Second annual Culture Fest celebrates student research

Undergraduate students from the University of Waterloo's culture-related programs presented their research at the second annual Culture Fest, an initiative designed to celebrate outstanding student work and make connections across programs and disciplines. 

Featuring the research of ten students, the event was organized by Dr. Bojana Videkanić (Visual Culture) and Dr. Jeremy Bergen (Religious Studies) and held at Conrad Grebel University College. Each presentation lasted three minutes and was followed by an engaging question and answer time with the audience.

“It's remarkable to me how effectively each student transported us to their world, whether colonial New Spain, ancient Greece, contemporary opera, or the challenges of teaching about Residential Schools in Canada. I was inspired by the curiosity of each of these students and by the great work they did to address an important question,” says Bergen.

Students and topics

• Bianca Armbruster (Visual Culture) – “Man, God, and the Machine: The Technological Sublime in Contemporary Art”

• Kira Bourque (Visual Culture) – “Reimagining the Divine: The Subversion of Traditional Greek Ideals in The Aphrodite Knidos”

• Kayla Burmaster and Aria Scerbovic (Music) – “The Musical of Unusual Size”

• Bel Cairns (Classical Studies) – “The Gospel According to Euripides: Christian Repurposing of Classical Texts in Late Antiquity”

• Isabelle Carreiro (Religious Studies) – “Incorporating Indigenous Education into the Ontario Catholic Religious Education Curriculum”

• Jusleen Dhaliwal (Cultural Identities) – “The Namesake: Reconciling Internal Cultural Conflicts Through the Power of a Name” 

• Ashley Johnson (Music) – “Don Giovanni: The Fluidity of a Story”

• Julia Nicolaisen (Spanish & Latin American Studies) – “Drinking under Colonial Rule: Intercultural Interaction, Syncretism, and Indigenous Alcoholic Beverages in New Spain”

• April Van Riel (Culture and Language Studies, Renison) – “Exploring Language Acquisition Through Conversations with an English Language Learner”