Inquiry
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.
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.
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?
This Pride Month, Postmates Wants You to Eat with Shame
Postmates, the food delivery app owned by Uber, announced "The Bottom-Friendly Menu" in 2022 Pride Month campaign. Though the project was conceptualized team of BGLTQ employees, it fails to scrutinize the terms we use for ourselves.
Unlearning Inquiry Image
A photo of Katherine's laptop as she opens "Is it Me? Making Sense of Your Confusing Marriage: A Christian Woman’s Guide to Hidden Emotional and Spiritual Abuse," by Natalie Hoffman.
A Story of Unlearning
People wanted to hear the story of a white, conservative, evangelical woman from the South publicly endorsing vaccines, especially in the wake of a global pandemic that could be put to rest if those millions of “crazy evangelicals” just got the vaccine. But this, I soon realize, is not the story that matters most — at least, not to Katherine.
A Form of Hesitation
What happens when the lost object speaks; when, given these material and psychic limitations, we do try to express our malaise? What forms exist to communicate and grapple with Asian Americans’ public and private racial grief and outrage?
We're Really Not That Nice
Finally, one of them broke the heavy silence and asked me, in all seriousness, “Do you not have racism in Canada?”
Ever Nestled
Do other people still snuggle with their parents? Is that normal? I decide to talk to some people, maybe find some answers. I start by talking with the experts: professional cuddlers.
A Diversified Debauchery
Final clubs were made for white men. Now, people of color — who were never supposed to step through their gates at all — are carving out communities inside them. They’re drinking their alcohol and smoking their cigars. They’re reveling in these spaces, instrumentalizing the white men’s mansions for pure fun.
