The School of Theatre, Film & Television’s 2026 Undergraduate Research Symposium is a showcase of outstanding essays on Film & Television presented by TFTV students.
The symposium will be hosted in Grand Challenges Research Building Room 130 on May 1st from 10:30 am- 3:30 pm where we have scheduled eight amazing student presentations as well as a keynote by Dr. Kali Simmons (University of Connecticut).
Schedule of Events:
- Opening Remarks and Keynote – 10:30 to 11am
- Opening remarks
- Keynote: Dr. Kali Simmons
- Morning Session: Queerness & Gender on Screen – 11am to 12:30pm
- Annie Morrill – Re-Marketing the Queer Film
- Riley Sato – Eat My Discarded Flesh: Transgender Horror and the Body Horror Hell It’s Trapped In
- Dagny McCrory – Glee: Fathers and Sons and Sexuality
- Laura Corso – Redefining the Horror Film: A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)
- Lunch – 12:30 to 1:30pm
- Afternoon Session: Genre & Hybridity – 1:30 to 3pm
- Kaitlyn Liddicoat – Destination Delayed: Spielbergian Ethics, Bureaucracy, and Humanism in ‘The Terminal’
- Dara Sam – Asymptomatic Approach: Toward the Real in ‘The Blair Witch Project’
- Victoria Cortez – Once & Always: A Look into Nostalgia Through the Power Rangers’ Films
- Lola Martinez – The Curse of the Frontier: A Study of Trauma and Inheritance in ‘Outer Range’
- Closing Remarks and Awards – 3 to 3:30pm
There will be a $500 award for first place, $300 for second, and $150 for third!
Keynote Information:
Kali Simmons is an Assistant Professor in the departments of English and Social & Critical Inquiry at UConn, Storrs. Her current research project examines the representation of Indigenous Peoples in contemporary American horror cinema. Her work has been published in American Indian Quarterly, the Journal for Cinema and Media Studies, and on Vulture.com. She is an enrolled citizen of the Oglala Sioux Tribe.