Arina Pismenny: Emotions, solidarity, and resilience
Title
Emotions, solidarity, and resilience
Mentor
Department
Biosketch
Arina Pismenny, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Nevada, Reno. She received her doctorate in philosophy from The Graduate Center, City University of New York, and specializes in ethics, moral psychology, and feminist philosophy. Her research focuses on how social norms and institutions shape emotional experience, especially in ways that disadvantage marginalized groups.
Pismenny’s work develops the concept of emotional injustice, which examines how people can be unfairly burdened, constrained, or dismissed in their emotional lives due to social expectations, stereotypes, and power relations. Her research has appeared in peer-reviewed philosophy journals and interdisciplinary venues, and she regularly mentors undergraduate students in philosophical research and writing.
She is committed to public-facing philosophy and enjoys mentoring students on projects that connect philosophical ideas to everyday life.
Outside of work, she is an avid skier and hiker and takes full advantage of northern Nevada’s outdoor landscape.
Project overview
This project is centered on emotional injustice, a concept developed by the faculty mentor to capture ways people can be treated unfairly in their emotional lives through social norms, expectations, and institutional practices (Pismenny et al. 2024). While injustice is often discussed in terms of rights or resources, this project begins from the insight that injustice also operates at the level of emotions by shaping which feelings are encouraged, dismissed, demanded, or punished.
This focus is especially urgent in turbulent, uncertain times, periods of social, political, or personal instability. In such contexts, people are often expected to regulate their emotions in ways that promote calm, productivity, or optimism. Emotions such as anger, grief, fear, or despair are frequently dismissed as irrational or disruptive, even when they are appropriate responses to injustice. These emotional expectations are not evenly distributed and often place greater burdens on marginalized groups, undermining emotional agency—the capacity to understand, express, and act on one’s emotions in meaningful ways.
This project matters because emotions are not merely private experiences. They shape how people interpret events, respond to harm, and relate to one another. When emotional responses are devalued or constrained, people may lose access to forms of understanding and connection that are essential for collective life. At the same time, emotions can also function as resources for solidarity, helping people recognize shared conditions and sustain emotional resilience in the face of ongoing challenges.
The Pack Research Experience Program (PREP) student will work with the mentor to examine real-world cases of emotional injustice in everyday settings such as healthcare, education, public discourse, or campus life. Through guided readings, discussion, and structured research tasks, the student will help develop a focused research question and analyze how emotions can function not only as sites of injustice, but also as tools for shared understanding and collective resilience.
By the end of the project, the student will be guided to help produce a short research report and an academic poster for presentation at Wolf Pack Discoveries, gaining hands-on experience in philosophical research that connects emotional life to pressing social issues.
PACK RESEARCH EXPERIENCE PROGRAM INFORMATION AND APPLICATION