//from the editors//
Spring 2021
Spring 2021
From the Editors
The political theorist Corey Robin, in his article “How Intellectuals Create a Public,” argues that the public intellectual does not write to an audience, she creates an audience through her writing: “Unlike the ordinary journalist or enterprising scholar, she is writing for a reader she hopes to bring into being.” He follows John Dewey in believing that publics are always created and do not simply exist.
This past year we have worked to transform The Current from an eclectic literary, arts, culture, and politics journal to a specifically Jewish journal. We were not doing so to write to an audience of Jewish students, faculty, and staff that we thought might exist. We hoped to create a public, a readership able to see itself in our writing and become aware of itself in reaction to and in conversation with the pieces we publish.
One of the most difficult aspects of that transformation was narrowing our focus, which meant limiting, to some extent, what our writers could write about, and what types of articles we could publish. Instead of writing to a general audience, we had to learn to focus on generating more specific ones. In doing so we sacrificed some wonderful, exploratory pieces that would otherwise have been published in a past iteration of The Current.
By not compromising on our vision for The Current as a platform for Jewish intellectual and creative engagement on campus, we crafted an edition that we believe does just that. Our writers this semester contemplate Jewish values and ideas from a number of different angles. The issue features an assessment of Jewish stereotypes in popular television, a reflection on the power and potential of prayer, and an interview with an author whose own Jewish upbringing shaped his bestselling novel. Plus, our creative section includes a poem on pain and prayer and a short story about Christmas envy.
We are proud of the final product, and especially thankful to our writers and editors for working with us in this difficult virtual semester to create a public on campus that meaningfully engages with Jewish thought and expression.
Though certainly not the most extensive issue The Current has ever put out, the Spring 2021 issue exemplifies what a Jewish journal on campus could look like.
Maya Bickel, Editor-in-Chief; Harry Ottensoser, Managing Editor
The Russian Village, 1917, by Issachar Ber Ryback
This past year we have worked to transform The Current from an eclectic literary, arts, culture, and politics journal to a specifically Jewish journal. We were not doing so to write to an audience of Jewish students, faculty, and staff that we thought might exist. We hoped to create a public, a readership able to see itself in our writing and become aware of itself in reaction to and in conversation with the pieces we publish.
One of the most difficult aspects of that transformation was narrowing our focus, which meant limiting, to some extent, what our writers could write about, and what types of articles we could publish. Instead of writing to a general audience, we had to learn to focus on generating more specific ones. In doing so we sacrificed some wonderful, exploratory pieces that would otherwise have been published in a past iteration of The Current.
By not compromising on our vision for The Current as a platform for Jewish intellectual and creative engagement on campus, we crafted an edition that we believe does just that. Our writers this semester contemplate Jewish values and ideas from a number of different angles. The issue features an assessment of Jewish stereotypes in popular television, a reflection on the power and potential of prayer, and an interview with an author whose own Jewish upbringing shaped his bestselling novel. Plus, our creative section includes a poem on pain and prayer and a short story about Christmas envy.
We are proud of the final product, and especially thankful to our writers and editors for working with us in this difficult virtual semester to create a public on campus that meaningfully engages with Jewish thought and expression.
Though certainly not the most extensive issue The Current has ever put out, the Spring 2021 issue exemplifies what a Jewish journal on campus could look like.
Maya Bickel, Editor-in-Chief; Harry Ottensoser, Managing Editor
The Russian Village, 1917, by Issachar Ber Ryback