THI Celebrates 25 Years
Change the frame. Lead the conversation.
For 25 years, The Humanities Institute (THI) at UC Santa Cruz has pushed boundaries—sparking research, empowering students, and engaging the public. The Humanities are about seeing differently. They inspire us to reimagine society, rethink human experiences, and create deeper connections across campus, across disciplines, and across communities. The Humanities Institute is a dynamic hub where ideas are tested, knowledge is created and shared, and new perspectives emerge. With innovative programs, powerful partnerships, and a commitment to making the Humanities accessible, we change the frame.
Join us for an exciting line up of events to mark our 25th anniversary:

Marilynne Robinson
Noel Q King Memorial Lecture
December 3, 2024
Marilynne Robinson, a prolific novelist and essayist, is the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and a National Humanities Medal. President Barack Obama applauded “her grace and intelligence in writing.” Her most recent book, Reading Genesis, is a meditation on the origins of humankind and the meaning of God’s enduring faith in humanity. Robinson’s event was held in honor of the life and work of Noel King, a founding faculty member of Merrill College and advocate for the comparative study of world religions.

American Patchwork Quartet
January 31, 2025
American Patchwork Quartet, led by multi-Grammy award-winning guitarist/vocalist Clay Ross, binds timeless American folk songs with jazz sophistication, country twang, West African hypnotics, and East Asian ornamentation. APQ’s sound is a masterful confluence of tradition and innovation, transcending culture, politics, and ideology.

Derek Penslar
The Helen Diller Distinguished Lecture in Jewish Studies
February 13, 2025
Derek Penslar is the William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History and the Director of the Center for Jewish Studies at Harvard University. He has published a dozen books, most recently Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader (2020; German ed. 2022); and Zionism: An Emotional State (2023). He is currently writing a book titled The War for Palestine, 1947-1949: A Global History. He is a past president of the American Academy for Jewish Research, a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and an Honorary Fellow of St. Anne’s College, Oxford. This event is presented by the Center for Jewish Studies to honor Helen Diller through a public lecture at UC Santa Cruz by an internationally recognized scholar.

Jennifer Finney Boylan
The Peggy Downes Baskin Ethics Lecture
March 4, 2025
Jennifer Finney Boylan is the author of nineteen books, including Mad Honey, coauthored with Jodi Picoult. Her memoir, She’s Not There, was the first bestselling work by a transgender American. She is the President of PEN America, and from 2011 to 2018 she was a member of the Board of Directors of GLAAD, including four years as national cochair. Her lecture at UC Santa Cruz will honor Peggy Downes Baskin’s longtime interest in ethical issues across the academic spectrum.

Fred Moten
Hayden V. White Annual Lecture
April 10, 2025
Fred Moten is Professor in the Departments of Performance Studies and Comparative Literature at New York University. Moten has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Stephen E. Henderson Award for Outstanding Achievement in Poetry by the African American Literature and Culture Society, a Macarthur Fellowship, and the inaugural Roy Lichtenstein Award of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. He is a United States Artists Rockefeller Fellow and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His lecture at UC Santa Cruz will be in honor of the the legacy and intellectual spirit of Hayden V. White.

Percival Everett
The Deep Read
May 4, 2025
As THI celebrates 25 years of helping students, scholars, and community members connect and work together to change the frame, this year’s Deep Read Book, James by Percival Everett, will help us reconsider the frames of reference for the American literary tradition. Winner of the 2024 National Book Award, James is an adaptation of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Everett’s novel is a fugitive slave narrative told from the perspective of Twain’s enslaved character as he fights for freedom and dignity in an undignified world. We’ll consider how Everett depicts the possibility of humanity in this novel about the brutality of slavery, the performance of race, and the value of language and literacy.

Speculative Futures Exhibition
Night at the Museum
June 5, 2025
A multi-media exhibition by UC Santa Cruz graduate students, undergraduate students, and alumni of the Coha-Gunderson Prize in Speculative Futures. Prizewinners will exhibit creative work in a variety of media at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History. The annual Night at the Museum event will feature scholars in conversation about speculative futures. The juxtaposition of thematic discussion with the objects and exhibitions of the museum invite the public into the work of The Humanities Institute and spark deeper engagement.
Thank you to all our 25th Anniversary Sponsors
Culture Champion
Joanna Miller | Linda Peterson
Change the Frame
Peter Coha & Vicki Nowark | Casey Coonerty Protti & Michel Protti
Deep Thinker
Curt & Carolyn Coleman, David & Amy Harrington, George Ow & Gail Michaelis-Ow, Scott Roseman & Jasmine Berke | Jim Gunderson | Bill Ladusaw & Ken Christopher | Anni Lai & Scott Bennion | Felix Magowan | Tim & Ann Shannon | Michael Stern
Connector
Jasmine Alinder & Aims McGuinness | Vera Gribanov & Boris Glants | Gail Hershatter | Donna Mekis
Media Sponsor
Lookout Local