Humanities
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Celebrating the Class of 2025: Innovators, advocates, and future leaders
Highlighting a handful of graduates who are ready to make a difference
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In Memoriam: Michael Cowan
Michael Cowan joined UC Santa Cruz in 1969, just four years after the university opened, bringing with him a passion for American studies, literature, and the arts.
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Celebrating the Humanities at UC Santa Cruz
The inaugural UC Santa Cruz Celebrating The Humanities gathering at the Seymour Center made a powerful case for the relevance, impact, and career power of humanistic learning. The event drew over 300 people.
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Changing the story: Acclaimed author William Finnegan on his long journey to The New Yorker
Pulitzer Prize-winning author William Finnegan (Cowell, ‘74, Literature), this year’s recipient of the Distinguished Humanities Undergraduate Alumni Award, spoke of the need for self-reinvention, crooked paths, career switches, and “changing your story” during his acceptance speech at this week’s Celebrating the Humanities event.
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A quarter century of new perspectives: The Humanities Institute turns 25
The Humanities Institute has an outsized impact on UC Santa Cruz and the wider world with its strong focus on research excellence, student success, and public engagement.
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Amending worlds: Rewriting futures at The Humanities Institute’s 25th Anniversary Night at the Museum
On the night of June 5, the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History will come alive with squid lights, video projections, interactive computer games, the sights and sounds of archives, and the rustle of recycled fabrics and flags.
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Building bridges through digital humanities: UC Santa Cruz project reframes Sikh studies for the 21st Century
The research initiative Sikhs in the 21st Century: Remembering the Past, Engaging the Future aims to reshape how a religious tradition is studied, taught, and understood.
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Saritaan: Preserving Filipino migration stories across oceans and generations
A new UC Santa Cruz initiative called Saritaan—meaning “to talk story” in Ilokano—is preserving the untold migration stories of Filipino families.
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UCSC alumnus wins Pulitzer
Jason Roberts was awarded the 2025 prize for his biography “Every Living Thing”
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Graduate students help preserve Dolores Huerta’s legacy through archival fellowship
Three UC Santa Cruz graduate students participated in an immersive, community-engaged archival fellowship—supported by a Mellon Foundation grant and UC Santa Cruz partners—that allowed them to process and preserve materials from the Dolores Huerta Foundation, gaining hands-on training while contributing to the legacy of the civil rights icon.
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Donna Haraway, Distinguished Professor Emerita in the History of Consciousness Department, receives international honors
This spring, Donna Haraway, Distinguished Professor Emerita in the History of Consciousness Department, received two international honors for her impact not just within academia, but across disciplines, borders, and possible futures.
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A Deep Read interview. Percival Everett and the making of James
This spring, Percival Everett spoke with Dan White, Humanities Writer at UC Santa Cruz, about the creation of his 2024 National Book Award-winning novel James, a book that reoccupies and reimagines Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of the enslaved character Jim.