After a trial run back in 2017, the Media Arts and Technology (MAT) graduate program at UC Santa Barbara officially established undergraduate courses for the first time this academic year.
The series of courses, titled Mediated Worlds, are led by MAT graduate professor Marcos Novak, a virtual architect and the founder and director of the department’s transLAB research facility, which investigates how technology affects virtual space in art and science.
In a recent virtual interview, Novak discussed the new undergraduate courses and the importance of cross-disciplinary connections to frame knowledge.
UCSB music associate professor David Paul is working on a new book called “After the Ball is Over: Memorializing the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Popular Media.” He explains how Americans previously viewed industrialization as positive progress whereas now, many Americans have connected industrialization to negative socioeconomic developments.
Each of us can take meaningful steps to lower our carbon footprint and help the planet, Humanities and Fine Arts faculty members told a UC Santa Barbara audience at HFA Speaks: An Earth Day Agenda. English professor Ken Hiltner and Film and Media Studies professor Alenda Chang shared their vast knowledge and interdisciplinary insights with students to honor Earth Day.
Professor JoAnn Kuchera-Morin is a composer and chief scientist of UC Santa Barbara’s revolutionary data visualization tool the AlloSphere. There Kuchera-Morin realized that the future of scientific research is having STEM fields collaborate with artists and composers.
Utathya Chattopadhyaya, an assistant professor of History at UC Santa Barbara, last week spoke about his research on “Cannabis in South Asia” during the last installment of an Asian American Studies Collective series hosted by the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center.
A photographic record of roadside signage has put UC Santa Barbara art professor Alex Lukas in the company of artists who have responded to COVID-19 by visually interpreting this moment in time.
Published in The Boston Art Review’s winter 2021 edition, Lukas’ latest project “Stay Safe, Stay Home: Road Text in a Time of Contagion,” documents the emergence and progression of pandemic-related highway signs, capturing their language and appearance.
The student dancers of UC Santa Barbara’s Theater and Dance Department have stepped back in the studios with modern dance teacher Christina Sanchez,adapting class structures to incorporate COVID-19 safety precautions and protocols. Read how she does it and watch a video by student Morgen Allen to get a glimpse into the dancer experience and hear Sanchez’s insights on teaching dance in the midst of a global pandemic.
Classics departments often struggle against the perception that they are stuck in the past. Focusing on ancient stories has nothing to do with us today, right? Visiting professor Stephen Trzaskoma argues otherwise, and his efforts are among the many ways UCSB Classics is engaging with contemporary life.
UC Santa Barbara English professor Melody Jue challenges terrestrial-based ways of knowing and reverses our perception of the world by presenting the ocean as a media environment. Jue draws on her experience as a scuba diver to challenge people to consider the ocean itself as a media framework in her book, “Wild Blue Media: Thinking Through Seawater,” which was published in February of last year.
UCSB professor Stephanie Hom is applying her research background in Italian colonialism to probe how the experience of Blackness is translated in literature. In a recent virtual interview, Hom discussed her new course, The Art of Translation, in the Department of French and Italian, and how language and translation can be used to evaluate complex cultural issues.
UC Santa Barbara welcomed Ta-Nehisi Coates, a MacArthur Fellow and author of the National Award-winning book Between the World and Me, in an event sponsored by the Center for Black Studies Research and UCSB Arts and Lectures. Coates spoke in conversation with UCSB professor Terrance Wooten of the Department of Black Studies. Coates voiced his concern about whether recent civil rights protests will lead to meaningful progress in justice for Black Americans.
History of Art and Architecture professor Swati Chattopadhyay was joined by Arijit Sen, a professor of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, to discuss her book, Unlearning the City: Infrastructure in a New Optical Field, as part of an HAA lecture series. In her book, Chattopadhyay explores the power structures of the everyday life of Indian Streets.
Migrants are more than just statistics, said UC Santa Barbara history professor Miroslava Chávez-García as she was discussing her latest book Migrant Longing: Letter Writing Across the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands at a recent virtual event.
Chávez-García shared her parents courting letters from 1961- 1965 when the United States government’s Bracero – “or manual laborer” - program was actively contracting Mexican men to temporarily move to the U.S. as agricultural workers to financially support their families. It caused many young adults to put their dreams aside to help their family escape poverty.
Three University of California professors are lead researchers for the Wayfinding Project, a multi-year study of how writing affects the lives of recent college graduates. UC Santa Barbara Writing Program professor Karen Lunsford discusses the the project’s recent findings, as well as what is in store for the future.
In this interview, UCSB’s East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies assistant professor, Suma Ikeuchi, discusses her transformative experience doing fieldwork amongst Brazilian Japanese migrants in Toyota City, Japan.
FOCUS ON FACULTY: UCSB English professor and scholar Patricia Fumerton has dedicated her life to discovering and unveiling the history of 16th and 17th century English broadside ballads. She speaks on how she got interested in her field of study, the online database English Broadside Ballad Archive, and her plans for the future.
UCSB Professor of Arabic language and literature, Dwight Reynolds, previews his book, The Musical Heritage of Al-Andalus, in this audio interview.
UC Santa Barbara theater professor, William Davies King and NYU assistant professor, Rebecca Falkoff talk about the relationship that collecting and hoarding have with art and the mind.
Focus on Faculty: A profile of Carlos Morton, a pioneering playwright for Latino Theater, who recently wrote a play called “Trumpus Caesar,” in which he critiques outgoing president Donald Trump. Morton uses his plays to share his experience as a Latino man in the United States.
UCSB Professor and internationally-renowned data visualization artist George Legrady recently sat down for an interview to discuss how remote placement has affected the data visualization course he is offering in the Winter.
