Students of Theatre and Dance and the UCSB Amplify Initiative presented the Amplify Drag Festival, the first undergraduate drag show UC Santa Barbara has seen in half a decade. The night of theatrical fantasy and radical self-expression sought to define how queer expression exists on this campus.
Lily Fitzgerald, a third-year UC Santa Barbara Film and Media Studies student, started baking cakes in the neighboring community of Isla Vista in 2022. Shortly after, she founded her business “Sunshiney Cakes,” and has since been baking these whimsical, wildflower-topped cakes and posting them to social media.
Humanities and Fine Arts Dean Daina Berry and Film lecturer Wendy Jackson joined student moderator Maya Johnson for a panel discussion celebrating Black life in America. They discussed a variety of topics surrounding Black life both personally and within academia, in honor of Black History Month this February.
UCSB French lecturer Marion Labatut sat down to discuss her efforts to build up enrollment in UCSB French courses after COVID-19 related drop. During a Q&A session, she described new ways the department in encouraging students to fall in love with French.
Professor Fabio Rambelli from UCSB’s Religious Studies and East Asian Languages & Cultural Studies departments, speaks about hosting “The Transcultural Exploratorium: Neuro Music and Japanese Culture” event and how he exposed the UCSB community to traditional Japanese sounds.
UC Santa Barbara’s Walter H. Capps Center welcomed UC Berkeley professor Khiara M. Bridges for a lecture titled “Race in the Roberts Court: Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.“ Bridges discussed the history of restricting reproductive healthcare for Black women in the United States, and what this ruling means for future discourse on race in the Supreme Court.
Musician and composer Gene Coleman spoke to a UC Santa Barbara audience about his work in Neuro Music. With compositions inspired by the brain’s auditory pathways, Coleman studies music from a neuroaesthetic perspective for creative production.
