Basking in Quiet Solitude.

         Herman Melville (1819-1891) and Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) are revered American historical literary figures who have contributed a great deal into American literary history. Melville, in The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids (1855),revealed his concern regarding unequal gender treatment. Fuller was one of America’s first leading feminists and an avid advocator for the…

Understanding Ethics in Social Media Use: The Bystander Effect

We are living in an era where our actions are often dominated by what we see or hear in the media. With the rise of social media – our values can often be put to the test during the event of a crisis. The concern of ethics present in social media use has been a widely equivocal subject – this essay will thus explore a specific area of the degree to which social media inhibits our decision in…

Coping with Predestinarian Anxiety: Reconciling Free-will and Predestination in the Religious Poems of John Donne

        According to one of the basic theological assumptions held by John Donne (Lim 1), Donne subscribes to a predestinarian belief that he is of the elect, chosen by God to receive grace and eventual salvation. Donne’s religious poems, however, harbour a predestinarian anxiety – the insecurity in accepting that he is destined for God’s grace. Donne’s predestinarian anxiety is reflected as a…

Photo by Kristopher Roller on Unsplash

When I was 10, I often dreamt about turning 23. It seemed like a nice age to be at: not entirely a baby to the big 2 gang, but also not experiencing a quarter-life crisis. It was riiiight in the middle. Not here, yet not there. But that’s exactly the problem.

I woke up today and realised I wasn’t really anywhere. Sure, I’m in my final semester, that…

#ScreenThoughts: “Smithereens”, Black Mirror Season 5 Episode.

A lot of debate has been surrounding Black Mirror’s much-awaited season; the success over the last 4 left eager fans wondering how they could ever top their own streak with more thought-inducing, mind-blowing content. I did not watch season 5 on its debut week but only about a month later — it’s chilling to know that was enough time for much controversiality to spark regarding whether it “lived…