Fall 2020

“Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s AK Party may lack a substantial number of qualities that one might hope for in an elected government, but one thing cannot be denied, they possess an unyielding ambition to reform Turkey (some might argue, beyond recognition). This claim does not merely refer to more obvious shocks (the radical constitutional referendum in 2017, or the countless activist, and often provocative, foreign policy initiatives), but specifically to urban policy – yet another arena manifesting Erdoğan’s excerption of power.”

Original Art by Elle Bixby

“On Thursday, February 6th, 2020 the sun was shining on the Argentine research station Esperanza, and despite a breeze, the weather was pleasant, if not balmy.[1] T-shirt weather -- good for relaxing in the sun or going for a hike. The station recorded a temperature of 18.3 °C, or about 65 °F: nothing too out of the ordinary. Except, you know, if you’re in Antarctica.”

“Many of us have probably swiped by an Instagram story with the caption “Free Uyghurs,” seen the leaked satellite images of Uyghur detention centers, or heard calls for boycotting the Disney movie Mulan for thanking government security agencies in the Xinjiang province in their final credits. But who exactly are the Uyghurs and why is the Chinese government conducting a campaign of genocide?”

“As a result, I naively dismissed the problematic example and attributed it to the time and context it was written in. It was only when my professor assigned Crusoe, Friday and the Raced Market Frame of Orthodox Economics Textbooks, by Matthew Watson that I finally caught a glimpse of the bigger picture – that the Robinson-Crusoe rhetoric is actually commonplace in economics textbooks.”

“My view of modern Black-led youth movements comes from a place of sadness and admiration. I hate that people my age are forced to fight the battles of corruption but I am extremely humbled by the acts of courage I’ve seen. The hands of white supremacy have twisted our ideals to value money over people, production over product and individuals over communities. The EndSARS protests started as a call for the disbanding of the police force but turned into a multi-dimensional demand for a more equitable government.”