I woke up, and my shoulder was sore. Not sore—throbbing. A deep ache in the muscle where they’d injected the medication yesterday. Or was it this morning? Time moves strangely here. Above me, I could hear Thomas breathing. He was already awake. He’s always awake before me, which he mentions constantly, as if being awake […]
Hard work is constantly redefined at Harvard as the student body perpetually sets new milestones, surmounts challenges, and beats records once thought impossible. The vein of ambition running through our Cambridge campus confirms that many students undoubtedly have even more personal, extravagant, and demanding targets for the new year. Whether this looks like taking on […]
In a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney ’87 proclaimed that the “old order is not coming back.” In the face of President Donald Trump’s consistent challenges to multilateralism, trade threats to allies, and the more recent open questioning of European sovereignty—as it pertains to Greenland—truer words […]
The Salient was founded in 1981 in pursuit of truth and to restore Harvard’s tradition of thoughtful, balanced discourse. Over the past months, the Salient has strayed from that purpose. The forefathers of conservatism, from Edmund Burke to Abraham Lincoln, understood that the moral equality of all human beings must underpin any discussion of their […]
Every semester, the Harvard Independent holds a meeting with our Graduate Board—a group of alumni from the newspaper who provide guidance, support, and help steer Indy operations. This fall marked my seventh one, and last as Editor-in-Chief. The feeling I experienced during those three hours, surrounded by the leaders who have inspired me to dedicate […]
As November swiftly passes and December takes her place, the coming of the new year awaits me. Every year, I vow to make one significant change in my life, with promises like cutting out sugar, exercising daily, stopping myself from procrastinating on assignments until four hours before they are due, and, finally, addressing the wounds […]
Full from Thanksgiving’s feast, Harvard students return to campus in early December ready for a palate cleanser. Only three days of classes stand between us and reading period, which arrives just in time for relaxation, preparation for finals, and a moment of pause from the academic feast we’ve consumed. But what if reading period were […]
“Why do I love this place / That’s never loved me?” These are the opening lines from “No Place Like Home,” a song written by composer Stephen Schwartz for the box-office triumph: “Wicked: For Good.” For many, it was just another song in the movie, but for me, it resonated on a much deeper level. […]
Let there be no mistake: Claudine Gay made mistakes. Her 2023 Congressional hearing on antisemitism was, by all intents and purposes, a catastrophe, and her subsequent plagiarism scandal, though more accurately described, in my view, as a political witch hunt, was a low point for the University. That much we can all agree on. Billionaires […]
Conquest used to be geographic. Power was measured in acreage and borders—how many people you could uproot or how many maps you could redraw. For centuries, empires expanded outward: seizing land, minerals, bodies, and entire cultures. Colonialism was an economic project disguised as destiny. Europe treated the world as inventory: gold in the Caribbean, rubber […]