Trivial Pursuit

When imagining the ancient city of Athens, intriguing philosophy, beautiful art, and advancement in mathematics and science may be brought to mind. However, one man, Aristophanes, seemed to be the complete opposite of the portrayed picture of the Athenian people. He was a comedian, and a very unrefined one. His vulgar, sexual, uncouth plays were extremely popular, viewed by citizens of all statuses. The Ancient Greeks, so well known for laying the intellectual foundation of the Western world,…

carefree man to dissolve any of Porfiry’s impressions. The calculated “involuntary” glances he shares with Razumikhin reveal the extent to which he can play the role of an innocent man (Dostoevsky 210). Evidently, Raskolnikov reserves methodology for trivial matters.…

Why Muslims Shouldn’t be Banned from the United States On a cold, windy afternoon in October, 13-year-old Malika rushes through the doors of her school as the final bell rings. Her classmates’ jeers and insults echoing around her. “‘Terrorist!’,’Traitor!’, ‘Go back to where you came from!’,” they shout. But this is where she came from. Malika, her parents, and their parents before them were all born here, but her classmates do not care. Malika has done nothing to deserve these foul insults…

`“This is the secret of propaganda: To totally saturate the person, whom the propaganda wants to lay hold of, with the ideas of the propaganda, without him even noticing that he is being saturated” (Paul Watzlawick). This happens to be the way that Chinua Achebe turns his book Things Fall Apart into a piece of propaganda. Things Fall Apart is a story that follows the life of Okonkwo. It starts with Okonkwo being a person of great renown and power in his clan, Umuofia, in pre-colonial Nigeria,…

exemplify not only a military and political hegemon, but also a moral one. From abolishing slavery to eradicating the Jim Crow laws to the Civil rights Movement, the country has lived up to its Constitution and founding values such liberty and the pursuit of happiness. However, movements such as Black Lives Matter demonstrate how the Black population are still oppressed, namely because of their race, many argue. Theodore J. Davis Jr. of the Department of Political Science and International…

In The Colonial Harem, Algerian author Malek Alloula analyzes the French colonial gaze on his native country and particularly its women through the historical record of postcards made from 1900 to 1930. Alloula argues that the postcards were a form of symbolic assault on the veiled and private women of Algeria, who were played in them by paid models, as denizens of the colonial fantasy of the harem, as created by Orientalism. In the first chapter “The Orient as Stereotype and Phantasm,” Alloula…

“I am afraid you have had very little experience in how to propose... men often propose for practice. I know my brother Gerald does. All my girl-friends tell me so” (24). Wilde criticizes the concept of a proposal by using Gwendolen’s constant irritating responses, satirical tone, and ignorance towards the subject. Individuals dwell with anxiety about making a proposal extravagant and nearly perfect, to the point where they are ignorant to the bigger picture and genuine meaning of a proposal;…

Timeless stories like Jane Austen's Emma can be told repeatedly no matter the culture or time period because they are relatable and entertaining. With that being said, some adaptations of classic stories are more well thought out than others. Changing the source material is not always bad, sometimes it serves to make characters more likable, to add a comedic element to a situation, or update out of date references. The movie Clueless made in 1995 is one of the better adaptations of the classic…

civically engaged in lawmaking and everyday governance of the community. Athenian citizens would scoff at the idea that freedom is the ability to pursue happiness and pleasures, because to them those pursuits were lazy and could be accomplished by mere slaves and or non-citizens and therefore were trivial in nature. Personally, I agree with the notion that freedom is more than the right to pursue happiness; for in order for there to be an obtainable goal…

and respect running upwards and downwards without interruption. As Simpkin explains the German version of directive control, " the subordinate commander is free to modify the task set to him without referring back, if he is satisfied that further pursuit of that aim would not represent the best use of his resources in furtherance of his superiors…