Haunting Humanities 2025

Epigenetics is the Molecular Narrative of how traumatic and stressful events experienced by our ancestors can impact and haunt our current health. Come create a DNA model out of pipe cleaners and beads while you learn about DNA Methylation, an epigenetic mechanism most associated with the intergenerational transmission of stress and trauma. You can then watch a short presentation about the molecular narrative of low-birthweight in African American women.

Rating: PG-13

Angela Nunn, PhD Candidate, American Studies

Journey with Paul Thomas, author of Haunted Lawrence, into the past to learn about the stories of the ghosts roaming the streets of Lawrence, Kansas. Share your own ghost stories to be featured on the interactive digital map! 

Rating: PG 

Institute for Digital Research in the Humanities and KU Libraries

It’s 1893, stop by the grand opening of the Odd Fellows Orphanage in Silkville, Kansas for your swag bag and passport to the past. Silkville was a real community 50 miles south of Lawrence. The orphanage is in the “Chateau” gifted to the Odd Fellows by Silkville founder, Frenchman, and Fourierist Ernest Valeton De Boissiere. Silkville was the longest-lived communal, utopian society in Kansas (1869 – 1892). The orphanage has silkworms ready to be adopted and taken to visit their ancestors’ home amongst the mulberry trees, cocoonery, and other buildings of Silkville.  What demons chased de Boissiere out of France and New Orleans to Kansas? What became of Silkville dreams? 

Rating: G

Urban Planning Graduate Students in Prof. Bonnie Johnson’s UBPL 785: History and Theory of Planning class, University of Kansas 

Sponsor: Yarn Barn

What parlour games did the Victorians play with guests at Halloween? If your curiosity is spooked, come discover the enchanted Victorian parlour and participate in divination games, word games and other such diversions with which the Victorians entertained their guests “[u]pon that night when fairies light…”

Rating: PG

Divya Radhika Bhalla, PhD Candidate, English

Have you ever wondered what it was like to attend a seance in the nineteenth century? Are you curious about why this practice was so popular among American Victorian women? Do you want to commune with the dead? Come discover the proto-feminist roots of the nineteenth-century spiritualist movement and decide for yourself if we truly have the power to speak with—and through—ghosts. 

Rating: PG 

Presenters: Jess House and Emma Webster

Do you know the myth of Arachne? She was so good at weaving that she was challenged by the goddess Athena to a weaving contest and won—only to be turned into a spider! Learn more about this myth while practicing your own weaving skills to make a friendship bracelet, see weaving demos, and play fun games designed around how spiders catch bugs.

Rating: G

Presenters: Jenna Benzing, Museum Studies, Maggie Unverzagt Goddard, Museum Studies, Lily Godsil, Classics, Richard Godsil III, Museum Studies, Lily Godsil, Classics, Sarah Cullinan Herring, Classics, Poppy DeltaDawn (Visual Art)

During the 19th-century, many household items—from bookbindings and textiles to wallpaper and paint—were colored with poisonous pigments, including arsenic. Book conservators from KU Libraries will demonstrate how we use analytical techniques to discover arsenic in green bookbindings. Come decorate a coloring page, try to guess which household items used to be made with arsenical pigments, and pick up a button with a universally-recognized hazard pictogram! We will even have a few arsenic-positive books on display in a locked exhibit case.

Rating: G

Credits: Angela Andres, Whitney Baker, Kaitlin McGrath, Reece Wohlford, KU Libraries Makerspace

What topics and worries haunt your world? How can art help you better understand your fears, or make them less scary? Stop by the Spencer Museum of Art’s station to create an artwork that addresses something you find unsettling and reframe your story. Take inspiration from Hollis Sigler’s painting Haunted by the Ghosts of Our Own Making, which explores her concerns about the long-term effects of chemicals on the environment.  This painting is the 2025-2026 Common Work of Art, complementing the new KU Reads selection, The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet by John Green. 

Rating: G

Credits: Kristina Walker, Celka Straughn, Marley Kendall (Spencer Museum of Art), Samantha Greeson  (KU Libraries)

Can you spot an original artifact among imposters? The Watkins Museum of History staff will guide you on how to spot the differences between historic artifact and a reproduction. Guess correctly and win a PLINKO chip to play for a prize! 

Rating: G

Credits: Will Haynes, Shannon Hodges, Watkins Museum

What makes a monster, well, monstrous? Come contemplate the meanings of monstrosity with 400-year-old books from Spencer Research Library, solve an accompanying ‘Escape Room in a Box’ monster mystery, review a monster, or catch one of our other activities! With coloring pages, ‘Rare Book Bingo’ and more, this is a stop that you don’t want to miss!

Rating: PG

Credits: Amanda Schlumpberger, Caitlin Klepper, Eve Wolynes, Grace Brazell, Kit Cavazos, and Samantha Greeson, KU Libraries

What troubled times we weary souls must endure while the Book Ban-shees lurk and lure. And who may save our precious tomes from the Shun, but none other than the good fellows from the Center of Gunn! To all the attendees of these Haunting Humanities, come fight against the Book Ban-shees by learning about censored books and writing your own six-word stories. 

Rating: PG

Credits: Whitney Yi Knapp, Phil Drake, Emma Webster, Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction

Are you brave enough to attend The Masque of the Red Death? You are invited to enter the halls of Prince Prospero, a man who seals himself away from the world's suffering and mocks Death. Within his colorful chambers, Prospero believes he and his revelers are safe from the corruption of the outside world. However, the Red Death waits, patient and inevitable. When the final bell tolls, will you come to the aid of the Red Death or cower alongside Prospero and his inevitable fate?

Space is limited; sign up at the escape room door.

Run times: 6:15-6:45, 7:00-7:30, 7:45-8:15, 8:30-9:00

Rating: PG-13

Credits: Lizzy Walker, Sara Rue, Wichita State University Libraries

Step into the world of la commedia dell’arte and discover the haunting characters behind Italy’s iconic masks. From the sly trickster Arlecchino to the pompous Il Dottore, each mask tells a story of exaggerated personalities that have entertained and captivated audiences for centuries. Learn about the history and significance of these figures through colorful illustrations and short histories. Visitors of all ages can create their own masks, with designs reflecting these classic characters. Explore how these masks combine humor, history, and mystery in this interactive experience!

Rating: G

Credits: Marina Profeti, Josie Malara, Ashtyn Young, Cadence Tuck, Gage Jonkman, Jake Erickson, Josie Malara, Francesca Beretta, Rosalyn Lucas.

Embrace the Dark Side - or join the Rebel Alliance - and grab a cookie while you learn about the influences on and impacts of George Lucas's galaxy far, far away. Discover how WWII dogfights inspired Rebel X-wing battles, how Star Wars spawned cosplay armies and real lightsaber tournaments, and watch a live Jedi vs. Sith dueling demos. Then get your chance to wield a lightsaber yourself (waiver required, but Force sensitivity optional)!

Rating: G

People: Katie Conrad, Rose Willis.

Experience Bram Stoker’s Dracula as you never have before! This interactive exhibit allows you to uniquely encounter Dracula through displays and puzzles that directly relate to the novel’s historical, folkloric, literary, and technological dimensions. Learn how to transfer blood to save Dracula’s victims, balance life on the scales of vitality, write your own shorthand messages, and beat Dracula to his destination using train schedules! When it comes to Dracula (and having fun), the stakes have never been higher! 

Rating: PG

Credits: Joshua Imken, Rachel L. Andreini

The Devil’s Eyelash is narrated by 4 nuns – Sister Hope, Sister Sadness, Sister Fantasy and Sister Rage – and they tell the tale of two elite sex workers, Chastity and Hercules, as they traverse the apocalypse in search of a saloon at the end of the world, The Devil’s Eyelash. Through this tale, they allow room for a trans-mission of a mythology that acknowledges the end of this world but imagines the beginning of a new one. 

Rating: R, 18+
Credits: Charlie Wood, Katelyn Arnold, Marzi Ashrafian, Chay D. Boots, Theresa Bucheister, Arlowe Clementine, Cliff Hoitt Lange, Rhea Penny, Tatyana Younger

In this interactive adaptation of a classic Masai folktale, a very proud Rabbit finds his brand-new home occupied by a mysterious creature with a terrifying voice! Can the Rabbit and his friends solve the mystery? This funny, fast-paced performance invites children from the audience to become part of the story, wear animal masks, and help a community overcome its biggest fears, which sometimes come in the smallest of packages.

Rating: G

Credits: Marzieh Ashrafian, John Stecher, Basia Schendzielos, Cliff Hoitt-Lange, Katelyn Arnold, John Stecher, Mehdi Fadaei, Theresa Buchheister.

Costumed mascots are everywhere in Japan and are celebrated globally for their creativity and wonderful weirdness.  But these mascots share a number of features with yokai, the traditional monsters of Japanese folklore. So how can characters so cute also be monstrous? Explore the world of Japan’s outlandish monsters and mascots in this presentation and then design your own!

Rating: G

Credits: William Tsutsui, Ottawa University.