The annual Humanities Student Symposium gathers students from majors across campus to present their research on topics ranging from Henri Mattisse to Taylor Swift.
Students from every discipline across BYU campus participate in research projects, often writing papers and creating presentations to accompany their findings. The annual Humanities Student Symposium offers humanities majors a chance to showcase their research—but this year, for the first time, that opportunity was extended to students from any major. On April 10, 2026, students like Lizzie Blonquist (Interdisciplinary Humanities ’26) and Madelyne Bleazard (Experience Design and Management ’28) presented their research at the symposium, where they experienced firsthand the importance of sharing knowledge and gaining new perspectives across disciplines.
PURSUING A PASSION PROJECT
The symposium consisted of a number of panels moderated by humanities faculty. Blonquist participated in the pop culture panel, presenting her project called “Taylor Swift: An Auteur of Modern Music.” The symposium, she says, “was on my bucket list for my undergrad,” and when her professor encouraged her to submit her pop culture class project to the symposium, she jumped on the opportunity.
Blonquist’s project covered a portion of Taylor Swift’s career, analyzing the pop star’s work from two lenses: the auteur theory and the concept of poptimism vs rockism. The auteur theory classifies film directors as “authors” of their movies—they have full creative control over their films and often have a distinct, recognizable style and brand. In her project, Blonquist applied this theory to Taylor Swift, arguing that she is an auteur in her own right. Blonquist pointed to Swift’s intense attention to detail in each “era” or album and the hidden messages in her lyrics, music videos, outfits, and even public appearances.
Additionally, Swift’s music straddles the worlds of poptimism and rockism. Rockism is the idea that rock music, being more raw, authentic, and often containing political themes, is better than pop music. Poptimism, on the other hand, accepts many different styles of popular music as an art form. While Swift’s music is considered pop music rather than rock, she uses her lyrics as a platform to express her opinions and share political messages in the style of rockism. This blending of two schools of thought further proves Swift’s creative intentionality, making her “the ultimate Auteur of modern music,” Blonquist argues.
Blonquist enjoyed the opportunity, she says, “to combine my academic background with some of my ‘guilty pleasures.’” The project reminded her of the broad applicability of the humanities, which “allow us to make connections between things in every aspect of our life.”
DISCOVERING CONNECTIONS ACROSS DISCIPLINES
Bleazard learned about the symposium in her Western Humanities class (IHUM 202), which she took for general education credit. Like Blonquist, she was encouraged by her professor to submit her class research project to present at the symposium. Her project focused on the famous painter Henri Matisse and “how his techniques create calming effects that invite people in,” she says. “His whole goal is to let ordinary people feel like they are a part of his paintings.”
Bleazard and other students from general education courses participated in a unique panel titled “Creating Art as Reception of the Humanities,” and each presenter created “artifacts” to go along with their presentations. For her artifact, Bleazard made a painting using a similar style to Matisse. Her research paper analyzed Matisse’s artwork and how he utilized the bright colors, wild brushstrokes, and simplified shapes that are associated with the Fauvist art movement, as well as familiar objects, to draw viewers into his pieces and bring them a sense of home. She painted a room from her childhood filled with comforting objects, employing these techniques. Creating the painting, she says, “was very difficult and pushed me outside my comfort zone,” but, she adds, “it gave me a different perspective.”
The symposium taught her that the world is not as black and white as she thought. At first, she was focused on the “right way” to approach her project, but she learned that “there isn’t always a right way to think about things. Sometimes everyone is right, and we are all just approaching the same subjects from a different angle.”
The symposium also helped her connect the humanities to her major in experience design. She eventually wants “to help create experiences that invite people in,” to “help people feel included and like they belong somewhere.” Participating in the symposium taught her that art is one avenue to create that kind of connection.
THE IMPORTANCE OF SHARING
The College of Humanities is full of students working on projects, researching, and writing, but, says Blonquist, “we’re not always able to talk about our research or present on it in a greater capacity than just meeting one-on-one with a professor or maybe a peer review.” The symposium offers students a chance to share what they have been learning in a supportive environment. Bleazard appreciates the fact that she was able to share her work, even though she isn’t a humanities major. The things that she learned in the process of participating in the symposium, she says, “are skills that I can use for the rest of my life, and the College of Humanities helps cultivate those skills.”
Students of the humanities study a range of topics and cultivate different perspectives that they’re often eager to share. Blonquist says, “The people that I interact with in my major are so excited to be there and so excited to be studying, looking at, and thinking about things in different ways—the symposium offers an opportunity to really exemplify and display that.”
The Humanities Student Symposium is organized by the Department of Comparative Arts & Letters. For more information about the symposium, or to submit an abstract to present next year, visit the Symposium website.