Events

Mary Flanagan Propositions from a Critical Play Perspective If games always hold within them cultural beliefs, norms, and human values, how are designers to tackle the vexing responsibility of designing digital games? In this talk, Flanagan examines the topics of games and values, games and art, the history of technology and games, and motivation. How […]

Steve McKay Professor McKay examines the performance of masculinities among a group of men often considered exemplars of masculinity—merchant sailors. The talk explores their gender projects across liminal space (ocean-going ships) and in productive and reproductive spheres. Professor McKay is co-editor of the forthcoming New Routes for Diaspora Studies (Indiana) and working on Born to […]

Benjamin Cawthra, associate professor of history at Benjamin Cawthra California State University, Fullerton and author of Blue Notes in Black and White: Photography and Jazz (Chicago, 2011), discusses the tradition of jazz photography and its relationship to mid-twentieth century racial politics. Cawthra will discuss the connections among the photographers, art directors, editors, and record producers […]

The UCSC Program in Classical Studies presents: Professor Brooke Holmes, Princeton University, 'The Missíng Body: Authority, Immunity, and Objectivity in Early Greek Medical Writing" Brooke Holms Brooke Holmes' paper arises from a simple question: Why doesn't the physician draw on his experience of his own body as a source of knowledge and authority in early Greek medical writing? In trying to answer […]

The Living Writers Reading Series presents Maggie Nelson. Maggie Nelson is a poet and non-fiction writer. Her work includes: The Red Parts: A Memoir, Bluets, and, recently, the 2011 release of The Art of Cruelty. Nelson's poetry has been published in six collections; the most recent is Something Bright, Then Holes. Maggie Nelson Nelson has […]

The Living Writers Reading Series presents C.S. Giscombe. C.S. Giscombe's love of the outdoors is evident in his poetry as well as his teaching at UC Berkeley, where he has taken nonfiction classes on nature-oriented field trips. His books include Giscombe Road, In and Out of Dislocation, and Prairie Style. In 2008 he received the […]

Hagit Borer The paper is a detailed study of the properties of Argument-Structure derived -ing nominals versus those of -ing synthetic compounds. In particular, I show that while -ing Argument Structure nominals are compositional and have event structure, -ing synthetic compounds do not. I further argues that these contrasts may only be accounted for by a syntactic approach to the derivation of complex […]

Cary Howie Professor Howie thinks about how contemporary American poets re-imagine early Christianity, using transfiguration to talk about the persistence of figures as they become transformed, and how poetic and theological concerns speak to gender and sexuality. His books include Claustrophilia: The Erotics of Enclosure in Medieval Literature (Palgrave, 2007) and the co-authored Sanctity and […]

Lawrence Weschler Lawrence "Ren" Weschler will present a special lecture "Convergences" in advance of his visit to Bookshop Santa Cruz to promote his latest book, Uncanny Valley.  In his talk Weschler will consider a spectrum of such convergent effects, from apophenia (the tendency of humans to see patterns where none exist) through co-causation, fractalization, influence […]

Martin Puchner While re-enactment has long been a popular art, it has entered performance art in two ways: through site-specific performances such as the ones orchestrated by Mike Pearson or David Levine, which often explore the history of a place; and the re-enactment of performance art, as in the recent case of Marina Abramovic. In […]

The Living Writers Reading Series presents Susie Bright. Susie Bright, known as a "sexpert," is a writer, performer, and teacher on the subject of sexuality. A UCSC alum, she has written several books. including Mommy's Little Girl and How to Write a Dirty Story. Her latest work is titled Big Sex, Little Death: A Memoir. […]

In this inaugural conference for the Sikh and Punjabi Studies program at the University of California, Santa Cruz, leading and emerging scholars will take stock of the state of the field and its future direction, in the areas of their expertise. Sessions will cover history, philosophy, language and literature, political economy, musicology and contemporary society. […]

In this inaugural conference for the Sikh and Punjabi Studies program at the University of California, Santa Cruz, leading and emerging scholars will take stock of the state of the field and its future direction, in the areas of their expertise. Sessions will cover history, philosophy, language and literature, political economy, musicology and contemporary society. […]

In this inaugural conference for the Sikh and Punjabi Studies program at the University of California, Santa Cruz, leading and emerging scholars will take stock of the state of the field and its future direction, in the areas of their expertise. Sessions will cover history, philosophy, language and literature, political economy, musicology and contemporary society. […]

Caren Kaplan is Professor of American Studies at the University of California, Davis and is Affiliated Faculty in Film Studies, Cultural Studies, and Science & Technology Studies. Professor Kaplan authored Questions of Travel: Postmodern Discourses of Displacement (Duke, 1996) and co-authored and co-edited Introduction to Women's Studies: Gender in a Transnational World (McGraw-Hill, 2001/2005); Between […]

Gershom Gorenberg UCSC alumnus Gershom Gorenberg is the author of the forthcoming book, The Unmaking of Israel, on the crisis of Israeli democracy and how to solve it. The book will be published in November by HarperCollins and is now available for pre-order at all the usual places. Gershom’s previous book is The Accidental Empire: […]

Deanna Shemek Professor Shemek studies intersections of elite and popular culture in early modern Italy, especially among women. Her current research focuses on early modern letter writing. She is completing an edition of Isabella d’Este’s letters and a book on the broader significance of early modern women's letters. The talk addresses plans to digitize the […]

One of the most important—and least appreciated—categories that Jews have employed to experience the world Jewishly is minhag, a Hebrew word typically translated into English as "custom." Historically, minhag enabled Jews to transform practically every event and action into something with Jewish meaning; it also enabled Jews to differentiate themselves from non-Jews, as well as […]

The Department of History presents: Muslim Mediterranean/Middle Eastern World Search Job Talk. Giancarlo Casale is a specialist in the history of the early modern Ottoman empire, although he also has interests in the history of geography and cartography, global exploration, and comparative empires. He has just completed my first book, "The Ottoman Age of Exploration," about […]

The Living Writers Reading Series presents David Vann. David Vann writes both fiction and non-fiction and has won several awards, including the Grace Paley Prize 2007, California Book Award 2008, the Prix Medicis 2010, and the Premi Libreter 2011. David Vann's work has been published by 22 different publishers in 16 different languages. His books […]

Laurence R. Horn On the Contrary: Pragmatic Strengthening and Disjunctive Syllogism   The dictum that “The essence of formal negation is to invest the contrary with the character of the contradictory” (Bosanquet 1888) describes the tendency for contradictory (apparent wide-scope) negation to be semantically or pragmatically strengthened to contrary readings whenever possible. This tendency is […]

THE 2nd ANNUAL MORTON MARCUS MEMOMRIAL POETRY READING honors poet, teacher and film critic Morton Marcus (1936-2009), one of Santa Cruz’s beloved cultural icons. This second annual event will feature Kay Ryan, Pullitzer Prize winner and U.S. Poet Laureate (2008-2010). FREE ADMISSION. Seating is limited. Parking $6. MARCUS POETRY ARCHIVE EXHIBIT. An exhibit feturing the Morton Marcus Poetry Archive […]

The Department of History presents: Muslim Mediterranean/Middle Eastern World Search Job Talk. Beginning in the 1570s, incidents of piracy in the Eastern Mediterranean increased exponentially, as the conclusion of the war for Cyprus with Venice and the withdrawal of the imperial navies left behind numerous underemployed and unsupervised Ottoman naval irregulars and opened the door to […]

The Department of History presents: Muslim Mediterranean/Middle Eastern World Search Job Talk. Jennifer Derr has her B.S. from Stanford University; M.A., Georgetown University; Ph.D., Stanford. Areas of academic interest include modern Middle Eastern history, African history, Ottoman Empire, early Islamic history. Fellow, Society of Junior Fellows in British Studies, University of Texas at Austin (2009–10); James […]

Herman Gray With African Americans as the primary example, Professor Gray probes the social, intellectual, and political investment in the cultural politics of recognition and visibility in the context of neoliberalism, suggesting that with neoliberalism we have reached the limit of such investments. Looking beyond this investment in representation, recognition and visibility, he examines what […]

Concepts, models, and theories; words, propositions, and language; are typically understood as abstract representations and abstract maps. The abstract allows us to navigate tentatively and successfully through the concrete world with which we interact as laymen and scientists; adults and infants. How does abstraction take place? What is the abstract, and what is it used […]

Professor Alide Cagidemetrio of the University of Venice will speak on “Choosing Venice: Seduction, Henry James, and The Wings of the Dove” Professor Cagidemetrio will offer some observations about details in the novel, 19th century Venice, James’s biography, and some literary themes such as don juanism, thinking to reinstate curiosity as a legitimate part of […]