Robert Weller, anthropology professor at Boston University, spoke to a UC Santa Barbara audience about how Taiwanese religious rituals use both noise and silence to mark transitions, establish rhythm, and create an emotional choreography.
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Professor of Media & Communications and author Derek Vaillant, a visiting researcher for the Center for Information Technology and Society at UC Santa Barbara, explained the ways in which World War I expanded opportunities in radio. He said African Americans and women gained access to radio communication skills from the war effort.
UC Santa Barbara’s Art, Design & Architecture Museum celebrated 60 years of its Architecture and Design Collection with a talk from the exhibits curator Silvia Perea. Perea walked guests through a behind-the-scenes tour of some of the hundreds of archives, as well as introduced visitors to an eclectic exhibition, Genius Loci: Domesticity and Identity in Southern California which will be up until early May.
As the climate crisis has grown as one of this era's most significant challenges, the overwhelmingly data-centric presentation of science may impede its ability to inform the public, says Heather Houser, a professor of American and English literature at the University of Texas at Austin, at a recent UC Santa Barbara Interdisciplinary Humanities Center webinar. Instead of using too much information, Houser suggests that art and literature can help people engage with environmental issues emotionally and meaningfully.
Fourth-year Theater and Dance major Sophie Lynd finds she is able to enhance the emotional impact of her productions through theater lighting design. Lynd has worked on many productions and recently adapted previous lighting designs for the UCSB Dance Company.
Indie video game developers Melos Han-Tani and Marina Kittaka spoke about representing Taiwan through their latest game, Sephonie, at an event sponsored by UCSB’s Center for Taiwan Studies.
UC Santa Barbara composition program chair Joao Pedro Oliveira recently showed his latest visual music opera — “The 70th Week” — in downtown Santa Barbara, as part of the Corwin Chair Concert Series. In an interview with communication student Sarah Phan, Oliveira talked about the work’s biblical inspiration, and the challenges he faced as a composer during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Two UC Santa Barbara undergraduate students created an art exhibition about climate change from the ground up—with no previous art experience. Fourth-year student Lukas Kraak and third-year student Noah Weiss were part of an Environmental Leadership Incubator (ELI) year-long course in which they were able to turn their idea into reality. Their exhibition is located on the first floor of the UCSB Library.
UC Santa Barbara alumna Alivia Birdwell highlighted possible next steps for graduating seniors in the Professional Writing Minor at a recent Graduate Speaker Series talk. Birdwell said her undergraduate internship experience led to a successful career in marketing and explained how the writing minor unexpectedly provided an avenue to the world of marketing - from an internship to her subsequent 10 years of marketing experience.
Professor Mario García recently retired after 47 years at UC Santa Barbara, having focused his research on Chicano history with an emphasis on civil rights, Chicano Catholic history, and the Chicano movement. In a recent interview, García discussed his legacy and his passion for Chicano studies.
As an Interdisciplinary Humanities Center Public Humanities Graduate Fellow, UC Santa Barbara religious studies doctoral student Shannon Toribio launched an Oral History Project with the Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation. He works closely with librarian and archivist Dez Alaniz to analyze and store the collections that document the rich history of the Filipino American community at El Presidio Research Center in downtown Santa Barbara. In collecting oral histories as a part of the Trust’s Oral History Project, Toribio has encountered many diverse and enriching stories of migration and community-building.
Venerable Yifa, religious scholar and Buddhist leader, spotlighted Buddhist organizations and practices that help protect the environment and reduce climate change, at an event co-sponsored by the East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies department, the East Asia Center, the Center for Taiwan Studies, and the Dalai Lama Endowment.
Patrick Hunt, a Stanford University medieval studies scholar came to UC Santa Barbara last week to give a lecture on Hannibal, a military commander from the Second Punic War, and how his tactics are still used today in modern military intelligence. The lecture, “Hannibal’s Secret Weapon,” was co-sponsored by UCSB’s Department of Classics, Department of History and History of Art & Architecture.
Linguistics student Jennali Reyes is a fourth-year cadet in the UCSB Surfrider Battalion ROTC. UCSB’s ROTC is student run program where fourth-years are in charge of leadership. Reyes has run activities throughout the year as well as an alumni committee. For Reyes, it has been a journey of self-discovery that taught her discipline, with physical training classes beginning as early as 6 a.m.
Civil liberties and democracy scholar Ellis Cose spoke to a UC Santa Barbara audience last week. Cose presented two distinct threats to American democracy — social and institutional - and answered student questions about the future of democracy in the United States.
Adrienne Edgar, a UC Santa Barbara Professor in history, held a talk about her book The Intermarriage and Friendship of People: Ethnic Mixing in Soviet Central Asia. The talk, sponsored by The Center for Cold War Studies and International History, focused on the historical background of the Soviet Union’s advocacy for intermarriage and the experience of the Soviet people, as well as the aftermath of scientific thinking coming to the forefront in the 1960s.
Scholars from all over the world will meet at UC Santa Barbara this August to collaborate and exchange ideas in the field of children’s literature as it intersects with environmental awareness. Germanic and Slavic studies professor and chair Sara Pankenier Weld, is an organizer of the conference as a board member for The International Research Society for Children’s Literature.
UC Santa Barbara Dance Team competed at the ESPN World Wide Center in Orlando, Florida last month and took home a bronze medal. They were the only self-coached team at the at the Universal Dance Association’s national competition. A quarter of the members of the team are part of UC Santa Barbara’s dance program, allowing them to apply what they learn in the classroom to the team dances.
Cherríe Moraga, UCSB professor of English and co-director of Las Maestras Center for Xicana Thought, Art, and Social Practice, was recently awarded the annual Luis Leal Award for Distinction in Chicano and Latino Literature. Moraga spoke at an IHC event, delving into her role as a writer and her passion for Chicano studies. She shared part of her memoir, Native Country of the Heart, explaining the meaning behind the story.
In her upcoming novel Atomic Anna, author Rachel Barenbaum poses the question: What would happen if a woman was in charge of the Chernobyl nuclear plant in the Soviet Union in 1986? “Atomic Anna follows three generations of women – grandmother, mother, and daughter – as they build a time machine to stop the Chernobyl disaster and save their family,” Barenbaum said at a recent virtual luncheon hosted by UC Santa Barbara’s Taubman Endowed Symposia in Jewish Studies.