Jessica A. Sequeira
Latest Articles
Beyond Thought
This ability to transcend mere intellect—it is right to call it anti-intellectualism—is one of Harvard’s greatest qualities.
Notes on Ai Weiwei
It was when he moved back to China to be with his ailing father that Ai grew interested in the social landscape of his country, and began to ask how one could utilize modern design techniques to highlight political issues.
Island Nations
“If all the year were playing holidays, / To sport would be as tedious as to work.” Folks say these ...
Bezmozgis Offers Uninspired Take on Immigrant Experience
For a few decades in the middle of the last century, American fiction featured a strong Jewish voice, world-weary yet wisecracking, in which unconcern—even disgust—toward the world coexisted with fascination with its linguistic and philosophical possibilities. With his existential emphasis, the Jew became the everyman; though the Jewish immigrant now rarely appears as a novelistic protagonist, a great nostalgia for his brand of schmerz persists.
Obama in the Backlands
In Brazilian Portuguese there’s an evocative word sertão, meaning “backlands.” It refers to the Northeastern interior, calling up images of ...
A Manmade Eden
Nestled in a fern planter in the entry to my house, eyes closed and legs crossed, sits a life-size stone ...
Depth of Focus
This weekend I had the wonderful opportunity to watch The Battle of Chile, celebrated Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzmán’s epic three-part ...
Abjuring the Realm
There is something touchingly idiotic, and sublimely old-fashioned, about the spectacle of these reporters who still feel the need to enter the fray.
Tóibín Reveals Private Passions in ‘The Empty Family’
An Irish writer best known for his novels “The Blackwater Lightship,” “The Master,” and “Brooklyn,” Tóibín knows how to turn a lovely sentence, full of cadence and lyricism. In this collection, Ireland makes up the backdrop: many of his characters are returning to Ireland after a long absence, or are still—though expatriates—carrying the land within them.
Architects of the Future
What students are really saying, if less articulately than they might, is that it is possible to work together, that they needn’t break into isolated individuals or communities—and that, standing beside government institutions, one shouldn’t ever feel small.