The Center for the Humanities at Temple held its 2026 Humanities Day Symposium on April 10, highlighting the diversity and depth of humanities research happening across the university. Presenters shared projects spanning an impressively broad range of subjects and disciplines, each supported by the Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) as part of its Humanities and Arts Research Program. 

In her presentation, “Daring to Learn: Black Youth Running into Power,” history PhD student Carrilee Bryan explored Philadelphia’s 1967 city-wide student walkout in demand of better conditions and the inclusion of African American history in curricula, and the violent response from then-Mayor Frank Rizzo. She plans to expand the project into an oral history, speaking to key figures about the event and how its reverberations have impacted education in America. 

“That’s why this funding is so important to me,” said Bryant, whose status as a Canadian international student has complicated her ability to earn money to put toward the project. “I can really contribute to this field and have a much fuller story of what happened during the Black Power movement and the involvement of black people in particular during this November 17th demonstration.”

The symposium’s second session, “Visualizing Networks and Mobility,” featured two presentations from PhD students in Temple’s Department of Geography, Environment and Urban Studies (GEUS) that perfectly exhibited the department’s range. Tyler Munn’s “Mapping Value in Tension: An Interactive Investment Flow Map of Philadelphia” looks to promote conversation about the impact of investment in communities on violence within them. Veronica Gomes’ “Understanding Residential Mobility within Ethnic Enclaves: An Exploratory Study of Latina Breast Cancer Patients in New Jersey Before Diagnosis” examines the impact of community and relocation on minority health outcomes. 

Representing undergraduate research was graduating sociology major Travis Taylor. Taylor is the winner of this year’s Robert K. Merton award, given to the most outstanding student of the Sociology Department’s graduating class, and in the fall will begin work toward a PhD at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he has received the Illinois Distinguished Fellowship. His project, “Constructing Paradise: Gay Men’s Travel to Southeast Asia,” inspects regional marketing materials to offer a glimpse at what it looks like when the ramifications of Western imperialism reach the international gay tourism industry. 

“This project [is] something I want to work on for the next few years; I see it as related to what I eventually want to do with my dissertation,” said Taylor, who plans to expand his research into collecting interview data next. “So, I figured, with the support from CHAT, I could start a little project and see what happens—and I’ve been seeing what happens.”

The event was organized by Christina Baker, closing out her first academic year as director of CHAT. Scroll down for the full slate of research projects and speakers at this year’s symposium. 

Session 1: Negotiating Power in Constrained Worlds 

• “Gilded Age Improvisation in Eastern State Penitentiary: Reading and Understanding an Incarcerated Man’s 1983 Cartoons,” Dorothy Stringer, English
• “Familial Fractures, Capitalist Time, and Unsettled Reprieve: William Faulkner’s ‘Barn Burning,’” Srimati Mukherjee, English
• “Daring to Learn: Black Youth Running into Power,” Carrilee Bryan, History

Session 2: Visualizing Networks and Mobility

• “Mapping Value in Tension: An Interactive Investment Flow Map of Philadelphia,” Tyler Munn; Geography, Environment and Urban Studies 
• “Reconstructing Seventeenth-Century Artist Networks Using Dutch Blue Paper,” Brittany Rubin, Art History
• “Understanding Residential Mobility Within Ethnic Enclaves: An Exploratory Study of Latina Breast Cancer Patients in New Jersey Before Diagnosis,” Veronica Gomes; Geography, Environment and Urban Studies 

Session 3: Imagined Worlds and Archived Lives

• “Constructing Paradise: Western Gay Men’s Travel to Southeast Asia,” Travis Taylor, Sociology
• “Locating Holocaust Perpetrator Emotions and Masculinities in YIVO’s Collections,” Andrew Michael Santora, History 
• “A Prophetic Photo: Reading My Maternal Grandmother’s Photo in Life Magazine, August 1944,” Lisa Grunberger, English & Lewis Katz School of Medicine