Roxana

“So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say.” Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own

Exploring the Dynamics of Soft Power

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Before each of his military campaigns, Napoleon always made a point of passing through Épernay, stopping at the cellars of his friend Jean-Rémy Moët [a French vintner who brought the champagne producers Moët & Chandon to fame] to pick up a supply of champagne.  “In victory you deserve it, in defeat you need it,” he said. [… After Napoleon abdicated and Paris fell during the “War of the Sixth Coalition”] Cellars throughout Champagne were plundered, the worst being those of Moët, which saw six hundred thousand bottles emptied …

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Adapting Traditional Education to Meet Future Challenges

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In the 20th century, the school as a factory metaphor appeared. Our schools are, in a sense, factories, in which the raw products (children) are to be shaped and fashioned into products to meet the various demands of life. The specifications for manufacturing come from the demands of twentieth-century civilization, and it is the business of the school to build its pupils according to the specifications laid down. Ellwood Patterson Cubberley The school as a factory metaphor worked for the past century, as education mainly was linear: …

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A Small Collection of Feminist Perspectives

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This article is a curated collection of quotes from various perspectives regarding women’s discrimination and the resilience of those who have tried to dismantle systemic biases. This compilation is highly personal, and I hope the following voices will resonate with you, too. Historical Underrepresentation The French philosopher Gilles Ménage, from the XVII-th century, found references to sixty-five women philosophers in ancient texts and works by the fathers of the Church. However, modern philosophy encyclopedias, apart from Hypatia (a renowned mathematician, philosopher, and astronomer who lived in Alexandria, …

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Borges’s Approach to Overcoming Creative Barriers

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There will always be a moment when the journey from conception to creation seems to stall, and the clarity of our goals becomes obscured. Be it analysis paralysis, writer’s block, the paradox of choice, procrastination, burnout, impostor syndrome, or perfectionism, this is a shared experience among us all because virtually everyone, at some point, will face their version of a “wall.” The inertia waves surrounding us become brutal, leaving us questioning our direction and purpose. Consider Jorge Luis Borges, one of the key writers of …

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Understanding How the Brain Constructs Our Perception of Reality

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As Professor Alexandru Babeș explains, the human brain contains nearly 100 billion neurons (a number comparable to all the stars in our galaxy) and at least as many glial cells that play an essential role in brain function. On average, each neuron connects with (and receives information from) about 10,000 other neurons, resulting in approximately 10 to the power of 15 synapses (as the contacts between two neurons are called), that is, a quadrillion synapse. Our brain is an incredibly complicated mechanism, so Emily Dickinson’s poem, …

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Tracing the Reach of Storytelling

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In every story told, there lies meaning-making and believe-making. We catch imagery in words and worlds because we alter or construct our reality, shaping how we perceive and interact with everything around us. Storytelling began with simple forms. In his study of narrative development, Arthur Ransome identified two primary types in the dawn of storytelling: the ‘Warning Example’ and the ‘Embroidered Exploit.’  But in the beginning storytelling was not an affair of pen and ink. It began with the Warning Examples naturally told by …

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The Cultural Phenomenon of Jólabókaflóð, Iceland’s Book Flood

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‘Twas the night before Christmas, in each Icelandic home,   When families gathered, not a soul felt alone; Kleinur and laufabrauð were arranged with great care, As the magic of Christmas filled the crisp evening air. The children were nestled all snug with a book in their hands,   Sailing through sagas and tales from faraway lands; And mamma with her mystery, and I with my book,   Had just settled our brains in our cozy nook. During the Christmas festive season, the Icelandic word Jólabókaflóð makes the rounds …

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Writing Insights (2023)

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Writing is more than stringing sentences together; it is boiling down thoughts on the relentless whiteness of the page, even though there is a tension between the limitation of language and the freedom of our thoughts.  And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered.   For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly. Khalil Gibran – The Prophet  Acknowledging this constraint, repetition in writing is a response to language’s limitations, an …

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