Arts & Culture
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Ethan van Thillo: From student film festival to a cultural institution
Ethan van Thillo (Merrill ’92, Latin American and Latino studies) founded the first-ever Chicano Film Festival at UC Santa Cruz, the first San Diego Latino Film Festival, and San Diego-based nonprofit Media Arts Center San Diego.
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Alumnus and Pixar editor Kevin Nolting empowers next-gen filmmakers at UCSC
Kevin Nolting (Porter ’79, aesthetic studies) founded Slug 48 within UC Santa Cruz’s Arts Division in 2024. The 48-hour filmmaking event empowers UC Santa Cruz students to push past creative boundaries.
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Shining a light on Bleak House: 46th annual Dickens Universe embraces Charles Dickens’s dark masterpiece
Bleak House, a 377,000-word page turner about family intrigue, wicked lawyers, and grinding legal bureaucracy, will be the focus of the 46th annual Dickens Universe this summer.
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From Homer to Hollywood: The enduring fascination with The Odyssey
Ahead of Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster film release, UC Santa Cruz classics professors discuss the enduring fascination with The Odyssey
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What can you do with a humanities degree? A new UC Santa Cruz course has answers
Launched this spring by the Humanities Division, “What Can I Do with My Degree? Humanities-Powered Jobs” introduces students to the professional possibilities of a humanities education while helping them develop collaboration, leadership, and communication skills that extend far beyond the classroom.
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Celebrating the Humanities at UC Santa Cruz
The annual Celebrating the Humanities gathering was more than just a way to recognize excellence across the division. This event, which filled the Merrill Cultural Center, was also a strong reminder of the relevance and career power of humanistic studies in an era of artificial intelligence.
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Humanities students are rethinking incarceration through VAST and EXCEL programs
Humanities students at UC Santa Cruz are finding new ways to think about incarceration through art, literature, journalism, and community internships.
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Art, research, and Night at the Museum: The flourishing partnership between UC Santa Cruz Humanities and the Museum of Art and History
Over the past ten years, the Humanities Division and The Humanities Institute have had a unique and successful partnership with the Museum of Art and History, working closely on exhibitions, public programming, student fellowships, and research initiatives that connect the university with the broader Santa Cruz community.
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An ancient production for the here and now
Mojada is a modern adaptation of Euripides’s 5th-century rendition of the Greek myth of Medea, exploring the tragic end to Medea’s marriage after her husband betrays her.
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On the rise: Alumna August Lee Stevens makes her way in the Bay Area music scene
August Lee Stevens’s music career has taken off since her time at UC Santa Cruz. Stevens wrote her first single in her dorm at UCSC and has gone on to perform at a Warriors playoff game, open for Smokey Robinson, and hold a residency at the SF Jazz Festival.
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Alumnus John Kim receives multiple film festival selections for his debut independent feature film Reunion
John Kim’s (Porter ’84, creative writing and literature) debut independent feature film Reunion follows an Asian American funeral home worker who attends his high school reunion hoping to jump-start his life, only to be mistaken for a successful alumnus from another school—a billionaire whom no one has seen since graduation.
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New initiative will immerse learners worldwide in Indigenous forms of scientific inquiry, understanding
‘Shadow Indigenous Worlds’ will use an educational model pioneered at UC Santa Cruz that allows students anywhere to closely observe and converse with scientists over Zoom as they conduct research in real time