By Lindsey Vazquez
The Humanities Symposium is returning to the University of Missouri, giving students a chance to share their research, while inviting the community into spaces they may not think to look for academic discovery.
On April 17 and 18 in Bond Life Sciences Center, Room 572, the symposium is part of Show Me Research Week, a campus-wide celebration of student research and creative work.
“It’s not just professors who do the research at Mizzou,” said Seth Howes, associate professor of German and associate chair of the School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures in the College of Arts and Science. “None of our research happens without our amazing students who are doing meaningful work.”
For many, the word “research” evokes images of brightly lit laboratories — and while lab discoveries are certainly championed during Show Me Research Week, the Humanities Symposium shines light into areas the untrained eye might not immediately associate with research.
“Humanities researchers examine cultural practices like filmmaking, literature, and performance,” said Howes, who serves on the executive committee of the Center for the Humanities which sponsors the Humanities Symposium. "They explore how media, technologies, and culture can shape our identities and institutions, and study how politics, economics, and the pursuit of justice emerge as shared human endeavors."
One example of the interconnectedness of the humanities and a highlight of this year’s Humanities Symposium is Stephanie Hedge’s keynote, “State of Play: Games, Game Studies, and the Humanities.”
Hedge, an English professor and Writing Program Director at the University of Illinois Springfield, will speak at 11 a.m. Friday, April 18, at Bond Life Sciences Center. Her talk will explore the growing field of game studies, focusing on tabletop roleplaying games, and explain why studying the humanities is more important than ever.