Arts & Culture
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SpongeBob Squarepants musical serves up family fun alongside key social and environmental themes
UC Santa Cruz’s version of the production opens Nov. 14 at the Theater Arts Mainstage
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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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Korean Experimental Music Festival bridges musical divides across cultures and styles
National Gugak Center and Del Sol string quartet join forces with faculty and students from UC Santa Cruz and other Bay Area universities to perform daring new compositions
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From KZSC to national acclaim
How Jesse Thorn built a radio empire from his roots at the UCSC campus station
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At the Crossroads of Language and AI
As technology advances in English, a UCSC professor is making sure Indigenous languages don’t get left behind.
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A Renaissance dream reimagined: Sir Isaac Julien’s major new installation opens in Italy
Acclaimed artist, filmmaker, and Distinguished Professor of the Arts and History of Consciousness Isaac Julien has created a Renaissance-inspired dreamscape for the 21st century.
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Arts Division Welcomes New Faculty Members
For the 2025-2026 academic year, the UC Santa Cruz Arts Division is welcoming two new faculty members who bring fresh energy, ideas, and expertise that will enrich our academic and creative community.
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Shaping tomorrow’s visionaries: local high school students experience Art for All at UC Santa Cruz’s Institute of the Arts and Sciences
From joining scientists to observe blue whales in Monterey Bay, to making plant dyes with visiting artist Christina Howard Sandoval (Chalon Nation) at the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum & Botanic Garden, high school students from across Santa Cruz County experienced art and science as never before this summer at UC Santa Cruz.
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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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Making metaphysics matter: Two new UC Santa Cruz Philosophy professors bring big questions down to Earth
Metaphysics has never had a “fun” reputation. Many people—if they’ve even heard of the M-word— tend to associate it with woozy, abstract lectures about time and space. But with the arrival of Philosophy Professor and new Department Chair Sara Bernstein and Philosophy Professor Daniel Nolan, two internationally respected experts in metaphysics, the UC Santa Cruz…
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Ariel Chan is a new voice for linguistics and bilingualism studies
For as long as she can remember, Assistant Professor of Languages and Applied Linguistics Ariel Chan has lived her life in two languages. Now one of three new Humanities faculty hires at UC Santa Cruz, Chan is challenging outdated assumptions about bilingualism through her work at the intersection of psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and neuroscience.
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Humanities students dive into Santa Cruz surfing history
This spring quarter, UC Santa Cruz Humanities students immersed themselves in the story of three Hawaiian princes who introduced surfing to the United States in the late 19th century, using Santa Cruz to launch a sport that became a cultural phenomenon. The ten-week public history course, taught by UC Santa Cruz Humanities Dean and History…