Saturday April 5, 2025
10:00AM-10:45AM - Registration and Breakfast
10:45AM-11:00AM - Welcome
11:00AM-12:00PM - Session 1
Maximilian X. Conrad (University of Texas at Austin)
Muscles, Men, and the Mother of God: Hypermasculinity and Right-Wing Politics in American Orthodox Christian Conversion
Faith VanVleet (University of Texas at Austin)
Ukrainian Lives, Polish Narratives: Ukrainian Refugees and the Politics of Assimilation in Poland
Shehan McFadden (University of Texas at Austin)
“I'm not entirely sure why I keep kosher anymore”: Jewish Identity as Religious Observance among Young Jews
12:00PM-2:00PM - Lunch
2:15PM-3:00PM - Session 2
Maria Fernandez Pello (University of Texas at Austin)
When You Look at Somebody Who Already Has a Disease, You are Basically Looking at a Scar
Jake Jansen (University of Texas at San Antonio)
Mind the Kin: Depression as Interlocutor in Graduate School
3:00PM-3:15PM - Break
3:15PM-4:30PM - Session 3
Claire Brandes (University of Texas at Austin)
Human Origins, Hoaxes, and Hubris: How Piltdown Man Reflects Modern Trends in Misinformation
Jyhreh Johnson (University of Texas at Austin)
Paleo-Ontologies: How AI and Machine Learning Can Change Paleoanthropology
Quinn Georgic (Rice University)
On Primatological Authority
5:00PM - All Conference Social Gathering @ the UT Austin Anthropology Department, William C. Powers, Jr., Student Activity Center (WCP), 5th Floor
Sunday April 6, 2025
8:30AM - 9:00AM - Breakfast
9:00AM - 9:45AM - Session 4 (Posters)
Race Valenti (Texas State University)
3D Printing and Repatriation: Opening New Avenues in a Global Process
Mikaela B. Razo (University of Texas at San Antonio)
Howdy, Howdy, Howdy: Exploring Texan identity through regional and national museum collections
Caroline Story and Manar Naser (Texas State University)
A.I. With an Attitude: Standard Ideologies of English in Large Language Models
9:45AM - 10:00AM - Break
10:00AM-11:15AM - Session 5
Will Norton (University of Texas at Austin)
"It's a good story, but we have to look at the bones": Learning fieldwork from a fish
Megha Bahl (Rice University)
Pathalgadi Movement in India’s Jharkhand and Questions of Political Assertion
Jordan Goheen (University of Texas at Austin)
Asad in Taiwan: Religious Erasures and Continuities
P. Salomé Valdivieso (University of Texas at Austin)
The 1990 Indigenous Uprising in Ecuador: A Subaltern View
11:15AM-11:30AM - Break
11:30AM-12:30PM - Session 6
Lauren Bussiere (University of Texas at Austin)
The Archaeological Repository as a Space of Hidden Knowledge
Claudia Gabriela Reta (University of Buenos Aires/CONICET (Fulbright PhD Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin)
Houses Being Repaired, Housing Programs Interrupted
Christine Sánchez (University of Texas at Austin)
Archaeologies of Confinement: The Built Environment of Detention Centers
12:30PM-2:30PM - Lunch w/ Roundtables
2:30 PM-3:15PM - Session 7
Zahid Ali (Rice University)
From Communal Grazing to Toxic Wastelands: Land, Water, and Livelihoods in Thar Desert Pakistan
Brandon L. Foskett (University of Texas at Austin)
Hill Country Gay Boy: Topophilia, Queer Embodiment, and Myself in the Music of Sufjan Stevens
3:15PM-3:30PM - Break
3:30PM-4:45PM - Session 8
Ben Rodwell (University of Texas at Austin)
Sticking its neck out, the first known cervical vertebrae of Shoshonius cooperi: Implications for tarsier, anthropoid, and haplorhine relationships
Z. Selcen Boztepe (Rice University)
Buzzing at the Borders
Alexandra Holdbrook (University of Texas at San Antonio)
Contested Conservation: Multispecies Flourishing and Friction in the Texas Exotic Wildlife Industry
Hyeyoon Kwon (Rice University)
Paradise and Battlefield
4:45PM - Closing
*The conference schedule will be updated if changes are made to the program.