Writing

“The New Lay of Tristan and Isolde” is a retelling of the legend, famously told in Gottfried von Strassburg’s romance, of Tristan and Isolde—of the love between them and of their tragic deaths. In the poem, I attempt not only to make the story more palatable for the modern reader, but also to better understand the characters emotionally and psychologically.

Technologies of Civilization: Writing, Numbers, and Money (ClassGen 22N) an IntroSem taught by Professor Reviel Netz  to freshmen in the autumn, investigates the global “role of cognition in shaping history and the role of history in shaping cognition,” with special emphasis on the ancient technologies of writing, numbers, and money.

In early 2013, Stanford Symphony Orchestra embarked on “The Beethoven Project,” performing all 9 of Beethoven’s symphonies, all 5 piano concertos, and several other major orchestral works, ultimately concluding with a grand performance tour of Europe. I am not a member of the orchestra, but as an avid listener of classical music and Beethoven enthusiast, I wanted to partake in this great musical endeavor.

In Professor Jesse Rodin’s IntroSem, Singing Early Music (MUSIC 38N), students presented a final concert of vocal pieces from the medieval through early Renaissance periods. Accompanying the performance were student-written program notes for each of the pieces, exploring the historical context and significance of the music.

As a final project for Professor Londa Schiebinger’s IntroSem, Gendered Innovations in Science, Medicine, Engineering, and Environment (HISTORY 44Q), students were required to research and present an example of a gendered innovation.

An original contribution to the collective scholarly body of knowledge? Yeah, right. It took up until the last week of class for me to come to terms with the idea that an “original contribution” does not have to be a solution or even a clear-cut answer. It can be as simple as looking at a familiar situation in an original way. And yet, this is not exactly a comforting revelation, because seeing something in a different light is not as simple as following formulas and obeying natural laws in Calculus or Chemistry.

[Belief] features the work of Stanford students who use creative self-expression to map their relationship to matters of faith.  The contributions range from personal statements of faith to creative experiments that probe the inherent uncertainty of belief.  

The anthology includes contributions by Johnathan Bowes, Ashley Micks, Michelle Jia, Austin Elizabeth Williams, and Taylor Winfield. Photograph by Rasheedat Zakare-Fagbamila.

Slightly intimidated is exactly how I felt during my first day in Christine Alfano’s “Rhetoric of Gaming” course.  For starters, the class was eighty percent male. Moreover, considering that my gaming experience amounted mostly to The Sims and Mario Kart, I was doubtful of whether or not I could even classify myself as a gamer. Nonetheless, I easily found relatable topics to write about, and quickly realized that my gaming experiences (or lack thereof) gave my voice a unique and valuable perspective.

My paper was undeniably a response to Ken Auletta's “Get Rich U.” and – in many ways – my attempt at a defense of Stanford' pedagogical mission. Over the course of conducting research for the paper, I became increasingly convinced that modern critics yearned for a return to Ivy League curriculums from the ‘60s instead of seriously attempting to understand the higher education zeitgeist of our times, and I wanted to capture this sentiment and its associated issues in the work.

Throughout middle school and high school, I heard many girls complain that they only had male friends because girls were too catty, backstabbing, or “bitchy.” I did not want to believe that girls could be inherently more prone to this kind of aggression than boys, which led me to my first research question: “why do girls engage in behaviors like gossiping or exclusion?