Sports are often idealized as a great unifier, existing in a vacuum away from the noise of politics and the stressors of everyday life. To an extent, I agree. There is something sacred about turning on the television or going outside with a ball in hand to escape the seemingly collapsing world around us. That […]
On March 10, the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum at the Harvard Kennedy School hosted a conversation with former Deputy U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East Morgan Ortagus, moderated by Institute of Politics Interim Co-Director Ned Price and Harvard Undergraduate Iranian Association President Bahar Moradi ’27. The discussion centered on the Trump administration’s recent […]
The ash was under my left thumbnail when I woke. I noticed it before I noticed anything else—before the grey light coming through the curtain, before the cold, before the particular silence of early morning that the building produced when it was trying to pass as uninhabited. I lay still and held my hand up […]
In February 1998, Tony Benn, then over 40 years into his career as a Member of Parliament, rose in the House of Commons and delivered a legendary speech in opposition to the proposed bombing of Iraq. His words that day left no shortage of memorable lines: one in particular has never left me. “Are not […]
The weeks accumulated like dust on the library’s upper shelves—fine at first, then enough to blur the edge of the wood, dulling the days until it was unclear where one ended, and the next began. At first, I had mistaken this for stability—an order upheld gently by schedule and certainty, the comforting tyranny of bells […]
“Where are you from?” I gave my answer, as one does, and they looked at me, confused. I looked back at them, also confused (I was only a child; I hadn’t realised that this was a canonical “living while Black” moment). Like two dueling cowboys who both missed their first shot, we stood feet from […]
The ward was quieter than it should have been. Not silent—the ward was never silent, there were always pipes rumbling in the walls, footsteps somewhere above and the low moaning of a man three doors down who had not stopped since Tuesday—but the particular stillness of Edward’s bunk sat in the room like a new […]
I had been watching her for six days. This was not unusual. I watch most things. But I had been watching her with a specificity that surprised me—the way she replaced books on the shelves, for instance, running two fingers along the spine before releasing it, as though verifying it was properly returned. The angle […]
Professor Hendricks didn’t introduce himself in the usual way. He walked into the lecture hall five minutes past ten, late enough that all but the last few students had taken their seats, yet early enough that none had debated leaving. He strode down the aisle, a gauche gait with a limp in his left leg—noticeable […]
The train moved north through grey morning light, steady enough that the countryside seemed to glide rather than pass. Fields, hedgerows, and the occasional cluster of sheep standing in the drizzle as if waiting for instruction. I had a book open on my lap, but I wasn’t reading. At some point, the page turned, yet […]