Publications 

Sometimes, when white people say “Indian men are rapists,” I, an Indian girl, don’t know how to disagree with them. Truth 1: this is racist and untrue. Truth 2: I have been the subject of Indian sexism for many years. I didn’t know how to hold both truths in my head until I heard the term sexual nationalism during a guest lecture from Paul Mepschen. Sexual nationalism is used to describe ways in which ideas around gender and sexuality contribute to constructing a nation. In t

László Krasznahorkai: Satantango A Hungarian just won the Nobel Prize for Literature, and it’s an author I actually quite like, so it is only natural that I try to let you all know what Krasznahorkai is all about: devastation, decay, abandonment, and the apocalypse. Isn’t it uplifting? Still, it’d be difficult to argue against it befitting the increasingly pervasive attitudes of more and more people worldwide — and, maybe, if we read about just how bad things can be, we’ll do

We are living in a period of unprecedented economic growth. For most of human history, the world economy expanded only marginally, if at all. Even the shocks of the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, though severe, barely hindered our upward trajectory. Judged purely through the lens of growth, things should look better than ever. The counterintuitiveness of this stage of marvellous growth is revealed through the contradictions we witness. We see how people star

Biopics, Springsteen, and Influences Last week, I watched Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere at the movies. I thought, what could go wrong? With Jeremy-Allen White portraying Bruce Springsteen’s creation of Nebraska , there is no way a film about a star of such caliber could be bad. But, after a long 120 minutes, I discovered that what was wrong was me. Alas, this is not a review of the movie, which lacks a plot and barely skims the surface of the plot it does tell, choosin

Appreciating a Winter Night By Boele Loonstra Christmas is coming up, and this calls for a new playlist. I am not yet feeling actual Christmas music, though. I need some songs that take me out of the harsh reality of walking home in the dark at 5:30 pm with -1° outside, songs that elevate me into the dark skies. In my opinion, the key here is the instrumental. I started looking through my Spotify for almost heavenly instrumentals. I am unsure of what to call this genre, but h

Debunking Neuroscience Myths “One’s personality is visible in their brain.” Maybe you’ve thought this while psychoanalyzing your situationship with your friends at 2 a.m., or while diagnosing your unitmates with five different personality disorders because they microwave fish. Whether you meant it or you were simply acting like everyone is a walking DSM-5, one thing is certain: if you truly believe you can see someone’s personality written cleanly in their brain, you’ve been