Category: Humanities

  • Between Cultures

    “Despite the current attempts to whitewash U.S. history, ethnic, racial, and cultural diversity is the predominant feature of the U.S. experience.” – Charles Musser Almost from their inception, motion pictures have dealt with the question of cultural assimilation. This was certainly true in America where many of the country’s film industry founders were themselves either […]

  • Imagining Prison Abolition

    Imagine a world that is more just, laws that are more compassionate and people being freer. Georgetown Law professor and author Paul Butler is very familiar with the U.S. criminal justice system. As a former prosecutor, he once fought for long sentences. Now he’s advocating for the abolition of prisons. While that sounds extreme, in […]

  • Imaging Studies: A Revealing Look

    Research imaging studies are crucial to finding effective treatments and therapies. Protocols are in place to protect both the study participant and the science, but what if the images reveal a previously unknown condition? Or a false positive or negative? Unraveling this question is more than a simple task and the consequences can range from […]

  • The Dr. Seuss You Never Knew

    The 2019 edition of UC San Diego Geisel Library’s “Dinner in the Library” series celebrates new acquisitions from the estate of Theodor “Dr. Seuss” Geisel, most of which have never before been exhibited publicly. The Library’s Special Collections already houses over 20,000 items related to Geisel, including sketches, paintings, cartoons, letters, and manuscripts, and these […]

  • Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History

    Kishinev, the rampage that broke out in late-Tsarist Russia, has been described as foreshadowing the Holocaust itself. In April 1903, 49 Jews were killed, 600 raped or wounded, and more than 1,000 Jewish-owned houses and stores were ransacked and destroyed during three days of violence in the Eastern European city. Steven Zipperstein, Stanford University, discusses […]

  • We Are All Africans

    Svante Pääbo once said, “We are all Africans, either living in Africa or in recent exile from Africa.” It is now abundantly clear that Africa was the “cradle of humanity,” with multiple waves of hominins arising on that continent and spreading across the old world, eventually being effectively displaced by our own species, which also […]

  • The Truth 24 Times Per Second

    The Carsey-Wolf Center’s Spring 2019 screening series at UC Santa Barbara explores the international legacies of cinematic New Waves, including films from France, Cuba, China, Italy, and Iran. Whatever their disparate eras or sources, these selections share an emphasis on stylistic and narrative experimentation, a rejection of traditional film conventions, a sympathetic response to youth […]

  • What is in the Air We Breathe?

    “What we do in my group is we zoom in on the aerosols.” Vicki Grassian and her team look at aerosols at a microscopic level to determine their impact on our health and our climate. Aerosols can be mineral dust and sea spray from the ocean or created by human activity or stem from any […]

  • Neanderthal Among Us? Science Meets Fiction

    What makes us human is a question that not only science asks, but all disciplines of mind from philosophy to religion to sociology and ethics, and even to storytelling and the arts. Tim Disney’s new movie “William” is about a Neanderthal living in the modern world and forces us to ask about humanness and many […]

  • Women in Leadership 2019

    “Where on an imagined clock of equality do we now stand?” asks veteran journalist Lynn Sherr at the start of this year’s Women in Leadership panel. Listen in as Sylvia Acevedo, Chelsea Clinton, Jedidah Isler answer that question and share their thoughts on the present and future of the role of women in America. Each […]