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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230601T121500
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SUMMARY:Sebastián Gil-Riaño Reading Group – Mellon Sawyer Seminar on “Race\, Empire\, and the Environments of Biomedicine”
DESCRIPTION:“Indigenous Health and Infrastructures of Race” – In the past few decades\, biomedical researchers and human biologists have called for more ethical guidelines for conducting fieldwork on Indigenous groups in South America. Included among these proposals is a call for greater “epidemiological surveillance” of remote Indigenous groups with the aim of reducing health disparities. This bioethical concern is driven by an understanding of colonial history\, which presumes that without biomedical intervention Indigenous groups inevitably succumb to European diseases upon contact. In this reading group\, we will explore how such bioethical narratives are themselves a product of a deep-seated colonial project that Daniel Nemser has called “the Infrastructures of Race.” \nEmail Jennifer Derr at jderr@ucsc.edu for a copy of the readings. \nSebastián Gil-Riaño is an Assistant Professor of History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennyslvania. Born in Colombia and raised in Canada\, he is a historian of science who studies transnational scientific conceptions of race\, culture\, and indigeneity in the twentieth century. His first book\, The Remnants of Race Science: UNESCO and Economic Development in the Global South will be published by Columbia University Press on August 31st\, 2023. \nThis event is part of the “Race\, Empire\, and the Environments of Biomedicine” Sawyer Seminar series.
URL:https://thi.ucsc.edu/event/sebastian-gil-riano-reading-group-mellon-sawyer-seminar-on-race-empire-and-the-environments-of-biomedicine/
LOCATION:Humanities 1\, Room 210\, 1156 high st\, Santa cruz\, CA\, 95060\, United States
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230601T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230601T190000
DTSTAMP:20260426T132448
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SUMMARY:Celebrating the Humanities Spring Awards 
DESCRIPTION:Please mark your calendars for Thursday\, June 1\, 2022 as we acknowledge the achievements of our outstanding students and faculty at the annual Celebrating the Humanities Spring Awards event. This year\, the hybrid event will take place at the Cowell Provost House with the program beginning at 4 p.m and a reception to follow the ceremony. Friends and families of awardees are encouraged to attend.
URL:https://thi.ucsc.edu/event/celebrating-the-humanities-spring-awards/
LOCATION:Cowell Provost House\,  Cowell Provost House\, Cowell Service Rd‎ University of California Santa Cruz\, Cowell College\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064\, United States
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230601T172000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230601T172000
DTSTAMP:20260426T132448
CREATED:20230404T045111Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230404T170236Z
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SUMMARY:Living Writers - Mai Der Vang
DESCRIPTION:Mai Der Vang is the author of Yellow Rain (Graywolf Press\, 2021)\, winner of the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets\, an American Book Award\, and a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry\, along with Afterland (Graywolf Press\, 2017)\, winner of the First Book Award from the Academy of American Poets. The recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship\, her poetry has appeared in Tin House\, the American Poetry Review\, and Poetry\, among other journals and anthologies. She teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Fresno State. \n \n\nSponsored by The Puknat Literary Endowment\, The Porter Hitchcock Poetry Fund\, The Laurie Sain Endowment\, The Humanities Institute\, Bookshop Santa Cruz\, and Two Birds Books (where the writers’ books are available for purchase)
URL:https://thi.ucsc.edu/event/living-writers-mai-der-vang/
LOCATION:Virtual Event
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230601T173000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230601T190000
DTSTAMP:20260426T132448
CREATED:20230509T200011Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230509T213726Z
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SUMMARY:Jairus Banaji Reading Group
DESCRIPTION:The Vernaculars of Travel in South Asia and the Middle East cluster invites you to the final event of their THI working group\, which will be a reading group (5:30 – 7) and dinner (7pm – 8:30pm) on Thursday\, June 1st.  Please RSVP by Friday May 26th with Muriam Davis (muhdavis@ucsc.edu) to receive the readings and event location. \nFor the reading group\, we have decided to read selections from Jairus Banaji’s work on the relationship between theory and history\, commercial capitalism\, and the global south. We will focus on three pieces: 1) the Appendix of his “A Brief History of Commercial Capitalism” 2) a piece on “Globalising the History of Capital” 3) an article from Historical Materialism on “Putting Theory to Work” and lastly 4) his essay on Islam and the Mediterranean. We’ve also attached 5) a piece on “Opium\, Capitalism and Financial Markets.” \nWe’d also like to mention that Banaji will be giving a talk at UCSC on May 26th at noon (on Zoom). Zoom links will be sent out to reading group participants as soon as it is available.
URL:https://thi.ucsc.edu/event/vernaculars-of-travel-cluster-jairus-banaji-reading-group/
LOCATION:Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064\, United States
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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20230602
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20230604
DTSTAMP:20260426T132448
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SUMMARY:Futurescapes: Projects from the Coha-Gunderson Collective
DESCRIPTION:The Humanities Institute presents “Futurescapes: Projects from the Coha-Gunderson Collective\,” a multi-media exhibition by UCSC students and alumni winners of the Coha-Gunderson Prize in Speculative Futures. \n13 winners of the Coha-Gunderson prize in Speculative Futures\, a prize competition made possible by UCSC alumni Peter Coha (Kresge ’78\, Mathematics) and James Gunderson (Rachel Carson ’77\, Philosophy\, and UCSC Foundation Board Trustee)\, will exhibit creative work in a variety of media. \nSchedule: \n\nFriday\, June 2: Opening & Reception 4:00-8:00pm\nSaturday\, June 3: 12:00-5:00 pm\n\nThe exhibition is the culmination of a year-long workshop. All prior winners—undergraduates\, graduate students\, and alumni from across the campus—chose to participate\, and each brings their unique skills and media to the exhibit: VR\, visual art\, film\, digital media\, textual materials\, and performance art. The thirteen participants met biweekly for ten weeks to dialogue with campus experts\, brainstorm their projects\, plan the exhibit\, and discuss some of the greater existential questions that arose: how can we think of the future without idealism but also without apocalyptic pessimism? What is the purpose of socially or scientifically relevant art\, and can it intervene in the precarious present? How might thinking speculatively about the past impact the present and possible futures? \nExhibitors\nAidan Andreasen (“Talos Machine”) is a third-year AGPM major & made this project for you to enjoy; Haoran Chang (“Fair Sai Re Pi VR”) is a multimedia artist and researcher who received an MFA in Digital Art and New Media at UCSC in 2021; Rafael Franco (“Future Farmers of Amerika: Poems from the Year 2054”) is a second-year PhD student in Literature at UCSC studying Gothic literature; Willow Gelphman (“Mr. Marple’s One-Way Ticket to the Great Unknown”) is a writer and visual artist who received BAs in Art and Literature from UCSC in 2021; Mitra Ghaffari (“Bicycle Island [A dónde nos lleva]”) is a second-year Social Documentation MFA student and bike guide; Chisato Hughes (“Treasure Island”) is a filmmaker based in the Bay Area working in nonfiction and hybrid\, speculative forms; Ant(onia) Lorenzo (“[Au]xiology: Living Atoms”) is an interdisciplinary artist and organizer committed to practices of decolonization and reciprocity & is finishing their MFA in Environmental Art and Social Practice at UCSC; Aaron Samuel Mulenga (“Tenga Tenga\, Can I Help You Carry Your Load?”) is a fourth-year PhD in History of Art and Visual Culture whose work engages with contemporary African art and the reclamation of local African histories; Chloe Rickards (“The Cordyceps Corner”) is a data analyst\, visual artist\, and cosplayer who received a Master’s in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from UCSC in 2022 and is interested in the more fantastical aspects of speculative futures; Oana Tenter (“Treasure Island”) is a documentary filmmaker from Romania whose work immerses her in histories that bear on the present; Lior Shamriz (“Even a Dog in Babylon is Free”) is a filmmaker and an artist based in Santa Cruz\, pursuing a Ph.D. in the Film and Digital Media department at UCSC; Saul Villegas (“Deep-Sea Coral III”) is a first-year MFA candidate in DANM using art to create a revolving system from the mental\, physical\, and virtual environment and inviting people to participate in the viewer experience through digital mixed-media works; Jingtian Zong (“Don’t Ride Over a Crack You’ll Break Your Mother’s Back”) is an artist and researcher who probes technology and power\, public space (on and offline) and collective memories through a feminist perspective\, currently a first-year MFA candidate in Environmental Art and Social Practice at UCSC. \nCarla Freccero\, Project Coordinator\, is a professor of Literature & History of Consciousness at UCSC. Hannah Newburn\, PhD candidate in Literature\, served as THI liaison for the collective. \n* * * \nMany people contributed to making this exhibition possible. \nCarla Freccero wishes to thank the faculty and professional experts who visited the workshop: Christopher Connery\, Lindsey Dillon\, Anna Friz\, Theresa Hice-Fromille\, Mark Nash\, Laurie Palmer\, Sarah Papazoglakis\, Jennifer Parker\, Micah Perks\, Jessica Taft\, and Zac Zimmer. She also wishes to thank those who played a critical role within the project itself: Hannah Newburn\, GSR for the group; Aaron Samuel Mulenga\, resident curator; and Saul Villegas\, coordinator of publicity and the virtual exhibit. \nA special thanks goes to select members of the cluster: Alex Calderwood\, Michael McCarrin\, Matt Polzin\, and Zac Zimmer. \nStaff and Faculty in the Humanities and Arts contributed their expertise\, efforts and equipment: at THI (Sharon Kinoshita\, interim Faculty Director; Irena Polic\, Managing Director; Saskia Nauenberg Dunkell; Jessica Guild; Hannah Newburn); in the Arts (Louise Leong and Colleen Jennings); in the Humanities (Humanities Academic Services and Yuri Cantrell\, ITS and Humanities Liaison). \nThank you to the Institute for Arts and Sciences (IAS) at UC Santa Cruz (Rachel Nelson\, Director and Chief Curator; Maia Kamehiro-Stockwell\, Tam Welch) for the venue and so much more. \nThanks as well to Cari Napoles\, Senior Director of Development for the Humanities Division. \n* * * \nProject Descriptions \n*Aidan Andreasen\, Talos Machine\nTalos Machine is an interactive story set in the year 3142. The reader takes the role of a Ganymede police detective investigating the final homo sapiens’ death. To make sense of this case file\, they’ll need to research everything 3142 has to offer using Omnipedia\, an encyclopedia of everything. And who knows\, this might be about more than a single human’s demise. \nTalos Machine is an “open website” experience – readers can visit any page on Omnipedia whenever they’d like\, until they’re ready to definitively solve the mystery. This case won’t be cracked by following the exploits of a main character – the reader themselves must think like a detective\, as it’s up to them to connect the dots between ideas and put their theories to the test. \nCentral to the world of 3142 is a superintelligent AI\, the Orecomp Intelligence\, which possesses powers far exceeding those of any living being. It has sustained a stable solar system society for nearly 1100 years\, but stable does not mean familiar. The world of Talos Machine was created from our attempts to answer a deceptively challenging question: what does it mean to be human? What is it about us\, right here and right now\, that we truly care about and must work to preserve? \nTalos Machine was first written in 2021\, when it felt like its potentially future-defining topics and questions were largely underdiscussed. A mere two years later\, the concept of intelligent AI has gone mainstream. Some of the speculative futures depicted in Talos Machine might not be speculative for much longer. Our actions today will decide the sort of destiny we have before us. Talos Machine is neither a best-case nor worst-case scenario – but hopefully becoming a detective in Ganymede will get readers thinking about what kind of future they want to see. \n*Haoran Chang\, Fair Sai Re Pi VR \nFair Sai Re Pi VR is a multisensory VR experience that invites audiences to experience a fictional fire therapy based on the one sold by a real Chinese pyramid scheme company named QuanJian that went bankrupt in 2020 after a scandal erupted about the scheme. The experience is a reenactment of the real company\, a simulation of a simulation. It performs a critique of the company’s capitalistic logic of exploitation\, its solidification of hierarchy\, and the values of excessive consumption\, and questions the relationship between Western modernity and the philosophy of Chinese Traditional Medicine. The playful and surreal pseudo-therapy brings the contradiction between the philosophy of CTM—emphasizing wholeness—and the pyramid scheme business model with its strict hierarchical order. Fire is very common in CTM\, like cupping. \nThis project\, however\, is less about the efficacy of CTM and more about how the tradition is displaced and remade in a society dominated by the ideology of technology from the West. Fire\, in this VR experience\, is a motif existing between “natural” fire\, the fire to “cure the diseases” and “cultural” fire\, the fire situated in the network of pyramid scheme structures that burns participants financially. This project is also related to a conceptual framework of “Emersive VR” that I proposed in my thesis. Different from the idea of Immersive VR\, Emersive VR intends to break the singularity of virtual space. In the original version of this project\, participants enter a room and lie down on a custom-made massage bed with physical mechanisms\, such as a heat fan\, water spray\, and heat blanket\, connected to the VR program Arduino (in this edited version\, audience will only be immersed visually in VR). Rather than being isolated in a singular space rendered by the VR headset\, bodies are situated in a liminal space between the virtual and physical\, fiction and reality. \n*Rafael Franco\, Future Farmers of Amerika: Poems From the Year 2054\nFuture Farmers of Amerika: Poems From the Year 2054 is a collection of poems that gives voice to the unheard narratives of immigrant farmworkers in California’s Central Valley. Written in 2021\, the collection features a diverse array of poetic forms\, including epistolary\, free verse\, and diary entries. Audiences can also listen to readings of a selection of these poems using the corresponding QR code. Especially central to these poems is language and translation. Much narrativization of farmwork in the Central Valley gets recounted by third parties\, and thus the native Spanish-speaking voices get erased\, despite the fact that most Central Valley farm work is by immigrants who speak solely Spanish. This creates a tension between the English-language narratives about farm work and the actual experiences of farm workers. The inability to translate many of the words about farm work labor from Spanish to English mirrors the failure to translate farmworkers’ experiences into the English language\, thus foregrounding the incomplete nature of the narratives we read and hear in the media. \nThe collection serves as a vessel that projects the stories of farmworkers into the future. By evoking a year in the near future\, the stories hope to blur the lines between past\, present\, and future\, all while anticipating the future itself. Together\, the form\, time\, and language of this collection incentivize readers and listeners to diversify the perspectives from which they pay attention to the silenced voices of immigrant farm work labor. However\, the collection also aims to recognize its own limitations. This exhibition is not a complete account of immigrant farm work in the Central Valley. Rather\, it hopes to penetrate dominant narratives of farm work labor and production\, creating a space in which to listen to the voices of immigrant farm workers. In promoting attentive listening practices\, the exhibit invites viewers to carry these previously lost or forgotten literary voices into the future. \n*Willow Gelphman\, Mr. Marple’s One-Way Ticket to the Great Unknown\nMr. Marple’s One-Way Ticket to the Great Unknown is the epic tale of one lowly billionaire’s quest to win over an entire small\, conservative\, majority-straight/white town in the midwest. A mysterious wormhole appears on the outskirts of Midville\, and the baffled locals are unsure what to do with it until Mr. Marple arrives with the intent to transform it into a tourist destination. He has a vision\, he has a plan\, and he has a particular knack for quickly dissolving dissent in whatever form it may arise. \nWritten in comic form\, the reader gets to meet a wide cast of characters who act both individually and as a collective. There is no one main character\, but rather a number of faces and storylines that thread together into a whole. While the townspeople have strength in numbers\, they are limited by shortsightedness and a disbelief that anyone like Marple would do anything to threaten people like them. Their culture is dominant and their faith in their bootstraps is unwavering. While resembling Marple in all ways except power\, the people of Midville are nothing but an obstacle now that they are in his way. “Mr. Marple” imagines a situation where white colonialist values “Ouroboros” themselves. \n*Mitra Ghaffari\, Bicycle Island [A dónde nos lleva]\nIn response to the transportation standstill during Cuba’s economic crisis of the 1990s\, the government distributed 1.2 million bicycles in public workplaces and schools throughout the island. Havana’s city planning was temporarily organized to accommodate bike infrastructure; however\, once foreign oil supply was restored\, bicycles faded from view as their parts rusted\, broke\, and were abandoned. Bicycles became a symbol of the worst of the economic crisis and were associated with hardship and scarcity. Bicycle Island (A dónde nos lleva) offers a contemporary portrait of the bicycle as a re-adopted resource during the pandemic and a critical tool for the future of the island. \nAn intimate portrait of place\, people\, and movement\, Bicycle Island displays various artistic interpretations of the bicycle\, and includes collaborations with muralists\, musicians\, artisans\, and puppeteers. These artistic representations and a mosaic of portraits of bicycle users combine to communicate the city’s history\, culture\, and projected future\, tracing embodied associations to urban space and contrasting the bicycle with other transportation methods. Bicycle Island guides a future orientation for urban mobility on the island\, archiving a collective effort to reclaim the bicycle as a central and celebrated tool of Havana’s future. \nAll songs were performed live by the Ensemble Interactivo de La Habana on August 2nd\, 2022. \n*Chisato Hughes & Oana Tenter\, Treasure Island [see below] \n*Ant(onia) Lorenzo\, [Au]xiology: Living Atoms \n(Au)xiology is a portmanteau of the symbol for the element gold\, from the Latin aurum\, and axiology\, the study of value and valuation. It was originally a pedagogical and art-based collaboration with undergraduate students asking questions about our society’s values\, the ways they are shaped\, their impacts on material reality\, and how art might contribute to shifting them. Within a 10-week course\, students used research-based inquiry into gold’s materiality\, histories\, and effects to collectively analyze notions of value and dominant worldviews. In the months after the course concluded\, their research has become part of a work of episodic story-telling narrated by atoms that all find themselves composing a pair of gold earrings in 2023. \nThis exhibition stages three episodes in the life of these atoms. The first\, a decade or so from now\, when a mining company scandalizes the speculative market by dusting an ore sample with gold. The second\, nearly a half-century later\, where the gold atoms are nanoparticles\, collecting microplastics in the human bloodstream. And the third\, where the atoms drift in a vast region of oceanic waters. Each of the gold’s futures is informed by a reckoning with our contemporary moment\, where “gold futures” are both theoretical and traded daily. \n*Aaron Samuel Mulenga\, Tenga Tenga\, Can I Help You Carry Your Load?\nIn 2021\, I created a performance piece entitled Tenga Tenga\, Can I Help You Carry Your Load? This performance was created to remember the Tenga Tenga\, who were African porters used by the British to carry their soldiers’ equipment in the First World War. The efforts of the Tenga Tenga aided the British and Allied forces in southern Africa to win the war over the German forces. A stone cenotaph was erected in the town of Mbala in northern Zambia to commemorate the Tenga Tenga. \nThrough my project I aim to use speculative fiction to imagine what our present moment would look like if recognition and acknowledgement were given to the individual Africans who participated in the First World War as carriers. How would this shift the imagination of the War and who was present in it? This project utilizes installation\, performance and moving image to provide an avenue for the speculative futures of the Tenga Tenga to be considered. \n*Chloe Rickards\, The Cordyceps Corner\nThe Cordyceps Corner is an interactive science station that explores a future where the Cordyceps genus of fungus evolved to infect animals. At the Cordyceps Corner\, guests will examine the world from the perspective of a parasite\, learn what The Last of Us got wrong\, and discover the medicinal applications of a caterpillar-killing species of the fungus. \nCentral to this project is Cordyceps: An Illustrated Field Guide\, a booklet of original watercolors and descriptions from this speculative future. The Illustrated Field Guide takes a closer look at the mechanisms of infection\, the life cycle of the fungus\, and the manifestation of symptoms in its hosts. The Illustrated Field Guide highlights how infectious diseases operate within an ecology – one that expands beyond humans. \nVisitors will also find real samples of cordyceps\, medicinal tinctures\, and other materials related to the traditional medicinal use of cordyceps. Cordyceps have been a part of human history for hundreds of years. Its fruiting bodies are cultivated from caterpillars to boost the immune system and to treat fatigue and kidney problems. \nThe Cordyceps Corner invites you to bring a sense of childlike wonder in the face of death\, decay\, healing\, and medicine. Ask questions\, get your hands dirty\, and immerse yourself in a world of fungi. \n*Oana Tenter & Chisato Hughes\, Treasure Island\nTo many in the city\, San Francisco’s Treasure Island is out of sight\, out of mind. Born from trash in the event of the 1939 World’s Fair\, the island became host to the navy and its radiological testing during American wars abroad\, and is currently a quiet\, ghostly site for Section 8 housing\, storage containers\, transitional homes\, and empty barracks. Simultaneously and urgently\, the island is undergoing significant changes: highrises are being erected\, transportation fares have increased\, and storage buildings converted to event venues and microbreweries for city-dweller getaways. Our project aims to make these various transitions on the island visible and speculate on a future that is malleable. \nTreasure Island (working title) is an experimental installation piece drawing from old archival footage from the island’s World’s Fair\, naval training videos and propaganda\, and recent observational footage taken with residents at Home Free\, a transitional home for formerly-incarcerated survivors of domestic violence. The project invokes the island’s past histories–and its contested present as a toxic landscape–asking questions about what might be remediated from the proverbial rubble. What does (or can) healing from violence–structural\, imperial\, interpersonal–look like? How do we learn from past traumas and hold state bodies accountable in our orientation towards the future? These questions come about in anticipation of the island’s redevelopment into an “Eco-City of the Future\,” a plan made for the island by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 2011. The exhibit consists of a three-screened installation with one running soundscape. \n*Lior Shamriz\, Even a Dog in Babylon is Free\nIn a letter written in the 7th century BC by the Babylonians to the Assyrian king Esarhaddon\, the Babylonians defend the rights of foreigners in their city and call on the Assyrian king to afford them the same privileges they receive as Babylonians. They write that “even a dog\, when entering the gates of Babylon\, shall be protected.” \nThe film is constructed as a series of repetitive iterations inspired by the musical “Passacaglia” form\, in which continuous variations of a base melody unfold throughout a piece. Each sequence begins with a conversation between Lior Shamriz\, the film’s director\, and Myriam Ali-Ahmad\, a Los Angeles-based Lebanese actor. We learn that Ali-Ahmad was invited by Shamriz to act in a faux documentary as a process of world-building for Shamriz’s future project\, a speculative feature film taking place in a West Asia that was never colonized by France or Britain. After the conversation\, we see Myriam Ali-Ahmad in character as Souhaila\, a fictional artist in the Federal States of West Asia\, the entity now encompassing most of what used to be the Ottoman Empire. Souhaila is then shown working on a video poem that utilizes ancient texts. She comments on the letter the Babylonians wrote to Esarhaddon: why did the Babylonians need to denigrate the status of dogs to elevate foreigners in their city? With each iteration\, the texts Souhaila is working with and her mode of engagement with them change\, as the historical knowledge base in the “world” of the film modulates. \nEven a Dog in Babylon is Free is an investigation of how our understanding of the past shapes our interactions with the world and of the relationship between our sense of historical linearity and our political worldview. In one of the iterations\, for example\, the discovery of an ancient West Asian school of thought that opposed the hierarchy between gods\, people\, and non-human animals prompts Souhaila to work with a different text. At the same time\, the film questions our need to reevaluate the past in order to conceive different futures. \n2K Video\, Sound\, 2023\nPerformers: Myriam Ali-Ahmad\, Su-jin Kim Holmes\, Alexandra Panzer\, Mitra Ghaffari\nCamera: Lior Shamriz\, Hannah Jayanti\nRecordist: Oana Tenter \n*Saul Villegas\, Deep-Sea Coral III\nEnvironmental pollution on land shifts into the atmosphere through time and passes along the water and ecologies undersea. Deep Sea Coral III uses archival submersible footage from the Hawaiʻi Undersea Research Lab (HURL) and scientific data culled from ancient denizens of the sea comprising a biological archive for oceanographers of “multi-millennial timescales.” Extracted artifacts\, such as deep-sea coral\, serve as paleo-recorders of biogeochemical information. Thinking of that microenvironment that accumulates in geological time and looking for a way of seeing these archives through a multi-spatial perspective\, I designed an immersive virtual world representing the deep sea. \nMy process begins by placing authentic artifacts in a virtual environment to re-create the sensation of submersible dives through digital media. Deep-Sea Coral III invites viewers to engage with these altered photographs and video footage through the speculative lens of the underwater world. My goal is to inspire future researchers to find new ways to reimagine deep-sea archives and ways to exhibit such archival materials for those who remain above. \n*Jingtian Zong\, Don’t Ride Over a Crack\, You’ll Break Your Mother’s Back \nDon’t Ride Over a Crack\, You’ll Break Your Mother’s Back is a two-channel video and installation that investigates cracks in the American road infrastructure from an outsider’s perspective. Channeling the artist’s testimony of a bike accident in Santa Cruz to the history of U.S. highway development\, the project tests the speculative ground upon which our contemporary reality is constructed and the twisted relationship between the two. \nIts title adapted from a popular rhyme among American children\, “Step on a Crack\, Break Your Mother’s Back\,” the project asks: Which bodies do a failed road infrastructure impact the most? A suspected alternative version of the rhyme\, “Step on a Crack\, and Your Mother Will Turn Black” (or in some sources\, “You Would Marry A Black Person”)\, indicates a backdrop of how cracks might\, in both material and symbolic forms\, target certain bodies rather than others. Surrounded by journalistic photos of its socio-geographical context\, the crack over which the artist had their bike accident is transplanted into the IAS gallery and invites contemplation at the intersection of social responsibility\, mobility\, and vulnerability. \nWhere is the boundary between the private and the public? Taking the U.S. highway system as its test field\, the project poses this question that has become increasingly important in the post-pandemic era\, and that immigrant narratives often further complicate. In the 2-channel video\, images of early Fordism productions and Futurama\, the 1939 New York World’s Fair\, are juxtaposed with footage of cracked roads in Santa Cruz and on the artist – an Asian woman’s skin\, exploring how the private and the public\, although often kept separate\, are deeply intertwined. \n 
URL:https://thi.ucsc.edu/event/futurescapes-projects-from-the-coha-gunderson-collective-exhibition/
LOCATION:The Institute of the Arts & Sciences Gallery\, 100 Panetta Avenue\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95060\, United States
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230602T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230602T170000
DTSTAMP:20260426T132448
CREATED:20230523T162208Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230523T162208Z
UID:10007283-1685714400-1685725200@thi.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:Linguistics Undergraduate Research Conference (LURC)
DESCRIPTION:The Linguistics Department’s annual Linguistics Undergraduate Research Conference (LURC) will be held Friday\, June 2nd\, from 2:00 – 5:00pm in the Stevenson Fireside Lounge & Courtyard. The Distinguished Alumnus speaker will be Caroline Andrews who is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Zurich. We hope you will attend.
URL:https://thi.ucsc.edu/event/linguistics-undergraduate-research-conference-lurc-3/
LOCATION:Stevenson Fireside Lounge\, Humanites 1 University of California\, Santa Cruz Cowell College\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064\, United States
ORGANIZER;CN="Linguistics Department":MAILTO:mjzimmer@ucsc.edu
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230604T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230604T210000
DTSTAMP:20260426T132448
CREATED:20230314T215843Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230314T220008Z
UID:10006095-1685905200-1685912400@thi.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:Bookshop Santa Cruz Presents: Stacey Abrams\, Rogue Justice
DESCRIPTION:Bookshop Santa Cruz is thrilled to welcome #1 New York Times bestselling author and political leader Stacey Abrams to discuss her new book Rogue Justice and the craft of writing. This event will take place at the Rio Theatre (1205 Soquel Avenue\, Santa Cruz) and is cosponsored by NAACP Santa Cruz County\, The Humanities Institute at UC Santa Cruz\, and the Santa Cruz Community Credit Union. \n \nNOTE: Limited tickets available—purchase today! Venue size selected by the author. \nROGUE JUSTICE: The #1 New York Times bestselling author of While Justice Sleeps returns with another riveting and intricately plotted thriller\, in which a blackmailed federal judge\, a secret court and a brazen murder may lead to an unprecedented national crisis. Drawn from today’s headlines and woven with her unique insider perspective\, Stacey Abrams combines twisting plotlines\, wry wit\, and clever puzzles to create another immensely entertaining suspense novel. \nSTACEY ABRAMS is a New York Times bestselling author\, entrepreneur and political leader. She served as Minority Leader in the Georgia House of Representatives\, and she was the first black woman to become gubernatorial nominee for a major party in United States history. Abrams has launched multiple nonprofit organizations devoted to democracy protection\, voting rights\, and effective public policy. She has also co-founded successful companies\, including a financial services firm\, an energy and infrastructure consulting firm\, and the media company\, Sage Works Productions\, Inc.
URL:https://thi.ucsc.edu/event/stacey-abrams-rogue-justice/
LOCATION:Rio Theater\, 1205 Soquel Avenue\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95062\, United States
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://thi.ucsc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/stacy_Abrams.jpg
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230606T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230606T203000
DTSTAMP:20260426T132448
CREATED:20230317T172508Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230328T195244Z
UID:10006103-1686078000-1686083400@thi.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:Luis Alberto Urrea - Good Night\, Irene
DESCRIPTION:Bookshop Santa Cruz is delighted to welcome bestselling author Luis Alberto Urrea (The House of Broken Angels) back to the store for a reading and signing of his new novel Good Night\, Irene\, which was inspired by his own family’s history: his mother’s heroism as a Red Cross volunteer during World War II. This event is cosponsored by The Humanities Institute at UC Santa Cruz. \n“Good Night\, Irene is a beautiful\, heartfelt novel that celebrates the intense power and durability of female friendship while shining a light on one of the fascinating lost women’s stories of World War II.” —Kristin Hannah \n \nWhat if a friendship forged on the front lines of war defines a life forever? In the tradition of The Nightingale and Transcription\, Good Night\, Irene is a searing epic based on the magnificent and true story of heroic Red Cross women. \nIn 1943\, Irene Woodward abandons an abusive fiance in New York to enlist with the Red Cross and head to Europe. She makes fast friends in training with Dorothy Dunford\, a towering Midwesterner with a ferocious wit. Together they are part of an elite group of women\, nicknamed Donut Dollies\, who command military vehicles called Clubmobiles at the font line\, providing camaraderie and a tast of home that may be the only solace before troops head into battle. \nAfter D-Day\, these two intrepid friends join the Allied soldiers streaming into France. Their time in Europe will see them embroiled in danger\, from the Battle of the Bulge to the liberation of Buchenwald. Through her friendship with Dororothy and a love affair with a courageous American fighter pilot named Hans\, Irene learns to trust again. Her most fervent hope\, which becomes more precarious by the day\, is for all three of them to survive the war intact. \nTaking as inspiration his mother’s own Red Cross service\, Luis Alberto Urrea has delivered an overlooked story of women’s heroism in World War II. With its affecting and uplifting portrait of friendship and valor in harrowing circumstances\, Good Night\, Irene powerfully demonstrates yet again that Urrea’s “gifts as a storyteller are prodigious” (NPR). \nA finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his landmark work of nonfiction The Devil’s Highway\, now in its 30th paperback printing\, Luis Alberto Urrea is the author of numerous other works of nonfiction\, poetry\, and fiction\, including the national bestsellers The Hummingbird’s Daughter and The House of Broken Angels\, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. A recipient of an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award\, among many other honors\, he lives outside Chicago and teachers at the University of Illinois Chicago.
URL:https://thi.ucsc.edu/event/luis-alberto-urrea-good-night-irene/
LOCATION:Bookshop Santa Cruz\, 1520 Pacific Avenue\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95060\, United States
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://thi.ucsc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Luis_Alberto_urrea.jpg
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230607T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230607T200000
DTSTAMP:20260426T132448
CREATED:20230509T230746Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230526T205039Z
UID:10007292-1686160800-1686168000@thi.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:The Deep Read: Community Salon
DESCRIPTION:On June 7\, we’ll be hosting a salon—co-sponsored by The Humanities Institute and Lookout Santa Cruz—focused on actions we can all take in the face of climate change. Ecology Action\, Elkhorn Slough Foundation\, and Regeneración Pajaro Valley will lead the discussion moderated by UCSC Professor of Humanities and Journalism Jody Biehl. \n\n\nNot in Santa Cruz? Register for Zoom access. \n  \n\nAbout The Deep Read\nThis event is part of The Humanities Institute’s Deep Read Program that invites curious minds to think deeply about literature\, art\, and the most pressing issues of our day. We read books from a wide range of genres\, exploring their implications on our politics\, inner lives\, and communities.
URL:https://thi.ucsc.edu/event/the-deep-read-community-salon/
LOCATION:The Seymour Marine Discovery Center\, 100 McAllister Way\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95060\, United States
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://thi.ucsc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/DeepRead-community-salon-Header.png
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230608T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230608T203000
DTSTAMP:20260426T132448
CREATED:20230327T173220Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230328T174533Z
UID:10007243-1686250800-1686256200@thi.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:Bookshop Santa Cruz presents: An evening with Ocean Vuong
DESCRIPTION:In this deeply intimate second poetry collection (in paperback June 6th)\, Ocean Vuong searches for life among the aftershocks of his mother’s death\, embodying the paradox of sitting within grief while being determined to survive beyond it. Shifting through memory\, and in concert with the themes of his novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous\, Vuong contends with personal loss\, the meaning of family\, and the cost of being the product of an American war in America. At once vivid\, brave\, and propulsive\, Vuong’s poems circle fragmented lives to find both restoration as well as the epicenter of the break. \nThe author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection Night Sky With Exit Wounds\, winner of the 2016 Whiting Award\, the 2017 T. S. Eliot Prize\, and a 2019 MacArthur fellow\, Vuong writes directly to our humanity without losing sight of the current moment. These poems represent a more innovative and daring experimentation with language and form\, illuminating how the themes we perennially live in and question are truly inexhaustible. Bold and prescient\, and a testament to tenderness in the face of violence\, Time Is a Mother is a return and a forging forth all at once. This event is presented by Bookshop Santa Cruz\, and co-sponsored by The Humanities Institute. \n \nOcean Vuong is the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection Night Sky with Exit Wounds and the New York Times bestselling novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. A recipient of the 2019 MacArthur “Genius Grant\,” he is also the winner of the Whiting Award and the T. S. Eliot Prize. His writings have been featured in The Atlantic\, Harper’s Magazine\, The Nation\, The New Republic\, The New Yorker\, and The New York Times. Born in Saigon\, Vietnam\, he currently lives in Northampton\, Massachusetts. \nPRAISE:\n“Piercing . . . The poems in Time Is a Mother give us a path to examine the complexities of what it means to lose a mother\, and what it means to embrace family and the self even when we want to look away. In Vuong’s tender yet unflinching words\, we are reminded that only a mother can carry a beating heart within her body.” —Los Angeles Review of Books \n“Like Orpheus descending into the underworld\, Vuong takes us to the white-hot limits of his grief\, writing with visionary fervor about love\, agony\, and time . . . Aesthetically ambitious and ferociously original . . . Here\, he breaks open and rebuilds.” —Esquire\, “The Best Books of Spring 2022” \n“That’s the essence of Vuong’s talent: he alchemizes deeply individual experiences with universal emotions into what is both familiar and new. . . . We need no more proof of Vuong’s importance in the poetic canon.” —Chicago Review of Books
URL:https://thi.ucsc.edu/event/bookshop-santa-cruz-presents-an-evening-with-ocean-vuong/
LOCATION:Cowell Ranch Hay Barn\, Ranch View Rd\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064\, United States
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://thi.ucsc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ocean-vuong-THI-copy-scaled.jpg
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230610T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230610T150000
DTSTAMP:20260426T132448
CREATED:20230314T213721Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230314T213721Z
UID:10006091-1686402000-1686409200@thi.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:Ecological Utopia: From the Victorians to Us with Professor Deanna K. Kreisel
DESCRIPTION:Please join the Friends of the Dickens Project for our spring Friends Faculty Fellowship talk series by Associate Professor Deanna K. Kreisel (University of Mississippi) who will be discussing “Ecological Utopia: From the Victorians to Us.” \nOver the course of three sessions\, we will have an opportunity to explore Victorian responses to their changing environment\, with a particular focus on William Morris’s utopian novel News from Nowhere. \nVirtual Sessions | Zoom Registration \n\nApril 8: Research Talk: It’s the End of the World and We Know It: Ecological Grief and the Work of Utopia\nMay 6: William Morris’ News from Nowhere\, Chapters 1-20\nJune 10: Discussion: News from Nowhere Chapters 21-32\, excerpts from Half-Earth Socialism by Troy Vettese and Drew Pendergrass\n\nThe first session will consist of a presentation about my current research. I am currently working on a book entitled It’s the End of the World and We Know It: Ecological Grief and the Work of Utopia\, which is about ecological mourning and utopian thinking from the Victorian period to the present. The book begins with a discussion of the ‘utopia craze’ of the late 19th century—of which Morris’s novel was a key part—and also discusses the work of John Ruskin and other early environmentalist writers. The latter part of the book explores recent and present-day responses to ecological change\, including literary responses\, and considers our own “ecological mourning” as a legacy of Victorian thinking. It ends with a discussion of recent on-the-ground ecotopian experiments. \nThe second and third sessions will consist of an in-depth discussion of News from Nowhere. In Session Two we will discuss the first half of Morris’s novel and contemporary Victorian responses to it; in the final session we will discuss the second half of the novel alongside some short excerpts from recent writers on climate grief and ecotopia. \nDeanna Kreisel is Associate Professor of English and co-director of Environmental Studies at the University of Mississippi. She is the author of ‘Economic Woman: Demand\, Gender\, and Narrative Closure in Eliot and Hardy\,’ as well as articles on Victorian literature and culture in PMLA\, Representations\, ELH\, Novel\, Mosaic\, Victorian Studies\, Nineteenth Century Literature\, and elsewhere. She is the co-editor\, along with Devin Griffiths\, of a special Victorian Literature and Culture issue on “Open Ecologies” and the volume ‘After Darwin: Literature\, Theory\, and Criticism in the Twenty-First Century.’
URL:https://thi.ucsc.edu/event/ecological-utopia-from-the-victorians-to-us-with-professor-deanna-k-kreisel-3/
LOCATION:Virtual Event
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://thi.ucsc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Dickens_2.jpg
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230621T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230621T190000
DTSTAMP:20260426T132448
CREATED:20230523T232107Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230524T161633Z
UID:10007281-1687374000-1687374000@thi.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:Ottessa Moshfegh\, Lapvona
DESCRIPTION:Presented by Bookshop Santa Cruz\, Ottessa Moshfegh (My Year of Rest and Relaxation) will discuss her recent novel Lapvona\, available in paperback June 20th. In a village in a medieval fiefdom buffeted by natural disasters\, a motherless shepherd boy finds himself the unlikely pivot of a power struggle that puts all manner of faith to a savage test. \nLittle Marek\, the abused and delusional son of the village shepherd\, never knew his mother; his father told him she died in childbirth. One of life’s few consolations for Marek is his enduring bond with the blind village midwife\, Ina\, who suckled him when he was a baby\, as she did so many of the village’s children. Ina’s gifts extend beyond childcare: she possesses a unique ability to communicate with the natural world. Her gift often brings her the transmission of sacred knowledge on levels far beyond those available to other villagers\, however religious they might be. For some people\, Ina’s home in the woods outside of the village is a place to fear and to avoid\, a godless place. \nAmong their number is Father Barnabas\, the town priest and lackey for the depraved lord and governor\, Villiam\, whose hilltop manor contains a secret embarrassment of riches. The people’s desperate need to believe that there are powers that be who have their best interests at heart is put to a cruel test by Villiam and the priest\, especially in this year of record drought and famine. But when fate brings Marek into violent proximity to the lord’s family\, new and occult forces upset the old order. By year’s end\, the veil between blindness and sight\, life and death\, the natural world and the spirit world\, will prove to be very thin indeed. \n \nOttessa Moshfegh is a fiction writer from New England. Eileen\, her first novel\, was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Man Booker Prize\, and won the PEN/Hemingway Award for debut fiction. My Year of Rest and Relaxation and Death in Her Hands\, her second and third novels\, were New York Times bestsellers. She is also the author of the short story collection Homesick for Another World and a novella\, McGlue. She lives in Southern California. \nMicah Perks is the author of a memoir\, a short story collection\, and two novels. Her honors include a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship\, the New Guard Machigonne 2014 Fiction Prize\, residencies at Blue Mountain Center and MacDowell\, and the Independent Publisher’s Gold Medal. The Guardian included her last book in the Top Ten Novels about the Apocalypse. She directs the creative writing program at UCSC. \nThis event is cosponsored by The Humanities Institute at UC Santa Cruz.
URL:https://thi.ucsc.edu/event/ottessa-moshfegh-lapvona/
LOCATION:Bookshop Santa Cruz\, 1520 Pacific Avenue\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95060\, United States
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://thi.ucsc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Screen-Shot-2023-05-23-at-4.18.33-PM.png
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230625T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230625T130000
DTSTAMP:20260426T132448
CREATED:20230512T045453Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230512T045928Z
UID:10007285-1687698000-1687698000@thi.ucsc.edu
SUMMARY:Dickensland: The Curious History of Dickens's London
DESCRIPTION:Please join the Santa Cruz Dickens Fellowship and the Santa Cruz Pickwick Club for our June Pickwick Club talk by author and historian Lee Jackson who will be discussing Dickens’s London. \nLee Jackson\, author of Dickensland (Yale\, 2023) will discuss the curious history of London’s Dickensian tourist destinations. Louisa May Alcott\, visiting in 1866\, was typical of the innumerable American tourists who would arrive in subsequent decades\, enraptured by the dream-like quality of the Victorian metropolis seen through a Dickensian lens (‘I felt as if I’d got into a novel’). But did tourists truly encounter ‘Dickens’s London’ or merely a ‘Dickensland’ shaped by the demands of Dickens fandom (dubbed by Victorian newspapers ‘The Dickens Cult’) and canny heritage entrepreneurs? \n \n  \nLee Jackson is an author and historian\, creator of the popular online sourcebook of Victoriana ‘The Dictionary of Victorian London‘ and an academic advisor to the Charles Dickens Museum. His previous non-fiction books include Dirty Old London (Yale\, 2014) and Palaces of Pleasure (Yale\, 2019). \nIf you have any questions please don’t hesitate to reach out at dpj@ucsc.edu
URL:https://thi.ucsc.edu/event/the-pickwick-club-presents-dickensland-by-lee-jackson/
LOCATION:Virtual Event
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