English professor Joanne Diaz asked in her opening remarks at the Muse Humanities Conference if anyone in the audience had ever been questioned about what they would do as a career if they studied the humanities. Her question was met with laughter and playful nods from an audience who certainly understood. Diaz said the purpose of the conference was to show students that studying the humanities can lead to a fulfilling career and to foster community, reminding the audience that “college” comes from the word “collegium,” meaning community, which would turn into a unifying theme for the day’s various speakers and conversations.
Taking place on Feb. 7, 2026, Illinois Wesleyan University’s new Center for the Humanities hosted the Muse Humanities Conference, which centered on undergraduate research from Illinois Wesleyan and surrounding universities, including Northwestern University and Webster University. Illinois Wesleyan last hosted the Humanities Conference in 2020.
The student presentation sessions each consisted of three lectures grouped under a unifying topic. The question and answer sessions that closed each presentation exemplified the humanities at their best with a strong commitment to thoughtful discourse and an exchange of ideas.
Students also had the opportunity to meet with professionals, which Diaz called “speed dating in the humanities.” In many of the conversations, students nervously asked whether the use of artificial intelligence affected the occupation of the professional.
Journalist and deputy news director Lauren Warnecke said that at WGLT, an NPR network for Bloomington-Normal, AI is not used to write any material, but it is used to write captions for photos and for accessibility features like transcripts of newscasts.
Steve Halle, Director of Publications at Illinois State University and founder of the nonprofit co•im•press, said that while he is certainly against AI, he sees bigger problems with losing readership than with AI in the publishing industry.
Professor Steve Mentz from St. John’s University gave a keynote speech at the conference discussing the relationship humans have with water and the humanities. During his presentation titled “Toward a Wetter World: The Blue Humanities in the Anthropocene,” Mentz said that the humanities are “asked to respond to these painful questions” of climate change and blatant injustice, and the humanities must “look these issues squarely in the face.”
He commended students for addressing injustices through their research presented at the conference. He said that the humanities cannot ignore global warming because water, or the absence of it, as in rising sea levels or drought, is vital to our understanding of humanity.
The first edition of the “Titan Humanitas,” Illinois Wesleyan’s student-run undergraduate research journal, also debuted at the conference. Professor of history Alyssa Culp writes in the letter from the editors that “the journal’s core focus is humanistic inquiry surrounding the human experience, and understanding, appreciating, examining, and responding to intellectual, historical, moral, and artistic traditions.”
The journal features the original research of eight Illinois Wesleyan students from various studies. The cover of the journal by artist Troy Freeman is an intricate tree designed to represent the different branches that constitute the humanities.
