Eric Porter, Professor and Chair of American Studies, will be reading from his new book The Problem of the Future World: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Race Concept at Midcentury.  The Problem of the Future World is a compelling reassessment of the later writings of the iconic African American activist and intellectual W. E. B. Du […]

Compared with other Jewish Communities in the diaspora, the Argentine Jewish community presents a remarkable paradox: Although it is the largest, most plural and probably the most highly institutionalized Jewish community in Latin America, it has lacked a tradition of academic Jewish studies. Taking this paradox as our point of departure, in this lecture we […]

This talk reports on work that detects the kind of rhetorical structures a person uses when attempting to persuade an audience to believe or act in a certain manner. Professor Anand discusses the collection and annotation of 3000 English and 500 Arabic blogs for a variety of rhetorical structures implicated in persuasion by communication theorists […]

A classic puzzle about CPs is that they distribute differently than nominal arguments. This fact is reflected, among other things, by the order of complements in English (Stowell 1981) and the right-peripheral position of CPs in many OV languages (Hindi, Farsi, German). This distribution has traditionally been seen as a reflex of grammatical function, most […]

CGIRS and College Nine Faculty Research Seminar Series The CGIRS and College Nine seminar series is an inter-disciplinary venue in which UCSC faculty can present their research to the community of professors and students who are interested in international, comparative, transnational and area studies work. Our goal is to promote dialogue and awareness of the […]

The history of the Israeli- Arab wars has had environmental implications which are often overlooked. Some pessimists argue that the next war will in the Middle East will be fought over water resources, especially with climate change so profoundly changing precipitation patterns in the Mediterranean region. As the conflict drags on past its 60th year, […]

Professor Bell’s in-progress Frontiers of Hate: Anti-Semitism and Empire in Nineteenth-Century France explores articulations between anti-Semitism and imperialism that shaped the emergence of European racial thought. Arguing that colonial expansion helped French anti-Semitism adopt its modern racializing guise, the book also examines how anti-Semitism participated in the ideological elaboration of the imperial project. Dorian Bell is Assistant Professor of Literature at UCSC. Sponsored […]

Language comprehension seems fast, effortless and error-free -- at least, to the extent that we can introspect about it. Underneath this apparently seamless part of our day-to-day experience lies a complex working memory system. To avoid overwhelming our limited processing capacity, information is constantly being shuffled back and forth between states of accessibility and storage, […]

In this talk, I argue for a particular logic by which agreement (in particular, agreement between a verb or tense/aspect/mood-marker and a noun-phrase) is related to grammaticality, and show how this conclusion illuminates certain longstanding questions in the theory of syntax. In particular, I argue that agreement is best captured in terms of an operation. […]

Drawing on the narratological theories of Genette (“voice”) and Mieke Bal (“focalization”), Professor Jordan’s talk offers a new approach to understanding the illustrations to Dickens’s Bleak House (1852- 53) that emphasizes elements of retrospection, fantasy, and multiple temporality. John Jordan is Professor of Literature, UCSC.

Every year, we honor Helen Diller, whose generous endowment continues to provide crucial support to Jewish Studies at UC-Santa Cruz, by hosting a public lecture on campus by an internationally recognized scholar.  This year's lecture will be presented by Dr. Robert Alter, and is entitled "Translating the Bible: The Wisdom Books."  The lecture will take […]

Full of mysteries, theatrical effects, unexpected violence and unexpected compromises, recent Italian history is probably difficult to understand, but surely is not boring. It was 32 years ago when Aldo Moro, the most prominent Italian politician, was killed by the Red Brigades in the center of Rome, after a kidnapping that lasted 55 days. Thirty two […]

Morphological case systems are frequently described in terms of distinctions related to transitivity. To a first approximation, the case system of Nez Perce nicely fits this bill: one case (ergative) marks transitive subjects, a distinct case (objective) marks transitive objects, and intransitive subjects remain in an unmarked (nominative) form. (1) Transitive: ERG subject, OBJ object […]

This talk is presented as part of the Philosophy Graduate Student Works in Progress series.

This presentation will explore the use of the chocolate tree (Theobroma cacao L.) in Mesoamerican communities with a focus on the ancient Maya polity of Copan in Honduras. While the areas where cacao thrived in Mesoamerica were limited, the seeds were easily transportable and became a valued source of stimulants. By 1900 B.C. cacao was […]

Dion Farquhar is a poet and fiction writer with recent poems in The Southeast Review, Shampoo, and/or, Dark Sky Magazine, etc. Her chapbook, Cleaving, won first prize at Poets Corner Press in 2007, and her first poetry book was published in November by Evening Street Press.  She works as a Lecturer of literature and creative […]

In curatorial practices today, asking the question “What is art?” leads to a clear lack of a singularly “correct” answer. Expand the question to “What is African art?” and the territory becomes even murkier in that both the terms “art” and “Africa” resist definition. The navigation toward mutual understanding becomes an almost impassable quagmire of […]

Doctor Koelle researches how to develop data visualizations that represent spatial experience as subjective and relational rather than as defined through place. The goal is to map animal and human movements and constraints across the American West at different scales to facilitate an affective and aesthetic experience and provide a way to think about the politics of movement and immobility, from habitat destruction to […]

What sources are essential to the study of the Jewish past? Where can they be found? In this talk, Sarah Abrevaya Stein discusses her on-going efforts to stretch the linguistic, geographic, and conceptual boundaries of the Jewish past, offering a scholarly travelogue of novel archives of Jewish history. Sarah Abrevaya Stein is Professor and Maurice Amado […]

UCSC Humanities Presents the East Coast Distinguished Visiting Alumni lecture featuring Jill Hoy Cowell '77. This is the inaugural talk from the East Coast Distinguished Alumni fund. Jill will present "Singular Dualities: Painting from Life, Painting in the Studio."  Reception to follow.

This talk will present a practical overview of the use of authentic texts for language learning purposes within the context of contemporary second language acquisition (SLA) research. Some of the questions that will be addressed during this talk include: What are the benefits and potential difficulties of authentic texts vis-à-vis graded readers? What are the […]