Literature
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Using speculative fiction to fill the silences of Colonial history
In his acclaimed new book, First Contact, Associate Professor of Literature Zac Zimmer draws on the power of speculative fiction to revisit, question and upend stories and tropes about early contact between European explorers and Indigenous populations.
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Exploring the hidden kingdoms of fungi: Bestselling author Merlin Sheldrake brings Entangled Life to the Deep Read program
British biologist Merlin Sheldrake—renowned for his scientifically rigorous and lyrical explorations of fungal networks and interconnected life—is this year’s featured author for The Humanities Institute’s (THI) seventh annual Deep Read.
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Humanities EXCEL Fellows build community through hands-on Internships
At UC Santa Cruz, the Humanities EXCEL Program is helping Humanities undergraduates discover new pathways to professional growth and connect to local communities through paid internships.
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Humanistic approaches to urgent environmental issues
At UC Santa Cruz, the environmental humanities encourage us to ask: what happens when we stop treating the natural world as merely a backdrop, resource, or object of study—and instead treat it as a web of interconnected lives?
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Preserving the Amazon: A digital lifeline for the Biblioteca Amazónica
Three years ago, a fire broke out at the Biblioteca Amazónica in Iquitos, Peru, imperiling one of the world’s most important collections of primary sources on Amazonian history, culture, and politics. For Amanda M. Smith, Associate Professor of Latin American Literature, the disaster highlighted the urgency of the project she had already begun: digitizing the…
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This spooky season, join UC Santa Cruz experts in exploring what scares us and why
As Halloween approaches, UC Santa Cruz faculty are undertaking scholarly investigations of zombies, digging up cultural histories of vampires, and delving deeply into the metaphysics of creepiness.
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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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UCSC alumnus wins Pulitzer
Jason Roberts was awarded the 2025 prize for his biography “Every Living Thing”
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Six UC Santa Cruz professors awarded 2025 NEH Grants for groundbreaking research on AI, colonial violence, and social justice
Six UC Santa Cruz professors have received prestigious 2025 National Endowment for the Humanities awards this year, advancing scholarship on topics ranging from colonial violence to the ethical implications of artificial intelligence.
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UCHRI grants advance Humanities research on campus
This year, UC Santa Cruz researchers are advancing cutting-edge projects that tackle critical issues such as antiracist education, environmental resilience, and the intersections of identity and power, with critical funding from the University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI).
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A popular Humanities course is unwrapping the strange and fraught history and cultural afterlife of Egyptian mummies.
In their co-taught course, LIT 159M/HIS 159M: The Curse of the Mummy, UC Santa Cruz Associate Professor of Literature Renee Fox and Associate Professor of History Elaine Sullivan are looking into the strange pop-cultural afterlife of Egyptian mummies, which keep showing up as supernatural villains in movies and books.
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Dickens Project gets prestigious $200,000 NEH grant to host institute for high school teachers
A $200,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities is funding a new Dickens Project initiative, an in-person institute for 25 high school teachers from across the United States. The institute will help teachers consider bold new approaches to teaching Charles Dickens’ classic 1861 novel Great Expectations