2023 · Imagining · 2023
My name is David (he/él). I'm a PhD student at the Iberian and Latin America Cultures department at Stanford University. One of my passions is Central American poetry from the 20th century, especially poetry written inside guerrilla movements. However, I also like poets such as Rubén Darío and José Martí. This poem emerged from an exercise in ILAC 242 with Professor Santana. I wanted to use a classical structure, in this case the sonnet, but employ a comical tone. I believe poetry, even when working with rigid classical forms, should be playful and not take itself too seriously. Read More ›
2023 · Growing · 2023
Our screenplay draws upon John Locke’s An Essay on Human Understanding and Tamir Schapiro’s Childhood and Personhood to wrestle with the following philosophical questions: What is the relationship between identity and memory? More specifically, do people lose their identity as they lose their memories? Do people have a moral obligation to those who no longer have their memories (and thus perhaps no longer have their identity)? Furthermore, what justifies paternalism? Does a decline in age and memory result in a loss of identity so great that another person is morally justified in making decisions for the senile person? Are there any circumstances in which someone has the right to withhold information from a senile adult and make decisions for them like they might for a child? Our screenplay deliberately does not answer these questions but raises them using stylistic techniques. Read More ›
2023 · Debating · 2023
Eric Benitez is a 4th-year undergraduate at Stanford University majoring in Political Science. The son of two Mexican immigrants, Eric was raised in California and holds his Hispanic heritage near to his academic and creative endeavors. At Stanford, Eric has dedicated most of his time to studying American politics, the rise of political polarization, and the public’s relationship with political institutions more broadly. In writing 'La Uni,' Eric wanted to focus on the tense relationship between college students and their political expression in order to juxtapose the freedom of speech on a university campus with the harshness of modern political discourse. It is his hope that through easy-to-consume mediums like comics, political aggression, and intolerance in today’s society can be better understood, combatted, and reduced. Read More ›
2023 · Growing · 2023
This comic is very close to my heart. Although it is not fully inspired by true events, I have used topics related to my life and my personal experiences to create some of the events that Katia, the heroine or main character of this story, is dealing with and the decisions she is making. I wanted to create a different graphic style in each page of my comic, and I wanted to use this variety of styles to express emotions, the passing of time, and different shades that cannot be captured in other media. This story has no clear ending, leaving the reader looking for a plot that gives Katia a final solution or one in which she finds some happiness that lasts even after the end of the comic. I wanted to portray in this comic that life does not have a clear ending, and that sometimes problems don't go away until some time passes by and many other events take place. Read More ›
2023 · Growing · 2023
The two texts I made contact with in this screenplay were Tamar Shapiro’s “What Is a Child?” and Bernard Williams’ Persons Character and Morality. Read More ›