"The Failures and Consequenes of Propaganda at Carlisle Indian School"
In this essay, Amelia Kostin draws on archival documents to focus the reader’s attention to a specific historical event-- the Carlisle Indian Industrial School’s exhibit at the 1893 Chicago World Fair—and analyzes the display as a form of propaganda for the off-reservation boarding school system. Kostin convincingly argues that not only did this propaganda prove unsuccessful, it was deeply harmful to the Native students who “act[ed] as vessels to perpetuate … genocide in exhibits such as these.”
"The Aleph,Language,Truth, and the Self"
Natalie Shaw’s essay uses the Jorge Luis Borges’ short story “The Aleph” as a platform for a contemplative examination of truth and the limits of language to perfectly express that truth. By bringing philosopher Richard Rorty into conversation with Borges’ work, Shaw offers the reader a vision of language that is able to provide multiple and iterative descriptions of the self and the universe.
"Something to Do for Those Who Like Dopamine"
David Whitmer looks at the seemingly quotidian experience of buying a new wallet as the frame for a critical essay on the psychological “high” of shopping. Whitmer’s essay, emulating the style of Virginia Woolf, takes the reader into “the behemoth of consumerism, the Mall” to question beliefs that material indulgence brings lasting happiness.