The Oberlin Review

Audience members were encouraged to move between the socially-distanced performers during “Sila: The Breath of the World” last Friday.

Tappan Square Becomes Stage for “Sila: The Breath of the World”

September 16, 2020

Live music is yet another quintessential Oberlin experience complicated by the pandemic. But creativity and social-distancing prevailed last Friday when Oberlin Conservatory students took to the unusual stage of Tappan Square to perform “Sila: The Breath of the World” by John Luther Adams. The experience was comparable to an installation in an art gallery. The musicians were spread across the grass and in between trees, radiating outward from the center of the square. Many audience members...

Short-form digital Postcards are among the ways artists can share their work with older adults through InterACTS.

interACTS Supports Elders and Artists Alike

September 11, 2020

As older adults face isolation, a new community initiative is working to bring the vibrant local arts scene to their homes. The Oberlin Center for the Arts has launched interACTS, a program that virtually connects elders across Northeast Ohio with art and stories from their community. interACTS is the result of a partnership between OCA and the Oberlin-based production company StoryLens Pictures. As the program grows, the goal is to build a foundation for long-term connections between artist...

Jacey Davidson, Creator of Oberlin Overheard

September 11, 2020

Jacey Davidson, OC ’20, started the Instagram account @oberlinoverheard, or Oberheard, in 2018. Oberlin Overheard features short, droll quotes heard around campus that are submitted by Obies via Instagram direct message. Davidson, who majored in Creative Writing and Art History, remained anonymous while running the account until last March when she revealed herself as the organizer behind it. At the time of this article’s publication, the account has amassed 2,728 followers and has 464 posts. Dav...

Nina Fox, OC'19, stands with her art rental piece.

Art Rental Gets COVID-Safe Makeover

September 9, 2020

Even in the face of a global pandemic, the classic Oberlin tradition of Art Rental will continue this Saturday — but with some significant changes. The Oberlin Art Rental was founded in 1940, 80 years ago, by Professor of Modern Art Ellen Johnson, OC ’33. The program provides Obies with the opportunity to bring original art from the museum into their dorm rooms and is a major selling point for prospective students. “It was one of the main reasons I chose to come to Oberlin in the fir...

Chadwick Boseman smiles during an interview.

Chadwick Boseman and Becoming a Hero

September 4, 2020

The recent death of Black Panther’s Chadwick Boseman adds more pain to a year already marked by the collective grief of Black people. Just months ago, I wrote about the unexpected death of Kobe Bryant. Since then, the Black community has been rocked by the deaths of civil rights leaders, actors, musicians, and civilians from causes ranging from illness, such as COVID-19, to police violence. It surprised me that Boseman’s death hurt me as much as it did, but it makes sense. Despite us never havi...

The new maximum occupancy of the AMAM’s Stern Gallery is only seven people due to pandemic safety concerns.

COVID-19 Brings Challenges, Opportunities for AMAM

September 4, 2020

This year, the Allen Memorial Art Museum has restricted access to Oberlin College ID-holders. However, some of the changes brought on by COVID-19 have given the AMAM’s staff the time to work on virtual initiatives and programs which increase museum accessibility beyond the College. Since students were sent home in March, AMAM curators and leadership pivoted to online outreach and worked to innovate the museum’s role in a socially-distant world. This past June, the AMAM created a Spot...

Kyle Hartzell, “DIY as a Response to Change” Co-Instructor

September 4, 2020

Educational Technologist, Digital Media Engineer, and Lecturer Kyle Hartzell wears many hats at Oberlin College — he works in the Center for Information Technology and the Oberlin Center for Technologically Enhanced Teaching, as well as in both the Cinema Studies and Studio Art departments. He manages equipment and spaces, teaches workshops for student production, and is teaching a sound design class in Cinema Studies this semester. This August, he and Fabrication Lab Supervisor Rachel Smith led th...

Afrikan Heritage House faculty and residents hold an Umoja meeting over Zoom, as shown in the documentary

“Boxes Will Be Provided” Challenges Oberlin to Do More For Black Students

July 9, 2020

When the College moved to remote learning this past spring, students enrolled in the Historic and Contemporary Debates in African American Education course knew they had to document the experience. Their documentary Boxes Will Be Provided felt like a necessary step in recording the impact of COVID-19 on Black Obies. Director and editor DaQuan Williams, OC ’20, had very little experience in film-making prior to embarking on this project, which clocks in at roughly two and a half hours and invol...

College third-year Grace Smith takes a selfie with Queer Eye’s fashion expert Tan France while filming the show last summer.

On the Record: What It’s Like To Be On an Episode of Queer Eye

July 5, 2020

Editor’s note: Grace Smith has worked as a production editor for the Review, and was uninvolved with the editing of this interview. Smith is not working at the Review during the summer term. Rising College third-year Grace Smith recently appeared on the Netflix show Queer Eye in an episode centering her friend and fellow Sunrise Movement activist Abby Leedy. The episode was filmed in the summer of 2019 while Smith, Leedy, and other Sunrise fellows lived and worked together in Chancellor House...

SleepWalker’s 2020 Freshman List

Amari Newman and Quentin Zimbalist

July 3, 2020

We are SleepWalker Entertainment. Starting off in 2018 as a radio show on Oberlin College’s WOBC 91.5 FM dedicated to highlighting underground hip-hop and the community that surrounds it, we have expanded into the journalistic side of music, publishing various reviews, lists, and articles related to music. These have ranged from album of the year lists to interviews with different musicians who have performed at Oberlin including Suzi Analogue, VRITRA, Ethereal, NAPPYNAPPA, and SIR E.U. Right around this time last year we published our very first Freshman List, built off XXL magazine’s idea of highlighting artists relatively new to the rap game who gained a lot of attention in the past year. Seeing how XXL’s list seeme...

College fourth-year and Arts & Culture Editor Aly Fogel.

Arts & Culture: A Year in “Review”

May 25, 2020

Editor's note: This article appears as part of a series in which the Review's graduating editors reflect on how their sections have evolved, the biggest stories of the year, and their time at the paper as whole. The rest of this series can be found here. This year, the Arts & Culture section chronicled Oberlin’s lively and unique creative scene, surveying what matters to Obies from a thriving fall semester to an unexpectedly remote spring. Aly Fogel, a College fourth-year and English ...

College fourth-year and Production Manager Devyn Malouf.

Devyn Malouf, Production Manager

May 25, 2020

College fourth-year Devyn Malouf, a Psychology major, has served as The Oberlin Review’s production manager since 2019’s Commencement & Reunion Weekend. Malouf first began working as a production editor for the Review in the spring of 2018 and has seen the paper go through many changes. Production editors are responsible for copy editing and fact-checking contents, and as production manager it was her job to keep this process running smoothly. Malouf spoke with College third-year Ivy Fer...