City of Promise

Jillian Schedneck

Every Tuesday and Thursday at dawn, I rode the 57 Bus into Kenmore Square–home of Fenway Park, the Citgo Sign, and Landsdowne Street, the center of Boston’s nightlife. By the time the sun peaked through the gray buildings on Commonwealth…

A Perfect Encounter

Jake Bennett

We met at a party. The kind of place I imagined many relationships form, without much hope of lasting. But our relationship was different. Certainly we believed it was. I suppose the main reason for this was that I was…

The Danger of Reading The Single Book: a plea for Cross-Cultural Reading

Chika Unigwe

One of my favorite poems- and has been since I was a child- is “The Blind Men and the Elephant” by John Godfrey Saxe. This poem illustrates, perfectly, what I call the Danger of Reading the Single Book. It was…

The Sword

Ben Loory

You got something in the mail today, the man’s wife says. It looks like it’s from your uncle. The man takes the package and holds it in his hands. He opens it. Inside is a sword. This sword was used…

Birdheart

Adam Mills

When I sliced the man’s chest cavity open, feathers poured out. I recoiled, dropping my scalpel on the ground by my feet. The old man – a Mr. Clayton Montgomery – lay on the gurney in front of me, eyes…

The Rise of the Self and the Decline of Intellectual and Civic Interest

Danielle Moreland Ochoa

Today sitting at the top of skyscrapers with smart boards projecting the profits of the future, we believe ourselves to be at the peak of human existence. One is tempted to believe that the amazing progress made by the human…

Deprivation

Charis Tan

As I sat in class listening to my professor read from the Upanishads’ description of the ‘imperishable,’ I became increasingly frustrated that it was more a non-description than a description, filled with non-descriptors and negations. The ‘imperishable’ was unquantifiable and immeasurable. ...

Imperishable Value

Danielle Moreland-Ochoa

I always love discovering my own beliefs. Those moments when an idea is brought to your attention and you are forced to confront how you actually feel about it. It can be satisfying and liberating! Or it can pull out…

Velvet Darkness: Roger Corman’s Enduring Take on Poe’s “Masque of the Red Death”

Victoria Large

“The Masque of the Red Death” is among Edgar Allan Poe’s most-read short stories, and it is also among his most dreamlike, or, it might be more suitable to say, his most nightmarish. Poe tells the story of a prince…

For the Time Being

Louis C. Stewart

Kevlin left the council room disturbed by the lack of fresh ideas. The council was definitely thinking in circles. The same old ideas and supposed solutions to the problem had been gone over and over again. The same mistakes were made in genetic control and the results were deplorable. Something drastic had to be done and no one, it seemed, had the courage to deal with it effectively. ...