The Division of Humanities and Fine Arts is thrilled to announce that English professor Patricia Fumerton and performing arts curator David Seubert, of the Special Research Collection at UC Santa Barbara’s library, have been awarded a total of $630,000 in grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities for research projects in the field of music.
Fumerton, a professor of English literature, received $315,000 for her ongoing project titled "EBBA and the British Library: Making Popular Ballads of the Past more Present." Library curator David Seubert also won $315,000 for his work on “The American Discography Project: Edison Disc Recording Access Initiative,” which is to complete discographic entries for the entire output of Edison Diamond Discs, Thomas Edison's recording company, for the Discography of American Historical Recordings.
"Ebb & Flow," a photograph by Lianna Nakashima, is the runner-up of the Photography category of the “Tell Your Story” student contest conducted by UC Santa Barbara’s Division of Humanities and Fine Arts for Give Day 2018.
"Letter to?," a video by Paris Cullen, is the runner-up of the Video category of the “Tell Your Story” student contest conducted by UC Santa Barbara’s Division of Humanities and Fine Arts for Give Day 2018.
This poem, titled “Train of Thought” and written by Andrew Nguyen, is the runner-up of the Creative Writing category of the “Tell Your Story” student contest conducted by UC Santa Barbara’s Division of Humanities and Fine Arts for Give Day 2018.
This multimedia piece called "The Girl in Red II", created by Noelle Barr, is the runner-up of the Visual Art category of the “Tell Your Story” student contest conducted by UC Santa Barbara’s Division of Humanities and Fine Arts for Give Day 2018.
The Spanish and Portuguese Department earlier this month presented “Verbal Kaleidoscope” the first interdisciplinary conference at UC Santa Barbara dedicated to Indigenous literatures. Several poets of the Zapotec, Mazatec, Spanish, Basque, and other language groups recited their work in what organizer Osiris Gómez described as a display of diversity.
“Verbal Kaleidoscope is a metaphor for cultural and linguistic plurality, said Gómez, a Spanish and Portuguese Ph.D. candidate. “The world, even at a community level is immensely diverse…With every swirl, movement, transition, we face new challenges and promising forms.”
This video, created by Malcolm Rashid, is the winner of the Video category of the “Tell Your Story” student contest conducted by UC Santa Barbara’s Division of Humanities and Fine Arts for Give Day 2018.
UC Santa Barbara offers 411 study abroad opportunities in 44 countries under its popular Education Abroad Program. One of those programs enabled Nicholas Wagenseller to study abroad in Japan, which he had always longed for. Finally, that dream came true.
“Middle school students looked surprised when they saw I spoke in Japanese, and they asked me to take a picture together,” he said.
This photo edit, created by Brent Gibbs, is the winner of the Photography category of the “Tell Your Story” student contest conducted by UC Santa Barbara’s Division of Humanities and Fine Arts for Give Day 2018.
“The Water is Cold”, a poem by Alyssa Smith is the winner in the Creative Writing category of the “Tell Your Story” student contest conducted by UC Santa Barbara’s Division of Humanities and Fine Arts for Give Day 2018.
This small painting, created by Jessica O’Brien, is the winner of the Visual Art category of the “Tell Your Story” student contest conducted by UC Santa Barbara’s Division of Humanities and Fine Arts for Give Day 2018.
Humanities and Fine Arts is proud to announce the winners and runners up in the UCSB Give Day 2018 contest, which provided a platform for entrants to tell their own "Story of Creativity" by submitting their photography, visual art, videos and creative writings. A panel of student intern judges and alumni picked the winners, who were honored at a lunch on Give Day with Dean John Majewski. Their submissions will be featured here on the HFA website in coming days.
The UC Santa Barbara Writing Program is pleased to announce the creation of the Charles Bazerman Endowed Faculty Fellowship for Professional Development in Writing. This endowed fund supports an annual, competitive, two-course fellowship for a Continuing Lecturer in the Writing Program.
By Michael Dominguez
At UC Santa Barbara, we students are surrounded by academically-seasoned minds within an elite research institution. College doesn’t hand you a career, you must build a career with your own hands, and your own mind. Universities hand you the tools to learn from your passions. But, how can we use these learning tool-kits to transform our own passions into a life-long goal? My answer: Curiosity.
Maya Zhobi is an Art Major at UC Santa Barbara (UCSB) in its College of Creative Studies. Hear her talk about her work, inspirations, and aspirations outside of school in the following Student Spotlight video.
Aline Ferreira, an assistant professor in the department of Spanish and Portuguese, is currently directing high-tech eye tracking equipment in UCSB’s Bilingualism, Translation, and Cognition Laboratory to observe the brain as it translates from a speaker or typist’s mother tongue to a second language and back again.
She discussed this and other projects in a recent interview with HFA student Sierrah DeBoer.
Writing Program lecturer Patricia Fancher’s research on 20th Century women physicians aligns with her focus on feminist rhetoric, women's writing and writing in the sciences. She was a first generation college student and attributes much of her own success to the community of women who supported her and mentored her through her educational journey.
“It feels like a beautiful tribute to continue to study how other communities of women mentor and support each other,” Fancher said.
At a time when Hip Hop and Electronic Dance Music dominate the music industry, it can be hard for those playing classical and acoustic instruments to get the recognition they deserve. That hasn’t stopped UC Santa Barbara student Zac Erstad, a composer who hopes to fulfill his dream in the music industry by becoming a song producer for either films or video games.
Erstad played with the UCSB Percussion Ensemble in February in performance for mallet instruments called “Old and New,” transcriptions and compositions for mallet instruments. He will also take part in the College of Creative Studies’ musical at the end of the quarter when he will perform three songs that he wrote, along with the show’s overture.
Elizabeth Pérez, assistant professor in Religious Studies at UC Santa Barbara, has won a top
honor for her first book, Religion in the Kitchen: Cooking, Talking, and the Making of Black
Atlantic Traditions. Pérez was awarded the Clifford Geertz Prize in the anthropology of religion
at the 2017 American Anthropological Association meeting in Washington, D.C.
"When I was a PhD student and waiting to talk to people about larger-scale rituals, I was put to
work in the kitchen: slicing vegetables, frying plantains for Platanos Fritos, or rolling little
dumplings or balls of different kinds of flour. I found that it wasn't just the glamorous rituals with the splendid altars and the exciting music that were important, but that what I was doing had a place in the tradition, especially in the formation of religious subjects."
For many undergraduate students nearing the end of their fourth year, graduating college and entering the real world feels daunting and uncertain. For others, the future after college is clear. UC Santa Barbara alumna Julia Marsh is one of those grads who was ready to forge her way to professional success after building the necessary skills while completing her undergraduate degree. Today, she is a successful graphic designer and graduate student in New York, preparing for a future in a field she loves.
Marsh is a 24-year-old from Carmel, a small town on the coast of Northern California. Her college journey started in 2011. While she loved art, she thought it was too impractical a field to pursue as a career so she chose to study writing. In her freshman year, Marsh decided to apply for a job at The Daily Nexus, the student run newspaper on campus. She became fast friends with the design director at the paper, who convinced her to take an available position working in layout. Within a few short months, she took over the role of design director.
