Meet Our Team

Con Xie

Editor-In-Chief/President

Pronouns: She/They

Con joined the team in Fall 2020 and has served as President of the Review since May 2021. She is a sophomore at the Stern School of Business majoring in finance and double minoring in law and mathematics. In her spare time, she teaches private music lessons and performs as a piano accompanist.

Q&A

Your favorite thing about being an editor?

My favorite thing about being an editor is definitely getting to form acquaintances with other people’s ways of thinking — how they perceive literary works, how they see society, how they see the world. It’s a humbling, colorful, intimate, and deeply satisfying process.

Your most recent literary read?

These past weeks have been very busy for me, so it’s been mostly poetry and short stories — Szymborska, Eliot, Maupassant. A little bit of everything.

Your strangest comfort?

Listening to Ave Marias for purely secular reasons.

The topic of the paper you’ve always wanted to write?

Portrayals of the law in postmodern metafictional works. There’s a fat chance I’ll never get to it.

Cristina Coppa

Co-Editor-in-Chief/Vice President

Cristina joined the team in Fall 2020 and is now Vice President of the Review. She is a senior at CAS majoring in English & American Literature and minoring in Creative Writing.

Q&A

Your favorite thing about being an editor?

Editors have the privilege of reading original works in the making and having a say in how these will be presented for the public’s enjoyment. As for my enjoyment, I savor foraging for the right word, shedding light on complicated ideas, and polishing language until the text flows smoothly.

Your most recent literary read?

I have lately been revisiting Russian and German literary classics, and am now going through a Franz Kafka phase. His posthumous novel The Trial evinces the suspenseful balance between realism and absurdity.

Your strangest comfort?

Floral hand embroidery.

The topic of the paper you’ve always wanted to write?

The inherent arbitrariness of the signified that Saussure fails to address in his Course in General Linguistics.

Angela Cai

Managing Editor/Secretary

Angela joined the team in Spring 2021 as Managing Editor of the Review. She is a senior at CAS double majoring in English and Social & Cultural Analysis.

Q&A

Your favorite thing about being an editor?

Stepping into the space of another writer’s thoughts. It’s always fascinating to enter the unique conversations of my peers’ writing processes.

Your most recent literary read?

I just finished Carceral Capitalism by the wonderful Jackie Wang, and I’m very slowly working my way through Settlers by J. Sekai and The Waves by Virginia Woolf.

Your strangest comfort?

Making hundreds of Spotify playlists (currently at playlist #216).

The topic of the paper you’ve always wanted to write?

Spatiality, home/homelessness, and lyrical queerness in Emily Dickinson’s poetry.

Isabel Sanchez Hodoyan

Editor

Isabel joined the team in Spring 2021 and serves as an editor. She is an incoming senior at CAS, double majoring in English & American Literature, and Social & Cultural Analysis.

Q&A

Your favorite thing about being an editor?

My favorite thing about being an editor is interacting with my peers through their writing — in my experience, rarely do we get a chance to enjoy our classmates papers in their totality… 

Your most recent literary read?

Currently working my way through Samantha Shannon’s giant fantasy novel, The Priory of the Orange Tree.

Your strangest comfort?

Coffee at night, I suppose.

The topic of the paper you’ve always wanted to write?

Miyazaki’s adaptation of Howl’s Moving Castle & the various kinds of transformations it makes to Jones’s original novel, especially in regards to the war subplot. I’ll be writing my thesis on this so keep an eye out 😉

Ellen Israel

Editor

Ellen joined the team in the spring of 2022 and serves as an editor. She is a senior double majoring in philosophy and English at the College of Arts and Science.

Q&A

Your favorite thing about being an editor?

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