UC San Diego Arts and Humanities Moments - January 2023
Dear Colleagues and Friends,

As we return from the break and begin the winter quarter, it is important to recognize the recent labor negotiations and ratified contracts. A complicated and emotion-filled process, impacts are felt by each and every member of our community, from faculty and graduate students to undergraduates and staff. We will likely continue to feel these impacts for some time.

As such, we turn our attention to the future and to rebuilding relationships. I am grateful we can come together to do this as one, based on our shared values and principles. We are committed to the arts and humanities, to our collective success and to the well-being of all our community.

We welcome several faculty members joining us mid-year: Ryan Bessett in Literature, Matana Roberts in Music, Ana Maria Alvarez-Lowe in Theatre and Dance, and Christopher Shields in Philosophy, along with Mandeville Art Gallery Director and Chief Curator Ceci Moss in Visual Arts. Ceci’s first exhibition will feature work solely from Visual Arts faculty members who joined the university in the last eight years — I know we all are eagerly awaiting the opening!

Happy New Year to all. We come together in celebration of each other, and to continue our work toward providing an education for the common good.


With gratitude,
Dean Cristina Della Coletta
UC San Diego School of Arts and Humanities
The Mandeville Art Gallery will open its doors under the guidance and direction of a new, dynamic leader: Ceci Moss (Visual Arts), who joins the university poised to take arts education and outreach to new heights.
Jessica Graham (History) will serve as the Associate Dean of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and Faculty Equity Advisor, and Anthony King will serve as the inaugural Staff Equity Advisor.

The minor examines contemporary issues through an Indigenous lens, looking at topics such as climate change, mixed-race identities and land and water rights from a variety of disciplinary perspectives like oceanography, history or theater.
Sessions will be led by former Institute for Practical Ethics Ph.D. fellow Alec J. Calac and current Music student Qui-Shawn Tran.
“It was a brilliant performance and a great accomplishment,” said Philosophy professor and UC San Diego Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl team coach Sam Rickless.
The topics of design and social justice will be explored by new faculty members whose work centers on designing just futures, particularly for Indigenous, Black and migrant communities. Theatre and Dance is included with six others.
Philosophy professor Saba Bazargan-Forward published his latest work in his book, “Authority, Cooperation, and Accountability” Bazargan-Forward works primarily in normative ethics, with a focus on individual accountability for cooperatively committed wrongs.

EVENTS
The Suraj Israni Center for Cinematic Arts is hosting a memorial lecture titled “Utopian Bodies, Diasporic Distance: Embodied Performance in Black Panther” featuring guest Scott Bukatman, on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2023 at 5 p.m. at the Mosaic 113 auditorium in the North Torrey Pines neighborhood.
The Department of Literature is kicking off 2023 with their long-standing New Writing Series, beginning with a talk from award-winning UC San Diego emeriti professors Fanny Howe and Rae Armantrout, on Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2023 in the Seuss Room at the UC San Diego Library.
IN THE NEWS
  • Research by Edward Watts (History) is featured.

The New York Times | The Women Behind the Camera
  • Notable photography books from artists like Carrie Mae Weems MFA ‘84 (Visual Arts) and Lorna Simpson MFA ‘86 (Visual Arts) are included.

  • The 2023 Grammy Awards nominees include Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis (Music), nominated in the Best Opera Recording category.

  • Eileen Myles's (Literature) new anthology “Pathetic Literature” encompasses more than 100 pieces spanning centuries in an impressive and moving collection.