“What is the one thing that you hate the most about the research experience?”

Posted on December 18, 2023 by Eli Andrade

I will speak candidly here: my mother did not attend college, neither did her parents or her parents’ parents. When forms ask me to input my parents’ education level, I leave my father blank (don’t ask, I am just as clueless), but proudly jot down “GED” for my mother. My mother often talks about the day she took her GED. She had just immigrated to the United States from Mexico and knew very little English. She laughs and tells me her English teacher was Barney the Purple Dinosaur, a children’s cartoon she’d play for my sister and me, but from which she seems to have learned more than I ever did. She had been nervous about the written essay portion of the exam but recalls that in the lobby of the testing center, a fellow lady advised her to simply write as much as she could. “They don’t care what you write, so long as you write a lot,” remarks this wise lady who, though she had only recently arrived in the United States, already understands the American education system. So my mother goes into the exam and she writes, and writes, and writes, and she passes! Continue reading →

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‘Basquiat x Warhol’: Extending the Art Humanities Syllabus

Posted on December 11, 2023 by Donna Qi

 

Untitled, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol, Photo Credit: On view at the Brant Foundation in the
East Village.

In the 1980s, Basquiat and Warhol, two iconic New York City artists that defined the
contemporary art scene during the late 20th century, collaborated on a series of works
that were exhibited. Now, these works are back in the city again as a part of a traveling
show from the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, France.

The works themselves are extremely thought provoking, as Warhol’s signature silk
screen technique that prints various logos and newspaper headlines is then effaced by
Basquiat’s free-flowing, graffiti art style. One can’t help but wonder what the actual
process of their collaboration was, especially as one of the pieces appeared to have
Warhol’s artistic contributions rendered upside down, suggesting that they worked from
opposite ends of the canvas. This begs the question of which orientation is the correct
one to hang the canvas in. Continue reading →

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

Posted on December 4, 2023 by Ardaschir Arguelles

Panathenaic Amphora Depicting Four-Horse Chariot Race. Kleophrades painter, 490-480 B.C., Photo Credit: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

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; and the criticism of modernity, taken up by Christopher Lasch and Hannah Arendt, as producing disjointed selves in a disjointed society. I ended with reflections on the modern university, and on Columbia’s Core curriculum. I suggested that the Core is perhaps best regarded neither solely as an essential survey of an authoritative canon, as some might argue; nor as an outdated study of an intellectually oppressive curriculum, as others might say; but as a toolbox of ideas that frees us from reinventing various intellectual wheels by giving us a conceptual vocabulary grounded in history, and that both sets a literary and philosophical bar for us and helps us reach it. In short, students should care about the Core because it serves as grounds for creativity, especially (I argued) expressed through writing. Continue reading →

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

Posted on November 27, 2023 by Eli Andrade

 

Eli and others engaging with their research and the masterpiece that is the poster presentation, Photo Credits: Eli Andrade

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 of this weekend, formally known as Family Days, is Homecoming—the day Columbia’s football team inaugurates the football season by facing off against (and usually losing to) another Ivy League team.

 

For us nerdy kids, however, the true highlight of this special weekend is the annual Undergraduate Research Symposium. On this holy day, all kinds of hopeful undergraduates across disciplines gather in Lerner to hang up their little 36″ by 41″ posters and vie for the Best Poster Prize. At first glance, the sheer number of people participating in the Symposium and the quality of their research can be daunting to the uninitiated. You must be asking yourself: “How can I, a novice in poster presentations, ever hope to compete against my more experienced peers, some of whom are under the tutelage of renowned faculty or working with established labs?”

Continue reading →

Posted in conference presentations, Coursework, Faculty Mentors, major research, Media, New York City, Senior Thesis, Summer Research, The Humanities | Comments Off on What’s the Research Symposium Anyway? A Guide From a 2x Winner

Advice For Those of Us Interested in Research for Student Publications

Posted on November 20, 2023 by Chase Bush-McLaughlin

Collage, Photo Credit: https://artsinitiative.columbia.edu/student-arts-grants/

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 research pro bono. While student publications may oftentimes lack the funds to financially compensate students for their work, many of them are eager to provide writers and researchers with other invaluable resources such as editors, peer review and publicity for their work. And while funded research opportunities are often extremely competitive, and therefore require students to spend hours getting their application materials together, very few student publications want to see your CV; most simply evaluate whether or not the proposed paper, essay or other project is a good fit for the publication. 

Continue reading →

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Sailing In Search Of Second Wind

Posted on November 13, 2023 by Ardaschir Arguelles

Untitled engraving of Sea Monsters Attacking a Sailing Vessel, 1684. Johann Christian Wagner, Photo Credit: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

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 my childhood imagination; in my teens Ray Bradbury’s prolific exuberance provided me with ample fodder for a tear through one, then another, of his short story anthologies. Both authors were instrumental in convincing me that to be a writer, the first thing one must do is write – and write consistently, even every day, as Bradbury did from the age of twelve on. Discipline, they insisted, far from being detrimental to zest and gusto and inspiration, fanned the flames of those things, channeled them, purified them.(And I, taking up my pen in youthful imitation and aiming to write every day, believed them). Continue reading →

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Dressing for the Core

Posted on October 30, 2023 by Chase Bush-McLaughlin

Library of Columbia University, New York, Photo Credit: New York Historical Society

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 you can be certain about. You begin the year with a copy of Homer’s Odyssey in hand. For a week or two, you lug this book from the southernmost edge of campus, where you live, to—in all likelihood—Hamilton Hall, a couple hundred feet from your door, and back. Four or more times a week, you pass two stained glass windows depicting Sophocles and Virgil (gifts of the classes of 1885 and 1891, respectively) whose works will soon replace the Odyssey in your bag. In your second year, you may live as far away as Carlton Arms on Riverside, between 108th and 109th; you face the prospect (as I did) of ferrying your copy of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason as far as Riverside Church on 120th and, on your very first day of the spring semester, gambling on which grand, pointed arch to duck into to escape the doom and gloom of winter.  Continue reading →

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

Posted on October 16, 2023 by Eli Andrade

 

“Scholar” 1878, Photo Credit: Osman Hamdi Bey

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 equally niche research interests and having to draft, scrape, and revise multiple essays, all while you bother your mentors for letters of recommendation and ponder if your CV is impressive enough, only to receive a rejection months later, can be a tedious and arduous process—it is simply NOT FUN. But, if there is one thing I am sure of, it is that being unable to wholly dedicate yourself to reading, writing, and thinking about your research is way less fun than sacrificing some time now to apply for future funding. So let’s take a moment to gather our application materials, whatever grant proposal drafts you have, and a copy of your latest CV because here I bring you a quick roadmap on some of the best well-known (and lesser-known) fellowships, grants, and opportunities you can apply to as an undergraduate student in the humanities and as a budding scholar! Continue reading →

Posted in Coursework, Faculty Mentors, Funding, Libraries, Life, New York City, postgraduation plans, Senior Thesis, Study Abroad, The Humanities | Comments Off on Where is the FUN in Funding? – Finding Funding as an Undergraduate Researcher in the Humanities

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

Posted on October 9, 2023 by Ardaschir Arguelles

LitHum is not enough.

Painting by Shen Zhou, 1467. National Library of China, Photo Credit: Public Domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

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 of two weeks spent on the Iliad and recognize the travesty of rushing through Crime and Punishment, who sense that there is more – more to be gleaned from each of these texts, and more texts, for that matter, to be explored than are contained on the LitHum syllabus.

Besides being small, this first group is likely already on board with the argument that follows – but the second group I hope to reach is perhaps larger, and needs more persuading. This group consists of those students who feel the limitations of LitHum in a different way – who sense that the LitHum syllabus is a somewhat arbitrary selection of “significant” texts, and that in its arbitrariness the syllabus is exclusive, based on notions of “significance” and “Western-ness” that leave out various historically marginalized perspectives. While these students might enjoy the texts they read in LitHum, they may worry that, from the outset of their Columbia careers, they are being presented with a lopsided view of what constitutes a “great tradition” – and so are limiting their learning. Continue reading →

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Visiting Libraries at other Universities for Research: A Guide!

Posted on October 2, 2023 by Donna Qi

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 Zhang’s archives are housed within the University of Southern California’s Special Collections, I traveled to Los Angeles in late August and made special preparations in order to view the documents. I hope to share some tips to guide future students who may be travelling to other libraries outside of New York in order to pursue their research topic!


The second page of “She Said Smiling,” a short story manuscript by Zhang Ailing,
Photo Credit: Donna Qi

1. Check library hours: Libraries operate on fairly regular schedules during the school year, but due to the fact that most of you may be receiving funding for research conducted during breaks (particularly during the summer), it is very important to check whether or not the library you need to go to is open when you are free to visit. It is also important to check what their hours are as you may have to adjust your trip accordingly so you get enough time in the archives. The USC Special Collections and the Rare Book Library was limited to opening from 1-5PM this summer, so I extended my trip so I had enough time to review and digitize materials for my senior thesis.

2. Follow the proper guidelines to reserving your materials: More likely than not, the materials that you are looking for are special and will not be available publicly, possibly due to the fragility of their condition. The Zhang Ailing Papers included several original letters and manuscripts that she had been working on up until her death, and so had to be specially requested. Most libraries will have a form that you can submit to request special materials and librarians will generally get back to you pretty quickly with your request. Continue reading →

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