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Past Events

2013
February 7-March 7, 2013: Noritaka Minami photography exhibit

"Future Anteriors: Selections from the 1972 Project." Colloquium with the artist, February 7, 2013.
 
February 1, 2013: UC Merced 7th Annual Human Rights Film Series: Habibi (2011)
Two young lovers from Khan Yunis in Gaza struggle against religious and traditional expectations in order to be together. Filmmaker: Susan Youssef
 
February 8, 2013: UC Merced 7th Annual Human Rights Film Series: Call Me Kuchu (2012)
In Uganda, a proposed anti-homosexuality bill would make homosexuality punishable by death. Gay activist David Kato and other supporters work to defeat the legislation against their fellow lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, or "kuchus." Filmmakers: Katherine Fairfax Wright and Malika Zouhali-Worrall
 
February 15, 2013: Chicano/a Literature Series: Jimmy Santiago Baca, Poet, author, and essayist.
Books include Breaking Bread with the Darkness (The Esai Poems 2011, and The Lucia Poems 2012) and A Place to Stand (2001).   
Jimmy Santiago Baca Poster
 
UC Merced 7th Annual Human Rights Film Series: February 15, 2013: It's a Girl (2012). Meet director Evan Grae Davis 
In many parts of the world today, girls are killed, aborted, or abandoned simply because they are girls. The United Nations estimates as many as 200 million girls are missing in the world today because of this "gendercide." This film explores why this is happening and asks what is being done to save girls and women. 
 
February 22, 2013: UC Merced 7th Annual Human Rights Film Series: Reportero (2011)
Veteran reporter Sergio Haro and his colleagues at Zeta, a Tijuana, Mexico-based weekly, work in one of the deadliest places in the world to be a journalist today. Despite murderous attacks on their staff, the paper continues to tackle dangerous subjects such as a cartel's infiltration of political circles and security forces. Filmmaker Bernardo Ruiz
 
March 20, 2013: Ma Vang, Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow at UC Riverside
"Dragging Histories: A Feminist Reading of Hmong American Narratives in The Latehomecomer and Gran Torino." 
 
April 4, 2013: Chicano/a Literature Series: Ronald L. Ruiz, novelist and former attorney.
Novels include Happy Birthday, Jesus (1994), Guiseppe Rocco (1998), and Big Bear (2003). His most recent book is a memoir, A Lawyer (2013).
 
April 5, 2013: UC Merced Spring Symposium: New Perspectives on the Work of John Rechy.
 
April 5, 2013: Chicano/a Literature Series: John Rechy, writer.
This award-winning author's first book was the acclaimed City of Night (1963) and more recently, a memoir, About My Life and the Kept Woman (2008), with many novels in between.
 
April 11, 2013: David Cressy, Humanities Distinguished Professor, Ohio State University.
"No More Cakes and Ales?: Sabbath Observance and Culture Wars of Early Stuart England."
His many works include books on religion, ritual, literacy, nationhood, dissent, treason, and other aspects of early modern English society.
 
April 12-13, 2013: The First Annual World Cultures Graduate Student Conference.
"From Monadism to Nomadism: A Hybrid Approach to Cultural Productions." Keynote speaker Al Young, California's Poet Laureate Emeritus, on "Culture, Torture, Nurture: What Can Save the World?"
 
April 12-13, 2013: The 5th International Conference on Orientalism and the Asian and Arab Presence in the Hispanic and Lusophone World, co-sponsored by the Department of Spanish of the Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, St. Petersburg and UC Merced.
"Transcultural and Transmodern Readings between Eastern and Western Countries."
 
April 18, 2013: Paul Dix, photographer, and Pamela Fitzpatrick, social activist. 
"Nicaragua: Surviving the Legacy of U.S. Policy."
Dix and Fitzpatrick created this bilingual/testimony project from photographs Dix took between 1985 and 1990 documenting the impact of U.S. foreign policy on the citizens of Nicaragua, and subsequent return visits to Nicaragua by he and Fitzpatrick beginning in 2005 to find those people he had photographed.
 
April 30, 2013: Chicano/a Literature Series: Leonard Adame, Poet.
Adame is one of the original Fresno Poets. He graduated from California State University, Fresno, with a master's degree in literature with an emphasis in creative writing. He is  the author of Cantos Pa'la Memoria.
 
 May 6, 2013: José Ramón Ruisánchez Serra, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Hispanic Studies, Universty of Houston.
"Fabre in the Museum and Bolaño at Large: Aporias of Recent Mexican Literature."
 
2012
 
February 23, 2012: African-American Literature and Culture Series: Cecil Brown, Ph.D., Professor of African-American literature
"Midnight in Paris with James Baldwin." The lecture focuses on legendary writer and novelist James Baldwin. 
 
February 29, 2012: Brown Bag Lunch Series: Beth Hernandez-Jason, Ph.D. candidate, UC Merced 
“Reading Across Borders: The Creation and Cultivation of Readerships Before and After City of Night." John Rechy's first novel, City of Night (1963), details the lives of male hustlers in cities across the United States. Drawing from archival sources, close readings, and reader response theory, Hernandez-Jason explains how marketing and textual strategies helped create and cultivate a diverse readership. 
 
March 2-3, 2012: Popol Vuh! A Symposium Celebrating the Ancient Maya Creation Myth. 
 
March 2, 2012: Popol Vuh! Keynote address:  Michael Coe, Ph.D., Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus, Yale University
"The Popol Vuh and the Pursuit of the Maya Past." Multicutural Arts Center, downtown Merced.
 
 
March 14, 2012: Brown Bag Lunch Series: Nigel Hatton, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Literature, UC Merced 
"Empathy and Identification in Human Rights Narratives." This presentation examines human rights stories and problems at the center of tribunals, novels and film. Particular focus will be placed on the International Criminal Court, Emmanuel Dongala’s novel Johnny Mad Dog, and the film adaptation of Johnny Mad Dog (2008). 
 
March 15, 2012: Inaugural Program, Distinguished Lecturer in the Humanities Series: Kwame Anthony Appiah, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy, Princeton University
"For the Humanities," a lecture followed by a reception. 
 
March 29-30, 2012: The 4th International Conference on Orientalism and the Asian and Arab presence in the Americas and the Iberian Peninsula, Fez, Morocco. 
 
April 3, 2012: Chicano/a Literature Series: Alejandro Murguía, Professor of Latina/Latino Studies, San Francisco State University
The author of Southern Front (1990) and This War Called Love (2002); both books were awarded the American Book Award. He is also the author of The Medicine of Memory (2002) and of Oración a la Mano Poderosa (1972). Forthcoming books include Native Tongue and Xaguar Codex. 
 
April 3, 2012, 4 PM: Michael Dobson, Director of the Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon, Professor of Shakespeare Studies, University of Birmingham, UK
"Shakespearean Performance and the Voluntary Sector." Shakespeare's great dramatic roles are regarded as the summits of any serious professional actor's career but his plays have also tempted all sorts of unlikely performers to don the motley themselves. Professor Dobson examines how these scripts encouraged amateur players, and the implications for our understanding of the relationship between Shakespearean drama and social change. He is the author of Shakespeare and Amateur Performance: a Cultural History (2011). 
 
April 4, 2012: Brown Bag Lunch Series: Stephen Lambden, Ph.D., Professor of Religion, UC Merced
"A glimpse into Shī`ī Islamic Esoterica." A poem ascribed to Imam Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib (d. 40/661) divulging a graphic form of the "Mightiest Name of God." This presentation will provide a brief introduction to Shi`i Islamic esoterica, its divisions and subdivisions from alchemy to talismanry and beyond, and to the alleged role of the twelver Imam `Ali ibn Abi Talib (d. 40/661). The "Mightiest Name of God" motif as an Abrahamic-Islamic concept will be sketched and analyzed historically. 
 
April 17, 2012: Brown Bag Lunch Series: Katherine Steele Brokaw, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Literature, UC Merced
"Tudor Musical Theater: Music, Religion, and Compromise in Nicholas Udall’s Ralph Roister Doister." Early Tudor drama is often neglected in discussions of (dis)continuities between the religious and secular. Brokaw argues that Nicholas Udall’s mid-sixteenth century comedy Ralph Roister Doister negotiates religious change, and that instead of moving from religion towards secularity, musical drama of the sixteenth century recognizes a new sense of contingency, a sense of both the conflict and compatibility of the rapidly shifting state religions of Tudor England. 
 
April 17, 2012: World Cultures Graduate Student Forum 
 
April, 24, 2012: Judith Van Der Elst, Ph.D. candidate, University of New Mexico
"Exploring the Perceptual Grounding of Spatial Ontologies." Digital and virtual information systems and technologies applied in the humanities have enabled the experience of cultural material expression in innovative ways, often with one of its objectives to experience the past "how it was." Van Der Elst questions the theoretical foundation of these developments and the influence of systems design and ontology on reifying a specific worldview. This seminar presents a broad overview of literature regarding the human experience from different disciplinary perspectives.  
 
May 2, 2012: Katherine Jellison, Ph.D., Professor of History, Ohio University
"It's Our Day: America's Love Affair with the White Wedding." In her book of the same name, Professor Jellison examines how, in the face of extraordinary social, cultural, political, and economic change, the white wedding maintained its staying power in the six decades between 1945 and 2005. She addresses how the white wedding continued to function as a means for socializing Americans into dominant cultural standards, even as those norms dramatically altered. 
 
October 11, 2012: Tom Cogswell, Ph.D., Professor of History, UC Riverside
"The Murder of James I." Professor Cogswell will speak on the murder of King James I, who was, in fact, not murdered. 
 
October 18, 19, 20: Symposium: "Caves and Cognition: Exploring the Cave Experience from Multidisciplinary Perspectives"
Keynote address: Paul S.C. Taçon, Ph.D., Professor of Anthropology and Archaeology, Griffith University, Australia
"Caves, Cognition, Animals and Artists: an Illustrated Journey through Time, Space, Rock Art and the Human Mind"
 
Keynote--October 18, Multicultural Arts Center, downtown Merced
Symposium--October 19 and 20, UCM Campus 
 
 
October 22, 2012: Matt Garcia, Ph.D., Professor of History and Transborder Studies, Arizona State University
"From the Jaws of Victory--The Triumph and Tragedy of Cesar Chavez and the Farm Worker Movement." 
 
October 25-26, 2012: Western Humanities Alliance at UC Merced Cultures of Research and Inquiry
Keynote address:  Lianne McTavish, Ph.D., Professor of History of Art, Design and Visual Culture, University of Alberta, "Female Embodiment and the Experience of Muscle Failure" 
 
October 30, 2012: Brown Bag Lunch series: Neil Roos, Ph.D., Professor, University of the Free State, South Africa
"South African History and Subaltern Historiography: Some Ideas for a Radical History of White Folk." 
 
November 5, 2012- February 13, 2013: The UCM Art Gallery's Fall 2012 exhibition, "Living with the Memory." Photographs by Susan Latham. 
 
We are hosting a colloquium on November 5, 2012, from 1 to 4 PM, and a reception at 4 PM at the gallery. 
 
November 13, 2012: Josefina López, Playwright and author
Books include Real Woman Have Curves and numerous other plays. 
 
November 13, 2012: Michael L. Medrano
Author of Born in the Cavity of Sunsets and numerous other plays. 
 
2011
February 25, 2011: Brown Bag Lunch Series: Kim A. Snyder, Director and producer
Discusses documentary filmmaking.
ALSO:
February 25, 2011: Screening: Crossing Midnight, Snyder's award-winning film about efforts to get healthcare to internally displaced populations in Burma. 
 
March 15, 2011: Chicano/a Literature Series: Tino Villanueva
Villanueva reads from his works and discusses poetry. 
 
April 19, 2011: Lecture: World Heritage Series: Mario Santana Quintero
"Protecting the Integrity of UNESCO World Heritage Properties: the Role of Heritage Information in Decision-making." 
 
April 22-23, 2011: 3rd Conference on Orientalisms and the Asian and Arab Diasporas. Kolligian Library 
 
April 16-22, 2011: Exhibit: The Western Han Dynasty- Archeology@Reality Virtual Masterpieces from Ancient China. University of California 
 
May 3, 2011: Lecture: World Heritage Series: Elaine Sullivan, Ph.D., Adjunct Assistant Professor of Egyptology, UCLA
"Time for a Change: 3-D Modeling and the 4th Dimension at the Ancient Egyptian Temple of Karnak" 
 
September 20, 2011: Chicano/a Literature Series: Lucha Corpi, celebrated Chicana poet 
 
November 1, 2011, 3-4 PM: Chicano/a Literature Series, Silvio Sirias, author of the novels Bernardo and the Virgin and the award-winning Meet Me Under the Ceiba.
 
November 8, 2011, 2-3 PM: Chicano/a Literature Series, 26th speaker in the CLS series: Stephanie Sauer, writer and founder of Copilot Press
Sauer speaks about the history of book forms in the pre-Columbian Americas and how it has developed into the book arts and independent publishing of today. 
 
2010
January 27, 2010: Brown Bag Lunch Series: Cristían Ricci
“Tangier and Other Liminal Spaces in American, Spanish and Moroccan Literatures, 1952-2009."
January 27, 2010, 4 PM: Marne L. Campbell, UC President's Postdoctoral Fellow, UC Riverside
 
"Angel Us: African American Women and S: Human Rights Film Series: Afghan Star
After 30 years of war and the Taliban’s repression, Afghan pop idol is taking the nation by storm. But this is more than just a TV show; in Afghanistan, you risk your life to sing. Directed by Havana Marking (2008).
 
February 9, 2010: Sarah Peelo, UC President's Postdoctoral Fellow, UC Davis
"Pottery-making Communities in Spanish California: Embodying Group Identity through Daily Practice."
 
February 10, 2010: Veronica Castillo-Munoz, UC  President's  Postdoctoral Fellow, UC San Diego
“Mexico Para los Mexicanos: Gender, Transnational Labor, and the Movement for Land Reform in Northern Mexico, 1900-1937."
 
February 11, 2010: Brown Bag Lunch Series: Ruth Mostern, Associate Professor of History, UC Merced
"Dividing the Realm in Order to Govern: Explaining History Using Maps and Spatial Analysis."
 
February 12, 2010: Human Rights Film Series: Tapologo
A moving story of women in South Africa who have turned their tragedy into a tool. Directed by Gabriela Gutierrez Dewar and Sally Gutierrez Dewar (2008).
 
February 19, 2010: Human Rights Film Series:Veiled Voices
Women across the Middle East are trying to reclaim their role as leaders in Islam.Veiled Voices goes in-depth into the world of three Muslim women religious leaders who say women were always meant to be powerful within the religion. Filmed over the course of two years in Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt, Veiled Voices reveals a world rarely documented, exploring both the public and private lives of these luminary women. Directed by Bridget Maher (2009). Special Guest: Filmmaker Bridget Maher. Co-sponsored by the Office of Student Life
 
February 23, 2010: Brown Bag Lunch Series, ShiPu Wang
"By Proxy of Their Black Heroes: Critiquing America in the Paintings of Eitaro Ishigaki and Hideo Noda."
 
February 26, 2010: Human Rights Film Series: Crude
The inside story of the “Amazon Chernobyl” case in the rainforest of Ecuador, the largest oil-related environmental lawsuit in the world. Directed by Joe Berlinger (2009).
 
March 3, 2010: Brown Bag Lunch Series: Gregg Herken
"The Georgetown Set: How the Cold War Was Won BEFORE Ronald Reagan."
 
March 11, 2010: Brown Bag Lunch Series: Kathleen Hull
“Pestilence and Persistence: Yosemite Indian Demography and Culture and Colonial California.” 
 
March 17, 2010: Brown Bag Lunch Series: Sholeh Quinn
 
March 31, 2010: Chelsea Blakemore, President's Postdoctoral Fellow, UC Berkeley
" Ritual among the Masses: Deconstructing Identity and Class in an Ancient Maya Neighborhood."
 
April 15, 2010: Brown Bag Lunch Series: George Flaherty, UC Santa Barbara and National Gallery of Art
"Transparency at Tlatelolco: Writing a Spatial History of Mexico 68."
 
October 7, 2010, 3-5 PM: Kate Hayles
"Dreaming of Space:  Relationality, Cartesian Grid, and 'Raw Shark Texts.'" 
 
October 8, 2010: Informal discussion with Kate Hayles on topics concerning pedagogy, digital writing and the future of the humanities. Willow Room
 
October 13, 2010, Noon-: Brown Bag Lunch Series: Charles van den Heuvel
"Creating Histories Using Information and Experiences: Annotations, Models and Visualizations in Historical Research and Cultural Heritage," Willow Room 
 
October 22, 2010, 9AM-5PM: Conference: "400 Years of Literature and History in the United States: Gaspar de Villagra's Historia de la Nueva México." 
 
October 26, 2010: Brown Bag Lunch Series: Professor Ignacio López-Calvo
"Going Native: Anti-Indigenism in Vargas Llosa’s Fiction." 
 
November 15, 2010: Keynote Lectures on the Archaeological Site of Çatalhöyük for the Opening of the Exhibit: Professor Ian Hodder: "Çatalhöyük, Turkey: Exploring Life in an Early 'Town'" and Professor Lynn Meskell: "Figurine Worlds at Çatalhöyük: Materiality, Mobility and Process." 
 
November 15-December 17, 2010: Exhibit: 3-D Archeology at Çatalhöyük, UC Merced Library 
 
November 18, 2010: Brown Bag Lunch Series: Professor Jeffrey Yoshimi
"The Phenomenology of Reading." 
 
November 30, 2010: Brown Bag Lunch Series: Professor Dunya Ramicova
"Contemporary Scenography: The Art of Costume Design." 
 
2009
November 4, 2009: Jan Goggans and Karime Blanco
"From Hoboes to Street People: Representing Homelessness in California."
 
November 10, 2009: Bonnie Clark, University of Denver
"The Archaeology of Japanese-American Internment at Amache, Colorado.
November 25, 2009: David Foster, Arizona State University
 
"Five Proposals Regarding Homophobia."
December 3, 2009, 12 Noon: Manuel Martin-Rodriguez