Corin Ford’s essay explores Beyoncé’s groundbreaking visual album, Lemonade, and its themes of Black unity, empowerment, and resilience. Ford walks us through Beyoncé’s sources of inspiration, which include both her own personal experiences and the work of other black activists, such as Joan Morgan and Audre Lorde. Ford also emphasizes Beyoncé’s inclusion of Black men […]
Referencing Virginia Woolf’s work Mrs. Dalloway, Boulanger eloquently carries the reader through a current critique of societal takes on feminine consumerism. Since Woolf’s times, she argues, the reductionist, frivolous views of stereotypically feminine shopping habits actually map quite clearly onto both the feminist pursuits of belonging, agency, and emotional freedom as well as onto the […]
Weaving together archival documents and keen analysis, Sarah Mitrani’s investigation examines Smith students’ balance between traditional and modern femininity throughout World War 1. Mitrani inspects all facets of student life on campus, expertly detailing the changes Smithies faced from 1917-1919, from wardrobe to academic endeavors, religious life to community building. Beyond describing the Smith experience, […]
Sabrina Hatch draws a shocking and insightful connection between the early horrors of slavery and today’s similarly oppressive prison-industrial complex. Noting the universality of the falsely-accused Calvin Duncan’s story, they bring attention to the widespread destructiveness of our country’s prison system and incisively argue in favor of its abolishment. With inspiring tones of hope and […]
Shalom Mhanda’s essay offers a comprehensive look into an often neglected issue: menstrual hygiene management in Zimbabwe. Growing up in Zimbabwe herself, Shalom uses both research and personal anecdotes to illustrate the ways rhetoric surrounding menstrual hygiene has hindered young women. Ultimately, she advocates for a versatile approach, recognizing the way in which different communities […]
In “When Art Has No Answers,” Vee Fidati introduces readers to “Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue III, a piece by artist Barnett Newman. Through this seemingly straightforward painting, the artist prompts questions about how the general public views art. Fidati furthers these same questions, all while offering valuable historical and cultural context, as […]
Through a cross-disciplinary analysis of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, Shivani Sawant investigates themes of domestic melancholia, patriarchal oppression, class structure, and intersectional identity. Engaging texts from queer feminist scholar Sara Ahmed and Freudian scholar David Eng with Woolf’s narrative, Sawant highlights main character Mrs. Dalloway’s privilege in her coinciding ignorance and romanticization of her unfulfilled […]
What do we do when our way of life is fatally out-of-sync with our environment? Rachel Yang approaches this question through an analysis of the work of American writer and environmentalist Wallace Stegner. Engaging academic and journalistic sources, Yang interrogates Stegner’s “folklore of hope,” revealing the elitist underpinnings of the American Dream. As California’s forest […]
In this essay, Lily Weber examines environmental injustice through the lense of democratic precarity. Weber swiftly employs the use of the Flint water crisis as the central case study for her piece, in order to demonstrate how the mismanagement of emerging environmental disasters can undermine democracy and the rights of Americans. While dissecting many scientific […]
Through this uplifting and introspective piece, Sarah Waring reflects on the unique relationship between humans and the natural world in Bauer Park (Madison, Connecticut). Waring endearingly describes Bauer Park as an “impressionist painting” with incredible diversity in structure and plant life. In doing so, she continues to address the connection between living and inanimate components […]
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