The OWU English Department Blog
This past May, I went on a TPG trip to various Scandinavian cities, including Copenhagen, Denmark. The trip was entitled “Wellness in Scandinavia,” and was part of my work with wellness promotion and harm reduction on campus with The Bishop Way. The Scandinavian region was selected because of their consistently high ratings on the World Happiness Report, the two nations we visited–Sweden and Denmark–ranking fourth and second, respectively (for reference, the U.S.…
First, know thyself.
It’s easy to forget how big this country really is. I too often am swept up in visions of Paris and Vienna and Buenos Aires, and forget that Savannah, Georgia is as different from my hometown of Columbus, OH as it is from any of those cities. Or that Texas has a culture all of its own.…
Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy is a collection of three movies–Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, and Before Midnight–that tell the love story of an American man, Jesse, and a French woman, Celine, throughout eighteen years of their lives and through beautiful locations across the world. The movies are distinctive for being almost exclusively made up of dialogue between the two protagonists, as well as for the breathtaking backgrounds to these conversations: Vienna, Paris, and Pylos.…
Part of what made me so interested in the Global Scholars Program was my lack of international travel. That may sound ironic, but it made me curious about the wider word. I think the domestic travel that I have done with my family is what made me realize that there is so much to see, learn, and experience outside of my small hometown of Geneva, Ohio.…
The reason I had never watched Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation is excruciatingly ironic: in its translation to my first language, Portuguese, the movie’s title was just plain boring. “Encounters and mismatches” (my closest translation of a bad translation) never really caught my eye. But, mostly because of quarantine boredom, I came across it on a nightly Netflix scroll and didn’t see a good reason not to click on it.…
With Thanksgiving break upon us, take some time to decolonize your bookshelf and immerse yourself in Native American literature. Have a look at these works recommended by faculty in the English Department which capture Native American cultures and experiences via both poetry and prose.
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In the utter chaos of the world we live in right now, traveling has ceased–for the moment, at least–to be an option. Though we know it is the responsible thing, and not getting in a plane somewhere is the least we can do for our fellow humans, the longing for travel and exploration won’t simply fade away.…
I want more. I want to be running around, gallivanting around the world. I want to be sitting in a cafe, on the street, with thousands of people passing by. Moving. Shuffling. Riding Around. I want to use my little Dutch, even if it makes the locals laugh. I want to drink wine in the streets of Paris as my boyfriend meets me for the long weekend.…
Earlier this month, I hiked 8+ miles by myself through the Cleveland MetroParks. I had only planned on taking one trail, but was enjoying myself so much that I took another connecting route and made a longer loop back to where I had parked my car at the trailhead. It was just before peak color for the season, and between the colorful leaves, fresh autumn air, and smell of the outdoors, I felt far more refreshed than I had felt in a long time.…
It has always been hard to pinpoint the exact moment in my life when I officially decided what I wanted to study was English. It feels like this should be an easy question – I have always been so certain, so confident that, if anyone was here with a single purpose, this was mine.…