There is always a sense of wonder. The first time you catch a firefly. The first time you walk under a skyscraper. The first time you look through a telescope at a distant star and think simultaneously “It’s so big” and “I’m so small.”

Although our sense of what is really big and what is really small changes, those feelings of awe and inspiration are still out there, waiting to be rediscovered.

And at the College of LSA, we know there is as much wonder and wisdom in observing the rotation of the earth as there is in understanding the life of a flea. Because whether something is big or whether it is small doesn’t matter as much as whether it still has something to teach us.

Explore the spring 2015 issue of LSA Magazine.

Chinese propaganda posters from 1954 (right) and 1961 (left). Changes in government propaganda have mirrored changes in Chinese culture. Photos courtesy of chineseposters.net

Features

Big Red
China’s growing middle class is making new demands on its government. Take a tour of the challenges facing China’s present and shaping its future.

Word Smiths
LSA’s Zell Writers’ Program has its own letterpress, where students transform literature into one-of-a-kind objects of beauty and learn the literal weight of their words.

The Science of Small
Labs in LSA are using Nobel Prize–winning microscope techniques to see down to the molecular level, magnifying major possibilities for how we may one day see the world.

To explore more stories about big ideas and small wonders, take a look at this issue’s Table of Contents.