The lecture takes its point of departure in Maurice Blanchot’s claim that Kafka initiates a new form of dialogue. By reinserting Kafka in the debates (or dialogues) on the German-Jewish dialogue and the way in which that dialogue was always already framing, rehearsing and announcing the Arab-Jewish dialogue, Anidjar argues for the significance of form — and what it entails — in and toward the Arab-Jewish dialogue. Gil Anidjar teaches in the departments of Religion and of Middle Eastern, South ...

Department of Spanish and Portuguese, University of Santa Barbara & UC-Mexicanistas (Intercampus Research Program) Just as we were in the middle of organizing this colloquium, creatively and excitedly, we suddenly learned of the devastation in Texas, México (Oaxaca, Chiapas, Morelos), Florida, Cuba, Puerto Rico.  We remained strong through this hardship.  On September 19, ironically on the 32nd anniversary of the tragic 1985 Mexico City earthquake, another earthquake struck again.   And yet, in the midst of crisis, ...

Written and directed by Marcos Colón, Beyond Fordlândia (2017, 75 min) presents an environmental account of Henry Ford’s Amazon experience decades after its failure. The story addressed by the film begins in 1927, when the Ford Motor Company attempted to establish rubber plantations on the Tapajós River, a primary tributary of the Amazon. This film addresses the recent transition from failed rubber to successful soybean cultivation for export, and its implication for land usage. There ...

Bodies and Boundaries, 1500-1800 The Early Modern Center's Annual Conference: March 9-10, 2018 Featuring Keynotes from: Laurie Shannon (Northwestern University), "Human Boundedness: Shakespeare's Bear, Launce's Crab, and King Lear (with Sheep)" and Michelle Burnham (Santa Clara University), "Bodies at Risk: The Global Pacific in the Eighteenth Century" March 9, Mosher Alumni Hall, 1pm-5pm and March 10, McCune Conference Room, 9:30am-5:30pm

Feedback loops abound between digital media and contemporary vinyl culture. The majority of record sales occur online, the download code is a familiar feature of new vinyl releases, and turntables outfitted with USB ports and Bluetooth are outselling traditional models. The manufacture of records cannot be digitized; however, as with most commercial culture today, vinyl traffic is driven by algorithms and thrives on social media. Furthermore, the ascent of streaming over the past five years ...

In collaboration with UCSB New Beginnings presents: A very special screening of Skid Row Marathon documentary followed by a panel with the filmmakers Gabriele and Mark Hayes and and cast including Rafael Cabrera and Judge Craig Mitchell who started the LA Skid Row Running Club - and inspired the film. This film follows four runners as they rise from the mean streets of LA to run marathons around the world, fighting the pull of homelessness ...

Brian Holton is a poet and prize-winning translator of Chinese poetry. Famed for his renditions of contemporary poet Yang Lian 楊煉 into English, he is also the the world's only translator of Classical Chinese into Scots. Join us for an evening in which Brian discusses the art and practice of translation, the experience of working in a minority language like Scots, and his life growing up between Nigeria and Scotland, immersed in a myriad of languages.

The director of Zone Books, Michel Feher, will be at UCSB on Tuesday, October 30th. He has just written Rated Agency: Investee Politics in a Speculative Age.  In this original and exciting book, he argues that we can use existing institutional systems to redesign finance capitalism and move beyond neoliberalism as we know it. With the mid-term elections two weeks away, come hear Feher discuss our current political and economic predicament and new ideas for a ...

This gathering seeks to explore the critical role of translator as the mediator between cultures. In today’s political landscape, the translator is often called upon to be the go-between different peoples, spaces—both real and fictional— academic fields, and cultures. Even as the Executive Order has banned immigrants of numerous countries to the United States, the literary translator is one of the artistic professionals that enables communication between countries. The translator, as a transcultural ambassador, is ...

Jeffrey Stewart, Professor of Black Studies at UC Santa Barbara, was awarded the 2018 National Book Award in the nonfiction category for his beautifully written prose in The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke (Oxford University Press, 2017).  Dr. Stewart's award marked the first time since 1984 that a book published by an academic press was bestowed with that honor. This event will celebrate Dr. Stewart's outstanding accomplishment and will include: I. Welcome from the Department of ...

A commemoration of the International Mother Language Day with the aim of raising awareness on campus towards preserving endangered languages and fostering tolerance towards cultural and linguistic diversity. This year's commemoration will feature a lecture Dr. Juan Uriagereka (University of Maryland). Sponsored by the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Barandiaran Chair of Basque Studies, and the Etxepare Basque Institute

In the face of deepening social and ecological crises, design is emerging as a vital domain of praxis that engages these crises by imagining and organizing alternative life worlds. This confers upon design/ing an ineluctable ontological-political dimension. This lecture outlines the constructive reorientation of design as a praxis meant to heal the web of life, and describes the early stages of application of what we are calling “autonomous transition design” in the Cauca River Valley ...

This paper analyzes interactions between blacks and whites depicted between 1957 and 1961 in Jean Rouch’s I, a Black Man, The Human Pyramide, and Chronicle of a Summer. It concludes with remarks on Shadows, a 1958-59 feature film by John Cassavetes often credited as a breakthrough in U.S. independent filmmaking. In so doing, I mean to explore what Rouch and Cassavetes were trying to accomplish through production practices that bordered on the experimental. Major topics to be raised include: ...

This lecture focuses on Eileen Chang’s Xinjing, The Heart Sutra to map and understand the ways in which the author depicted different types of emotional, erotic, sexual, and psychological flows and exchanges between parents, children, and their partners and spouses. Xinjing will be here read in conversation with a wide array of other sources, first and foremost the mid - and late - Qing literary heritage that so greatly occupied and influenced Eileen Chang’s own literary ...

This talk will examine the roots of the American system for electing its president and explore the possibility—as well as the feasibility—of changing the existing system. The origins of the Electoral College lay in a series of tumultuous conflicts at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. At stake was not only what the presidency should entail but how the new chief executive should be elected. Memories of George III's abuses of power haunted delegates. Fears of ...

The capacities of Artificial Intelligence (AI) are growing rapidly and new technologies are impacting society in a variety of ways, all of which raise significant ethical issues. LeRon Shults (University of Adger, Norway) argues that the Humanities are needed to help guide the ethical conversations around AI by becoming more engaged in “Human Simulation,” a new interdisciplinary approach to simulating human futures (as well as studying the past) that requires the expertise of historians, philosophers, ...

William Germano, Professor of English at Cooper Union, is the author of Getting It Published: A Guide for Scholars and Anyone Else Serious about Serious Books; From Dissertation to Book; Eye Chart, among others. Prof. Germano will present a part of his current project tentatively titled, Shakespeare at the Opera: A History of Impossible Projects. *Prof. Germano will also hold a publication workshop on revising academic writing, which is mostly tailored for junior faculty who ...

In 1876 American and English newspapers reported the extraordinary will made by an American woman living in London. Inspired by Bentham’s 1832 bequest of his body, Susan Fletcher Smith approached the Royal College of Surgeons with the proposal that, upon her death, her body be “completely dissected in the most thorough manner known to science.” Moreover, she stipulated that preference be given to persons of the female sex who wished to inspect the body in ...

Linda Gregerson is the Caroline Walker Bynum Distinguished University Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Michigan. She is an internationally recognized scholar in American and British literature, and she is also the author of six award-winning books of poetry. She was named as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and she was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her creative and scholarly works have ...

The Sal Castro conference will bring together 28 participants to present their research on a variety of topics on the Chicano Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. The Chicano Movement was the largest and most widespread civil rights and empowerment in the history of Mexican Americans. There is a renewed interest in the Chicano Movement by historians and other scholars and this will be showcased at the conference. Sponsored by Office of the Chancellor, Office ...

The UCSB Early Modern Center (EMC) warmly invites you to our upcoming annual conference, “Queer Crossings, Unruly Locales, 1500-1800,” scheduled for Friday, February 28th and Saturday, February 29th here at UCSB in Alumni Hall of Mosher Alumni House. The conference is free and open to the public, and all are welcome! Our keynote speakers are Dr. Melissa E. Sanchez (University of Pennsylvania) and Dr. Rajani Sudan (Southern Methodist University). Visit the following link to view ...

Aggressive criminal prosecution of unwed mothers who killed their newborns in early modern Europe (1550-1750) has led historians to assume that Europe was less tolerant of illegitimacy and infanticide than other pre-modern societies, including China and Japan. New research throws this assumption into question. In early modern Geneva, authorities often turned a blind eye to the untimely deaths and abandonment of unwanted bastards. These findings suggest that Europeans took a more practical approach to managing ...

Healing/Arts is a free, virtual symposium that brings together creative practitioners from literary studies, medical humanities, disability justice, and performance for a series of talks and workshops on the relationship between the arts and health activism. Featured facilitators Kelly Gluckman, Leora Fridman, Johanna Hedva, and Patty Berne will examine the role the creative arts might play in critiquing the institutional configurations of American healthcare and the normative imperatives underlying idealized notions of health. And they ...

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER UC Press editors will offer insight into the academic book publishing process. The presentation will include: choosing the right publisher; preparing a book proposal; how the peer review and Editorial Committee process works; revising your manuscript; and working with publishers to promote your book. The session is intended to be interactive and questions are welcome. Following the presentation, we will host breakout rooms with editors based on field interests. This is ...