News and Announcements

UCSB NEW PLAYS FESTIVAL
Original work from UCSB student playwrights.
May 23-31
UCSB Performing Arts Theatre (NO LATE SEATING)
Presented by the Department of Theater and Dance
Cost: $17.00 General $13.00 Student/Senior/Staff
Contact: Box Office 805-893-7221 More.

PLUMFIELD, IRAQ
May 16-May 24
This world premiere production of Barbara Lebow's play is about the effects of war on a young soldier and his small town community. Playwright Barbara Lebow has been named the Michael Douglas Distinguished Visiting Artist for 2007-08. The department is presenting Ms. Lebow's Plumfield, Iraq this spring directed by Professor Risa Brainin, with scenery by Tal Sanders, costumes by Ann Bruice, lighting by guest artist Michael Klaers, video and projections by guest artist Mike Figge, and sound design/composition by guest artist Michael Keck. More.

SCREENING & DISCUSSION: Vera Chytilova's Daisies
Friday, May 16, 2:00 PM
McCune Conference Room, HSSB 6020, UCSB
Daisies, a 1966 “Czech New Wave” film directed by Vera Chytilova, presents a darkly funny, psychedelic look at consumption, international hippie culture, and feminism as it follows the misadventures of two young women. The two girls, both named Marie, play pranks, eat a lot of food, and ultimately end up consuming the world around them. A discussion of the film will follow. Sponsored by the IHC's Culture, Gender and Aesthetics RFG. More.

TALK: Culture(s) in the Keyhole: An Archaeology of Peep Media
Erkki Huhato (Department of Design and Media Arts, UCLA)
Friday, May 16, 11:30 AM
1714 Ellison Hall, UCSB
Peeping is one of those issues that psychologically inclined observers tend to consider as pre- (or infra-) cultural: belonging to the “human nature” and perhaps even to our “animal nature.” Whether it originated from our innate curiosity towards the “outside,” from the survival instinct, or from the shock of witnessing the “primal scene” are issues that are of no interest in this lecture. The focus will be on "peep media" as an aspect of interfacing with technology during the past five hundred years. The lecture considers peeping as a topos, a culturally determined construct that is affected by and affects in turn other cultural forms. Here are some of the questions that will be raised: When, how and why did “peep media” develop? How has the idea of peeping been “built into” technical apparatuses of vision? How has it been exploited and for what purposes? Erkki Huhtamo's research has dealt with topics such as peep media, the pre-history of the screen, tactility in art history and the archaeology of mobile media. Sponsored by the Department of Film and Media Studies, the Department of the History of Art and Architecture, and the IHC. More.

TALK: Paris is Still Burning: The Changing Face of House Ball Culture
Frank Leon Roberts (NYU)
Thursday, May 15, 6:00 PM
Santa Rosa Formal Lounge, UCSB
Popular audiences and academics have long been fascinated with the underground world of "houses", "balls", and vogue-performance styles depicted in Jennifer Livingston's queer documentary classic Paris is Burning. However, what many people are unaware of is the fact that in urban centers such as New York City, Atlanta, Chicago, Washington, D.C. and Southern California (particularly, Los Angeles), the house ball community is still quite alive and perhaps more popular than ever before. In this interactive lecture, noted ball scholar Frank Leon Roberts (a PhD candidate in NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and an active member in New York City's underground scene) discusses the history of house ball culture and contextualizes the challenges this community has faced in the wake of, among other things, HIV/AIDS and a queer movement that has become fixated on romanticizing heterosexual modes of kinship (i.e. "gay marriage"). Learn more about Frank at: brooklynboyblues.blogspot.com Sponsored by The Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor, Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, The Center for New Racial Studies, Women's Center, Queer Student Union, and special thanks to Cordero Vigil.

SYMPOSIUM: Basque Studies
Wednesday, May 14, 9:00 AM - 3:00 PM
McCune Conference Room, HSSB 6020, UCSB
The Basque Studies Symposium is the first of what we hope will be a series of conferences on Basque. This year's symposium focuses mainly on linguistics and literature from broad perspectives, featuring papers that will capture the interest of a wide audience. Topics will range from Basque syntax and words, to language policy and rights, to the status of women authors, to contemporary Basque literature, to projecting the identity of a small nation onto a global scene. Sponsored by the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, the Latin American and Iberian Studies Program, the Comparative Literature Program, the Department of Linguistics, IKER/CNRS - Basque Text and Language Study Center, and the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center. More.

TALK, PERFORMANCE & WORKSHOP
Moments of Meeting: Choreographic "Moments" in Response to the Holocaust
Carol M. Press (Theater and Dance, UCSB)
Tuesday, May 13, 5:00 PM
HSSB Ballet Studio, UCSB
This event will explore the multileveled subjective relationship between embodiment and theory, intersecting dance, creativity, writing, artistic collaboration, and developmental psychology. Emphasizing language as metaphor, Carol Press discusses embodied connections between psychologist Daniel Stern's work on "moments of meeting" and our basic human strivings for aesthetic experience. Basing her theoretical presentation on her article, "Restoration of Hope: The Creation of a Dance," she specifically addresses her creative challenges when collaborating with psychologist and Holocaust survivor Anna Ornstein. Press choreographed her solo Splinter of Hope in response to Ornstein's riveting book My Mother's Eyes: Holocaust Memories of a Young Girl. Following Press's discussion, Sarah Pon of Santa Barbara Dance Theater will dance Splinter of Hope. Finally, Press will facilitate a workshop for participants, exploring the embodiment of theory through simple, subjective and significant aesthetic moments of meeting. Leslie Hogan of the UCSB College of Creative Studies composed the original score for Splinter of Hope, which will be performed by cellist Virginia Kron. Lighting design is by Vickie Scott of the Department of Theater and Dance. Carol Press is the author of The Dancing Self: Creativity, Modern Dance, Self Psychology and Transformative Education. Sponsored by the IHC's Performance Studies RFG and the Department of Theater and Dance. More.

Walter H. Capps 10-Year Commemorative Event
Exploring the Contributions of Walter Capps to the Study of Religion
May 9-10, 2008
McCune Conference Room, 6020 Humanities and Social Sciences Building, UCSB
This two-day international conference brings to campus a number of his
students and colleagues who are now at various points in their careers and
who have incorporated his legacy into their own research and teaching. The
speakers will include David Chidester, Head of the Department of
Comparative Religion, University of Cape Town, South Africa; Giles Gunn,
Professor of English and of Global and International Studies, UCSB; Richard
Hecht, Professor of Religious Studies, UCSB; Edward T. Linenthal, Professor
of History, Indiana University and editor of the Journal of American
History; Tomoko Masuzawa, Professor of History and Comparative Literature,
University of Michigan; Robert Orsi, Grace Craddock Nagle Chair in Catholic
Studies, Northwestern University; Jonathan Z. Smith, Robert O. Anderson
Distinguished Service Professor of the Humanities, The University of
Chicago Divinity School; Sarah Taylor, Associate Professor, Department of
Religion, Northwestern University; and Wendy Wright, Professor of Theology
and John C. Kenefick Faculty Chair in the Humanities, Creighton University.
Sponsored by the Walter H. Capps Center for the Study of Ethics, Religion, and Public Life.
Flyer.

A Conference in Honor of William F. Prizer
Friday, May 9, 9:00-5:00
UCSB Karl Geiringer Hall (Music Building 1250)
Papers and performances by students and colleagues of William F. Prizer on the occasion of his retirement from UCSB. Michael Beckerman (New York University), Alison McFarland (Louisiana State University), Margaret Murata (University of California, Irvine), H. Colin Slim (emeritus, University of California, Irvine), Jeremy Smith (University of Colorado, Boulder). Flyer.
For further information, please call (805) 893-7001, or visit: http://www.music.ucsb.edu

Spring Colloquia presented by the Department of Linguistics
April 3-May 29, A Series of Lectures
3:30 to 5:00 p.m., South Hall 1430
All are welcome to attend. Listing of speakers.

Emotion and the Environment
Annual Medieval Studies Graduate Student Conference
May 3, 9:30 AM - 5:00 PM UCSB Marine Sciences Institute Auditorium
Participants will explore the ways in which medieval people’s social, natural, and built environments colored and shaped their states of mind in a process of dynamic exchange and mutual inflection. The conference will address questions of how people invested their environments with emotional value and how they framed their responses to the spaces, both literal and figurative, in which they circulated. Cat Zusky and Megan Palmer are among the presenters, and the day will end with the performance of "The Farce of the Fart," translated by Professor Jody Enders and directed by Andrew Henkes, graduate student in Theatre and Dance. More.

Modernism Revisited: Pai Hsien-yung and Chinese Literary
Modernism in Taiwan and Beyond
Thursday & Friday, May 1-3
Bringing together writers who took part in the original Chinese literary modernist movement, such as Pai Hsien-yung, with younger writers and a group of literary critics from around the globe, this conference explores the history, ideas, language, literature, and spirit of this seminal moment in modern Chinese cultural history with a series of dialogues, presentations, film screenings, and discussions. Conference registration is free and open to the public. Please note major portions of this conference will be conducted in Mandarin Chinese. More.

Permanence. Photographic Tattoo Portraits.
Book Signing with Kip Fulbeck, Professor of Art
Tuesday, April 29, 7:00 p.m. / FREE EVENT
Multi-Cultural Center at UC Santa Barbara
Once a fringe phenomenon, tattooing in now a full-blown cultural fact. More than 40 million people in the U.S. alone have tattoos, all with unique stories about why they chose to indelibly mark their bodies. Permanence is the first book of its kind to combine photographic tattoo portraits with the stories behind them. Featuring people from all walks of life – from college students to rock stars, suburban moms to Hells Angels, gangbangers to CEO’s to pornstars – their stories are told in the subjects’ own words and handwriting.
Read the Interview with the Artist in the Santa Barbara Independent.
Kip Fulbeck is a Professor of Art at UC Santa Barbara.

Console-ing Passions: Intl Conference on Television, Audio, Video, New Media and Feminism, 2008
Thursday - Saturday, April 24-26
Console-ing Passions was founded in 1989 by a group of feminist media scholars and artists to create a space to present work and foster scholarship in issues of television, culture, and identity, with an emphasis on gender and sexuality. Since then, a series of conferences has brought together work from a wide scope of interests to encourage television research in the spheres of race, gender, and identity. More than 200 scholars from around the world are expected to attend this year’s conference at UC Santa Barbara. Hosts for the conference are UC Santa Barbara’s Department of Film and Media Studies and the Carsey-Wolf Center for Film, Television, and New Media.
Complete conference information at: http://www.filmandmedia.ucsb.edu/cptv/cptv.html

Coming Home: Walter Capps' Vietnam Class Reunion
Saturday, April 26 / 1:30 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. / Free
UCSB Hatlen Theater
Walter Capps’ legendary course, “The Impact of the Vietnam War on American Religion and Culture,” was first taught in 1978, was regularly attended by 900 UCSB undergraduates, and was featured three times on CBS’s 60 Minutes. The still popular course has been taught since 1995 by Richard Hecht, Department of Religious Studies, UCSB who will moderate this Vietnam class reunion as part of the All Gaucho Alumni Weekend for 2008.The speakers will include James Quay, former executive director of the California Council for the Humanities who became a Conscientious Objector during the Vietnam War and a contributor to The Vietnam Reader, edited by Walter Capps; Wilson Hubbell, a CH-47 helicopter crewmember in Vietnam from 1966 to 1968 who has been teaching for over twenty years in the course; Jim Nolan, an infantry rifleman and later a squad leader with Mike Company 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines in central Vietnam from September 1966 to June 1967, who is also a long-time instructor in the course; and Congresswoman Lois Capps. More. Sponsored by the Walter H. Capps Center for the Study of Ethics, Religion, and Public Life.
Keeping Representative Walter Capps' Legacy Alive at UCSB
NPR-KCLU News Story

PRIMAVERA! UCSB Festival of Contemporary Arts and Digital Media
April 21-26

Wangechi Mutu
Regents’ Lecturer in Art
An Evening with the Artist
Wednesday, April 23 , 8:00 PM, UCSB Campbell Hall, FREE EVENT
Kenyan-born visual artist Wangechi Mutu creates bold aesthetically challenging work through ironic use of materials that represent feminist concerns and themes of cultural identity crisis. She creates figures that are both glamorous and repulsive that satirically reveal prophetic allusions to pressing issues such as the atrocities of war, the illegal diamond trade, and the self-inflicted “improvements” of plastic surgery. Mutu will give a visual presentation and discuss her thought-provoking work. Co-presented with UCSB’s Department of Art and the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum.
Info: 805.893.3535
www.artsandlectures.ucsb.edu

John Huston Lecture features UCSB Professor Charles Wolfe
UC Santa Barbara Film and Media Professor Charles Wolfe will participate in a discussion of John Huston war documentaries at this year's Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ John Huston Lecture on Documentary Film at the Linwood Dunn Theater. Two documentary classics will be featured.
LA Times
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

UCSB Spring Dance Concert
April 11-13

Winter 2008 Newsletter

UCSB Music Composer Receives Major Commission

Professor Emeritus Charles Li's New Memoir, The Bitter Sea
Reviewed by the LA Times

TIME Magazine: History Professor's New Book Uncovers The Lives of Artisans in Early Imperial China

UCSB Music Composer Receives Major Commission

Department of Music presents the UCSB Music of India Ensemble
at Karl Geiringer Hall, Mar. 13

Department of Music presents
Miró String Quartet, Faculty String Quartet-in-Residence
March 5, 8 p.m., Lotte Lehmann Concert Hall
$15/Gen, $7/Stu, $5/UCSB Music Majors - Tickets at the door
The Miró String Quartet has been Faculty String Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Texas at Austin for three years. This award-winning ensemble features violinists Daniel Ching and Sandy Yamamoto, violist John Largess, and cellist Joshua Gindele. They will be joined by UCSB faculty artists Jill Felber, flute, and Robert Koenig, piano, and guest artist Kirsten Monke, viola. The program will include Bernhard Romberg's Flute Quintet in G Major, Toru Takemitsu's A Way Alone, and Schumann's Piano Quintet. Co-presented by the UCSB Distinguished Chamber Music Guest Artists Series. More.

Painting with Gravity: Cosmic Lingerie and Beyond
UCSB Affiliates Art Event - Lecture
Monday, February 25, 7:30 p.m.
First Presbyterian Church Fellowship Hall, 21 E. Constance Ave. (at State Street)
Topic: "Painting with Gravity: Cosmic Lingerie and Beyond"
with Jane Callister, Artist and Professor of Art cost: $8-10 per person
Call 893-4388 for more information and to make a reservation.

Mellichamp Lecture Series in Global Civil Society

ORLAN, GUEST ARTIST
Friday, February 22, 2:30-4:00 pm
Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, McCune Conference Room
Abjection as Spectacle
I Am The Medium: Graduate Student Colloqium, 2007 & 2008
I AM THE MEDIUM features videos, talks, and exhibitions from prominent contemporary artists, installed across nine UCSB Venues. Using their own body as an object, these artists explore the charged themes of identity, ritual, mortality and self-sacrifice. More.

Post-Communist Media and Minority Entertainment
Aniko Imre, Professor of Critical Studies, School of Cinematic Arts, USC
Thursday, Feb. 21, 4:00 p.m.
McCune Conference Room, 6020 HSSB
Imre's talk will focus on the racial and class politics of music media as
it is manifested in negotiations over media ownership and access among the
post-communist state, the European Union, the global media corporations,
and Roma minorities. The argument considers the post-communist moral
majority’s 'ludophilic' stance towards “lazy” and “unproductive” Gypsies
in light of Stuart Hall’s theorization of playful Caribbean cultural
identities. The discussion will touch upon various media forms in which
the Roma, the “European minority,” have recently come into representation:
the European musical contest Eurovision, national versions of the Pop Idol
series, Roma reality television, and the animated “ghetto film” Nyócker
(The District, 2004). More. Sponsored by the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center and the Department of Film and Media Studies.

CONFERENCE: Geography, Tradition, and the Individual: The Case of Modern Greek Architecture
February 15-16
Spyros Amourgis, architect and president of the Hellenic Quality Assurance Agency, will deliver the keynote address, "Greek Architecture and Urban Design: 3000 Years of Creating," focusing on the architectural history of Athens from the early 19th century to the end of the 20th century. More.

The UCSB English Department's Literature and Culture of Information
Specialization and Transcriptions Center present:
"V-SL"
A talk by visiting artist Michael Mastrototaro
(in conjunction with the English Department's ongoing Second Life Project)
Friday, February 15th, 1:00 - 2:30 pm, South Hall 2509
"How much feelings have an Avatar? Where is the intersection between
Real- and Virtual-Life? And is it possible to spread out a Virus who
is reacting to the personal behaviours of Avatars in Second Life? These questions are the starting point of the media art project by Michael Mastrototaro (aka MACHFELD). http://www.machfeld.net. More.

Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) East Asian Graduate Fellowship Nominations
(Academic Year 2008-09 and Summer 2008)
The campus has federal funding available for graduate fellowships for the study of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Tibetan, under the Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) program of the US Department of Education. The academic year fellowships are awarded through departmental nomination. Graduate students apply directly for the summer fellowships. The two types of awards and selection criteria are described here or by contacting Sally Foxen in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies at 805-893-5478. More.

Location, Location, Location: The Greening of Hollywood
2008 SANTA BARBARA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL PANEL
January 31, 7:00-9:00 p.m.
Marjorie Luke Theater, Santa Barbara Junior High School
721 E. Cota Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93103
The panel will be introduced by Professor Anna Everett, Chair of the UC Santa Barbara Department of Film and Media Studies, and moderated by Carsey-Wolf Center Co-Director and Professor of Film and Media Studies Constance Penley. Presented by the UC Santa Barbara’s Department of Film and Media Studies and the Carsey-Wolf Center for Film, Television, and New Media’s Environmental Media Initiative. There is regular admission to the panel for holders of Film Festival Platinum and Cinema passes and 4 and 12-ticket Mini-Paks. Single event tickets for the panel are $12. They can be purchased in advance at the Lobero Theater Box Office, the Arlington Theater Box Office, or at the door on the night of the event. More.

UCSB PERCUSSION ENSEMBLE
WED., JAN. 30, 8 p.m., Karl Geiringer Hall,
$15/Gen, $7/Stu - Tickets at the door
Jon Nathan directs a program featuring students Eddie Trager,
Lyuba Kovaleva, Tim Beutler, and Erin Folchi in works for mallet ensemble including Balalaika, Xylophonia, and Triplets, as well as Ney Rosauro's Brazilian Myths, and John Alfieri's Fanfare for Tambourines. Presented by the Department of Music. UC Santa Barbara Winter Music Season

Department of Film and Media Studies presents
Word Farm 2008
January 18-20, UC Santa Barbara
Word Farm, now in its fifth year, is an intensive three-day workshop of classes and seminars that brings UCSB students together with working industry film and television professionals. During the weekend students will participate in small interactive sessions on topics ranging from story structure to script salesmanship. The Screenwriting Co-op, a UCSB student organization, hosts this annual event.
This year's Word Farm will be held January 18-20th. Over the three-day period students will take seven classes (two on Friday, three on Saturday, and two more on Sunday). At each session student will have a choice of two guests to choose from. Participants must plan to attend all three days. There are no partial entries. Each of the sessions will last approximately two and a half hours. There is a $40 fee for the event but out of this students will be provided with lunch and snacks during the day and will receive a Word Farm 2008 T-Shirt. At each session you should be ready to present a pitch of the project you are currently working on (or planning to work on). Over the weekend these pitches will often serve as the backbone material for the sessions. Some of the sessions will require a written synopsis of your pitch and some will ask for three to four page scenes for work-shopping (to be emailed ahead of time to the visiting presenter).
Class size is limited, so this application will serve to help select individuals to participate in Word Farm. The event is open to all UCSB students regardless of their major. Please complete the Word Farm Application and turn it in to the Film and Media Studies Department Office, 1720 Ellison Hall, by 4:00 on JANUARY 11th. (Prior to deadline preferred).
Tentative Guests: More TBA
Allison Anders (Mi Vida Loca, Things Behind the Sun)
Toni Graphia (Carnivale, Battlestar Galactica)
Tom Lazarus (Stigmata, House of Love)
Cindy McCreery-Brown (Soccer Mom, Powder Puff)
Michael Miner (Robocop, Anacondas: The Hunt For The Blood Orchid)
Harrison Reiner (UCLA Professional Writer's Program)
Cheri Steinkellner (Cheers, Hope and Gloria, Teacher's Pet)
Joel Thompson (Battlestar Galactica)
Caleb Wilson & Matt Allen (Four Christmases)

HELEN CALLUS, VIOLA * ROBERT KOENIG, PIANO
The Seasons of Life
SUN., JAN. 13, 3 p.m., Unitarian Society
1535 Santa Barbara St., Santa Barbara,
$15/General, $10/Seniors, $7/Students - Tickets at the door
"The Seasons of Life" features Helen Callus, viola, and introduces Robert Koenig, new Associate Professor of Music and Head of Collaborative Piano at UCSB. The program includes Beethoven's 'Adagio' from the Spring Sonata, Tchaikovsky's 'Autumn' from The Seasons, Shostakovich's poignant Sonata, Op. 147, and Hindemith's romantic Sonata, Op. 11, No. 4. UC Santa Barbara Winter Music Season

Division of Humanities and Fine Arts Receives $1 Million Dollar Endowment for Jewish Studies
(Santa Barbara, Calif.) – UC Santa Barbara has received a $1 million gift from Marsha and Jay Glazer to establish an endowed chair in Jewish Studies and help launch a major new educational initiative in the interdisciplinary field. The Marsha and Jay Glazer Endowed Chair will support a professorship in the field of Jewish Studies while the Marsha and Jay Glazer Jewish Studies Program Endowment will provide additional support for faculty and research, student support, curriculum and programming in Jewish Studies. More.

Interdisciplinary Humanities Center Visiting Artist: Liz Phillips
January 14-25, 2008
New York-based artist Liz Phillips has been making interactive multi-media installations for the past 30 years, which combine audio and visual art forms with new technologies to create a fascinating interactive experience. She is among the first to use sound as a primary medium in artistic contexts, and is one of the few to consistently incorporate sounds, images, space, film, sculpture, public/alternative spaces, architecture, and interactivity into compelling multi-sensory environments. No artist has so successfully demonstrated the fact that each act of perception is contingent upon the information being processed by all the other senses. For each participant who experiences her art, the work becomes a mode of being rather than an act of passive spectatorship.
Sponsored by the Visiting Artist Program of the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, and the departments of Art, Media Arts and Technology, Music, Theater and Dance, and the College of Creative Studies.

The commencement ceremony for the arts and humanities is traditionally held near the lagoon overlooking the Pacific on a June Sunday afternoon. The Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts officiates at the event. Each graduating class typically includes over 900 students who have earned degrees.

More.

UCSB Gospel Choir
Friday, June 6, 8:00 p.m.
Lotte Lehmann Concert Hall, UCSB
$15/Gen, $7/Stu - Tickets at the door
Victor Bell directs the highly popular group which has been featured in concerts, public events and university celebrations. Presented by the Department of Music.

The commencement ceremony for the arts and humanities is traditionally held near the lagoon overlooking the Pacific on a June Sunday afternoon. The Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts officiates at the event. Each graduating class typically includes over 900 students who have earned degrees.

More. UCSB Gospel Choir Friday, June 6, 8:00 p.m. Lotte Lehmann Concert Hall, UCSB $15/Gen, $7/Stu - Tickets at the door Victor Bell directs the highly popular group which has been featured in concerts, public events and university celebrations. Presented by the Department of Music.

More.

UCSB Gospel Choir
Friday, June 6, 8:00 p.m.
Lotte Lehmann Concert Hall, UCSB
$15/Gen, $7/Stu - Tickets at the door
Victor Bell directs the highly popular group which has been featured in concerts, public events and university celebrations. Presented by the Department of Music.