Category Archives: The Humanities

The Core and Creative Conversations: Or, A Vindication of University Writing

My final Contemporary Civilization paper was entitled “Creativity and the Core.” It ran through Plato’s metaphor of the soul as a horse-drawn chariot; Foucault’s description in Discipline and Punish of an execution by dismemberment – being pulled apart by horses; … Continue reading

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What’s the Research Symposium Anyway? A Guide From a 2x Winner

  Every October, Columbia invites students’ families to campus for a weekend full of “intellectual, informational, and social events designed to let you experience, if only for a few days, what it means to be a Columbia student.” The highlight … Continue reading

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Advice For Those of Us Interested in Research for Student Publications

It is a wonderful thing to be paid for your research. That being said, outside of what you could call the traditional undergraduate research economy—fellowships, scholarships, etc.—student-run journals, magazines and reviews afford Columbia students plenty of opportunities to publish their … Continue reading

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Sailing In Search Of Second Wind

The other day I had the opportunity to see one of my favorite authors, Neil Gaiman, in person, celebrating the life and work of another of my favorite authors, Ray Bradbury. Neil Gaiman’s Coraline and The Graveyard Book pleasantly haunted … Continue reading

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Dressing for the Core

You are a typical Columbia College undergraduate student. CDC guidelines permitting, in your first year you live and breathe Columbia’s neoclassical (or Beaux-Arts, depending on who you ask) -style campus; and as far as academics go, the Core is all … Continue reading

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Where is the FUN in Funding? – Finding Funding as an Undergraduate Researcher in the Humanities

  As Researchers in the humanities, we are all well aware that our noble pursuits, unfortunately, require one thing: money. We are also well aware that filtering through multiple databases to find that one niche fellowship that aligns with your … Continue reading

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Some Thoughts on Canons, and A Modest Proposal for Freshman Year

LitHum is not enough. This observation should resonate with two groups of students in the class of 2027. The first group consists of those (there are some out there) who are excited to begin LitHum, who feel keenly the limitations … Continue reading

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Visiting Libraries at other Universities for Research: A Guide!

This summer, I had the opportunity to conduct research for my senior thesis that I’m writing for the Department of History on the topic of Zhang Ailing, a transnational Chinese writer with support from Columbia’s Weatherhead East Asian Institute. As … Continue reading

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Modern Approaches to the Canon

On the first day of Literature Humanities or Contemporary Civilizations, you were probably asked to ruminate on what a canon is. Responses to this question vary, yet they typically conform to two distinct categories. Some students hew to the orthodox … Continue reading

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How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Core

While most students really connect to at least one or two texts in the syllabus, many students experience Contemporary Civilization as a painful slog through the dregs of Western philosophy, a subject widely felt to be as stale as it … Continue reading

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