Undergraduate Journal of Humanistic Studies

Welcome to Carleton College’s Undergraduate Journal of Humanistic Studies.

The Spring 2026 issue is now available. Feel free to check out articles from our latest and past issues.

Questions? Contact us at ujhs@carleton.edu.

Spring 2026

We are thrilled to present the nineteenth issue of the Undergraduate Journal of Humanistic Studies. A core aim of this journal is to bring together the humanities and the social sciences, and we believe that this issue particularly exemplifies the value of such linkages. While the selected papers span four disciplines —religion, history, statistics, and art history— what was most notable to us editors as we put this issue together was their methodological diversity. One author draws on rigorous statistical modeling, another employs traditional archival and textual analysis, another grounds her work in religious theory, and the last analyzes visual media. Together, these papers demonstrate the many ways in which scholars approach the study of human experience to enrich their respective fields.

In “Domestic Politics and Transnational Repression: Evidence from a Zero-Inflated Poisson Model,” Kristoff Cao examines the domestic factors that prompt authoritarian states to engage in repression abroad. Building on a previous quantitative study on transnational repression (TR), Cao notes that this earlier statistical model fails to distinguish between structural zeros and sampling zeros. Responding to this limitation, Cao puts forth a Zero-Inflated Poisson model which newly separates the probability of entering the “risk pool” of TR perpetrators from the frequency of repression once a state is at risk. His findings suggest that mixed regimes, or anocracies, are much more likely than closed autocracies to engage in TR, while domestic political constraints impact the intensity of this repression after it occurs. Ultimately, Cao’s analysis not only demonstrates the heterogeneity of authoritarian regimes, but also advances a broader methodological intervention into the study of rare political events by challenging the assumption “that 1’s are more insightful than non-events (0’s).”

In “The Power of History to Build a Nation: Tanzania’s Educational Approach to the Zanzibar Revolution,” Grace Enz works at the intersection of two predominant bodies of literature on the 1964 Zanzibar Revolution: one concerning official narratives of the revolution, and the other dealing with the state of the field of history in Tanzania. Identifying a dearth of scholarship “that locates the educational and political themes of the Zanzibar Revolution within Tanzania’s nation-building project,” Enz’s work shines light on how Tanzanian institutions taught Tanzanians to imagine their past and future. Drawing on educational materials from several Tanzanian political parties, in addition to publications from the Historical Association of Tanzania, Enz argues that while many groups furthered distinct visions of Tanzanian identity, they were largely unified in attempting to use history to create a nation centered on African capability and unity. Her work is a nuanced contribution to ongoing conversations around Zanzibari and Tanzanian identity, conversations that continue to impact Tanzanian politics to this day. 

In “Chance and Collaboration in the Dada Movement,” Eila Planinc examines the pattern of retroactive authorship and ownership claimed by members of the Dadas in their later lives, tracing the lives of four significant Dadas: Tristan Tzara (1896-1963), Richard Huelsenbeck (1892-1974), Raoul Hausmann (1886-1971), and Jean Arp (1886-1966). Identifying a failure in existing scholarship to properly note the real-world effects of the Dadas’ use of chance, and a tendency to ignore the relationship between chance and collaboration, Planinc argues that the anti-authorial powers of chance and collaboration in the movement account for the political desires of some of the Dadas and, in the case of Jean Arp, spiritual desires. Her work provides an original analysis of how chance and collaboration functioned in one of the twentieth century’s most fissiparous and difficult-to-characterize artistic movements. 

Finally, in “Sensory Orders and Spiritual Speech: An Embodied Approach to Glossolalia,” Zoe Tomlin argues that glossolalia, or the process of speaking in tongues, should be seen as a sensory practice that generates and fixes religious meaning across time and space. Using religious and sensory studies, Tomlin  traces the development of glossolalia across distinct evangelical movements such as the 1906 Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles to contemporary Pentecostal worship services. Noting how various groups have had distinct interpretations of “remarkably similar” practices, Tomlin utilizes a bottom-up approach to carefully examine how glossolalia as a sensational structure shapes and maintains traditions. Through a careful analysis, she asserts that “practitioners begin with what they feel, and theological interpretation adjusts to make those sensations coherent.” She roots her study in reality, extrapolating the ways time and space can change meanings without damaging the structure of the practice. She deftly weaves between scholarly sources on and first-hand experiences of glossolalia. Her piece poignantly ends with a discussion on how religious traditions endure not only through texts and doctrines, but by the often overlooked “shared sensorium.” 

We would like to extend our gratitude to all the authors who submitted their work for this issue, with particular thanks to the authors of these papers, who enthusiastically joined us throughout the editorial process. We would also like to thank our faculty advisor Baird Jarman, Director of Digital Arts and Humanities Austin Mason, and Humanities Center Administrative Assistant Mary Drew for continuing to support and guide us through this process. Finally, we are grateful to Carleton’s Digital Humanities team for taking care of the tail end of the publication, and formatting our initial manuscripts into the final product we present to you today. On behalf of our entire team, we hope you enjoy reading the Spring 2026 edition of the Undergraduate Journal of Humanistic Studies.