At the heart of academic writing lies a deceptively simple challenge: how do you join a conversation that has been unfolding for years—or even centuries—without getting lost in the noise? Finding your place in the scholarly conversation means not only understanding the landscape of existing ideas but also identifying where your own questions, insights and curiosities belong. It requires careful listening, sharp inquiry and a willingness to rethink your assumptions through engagement with others. This process of discovery is often where innovation in academic writing begins.
In this section, we feature two writers who skillfully carve out space for their voices within complex academic conversations. The first paper, written for a History of Science course, challenges conventional narratives about 19th-century obstetric anesthesia. Instead of accepting the story of medical progress at face value, the author uncovers how racialized assumptions shaped physicians’ adoption and framing of anesthesia—an angle overlooked in previous scholarship.
The second piece, a Junior Paper in the Politics Department, explores the concept of soft power in East and Southeast Asia. By comparing Western and Chinese approaches, the author synthesizes competing definitions and proposes a new conceptual framework to support their empirical research. In doing so, they stake out their own intellectual territory in an evolving global debate.
The accompanying reflections and editor commentaries shed light on the process behind these pieces — how each writer came to understand the existing landscape and ultimately found their own space within it. What emerges are not just strong final products, but examples of how deep engagement with a scholarly conversation can lead to original and thoughtfully crafted contributions to their respective fields.
— Natalia Espinosa Dice ‘26