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The Global Studies Department welcomed author Amitav Ghosh last week for the 30th Annual Hunt Lecture. The event began by honoring David Hunt `63, who established the lecture series in 1995. Despite a spring snowstorm, President David A. Greene, Dean of Faculty John Turner, and students and faculty from across many departments gathered to hear Ghosh discuss the historical opium trade. The lecture examined how the trafficking of narcotics shaped the wealth of Western nations and the development of Asian economies, revealing the moral contradictions of early globalization.

Ghosh argued that the opium trade was a central driver of commerce rather than a marginal economic activity in the 19th century. He noted that profits from the trade financed major industries and elite institutions in both Britain and the United States. Ghosh cited the Lowe Memorial Library at Columbia University, which was named after a merchant who made his fortune through the China trade. He explained that many elite families in the Northeast built their fortunes on the illegal sale of opium to China, observing that these merchants often concealed their connections to the trade despite knowing their actions were destructive and illegal under Chinese law.

The presentation also focused on the role of diverse merchant communities in Asia. Ghosh explained that Parsi and Armenian traders successfully navigated the foreign enclaves of Hong Kong and Guangzhou. These groups often lacked the dietary restrictions that limited the social mobility of other Hindu and Muslim merchants, allowing them to participate in the communal dining environments where business deals occurred. Ghosh argued that the growth of global financial centers relied heavily on the shipping and procurement networks developed by these entrepreneurial groups.

Ghosh also addressed the racialized nature of the opium markets. He stated that American and British traders viewed the Chinese and Indian people as disposable. He made a direct connection between the 19th-century opium markets and the modern opioid crisis in the United States. Ghosh argued that the same logic used to justify the exploitation of foreign populations was eventually applied to domestic communities in Appalachia and Maine. He noted that the history of globalization is inseparable from the history of addiction and colonial extraction.

Following the lecture, an audience member asked about the specific reasons why the Parsi community excelled in the opium trade compared to other groups. Ghosh replied that their lack of dietary restrictions played a crucial role. He noted that the foreign enclaves were spaces where people were constantly eating together and that “beef was everywhere, pork was everywhere.” Because the Parsis did not have to avoid these foods, they were able to integrate into the communal dining environments that facilitated business deals with Westerners.

Another attendee asked whether there were contemporaneous critiques of the institutions funded by opium wealth during the 19th century. The questioner wanted to know if the public in that era expressed moral unease similar to modern activists. Ghosh replied that there was very little institutional critique at the time because colonial extraction was widely accepted. However, he noted that moral concerns eventually surfaced through the global temperance movement. He described this late nineteenth century activism as an expression of a “prickling conscience” among the elite who had benefited from the trade.

Ghosh concluded the event by emphasizing that the ideals of early globalization were destined to face moral reckoning. He urged the audience to reconsider the history of global trade and to look beyond the whitewashed narratives of historical merchant princes. “The globalization that begins with this very sad and unfortunate story was almost destined to end badly,” Ghosh said. He concluded by emphasizing that the wealth of many modern institutions remains tied to these historical crimes.

 

 

~ Stephen Owusu Badu `27

How do you deal with an authoritarian leader who abuses his entrenched power to restrict the rights of his constituents, abuse the judiciary, erode democratic norms, and damage alliances? If we look across the pond, we will see Hungary, a central European country, who has just voted out its far-right prime minister, Viktor Orbán. On Sunday, April 12, 2026, the 16-year-long reign of Orbán and his party, Fidesz, came to an end, suffering a dramatic defeat from Péter Magyar’s Tisza party.

Orbán’s leadership has been referred to as an electoral autocracy, in which the regime performatively holds elections while maintaining a grip on power with no regard for true democratic standards. This goes back to the 2010 elections, when the party secured a supermajority in the Hungarian parliament, allowing it to pass a new constitution in 2011 with little opposition. Also known as the Fundamental Law, the 2011 constitution significantly limited the checks and balances on Fidesz and any future governing parties. Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the Hungarian law is its focus on Christian and nationalist values. Its latest amendment defines gender as binary and as the sex assigned at birth, and furthermore banning public events by LGBTQ+ communities.

According to the Robert E. Diamond Professor of Government Jennifer Yoder, Orbán’s attack on the judiciary is just one instrument out of a vast toolkit for power consolidation. “Orbán rigged the electoral system to some degree, swayed media independence, making it harder for opposition parties and candidates to have much airtime or space on front pages of newspapers,” Yoder explained. 

However, Orbán’s rule has been problematic not only at home. As a member of the European Union, Hungary used its veto powers to repeatedly block the EU’s efforts to aid Ukraine, which requires the bloc’s unanimity. The pre-election period also saw an abundance of disinformation narratives, vilifying Orbán’s opposition by portraying it as ready to undermine Hungary’s sovereignty at the request of the EU. These were not just messages amplified on social media but also electoral billboards featuring European leaders, such as the EU’s Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky. Such political messaging is grounded in what Yoder calls “a pageantry of nationalism.” 

Fidesz’s communications strategy rests not only on nationalism and traditionalism, but on its delivery method: the construction of a moral binary between the party and its opposition. Orbán emerges as the strong statesman protecting the country, while, as Yoder observed, “the EU’s cooperative, consensus-driven, multilateral, human dignity-centering approach is weak or even feminine. It’s no coincidence that this is all wrapped up in the language and imagery of the manosphere.”

It should come as no surprise that the U.S. Vice President JD Vance participated in a massive Fidesz rally in the week leading up to the elections. Speaking at the Day of Hungarian-American Friendship April 7, 2026, Vance blamed the EU for electoral meddling. His speech echoed last year’s Munich Security Conference, where he condemned EU efforts to counter disinformation as Soviet-style suppression. Perhaps more alarming was Vance’s call to Trump live on stage, during which the U.S. President openly endorsed Orbán.

Orbán also relied on his longstanding ties with Russia. Much has been said about the Orbán-Putin friendship, or rather, Orbán’s admiration for Putin. For the sake of brevity, it can be summed up by a Bloomberg News leaked transcript of a call between the two leaders. According to the transcript, Orbán described their dynamic as that of a mouse and a lion, referencing one of Aesop’s fables in which a mouse, shown mercy by a lion, later frees that same lion from a hunter’s net. The analogy, casting Orbán as the mouse and Putin as the lion, signals his willingness to support Russia in return for Moscow’s backing.

Though these remarks barely scratch the surface of Orbán’s controversial rule, they should give a hint at how high the stakes of the election were. Not just for Hungarians, but for all of Europe. As it became clear that Péter Magyar would be Hungary’s new president, EU leaders rushed to congratulate the opposition leader and “welcome [Hungary] back.” Even better news is that Tizsa secured a supermajority, which allows them to amend the constitution and reverse the damage done by Orban.

While Tizsa successfully mobilized Hungarian voters, many challenges still lie ahead. One of them might be a shaky foundation of the Tisza party. Tisza is relatively new on the party market, and its leader, Magyar, remains a polarizing figure, given some of his past mishaps and former membership in Fidesz. Building a platform on the grounds of a common enemy might not always be sustainable in the long run. “Magyar is known as the guy opposing Orbán, so people are willing to overlook whatever it is that he does that makes people skeptical. But, I wouldn’t be surprised if, later on, there’s a lot of tension or disagreement within the alliance,” Yoder noted. 

For now, Magyar has played his cards well. And right now, this is not just Magyar’s victory but Hungary’s. For months, Hungarians took to the streets in open dissatisfaction with Orbán’s rule. Those demonstrations saw the revival of a long-dormant but never forgotten chant: “Ruszkik haza.” Translated as “Russians, go home,” the phrase echoes Hungary’s 1956 anti-Soviet uprising. It reverberated again on Sunday night as Magyar addressed tens of thousands of supporters from a stage on the banks of the Danube in Budapest, the streets and subways overflowing with people singing and dancing, some holding torches aloft. Whatever the future holds for Central Europe, one thing is certain: Hungary has entered a new period that will be defined by prosperity and democracy, and where freedom is no longer so costly.

 

~ Cristina Panaguta `26

Filmmaker Andrew McGowan met Jerry LaVasseur when McGowan was competing as a runner at Bowdoin College. At the time, LaVasseur was an assistant coach for the Polar Bears’ track and cross-country teams.

“I was lucky to overlap with [LaVasseur’s] coaching tenure when I was there,” McGowan said. “And I ran track and cross-country… all three seasons, all four years.”

Since graduating from Bowdoin in 2019, McGowan has pursued a career in film. When he was a graduate student at UCLA, he began to work on a documentary about his coach, whose life story he describes as “incredible.”

Jerry LaVasseur was born in 1937 in Connecticut. When he was just six, he survived the Hartford Circus Fire, which killed 167 people and left over 700 with injuries — LaVasseur among them. LaVasseur’s mother was killed in the blaze, and LaVasseur himself spent six months in the hospital recovering from serious burns. The scars are still there. “Medical technology was what it was in 1944, so [LaVasseur] has a distinct memory of doctors saying he wasn’t going to make it,” McGowan said. “But he did.”

Now, McGowan says, “Jerry is an 88-year-old track and field athlete who’s still competing in his advanced age, and his story is one of overcoming adversity with optimism.”

LaVasseur was a multi-sport athlete during high school and college, and as an adult, he spent 30 years racing sled dogs, which McGowan says “is an incredible story in and of itself.”

But it wasn’t until middle-age that LaVasseur started running competitively. In his 40s, he started entering races. He qualified for the National Senior Games at 55. Now, he’s 88, and he’s training for the 2026 Masters Track & Field National Championships, which are set to take place in Ohio in July of this summer.

LaVasseur still lives in Maine, so McGowan has returned from California to film the documentary. McGowan is working in collaboration with director of photography Josh Gerritsen, also a Maine resident, and he’s been reaching out to Maine colleges for filming support, too.

When Bowdoin was on spring break earlier this year, students at Colby College answered the call for help. Randi Radcliffe `27, Alison Angley `26, Yiyun Mao `26, Molly Lakritz `27, and Graham Rivers `26 drove down to Brunswick on March 8 to film LaVasseur while he competed in the USA Track & Field Maine Indoor State Championships. It was the first big shoot of the documentary.

After a quick tutorial at the beginning of the shoot, they started rolling film. McGowan describes how he was impressed by both the professionalism and experience that the Mules brought to filming LaVasseur’s races.

“They were great,” McGowan said. “They did amazing work, and I’m so grateful they were able to participate and come in on such short notice.”

McGowan is similarly excited about how the documentary has involved so many different people from around the state: “It’s been a beautiful community effort, which is really nice. The last few things I’ve worked on were all in Los Angeles, and it’s a very different culture out there, compared to working in Maine.”

Even LaVasseur has contributed content to his own documentary. “What’s great is that Jerry’s hobby, for much of his life, has been photography,” McGowan said. “All the years he was coaching, he was the unofficial photographer for the Bowdoin track and cross-country teams. And he’s taken photos throughout all of his travels over the years, so he has a wealth of personal archival material that he’s been able to share and is willing to put in the film.”

That’s part of how McGowan is able to tell a story spanning 88 years while sticking to a budget. He’s also put together a Kickstarter campaign to help finance the filming, where the documentary is listed under the title The Coach Jerry Story.

McGowan is hoping to wrap up production after LaVasseur’s July Masters National Championships bid, and then he’ll move on to an extended editing process. He hopes to have a finished cut by early 2027, when he’ll start shopping it around to film festivals.

What are McGowan’s aspirations for the documentary?

“I hope that people can feel inspired by Jerry,” he said. “[I hope they] can see that it’s possible to still be doing really meaningful things at an advanced age, and still be doing very physically active things at an advanced age.”

McGowan also hopes that the documentary will “bring a little bit of wholesome positivity to this world right now.”

 

 

~ Elias Kemp `27

At the College, where packed schedules, challenging academics, extracurricular leadership roles, and social commitments often define student life, burnout has become an increasingly familiar, if not openly discussed, experience. For many students, exhaustion is no longer an occasional setback, but a constant in the background, shaping how they study, socialize, and define their own success.

Burnout is typically described as a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by a long period of stress. On campus, it often shows up less as a breaking point and more as a slow decrease in motivation. Students describe difficulty concentrating, detachment from coursework they once found exciting, and a feeling that rest is never fully enough.

The structure of college life can intensify this pressure. Many students balance full course loads with athletic commitments, club leadership roles, jobs, and internships, all of which are framed as necessary for competitiveness after graduation. The result is a culture where being busy is often equated with being successful, and slowing down can feel like falling behind.

For sophomore Mara Reba `28, burnout shows up in a familiar cycle of stress and disengagement: “[It feels like] being stressed out but also unmotivated to do any of my assignments,” she said.

That pattern can make burnout difficult to recognize. Rather than stopping altogether, students often push through exhaustion, normalizing it as part of “college life.” Some describe short bursts of productivity followed by crashes, while others admit to losing interest in activities they once prioritized.

Mental health professionals note that this pattern is increasingly common nationwide among college students, especially at highly selective institutions. Chronic stress can disrupt sleep, reduce cognitive performance, and contribute to anxiety and depressive symptoms. If not addressed, burnout can also affect academic performance and overall well-being.

Despite growing awareness of mental health, many students still feel pressure to appear composed. Admitting to burnout can feel like admitting failure in a culture that rewards constant achievement. As a result, students often confide in close friends rather than true support systems or wait until the stress becomes unmanageable before seeking help.

Reba describes the end-of-semester period as especially intense. “The weeks leading up to reading week are when I feel burnt out the most because I feel like I’ll have a lot of work to do but also have no sense of urgency to complete my assignments [or] study,” she said.

Reba also noted the social pressure that comes with academic culture on campus. “People seem to always talk about ‘locking in,’ and it can sometimes make me feel guilty for not always wanting to do my work,” she said.

Faculty and administrators have emphasized wellness initiatives in recent years, but students say the pace of academic and extracurricular life still feels intense. Even well-intentioned advice to “take breaks” can feel unrealistic when deadlines continue to stack up.

Social media can also reinforce the cycle. Constant exposure to peers’ internships, awards, and leadership roles can make it feel like everyone else is gliding by, even when many are privately struggling. That comparison can deepen feelings of inadequacy and make it harder to step back without feeling guilt.

Still, some students are finding small ways to push back against burnout culture. A few set boundaries around study time, prioritize sleep, or step back from extracurricular roles. Others try to reframe productivity entirely, focusing less on constant output and more on sustainability.

Reba emphasized physical movement as one of her main coping strategies. “Working out, or just moving my body in general,” she said, noting that even small amounts of activity can help reset her mindset during periods of exhaustion.

Even so, burnout remains a persistent part of campus life, less a personal failing than a reflection of broader pressures existing in academic environments. Addressing it may require not only individual coping strategies but a cultural shift in how success and balance are defined.

For now, many students continue to navigate that tension daily: striving to do more, while quietly wondering when it will ever feel like enough.

 

 

~ Mia Dinunzio `28