Inspired to spend some of this pandemic time entering a timeless world of book reading together, the English Department has been hosting an online Pandemic Book Club. As faculty and students share their readings from isolation, the club encourages people to join and be part of a literary community to create strong networks of support.
In a recent interview, UC Santa Barbara alumna Tracy Kong discussed her current role at the Getty Research Institute, her passions as a fine artist, and experience as an art major at UCSB.
The 2020 Diana and Simon Raab Writer-In-Residence Jesmyn Ward and IHC Director Susan Derwin discuss Ward’s exploration of trauma in her work, in a virtual presentation hosted by the “Living Democracy” series of UC Santa Barbara’s Interdisciplinary Humanities Center and the Writing Program.
UCSB’s Linguistic Department hosted Tasha Hauff, a Mnikȟowožu Lakȟota scholar, teacher, and language activist who works on new ways to apply linguistic research to Indigenous communities. Hauff discussed rapid language loss and revitalizing Indigenous languages through education and activism.
In a seminar hosted by Media Arts and Technology science writer and and artist Margaret Wertheim discussed the intersection of math and art in a project started with her twin sister Christine Wertheim, called Crochet Coral Reef, where they use the craft of crochet to create sculptural representations of coral reefs. The project was an artistic response to climate change and exists at the nexus of art, science, math, and community engagement.
UC Santa Barbara historian John Majewski explains how the artistic and literary creative works of Black abolitionists in the 1840s and 1850s acted as a critical catalyst for the abolition of slavery, and compares the creative political action of then to that of 2020.
UCSB Theater and Dance’s program Naked Shakes staged its first 100 % Zoom production of the fall season, Immortal Longings, where each actor, theater technician and the play’s adapter and director, Irwin Appel, presented the production from various locations across the country.
New faculty member Iman Djouini shares her work and interests in the the first Art Colloquium presentation of the fall, hosted by the UC Santa Barbara’s Art Department.
After a national competition, two recent PhD graduates from UCSB have been selected as Emerging Voices Fellows by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) for 2020.
This summer, the Carsey-Wolf Center and the Department of Film and Media Studies collaborate to create a new screenwriting course for students, Advanced Television Writing. The course will be broken up into two sections and will take place over the span of six weeks. The course aims to teach students how to create both a television script bible and a pilot screenplay.
Intern Noe Padilla sat down with the director of the Carsey-Wolf Center, Patrice Petro, to get a better understanding of the course.
Second year psychological and brain sciences major Eddie Lo delves into an engaging experimental course called “Memory: an Interdisciplinary Exploration.“
The HFA sat down with UCSB alumi Sing Hang Tam to discuss his artistic practice and exploration of identity and belonging. Since graduating UCSB in 2016 with a degree in art, Tam became the first ever Hong Kong person to graduate from the Royal College of Art in London with an MRes in Arts and Humanities and an MA in sculpture. He currently lives in London and teaches art as an associate lecturer at the London College of Fashion, and is a visiting lecturer at the University of Westminster.
The HFA sat down with Connor Long, the producer Through My Ears, a new podcast by UCSB’s Department of Music. Long discusses his original intent and message behind the podcast, as well as his hopes for how it can continue to grow in the future.
Dongguk University media and communication professor Ha Sung Hwang’s research focuses on the effects of social media and the role it plays in the global popularity of Korean pop music. In a lecture hosted by UCSB’s East Asia Center, where she is a visiting fellow, she discussed how BTS and its ARMY are contributing to a new and diverse boy band culture fueled by digital power.
As the academic year comes to a close, many stories from this years senior will go unheard as the pandemic forces Commencement to take place online. To highlight some graduates from the Division of Humanities and Fine Arts, Noe Padilla an HFA intern, interviewed the Bruhns Twins, Cooper and Calvin, and asked them to reflect on their time at UCSB. Cooper is graduating in Theater and Calvin is graduating in Film and Media Studies.
UCSB history student Michael Sanders recently organized the “Justice for George Floyd: Solidarity March,” to support the Black Lives Matter movement by peacefully protesting against police brutality. He sat down with HFA intern Raymond Matthews to talk about the protest and the experience of Black students.
Over four decades, UCSB theater professor William Davies King has collected things of no commercial value. These items include 25,000 food product labels, 10,000 business cards, 2,300 cereal boxes, 1,400 bottle caps, 800 envelope linings, and other everyday items. A portion of King’s collection has been curated into an exhibition, located at UCSB Library’s Mountain Gallery and available online.
In a time when a global pandemic has forced educators to design creative solutions to learning at home, UC Santa Barbara Classics professor Dorota Dutsch has partnered with the Goleta Valley Library to digitally recreate Greek Myths for children. The recreations are offered to the public virtually each Friday as part of the library’s newest program: Special Guest Storytime.
Saige Heitman delves into the benefits of studying both the sciences and the humanities through the lens of an innovative course taught by neuroscience professor Kenneth Kosik, and English professor Sowon Park, called “Literature and the Human Mind.“ This interdisciplinary course stresses the importance of both subjects, and how they can complement each other.
Steven Gross, a professor of French Horn who heads the Woodwind, Brass and Percussion program at UC Santa Barbara, is currently the only full-time horn professor within the University of California system. In a recent phone interview, he discussed the career journey that led him to UCSB, as well as his latest projects.
