Archive for the “Nonfiction” category
Boston is more than its sports teams.
by Rhian Sasseen on April 22, 2013
From the way most major media outlets are covering the aftermath of the Boston bombing tragedy, you would think that on the seventh day, God created the Red Sox. This is the city that birthed American education, philosophy, letters, and (…)
SEX AND THE LITERARY GIRL
by Rhian Sasseen on April 2, 2013
How should a person fuck? . . . I approached How Should A Person Be? eagerly and ended it disappointed. What I wanted – and perhaps this was my fault – was an honest account of the relationships between women (…)
LADY GAGA IS NOT A FEMINIST ICON
by Rhian Sasseen on January 28, 2013
We’ve come a long way, baby. In the twenty-first century, the American woman has a bevy of career paths and a plethora of domestic options from which to choose. She can try and fail to have it all. She can (…)
DO IT YOURSELF
by Rhian Sasseen on January 19, 2013
Today has been a long day. You leave work, that thankless retail day job; you return home; you open your laptop screen. You trawl your RSS feeds, searching for news, for entertainment, for anything: distraction. You are overeducated, lovelorn, a (…)
THE OLD CORNER BOOKSTORE IS NOW A CHIPOTLE
by Rhian Sasseen on January 4, 2013
1. Summertime, and I spend my days working in a museum located in downtown Boston. Over the months, I learn how to count a cash drawer, teach Italians the meaning of a state sales tax, and struggle with how exactly (…)
WOMEN OF THE WORLD, UNITE
by Rhian Sasseen on October 19, 2012
I cried when I read former Amherst student Angie Epifano’s account of being raped. I texted my little sister, thick in the middle of application season, and she told me that this had changed her mind about applying to Amherst. (…)
THE END OF WORDS
by Rhian Sasseen on September 25, 2012
“The justification of art is the internal combustion it ignites in the hearts of men and not its shallow, externalized, public manifestations. The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but is, rather, the (…)
OLD PEOPLE AND THE INTERNET
by Rhian Sasseen on September 10, 2012
According to the media I am a “Millennial.” This means something along the lines of entitlement, attachment, obsession: I am addicted to my smartphone, I depend too much on my parents, I expect someday to have a job, and sooner (…)
PUSS ‘N’ RIOTS
by Rhian Sasseen on August 22, 2012
I suppose the upside is that we’ve never seen the word “pussy” appear so many times in the pages of our national news sources. The downside? – How about everything else? I am referring, of course, to the recent sentencing (…)
PROVEN TECHNIQUES FOR AN EMPTY DREAMSCAPE
by Rhian Sasseen on July 13, 2012
412 LinkedIn connections. 746 Twitter followers. A profile on every social media site; a resume stuffed with a long list of internships, paid and unpaid. Sunday morning brunches; a closet filled with H&M professional wear. Sentences that begin, “During my (…)