A New State of Mind
Life after abroad
It’s been a while since I last wrote for the Orient. You may remember my last contribution to this column, which had a brief stint of YikYak fame, titled “Why I can’t go home.” In it, I lamented the struggles …
Opinion
Common Good
What’re you Bow-doin this for?
I hate going home. Most of the time, it feels like walking through a time capsule, which emphasizes the vast disconnect, a tension, between myself and the home I left behind. It’s bittersweet.
It’s odd how just a few days …
Maine Politics
Lessons from the Black radical tradition
In “The Wretched of the Earth,” Algerian decolonial theorist Frantz Fanon wrote: “Each generation must out of relative obscurity discover its mission, fulfill it, or betray it,” Although he wrote this in 1961, this quote could not ring …
Editorial
Policing our expression
Last week, Senior Vice President and Dean for Student Affairs Jim Hoppe shared updates to the College’s policies on property use, freedom of expression and protests on campus following committee recommendations.
The College claims that it “firmly believes that the …
How to resist ICE in Maine
As many readers are already aware, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has begun a terror campaign here in Maine, kidnapping community members and separating families. Fear and despair are natural responses to the local and national news, but action …
Settler colonialism is a caricature of human history
Most of the 40-plus activist Bowdoin professors in Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (FSJP), and dozens more like-minded activist faculty, dutifully parrot the accusation of “settler colonialism” against Israel. What makes the theory of settler colonialism so potent …
Finding comfort in a procedural answer
I haven’t called myself a “math person” since I was 12 or so, probably about when they were adding letters to math in the rural Texas curriculum. I didn’t want to dislike it; I had found a lot of love …
Black Student Union
Hate speech isn’t an opinion—it’s a threat
Too often, colleges and universities in the United States comport themselves as institutions that exist in isolation from current affairs. The notion of the “ivory tower of academia” speaks for itself; these are places that analyze the world from the …
politics
A bold adaptation: In defense of a public relations professional
We, Bowdoin students, have entered the Dark Ages of learning about Israel. Last semester, contributors to Israel-related campus programming seemed forced to hide face, having to funnel their $80-some thousand dollars through largely anonymous alumni groups and multiple shell organizations…
politics
Moral abdication: There’s no hiding a genocide
Those that want to deny the Gaza genocide that’s been unfolding before our eyes would rather speak about anything else. In the pages of the Orient, Neil Urwitz and Alan Christenfeld double down on genocide denial and add some defamatory …