Liza Libes founded her literary project, Pens and Poison, in New York City. Her writing has most recently appeared in Kveller, The American Spectator, and Paper Brigade Daily. Liza is also an entrepreneur and a classical music enthusiast. Her latest poetry collection, Illicit Kingdom, is available on Amazon.
A recent article in the Atlantic revealed the startling truth that students at Columbia University—one of America’s most elite colleges—are unprepared to read books. Columbia University, where I completed my bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English literature, based its reputation on its famous Core Curriculum, a series of required courses that introduce students to the […]
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Last week, a student of mine learned that I did not identify as far left. I watched, on the Zoom call, as her pupils dilated in fascination: “But you were an English major at Columbia!,” she exclaimed. Incidents like these are not uncommon. Over on my Instagram page, where I post videos to promote the […]
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I scanned the first message I received in my Columbia University MA English group chat. Bookmarking my copy of Ayn Rand’s We the Living, a novel about the ills of post-Revolutionary Russia, I recoiled. Reviewing the text, sent by a researcher of “imperial conspiracy” in a “postcolonial context,” I felt my vision blurring. This couldn’t […]
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