Where Does It Hurt, O City of Light

There is grief in the city of light, and in so many cities of light. In the midst of the grief, in the late hour of a Fall, a beauty lingers. Love shall have the victory at the end of days.

Portfolio: Mixed Media and Digital Works from the Resistance Series

In his Resistance series, Najee Dorsey's mixed media and digital collages address the continuum of African American history through iconic historical references and in current events,...

A Watershed Year: Interview with Rhys Ernst

We’ve made huge leaps forward in the last few years in terms of trans visibility and rights, but there’s still so much more to do.

We Might as Well Eat

I thought, “Well, if we’re going, at least at the end we’ll be doing what we loved: eating, or at least stirring our plates.

There’s Been a Shooting . . . Again

But it's always too early to know the answer to the most important question – the question that nags at me as I go home at night: Why?

Calliope

Nothing was as it should be, and no one was where he should be.

The Fallout from Paris

I’ve been in a daze, along with everyone else here, over what has happened.

A Year in Ukraine

Just beneath the veneer of normalcy, however, new values, national cults, and simmering anxieties are everywhere apparent.

A Postracial Aftermath? Reconstruction’s Fantasy

The greatest danger of hoping for the “postracial” millennium is that like our Reconstruction-era forbearers, we will announce it too soon, blame the victims of forces we don’t want...

At the Heart of Flying

Then suddenly, the world shook as the plane hit violent turbulence. Butts and limbs juggled up like circus balls and air rushed into the cabin. My one thought, barely distinguishable over...

Gestapu

“When they’re dead you like them all,” pronounced John, one of my former coworkers in Georgia.

After the Funeral

After the one twin died, funeral tears still marking our faces, we needed to visit the living sister, and tried for hours

The Oxford Dictionary defines “aftermath” as 1. The consequences or aftereffects of a significant unpleasant event and 2. Farming: New grass growing after mowing or harvest.

Through this issue, our intention is to encompass the wide range of what “aftermath” means both in terms of what can follow a tragedy, a loss, a political watershed, or a natural or man-made disaster, as well as what good fruits and new birth can follow destruction or pivotal change. The past year in particular has been marked by events that will have far-reaching repercussions on the political or cultural life of societies, but we also look back while looking forward.