Civic Humanist

Program Overview

Through generous funding from Terri and Terrence Gee, the Civic Humanist Program seeks to build relationships between Rice University and high schools serving underrepresented and economically disadvantaged students. Funding supports faculty visits to high schools to both share faculty research expertise in humanistic inquiry and to provide perspectives on topics that teachers and students are pursuing in their own classrooms. The Civic Humanist Program also offers support for high school students to visit the campus of Rice University to explore programs in the School of Humanities. Teachers and administrators can request coverage of the costs for transportation and meals related to student group visits.

For faculty visits to high schools, teachers and school administrators may choose from a curated list of humanities faculty presenters who offer lively presentations that also address some TEKS standards. Faculty presenters will invite the students to experience the kind of instruction that takes place in a college-level humanities course.

Student visits to Rice University include campus tours led by undergraduate students and meetings with faculty and current Rice students based on the interests of the student group. For instance, one previous school visit focused on the topic of environmental studies. You may see a full range of possible topics here.

Please contact Associate Dean Fay Yarbrough for more information about student visits to campus or faculty visits to Houston area schools: fyarbrough@rice.edu.

Civic Humanist Speakers

ARTS AND THE CREATIVE EXPERIENCE

Luis Duno-Gottberg
Un-Learning to See: The Blind Spots of Visual Culture

Sophie Crawford-Brown
Famous Buildings of Ancient Rome

Margarita Castromán Soto
Before Wakanda: Graphic Novels in the African American Literary Tradition

Charles Dove
Movies and Global Culture

Olivia K. Young
Speculative Themes in Black Contemporary Art

SOCIAL GOOD AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

Aysha Pollnitz
What are "Rights" and Where do They Come From?
Was Machiavelli a Republican or Democrat?

Luziris Pineda Turi
Harnessing a First-Gen/Low-Income Identity: A Higher Ed. Journey

Maya Irish
The Medieval Origins of Antisemitism

Margarita Castromán Soto
Before Wakanda: Graphic Novels in the African American Literary Tradition

Alden Marte-Wood
Caring for the Social in Social Media: Digital Labor and the Global South

Travis Alexander
From HIV/AIDS to Covid-19: How Pandemics Deepen Racial Fear

James Sidbury
Race and Citizenship after the American Revolution

ETHICS, VALUES AND MORALITY

Aysha Pollnitz
What are "Rights" and Where do They Come From?
Was Machiavelli a Republican or Democrat?

Gwen Bradford
The Ethics of Space Exploration

Jeff Kripal
Archives of the Impossible: Or How to Think About Extraordinary Experiences

Luziris Pineda Turi
Harnessing a First-Gen/Low-Income Identity: A Higher Ed. Journey

Maya Irish
The Medieval Origins of Antisemitism

Alden Marte-Wood
Caring for the Social in Social Media: Digital Labor and the Global South

Cameron Hammon
6 Seconds: What Near Death Experiences Can Teach Us About the Nature of Consciousness

Sayuri Shimizu
Why Did the United States Drop the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

GLOBAL CITIZENSHIPS AND CULTURES

Aysha Pollnitz
What are "Rights" and Where do They Come From?
Was Machiavelli a Republican or Democrat?

Charla Bennaji
Whose Spanish Accent is Better? / Who has the Best Spanish Accent?

Maya Irish
The Medieval Origins of Antisemitism

Naoko Ozaki
Broadening the World View through Language Education

Sidney Lu
The Japanese Emperorship: Past and Present

Sophie Crawford-Brown
Famous Buildings of Ancient Rome

Alden Marte-Wood
Caring for the Social in Social Media: Digital Labor and the Global South

Charles Dove
Movies and Global Culture

Sayuri Shimizu
What Baseball Can Tell us About America's Place in the World
The United States and Asia

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY

Gwen Bradford
The Ethics of Space Exploration

Travis Alexander
From HIV/AIDS to Covid-19: How Pandemics Deepen Racial Fear

Alden Marte-Wood
Caring for the Social in Social Media: Digital Labor and the Global South

Cameron Hammon
6 Seconds: What Near Death Experiences Can Teach Us About the Nature of Consciousness