Dear Readers, With the Commencement Issue—and the final Indy Thursday of the semester—approaching, it felt only right to reflect on the past five months in this extraordinary, challenging role. I’ve loved to write for as long as I can remember. Something goes right? Pick up the pencil. Something goes wrong? Open the Google Doc. Writing […]
A man opposite the bunk had been talking since before dawn. Not to anyone. The words came out of him in a low, steady pour, the way water comes out of a tap left slightly open—not enough pressure to arc, only enough to run. He was talking about a horse. He had been talking about […]
I met with Professor Sarah Lewis ’01 over Zoom, anxiously prepared to make the most of the 45 minutes I’d managed to secure in her busy schedule. Sitting in her History of Art and Architecture class, “Unseen Black Art,” last semester, always left me with a lasting impression of her attention to detail—evident in her […]
“It’s one thing to be looked at, and another to be seen.” These words come from Caleb Azumah Nelson’s “Open Water” and speak to a question I’ve found myself grappling with this semester. What does it mean to be seen? I have a running bit with some of my close friends where, if we spot […]
Every Housing Day, Harvard College witnesses a wide array of emotions from first-year students. After receiving news of their future dormitories from upperclassmen, some leap for joy, while others break down crying. This disparity often arises from one location in particular: the Radcliffe Quadrangle, affectionately known as the “Quad,” not the River. Located on or […]
The ward is quiet this morning. Rain on the window and the sound of it has the same sound it had that week, and I am writing this at the desk by the window, and my wrists are light against the wood where the ties have been loosened for the hour they are loosened. I […]
Science, politics, and economics all say nuclear energy is the key to a clean future. The source currently accounts for just 18.6% of total electricity generation in the United States, despite capacity (the construction of new plants) remaining relatively steady since 1990. The semi-forgotten clean energy source has received minimal investments over the past 30 […]
“Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard / Are sweeter.” In “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” John Keats, an English Romantic poet, addresses an ancient urn and imagines the scenes depicted upon it, including a “Bold Lover” who can never kiss his beloved, forever poised at the edge of fulfillment. Yet he is told not […]
“You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. […]
“Paradise is not easy to reach,” said Nonna Manu. From the ridge upon which her house sat, I could see the white rooftops of Lipari spilling down the island’s green hills and into the sea, where the port and the “Laurana,” the ship that my travel companions and I had just arrived on, were nestled. […]