you because I think you have a future’ is quite powerful.” PROGRESS AND INEQUALITY

In The Great Escape, Deaton explains that with progress comes greater divides in society. The Industrial Revolution, for example, delivered technologies like the railroads, mining and agriculture to the West while the East fell far behind, though that’s no longer entirely the case. Today’s global inequality, Deaton argues, is, to a large extent, the result of modern economic growth. With more technology, advances in health care and other breakthroughs, the distribution of goods is less evenly meted out. So as certain groups escape material deprivation, others are left behind. That is part of the challenge for midlife whites. The collapse of the white working class after its heyday in the 1970s, compounded by social and health challenges, contributes to the deaths of despair that he and Case have been tracking. So how can we overcome the pain, drug use, alcoholism and suicides that are swelling mortality rates of middleaged whites? Deaton says there is not one solution. But, he sees power in efforts that begin at the community level. “If solutions are going to get into schools, the medical community and elsewhere,” Deaton said, “then it’s going to have to come from the grassroots up.” Mothers Against Drunk Driving, for instance, made huge strides changing laws that sharply curbed deaths caused by drunken driving. Public health campaigns dramatically reduced the number of deaths from cigarette smoking. And, interventions like Broderick’s drug-free regimen to alleviate pain and Oyserman’s School-to-Jobs program are approaches that are already beginning to see positive results. Deaton believes getting more people to achieve higher levels of education may not necessarily be the solution on its own, as not all people aspire to it. But in addition to helping those who do want more education, he suggests focusing on training people for the 21st century labor force. He and Case are sharing their findings and expertise far and wide to ensure that as many people who can help, such as policymakers and practitioners, understand what may be contributing to the problem and what they can do. For instance, Deaton recently testified before a joint congressional panel examining the opioid crisis and other forms of drug abuse, and their possible relationship to economic factors. And while Deaton and Case are still far from a smoking gun, they intend to continue exploring the underlying causes of these deaths of despair in more depth. How policymakers and practitioners act now will determine how quickly we can reverse the trend. But over the long term, Deaton is optimistic. Society, on the whole, is still on an upward trajectory, he said. But while there has mostly been exponential progress since 1750, there have also been periods of regression. The current situation, he hopes and believes, is just another of these periods. Fall 2017 / Winter 2018 49

POWER TO THE PEOPLE By Darrin S. Joy

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Imaginative new approaches to battery technology may give us longer-lasting power in smaller packages. More important, they may give renewable energy the charge it needs to finally succeed on a wide scale. By Darrin S. Joy

In Edmond Hamilton’s 1940 novella Revolt On The Tenth World, the science fiction author describes “solid power … the most super-valuable substance in the Solar System.” Solid power is “compressed energy ‘frozen’ by temporary transformation into artificial atoms. Trillions of units of power … compressed thus into an inch-square cube.” Hamilton and other sci-fi writers throughout the life of the genre have fantasized about similar compact energy sources. They’ve had to. What else could make their starships fly, their laser guns blast and their communicators buzz? The closest we come to these powerhouses in reality are rechargeable batteries. Our “communicators” — cell phones, tablets, laptop computers and similar devices — rely on the “solid power” in these batteries to keep us connected. Similarly, hybrid and electric vehicles use much larger versions to transport their occupants to far-off destinations — or at least across town. Currently, lithium-ion batteries represent the most energy-dense batteries available for practical use, storing hours of electricity for most devices in a relatively compact, lightweight size. But Sri Narayan, professor of chemistry at USC Dornsife and co-director of the USC Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute, wants to do better. POWER UP

First inspired to pursue chemistry by a high school teacher, Narayan went on to attend graduate school in India, where he began studying power cells based on magnesium, an element that is readily available from sea water. After earning his Ph.D., he wanted to continue his work with batteries, but by then lithium-based technology was emerging. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory was hot on this trend, since lithium could provide a great deal of power while adding little weight to a spacecraft (a dream come true for scifi enthusiasts and scientists alike). Narayan joined JPL in 1992 and spent nearly 20 years advancing various types of batteries and fuel cells, including the lithium-ion battery technology used on the Mars Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity rovers. He came to USC Dornsife in 2010 to expand his work on batteries into new areas.

“USC has been very good because I have good students, I have good support from the faculty and it’s a very collaborative environment,” he said. Among other pursuits, Narayan is working on a way to bring lithium-sulfur batteries into widespread use. These batteries pack two to three times more energy than their lithium-ion counterparts. They’re also less prone to overheating, which means they don’t need the complex control systems that keep lithium-ion batteries from exhibiting one of their more inconvenient tendencies — erupting in flame when overcharged or overtaxed. Increased safety, and the fact that sulfur is abundant and cheap, means lithium-sulfur power packs would be much less expensive to produce than lithiumion batteries. Unfortunately, lithium-sulfur batteries don’t hold a charge or withstand recharging worth a hoot. “Lithium-sulfur, today, is at a hundred cycles. That’s all. It’s pathetic,” Narayan said. Given that most people charge their phones daily, this means replacing the battery within three months. Lithium-ion batteries generally last two to three years, and sometimes more. The short life of the lithium-sulfur batteries stems from the tendency for sulfur ions, called sulfides, to cling to one another and then escape from the positive electrode (the cathode). The polysulfide ions flee to the negative electrode (the anode), where they grab electrons and head back to the cathode. In this “polysulfide shuttle,” many of the sulfide ions react with lithium ions to form lithium-sulfide, which is insoluble and utterly useless to the battery. Both discharging and recharging the battery accelerate this shuttling process, degrading the cathode and anode until the battery goes kaput. Narayan and Ph.D. student Derek Moy, however, developed a way to overcome the polysulfide shuttle and give these batteries longer lives. Their solution is called a “mixed conduction membrane,” or MCM. This thin, nonporous material conducts lithium ions but blocks the polysulfide reactions that degrade the battery. Batteries with the MCM lasted through as many as 500 cycles with no loss of charge capacity, Narayan said. He thinks that may be enough for cell phones, at least.

ENERGY EXTENSION USC Dornsife scientists are developing unique ways to extend battery life and increase the amount of power they can deliver.

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“Every couple of years you’re probably going to get a new phone anyway,” he said. “Five hundred cycles is plenty.” While Narayan cautions that the technology is in its infancy and needs more research before they gain popular use, he thinks the advantages of lithium-sulfur — inexpensive, abundant materials and more energy per unit weight — could soon benefit handheld electronics and eventually vehicles. “Lithium-sulfur will probably find its place in cell phones before it makes it into cars. That’s a natural projection,” he said. But there’s another level of need when it comes to batteries — something on a much larger scale.

“[NARAYAN’S] STUFF, I THINK, IS GOING TO BE THE ANSWER …” GRIDLOCK

SUSTAINABLE SYSTEMS Professor of Chemistry Sri Narayan has a unique take on batteries — using compounds found in plants to hold and deliver charge.

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Just off Interstate 15, about five miles west of the CaliforniaNevada border in the far northeast reaches of San Bernardino County, thousands of mirrors glitter in the dry desert heat, focusing the day’s unrelenting sunshine onto three colossal towers in their midst. The focused light and heat converts thousands of gallons of water within the monolithic structures to steam. That steam drives a turbine that produces — in theory, at least — an average of about 2.5 billion watt-hours of renewable electricity for power-hungry customers each day. At night it produces nothing. Solar energy farms throughout the country — and across the globe — face this issue. When the sun disappears at night or slips behind dark clouds, the fields of solar collectors have little or no light energy to gather and convert to heat or electricity. The same is true for wind farms, which rely on the motion of air moving through enormous windmill blades to keep the electricity flowing into the electrical grid. When the winds calm, the blades stop, and the electrons stop moving. Batteries may provide a solution, storing excess renewable energy and feeding it to the grid when needed. The idea has been around for years, but it remains problematic for a number of reasons. For Brent Melot, assistant professor of chemistry, it boils down to materials science — finding the resources that can fulfill the need safely and at reasonable cost. Like Narayan, Melot focuses much of his research on advancing battery technology, developing efficiency and life for lithium-based units. Current lithium-ion batteries, he said, could store enough power in a reasonable amount of space, but there are safety concerns. Batteries large enough to store enough energy to supply the grid would require sophisticated (read “expensive”) systems to ensure they don’t overheat or malfunction. Also, they contain cobalt and nickel, which are exorbitantly costly. Oh, and both are toxic. “Cobalt ore right now costs about $46,000 per metric ton,” Melot said. Nickel rings up at about $10,000 per metric ton. Lithium itself is about the same. In addition, these metals are available from limited locations on the planet, making their availability vulnerable to changes in the geopolitical climate. Ideally, Melot suggests, more abundant and readily accessible materials would be ideal — something like iron. “If we can find chemistries that are actually based on iron, iron ore is $90 per metric ton,” he said. It’s also nearly

ubiquitous, virtually eliminating political concerns. And it won’t foul up the local landfill. It so happens that Narayan is working on a couple of battery solutions addressing safety and cost, one of which produces electricity through the oxidation of iron in the presence of air. Aside from reducing costs significantly, these iron-air batteries would be much safer, containing no corrosive or flammable solvents or dangerous heavy metals. Iron-air batteries have been around for decades, but they suffered from extreme inefficiency, losing half their power to a side reaction that produces hydrogen. Narayan and his colleagues managed to reduce the loss to just 4 percent, bringing the technology much closer to practical use. That technology is now in the hands of a company that aims to bring it to market. GO WITH THE FLOW

Narayan has also been working on a radical idea called a redox flow battery. Like their iron-air cousins, flow batteries have been under investigation for decades. Narayan, however, has been taking a new angle, working to find and use materials that will improve both the efficiency and stability of these systems while using safer materials. In redox flow batteries, electrons move from a tank of electrochemical solution, through the load (a washing machine or light bulb) to another tank of solution. One advantage is that the batteries don’t age the way solid batteries do; there are no electrodes to break down over time. Perhaps more important, though, is the system’s flexibility: The solutions can undergo recharging — by a renewable energy source, for instance — or they can simply be replaced with fresh, fully charged solutions. Concentrating on sustainability, Narayan has focused on developing flow batteries that use water-soluble organic compounds commonly found in plants. “These compounds are essentially nontoxic and won’t catch fire the way solvents in lithium batteries can,” he said. They’re also simple and inexpensive, and they’re efficient, lasting a very long time. Professor and Chair of Chemistry G. K. Surya Prakash collaborates with Narayan in identifying and synthesizing the water-soluble, electroactive organic compounds for the flow batteries. Director of the Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute and holder of the George A. and Judith A. Olah Nobel Laureate Chair in Hydrocarbon Chemistry, Prakash touts the Earth-friendly nature of Narayan’s flow batteries. “Water-based organic flow batteries are game changers,” Prakash said. “They use very little or no metal, the organic materials used are easily derived from earth-abundant, carbonbased resources, and they can also be made from recycled carbon dioxide, making them renewable.” While redox flow batteries haven’t yet progressed the way iron-air batteries have, Melot puts his money on them as a solution for large-scale use. “[Narayan’s] stuff, I think, is going to be the answer for grid level. It’s really innocuous, scales very easily and does the job,” he said. Whether iron-air or redox flow technology, Narayan believes that sustainable energy storage with batteries will be the key to the ultimate success of renewable energy. “It’s just not possible to do anything that isn’t sustainable,” he said, “and I view the field of electro-chemistry as being pivotal in ... the future use of renewable energy. Make chemicals; make electrons from chemicals; store the electrons. All these are possible with electro-chemistry.” PHOTOS BY JOHN LIVZEY FOR USC DORNSIFE MAGAZINE

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dying to

TALK The host of a radio show that aims to revolutionize how we talk about death, hospice and palliative care physician Dawn Gross ’89 is transforming end-of-life conversations from dread to discovery by explaining how mortality is the gift that allows us to live our lives more profoundly. Oh, and she also teaches death ed to teenagers. By Susan Bell

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Fall 2017 / Winter 2018 55

The 14-year-old high school boy picked the wild card. “When I die, I’d love nothing more than to be flying a model airplane, then keel over,” he confided. “That would be perfect.” “Do you hear what he’s saying?” Dawn Gross asked the class. “This isn’t about dying. It’s actually about what he loves doing most in life.” Gross was teaching the teenager and his classmates to play Go Wish, a game designed to facilitate conversations around death by encouraging players to identify what would be most important to them if they had a limited time to live. It’s a game Gross finds immensely helpful when talking to the terminally ill patients she cares for as a San Francisco hospice and palliative care physician. Players are asked to prioritize 36 cards, 35 of which describe things people often say are very important to them when they’re dying. The 36th is a wild card. Gross says adults she plays with mostly don’t know what to do with that and set it aside. Children, however, instinctively know what it is and how to use it. Before attending Gross’ death education course, none of the teen’s classmates knew about his passion for flying model aircraft. “What a gift that he suddenly had this sense of permission to share something so intimate, while at the same time so integral,” Gross said. “This is what’s so potent, what’s so powerful and possible when we have these conversations.” Gross knows how to talk about death in a way that replaces fear and dread with honesty, hope and meaning. In addition to her role as a palliative care physician, she’s also the host of Dying to Talk, a radio show that aims to revolutionize how we discuss what to many is still the last great taboo. “People are averse to talking about death, but I’ve noticed that once you give them permission to do so, they really are dying to talk,” she said with a seriousness that belies the underlying warmth and delightful sense of humor that bubbles beneath her words, often rising to the surface at unexpected moments. “It’s exciting to try and make this conversation accessible to people in an unintimidating format that can also provide anonymity.” Now she’s taking her expertise on this difficult subject into the classroom. “It’s like sex ed, but about death,” chuckled Gross, who has experience teaching both. LIGHT-BULB MOMENT

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a particular coat to each of his medical appointments. The coat had wings embroidered on the back. I felt a

“Our mortality is a gift

that allows us to fully experience life, that makes us live more deeply,

need for reinforcement, strength — an embrace, if you will — as I witnessed my father’s suffering,

more profoundly.”

so I could remain present to hear his greatest joy and love. After he died

“ONE WILD AND PRECIOUS LIFE”

Instead of saying, “Oh, it’s another Tuesday,” think “Oh my God, I just got another Tuesday, what am I going to do with it?” Gross suggests. She quotes a favorite line from poet Mary Oliver: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?” “Our mortality is a gift that allows us to fully experience life, that makes us live more deeply, more profoundly,” Gross said. “I’ve asked hundreds of terminally ill patients, ‘If I had a magic wand, what would you wish for?’ And not one of them has ever answered, ‘Cure me,’ which is staggering to me.” Instead, patients respond by asking for something that brings them closer to who they truly are, she said, whether it’s being with family or spending time in their gardens. “People at the end of life have no problem answering that question, whereas for most of us, it’s very difficult to answer.” Gross, who earned her bachelor’s in psychology and neuroscience from USC Dornsife in 1989, has years of experience supporting patients with life-threatening illnesses. Her first job, she said, is to listen. “People have a hard time articulating or even knowing what is most important to them when they’re struggling with uncontrolled symptoms, whether it’s nausea, difficulty breathing or pain,” she said. Once those symptoms are brought under control, she helps patients plan their goals of care and helps them identify and realize what they really want to do with the time left to them. IMMENSE GRATITUDE

Gross said she’s profoundly grateful for the opportunity to practice her chosen specialty. “It’s not depressing,” she said. “It is sad, and I think to untangle the two is important for people to do. But what we do — being with people and supporting them in the things that matter most in their lives — is a gift. I fall in love with people immediately, so when they die, am I sad that they die? You’d better believe it. But what I’m left with is immense gratitude for having gotten to know them and be part of their lives, and hopefully for helping to make their lives the way they wanted.”

and I eventually reinvented myself as a hospice and palliative medicine doctor, I knew

I needed to create those same wings on the back of my white doctor’s coat. And while I do hear people call after me in the hospital, saying things like,

‘There goes my angel doctor,’ P H O T O S BY G U R U S U RYA U N L E S S O T H E R W I S E I N D I C AT E D

The death ed course, which Gross co-created with Jessica Zitter, a Bay Area critical and palliative care physician, has been tested in several Northern California schools. It is voluntary, but has been welcomed with open arms by students, teachers and parents alike. “It was this light-bulb moment for everyone,” Gross said of the reaction when she suggested it. “How could we not be doing this? Children are not immune to death and aren’t spared the grief. They just haven’t necessarily been given the permission or the tools to talk about it.” The classes may seem to be all about dying, but, Gross stresses, they’re actually a wonderful opportunity to focus on what makes life worth living right now. “We actually don’t want you to wait until you’re on your death bed to figure that out,” she said. “We want you to live your whole life that way.” Gross talks about finding hope and beauty in death, noting that death is a way of embracing life. Being able to face our mortality and talk about death is the secret to finding our own very personal, intimate, deep meaning in life, she argues.

“When my father became terminally ill, I began wearing

Teaching this to children is particularly valuable, Gross says, because the younger we are, the more capable we are of using our mortality to create a template for how to live our lives when well.

I am clear, the wings on the back aren’t mine.

They are a visible reminder of everyone I have had the honor of serving,

including my father. Every time I meet a new patient and family, I am never alone. I know who’s got my back.”

Legacy

FROM DREAD TO DISCOVERY Dawn Gross interviewing her first mentor, Jeffrey Mandel, a hospice and palliative medicine doctor practicing in the Bay Area, during the January 2016 launch of her radio show, Dying to Talk.

A FAIRY GODMOTHER

PHOTO BY JOHN LIVZEY

Born in Northern California, Gross spent her adolescence in Portland, Ore. At age 16, already a high school senior, she joined her brother at USC as a resident honors scholar. She was intrigued by science but hated the sight of blood. However, after taking “Introduction to Neuroscience: Man, Mind and Machine,” taught by now Professor Emeritus of Biological Sciences William McClure, she was hooked. Admitted into the psychology honors program, Gross focused on neuroscience research, helping map the circuitry of memory. She did a post-baccalaureate pre-med program at Mills College in Oakland, Calif., and an M.D., Ph.D. at Tufts University in Boston. “I wanted to be a scientist,” she said, “but medicine snuck up on me. It wasn’t until I was in a fellowship at Stanford, training in hematology and bone marrow transplants, that I realized I loved being a physician because I loved having end-of-life conversations. That was something completely unexpected, and it shaped my decision to go into hospice and palliative care.” End-of-life conversations are something that many doctors — trained to heal, not discuss death — find difficult. Why does Gross cherish the experience? “In my USC admission essay, I talked about wanting to major in psychology and inspire people to reach their highest dreams and then reach higher still,” she recalls. “Now, that’s all I do every day. I see myself as a fairy godmother. When you’re facing your own mortality, what becomes essential rises to the top and everything else melts away. It’s an extraordinary conversation to get to be a part of.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF DAWN GROSS

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Her major inspiration was her father, who had always been clear he wouldn’t seek aggressive, curative therapies to prolong his life. When he became terminally ill, he questioned traditional care options, asking, “Why is no one asking me what I want?” Gross recalled. Although he was eventually able to die in his own home under hospice care, Gross said he taught her to want to ask those questions and to help the rest of the family try to listen to what he needed. “Watching how my family learned to accompany him on his journey was eye-opening and made me more curious about how to support patients and families at such times.” Carin van Zyl, section head of palliative medicine at Keck School of Medicine of USC and director of Los Angeles County+USC Medical Center Adult and Pediatric Palliative Care, identifies what makes her former colleague so inspirational. Gross was her boss when the two worked at City of Hope in Duarte, Calif., and van Zyl describes Gross as “a polestar.” “Dawn finds a way of communicating real joy when meeting and connecting with people and listening to their stories,” van Zyl said. “She’s eager to help in a way that doesn’t feel too somber, nor inappropriately light, and she’s really good at being genuinely hopeful in a way that isn’t trite. Whatever that ineffable quality about her is, it’s contagious. “She uses the language of gratitude a lot, which isn’t rare in the field, but Dawn truly is grateful every day that this is where she ended up.”

P H Y S I C A L E D U C AT I O N B U I L D I N G , 1 9 3 0 Sometimes it seems that the filming of movies, television programs and commercials on campus is as ubiquitous as traffic on the 405 Freeway. After all, the best film school in the world just happens to be located at USC. So when familiar buildings or places pop up in a favorite television show or theatrical blockbuster, there is a shared sense of pride in seeing one’s alma mater immortalized on film. Although the Bovard Administration Building, Doheny Memorial Library and the Mudd Hall of Philosophy for years have been USC’s star Hollywood backdrops, the Physical Education Building on Watt Way has been in the spotlight with ever greater frequency. Built in 1930 and designed by the firm Parkinson & Parkinson, the architectural icon has appeared in movies like Love and Basketball, What Women Want and Semi-Tough. More recently, though, the building has played the role of a much-visited edifice on the fictional Middleton University campus of ABC Television’s How to Get Away with Murder. Other series such as Shameless and Scandal have also featured the building’s Romanesque Revival façade. When it is not co-starring in some Tinseltown production, the Physical Education Building serves as home to USC’s ROTC, numerous dance classes and administrative offices for USC Dornsife. —D.K.

The setting sun illuminates the exterior of the Physical Education Building, one of USC’s oldest buildings and the home of exercise science and kinesiology laboratories.

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D O R N S I F E F A M I LY HONORS

F A C U LT Y C A N O N Richard Flory, research scientist at the Center for Religion and Civic Culture, argues that social changes such as the digital revolution have given advantages to religious groups organized as networks instead of traditional congregations.

WATCHFUL Omnidawn / Forsaking the names of creatures, Associate Professor (Teaching) of English Molly Bendall returns to a painted habitat of swamps and savannahs, of captivity and display, to bear witness to the late and sorrowful pact between predator and prey.

Nazi symbols could be spotted all over downtown Los Angeles in the 1930s. Here, a swastika hangs above the street outside a furniture store on South Broadway.

Foiling Fascists

the history of health preparedness from its beginnings in Cold War civil defense to the early 21st century, when health authorities carved out a global space for governing potential outbreaks.

‘AND’: Conjunction Reduction Redux MIT Press / Professor of Linguistics Barry Schein argues that the word “and” is always the sentential logical connective with the same, one, meaning.

THE AGE OF ANALOGY: Science and Literature Between the Darwins Johns Hopkins University Press / Assistant Professor of English Devin Griffiths explores the critical role analogies play within historical and scientific thinking.

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UNPREPARED: Global Health in a Time of Emergency University of California Press / Professor of Sociology Andrew Lakoff traces

P H O T O S C O U R T E S Y O F V I E T T H A N H N G U Y E N , C H E R Y L M AT T I N G LY A N D U S C M E D I A R E L AT I O N S

Video: To learn more about Steve Ross’ latest research, visit dornsife.usc.edu/ross-book.

THE RISE OF NETWORK CHRISTIANITY: How Independent Leaders Are Changing the Religious Landscape Oxford University Press / Co-author

A PASSION ACCORDING TO GREEN New Issues Poetry & Prose / Associate Professor of English Mark Irwin explores startling marvels and terrible losses in his latest collection of poetry.

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES PHOTO COURTESY OF STEVE ROSS; ROSS PHOTO BY MIKE GLIER

bury Publishing, 2017). “My parents are both [Holocaust] survivors,” said Ross. While a youth hearing about their horrific experiences, he wondered why Jews didn’t do more to stop the Nazis. Years later, while conducting research for another book, Ross realized that Jewish inaction against the Nazis before World War II was, in fact, a false narrative. Many Jews did try to do something, he said. Lewis recruited a civilian spy ring that included men and women from humble backgrounds. “Over the next 12 years, he discovered plots for sabotage, destruction, mass murder and execution by hanging of famous Hollywood figures and their Christian sympathizers,” Ross said. Hitler in Los Angeles is the story of the brave men and women, both Jewish and gentile, who “were fighting to protect American democracy and for equality for all,” he added. For decades, their story went untold. With his latest book, Ross rectifies this in riveting detail. —S.W.

THE RELIVE BOX AND OTHER STORIES Ecco / Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English and Writer in Residence Emeritus T.C. Boyle delivers a raucous collection, from the title story — featuring a box that allows users to experience anew almost any moment from their past — to “The Five-Pound Burrito,” in which a man aims to build the biggest burrito in town.

Faculty News GIAN-MARIA ANNOVI, associate professor of Italian and gender studies, received the Flaiano Prize (Premi Flaiano) for his book Pier Paolo Pasolini: Performing Authorship (Columbia University Press, 2017). MEGAN BECKER, lecturer in international relations, received the Craig L. Brians Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research and Mentoring from the American Political Science Association.

Historian Steve Ross reveals how a 1930s amateur spymaster recruited civilians to do what J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI would not. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, a clandestine war by Japan’s Axis ally, Germany, had already been underway against the United States for nearly a decade. The battleground was Los Angeles, and the soldiers were Nazis and fascists. The government widely ignored the growing danger, but one man paid attention. Leon Lewis was Jewish — and among the first Americans to recognize the burgeoning threat. Steve Ross, professor of history, tells the story of Lewis and his fellow patriots in the new book Hitler in Los Angeles: How Jews Foiled Nazi Plots Against Hollywood and America (Blooms-

in Writing Public Sociology Routledge / Professor (Teaching) of Sociology Karen Sternheimer offers social scientists a step-bystep guide to get started, stay motivated and complete writing projects for public audiences.

NEW PEOPLE: A Novel Riverhead Books / Set against the backdrop of the late 20th century and the first dot-com boom, a newlywed’s fantasy escalates to fixation, threatening to unravel her very persona in the latest subversive novel on race, class and manners in contemporary America by Associate Professor of English Danzy Senna.

THE LAST TROUBADOUR: New and Selected Poems Ecco / University Professor of English and Comparative Literature David St. John investigates both the darkest and the most inspiring parts of being human — the small moments between friends and lovers as well as the groundswells that alter lives.

THE CORPSE AS TEXT: Disinterment and Antiquarian Enquiry, 1700-1900 Boydell Press / Professor (Teaching) of English Thea Tomaini explores the cooperation of ideology and aesthetic, the paradox of allure and revulsion, and the uncanny attraction to death.

Writing the South Seas: Imagining the Nanyang in Chinese and Southeast Asian Postcolonial Literature (University of Washington Press, 2015) by BRIAN BERNARDS, assistant professor of East Asian languages and cultures, was selected as an Outstanding Academic Title for 2016 by Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, a publication of the Association of College and Research Libraries. DANIELA BLEICHMAR, associate professor of art history and history and associate provost for faculty and student initiatives in the arts and humanities, received a Frederick Burkhardt Residential Fellowship for Recently Tenured Scholars from the American Council of Learned Societies. JOSEPH BOONE, professor of English, comparative literature, and gender studies, has been awarded a Bogliasco Foundation Residency Fellowship at the foundation’s study center near Genoa, Italy. Boone will use the fellowship to work on his project “The Melville Effect,” about the importance of American author Herman Melville. Continued on page 62.

THE SOCIAL SCIENTIST’S SOAPBOX: Adventures

Setting a High Bar

Three USC Dornsife faculty members named to prestigious Guggenheim Fellowships. USC Dornsife faculty Viet Thanh Nguyen, Cheryl Mattingly and Daniel Lidar were selected by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to receive Guggenheim Fellowships. “The Guggenheim has long been recognized as one of the nation’s premier fellowships, and it’s a tremendous honor to be included in this group of writers and scholars,” said Nguyen, Aerol Arnold Chair of English and professor of English, American studies and ethnicity and comparative literature. Nguyen is working on The Committed, a sequel to his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Sympathizer (Grove Press, 2015). Professor of Anthropology Mattingly’s research is focused on disability, family care and health disparities for minority populations. Her fellowship will enable her to concentrate on her new book, Category Trouble: Stigma as Moral Experience. Mattingly, who holds a joint appointment at USC Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, said she felt a special connection to the honor. “There is deep significance for me in receiving a Guggenheim because of the program’s long history as a Viet Thanh Nguyen supporter of innovation and creativity, especially in the arts and humanities.” Professor of Electrical Engineering Systems, Chemistry, and Physics and Astronomy Daniel Lidar was recognized for his work in quantum information science. He was the only candidate selected this year in the engineering category. Cheryl Mattingly For Lidar, who has a joint appoint ment at USC Viterbi School of Eng ineer ing, t he fel lowship affirms a lifetime of achievement and dedication to cutting-edge science. “I am humbled and deeply honored to be receiving a 2017 Guggenheim Fellowship.” —S.B. Daniel Lidar Fall 2017 / Winter 2018 61

TROJANA LIT Y

From Hobbes to Hamburgers Robert Suzuki ’07 calls his humanities degree “the perfect tool” in his career as co-owner of a gourmet hamburger restaurant chain.

It was 2008, the midst of the Great Recession. In a retail space in Redlands, Calif., the third family in a row had given up trying to breathe life into a fast-food chicken franchise. Robert Suzuki and his real estate group, which was leasing the retail space, were about to lose it to the lender. “What about opening a burger restaurant?” suggested one of Suzuki’s partners. Burger joints were the only ones making good money and paying rent consistently at the time. “So we opened Eureka! with all that in mind in 2009,” said Suzuki, a native of Portland, Ore., who graduated from USC Dornsife with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy. “It was the start of the microbrewery movement in Southern California and our restaurant happened to be next to a new craft brewery.” That proximity helped the restaurateurs build their concept as a gourmet hamburger restaurant serving all-craft beer from their neighbor. Even today, Eureka! carries only microbrews and small-batch whiskies, and everything in the kitchen is made from scratch. The concept is clearly resonating: In the last seven years the group has expanded to 21 restaurants all along the West Coast and in Idaho, Colorado and Texas. The transition from philosophy to restaurant management may seem like a stretch, but according to Suzuki — who, as the company’s chief people officer, works in the realms of human resources, business law and insurance — his philosophy degree was “the perfect tool.” “Much of my work is legal and policy review,” he said. “It’s a lot of reading and writing, and in philosophy that’s all we do.” He said his academic training has served him well, and he wouldn’t hesitate to encourage a would-be philosophy major concerned about job prospects later on. Suzuki got hooked on philosophy during an introductory class as a freshman. But he heeded the department’s advice to its students to go out and try many courses and disciplines. He took classes in economics as well as philosophy, and he eventually studied abroad at Queen Mary University of London. “I absolutely loved my college experience,” he said. —L.P.

TROJANA LIT Y WILLIAM DEVERELL, professor of history, and DARRYL HOLTER, adjunct associate professor of history, were awarded gold medals in the category of Performing Arts and Music (Adult Nonfiction) in the 19th annual Foreword Reviews Book of the Year Awards for their book Woody Guthrie L.A. 1937 to 1941 (Angel City Press, 2016). Deverell also received a 2017 California Writers Residency through the Yefe Nof Residency and the literary journal 1888. MOH EL-NAGGAR, Robert D. Beyer (’81) Early Career Chair in Natural Sciences and associate professor of physics, biological sciences and chemistry, was a finalist for the 2017 Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists in the life sciences category. ANDREW HIRES, assistant professor of biological sciences, received a 2017 NIH Director’s New Innovator Award. The award is part of the High-Risk, HighReward Research program, which supports exceptionally creative early career investigators who propose innovative, high-impact projects. SUZANNE HUDSON, associate professor of art history and fine arts and director of graduate studies in art history, received an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation New Directions Fellowship for her research into the practical applications of art making.

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JOHN “JACK” MCARDLE, professor of psychology and gerontology, received the Saul B. Sells Award for Distinguished Multivariate Research from the Society of Multivariate Experimental Psychology. It is the second time McArdle has received the award — an unprecedented honor — in recognition of his advancement of longitudinal methodology and statistics throughout his career.

ANDREW LAKOFF, professor of sociology, received the 2017 David Edge Prize for an article he co-authored titled “Vital Systems Security: Reflexive Biopolitics and the Government of Emergency,” published in Theory, Culture & Society. Lakoff was also awarded a visiting fellowship to the Max Planck Sciences Po Center on Coping with Instability in Market Societies in Paris for his project “Ecological Knowledge and Infrastructure Planning in an Age of Environmental Crisis.”

VIET THANH NGUYEN, Aerol Arnold Chair of English and professor of English, American studies and ethnicity and Comparative LIterature, was named a “Great Immigrant” by Carnegie Corporation of New York, the country’s oldest grantmaking foundation, established by Scottish immigrant Andrew Carnegie in 1911. He also received the 2017 John G. Cawelti Award for Best Textbook/Primer from the Popular Culture Association/ American Culture Association for his nonfiction work Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War (Harvard University Press, 2016).

NAOMI LEVINE, Gabilan Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences and Earth Sciences, received a Simons Early Career Investigator in Marine Microbial Ecology and Evolution Award for her research into the role of marine microbial plasticity in evolution and biogeochemistry. BRIE LOSKOTA, executive director of the Center for Religion and Civic Culture, was selected as a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum.

OLU ORANGE, adjunct assistant professor of political science, received a California Lawyer Attorney of the Year Award from California Lawyer magazine.

Professor Emeritus of International Relations ABRAHAM LOWENTHAL received the Orden El Sol del Perú (Order of the Sun of Perú) at a ceremony held at the Foreign Ministry in Lima, Perú. JESSICA MARGLIN, Ruth Ziegler Early Career Chair in Jewish Studies and assistant professor of religion, was awarded the 2016 Norris and Carol Hundley Award for her book, Across Legal Lines:

PHOTO COURTESY OF RACHEL JONES

JOSH KUN, professor of communication and American studies and ethnicity, received the Berlin Prize. Kun is among 22

Jews and Muslims in Modern Morocco (Yale University Press, 2016).

PHOTO BY MIKE GLIER

DANA JOHNSON, associate professor of English and American studies and ethnicity, received the 2017 McElderry Fellowship from USC Dornsife’s Department of English.

recipients of the semester-long fellowship in Berlin awarded annually by the American Academy in Berlin to top-tier scholars, writers, composers and artists from the United States who represent “the highest standards of excellence in their fields.”

G. K. SURYA PRAKASH, George A. and Judith A. Olah Nobel Laureate Chair in Hydrocarbon Chemistry and professor of chemistry, received a 2018 Arthur C. Cope Late Career Scholar Award for his major contributions to the field of synthetic and mechanistic organic chemistry.

the Vengeful Female Ghost (Columbia University Press, 2016) by SATOKO SHIMAZAKI, associate professor of East Asian languages and cultures, was selected as an Outstanding Academic Title for 2016 by Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, a publication of the Association of College and Research Libraries.

Rachel Jones ’15 took advantage of every learning opportunity at USC Dornsife. Now she’s building a solid academic foundation for her first-grade students.

JACOB SOLL, professor of history and accounting, received a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar grant to support him in writing a nonfiction book on his research for a general audience. Soll will author A History of the Free Market from the 16th to the 20th Century. DAVID TREUER, professor of English, received the 2017 Blue Metropolis First Peoples Prize for his novel Prudence (Riverhead Books, 2015). ARIEH WARSHEL, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, Biological Sciences, Biochemistry, and Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, and Dana and David Dornsife Chair in Chemistry, was honored by the Chinese University of Hong Kong, which named an institute after him. The Arieh Warshel Institute of Computational Biology is in Shenzhen, China. ELLEN WAYLAND-SMITH, assistant professor (teaching) of writing, received a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar grant to support her in writing a nonfiction book, based on her research, for a general audience. Wayland-Smith will pen Jean Wade Rindlaub and the History of Advertising to American Women.

Continued on page 66. Edo Kabuki in Transition: From the Worlds of the Samurai to

Paying Her Education Forward

Rachel Jones arrived at USC from the Queens borough of New York City as a Posse Scholar in 2011. The program identifies and fosters the talent of underrepresented students and gives them opportunities to pursue higher education. Jones was awarded full college tuition and was connected with a faculty mentor and a group of students — her “posse” — for support. “At 17, I already understood the value of that,” she said. “I knew people were investing their time and energy in me.” Jones’ professors encouraged her to stretch beyond her classes to take on research opportunities and study abroad. She studied an endangered language in Taiwan and took part in an archaeological dig in Guatemala. She spent another semester studying in New Zealand. She also traveled to South Africa as a USC Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow for an international conference on issues of race and inequality in Cape Town. These experiences, combined with her coursework at USC Dornsife, shaped Jones’ way of understanding the world. “My research experiences have shown me that there are systems of oppression that are all around me,” she said. “By learning more about them, we can find ways to dismantle them.” For her exceptional academic achievements at USC, Jones was named a 2015 Steven and Kathryn Sample USC Renaissance Scholar. She earned her bachelor’s degree in political science with a minor in archaeology that year and decided to return to New York to pursue a career as teacher. Now, teaching first-graders at Success Academy in the Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, she aims to get her students just as excited about learning as she was and help them succeed in school — and beyond. “I really want to make a difference in their lives,” she said. She also knows that, because her school comprises proportionately higher numbers of children of color, they will encounter some of the same roadblocks that she studied as an undergraduate. “A lot of the things that I’ve learned while at USC have prepared me to dedicate myself to my work and do my best every single day to make sure they do well.” —M.B. Fall 2017 / Winter 2018 63

D O R N S I F E F A M I LY ALUMNI AND STUDENT CANON

BABBAGE’S DREAM Sundress / Neil Aitken (Ph.D., creative writing and literature, ’15) transposes the dreams of machines and humans into musical, sonically deft lyrics that sing songs of creation, vision, possibility and futurity.

MAKING MY PITCH: A Woman’s Baseball Odyssey University of Nebraska Press / Co-author Jean Hastings Ardell (MPW, ’95) tells the story of Ila Jane Borders, who became a Little League prodigy, MVP of her otherwise all-male school teams, and the first woman to pitch and win a complete men’s collegiate game.

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NOT CONSTANTINOPLE Dzanc Books / The debut novel by creative writing and literature doctoral student Nicholas Bredie captures the privileged aimlessness and corrupted romanticism of the contemporary white American expatriate.

LISTENING TO KATHY Big Jacaranda Books / Jo ScottCoe (B.A., English, ’91) provides a glimpse into the life of Kathy Leissner, who was murdered by her husband, Charles Whitman, hours before he committed the first televised shooting rampage in U.S. history. Also by Jo Scott-Coe MASS / Writ Large Press

AFRO-ATLANTIC FLIGHT: Speculative Returns and the Black Fantastic Duke University Press / Michelle D. Commander (Ph.D., American studies and ethnicity, ’10) traces how some black Americans envision literal and figurative flight back to Africa as a means by which to heal the dispossession caused by the slave trade.

THE LAIRD OF DUNCAIRN City Owl Press / Craig Comer (B.A., history, ’99; MPW, ’04) introduces the reader to Effie, the only hope for stopping the eldritch evil spreading throughout the Scottish Highlands.

ON AIR: Insider Secrets to Attract the Media and Get Free Publicity HenschelHAUS / Katrina Cravy (B.A., political science and broadcast journalism, ’92) makes it easy for public relations novices to gain needed insights and garner media recognition for their businesses.

HISTORY OF WOLVES: A Novel Atlantic Monthly Press / Emily Fridlund (Ph.D., creative writing and literature , ’14) confronts the consequences of the things people do — and fail to do — for the people they love. Also by Emily Fridlund CATAPULT / Sarabande

DEAD GIRLS AND OTHER STORIES Dzanc Books / Creative writing and literature doctoral student Emily Geminder weaves gender, geopolitics and the dreamlike worlds of characters struggling to find hope and reason within their near apocalypses.

THE WAR POWER IN AN AGE OF TERRORISM Palgrave Macmillan / Co-author Michael A. Genovese (Ph.D., political science, ’79) examines the issue of whether the United States Constitution remains adequate to the national security challenges in contemporary America.

EMPIRE WASTED: Poems Bloof Books / Through poetry, Becca Klaver (B.A., English/ creative writing, ’03) fashions a tapestry of digital upheaval, dystopian feminism and political theatre.

THE BEAR WHO BROKE THE WORLD Wheeler Street Press / The debut novel by Justin McFarr (MPW, ’11) plumbs the depths of childhood in Berkeley during the summer of 1976, when two brothers struggle to protect themselves from the adult dangers that surround them.

THE APPOINTMENT Vine Leaves Press / In his eighth book, Mike Maggio (M.A., linguistics, ’80) pens a story where the antihero finds himself lost in a world that seems uncanny and unforgiving, searching for answers from people he cannot find.

TRUE NORTH: Hunting Fossils Under the Midnight Sun Bering Press / Lou Marincovich (Ph.D., geological science, ’73) documented faunal and climate changes in the Arctic, solved the mystery of the Bering Strait’s age, survived a helicopter crash, and saved his own life by shooting a charging grizzly with his last bullet.

RELEASE HarperTeen / Inspired by Judy Blume’s Forever and Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, Patrick Ness (B.A., English, ’93) tackles the topics of teenage relationships, self-acceptance and what happens when the walls we build start coming down.

PHOTO COURTESY OF MARIE LU

BLACK JESUS AND OTHER SUPERHEROES University of Nebraska Press / Venita Blackburn (B.A., English/ creative writing, ’04) chronicles ordinary people achieving vivid extrasensory perception while in extreme pain in her Prairie Schooner Book Prize-winning fiction.

RAPUNZEL’S BRAID Five Oaks Press / Beau Boudreaux (B.A., English/creative writing, ’94) takes readers through the thunder afternoons of southern desire all the way to the mornings of fatherhood.

FAMINE IRISH AND THE AMERICAN RACIAL STATE Routledge / Peter O’Neill (Ph.D., English, ’10) uses an array of cultural artifacts to explore the state’s role in the Americanization of the Irish and the Irish role in the development of U.S. state institutions.

TULA: Poems Milkweed / Inspired by the experiences of the “blood stranger”— the second-generation immigrant who does not fully acquire the language of his parents — Chris Santiago (Ph.D., creative writing and literature, ’15) paints the portrait of a mythic homeland that is part ghostly underworld, part unknowable paradise.

MISS D AND ME: Life with the Invincible Bette Davis Hachette Publishing / Writing with Danielle Morton, Kathryn Sermak (B.A., psychology, ’77) provides an intimate view of a screen legend’s harrowing but inspiring final years.

ECHOES OF BHUTAN EBS Editoriale Bortolazzi Stei / Barry Shaffer (B.A., history, ’70; DDS, ’74) captures the beauty of “the land of the thunder dragon” with photographs taken over a 14-year period.

EMPIRE OF GLASS Ig Publishing / Kaitlin Solimine (M.A., East Asian studies, ’06) investigates the workings of human memory and the veracity of oral history that chronicles the seismic changes in China over the last half century through the lens of one family’s experiences.

The Hit Factory

Marie Lu ’06 abandoned ambitions in law and medicine to pursue video gaming and writing.

SO FAMOUS AND SO GAY: The Fabulous Potency of Truman Capote and Gertrude Stein University of Minnesota Press / Jeff Solomon (Ph.D., English, ’08) paints a vivid portrait of two landmark literary personalities who expressed homosexuality and negotiated homophobia through the fleeting depiction of what could not be directly written.

USE OF FORCE Atria / Emily Bestler Books / The CIA taps an unorthodox source to get answers — Navy SEAL turned covert counterterrorism operative Scot Harvath — in the latest thriller by Brad Thor (B.A., creative writing, ’92).

Lauded by critics as “a hit factory,” New York Times best-selling novelist Marie Lu is an established star of young adult fiction. Author of the “Legend” and “Young Elites” series, Lu’s eagerly awaited new novel, Warcross (G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers, 2017), hit book stands in September to widespread acclaim. Set in a futuristic Tokyo, it explores the world of online gaming through Warcross — a global phenomenon. “For the millions who log in everyday, Warcross isn’t just a game — it’s a way of life,” Lu said of her fictional creation. Lu’s hero, teenage hacker Emika Chen, works as a bounty hunter, tracking down players who bet on the game illegally. Struggling to make ends meet, Chen hacks into the International Warcross Championships, only to accidentally glitch herself into the action and become an overnight sensation. Convinced she’s going to be arrested, Chen is shocked when instead she is engaged as a spy by the game’s elusive creator. Born in China, Lu immigrated to the United States as a young child. While at college, she tried to get her writing published, but rejections from publishers proved so disheartening that she stopped writing. It wasn’t until she started working in the gaming industry as a concept artist that she began writing again. She finds her ability to support herself by doing something creative immensely satisfying. “I can’t exaggerate how much I love writing and creating stories,” she said. “To know that I can entertain people or make them happy, even for a few hours, with something I have made, is really gratifying.” —S.B. TELL US ABOUT YOUR BOOK Write to USC Dornsife Magazine, 1150 S. Olive Street T2400, Los Angeles, CA 90015 or [email protected]

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D O R N S I F E F A M I LY TROJANA LIT Y

A Sisterhood of Leaders

Gina Clayton ’06 helps women with relatives in prison harness the power of their voices to support themselves and their communities.

1980s

MALGORZATA SWITEK (economics); JONATHAN TARBOX (psychology); GREGORY TREVERTON (international relations); LE TRINH (biological sciences); BENJAMIN UCHIYAMA (history); JOHN VIDALE (Earth sciences); ALEXIS WELLWOOD (philosophy); and KERIM YASAR (East Asian languages and cultures).

DARLEEN PRYDS (B.A., history, ’83; M.A., history, ’85) has filmed two instructional courses, The Spirituality of Dying and Death (2015) and The Christian Life: Exploring Lay Spiritual Practices (2016). GREG STEININGER (B.A., international relations, ’83) was appointed the national vice president of communities by 5 Bars, a wireless technology company.

Alumni News

1990s

1970s

CHRISTOPHER CLEMENTS (B.A., political science, ’92) was named to the board of directors at Boulder Crest Retreat for Military and Veteran Wellness.

TOM CARTER (B.A., political science, ’76) received the Federal Trade Commission’s Robert Pitofsky Lifetime Achievement Award. DOROTHY CHEN-MAYNARD (B.S., biological sciences, ’78) was named Outstanding Dietitian of the Year by the California Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

The American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering announced the pending induction of NI NADINE DING (Ph.D., chemistry, ’90) to its College of Fellows.

SALPI GHAZARIAN (B.A., history, ’77) was recognized by the California State Assembly “for her remarkable record of accomplishments and the exemplary leadership she has provided for organizations, institutions and publications whose scope encompasses, broadly, Armenia and the Armenian Diaspora.” DAVID R. MOORE (B.A., speech communication, ’75) was sworn in by the chief justice of the California Supreme Court as a member of the board of directors for the Conference of California Bar Associations. WILLIAM “BILL” YOUNGLOVE (M.A., American studies, ’73) received the Distinguished Service Award from the California Association of Teachers of English for outstanding contributions to the profession of teaching English and language arts.

G E O S L I N G P H O T O C O U R T E S Y O F C H R I S T I N E G E O S L I N G ; M A R S R O V E R P H O T O C O U R T E S Y O F N A S A / J P L- C A L T E C H

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USC Dornsife welcomed more than 40 new faculty members in the 2017–18 academic year. Hailing from universities around the world, the scholars were introduced at a reception on Sept. 12 at Town & Gown on USC’s University Park campus.The new faculty include JORGE BARRAZA (psychology); VITTORIO BASSI (economics); CHRISTOPHER BEAM (psychology); NATALIE BELISLE (Spanish); MARK CHAISSON (biological sciences); ROBIN COSTE LEWIS (writer-inresidence); YASMEEN DAIFALLAH (Middle East studies); MARK DAVIS (chemical engineering and materials science, chemistry, and medicine); ANGUS DEATON (economics); WILLIAM FRANK (Earth sciences); REIGHAN GILLAM (anthropology); MARC HOYOIS (mathematics); ZAKIYYAH JACKSON (English); JEFFERY JENKINS (public policy, political science and law); CARLY KENKEL (biological sciences); KURT KWAST (biological sciences); MEREDITH LEPLEY (psychology); ELI LEVENSONFALK (physics); MENGJUN LI (East Asian languages and cultures); ENRIQUE MARTINEZ CELAYA (humanities and arts); ANDREW MARX (spatial sciences); MAYA MASKARINEC (history); RONALD MENDOZADE JESUS (Spanish); LYDIE ESTHER MOUDILENO (French); SRI NARAYAN (chemistry); MAGGIE NELSON (English); MELISSA RAUTERKUS (English); KELSEY RUBIN-DETLEV (Slavic languages and literatures); BEATRICE SANFORD (English); LINDSEY SCHIER (biological sciences); DANIEL SCHRAGE (sociology); DANZY SENNA (English); STEPHANIE SHIH (linguistics); CHALEE RILEY SNORTON (American studies and ethnicity); ANDREW STOTT (English);

P H O T O C O U R T E S Y O F G I N A C L AY T O N

Gina Clayton doesn’t just want to help the women she works with. She wants them to become advocates. As founder of the Essie Justice Group, Clayton helps women with incarcerated loved ones deal with the seemingly insurmountable difficulties they face. Many of those she works with struggle to make ends meet while a relative is behind bars. They often face eviction and possible homelessness. Clayton, who earned her bachelor’s in American studies and ethnicity before pursuing a law degree from Harvard Law School, first became aware of these challenges as a housing lawyer in Harlem, New York City. In 2014, she founded Essie Justice Group, named for her great-grandmother who grew up on a sharecropper farm in Louisiana. The program’s nine-week curriculum focuses on healing the effects of trauma and building each woman’s voice as an advocate. Initially located in Oakland, Essie now offers sessions in three other Californa locations — Vallejo, San Jose and Los Angeles. This year, Clayton received the Grinnell College Young Innovator for Social Justice Prize for her work effecting positive social change in an innovative way. A former NAACP chapter president at USC, Clayton said her undergraduate studies informed the lens through which she approaches her work seeking out and lifting up the stories of marginalized people to build a better world. Essie, she said, is not a charity but a place to help women find their value. “We are building an organization of women leaders.” —M.B.

TROJANA LIT Y

ROGER LYNCH (B.S., physics, ’93) was named CEO and president, as well as a member of the board of directors, of music company Pandora. President Donald J. Trump nominated JEFF TIEN HAN PON (B.A., psychology, ’92) as director of the Office of Personnel Management on Sept. 1, 2017. St. Patrick’s Seminary & University in Menlo Park, Calif., celebrated the installation of Rev. GEORGE E. SCHULTZE, SJ (Ph.D., religion and ethics, ’98) as the institution’s 17th President-Rector on Aug. 21, 2017.

2000s

JESSICA HUANG (B.A., psychology, ’06) was inducted into the San Francisco Prep Hall of Fame for her athletic achievements in swimming.

2010s

LEENA DANPOUR (B.A., political science, ’17) was a member of the summer 2017 White House Internship Program in the Office of Public Liaison. EMILY FRIDLUND (Ph.D., literature and creative writing, ’14) was named to The Man Booker Prize 2017 long list for her first novel, History of Wolves (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2017). PETER GUEKGUEZIAN (Ph.D., linguistics, ’17) not only made it a “true daily double,” he was the top contestant three days in a row on Jeopardy!, taking home more than $44,000 in winnings. ALEEK SHERIKIAN (B.A., international relations, ’14) was appointed coordinator of Armenian Relief Society Inc. activities at the United Nations. NATALIE STROM (B.A., political science, ’14) was appointed assistant press secretary at the White House.

Mission to Mars

Christine Geosling ’77 has put her talents to use helping develop key components used in space exploration and other types of navigation. When chemist Christine Geosling first began working for the global aerospace and defense firm Northrop Grumman, she was part of a team of scientists developing a ring laser gyroscope. The instrument makes up a vital element of the inertial navigation system for aircraft, ships and spacecraft. Her main focus was to improve one of the mechanisms that was destroying the mirrors in the unit. As it turned out, what was killing the mirrors was a chemical reaction. “I was able to identify it, do the experiments to verify it and suggest a solution,” Geosling said. Her work increased the lifetimes and performance of the instruments that were being used in space missions. That challenge, and her subsequent work for the company on the laser gyroscope and fiber optic gyroscope, earned Geosling a prestigious 2013 Resnik Challenger Medal. The award, presented by the Society of Women Engineers, honors visionary contributions to space exploration. “It’s a great honor and it also reflects well on Northrop Grumman and the work we do and the quality of the products we produce,” Geosling said. Geosling, who holds 14 United States patents and two trade secrets, earned her Ph.D. in chemistry from USC Dornsife in 1977. She currently works as an engineering program manager for the LN-200 line of inertial measurement units, which provide critical information for NASA’s Mars Rovers. “I’m probably one of the few that can say, ‘I have touched something that’s now on Mars,’ ” Geosling said. —M.B.

Marriages and Births BONNIE C. BRADY (B.A., biological sciences, ’63) married Paul Donaldson in Palm Desert, CA. SHAUNA CARTER (B.A., psychology, ’06) and John Washington welcomed a son, Jaxon Pierce Carter Washington. ALLISON ELLIOTT (B.S., human biology, ’15) married Zachary Tudhope on June 24, 2017, in San Juan Capistrano, CA. JEAN TAYLOR ELLIS (B.A., environmental studies and biology, ’98; M.S., geography, ’01) and James Joseph Tedesco IV were married July 26, 2016, at Sachuest Beach in Middletown, RI. Continued on page 68. Fall 2017 / Winter 2018 67

D O R N S I F E F A M I LY TROJANA LIT Y

The physics of fighting

Jason Thalken ’06 uses his science to help martial artists perfect their fighting skills.

REMEMBERING ELLEN FREEDMAN (B.A., international relations, ’11) and Ethan Robert Baron were married Aug. 20, 2016, in Philadelphia, PA. KRISTINA MONET GALLEGOS (B.A., English, ’03) married SHAUN MICHAEL DIXON (B.A., cinematic arts, ’07) in June 2016 and welcomed a son, Quincy Theodore, in June 2017. JOSÉ GALVAN (B.A., Spanish, ’04) married Candice Cabral on June 10, 2017, in Quintana Roo, Mexico. KARINA GODOY (B.A., history, ’06) married VIKRAM K. SRIDHARAN (B.S., aerospace engineering, ’09) on June 16, 2017, in Pasadena, CA. HILLARY KERR (B.A., English, ’00) and Jonathan Leahy were married on Dec. 10, 2016, at the Colony Palms Hotel in Palm Springs, CA.

In Memoriam ARNOLD P. BALLANTYNE (B.A., ethnic studies, ’52) Colorado Springs, CO (7/5/17) at age 88; former U.S. Air Force pilot of the Convair B-36 Peacekeeper and the Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star; professor emeritus of economics at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, where he served as dean of the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and as chair of the economics department; served as an international consultant for the Russian Academy of Economic Science in Moscow and with Sumy State University in Ukraine. CONSUELO “CONNEE” MENDENHALL BROGAN (B.A.,

MARY WIKOFF FISHER (B.A., history, ’40) La Jolla, CA (3/7/17) at age 98; member of the League of Women Voters; enjoyed reading, travel and her beloved Chicago Cubs. SPENCER JOHNSON (B.A., psychology, ’63) San Diego, CA (7/3/17) at age 78; physician and author of 13 New York Times best-selling books, including Who Moved My Cheese? (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1998); co-author of The One Minute Manager (William Morrow, 2003) and The New One Minute Manager (William Morrow, 2015). MARCIA ECK LASSWELL (M.A., psychology, ’55) Los Angeles, CA (6/16/17) at age 89; professor emerita at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona; clinical professor in the Marriage and Family Therapy Graduate Program at USC; fellow, past president and board of directors member of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy; named 2010 Woman of the Year by the Los Angeles City Club. RICHARD LLOYD LEESON (B.A., history, ’47) Riverside, CA (4/21/17) at age 95; served in the U.S. Army in the Counter Intelligence Corps and as a first lieutenant at the Nevada

JOHN “JACK” PESCHONG (B.A., political science, ’52) San Luis Obispo, CA (6/15/17) at age 88; retired vice president and stockbroker with Merrill Lynch; member of King David’s Masonic Lodge No. 209. JAMES LEO PRAGER (B.A., psychology, ’60) St. Helena, CA (7/11/17) at age 84; served as a corpsman in the U.S. Navy; worked as an insurance agent and served as president of the Orange County Insurance Agents; founder of Prager Winery & Port Works in Napa Valley. RACHEL REINSVOLD (B.A., psychology and sociology, ’02) Albuquerque, NM (8/23/17) at age 36; graduate of Boston College of Law; volunteered with the Innocence Project, where she worked to overturn convictions of those wrongly accused of crimes; employed with Riley, Shane & Keller in Albuquerque; created the Alveolar Soft Part Sarcoma support group to serve as a vital source of information and support for people affected by the incurable disease. KENNETH RONALD SILK (B.A., political science, ’58; LLB, law, ’61) Encino, CA (7/16/17) at age 79; served as a staff sergeant in the U.S. Air Force Reserve; practiced law for 40 years; founder of the Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council. LILLIAN MAY STEVENS (B.A., Spanish/planning and urban studies, ’51; LLB, law, ’54) Glendale, CA (3/17/17) at age 87; co-founded the law firm Stegman & Stegman; served as a Pasadena city prosecutor; appointed to the bench and served as a Superior Court judge for more than 19 years.

BENDER, FISCHER AND WILLS PHOTOS BY IRENE FERTIK; ILIE PHOTO COURTESY OF MARIE-L AURE ILIE

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DEUEL ROSS (B.A., political science and English, ’05) and Nicolle Quintero were married at the Midtown Loft and Terrace in New York City on Aug. 11, 2017.

ROBERT GERALD CAMERON (B.S., history, ’50) Englewood, NJ (7/31/17) at age 92; served as executive director of research and development for The College Board; worked as a state volunteer ombudsman at the Lillian Booth Actors Equity House for more than two decades.

nuclear test site, northwest of Las Vegas; co-owner of Riverside Fireman’s Fund Insurance and Surety Company; charter member with Federation of Fly Fisherman.

PHOTO COURTESY OF JASON THALKEN

In the mid-1990s, actor and kung fu legend Jackie Chan starred in his American breakout film Rumble in the Bronx. The movie mixed comedy with tightly choreographed, awe-inspiring martial arts sequences. Alumnus Jason Thalken, who was a teen at the time, was hooked. “I went to see that movie in the theatre something like seven times,” he said. Films like Chan’s inspired Thalken, who had been taking taekwondo classes. Over the years, he began studying other fighting styles to build up his abilities: kenpo, judo, wushu, muay thai, eskrima — the list goes on. In addition to the discipline and physical exercise, martial arts appealed to his technical side. Thalken, who earned his Ph.D. in physics from USC Dornsife in 2006, began thinking about the ways that skills such as punching and kicking could be improved if fighters better understood their scientific properties. He wrote a few chapters explaining how fighters could hone their techniques by understanding energy, momentum and the center of mass, and sent them off for consideration to a publisher of martial arts books. The publisher came back to him with a note asking for a completed manuscript. Fight Like a Physicist: The Incredible Science Behind Martial Arts (YMAA) was published in 2015. He is currently working on two new scientific martial arts publications — a deep dive into the science of punching and a look at the scientific study of martial arts. —M.B.

history, ’49) Dana Point, CA (3/14/17) at age 91; member of Dana Harbor Yacht Club and El Niguel Country Club; member of South Orange County Bridge Center; achieved rank of gold life master in the game of bridge.

Activist Scholar

In his 31 years teaching at USC Dornsife, Gerald “Jerry” Bender’s passion for his work and for southern Africa changed many lives worldwide. Associate Professor Emeritus of International Relations Gerald “Jerry” Bender died on May 22. He was 75. Bender’s career was dedicated to the study of Angola and southern Africa generally, with a particular interest in United States foreign policy toward the region. He served as a consultant for the U.S. Department of State, United Nations, World Bank, National Security Council, think tanks and several multinational corporations. He also mediated arguments among different African politicians and parties. “Jerry Bender liked to say that he was an activist scholar,” said Professor Emeritus of International Relations John Odell. Laurie Brand, Robert Grandford Wright Professor of International Relations and Middle East Studies, was hired by Bender. “The love of what he studied and the degree of expertise he acquired over decades of research in and on Africa … was one of the things that made him such an amazing colleague and a great gift that he always sought to share with his students,” she said. Bender received seven teaching awards during his career, including the USC Associates Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1985.

Emeritus Professor of Earth Sciences ALFRED “AL” FISCHER, a globally prominent sedimentary geologist, died July 2. He was 96. Fischer joined USC Dornsife in 1984, making major contributions to the understanding of environmental cyclicity, characterized by repetitive patterns of different rock layers in the Earth. A member of the United States National Academy of Sciences, he was also a senior fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a fellow of the Geological Society of America. Describing Fischer as a renaissance scholar, William Berelson, professor of Earth sciences and environmental studies and chair of Earth sciences, said, “The breadth of Al’s influence spans generations and is global. The Earth sciences community has lost an icon.”

Professor Emeritus of Spanish and Comparative Literature PAUL ILIE died on July 18. He was 84. Ilie joined USC in 1982 and taught for 15 years before retiring in 1997.

His broad academic interests included French-Spanish 18thcentury intellectual relations, Hispanism, Nietzsche in Spain, the philosopher Unamuno’s existentialism, Surrealism, Futurism, the literary grotesque, his original concept of “inner exile,” and the painter Goya. “A truly eminent scholar of Spanish and European literary and cultural history, we are proud of Paul’s legacy to USC and our various fields,” said Roberto Ignacio Díaz, associate professor of Spanish and comparative literature.

Professor Emeritus of History, JOHN “JACK” WILLS JR., died Jan. 13. He was 80. Wills spent nearly four decades illuminating Chinese history and global early modern history. Wills’ legacy includes his integral role in shaping the university’s East Asian studies curriculum, which did not exist when he arrived in 1965. He helped found the East Asian Studies Center in 1975 and went on to direct the center from 1990 to 94. He also served as acting chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures from 1987 to 89. Wills retired from USC Dornsife in 2004. Two years later he donated $50,000 to endow a scholarship for graduate students in the field of East Asian studies. Wills received a USC Faculty Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013. Fall 2017 / Winter 2018 69

2 017 U S C D O R N S I F E R E A D E R S H I P S U R V E Y

IN MY OPINION

The current iteration of USC Dornsife Magazine was launched in 2012 to offer alumni, faculty, staff and friends of USC Dornsife — as well as readers beyond our university — lively articles and information covering the breadth of intellectual pursuits at USC Dornsife.

Youth to Power

Educator Ananya Mukherjee-Reed ’95 sees hope spring from Canada’s First Nations tragedy. Canada is kind to immigrants like me. Canada’s citizens have fought hard, and successfully, to acquire a rich repertoire of social and economic rights. We have universal health care, free public schooling, a respect for diversity and much more. And yet, there is one incredible failing that Canada is just beginning to confront: the oppression of its indigenous peoples. This oppression manifests itself in myriad ways, the most unbearable of which is the epidemic of suicide among children and youth. As I write this piece, a spate of suicides has gripped Pikangikum and Wapekeka, two First Nations communities in Ontario. This year has already seen 20 take their own lives; the youngest of them was only 10 years old. In April 2016, Attawapiskat declared a state of emergency after 100 people, including children, attempted suicide during the preceding seven months. Why would young people in a country like Canada feel the need to take their own lives? The answers lie in the enduring effects of settler colonialism and racism. Take for example the residential school system, where indigenous children were separated from

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their parents and subjected to a harsh system of cultural assimilation. This happened to 150,000 children from the 1870s to 1996, when the last school closed. Theirs was a childhood of complex trauma that continues to affect multiple generations. Canada’s indigenous peoples face deprivation on all fronts: hunger, food insecurity, lack of clean water, inadequate housing, dilapidated infrastructure, unemployment, isolation, and so on. In sum, it is a situation that structurally and relentlessly instills profound despair and misery. Not surprisingly, suicide rates among indigenous Canadians are far higher than among nonindigenous Canadians. Rates for Inuit youth are among the highest in the world, at five to 25 times the national average. Indigenous peoples are hugely overrepresented among children in foster care, the imprisoned and the homeless. And women are worse off — on almost every count. The human spirit, however, remains invincible; the youth, in particular, manage to chart a path against all odds. As Attawapiskat declared an emergency following the multiple suicides, several young leaders in the community established a Youth Committee to help ignite a sense of hope and belonging. Jack Linklater Jr., a 17-year-old member of this committee, organized and led a suicide awareness walk with friends in neighboring reservations. They strode through frozen country for two days in minus 25 degrees Celsius weather to foster conversations among youth in despair. Ruth Kaviok, 19, president of the National Inuit Youth Council, is another such leader. “I know we are scarred for life,” she said, “but we must keep going ... not let [the past] go, but keep going.” Attawapiskat is the birthplace of Shannen’s Dream, a movement started by Shannen Koostachin, an elementary school student. Koostachin inspired thousands of children to join her campaign for “safe and comfy schools” and equity in education for all children. Indeed, the inequality in educational opportunities is staggering. In 2004, the auditor general of Canada estimated that it would take almost three decades to close the education gap between First Nations people living on reservations and Canadians as a whole. Koostachin, who was nominated for the International Children’s Peace Prize in 2009, died in a car accident at 15. But she laid the foundations for a new school in her community, which opened in 2014. Canada, unfortunately, is not the only country where injustices exist for native populations. In August, we celebrated the 10th anniversary of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Now is an opportune moment for each of us, as global citizens, to begin to act — wherever we are, in whatever way we can — for justice. Ananya Mukherjee-Reed earned a Ph.D. in political economy and public policy from USC Dornsife in 1995. She currently is dean of the faculty of liberal arts and professional studies, and professor of political science at York University in Toronto, Canada, serving 22,000 students at the country’s third largest university.

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Making Its Mark USC Village, the university’s monumental development at the corner of Hoover Street and Jefferson Boulevard, officially opened to the Trojan community Aug. 17. The $700 million project is the largest development in the university’s history, and the largest South Los Angeles has ever seen. Residential college suites comprise the upper floors, with retail stores bedecking the ground level. Fountains, sculptures, outdoor terraces and a Hogwarts-like, A-framed dining hall, with custom stained-glass windows and gothic-style seating, round out this landmark, student-centered complex.

Fall 2017 / Winter 2018 73

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Life Moment

BARRY SHAFFER ’70

( S E E PA G E 1 9 )

PH O T O BY J I G ME R EEGYA L