Traditionally, structural conventions went hand in hand with poetic emotional effect. When Wordsworth argued that a poet feels, expresses, and transfers his emotion to readers, his readers likely assumed that that poetic experience would involve a particular poetic form. However, since the emergence of free-verse and less structured poems around the turn of the 20th century, this assumption is no longer as explicit; in fact, we are led to wonder if form plays any role in the emotional effect produced by a poem. I would argue that regardless of obvious layout and structure, form by definition plays a role in…

Why is this important?

Whether or not you support conservative economic policies (I do not), in the current world of political polarization and economic instability, parallel circumstances in the mid-20th century become increasingly relevant. In particular, the dynamic fall and rise of capitalism as a result of the Great Depression and later distrust in government may prove incredibly applicable to our times. This article explores the origins of a conservative economic policy promoted by Hayek in the aftermath of World War II (when socialism was increasingly popular) that I hope will prove interesting and enlightening for folks encountering similar dialogues today.

The interwar fall of capitalism

The Great Depression…

Is the way that I remember the world around me just as important as what I remember? Nietzsche might spin in his grave at the question, but physical forms of recollection rarely bring up reflection on how they are taken down, more what we are trying to remember. But oftentimes in conversation, how we speak dictates how we feel and even changes what we remember, so as we engage in conversation with literary works such as the following by Toni Morrison and Samuel Beckett, their form does the same. Towards the end of Toni Morrison’s A Mercy, the narrator describes…

In Homer’s Odyssey the question ‘what distinguishes god and man in the eyes of the Greeks?’ comes up much more than ‘what distinguishes man and woman?’, and yet, the latter yields extraordinary insight into the former. Homer describes the gods as immortal, and usually beautiful and superhuman, but otherwise quite variable in form. They partake in the usual human proclivities and experience pleasure, success, and pain, if on a more extreme level.

However, the lines between humans and gods are never so blurred as in the house of Circe. In this critical scene, Odysseus, on his long journey home to…

Toni Morrison, A Mercy, Knopf, 2008, pp. 6–7:

Once every seven days we learn to read and write. We are forbidden to leave the place so the four of us hide near the marsh. My mother, me, her little boy and Reverend Father. He is forbidden to do this but he teaches us anyway watching out for wicked Virginians and Protestants who want to catch him. If they do he will be in prison or pay money or both. He has two books and a slate. We have sticks to draw through sand, pebbles to shape words on smooth flat rock. When the letters are memory we make…

The point of this article isn’t to say that we need to abolish gendered clothing ASAP because it contradicts my beliefs. Honestly, I don’t think we’re at a place where something like that would be very feasible, and besides, lots of people, including myself, actually like many gendered clothes. What I do want to talk about is something I think we can and should change in the near future: people shouldn’t feel limited in their fashion expression to the clothing sections that match the gender they were assigned at birth.

A quick reminder on identities and expression

Gender expression versus gender identity

Gender identity = gender you are in your brain (does…

I. Introduction

Homer’s epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, have long been (and continue to be) cited as one of the most influential works in Western history.[1]

In recent years, progress in feminism and questioning of traditional norms has led to an elevated sense of awareness for gender issues in various forms of media, including literary text. …

6olice brutality, violence, political oppression, public apathy, much-needed press, and public attention have increasingly come to these issues in the US. However, police brutality, despotism, and an atmosphere of resistance are not novel phenomena, nor are they geographically unique.

We have been fighting such issues in our press, our hearts, and our art for many years. In the 1940s, Yiannis Ritsos used his poetic skills to weave a call to action against it that can teach us very much about how we can all use our personal skills to fight injustice.

“And look, they are picking me up. …