Since the early 2000s, discussions of the LGBTQ+ community have become less taboo and more accessible to people who are questioning their place within heteronormative society. The community also holds a tentative place in mainstream media. Nevertheless, heteronormative culture often considers Queer people and the place that they hold in society up for debate. From […]
Read more "Transgender"“I need to be someplace safe”.[1] These words were uttered by Terri and Vince Cooks’ son Drew when he was dealing with an episode of severe depression in Allies & Angels, a first-hand account of two parents raising a transgender child. Their narrative of the creation and fostering of safe spaces for LGBTQ youths, such […]
Read more "A Safe Harbour: Navigating LGBTQ Safe-Spaces in Uncertain Times"During the first day of class, I was frustrated. I didn’t quite understand why, in our entry point to the course, my hesitation with chuckling at white tears might not be beneficial to the class discussion. I thought, “Well, that doesn’t seem constructive. How could we presume to know that person’s experience?” To this, the […]
Read more "On Between the World And Me"“I write to you in your fifteenth year. I am writing to you because this was the year you saw Eric Garner choked to death for selling cigarettes…” ~Ta-Nehisi Coates [1] In September 2018, the New York Civil Liberties Union opened a ten-day pop-up museum titled the Museum of Broken Windows. This free art exhibition […]
Read more "The Museum of Broken Windows"Discussion of the Third Reich and the Holocaust often focuses on the massive devastation and human destruction that occurred. At the heart of all that devastation lay the individual men, women, and children who suffered. Through personal stories, the full atrocities of the Holocaust come to light in a real and emotional way. As inherently […]
Read more "Personal Stories of the Holocaust"Oliver Sacks is well known for his written works focused on individuals with disabilities from a neurological perspective. Narratives of those with alternate abilities were once rarely heard of and were blocked out of history books, but as the way society views these individuals continues to change, it is important to include these stories as we […]
Read more "Reflection: An Anthropologist on Mars"In the fourth grade I had a pen pal who lived in Colombia; we would exchange letters once every few weeks and would discuss school, sports, etc. Thanks to technology, the pen pal experience has changed and thanks to COIL, I had to opportunity to instantly meet face to face with someone in a different […]
Read more "COIL Reflections"