If a piece of art is deemed worthy of being preserved in a museum, we might be led to think it’s always been widely appreciated. This isn’t necessarily the case, though—something highlighted by Dr. Galina Olmsted in her guide to “Impressionism at the Eskenazi Museum of Art.” I completed a French minor at IU, so…… Read more »

It’s well acknowledged that we live in the age of hyper-connectivity, one in which our digital technology has in many ways rendered geographic distance obsolete. But COVID-19 has revealed another facet of our interconnectedness: how we’re tied to the rest of our communities on a molecular, bodily level. Our bodies are porous, open to those…… Read more »

This will probably disappoint many musically literate readers, but prior to 2020, I had never heard of Fiona Apple. All of a sudden, at the beginning of April, the internet was abuzz with her name; at a friend’s behest, I listened to her new album, Fetch the Bolt Cutters, when it was released on April…… Read more »

Dear IU: I feel I have much to thank you for. I’ll start with your good looks: thanks for your many trees, your spring tulips and flowering dogwoods, your winding waterways. Thanks for being the best place to take an aimless wander. Thanks for the stairs in Ballantine, how they’re the best at making me…… Read more »

The difficulty of this moment lies in the disjuncture between the new smallness of our worlds under stay-at-home orders and the enormity and incomprehensibility of the coronavirus pandemic. If you let it, the magnitude of it can consume you. But art—and creative acts in all their forms—can serve as a corrective when anxiety and worry…… Read more »

I’ve found that two of the things helping me during our period of COVID-19 isolation pair well together—turning on a podcast episode and taking a walk for its duration is both calming and delightful. Here are two of my all-time favorites to keep you company: Poetry Unbound I don’t meditate, but the installments of Poetry…… Read more »

I would’ve had a difficult time settling on a favorite IU memory from this school year before the coronavirus pandemic, and that’s even harder now—all that I experienced this school year is now colored by the knowledge that life as we knew it would screech to a halt in March. What I want to remember…… Read more »

The transition to online learning and working has made me realize what a precious and irreplaceable thing it is to commune in a room with other people. Don’t get me wrong, it’s comforting to log onto Zoom and see the faces of my classmates, professors, co-workers, and friends. But it’s also disorienting for them to…… Read more »

How am I keeping grounded during this time in which nearly everything feels as though it’s slipping away? Let me count the ways: sticking to my morning ritual of peanut butter and banana slices on toast, a mug of green tea, and a book. Taking long (socially distant) walks and wrestling with the weirdness of…… Read more »