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Inquiry

Dying Lotus
Inquiry

Dying Lotus

I don’t want my sexuality to be socially meaningful or my pleasure to be politically important. That feels so laborious.

Sidechat Inquiry
Inquiry

Sidechat Inquiry

It’s easy to focus on scooters and mascots, easy to ignore the conflict simmering below the surface of certain posts as you scroll, and scroll, and scroll.

Dying Lotus
Editors' Choice

To Revel in An Asian Body

As I reflected on my own relationship to racial fetishization, I discovered that it was overwhelmingly forged through ambiguity: ambiguous interactions, ambiguous responses, and ambiguous feelings. The instances that prompted my immediate, visceral disgust felt secondary to the instances that left me uncertain, on the precipice of being shoved into a tired cultural script but clinging to the hope that I’d hold my ground.

Sidechat Inquiry
Inquiry

Why Sidechat Matters

Sidechat allows us to imagine an institution more socially coherent than the insular circles we traverse daily.

Trap Music Photo
Inquiry

Trap On Trial

Still, several questions remain unanswered: Do the supposed “traps” of trap music outweigh its value? Can you evaluate the “right” way to musically reconcile with injustice? How should Black Americans communicate exasperation and emergency and unrest?

Harvard and Me Introspection
Editors' Choice

Harvard and Me

I was the only person I knew of coming to Harvard from South Africa, and, in turn, I was to everyone in South Africa the only person they knew going to Harvard — which is to say, I became Harvard.

Paulson Cover
Inquiry

Paulson Cover

Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences is named for John A. Paulson, a Business School graduate who donated $400 million to the University in 2015.

Sad Girl Design
Introspection

A Pathetic Aesthetic

The aestheticization — dare I say fetishization — of female pain reaffirms the conditions that made girls sad in the first place. Simply put, the Sad Girl reeks of complacency.

Mayi Inquiry Design
Editors' Choice

In Defense of Colleen Hoover: Intellectual Snobbery at Harvard

My shame of being found reading Colleen Hoover stemmed from a culture of intellectual snobbery — feeling superior and prideful about the type of culture you consume. It’s the person who prides themselves on their knowledge of “classical” literature, listing off the last names of authors such as John Milton, Charles Dickens, and Jane Austen as if they are family friends.

Mediocrity graphic
Inquiry

Mediocrity graphic

Mediocrity graphic
Introspection

Learning to Fail

Is it vulnerable or honest about the reality of being at this school? Or is it playing to an aesthetic standard of what a Harvard student is supposed to be: personality, friendships, and academic success, all in one? These performances feed into a perception, however misguided, of students at Harvard and other elite universities as universally capable and flawless super-students, without even the possibility of failure.

Mayi Inquiry Design
Inquiry

Mayi Inquiry Design

My shame of being found reading Colleen Hoover stemmed from a culture of intellectual snobbery – feeling superior and prideful about the type of culture you consume.

Zadie Smith 1
Introspection

Zadie Smith 1

Before I saw Harvard through my own eyes, I saw it through Zadie Smith’s.

Zadie Smith 2
Introspection

Zadie Smith 2

Zadie Smith 2
Introspection

Zadie Smith Saw This Coming

Yet as I read “On Beauty,” her wonder of a 2005 novel, I couldn’t shake the one central mystery it posed: does Harvard by any other name sound as sweet?

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