Part 4: Foucault to Gong

As an engineer, it oftentimes feels as though I don’t have time to do anything else but study. All-day long my head is filled with equations, numbers, variables, and logic games. But there’s the part of me that wishes I could set aside time for myself and read. I’ve always been a voracious reader but coming to college, I’ve found that the amount of time I have to read has diminished considerably. It saddens me to think of the collection of books I hauled from Illinois to L.A. being left to gather dust on my desk.

In the moments I am able to read however, it transports me to the simpler moments in life. For once I’m free from the abstractions of math and science and can let my wander off, pondering, visualizing, and contextualizing the words on the pages.

I never fail to use the playlist above to accompany the books I read. To me, it’s crucial for STEM majors to have access to the humanities. Part of being a better engineer is understanding the intangible and humanistic aspects of the world. In order to create and design solutions that are affordable and accessible to all, one must understand the people.

Here are a few books I’ve read and fallen in love with this year:

Discipline and Punish by Michael Foucault

French philosopher Foucault writes about the historical and sociological contexts in which the Western prison system developed and how that still affects people to this day.

Letters from a Stoic by Seneca

Seneca was a Greek philosopher who contributed to Stoicism. This book is a collection of Seneca’s letters near the end of his life, pondering on his experiences.

Circe by Madeline Miller

Everyone knows the Greek myth of Circe, the sorceress cursed to stay on an island for eternity. Miller retells the story from Circe’s perspective, and goes to show how Circe is actually a feminist icon instead of the villain mythology makes her out to be.

These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong

I wanted to read more novels by Asian authors. This book is a retelling of Romeo and Juliet but set in Shanghai, China during the 1920s. Instead of the Capulets vs. Montagues, there are the Russian Montagovs vs. the Chinese Cais.