Undergraduate Research Conference Sets New Record
After a year’s hiatus because of short-staffing among our faculty, our 12th undergraduate research conference was held at Strong Hall on February 24, 2024. The conference received generous support from alumna Bettye Beaumont (’74) as well as from our Classics Enrichment Fund; the College of Arts and Sciences; UT’s Office of Research, Innovation, and Economic Development; the Denbo Center for Humanities and the Arts; and the Departments of English, History, Philosophy, Religious Studies, and World Languages and Cultures.
This year’s conference was impeccably organized by classics students Tony Caldwell, Desirae Cordell, Natalie Newsome, and Adelle Rosendale under the guidance of Associate Professor Stephen Collins-Elliott. To our relief, the one-year hiatus had not caused classics students elsewhere to forget about us. On the contrary: We received 55 abstracts from around the country and welcomed 36 student-speakers—both absolute records. After a warm welcome address by Robert Hinde, interim executive dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Associate Professor Trevor Luke of Florida State University delivered the Beaumont Keynote Lecture titled, “Master and Commander: the Roman Emperor and the Sea.” Luke’s presentation was penetrating and yet accessible, and it generated a lively Q&A among the audience.
Our 36 student participants came from 22 colleges and universities throughout the US, from as far away as Dartmouth College, Boston University, the University of California (UC) Los Angeles, and UC San Diego. They presented research on a wide variety of topics such as, “From Bulls to Beetles: Rethinking Sacrificial Animals in the Iconography of Bronze Age Crete” and “The Role of Family Structure in the Spread of Indo-European Languages in Europe” to “Utilizing Sentiment Analysis Algorithms in the Study of Identity in Ancient Greek and Latin Literature.” Once again, we were happily surprised at the wide range of research topics and the high quality of the papers as well as by the audience’s keen attention and interesting questions.
Clearly, our conference is attracting very bright young scholars who are deeply engaged with classics. It is now quite common for us to meet promising graduate students and young faculty in the field who experienced their first scholarly conference at UT and remember us warmly.
Classics faculty presided over nine well-attended panels. During the lunch hour, Associate Professor Justin Arft, Assistant Professor Sam Blankenship, and Luke held an optional professionalization workshop on “Classics as a Career and Beyond.”
The presenters included UT students Victoria Padgett, Henry Greene, George Livesay, and Evan Shannon.
Collins-Elliott expresses his deep gratitude to his colleagues for generously giving their time. He also acknowledges the hard work, initiative, and efficiency of the student organizers, and a special thank you to Ann Robinson-Craig (business manager) and Jessica Black (events and communications coordinator), Mitchell Harper (travel coordinator), and Megan Beeler (space coordinator) for their logistical support and very helpful administrative oversight.