For decades since their acquisition, The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection of highly decorated American firearms have been prized for their engraving and unique appeal in the world of fine arts. Despite this, there has been a gaping hole in the records regarding the names of the artists who have remained anonymous for over a century. This project focuses on the discovery of their names and credit for their work as it stands in The Met’s galleries and the unconventional fine art of weaponry, its origins, and inter-cultural influence.

Support from The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Adrienne Arsht internship program, nominated exchange at King’s College London, The Cody Firearm Museum Internship Program, The New York Historical Society, The John Loeb Jr. Scholarship, and the Smithsonian Institution Internship Program.

Thank you to Associate Curator of Arms and Armor John Byck, The Met’s Arms and Armor staff, Cody Firearms Museum staff, and King’s College London for hosting my work.

The Underwater Cloud is an experimental piece/presentation on W3, biomimicry, and the politics of understanding. It interrogates The Cloud– our collective, ‘infinitely expanding’ data vault– by pinning misunderstandings of it as an amorphous, airborne thing against its physical manifestations on the ocean floor. The less we as users comprehend, the less inclined we will be to interrogate where our data lives– and who has access to it. In the depths of our oceans, our information is as vulnerable to phishing as it is dangerous to fish and their native ecosystems. By synergizing the language of data with the poetics of natural phenomena, we can begin to reassess our understanding of– and answer to– the hidden socio-environmental impacts of The Cloud.

Critical support for this project comes from Alison Kinney’s myriad of resources; alongside the research & works of Janine Benyus, Jan Wenzel, and Olaf Nicolai.

IA whole-hearted thank you to all who’ve shared their thoughts & feelings on the internet with me this past year. Your words have informed mine.

My presentation, titled, “Bruised, Misunderstood, Healed, and Changed,” is a long-term project based on a series of original poems, formatted in incremental levels of translation, from my original poem in English, to a version in the Tunisian-Arabic dialect transcribed in the English alphabet, to the penultimate iteration in Standard Arabic, and, finally, a translation from Standard Arabic into English using Google Translate. My primary objective is to compare the language of the two English poems, as well as the varying cultural contexts which dictate such variances in linguistics. I aim to pose the following questions: What does it mean to translate? Is translation possible, or is to translate simply to make accessible? What does language reflect about a culture, and what aspects of culture are reflected in language? In translating, what is changed, what is lost, what is gained, and what is found?

This project was made possible by Professor Wilson Valentín-Escobar’s Spring 2024 course, “Artivism.”

In memory of the 62,000+ martyrs of the Palestinian genocide. In appreciation for those who seek to speak to us in a way we can begin to understand, even if we never will.

What are the rhetorical and structural roles that peripheral adolescent characters play in major political scenes and conversations in Dostoevsky’s final three novels?

Dostoevsky II: Infinite Justice, taught by Val Vinokur

I would like to thank Val for his ongoing support of my ever-increasing interest in Russian literature and my lovely friends for listening to my incessant Dostoevsky references and somehow still deciding to stick around.

How does weight act as a system of oppression? 

Critical Phenomenology, taught by Ryan Gustafson 

I’d like to thank Professor Ryan Gustafson for his ongoing support and all of the inspiring women in my life whose stories helped this project come to be.

Nancy Wei will share analysis from a currently ongoing project that reports a journalistic piece through a video game format. Nancy asks whether it is possible to present a news story as a game, and in doing so asks how the field of journalism may grapple with new technologies going forward. It is a slightly broader version of this question that cuts across all these talks, to ask how we as humans, and our technologies are always in a co-constitutive process of mutual shaping and formation.

In Defense of the Black Jezebel: An Intervention on Behalf of Black Sex Workers

How does the lived experience of Black femininity influence the care practices of Black femme sex workers amongst each other and with their customers?  

Support For My Project: Prof. Eric Thomas 

Special Thanks: My mother and grandmother, the writers who made me. Professor Thomas for pushing me to be the scholar he knew I was and helping me find my passion. Shantell and Lulu for being my constant attentive audience and support system.

Naomi & Betty: An exploration of queer culture in Cuba through two trans women.

 What does it look like to be queer in Cuba today?

Support for my project: International Field Program

Thank you to Kelly Hernandez-Alonzo, Rebecca Snyder, Virginia Garcia, Elena Clifford, Vanessa Guaraca, Lori Grinker, and of course my parents.

Special thank you to Gabriel Vignoli, Naomi Varona Santos, and Betty Ramirez Aldana.

The Threat of Silence: Pornography, Jurisprudence and Authority

How can feminist jurisprudence encode emancipatory theories and practices in addressing the gendered violence of pornography?

Support: Human Rights in the Age of Climate Change (Spring 2024), Feminist Political Thought (Fall 2025)

Thanks to Jay Bernstein and Rose Owen, whose respective courses inspired the papers which would constitute this project—and to Catherine MacKinnon, who has endured.

How can we bridge the gap between two valid forms of medicine - Western psychotherapy and Traditional Chinese Medicine - and why should we? How can we restructure the approach to mental health to be able to provide the most effective form of therapeutic treatment?

WTEII: The Problem of the Body by Helen Rubinstein- this project was my final for their class.

Thank you to Helen Rubinstein for your unconditional support and encouragement for this project. It would not be where it is today without your assistance and guidance.

Queering Correspondence: A Re-Examination of Ray Johnson’s New York Correspondence School

How did Ray Johnson’s New York Correspondance School challenge traditional avenues of dissemination and exchange of artwork in the 1960s and 70s?

Support for project: Made in conjunction with Visual Studies Capstone course in the Spring of 2024.

Thank yous: Thank you to the Ray Johnson Estate for their hospitality and gracious support of my project.

Nancy Wei will share analysis from a currently ongoing project that reports a journalistic piece through a video game format. Nancy asks whether it is possible to present a news story as a game, and in doing so asks how the field of journalism may grapple with new technologies going forward. It is a slightly broader version of this question that cuts across all these talks, to ask how we as humans, and our technologies are always in a co-constitutive process of mutual shaping and formation.

Why does the MET assign itself the role of re-presenting Ethiopian objects and how does this misdirect the cultural memory they hold? How can this be an entry point for understanding the extractive archival practices of western museums and reimagining future alternatives?

Support for this project comes from courses Memory, Migration and Solidarity taught by Professor Alexandra Délano and Milton X. Trujillo, and The Visual Archive taught by Pascal Glissmann. 

Thank you to Professor Alexandra Délano and Milton X. Trujillo for their guidance and recommendation for the symposium, as well as my parents and my partner for their loving support! 

In what ways has tobacco been transformed by cultural commodification, shifting from a sacred crop to a deadly symbol of capital? 

Support for my project comes from Simona Blat’s WTE II course: Visions of Excess

Drawing on Ecuador as a model, how can a social and political movement challenge anthropocentric conceptions of ethics and rights in order to assume responsibility for the environment and defend indigenous sovereignty?

Support: My project is supported by the Lang Social Science Research and Practice Fellowship, an internship at Global Americans, and coursework from Human Rights in the Age of Climate Change taught by Jay Bernstein.

How do we process grief and how do we begin healing, individually and collectively? 

Support for my project: Written for Intermediate Nonfiction with Ricky Tucker

Thank you to Ricky Tucker for giving me the space to write such a deeply personal piece, and to my mom for being so generous in letting me share her life and experiences through this piece.

How does Havana teach us more about ourselves?

Support for my project: Cuba IFP Summer Program 

A special thank you to Gabriel Vignoli, who not only lead the summer program for this project, but also changed the way I think about the world and inspired me to be a better person.

What is the categorical status of loneliness as it exists within twenty-first century quarantine? 

My assertion is that loneliness within quarantine is a new type within the taxonomy of loneliness. Due to facets of digital communication and the collective experience of the pandemic, our current loneliness is  a new one. 

Thank you to Professor Helen Rubinstein in the First-Year Writing Program, along with everyone in  Writing the Essay 3 during Spring 2021.

Nancy Wei will share analysis from a currently ongoing project that reports a journalistic piece through a video game format. Nancy asks whether it is possible to present a news story as a game, and in doing so asks how the field of journalism may grapple with new technologies going forward. It is a slightly broader version of this question that cuts across all these talks, to ask how we as humans, and our technologies are always in a co-constitutive process of mutual shaping and formation.

How can we find hope through reimagining public safety to truly account for the needs of everyone?

Support for my project: Next Gen Politics YVote Summer Civic Forum

Thank you to Michelle Mason for inviting me to collaborate on the workshop that led to this project, and to my parents for always supporting my educational endeavors.

Will God love me more if I’m a man?

Support for my project: WTEII: Bye, Bye, Bi 

Thank you to my parents, sister, grandmother, and Madi for always praising my never-ending thoughts. And to my professor, Kristi Steinmetz, who supported and inspired me to showcase my work.

How can Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber show us what it means for a tale to be ‘feminist’?

Support for my project: WTEII: The Fairy Tale

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Alex Purdue, Dalia Bermack, and the robust support system of friends I have built for encouraging my writing and supporting my work.

What are the depths of harm caused by Transmedicalism? 

Support for my project: WTEII: Return of The Queer Page

Thank you to Miller Oberman for inspiring me to showcase this work and for being so encouraging throughout my entire writing process. Also, a big thank you to my mother who has always been my biggest supporter and somehow always knows the right words to say.

Oftentimes, academia is considered to be the gold standard of objectivity, with published works influencing the perception and understanding of what is culture (and therefore uncultured) of the world of published articles and global society at large. Through dissecting how the culture and people of Somalia are portrayed from early anthropology till now, we can connect modern misconceptions and stereotypes that condition cultural anthropology to narrativize Somalis in a colonial framework as well as highlight Somali anthropologists and artists actively taking part in the narration of our own history.

Thank yous to the Somali community both diasporic and at homeland

Nancy Wei will share analysis from a currently ongoing project that reports a journalistic piece through a video game format. Nancy asks whether it is possible to present a news story as a game, and in doing so asks how the field of journalism may grapple with new technologies going forward. It is a slightly broader version of this question that cuts across all these talks, to ask how we as humans, and our technologies are always in a co-constitutive process of mutual shaping and formation.