Editor's Note: We've rounded up 15 highlights from this year's Fifteen Minutes, the magazine of The Harvard Crimson. Read on for Harvard history, Cambridge charm, and stories about figures on campus, including a renowned con artist, a beloved security guard, and a former sex blogger-turned-artist. If you don’t feel like reading, you can also listen to our podcast on the Unabomber or peruse the pretty pictures in our photo essay of Harvard’s bird collection.
To Revel in An Asian Body
As I reflected on my own relationship to racial fetishization, I discovered that it was overwhelmingly forged through ambiguity: ambiguous interactions, ambiguous responses, and ambiguous feelings. The instances that prompted my immediate, visceral disgust felt secondary to the instances that left me uncertain, on the precipice of being shoved into a tired cultural script but clinging to the hope that I’d hold my ground.
Anna Delvey Is Over It
From mainstream journalists to Netflix binge-watchers to students at the Harvard Business School, everybody wants to make sense of the Anna Delvey phenomenon — everybody, it seems, except for Anna Delvey.
Lena Chen’s Intimate Internet
In the intimacy of Chen’s performance art, I see the nascent question of what desire, care, and closeness can look like in an increasingly online world. Chen is an artist who speaks into the future: the future of sex, the future of technology, the future that implicates everyone interacting on the internet.
What We Talk About When We Talk About Math 55
Just five years ago, the Math Department’s official word on Math 55 was that it was “probably the most difficult undergraduate math class in the country.” Now, they say, “if you’re reasonably good at math, you love it, and you have lots of time to devote to it, then Math 55 is completely fine for you.” So, what changed?
Direct Flash
I can’t shake the fact that my love for Los Angeles Apparel opposes my self-professed feminist politics. When I add another tennis skirt to my shopping cart, I line the pockets of a man who built his career on the degradation of women.
Bird Brilliance: Exploring Harvard’s Ornithology Collection
Founded in 1859, Harvard’s Ornithology Collection has become the fifth-largest ornithological collection on Earth, boasting around 400,000 specimens and 8,300 species — over 85 percent of all known bird species.
The Road to ManRay’s Resurrection
ManRay NightClub originally opened in 1983, attached to another venue, Campus, which was a gay club. Therefore, at least initially, ManRay was LGBTQ+ adjacent. It was a place for the self-identified freaks and geeks, the goths and the sloths. They had more mainstream nights, New Wave and techno for the normies on Saturdays, but they also had nights for all kinds of weirdos (non-derogatory): BDSM and fetish nights, fashion shows, art exhibitions. It was a big deal.
Venn Diagram: Dhall Crush, Cascada's 'Everytime We Touch'
without you it's hard to survive
Mike Grant on Leverett, Loss, and Life
His guard office, where he works from 4 p.m. to midnight Monday through Friday, overlooks Leverett’s grassy courtyard. It’s a perfect spot for catching the evening traffic of students as they come in and out of the house. Over the course of the interview, more than a dozen students stop by to greet Mike. Their conversations are familiar and easy as they update each other on their days and riff on inside jokes. Beyond these daily encounters, he’s formed a slew of close connections with Leverett students and has heard many of their stories. “They would cry in here,” he says. “It made me feel special that some people trusted me to come and share these types of stories.”
Memories of a City I’ve Never Known
Where we were was the gated avenues and green-grassed gardens of Johannesburg’s northern suburbs; where we weren’t was South Africa.
The Harvard Professor in Apartheid South Africa’s Corner
The legacy of apartheid is still apparent in South Africa; it’s a legacy that has perpetuated the conditions of racism and poverty. Part of that legacy traces all the way to Cambridge, Massachusetts — to Samuel Huntington.
“I Don’t Chase, I Attract”: The Lure of Manifestation TikTok
On manifestation TikTok, superstitions and unfounded techniques promise the fruition of anything you desire. The more I scrolled, the more I was told to repeat phrases, to embrace my delusions, or to use an audio for good luck.