Dear readers,
As the future abounds for the new faces on campus this August, the Managing Board convened in a slightly more reflective mood. Juniors now, we have crossed the halfway mark in our journeys at Yale, and it’s prompted us to take a look back.
So too do our writers. Memory is the central theme of this issue of The New Journal. How do we mine meaning from the lives of those who have passed––and when do these stories spin out of control?
Chloe Budakian tells the story of Margaret Holloway and explores how her legacy as York Street’s “Shakespeare Lady” has been flattened and narrativized after her death. In his piece on Father Michael McGivney, Ethan Wolin chronicles the transatlantic endeavor to make a saint of a 19th-century American man—a canonization effort spanning the edges of the American East, Italy, and the internet.
Throughout the city, people contend with history and tradition. Collegiate shooting athletes exercise their privilege to compete amidst a national debate over bearing arms; mothers of gun violence victims root trees and flowers to memorialize those they have lost. Meanwhile, New Haven’s burgeoning biotechnology scene prompts us to ask: can the city learn from its past?
In this first issue of Volume 57 of The New Journal, join us in looking back.
Managing Board
Maggie, Chloe, Aanika, Sam