
Arts & Culture
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The language of food: entrepreneur Kendra Baker (Crown, ‘01, language studies) is this year’s Humanities Alumni Award honoree
Kendra Baker, co-founder of the Penny Creamery and The Picnic Basket, is this year’s UC Santa Cruz Distinguished Humanities Alumni Award recipient, an honor that highlights a career shaped by the study of language and culture.
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Alumna Gillian Welch brings Dead-driven Acoustic Reckoning show to Quarry Amphitheater
A packed Quarry Amphitheater was filled with fresh interpretations of songs from across the Grateful Dead’s vast catalogue with audience members singing, dancing and cheering along
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Acclaimed astrophysicist and electric slam poet blend science and storytelling
Slam poet Jasmine Schlafke and UC Santa Cruz professor Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz blend science, poetry and storytelling to explore our deepest origins and shared humanity at the second annual Landesman Lecture on April 28.
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United by loss, a Palestinian and Israeli walk together on a path to peace
Aziz Abu Sarah, a Palestinian peacebuilder, and Maoz Inon, an Israeli entrepreneur and activist, will speak on Monday, April 20, in Santa Cruz about their work promoting understanding and reconciliation in the region.
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A Deep Read interview with Merlin Sheldrake, author of Entangled Life
The British biologist Merlin Sheldrake, this year’s featured author for The Humanities Institute’s (THI) seventh annual Deep Read, spoke with UC Santa Cruz about the strange, generative intelligence of fungi and what it can teach us about connection, creativity, and survival.
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April in Santa Cruz: Experimental music festival explores new traditions
The annual April in Santa Cruz Festival of Creative Music (AiSC) returns this year with UC Santa Cruz faculty and graduate students, renowned guest artists, and several visiting artists.
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Long days, snacks, and scan-a-thons: student archivists stepped up to save a treasure trove of Okinawan-American memories
In a cramped conference room, a small group of students spent countless hours digitizing the photos, slides and artworks of the Okinawan American community in Los Angeles County. These students work for the Okinawa Memories Initiative.
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Finding direction through creativity: The Arts Division’s Find Your Path! creates career pathways for students
Arts Division students are invited to presentations and networking sessions that will guide them on how to pursue a successful career.
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Damming the Nile and the devastating cost of human progress
In her upcoming Nauenberg History of Science Lecture, World Wounds: The Damming of the Nile River and the Transformation of Medicine, Associate Professor of History Jennifer Derr will explore how massive infrastructure projects contributed to widespread illness, and offer insights into the global history of medicine.
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$2 million grant to propel UC Santa Cruz humanities careers
Since launching in 2023, the Employing Humanities initiative has provided hundreds of undergraduates with real-world work experience—as resource development coordinators, editorial writers, digital marketing interns, and archivists—that helps prepare them for impactful careers after they graduate. Underscoring the initiative’s impact, UCSC was just awarded a $2 million grant from the Mellon Foundation.
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Humanities EXPLORE Fellows bridge history, culture, and community
This year’s Humanities EXPLORE Program fellows are adventurous and ambitious, transcribing 300-year–old texts, helping to revitalize forgotten languages, exploring archives, and learning from faculty mentors. This winter, two fellows were given film cameras to preserve and share their experiences of connection, creativity, and purpose.
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Engineered imagination
UC Santa Cruz alumna Lisa Winter (Porter ’09, art) brings an artist’s eye to the arena of combat robotics—evolving from childhood Robot Wars competitor to BattleBots judge and robotics entrepreneur.