News Archive

April 22, 2016 — University of California San Diego Department of History Professor Mark G. Hanna recently earned the 2016 Frederick Jackson Turner Award, an annual prize from the Organization of American Historians (OAH) given for an author’s first scholarly book about a certain aspect of American history. Hanna earned the prestigious award for his book, “Pirate Nests and the Rise of the British Empire, 1570 – 1740” (University of North Carolina Press), which demonstrates that pirates were essential to British colonialism, including patterns of development that shaped early America.

April 11, 2016 — The University of California, San Diego has received an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation New Directions Fellowship grant—an award intended to assist humanities scholars in acquiring systematic training outside their areas of special interest—for the first time. The $209,000 grant will support Department of History Professor Mark Hendrickson’s efforts to explore how the work of American mining engineers and geologists working abroad between 1880 and 1930 helped shape the development of 20th-century American capitalism, science and foreign policy.

April 7, 2016 — The University of California, San Diego Division of Arts and Humanities will be well-represented during the 42nd Annual Chancellor’s Associates’ Faculty Excellence Awards April 14, 6:00 p.m., at the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine on campus. During the event, Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla will celebrate six exemplary faculty—three of whom hail from the arts and humanities division. They are: David O. Brink, distinguished professor in the Department of Philosophy, recognized for excellence in research in the humanities and social sciences; Teddy Cruz, professor of public culture and urbanism in the Department of Visual Arts, recognized for exemplary community service; and Anya Gallaccio, professor of visual arts, recognized for excellence in the performing and visual arts.

February 18, 2016 — The University of California, San Diego is taking applications for the Department of Philosophy’s third-annual 2016 Summer Program for Women in Philosophy (SPWP), June 20-July 1. In its third year, SPWP offers select applicants access to visiting scholars who teach two philosophy seminar courses and to UC San Diego female philosophy graduate students who lead workshops that range in topic from applying to graduate programs and navigating academic culture, to philosophical writing and funding and resources. This year's guest instructors are Connie Rosati, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Arizona, specializing in ethical theory and jurisprudence, and Sondra Bacharach, senior lecturer at Victoria University in New Zealand, specializing in aesthetics. SPWP applications are due March 1 and selected participants will be notified by April 1.

February 16, 2016 — The University of California, San Diego Division of Arts and Humanities is "CRASSHing" the Conference for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), sponsored by campus Academic Enrichment Programs (AEP), Feb. 19, 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., at the Institute for the Americas auditorium. To help AEP assert recognition of undergraduate student research, Dean Cristina Della Coletta will deliver opening remarks, and noted cosmetic surgeon and alumnus Dr. Gregory Buford, ’90, literature, will deliver the keynote address. Alumni, faculty and students are encouraged to attend the informative, fun-filled event and to present posters, artwork and performances.

February 8, 2016 — The University of California, San Diego is not short on big ideas. Just ask Craig Callender, chair of the Department of Philosophy, who was recently featured in San Diego Magazine’s “Big Ideas” feature for his vision to establish the Institute of Practical Ethics on campus. Callender conceptualizes UC San Diego as a leading center for ethical science; to realize that vision, the philosophy department now offers a new minor program in bioethics, with its first students enrolled this winter quarter.

February 5, 2016 — The University of California, San Diego Division of Arts and Humanities recently sponsored, “The Scarlet Stone,” a modern dance/theater retelling of a tragic Persian myth developed by Shahrokh Yadegari, professor of sound design in the Department of Theatre and Dance. The production was performed last summer at UC San Diego’s Mandell Weiss Forum, toured to Toronto—for the Tirgan Festival, the largest Persian arts festival in the western hemisphere—and then to Los Angeles at UCLA's Royce Hall. This production, which involves university faculty and alumni, is now set to reach more than 14 million viewers worldwide through four satellite broadcasts during the week of Feb. 8 on BBC Persian in Iran, Tajikistan and Afghanistan, and online streaming at the time of broadcast.

January 25, 2016 — The University of California, San Diego’s New Writing Series (NWS) is anything but new. In fact, the series, originally rooted in poetry, is among the longest running programs in the state, dating to the early 1970s. Each quarter the Department of Literature hosts the “new” writing series, and this winter’s series, which began Jan. 13 and runs through March 2, takes a transnational focus with guest writers John Gibler, Lorena Gomez Mostajo, John B. Washington and Marivi Blanco. The next presentation, featuring Washington, takes place Jan. 27, 4:30 p.m., in the Visual Arts Presentation Lab on campus.

January 14, 2016 — Alumni play a key role in a university’s fundraising efforts. Casey and Matthew Shen are prime examples. The University of California, San Diego alumni couple recently donated one-half million dollars to their alma mater to establish the Casey and Matthew Shen Endowment to support graduate student fellowships in the Department of Literature.

January 6, 2016 — The Department of History at the University of California, San Diego is garnering global recognition with help from Distinguished Professor Paul G. Pickowicz, who has received a 2016 Humboldt Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Bonn, Germany.