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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260303T100000
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SUMMARY:Research Focus Group Talk: Childhood and the Role of Adults in the Identity Formation of Children in Ghanaian Children’s Literature
DESCRIPTION:The perception of childhood seems to vary across cultures and literature is a key conveyor of cultural heritage. heritage. In this talk\, Clara Asare-Nyarko will explore childhood and the roles adults play in the identity formation of children in Ghanaian children’s literature. \nAlthough the development of children’s literature in Ghana began in the 1950s and a significant volume has been produced for young readers\, research on children’s literature in Ghana remains largely a neglected area (Yitah & Komasi\, 2009). The use of story as agent of socialisation is a conscious and deliberate process and people usually develop understanding of who they are in close relationship with the society they belong to (Stephens\, 1992; Stryker & Burke\, 2000). Using four books for young readers by Ghanaian authors and social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner\, 1979)\, this study explores childhood and the roles adults play in the identity formation of children. Childhood is often defined more by behaviour\, responsibility and societal norms rather than just age in Ghana (Kyei-Gyamfi\, 2025) and adults play prominent roles in this crucial formative period children learn to coexist and interact in a more interconnected world. \nClara Asare-Nyarko is a final-year doctoral student in the Department of English\, University of Cape Coast\, Ghana and University of Hildesheim\, Germany. She holds a Master of Arts in Translation Studies from Pan African University and ASTI in University of Buea\, Cameroon. \nZoom attendance link here \nCosponsored by the IHC’s Global Childhood Media Research Focus Group and Ghana Studies Research Focus Group
URL:https://ihc.ucsb.edu/event/research-focus-group-talk-childhood-and-the-role-of-adults-in-the-identity-formation-of-children-in-ghanaian-childrens-literature/
LOCATION:Zoom
CATEGORIES:Global Childhood Media,Ghana Studies,All Events,IHC Research Focus Groups
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ihc.ucsb.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Clara-Asare-Nyarko_Event.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="Global Childhood Media":MAILTO:saraweld@ucsb.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260311T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260311T173000
DTSTAMP:20260531T232207
CREATED:20260212T002958Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260220T223940Z
UID:10000801-1773244800-1773250200@ihc.ucsb.edu
SUMMARY:Research Focus Group Talk: Accumulation by Dispossession: The Timber Salvage Project on Ghana’s Volta Lake
DESCRIPTION:This talk draws on the timber salvage project on Ghana’s Volta Lake to theorize how accumulation by dispossession is reproduced through contemporary environmental governance. It situates salvage within the lake’s longer history of state-led development and displacement following the Akosombo Dam. Framed around sustainability\, safety\, and economic opportunity\, timber extraction reworks a shared lake space into a site of value capture. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and document analysis\, the talk shows how state and corporate actors consolidate profit through restricted access and uneven benefit sharing. It traces global connections and foregrounds the inequalities and injustice enacted\, advancing debates on green grabbing and environmental justice. \nEric Tamatey Lawer is a human geographer whose research and teaching lie at the intersection of human geography and development studies. His work is grounded in the political ecology of natural resources\, examining how power\, policy\, and spatial transformations shape livelihoods and environments in Africa and beyond. \nCosponsored by the IHC’s Ghana Studies Research Focus Group\, Department of History\, Environmental Studies Program\, and Africa Center
URL:https://ihc.ucsb.edu/event/research-focus-group-talk-accumulation-by-dispossession-the-timber-salvage-project-on-ghanas-volta-lake/
LOCATION:4080 HSSB\, UC Santa Barbara\, Santa Barbara\, CA\, 93106\, United States
CATEGORIES:Ghana Studies,All Events,IHC Research Focus Groups
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://ihc.ucsb.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/VOLTA_LAKE_EVENT.png
ORGANIZER;CN="Ghana Studies":MAILTO:miescher@ucsb.edu
GEO:34.4139682;-119.8503034
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260412T100000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260412T120000
DTSTAMP:20260531T232207
CREATED:20260325T203406Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260326T181747Z
UID:10000803-1775988000-1775995200@ihc.ucsb.edu
SUMMARY:Taubman Symposium Talk: Between Catastrophe and Creativity: Shmuel Yosef Agnon’s Nobel Prize and the Jewish Response to Trauma
DESCRIPTION:In December 1966\, Austro-Hungarian born Israeli author Shmuel Yosef Agnon (1887–1970) received the Nobel Prize in literature—the only author writing in Hebrew to receive that distinguished honor. Rabbi Jeffrey Saks will trace how Agnon’s remarkable acceptance speech vividly expresses the intertwining of personal destiny\, Jewish history\, and the art of storytelling. Standing before the crowned heads of Europe\, Agnon recounted his life\, not merely as a biographical sketch but as a narrative shaped by the catastrophe of Jerusalem’s destruction and centuries of exile. Agnon portrayed his literary calling as divine compensation for the lost sacred songs of the Temple. He cast himself as a Levite tasked to write in place of singing—to render music in prose that consoles pain and channels longing. His works\, suffused with layers of biblical\, rabbinic\, and folk textures\, grow from that center: the artist as healer of ancient wounds. Saks explores how that theme animates Agnon’s writing and surveys the intertwined biographical stations leading to the platform at the Nobel Prize ceremony. \nRabbi Jeffrey Saks is a prominent Modern Orthodox educator\, writer\, and editor based in Jerusalem. He holds a BA\, MA\, and rabbinic ordination from Yeshiva University. Rabbi Saks is best known as the founding director of The Academy for Torah Initiatives and Directions in Jewish Education and its online learning platform\, WebYeshiva.org. Since January 2019\, he has served as the Editor-in-Chief of Tradition\, a leading journal of Orthodox Jewish thought\, and currently serves as the Director of Research at the Agnon House in Jerusalem. \nZoom attendance link here \nCosponsored by the Herman P. and Sophia Taubman Foundation Endowed Symposia in Jewish Studies and Department of Religious Studies
URL:https://ihc.ucsb.edu/event/taubman-symposium-talk-between-catastrophe-and-creativity-shmuel-yosef-agnons-nobel-prize-and-the-jewish-response-to-trauma/
LOCATION:Zoom
CATEGORIES:Herman P. and Sophia Taubman Foundation Endowed Symposia in Jewish Studies,All Events
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ihc.ucsb.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/RABBI_JEFFREY_SAKS_RFG_Event.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260417T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260417T200000
DTSTAMP:20260531T232207
CREATED:20260317T233946Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260319T183018Z
UID:10000802-1776452400-1776456000@ihc.ucsb.edu
SUMMARY:Research Focus Group Talk: All the Frost Melts: A Trilingual Reading in Dolgan\, Russian\, and English
DESCRIPTION:This trilingual reading of writings by Indigenous writer Kseniia Bolshakova will include portions from her autobiographical novel All the Frost Melts\, which was recently translated into English after being published in Dolgan and Russian in 2024. It will feature writer Kseniia Bolshakova reading in Dolgan\, linguist Karina Sheifer (UC Santa Barbara) reading in Russian\, and translator Ainsley Morse (UC San Diego) reading in English. The reading also will include imagery from life in the Russian Arctic. This event is being held in conjunction with INT 94LE: Literature and Experience and the longstanding California Graduate Slavic Colloquium\, being held at UCSB for the first time ever on April 18\, 2026. \nKseniia Bolshakova is an Indigenous decolonial writer and a member of the Dolgan Tribal community Yjdyŋa. She was born and raised in the tundra and the village of Popigai in the Russian Arctic. As one of the youngest keepers of the Dolgan language—spoken by only 1000 people—she is deeply committed to preserving her native tongue and traditional knowledge\, as well as advocating for Indigenous rights and social justice. Her debut novel\, Buluus da irer / All The Frost Melts\, was first published in a bilingual Dolgan-Russian edition and presented at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York in 2024. \nKarina Sheifer is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Linguistics at UCSB. Her fieldwork focuses on language contact and change as well as documentation and digitalization of Indigenous languages of Siberia and the Far East\, namely Northern Tungusic (Evenki and Even)\, Siberian Turkic (Dolgan and Yakut)\, and Chukotko-Kamchatkan (Itelmen and Chukchi). Although her main research interest is in linguistics\, an integral part of her work is an interaction with minority national communities in terms of education and promotion of Indigenous languages\, literatures\, and cultures. \nAinsley Morse teaches in the Department of Literature at UC-San Diego and translates from Russian\, Ukrainian and the languages of former Yugoslavia. Her research focuses on the literature and culture of the post-war Soviet period\, particularly unofficial or “underground” poetry\, as well as the avant-garde\, children’s literature and contemporary poetry. With Anastasiya Osipova\, she co-runs Cicada Press\, a small press that publishes Eastern European and Russian poetry in translation; she also translates and edits for Tamizdat Project Press. \nCosponsored by the IHC’s Global Childhood Media Research Focus Group\, Arnhold Arts and Humanities Commons\, and Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies
URL:https://ihc.ucsb.edu/event/research-focus-group-talk-all-the-frost-melts-a-trilingual-reading-in-dolgan-russian-and-english/
LOCATION:McCune Conference Room\, 6020 HSSB\, Santa Barbara\, CA\, 93106\, United States
CATEGORIES:Global Childhood Media,All Events,IHC Research Focus Groups
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ihc.ucsb.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/TRILINGUAL_READING_RFG_Event.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="Global Childhood Media":MAILTO:saraweld@ucsb.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260421T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260421T173000
DTSTAMP:20260531T232207
CREATED:20241015T184704Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260225T223703Z
UID:10000729-1776787200-1776792600@ihc.ucsb.edu
SUMMARY:Humanities Decanted: Shana Moulton
DESCRIPTION:Join us for a discussion with Shana Moulton (Art) about her recent exhibition at MoMA\, Meta/Physical Therapy. \nThis 2024 exhibition premiered a new site-specific installation. Through performance\, video\, and sculpture\, Moulton chronicled the experiences of her semi-autobiographical alter-ego\, Cynthia\, as she navigated personal choices and physical limitations. Transforming the Kravis Studio into a prismatic environment\, this installation employed the artist’s signature blend of spiritual imagery\, medical technology\, popular culture\, and references to high art and dollar-store kitsch. An extension of Moulton’s Whispering Pines series\, which began in 2002\, the project continued the artist’s incisive examination of the aesthetics of pain and healing and the mass marketing of wellness and explores the maladies of middle age. Presented as a multi-chapter narrative\, the installation was accompanied by a series of performances created in collaboration with composer Nick Hallett\, bringing Cynthia’s inner world to life. \nShana Moulton is a California-born and -based artist who works in video\, performance\, and installation. She holds a BA from UC Berkeley in Art and Anthropology and an MFA from Carnegie Mellon University. Moulton has exhibited her work as a solo artist and in groups at major international museums\, galleries and institutes. She has performed at sites including The Museum of Modern Art\, New York\, The Andy Warhol Museum\, Pittsburgh\, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art\, San Francisco\, The Getty\, Los Angeles\, and The Hammer Museum\, Los Angeles. Moulton’s work has been featured in Artforum\, The New York Times\, ArtReview\, Art in America\, Flash Art\, Artpress\, Metropolis M\, BOMB Magazine\, and Frieze. \nRefreshments will be served. \nCosponsored by the IHC’s Idee Levitan Endowment
URL:https://ihc.ucsb.edu/event/humanities-decanted-shana-moulton/
LOCATION:McCune Conference Room\, 6020 HSSB\, Santa Barbara\, CA\, 93106\, United States
CATEGORIES:Idee Levitan Endowment,All Events,Humanities Decanted
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ihc.ucsb.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Moulton_Event.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260501T133000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260501T143000
DTSTAMP:20260531T232207
CREATED:20260421T184648Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260421T202257Z
UID:10000804-1777642200-1777645800@ihc.ucsb.edu
SUMMARY:Research Focus Group Talk: Gilgamesh and the Many Faces of Mesopotamian Heroism
DESCRIPTION:Please join us on Friday\, May 1 at 1:30PM PST for a virtual lecture by Eric Harvey on “Gilgamesh and the Many Faces of Mesopotamian Heroism.” Harvey will introduce the Epic of Gilgamesh alongside other Mesopotamian narratives of kings\, warriors\, and sages\, illustrating the strikingly varied vision of heroism produced in the ancient Near East. \nEric Harvey holds a PhD from Brandeis University in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies\, with a specialization in Bible and the Ancient Near East. He studies the history\, literature\, and religions of ancient Israel\, Syria\, Iraq\, and the surrounding areas. He is the author of Reading Creation Myths Economically in Ancient Mesopotamia and Israel. Harvey also writes The Blind Scholar\, a popular blog where he documents creative new ways to engage in scholarship\, family\, and the world as a blind person. \nZoom registration link here \nCosponsored by the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center’s Low-Resource Research Ethics Research Focus Group\, UCSB Office of Teaching and Learning\, Department of Classics\, and LOREL Lab
URL:https://ihc.ucsb.edu/event/research-focus-group-talk-gilgamesh-and-the-many-faces-of-mesopotamian-heroism/
LOCATION:Zoom
CATEGORIES:Low-Resource Research Ethics,All Events,IHC Research Focus Groups
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ihc.ucsb.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/ERIC_HARVEY_GILGAMESH_Event.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="Low-Resource Research Ethics RFG":MAILTO:aklamar@ucsb.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260507T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260507T180000
DTSTAMP:20260531T232207
CREATED:20260109T005712Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260416T175458Z
UID:10000795-1778169600-1778176800@ihc.ucsb.edu
SUMMARY:On Fire Talk: Mass Deportation as Racial Engineering
DESCRIPTION:Ahilan Arulanantham will describe the role race discrimination has played in immigration and refugee policy and how that history continues to play out in the current struggle over the Temporary Protected Status program\, which allows individuals to remain in the United States because of unsafe conditions in their home countries. Audience Q&A and a reception will follow. \nAhilan T. Arulanantham is Professor from Practice and Co-Director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy (CILP) at the UCLA School of Law. He teaches in the law school\, maintains an active litigation practice\, and has argued before the US Supreme Court multiple times. Prior to joining UCLA\, Ahilan was Senior Counsel at the ACLU in Los Angeles\, where he worked for nearly twenty years. \nCosponsored by the IHC’s On Fire series and the Sara Miller McCune and George D. McCune Endowment \nImage credit: Lorie Shaull
URL:https://ihc.ucsb.edu/event/on-fire-talk-mass-deportation-as-racial-engineering/
LOCATION:McCune Conference Room\, 6020 HSSB\, Santa Barbara\, CA\, 93106\, United States
CATEGORIES:On Fire,All Events,IHC Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ihc.ucsb.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/AHILAN_Event.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="Interdisciplinary Humanities Center":MAILTO:events@ihc.ucsb.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260511T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260511T170000
DTSTAMP:20260531T232207
CREATED:20260501T210920Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260505T204356Z
UID:10000811-1778515200-1778518800@ihc.ucsb.edu
SUMMARY:Research Focus Group Talk: “Children are an Extraordinary Plastic Material”: Juvenile Homelessness and Delinquency in the Early Soviet Union
DESCRIPTION:The symbol of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution in public memory in Russia and abroad has been the tragedy of the Romanovs’ family in which five children of Nicholas II and Alexandra had been executed by the Bolsheviks\, along with their parents. What is less salient in public commemoration is the fact that thousands of ordinary children died in the years after the Revolution from hunger\, diseases\, and overall neglect as direct causes of the turbulent revolutionary time. Children became immediate victims of the collapse of the Russian empire and the Bolsheviks’ fierce fight for power. A combination of manmade disasters – First World War\, 1917 Revolution and the Civil War\, the policies of war communism\, and the resulting famine of 1921–22 – led to hundreds of thousands of abandoned children. Children lost their parents\, relatives\, homes\, and lives to the Bolshevik cause. \nThis talk explores the politics of the nascent Soviet state towards childhood. In the 1920s–30s\, children were seen as an “extraordinary plastic material” by both scientific and political actors who proposed that institutionalization and “productive” labor would create the environment that would nurture anti-criminal habits and proletarian identities for young Soviet citizens in the making. To address the problem of children’s homelessness and crime\, special homes and labor communes for orphans and young offenders were opened under the auspices of both the Ministry of Enlightenment and OGPU (political police) and were run by educators pioneering methods of rehabilitating troubled adolescents through collective labor. Noi will analyze several representative children’s homes and juvenile colonies of the 1920s–30s designed as places of experiments with ideas of human transformation. She will discuss how in the early Soviet Union the criminality of juvenile delinquents was considered reversible through the change in their environment – through institutionalization in communes/colonies and collective work in agriculture and industry. \nAlexandra Noi is a Ph.D. candidate in the History Department at the University of California\, Santa Barbara. She received her B.A. and M.A. in China Studies before completing a Ph.D. in Modern Chinese Literature from St. Petersburg State University. At UCSB\, she is pursuing her second Ph.D. in Soviet and Chinese history. She is interested in exploring the historical connections between modern science and incarceration. Her research problematizes the analysis of authoritarianism and state violence by uncovering entanglements between their political ideologies and contemporary scientific ideas and practices. \nCosponsored by the IHC’s Global Childhood Media Research Focus Group
URL:https://ihc.ucsb.edu/event/research-focus-group-talk-children-are-an-extraordinary-plastic-material-juvenile-homelessness-and-delinquency-in-the-early-soviet-union/
LOCATION:6206C Phelps Hall
CATEGORIES:Global Childhood Media,All Events,IHC Research Focus Groups
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ihc.ucsb.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/NOI_RFG_Event.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="Global Childhood Media":MAILTO:saraweld@ucsb.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260514T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260514T180000
DTSTAMP:20260531T232207
CREATED:20251029T193215Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260407T165343Z
UID:10000789-1778774400-1778781600@ihc.ucsb.edu
SUMMARY:On Fire Talk: The Fires Last Time: Landlord Arson and the Reverb of Racial Capitalism
DESCRIPTION:Last year’s wildfires in L.A. turned a spotlight on a corner of the insurance world that typically exists in the shadows: the California FAIR plan\, the state’s insurer of last resort. Though it is now synonymous with wildfire risk\, the FAIR plan is the byproduct of a very different conflagration: the Watts uprising of 1965. The strange career of the FAIR plan illustrates the links between the urban crisis of the late twentieth century and the climate crisis of the present. Connecting the long hot summers of the 1960s to today’s wildfires was a wave of insurance arson that coursed through the Bronx\, L.A.\, and scores of American cities during the 1970s. Audience Q&A and a reception will follow. \nBench Ansfield is an assistant professor of history at Temple University. Their book\, Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City\, was published by W. W. Norton in August 2025 and named one of the best books of the year by the New York Times and Kirkus Reviews. Ansfield holds a PhD in American studies from Yale University and won the Allan Nevins Prize for the best dissertation in American history from the Society of American Historians. \nCosponsored by the IHC’s On Fire series and the Sara Miller McCune and George D. McCune Endowment
URL:https://ihc.ucsb.edu/event/the-fires-last-time/
LOCATION:McCune Conference Room\, 6020 HSSB\, Santa Barbara\, CA\, 93106\, United States
CATEGORIES:On Fire,All Events,IHC Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ihc.ucsb.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/BENCH_ANSFIELD_Event.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="Interdisciplinary Humanities Center":MAILTO:events@ihc.ucsb.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260519T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260519T180000
DTSTAMP:20260531T232207
CREATED:20260422T202342Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260424T194145Z
UID:10000806-1779206400-1779213600@ihc.ucsb.edu
SUMMARY:New Research in the Humanities: Presentations by the IHC’s 2025-26 Faculty Fellows
DESCRIPTION:Please join us in celebrating our 2025-26 Faculty Fellows\, whose works-in-progress are supported this year by IHC release-time awards. Fellows will give a short presentation of their work. A reception will follow. \nAlicia Boswell\, History of Art and Architecture\n“Ancient Moche Metals from Loma Negra\, Peru: Performance in the Past and Present” \nHeather Blurton\, English\n“Piety and Prejudice: The Ritual Crucifixion Accusation in Late Medieval England” \nHoward Chiang\, East Asian Languages & Cultural Studies\n“The Confucian Freud: Race\, Psychoanalysis\, and the Politics of Transcultural Science in the Sinophone Pacific” \nDavid Stein\, History\n“Fearing Inflation\, Inflating Fears: The Civil Rights Struggle for Full Employment and the Rise of the Carceral State\, 1929-1986”
URL:https://ihc.ucsb.edu/event/new-research-in-the-humanities-presentations-by-the-ihcs-2025-26-faculty-fellows/
LOCATION:McCune Conference Room\, 6020 HSSB\, Santa Barbara\, CA\, 93106\, United States
CATEGORIES:All Events,IHC Research Support
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ihc.ucsb.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/2026_FACULTY_FELLOWS-1.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="Interdisciplinary Humanities Center":MAILTO:events@ihc.ucsb.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260520T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260520T153000
DTSTAMP:20260531T232207
CREATED:20260422T233725Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260424T210313Z
UID:10000809-1779285600-1779291000@ihc.ucsb.edu
SUMMARY:Research Focus Group Talk: The Funny Thing About Noise: Film Sound Aesthetics in the Cold War Cinema of Taiwan and South Korea
DESCRIPTION:Taiwanese and South Korean film comedies of the 1960s and 70s were swarming with funny noises\, from cymbal crashes to dog barks and glissandos of all timbres. Why all the ruckus? Was this simply a relic of the bygone era\, an early sound film aesthetic arrived late in a developing nation? Examining the ways in which these sounds emanate from the bodies of comedians to make them larger\, unrulier\, or simply noisier than life\, Shih argue that these “comedy parasites” interrupt the dominant image-sound perceptual chain with powerful consequences. In reorganizing the audiovisual contract\, funny noises oriented filmgoers away from the authoritarian state and towards new political positions. They animated nonconformist\, transgressive\, and queer cinematic figures who were undeterred by the political and material realities of the Cold War. This remarkable feat was achieved despite—or perhaps thanks to—the perceived backwardness of film sound technology in these two post-colonial nations at the time. Unable to produce clear\, naturalistic\, and direct sound\, Taiwanese and Korean sound designers ingeniously embraced “noise” in the post-synchronization process\, specifically for the purposes of comedy. They contravened regimes of precision and technological developmentalism in their improvisatory recording practices. This talk examines through comparison how Taiwanese and South Korean cinema stretched the limits of audio-vision and invented a new rhetoric of film sound\, thereby developing a sensual means through which to communicate the absurdity of authoritarian state ideology. \nEvelyn Shih is Korea Foundation Assistant Professor at the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies with a joint appointment in Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Minnesota. She teaches courses on film and media\, as well as Korean culture and literature within a comparative and transnational framework. She studies colonial\, Cold War\, and contemporary East Asia. Her work has been published in the Journal of Chinese Cinemas\, the Journal of Korean Studies\, MCLC\, and Film Quarterly. Her first book manuscript\, Cold War Laugh Lines: Comic Communication in Authoritarian Taiwan and South Korea\, explores the comic forms that flourish under heavy censorship and ideological control. She dives into the archives of the anti-Communist sphere in Cold War East Asia to argue for the transnational circulation of a regional style of comic expression. Her work interweaves methodologies from affect and phenomenology\, media historiography\, environmental humanities\, aesthetics and critical theory. \nCosponsored by the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center’s Sounding Transpacific Asia Research Focus Group\, Center for Taiwan Studies\, East Asia Center\, and Department of East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies
URL:https://ihc.ucsb.edu/event/research-focus-group-talk-the-funny-thing-about-noise-film-sound-aesthetics-in-the-cold-war-cinema-of-taiwan-and-south-korea/
LOCATION:McCune Conference Room\, 6020 HSSB\, Santa Barbara\, CA\, 93106\, United States
CATEGORIES:Sounding Transpacific Asia,All Events,IHC Research Focus Groups
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ihc.ucsb.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Evelyn_Shih_Event.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="Sounding Transpacific Asia":MAILTO:almurphy@ucsb.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260520T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260520T190000
DTSTAMP:20260531T232207
CREATED:20260422T235340Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260501T165512Z
UID:10000810-1779296400-1779303600@ihc.ucsb.edu
SUMMARY:Research Focus Group Event: Undergraduate Research and Creative Showcase
DESCRIPTION:This undergraduate showcase will feature a research presentation by Fiona Boborci\, titled “Translating Childhood: Untranslatability\, Linguistic Hospitality\, and Reader Perception in The Little Prince.” In her talk\, Fiona explores the linguistic\, philosophical\, and cultural dimensions of translation in children’s literature\, examining how different English translations of Saint-Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince produce distinct understandings of childhood\, imagination\, and moral responsibility. Drawing on both French and English traditions\, the presentation highlights translation as an active and transformative process that shapes reader perception. \nFiona Boborci is a senior French and Comparative Literature double major at UCSB. She has studied French since early childhood and brings this linguistic background to her work in modern francophone literature. She will continue her studies after graduation in a teacher credentialing and master’s program\, with a focus on the intersections of linguistics\, literature\, and bilingual education. \nFollowing the talk\, the event will continue with a curated showcase of undergraduate creative projects\, including adaptations of literary works into visual media aimed at young adult audiences. Together\, the research and creative components highlight diverse approaches to engaging with literature across languages\, media\, and audiences. \nZoom attendance link here \nCosponsored by the IHC’s Global Childhood Media Research Focus Group
URL:https://ihc.ucsb.edu/event/research-focus-group-event-undergraduate-research-and-creative-showcase/
LOCATION:6206C Phelps and Zoom\, UC Santa Barbara\, Santa Barbara\, CA\, 93106\, United States
CATEGORIES:Global Childhood Media,All Events,IHC Research Focus Groups
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ihc.ucsb.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/FIONA_BOBORCI_Event.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="Global Childhood Media":MAILTO:saraweld@ucsb.edu
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260521T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260521T173000
DTSTAMP:20260531T232207
CREATED:20251219T193446Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260512T182634Z
UID:10000794-1779379200-1779384600@ihc.ucsb.edu
SUMMARY:Humanities Decanted: Josephine Metcalf and Ben Olguín
DESCRIPTION:WITH SPECIAL GUEST LUIS J. RODRÍGUEZ\nJoin us for a dialogue with Josephine Metcalf (University of Hull) and Ben Olguín (English)\, who will be speaking with Ralph Armbruster-Sandoval (Chicana and Chicano Studies) about their new co-edited volume\, The Life\, Literature and Legacy of Luis J. Rodríguez: In the Long Run. Luis Rodríguez is a prominent Latinx poet\, memoirist and activist renowned for his candid visceral accounts of urban working-class life that includes youth gang violence\, incarceration and drug abuse\, gruelling factory work and union organising activities and collective approaches to redemption and political empowerment\, which have resonated across multiple communities in the United States and abroad. Accordingly\, whilst Rodríguez has been the focus of some critical scholarship\, huge segments of his life\, work and legacy remain unexamined. This anthology has commissioned new and unique critical essays and reflections on Rodríguez’s life and works\, putting forward new ideas about bringing the voices of ‘barrio organic intellectuals’ to the fore. The anthology deliberately includes traditional academics as well as more public intellectuals and creative writers from across Europe and the Americas to reflect Rodriguez’s own diverse outputs as a prisoner author and activist. \nJosephine Metcalf is a Senior Lecturer in American Studies at the University of Hull\, UK. She is the co-founder and co-director of the Cultures of Incarceration Centre and Programme Director for the MA in Incarceration Studies. \nBen Valdez Olguín is the Robert and Liisa Erickson Presidential Chair in English and Director of The Global Latinidades Center at the University of California at Santa Barbara. \nRefreshments will be served. \nCosponsored by the IHC’s Harry Girvetz Memorial Endowment
URL:https://ihc.ucsb.edu/event/humanities-decanted-josephine-metcalf/
LOCATION:McCune Conference Room\, 6020 HSSB\, Santa Barbara\, CA\, 93106\, United States
CATEGORIES:All Events,Humanities Decanted
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ihc.ucsb.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/HD_JO_METCALF_Event.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="Interdisciplinary Humanities Center":MAILTO:events@ihc.ucsb.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260522T153000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260522T163000
DTSTAMP:20260531T232207
CREATED:20260422T232439Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260424T210205Z
UID:10000808-1779463800-1779467400@ihc.ucsb.edu
SUMMARY:Research Focus Group Talk: Re-negotiating the Algorithmic Contract: The Need for a Politics of Potentiality
DESCRIPTION:Jose Marichal is a professor of political science at California Lutheran University specializing in studying the role that algorithms and AI play in restructuring social and political institutions. His book entitled You Must Become an Algorithmic Problem was published in 2025 with Bristol University Press (UK). The book explores the unwritten social contract we have with the algorithms that shape what we see\, hear and think. His next project (expected 2026) is entitled Machine Liberalism: Reconceptualizing Rights in the Age of AI and looks at how algorithms and AI are changing our expectations of liberal democracy. \nCosponsored by the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center’s Low-Resource Research Ethics Research Focus Group\, Department of Classics\, and LOREL Lab
URL:https://ihc.ucsb.edu/event/research-focus-group-talk-re-negotiating-the-algorithmic-contract-the-need-for-a-politics-of-potentiality/
LOCATION:3605 South Hall\, Santa Barbara\, CA\, 93106-7100\, United States
CATEGORIES:Low-Resource Research Ethics,All Events,IHC Research Focus Groups
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ihc.ucsb.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Jose-Marichal_RFG_Event.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="Low-Resource Research Ethics RFG":MAILTO:aklamar@ucsb.edu
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260528T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260528T173000
DTSTAMP:20260531T232207
CREATED:20260422T200727Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260423T175747Z
UID:10000807-1779984000-1779989400@ihc.ucsb.edu
SUMMARY:Public Humanities Graduate Fellows Program Capstone Presentations
DESCRIPTION:Join us to celebrate our 2026 program graduates! \nKatherina Gontaryuk (Philosophy)\nOlivia Henderson (English)\nMartina Mattei (Comparative Literature)\nClaudia Mendoza Chavez (Anthropology)\nRussell Nylen (Anthropology)\nEdward Reyes (Chicana/o Studies)\nEunwoo Yoo (Theater and Dance) \nEach Fellow will present on their training\, work\, and identity as a public humanist. Hear about their projects and learn more about the Public Humanities Graduate Fellows Program! Audience Q&A and a reception will follow.
URL:https://ihc.ucsb.edu/event/public-humanities-graduate-fellows-program-capstone-presentations/
LOCATION:McCune Conference Room\, 6020 HSSB\, Santa Barbara\, CA\, 93106\, United States
CATEGORIES:All Events
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ihc.ucsb.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/PHGFP_CAPSTONE_EVENTjpg.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="Interdisciplinary Humanities Center":MAILTO:events@ihc.ucsb.edu
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR