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Celebration of Humanities Education
Celebration of Humanities Education
The UCL Centre for Humanities Education is delighted to announce a special celebration of our work supporting innovation and excellence in Humanities teaching and learning. This flagship Celebration of Humanities Education will take place on Wednesday, 11 June 2025, from 10:00 to 17:00, at the Institute of Education, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society.
This day-long event will convene educators, staff, and students to explore cutting-edge educational strategies, inclusive pedagogies, and the future of teaching and learning within the Humanities. From exploring the future of language education to engaging with how virtual reality and gaming can teach history and Classics, it will feature a rich programme of interactive sessions, showcases, talks and workshops designed to promote collaboration, dialogue, and innovation in Humanities teaching and learning.
Event Details:
- Date: Wednesday, 11 June 2025
- Time: 10:00–17:00
- Location: C3.11, C3.14, and C3.15, Institute of Education, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL.
Click here to sign up via the Eventbrite page. Please note that the programme is subject to change.
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Introductory Talks | 10:00-10:30
A series of talks by Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen (Founding Director of the Centre), Stella Bruzzi (Executive Dean, UCL Arts & Humanities), and Kathleen Amour (UCL Vice Provost, Education & Student Experience) will introduce the work of the CHE.
Discussion Room
10:30-11:30 | Anne Grydehøj (Chair) | The Future of Language Education at UCL: Insights and Perspectives
This panel brings together key voices from UCL’s language education community to discuss the current status and future direction of language teaching and learning. Drawing on initial findings from a large-scale survey and insights from a UCL Language Education Network event, the discussion will explore challenges, opportunities and new approaches to sustaining and expanding language education in a changing academic landscape. Audience participation will be encouraged to foster an open dialogue on shaping language education at UCL.
Featuring perspectives from:
- Richard Breheny (Division of Psychology and Language Science)
- Andrea Révész (Institute of Education)
- Eszter Tarsoly (School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies)
- Christine Hoffmann (Centre for Languages & International Education)
- Marie Fournier (School of European Languages, Culture, and Society)
11:45-12:15 | Marga Navarette, Mazal Oaknin and Alejandro Garcia-Escribano | Leading towards the 8th e-expert seminar series on language and translation education: Our free access journey on reaching wide audiences
This paper will present and celebrate the free, hybrid e-Expert Seminar Series in Translation and Modern Language Teaching. The series is a collaboration between UCL and UCO and is now in its 8th anniversary. Our seminars pioneered hybrid events before Covid, and they support the publication of open-access digital video books. They comprise areas of assessment and feedback, interdisciplinarity and EDI topics, such as mediation, media accessibility, LGTBQ+, medical translation, feminism and gender awareness, among other pressing topics. Our seminars have consistently grown since our first seminar back in 2018, and they have reached hundreds of attendees worldwide.
12:15-13:00 | Jelena Calic and Eszter Tarsoly | Ethical encounters in community-based research, learning, and assessment
This workshop is based on a CHE-EDI Small Grant project, which explored ethical encounters in participatory research and community-based language learning. The workshop first addresses the overlap between decolonial and situated ethical approaches to research, learning, and assessment. This is followed by an audience-led discussion of three case studies which highlight the dilemmas arising from an ethics of care in research. In the third, final section of the workshop, we look at the ways in which an ethics of care can be applied in dynamic assessment, which builds on the dialogue between students and teachers.
Technology Room
10:30-12:15 | Antony Makrinos | VR and Classics: A Look into the Future of Humanities
This presentation will highlight ways in which VR can enhance the teaching and learning of Classics. Classics already engages with VR in its archaeological research, teaching of ancient history, and public engagement with diverse communities, while companies such as ClassVR are developing ways to immerse users in animated worlds that offer Classics teaching scenarios. This presentation will demonstrate how ancient languages and literature can be taught through Virtual Reality. The talk will examine VR teaching in modules taught at UCL and will refer to the experience of both students and staff.
12:30 – 13:00 | Alexander Samson and Paula Rodriguez | Our New Gold
This session will reflect on the adaptation of Golden Age classics in the twenty-first century, with a particular focus on how performance as research activities and the active performative engagement with the comedic has enhanced student learning, promoted digital skills and led them to reflect on new forms of communication and engagement with a variety of audiences.
Showcase Room
10:30 –13:30 | Sharon Morris and Elizabeth Lawes | Spineless Wonders: Research Network on Small Press Publication
This showcase will consist of a mini-exhibit featuring items from UCL Special Collections relevant to Spineless Wonders, a research network founded by Sharon Morris, Slade School of Fine Art, and Liz Lawes, subject librarian and small press collection manager, UCL. The network brings together artists, writers, librarians and researchers across the UK to foreground collections of small press publications, artists books and other ephemera with the aims of inspiring the making of new publications, encouraging research and public engagement. Established in 2020 Spineless Wonders has staged a number of online and hybrid events and is currently planning a series of associated exhibitions. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/slade/project/spineless-wonders
Sharon and Elizabeth will be offering a presentation highlighting their Spineless Wonders work from 10:30 – 11:00.
10:30-13:30 | Elettra Carbone | Learning Language/s Through Art and Objects
This interactive session (from 11:30 – 12:30) will explore the benefits of working with art and objects to teach language/s. The session will based on the growing library of tasters called the ‘Language and Culture Show and Tell’, showcased in UCL Art Museum (2023-24) and in the UCL Culture Lab (2025). Participants will have the opportunity to talk to colleagues who have participated to this project so far while being able to see examples of collection-based teaching. Through a curated selection of objects from UCL’s Collections, they will also have the opportunity to develop ideas for their own collection-based video tasters or teaching sessions.
The session will be preceded and followed by a pop-up version of the Not Just Words exhibition.
Event Descriptions – Afternoon
Discussion Room
14:00-14:45 | Abbi Shaw and April Jones| Empowering Change: The Role of Professional Services in Humanities Education
This panel will explore the contribution of professional services staff to Humanities Education, and the ways in which they can, with appropriate scaffolding and support, foster positive change in education as a result of their particular expertise and positionality. April Jones will present on a recent CHE-funded project that restructured Moodle pages in the Department of Greek and Latin, to promote a more consistent, efficient, and user-friendly experience for students, academic staff and PS colleagues. Abbi Shaw will then facilitate a discussion regarding the process of applying for the CHE as a professional services colleague, the ideas and support that led to the formation of the project and how the project itself developed. Abbi and April will then both share reflections and recommendations for colleagues looking to conduct similar projects.
15:00-16:00 | Jesper Hansen (Chair) | Embedding Inclusion: EDI Practices in the Humanities Classroom
This panel will explore the role of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) in shaping Humanities education, with a focus on practical strategies, reflective practices, and collaborative approaches. Panelists will share insights from recent projects and initiatives aimed at embedding EDI principles into curriculum design, teaching practices, and departmental culture. Through a combination of short presentations and facilitated discussions, the session will consider how staff across academic and professional services roles can contribute to more inclusive, equitable, and representative educational environments. The panel will also offer recommendations for colleagues looking to initiate or support similar work in their own contexts.
Featuring perspectives from:
- Rachel Morley (School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies)
- Sabrina Hassan (Slade School of Fine Art)
- Mazal Oaknin (School of European Languages, Culture, and Society)
- Marga Navarrete (School of European Languages, Culture, and Society)
16:00-17:00 | Wendy Sims-Schouten (Chair) | Student Wellbeing in HE: Creative and Applied Approaches
This panel will examine the relationship between Humanities teaching and wellbeing—for both students and staff. Speakers will share experiences and initiatives that highlight how pedagogical approaches, course design, and departmental culture can support mental health and wellbeing in meaningful ways. The session will consider the emotional dimensions of teaching and learning in the Humanities, the pressures faced by both staff and students, and the opportunities for creating more compassionate, sustainable practices. Through presentations and a facilitated discussion, the panel will reflect on challenges, share practical strategies, and offer recommendations for embedding wellbeing into the heart of Humanities education.
Featuring perspectives from:
- Dhital Ranjita (Arts and Sciences)
- Clare Lewis (Arts and Sciences)
- Louise Baxter (Arts and Sciences)
- Adam Waddingham (Head of UCL Student Support and Wellbeing)
Technology Room
13:00 – 16:00 | Jeff Bowersox | Gaming Weimar Politics
We present an interactive, multiplayer, pedagogical game that allows players to take part in a model of the political system of the Weimar Republic. The Weimar era has special historical relevance because of what it can tell us about the rise of the Nazi party but also in a very contemporary sense because of what it can tell us about how political systems grapple with antidemocratic forces. In this social game players take the role of members of the Reichstag, fight for the interests of their particular party against their competing parties, and try to enact their own agenda in competition with other parties. Designed to demonstrate tensions within the Weimar system, players get to experience the challenges that contemporaries faced as they tried to effect a functional political regime. No prior knowledge required! This presentation will followed by space to allow attendees to try the game.
16:00-16:30 | Gao Jin and Zeyu Zhao | A Mini Augmented Reality Exhibition of the Chinese Export Watercolours
This project will showcase recent work relating to the creation of a mini–Augmented Reality (AR) exhibition at UCL East, which features the Chinese Export Watercolours (CEW) collection in collaboration with the V&A Museum. This proposed exhibition will offer UCL visitors an interactive experience with these special hybrid paintings and provide deeper insights into their artistic techniques, historical contexts, and inter-cultural significance. The AR exhibition will allow visitors to interact using an iPad or their smartphones – by scanning QR codes or viewing the paintings through the iPad camera, visitors will unlock augmented elements such as zoomed-in details, historical narratives, and animations that reveal the artistic techniques behind the works.
Showcase Room
14:00-16:00 | Jo Guile and Sarah Pickering | Image as Material
The Image as Material project aims to establish an inclusive and accessible learning resource at The Slade School of Fine Art, focusing on the activation of 2D imagery through tactile exploration. This initiative will provide a valuable discussion point for inclusive teaching and learning, particularly for visually impaired and blind artists. At least 10 tacticle art samples representing a variety of 2D images and techniques will be displayed and discussed.
14:00- 16:00 | Eleanor Chiari | Creative Thinking through Graphic Visual Storytelling (Presentation 15:30-16:00)
This showcase will offer participants opportunities to play with graphic visual storytelling and drawing as tools for thinking through and exploring academic ideas. Participants will be briefed on the basics of sequential visual narratives and will be encouraged to try their hand at creating a six-page zine, to be presented at the end of the day in the 15:30 – 16:00 showcase.
