Mariam Aiyad On April 9, 2015, the University of Cape Town removed a statue of Cecil Rhodes from its campus. Since then, the debate about the need to “decolonize academia” has flooded the international scene. Student movements at the University of Cape Town and the University of Oxford, under the hashtag #RhodesMustFall, used their demands for the removal of statues of the British colonialist from … Continue reading On Decolonizing Academia
Alexandra Bowman I enjoyed the Cats movie. I am wildly aware that an admission like that could get me banned from polite society. So I’ll add a “but.” I enjoyed the Cats movie, but my soul retains enough humanity and light to admit that it was not a good movie. For a year now, I have been attempting to pin down, in a literary and … Continue reading T.S. Eliot Told You So
Devinie Lye-Ukwattage Ivory Tower: “an impractical often escapist attitude marked by aloof lack of concern with or interest in practical matters or urgent problems” The term Ivory Tower has an unusually long history. Dating back to antiquity, the phrase has been associated with everything from saints and poets to giant white buildings (surprise!). Today, the Ivory Tower is a metaphor that describes an unaffordable, inherently … Continue reading Steering Past “The Ivory Tower”
Joseph Scariano In February of 2020, Brown Medical School reported a declining rate of suicide among queer youth over the past two decades in Massachussets. While this study was limited to one state, it offered a look at a promising future where national queer youth suicide rates do not outpace their heterosexual peers. This hope was short-lived. Following the onset of COVID-19 and the mass … Continue reading Quarantined in the Closet: The Effects of the Pandemic on Queer Youth
Loren Galesi This Covid year has made me feel closer to the past. More exactly, it’s made me feel like I have a better chance of getting close to an unfamiliar past. The strange months dividing my old and new normals have made me more aware of my distance from history, from all past lives and past normals. Any doubt I might have had that … Continue reading Making History in a Covid Haze
John Ramming Chappell Nearly two decades after 9/11, a consensus has emerged: the United States needs to end its forever wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. This month, a bipartisan group of senators introduced a bill to repeal the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), the sweeping legislation that authorized the War on Terror. Legislators have also proposed bills to repeal the 2002 … Continue reading Forgetting the Forever Wars
The Footnote 