Research Seminar Schedule
Attend a research seminar
Seminars are open to all graduate students, faculty and staff of the University of Kansas and their guests.
For the Fall 2026 semester, the Critical University Studies, Disability Studies, Global Africa, Identity Construction w/in Sports & Media and Medieval & Early Modern Seminars will be held from 3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.; the Gender & Trans* Studies and Qualitative Methods Seminars will be held from 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., unless noted otherwise. No prior registration is required. Please sign up below to receive emailed information about each seminar.
When papers are provided for sessions, they are available as password protected PDF files.
If you would like seminar paper password information, email Hall Center Administrative Associate April Walton at hchseminars@ku.edu.
Join a seminar email list
You can sign up to receive email updates for individual seminars by completing one or more of the forms below:
Seminar descriptions
Colonialism Seminar
This seminar examines the history and legacy of colonialism in Latin America. Meetings provide an opportunity for a dynamic examination of hemispherical and transatlantic connections across four major themes: identity, territory, religion, and cultural production.
For more information, contact Robert Schwaller (History, 864-9435, schwallr@ku.edu) or Christine Bourgeois (French, 864-9074, cbourgeois@ku.edu)
The Colonialism Seminar is on hiatus at this time. Any future seminars will be updated here.
Critical University Studies Seminar
The Critical University Studies Seminar gathers scholars whose work engages with the ways that universities and academic labor are fully entangled in the social, political, cultural and material formations that they study. Taking academia itself as the focus of inquiry benefits the humanities by developing reflexive and contextualized approaches that enrich the integrity of our intellectual conversations.
For more information, contact Ben Chappell (American Studies, 864-2236, bchap@ku.edu) or Pritha Prasad (English, 864-4520, prithaprasad@ku.edu).
Thursday, September 3, 2026, at 3:00 p.m.
Initial Members, Multiple Departments, University of Kansas
Opening Discussion
Thursday, October 1, 2026, at 3:00 p.m.
Dale Zay - Department of English, University of Kansas
"Improvising Survival: Black Junior Scholars and the Politics of the Classroom."
Thursday, November 5, 2026, at 3:00 p.m.
Ben Chappell - American Studies, University of Kansas
"Organizing is a Mode of Study: The Academic Labor Movement as Knowledge Production."
Thursday, December 3, 2026, at 3:00 p.m.
Pritha Prasad, English, University of Kansas
"Rematerializing Race/isms"
Disability Studies Seminar
The Disability Studies Seminar will provide a much-needed forum for scholars to explore and share research on topics relevant to disability within and across the humanities, arts, and social sciences. Scholars within Disability Studies tend to recognize disability in terms of social construction and minority culture.
For more information, contact Ray Mizumura-Pence (American Studies, 864-2302, rpence@ku.edu), Sherrie Tucker (American Studies, 864-2305, sjtucker@ku.edu) or Sean Kamperman (English, 864-4520, sean.kamperman@ku.edu).
Thursday, September 24, 2026, at 3:00 p.m.
Rachael van der Linden, American Studies, University of Kansas
"Charting an Escape from Capitalist-Carceral Elder Care and Moving toward a Disability Love-Politics through Photography”
Thursday, October 22, 2026, at 3:00 p.m.
Angela Lindsey-Nunn - Independent Scholar
“The Ancestral Ghosts in your Genome: The Molecular Narrative of Low-Birthweight”
Thursday, November 12, 2026, at 3:00 p.m.
Eun Ah Cho - Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Kansas
“Laughter Out of Time: Aging Humor, Dementia, and the Failure of Synchrony in East Asian Cultural Texts”
Gender & Trans* Studies Seminar
The Gender & Trans* Studies Seminar explores gender as both a core concept in humanistic scholarship and a key organizing force in social life. It also examines trans* not only in terms of transgender identities and experiences, but more broadly as an approach to understanding how cultural, social, political, and linguistic systems have historically constructed and enforced hierarchical binaries—such as male/female, straight/queer, and human/non-human—across different times and cultures. At their core, both gender and trans* studies aim to expand humanistic inquiry by situating gender within a wide range of intersecting identities and-culturally and historically shaped- experiences.
For more information, contact Marta Vicente (Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, 864-2235, mvicente@ku.edu) or Siobhan Kelly (Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, 864-2310, smk@ku.edu).
Wednesday, September 16, 2026, at 3:30 p.m.
Arlowe Clementine - WGSS, University of Kansas
"TBA"
Wednesday, November 18, 2026, at 3:30 p.m.
Siobhan Kelly - WGSS, University of Kansas
"TBA"
Global Africa Seminar
The Global Africa seminar engages the theme of Global Africa. For centuries, Africa has featured in the European imperial imagination as a primitive, backward Other against which to construct a white racial identity and collective self-conception as the vanguard of modernity, civilization, and progress. Within the academy, African settings have typically featured as an empty epistemic space without history or culture, the object of scholarly gaze, an exotic testing ground for theory and application of knowledge generated elsewhere. In contrast to the notion of Africa and Africans as a temporally and spatially bounded object, the organizing theme of this seminar is an appreciation for African ways of knowing and being as a dynamic global force—a source of inspiration for imagining alternatives to the Euromodern global order and its looming polycrisis.
For more information, contact Shawn Alexander (African and African-American Studies 864-5044, shawnalexander@ku.edu), Glenn Adams (Kansas African Studies Center, 864-3745, adamsg@ku.edu) or Luciano Tosta (Center for Global and International Studies, 864-1133, lucianotosta@ku.edu).
Wednesday, October 14, 2026, at 3:00 p.m.
Glenn Adams, Shawn Alexander, Luciano Tosta - Psychology, AAAS, Spanish & Portuguese, University of Kansas
"Global Africa: An Introduction"
Wednesday, November 11, 2026, at 3:00 p.m.
Egidio Chaimite- Institute of Social and Economic Studies, Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences & KASC, Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, Lincoln Univerisity of Missouri, University of Kansas
"Discharge: A New Form of Local Governance in Africa?"
Wednesday, December 9, 2026, at 3:00 p.m.
James Yeku - AAAS, University of Kansas
"AI, Digital Humanities, and the African Archive"
Humanities Out Loud: Music, Theater, Literature & Culture Seminar
The Humanities Out Loud seminar seeks to link forms of cultural production that employ the medium of sound in the making, dissemination and/or interpretation of cultural expression. Music and other performing arts are a particularly dynamic area of culture because they emerge in public spaces and speak to identity, cultural difference, and power dynamics in inescapable ways.
The Humanities Out Loud Seminar is on hiatus at this time. Any future seminars will be updated here.
Identity Construction w/in Sports & Media Seminar
The Identity Construction w/in Sports & Media Seminar will have monthly research presentations in which students and faculty could present their works in progress while receiving critiques. One of the biggest issues in sports scholarship is because of the interdisciplinary nature of sports, it can be hard to find journals or speak the “appropriate” disciplinary language. Thus, having a robust group of humanities and social science scholars will alleviate this issue because presenters can gain enhanced understanding of other fields and alternate perspectives.
For more information, contact Steve Bien-Aime (School of Journalism & Mass Communications & Interim Sports Media & Society Concentration Chair, 864-3701, bienaime@ku.edu) or Patricia Gaston (School of Journalism & Mass Communications, 864-0455, patricia.gaston@ku.edu).
Tuesday, September 8, 2026, at 3:00 p.m.
Dunja Antunovic - School of Kinesiology, University of Minnesota
"TBD"
Tuesday, October 13, 2026, at 3:00 p.m.
TBD - TBD, University of Kansas
"TBD"
Tuesday, November 10, 2026, at 3:00 p.m.
TBD - TBD, University of Kansas
"TBD"
Medieval & Early Modern Seminar
The Medieval & Early Modern Seminar meets each semester to discuss original work relating to any aspect of the history, culture, literature, art, or society of any part of the world between c. 400 and c.1800.
For more information, contact Sarah Van der Laan (English, 864-4520, sarah.vanderlaan@ku.edu) or John McEwan (KU Libraries/IDRH, 864-8883, john.mcewan@ku.edu).
Thursday, September 17, 2026, at 3:00 p.m.
Bruce Hayes, French, Francophone, and Italian Studies, University of Kansas
"TBD"
Thursday, October 15, 2026, at 3:00 p.m.
Detlev Weber - Slavic, German, and Eurasian Studies, University of Kansas
"TBD"
Thursday, November 19, 2026, at 3:00 p.m.
Martha Blanco - Spanish and Portuguese Studies, University of Kansas
"TBD"
Nature & Culture Seminar
Nature is our oldest home and our newest challenge. This seminar brings the perspective of the humanities to bear on past and present environmental issues. It includes research on the changing perception, representation, and valuation of nature in human life, on the reciprocal impact of environmental change on social change, and on the variety of ways we use, consume, manage, and revere the earth. Co-sponsored by Environmental Studies.
For more information, contact Alex Boynton (Environmental Studies, ajboynton@ku.edu, 864-9648)
The Nature & Culture Seminar is on hiatus at this time. Any future seminars will be updated here.
Qualitative Methods Seminar
The Qualitative Methods Seminar focuses on non-numerical datasets and the creation of new archives outside of often traditional archival sources. Qualitative Methods include oral history recording, focus groups, ethnography, narrative storytelling, and digital humanities which provide ways of merging qualitative and quantitative data sets. The goal of a Qualitative Methodologies seminar is, together, to push boundaries of our methods to find integrative and unique ways of understanding our society, culture, and communities through workshopping and general discussion.
For more information, contact Rachel Schwaller (History; Religious Studies, 864-3569, rschwallr@ku.edu), Tiffany González (History, 864-3569, tjgonzalez@ku.edu) or Philip Duncan (linguistics; Indigenous Studies, 864-2882, philiptduncan@ku.edu).
Wednesday, September 23, 2026, at 3:30 p.m.
Sergio González - History, Marquette University
"TBD"
Wednesday, October 7, 2026, at 3:30 p.m.
Neill Esquibel-Kennedy - American Studies, University of Kansas
“She didn’t know how to speak English, but she knew how to count”: The Articulation of Gender, Culture, Labor, and Memory. "
Wednesday, November 4, 2026, at 3:30 p.m.
Philip Duncan - Linguistics; Indigenous Studies, University of Kansas
"TBD"