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English Department
Natalie Riley is a third-year UCSB student majoring in English. The Catalyst is a creative writing and visual art class, as well as one of UCSB’s few literary arts magazines. The course is offered every quarter to any UCSB students who wish to join the editorial team led by an Editor-in-Chief, a a Managing Editor, Literature Editor, and an Assistant Editor. As Literature Editor, Riley promotes The Catalyst through social media, specifically Instagram, and accept outside submissions.
Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera visited UC Santa Barbara in in an interdisciplinary event in which he highlighted poetry's power to honor ancestors by sharing their stories with others. He shared poems on social issues such as police violence and immigration.
Christina Han, an associate professor of history at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, Canada, visited UCSB to present on the 17th-century Korean Sihwa ch'ongnim 詩話叢林 Compendium of Poetry Talks and the importance of collaborative, transnational scholarship in digital humanities.
UCSB alumna Alexandra Goldberg turned her passion for journalism into a career in broadcast news. From reporting at UCSB to working at WHAS11, an ABC-affiliated TV station in Louisville, Kentucky, Goldberg believes her time at UCSB helped her develop key journalism skills. Now, she shares how her college experience shaped her path to the professional newsroom.
University of Washington humanities scholar Kathleen Woodward shared the literary connections she has made between both aging and the Anthropocene last week at a Key Passages talk held by UCSB’s Interdisciplinary Humanities Center.
UCSB English student and actor-turned-director Curran Seth made his directorial debut with Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, collaborating with the UCSB Music Department and Shrunken Heads Production Company to bring the dark, character-driven story to life. Emphasizing emotional depth over technical precision, Seth guided his cast—many of whom were primarily singers—to tap into their characters' psychology, resulting in a raw and immersive production.
Shoshana Medved, a graduating student, has already begun refining her creative expertise in the professional world, gaining hands-on experience with top entertainment brands such as Beats by Dre and Paramount’s Pluto TV. In an interview, she shares insights into her internships and the lessons she’s learned.
Meena Ki Kahani (Stories of Meena), a beloved animated series created by UNICEF in 1993, has become a cultural phenomenon in South Asia, addressing critical issues like gender inequality, child labor, and trafficking. Speaking at a UCSB Interdisciplinary Humanities event, Indian scholar Jawa Jha highlighted the series’ profound societal impact. Jha believes the series shows how media can inspire social change.
As both an accomplished poet and a Continuing Lecturer in UC Santa Barbara’s Writing Program, Robert Krut balances his career passions, finding inspiration in both his teaching and creative pursuits. He says his work with students is a source of motivation which fuels his enthusiasm for writing, which he explains in a conversational Q & A.
This fall, UC Santa Barbara's MultiCultural Center hosted Echoes of Empowerment, a student-led art exhibit showcasing creative work such as poems, collages, and paintings. The pieces in this collection convey resilience, hope, and the transformative power of art to mend and uplift the human spirit, a space for connection and inspiration for students of color and others who feel marginalized.
Movies and media shape children’s understanding of culture and morality, but the “Disneyfication” of literature often raises questions about what is gained or lost in the process. Martina Mattei, a Comparative Literature Ph.D. student at UC Santa Barbara, examined Disney’s adaptations of Pinocchio and The Little Mermaid. She noted how Disney simplified the dark moral complexity of Pinocchio into a more uplifting tale and highlighted the backlash against Halle Bailey’s casting in the 2023 remake of The Little Mermaid, reflecting nostalgia for Disney’s earlier portrayal. Mattei argues that simplified adaptations can risk erasing the cultural richness of the originals, shaping how future generations understand these tales.
Julia Lupton was hosted by UCSB’s Interdisciplinary Humanities Center for her talk When Life is a Shipwreck: Key Passages in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and discussed Shakespearean themes of transition, exile, and crisis, along with the role of dual identity in regards to queerness and the gender spectrum.
UCSB Film and Media Studies professor Mona Damluji recently discussed her journey into children's literature and the inspiration behind her socially-conscious works. Damluji published her debut children’s book, Together, in 2021, emphasizing the power of collective action. Her upcoming book, I Want You to Know, dives deeper into personal and political narratives. Written as a poem for her children, the book reflects on the generational effects of war, particularly in the Middle East, and explores themes of displacement and resilience. Damluji aims to open dialogue about complex histories, colonialism, and intergenerational trauma.
At an HFA Speaks event “Post-Election Reflection,” three UCSB faculty panelists gathered to discuss the threats America faces in human rights, academic freedom, and democracy under a Trump administration.
As part of his senior directing concentration, UCSB student Alex Guaydacan tackled his biggest project yet: solo directing “The Incident Report” for the Fall One Acts. In an interview, he reflects on the directing process, from navigating friendships with cast members to building confidence as a director. Guaydacan speaks about the process of bringing his vision to life for UCSB’s annual theater showcase.
UC Davis professor Kathleen Cruz was hosted by UCSB Classice for a lecture on modern Latine writers who draw on classical mythology, particularly the story of Ariadne, to explore themes of ethnic identity, feminism, and social exclusion. In her lecture, Cruz highlighted works by Chicana poet Analicia Sotelo and Puerto Rican poet Etnairis Rivera, showing how these poets use Ariadne’s myth to reflect on experiences of “othering,” reclaiming identity, and the challenges of diasporic life.
In a lecture last week, English professor Sowon Park spoke about how human writing is born from creativity and a need to make sense of the world, whereas AI-based writing can only be formed from a prompt and cannot pull from real emotion. Park explored the notion of AI replacing human writing through her own experience as a judge in the UCSB Mellichamp Initiative’s AI and Human Writing Competition.
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 creative students across the UCSB campus. Here are the first and second prize winners in the music 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.
