Letter from the Editors 2/25

the Editors

Dear Readers,
How pleased we are to have you! Come, come. Feel our warm, papery embrace. It is cozy in here, whether you use our pages for pleasure, insulation, or as toilet paper.

An Argument for Bigness

Tom Gaghan

‘Reading,’ as describing a certain activity of eye-sliding-over-page, with eye recognizing ink blobs corresponding (by means of whatever neural calculus) either (1) to something like second-order phonemes, and therefore to certain aural centers and therefore to speech-parts of the brain, which ‘articulate’ meaning to other parts, or (2) to something like second-order morphemes, and therefore to certain visual centers, and therefore to picture-parts of the brains, which ‘project’ meanings to other parts, or (3) to some combination of (1) and (2)[1]—well, ignore that or bracket it, because I have 1,000 words and a little over, say, ten minutes to argue for long and arduous works of literature, their import and glory—and, specifically, for the particularly long and particularly arduous recent novels of Roberto Bolaño and David Foster Wallace.

The Prince Was Not Happy With Our Existence

O Roe

This continues a series of interviews with the paper's founders conducted to mark thirty years of the Nass.

J&L Vignettes

Halcyon Person

The Alex Adams award was established in 2007 in memory of its namesake, Jay Alexander Adams. It provides financial support to undergraduates who elect to spend two months of their summer producing an original work of art. Halcyon Person ’10 was one of the two recipients chosen last spring. What follows are excerpts from her project, for which she spent the summer in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, conducting interviews with members of her father’s and grandfather’s generation who had worked at the since closed Jones & Laughlin Steel Mill.

Live Well the Life of Mind

Max Maduka

Intellectual awakening can often seem an accident in Princeton. It is an accident a number of people never has the misfortune of suffering. Inherent to the structure of the liberal arts system is an unlikely conflict between the academic and the intellectual, cast crudely, the conflict between getting a good grade and finding your passion (and discovering the tools which can help you communicate that passion to the people around you.)

Post-race, Post-everything

Emily Rutherford, Lucas Barron, Max Maduka, Oliver Roe

A conversation with 4 Nass staffers on race, gender, sexuality and the 2008 election.

Say (Something) Loud

Gregory Burnham

I’ll give it to you real quick: the state of political discourse on campus? It sucks

Maverick! With Experience

David R. Maass

Statesmanship is the art of accommodating interests, of dialog and compromise. Bold leadership requires an appreciation for the democratic process. We don’t just trust our leaders to make the right decisions; we trust the process to work properly, so that different views are represented and decisions are made using the best available information.

To Obama and Beyond

Jacob Candelaria

This article flows from a simple assumption. Barack Obama will be elected the 44th President of the United States, and on January 20th, 2009 he will assume said office.