Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is a coming-of-age classic that deals with the themes of American racism, social inequality, the loss of innocence, and the coexistence of good and evil (though that’s far from an exhaustive list). By taking a look at some crucial To Kill a Mockingbird...
Read MoreI last read To Kill a Mockingbird when I was in the 10th grade. And, to be honest, I can’t say that the book made much of an impression on me. My experience was probably shaped by the recognition that reading it is a must, an academic rite of...
Read MoreAmerican media theorist Neil Postman once gave a presentation titled “Informing Ourselves to Death” at an IBM-sponsored event in Stuttgart, Germany. Postman’s thesis was that modern tech creates a crisis of information-overload. “Information glut,” is what he called it: “[Information] comes indiscriminately, directed at no one in particular, disconnected...
Read MoreCollege is demanding. Okay, that’s a banal opening, but still. Obviously, there’s coursework to contend with. But there’s also the stress that comes along with roommates, dorm life, and a new social setting. Then there’s financial stress. Almost half of full-time undergrads—and a massive 81% of part-time undergraduates—hold a...
Read MoreWhen I was in high school, resources for extra homework help weren’t exactly abundant. If you were struggling with a Shakespeare sonnet, you could always run to the bookstore and pick up a CliffNotes guide. SparkNotes was also gaining in popularity. But these early homework help resources had limited...
Read MoreWriting successful argumentative or persuasive essays is a sort of academic rite of passage: every student, at some point in their academic career, will have to do it. And not without reason—writing a good argumentative essay requires the ability to organize one’s thoughts, reason logically, and present evidence in...
Read MoreWelsh poet Dylan Thomas published “Do not go gentle into that good night” in 1951, just two years before he died from alcohol-related health complications in 1953. Generally, when it comes to any kind of literary analysis, I’m a big fan of Roland Barthes’ “death of the author” thesis:...
Read MoreI studied German as an undergrad. I memorized the cases and disorienting verb placement, and after four semesters, I felt pretty slick. But then I went to Germany and didn’t understand a thing. My theory is that my cluelessness had something to do with the prevalence of idioms in...
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