UCSB Santa Barbara Department of History logo

Excavations at the Burial Tumulus of Lofkënd in Albania

Between 2004 and 2008 UCLA archaeologists and their Albanian collaborators excavated one of the last remaining undisturbed prehistoric burial mounds in Albania. Dating from the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age (ca. 14th – 9th centuries B.C.), the cemetery yielded 100 graves and numerous spectacular finds in bronze, gold, iron, clay, semi-precious stone, and glass. […]

Getting Hitched in Heian Kyoto: Investigating Marriage in Classical Japan

Marriage in Heian era (794-1192) Japan differed greatly from modern forms and makes an excellent subject for the comparative study of gender relations. Prof. Piggot explores the subject, basing her talk on a wide range of sources of the day, and in particular the Shinsarugakuki, a humorous account of carnival and family ties by the […]

The Taste of the Enemy: Food and Warfare in Asia, 1937-1953

Dr. Katarzyna Cwiertka is Europe’s premier expert on food culture in modern Japan. She is the author of three books, including Modern Japanese Cuisine: Food, Power and National Identity, Kaiseki Recipes: Secrets of Japanese Cuisine, and Asian Food: the Global and the Local. Along with the landscape, climate and language, food constitutes the most immediate […]

A Nuclear Winter’s Tale: Science and Politics in the 1980s

The Center for Science in Society and the Center for Cold War Studies and International History (CCWS) are jointly hosting this event in the Lawrence Badash Distinguished Lecture Series. Lawrence Badash, professor emeritus of the history of science at UCSB, will talk about his new book, A NUCLEAR WINTER'S TALE: SCIENCE AND POLITICS IN THE […]

Learning the Lessons of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

The 2009-10 Critical Issues in American topic is "Forty Years after the Big Spill - Looking Back, Looking Ahead: 21st Century Environmental Challenges in a Global Context." Led by Dehlsen Professor of Environmental Studies William Freudenberg and supported by Water Policy Program Director Robert Wilkinson, the program references an historical benchmark - for the campus […]

Film screening “The Promise” (1995)

East Berlin, 1961: shortly after the Berlin Wall goes up, four friends make a daring escape while one remains behind. For the next 28 years (until 1989) they try to meet ... Directed by Margarethe von Trotta, 115 mins. hm 10/27/09

‘Galileo, the Universe, and God’: UCSB Science and Humanities Faculty to Discuss Legacy of Galileo and his Astronomical Discoveries

The intersection between religion and science and Galileo's scientific and intellectual legacies will be the subject of "Galileo, the Universe, and God," an interdisciplinary event organized by a group of UC Santa Barbara science and humanities faculty that will take place on Thursday, November 12, at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. The event, […]

Festschrift presentation in honor of Prof. Humphreys

On October 13, 2007, thirteen of Professor R. Stephen Humphreys' former graduate students at the University of Chicago, the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the University of California, Santa Barbara delivered papers at a Festschrift conference in his honor at the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, Minnesota. The papers from the conference have […]

Artisans of Ancient China

In viewing objects like those found at Mawangdui, their anonymous creators generally remain in obscurity. This lecture focuses on these oft forgotten individuals, the men and women who crafted objects in private workshops and government factories during the Han Dynasty of China (202 BCE-220 CE). Among the topics to be discussed are artisan training, societal […]

From Cooperative Wineries to Fair-Trade Wine: Small Wine Producers in Twentieth Century Chile

This talk explores the history of cooperative wineries in Chile, from their foundation in 1929 to the beginning of the process of AgrarianReform in 1964. While the Chilean state envisioned rural cooperatives as a mechanism to modernize the countryside and help impoverished small landowners, the project’s implementation had major flaws. The cooperative project did not […]