Note from the Editors
Why would we want to read someone’s writing in 2026? And who are we writing for when we write? Writing is often described metaphorically as a window into other people’s worlds, a way for human beings to connect and empathize with each other. But in this age of AI, we often question what we see through the window of a written, visual, or audio text: Did a real person actually make this? Is this representing anyone’s perspective on the world? And sometimes we question ourselves as writers: Is it really worth my time and effort to craft every word and image for others to see? On May 15th of this year, newly-elected Pope Leo XIV published his first encyclical, a letter to all people titled Magnifica Humanitas—that’s Magnificent Humanity—with the subtitle On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence. What’s that got to do with the question of why we read and write, and with Fresh Writing in particular, you may ask? Well, our first-year student writers have had us editors thinking hard—especially since ChatGPT emerged in 2023—about the human person in relation to advanced digital technologies. This year, our essays prompt us to consider how AI reflects our own desires back at us, how apps on our phones record the story of our lives and motivate our achievements, how interactive video games let us simulate relationships, how digital radio connects us through the unique intimacy of shared music and a live voice online, and what still distinguishes us from the machines we’ve made to be so much like us. In the current landscape of technologically mediated learning and creativity, our writers offer a multitude of perspectives on the deep value of human work and human workers, of human beings communicating through their crafts of drawing, painting, glass blowing, sketching, singing, fiber arts, and even, in two of our essays, handwritten illuminated broadsides of their poetry translations. Essays on the history of creative work help us see how our cultural attitudes about children have developed through art, and how the challenges and changes brought by great musical innovators are integral to our cultural story.
As we read, watch, and listen, we can observe scholarly writers actively paying attention and making choices. They direct us to confront human experiences that we at Notre Dame might not otherwise see, like the systemic violence in contemporary Brazilian favelas; they help us notice details and engage critically with difficult texts, like a photographer’s portrait of a patient in a mental health treatment center; and they clarify our vision of dynamics and systems in our world, like the long reach of environmental colonialism and the subtle shaping of religious tradition. To help us see as scholars see, our writers use multiple modalities like this infographic and this whiteboard animation, both training us to understand neuroinclusivity, and this podcast that invites us into an informed conversation about the path to college from the rural Northwoods of Wisconsin and Michigan. Our writers push back against arguments they can’t agree with and present their own view of society, from the underlying politics of a Super Bowl performance to the heavy consequences of US foreign aid policy. Our writers also open new windows on some familiar sights and experiences here at Notre Dame, presenting daily life on campus with an eye toward sustainable action, examining the rhetoric of Notre Dame’s popular origin story, interpreting how a dorm chapel’s design speaks to a certain audience, and playing out the intense inner dialogue of a new student at International Orientation. Windows into the emotional and philosophical worlds of our writers give us a chance to witness the unexpected right along with them, as one literally learns to relax her grip on her horse’s reins; another takes an existential journey into nihilism and back; a skydiver takes a terrifying test of will; a child embraces stoical detachment; and a cyclist powers through a good, hard lesson in managing panic. We see the earth itself imbued with meaning in writing that honors slow change in Ireland, sacredness in Peru, and resilience in northeastern Brazil. And finally, two essays stand out as windows on humanity’s most essential expression, love of other human beings: one the celebratory love of a man who overflows with joy in all relationships with others and in life itself; and one a tenacious, all-giving love, empowering a woman with, as the writer puts it, “the ability to retain moral agency and compassion in the midst of systematic dehumanization.”
It’s easy to see that the header image on our homepage for Volume 26 is a view through a pair of windows in an old stone wall. What isn’t obvious until you read the caption is that this is a view through the tower windows of Frankenstein Castle near Darmstadt, Germany, a site long believed to be the inspiration for Mary Shelley’s famous book about a man whose greatest creation becomes a monster when he abandons it. In our own working lives at the University, we abandon some part of our own humanity if we refuse to fully engage in our creative work, detaching our real selves from what we make. What does our writing become, if we don’t fully write it? And what effect does it have on the human person we are, or the person our reader is?
In our own way, here in the University Writing Program at Notre Dame, we’re doing our part to “safeguard the human person” by keeping a space open for the great creative work of communication in its many modes and media. It is our delight to celebrate our first-year writers, and this year we’re pleased to announce that we’ve added two McPartlin Honorable Mention Award winners to our annual set of featured award-winning essays. We invite you to look through the windows that all of our first-year writers have opened for us, windows onto the world as they see it. And we invite you to consider who looks through the windows, too. Take a look at yourself as a reader and ask, with us, Why does it matter that I’m the one reading this? What can I do with this experience of receiving someone’s message, in exactly the way they expressed it? Let’s continue to seek each other out, in our own communication work and in our receptive attention to others’ communication. With this invitation, we present the fine essays that make Volume 26 of Fresh Writing.