* To advertise your unit or department’s event in the “Of Interest” section of this weekly bulletin, please e-mail complete event information in text format (no PDFs) to cult@ucsc.edu no later than noon on Friday of the prior week.
* Additional information and regular updates on “Of Interest” events can be found on the IHR website and on the Cultural Studies website.
OF-INTEREST EVENT DESCRIPTIONS:
Tuesday, April 21 / HISTORY DEPARTMENT / Ernesto Chávez / “My Dear Noël”: Ramón Novarro, Noël Sullivan, and the Negotiation of a Catholic/Mexican/Queer Identity” / 2:00-3:30pm / Humanities 1, Room 520
Ernesto Chávez, Associate Professor of History at the University of Texas, El Paso, and Visiting Researcher at the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, reads expressions of devout Catholicism and queer codes in the early- and mid-twentieth-century letters of silent screen actor, Ramón Novarro, and arts philanthropist Noël Sullivan.
In this presentation, Ernesto Chávez offers preliminary thoughts on materials pertaining to Ramón Novarro, the Mexican-born, gay, silent screen actor and devout Roman Catholic. Novarro, the subject of Professor Chávez’s current book project, was perhaps best known for playing the title role in the 1925 version of Ben-Hur, which propelled him to stardom. The bulk of his career occurred at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and after his stardom waned, he continued to act in movies and television until his violent murder at the hands of a hustler in 1968. The manner of his death ensured that he was outed posthumously. Yet, if one reads interviews with him and letters that he wrote to friends, queer codes that deflected his homosexuality emerge. Such is the case with the 102 letters that he wrote to Bay Area arts philanthropist Noël Sullivan. The letters, which are housed at UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library, are the basis of this talk. In these missives, Novarro expressed his devout Catholicism to Sullivan, who was both gay and Catholic. The letters provide insight into a platonic relationship between two gay men in the early to mid-twentieth century and allow us to glimpse an intimacy that was mitigated by religiosity, but that nonetheless had at its core a common homosexuality.
Ernesto Chávez, Associate Professor of History at the University of Texas, El Paso, is currently a Visiting Researcher at the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center and Institute of American Cultures. His work intersects Chicano/a, Latino/a, and Borderlands History and examines the history of the American Southwest, focusing on the matrix of race, class, and sexuality throughout the ethnic Mexican and Latino American past. In 2014, he received the American Historical Association’s Equity Award.
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Wednesday, April 22 / SCIENCE AND JUSTICE / “Fixing the Pathological Body” / 4:00-6:00pm / Engineering 2, Room 399
The medical industry leans heavily upon a distinction between the “normal” and the “pathological.” Panelists Janette Dinishak (Assistant Professor of Philosophy, UCSC) Kelly Ormond (Professor of Genetics, Stanford School of Medicine) and Matthew Wolf-Meyer (Associate Professor of Anthropology, UCSC) will discuss how we continue to define pathology, and what work this sort of categorization produces. We will discuss alternative ways to organize and understand the lived experiences of human bodies and/or minds.
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Thursday, April 23 / SOCIOLOGY COLLOQUIA / Bron Taylor / “Spirituality After Darwin: ‘Dark Green’ Nature Religion and the Future of Religion and Nature” / 12:00-1:45pm / College 8, Room 201
New Religions come and go but some persist and become major global forces. In this presentation Professor Taylor presents evidence that, especially since Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859, a new, global, earth religion has been rapidly spreading around the world. Whether it involves conventional religious beliefs in non- material divine beings, or is entirely naturalistic and involves no such beliefs, it considers nature to be sacred, imbued with intrinsic value, and worthy of reverent care. Those having affinity with such spirituality generally have strong feelings of belonging to nature, express kinship with non-human organisms, and understand the world to be deeply interconnected. In a recent book Taylor labeled such phenomena ‘dark green religion’, noting that its central ethical priority is to defend the earth’s biocultural diversity. Taylor provides a wide variety of examples of new forms of religious (and religion-resembling) cultural innovation among those promoting such nature spirituality, from individuals (including artists, scientists, filmmakers, photographers, surfers, and environmental activists), to institutions (including museums, schools, and the United Nations). By tracking these, Taylor provides an opportunity to consider what such spirituality may portend for the religious and planetary future.
Bron Taylor is Professor of Religion, Nature, and Environmental Ethics at the University of Florida, and a Carson Fellow of the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in Munich Germany.
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Thursday, April 23 / LIVING WRITER SERIES / Terri Witek & Jai Arun Ravine / 6:00-7:45pm / Humanities Lecture Hall, Room 206
Terri Witek is the author of Exit Island, The Shipwreck Dress (both Florida Book Award medalists), Carnal World, Fools and Crows, Courting Couples (Winner of the 2000 Center for Book Arts Contest), First Shot at Fort Sumter/ Possum (a poetry/comics chapzine) and Robert Lowell and LIFE STUDIES: Revising the Self. A new chapbook, On Gavdos Ferry, and a new book of poems, Body Swap are forthcoming.
A professor of English at Stetson University, where she directs the creative writing program, her summer faculty positions have included the Prague Summer Literary Program, the West Chester Poetry Conference, Poetry by the Sea, and the DisQuiet International program in Lisbon, where she and Cyriaco Lopes run “The Fernando Pessoa Game.” They will be core faculty in Poetry in an Expanded Field in Stetson University’s new low-residency MFA program.
Jai Arun Ravine is a writer, dancer and graphic designer. They are the author of แล้ว AND THEN ENTWINE: LESSON PLANS, POEMS, KNOTS; IS THIS JANUARY; THE SPIDERBOI FILES; and the director of the short film “TOM/TRANS/THAI”, which has screened in Bangkok, Berlin, Los Angeles and San Francisco, among others. They hold an MFA in Writing & Poetics from Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School. Creative and critical writing appears most recently in Transgender Studies Quarterly, Tarpaulin Sky Literary Journal, Eleven Eleven, EOAGH and TENDE RLOIN. A recipient of fellowships from ComPeung, Djerassi and Kundiman, they are a former Staff Writer for Lantern Review.
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Friday, April 24 / FRIDAY FORUM FOR GRADUATE RESEARCH / Rose Grose / “A Sexual Empowerment Process for Heterosexual and Sexual Minority Women” / 12:00-1:30pm / Humanities 1, Room 202
The Friday Forum is a graduate-run colloquium dedicated to the presentation and discussion of graduate student research. The series will be held weekly from 12:00 to 1:30PM and will serve as a venue for graduate students in the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Arts divisions to share and develop their research. Light refreshments will be available.
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Friday, April 24 / SESNON GALLERY / “An Uncommon Place: Shaping the UC Santa Cruz Campus / 4:00-6:00pm / Sesnon Art Gallery
Sesnon Reception at Porter koi pond and Curators’ walkthrough:
April 24, 4-6PM
Alumni Weekend campus walk with curators:
April 25, 2:15 PM, (meet at Cowell College)
Everyone agrees that the UC Santa Cruz campus is breathtaking. How was it created? An Uncommon Place traces decisive moments in the site’s early development. Here an innovative educational project engaged with a beautiful and challenging environment. The university took shape among steep ravines and dramatic trees in a way that respected as it transformed the landscape. Using architectural plans, photographs, and oral histories, the exhibition illustrates paths taken and not taken-decisions, constraints, and hopes. It celebrates the achievement of UCSC’s founding planners while analyzing the tensions and contradictions that were built into their project. Through its many subsequent transformations, the UC Santa Cruz campus remains an extraordinary work of environmental art.
Remembering these formative years can perhaps help us renew a powerful utopian experiment. At UC Santa Cruz, architecture and environment still conspire to create an uncommon place, a setting for teaching, research and imagination outside the bounds of the ordinary.
Sponsored by UCSC Alumni Association; Divisions of the Arts, Humanities, Physical and Biological Sciences, Social Sciences; Colleges: Cowell, Eight, Kresge, Oakes, Porter, and Stevenson; McHenry Library Special Collections & Archives; and University Relations.
In conjunction with An Uncommon Place exhibition, the Sesnon Gallery also presents, Rhythms of Place: Photographic Explorations of the UCSC Campus.
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Saturday, April 25 / LITERATURE DEPARTMENT – ALUMNI WEEKEND / “Celebrating 50 Years of Literature” / 11:00am-1:00pm / Kresge College, Room 327
In order to celebrate our tradition of working and teaching across national, linguistic, and disciplinary divides, the UCSC Literature Department is pleased host “50 Years of Literature at UCSC”, an event commemorating the achievement of Literature alumni and faculty. This special anniversary event will feature discussions with emeritus and current faculty, and UCSC alumni. It will take place at beautiful Kresge College, a perfect venue for lively, engaging conversation.
Schedule of the Day’s Events
Welcome: Professor Carla Freccero, Literature Department Chair
Panel One: Literature at UCSC: Then and Now: with Professor Emeritus Harry Berger, Jr., and Professors Vilashini Cooppan and H. Marshall (Marsh) Leicester, Jr.
Panel Two: The Literature Difference: A Student-Faculty Dialogue, with Professor and UCSC alumna Karen Bassi, Professor Susan Gillman, and Alumnus Stephen Richter
Reception and Light Lunch: Alumni, Literature faculty and staff
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Saturday, April 25 / HISTORY DEPARTMENT – ALUMNI WEEKEND / “Tales as Tall as the Redwoods: Reflections on UCSC’s Founding Years” / 2:00-3:30pm / Stevenson Fireside Lounge
To commemorate UC Santa Cruz’s 50th Anniversary, the Department of History has invited a few distinguished faculty emeriti and alumni to share stories about their experiences at UC Santa Cruz during its early years. This is a rare opportunity to hear the oral histories of the individuals who helped shape the future of our beloved campus.
Our engaging list of panelists includes: Peter Kenez (Professor Emeritus), David Thomas (Professor Emeritus), Gregg Herken (Stevenson ’69), Linda Peterson (Stevenson ’70), and Gail Hershatter – Moderator.
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Saturday, April 25 / UC PRESIDENTIAL CHAIR IN FEMINIST CRITICAL RACE AND ETHNIC STUDIES– ALUMNI WEEKEND / “Teach In: Bettina Aptheker” / 2:30-4:00pm / Stevenson, Room 150
Attend a lecture entitled “Feminism & Social Justice” from faculty professor of feminist studies Bettina Aptheker.
Join fellow alums for a lively look at current movements in social justice and the ways in which gender, race, class, and sexuality interconnect with each other.
From birth matters to thinking about prisons, from queer stakes to transgender identities, from immigrant lives to environmental justice in scores of communities across the country, these issues animate and agitate. Join in debate, dialogue and discussion.
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Saturday, April 25 / DIGITAL ARTS & NEW MEDIA / Digital Arts MFA Exhibition & 10th Anniversary / All Day / DARC
New Alchemy, 2015 MFA Exhibition: 10am – 8pm, DARC
Alumni Tour: 2pm – 3pm
Curator & Director’s Remarks, 5pm
Reception, 5pm – 8pm
Faire of Making and Lab Open House: 10am – 4pm, DARC Patio
Alumni PechaKucha: 10am – 1pm, DARC Room 230
Masquerade Ball: 8pm – 10pm, DARC Patio
In honor of the golden anniversary of UC Santa Cruz and the tenth anniversary of the DANM program, twelve emerging artists have come together to present NEW ALCHEMY, a group exhibition exploring various processes of transformation. This year’s works include sculptural installations, interactive documentary, playable digital media experiences, and even the re-creation of a 1940s shantyboat. Curated by Jaime Austin.