UCSB Renaissance Studies presents the first talk in its new speaker series. There will be a light reception after the talk. For more information contact Stefania Tutino or Jim Kearney. hm 10/13/08

Was John Cabot the first European after the Norse to set foot in North America? Brian Fagan takes us on a fascinating 1,500-year archaeological and historical journey in search of the answer, which is closely linked to the importance of fish like cod to Christian doctrine. We begin with Christ's 40-day fast in the wilderness, […]

Dias de los Muertos event Thursday, October 30 / 5:30 PM McCune Conference Room, HSSB 6020 As part of its Food Matters series, the IHC will celebrate the Days of the Dead with a screening of the PBS film Food for the Ancestors. Food for the Ancestors is a culinary-history exploration of Days of the […]

Presented by the CCWS Cold War film series. The president of United States has just signed a treaty with the Soviet Union requiring both countries to destroy their nuclear weapons. The polls show the treaty to be unpopular. The charismatic Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff believes that the Soviets will cheat and launch […]

In this colloquium, Josiah Ober will draw on his recent book Democracy and Knowledge: Innovation and Learning in Classical Athens (Princeton University Press, 2008) to discuss the institutional contexts of democratic knowledge management in classical Athens. Josiah Ober is Professor of Classics and Professor of Political Science at Stanford University, and holds the Constantine Mitsotaki […]

Monday, November 3 / 12:00 PMHSSB 2252 Luke Roberts will speak on keeping the deaths of daimyo officially secret for days or months at a time so as to engineer adoptions in the Tokugawa period. Almost everyone is in the know but pretends the lord is alive. This study helped Roberts figure out the why […]

Wednesday, November 5 / 4:00 PMMcCune Conference Room, 6020 HSSB This book presentation and discussion will focus on Mario T. Garcia's new book concerning the historic role that Chicano Catholicism has played in the resistance of Chicanos to cultural and identity repression and in affirming the cultural and identity integrity of Chicanos. In addition to […]

Wednesday, November 5 / 7:30 PMUCSB Campbell Hall Israeli writer David Grossman is the author of some of the most controversial books in his country's history, including the award-winning The Yellow Wind, observations collected over three months in the West Bank. The recipient of 21 international literary awards, Grossman's acclaimed body of works has been […]

5 - 6 pm at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1130 State St. Introductory remarks by Mara Vishniac Kohn and Jeffrey Gusky On view: Of Life and Loss: The Polish Photographs of Roman Vishniac (1930s) and Jeffrey Gusky (1990s) Student and survivor art work 6 pm: Candlelight Walk of Remembrance from the Museum to […]

The Burden of Female Talent in Premodern China: Early Reactions to Li QingzhaoRonald Egan (EALCS, UCSB) Thursday November 13 / 12:00 PM HSSB 2252 The most celebrated woman poet in Chinese history, Li Qingzhao was already famous during her lifetime (1084-1150s). But while early critics and commentators universally acknowledged her literary talent, there was also […]

Gilbert Gonzalez is Professor of Social Sciences and Director of the Labor Studies Program at UC Irvine. He is the author of Chicano Education in the Era of Segregation (1990) and Culture of Empire: American Writers, Mexico, and Mexican Immigrants, 1880-1930 (2004). hm 9/22

TALK: Religious Fundamentalism: A Clash of Civilizations or a Convergence of Religiosities?Olivier Roy (CNRS) Friday, November 14 / 12:30 PM 3824 Ellison Hall 1930 Buchanan Olivier Roy is a research director at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and a lecturer for both the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) […]

Mary Beard, distinguished Classicist and Roman cultural historian, is delivering this fall's Sather Lectures at UC Berkeley. Their topic is “Roman Laughter: What made the Romans laugh?” Was Rome a world of practical jokes, Bakhtinian, carnival and hearty chuckles? Or (for the elite, at least) was it a carefully regulated culture in which the uncontrollable […]

UCSB History Associates Lecture and Reception Sunday, 2:00 p.m. at the Santa Barbara Mission Archive-Library Conference Room 2201 Laguna Street Prof. Hämäläinen's homepage Cost: $10.00 for History Associates; $15.00 for non-members Phone 893-4388 to reserve your place. hm 11/6/08

Monday, October 27 / 4:30 PM DATE CHANGE (10/23): rescheduled to November 17McCune Conference Room, 6020 HSSB Mark LeVine: Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Resistance, and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam An eighteen-year-old Moroccan who loves Black Sabbath. A twenty-two-year-old rapper from the Gaza Strip. A young Lebanese singer who quotes Bob Marley's "Redemption […]

Marking the 40th anniversary of the Black Student takeover of North Hall, the Department of Black Studies is organizing a conference entitled, 1968: A Global Year of Student Driven Change, to take place, November 20-22, 2008. While recognizing the courage and insight of the 1968 student awakening, this conference places that Black activism in a […]

See the 11/20 event link for more information, or go directly to the program.

“A Medieval Source for Renaissance Philosophy: Valla’s Metaphysics and the Logic of Peter of Spain.”Brian P. Copenhaver, Director, Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, UCLA “The Transition from Medieval to Renaissance Philosophy: Lorenzo Valla.” Lodi Nauta, Professor in Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy, University of Groningen For copies of the readings to be discussed in this […]

The Center for Cold War Studies and International History (CCWS) will hold the first workshop event of the 2008-2009 academic year. Professor Nelson Lichtenstein of the Department of History will join us to discuss his original essay, “Did 1968 Change History?”, a reflection on the political and cultural legacy of that momentous year, from both […]

Wuzhaishan, a second-century family cemetery site in Shandong Province, was the first site in China to be excavated by amateur antiquarian archaeologists in 1786, a few decades after similar excavations began at Pompeii. Excavations continued in the twentieth century by European, Japanese, and Chinese archaeologists. My approach has been to analyze finds from these excavations […]

Good luck with your final exams! hm 11/26