Meet Our Residents, Diplomats and Afghan Women’s Rights, Scientists Influencing Arms Control, and More

This week on Inkstick Media.

Hello everyone!

The Creative Capsule Residency has officially completed its first year! Molly Hurley, a community artist currently studying at Maryland Institute College of Art and a columnist for The Mixed-Up Files of Inkstick Media, interviewed our Creative Capsule Year One residents. Dr. Chantell Murphy, a rock-climbing nuclear nonproliferation expert and filmmaker, used the eight-month residency to understand a personal quandary about the links between the outdoor community and nuclear weapons. Whit Montgomery, a satire-loving portrait artist, spent his residency creating Alpine Meadows, a fictional nuclear dystopia. And journalist Terrell Jermaine Starr reported on Ukrainian nuclear trauma, using his position as a Black journalist in a very anti-Black field to better understand the human implications of Russia’s war on Ukraine. 

For two years now, Taliban authorities have denied women and girls their rights in Afghanistan. Heather Barr of Human Rights Watch argues that when it comes to women’s rights in Afghanistan, it feels like the world’s diplomats have been on vacation every day of that time.  

Have you ever wondered what the Manhattan Project’s scientists thought about nuclear weapons and power? Dr. John Emery (assistant professor of international security in the Department of International and Area Studies at the University of Oklahoma) and Anna Pluff (a New Voices in Nuclear Weapons Fellow at the Federation of American Scientists) explained the important role that scientists played in influencing policy and how their activism drew serious attention to arms control. Can the scientists of today do the same?

There’s more, so check out the rest of the pieces below.

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This week on Inkstick Media:

“‘This Is Humiliating’ India Hides Its Poor for the G20 New Delhi Summit” by Zenaira Bakhsh (September 11)

Zenaira Bakhsh, a journalist who covers gender, human rights, and culture in India, reported that during the G20, India’s internal disparity was more apparent than ever. In the past few months, the Indian government has spent 41 billion rupees, just under $500 million, to give the country’s capital a facelift, installing millions of flowers, murals, lights, plastering the roads with billboards featuring Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and adding the green curtains in an attempt to hide the poor.

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“What the World Needs to Do For Afghan Women” by Heather Barr (September 11)

The UN Human Rights Council will be convening for a month from now until October. Barr lays out a roadmap for what world diplomats can do to support women and girls under Taliban rule.

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“Making Art in Ukraine During War” by Terrell Jermaine Starr (September 12)

Everyone has their own way of coping with the trauma of war here in Ukraine, especially artists in Zaporizhzhia, as the city lives under the constant threat of missile strikes. Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant is a few hours away from the city and is occupied by Russian troops who have reportedly mined the facility. 

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“Meet Whit Montgomery, a World-Building, Satire-Loving Portrait Artist, and Creative Capsule Year One Resident” by Molly Hurley (September 12)

When asked how he came up with with nuclear dystopia of “Alpine Meadow,” Montgomery said, “I love the idea of “a town from any state,” like the town of Springfield from The Simpsons. Although I didn’t have a specific intent in the original creation of Alpine Meadows for its location, I did take a lot of inspiration from Colorado. That was because of tensions I perceived between things like its lax gun laws with its beautiful landscapes. There was also an aspect of the history of being on the ‘frontier’ in some way and how we romanticize cowboy movies in Western culture. This stands in direct contrast with the reality of colonization of that land, the gold rush, the fixation on making money and stealing from the land that has itself been stolen. It really spurred this sense of Americana for me. But although Colorado serves as my primary inspiration for Alpine Meadows, I do want it to be an “every town” type of town.”

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“Meet Terrell J. Starr, a Black Journalist in Ukraine and Creative Capsule Year One Resident Who Believes Reporters Can Have Feelings, Too” by Molly Hurley (September 13)

When asked if he ever felt pressure as the Black reporter and the assumed voice of the Black opinion for the region, Starr said yes, and explained, “Black refugees were fleeing the country and facing incredible racism. And people asked me, “Why aren’t you covering this!?” With my virality, I suddenly had a level of attention I wasn’t used to. And in that, some questioned my devotion to Black people because I wasn’t at the border. It hurt. I was busy learning how to be a correspondent in active combat, facing issues vastly different from migration issues, and even if I tried to go to the border it’d take me at least four or five days. Navigating Ukraine at that time was a logistical nightmare!”

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“Something Coherent: Part I” by Kelsey D. Atherton (September 14)

Kelsey D. Atherton, a defense technology journalist, looked at research that examines white supremacists and jihadists. The research finds that while the history of violent extremism has long had cross-pollination in tools and tactics, the post-9/11 and especially mid-2010s adoption of language and ideology could pose a unique risk.

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“Manhattan Project Scientists Believed the Way We Get Out Alive is World Government” by John Emery and Anna Pluff (September 14)

While not all the scientists who worked on the atomic bomb might have believed in international control, many of them seriously considered the political implications of their work, allowing scientists to exert influence on the highest echelons of policy briefly.

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“What is the Role of the US in Confronting Climate Change in the Middle East?” by Sam Fouad (September 15)

By recognizing the realities of multipolarity and the increasing danger of climate change, the US can play a significant role in the Middle East and recuperate some of its lost goodwill before other nations, including China, completely dominate the green energy space.

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–From the desk of Sahar Khan, managing editor of Inkstick Media.