If you’re looking for some reading this summer, there are many excellent options coming from student journals around the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. It’s remarkable how much high-quality scholarship and exceptional creativity these publications bring to our community.
The latest to join the pack is Confluence: A Student Journal of Geography and Environmental Sciences. In its inaugural Spring 2022 issue you can read about topics as local as the transformation of Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge, and avian species richness patterns in Colorado, or as far-flung as jaguar utilization distributions in the Brazilian Pantanal. I was truly blown-away by both the breadth of the subjects and the depth with which our students explore them. A special thanks to Tom Duster, the GES Associate Graduate Director, and Administrative Assistant Meron Ayele for working diligently on the project.
You can round out your summer reading with these other student journals that have been putting out exceptional content for years now:
Copper Nickel was founded by Jake Adam York twenty years ago, and the English department continues its excellence in his memory. A national journal, the Copper Nickel publishes a broad range of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, with a focus on work that considers sociohistorical context. In the latest Spring 2022 issue you can read interviews with poet Maria Nazos or novelist Sequoia Nagamatsu, dive into short fiction about a citizen scientist trying to understand the titular “Climate Suicides,” or see the world through the point-of-view of a man attempting to connect to a “Wasp Queen” (the latter received the Editors’ Prize in Prose for issue 33). Work published in Copper Nickel has appeared in the Best American Poetry, Best American Short Stories, Best Small Fictions, and Pushcart Prize anthologies, and has been listed as “notable” in the Best American Essays anthology.
The History department is exceptionally proud to support students and their research via The Historical Studies Journal. Published at the end of each term, it offers students the opportunity to professionally edit and publish their independent research, allowing students to acquire personal experience with the publishing process. In the Spring 2022 issue the topics are as varied as Denver Public School textbooks during the Americanization era, Denver’s hardcore punk scene during the 1980s, outdoor recreation in Post-World War II America, and the United States and Pakistan’s covert relations during the Soviet-Afghan War.
Last but not least, if you need something to take to the pool (not read on a screen) swing by the Political Science department where you can pick up back issues of their student journal Praxis. This journal was not on-line before it went dormant for the last few years during COVID, but the department hopes to revive the journal this year and include an on-line version when the next edition is released.
Whatever you're reading this summer I hope you’re getting a chance to relax and expand your mind.
