“This year we’ve been put to a test as a community. While battling Covid-19, the importance of valuing each other’s opinions and space has been highlighted. I would like to draw a parallel to the newsletter — we can’t fix everything, but we don’t have to face it alone. We have each other to coherently work together and put this beautiful piece of JDSOLA out where we respect a writer’s space with social distancing, editors sanitise the pieces, design acts as a protective mask around the newsletter and finally, we wash our hands of the virus of judgement. This newsletter is supposed to be mad, passionate and extraordinary. We’re all characters with eccentric details and rousing thoughts which will be brought to physical manifestation in the form of ‘The Liberal Canon’. The newsletter begins with us and hopefully, will become an emblem of JDSOLA and what it stands for — being liberal, enriched with academia, their many talented students and our deemed faculty. Lastly, Elsie de Wolfe had said, “I’m going to make everything around me beautiful — that will be my life.” Let’s use ‘The Liberal Canon’ to create an environment of beauty around everyone who reads it.”- Sanah Shah