Publications 

According to Yanis Varoufakis, a Greek economist and former finance minister of the Tsipras government, capitalism would have been killed by the capital and replaced by… techno-feudalism. Techno-feudalism He defends this idea by analysing the structures of capitalism in light of the radical transformations brought about by digital technology. Indeed, he believes that capitalism (as an economic system) has died and doesn’t govern our society anymore, even though capital still

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

I remember opening the news one day and seeing an article that caught my eye: “92 Million Jobs Gone: Who Will AI Erase First?” This was the title of a Forbes article that analyzed the World Economic Forum’s Future Job Report 2025, which predicted that AI would erase 92 million jobs by 2030. The report surveyed more than 1,000 of the largest employers worldwide, representing 22 industry clusters and over 14 million workers. The report claimed that professions already being tak

Allow me to start with a clumsy analogy, but one that I’m sure you’ll get: imagine you’re renting a  flat with friends, and one morning, dangerously close to Christmas, you’re walking out of your room still groggy, and you find your landlord cordoning off part of your flat. As he readily lets you know, he decided to sell your living room.  You’re in shock for a second, but only for one,  since although this is incredibly upsetting news,  it’s also surreal, downright nonsensic

I hate to break it to the 5% of people on campus who aren’t aware of the frequent scabies epidemics and mono outbreaks, but, sadly, they do exist. For many reasons, people try to keep their symptoms on the down-low, causing outbreaks of these diseases on campus. This is a part of living on a campus where hooking up is as easy as it gets (but, hey, it's okay if this isn’t the case for you). It is due to the uneven gender ratio, the relatively short walks of shame, being fresh

With around 800 people pressed into around 65.000 square meters, our campus often feels less like a  university and more like an elegant, slightly chaotic experiment in applied mathematics. The  experiment features a residential community, three academic buildings that double as housing, a quad that everyone must cross, and a population density that guarantees  you will run into someone you  know within seconds of leaving your room. In a closed system like this, probability b

The oversimplification of social media gender archetypes I, an Instagram Reels user, tend to lag behind a bit when it comes to internet trends. That’s why, when I first arrived at UCU, I didn’t understand what people meant when they joked about ‘performative males’. I quickly learned, however, that a performative male is an internet meme referring to a man who performs feminism, progressivism, and emotional sensitivity as a means to trick women into liking him. This man carri

The Boomerang Winter edition has finally arrived, and that means we’re swiftly moving towards the end of the first semester of 2025/26. A great moment to look back and reflect! Although a lot has happened in the past months, one thing mainly caught my, among many others’, attention. There seems to be a significant mismatch between campus’s perception of the UCSA and their own. This creates distance between them and the other students. Let me start by emphasizing that UCSA des

by Anonymous TW: Sexual assault Since I was young, probably around the age of 13, I have been made aware of the disgusting hold the male gaze has on myself, my friends, the media, and the resolve of the Western world. Intertwined with the patriarchy’s governance, the male gaze tears into my back until I bleed. One vivid memory that I feel I carry unwillingly, attached like a parasite, is when I moved to a British School and was made to wear a school uniform. Rolling up my sk

Out of 314 new students, only 14 Dutch men were accepted into University College Utrecht in 2025, the lowest in years. On the first day of the introduction week of University College Utrecht’s 2025-2026 academic year, 314 eager first-year students flooded the dining hall. Amid the chatter in Dutch and English, one figure stands out, not for what it says, but for what it represents. Out of 314 first-years, only 14 are Dutch men.  The gender gap at UCU has long been pronounced.

A response to Logan Janssen’s “The Souls of Small Creatures” You’re laying in bed, but you can’t sleep. Your room is certainly warm enough, dark enough, and yet, it seems abuzz with activity. The pitter-patter of small steps above you makes you question if you’re imagining it or if it’s real. Frustrated, you make your way to the kitchen for some water. From the dark crevice between the fridge and the stove, you’re being watched, you just don’t know it yet. So, you reach for t

Despite upcoming finals, many students at UCU were willing to take the time out of their day to speak with me about the importance of DH to them. Many reiterated the points Bence makes in “Let’s Talk Dining Hall,” but this is an overview of some of the other topics and questions that came up.  Many students were unsure whether there were any logical alternatives. (This included UCU’s budget, but, to clarify, the sale would help cut UU costs and does not directly impact UCU’s

One of the defining features of a Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS) education in the Netherlands is the promise of small classes. At our university college, no class is larger than 28 students, and many advanced courses, especially at levels 2 and 3, are much smaller. Some have six students, others four, and sometimes even three, and the reason lies in the distinction between following a track fully or treating its constituent courses as electives. In theory, these settings hav

Abroad in Utrecht *This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental. I had been dreaming of studying abroad since high school — an idea instilled in the American mind as the idealized experience one hopes will change their life forever. Given this pressure, choosing where to live for five months was one of the hardest decisions of my life.  So, naturally, I asked ChatGPT. Yes, SuperStickySurfaces, you were r