Crimson staff writer
Bea Wall-Feng
Latest Content
Most Chill: Micah Williams
“Some people say you can maximize luck, you know, you can put yourself in a position to be lucky. I think the same thing is true for happiness.”
Fifteen Questions: Jules Gill-Peterson on Trans DIY History, Deep-Fried Memes, and the End of the World
The historian sat down with Fifteen Minutes to discuss modes of transition and the current political moment. “Despite every attempt, people have been remarkably bad at stopping people from transitioning,” she says.
The Abolitionist and the Prisoners’ Union
Fifty years ago, the Massachusetts corrections commissioner handed the keys to the men incarcerated at Walpole State Prison. They ran the facility for two months — to prove to the world that prisons shouldn’t exist at all.
What is Going On With Effective Altruism?
“Most of us want to improve the world. We see suffering, injustice, and death and feel moved to do something about it,” the Harvard EA website says. “But figuring out what that ‘something’ is, let alone actually doing it, can be a difficult and disheartening challenge. Effective altruism is a response to this challenge.” Can it live up to that goal?
Fifteen Questions: David Atherton on Japanese Literature, Creativity, and Remembering to Breathe
The literary scholar sat down with Fifteen Minutes to discuss Edo-period writing and his experience returning to Harvard as a professor. “How can we find and contribute and generate interesting humanistic questions and different ways of thinking about things like literature and culture,” he says, “that are not bound by region at all?”
Poptropicapitalist Realism, or Love at the End of the World
Poptropica was profoundly uninterested in explaining why your character could jump, barter, and wheedle their way into saving the world. For me, as a kid, this was the coolest thing ever.
Fifteen Questions: Morgan Ridgway on Urban Indigeneity, Solange, and Linear Time
The historian sat down with Fifteen Minutes to discuss the way their archival work, poetry, and performance art inform each other. “I think less about events happening sequentially, and more about these moments of aspiration,” they say.