Each time my mother has been diagnosed with cancer, the bond that we share has been tested. In the past, we always joked about her never getting colds, just cancer. Currently, she is undergoing treatment for her sixth ...
As technology changes, how do the ways we represent ourselves change? How do we represent ourselves in our artificial creations? As the boundaries between ourselves and robots become less clear, what does it mean to be ...
For as long as I can remember, whenever I gazed into the mirror I would be overcome with shame. My nose was too big, eyes too small, or gut too large. Surely I must be a monster, for I am far too hideous to be deserving ...
I am part of a generation of Asian-Americans who cannot speak the languages of their grandparents, who cannot fathom the struggles of their immigrant elders, and cannot begin to comprehend the extent of cultural disconnect ...
As a child, my mother always took me to department stores for shopping. I found the mannequins in the window display fascinating. For me, they were like actual human beings, only prettier. Window designers dress the ...
I believe in the potential of art and other transcendent experiences to inspire growth in the way we treat each other, and the way we treat the earth. By “transcendent experience,” I mean anything that induces heightened ...
I’ve always carried dreams of what my body could be one day. Sometimes they scream from within me and shake me down to my bones, while other times they have been completely drowned out by other voices in my life. As children, ...
Growing up, I always admired the natural beauty of my home state of South Carolina. The variety of ecosystems across the state, from the coastal waterways up through the Piedmont Mountains, provides a variety of homes for ...
Memories are strongly linked to places, and homes represent a refuge for most. I’ve spent part of every year in the Dominican Republic. My family home there has served as a protective and peaceful place set apart from where ...
I’ve never been very good at drawing or painting. I always used to try to draw pictures of my family and friends, or my favorite fantasy movie characters. My pictures never came out exactly the way I wanted until I discovered ...
Hailing from Manila, Philippines, I am no stranger to dense, chaotic environments wrought with overpopulation and poor air quality. With little access to green spaces, I became drawn to plants. I was fascinated by their ...
Haitian Vodou has long been stigmatized and tainted, warped by Western projections that connect the religion to witchcraft and death. Historically, Vodou, a syncretic religion practiced chiefly in Haiti and the Haitian ...
Art is something that I have always loved from the bottom of my heart. It is a way for me to communicate stories and ideas; it is a way for me to keep myself awake during classes; it is a way for me to understand the world. ...
I paint messy. I paint when I am tired, agitated, relaxed, miserable, in despair. I paint utterly unprepared. The only things governing my brushstrokes, then, are fragments of my memory and the canvas before me. I paint ...
This study examines volunteerism and volunteer management at HIAS Pennsylvania (HIAS PA), a nonprofit organization in Philadelphia that provides legal and social supportive services to immigrants, refugees, and asylum ...
"Biomes" is a musical microcosm of the world's ecological, climatic, geographic, and cultural diversity. Through seven linked movements, this work is a modern take on the nineteenth-century aesthetic of the character piece ...
The term Counterpoint is used to refer to music consisting of concurrent melodic lines. Although it has its roots in early church music going back to the 14th century, it was derived from the earlier theory of descant. ...
The impetus for this work was research into the various types and functions of psalms from a textual perspective; how do they function as poetry, rather than as liturgy? Unsurprisingly, there is a good deal of scholarship ...