The 5Cs have student publications and journals covering a variety of individual subjects, from law and public policy to creative writing. But last semester, Olivier Rizvi PO ’27 realized that there wasn’t a home for wide-ranging published work in the humanities and so was born The Lobster.
“There wasn’t really a place for the nicher humanities subjects,” Rizvi said. “I wanted a bit more of a general paper.”
After securing funding from the Pomona History Department, Editor-in-Chief Rizvi and his soon-to-be co-editors of The Lobster: The Claremont Journal of the Humanities were ready to fill this gap. They chose their titular crustacean as a nod to the late Pomona professor David Foster Wallace’s essay, “Consider the Lobster.”
The Lobster, the 5Cs’ newest student-run biannual journal, came to be in the fall 2024 semester. Its mission, according to its Instagram, is to “provide a platform for academic work initially written as assignments,” “foster interdisciplinary dialogue” and “provide a voice to all members of the 5Cs.”
Among the executive board’s first official tasks were soliciting submissions of student work and assembling a team of editors. They plastered informational posters around the 5Cs, submitted blurbs to student newsletters and became exceedingly well-versed in what Rizvi deemed “gentle coercion,” which often took the form of persuading peers in their classes to participate as writers and editors.
In its first issue, The Lobster published 17 pieces that students had already written for their classes.
“The point of it is to celebrate student work for classes that we think should be read by a wider audience,” said Creative Director Aidan Ma PO ’27, who designed the journal’s cover and wrote its style guide.
After reading submissions and selecting which pieces to publish, the executive board then matched writers with one of 15 editors who helped each writer edit their piece for publication.
“None of us like rejecting people, because it’s such a terrible thing,” Ma said.
“The Lobster defines the humanities expansively.”
Rizvi added that the board held onto some of the pieces that they did not select for the first issue in the hope of finding places for them in future issues.
How the editors place pieces within the journal is particularly important, as The Lobster is organized by theme, not discipline. The themes of the last issue — perception, formation, survival, identity and autonomy — emerged naturally in the editorial process.
“We would look at … maybe three papers that worked really well together, and then … expand it to a broader theme,” Joseph Morco PO ’27, The Lobster’s director of communications, said.
Works within each theme varied immensely; in the “Formation” section, for instance, Yuhang Xie PO ’26’s paper “Forming a State: Order and Ideals” followed Bridget Brodie PO ’27’s “Can You Escape the State? An Analysis of Studio Ghibli’s Seita and Howl.”
The Lobster defines the humanities expansively.
“I was going to say [we’re looking for] anything kind of human-centered,” Rizvi said. “But actually, if you wrote the history of Mozambique talking about clay, I think that would be a great paper.”
Pieces originating within disciplines outside the traditional humanities are also fair game for The Lobster.
“What we’re looking for doesn’t need to be human,” added Morco, referencing a data science paper about the demographics of food allergies that was submitted.
“We wouldn’t say we would never accept this subject,” Rizvi ultimately concluded. The only exception he makes is for “papers that are too inaccessible,” noting that philosophy papers can be “almost mathematical and hard to get through.”
Students gathered in the Pomona History Department library on Jan. 23 to celebrate the official launch of The Lobster’s first issue and pick up physical copies of the journal.
“It was a lot busier than I expected it to be,” said Treasurer Alyssa Lee PO ’28 about the gathering. Rizvi estimated that there were close to 50 people in attendance.
The board hopes to attract more students from across the consortium of varying class years going forward. Other hopes for the future include establishing a website as a digital archive and publishing artwork in the journal.
“The long-term goal is just to have it … keep going when we’re gone,” Rizvi said.
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