School of Humanities

Reflections on the Durst Distinguished Lecture Series

“…especially coming from a background of little to no hardship; it’s inspired me to write beyond my own experiences, and to write as far outside of myself as I possibly can and really place myself into the characters and setting that I’m writing about.…” Read more

“Places I’ve Belonged”

“Despite knowing by my second year in Pittsburgh that it was time for me to go, I am so grateful for that Pittsburgh home of mine, the one I entered as a teenager and left as an adult…” Read more

“The Act of Healing from Trauma Seen in Guadalupe Maravilla’s Retablos”

“I believe that the retablos I am sending love to my eight year old self (2021) and On 12.12.13 I had a surgery (2021) encapsulate Guadalupe Maravilla’s thoughts about healing from trauma through art and spirituality.…”Read more

“Gateways to Transformation: On Books, Writing, and the Power of Language”

“What Didion did in her works was describe an event she saw someone else experience, then tell her own story about what she believed they felt or did. In this process, Didion makes the emotions of this stranger perfectly understandable and universal…” Read more

Advanced Critical Writing: “Intersectionality in Margaret Atwood’s Works Illuminates Patriarchal Subjugation of the Environment and Women”

”Through the use of intersectionality, Atwood draws a parallel to how women and the environment are simultaneously affected by the instruments of patriarchy such as capitalism, religious extremism, and a static gender binary…” Read more

“The Umbrella, the Siren, and the Hand: Trauma and Response in Zambrano’s Loteria”

“In Loteria by Mario Alberto Zambrano, the author compartmentalizes the various aspects of trauma by designating a seemingly random Loteria card to each chapter. The entire novel is told through the perspective of a young girl, Luz…” Read more

“The Disconnect in Embracing Technology: An Analysis of Alexander Weinstein’s Children of the New World”

“In my close reading assignment, students pick a passage from one of the stories we’ve read together and unpack the words and phrases within it in order to discover more about the passage and the text as a whole…” Read more

Page of Wands

“Being the youngest child and having a large age gap between my siblings definitely made me take on much more responsibilities. On my 13th birthday I was watching tv with my mom in her room. The cable bill was due for months so all we could watch was Cake Boss…” Read more

“Love: An Analysis of Mario Zambrano’s Lotería”

“Luz uses lotería cards to communicate the traumatic event she experienced, written in second person. The lotería cards each connect to a different part of Luz’s story, where at the end, they all connect to convey her journey…” Read more

“More Than a Haircut: The Importance of Inclusion in the Barbershop”

“As soon as I knew I was gay at the age of 12, I understood that the barbershop would be a struggle for me…” Read more

“‘Rainforest’: Noname’s Commentary on the Effects of Colonialism and Capitalism’s on the Black Community”

“Noname calls herself “the emptiest hallelujah,” a vague and intriguing phrase that causes the listener to question exactly what she means…” Read more

“Writing as a Creative Act: An Interview With Purchase College Alumnus and College Writing Faculty Member Alexandra Dos Santos”

“I started to think more about writing as a creative act and less of a transactional exchange. At Purchase, I practiced looking beyond what’s obvious, and discovering something new—not only in writing, but in thinking…” Read more…

Breakthroughs: Writing About Writing

In “My Mind in a Moleskin” and “Poetry,” Sabrina Kenny and Alexander Uzobuife explore moments when writing became a more prominent part of their lives, and the changes in self-possession that followed.  Read more

If The Mind Creeps, Let It: Finding Identity in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”

“As unpleasant as this moment was, their reaction, or lack thereof, reiterated my connection to “The Yellow Wallpaper” strongly. I could also see the woman in the wallpaper, and I needed to free her…” Read more

Inside The Fight for Inclusivity in Religions for LGBTQ Individuals

“The issue of discrimination in religion only causes separation, because it makes it uncomfortable for gay people who feel a spiritual connection to be fully immersed in the religious practice they choose. This overall stifles a religion’s ability to grow as a whole…” Read more

Bronx Dreaming & Dark Nights

“Finding Jonny’s music showed me the impact that writing could have. Writing could make you feel seen and tell stories you’re not used to hearing. These stories can shape who you are and provide you with a sense of direction or clarity…” Read more

Two Autobiographical Essays Connect Hair, Identity, and Empowerment

Hallie Krause and Emma Pat explore change from the outside in–how a change that feels like a risk leads to new avenues of strength, self-worth, and empowerment. Read more

Public School Teachers Are Egregiously Underpaid

“If we cannot provide teachers with necessary resources, it only hurts their students’. If we cannot allow them the freedom to feel at ease in the classroom, that intrinsic happy feeling is lost. That feeling that drives the connection of ideas and emotional engagement with all the possibilities of learning…” Read more

Three Writers Shed Light on the Different Ways People Grieve

“Three short stories, Carmen Maria Machado’s “Help Me Follow My Sister into the Land of the Dead,” Eugene Lim’s “What We Have Learned, What We Will Forget, What We Will Not Be Able to Forget,” and Ted Chiang’s “The Great Silence,” illustrate the denial of bad news, mental confusion, and acceptance as completely different and valid reactions to grief.” Read more

The Expectation That Women Conform Is Timeless: An Analysis of Works by Jamaica Kincaid and Kristen Roupenian

“Cat Person” by Kristen Roupenian is a short story that exemplifies the struggle young women face regarding trust and the navigation of the early stages of romantic relationships. “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid is a brief narrative that follows a mother’s advice to her young daughter on how to survive in a patriarchal society. Throughout both, the strict expectations placed on women, like how they must conform to the male gaze or their anticipated perfection, negatively affect women and their ability to be themselves…” Read more

Examining Technology’s Impact on Relationships: Three Critical Studies of Alexander Weinstein’s Short Fiction

In analyses of three contemporary short stories by writer Alexander Weinstein, writers Emma Blacksmith, Spencer Corona, and Robyn Graygor explore how our trust in technological devices as a surrogate for human relationships is inhibiting our ability to connect with one another…” Read more

The Diary of a T.A.

“He explained how the district was always looking for T.A.s, feeling the fit may be good. He offered to write recommendations if needed. In stumbling across this job, everything finally clicked…” Read more

No Rehearsal for College Actors

“I thought I was going to watch a cringe comedy series, but instead, I found a mirror of myself and my insecurities and felt strangely comforted…” Read more

Introduction to Digital Publishing: How Social Media is Compromising our Ability to “Fashion” Trends that Define Our Era

“The rise of social media did not create the cycle of quickly rotating trends, but it influenced what this cycle has become. Fashion trends and the intention behind them have ceased to embody the realities of their time, largely due to how the digital world impacts our culture.” Read more

An Interview with Senior Auditor Michael Feinstein

“With writing, you’re really looking to specifically reach people, I think. Maybe some of it is like a diary, where you’re following your thoughts to see where they go. But the thing I like about writing is that you are ultimately communicating with people, and they’re communicating with you…” Read more

Passage Selection: “Mrs. Sen’s” by Jhumpa Lahiri

“In ‘Mrs. Sen’s,’ an immigrant from India becomes the caretaker of a young American boy, Eliot. In their analyses, Ruby Holt Larsen and Abigail Luis explore the reality that multiple things can exist and be true at once…” Read more

The Impacts of Technology on People in the Near Future

“Finally, technology negatively affects people in the near future by distracting them from experiencing reality. For instance, in “Saying Goodbye to Yang,” after Yang malfunctions and then no longer works anymore, the narrator describes time slowing down and how he notices more of the world around him…” Read more

Look At It

“Migrant Mother and Women of the High Plains both convey intimacy. In both images, there’s a main character, and a protagonist, centered. Based on what they’re wearing, what they’re doing, and their facial expressions, a story is instantly created…” Read more

The Art of the Essay: “Killed With Delight”

“When Wordsworth writes a waterfall had, “Haunted [him] like a passion,” I imagined there must have been some opium in the picture to induce such fervor, for what alone in the natural world could stir him with such a lucid intensity?” Read more

Baby, I Can Drive My Car

“With no one accompanying me, the car started to feel a little bit like a spaceship again. I could not believe I was driving alone. When I turned on the first main road, I felt like operating this vehicle was more second nature and not foreign like a spaceship anymore…” Read more

How I Found Out

“I didn’t know she was right at the moment, but eventually I became comfortable and confident with who I was; and now that I’m in college I feel the most confident. I’m surrounded by other people like me, people who are proud and sure of themselves…” Read more

The Truth of Stardom: Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Diptych

“Marilyn Diptych was an art piece and commentary on Monroe’s personal life, stardom, and death. Monroe’s stardom ultimately caused her true self to be forgone, and this is demonstrated both through the use of color as well as space in Warhol’s silkscreen piece…” Read more

Introduction to Digital Publishing: “What Makes an Album a Classic?”

“The problem is that the word “classic” is hard to define, particularly when it comes to music. Ask five people on the street what the characteristics of a classic album or song are, and you’re likely to get five different answers. …” Read more

“I hope he knew how much he meant to me, to all of the people lucky enough to sit in his classroom and know him personally. I think he did. His life impacted too many people for him not to. I know it changed mine.” Read more

Springfield General Grabbag

“The Simpson family lived in my version of the real world, one that wasn’t fair and didn’t make sense. It wasn’t trying to guide you towards some squeaky clean, oversimplified moral conclusion. In fact, it actively parodied the idea that one could realistically do so.…” Read more

The One with the Second Monica

“My tendencies of overthinking and getting worked up over little things were counteracted by watching Friends, because it eased my mind and always created a safe space for me. It then became the secret language of my household…” Read more

Jaquira Diaz: Self-Erasure Through Relationships, Substances, and Self Harm

“ Through her memoir, Diaz illustrates that children of broken homes often cope with trauma through self-erasure, aiming to effectively disappear through relationships, substances, and self harm…” Read more

Painting Change

“Over the past year and a half, the world has been at a crossroads and the need for people who stand up for others has skyrocketed. We have faced many injustices and the fight to correct them has never been bigger…” Read more

Knockout

“It’s a surreal experience, gaining the perspective you’ve been waiting for so long. That feeling of worthlessness began to go away once I understood that the people I’d been so desperate to gain validation from were not more important than me…” Read more

From the Ashes

“Ballet was my superpower and my kryptonite. It had the ability to make me fly, but it turned me into the most insecure and unhappy version of myself. It became time for me to make the greatest sacrifice I ever made..” Read more

A Father’s Son

“I’ve always been told I have my father’s eyes, but our visions couldn’t be more different. And realizing that might’ve just saved my life…” Read more

The Faults of Progress

“Technology continues to advance and society alters to incorporate these progressions into daily life. Most advancements have proven to be beneficial, but one may begin to question: When has technology gone too far?” Read more

Technology and the Dangerous Divide

“Like any great science fiction author, Weinstein uses the technologies we have available to us today and heightens them, asking a lot of major what-if questions…” Read more

Alexander Weinstein and The Implications of Technology in the Future

“In the short stories “Children of The New World,” and “Openness,” Alexander Weinstein displays the inevitable loss of control, loss of human connection, and exploitation of others that is beginning and will continue to grow as technology overtakes society…” Read more

Until Next November

“I distinctly remember breaking out into hives after presenting my eighth-grade science project; running down eight flights of stairs to hyperventilate in the bathroom and calm my racing heart, only for my legs to ache on the way back up. William was the captain of his speech and debate team that year; I thought of that when Professor Dearing announced we would be doing a Moth Story Slam…” Read more

Transformations: Rising

“Growing up I lived with only my mom, from four to sixteen roughly. I would sometimes visit my dad and his side of the family before 2011. I’ll get into why that stopped later, but growing up I never had a house or my own room…” Read more

There Are Worse Things Than A Ghost Story

“When I was eleven, I had a good friend who often lied. So naturally, I was dubious when she told me that there was a house on her street that was haunted. However, I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt for three reasons…” Read more

Finding Security Through Uncertainty

“My mother told me to get to know other kids by finding commonalities, and she assured me that everyone would want to be my friend. But while my mom couldn’t find a reason why anyone wouldn’t like me, doubts started swarming my thoughts. I knew I was weird, my mom didn’t….” Read more

Olive

“One of my earliest memories is the first day of Kindergarten. I sat alongside 24 other students in a circle and one by one each of them went around saying their names and favorite color. I practiced what I would say in my head over and over again…” Read more

Analysis: “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine”

“Throughout the story, the reader sees different characters make distinct choices to shelter Lilia from reality—through a metaphor of costumes and candy, Lahiri highlights all of the spectacles put on to celebrate Halloween, creating the perfect symbol for the conflicting ideas and chaos that ultimately surround Lilia…” Read more

Ms. Williams

“The doctor came in, asked me if I had recently had unprotected sex, and I had but I lied—I was weak—and no match for what was to come…” Read more

Comfort in Discomfort

“Up until the age of fourteen, I had never found a fictional character that I could truly relate to. Spiderman is a possible exception, but I couldn’t realistically see myself swinging from web to web saving my hometown. On June 24, 2015 that all changed…” Read more 

Weakness

“It’s okay to be a weak person. There is nothing wrong with pushing yourself to be better. To become stronger. But in our society, there is such a heavy emphasis on needing to always be strong. While those who are weak get left behind…” Read more 

Reflection

“I would envision embarrassing situations I had previously been in, analyzing them over and over. I would think about my friends and how maybe they only tolerated me. I would think about my parents being disappointed in me, and I would ask myself if I was really making a difference in the world…” Read more

Analysis: ‘Mrs. Sen’s’ by Jhumpa Lahiri

“At first glance, a glare from an elderly woman may seem innocent, but it is an example of the micro-aggressions and discrimination that minorities, especially immigrants, encounter often….” Read more

Teaching Writing Process in an Age of Distractions, Speed, and Instant Gratification

“To teach process is to teach students that writing—real, thoughtful writing—is not the midnight-race-to-the-finish-line they too often embark upon the night before an assignment is due; to teach process is to teach students that writing—like every other skill we need and value—requires discipline, patience, and care…” Read more

Profiles: Remembering the Teachers Who Inspired Us

This series of mini-profiles focuses on high school and middle school educators who made a lasting impression and awakened new possibilities of self-discovery. All were written by students in Professor Wright’s and Professor Dearing’s sections of the College Writing Lab, which meets once a week during the fall semester…Read more

Forward Cycling: Retracing My Path to Purchase

You find determination within yourself when you’re fighting the heavy wind or getting back on your bike after falling on a slippery road. This is a part of my Dutch culture that I carry with me, wherever I go, steering me in the right direction. In a way, it is also what brought me from the hills of Rijssenseweg to a journey of self-discovery at Purchase College…Read more

Just Like Jim

The Office was a staple show in our relationship. On a good or bad day for us that show was always on. It started off as something we loved to do, a pastime that took away from the reality of what was going on…Read more

One With the Stars

Ever since I was little, I have struggled to fit in places. I have never been super outgoing and making friends wasn’t the easiest thing for me. Because of this, I’ve spent a lot of my life feeling lonely…Read more

Elevators With Strangers

Elevators feel endless with a stranger. You aren’t trying to be rude but you feel like you need to get out. Something on the floor is sticking to my shoes but I ignore it thinking this ride will end in a second…Read more

Literary Analysis: Tara Westover’s Educated

As Tara’s journey evolves through her education, we grasp that the body represents a mechanism of control based on her loved ones desire for authority. Once Tara starts forming her own beliefs and cultivating an intellectual identity, she gains control over her voice, as well as her physical body…Read more

After the shift to remote teaching last March, I noticed more late assignments and more students talking about lack of motivation, especially when it came to writing. In our conversations, students reported that what they needed most: connection…Read more

Two Student Reflections on Quarantine

Before quarantine, each day was a chore. Life was something I felt forced into and dragged through, every day being a struggle against myself. Yet, as I watched the world change, my views did as well…Read more

My Life Was On Paper

I was a troubled kid. I wrote a lot about loss and depression, and I had recently lost an uncle in a car crash. My poems and stories were about that pain and figuring out how to cope. I wanted to gain control of my thoughts. I’d write and write for twenty minutes nonstop…Read more

The Intricacies of the Mind

Raskolnikov’s journey taught me, amongst other things, the fragility and intricate nature of the mind, the power the mind holds over the body, and the consequences, both positive and negative, of the things one manifests…Read more

Finding Independence

I crafted a long text message to my father explaining my reasons for leaving. I knew from that moment on why I always felt that Nora and I had a connection. We were two of the same…Read more

Passage Selection: Light-Skinned Girls and Kelly Rowlands by Alexa Arthurs

Initially, I thought that this story was going to focus on the issue of colorism, based on the title, and there were still mentions of complexion and racial phenotypes throughout the story (Arthurs 1). The first paragraph introduces how darker-skinned black women are only praised if they meet certain beauty standards…Read more

Rhetorical Analysis: “Voices Are Power”

Through the use of visual rhetorical strategies; such as symbolism, color and shapes, Favianna Rodriguez’s Voices Are Power, argues that women of color and feminists have important voices to be heard…Read more.

Faculty News

This is a roundup of faculty highlights and publications from 2020, as well as a summary of opportunities for professional development and enrichment…Read more

Faculty Essay: Notes on Motivating a Student

A student without motivation is like a car with no gas. They have all the necessary pieces to make the journey, but no fuel to get them anywhere. You cannot help a student who doesn’t complete the work, so the question becomes, how do you motivate your students? During my first couple of years teaching, it became clear that addressing motivation should be a critical component of my teaching philosophy…Read more

Collage Essay: Coronavirus Chronicles

The following is a collage of excerpts of personal and reported essays chronicling the impact of the global pandemic on our personal, academic, and professional lives…Read more

Spotlight

Applause seemed to surround us. I checked if my setup was ready and waited for the conductor’s cue. For the first time, I was under control and it was not a coincidence. This piece of music represents part of my life story. Realizing that everything that happens on stage was about perspective took me a really long time…Read more

Considering the Risk of a Liberal Arts Education

My high school physics class was led by a cranky teacher. As much time as I spent in that class haphazardly drawing out proofs or frantically glancing at the equations my classmates were balancing, the majority of time was devoted to my teacher’s obsession with the futility of studying the liberal arts…Read more

Finding Frank

Hand in hand, my best friend Katya and I hastily crossed the RFK Bridge walkway in the sticky August heat. We maneuvered around the half-dressed Caucasians in neon spandex shorts and glittery faces, who sipped on their Poland Spring bottles filled with fruit punch colored liquid. I took a sip of a water bottle as we passed a concert-goer already collapsed on the path. It was eleven in the morning. Katya and I scoffed…Read more

Though She Be But Little She Is Fierce

I remember the first time I read A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare. It’s a wildly complex plot that takes place in an enchanted forest full of witty characters, caught in a dramatic love triangle; it was just my speed…Read more

Outsider

My sensei had announced that he would be forming a competition team, and invited a handful of students, myself included, from the dojo to compete across the state of New York. As soon as I heard the news, I was ecstatic; I felt like I could start a new chapter in my life, and become a legitimate athlete…Read more

Finding Spirituality in C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia

Growing up, I had never been able to deeply connect to Christianity or any other organized religion. When I hit a wall emotionally in my senior year of high school, I purchased a copy of the book that included all seven stories, as a desperate escape back to the familiarity of peace that the series gave me as a child…Read more

The self-identification that happens in the humanities cracks students open and leaves them raw in important ways. It is merely one step from “that could have been my son” to “that could be me”— that character reminds me of myself, or my friend, or my cousin…Read more

Voice Lessons

On a chilly afternoon in mid-November, our College Writing class meets at the Neuberger Museum of Art to tour the special exhibition of the work of Engels, a Haitian American artist who currently lives in Brooklyn…Read more

Comparing Machado and Roupenian to Consider the Role of Self-Delusion in Traditional Romantic Relationships

When the narrator in “The Husband Stitch” meets another woman with a ribbon like her own, she is astounded…Read more

Cruise Control

We’d spend hours repeating the same steps until, finally, I got it. This was my first taste of the skateboarding community—the best community, but with the worst reputation…Read more

A Seat at the Table

Weems embodies and incarnates the universal: platonic love, familial love, romantic love, love both mutual and unrequited…Read more

A Place to Call Home

I was born on February 15, 2000 on the small island of Trinidad and Tobago. On December 25, 2004 my family officially moved to the United States, with one suitcase and $100 in hand…Read more

A Year and a Day

My brother and I were both forced to experience loss at a relatively young age, and, like Noah and Jude, we similarly lost ourselves—and our bond—for some time, before finding it again…Read more

Submission: Two Female Protagonists Reexamine Familiar Heteronormative Power Dynamics

Two contemporary short stories, “Cat Person” by Kristen Roupenian and “The Husband Stitch” by Carmen Maria Machado, examine how a woman’s authentic identity can be compromised by the men around them…Read more