The project I did on symbols-as-gesturalism in Auden’s “Spain” lives on a subdomain, which you can find here.
essays
Narration, Responsibility, and Awareness in Yeats’s “The Dolls”
Yeats’s “The Dolls” uses multi-faceted symbolism and third-person narration to address the artist’s responsibility for social and political awareness. The poem reads like a fairy tail about living dolls who are insulted by their maker’s decision to have a child. The doll-maker is troubled by this, but his wife is ultimately the one who addresses the […]
“The Song of Wandering Aengus:” Politics and Aesthetics in Literary Adaptation
Yeats’s early work, including “The Song of Wandering Aengus,” is characterized by lyricism, natural imagery, and allusions to Irish mythology. These characteristics allowed Scottish singer Donovan to include the poem on his album H.M.S. Donovan (1971), which is a collection of legends, poems, and folk tales set to music. Though the text remains the same, the time […]
The Universality and Individualism of Abstraction in Modernist Art
Introduction Theodore Adorno once wondered how artists were capable of producing beauty after the atrocities of the Holocaust. Faced with such atrocities, many turn to art for clarity and healing. The rise of Modernism and Abstract Expressionism came out of this need for healing. In an art form that rejected representation and removed itself completely […]
What/Why/How I Read
In my first grade class, students were required to write in a journal for one hour each day. Of course, being so young, most of us made up adventure stories instead of writing a diary entry. My teacher noticed this and began “publishing” our books for us. Once a student finished a story she particularly liked, […]
The Heart Sūtra and the Mahāyāna vs. Theravāda Traditions (In-class essay)
The Heart Sūtra encapsulates two of the main teachings of the Mahayana Buddhist thought and practice: emptiness and wisdom, wisdom being the understanding of emptiness. The final lines of the Heart Sūtra conclude that great knowledge and the cessation of dukkha, especially for all beings, “is true, for there is none lacking in it.” Once […]
Le Michigan
Le Temps: Le Michigan a deux saisons majeures. Il y a l’hiver, qui dura d’octbore à mars, et l’été qui dura de mai à aôut. En hiver, le Michigan est très, très froid. L’année dernière, la température a atteint un record nouveau. Il y avait fait -40 degrés F avec réfroidissement éolien! Cependant, en été, […]
“Starry, Starry Night:” ma Chanson Favorie
Bien que la musique « motown » soit de ma région, je préfère la musique folk. Je crois qu’elle est plus mélodique et plus simple que la musique de ma région. J’aime aussi le rock classique et les compositions de compositeurs comme Benjamin Britten et Jonathan Dove. Puisque mes chansons favorites sont différentes et nombreux, il est […]
Le Racisme sur le Campus
Une issue qui conteste beaucoup de gens aux Etats-Unis c’est du racisme. À Davidson, cette discussion est très importante pour les étudiants, professeurs, administrateurs, et corps enseignant. Le but de l’université est d’être aussi inclusif et divers que possible. Si on avait plus de diversité, les points de vu seront différents. À cause de ca, […]
Testimony: Personal Truth and Its Importance in the Discussion of Race
Some of the most powerfully moving artistic products come from testimonies, which are steeped in emotion. In this paper, I will define “testimony” as an emotional reaction to or recount of an (often negative) experience. As a culture, we Americans rely on such accounts. We consume countless songs about personal relationships or experiences in which […]