By Emily Cho 27'  • Nov 11, 2025 When Claude Monet painted Impression, Sunrise  in 1872, critics accused him of being careless—his brushstrokes too loose, his forms too vague. Yet that very painting gave birth to Impressionism , a movement that transformed how we see light and emotion on canvas. Nearly a century earlier, another artist had already captured the drama of light in a very different way: J.M.W. Turner, whose Fishermen at Sea  (1796) marked the beginning of his ris

By Janice Yang ’26  • Nov 11, 2025 The Death of Marat, © Wikipedia — public domain image The Death of Marat is a famous depiction of a crime scene from the past 250 years, painted in 1793 by Jacques-Louis David. This work, created with oil on canvas, is currently housed in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels. This painting commemorates the death of Jacques-Louis David’s close friend, Jean-Paul Marat. Marat was a politician and journalist who belonged to the

By Ian Kim '27  • Nov 10, 2025 Tripolar fragmentation: The global economy increasingly split between the United States, China, and the European Union, as trade lines weaken across blocs. The global economy is shifting towards a fragmented structure where nations tightly align with one of three blocs: China, the European Union, or the United States. This tripolar framework has more severe consequences than the U.S.-China divide, since economic ties weaken across all three bloc

By Seoyeon Claudia Kim '28  • Nov 10, 2025 Cover of   Fahrenheit 451 — Ray Bradbury’s timeless warning against censorship and conformity. Introduction Fahrenheit 451, a novel written by Ray Bradbury, takes place in a dystopian society where books are banned by the government. In this society, firefighters are figures that burn books and arrest those who possess books; they are not the ordinary firefighters who put out fires. The protagonist, Guy Montag is a firefighter, who b

Ian Kim '27  • Nov 10, 2025 In many areas of life, competition is seen as a motivator for success. However, when success depends on the failures of others, competition can quickly turn into something destructive. Instead of building community or improving well-being, competition often creates anxiety, resentment, and a fear of falling behind. These effects are visible in both literature and historical events , where the drive to out do others leads to harm rather than individ

By Minsung Kim ‘26 • Nov 10, 2025 Every election season, Americans brace themselves for the same storm. The air fills with political ads, the debates turn hostile, and families tiptoe around dinner conversations. It’s easy to blame “partisan politics,” but polarization runs deeper than campaign slogans or Twitter threads. It’s embedded in the way we vote. Most U.S. states use what’s called a first-past-the-post (FPTP) system. On the surface, it sounds fair—whoever gets the mo