CONTRADICTION is an exploration of accusations, hypocrisies and paradoxes.

Featuring a diverse array of submissions analyzing and investigating contradictions of all kinds—personal, political, architectural, historical. The essays in this issue pose complex questions that cannot be resolved with a single answer.

How does an uprising negotiate between the impulse to rave and the impulse to revolt? How do you fight structures of disparity while participating in them? What histories are held within your eczema? What does a pet cockroach do in an elite boarding school? From the emptiness of nationalism to the tension between practicality and optimism in Kabul’s architecture, our authors each unearth deeply-situated uncertainties that permeate our lives.