Today, former basketball star Dennis Rodman returns to North Korea, where he plans to meet up with his number one fan, Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un. The New York Times reports: Mr. Rodman said this trip to see Mr. Kim was all about friendship — and sports. “I’ve come out here to see my friend,” he … Read more
Ten HPR writers discuss their experiences this summer interning, traveling, politicking, and going home. Read about travels through China, cultural shocks in Chile, attempts to forge bipartisanship in Washington D.C., and more in 2013’s Summer Dispatch!
When I boarded my Shanghai-bound flight in mid-August, I wasn’t exactly jumping for joy. Counting layovers, this would be my eleventh flight of the summer. What’s more, my trip to Beijing a few years ago meant the putrid, smoggy China summertime was fresh in my mind. What kept me going was that I had a … Read more
Working for a cause you believe in is always a rewarding experience, especially when working for said cause brings you to Washington, DC. For nine weeks this summer, I interned at the headquarters of No Labels, a political nonprofit promoting bipartisanship in Congress through process reforms. Founded in a fittingly bipartisan way by alumni of … Read more
While I am most interested in the American criminal justice system, I was inspired by Professor Laurence Tribe’s course, “Thinking About the Constitution,” to take this summer to understand how other countries prosecute wrongdoers. Particularly powerful was Professor Tribe’s concept of “global arguments” to counter slippery slope arguments about laws. For instance, if there were … Read more
This summer, I had the privilege to spend time in the offices of Sakhi for South Asian Women, an organization based in New York City that serves survivors of domestic violence of South Asian heritage. Before beginning of my internship with Sakhi, I honestly thought I was prepared for my time with the organization. After … Read more
The Santiago winter is particularly cold, not because of the temperature, which is fairly mild when compared to that of Cambridge in the winter, but because most buildings lack central heating. It was fairly common for my host family and me to sit huddled around our portable propane heater at night, eating supper in our … Read more
“Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow.” This quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes hung framed in a hallway of the classroom building at Beijing Language and Cultural University (BLCU). It reminded students of the Harvard-Beijing Academy (HBA), an intense summer school program held in Beijing … Read more
I spent the summer at the University of Cambridge, researching something that seems to be pretty rare in the field of history: an unexamined aspect of the American Founding. Sure, there are plenty of parts of the late 18th century that it would seem we miss: class history, racial history, gender history, and many others. … Read more
Since 2000, Finland has attracted attention around the world for consistently high scores on student achievement among OECD countries in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) studies. Some scholars have lauded the system, arguing that the world can learn from Finland’s commitment to equality and providing a high level of respect for teachers. Others … Read more