Arts & Culture
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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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UC Santa Cruz Professor Banu Bargu Awarded 2025 David Easton Prize for ‘Disembodiment’
UC Santa Cruz History of Consciousness Professor Banu Bargu, an acclaimed scholar of political theory and resistance, has spent her career exploring some of the most extreme and harrowing forms of political protest, including hunger strikes. Bargu’s work has now been recognized with the 2025 David Easton Prize from the American Political Science Association.
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Porter alum Cuauhtemoc Martinez and a life in sound
From East Los Angeles to UC Santa Cruz to leading sound production at Warner Bros., Porter alum Cuauhtemoc Martinez has built a life in sound.
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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.