News Archive

May 17, 2016 — The unorthodox historian and journalist, Tom Segev, has been intrepid in exploring and illuminating the tortured history of Israel and the Holocaust, often exposing painful truths that many would rather not have to grapple with. Born in Jerusalem to parents who fled Nazi Germany, Segev is a leading figure among the so-called “New Historians” of Israel, who have continued to challenge many of the nation’s traditional narratives or “founding myths.”

May 17, 2016 — The University of California San Diego’s Division of Arts and Humanities significantly increased its presence on the recently released list of 2016 – 2017 Hellman Fellowships, a university program designed to provide financial support to promising faculty for activities that enhance progress toward tenure. Last year’s divisional recipients included an associate professor from the Department of History, but this year four junior faculty earned recognition. Making up one-third of the 12 awardees, they are: Amy Marie Cimini, Department of Music; Deborah Isobel Stein, Department of Theatre and Dance; Matthew Werner Vitz, Department of History; and Alena Williams, Department of Visual Arts.

May 5, 2016 — From the experiences of an East African immigrant working as a dishwasher to those of a long-term, loving couple, UC San Diego’s 2016 Wagner New Play Festival features five new plays, May 3 – 12, in The Joan and Irwin Jacobs Theatre District located on the La Jolla campus. Two of the premiere pieces, described as highly personal and powerful, are by award-winning M.F.A. playwrights in the Department of Theatre and Dance.

May 4, 2016 — Mingling the past with the present, the University of California San Diego’s Department of Visual Arts is embarking on a series of programs to celebrate its upcoming 50th anniversary entitled, “VISUAL ARTS@50: ART INTO LIFE.” Kicking off the celebration is “Object Type,” an exhibition that runs May 3 – 13 in the Visual Arts Gallery, at the SME Building on campus.

May 3, 2016 — University of California San Diego’s Division of Arts and Humanities launched a new initiative last fall by establishing the Institute of Arts and Humanities (IAH)—a cultural hub that fortifies academic, administrative and community outreach efforts within the division. Now, the division has appointed the institute’s first new director and associate director—Luis Alvarez and Mark Hanna, respectively. Both are faculty members in the UC San Diego Department of History. They assume their new leadership posts July 1.

May 2, 2016 — The new “Startup UCSD,” described as a two-day hackathon for startups, encourages the creative, innovative, and problem-solving students at UC San Diego to bring their ideas to a venue where workshops, professional advisors, and campus resources can help bring those ideas to fruition.

April 25, 2016 — University of California San Diego’s Luis Martin-Cabrera has been named a 2016 Whiting Public Engagement (WPE) Fellow by the Whiting Foundation for his proposal to investigate the lives of indigenous groups living in a region known as the “Saudi Arabia of Lithium.” A key component in rechargeable batteries for laptops and cell phones, lithium is actively mined in Argentina, Bolivia and Chile. This activity is changing the landscape and the lives of people living in the region. As a fellow, Martin-Cabrera will receive $40,000 to fund six consecutive months of leave to work on his ambitious, public-facing project.

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.