AGORA | Trigger Warnings

This article represents the first in a hopefully long series of articles which aims to address controversial topics in an open and civil manner here in Sunspots. The name was chosen carefully: the agora, the marketplace of ancient Athens, was at once a place where material goods were exchanged and where ideas and conflicting viewpoints could be expressed in the open air for all to hear and criticize. This is therefore the goal of Agora, a bi-weekly column for which writers in Sunspots meet in person and compose a conversational piece in which they summarize their own take on difficult topics, and contribute to conversations that need to be had. This week, two Sunspots writers turn their attention to the issue of trigger warnings. By now, it has become a staple of online writing, a boldfaced prefix to harrowing subject matter: the cw, content warning, or its functional Doppelgänger, tw, trigger warning.