Recently, the Spee Club announced that it would invite women to punch for the first time in its history. At face value, this seems like a moment for Harvard women to rejoice as an all-male final club finally opens its doors to women, and not just at eleven on a Saturday night. Yet, the change … Read more
Two events in recent weeks have brought Harvard’s attention to the issue of gender equality in exclusive student organizations. On September 8, seventeen undergraduate women decided to audition for a spot in the Hasty Pudding Theatrical cast, and in doing so they challenged the group’s long-standing tradition of including only men in its drag shows. A … Read more
Recently, the Spee Club announced that it would invite women to punch for the first time in its history. At face value, this seems like a moment for Harvard women to rejoice as an all-male final club finally opens its doors to women, and not just at eleven on a Saturday night. Yet, the change … Read more
That the 168th Hasty Pudding theatrical show features an all male cast should come as a surprise to no one. The production was put on for nearly two centuries in this same way, but 17 women decided to challenge this tradition by auditioning for the Pudding cast last week. They, were, however, not cast this … Read more
On a chilly fall evening one month into my first semester at Harvard, I sat alone in my dorm room, talking to my parents on Skype. My roommate was away and there was a party taking place at a nearby dorm. Music was blaring, strobe lights were flashing and freshmen were consuming beverages of questionable … Read more
The nightmarish Syrian Civil War has claimed many victims. 310,000 have been killed in the maelstrom, and even more have been driven from their homes. 6.5 million people have been displaced in the country, and 4.1 million have been forced to abandon Syria entirely. Taken together, approximately half of all Syrians have been forced to … Read more
This is not the first time in history that Europe has been forced to come to grips with an urgent and overwhelming refugee crisis. Nor, as it turns out, is it the first time that refugees have been slandered with xenophobic hate speech and broadly stroked suspicion. In 1933, T.S. Eliot proclaimed to an audience … Read more
The refugee crisis occurring in Europe has brought out the true feelings of many. This challenge has exposed the racists and drawn an unmistakable line in the sand among the people there. It has brought to light how much some countries value the help they could provide, or how much they value the idea of … Read more
Historians have written extensively about the profound political, economic, and cultural changes ushered in by the Second World War. But in the greater narrative of that era they have paid much less attention to the western world’s shift toward a liberal, globalized ideological status quo, central to which is an emphasis on human rights. The … Read more
For Europe, the five years since the beginning of the Arab Spring have meant a dramatic influx of Muslim and Arab migrants into the continent. The rhetoric surrounding this influx has become more stern and unforgiving in the past year. Angela Merkel’s administration in Germany, the Financial Times reported, is seeking to eliminate “pull factors,” … Read more