What are students researching in the College of Humanities? Here are a few topics covered at the 2025 Humanities Center Student Symposium.
As a university that uniquely focuses on undergraduate research, BYU offers its students plenty of opportunities to contribute to research and even lead their own projects. In the College of Humanities, students can apply for Humanities Undergraduate Mentoring (HUM) Grants, which offer resources for student-initiated, faculty-mentored research outside the classroom. At the Humanities Center Undergraduate Student Symposium on November 7, 2025, six students presented their HUM Grant projects, covering everything from feminist readings of Doctor Zhivago to the symbolism in overlooked Greco-Roman Egyptian art pieces.
From Pasternak to the Present: Feminist Critical Theory and the Western Reframing of Doctor Zhivago
Classic literature may be a product of its time, but so too are its adaptations. For her research, student Emma Shobe (Russian, English ’27), turned a critical feminist eye to two film adaptations of Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago, analyzing depictions of the characters Lara and Komorowski as well as their relationship. She found that while none of the adaptations were truly accurate to the novel, all of them revealed something about how women were seen and portrayed, particularly in regard to sexual abuse.
“Both [movies] captured the essence of the book in different ways,” Shobe said. “There’s this discourse of seeing these intersections between love and abuse, and not just seeing them as two separate things, but things that are intertwined.”
Stop Speaking Like You’re from the Mountains: Attitudes Towards Albanian Dialects
It’s no secret that the way we talk influences the way other people see us—just ask Eliza Doolittle from My Fair Lady. But can certain dialects change the way we see others? For her project, Hazel Mattson (Linguistics ’27) chose to research perceptions of different Albanian dialects to see how their proximity to Standard Albanian affected people’s opinions. She found that, generally, the closer a dialect was to Standard Albanian, the more it was associated with purity, education, and high-class status, while other dialects were generally seen as lesser.
However, Mattson also found evidence that these associations weren’t just the result of cultural perceptions of power. “What I found was more complicated than just the idea that people like the dialects they speak because it’s the dialect they speak,” Mattson said. “I learned that power is important, along with identity, history, and rhetoric; language never exists in a vacuum; and attitudes toward the way we speak are going to be affected by all these factors.”
Poetic Self-Formation and the Victorian Preface
Does a poetry book’s preface have any value? While some may deliberately skip the preface to get to the meat of the book, Brendan Murphy (English, Philosophy ’27) said that these prefaces give critical insights into a poet’s self-identity—a viewpoint that was first developed in the Victorian era. His research focused on how Matthew Arnold’s 1853 preface to his poetry book both put forward Arnold’s idea of the poet’s role (e.g. creating a timeless experience that doesn’t interact with the modern day) while contrasting it with a literary critical viewpoint that is firmly rooted in Arnold’s time period.
Murphy explained that for Arnold, the preface was a method through which he could express his poetic self while also keeping a divide between artistic purity and contemporary literary criticism. He said, “In this case, [Arnold’s claim] creates a tension between the critical attitude and the imagination, forcing readers to encounter the text both contemporaneously and historically, prefacing the poet and mediating the reader’s engagement with the text.”
Read more about Murphy’s research here.
Centering and De-Centering Paris: A Cultural History of the Pont Neuf
A stone bridge might not change much, but what that bridge culturally stands for certainly does. Mathilde Oscarson (Art History & Curatorial Studies, French Studies ’26) researched how perceptions of the Pont Neuf bridge in Paris have changed over the years through the works of the artists who’ve used the bridge as their canvas and inspiration: photographer Eugène Atget, painter Maximilien Luce, and French modern artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude. From traditional paintings to contemporary installations, like wrapping the bridge entirely in fabric, each artist has shown a different perception of the bridge through the ways they incorporate the structure into their work.
Oscarson mentioned an up-and-coming artistic installation for 2026, which will transform the Pont Neuf into a rocky facade with a series of stone caves that reference Plato’s allegory of the caves. She said, “As viewers interact with this installation, the Pont Neuf will once again be transformed into something new, not solely functioning as a bridge across the Seine but as a bridge to new ideas and concepts.”
Read more about Oscarson’s work here
The Divine Union: Understanding the Syncretism of Isis and Hathor in Ancient Egyptian Art
With thousands of years of human history behind us, it’s no surprise that certain periods of art are less studied than others—but that overlooked art can still have tremendous value. For her project, Regan Presley (Art History & Curatorial Studies ’26) examined the relief portrait Cairo JE 47108, a Greco-Roman era art piece, for clues about how the goddesses Isis and Hathor were viewed during the first century AD.
Presley explained that during this period of Egyptian history, Isis and Hathor became a syncretism, a fusion of two originally distinct forms. They began to be viewed and depicted as a single goddess, as shown by the combined iconography in artifact JE 47108—the lotus flower and crown were originally associated with Hathor, while the grain was originally associated with Isis. “Local mythology and iconography strongly support the claim that the female figure represents a fusion of these goddesses,” Presley said. “This piece and accompanying analysis highlight the valuable insights gained when overlooked artworks are studied with due attention and care.”
“Sensation Rubbish” Redeemed: Etta W. Pierce’s Gothic Critique of Patriarchal Constraint in the Gilded Age
Who decides which artists and writers get remembered? Even the most popular authors of a time can be lost to history in the course of a decade or two, and that’s exactly what happened to Etta W. Pierce, a popular gothic writer in the late 1800s. Faith Murri (English ’26) spent her research project uncovering Pierce’s works, bringing her back into the scholarly conversation after a hundred years of invisibility.
Murri explained that Pierce’s writings combined sensationalism with a critical examination of the patriarchal constraints placed on women in the Gilded Age, showing how women pushed back against unfair power dynamics and tried to claim their freedom. “I want to dig up the grave of Etta W. Pierce—the grave of all her work, all of those things that have been left to rot,” Murri said. “I want to bring back women’s voices to see what they have to say, because I believe what they had to say then is important now.”
Learn more about Humanities Center events at humanitiescenter.byu.edu.