THE CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY: WILKINSON COLLEGE MAGAZINE · the Cedar Fire in Northern San Diego County...

also:Behind the Name …Roosevelt Hall

Preparing forthe Next Big Burn:How Risk PerceptionAffects Californians’Support for FirePrevention Policies

THE CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY: WILKINSON COLLEGE MAGAZINE

also:Interview with Peace StudiesALumna Jessica Cho, ’05

WILKINSONREVIEW

Volume 1 Number 2 • Fall/Winter 2008 • A Chapman University Publication

Photo Credit:The Library of Congress

WILKINSON REVIEW

Message from the deanThis issue of our Wilkinson Review is the first we are publishing under thebanner of our newly named and reorganized college: Wilkinson College ofHumanities and Social Sciences. Composed of the departments of PoliticalScience, Sociology, History, Communication Studies, English, Religious Studies,Philosophy and Languages, we also proudly include the Rodgers Center forHolocaust Education, the Peace Studies Program, the Ludie and David C.Henley Social Science Research Laboratory and the Albert Schweitzer Institute.The award-winning student newspaper, the Chapman Panther, is a product ofour journalism program, and Radio Chapman is broadcast through ourdepartment of Communication Studies. Students work with our distinguishedfaculty in these programs and in a variety of individualized scholarly projectsand research efforts.

I am proud to present this issue exemplifying Wilkinson faculty scholarship inboth the humanities and the social sciences. The essays provide a look at faculty research and also reveal the wayin which our faculty members, who pride themselves on being “Teacher Scholars,” inform their teaching throughtheir ongoing thoughtful and critical scholarship. English Professor Richard Ruppel describes the way in whichhis piercing examination of the works of author Joseph Conrad engages his students in exploring the historical andcontemporary world through the lens of literature. Through studying Conrad, Professor Ruppel guides his studentsto join him in considering war and peace, the rise and fall of colonial régimes and the interplay of human behavioraland moral actions on such a world stage. Dr. David Shafie, an assistant professor in the Department of PoliticalScience who specializes in environmental policy, writes about the research that he and his colleagues have conductedon the social psychological responses of California wildfire victims. Dr. Shafie demonstrates the need for publicpolicy to be grounded in research answers, arguing that human responses must be understood in order to formulateworkable wildfire prevention and intervention policies—a lesson not only for California, but for the world. Theresearch is going on in our Henley Social Science Research Center, where students have the opportunity to workwith active faculty researchers. In this issue, we are also pleased to present an interview with a Wilkinson Collegealumna, Jessica Cho. Jessica’s recent experiences as a Peace Corp volunteer in Jordan could not be a better exampleof our Wilkinson motto: Passion for Knowledge. Commitment to the World.

I’m excited about this new issue of the Wilkinson Review and I hope that you will enjoy the contributions as much asI do. We appreciate hearing from our alumni, our friends in the community, and our Chapman University colleagueseverywhere. Please give us your responses and let us know what you would like to see in upcoming issues.

Roberta Lessor, Ph.D.Dean of Wilkinson College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Volume 1 Number 2 • Fall/Winter 2008

CONTENTSThoughts

2 Preparing for the Next Big Burn:

How Risk Perception Affects Californians’

Support for Fire Prevention Policies

By David Shafie, Assistant Professor of

Political Science

6 Why Conrad (Still) Matters

By Richard Ruppel, Professor of English

People12 Alumni Updates:

An Interview with Peace Studies Major

Jessica Cho

Writings14 Undergraduate Student Research

Wilkinson Review Fall/Winter 2008, Volume 1, Number 2 – Wilkinson Reviewis published for our alumni and friends. To contact us: Wilkinson College ofHumanities and Social Sciences, Attention Wilkinson Review – Office of theDean, Roosevelt Hall, Chapman University, One University Dr., Orange, CA92866, [email protected]

Wilkinson College of Humanities and Social Sciences , namedto honor Chapman Trustee Harmon Wilkinson, is comprisedof eight departments, all finding a unifying purpose in theircommitment to make a difference, and each in its owndistinct way carrying out the Chapman traditions of academicexcellence, ethics, service, leadership, stewardship andpersonalized education.

For more information about Wilkinson College ofHumanities and Social Sciences, please contact:

Wilkinson College of Humanities and Social SciencesOffice of the Dean (714) 997-6947Roosevelt HallChapman UniversityOne University Dr.Orange, CA 92866www.chapman.edu/[email protected]

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1WILKINSON REVIEWVolume 1 Number 2 • Fall/Winter 2008

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Anyone who has lived in California has longknown the devastation that wildfire canunleash. It has become routine, evenpredictable, for several fires to scorch the

boundaries of the state’s urban areas in a single season.In a 1968 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, author andnative daughter Joan Didion reflected on life in Californiawith the perennial threat of wildfire:

At first prediction of a Santa Ana, the Forest Service fliesmen and equipment from Northern California into thesouthern forests, and the Los Angeles Fire Departmentcancels its ordinary non-firefighting routines. The SantaAna caused Malibu to burn the way it did in 1957, Bel Airin 1961, and Santa Barbara in 1964. In the winter of 1966-67 eleven men were killed fighting a Santa Ana fire thatspread through the San Gabriel Mountains.

Last season, the ferocious wildfires of fall 2007 destroyedthousands of homes, forced one of the largestevacuations in state history, and are expected to havelasting social and economic impacts. More than 6,000acres burned in San Diego County alone, as 175-kilometer per hour Santa Ana winds fanned flames acrossOrange and San Diego Counties. One person died andseveral others were injured in the hasty evacuation thatensued.

A group of researchers at Chapman University’sWilkinson College of Social Science and Humanitiesbecame interested in the long-term effects of the disaster.Communications scholars Lisa Sparks and JenniferBevan, and political scientist Ann Gordon and I set out

to examine residents’ attitudes, interpersonalcommunications, and perceptions of risk in the wake ofthe fires. Working in the Ludie and David C. HenleySocial Science Research Laboratory in Wilkinson College,we collected survey data from Orange and San DiegoCounty residents in the months following the fires. Wewanted to learn why some residents were skeptical aboutgovernment action to reduce the risk of future wildfiresand why they were divided on such questions as limitingdevelopment in fire-prone areas and spending on fireprotection. We also wanted to know how the experienceof the fire might have affected their attitudes.

Suburban development has exacerbated the risk of firedamage in the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI). Thisrefers to the zone, mainly in Western states, where homesare constructed adjacent to vast tracts of flammablevegetation. During the 1990s, 61 percent of new housingin California, Washington and Oregon was constructedin this area.

As the risk of damage from wildfire increases, so does thecost to taxpayers. A report from the state legislativeanalyst estimated the annual cost of fighting wildfires inCalifornia rose from $408 million in 1997 to more than$1 billion in 2007. In an earlier era, when mostdevelopment was limited to the flatlands of coastal basinsand valleys, the cost of fire protection was low and simpleto calculate: it was a function of the number of housesconstructed. Increasing development in canyons andhillsides has multiplied that cost, since residences aresurrounded by explosive fuel, property values are higher,and fires are more difficult to fight in the WUI. In 2007,

Preparing for theNext Big Burn:How Risk Perception AffectsCalifornians’ Support forFire Prevention Policies

David Shafie, Assistant Professor of Political Science


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THOUGHTS: Preparing for theNext Big Burn

wildfires burned more than 42,000 acres of California, asharp increase over the five-year average of 30,000 acres.During the last decade, 7.24 million acres burnedannually, double what it was in the 1990s

The increasing cost of fighting fires suggests a need formore aggressive policy responses, such as theextraordinary step taken by Los Angeles County to banwood-shingle roofs on new houses in the 1980s. Asrapid growth drove more development onto hillsidesand canyons, governments have pondered a number ofpolicy instruments to reduce wildfire risk. The ability ofpublic agencies to effectively prepare for these regularand predictable disasters depends, in part, upon thelikelihood that individuals in a community will acceptpolicy interventions as necessary and reasonable. Mostof the alternatives regularlydebated involve taxexpenditures or some form ofrestriction on individualbehavior or private property.Therefore, the perceivedinstitutional legitimacy ofgovernment agencies affectsthe range of policy alternativesthat can be placed on the tablefor consideration.

Residents of the WUI generallyexpect firefighters to protecttheir property and look out fortheir safety. Residents may notbe able to take this for granted if the continued strain onresources forces local authorities to rethink thatarrangement. Rancho Santa Fe, a 5,000-homesubdivision in Northern San Diego County, isexperimenting with a “stay or go” policy, borrowed fromAustralia, which shifts responsibility to the propertyowner. Under the policy, homeowners must adhere to astrict fire prevention code and are required to stay in theirhomes during a fire rather than evacuate under dangerousconditions, but it stops short of forcing them toaid firefighters.

In Australia, where wildfire risk is greater and firefightingresources at the WUI are scarce, residents are trained tofight fires. As a matter of policy, residents are required toevacuate at the first sign of fire or stay and assist withfirefighting efforts. The policy has reduced the cost offighting fires in Australia, as well as the number of deathsand injuries from last-minute evacuations, as occurred inthe Cedar Fire in Northern San Diego County when a lateevacuation under hazardous conditions resulted in ninedeaths in 2003.

San Diego County notwithstanding, communities in theU.S. are not rushing to embrace a stay-or-go policy. Thereis a standard, narrow range of fuel managementapproaches that policymakers tend to actively consider,such as prescribed burning and defensible space

ordinances. These types ofalternatives were debated afterthe deadly fire season of 2007,but the scale of destructionforced some policymakers toseriously consider actions thatwould normally be considered“off the table.”

In the current legislativesession, California’s lawmakersintroduced a number ofproposals to try to limit orcontain wildfire risk, and fivebills made it out of committee.Senate Bill (SB) 1595 and

Assembly Bill (AB) 2859 require property owners tocreate defensible space around homes and communitiesas well as mandate the use of fire resistant buildingmaterials. These provisions also appear in an alternativeproposal, SB 1617, along with a requirement thathomeowners pay fees to fund fire prevention programs.Two stricter measures, AB 2447 and SB 1500, were morecontroversial. These two bills would strengthencommunity planning measures and place new limits ondevelopment in fire-prone areas. The bills would requirelocal governments to certify that they followed stateregulations on water pressure and road construction toaccommodate fire crews. New subdivisions proposed for

A report from the state legislative analyst estimated theannual cost of fighting wildfires in California rose from$408 million in 1997 to more than $1 billion in 2007.“ ”Volume 1 Number 2 • Fall/Winter 2008

Brush fire in Yorba Linda in November 2008.Photography by Mike Margol

[email protected]

high fire-risk areas would have to be certified by local fireauthorities to verify that adequate protection will beavailable. Finally, local governments would be prohibitedfrom approving dead-end subdivisions which lackalternative fire and evacuation routes. Not surprisingly,both bills are opposed by the California Chamber ofCommerce and local governments, and supported byfirefighters’ unions and the Sierra Club.

Designing policy solutions that the public will embracecan be a challenge partly because of public attitudestoward risk. Social psychologists have documented thetendency of experts, policymakers and the mass public tothink about risk differently. Experts focus on thequantitative aspects, such as the probability that an eventwill occur and the number of injuries and deaths, whilethe layperson is just as likely to consider qualitativeaspects, including past experiences, intuition and theirown ability to control the hazard. Policymakers may relyupon the best scientific information available, but theirsolutions might not be accepted if residents consistentlyunderestimate wildfire risk.

The capacity for government to deal with future wildfireseffectively depends upon institutional legitimacy, that is,popular support for public policies to reduce wildfire risk.Our survey of Orange and San Diego County residentsconducted after the wildfires identified some of thepsychological factors that explain whether people supportproposed government regulations to reduce wildfires.

Chief among these factors is risk perception. Someresidents are inclined see wildfires as inevitable asopposed to others who are more likely to see wildfires asnot inevitable at all, but rather the result of poor publicdecisions. Those who see wildfires as exacerbated bypoor public decisions are also more likely to see them asmanageable. Another factor influencing support forpublic policies is trust. Overall, social trust is on thedecline, with successive generations of Americans lesslikely to consider others “trustworthy.” This hasimplications for public problems such as fire riskmitigation because people favor public spending on apolicy problem when trust in government is high.Individuals tend to favor government intervention if theyperceive the risk as “public,” meaning that the actions ofothers contribute to the severity of the risk.

The question of trust has implications for wildfiremanagement because political trust is related to thewillingness of residents to accept government action tosolve public problems. Research by the U.S. ForestService has found that individuals with lower levels ofknowledge rely more upon trust when judging wildfirerisks and the benefits of fire prevention strategies. Sincethese low-information voters have as much say as thosewith higher levels of knowledge, it is as important forgovernment officials to build trust as it is to educateresidents about wildfire risk.

Residents with high levels of trust are more likely to agreethat government should engage in all types of policies toreduce fire risk. These residents are more likely to agreewith a variety of policy alternatives, including education,improving land management, fireproofing requirements,restrictive building codes, more restrictive zoning,tougher fire safety laws, investments in firefightingequipment, preventative burning and encouragingproperty owners to take more responsibility forfire prevention.

One interesting pattern is that ethnic communities withinSouthern California showed different levels of trust.Asians displayed the highest level of political trust.Whites showed a significantly lower level of trust thandid Asians, and Hispanic residents had a slightly lowerlevel of trust than Whites (too few African Americansappeared in the sample for us to make generalizations).These differences add support to the notion that there arecommunities within communities where policymakersshould concentrate their efforts to build support forvarious fire management strategies.

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A brush fire rapidly approaches houses below.

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Despite these patterns, it turns out that trust has arelatively weak effect on support for fire preventionpolicies, compared to risk perception. A high level oftrust is associated with support for just two alternatives:providing more information about fire safety andimproved land management. When trust is high, people

tend to favor both forms of action. Those exhibiting ahigh level of trust in government support the provisionof more fire safety information and programs forimproving land management; however, their support forother policy alternatives is not significantly different fromthose whose trust is low.

Besides showing higher levels of political trust, Asian-Americans are significantly more likely to supportgovernment policies to reduce fire risk. Asians are morelikely to agree that individual property owners shouldtake more responsibility for fire safety, and thathomeowners should be required to fireproof theirproperty; further, Asians are more likely to supporttougher fire safety laws and favor investments infirefighting equipment. Hispanics were more likely tooppose all nine policy alternatives, but the differencewith non-Hispanic whites was insignificant.

Risk perception is a larger factor than trust. Those whoview development as responsible for wildfire risk aremore likely to support several policy options. The issuesof trust, personal experience and ethnicity aside, thosewho believe that wildfire risk is manageable supportpolicies to provide more information, to improve landmanagement, and to increase individual responsibility,fireproofing requirements, stricter building codes andmore restrictive zoning.



Personal experience with wildfire is another significantfactor predicting support for government action.Residents who evacuated were more likely to supporttwo of the most sweeping and coercive policy alternatives(tougher fire safety laws and more restrictive zoning).Those who evacuated were also more likely to agree withstatements that emphasized individual actions(fireproofing requirements for private property andindividuals taking more responsibility for fire safety). Asexpected, all four relationships were in the direction offavoring (rather than opposing) increased governmentaction; however, there was significant variety in the typesof policies they favored.

Another way to gauge personal experience with fire is tomeasure the emotional impact of the ordeal. However, inour study, emotional immediacy explained very littleabout the respondents’ policy preferences. While asignificant number of residents reported feeling scared,anxious, depressed and confused during the crisis, thesemeasures of emotional impact were related only to theview that individual property owners should take moreresponsibility for fire safety.

Personal experience with wildfire did not matter the waywe thought it would. Residents who evacuated weremuch more open to government action to reduce firerisk, but our measure of the emotional immediacy failedto explain their support for most policies. These resultsof our survey, so far, are consistent with prior researchthat found opinions about fire management vary by raceand ethnicity. The implication is that there arecommunities in which authorities need to concentratetheir efforts.

As public officials consider policy alternatives to reducethe damage from wildfires and the cost of fighting them,it is instructive to determine why some residents aremore likely to embrace government action than others.Risk perception is the variable that best predictsinstitutional legitimacy, or in other words, thegovernment’s right and duty to act to protect citizensfrom wild fires. Residents who believe that damage fromwildfires is manageable—as opposed to inevitable—were more likely to support most of the regulatorypolicy alternatives presented to them in the survey.

This seems to support the notion that educating thepublic about wildfire risk as a consequence ofdevelopment decisions offers the best prospects forpolicy change.

Roadside fire during the Yorba Linda fire in November 2008.Photography by Mike Margol - [email protected]

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he period of Joseph Conrad’s great works began in 1897 and ended in 1911 (with the publication

ofUnder Western Eyes) – late-Victorian, early-20th-century Great Britain was a very differentplace from 21st century Orange County, California. Born in 1857 of Polish parents in what is

now the Ukraine, Conrad was christened Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, and he was a szlachcic,or member of the Polish nobility. English was his third language, after Polish and French. Before he

became a novelist, half his working life was spent on the sea as a sailor, mate and ship’s captain. So

Conrad’s background and distinctive use of English, and the profound difference between his contemporary

audience and today’s audience, create complexities that many readers today would prefer to avoid.

WhyConrad(Still)

MattersRichard Ruppel, Professor of English

T


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THOUGHTS: Why Conrad(Still) Matters

My students remind me of this every semester1.

Yet of all the British novelists from what literary criticscall the period of “High Modernism” – D.H. Lawrence,Ford Madox Ford, Dorothy Richardson, Virginia Woolf,and James Joyce – Conrad is the most contemporary.The best evidence of this is the number of his storiesand novels adapted for film. The Internet MovieDatabase (IMDb) lists 56 films based on Conrad’s work– from Victory (1919), based on Conrad’s 1915 novel, toApocalypse Oz (2006), a conflation of The Wizard of Ozand Apocalypse Now. The best known (and best) ofthese films is the originalApocalypse Now (1979), abrilliant adaptation ofConrad’s Heart of Darkness.Orson Welles directed CitizenKane only after failing to writea successful screenplay ofHeart of Darkness, and AlfredHitchcock based his Sabotageon Conrad’s The Secret Agent.

Filmmakers are drawn toConrad because of thecinematic approach he oftentook to his material. (Themurder scene in The SecretAgent presents one stunningexample, from the shadow ofthe plunging knife to the accelerating drip of thevictim’s blood.) But as a literary and cultural critic, myown appreciation for his contemporary value derivesfrom the way he anticipated the 20th and 21stcenturies. His vision was uncannily prophetic.

Heart of Darkness, the first great anti-colonial novel,presents the best known and most obvious example.Marlow, the protagonist, takes a job as a steamboatcaptain on an unnamed African river in an unnamedcolony. Conrad’s contemporaries would immediatelyhave recognized the Congo River and the BelgianCongo, but Conrad eliminated references tonationalities and place names to ensure his complexstory condemned all imperial adventures, not just thoseof the Belgians. Marlow, the story’s narrator (andConrad’s imperfect surrogate), praises Britain’s imperial

past, but then quietly undercuts all imperial conquests,noting that the Romans, whom British imperialistslooked to as their glorious model, “were conquerors,and for that you want only brute force – nothing toboast of, when you have it, since your strength is just anaccident arising from the weakness of others.” As anexpatriate Pole, Conrad worked hard to avoidantagonizing his British hosts directly, but when he hasMarlow belittle the Romans, we can detect Conrad’scriticism of Great Britain and its imperial conquests andambitions. He adds “The conquest of the earth, whichmostly means the taking it away from those who have

a different complexionor slightly flatter nosesthan ourselves, is not apretty thing when youlook into it too much”(495).

Marlow has been hiredto captain a steamboaton the Congo River,and he passes throughthe colonial capital onhis way from London tothe Central Station(now Kinshasa) and hiscommand. Along theway, he sees some of theAfricans (forced to work

for the Belgians in what is now Matadi) crawl off to diein a grove of trees; Conrad’s description of this Grove ofDeath has come to symbolize the injustice and sufferingendemic to all imperial conquests. In 1975, ChinuaAchebe, who wrote the great postcolonial novel ThingsFall Apart (1959), complained that Heart of Darkness is“racist” and should no longer be taught because of itsdehumanizing representations of Africans – some ofwhom are cannibals, who seldom speak for themselves,and who communicate via “grunts.” But this criticism– which provoked a renaissance in Conrad studies – hasbeen successfully addressed by hosts of Conradscholars: European, American and African. Achebe’sown Things Fall Apart itself was influenced by Heart ofDarkness and other Conrad fiction.

1 Since I began teaching at Chapman in 2006, I’ve been privileged and challenged to teach the novels andstories of Joseph Conrad three different semesters, to graduate and senior undergraduate students. I’ve readand written about his work for nearly a quarter century, so my biggest problem is to read with fresh eyes andto anticipate the multiple and formidable difficulties my students must face.

Dr. Ruppel with his painting of The Joseph Conrad, a trainingship launched in 1882, renamed in 1934 and now anchored in

Mystic, Connecticut.


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Heart of Darkness continues to sensitize students to thepitfalls of direct, imperial meddling in other cultures,but Nostromo (1904) anticipates the evils of indirect,economic imperialism. In fact, Nostromo is the firstgreat post-colonial novel. At its heart is a lucrativeSouth American silver mine in “Costaguana” (aconflation of Chile, Argentina, Costa Rica and severalother South American countries). One postcolonialpower, Great Britain, oversees the construction ofCostaguana’s railroads, and another, the United States,is represented by a wealthy financier, based on AndrewCarnegie and other of the so-called robber barons.Holroyd, the financier, is an Evangelical Christian whoendows churches, using his financial empire to promotehis sect. We see his missionaries at work in Costaguanaat the end of the novel. (In this way, Holroydanticipates the founder of Domino’s Pizza, TomMonaghan, who has used his fortune to promoteCatholicism both in the United States and in South andCentral America.) But the novel focuses less onHolroyd the philanthropic evangelist than on Holroydthe imperial financier. In this latter role, Holroydprophesizes with uncanny accuracy about America’sfuture as a dominant economic power:

We [Americans] can sit and watch [the economicdevelopment of Costaguana and elsewhere]. Ofcourse, some day we shall step in. We are boundto. But there's no hurry. Time itself has got towait on the greatest country in the whole ofGod's Universe. We shall be giving the word foreverything: industry, trade, law, journalism, art,politics, and religion, from Cape Horn clear overto Smith's Sound, and beyond, too, if anythingworth taking hold of turns up at the North Pole.And then we shall have the leisure to take inhand the outlying islands and continents of theearth. We shall run the world's business whetherthe world likes it or not. The world can't helpit—and neither can we, I guess. (94-95)

Holroyd is the main financial backer of the silver mine,working from his offices in San Francisco. The silvermine, which draws the world to Costaguana, corruptsnearly every important character and poisons the life ofthe novel’s one incorruptible figure. Nostromo thereforeanticipates how, in a postcolonial world, former imperialpowers could continue to corrupt and exploit theirformer colonies economically and politically.

Though Conrad himself exhibited some anti-Semitism2,his depiction of the torture and death of a Jewish hidemerchant in Nostromo eerily anticipated the Holocaustand other horrors of the 20th century. In an absolutelyharrowing scene, an army colonel believes the Jewishmerchant, Hirsch, knows where a treasure is buried, sohe ties his hands behind his back and another ropearound his wrists, throws the rope over a roof beam,and has him lifted off the ground. “Speak, thou Jewishchild of the devil! The silver! The silver, I say! Whereis it? Where have you foreign rogues hidden it? Confessor—” When the colonel begins to whip the hangingman, Hirsch finally lifts his head and spits on historturer, provoking the colonel to kill him (375). Inthis scene and elsewhere in Nostromo, Conradanticipates the systematic torture and murdercommitted by army officers and despots in the 20thcentury on nearly every continent.

In 1906 Conrad published “An Anarchist,” a short storynow known only to a handful of Conrad scholars, butin it he anticipates the consumer society of the late-20th, early-21st century, and especially the plague ofadvertising. Here, as in Nostromo, the world isincreasingly ruled by ruthless, internationalcorporations. The story’s “anarchist” is really just an

2 See my “Lord Jim’s Marlow & the French Lieutenant: Mapping Conrad’s Ethnocentrism.” L'EpoqueConradienne, 1990. Societe Conradienne Francaise: 79-86.



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ill-used, hapless French mechanic caught up in a phonyanarchist plot. The real “anarchists” are the capitalistswhose wealth puts them beyond national laws andother restraints. The narrator is a faintly ridiculouslepidopterist who spends time collecting his butterflieson an island off the coast of South America. The islandis owned by the BOS Ltd., an international producer ofsynthetic foods. Here is the narrator’s description ofthe corporation and its advertising scheme:

B.O.S. Bos. You have seen the three magic letterson the advertisement pages of magazines andnewspapers, in the windows of provisionmerchants, and on calendars for next year youreceive by post in the month of November. Theyscatter pamphlets also, written in a sicklyenthusiastic style . . . . The “art” illustrating that“literature” represents in vivid and shiningcolours a large and enraged black bull stampingupon a yellow snake writhing in emerald-greengrass, with a cobalt-blue sky for a background. Itis atrocious and it is an allegory. The snakesymbolizes disease, weakness--perhaps merehunger, which last is the chronic disease of themajority of mankind. Of course everybody knowsthe B. O. S. Ltd., with its unrivalled products:Vinobos, Jellybos, and the latest unequalledperfection, Tribos, whose nourishment is offeredto you not only highly concentrated, but alreadyhalf digested. Such apparently is the love thatLimited Company bears to its fellowmen--even asthe love of the father and mother penguin fortheir hungry fledglings.

Of course the capital of a country must beproductively employed. I have nothing to sayagainst the company. But being myself animatedby feelings of affection towards my fellow-men, Iam saddened by the modern system ofadvertising. Whatever evidence it offers ofenterprise, ingenuity, impudence, and resource incertain individuals, it proves to my mind the wideprevalence of that form of mental degradationwhich is called gullibility. (406)

Though written in the opening years of the 20th century,“An Anarchist” uncannily predicted the explosivegrowth of advertising and its effects, effects that includewhat the narrator in the story calls our increased“gullibility” and, I would add, our bland acceptance thatthe titles “citizen” and “consumer” are equivalent.

The Secret Agent includes Conrad’s most unsettlingprophesies. In it, Vladimir, a highly ranked member ofthe embassy of a Central European power (usuallyidentified as Russia) pays a double agent to perpetratea terrorist outrage against Great Britain. Vladimir wantsthe British to feel threatened by anarchists and otherradicals so they will renounce their own civil libertiesand begin jailing radicals before they act. Perhaps, onecharacter suggests, the British will begin violating theirconstitutional principles and have the radicals “shot atsight like mad dogs” (76) by the police. Vladimirsettles on the Greenwich Observatory, the great symbolof scientific rationality, as the perfect target. Because itrepresents science, and because the British believescience undergirds their economic prosperity, thedestruction of the Observatory will inspire people withthe necessary terror and insecurity. In the novel, the


Original work by Benjamin Ruppel and Ryan Tolentino ’02

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secret agent fails to topple the Observatory, but theparallels between the terrorist attack envisioned byVladimir and the attacks on the World Trade Center,and the immediate consequences of that attack,are inescapable.

In the same novel, a frustrated scientist nicknamed TheProfessor leaves academia and spends the rest of his lifemaking bombs to be used against the social order, asocial order he finds complacent and corrupt. ThoughVerloc, the phony anarchist employed by the embassy,is killed in the novel, the Professor lives on. Here is thelast paragraph:

And the incorruptible Professor walked [on],averting his eyes from the odious multitude ofmankind. He had no future. He disdained it. Hewas a force. His thoughts caressed the images ofruin and destruction. He walked frail,insignificant, shabby, miserable—and terrible inthe simplicity of his idea calling madness anddespair to the regeneration of the world. Nobodylooked at him. He passed on unsuspected anddeadly, like a pest in the street full of men. (246)

Conrad’s nightmarish vision in The Secret Agent of amodern culture capable of alienating, so completely,certain individuals within it, seemed almost to foretellthe creation of a Unabomber.

The Secret Agent is Ted Kaczynski’s favorite book.


Works CitedConrad, Joseph. “An Anarchist.” Harper’s Magazine, August 1906: 406-416.--- “Heart of Darkness.” The Portable Conrad, ed. Morton Dauwen Zabel. New York: Viking Penguin, 1975.--- Nostromo. Martin Seymour-Smith, ed. London: Penguin, 1983.--- The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale. Michael Newton, ed. New York: Penguin, 2007.


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PEOPLE: Alumni Updates


ilkinson Review sat down with 2005graduate Jessica Cho to learn how herWilkinson education in ourinterdisciplinary major in Peace Studies

informed her service as a Peace Corps volunteer inJordan. Jessica exemplifies our Wilkinson motto:Passion for Knowledge. Commitment to the World. Weare very proud of Jessica and know that you’ll enjoyreading about how she has taken her Wilkinsoneducation into the world.

What led to your decision to join the Peace Corps?I graduated from Chapman in 2005 and then moved toWashington DC. I found a job working for lobbyists at anassociation, but realized I wanted something morechallenging and rewarding. After nine months ofworking 60-70 hour weeks it, was clear that I needed tomove in a different direction. Peace Corps offered me theopportunity to serve abroad and gain important jobexperience. After the Iraq war I became more and moreinterested in the Middle East, and the role of the US inthe area. I knew that becoming a volunteer in Jordanwould satisfy both my need for experience abroad andmy desire to create a better understanding between Arabsand Americans.

Describe the work that you did in Jordan.What one or two events, incidents, etc., did you findmost fulfilling?My first year was slow, learning Arabic and trying toconvince my new community of my reasons for leavinga “life of luxury” in America. I began tutoring girls intheir final year of high school. In Jordan, students mustpass a rigorous exam to get into university. This examincludes a difficult English portion that many girls inrural communities often fail, ruining their chances forhigher education. I tutored 2 girls in English and test-taking strategy for a semester before their exams. Bothgirls passed their exam, and seeing the pride in theirparents’ faces, all of whom didn’t finish high school, wasmy first truly fulfilling experience.

In my second year I worked with three other volunteersto start Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) inJordan. Camp GLOW aimed to offer economicallychallenged, rural girls the opportunity to leave home andparticipate in a five-night camp focusing onempowerment and leadership. This camp was the firsttime that many of these girls had met other talented andambitious young women outside their own villages. Itwas also their first opportunity to do somethingcompletely independent of their families. With CampGLOW we tried to create an “anything is possible”environment where girls could not only dream big, butfocus pragmatically on how to achieve their dreams. Bythe end of camp it was apparent that girls left with a newsense of confidence about their futures. Camp GLOWwas a wonderful way to end my service as it gave mehope for the future of young women from rural areas inthe Middle East.

An Interview withPeace Studies Major Jessica Cho

The Treasury, Petra

View of Amman from First Circle

W

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PEOPLE: Alumni Updates

What aspects of Jordan do you feel are least understoodby US citizens?Living in a secular country it is extremely difficult forAmericans to truly understand how deeply religion istied to every part of society. While Jordan is a fairly liberalcountry, Muslims must still adhere to Islamic law.Religion is a portion of college entrance exams and aperson can be jailed for breaking fast in public duringRamadan. I feel many Americans, including myself priorto living in Jordan, don’t understand why people don’tjust change their circumstances. As Americans we oftentake for granted how free we really are. Because religionand culture are one and the same in Jordan, especiallyrural Jordan, people are tied to their circumstances.Change comes slowly in the third world, unlike the ofteninstant gratification we get in the west.

Any other observations that you might wish to makeabout the experience?When I found out I was going to be an English teacherat a girls high school, I thought, “no problem.” I figuredMuslim girls born and raised in small villages withIslamic values would surely make for quiet disciplinedstudents. To my surprise I found that teen-aged girls areteen-aged girls all over the world. They terrorized theirteachers the same way my friends and I did, and brokethe rules whenever possible. While it made for an utterlyimpossible classroom, it was refreshing in a way. Oftenreligion and politics focus so much on differences thatwe lose sight of humanity. As global citizens we mustconstantly remind ourselvesthat people are ultimately verysimilar despite their religiousor political beliefs.

What are your plans for the future?I would like to go to graduate school in the next fiveyears. In the meantime, I hope to work in the Middle Eastpolicy arena, specifically in areas of communication. Ithink living in a rural Muslim village for two years hasgiven me a unique perspective on how we as Americanscan better understand the Middle East and vice versa.


Camp GLOW at Jordan University of Science and TechnologyNymphaeum Fountain, Jerash

Ancient Roman Ruins, Jerash

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In the liberal arts, we take pride in educating studentswho can, throughout their lives, think critically andanalytically about issues that they will face asknowledgeable citizens and professionals. Becoming aknowledgeable thinker requires not only grounding inthe key disciplines that make up our majors, but alsothe educational experience of doing such independentthinking. One of the ways in which we prepare ourstudents in becoming such thinkers is throughundergraduate student research. While independentscholarly research comes to mind in association withgraduate school, in recent years, it has become clearthat also enabling undergraduate students to doresearch adds value to their baccalaureate educationand better prepares them for graduate education andfor success in work.

Ludie and David C. Henley Social SciencesResearch LaboratoryOur faculty members work with students inundergraduate research across the disciplines. Forexample, work may take the form of preparing a paperfor presentation at a national meeting of a studenthonors society, such as Sigma Tau Delta, the honorssociety for English, or a student panel presentation ata professional meeting such as the American PoliticalScience Association. In the case of the social sciences,undergraduate research is based on the collection andanalysis of empirical data, that is, concreteobservations that are gathered and systematicallyanalyzed. We are very fortunate to have the Ludie andDavid C. Henley Social Science Research Laboratory,made possible by a gift from trustee David C. Henleyand his wife Ludie. Specialized computer software inthe laboratory makes possible collection of datathrough surveys, analysis of data from a number oflarge data banks, and the analysis of both qualitativeand quantitative data to answer research questions.

The “Henley Lab” provides a valuable resource forfaculty work and faculty collaborative work withstudents, and a number of our students have gainedthe skills to design their own research projects. Ofcourse we provide guidance, advice and critical review,but we are exceptionally pleased in watching ourstudents excel in their endeavors, as they did onseveral occasions in the past year highlighted below.

7th Annual Hawaii InternationalConference on Social SciencesSeven sophomores accompanied Dr. Ann Gordon,associate professor of political science, to the 7thAnnual Hawaii International Conference on SocialSciences in Honolulu. Each student presented her ownresearch completed in the Ludie and David C. HenleySocial Sciences Research Laboratory. The presentationswere so well received that the Chapman students werefrequently asked by faculty and researchers attendingthe conference if their research was part of a doctoralprogram, the questioners were amazed to learn thatsuch sophisticated work could be conducted at theundergraduate level.

• Laryn Finnegan ’10“Electing a Woman President: Underlying CoreValues in Voter Assessment and Gender Stereotypes”

• Abigail Stecker ’10“America’s Seal of Approval: Social and DemographicComponents to Perceptions of the Presidency”

• Erika Gonzalez ’10“You Are What You Watch!: Gender Differences onthe Effects of Mass Media on Civic Engagement(Voting), Knowledge, and Governmental Trust”

• Lauren Pont ’10“Got Faith?: How Religion and Religiosity AffectPartisanship and Political Behavior”


WRITINGS: Undergraduate Research

UndergraduateStudent Research

Abigail Stecker ’10

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2008 Phi Alpha Theta History HonorsSociety Southern CaliforniaRegional ConferenceTwenty-three Chapman history majors presentedpapers and served as panel commentators at theconference hosted by Chapman’s chapter of Phi AlphaTheta, the national History Honors Society. For thesecond straight year in a row, Chapman history majorsmentored by Professor Lee Estes won the top awardsat the conference. Students Sarah Kuiken and ElsaLindstrom won first and second places in theundergraduate history paper competition, written aspart of their senior history theses. Faculty andstudents from Chapman successfully organized thelargest regional conference to date, drawing 149student presenters and commentators, and facultyadvisors from 21 regional Phi Alpha Theta chapters toChapman’s campus.

• Sarah Kuiken ’08“Breeches and the Softer Sex, Gender and Seafaringin Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Britain”

• Elsa Lindstrom ’08“A Capponi Family Transaction: A Study of Lenders,Collateral and Interest in Sixteenth-CenturyFlorence”

• Jonathan Cohen ’10“The Semantic Migration of Language”

35th Annual Western UndergraduateResearch Conference at SantaClara UniversityUnder the direction of sociology department chair Dr.Tekle Woldemikael, several sociology studentspresented research papers during the 35th AnnualWestern Departments of Anthropology and SociologyUndergraduate Research Conference at SantaClara University.

• Amberia Allen ’08“Perceptions of African American Women in Rapand Hip Hop Music Videos”

• Michaela D. Brown ’08“Sibling Influence on the Socialization of TraditionalGender Roles”

• Joshua Kaplan-Lyman ’08“The Cultural and Social Implications of FineDining”



Elsa Lindstrom ’08, Dr. Lee Este, Sarah Kuiken ’08

Amberia Allen ’08 and Michaela D. Brown ’08

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Pacific Sociological AssociationAnnual Meeting 2008Two sociology students were selected to present at thePacific Sociological Association Annual Conferenceheld in Portland, Oregon. The theme of the conferencewas “The Messiness of Human Social Life: Complexity,Contradiction, Tension & Ambiguity.”

• Janine Miller ’08“Discrimination and Stigma toward the Mentally Ill”

• Jessica Porquez ’08“Personal Transformation and Gang Disaffiliation forMexican American Males in Southern California”

Southern California Conference forUndergraduate ResearchDr. Lynn Horton, assistant professor of sociology,accompanied five students to the Southern CaliforniaConference for Undergraduate Research, held atCalifornia State University, Los Angeles.

• Erin Turner ’08“Factors Influencing Southern California FaithCommunities to join the Sanctuary Movement”

• Sooji Han ’07“An Exploration of Science Professors’ Views andAttitudes Towards the Teaching of Evolution andIntelligent Design in College Science Courses”

Dean Roberta Lessor, Alison Rosenberger ’10, Erika Gonzalez ’10, Laryn Finnegan ’10, Trustee David C. Henley,Lauren Pont ’10, Michaela Dalton ’10, Dana Watters ’10, Dr. Ann Gordon

Communication StudiesEnglishHistoryLanguagesPeace Studies ProgramPhilosophyPolitical Science

Religious StudiesSociologyThe Albert SchweitzerInstituteThe Rodgers Center forHolocaust Education

Departments and Programs

www.chapman.edu/wcls

Wilkinson EventsCheck http://www.chapman.edu/wcls/upcomingEvents.asp for up-to-date listings

Printed on recycled paper

To become a supporter of Wilkinson College ofHumanities and Social Sciences, please contact:

Ken FerroneOffice of University Advancement

Chapman UniversityOne University Drive

Orange, CA 92866(714) 997-6841

[email protected]

SPRING 2009February 16 Dr. Michael Berenbaum, Holocaust

Scholar and Author“Victims’ Time/Perpetrators’ Time:The Lives of Jews and the Policies ofNazi Germany”

February 16 Francesca Duranti, AuthorJohn Fowles Center Lecture Series

February 23 Giuseppe Conte, AuthorJohn Fowles Center Lecture Series

March 9 Tony Ardizzone, AuthorJohn Fowles Center Lecture Series

March 30 Dacia Maraini, AuthorJohn Fowles Center Lecture Series

April 13 Giorgio Pressburger, AuthorJohn Fowles Center Lecture Series

April 21 An Evening ofHolocaust RemembranceRodgers Center for HolocaustEducation

April 27 Pasquale Verdicchio, AuthorJohn Fowles Center Lecture Series

FALL 2008September 23 Dr. Debórah Dwork, Holocaust

Scholar and Author“Music, Luck and the History ofMariánka Zadikow and HerTerezin Album”

September 23 Dr. Robert Fisk, Journalist“The Age of the Warrior”

October 14 Ilan Ziv, Israeli FilmmakerWest Coast premiere of“Jesus Politics”

October 20 Rigoberta Menchú, Noble PeacePrize Recipient“Human Rights and the Strugglefor Peace”

October 24 Bill McKibben, Environmentalistand Writer“The Most Important Number onEarth: Dealing with GlobalWarming Before It’s Too Late”

October 27 Doug Cooney, Playwright,Screenwriter and Novelist

November 18 Saul Friedländer, PulitzerPrize-Winning Author andHolocaust Historian“The Voice of the Witness in theHistory of the Shoah”

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