The annual Research Symposium showcases the capstone research projects of students who won the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program/Humanities Core Research Awards last spring. Presenters will share how they chose their topics and what they learned about writing and humanistic research in the process of building their projects. Each session will include a dialogue with current HumCore students who are at the beginning of their own research journeys. These projects were created as part of the cycle on Animals, People, and Power, directed by Nasrin Rahimieh. These awards are possible thanks to the generous support of UROP and the many friends of the HumCore Program who donated to our 50th Anniversary Zotfunder campaign.
8:45–9:00 a.m. Coffee and Breakfast
9:00–10:00 a.m. Research Symposium Session 1
- Colin Bolek, “Thinking Inter-Diegetically: A Renewed Model for Realizing Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax as Figuring Subjective Experience and an Ethic of Care” (double majoring in Quantitative Economics and International Studies with a minor in Spanish)
- Andrew Diep, “Heed the Coyote Gospel: Understanding Cruelty Through Grant Morrison’s Animal Man” (majoring in Biology)
- Jewel Loya, “Doves and Damsels: Patriarchy vs. Feminine Agency in ‘Cinderella'” (majoring in English)
- Karen Phan, “Becoming Popinpobopian: Defining the Self Through Abjection, Metamorphosis, and (Re)Production in Earthlings” (double majoring in English and Informatics)
- Emily Tottori, “The Herd and the Neighsayers: Exploring Anxieties and Transgressive Expressions in Brony Fanfiction” (double majoring in Comparative Literature and Education)
Panel Q&A with current HumCore students
10:00–11:00 a.m. Break (coffee and refreshments will be available in HG 1030)
11:00–11:50 p.m. Research Symposium Session 2
- Meha Datar, “Cyborg or Robot?: Technological Art Pieces’ Entanglement with Their Human Creators” (majoring in Biology)
- Teresa Hempen, “Making Machines, Becoming Animals: The Mechanics of Psychic Numbing in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five
“ (double majoring in Computer Science and Engineering) - Kevin Ma, “A Humanist Tale Told by Nonhumans: How Nier: Automata Resolves the Existentialist Crisis” (majoring in Biology)
- Jennellee Samkhem, “Cuteness & Capitalism: the Tamagotchi’s Role in ‘Cool Japan’s’ Reinvention” (majoring in Comparative Literature and minoring in Informatics)
Panel Q&A with current HumCore students
12:00–1:00 p.m. Lunch (served outside HG 1030 in the courtyard)