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Last Wednesday’s “In the News” event at the College brought Anita Dunn, a longtime Democratic political strategist and communications advisor who served in the Obama and Biden administrations, and Bob Bauer, an attorney and former White House Counsel who served in the Obama administration and as President Biden’s personal attorney and senior advisor, to campus for a conversation that, at first glance, seemed rooted in the past with talk of campaigns, presidencies, and institutional norms. But as the discussion unfolded, it became clear that the most urgent takeaway wasn’t about what has already happened in American politics. It was about what’s coming next and whether voters are prepared for it.

Bauer began by outlining a distinction that feels increasingly fragile: the tension between political power and legal independence. He emphasized that “nobody (Democrat, Republican, conservative, liberal) would want the Department of Justice to be under political control and direction… that independence, professional independence… ought to be what people expect.” It’s a principle that sounds obvious, almost foundational, yet was one he suggested has been steadily eroding. Congress, he noted, could take steps to reinforce that independence, but realism tempers urgency. Reform may be necessary, but it won’t be immediate.

That same tension (between what should be and what is) carried into their discussion of elections. Drawing on years of experience, Bauer described his work building bipartisan efforts to defend election systems from partisan interference. At its core, he argued, “central to our democracy is the operation of a professionally administered, partial, electoral process that’s open to all eligible voters… free from political interference and pressure.”

Dunn, meanwhile, grounded the issue in access. Voting, she emphasized, is still too difficult in too many places. “It should absolutely be easier to vote,” she said, pointing to practical fixes like expanding mail-in voting or increasing polling locations, changes that feel obvious, yet remain politically fraught.

When I asked about artificial intelligence and whether it makes media literacy as essential as understanding the Constitution or the concept of voting itself, Dunn responded, “I think AI is moving so much more quickly than the political process… and I actually think media literacy is something that is critically important and becoming even more important because of AI.” She explained that many voters are stepping away from traditional news. “There are a number of voters in this country who… I call them news avoiders, because, simply, they don’t want to follow the news right now,” she said. “Increasingly, they’re turning to AI… to help them make decisions about who to vote for.”

That shift is subtle, but its implications are not. When information is filtered through AI, the challenge is no longer just finding reliable sources, it’s understanding how that information is being delivered. The line between information and interpretation begins to blur. And without the ability to question what we’re seeing, it becomes easier to accept it at face value.

Dunn pointed to a problem that already defines the current media environment: “misinformation, disinformation, just no information.” She suggested that AI could accelerate all three, not because the technology is inherently flawed, but because the systems meant to regulate or respond to it are moving at a much slower pace. Politics, as both speakers emphasized throughout the night, is often reactive. AI is not.

What stayed with audience members after the event wasn’t just the speakers’ analysis of elections or executive power, but an underlying disconnect: while institutions struggle to adapt, the information landscape is transforming in real time. And that transformation is quietly reshaping how people participate in democracy.

There’s an assumption, especially on college campuses, that civic engagement means showing up, voting, organizing, and asking questions. And it does. But what this conversation made clear is that showing up isn’t enough if we don’t understand what we’re engaging with. Media literacy, once treated as a secondary skill, now feels central to it.

If voters are increasingly relying on AI to tell them what matters, then the ability to think critically about that information isn’t just useful. It’s necessary.

By the end of the night, Dunn and Bauer reprised a familiar call: stay engaged, stay involved, vote. But they said something more, even if it wasn’t framed as directly: pay attention to how you know what you know. In this moment, that might be the most important civic skill of all.

 

 

~ Mia Dinunzio `28

“The history of fiction is the history of technologies of the mind,” novelist Bruce Holsinger told an audience at Ostrove Auditorium last week. Holsinger visited Colby to discuss his latest book, Culpability, and its intersection with modern ethical dilemmas. The event was sponsored by the Davis AI Institute and featured a discussion between Holsinger, Associate Professor of Computer Science Stacey Doore, and Associate Professor of English Megan Cook. The lecture focused on how narrative forms can probe the moral indifference of machines and the shifting nature of human responsibility.

Holsinger began by addressing the specific ways that artificial intelligence complicates traditional storytelling. He noted that the novel has always been a tool for exploring internal consciousness, but the arrival of generative systems introduces a non-human agent into the creative process. Holsinger explained that he did not set out to write a book about technology, yet his encounter with autonomous vehicles in early 2023 shifted his focus. He observed that the unpredictability of these systems provides a new platform for dramatic tension. By placing a family in a car controlled by an algorithm, Holsinger forces his readers to question who holds responsibility when a machine fails to prevent a catastrophe.

The discussion highlighted the technical research required to ground fiction in reality. Holsinger spent months studying autonomous systems, digital forensics, and legal discourse to ensure the stakes of his narrative felt authentic. He argued that fiction allows for a type of “now-future realism” that avoids the tropes of speculative dystopias. Instead of imagining a distant robot uprising, Holsinger looks at how current devices already reshape family dynamics and moral choices. He noted that contemporary technology often acts as a mirror, exacerbating existing issues within human relationships rather than creating entirely new problems.

Doore and Cook guided the conversation toward the technical and philosophical limits of machine agency. They discussed the danger of “anthropomorphizing software”, a tendency that Holsinger finds both narratively useful and intellectually misleading. Holsinger argued that humans often project compassion and care onto chatbots that are fundamentally indifferent to their users. He suggested that the true super intelligence of modern systems might lie in their ability to disguise this coldness through flattery and “false or mimicked empathy.” This gap between the appearance of personality and the reality of code creates a good ground for writers to explore the boundaries of what it means to be a person.

Responding to a question about whether a machine can truly experience empathy, Holsinger clarified his stance on the internal life of algorithms. “Complete moral indifference on the part of these machines to anything about us is already there,” Holsinger said. He explained that large language models are trained to mimic human emotion to build a rapport with users. This simulation creates a self-reflexive loop where the user provides the emotional weight while the machine only reflects a statistical probability of the correct response. Holsinger noted that this dynamic is psychopathic because it operates without any genuine regard for human well-being or shared social values.

Answering another question regarding the role of the author in an age of automated text, Holsinger addressed the future of the literary profession. The question was if generative models might eventually produce work that carries the same cultural weight as a human-authored novel. Holsinger replied that while a machine can generate coherent prose, it lacks the lived experience required to imbue that prose with authentic meaning. “A machine doesn’t have a body, it doesn’t have ancestors, it doesn’t have a stake in the world,” he stated. He maintained that the value of literature comes from the specific, finite perspective of a human writer who faces real consequences for their words.

Holsinger concluded by emphasizing that the humanities are essential for navigating the current technological transition. He urged students and faculty to engage in interdisciplinary dialogue to address concerns about governance and alignment. He stated that fiction remains one of the most effective ways to stage thought experiments about the future because it centers on character rather than just technical capability.

 

 

~ Stephen Owusu Badu `27

For about an hour this past Friday night, Page Commons was transformed into a drag club by the Curbside Queens. Organized by The Bridge, the College’s LGBTQIA+ student-run club catering to the queer community, this year’s Spring Drag Show was full of color, noise, dance, and unabashed queer joy. 

The event was very well-attended. Gigi Gabor, one of the founders of the Curbside Queens, described the audience as “one of the biggest crowds [she’s] seen at Colby.” Gabor has been working with the College to organize a drag show every semester for six years.

It’s impossible to pinpoint exactly why this Spring Drag Show drew such a crowd, but its advertising was certainly unique. Posters for the show featured a close-up photograph of Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, the main characters of the Canadian television series Heated Rivalry, staring intensely into one another’s eyes. Text on the poster read “come to the cottage,” referring to a pivotal moment in the show.

Laila Clarke `26, President of The Bridge, credits the club’s sponsor Nathan Baird with the Heated Rivalry theme idea. “Nathan Baird is really obsessed with Heated Rivalry,” Clarke said. “He asked if I wanted a theme for the drag show…and he was like, ‘what if we do a Heated Rivalry one?’…I personally haven’t seen the show yet…but he seemed really passionate about it and it was really popular and it just felt like a relevant theme.” 

Incorporating the theme into the show was a task the Curbside Queens took on readily. Gabor and another performer, Chartreuse Money, opened with a reenactment of Hollander and Rozanov’s relationship arc to the tunes “What is This Feeling” and “Popular” from the Broadway musical Wicked, and later on in the show a burlesque dancer performed a striptease in full hockey garb. Picking hockey equipment off the stage after the opening act, Gabor playfully commented “ew, sports…so butch.”

Clarke described their experience working with the queens: “They’re always really professional, really friendly, super helpful…I had never handled running a drag show before this year, but…they made it as easy as possible.” These rave reviews check out—they are New England’s #1 traveling drag show, after all.

Not only did the show feature talented professionals, but it also included two student performances. Nicholas Srunn `29 was the only student to do a solo act, performing as drag persona Phnom Penhetration (named after the capital of Cambodia). They shed light on the confidence demonstrated onstage, explaining “I kind of exuded the personality of Phnom Penhetration rather than Nick Srunn, which is like…being able to be a different person in a sense.”

Lachlan Klaes `28 choreographed and danced in the other student performance, along with five other students. He went into it feeling nervous as he had just been in the ER the day before, but he was still able to dance with energy and confidence. He was proud of his group and said, “I watched a recording after the fact and I was like…we actually ate up and the audience loved it. It was just very heartwarming to see how well we all did together.”

According to the students I spoke with, being queer at the College has its challenges. Clarke explained, “Since my time as a freshman, I feel that it’s been quite isolating to be queer here.” They have found it difficult to find space to embrace both queerness and their racial identity. “I didn’t really feel like there was a welcoming queer space that was welcoming for everyone. It felt very white…sometimes here I feel like I have to put on my race hat or my queer identity hat and I can’t really think about both at the same time.”

Even within “gay” spaces at the College, Klaes has struggled to feel entirely at home as someone who inhabits multiple queer identities. “For the gay spaces that you can find on campus, it’s very much gay and not queer…anything that’s more flexible is kind of pushed on the outside. Especially for trans people, it’s really hard to find a space within those gay spaces.”

Feelings of isolation and repression were a common theme among their reflections on the queer experience at the College. Referring to markers of queer identity, Klaes expressed that “it kind of feels like the environment of Colby asks you to not exhibit that.” Srunn, describing how their relationship with their queerness has changed since arriving here, shared that “it feels like I am more detached from it at Colby because of how I’m not able to express myself or how I’m not able to interact with people who share the identity.”

Drag shows provide spaces in which big, brazen expressions of queerness are celebrated. Having that kind of space is incredibly important to these students. Srunn was surprised at how emotional the experience was.

 “I actually almost started crying at the drag show because I was like, damn, I love gay people so much. I love how we’re able to just be,” they said. “I think it’s really beautiful, like, just seeing that we can be gay or be queer or be trans…and have everyone love that instead of it being something you’re afraid of being.”

 

 

~ Anna Izquierdo `29

Graham Platner, a U.S. Senate candidate, spoke with students during a recent virtual town hall. He answered questions on housing, student debt, gun policy, and rebuilding trust in government. The following is a condensed and lightly edited excerpt from the Q&A session.

Student: I want to stay in Maine after graduation, but I’m worried that I’m not going to be able to afford to live here. What are you going to do if elected related to the housing affordability crisis here in Maine?

Platner: We need to build more housing. Maine is tens of thousands of units short, and we’re simply not building enough. Part of the problem is that we don’t treat housing as a human right. Instead, it’s often used as a way to extract wealth through rent or investment. I think we need federal investment to expand housing, including rebuilding Maine’s aging housing stock. That could create jobs while making homes more livable and energy efficient. We should also expand programs like low-interest loans so first-time homebuyers can actually afford to buy homes, because in many cases, mortgages are cheaper than rent.

Student: The extreme cost of higher education and the debt that follows us after graduation — what is your position on student debt forgiveness?

Platner: I fully support it. Federal student debt should be discharged. But beyond that, we need to restructure education so future generations aren’t put in the same position. Education is a public good, and we should move toward free public education, from childcare through higher education and trade schools.

Student: Could you talk about your policy related to gun control?

Platner: I support universal background checks and red flag laws that restrict access to firearms for people with a history of violence or signs of future harm. I say that as someone who grew up around guns and still uses them. Beyond that, we need to address the root causes of gun violence, including poverty and lack of access to mental healthcare.

Student: Cities like Lewiston and Portland have become sites of both resettlement and political tension. How should federal policy respond to rapid demographic change?

Platner: We need a functional immigration system. That means more resources, more courts, and a clear pathway to citizenship. People are going to come to the United States, and we should allow them to do so legally and contribute to society. A lot of tension comes from economic insecurity, and addressing that, by investing in communities, can reduce those conflicts.

Student: What are you going to do to rebuild trust in the U.S. government, globally and at home?

Platner: We need systemic change. It’s not about messaging, it’s about actually changing how government operates. Internationally, that means reducing reliance on militarism, respecting international institutions, and addressing corporate power. Domestically, trust will only come if people feel the government is working for them rather than for corporations.

Student: What’s a book you would recommend to everyone on this Zoom?

Platner: No Shortcuts by Jane McAlevey. It’s about labor organizing, but it really applies to any kind of community organizing. It changed how I think about power and politics.

Student: Best snack on the campaign trail?

Platner: Sour Patch Kids. I eat way too many of them.

Student: I have friends who say they’re going to vote, but won’t volunteer. What can I do?

Platner: You just keep asking. Organizing requires persistence. At the same time, make it enjoyable, start with something social or low-pressure and build from there. If people have a good experience, they’re more likely to stay involved.

 

 

~ Sophia Ikiri `29