As the number of international students at UCSB have doubled over the past 5 years, Kristen Dunkinson works specifically with international students at Campus Learning Assistance Services (CLAS) in order to help them with their writing.
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Focus on Faculty
New UCSB professor Wendy Eley Jackson is the instructor for Basic Screenwriting and Crew Production. She sat down for an interview to discuss her passion for writing and film, her journey through Hollywood, and what knowledge she hopes to impart to her students.
UC Santa Barbara Art professor Sarah Rosalena Brady recently presented her work with the National Museum of the American Indian and Jet Propulsion Laboratory in an event sponsored by the Media Arts & Technology Department. Brady is a multi-media artist who combines computer craft like coding & 3D modeling with traditional art-forms like clay sculpting.
Kate McDonald, A UC Santa Barbara Modern East Asian History professor, has received a $100,000 federal grant to improve and expand her new website “Bodies and Structures: Deep-Mapping Modern East Asian History.” McDonald discussed in an interview this new digital platform for researching and teaching histories of Japan and other cultures in the region.
In a recent workshop, UC Santa Barbara English professor Jeannine DeLombard said American legal doctrine granted the status of ‘persons’ to slaves in order to prosecute them, a dynamic that lingered long after emancipation in the criminalization of African Americans.
“Slaves were recognized as criminally responsible, but not having civil rights,” DeLombard said. “And this is mapped onto African Americans today.”
Alan Liu, a professor of English at UC Santa Barabara is a self-described digi-humanist. Liu is currently directing a $1.1 million humanities grant from the Mellon Foundation. The project, “WhatEvery1Says,” collects big data relating to the word ‘humanities.’ He also published a book last year with the University of Chicago Press titled “Friending the Past.”
Liu recently sat down for an interview to discuss the intersection between humanities and our increasingly digital environment.
UCSB writing professor Kathy Patterson shared her recent research on incorporating blogging in first-year college writing courses during the 3rd annual celebration for the Charles Bazerman Endowed Faculty Fellowship for Professional Development in Writing. As the 2018-2019 recipient of the research fellowship, Patterson discussed the benefits blogging has on a college student’s motivation, writing process, digital literacy, and connection with their community.
Created in 2017 by theater professor Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig, New Works Lab is a workshop production program that gives students the unique opportunity to see their works come to life. It brings together student directors, playwrights, designers, stage managers, publicists and actors to put on original plays written by UCSB students. In the fall, students submit their scripts, after which a committee of students and faculty choose their top five or six scripts to which to give developmental productions. Directors, stage managers, designers and actors are then chosen in the winter and the shows are put into production in the spring. Every two weeks, each show performs their play in front the New Works Lab class and receives feedback from other students and faculty mentors.
In a recent interview, Cowhig spoke more about the class and its growth since its conception.
UCSB Writing Program lecturer Ellen O’Connell Whittet examines the art and tradition of ballet, with the critical eye of a writer and the perspective of a former ballerina. In this interview, she discusses her experience as a dancer and her memoir, which explores the intersection of feminism and ballet.
As the director of UCSB’s Center for Taiwan Studies, Kuo-Chi’ng Tu aims to promote Taiwan Studies in America through events such as the recently held conference, “World Literatures in Chinese: Transnational Perspectives of East Asian Cultures.” In this interview, Tu speaks about the conference, as well as how the Center for Taiwan Studies came to be.
In an interview, UCSB writing professor Ilene Miele discusses Starting Lines, a yearly compilation of student work used to teach future writing students. Miele describes the motivation behind the launch of the publication and its impact on the lives of hundreds of students and alumni alike.
Jennifer Holt, a Film and Media Studies professor at UC Santa Barbara, researches media policy and the digital infrastructure that underlies modern communication. In this interview, she provides crucial insight on how to be a properly informed citizen without losing sight of our basic rights when it comes to digital usage.
In a series of video interviews, Humanities and Fine Arts professors share thoughts on the merits of their fields and their most rewarding experiences as teachers and researchers.
“Understanding programming can really help shape science, help shape production, help shape art and culture,” says Lisa Jevratt, an art professor who teaches in UC Santa Barbara’s Media Arts and Technology Program and is part of the university’s Center for Information Technology.
Jevbratt’s work, which has included the Zoomorph app, research projects, and collaborations with MAT students, offer us a picture of the future of technology. In this interview with Writing student Vinny Leonelli, ,she answers questions about the future and her achievements in her field.
When UC Santa Barbara put out a climate report in 2014, professor Ken Hiltner was in complete awe at the enormity of the carbon footprint that academic conferences left behind, amounting to about 55 million pounds of carbon dioxide. With a joint appointment in Environmental Studies and English Literature, Hiltner was ideally suited take action. He spoke in a recent interview about his Nearly Carbon Neutral Guide to academic conferences and the intersection of humanities and the environment.
This series of videos, produced by UC Santa Barbara students, showcases the creative talent of students, faculty, and alumni from Humanities and Fine Arts.
Tea has long been one of the most popular commodities in the world. In her book, A Thirst for Empire: How Tea Shaped the Modern World, UC Santa Barbara professor Erika Rappaport takes a deeper look into the historical value of the global tea industry, and how it ultimately shaped our contemporary consumer society.
Imagine if you could explore the world of atoms, fly through the human brain, and come face to face with the surface of the moon. After years of collaborative research, JoAnn Kuchera-Morin and her team of scientists, artists, and engineers have made this possible here at UC Santa Barbara.
The AlloSphere, a 3-story-high spherical research instrument, takes data too small to see or hear and visually and sonically magnifies it to the human scale, allowing scientists and engineers to interact with complex data like artists: creatively and intuitively.
In a recent interview, JoAnn Kuchera-Morin, a professor of Media Arts and Technology and Music who is director of the research lab, discussed the importance of holistic thinking and a return to the learning-by-doing that the AlloSphere enables.
Having the ability to tell your story can change your life – at least according to Susan Derwin, a specialist on trauma studies and a professor in UC Santa Barbara’s Comparative Literature and Germanic and Slavic Studies departments. Derwin has created a space for student veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars – as well as their loved ones — to employ storytelling in order to both recover from personal trauma and to share their experiences with the public.
As director of the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center (IHC) on campus, Derwin created the course seven years ago and continues to teach it today. The class is titled “Writing Workshop for Student Veterans and Their Loved Ones,” and during the summer there is an opportunity for student veterans from across the entire UC system to participate in a similar workshop.
In a recent interview, Derwin discusses the power of narrative today, a time when many voices continue to go unheard.
Professor of 20th Century History Laura Kalman, in her vintage jean jacket and brown leather shoes, makes her history lectures as colorful as her rainbow shoelaces. Teaching history seems to be something that is as much fun for her as it is for her students.
“I love teaching 20th century United States history,” Kalman said. “I feel as though it is important that you all (students) have some sense of what it is.”