The annual Research Symposium showcases the capstone projects of Humanities Core 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 methodologies in the process of building their projects. Each session will include a dialogue with current HumCore students who are in the midst of their own research journeys. These projects were created as part of the thematic cycle on Worldbuilding directed by Jonathan Alexander.
Agenda
9:00–9:15 a.m. Welcome with Coffee and Light Breakfast
9:15–9:50 a.m. Session 1
- Brianna Min (Biological Sciences), “Comic Relief or Ideological Evasion? Gender, Race, and the Failure of Critique in Mashle: Muscles and Magic” (Faculty Mentor: Katharine Walsh)
- Grace Tseng (English and Political Science), “A Story that Belongs to Nobody: Ling Ma’s ‘Peking Duck’” (FM: Ben Garceau)
Panel Q&A with current HumCore students
10:00–10:50 a.m. Session 2
- Caden Lee (Computer Science and Statistics), “Invisible Cities and Boundaries: A Subversive Architecture” (FM: Larisa Castillo)
- Christina Pan (Aerospace Engineering & Archaeology), Transforming Beyond the Binary: (De)constructing Gender and Queer Worldbuilding in Transformers: EarthSpark” (FM: Ghada Mourad)
- Lisa Hood (Drama and Quantitative Economics), “Selling the Sisterhood: Feminist Branding and Consumerism in Cosmopolitan Magazine” (FM: Gretchen Short)
Panel Q&A with current HumCore students
11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. Session 3
- Hazelyn Phonesavanh (Social Ecology), “The Peaceful Panacea: Death Anxiety and Terror Management in Hyper Light Drifter (2016)” (FM: Robin Stewart)
- Julian Tang (Sociology and Philosophy), “Batman Through a Theological Lens: A Need for Faith and Absurdity” (FM: Christine Connell)
- Karen Bruce (Earth Systems Science), “Tweeting Through Catastrophe: Digital Poetics and Post-3/11 World(re-)building in Pebbles of Poetry/Shi no Tsubute” (FM: Amalia Herrmann)
Panel Q&A with current HumCore students
12:00–1:00 p.m. Lunch (served outside HG 1030 in the courtyard)
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.