Chicago Journal

The future of feminism
At a Gender Studies conference on feminism, a generational dialogue surfaces.
Who knew that the Disney/ Pixar animated film Finding Nemo could be viewed as a “model of queer time”? University of California, San Diego, literature and cultural-studies professor Judith Halberstam thinks so. In her analytical reading the character Dory (voiced by lesbian celebrity Ellen Degeneres), a blue tang suffering from short-term memory loss who helps clown fish Marlin search for his son Nemo, is missing female traits common in movies: she “doesn’t desire Marlin” and “doesn’t mother Nemo.” And her memory loss, Halberstam argues, signifies the gay community’s split from the past—when Nemo’s mother dies, “memory dies with her.”
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Benefits burden
Amid graduate-student protests over skyrocketing health-care costs, the University has decided to adopt a committee’s recommendation that Chicago continue to contract with the Boston-based Chickering Group for its student insurance. The Provost’s Office, meanwhile, is exploring ways to lessen the plan’s financial burden on students.
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The world seen through Kristol
The ’90s ended on September 11, 2001,” says William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard. Addressing a packed Social Sciences lecture hall February 18, Kristol offers a conservative take on how the American foreign-policy debate has changed since the terrorist attacks.
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College Report
Rough ride for student rags
It’s been a turbulent year for student-run publications, with a new journal forming and old ones struggling to stay in print. Campus newspapers have faced a second round of hard times, after financial troubles in 2002–03. The Maroon, suffering low ad revenues, shrunk its per-issue page count from 20 to 12 and terminated its quarterly literary issue, the Chicago Literary Review. The Maroon’s 9-year-old rival, the Chicago Weekly News, ceased publication for a quarter in October 2002, returning the next January as the Chicago Weekly—eight pages surrounding alternative paper Newcity, published by Brian J. Hieggelke, AB’83, MBA’84, and Jan Hieggelke, AB’85.
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