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Find an eclectic collection of authors, philosophers, filmmakers and thinkers who explore essential aspects of what makes us human. Visit uctv.tv/humanities
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In late September 1941, tens of thousands of people were massacred over two days in a ravine known as Babyn Yar on the outskirts of Nazi-occupied Kyiv. Most of the victims were Jews, though Roma, Crimean Tatars, and Ukrainian and Russian Communists were also among those murdered. In her 2017 book of poems, “The Voices of Babyn Yar,” award-winning poet Marianna Kiyanovska engages with this tragedy as a Ukrainian who learned of the mass killings only as an adult. Kiyanovska is the author of more than a dozen books of poetry, prose, and literary translations and her works have been translated into 18 languages. In this bilingual poetry reading, Kiyanovska shares poems in the original Ukrainian, including selections from “The Voices of Babyn Yar.” UC San Diego Professor of Literature Amelia Glaser will read the English translations. Series: "Library Channel" [Humanities] [Show ID: 40068]
At a global level, Homo sapiens have reshaped the planet Earth to such an extent that we now talk of a new geological age, the Anthropocene. But each of us shapes our own worlds, physically, symbolically, and in the worlds of imagination. This symposium focuses especially on one form of construction, the construction of buildings, while stressing that such construction is ever shaped by diverse factors from landscape to culture and the construction of history embodied in it - and more. After a brief look at birds building their nests as an example of variation on a species-specific Bauplan, we sample a broad sweep of cultural evolution and niche construction from the earliest stone tools of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens through the Neolithic and the rise of cities to the formal and informal architecture of the present day. Finally, we explore the ways artificial intelligence may further change how humans construct their mental and physical worlds. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 40170]
The symbolic tools we use to design and construct our environments have been transformed by the so-called Cybernetic revolution and the innovations in materials technology that have accompanied them. The integration of computers, the Internet of Things, embedded robotics, and artificial intelligence (AI) supports the development of intelligent/smart buildings where specific levels of automation can be tailored to every type of building use and occupancy. This talk will emphasize smart architecture as being based on insights into how buildings may affect human well-being whether or not novel technology is employed. This involves a critical assessment of when and where AI and related technologies should be incorporated into the built environment. A complementary concern is with how AI will affect the way humans see their place in their social and "natural" worlds when we can no longer see humans as the only possessors of "intelligence." Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 40168]
This talk explores the needs of the poor and homeless around the world, charting the interplay between formal and informal settlements. The key example for this talk will be the favelas of Saõ Paulo in the context of a broader concern with Latin American urbanism and the role of individual initiative, social forces and politics as agencies of urban transformation. Built environments are to be seen not only as technological artifacts but also as providing a spatial politics for transforming where and how vulnerable communities immigrate to cities. Key questions arise concerning the relation of informal housing to the formal infrastructural systems of cities, including access to utilities. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 40167]
This program explores the decolonizing potential of Indian aesthetic-social philosophy by challenging two entrenched colonial prejudices: the supposed radical dissimilarity and inferiority of pre-modern Indian traditions compared to modern social theory. Through an analysis of the Upanishads and Vaisnava theology and poetry, Sudipta Kaviraj, professor of Indian Politics and Intellectual History at Columbia University, examines conceptions of paradise as a life without suffering, arguing that divergent ideas of paradise have shaped Indian aesthetic thought. Central to this philosophy is the interdependence of cognitive curiosity and aesthetic enjoyment, seen as essential for fully accessing and understanding the universe. Kaviraj suggests that these traditions offer valuable insights for modern secular thinkers reflecting on the human condition. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Humanities] [Show ID: 40222]
The site of Göbekli Tepe is well known as a settlement of the transitional phase in SW-Asia, in which the greater mobility of the Palaeolithic increasingly gave way to the more permanent settlement of the Neolithic. This talk uses the example of Göbekli Tepe to explore the linkage of buildings with ecology, climate, economy, cultural, political, symbolic systems, and creation of networks between dwellings. The central question is to what extent it is possible to understand how people in the Neolithic constructed their world. Based on this, the talk will challenge the regnant hypothesis that Göbekli Tepe served as a central ritual site and meeting place that acted as a driving force for the spread of Neolithization. This provides an important addition to developing a perspective on the precursor forms of habitation for buildings whose architectural remains we can examine today. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 40164]
What defines a person’s character, and how does it shape who they are? In this lecture, Susan Wolf, emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of North Carolina, challenges traditional ideas about character. She argues that character is more than just a set of traits or values an individual endorses—it can include aspects of ourselves we may not even recognize or approve of. Wolf explores how a deeper understanding of character, rooted in active intelligence and thoughtful reflection, can reshape how we view agency, moving beyond just actions and intentions. This thought-provoking talk offers fresh insights into what makes us who we are and how we navigate the complexities of identity and selfhood. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Humanities] [Show ID: 40221]
Troubled interactions are moments when communication breaks down in subtle, often unnoticed ways. In this program, Waverly Duck, an urban ethnographer and professor of sociology at UC Santa Barbara, discusses these breakdowns, revealing surprising aspects of how we create meaning and self-identity. Through video and audio recordings, Duck shows how misunderstandings lead people to assign motives to each other, creating conflict. Examples from Duck's research include neighborhood poverty, food inequality, and autism assessments. These cases highlight hidden social rules and practices, demonstrating how studying these troubles can help us understand everyday interactions better. Series: "GRIT Talks" [Humanities] [Show ID: 40131]
This presentation will briefly trace 70,000 years of cultural evolution from the ancient crossing from Sunda to Sahul, via the swift continental colonization during the Ice Age, through the severe impacts on survival during the Last Glacial Maximum, and the socio-territorial reconfigurations during Holocene sea-level rise. The Australian Aboriginal world had become characterized by low environmental impact habitation, complex social organization systems anchored within constructed sacred origin histories, the persistence of relatively simple dwelling types situated within complex settlement sociospatial structures, and a high quality of life for most, with institutional dispute resolution mechanisms to contain conflicts. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 40162]
The transition from Neolithic villages to early cities marked the greatest social transformation faced by our species before the Industrial Revolution. Our ancestors had to learn how to live in new settlements that had more people, higher densities, and more activities than had been known previously. The new adaptations to urban life involved changes in society and social processes, not just individual learning. Some changes came about through social interactions in a process called energized crowding; these include innovations in housing and the use of space, and the establishment of neighborhoods in cities. Other changes were driven by powerful new institutions, including formal governments and social classes. Do ancient cities—and they ways they responded to shocks—might hold useful insights for the development of urban adaptations to climate change today? Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 40165]
Pragmatism is a “philosophy” in two senses of the term. It is a general outlook on life and an academic theory of the universe and our place in it. In this program, Aaron Zimmerman, professor and chair of the Philosophy Department at UC, Santa Barbara, discusses the nature of America's pragmatism. The axiom of pragmatism is Alexander Bain’s (1865) theory of belief, which was subsequently developed by Charles Sanders Peirce and William James. Despite its Scottish origins, pragmatism is distinctively American, as philosophers, like Dewey and Rawls (in his later work), adapted American’s founding creed to the changes wrought by the Darwinian revolution in biology, offering a pragmatic rationale for natural rights originally grounded in creationist biology. Series: "GRIT Talks" [Humanities] [Show ID: 40130]
Humans construct their physical worlds in part by designing and constructing new tools, habitations, and in due course diverse buildings and, in some cases, towns and cities and construct their symbolic worlds by putting words together to tell stories, articulate plans, tell lies, seek truth, and much more. This talk offers hypotheses that address a key question for anthropogeny: How did biological evolution yield humans with the “construction-ready brains” and bodies that made us capable of the cultural evolution that created the diversity of our mental and physical constructs that we know today? Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 40161]
This talk provides a deep time perspective for assessing the behavioural implications of the creation of the earliest known structure and the technologies used in its making. Evidence for the earliest structure appears relatively late, about 500,000 years ago in Zambia, and before the evolution of Homo sapiens. The next oldest structures were made by Neanderthals in Europe, 176,000 years ago. The site in Zambia preserves rare evidence for the shaping and fitting together of two tree trunks to make a stable framework. The process of combining parts to make a whole reflects a conceptually new approach to technology, one which remains central to everything we make as humans, including structures. Did the invention of combinatorial technology require the use of language to discuss and evaluate diverse ways to form new constructs and constructions? This question arises from the extended planning and expertise needed in the making of combinatorial tools. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 40160]
Director Don Hertzfeldt joins moderator Miguel Penabella (Film and Media Studies, UCSB) for a discussion of his films ME and It’s Such a Beautiful Day. They discuss his time as a UCSB student and his early interest in animation, as well as the development of his new film. Hertzfeldt also shares insights into his influences from silent cinema, and his thematic interests in deep time and memory across his work. Series: "Carsey-Wolf Center" [Humanities] [Show ID: 40070]
As distinct from the buildings of termites (interesting though these are), bird nests offer a more apropos point of comparison for human buildings – they are conducted by single vertebrate (or a few) and can be adapted to varied circumstances, with even a small effect of social learning. However, the basic Bauplan remains species-specific, unlike the creativity of the human architect. Since nonhuman primates lack interesting building skills, and so we suggest that bird nest construction may come to play a similar comparative role for architectural design. The static Bauplan of birds can be compared to the near-stasis of human tool use until the end of the Paleolithic, challenging us to assess the changes in human practice that unlocked an increasingly rapid process of cultural evolution. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 40159]
At a global level, Homo sapiens have reshaped the planet Earth to such an extent that we now talk of a new geological age, the Anthropocene. But each of us shapes our own worlds, physically, symbolically, and in the worlds of imagination. This symposium focuses especially on one form of construction, the construction of buildings, while stressing that such construction is ever shaped by diverse factors from landscape to culture and the construction of history embodied in it - and more. After a brief look at birds building their nests as an example of variation on a species-specific Bauplan, we sample a broad sweep of cultural evolution and niche construction from the earliest stone tools of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens through the Neolithic and the rise of cities to the formal and informal architecture of the present day. Finally, we explore the ways artificial intelligence may further change how humans construct their mental and physical worlds. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 40169]
Step into the historic Chicago Cafe in Woodland, California, a culinary landmark that could potentially be the oldest Chinese restaurant in the U.S. Anchored by the Fong family for over a century, their resilience echoes through the decades of the Chinese Exclusion Act and societal adversity. The cafe offers more than traditional Chinese food. It's a living chapter of Chinese-American history and a beacon of cultural endurance. Series: "UC Davis News" [Humanities] [Show ID: 40176]
Every building – from the Parthenon to the Great Mosque of Damascus to a typical Georgian house – was influenced by the energy available to its architects. This talk offers a historical perspective on a topic of great relevance today, the linkage of architecture and energy. It provides a useful complement to the non-urban perspective on ecology offered by the talk on “The indigenous architecture of Australia.” Architecture has been shaped in every era by our access to energy, from fire to farming to fossil fuels. The talk will discuss a range of buildings of the past fifteen thousand years from Uruk, via Ancient Rome and Victorian Liverpool, to China's booming megacities. If we are to avoid catastrophic climate change one important ingredients is to design beautiful but also intelligent buildings, and to retrofit - not demolish - those that remain. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 40166]
Composer Christopher Willis joins moderator Tyler Morgenstern (Assistant Director, Carsey-Wolf Center) for a discussion of his work on Schmigadoon! They discuss how theatrical and movie musical history, as well as Willis’ musicology background, informs the music of the show. They explore the challenge of composing an underscore, and incorporating the stylistic variation of decades of musicals, from the Golden Age musical tradition to the darker themes of 1960s and 1970s productions. Series: "Carsey-Wolf Center" [Humanities] [Show ID: 39993]
Director Lynn Hershman Leeson joins moderator Letícia Cobra Lima (History of Art & Architecture, UCSB and curator of A Box of One’s Own) for a discussion of her film !Women Art Revolution. They discuss her history as an artist, and the difficult process of piecing together a narrative from hundreds of hours of footage, interviews, and extensive archival research. They also examine the institutional issues faced by women in the art world and make connections between past and present artists. Series: "Carsey-Wolf Center" [Humanities] [Show ID: 39975]
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