The Humanities Institute at UC Santa Cruz

🌊 Homer’s Odyssey is becoming a major motion picture. Whether you like movies or not, this is a great excuse to read this millennia-old story about a salty war hero who just wants to go home.

Join us on June 24 and July 1 for a conversation about the Odyssey with UC Santa Cruz Ancient Studies faculty Anne Kreps and Martin Devecka, where we’ll discuss the wild world of Odysseus and what this epic can teach us about talking to strangers, lying, and picking a good disguise.

📸 Image description:

1. Images of ancient Greek artifacts with The Humanities Institute and Bookshop Santa Cruz logos with the text “The Humanities Institute and Ancient Studies at UC Santa Cruz present: The Odyssey Reading Group.”

Sofi Di Cesare-Bystrowicz is a sophomore double-majoring in Sociology and History, and a 2025-26 THI Undergraduate Research Fellow and Humanities EXPLORE Fellow. For her THI Fellowship, Sofi examined the 19th-century Alta California Mission System through two historical female figures: Eulalia Perez and Apolinaria Lorenzana. As a Humanities EXPLORE Fellow, she worked with Dr. Grace Delgado on BORDER FUTURES, an archival research project that examines and re-imagines the U.S.-Mexico border.

For both projects, Sofi traveled to Southern California to conduct archival research at The Huntington Library and the San Diego History Center archives. She describes how “seeing these materials and layers of paper in-person – some wilted and others well-preserved – as well as the use of the masculine ‘Apolinario’ to refer to Apolinaria – reminded me of the important work historians and archivists do to keep easily forgotten histories alive.”

📷 Image descriptions:
1. Photo of Sofi Di Cesare-Bystrowicz with an image of an 1843 land case map of Rancho San Pasqual, a Mexican land grant that now makes up the modern-day cities of Pasadena, South Pasadena, Altadena, and San Marino (Courtesy of The Bancroft Library) with the text “2025-26 THI Undergraduate Research Fellow and 2025-26 Humanities EXPLORE Fellow”
2. Photo of 1840 map of Jamacho Rancho, designated for Apolinaria Lorenzana, and photo of Eulalia Perez (Courtesy of The Bancroft Library) with Sofi’s quote.

Congratulations to all of our THI Fellows who participated in the 2026 UC Santa Cruz Graduate Research Symposium, showcasing their work through poster presentations and talks.

THI Fellow Francesca Gibson received the Humanities Award for Best Presentation for her research project “Escaping Reason: Madness and the Reproductive Politics of Slavery.”

We are so proud to celebrate the outstanding scholarship and impact of our fellows. 🎉👏

📸 Image Descriptions:
1. THI Summer Pathways Fellow Francesca Gibson, winner of the Best Presentation in the Humanities, beside Saskia Nauenberg Dunkell, THI Research Programs and Communications Director.
2. THI Summer Research Fellow Jose Chavez Ayala in front of their research poster
3. THI Summer Pathways Fellow Vivian Yadi D**g in front of their research poster.
4. Photos of THI Graduate Fellows presenting their posters.

Congratulations to our new cohort of 2026-27 THI Graduate Student Fellows! ✨

We support graduate students at all stages of their PhDs with a range of fellowships, from programs for initial research to public humanities projects and dissertation completion awards. This year’s awardees come from departments across the Humanities, including History, Feminist Studies, Philosophy, History of Consciousness, Linguistics, and Literature.

📸 Image Description:
Collage of fellows with the THI logo and text that says “2026-27 THI Graduate Student Fellows.”

Grace Menagh, a senior majoring in History and Literature at UC Santa Cruz, is a 2025–26 THI Undergraduate Research Fellow and a Humanities EXCEL fellow with the Santa Cruz Poet Laureate. Her THI Undergraduate Research Fellowship project examines how conceptions of race and culture shaped Montrealers’ understandings of their place in the British Empire in the mid-19th century.

“As I wrap up my degree programs at UCSC, I am so grateful to the incredible professors I have had in the Humanities Division,” Grace describes. “For me, the most meaningful part has been the interesting and challenging conversations I have had with peers and professors. The Humanities Division provided so many wonderful opportunities for me to enrich my learning.”

📸 Image descriptions:
1. Grace points to her poster at the 2026 Celebrating the Humanities Event. The text says “Undergraduate Student Profile: Grace Menagh” at the top and “2025–26 THI Undergraduate Research Fellow and Humanities EXCEL Fellow with the Santa Cruz Poet Laureate” at the bottom.
2. The image shows a photo of the Bibliothèques et Archives nationales du Québec and Grace’s quote about wrapping up her degree at UCSC.

David has been such a wonderful supporter of the humanities and our work at THI. It's terrific to see this story recognizing his remarkable career as a UCSC alum. We're grateful for his continued contributions!

Join us for a free, public event on May 31 with author and mycologist Merlin Sheldrake. He’ll discuss his New York Times best-selling book “Entangled Life: How Fungi Make our Worlds, Change our Minds, and Shape our Futures” with Associate Professor of History Benjamin Breen.

The Deep Read is for everyone—students, alumni, parents, friends, neighbors, and readers everywhere who want to engage with big ideas and join meaningful conversations.

Together, we’ll explore the dependence of all life—human, plant, animal, and beyond—on fungal networks and how the resulting interconnections provoke us to reconsider our understanding of existence, identity, intelligence, and more.

We love our local Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History! ✨

As the MAH marks 30 years, we’re celebrating a decade of partnerships with the UC Santa Cruz Humanities Division and The Humanities Institute. Since 2016, we’ve worked together on exhibitions, public programs, community-engaged research, and experiential learning opportunities for students.

Check out a few favorite moments from the last ten years. Here’s to many more collaborations ahead!

📸 Image descriptions:

1. Rebecca Snyder (literature, ‘23) trains Elsie (critical race & ethnic studies, ‘26) to handle and preserve local archival materials at the MAH.

2. Panelists at THI’s 2025 Night at the Museum on Amending Worlds. Photo by West Cliff Creative.

3. Top photo from left to right: THI's Managing Director Irena Polić, Rick Baldoz, Rudy P. Guevarra, Jr., Humanities Dean Jasmine Alinder, Catherine Ceniza Choy, Kathleen Gutierrez, Steve McKay at the 2024 exhibition Sowing Seeds: Filipino American Stories from the Pajaro Valley by Watsonville is in the Heart. The bottom photo shows attendees at THI’s Night at the Museum "From the Archives: Conversations on Filipino America." Photos by Crystal Birns.

4. Visitors view a pop-up exhibition at the MAH featuring images from a 1968 photography project on California’s Black Panther Party, preserved by UC Santa Cruz’s Special Collections & Archives. Photo from 2018.

5. Visitors view the Kinsey African American Art and History Collection at the MAH, one of the first major collaborations between UC Santa Cruz Humanities and the museum. Photo from 2016.

Come join our second Deep Read salon of the year at the UC Santa Cruz Hay Barn at 6pm on May 26, 2026, to explore fungi’s role in literature and poetry.

Led by professors Hannah Cole, Brenda Hillman, Laurie Palmer, Jennifer Tseng, and Laura Martin, our discussion will be focused on the literary, artistic, and poetic approaches to fungi, fungal webs, and the major themes of Merlin Sheldrake’s “Entangled Life.” Participants can attend both in person and online.