Tungsten was discovered by two Spanish brothers, Fausto and Juan Jose de Elhuyar in 1783 by reduction of acidified wolframite with charcoal. Tungsten has had many uses throughout its history. Tungsten was first used in incandescent light bulbs and tubes in x-rays. During World War II, tungsten was heavily involved in political dealings. Because of tungsten’s high melting point, hardness, density, and strengthening of alloys, it was a hot commodity among the axis and allied powers to make weaponry. Tungsten’s etymology is straightforward. The word Tungsten comes from the swedish words “tung” meaning heavy, and “sten” meaning stone.

My imagery derives from tungsten’s etymology. I thought I could create an interesting image by using negative space lettering and texturing.

My process started with decided on a set of images. I created three images and selected one of them. I wanted to refine the image and take it from a 2D sketch to a 2.5D impression drawing. I chose to texture the rock by pressing various objects on the rock and making impressions.

If I were to do my print again, I would refine my lettering a bit. I think it is inconsistent and could’ve been better.

I enjoyed the texturing process the most. Figuring out what objects make the coolest and most effective impressions was enjoyable.

As I have mentioned in my previous two posts, my You and the World project has been about free speech on college campus and how it is being undermined. I have researched this topic extensively and in turn, have also researched ways people are contesting the toxic anti-free speech ideology on campus. I have seen lectures at campuses trying to establish the importance of speech, I have seen protests, and I have seen informative flyers aimed at stating the importance of free speech. For my Agent Of Change, I decided to create my own informative flyer and put it up around University City. Although I think it is the least effective method of the three, I believe that it will be able to make a difference to students and other passerbys alike. I certainly am not able to lecture a college-level educated audience for an hour, and therefore could not do it for my Agent Of Change. I believe it is the most impactful way to inform people on this issue. Throughout my research on this topic, I have stumbled across fascinating lectures that changed my perspective several times. Figureheads of this movement like Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, and Bret Weinstein all have had captivating speeches, lectures, and discussions that illuminate the absolute necessity of free speech on a functioning campus.

I chose a flyer for several different reasons. I wanted to create a discussion and inform people. I wanted to give them basic facts about their current campus climate so they could think to themselves honestly for a second and say: “Am I part of the problem?” I want to inhibit people’s instincts to cover their ears and more importantly: other people’s mouths. I think if I start a conversation as a result of my flyer, I consider my Agent of Change a success.

I enjoyed doing my You and the World project. It allowed me to research and write about something I am passionate about in school which is normally not the case. This project also contradicted and challenged my own previous knowledge on the subject of free speech. It let me know about organizations and students who are vehemently leading the fight against campus intolerance. Before my research for this project I was less optimistic about how much was being done to combat the prominent negative feelings about speech. There is still much to do, as the advocates are still in the minority.

annotated bibliography

In my first blog post, I outlined the problems and instances of suppression of speech on college campuses. Specifically, I wrote about the misconceptions of our 1st Amendment Rights as citizens of the United States of America and what speech is punishable by law. I also wrote about the Evergreen State College student who tormented Bret Weinstein for opting out of a day without white people on campus.

The New York Times and the Washington Post have similar ideas in their recent articles. The Washington Post article suggests that young people support free speech seemingly contrary to the story at Evergreen, but Evergreen can be used as a measure of the extreme, not the norm. The New York Times article cites a Gallup study for its evidence.  There were several polls that stated/confirmed what we already knew, and some that went against our previous knowledge from the first blog post. First off, college students think that political conservatives are the least able group to openly express their views (69%), the next least able group is Muslims (80%). We already knew that many conservatives are less able to share their views. 10% of students say violence is acceptable to stop people from hearing controversial speakers. Some new information I have gathered is based on who feels “uncomfortable” on campus because they heard something about their race or ethnicity. Black and Jewish students are most likely to feel that way (43% Black) and (38% Jewish).

Since the first blog post I have gathered new research on my own about free speech on college campuses. I had the pleasure of interviewing two advisors at Temple University, Seth Finck and Bradley Pearson. They both clarified their centrist political positions early on in the interview which aligned well with my own beliefs, which I believe was productive for the conversation. Bradley answered my question “What are your thoughts on students right to speech and what should be done on campus?” in an incredible, enlightening way. He said that: “I’ll say that, you know, from my own experience, as well as my own research on it, it is difficult to really have one, university-wide, clear cut policy on what constitutes free speech and what doesn’t.” He then went on to explain and go deep into the “cost of free speech”, which he calls a cliché, but nevertheless, is a real thing. He explains that the security cost of some of the events that are held on campus are astronomically high and are not financially beneficial for the college. I did not mention this perspective in my first post, so I am glad to have captured and recognized this new perspective. The interview added a new viewpoint from which I can look at this topic: the angle of the administrator.

For my Agent of Change, I am thinking about sending out flyers to SLA students, who will one day be college students, about their rights as students now and their rights as adults. I am also thinking about creating a quiz that students will take and will show their 1st Amendment Rights.

Annotated Bibliography

In the Supreme Court case Whitney v. People of State of California

(1927), the Supreme Court judges upheld Charlotte Whitney’s case under the grounds of freedom of speech. The Supreme Court stated that “If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.” This quote brings me to the topic of my project: the erosion of free speech on college campuses. My general goals are to interview college students in University City about their thoughts on free speech, hate speech, and dissenting views on college campuses.

I am interested in this topic because I, like most anyone in the world, have some unpopular opinions. It is concerning, to say the least, that colleges and college students are so intolerant to those views that there are riots and cancellations when people come to speak. I want to spread the message that words are not violence, therefore should not be retaliated with violence.

The Brookings Institute gathered data from college campuses and it isn’t surprising what they found, but it was still disturbing. According to the Brookings Institute, 41% of Democrats thought that hate speech was NOT protected by the 1st Amendment, even though it is. Another 15% of Democrats don’t know whether it is or whether it isn’t. That 56% of Democrats being misinformed is what I want to help change. I want to inform people on what their rights are and what is and what isn’t protected speech.

A story I would like to share exposes how far this has gone. At Evergreen State College in Washington last year, the administration asked white people to leave the campus. Biology Professor Bret Weinstein objected to an involuntary “Day of Absence” because he felt it was racist and inflicted on his freedom of speech. He said, “On a college campus, one’s right to speak - or to be - must never be based on skin color.” Professor Weinstein was met with 50 students yelling over him, asking him to resign, calling him racist, and even a Nazi. The students blocked him when he tried to leave and blocked the entrances to the college president’s office with furniture. This story and Professor Weinstein’s interviews led me to look into the statistics and other research about student intolerance.

My research has quantified what I already knew. I knew people were uninformed about the 1st Amendment, but the research has made it evident. I hope to learn more about ways to increase tolerance and nonviolence.

Working Annotated Bibliography

Our Macbeth Creative Project was a playbill. Jakob and I decided on a playbill because we felt that we could operate most effectively with a project that had writing and visual aspects. We knew we wanted to have the most significant image in the play be our cover art, so we chose the crown. We also wanted to signify the violence in the play so we added a sword going through the crown with blood dripping off of it. We decided to create our own cover art because we wanted to have an original project.

An important part of our playbill is the color scheme. We decided to make the background red because of the bloody themes that are in Macbeth. The red also matches our cover art. We also thought that the linear style of coloring the background was very appealing and added a little variety.We also decided to do an act-by-act summary to inform the audience about the play they are about to watch.

We chose Kevin Hart to act Macbeth because we thought that he would be good actor for the hallucination scenes and would be somebody funny to watch when sad and going crazy. Chris Rock in our version is the Porter. This decision was made because the porter's role in the play is for comic relief. After a heavy death scene, Chris Rock is a funny person that could bring the audience back to relief with his funny humor and personality.

I learned many things from the critique of my slide. I found that contrasting colors that are not adjacent does not look good. If you chose to have colors opposite one another, the must be directly contrasting or it will turn out poorly. I also learned that imperfect symmetry is not symmetry at all. I found that it is difficult to make different-sized images be symmetrical.

I made many changes to my slide. I changed my previously lime green text on a sea blue background to a peach red, matching my title. I reduced the length of my title to make it more concise and to-the-point. I centered my title and moved the images to either side to create as much symmetry as possible.