Welcome to the literary issue, the Nass’s semiannual attempt to lift itself out of our usual gutter in hopes of articulating some more-or-less immortal responses to the human condition. You’ll find work from masthead stalwarts like Rob Madole, Conor Gannon, Ruthie Nachmany, and Zack Newick, as well as contributions from Pulane Mpotokwane, Eliza MacFarlane, and Ben Knudsen. This go round, we’ve also included something quite out of the ordinary: a series of essays from the members of the “Issues in Contemporary Art” seminar covering the exhibition that will be on view at 185 Nassau and the new Butler gallery over the next few weeks. We hope you’ll read what they have to say, and then go see the show for yourself.

This is also the last issue of the Nass’s 30th year, and we’ve celebrated in style. Having the support of WPRB has put a new spring in our step, and despite some fears that membership in a corporate media empire might scare us straight, we are proud to announce that we remain as scrupulously unprofessional as ever.

The world was a very different place when the Nass came onto the scene in 1979, but we’re still going strong. And, as we prepare to enter our fourth decade, we remain convinced that this paper can and should be at the center of campus life. We haven’t pushed uphill all year against a terrible economy and defeatist conventional wisdom that’s given up on print media just for the fun of it—we’re determined that there be more to on-campus discourse than a daily serving of warmed-over university press releases, and its online commenters. Not that we don’t need to keep up with the times ourselves. And we’ve tried: we hope you’ve enjoyed our revamped website and staff blog, whose links you’ll find at the bottom of the page.

Thanks for reading.

-The Eds