Imagine your brain activity displayed on a computer screen — multiple, bustling tabs open, some sparked by a fleeting thought, others derived from prior or underlying behaviors or features. Now, imagine a scientist trying to make sense of that activity. To understand what’s happening, the brain’s development, or whether it’s characterized by any defining features […]
The Body’s Real-Time Response to Racism
For the first time, researchers have recorded how the body responds when someone is confronted with racism or discrimination in the real world, providing new insight into health disparities in the United States and the stress experienced by students-of-color. To measure the body’s real-time response to racism, 31 African-American, 24 Latinx, 25 international students from […]
2021 Keene Prize for Literature
When asked where she drew inspiration for her award-winning work, fiction-writer Carrie R. Moore points somewhere between track 12 and 13 on the Solange Knowles’ album “When I Get Home.” The tracklist leads with an Alexyss K. Tylor sample that describes women as magnificent embodiments of God, then transitions to a “very romantic” (read: sexy) […]
2021 Carnegie Fellow to Study Long-Term Consequences of Epidemics
Kevin Thomas is one of 26 new fellows in the nation to receive $200,000 to fund significant research and writing in the social sciences and humanities.
A Psychologist’s Award-Winning Word Play
Before his research helped discover the healing powers of writing and the Secret Life of Pronouns, Jamie Pennebaker’s curiosity killed the crab.
Capturing Culture
When people travel to the United States, they might be shocked at how large our portion sizes are, how friendly strangers may seem or how informal and direct conversations tend to be. These types of surprises can cause cultural shock, a common feeling that many people experience when traveling abroad or connecting with new cultures. […]
2020 Vision: Examining Some of the Country’s Big Issues
Experts from UT Austin’s College of Liberal Arts weigh in on some of the major issues facing our country and the president-elect over the next four years.
Want to Learn More About Race in America? Read this.
Authors from UT Austin’s College of Liberal Arts describe their books and what they hope readers will learn.
Earliest Mayan Ceremonial Structure Unearthed
The discovery of a near 3,000-year-old platform, built among wetlands and rivers of the Mexican tropical forest, offers new insight into the Maya’s early communal development. The site, called Aguada Fénix, is the earliest and largest known monumental structure built by the Maya and challenges the existing narrative that the Maya civilization developed gradually, with […]
Three Ways Kids Can Learn through Play at Home
Children’s lives revolve around social interactions that help them figure out what it means to be a member of their family and community. But recent shelter-in-place efforts have limited many of these routine yet vital experiences — especially because young kids can’t video call or text their friends as freely as others. “Social interaction is […]
Rebooting Our Lives After COVID-19
The world’s new reality amid the COVID-19 pandemic is forcing us to confront issues and critically think about how to revive communities slowly, safely and sustainably.
Ask the Experts: What are the impacts of COVID-19?
To learn more about the impacts of the global pandemic, we asked the experts within the College of Liberal Arts at The University of Texas at Austin.
Ancient Alteration
Evidence showed that the Maya faced environmental pressures and responded to by converting forests to wetland field complexes and digging canals to manage water quality and quantity.
Attitude Adjustment
Boosting academic success does not have to derive from new teachers or curriculum; it can also come from changing students’ attitudes about their abilities, according to the latest findings from the National Study of Learning Mindsets published in Nature. The experimental study involved more than 12,000 ninth graders from 65 public high schools across the […]
The Taco Truck: Author Takes His Research to the Streets
Robert Lemon examines the evolution of taco trucks and how it transforms U.S. cities.
A Matter of Life and Death
In a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in August, sociologists Mark Hayward of UT Austin and Isaac Sasson of Tel Aviv University examined the intersection of education, cause of death and life expectancy across gender and race. Overall, life expectancy declined by an average of two months from 2010 to […]
The Protection of Being Known
Anthropology Ph.D. candidate Allison McNamara studies lesser known primate species that face risks of extinction.
Three Questions to Ask When You’re Stressed Out
From big class presentations and midterms to navigating the social scene and balancing a large workload, the school year — and life in general — brings on stress, but asking yourself three questions can help fight anxiety with curiosity rather than panic. Jasper Smits, a psychology professor and director of the Anxiety & Stress Clinic […]
Why the most popular candidate in a close election will probably lose
The Presidential elections of 2000 and 2016 were controversial, in part, because it seemed like the wrong person won. In 2000, Republican George W. Bush defeated Democrat Al Gore by 5 electoral votes after losing the popular vote by about 540,000. And in 2016, Republican Donald Trump garnered 27 more electoral votes than Democrat Hillary […]
Don Graham Commentary: “The Grapes of Wrath” has Outlived Its Relevance
Eighty years after John Steinbeck wrote the classic American novel The Grapes of Wrath, it remains a hardy perennial on many high school reading lists. But a casual survey of sixty-six upper-division English majors at the University of Texas in March of this year reveals that forty-nine students have not read the novel and that […]
Grading Brain Health: How Educational Experiences Impact Cognitive Functioning Later in Life
High school experiences follow you long after you’ve graduated, shaping your professional success and even your health. Now, researchers are investigating how it could contribute to your future brain health and maybe even impact your likelihood of getting Alzheimer’s Disease. University of Texas at Austin sociologist Chandra Muller researches how educational experiences shape life course […]
The Earth’s Keepers: How Religion Can Guide Environmentalism
If you knew in the next life you’d become a tree, you might hesitate before you cut one down. Or if you were to become one of the ocean’s fish, perhaps you’d be more careful about how you dispose of certain plastics. That’s Karma, at least as it’s applied in an environmental context, which might […]
Healing With Humanity
The Pro Bene Meritis award is the highest honor bestowed by the College of Liberal Arts. Since 1984, the annual award has been given to alumni, faculty members and friends of the college who are committed to the liberal arts, have made outstanding contributions in professional or philanthropic pursuits or have participated in service related to the college. […]
Trolling the U.S.: Q&A on Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election
It’s been more than two years since the 2016 presidential election, and the United States is still piecing together Russia’s propaganda-filled interference in U.S. political conversations on social media. According to a February 2018 poll by The University of Texas at Austin and The Texas Tribune, 40 percent of Texans believe Russian interference played a […]
New Year, Same You: Why New Year’s Resolutions Fail
After we’ve spent all our money on gifts and stuffed ourselves to the brim with endless holiday treats, it’s no wonder many of us see the new year as an opportunity to become a little less broke and little more fit. But come next December, most of us will find ourselves back in the same […]