Four years ago this June, Shirley Tilghman told Princeton’s graduating class:
During your time at Princeton, many of you have been moved to speak out on issues of social and political importance, from the moral significance of a pre-emptive war, to the pros and cons of senatorial filibusters, to the needs of low-wage workers on our campus…As you prepare to leave Princeton, I trust that the social and political consciousness you have cultivated here will give you the conviction and the courage to take a stand against tyranny and injustice wherever it arises.
This sounds like a pretty standard sentiment for a university president to express at a commencement ceremony but does it accurately reflect the manner in which Princeton affords its students to build a social and political consciousness?
I haven’t seen you in a while. And I suppose you’ve never really seen me (remember, I am just one proton). Though I periodically get lonely, I manage to stay positive. This is a joke, Oxygen. You see, I am always positive in an electromagnetic sense (I am a proton!), but my morale—well, with a relentless positive charge comes a great burden. O—may I call you O?—nothing comes easily to me.
…The gravedigger’s laugh turns to hacking as he takes off his soiled gloves and exposes his hands, which are caked with cemetery earth…
Come closer, come closer (my pretty, my sweet): let me feel your weight on my chest, the rubber soles of your sneakers marking my skin pink. I feel you, lingering, some feet away—hesitant, glancing shyly at this patch of grass, not raising your eyes to the stone that marks it…
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.
“Granny Annie had devoted her life to others in a manner that was awe-inspiring. Even winds upward of 100 miles per hour and torrential rain could not stymie her optimistic spirit, the hope that coursed through her family’s veins.”
Deion Sanders is flying into town this weekend to see BodyHype’s spring show, so I really can’t see why you wouldn’t just make the ten minute trek over to Theater Intime. No really. Neon Deion has been text messaging BodyHype … Read More
Last Sunday, I spoke with one of my dear friends about God. We were walking down some path strewn with magnolia petals, as the sun finally shone through the trees, talking about the trees, the breeze, the news.
