UC Santa Barbara’s annual Creativity Contest this spring honored three Poetry winners at a Give Day Ceremony in early April. The winners, alongside their work, are featured here.
UCSB’s Division of Humanities and Fine Arts celebrated Give Day last week with its annual Creativity Contest. Students from all majors and years submitted works in different categories—photography, prose, poetry, visual art, music and video—for the opportunity to be published on the HFA website. The winners were honored at a luncheon award ceremony.
Nasser Rabbat, director of the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, visited UC Santa Barbara’s Center for Middle East Studies to to speak about one of the most important Egyptian historians, Al-Maqrizi, a documentarian of the medieval Mamluk period who impacts Egyptian scholars and students still today.
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.
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.
Growing up in Los Angeles, UC Santa Barbara Writing Minor alumna Ashley Rusch frequently tuned in to her local radio station LAist 89.3, formerly known as KPCC-FM, becoming familiar with longtime radio host Larry Mantle. Now, after graduating from UCSB in 2022, Rusch is working for the same host she grew up listening to.
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.
History and Music student Conor Mack plays guitar for both the UCSB Jazz ensemble and the Isla Vista rock band “Marella.” Mack spoke about how he entered both musical spheres, and how his experience with Jazz helped him fit right in to the world of Rock.
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.
UCSB Film and Media Studies professor James McNamara recently became the showrunner for The Artful Dodger, an Australian Disney+ television series. In an interview with film student Douglas Chen, McNamara discussed balancing his creative projects with his teaching career.
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.