In this moment of unknowns and uncertainty, let the humanities, art, writing, scholarship, and debate lead you to compassion, solace, activism, creativity, and understanding.

– Alexis Boylan, Director of Academic Affairs, UConn Humanities Institute and Keynote Speaker at HURS 2021

“The Humanities” are a diverse set of academic disciplines that concern themselves with what it means to be human. Focusing on cultures, histories, structures, languages, and ideas, the humanities fields analyze and pose answers to major questions encountered in the human experience. Facing the inequities and crises of our time, delving into the humanities is increasingly important in order to understand the self, the community, the world, and how to impact change within each sphere. 

The third-annual Humanities Undergraduate Research Symposium will take place on March 29, 2024 from 9:00am–5:30pm in the Humanities Institute Conference Room (Homer Babbidge Library, 4th floor). A schedule of panels is available here and below.

HURS Schedule 2024

9:00am: Breakfast
9:30am: Opening Remarks

9:45am: Art, Attention, and Media Part I (45 minutes, 15 minutes per presentation, plus Q&A)

  • Grace Kennedy — College Decisions
  • Lee Ernest — Clover
  • Krista Mitchell — Home by Sundown
    • Moderator: Rylee Thomas

11:00am: Art, Attention, and Media Part II (30 minutes, 15 per presentation, plus Q&A)

  • Rylee Thomas — The Ghostly Dynasty: Victim-Blaming, the Gothic Novel, and the Modern True Crime Drama
  • Katherine Jimenez — The Maternal Ghost: Studying the Mother in Gioconda Belli’s “The Inhabited Woman”
    • Moderator: Breanna Bonner

Noon: Lunch
1:00pm: Environment, Place, and Legacy (30 minutes, 15 per presentation, plus Q&A)

  • Makenzie Smith — Reconstructing Art and Evidence: Forensic Architecture in Institutional Settings
  • Daniel Milovic — Environmentalism Cinema in the Climate Era
    • Moderator: Grace Kennedy

2:00pm: Humanities Education (30 minutes, 15 per presentation, plus Q&A)

  • Rebecca Andersen — The Voices of the People Unit Plan
  • Thomas Sarbunan — Enhancing the Empowerment of Coastal Communities via English Education
    • Moderator: Rylee Thomas

2:45pm: Keynote Speech by Professor Anna Mae Duane (25 minutes plus Q&A)
4:15pm: Collective Memory and Social Movements (45 minutes, 15 per presentation, plus Q&A)

  • Jenna Ulizio — The Dividing Lines: Narration, the Post Generation, and Hiding in Memory
  • Madison Bigelow — Poetry of the Institution: Proposing the Examination of an “Institutional Poetics”
  • Breanna Bonner — The Space Between Black and Liberation: A Digital Exploration of Intersectional Invisibility
    • Moderator: Grace Kennedy

5:30pm: Reception