Upon looking into the book further, I was shocked to see that this was Burke's debut novel. For an author's first book to receive this much praise and attention, it must either be truly exceptional or exceptionally lucky. I picked up the book to decide for myself which one it was.

Yesteryear follows Natalie Heller Mills, a "tradwife" influencer living on an isolated farm in Idaho with her loving husband and five (soon to be six) children. She presents a perfect, highly produced life on her social media, preaching Christian values, a return to tradition and classical gender roles. However, we get only a brief glimpse into her modern life before Natalie is transported to 1855. She wakes up in her house - except it isn't her house - and with her family - except it isn't her family.

The rest of the story is spent shifting between the past and the present. There are snippets of Natalie's whole life interspersed with the 1855 timeline she suddenly woke up in. We see her grow from early childhood to Harvard student to full-fledged tradwife influencer. As the story progresses, pieces of the puzzle start falling into place.

I recommend reading Yesteryear for yourself, but if you're interested in a full review including spoilers, continue reading.

There are a lot of really interesting aspects of this book. If nothing else, it can keep you engaged through storytelling alone. The way the story flips between past and present creates a truly fascinating path through the plot where you feel like you're putting together pieces of a puzzle. You are given the ending, and through the rest of the novel it's up to you to try and figure out how Natalie ended up in her situation.

Admittedly, I found some sections of the novel quite predictable. However, this is not necessarily an entirely negative feature of the book. Burke was trying to tell a story about tradwife influencers, and because I'm familiar with a lot of the online discourse surrounding that topic, I was able to more or less predict various tradwife-related story beats. Some plot points, such as her disdain for her children, the constant lies to her audience and her presentation of a perfect life while she has a producer, two nannies and almost 30 employees on her farm aren't as outrageous. I imagine someone who spends less time engaging with discussions of online tradwife personas might find them more unbelievable. Either way, the storytelling forces you to engage deeply with the story, and it makes it a very fun read.

Beyond the storytelling, I have to praise the depth of emotion that Yesteryear made me feel. First, the story getting me to care and even empathize with our increasingly morally reprehensible protagonist is brilliant. While Yesteryear is ultimately a critique of Natalie and everything she stands for, it takes its main character seriously. You get to understand Natalie, and honestly, I found myself feeling quite bad for her at multiple points.

Although she is in a prison of her own making, it's almost impossible not to at least slightly empathize with her. This makes the book so much better; it's not just a mindless bashing of a woman who is a product of a misogynist system, but rather a confrontation of that system. Additionally, there are some disgusting moments in this novel. There were multiple moments where my heart dropped to my stomach reading. One scene where Natalie forgets her infant in her car and is confronted by a fan was so horrific I almost had to stop reading.

However, I don't think this scene, or any of the other difficult scenes, is horror for the sake of horror. The point of this novel is to feel Natalie's psychological stress and confront the complicated morality of the story. The book is trying to ask you difficult questions, and the horror is meant to make you confront your own morals.

Finally, I would be remiss to exclude at least a brief discussion of the big reveal twist ending. While it was not exactly the world's most unpredictable ending, I think it was quite good. Obviously, Natalie had never actually been transported into the past; that would make this book settle into an entirely different genre. Natalie's pure, built-up psychological stress leading to a mental break is a fitting end to a story that's ultimately a discussion about the harms of continued performance to fit the mold society puts forward.

While Yesteryear is far from a perfect novel, it is certainly worth a read; especially if you appreciate books that challenge your moral compass and urge you to think more deeply about the systems that affect each and every one of us. It's a unique book that I can confidently say deserves the praise and accolades it has received thus far.

Can Xue, covered by Aditya Sankar

A routine contender, Can Xue is a pillar of the Chinese avant-garde. Her work spans short fiction, novels like The Last Lover, and even contributions toward opera. Xue's oeuvre carries her hallmarks: pithy, impressionistic and simply written stories haunted by unknowable characters, tinged with magical realism and concluding without resolution.

Several of her translated short stories have been compiled in her collection Vertical Motion. As illustrated in the eponymous tale, where some manner of critter crawls upwards through the dirt, motion -though scarcely in known directions - is key to these pieces. Characters flicker between loosely tied stories, while narratives tumble and fascinating settings are snatched into mystery. Xue gently unsettles, swirling into fragrance like in the twisted childhood wonder of "Cotton Candy." For your consideration, I present some words from "Crow Mountain".

"We were on the same mountain, but I was also in a vacant building. How bizarre. Ah, I saw the giant's feet cross the pillar of light. He made no noise as he passed by."

Gerald Murnane, covered by Aditya Sankar

Touted as the most and least Australian writer, Gerald Murnane straddles the line between abstraction and autobiography. His distinctive lifestyle permeates his work: He famously uses typewriters and has never boarded a plane. Murnane's approach is that of a landscape artist, describing in one interview, "Represented by about 25 colored lines is a diagram of my life."

His writings are nebulously personal, excavating his interiority for obsessive motifs of horse-racing, colored glass and vast plains. His is a recursive world; he returns to the opening of his masterpiece The Plains for Border Districts: "20 years ago, when I first arrived on the plains, I kept my eyes open," becomes "Two months ago, when I first arrived in this township just short of the border, I resolved to guard my eyes." Eschewing narrative and names, Murnane meditates on the construction and breakdown of image and invites the curious explorer on bizarre voyages.

Anne Carson, covered by River Phan

In September, Anne Carson wrote a great but unexpected essay about Rosalía for the London Review of Books, but she's a renowned literary talent aside from the surprise pop-star coverage. The award-winning Canadian classicist writes an array of work ranging from poetry to essays to literary criticism.

Although she hesitates to call herself a poet, Carson has written outstanding poetry as she captures the breadth of human emotion and experience through a blending of genre and style. Her verse novel Autobiography of Red simultaneously delights and disturbs through its poetry, combining myth and modernity to convey a heartwrenching story of love and identity. Her poetry translations are similarly quite moving. Her translations of Ancient Greek poet Sappho's poems in If Not, Winter render Sappho's reflections on desire with masterful contemporary syntax and verse.

Carson's prose and poetry have been awarded extensively, but her ability to discuss and dissect human experiences with precise, sensual detail and feeling should make her a strong contender.

Thomas Pynchon, covered by River Phan

Last year could have been deemed the year of Thomas Pynchon. In 2025, the reclusive American novelist released his first novel in 12 years, Shadow Ticket, which is set to be released in a new paperback format on Oct. 6th. The initial release of Shadow Ticket put Pynchon back in discussion within literary circles, but his 1990 novel Vineland also suddenly regained eyes from the wider public last year. Director Paul Thomas Anderson took loose inspiration from Vineland for One Battle After Another. The film swept awards including the Academy Award for Best Picture at the 2026 Oscars, and in doing so, gave new readership to Pynchon from moviegoers who wanted to experience the original story.

Pynchon's work has always been a reflection of our weird and lawless world, but recent times have seemed to more closely imitate his fiction than ever before. The American news cycle is filled with "Pynchonesque" occurrences: intricate government conspiracy theories, seemingly ridiculous naming conventions and cases of increasingly intense surveillance. Although the novelist prefers to remain away from any media coverage, his body of work is an undeniably relevant lens of the culture surrounding us.

Garielle Lutz, covered by Estelle Chen

American short story and flash fiction author Garielle Lutz isn't particularly well known. As Daniel Kolitz wrote for The Nation, "when Garielle Lutz's name first began circulating on prediction lists for the Nobel Prize in Literature [in 2022] almost no one was surprised, for the simple reason that almost no one knew who Garielle Lutz was." Nevertheless, she sustains a devoted fanbase who adore her careful attention to the minute yet lively drama of word-sounds.

Drawing from editor Gordon Lish's theory of "consecution," Lutz argues for detail at the atomic level of the word in her most famous essay, "The Sentence is a Lonely Place." Generating a sense of inevitability, each word must respond to and be born from what precedes it. Take as an example this sentence from Lutz's short fiction collection Partial List of People to Bleach:

"This library had a back-corner department of cassettes thick-cased into sets, series."

Listen to how "cassettes" is reversed by "thick-cased" but is set right by "sets," which itself finds echoes in "series." Lutz's precision places her at a forefront of innovative anglophone fiction writers, and the 2026 Nobel might find a winner in this eccentric underdog.

Rachel Cusk, covered by Estelle Chen

British-Canadian novelist Rachel Cusk wants to interrogate life. Her most famous work, an autofiction trilogy composed of Outline, Transit and Kudos follows a woman writer, like her, repeatedly attempting to strike at transcendental truths.

The truths of Rachel Cusk often pertain to the tension between writing and traditional womanhood. Is a woman's creativity in art or in childbirth? The narrator of Cusk's novel Second Place grapples with this when she invites a male painter "L" to her coastal guesthome for a creative retreat. His presence disrupts her quiet family life and unleashes in her a rebellion against the confinements of the feminine body:

"The image of this running man, I said to L, with his arms raised in surrender, had remained with me as the representation of everything I had failed to reconcile myself to. For me, there was no escaping my physical body. But he could simply run away!"

Cusk's work reflects on deeply personal decisions that construct her identity. Her remarkable reflections on life might strike at not only the truth, but also the 2026 Nobel Prize.

Haruki Murakami, covered by Sinecio Morales

Perennial Nobel candidate Haruki Murakami's career began with a "satisfying crack" of inspiration from a baseball game, leading to his debut novel Hear the Wind Sing. His work is steeped in musical landscapes pulling from the classical, popular and jazz music he has interacted with throughout his long life and career, including ownership of a jazz bar. His international breakthrough novel, Norwegian Wood, takes its title from a Beatles song that figures affectingly in the novel. His well-renowned nonfiction includes an insightful series of conversations with conductor Seiji Ozawa transcribed as Absolutely on Music. His short stories are just as characteristically Murakami as his other work, pairing startling absurdity with seemingly mundane everyday lives and having complex discussions about the human experience with spare language.

Murakami is variably lambasted and praised for his trademark of explicit vignettes and throughlines in the lives of apathetic, loner male protagonists as they encounter women that often "exist solely to fulfill a sexual function" according to a provocative and significant interview with Mieko Kawakami. Yet through this unwavering and consistent style, Murakami has cemented his status as a literary giant and a household name.

Isabel Allende, covered by Sinecio Morales

Isabel Allende is constantly concerned with the writer's duty to make readers go on a journey with them, and to make them want to do it. As a relative of Salvador Allende, readers often go in expecting historical and political commentary in her novels, of which there is plenty; yet, Allende's work still firmly places itself in the world of fiction. The magical realist influence in her sprawling debut novel, The House of the Spirits, often leads her name to come up in the same breath as Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Allende places a lot of stock into beginnings, starting every new novel on Jan. 8th of the year following her last finished work. Her works present the reader with their groundwork from the very first line, such as the line "My name is Eva, which means 'life,' according to a book of names my mother consulted," that opens her novel Eva Luna. Her consideration of life in its entirety is perhaps best expressed in this quote from her powerful memoir Paula, with which I will leave you:

"Silence before being born, silence after death: Life is nothing but noise between two unfathomable silences."

Elena Ferrante, covered by Riley Strait

You may not have heard the name Elena Ferrante before, and that might be just what she wants. Ferrante is not even the real name of the pseudonymous Italian writer, who is believed to have been born in Naples, but - because she agrees to few interviews, and only via email - we cannot be certain.

The first time I remember hearing her name and committing it to memory was when The New York Times released their 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. My Brilliant Friend, written by Ferrante and translated by Ann Goldstein, topped the list. The first in her quartet of Neapolitan Novels, My Brilliant Friend may be redundantly described by that midmost word: "brilliant."

Britannica puts it well: "[Ferrante's] books explore the complexities and contradictions of being a contemporary, educated woman." Especially true of the Neapolitan Novels, "female narrators describe, sometimes with unsettling candour, their ambivalence toward motherhood, the tedium of sex, and the effort to preserve an identity within a traditional marriage."

As soon as I finished my journey through the quartet, when asked my favorite book, I began adding to my mix of ever-rotating answers: "the Neapolitan Novels" - unable, even, to pick one.

Louise Erdrich, by Riley Strait

This is not the first time I have written about Louise Erdrich for The News-Letter. In 2024, after the release of her most recent novel (but not most recent book), The Mighty Red, I wrote an effusive review. Her acclaim is far from recent, however - her 2012 novel, The Round House, won the National Book Award, and her 2020 novel, The Night Watchman, won the Pulitzer. The Writing Seminars at Hopkins, I'm certain, is proud to boast Erdrich as one of its alumni.

In her writing, Erdrich honors her community by giving keen focus to the Ojibwe people of the northern Midwest. She doesn't shy away from reality, as the Native characters in her novels see the adverse effects of contact with white culture, including elements such as "alcoholism, Roman Catholicism, and government policies to tear down the Native community."

Reviewing my own review, I recall how reading Erdrich "tugged at my heartstrings, keeping them taut like a thread tied between a loose tooth and a doorknob." Yes, disaster imminent, but the kind of catastrophe that will only bring you closer to growing and healing.

That gap was the focus of a recent seminar from the Cochlear Center for Hearing and Public Health, held on Sept. 24, featuring Molly Sheehan and several researchers from the Hopkins Center for Communication Programs (CCP). The seminar centered on the "Hearing Number," a public health effort built around a deceptively simple question: What would change if hearing became something we routinely measured throughout our lives, rather than something most people only address after it has already become difficult to hear?

The Hearing Number is based on the four-frequency pure tone average, or PTA4, a clinical measure that averages hearing thresholds at four frequencies important for speech. In practical terms, this metric represents the softest speech sounds a person can hear in each ear. A lower number indicates that the person can hear softer sounds. The measure is already used by hearing specialists around the world.

Though the technical metric itself is well established, the mission of taking this information from the audiologist's office and practically applying it in everyday life is a new approach. For Sheehan, that requires changing not only how hearing is measured, but how people talk about hearing health. Hearing is often framed as a binary: someone either has normal hearing or has "hearing loss." The problem is that this language can make hearing feel like a concern reserved for older adults, rather than a capacity that changes throughout a lifetime.

"We believe that hearing is due for rethinking," Sheehan said.

That goal begins by approaching hearing like sleep or blood pressure: as something worth understanding before it reaches a crisis stage. The accompanying new Hearing Number app allows adults to complete a short screening for each ear using compatible headphones. The developers accounted for tuning differences across 39 headphone models from 19 manufacturers. Additionally, the app is available in 10 languages and does not collect users' personal data. Since the app's launch, it has reached roughly 100,000 downloads.

One of the key design decisions was linguistic rather than technological in nature. The app does not label a result as "bad" or "worse," nor does it portray itself as providing a medical diagnosis. Instead, it only claims to offer a snapshot of what someone can hear at that specific point in time. As the presentation moved through the app's design philosophy, this distinction became explicit.

"We never frame hearing as a loss. It's framed as what you're able to hear at that time."

Meanwhile, August Summers, a team leader at the CCP, introduced the program's broader approach to public health communication: starting with a focus on the people whose behavior a program hopes to directly impact. This entails identifying the program's audience, understanding their existing beliefs and treating their experiences with value.

Erica Nybro, who works with the CCP, illustrated this point using one of its malaria projects in Guyana. Instead of deciding from afar how these miners should be taught about the disease, the team brought them into the design process. Working together, they created a character and a jingle about malaria prevention that spread through the target communities. The campaign was associated with an increased use of insecticide-treated nets, treatment seeking and knowledge of malaria symptoms. Still, the lesson learned went beyond the campaign: having more data does not mean experts will automatically know how people will respond.

The CCP is now hoping to make the same impact on the hearing and hearing-impaired community. Its team interviewed health departments, industry representatives, nonprofits, clinicians and Hopkins experts to understand where hearing communication succeeds and where it breaks down. Those conversations revealed a wide range of potential audiences, from younger people exposed to loud music to caregivers watching parents experience cognitive decline. They also exposed persistent misconceptions: that hearing decline is simply inevitable with age, that hearing aids restore hearing the way glasses correct vision or that hearing difficulties matter little beyond basic inconvenience.

The barriers are just as varied. Some are structural. For example, adults are not routinely screened for their hearing in many health settings, while people in rural areas may have to travel significant distances to reach an audiologist. Other barriers are social. Hearing devices can carry associations with aging, disability and vulnerability. Cost matters too, although stakeholders disagree over whether price alone explains low uptake of hearing care or whether expectations, perceived benefit and stigma play a bigger role in shaping whether people seek and continue treatment.

Yet, these interviews also revealed a limit to the Hearing Number initiative. Stakeholders often wanted the number paired with functional questions. Can you follow a conversation in a crowded restaurant? Are certain voices harder to distinguish? Are you asking people to repeat themselves more often?

"Your lived experience is very important," Nybro concluded.

Two people with similar Hearing Numbers may have very different experiences. A screening result can prompt someone to pay attention to this aspect of their health, but it cannot replace a full audiological evaluation or solely explain how their hearing is affecting their life.

That tension between measurement and meaning was emphasized by the seminar. During the discussion, one of the presenters reflected on how a number becomes useful only when someone can connect it to something tangible.

"If it's matched with a reality of a deficit or something in their own life, it's going to be very powerful."

The Hearing Number, then, is not just another metric to add to a dashboard, but a new way into a conversation. For younger adults, that may center on protecting hearing at concerts or while using headphones. Later in life, this may mean monitoring changes in hearing and knowing when to seek care. The campaign aims to promote treating hearing as a "life-course issue" rather than an intervention that begins only when something has gone wrong.

This is logic we already accept for steps, sleep or blood pressure. The question raised by this seminar is whether hearing metrics could become just as essential - not simply as a measure of what someone has lost, but as pragmatic information that helps them with their next decisions and actions.

Fungicidal activity and common skin infections

In a study published in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology, researchers found that an extract from Cistus salviifolius, a Mediterranean rockrose used traditionally for skin conditions, can kill several types of dermatophytes (the fungi responsible for ringworm and other skin, hair and nail infections). The extract was particularly effective against Trichophyton rubrum, one of the most common causes of fungal skin infections, and Microsporum canis, which spreads from animals to humans. Chemical analysis showed that the extract contains large amounts of polyphenols, including tannins and flavonoids. Interestingly, the effect was not universal: the extract did not show significant activity against the yeast Candida albicans at the concentrations tested, suggesting that its antifungal action may only be effective against certain groups of fungi.

The researchers also examined how the extract damages fungal cells. Electron microscopy showed major structural changes, including disruption of cellular organization, membrane separation and formation of large vacuoles. Even more promising, the extract was tested in a laboratory-grown model of human epidermis. Treatment reduced the amount of fungus invading the tissue, helped preserve the skin barrier and lowered the inflammatory response without significantly harming the skin cells themselves. These findings provide a foundation for developing standardized creams or gels and eventually testing their efficacy in clinical trials.

Cosmic flashes and dead stars

In a recent study, astronomers may have identified a new way to recognize collisions between neutron stars. Traditionally, neutron star mergers are associated with extremely short bursts of gamma rays, often lasting less than two seconds. However, researchers investigated an unusual event called EP250704a/GRB 250704B, detected in July 2025, that produced a roughly half-second gamma-ray burst but continued emitting bright X-rays for almost 10 minutes. This was the longest lasting prompt X-ray emission yet observed from a suspected neutron-star merger.

The researchers believe the collision may have produced a magentar, a rapidly spinning neutron star with an extraordinarily strong magnetic field. A magnetar could continue releasing huge amounts of energy after the original collision, explaining why the X-ray signal lasted much longer than a normal short gamma-ray burst. Importantly, astronomers found no evidence of the bright supernova that would usually accompany the collapse of a massive star, strengthening the argument that two neutron stars merged instead. The discovery suggests that some mysterious, fast X-ray transients previously detected throughout the universe could actually be hidden neutron-star mergers.

Tsunami warnings and Pacific ringing

Researchers studying the magnitude 8.8 Kamchatka earthquake of July 29, 2025 found that the resulting tsunami continued producing measurable oscillations throughout the Pacific Ocean for more than 10 hours. To study the event, scientists compared a computer simulation based only on the earthquake's rupture with measurements from six deep-ocean DART tsunami-monitoring stations. Their model performed remarkably well: predicted arrival times were within about a minute of the actual measurements, while maximum wave heights differed by only about 6 centimeters on average. The results indicate that the earthquake itself was sufficient to explain the observed tsunami without needing to invoke another fault rupture or an underwater landslide. Near the source, the event was still extremely powerful, with water reaching approximately 19 meters above sea level on parts of the Kuril Islands.

The key discovery came after the initial waves passed. The researchers found that tsunami energy remained concentrated in waves with periods of roughly 30-80 minutes for more than 10 hours, meaning the Pacific behaved somewhat like a giant bell that continued vibrating long after being struck. This rhythm could be important for improving tsunami warnings because bays and harbors also have their own natural oscillation periods. If the period of an incoming tsunami matches a harbor's natural period, resonance can cause water levels inside that harbor to become much larger than the waves in the open ocean. Researchers suggest that future warnings could consider not only how high a tsunami is and when it will arrive but also its dominant wave periods to better predict which coastlines and harbors are most vulnerable to dangerous amplification.

Though the exact criteria through which certain victors can be "claimed" may vary, Hopkins itself officially lists 29 affiliated winners as of September 2026. These winners span each category awarded, except for the prize in Literature, which has thus far eluded our community. These include - in decreasing order of the number of prizes linked to Hopkins - Physiology or Medicine, Physics, Chemistry, Economics and Peace. Of the three prizes for scientific fields, which will be the focus of this article, Hopkins claims connection to 24 winners. Notably, all Nobel laureates currently serving as members of the faculty - Peter Agre, Gregg Semenza and Adam Riess - fall under this number.

To sketch a timeline, the Nobel Prize was first awarded in 1901, around 25 years after the University's founding, with the first Hopkins associate receiving the award in 1919 (specifically Woodrow Wilson, winning for peace). James Franck would win the honor in 1925 for his analysis of the electron, and he later became a professor of Physics at Hopkins from 1935-1938.

That said, the earliest winner of a scientific honor to have received a degree from Hopkins was Thomas Hunt Morgan, who completed his doctorate in Zoology at the University in 1890 and was awarded in 1933 for his foundational work with chromosomes. Tallying the count, 11 alumni who completed a degree program at Hopkins have received the recognition for their achievements in science. Of these alumni, 10 received their Ph.D. or M.D. at Hopkins, while two - Francis Peyton Rous (who received both his B.A. and M.D. degrees from Hopkins) and Martin Rodbell - acquired their undergraduate degree at this institution. It is worth noting the University's status as the first research university in the United States, having offered undergraduate programs alongside graduate programs since 1876 despite its initial emphasis on the latter.

At the time of his award in 1933, Morgan was affiliated with the California Institute of Technology. Following that line of thinking, if we were to trace the affiliations of awardees, Hamilton O. Smith and Daniel Nathans in 1978 mark the first winners to have received the award while affiliated with Hopkins at the time, winning in Medicine for the discovery of restriction enzymes and their applications. Of the 24 laureates in science, 8 have won while holding a faculty or adjunct position at Hopkins, with 6 of them being recognized in the 21st century.

Perhaps of greater interest than the affiliation of awardees at the time is what prizes were awarded for scientific research conducted at Hopkins. While delineating the exact boundaries between contributions from specific institutions can be a difficult, if not downright impossible, task, several awards mark notable findings obtained at the University. These include research leading to the discovery of aquaporins and restriction enzymes, key work on cells adapting to oxygen availability and significant innovations in our understanding of the visual system. Previous Nobel laureates have praised Hopkins as an environment in which to conduct prize-winning research, with Semenza explaining in a Hub staff report, "That's why I've stayed here my whole career, because I think this is the greatest place to do research".

These research opportunities have continually attracted talent, as seen with Shimon Sakaguchi, who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine last year and conducted postdoctoral studies at Hopkins - although he has not been officially listed as an affiliated awardee by the University. Contributions by Hopkins scientists that were not directly recognized by the Nobel committee, such as several experimental physicists who assisted in work on the Higgs boson, have also been identified. Similar, less evident connections meriting additional notice are seen with other figures such as Hopkins alumni James Muller and James Cobey, whose experiences and education as medical students at the University played a role in their establishments of Nobel Peace Prize-winning organizations.

Regarding current affiliates of the University, several have achieved other awards that are often linked to future Nobel laureates. For example, many winners of the Wolf Prize - such as Solomon Snyder, who conducted extensive research at Hopkins - have gone on to win Nobel Prizes. Graduates and members of the faculty like Bert Vogelstein, a professor of oncology, have also won several awards of note such as the Lasker Award and the Breakthrough Prize.

In extrapolating any further conclusions from the data discussed here, prospective analysts must be wary of certain considerations. The Nobel Prize is an awards system based on annual selection by committee, and it has been accused of carrying its own biases and blind spots as well as being subject to internal politics. Its criteria, including traditional limits on the number of awardees and a refusal to award posthumously, further constrain its scope. Furthermore, the recognition (or lack thereof) of winners as university affiliates can be contested in several cases, as with Sakaguchi.

Interrogations of our history with the award offer specific findings which, when applied with care and judgement, may yield broader insights and raise important questions about the University's engagement with the vast tapestry of the scientific endeavor.

Who needs a remake of Blade ridden with production issues when Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother exists instead? Thanks to the ashes of the scrapped Marvel production, Academy Award winner Mahershala Ali returns to the big screen in this new action thriller, already professionally trained and toned for the lead role. Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother follows a devoutly religious hitman who must contend with his faith, work and fatherhood as he makes a perilous adventure through Houston for the sake of his children. The film seems to be a novel action picture concerned with deeper questions about motivation and duty.

In How to Look Away: On American Cruelty and the Refusal to Disappear, award-winning contributor to The Guardian and The New York Times Daniel Peña combines memoir with journalism and cultural criticism to convey an intriguing account of the American identity. From examining conspiracy theories to Cold War paranoia to writing about his experiences in Mexico and the United States, Pẽna examines what it takes to disappear in the American project and offers a clarifying look into the strained politics of America.

Troye Sivan's fourth studio album, She's the Best, is a love letter to the women in the pop artist's life. The lead single of the album shares the same name, and it's a portrait of an unnamed woman who Sivan adores. The single "She's the Best" features a more alternative sound with distortive guitars than the usual dance-pop his songs have. However, She's the Best will certainly be as dance-worthy as the rest of his discography and worth a listen.

At Baltimore's Black Arts and Public Humanities with Mary Rizzo and Rejjia Camphor, Associate Professor Mary Rizzo from the History Department at Rutgers University will be in conversation with Baltimore artist, activist and organizer Rejjia Camphor about Black arts and public history in Baltimore. Specifically, this event will talk about vernacular poetry and the revitalization of a Black grassroots poetry magazine published in Baltimore through a project called the Chicory Revitalization Project. Camphor's new co-authored book studying this project will also be discussed. Don't miss this conversation detailing the history of an undiscussed part of Baltimore's art scene!

If nothing above seemed quite compelling, we have a full list of other options to browse through:

To watch...

• Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, directed by Bassam Tariq - Oct. 9
• The Social Reckoning, directed by Aaron Sorkin - Oct. 9
• Fjord, directed by Cristian Mungiu - Oct. 9
• Other Mommy, directed by Rob Savage - Oct. 9
• The Beast, directed by Renny Harlin - Oct. 9

To read...

• How to Look Away: On American Cruelty and the Refusal to Disappear, written by Daniel Peña - Oct. 6
• The World After Gaza, written by Pankaj Mishra - Oct. 6
• Fight to the Death: The Human Stories Shaping America's MAID Debate, written by Paul Brand - Oct. 6
• The Occidental Book of the Dead, written by T. Geronimo Johnson - Oct. 6
• Partita, written by Barbara Kingsolver - Oct. 6

To listen...

• She's the Best, by Troye Sivan - Oct. 9
• Mud, by Remi Wolf - Oct. 9
• PARTY'S OVER, by Sueco - Oct. 9
• Everything Has Changed, by Danielle Ponder - Oct. 9

Live events...

• Baltimore's Black Arts and Public Humanities with Mary Rizzo and Rejjia Camphor - Oct. 8, 12-1:30 p.m. at Gilman 138D
  • This event is free with registration.
• In the Stacks: Mandy Brown - Oct. 8, 6:30-7:30 p.m. at George Peabody Library
  • This event is free.
• Steve Ziger with Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson: While Away: An Architect's Travel Sketches - Oct. 8, 6 p.m. at The Ivy Bookshop
  • This event is free with registration.
• Artist Talk with Sunaina Bhalla - Oct. 9, 6:30-9 p.m at Station North
  • This event is free.
• Baltimore International Black Film Festival - Oct. 8-12 at Pikes Studio Cinema
  • Ticket prices vary.

The discussion centered on Carpenter's new anthology, The Best Science Stories and How They Work: A Collection with Commentary, published by the University of Chicago Press in July. The collection curated 11 previously published science stories alongside annotations and interviews examining the author's reporting and writing decisions.

Carpenter, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Open Notebook, began the event by explaining how close reading shaped her development as a journalist. While transitioning from a psychology doctoral program into science writing, Carpenter studied published articles to understand how writers gathered information and constructed their own stories. Carpenter explained that close reading allows her to examine layers like story structure and language use, breaking a piece down to understand how these choices contribute to the story as a whole.

The anthology features close readings and annotations done by fellow science journalists. Drawing on relationships she developed through The Open Notebook, Carpenter sought annotators who were both interested in the selected stories and could offer thoughtful insight into how the stories were written.

When asked about her path into journalism, Carpenter recalled her interest in science journalism as a career while reading The New York Times' science section during graduate school. She initially thought that the articles were written by professors in their respective fields. Discovering that the writers made a career of reporting on science motivated her to consider entering the profession.

"It was one of those brainwave moments, where I just knew that if this was a job, that was the job I wanted," Carpenter wrote to The News-Letter.

Later, Jabr, bestselling author of Becoming Earth and New York Times Magazine contributing writer, introduced an excerpt he wrote about Suzana Herculano-Houzel. Herculano-Houzel is a neuroscientist who obtained brains from a variety of animal species for a research expedition in South Africa to take back to her lab in Rio de Janeiro. Carpenter published findings that redefined the widely accepted count of cells in the human brain.

Jabr explained how introducing the story's central character and tension at the start of his piece hooks readers. Herculano-Houzel is a pioneer in discovering that the ratio of neurons to glial cells is closer to one-to-one than the classic theory that there are many more glial cells than neurons.

Regarding how Jabr created his article's structure, he makes a skeletal outline of the major sections and considers how they flow together. He admits that other writers take different approaches including meticulously planning out every detail, or writing without a plan.

Bijal Trivedi, author of Breath from Salt and former senior science editor for National Geographic and The Conversation, annotated Jabr's piece Mind Blender, pointing out Jabr's use of food metaphors and suggesting to include more outside expert opinions.

Jabr explained how different publications have specific rules and constraints, for example, in quote length, the number of references and footnotes. He included as many expert opinions as appropriate for The New York Times Magazine.

When Amoss asked the speakers for advice to give the University's Science Writing students, Jabr emphasized the importance of the profession.

"Scientists and journalists are kind of like the twin enemies of the state because we're the truth seekers and the fact seekers, and a lot of people in power right now don't want people like that out there," Jabr said.

At the end, the program transitioned to its Q&A section. One attendee asked about the role of a science writer in relation to scientists conducting the research. Jabr mentioned the conflict of needing to build up trust with scientists but needing to remain independent.

"They've invited me to see their work or even their homes, and I really like them as people, and I really value their work. At the same time, I have an obligation as a journalist to, you know, report all of the facts and really survey the landscape and the perspectives, and that often means writing about critiques or challenges to that particular person's work," said Jabr.

Carpenter gave tips on close reads to pay attention to characters, anecdotes and quotes in ledes, and she recommended How to do a Close Read as a resource. She also emphasized the importance of persistence when facing rejection in journalism.

"Get used to rejection and don't see that as confirmation that you're an impostor… having story ideas rejected is so, so normal, and I can't tell you how many journalists I've talked to over the years… [their work] was rejected by the first, you know, six places that they pitched it to, or something," Carpenter shared.

Furthermore, Carpenter wrote in an email to The News-Letter highlighting the importance of tenacity for aspiring writers.

"Be persistent! Surround yourself with a community of likeminded people, be hungry for editing, and never doubt that the world needs science journalism," Carpenter wrote.

Saturday

Live Baltimore Trolley Tour: Fall 2026, Baltimore Convention Center, 8 a.m.-1 p.m.

Learn more about buying a home in Baltimore at the Live Baltimore Trolley Tour, a free event designed for homebuyers at every stage of the process. The day includes expert-led workshops, a City Living Fair with local organizations and real estate professionals, and a narrated bus tour highlighting more than 10 Baltimore neighborhoods. Attendees can also become eligible to apply for $5,000 toward the purchase of a home anywhere in Baltimore. Admission is free, and the event takes place at the Baltimore Convention Center.

Vino in Vogue, Harbor East, 12-4 p.m.

Sip and stroll through Harbor East during Vino in Vogue, a Western-inspired afternoon featuring wine tastings, light bites, local vendors, shopping specials and live entertainment. The event will take place along the 800 block of Aliceanna Street, with a romantic Wild West theme blending leather, lace and plenty of Baltimore charm. Tasting packages include five pours for $30, 10 pours for $45 or 15 pours for $55, along with a signature tasting glass and access to exclusive shopping events.

The Curious Life of Edgar Allan Poe Ballet, France-Merrick Performing Arts Center, time varies

Step into the inner world of Edgar Allan Poe during The Curious Life of Edgar Allan Poe, a ballet blending neo-classical movement with African Diaspora dance traditions. Created by Julianna Rubio Slager and Glorielle Niedfeldt, the production explores themes of obsession, grief, love, madness and longing while presenting Poe as a deeply human figure rather than simply a literary icon. Performances will take place at The France-Merrick Performing Arts Center, with ticket prices varying by performance.

Sunday

Baltimore Honky Tonk, Port Covington Marina, 4-8 p.m.

Spend Sunday afternoon dancing by the water at Baltimore Honky Tonk, featuring Melissa Wright & The Moth Men and a special solo set from Caleb Stine. The waterfront event will include a free two-step lesson from 4:30-5 p.m., live country music and a covered dance floor overlooking the Baltimore waterfront. No partner or previous experience is required, and admission follows a $15-$25 sliding scale.

Bach in Baltimore Presents: Intimate Baroque Masterworks, Roland Park Presbyterian Church, 4-5:30 p.m.

Hear an afternoon of Baroque music as Bach in Baltimore opens its 39th season with works by Handel and Bach. The program includes Handel's Concerto Grosso, Op. 6, No. 1, his Organ Concerto, Op. 4, No. 1, and several beloved Bach arias performed by bass-baritone Phil Collister. Tickets are $33 in advance and $37 at the door, with student tickets available for $10 and free admission for children.

When asked about the greater purpose of these lunches, professor Jeanne Marie Jackson described, in an email to The News-Letter, how they create an informal space for scholars to engage with authors.

"New Book Lunches give humanists at Hopkins the chance to engage with authors outside the usual 'talk, followed by question-and-answer' format," Jackson wrote. "It's a small, intimate group of colleagues brought together for real conversation, across the bounds of disciplines and Departments."

These lunches are hosted once a semester and spotlight a recent interdisciplinary humanities book, encouraging difficult conversations around it outside of the bounds of a formal discussion. This year's through line between their talks is "Tradition/Continuity/Conservation." According to Jackson, Bejan's First Among Equals connects back to this theme, especially at a time where central ideals like egalitarianism are mostly taken for granted in today's democracy.

Bejan began the event by discussing the catalyst for the book's inception: her struggle with landing in a hierarchical educational landscape. She described the culture shock in moving to Oxford, somewhere where academic titles and hierarchical norms were seen far differently to her experiences in the United States and Canada.

"One thing I really struggled with was just the differences in academic culture from… the U.S. and Canada, and then landing in a place which, on the one hand, was more hierarchical and exclusionary than any other university I'd ever been in," Bejan said.

Bejan had been introducing herself to students with her academic title, but in Oxford's new landscape, this "title-first" structure was seen as gauche. This brought up the central question in her mind: Is the demand for women to be acknowledged by title an egalitarian demand or a hierarchical one? For Bejan, the answer was simple.

"It's a hierarchical demand. I want to be recognized as your superior in this context," Bejan said.

As for her colleagues, this question was more confusing. Bejan was discussing egalitarianism, a political doctrine that forms the basis for political equality in citizens as their universal equality. She believes that this ideal is largely taken for granted, and in that sense, her question was seen as nonsense by those colleagues.

"This book is my response to try to show them that they were the people who were peddling nonsense, and I was doing proper scholarship, but hopefully in an engaged and entertaining way," Bejan said.

Bejan's book, which will be released to the public in late October, reflects on the ideal of egalitarianism in both the general context and the educational one. She hopes to offer tools for other philosophers and theorists to rethink their internal concepts of egalitarianism, instead of deliberately offering her own vision.

"I came into this project and realized that the… egalitarian biases in political philosophy had no way to talk about hierarchies as anything other than aberrant, or anything other than potentially dominating," Bejan says. "It just seemed to me that that's so obviously out of touch with what we're doing everyday in an educational context."

Ruth Braunstein, a professor of Sociology at the SNF Agora Institute, noted the significance of First Among Equals in regards to her own experience working with contemporary American politics.

"Thinking through like the actual texture of the hierarchical and acknowledging relationships people want, I think is actually a really helpful way forward," Braunstein said.

Jackson agreed with this sentiment in an email to The News-Letter discussing the impact of Bejan's book in today's world.

"Bejan's work on the prehistory of ideals that are now mostly taken for granted - in this case, egalitarianism - speaks across political theory, history, and philosophy to address core concerns about what it means to live in a democracy, now," Jackson wrote.

AGHI hosts events throughout the semester, whether book lunches like Bejan's or associate lectures and seminars. Look to the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute events calendar for more information regarding future planned features.

Following a positive recommendation from the Civic Engagement Committee, the senate approved the JHU SGA Freedom of Expression Directive, introduced by Vice President of the Senate Shreemann Patel. The resolution addresses how SGA members can publicly express their opinion without required consultation from administration or the Executive Board. The revised language of the directive clarifies that members are presumed to speak for themselves unless they explicitly state that they are speaking on behalf of SGA. Further, members explained that representing an official SGA position in any medium would require authorization through resolution. The SGA unanimously passed the resolution. Immediate action items regarding the resolution include sending it to The News-Letter, who requested a written directive about future public communication inThe News-Letterregarding members of SGA, and uploading it to the SGA website.

Finance Chair Peter Tarpley introduced the RSO Outreach Call to Action Funding Bill, which distributes $1,000 for outreach in partnership with the student organizations and civic engagement committees. This initiative was proposed with the goal of encouraging students to complete an SGA survey about the University's response to the United States Department of Education's National Call to Action. SGA members discussed providing food at tabling events and bringing Insomnia cookies to student organization meetings to encourage participation and build relationships with club members.

Cabinet members reported a meeting with Public Safety and the Office of International Services. Then, the Senate entered a closed session to discuss departmental information and prepare for future conversations with University offices that The News-Letter was not given access to.

Student Body President Jason Yu voiced concerns that the current outreach list was missing certain cultural and political student groups. Other SGA members discussed allowing students who responded to the survey to indicate what level of feedback they were comfortable with giving to the University. The members discussed an October 9 response deadline and the amended bill passed.

Student Services Chair Veda Kommineni introduced a tabling supplies funding bill that was approved unanimously by the Senate.

During public input, Seán Durkis-Dervogne requested help from SGA members in drafting an initiative to make course syllabi accessible to students before class enrollment. Specifically, he was looking for members with faculty contacts to reach out to professors for help.

Chair of Programming Grace Guan introduced a pink-out, inter-class flag football event scheduled for October 3 from 2-4 PM on the practice field. LEED will also host a talent show on Oct. 17, with auditions due Oct. 4.

Other senator updates included plans for a nutrition-focused tabling event, discussions with the Office of Climate and Sustainability about DSAI and an invasive species poll.

The theme for this year's roundtable consisted of three parts: tradition, conservation and continuity. Jackson introduced the event and asked the panelists, each from a different department, to consider how any of the three concepts might have echoes within their fields. The panelists included Associate Professor Jesse Rosenthal of the English Department, Professor Jennifer Gosetti-Ferencei of the German Modern Languages and Literatures Department and Associate Professor Christopher Lebron of the Philosophy Department. Drawing on Christian theories of hermeneutics, German Idealism and virtue ethics, the discussion spanned from ancient Greek tragedies to 18th and 19th century novels, tracing a continuity across disciplines and throughout time.

The first speaker, Rosenthal drew from his specialization in the Victorian novel and novel form to analyze the etymology of the English word "tradition." Much of his work studies literature of the 18th and 19th centuries, and the publication of his first book Good Form: The Ethical Experience of the Victorian Novel was covered by The News-Letter nearly a decade ago.

Rosenthal began with the multifaceted nature of his topic.

"Tradition," Rosenthal said, "is the water we swim in, the tool we use, and the object we critique."

What's interesting for Rosenthal is how the concept of tradition has passed through all of these different identities throughout time. While the term has its first known use in 1384, but Rosenthal observed that its undergone massive changes in popularity in the time since.

"The very idea of a great tradition - the idea that a tradition, in any sense we understand it, is great at all - is not old-fashioned. It was strikingly new," Rosenthal said. "The elevation - even the use in English - of the term 'tradition' was an innovation of the late nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth century."

For proof, Rosenthal compares the few and far between appearances of "tradition" in the works of Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and early literary criticism to the overwhelming use of the term in the published work of Professor Jackson, literary critic Frederic Jameson and himself.

What could explain the dark spot in use lying between its original conception in the 14th century and its popularity in contemporary criticism? Rosenthal traces the connection between "tradition" and Catholicism; starting in c. 1425, the word referred to "doctrine... which, though not explicit in the Bible, is believed to derive from the oral teaching of Christ and the Apostles and to be divinely revealed." Tradition, relying on the divinity of priesthood, would've stood opposed to Martin Luther's Protestant Reformation and the belief in sola scriptura.

Perhaps, Rosenthal theorized, there might be a connection between England's Protestantism and the disappearance of the word "tradition" in English novels. He pointed out that when the word was used, it did not usually have the positive definition of a grand passing-on.

"Even George Eliot," Rosenthal said, "through most of her career, used the term simply to refer to the superstitions and folk wisdoms of her rural characters."

Tracing the associations of "tradition" throughout a period of English history, Rosenthal brought to the table varied literary and religious traditions pertaining to tradition.

On the other hand, Professor Gosetti focused her discussion on the other two topics: conservation and continuity. Her work combines literary study, philosophy of the imagination and the environmental humanities with methods of thought from 19th and 20th century Continental Philosophy such as phenomenology and existentialism. The themes of conservation and continuity appear in Gosetti's two book projects at the moment, one of which is on the possibilities of creativity - the nature of imagination - and the other which is focused on critical ecology - the imagination of nature.

For the first book project, the question of continuity is important for the realm of imagination and its products - literature.

"Through imagination," Gosetti said, "the literary work speaks across time, space and differences by evoking worlds that, while diverging in variable degrees from any real world, rely on familiarity with some world or other, and literature remains readable insofar as it still evokes dimensions of a common world."

Thus, imagination is what carries and continues the "common world" into the space of a literary text, yet the creative aspect of imagination allows for a departure and discontinuity from this common world into something wholly new and un-real.

Naturally, conservation takes on a very particular meaning in critical ecology, the subject of Gosetti's second book project. Continuity still plays a part; she analyzes the problem of imagining nature as discontinuous and separate from humans. In the time of the Anthropocene, it is indeed hard to imagine nature without the influence of humans, and a path forward in conservation requires understanding the continuities between the two.

Yet as much as the possibility of "becoming-animal," as French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Guattari would say, sounds somewhat hopeful, Gosetti cautions us against the belief that we can easily and wholly assimilate into nature. While writers and poets like Rainier Maria Rilke have attempted to capture the perspective of animals for our understanding, nature also has the agency to resist our stories about it. The history of humanity's negative impact on the planet stands between an easy understanding of the two as one.

But the stories we tell about nature are nonetheless extremely valuable despite their possible pitfalls.

"Literature can be a resource for an ecological aesthetics responsive to the earth that avoids the hubris of claiming to speak for it," Gosetti concluded.

Literature, it seems, can and must balance on the tightrope between continuity and discontinuity, speaking of without speaking for, while inching toward a deeper understanding of our world and what should be done with it.

Similar to Gosetti, Lebron approaches the themes with a perspective toward action and the future. Working primarily in political philosophy, Lebron specializes in "social theory, the philosophy of race, and democratic ethics." Continuing the connection between shame and racial discrimination from his first book, The Color of Our Shame: Race and Justice in Our Time, Lebron looks back on Greek traditions of morality to help elaborate on the problem of racism in the United States today.

Lebron begins with an evocative formulation from African American writer and essayist James Baldwin's "Down at the Cross/Letter from a Region in my Mind." Baldwin finds something fundamentally wrong, a kind of ignorance, in the ethical disposition of white people; thus "whatever white people do not know about Negroes reveals, precisely and inexorably, what they do not know about themselves."

But what consists of this ignorance? Lebron answers this question using political philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue, which argues that modernity has lost the concept of certain ancient moral values, and that reviving an older vocabulary can help us describe our own ethical situation.

Taking up the tragedy of Oedipus Rex, Lebron argues for the ancient virtue of shame. Oedipus' incestuous sins were not understood to him at the time as sinful and thus draw the shame of not understanding what one is truly responsible for. Yet when all is revealed, Oedipus understands himself to have not met his own standards of morality. Lebron finds a parallel in the contradictory situation of the United States.

"The most profound feature of racial inequality," Lebron remarked, "is its presence in a society whose stated philosophical values explicitly deny the legitimacy of that kind of inequality."

The United States' contradiction in understanding itself to be liberatory yet acting otherwise -this is what Lebron diagnoses as shamelessness.

"Oedipus is in a sense completely free to live shamelessly, yet he is not free to live shamelessly and at the same time to live a good life or claim to have integrity, to be whole," Lebron said.

Shamelessness lies in the hypocrisy to act one way and claim another, but recognizing shame is an important motivator to act.

"The story of Oedipus makes clear that his shame is reflective and not present in his ethical make-up for its own end," said Lebron. "It serves a distinct purpose which indeed turns Oedipus outwards: he is the cause of multiple catastrophes and he must find a way to respond appropriately." The traditional virtue of shame becomes the way for a path forward; Lebron thus argues for freedom through tradition.

The roundtable ended with an engaging Q&A session and open socializing. If you happened to have missed this year's AGHI Roundtable talk, you might find the tradition continued next year.

"Maybe you don't actually want the thing. Maybe you don't want it enough. Maybe you want the identity of the person that does the thing more than you want the work of getting it. Maybe you want it once and you don't anymore and you just haven't realized it yet." - Lindsiann Shi, Youtube Content Creator

This article is a direct and deeply personal reflection from watching the Youtube video by Lindsiann with the same title. It's shocking how among the 8.3 billion people on Earth, someone who lives thousands of miles away from you can describe your life so perfectly with a comment section full of similar people. What syndrome is this? What pandemic is this? Actually, is this even a bad thing?

If you're like me, you probably have five windows and 40 tabs open. You don't want to close them because you could potentially look at the information when you get the chance. You have Notion pages that keep track of your fitness, wish lists, to-dos and to-watches, ideas for the next trip, packing lists, and more. You click through the perfectly curated, color-coded blocks on your calendar, looking for a weekend when you could go somewhere and do something. Boston? London? New York City? Hawaii? Los Angeles? You refresh the flights page in incognito mode, watch the prices go up, regret not booking earlier, give up and repeat the cycle a week or two later.

You start a new hobby. You really enjoy it for the first three weeks. You buy a matcha bowl, a whisk, ceremonial-grade matcha powder and your favorite milk, only to make matcha twice and let the milk expire peacefully in the fridge. You've long wished for a vlogging camera, and you got it. You use it twice and decide that vlogging your life is too tiring, and, even if it's not too tiring, it's too much work to learn how to edit - and even if you can edit you don't have energy to always look presentable enough to film yourself. You start making Instagram Reels or TikToks and realize that you can never be an influencer because there's so many creative ideas and so many things you want to share, but you're afraid of judgment from the people you know and the people who might get to know you in the future.

And so your new hobbies disappear one-by-one, just like this. In the end, you return to your signature low-entropy state: doomscrolling on Instagram or TikTok or binge watching a show until your eyes are too tired to stay open. Another perfect day with perfect possibilities wasted. Another perfect dream that could've come true but didn't even begin.

You live at two extremes. You're either super excited or super exhausted. You're excited by the million things you want to accomplish, by the constant planning of new vacations or adventures or career paths, by the possibility of being a videographer, researcher, trilingualist, perfect child, perfect sibling, barista, athlete, writer - all at once. Then you're exhausted by the reality of passing your classes, by waking up in the same body as yesterday, by not being able to be all of those perfect human beings at the same time. You can't even seem to pursue the ideas one by one. And so you procrastinate, rot, feel guilty, discouraged, beaten. But who is making you feel this way? Sometimes the person making you feel the worst is yourself.

When we are in the middle of a whirlwind and we feel like we're getting sucked deeper and deeper into it, we just need to ask ourselves: do I actually want to do this? Do I want to keep doing it, or was trying it once enough? Do I want the identity of someone who does the thing more than I want the work of doing it?

To everyone who's been stuck in the "thinking but never doing" loop, maybe start by going outside for a bit. Try to be honest with yourself about what you really want and need. It's okay to want it all, and it's okay to want nothing at all. What's important is giving yourself the patience and grace to decide on whether the execution is worth it and whether you'll be happy after accomplishing it all.

Linda Huang is a junior from Rockville, Md. majoring in Biomedical Engineering. Her column celebrates growth and emotions that define young adulthood, inviting readers to live authentically.

There isn't much that typically goes on in Madison, Connecticut. A quaint, seaside vacation spot, Madison is remarkably beautiful, with cozy shops lining a singular, brightly lit thoroughfare in the town square. A quick Google search would inform you that my town is most famous for its "coastal charm," or, in other words, being a place where nothing out of the ordinary happens. I would have agreed with you most nights, but not on November 10, 2022.

At the time of the blue suitcase, I was 15 years old. Having recently discovered my independence, I often walked from my house to restaurants in town, going to dinner before watching a B-movie in an old-timey (yet newly renovated) theater that charges an exorbitant ticketing fee. On November 10, my best friend Joe and I trekked about a mile and a half to the only Chinese restaurant in town to enjoy a Friday night order of chicken fried rice. Having paid the bill with money that was not ours, we vacated the establishment and began the slower walk home for movie night.

As we headed back, a sloppily written sign on the otherwise perfect New England street took us both by surprise. In poorly penned Sharpie, it said:

FREE VINTAGE SUITCASE. NO FEE. TAKE IF INTERESTED.

The glaring redundancy of the first two sentences might have been a cue to keep walking for most people, but to two 15-year-olds in need of a break from the mundane, it was a mystery worth investigating. We calmly approached the suitcase, admiring the antiquity of its vibrant fabric before picking it up. As the cautious (wimpy) person that I am, I stayed a few feet away while Joe picked up the suitcase. Carefully raising it to chest level, he gave the box a few shakes before nodding to me in affirmation that there was something inside. The next step, we both agreed, was to open it. Unfortunately, the suitcase's rusty hinges were unyielding, and we were left to speculate on what could be inside.

"Maybe it's a bomb."

"Could be a million dollars."

​"What if it's another suitcase? Like one of those Russian doll things where they keep going until it's a ton of mini boxes. That would be some weird shit."

​The speculation is reminiscent of Schrödinger's Cat, a thought experiment in which a cat is placed in a box with a radioactive atom, a Geiger counter, a hammer, and a bit of poison. The atom has a 50% chance of decaying, and if it does, the hammer will destroy the flask of poison, ultimately killing the cat. Essentially, the idea is that the cat is in a superposition - existing in multiple states at the same time - while the box is closed and the result unknown, meaning it is both alive and dead. For Schrödinger, superposition demonstrated a core belief about quantum mechanics; for Joe and I, it demonstrated that a blue suitcase on the side of the road could house both a million dollars and a box of cigarettes.

The mystery crescendoed as we arrived back at my house a half hour later, the suitcase safely intact. Immediately receiving a questioning look from my stepmother, Joe and I ran upstairs to show my father. Feeling immensely proud of our conquest, I breathlessly recounted the story: dinner, the box, the potential bomb and the million dollars at stake. Brow furrowed, my dad took a beat before eventually deciding to help us solve the mystery, and the three of us worked to smash the hinges open, taking turns chipping away at the rust with a screwdriver until it eventually gave way. At long last, our labor had borne fruit. We opened the box, revealing…

six measly pinecones.

For a minute, Joe and I stood silent, staring at the box in disgust. By taking it from outside the store and into the house, we had given it life. We had given it a home. And it rewarded us with… disappointment. "They don't even smell good," I mumbled as we ambled downstairs, tossing the suitcase angrily in the garbage.

That night, Joe and I microwaved a trusty box of Orville Redenbacher popcorn before watching a stupid Netflix movie on the couch. We laughed about the foolishness of bringing home a suitcase on the side of the road. In its simplicity, that suitcase allowed us to reach beyond ourselves into a world where something outlandish, even magical, could happen. To experience nature in its truest, realest sense.

Bryce Leiberman is a sophomore from Madison, Conn. studying Political Science and Philosophy. His column explores questions of authenticity, purpose, and the slow work of becoming oneself.

Following these announcements, they continued an ongoing discussion regarding free speech for SGA members. This involves what members of the association are allowed to say in regards to subjects involving the SGA.

The directive wishes to assure that all Homewood students have a right to free speech regarding all matters of the SGA. The free expression initiative affirms that Hopkins students have the right to express their opinions freely and publicly without prior restraint. A discussion clarified the point that senators could always speak freely in their own name, as long as it is not on behalf of the SGA.

The resolution has not yet been passed, but was moved to the Civic Engagement Committee for further review. Additionally, a directive is being written and sent to The News-Letter to affirm the SGA members' ability to write freely.

The second reading, presented by senator Mamadou Thiam with Reagan Sam, Philanthropy Chairman of Phi Delta Theta, addressed issues involving waste that had been raised about the crab fest, which is hosted during Parents Weekend. Sam stated that this year they were anticipating a more accurate count of how many people were going to be attending the event, something they were unable to do the previous year because of issues involving Hopkins Groups and securing the space. With a more accurate estimate of attendance, less waste should be produced. The funding bill was passed.

A fundraising 5K, hosted by Pi Beta Phi, was also passed after discussion regarding funding and advertising for SGA. Students receive tickets for the event at a discounted price, and those who have already gotten tickets will get a partial refund the day of the event.

Lastly, Senator Sophia Baleeiro announced that the Trick or Treat funding bill, regarding an event taking place on Oct. 30, had a positive recommendation from the finance committee. There will also be an option for students to participate in a haunted house, with the first 100 students getting in without charge.

Oscar-winner Alejandro G. Iñárritu's newest film Digger stars Tom Cruise as a wealthy oil tycoon trying to save humanity before an impending disaster he started. Besides sporting movie star Cruise himself as the lead, the satirical black comedy holds a similarly stacked supporting cast with Riz Ahmed, Sandra Huller and Jesse Plemmons in supporting roles. As a satire, Digger seems to be a promising investigation into the perils of climate change and corporate greed simmering in our society. The film releases this Friday, Oct. 2.

1972 saw the airing of John Berger's influential BBC television mini-series, Ways of Seeing, which has since become a staple in many introductions to art history. The English-born artist, critic and essayist lived from 1926 to 2017, amassing a prodigiously varied oeuvre of novels, poetry, art, and literary and cultural criticism. He married four times and traveled the world; in the second half of his life, he self-exiled himself to a village among the southern French peasantry. Tom Overton, who has previously edited Berger's essays for the collections Portraits and Landscapes, takes on the challenge of describing such a life in John Berger: From Life. In capturing the man whose art was in writing about art, Overton, too, must paint a portrait with words. John Berger: From Life publishes on Sept. 29.

Just barely a year after the release of his fourth studio album Vanisher, Horizon Scraper, Quadeca is already returning to release another album, and it's gearing up to yet more proof of his endless creative evolution. While Vanisher saw Quadeca exploring a distinctly orchestral sound, the singles from Life 1 so far seem to indicate an album that will see much more electronic influence. Fans of indietronica and chamber pop will find Quadeca's new album chockfull of the type of joy that makes the mundanity of everyday life feel beautiful.

Too often, we think of the lush world of tapestry largely as a medium meant to blend into our floors, but Erin M. Riley's work has always been meant to provoke. By drawing from a distinctly American nostalgia, reflections on her past relationships and the erotic, Riley puts to fabric intimate views of her lived experiences. If you're searching for inspiration and insight, come watch her in conversation with the public at the JHU-MICA Film Center this Tuesday!

As always, we hope that something else in the full list below might also pique your interest:

To watch...

• Digger, directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu - Oct. 2
• Verity, directed by Michael Showalter - Oct. 2
• Beware Boiuna, directed by Mike P. Nelson - Oct. 2
• Rolling Loud, directed by Jeremy Garelick - Oct. 2
• The Scout, directed by Paula González-Nasser - Oct. 2

To read...

• John Berger: From Life, written by Tom Overton - Sept. 29
• The Only Thing There Is to Want: A Memoir of Three Loves, written by Sarah Hepola - Sept. 29
• Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World, written by Dorian Lynskey - Sept. 29
• Man in the Mirror: Hope, Struggle, and Belonging in an American City, written by Anand Giridharadas - Sept. 29

To listen...

• Life 1, by Quadeca - Oct. 1
• Frequency of Love, by Victoria Monét - Oct. 2
• hunting what we already killed, by Dev Lemons - Oct. 2
• QRÖMELIFE, by Quavo - Oct. 2
• walt disco, by Walt Disco - Oct. 2

Live events...

• Visiting Artist Talk: Erin M. Riley - Sept. 29, 2-3 p.m. at the Saul Zaentz Screening Room, 2nd floor, JHU-MICA Film Centre
  • This event is free.
• 2026 Latin American Film Festival: "Bacurau" - Sept. 30, 5-7 p.m. in Room 266, Mergenthaler Hall
  • This event is free.
• THE INVISIBLE YEARS Book Launch Event: A Conversation with Translator Lily Meyer - Oct. 1, 5 p.m. at Bird in Hand Cafe
  • This event is free with registration.
• The Marvelous Magic Lantern - Oct. 1, 6-7:30 p.m. at the Homewood Museum
  • Ticket prices vary between $5-10. This event requires registration.
• New/Next Film Fest - Oct. 1-4 at The Charles Theatre
  • Ticket prices vary.

Agre opened his talk by challenging the notion of the Nobel Prize as the achievement of a lone scientist. After sharing a humorous anecdote in which he credited his wife for much of his success, Agre distilled his message into four words: "Nobody does it alone."

Interestingly, one of Agre's most consequential collaborators was not a scientist at all. It was luck itself. The path to unveiling aquaporins arose from an unexpected finding. His laboratory was studying red blood cells when they encountered a mysterious 28-kilodalton protein.

"The discovery of aquaporin[s] was a total serendipitous observation. Anyone who tells you there was genius is really pulling a fast one because it was an example where a scientist ran into a lucky observation that was not anticipated," Agre said.

But chance alone did not elevate the mysterious protein into a scientific breakthrough. Rather than focusing solely on his own role, Agre repeatedly highlighted the mentors, postdoctoral fellows and collaborators whose observations pushed the research in unexpected directions. Notably, when Agre had first identified the mysterious protein, John C. Parker, his clinical mentor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill at the time, recognized its prevalence in water-permeable biological systems and was the first to suggest the possibility of water transport across membranes.

"When I explained [to Parker] what this protein was like, and that it existed not only in red blood cells but renal tubules and in the roots of plants, it's like a light bulb went on over his head. [Parker] smiled and said, 'These are interesting because these are water-permeable membranes.' I'd never considered water transport… and so we sought to test this hypothesis."

With a possible function for the mysterious protein finally in mind, Agre turned to the next question: Could they prove that it actually transported water? Just as Parker helped provide the hypothesis, another collaborator would help produce the experimental evidence. Gregory Preston, Agre's first postdoctoral fellow, helped perform the decisive frog oocyte experiment to test whether the mysterious protein could actually transport water, demonstrating a dramatic increase in membrane water permeability associated with expression of the then-mysterious protein.

"That was extraordinary… Greg's enthusiasm and can-do attitude made it happen," Agre emphasized.

Demonstrating that aquaporins could transport water was only the beginning. Agre and his collaborators next sought to understand where these channels were expressed throughout the body and what physiological roles they played. Søren Nielsen, a postdoctoral fellow from Denmark, became instrumental in connecting the newly identified water channel to kidney function.

"Søren was a brilliant scientist. He localized, with great precision, the locations of the aquaporin-1 protein. It's in the proximal nephron of the kidney," Agre recalled.

Nielsen's work helped demonstrate how aquaporin-1 allows water to move across renal epithelial cells, contributing to the kidney's ability to concentrate urine. But Agre and his team soon found that the family of water channels extended far beyond the kidneys. Namely, aquaporins transport water in the eye, brain, sweat glands, skin, adipose tissue and liver, demonstrating connections to cataracts, brain edema, thermoregulation, skin hydration and metabolism.

As the known functions of aquaporins expanded, so did the network of researchers Agre credited with uncovering them. Looking back at a photograph of his laboratory, he pointed to a group of postdoctoral fellows from eight different countries.

"They've all contributed in important ways to the story," Agre said.

Beyond recognizing the researchers who contributed to the aquaporin story, Agre reflected on what emerging and experienced scientists alike could take away from his journey. Since serendipity played a central role in his own career, he emphasized that researchers can put themselves in a position to recognize unexpected findings.

"You can't engineer luck. But to some extent, you can increase your chances by being technically observant... If something unforeseen shows up and you're very careful, it might be important to take another look."

At the same time, Agre cautioned against treating every unexpected result as a breakthrough. He suggested that scientific curiosity must be balanced with the willingness to let go of findings that cannot withstand rigorous testing. Accordingly, he emphasized the value of discussing uncertain findings with other researchers.

"Having colleagues you can talk to and get wisdom from expands the database that you have to draw from."

In many ways, Agre's advice reflected the same lesson as that of his account of the aquaporin discovery: science does not progress in isolation. The importance of collaboration also emerged in the broader celebration of National Postdoctoral Appreciation Week. During the event's opening remarks, Johns Hopkins Postdoctoral Association Co-President Jose Francisco Delgado Jimenez highlighted the role of postdoctoral researchers and their mentors in advancing scientific discovery.

"Every day, postdocs enrich Johns Hopkins with countless ideas. Guided by our mentors, we develop research proposals, produce scientific publications, build collaborations and drive discovery towards a meaningful impact."

Although Agre stood before the audience as the Nobel laureate whose name has become closely associated with the discovery of aquaporins, much of his story centered on the people who helped make that discovery possible. From an unexpected protein to a Nobel Prize, Agre's journey echoed the four words with which he began his talk.

"Nobody does it alone."