Rice University’s School of Humanities doubled down on its celebration of student scholarship this year, expanding Humanities Days to a two-day event featuring more than 75 undergraduates. Held April 14-15 in conjunction with the Office of Undergraduate Research and Inquiry’s Inquiry Weeks, Humanities Days offered Rice students the chance to present their research and creative work in panels, poster sessions and art presentations.
“Humanities Days is an opportunity to seize the narrative about the work that’s done in humanities,” said Nicole Waligora-Davis, associate dean of humanities for undergraduate programs and special projects. “This is an occasion for us to make visible to our campus partners, to make visible to the wider Houston public the kind of rich, intellectual, vibrant, creative life that is the hallmark of the School of Humanities.”
Now in its second year, Humanities Days drew students from fields as varied as English, history, medical humanities and art. The showcase included oral presentations, research posters and mixed media installations spanning topics from women’s reproductive health and the Underground Railroad to artificial intelligence and ethics. Waligora-Davis said student participation increased by 46% over the previous year, prompting the expansion to two full days.
“Our work, the amount of productivity within the School of Humanities, cannot be contained and captured adequately in a single day,” Waligora-Davis said.
Among the students showcasing their work were senior Wed Timraz, juniors Karis Lai and Kirra Phillips and sophomores Nihar Shetty and Catherine Zhou, whose presentations offered intimate, urgent insights into the topics of identity, historical memory and health care.
Reimagining reproductive health care through mixed media
Phillips, a sports medicine and exercise physiology major minoring in medical humanities, brought a deeply personal project to Humanities Days. As part of her semester-long practicum, she conducted interviews with women about their reproductive health care experiences then transformed the sensory and emotional aspects of those stories into a mixed media collage.
“I asked people who would be willing to have conversations about their reproductive health care experiences,” Phillips said. “I tried to find common through lines of emotional experiences, things that they had in common, ways that it could be improved.”
Colors, smells, feelings — nothing was too subtle to be left out. These details informed both the visual and conceptual structure of her collage, which she displayed alongside a research poster summarizing her findings.
“I want to see if they empathize with the material and they can feel what the participants were feeling,” Phillips said. “But aside from that, I think that the important takeaways are the ways in which we can alter the reproductive health care approach and think of how we can be supporting the people who are going through these experiences.”
Phillips emphasized the importance of both self-advocacy and having someone else present to advocate on a patient’s behalf.
“People aren’t always in a situation where they’re strong enough or confident enough to advocate for themselves,” Phillips said.
For Phillips, she called the opportunity to share her work in the broader context of Humanities Days both validating and inspiring.
“I think it’s so important to look at how (medicine) is something that connects to human life,” Phillips said. “The humanities are important for bringing emotion back into medicine.”
Bridging hospice care and spirituality through student-led research
Shetty and Zhou teamed up to investigate how spiritual care can improve the quality of life for patients in long-term care and hospice settings, particularly for those often underserved by traditional health and faith systems. Their independent research conducted through the Institute for Spirituality and Health focused on volunteers.
“We interviewed them about their experiences as a volunteer and whether they thought it was effective,” Zhou said. “We did analysis on the results and found that most of them were very happy and grateful for the experiences. They learned a lot about different faiths and also how to communicate effectively with these participants, many of whom have memory issues or are even nonverbal.”
The study, presented at Humanities Days as an oral presentation, emerged from both students’ personal connections to spiritual care work, which for Shetty began as a volunteer with the institute.
“I found the work that I did really impactful because it went beyond just medical care,” Shetty said. “Catherine actually independently reached out to the same program, and then we met each other through the project.”
Their findings reflect a broader value of humanistic inquiry in medical settings, where empathy and ethical communication play critical roles. Both students noted the contrast between this research and the types of data-driven work they typically encounter in STEM courses.
“At Humanities Days we’re looking more into quality and how people are reacting to your research,” Zhou said. “That’s a really unique aspect that I’m really interested and excited about.”
Shetty emphasized the unique support they received at Rice while conducting their research outside of a formal class.
“We have such a great medical humanities program,” Shetty said. “We did an (institutional review board) proposal because this wasn’t associated with a class. Really amazing faculty like Dr. (Melissa) Bailar helped us through the whole process.”
Exploring Asian American beauty ideals
Another student turned to documentary filmmaking to examine the complex pressures surrounding Asian American beauty standards.
“‘Caught Between Cultures: The Asian American Beauty Dilemma’ explores the experiences of East Asian American women and the tensions they face between conflicting beauty ideals,” said Lai, a history major and Asian studies minor.
The film features interviews with peers and experts including Elise Hu, author of “Flawless: Lessons in Looks and Culture From the K-Beauty Capital.” With themes ranging from plastic surgery to globalization, the film wrestles with the pressures of belonging to two beauty systems that often contradict each other.
“When I got to college, I realized that I wanted to delve more into the unique experience of the Asian American community,” Lai said. “Sometimes there are some American ideals, such as the Victoria’s Secret model, that we all know of. But on the other hand, there is a very traditional Chinese ideal, such as having very pale skin or being very flat chested. That’s something that rubs up against the American ideal.”
For Lai, Humanities Days offered a platform not only to screen her film but to underscore the broader value of humanistic work.
“I think that Rice is well known as a STEM research institution, but a lot of times the humanities can be overlooked,” Lai said. “That can be to the detriment of society, because when you don’t look to the humanities for their take on what’s going on with the world, you miss a lot of the nuance that colors what the human experience looks like and what it means.”
Lai’s documentary, which premiered April 15 during Humanities Days, is now available to view through Rice’s Houston Asian American Archive.
Reclaiming plantation histories in Brazoria County
Senior history and medieval and early modern studies major Timraz presented research from the Brazoria County Plantations Project, a collaboration with the Brazosport Archaeological Society aimed at reclaiming the histories of enslaved people who lived and labored on plantations in the region. The project draws from handwritten historical accounts collected locally since the 1980s.
“We’re taking those original documents, and we’re rewriting them in a concise and engaging way through StoryMap software to make it available and accessible for the wider public,” Timraz said.
Her presentation walked attendees through the early stages of the digital StoryMap and its companion project Reclaiming Stolen Ancestries, which lists the names of captive laborers identified through archival research.
“It’s a way to remember them,” Timraz said.
Well attended in their new expanded version, Humanities Days appeared to be a hit with both participants and supporters throughout the two days. As a presenter, Timraz said she appreciated the event’s ability to serve as a critical platform for students who plan to pursue research or graduate school but often face hurdles in sharing their work.
“For a lot of people, this is that first ‘yes’ that they need to gain confidence and to feel encouraged that this is the right path,” Timraz said. “There are so many more students doing wonderful, exciting work than there are opportunities to showcase that work. So having something specifically for Rice humanities students just gives a lot of students who wouldn’t have had opportunities otherwise those opportunities to shine.”