Humanities Hub
Recent News and Awards
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Annabelle Rockne | Changemakers in Focus
“I initially heard about the disability studies program from a presentation given in a training when I was an orientation leader. I thought the program sounded incredibly interesting and it was a program that seemed to align well with my career goals. I want to work in public health and having a disability studies framework adds really valuable insight into and understanding into different aspects of that field.
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A Quiet Revolution: 20 Years of Impact with U of U Environmental Humanities Program
The U of U's Environmental Humanities Program celebrated 20 years of research excellence, stellar student experiences, and community impact. This program, the first of its kind, has quietly positioned itself at the vanguard of how universities prepare students to shape our ecological future.
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McMurrin Lecture to Feature Fr. Gregory Boyle, Founder of Homeboy Industries
The Tanner Humanities Center kicks off the Spring 2026 season with acclaimed humanitarian Father Gregory Boyle, who will deliver the McMurrin Lecture on Religion and Culture on Wednesday, January 21st at 7:00 pm at the Salt Lake City Public Library.
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Graduate Student Research Spotlight | Chalee Yates
Chalee Yates, a Linguistics graduate student, presented research through Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching (PSLLT), a conference focused on second language learners and how they adapt when hearing unfamiliar or new accents.
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Humanities Internship Spotlight: Sam Debenham | Cole Levy | Max Prudden | Chase Davidson | Dallin Stuart
Learn more about Sam Debenham's internship with KUAA, Cole Levy's internship with Slush the Magazine, Max Prudden's internship with Guardian Pharmacy, Chase Davidson's internship with the College of Humanities, and Dallin Stuart's internship with Mountain America Credit Union.
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Nadja Durbach on Contact for Hinckley Lecture
This year's Hinckley Lecture delves into the lives of foundlings, abandoned children in Britain's past. Nadja reveals the social challenges and cultural narratives surrounding these individuals.
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Sadie Werner | Changemakers in Focus
“My identity led me to this degree. As a transracially adopted individual, I felt a lack of knowledge regarding my identity, supposed community, and knowledge on the history of African American people within the United States."
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Brendan Hatch | Changemakers in Focus
“I originally took GNDR 3900, Intro Feminist Theories, as a psychology allied course. Ella Myers was my instructor for the course and because of her instruction and the material, I was “hooked”
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Humanities House Spotlight | Amaya Ryujin-Sung
Learn how being living in the Humanities House has impacted Amaya's first year at the University of Utah.
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Fall 2025 Virtual Undergraduate Research Symposium
Learn more about the Humanities students that participated in the virtual research symposium and view their research presentations.
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Winter Break 2025: Message from the Dean
A winter break message from Dean Wanda Pillow to the College of Humanities community.
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Fall 2025 College of Humanities Stellar Staff Awards
Four College of Humanities staff members were recognized with Stellar Staff Awards this winter: Kacey Campbell, Stephanie Gomez, Allie Hernandez, and Sumiko Martinez. Nominees are chosen by the college’s Staff Council twice each year.
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MJ Jolley | Changemakers in Focus
“I was led to this program when I transferred as a sophomore from USU studying biochemistry with a minor in ASL. There wasn’t a minor in ASL here, but at my new student orientation, I learned about the disability studies minor."
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Yejin Jung and Corpus Linguistics at the First LAS PechaKucha
Yejin Jung, postdoctoral scholar in the Second Language Teaching & Research Center (L2TReC), represented the College of Humanities at the inaugural LAS (Colleges of Liberal Arts and Sciences) PechaKucha with a presentation about second language acquisition and corpus research.
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Eliana Massey | Changemakers in Focus
“I decided to pursue the Pacific Island studies certificate after working as a research assistant for Dr. Maile Arvin. As a multiracial Native Hawaiian student who grew up in Texas, I valued the opportunity to work with a Native Hawaiian professor on Hawaiian history research."
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Humanities Student Spotlight | Xochi Stensaas
Learn more about why Xochi felt drawn to Gender Studies and their experience creating "The Transformer".
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Fifty Years of Community, Love, and Resistance: Gender Studies at the University of Utah
Gender Studies celebrates 50 years at the University of Utah. The story of how Gender Studies survived its first fifty years, moving through multiple physical locations, cobbling together budgets from various sources, and repeatedly justifying its existence, reveals the precarious reality of interdisciplinary programs centered on questions of power, identity, equality, and social justice in American higher education.
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Graduate Student Spotlight: Ellie Estrada on Chisme, the Westside, and Jotería Communication Scholarship
The Department of Communication is excited to highlight the work of PhD candidate Ellie Estrada, whose scholarship explores how communities build connection, make meaning, and share stories.
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Nes Chavez | Changemakers in Focus
“As a first-generation American, my journey has been shaped by unique experiences that instilled in me a passion for personal growth and advocacy."
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Humanities Ambassador Spotlight | Pamalatera Fenn
Learn how being a Humanities ambassasdor has impacted Pamalatera Fenn's time at the University of Utah.
In Brief
October 2022
- Joy Pierce, associate professor of writing and rhetoric studies, published a chapter Studies in Symbolic Interaction. The special issue: “Festschrift in Honor of Norman K. Denzin: He Knew His Song Well” includes world-renowned qualitative research scholars. Pierce’s chapter is titled “Fishing with the GOAT: Honoring Norman K. Denzin.”
- Brandon R. Peterson, associate professor (lecturer) of philosophy, published an article, “Rahner and the Cross: What Kind of Atoning Story Does He Tell?” in the latest issue of Philosophy & Theology.
- Maile Arvin, associate professor of history, created a podcast, Relations of Salt and Stars. Our ancestors traveled through salt and stars, and so do contemporary Pacific Islander communities today. Relations of Salt and Stars is a new podcast produced by the Pacific Islands Studies program at the University of Utah, and hosted by faculty members Arvin (Native Hawaiian) and Angela Robinson (Chuukese).
November 2022
- Kevin Coe’s (professor of communication) book, “The Ubiquitous Presidency: Presidential Communication and Digital Democracy in Tumultuous Times” (coauthored with Joshua Scacco, University of South Florida) received the 2022 Roderick P. Hart Outstanding Book Award from the Political Communication Division of the National Communication Association.
- Jeff McCarthy, director of Environmental Humanities, organized a climate change roundtable at the Modernist Studies Association Conference titled "Modernist Salvage / Salvaging Modernism."
December 2022
- Hollis Robbins, dean of the College of Humanities, published “Examining Phillis Wheatley” in the LA Review of Books.
- Joy Pierce, associate professor of writing and rhetoric studies, was nominated, then chosen to participate as part of the inaugural cohort in the Leadership Institute for a New Academy 2023 (LINA), a new ACLS initiative made possible by the Mellon Foundation. The 2023 spring semester-long initiative will conclude with a four-day meeting in New York this July.
- Joy Pierce, associate professor of writing and rhetoric studies, has been invited to conduct a half-day workshop (solo) on digital qualitative research with an emphasis on data collection and ethics for the International Qualitative Research Network at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan Campus. The workshop will take place in June 2023.
- Eric Herschthal, assistant professor of history, published a review-essay in The New Republic titled, “How the Right Turned 'Freedom' Into a Dog Whistle.”
- Nadja Durbach, professor of history at the University of Utah, along with Tammy M. Proctor of Utah State University will serve as co-editors of the Journal of British Studies. Their five-year term will begin July 1, 2023.
- Alexis M. Christensen, associate professor/lecturer of Classics in world languages & cultures, is starting a new archaeological field school – the Libarna Urban Landscapes Project (LULP) – in conjunction with Professor Katherine V. Huntley of Boise State University. The field school is an opportunity for students to get hands-on archaeological experience at the site of a Roman colony. Libarna (2nd century BCE - 5th century CE) was an important settlement in northwest Italy where Gallic, Etruscan and Roman cultures came into contact. In the summer of 2023, LULP will begin excavations exploring part of the city occupied by private houses and workshops.
January 2023
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Danielle Endres, professor of communication, quoted in Newsweek, “Putin’s Poseidon and the Radioactive Tidal Wave of Death.”
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Avery Holton, professor of communication, interviews on Fox 13, “Do You Know Who’s Writing your News?”
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Isabelle Freiling, assistant professor of communication, gave an invited talk, “Communicating science in a social media world: The risk of (not) intervening against “misinformation,” German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment.
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Chrisoula Andreou, professor of philosophy, published “Choosing Well: The good, the bad, and the trivial” with Oxford University Press.
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Jeff McCarthy, director of Environmental Humanities, published an Op-Ed in the Salt Lake Tribune titled “The Climate Crisis and the Threat to Democracy.”
February 2023
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James Tabery, professor of philosophy, published “Victims of Eugenic Sterlisation in Utah: cohort demographics and estimate of living survivors,” in The Lancet Regional Health Americas, Feb. 15, 2023
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Cindi Textor, assistant professor of world languages and cultures, with co-translator Lee Soo Mi, published a volume of four novellas by Korean-Japanese author Lee Yangji. “Nabi T'aryŏng and Other Stories” is available from Seoul Selection as part of a series of English translations of Korean literature in diaspora.
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Joy Peirce, associate professor of writing and rhetoric studies, received the James McCune Award of Veneration at the U’s 2023 Black Faculty and Staff Awards.
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Rachel Griffin, associate professor of communication, received the Malcolm X Award of Social Justice at the U’s 2023 Black Faculty and Staff Awards
- David Roh, professor of English, was awarded an Honorable Mention in Litarary Studies by the Association for Asian American Studies for Minor Transpacific: Triangulating American, Japanese, and Korean Fictions (Stanford)
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Blair Bateman, adjunct professor of world languages and cultures, received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Utah Foreign Language Association "in recognition of a lifetime of service to our profession, our students, and our multilingual world."
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Jackie Osherow, distinguished professor of English, published her ninth collection of poems, “Divine Ratios,” was published by LSU Press, Feb 15, 2023
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Chris Low, assistant professor of history, had the Turkish translation of his book, “Imperial Mecca: Ottoman Arabia and the Indian Ocean Hajj” (Columbia University Press, 2020), published by Telemak Kitap (Istanbul) in February 2023. It was the winner of the Middle East Studies Association's Albert Hourani Book Award.
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Chris Low, assistant professor of history, delivered the Paul A. and Marie Castelfranco Lecture for the Department of Religious Studies at University of California-Davis. The talk title was: "Imperial Mecca: Ottoman Arabia and the Indian Ocean Hajj."
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Jeff McCarthy, director of Environmental Humanities, presented a paper at the Conference on Environmental, Cultural, and Social Sustainability at the University of Ljubljana titled “The Climate, the Possibility, and the Environmental Humanities.”
March 2023
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Isabelle Freiling, published “Science and Ethics of “Curing” Misinformation,” in the AMA Journal of Ethics, March 2023
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Hugh Cagle, director of the International Studies program and associate professor of the history of science, won a fellowship at the National Humanities Center where, during the summer of 2023, he will be conducting research for his next book, an environmental history of the Brazilian Amazon.
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Jeff McCarthy, director of Environmental Humanities, edited the essay collection “The Anthropocene Ocean” along with USC law professor Robin Craig, and it will be published in March by the University of Utah Press.
June 2023
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Joy Pierce, associate professor of writing and rhetoric studies, was invited to give a workshop at The Qualitatives Annual [pre]Conference in conjunction with Couch-Stone Symposium in British Columbia, Canada.