2015 Spring Edition
My chest tightens, a shallowness of the breath follows and I find myself struggling to stand up straight for there is this gravitational pressure. My eyes widen and I wither into a memory.
Mirror Lake
By Sarah Muir
Tapping my toe
Lightly onto the water’s surface,
forming halos that swell
and stretch out into oblivion.
Her swollen feet slapped the pavement, purposely stomping down on unsuspecting dandelions...
Orthodox Homophobia: Russia’s “Gay Panic” and the Russian Orthodox Church
By Jessie Tougas
University of British Columbia
“In today’s Russia…[many] live in the closet, because even if they did manage to abolish all the oppressive laws, they would still face widespread homophobia…. Confronting that is a much..
“Armed-Self Reliance,” Non-violence, and Membership: Assessing the United States Constitution as an Honour Code
By Michael Thorburn
Simon Fraser University
During slavery you had two Negroes. You had the house Negro and the field Negro. The house Negro usually lived close to his master. He dressed like his master. He wore his master’s second-hand clothes.
Attitudes of Women and Men towards Interracial Marriages: 1972 – 2002
By Joseph Tucker
University of Nevada, Reno
Abstract:
Despite African Americans apparent socioeconomic gains and despite the decline in openly expressed racist attitudes, interracial marriages remain rare compared to racially endogamous..
How To Be A Good Ally: A Guide to Dismantling Colorblindness, White Normativity, and Everyday Racism
By Arista Burwell-Chen
“The subtle and deadly change of heart that might occur in you would be involved with the realization that a civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked, but only that..
Dark Realm of the Hippo Camp
By Brandon Oppenheim
a sign on the wall reads
‘temporary home’
then continues to read
how long you can stay
a hippo named scout
says to his mate
‘now there’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one ‘
Untitled
By Emma Foss
Champan University
Within the pieces I created, I wanted to stray from the traditional sense of self-portraiture and alter the images to the point where they are no longer me, or about me, but represent the struggle of …
Anti-Jewish Jews? Cases in Intellectual History
By Jon Catlin
University of Chicago
Ideas, not interests (whether material or ideal) intuitively control the actions of men. But: the “worldviews” which are fashioned through ideas, these have often served as switchmen for the track on which the dynamics of interests have moved action…
Disciplinary Power: Big Pharma & The Consumer Market
By Silvi Goldstein
In the past sixty years, we have seen a shift in the visibility, usage and understanding of drugs in the western world. The role of the pharmaceutical companies plays a significant part in the shaping of our..
Synapse Science: Double Jeopardy Women of Color in STEM
By Alexa Erdogan
http://synapsescience.com/2015/02/23/ep-02-double-jeopardy-women-of-color-in-stem/
Auden Stieber
By Aidan Quinlan
To give a little explanation: Auden Stieber is a fictional (but largely semi-autobiographical) character engaged in and used to explore the “natural” human’s relationship with the fractured digital selves on the..
Discourse, Orientalism, and Diversity at the University of Washington
By Marie Shimada
The mission statement of the Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity at the University of Washington states:
The mission of the Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity is to ensure the access and academic success of diverse populations through the advancement of knowledge, academic excellence…
EXPERIENCING THE CENTURY
By Andrea Harris
“History, memory, and representation have always been fascinating to me. The subjects together can be taken as absolute, and are often taught as such in grade school and high school when fact memorization is prized over..
An Experience of Introversion
By Adel Clifton
I want to hide in silence
Sleep in ink drenched sheets
Forget that there are words harsh
And fall into the cyclic slumber of
bus windows…
Color Girl
By: Adel Clifton
Sometimes I feel that these sheets of paper
frame the door that separates me from
her- warm-colored-woman world
where lines of poetry are long
wrought with imagery
A New American Dream: Using Values-Based Education to Close the Achievement Gap
By Rosalie Bigongiari
America’s foundations lie in its long-standing traditions of individualism and fulfillment through financial success. These two values are prevalent in every socioeconomic division, race, generation and political..
Overheard Conversations
By Kate Graham
‘Overheard Conversations’ is a photo media project that addresses the significance of background noise on a persons experience in a space. How do the snippets of conversations we hear every day integrate themselves into our memories?
The Modern Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
By Sarah Elaine Muir
You spoke to me in a dream. You said we were supposed to be together as the brilliant light beamed from the ominous concrete tunnel in the distance. You spoke to me of its brilliance, its significance as well. You it..
Pool of light spilled from the bar sign. Illuminated pyramid flanked by two palm trees.
Postludes to Conquest: Bison and Imperialism in Anglo-American Discourse After the Civil War
By Jack Chelgren
From its inception, US imperialism has been complexly bound up with animals, both domesticated and wild. Virginia DeJohn Anderson makes the compelling case in Creatures of Empire (2004) that the role of domestic animals..
Gelatoing
By Greta Grainda
Recently, I discovered my interest in photography which developed into documenting everyday life. Finding the beauty in daily life allows me to look at the details throughout the day and to see the unexpected and overlooked.
HIGHWAY
By Skyler Hutchison
The fading yellow ‘M’ stood against the clouds jutting up over the distant tree line. “The Golden Arches,” as his friends sometimes referred to them back… uh, in Maricopa. Yes, Arizona, where he lived. Mak-Don-Altz,..
Touching Places, Feeling Sites: Ann Hamilton’s the common S E N S E (2014-2015) as Spatialized Sensorium
By Dandi Meng
In a 1958 article entitled “Sculpture in Our Time,” Clement Greenberg writes, “The human body is no longer postulated as the agent of space in either pictorial or sculptural art; now it is eyesight alone.”
Diaries
By Kelsey Crow
“And so I came out of the bathroom after taking a shower and he was sitting in his kitchen on one of the barstools reading my diary. Just had it in his hands, looking down at it with his stupid face like he wasn’t..
Culture Jamming through Critical Theory Valentines
By Shannon Foss
On February 12, 2014, the radical philosophy blog Critical-Theory.com posted an article in their “Humor” section titled “25 Critical Theory Valentines to Rock Your World.” Calling Valentine’s Day an “orgy of consumption..
Hermes be trippin
By Nat Mengist
he is the mind flying
below life and death
above space and time
in the shadow of a moonlit garden
he is the mind flowing
metal of consciousness becoming androgyne
STUB ZINE: ineptitude
By Amelia Batayola
Style gone wild: An elemental manifesto
By Nat Mengist
Ecofashion has been both ancient and contemporary; one of the many ways we engage the elements, simultaneously transforming wearer and worn into extravagantly more. By adorning the body with plants and animals, metals..
Rape and Black Political Activism
By Amelia Batayola
When we consider the era of ante- and post-bellum South and Reconstruction in the United States, racial oppression is definitely in the forefront of our historical imaginations as the most important informant and..
Alice in Academia: Ideological State Apparatus as Underworld
By Michael Beach
Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser expands on the Marxist idea of a two level superstructure describing a two part apparatus that maintains power for the ruling class.
The most obvious part is the Repressive State..
Humankind vibrates in a narrow world of what is known, for they fear to venture into the closest world of truth: that of their own mind.
Art Class
By Jeevika Verma
I’m okay.
Be individual.
Okay,
The Inadequacy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Outcry from Tibet
By Hsin-Ta Tsai
University of Oxford
Abstract:
People in Tibet have long suffered from the atrocities enforced by the Chinese Communist Party. With continuing cases of extreme protest still occurring in Tibet, the world is pushed reevaluate its commitments to end large-scale atrocities worldwide, a commitment made after the dreadful experience with Adolf Hitler.
Porch Swing
By Charlie E. Shih
University of Southern California
i sit on the bench
of the porch swing
inside the pocket
where i try to find myself,
but am missing.
The Letter Back
By Charlie E.Shih
University of Southern California
Once a girl wooed a boy with a guitar and a few sweet words and a boy wooed a girl with his darling face and a more than a few cheeky words of his own.
The Cycle
By Colter Fox
“It always rains whenever I come over”
“It rains in Seattle, Diana”
“No, I swear to God it always rains whenever I’m here”
“Okay”
Down On The West Coast
By Colter Fox
It was a calm night out on the coast. I sat there on the sofa taking a few hits every once and a while from an old roach, listening to the coming and going rhythms of the ocean with some Coltrane washing through. The..
Prologue
By Colter Fox
It was just us in those days
Looking around and waiting for nothing
Nothing at all, and that was just fine
The sun would wake us
Burning with nothing but time
Los Angeles is a jungle / A jungle of man made delusions & manifest destiny
I chose to write about being born and raised in a city known for its gambling and prostitution.
You are a stranger in your own home, your own self, disembodied
Gaming the System: Games as Text and Metaphor for Postcolonial Resistance
By Delbert Tran
Georgetown University
Abstract:
The historical experience of Native Americans is one of the clearest examples of colonialism’s impact on a people. Examining Louise Erdrich’s novel, Love Medicine, I explore how two central …
Labeling identities as invisible discounts the institutional frameworks that are actively oppressing these individuals.
Finding Freedom Instead of Fear: The Humanistic Link Between Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison
By Delbert Tran
Georgetown University
Abstract:
In the 20th century, Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison, two of most prominent black writers in America, shared a close relationship, both intellectually and personally. As time passed,..
The Role and Implications of “The Ground Game” in Obama’s Presidential Campaigns
By Alex D Luta
Abstract
The 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns provided interesting case studies of the role of local field offices and the “ground game” in presidential elections. Traditionally, the vast majority of campaigns’..
Shades of Light
By Colter Fox
Shapeless dreams,
Divine memories of the ocean’s choir,
Tepid air flowing around,
We were there,
We ran with the sea, and slept with the stars,
Bombing down the highway, sunglasses on, looking at the road ahead,
It all felt..
The Case for Affirmative Action in University Admissions
By Hamid Adam Burkemper Khan
Existing debates on affirmative action admissions policies bring to the fore two conflicting arguments, specifically (1) that affirmative action judiciously levels the playing field for minority groups through its emphasis on a compelling state interest …
Drawing Conclusions: Race and Representation in Two Local Museum Exhibits
By Anne O’Neill
The images in most popular cartoon art seem, at first glance, to be almost other worldly; two-dimensional basic lines, circus-bright colors, and exaggerated features that serve only to entertain us and provide temporary..
Japan and Korea: Lessons for Economic Development
By: Kyle Roll
The question of what makes some countries successful at achieving modern economic growth and others seemingly incapable of development is one that has intrigued economic historians for decades. Many scholars have made the..