Expose: The Journal of Expository Writing

Expose Banner Fall 2024

Expose biannually shares a selection of noteworthy personal and critical essays that are created by students in College and Expository Writing courses at Purchase College.

Fall 2024

The Creative Act of Research


“Writing nonfiction is more like sculpture, a matter of shaping the research into the finished thing.”
―Joan Didion

This special issue is titled after Purchase College associate librarian Darcy Gervasio’s essay, included below, “The Creative Act of Research.” Darcy takes us from her moments of uncertainty and reticence with research as a college student (“learning to love research was a slow burn”) to the exact moments when, as a writer, she began instinctively “rearranging my own thoughts, seeing connections where I hadn’t before, and drawing new conclusions,” research fueling the writing process organically. Now, Darcy and the Purchase College community of librarians are boundlessly generous and inspired as students mine the subjects they feel most passionately about and emerge with new insights and interpretations. 

Research, and the corollary skills and practices it embodies—brainstorming, distilling key ideas, connecting what we are interested in and drawn to with previously published works and complementary ideas and discoveries—is not only integral to writing, but to our everyday lives. College Writing culminates in a research paper, as students can connect their formative ideas and curiosities about the critical issues of our time and subjects that drive their creativity and individuality with broader scholarly conversations about the same.

Congratulations to this issue’s featured writers, Julia Aguinaldo, Hunter Baron, Nysine Ordoñez Blanco, Chase Koda, Anthony Cruz, Ashley Fermin, Darcy Gervasio, Charles Ireland, Kaelin Viera, and much gratitude to Chris Kramer for again creating original and intuitive illustrations for each essay in this issue. With special thanks to College Writing faculty members Professor Ellen Brooks, Professor Alexandra Dos Santos,  Professor Tessa Rossi,  and Professor Emily Sausen for co-creating this issue, and to  Professor Aviva Taubenfeld, Director of the School of Humanities, for celebrating first year writers.

Amy Beth Wright, Editor

 

  • Frog doing ballet.
  • Dog with open eyes in an open coffin.

    “Fortunes and Fame: Supernatural Elements in Ride the Cyclone”

     

    “Ride the Cyclone is a musical by Jacob Richmond and Brooke Maxwell that follows six high school choir members who die in a roller coaster accident. Suddenly finding themselves in a run-down warehouse in the presence of a godly machine, they must vote on who gets to live again…” Read more

  • Child in crib and mother staring out of window.

    “Edna Pontellier’s Awakening To Liberation”

     

    “The Awakening by Kate Chopin is a historical fiction book published in 1899. Protagonist Edna Pontellier gains independence from being a mother and a wife in a French Creole environment…”Read more

  • Troll asleep in the forest with a knapsack.

    “Goblins: Projections of the Human Obsession with Morality”

     

    ‘Goblins in storytelling are a product of humanity’s preoccupation with moral concepts of good and evil…” Read more

  • Squirrel creature standing at a microphone reading.

    “Reflections on the Durst Distinguished Lecture Series”

    “…especially coming from a background of little to no hardship; it’s inspired me to write beyond my own experiences, and to write as far outside of myself as I possibly can and really place myself into the characters and setting that I’m writing about.…” Read more

  • Phantom of the opera and captive in a boat.

    “History and Gothic Culture Within The Phantom of the Opera”

     

    The Phantom of the Opera, a novel written by Gaston Leroux, uses elements from Gothic culture as well as historical events to weave together a complicated love story within the walls of an opera house….Read more

  • Woman crying in front of a television.

    Analyzing Primary Sources: How Artists Manipulate the Reactions of Their Audiences, An Examination of Ghost World and Bojack Horseman”

    My favorite thing about watching TV is sharing it with my friends and family. I am always eager to watch their reactions to my favorite scenes, and hear their unique interpretations of the plot. Recently, I watched the film Ghost World with my mom…” Read more

  • One finger hovering over a phone screen.
  • Nude figure with a bandage.

    “Stitched From The Womb”

     

    “Seeing how women were viewed and regarded in other parts of the world inspired Judy Chicago to create the Birth Project in the 1980s. Chicago utilized the masterful needlework of hundreds of women to highlight the one experience that every woman on this planet is expected to take part in…” Read more


Faculty Essay

 

  • A unicorn with a quizzical expression.

    The Creative Act of Research

     

    “Long before I decided to get a masters in Library & Information Science and become an academic librarian, I was an undergraduate creative writing major…” Read more