Letter From the Editors
Dear Reader,
Welcome to the relaunch of The Common Room! We are excited to present to you the works of many brilliant critics on campus across many different disciplines. Originally founded in 1997, The Common Room is Knox College’s online magazine of literary criticism. We define literary criticism as any written work that analyzes various forms of media, including but not limited to fiction, poetry, film, art, and music. Although the original iteration of The Common Room focused mainly on submissions and work from English majors, we want to provide a space for members of all disciplines to discuss cultural artifacts. This is why we have decided to keep the name of The Common Room.
In our journey to relaunch and revitalize the magazine, we thought long and hard about what the name of the magazine really meant. “The Common Room” refers to the communal space on the second floor of Old Main, a beautiful room filled with a complex history in which you may have studied. However, upon researching and reflecting, we realized that “The Common Room” is not as common as the name implies. Firstly, it is on the second floor of a building with no elevators or ramps making it inaccessible. This means that it is only a common space for some, not all, which undermines the values of this magazine. Secondly, the beautiful wood paneling, one of the most iconic features of the space, was paid for by a Knox alumnus, William Lincoln Honnold, who made his vast fortunes off the backs of South African diamond miners, many of which were indentured Chinese workers. A portrait of him still hangs in the room to this day. The sentiment of commonality and equality that springs from the ideal of a common space is contradicted by the room’s legacy of colonization and racism. Knox’s difficult history is not unlike that of other academic institutions, legacies that some colleges have started to address through reparations, educational programming, land acknowledgment statements, and the renaming of academic buildings.
Due to this history, we have decided to associate ourselves less with the physical space of the Old Main common room and more with the abstract idea of a “common room.” We envision a “common room” as a place for all to convene and stand on equal footing while, at the same time, valuing the different kinds of knowledge and experiences everyone brings to the table. Maintaining the digitality of the magazine is an attempt to rectify the inaccessibility of the room we are referring to in our title. Digital publishing allows anyone with internet access the ability to join the space. And, by requiring our critics to relate their analysis to present-day politics and culture, we hope to directly engage with and bridge past and present injustices in order to better understand their impact on our media and cultural consciousness. While this obviously does not resolve the historical and current systems of inequality, we believe that continued examination of these structures is a necessary step in the fight for liberation and justice. That being said, we also call on Knox College to address the physical manifestations of inequality within the building, by constructing an elevator and ramps in Old Main, and by removing Honnold’s portrait. Scholarly work that raises public consciousness of issues of inequity should occur alongside self-reflective change at the material level of the institution.
In our attempts to make our articles more public-facing, we are also striving to make “academic” pieces of criticism accessible to a much wider audience. Currently, most academic articles are behind expensive paywalls that can only be accessed through databases provided by academic institutions. Additionally, these articles are written in language which is difficult to those without a highly specialized education to understand. We strive to make our articles understandable to everyone, not just experts. Our critics contextualize not only the media they are analyzing but also the methods through which they do so. We hope that anyone who has an interest can read and engage in discussion about these articles.
Without further ado, we are proud to present our first issue back as The Common Room. In this issue, you will find essays about early modern literature, Victorian literature, Jazz, fairytales, and so much more! Each essay is a testament to the academic passion of our critics, and we hope you join us in celebrating that. Again, our aim is to showcase the work of all disciplines and create a space for Knox critics to display their work proudly and publicly.
Love,
The Editors:
Phoenix Breese ‘23, Lola Chamberlain ‘24, Chieko Dunham ‘25 ♥️
