Justine French
| Justine Allen French | |
| Noted subjects | Science, Literature, Mathematics, Krasznahorkai, Fine Arts, Generalism |
| Current college | UCLA (2018–) |
| High school | Crystal Springs Uplands School (2014-18) |
| Stats | HDWhite • NAQT |
Justine Allen French is a player at UCLA. Earlier, they attended Crystal Springs Uplands School.
Though a strong player, they are particularly notable for their public avowal of many controversial stances about quizbowl, and for their dogged promotion of authors László Krasznahorkai and Juan Rulfo.
Career
High school
As lead scorer on Crystal Springs, Justine placed 7th at 2018 NSC and t-12 at HSNCT. They also competed on the 2017 and 2018 NASAT teams that placed 4th and 3rd respectively.
College
Shortly after starting at UCLA, Justine immediately gained notoriety for their emphasis that quizbowl should be exclusively on "real knowledge" and shunning the concept of carding. Their advocacy for aspects of world literature and art outside of the quizbowl canon motivated the distribution of RULFO.
In 2019, they mistakenly repeated a clue about lifting the fundamental group of the circle to a helix to prove isomorphism to the integers between their packet submission to 2019 ACF Nationals and their work for Lederberg 3, leading to UCLA receiving no packet discount.
While writing for 2019 NASAT, Justine included a tossup on Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo. Besides being an outlier in difficulty, the choice of answerline was considered a poor choice due to Justine's role in promoting awareness of Rulfo via meme.[1][2][3]
More recently, they have become well known for their staunch opposition to ACF's packet submission requirement.
Writing
Justine wrote for 2019 NASAT, Lederberg 3, 2019 ACF Fall, as well as the side event RULFO.
They also head-edited CALISTO and SATURNALIA.
- ↑ "i wrote the pedro paramo tossup early in production and then a few months later when i realized it was a terrible idea i left a few comments on qems regarding difficulty and meme-ness but they got buried"
- ↑ "that being said i think that if youve become someone known for posting about a specific thing you have to accept that youve barred yourself from being able to write about it"
- ↑ "the association between him and rulfo is particularly strong, and is gonna make pedro paramo come quicker to mind to people who know about his posting habits and that he was a writer for the set"