Ten years ago, Robin Marantz Henig published an article in The New York Times Magazine whose opening header read, “Why are so many people in their 20s taking so long to grow up?” The question referred to those who had entered adulthood in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis […]
Features
Making sense of McGill’s underfunding crisis
Students come to McGill for many reasons. For domestic students, it is an affordable, high-ranking, historically anglophone university; for international students, McGill’s prestige is comparable to top schools globally. But many students, especially international and out-of-province first years, are surprised to find that McGill’s services and resources are severely […]
Pushing away from prejudice
For a culture that is built on subverting the conventional, the skateboarding community must strive to create more diverse spaces. What is largely depicted in popular magazines and videos disregard the reality of the skate scene. While there are companies and magazines working to increase visibility, more recognition must be […]
Strings and other things
Growing up, my favourite movie scene was the wand-shop sequence from Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone. The scene opens with Harry entering Olivander’s wand shop, surrounded by towering shelves of wands and surfaces cluttered with tools and scraps of parchment. After trying an array of wands, he settles on […]
Feeding ourselves, and our roots
Drinking cold sweet tea has always been my preferred way to pass a warm summer’s day. Growing up in Georgia, sweet tea was one of my favourite treats as a young child. While seemingly every Southern household had a pitcher of the sugary beverage in the fridge, ready to be […]
McGill’s dirty, oily secrets
Content Warning: Physical violence, sexual violence For years, campus environmental activist groups, such as Divest McGill and Climate Justice Action McGill, have been vocal about their demands: McGill must stop coddling extractive industries, namely fossil fuel and mining companies. From gold mining tycoon and heavy fossil fuel investor Seymour Schulich’s […]
Turn on, tune in
August 2017: I’m driving into downtown Montreal for the first time, not as a tourist, but as a resident and student at McGill University. As I cross the Jacques-Cartier bridge after a 10-hour car ride from rural Pennsylvania, I turn on the radio just in time to catch Chumbawamba’s 1997 […]
From across the fence
Don’t lie—I know you’ve observed your neighbours without them knowing. I do it, too. Montreal is full of neighbours peeking into each other’s lives, often without acknowledgement; after all, we are all strangers thrown into a shared space and compelled to coexist. And we all have windows, so naturally, we […]
The violence of exclusionary design
Hostile architecture, also known as exclusionary or defensive design, is an intrinsic component of Montreal’s urban spaces—you just may not have noticed it. For most people who call this city home, experiencing urban public spaces is risk-free and innocuous, be it riding on the metro, sitting in the park, or […]
Commemorating the past through the present
Photography has always been an interest of mine, especially the old, black-and-white photos capturing the past. While historical sources are often charged with biases, photography can depict the past through a clearer picture. There is no better example than the evolving city of Montreal. The endless summertime construction prompts us […]