Colonialism is often perceived as a relic of the past, disconnected with the actions and policies of governments today. Likewise, modern day conflicts are regularly viewed through a vacuum, with little understanding of the historical background behind them. However, to understand the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine, one must look at historical events that altered the borders of the regions — The British Mandate, the UN partition of Palestine and 1948 Arab Israeli war that followed, and the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. The struggles over land, sovereignty, and a representation of identity are results of several border changes in the region throughout the past century. Borders provide a vital sense of clarity and security in an uncertain world and are thus powerful tools. However, when borders fail to reflect the interests of a group of people, they can become a site of resistance and conflict, underscoring the limitations of borders in fully encapsulating the complexities of nationhood and self-determination.

It is true that when a reader approaches a text, their primary and most important tools of interpretation are the words on the page, an idea which lends itself well to the impression that the author is therefore irrelevant in the relationship between reader and text (Barthes, 1977); Roland Barthes’ Death of the Author argument is indeed a convincing one. To apply this principle to Modernist literature, however, is to undermine the form’s metatextual significance. In T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, for example, a hyper awareness of the author is part of what defines the artistic movement as distinct from its predecessors. The text works not just as a poem, but a commentary on poetry, vividly aware of the author’s role as the conductor of the piece. The Waste Land depends on Eliot’s presence—not as a singular storyteller but as an orchestrator of meaning; even in its fragmentation, the poem reinforces the author’s role as a curator of cultural memory. The Modernist literary movement seems deeply concerned with though suspicious of, the role of the author; in a time of social upheaval and moral uncertainty, writers purposefully fractured the established tools of artistic expression, finding them no longer suited to express unique modern concerns. Indeed, as Woolf argues, ‘For us, those conventions are ruin, those tools are death.’ (1924, p. 16) The Waste Land, acutely self-aware, rather than dissolving the author, ultimately reaffirms his presence as an architect of literary tradition.

This is a fundamental idea that guarantees the internal consistency of mathematical systems. Many branches of mathematics including algebra and geometry use reflexivity. For example, in algebra, x = x is always true. Similarly, reflexivity is used in geometry to prove equality, as in the case of Angle A = Angle A, to make sure that the reasoning of the comparison between geometric objects is logically consistent.

We are surrounded by people’s names, celebrations of their lifelong contributions to the world of science and maths. Euler’s formula, Fermat’s last theorem, and the Higgs boson are all examples of key discoveries after the people who discovered them. But should the scientific community continue to do so?

Children’s literature as a genre is unique in that it is one of few whose audience defines it. Within the genre we find examples of fantasy, science fiction, and historical fiction, but all fall under a single umbrella, united by the age of its readers. This complicates defining the genre, made even more complex by the fact that children are a moving target; they are not destined to remain children forever. As a result, children’s literature is one that can never be static; a new generation is constantly growing into it as another grows too old for it. As a result, the genre itself must adapt just as quickly to account for its changing demographic.