Some of my first memories of giving, or rather receiving, are of my grandfather giving me candy. My grandfather always pulls treasures out of his droopy pants, wide and concealing like a magician’s cloth. Under this cloth hides his shockingly thin body, as well as the timeline of the rather ritualistic candy distribution, always managing to
CategoryUncategorized
15 Possible Beginnings for my Autobiography
My character, Erick, opens the bathroom door but his bathroom is gone. Instead, he finds an exact replica of his bathroom. He immediately steps out, back into the real world. A cartographer drew such a loyal map of the city that the map was the size of the city. Had Erick been living in the
How To Actively Be Anti-Racist: A Resource List
The summer of 2020 was marked by the resurgence of a social and political activist movement, known as Black Lives Matter. The protests, which spanned across the globe, were sparked by the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and Jacob Black as a result of police brutality. With COVID-19 affecting social interaction and
A Campaign for Uyghur Scholars at Risk
This semester, the Critical Human Rights and Humanitarian Advocacy class in partnership with Scholars at Risk and taught by Prof. Dr. Kerry Bystrom, worked on designing an advocacy campaign to support detained and disappeared Uyghur scholars in the Xinjiang Autonomous region in China. The campaign consisted of the production of this short film and a
Monet’s Summer
I stand before a summer day. Softer, warmer, brighter than the day I’m in. Monet’s vertical canvas, the object of my looking, dissolves, and I am left in space itself. Nature can be this for the mind, a tabula rasa. Hm… I’m not frightened by the vastness, the entrance is not a jolt or a
See No Evil: Turning the blind eye to hunger in the UK
In the West, food insecurity and hunger are seen as other peoples’ problems. Parents chide their children for not clearing their plates, and lecture them about starving youth in distant, non-Western countries. When holidays like Christmas roll around, schools and workplaces hold fundraisers to provide villages or camps with food supplies for the next few
On Mourning and Criticising Ruth Bader Ginsburg
To celebrate my eleventh birthday (which at the time I thought was an exceptionally important age), I convinced my parents to take me to the beautiful city of Jaipur in India. It was my first time visiting the Pink City and I was taken aback by its sheer grandeur. The city is full of architectural
Angel
This story is part of our Summer Fiction Month 2020. Click here to view the stories featured this Fiction Month, as well as past fiction pieces. One morning in late spring, when only the earliest risers of the orchard were awake, a car was found crashed into the milky river that surrounded the town. The man