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Ideas / Writing

Questions worth
staying with.

Essays on belonging, education, climate, and the systems that shape our lives. A place to think beyond the first answer.

7 essays

Dialogue

EDUC 2610 / ILRID 2610 · March 1, 2026

Human Connection Through Difference: Dialogue and Belonging

An essay about how difference can deepen connection when people show up with curiosity, identity security, and an understanding of structural power.

About this essay
Core idea

Meaningful connection depends on intentional dialogue, not just proximity or shared space.

  • Moves from intersession and classroom experiences into broader questions of belonging and inequity.
  • Uses dialogue, the crisis of connection, the cycle of socialization, the single story, and structural oppression as framing tools.
  • Connects interpersonal honesty with institutional access rather than treating them as separate issues.
Belonging Identity Dialogue Reflection
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Climate migration

ENGL 2706 · May 11, 2026

A Seat Above the Floodline

A speculative essay on climate displacement, D.C., and the conditional hospitality people face when home can no longer protect them.

About this essay
Core idea

Climate migration is not only about movement. It is about who is welcomed, who is sorted, and who gets to belong after disaster.

  • Uses a future D.C. flood scenario to make climate displacement concrete and personal.
  • Connects James J. Brown, Jhumpa Lahiri, Langston Hughes, and climate migration readings through the language of hospitality.
  • Frames disaster response as a question of systems, documents, boundaries, and belonging.
Climate migration Hospitality D.C. Belonging
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Immigration

ENGL 2706 · March 17, 2026

The Immigration Act of 1924 and the Limits of National Hospitality

A historical and rhetorical reading of the Johnson-Reed Act as a national hospitality system that scripted who could be welcomed and who would be excluded.

About this essay
Core idea

Immigration policy can function like a gatekeeping script for belonging.

  • Explains how quota rules privileged northern and western Europe while restricting other groups and barring most Asian immigrants.
  • Uses the nation-as-home metaphor to examine the difference between declared welcome and practiced exclusion.
  • Adds a Nigerian American perspective on national identity, opportunity, and historical access.
Hospitality Immigration history Belonging National identity
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Education

GOV 1109 · March 9, 2026

Understanding a Disagreement About Replacing Tests with Projects in Schools

A reflection on structured disagreement that treats school assessment as a design problem rather than a simple ideological split.

About this essay
Core idea

Tests and projects measure different parts of learning, so a balanced system often works better than absolutism.

  • Surfaces the tradeoff between depth, collaboration, and real-world learning on one side and standardization and accountability on the other.
  • Reflects on how personal school experience shaped the conversation and where stronger evidence could have sharpened it.
  • Frames disagreement as useful when it reveals what fairness, creativity, and implementation actually demand.
Assessment Project-based learning Dialogue Education systems
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Seed sovereignty

GDEV 1200 · 2026

Seeds of Resistance: Nigerian Farmers and the Fight for Sovereignty

A research paper on Nigerian seed systems, farmer autonomy, traditional knowledge, food security, and the politics of agricultural modernization.

About this essay
Core idea

Seeds are cultural and political infrastructure, not just agricultural inputs.

  • Traces how law, markets, and development goals shape farmer control over seeds.
  • Connects traditional knowledge and intergenerational exchange to food sovereignty.
  • Frames Nigerian agriculture through both policy design and lived community practice.
Nigeria Food systems Seed sovereignty Development
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Food systems

GDEV 1200 · March 19, 2025

Resisting Seed Enclosures: Community-Led Alternatives in Nigeria

An essay on community seed banks, open-source seed networks, and indigenous conservation as alternatives to corporate seed enclosure.

About this essay
Core idea

Community-led seed systems protect biodiversity, autonomy, and cultural memory.

  • Explains how patents, hybridization, and restrictive seed laws can limit farmer agency.
  • Surfaces local alternatives that preserve seed exchange and ecological resilience.
  • Connects seed sovereignty to fairness, sustainability, and rural development.
Agriculture Biodiversity Community power Nigeria
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Agricultural technology

GDEV 1200 · February 24, 2025

The Next Green Revolution: Summary and Synthesis

A short synthesis of agricultural biotechnology, climate resilience, sustainability, and global food security debates.

About this essay
Core idea

Innovation only works as development when equity and environmental impact stay in view.

  • Summarizes debates around GM crops, CRISPR, climate adaptation, and sustainable agriculture.
  • Compares the promise of biotechnology with concerns about inequality and dependency.
  • Connects food security solutions to governance, access, and long-term resilience.
Biotechnology Climate resilience Food security Synthesis
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