The Humanities Research Center is thrilled to announce the Spring 2025 Undergraduate Humanities Research Conference, centered on the theme of “Gender and Sexuality.” This event will showcase three keynote lectures and a range of undergraduate research presentations, offering a dynamic platform for critical discussions and fresh insights into these important topics.

Conference Details:

• Dates: April 18-19, 2025
• Venue: AB2103, Duke Kunshan University

Students who register for the conference are invited to attend a gala dinner with all presenters, offering an excellent opportunity for networking and community building.

Register Here

Timeline

• Friday, March 14, or before: Submit application form with paper title and 300-word abstract.
• Monday, March 24: Acceptance decisions announced.
• Sunday, April 13: Final papers (max 10 pages double-spaced, excluding notes and bibliography) must be submitted to organizers to be considered for a prize.
• Friday, April 18, and Saturday, April 19: Conference takes place on campus.

Keynote Speakers

Yujie Zhu is Associate Professor at the Centre for Heritage and Museum Studies at the Australian National University. With a background in anthropology and a focus on critical heritage studies, his research examines the cultural politics of the past across diverse heritage and memory spaces. He is the author and editor of 9 books including Making Places Sacred (2025, co-authored with Matt Tomlinson), China’s Heritage through History (2024), Heritage Tourism (2021), Heritage Politics in China (2020, co-authored with Christina Maags), and Heritage and Romantic Consumption in China (2018). He served as the vice-president of the International Association of Critical Heritage Studies (2014-2020) and deputy-chair of Anthropology Tourism Committee of the IUAES (2013-2021).

Usha Iyer is Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies in the Department of Art and Art History at Stanford University. They are the author of Dancing Women: Choreographing Corporeal Histories of Hindi Cinema (Oxford University Press, 2020). Their current book project, Jammin’: Black and Brown Media Intimacies between India and the Caribbean, studies the affective engagements of Caribbean spectators with Indian cinema and the impact of Caribbean performance cultures on Indian film industries. They are co-editing the volume, Shift Focus: Reframing the Indian New Waves, with Manishita Dass.

Gabriel N. Rosenberg is Associate Professor of Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies and History at Duke University. He earned his Ph.D. from Brown University in History. He was the recipient of the Gilbert C. Fite Award from the Agricultural History Society, the K. Austin Kerr Prize from the Business History Conference, and a François André Michaux Fund Fellowship from the American Philosophical Society. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Yale University’s Program in Agrarian Studies, an Early Career Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh’s Humanities Center, and a Visiting Scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. His writing has appeared in journals such as the Journal of American History, American Quarterly, GLQ: A Journal of Gay and Lesbian Studies, TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly,  Agricultural History, and Diplomatic History.

The program details will be announced soon!