The Department of History invites students to reimagine the traditional ways we carve up geographical space by examining not just the histories of nations but also those of regions, trade, and cultural exchange. History teaches a way of thinking, a way of questioning, and a way of wondering about the world. After all, the past is never really fixed.
History undergraduates gain insight into diverse beliefs, social arrangements, and technologies that have shaped human experience and given it meaning. We ask students to do much more than memorize facts; we ask them to solve intellectual puzzles, to evaluate conflicting evidence, and to assess different scholarly interpretations of the past.
Our distinguished faculty has organized its strengths into 15 different fields of study and 7 cross-field research clusters. These are: Gender and Sexualities; Empires and Borderlands; Commerce, Commodities and Material Cultures; Religion, Cultures and Society; Science, Technology and Society; Pre-Modern Cultures and Communities; and Public History and Theory.
Related Programs
UC Santa Barbara defined Public History as a profession in 1976, with a Rockefeller Foundation grant to train historians for public and private sector careers beyond conventional academic employment.
The Center is an interdisciplinary research and education initiative that aims to expand public understanding and discussion of important issues facing working people through an undergraduate minor, a graduate-level colloquium, conferences, and workshops.
The Center for Cold War Studies and International History is a leading international center dedicated to the study of the Cold War era, promoting discussion and scholarship on topics related to the study of the Cold War, broadly conceived.
History News & Features
Russell M. Jeung, a professor of Asian American studies at San Francisco State University, spoke at UCSB about the racial violence and hate that rose during the COVID-19 era and how that racial trauma has affected the community’s mental health. Jeung said that Asian Americans have been able to grow past these traumas by relying on their Asian identities and using cultural responses.
Ending Poverty in California (EPIC) is a non-profit that is seeks to change attitudes toward those living in poverty and better enact policies and administer solutions. EPIC’s president Devon Gray and its chief adviser for storytelling and narrative, George Kaufmann, joined UCSB History department professor Alice O’Connor for a panel discussion.
This spring, UCSB’s Humanities and Fine Arts Division hosted a creativity contest to highlight the work of creative students across the UCSB campus. The following story won third place in the prose category.
This spring, UCSB’s Humanities and Fine Arts Division hosted a creativity contest to highlight the work of students across the UCSB campus. The following story won second place in the prose category.
This spring, UCSB’s Humanities and Fine Arts Division hosted a creativity contest to highlight the work of creative students across the UCSB campus. The following story won first place in the prose category.
This spring, UC Santa Barbara’s Humanities and Fine Arts Division hosted an annual contest to highlight creative student voices across the campus. The following are the winning submissions in the Photography category.
This spring, UCSB’s Humanities and Fine Arts Division hosted a creativity contest to highlight the work of creative students across the UCSB campus. Here are the first and second prize winners in the music category.
This spring, UC Santa Barbara’s Humanities and Fine Arts Division hosted an annual contest to highlight creative student voices across the campus. The following are the winning submissions in the visual art category.
This spring, UCSB’s Humanities and Fine Arts Division hosted a creativity contest to highlight the work of creative students across the UCSB campus. The following poem won third place in the poetry category.
This spring, UCSB’s Humanities and Fine Arts Division hosted a creativity contest to highlight the work of creative students across the UCSB campus. Here is the second place in the poetry category.
This spring, UCSB’s Humanities and Fine Arts Division hosted a creativity contest to highlight the work of creative students across the UCSB campus. This poem won first place in the poetry category.
An award ceremony and luncheon was held at UC Santa Barbara’s Mosher Alumni House last week to honor the recipients of the Give Day 2024 Student Creativity Contest, sponsored by the Division of Humanities and Fine Arts. HFA dean Daina Ramey Berry joined students, faculty, staff, alumni and donors to celebrate. Winning entries will run in the coming days on the HFA website.
UCSB Black Studies professor Jeffrey Stewart recently hosted his jazz pop-event Jeffrey’s Jazz Coffeehouse featuring the Los Angeles based jazz artists Ben Caldwell and Love and Exile Players. The event, which was originally created to bring healing to the Isla Vista community following a mass shooting tragedy, honored the history of jazz music and brought members of the community together.
Stained Glass Productions, a new student-run theater collective at UC Santa Barbara, staged its first production, "Seasons of Broadway: A Cabaret," hoping to give students more opportunities to perform musical theater. The ensemble of 16 students performed from multiple renowned musicals, all songs falling into the theme of fall, winter, spring, or summer.
As part of its “Storytelling for the Screen” series, the Carsey-Wolf Center hosted queer and Native American director, writer, and producer Erica Tremblay for a post-screening conversation about her film, “Fancy Dance” with moderator Lisa Parks, a professor in UCSB’s Film and Media Studies department.