From: De Volkskrant (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Volkskrant Science Editor Maarten Keulemans explains [translated from the original in Dutch] why so many girls are screaming for boy bands like One Direction: “Evolutionary biologists like Geoffrey Miller (famous for his book The Mating Mind) and David Buss (The Evolution of Human Mating) believe that boy bands are young men showcasing their fitness by dancing and singing, much as male birds attract mates… [Others believe that] for girls at the beginning of puberty, a boy band [allows them] to experiment with romantic love, without sex…
“Researchers Tim Kasser and Yuna Engle from Knox College in Illinois wrote in the Journal of Adolescent Research that… the worship of boy bands is a ‘rite of passage for adolescents [that] involves important matters, as young women develop their value systems and interpersonal relationships’…” Read more…
From: Business of Cinema (Mumbai, India)
Bollywood’s first-ever zom-com, or zombie comedy, ‘Go Goa Gone’ is all set to hit theatres this weekend [opening May 10 in India]. And [2002 Knox grad] Vir Das revealed that he loved doing improv while shooting ‘Go Goa Gone’.
“All credit to my directors Raj and DK who allowed me to go all the way,” said Vir. “I want to do things differently and based on my act on stage, I know that 9 out of 10 times it would work for a film as well. I am an actor who loves to improvise and one thing that I love most is to deliver my lines differently.”…
“When I came to India, there was no audience for stand-up comedians. Still, I managed to create some market for that. Now same holds good for a zomcom like ‘Go Goa Gone’….” Read more…
Update on opening day coverage… Times of India: ” Vir Das and Kunal Khemu are hilarious characters and share perfect comic chemistry.” … Koimoi Inside Bollywood: “an unabashedly crazy film with Vir Das and Kunal Khemu delivering super performances.”
From: PsychCentral (Newburyport, MA)
For many young adults, there is a ‘Fantasy Gap’ between expectations grounded in materialism and a commitment to work ethic, according to “new research by San Diego State University psychologist Dr. Jean M. Twenge [and] Dr. Tim Kasser, a professor of psychology at Knox College in Illinois.
“Recent high school graduates are more likely to want lots of money and nice things, but less likely to say they’re willing to work hard to earn them,” said Twenge. “That type of ‘fantasy gap’ is consistent with other studies showing a generational increase in narcissism and entitlement.”…
It is important to understand the generational relationship between money (materialism) and work ethic because mental health issues such as depression and anxiety often surface as adolescents begin placing a strong priority on money and possessions, Kasser said… Read more…
From: Humanities (National Endowment for the Humanities, Washington, DC)
American poetry has seldom promised a path to fame and fortune. One lively exception was the work of Carl Sandburg, who achieved a celebrity before his death in 1967 that seemed more typical of a Hollywood screen legend or a Hall of Fame athlete… But since his death, Sandburg’s stock has fallen… Along with frequent striving to please the popular culture’s broad middle, a more radical strain of thought provided an alternating impulse in Sandburg’s poetry, sometimes giving his poetry an edge that pushed prevailing social conventions…
“Sandburg has to be viewed as a political writer, someone who was very much concerned with politics and social issues,” said Jeffrey A. Douglas, director of the Henry M. Seymour Library at Knox College, where some items from Sandburg’s literary career are archived… Read more…
From: Hindustan Times (New Delhi, India)
In Chandigarh [India] to play Banta in the upcoming Hindi film, Santa Banta, Vir [Das] gets talking about taking respite in comedy and turning jokes with double meaning into a heavy dose of humour.
Born in Dehradun and raised in Africa, Vir’s father is a farmer, mother a wildlife enthusiast and sister was a documentary maker. Finding Nigera unsafe to live in, Vir went to the US, where he started pursuing a degree in economics from Knox College, Illinois. “One day, I took an acting class and my mentor told me to do theatre instead of economics. For four years continuously, I did theatre, mostly dark roles. Since these were turning me insane, I started doing stand-up comedy as almost a rebellion,” he says… Read more…
From: WGIL (Galesburg, IL)
At Knox College Monday night, John Agnew , a leading scholar on nationalism and immigration, spoke on global immigration trends. A distinguished professor of geography at UCLA, he spoke about building a framework to think about the current debate on immigration policy, and that three percent of the global population is living outside their country of birth… Read more…
