Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Unraveling Labor: Crafting Between Hobby And Work, Samriddhi Khemka

Undercurrents: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Composition

Samriddhi Khemka is a Nursing major from Natick, MA. Samriddhi explains that her essay was inspired by memories of crafting with her mom on the living room floor. “Whether it was making flowers out of pencil shavings, flower pressing without proper kits, or painting rocks, my mom undeniably taught me the art of creativity,” she recalls. More importantly, her mother taught her how to see possibility in scraps and to turn what others might throw away into something meaningful. She reflects: “Nothing was ever wasted if it could be remade.” One thing that stood out to Samriddhi while writing this …

Compelled By Darkness: Batman, Mental Instability, And The Blurred Line Of Heroism, Chloë Lucien

Undercurrents: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Composition

Chloë Lucien is a Music major with a Dance minor from Mattapan, MA. Chloë explains that this essay was deeply personal because Batman’s story has always been more than a comic book origin to her. “Batman himself has become a mirror I could look into, a reflection of my own journey from pain to purpose,” she shares. Writing about Bruce Wayne allowed her to explore how mental wounds can coexist with, and even fuel, acts of courage, challenging the simplistic “hero-versus-villain” narrative while bringing self-acceptance to her own ongoing work of healing. For Chloë, the essay became more than an …

Comforts With The "S", Reese Smith

Undercurrents: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Composition

Reese Smith is a nursing major from Quincy, MA. She says that she has come to realize how as a society we have very little comfort in our everyday lives and “often live a robotic lifestyle day in and day out, without taking much time to appreciate what is around us and incorporating comforts into our daily routines.” When writing this essay, Reese felt that she was able to take her own research and apply it to her daily life by taking time to infiltrate comforts (with an “s”) into her own routines. Her research is special to her since …

Femininity On Social Media, Allison Peguero

Undercurrents: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Composition

Allison Peguero is a biology major from Malden, MA. The inspiration for her research is having often “witnessed the hate women receive when sharing their interests and passions online.” Allison feels that this conduct has been “normalized” online and in social media. She also finds it interesting to witness the way people conduct themselves online versus the way they truly are offline. This juxtaposition inspired her essay “to not only explore this topic further, but to analyze how this connects with the misogyny that I and many other women have experienced online.” The freedom to pursue her interest in this …

Film's Depictions Of Mental Illness, Mandy May

Undercurrents: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Composition

Mandy May is a psychology major from Canton, CT. Mandy’s purpose for writing her essay was to spread awareness of the impact that negative portrayals of mental illnesses in the media have on audiences. She shares that, as a psychology major, she has always been “hyper-aware of the way films exaggerate and emphasize unrealistic stereotypes surrounding mental illness.” Mandy feels that this essay gave her the opportunity to “finally research more about the reality of these depictions, and to hear about how people with mental disorders are affected by negative portrayals.” With a growing interest in child psychology, fueled by …

Music And Mental Health, Yelena Hernandez Bonilla

Undercurrents: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Composition

Yelena Hernandez Bonilla is a public health major from Chelsea, MA. As an undergraduate student, Yelena began reflecting on her school experience and noticed how much music has helped her “whether feeling happy, stressed, overwhelmed, or just needing a moment to unwind.” She decided to write this essay because she sees how important music is for many students. Apart from just listening to music, Yelena has played the piano and guitar for many years. Her music has served as a crucial outlet and has become “a major part of who I am because it is something I love and enjoy …

Writing Is Really Really Scary, Brian Coughlin

Undercurrents: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Composition

Brian Coughlin is a biology major from Melrose, MA. He believes that “everyone has the capacity to write something beautiful, but so many people are turned off of it because they think of some boring English essay they had to write about The Catcher in the Rye in eleventh grade.” Brian’s goal in this essay is to show that writing is “so much more than cracking open a thesaurus to impress your teacher.” This piece of writing is important to Brian because it was one of the first essays he wrote while trying to break away from the conventional writing …

Leaving Brushstrokes On The Page: Writing That Grabs You And Demands Attention, Lauren Brown

Undercurrents: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Composition

Lauren Brown is a biology major and film minor from Firestone, Colorado. She “adores writing” and enjoyed the freedom in experimentation with voice in this essay. She says, “I loved being exposed to different forms of writing a paper that all fell under analysis or research. There are so many ways to be flexible with style and incorporate your own voice that I was able to see, analyze, and try myself.” Lauren also wanted to explore “how education often sucks the joy out of writing as an artform and makes it into something easily replicated by a site like ChatGPT.” …

A Conversation Amongst Trees, Bella Brown

Undercurrents: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Composition

Bella Brown is an environmental science major and a biology minor from Glastonbury, CT. Bella says that she is “super passionate about nature and finding new ways to preserve and understand it” and when she was presented with the task of writing a research paper she knew that she wanted to further explore a podcast episode about trees communicating through fungi, or “talking trees.” She says it “seemed like a huge breakthrough on understanding how our forests function as complex ecosystems.” Bella also notes that one thing she loved about writing this paper was the freedom to choose whatever topic …

2024 Editor's Introduction, Lauren M. Bowen

Undercurrents: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Composition

No abstract provided.

Grief As A Constitutive Shadow Of Queer Joy: Reclaiming Negativity And The Ethics Of Staying For Education Research, Akira Sawata

Journal of Queer and Trans Studies in Education

In education scholarship, authors have increasingly called to center queer joy to disrupt the conventional deficit model that normally accompanies queer communities. However, in this paper, I argue that an exclusive emphasis on joy may risk instituting and normalizing a happiness duty that marginalizes negative affects and subjects. I propose queer grief not as an opposite, but as a constitutive shadow of joy. Drawing on theories of queer, trans, and crip negativity and the studies on loss, grief, and mourning, I critique the imperative to mobilize affect solely for future utility and teleological meaning. I contend that such mobilization-driven …

Brief Of Professors Mark Storslee, John Meiser, Douglas Laycock, Nathan Chapman, Thomas Berg, Christopher Lund, Michael Helfand, Steven Collis, Meredith Kessler, Carl Esbeck, John Inazu, Asma Uddin, Christopher Hampson, And Kathleen Brady As Amici Curiae In Support Of Petitioners, Mark Storslee, John A. Meiser, Meredith Holland Kessler

Court Briefs

No. 26-257
Mara Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District

On Petition for Writ of Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit

From the Summary of Argument

For more than seventy years, this Court has made clear that a state “may not coerce anyone ... to take religious instruction” or use public schools to “force ... religion on any person.” Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U.S. 306, 314 (1952). For good reason. Doing so advances one of the “true evil[s] of religious establishment" that Founding-era Americans rejected: “the use of government power” to foster “uniformity …

Chacahoula 2026, Volume 93, Pawan Khatri, Alayna Pellegrin

Chacahoula

The 2026 issue of Chacahoula, There's No Place Like Home, emphasizes the way in which our university becomes a home to students.  Featuring prize-winning poetry from Allyson Gee, Nick Fredrick, Amaris Kendall and Anmol Subedi, the book includes December 2025 and May 2026 graduating classes, as well as stunning photography of  campus life on the banks of Bayou Desiard. With features covering students, faculty, and staff, this year's time capsule preserves an academic year in the life of the University of Louisiana at Monroe. This edition includes a video message from President Carrie Castille. Download the PDF to your device …

Antiracism As Daily Practice: Refuse Shame, Change White Communities, And Help Create A Just World, By Jennifer Harvey. St. Martin’S Press, 2024. 284 Pages. $229.00. Isbn 978-1250286703., Regina Shands Stoltzfus

Journal of Hate Studies

Regina Shands Stoltzfus, a scholar of peace, justice, and conflict studies, reviews Jennifer Harvey’s Antiracism as Daily Practice: Refuse Shame, Change White Communities, and Help Create a Just World, which addresses white readers directly, arguing for and providing examples of sustained, everyday antiracist actions that help them overcome shame, fear of backlash, and silence.

Tell Her Story: Eleanor Bumpurs And The Police Killing That Galvanized New York City, By Lashawn Harris. Beacon Press, 2025. 352 Pages. $35.00. Isbn 978-0807011966, Thomas Aiello

Journal of Hate Studies

A historian and scholar of African studies, Thomas Aiello reviews LaShawn Harris’ Tell Her Story: Eleanor Bumpurs and the Police Killing that Galvanized New York City, which details the police killing of a 66-year old grandmother during a court-ordered eviction from her apartment in 1984, a time of elevated state violence against dispossessed people in New YorkCity, and its consequences, including the trial of the officer charged in her shooting and the public’s response. Tell Her Story examines the intersecting oppressions of racism, classism, sexism, ableism, and weight-based discrimination that shaped Bumpers’ experiences with bureaucracy, especially around housing, and …

Strange People On The Hill: How Extremism Tore Apart A Small American Town, By Michael Edison Hayden. 320 Pages. $30.00 Isbn 978-1645030607, Thomas F. Schaller

Journal of Hate Studies

Political scientist Tom Schaller reviews Michael Edison Hayden’s Strange People on the Hill: How Extremism Tore Apart a Small American Town. Part memoir and part ethnography, Strange People on the Hill details Hayden’s time as an investigative journalist in Berkley Springs, West Virginia, where the Southern Poverty Law Center tasked him with learning about the purchase of an area castle by Peter Brimelow, the founder of the white nationalist group VDARE, named after Virginia Dare, the first white child born in the Americas, and his wife. Strange People on the Hill chronicles the challenges of working as a journalist …

When The Hood Comes Off: Racism And Resistance In The Digital Age, By Rob Eschmann. University Of California Press, 2023. 312 Pages. $24.95. Isbn 978-0520379749, Stephanie M. Ortiz

Journal of Hate Studies

Sociologist Stephanie M. Ortiz reviews Rob Eschmann’s When the Hood Comes Off: Racism and Resistance in the Digital Age, which examines how the internet reorganizes the conditions under which racism is expressed, with a focus on higher education. This reorganization allows hate to flourish online even as racism is disavowed in public. Online and offline spaces are not disconnected, though, and digital revelations—revealed when “the hood comes off”—shape offline relationships, institutional trust, campus climate, and students’ sense of safety.

The Violent Take It By Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy, By Matthew D. Taylor. Broadleaf Books, 2024. 292 Pages. $32.99. Isbn 978-1506497785, Jefferson Calico

Journal of Hate Studies

Jefferson Calico, a scholar of religion, reviews Matthew D. Taylor’s The Violent Take It by Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy, an analysis of how the apostolic and prophetic movement within American Protestantism is reshaping religious politics. Charismatic, both theologically and personally, religious entrepreneurs like Paula White, C. Peter Wagner, Cindy Jacobs, Sean Feucht, and Dutch Sheets lead market-driven faith-based efforts to undermine democracy. With their emphasis on spectacular displays of spiritual gifts, they often embarrass other Christian nationalists, while the leadership of women and people of color in the movement scandalizes them—yet they are, in …

Imagining The Possibilities: A Consideration Of Speaking Volumes: Transforming Hate, Tracy Wascom

Journal of Hate Studies

Tracy Wascom reviews Speaking Volumes: Transforming Hate, a traveling exhibit that refashions books published by a white supremacist group, the Creativity Movement, into art. Books such as The White Man’s Bible and RAHOWA: This Planet is All Ours!, written in the 1980s, were provided to the Montana Human Rights Network by a white supremacist defector. With curator Katie Knight, MHRN then invited artists to repurpose the texts into paintings, sculptures, films, and other artistic investigations of hate. Thirty-eight artists are represented in the current touring exhibit, including Enrique Chagoya, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Jim Riswold, Faith Ringgold, and Clarissa …

Teaching Objects Of Hate: The Jim Crow Museum Of Racist Memorabilia, Sara Moslener

Journal of Hate Studies

Dr. Sara Moslener interviews Dr. David Pilgrim, founder, curator, and director of the Jim Crow Museum at Ferris University. The Jim Crow Museum is undergoing a major renovation that will allow the museum’s more than 30,000 artifacts to be displayed and cared for. They discuss the place of material culture in teaching about racism, sustainability in anti-hate work, and the changing language of anti-hate education. The Jim Crow Museum at Ferris State University will celebrate its grand opening with a special presentation at 1 pm on September 30, followed by a ribbon cutting and self-guided tours. At 10 am on …

“A Candle In The Darkness”: On Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past And Present At The Canadian Museum For Human Rights, Itay Zutra

Journal of Hate Studies

A scholar of Jewish studies, Itay Zutra reviews On Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present, an exhibit at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights that opened in June 2026 and is expected to run through November 2028. The exhibit, curated by Isabelle Masson, recognizes the historic and ongoing displacement of Palestinians by the Israeli government by including both historic relics from the initial removal of Palestinians in 1948 and contemporary art engaging continued violence there. Items include artifacts from the life of physician Izzeldin Abuelaish, who lost his daughters and niece to an Israeli attack on their home even …

Children No More: Were And Are Gone. Produced By Sheila Nevins, Yael Melamede And Hilla Medalia; Directed By Hilla Medalia. English. 2026; Color; 36 Minutes. Full Story Films, Medalia Productions, And Salty Features, Muzna Rahman

Journal of Hate Studies

Postcolonial studies scholar Muzna Rahman reviews Children No More: Were and Are Gone, Hilla Medalia’s Academy Award-nominated short documentary. The film documents pro-peace Israeli activists who gather regularly in Tel Avivi to hold a silent vigil for Palestinian children killed by Israel forces. Against the backdrop of everyday urban life, the protestors simply hold photos of the children, commemorating their lives rather than their brutal deaths. The images of Palestinian children held by Israeli activities highlights the similarities between the groups, while the rage of passersby reveals the danger that Israelis who advocate for peace face in their work.

Foreign Fighters And The Extreme Right: Tracking Far-Right Volunteers Beyond The Ukraine War, Edited By Daniel Koehler And Miroslav Mareš. Routledge, 2026. 326 Pages. $57.99. Isbn 978-1003186014, Alex Mackenzie

Journal of Hate Studies

Alex MacKenzie, a scholar of politics, reviews Foreign Fighters and the Extreme Right: Tracking Far-Right Volunteers Beyond the Ukraine War, edited by Daniel Koehler and Miroslav Mareš. Foreign Fighters and the Extreme Right provides a history of foreign fighters, with a focus on the previous hundred years. Methodologically and geographically diverse, the collection includes chapters on the United States, Russia, Germany, Italy, the UK, Scandinavia, Southeastern Europe, and Eastern Europe, examining the historical and social context of foreign fighters in each region.

Introduction To “Reviews & Interviews”, Rebecca Barrett-Fox, Jennifer Schlegel

Journal of Hate Studies

An introduction to the 25th anniversary of the Journal of Hate Studies from Rebecca Barrett-Fox, editorial board chair, and Jennifer Schlegel, managing editor.

How Small-Town Conspiracists Have Changed The Country: A Review OfDay Of Reckoning And Chaos Comes Calling, Shane Burley

Journal of Hate Studies

Books reviews include:
Day of Reckoning: How the Far Right Declared War on Democracy, by Mike Wendling. Pluto Press, 2024. 192 pages. $21.94. ISBN 978-0745349718.

Chaos Comes Calling: The Battle Against the Far-Right Takeover of Small-Town America, by Sasha Abramsky. Bold Type Books, 2024. 288 pages. $30.00. ISBN 978-1645030430.

We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions Of A New Elite, By Musa Al-Gharbi. Princeton University Press, 2024. 432 Pages. $35.00. Isbn 978-069123260, Justin Sprague

Journal of Hate Studies

A scholar of women and gender studies, Justin Sprague reviews Musa al-Gharbi’s We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite. Focusing on four “Great Awokenings”—the Great Depression, the introduction of the GI Bill and ensuing counterculture movements of the 1960s, the financial precarity of the 1980s Reagan era, and the 2008 financial crisis and ensuing Occupy Wall Street movement—We Have Never Been Woke highlights the cyclical nature of the ideological/capitalist status quo and peels back the shiny veneer of politically “woke” and ideologically altruistic professionals to reveal how this group upholds a political economy that …

Antisemitism: What Everyone Needs To Know, By David Harris. Oxford University Press, 2025. 280 Pages. $18.99. Isbn 978-0197800676, Dov Waxman

Journal of Hate Studies

Political scientist Dov Waxman reviews Antisemitism: What Everyone Needs to Know, authored by David Harris, former chair of the American Jewish Committee. Part of Oxford University Press’s What Everyone Needs to Know series aimed at general readers, the book provides a basic history of antisemitism through the present, including explaining its relationship to the Holocaust, but it devotes much more attention to what the author alleges is antisemitism on the left, particularly concerning Israel, than to antisemitism on the Far Right, and it fails to engage with or reflect contemporary scholarship on antisemitism.

Fragile Hope: Seeking Justice For Hate Crimes In India, By Sandhya Fuchs. Stanford University Press, 2004. 358 Pages. $32.00. Isbn 978-1503639362, Amarnath Amarasingam

Journal of Hate Studies

A scholar of religion, Amarnath Amarasingam reviews Fragile Hope: Seeking Justice for Hate Crimes in India by Sandhya Fuchs. Fragile Hope is an ethnographic study of how justice operates in Dalit communities in Rajasthan in northwest India, particularly how the Prevention of Atrocities Act is both a tool of resistance and a site of disappointment. The book considers the history and conceptual framework of the Atrocities Act (also known as the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Act), how instances of caste violence become legal cases, and how survivors seek justice.

Radical Right Ideologues In The Age Of Trump: Heralds Of Nihilism, By Ronald Beiner. Routledge, 2026. 160 Pages. $57.99. Isbn 978-1041126812, Joan Braune

Journal of Hate Studies

Philosopher Joan Braune reviews Ronald Beiner’s Radical Right Ideologues in the Age of Trump: Heralds of Nihilism, which examines how fascist ideologues such as Steve Bannon, Aleksandr Dugin, Jason Jorjani, and Costin Alamariu (known online as “Bronze Age Pervert”), invoke philosophers, including Plato, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, in their arguments. It also considers why traditional philosophy departments have hesitated to acknowledge the use of philosophers in right-wing movements and how Beiner manages the risk of validating fascism as intellectual by studying the topic.

The Great Right North: Inside Far-Right Activism In Canada, By Stéphane Leman-Langlois, Aurélie Campana, And Samuel Tanner. Mcgill-Queen’S University Press, 2024. 288 Pages. $29.95. Isbn978-0228022848, Carmen Celestini

Journal of Hate Studies

Carmen Celestini, a scholar of religion, reviews The Great Right North: Inside Far-Right Activism in Canada, co-authored by Stéphane Leman-Langlois, Aurélie Campana, and Samuel Tanner. The Great Right North traces the history of the far right in Canada, mapping hate groups by their relationships to political and social institutions and violence as well as their construction of otherness, thereby revealing how such groups are not insular but are in fact responsive to social phenomena. After defining groups as ultra right, racial right, xenophobic right, anti-state militias, freedom conspiracists, or nostalgic racists, The Great Right North identifies commonalities and differences …