9/7/2025, Identities, perspectives, and politics– jack delaney ’26 and Ben Risley ’26

This discussion explored how our identities shape our perspectives, and how we engage in political discourse when those perspectives do not align.

9/14/2025, TLDR: Literacy & Fascism – Edna Sam ’26 and Alex Rodriguez ’28

This discussion was about media literacy & its political implications.

9/21/2025, The Tortured Artist – Tessa Giardi ’25, Camsey/Eli noonan ’26,  and Sam Jackson ’28

There is a perceived correlation between ‘madness’ and creativity, perpetuated by the tortured artist trope. This week’s discussion asked if “the lunatic, the lover, and the poet are of imagination all compact” (William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream) by analyzing the legitimacy of the correlation, the persistence of the trope, and its societal implications.

9/28/2025, Home as Nations: The Politics of National Identity – Chris byrnes ’26 and Katie Twiggar ’28

This week explored what makes home, home, with a political focus. Its premise was that there are many ways in which a person can identify with where they live, but that is not always where they feel most welcome. Communities can overlap with each other, often defying geographical boundaries of states and nations; how then can the identities of those nations be defined?

10/5/2025, Innovation V.S Uselessness: The Question of Technological Simplicity – genevieve Chukwuonye ’28, moira humphrey ’26, and Yoryi Roque ’28

Modernization and development have encouraged us to be creative in making quick and simple solutions to all of our problems. At the same time, those forces raise questions, such as: are we creating as many problems as we are solving? Do some of these so-called solutions make our lives less fulfilling? And at what point does innovation become “useless” to us? This discussion broached them all.

10/12/2025, the Housing crisis – anthony malshyti ’26 and alex villalba ’26

Housing affordability has become one of the most pressing issues in the United States today. As demographics shift and cities expand, how are our ideas of “home” and “family” changing with them? This week we discussed how housing connects to family structure and social identity while exploring the intersection of housing policy, affordability, and the evolving forms of family life in the U.S as compared to similar examples across the globe.