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Alum David Beatty (MFA, dramatic arts, ‘05) is the author of The Appetite of Giants: Mostly True Stories and Some Exaggerations, a collection of funny and heartfelt essays follows his journey from a Southern California childhood filled with imagination and adventure to a lifelong love of theater, filmmaking, and the arts. The book features stories about family, creativity, and even a hungry 25-foot-tall Giant who lives in a

The American Musicological Society (AMS) is pleased to announce the recipients of its 2026–2027 academic year graduate research and dissertation fellowships. Alvin H. Johnson AMS 50 Fellowships provide funding for the final year of Ph.D. dissertation work and are awarded on the basis of academic merit. Fellows receive a twelve-month stipend, currently set at $25,000. They may also elect to accept the award on a non-stipendiary basis (thus freeing scarce resources for others).

Alum Anuj Vaidya (PhD., performance studies, ‘24) has devised a one-of-a-kind people-powered cinema that re-stories the South Asian epic Ramayana, as eco-tales at the edge of the sixth extinction. On Thursday, June 4 at 6 p.m., “The Smoldering Forest” is a live performance in which Vaidya and audiences co-create the film through live sound, tactile images, and collective imagination. Blending mythology, ecology, and science-fiction, this intimate experience invites audience members to become part of the film itself

Professor emeritus David Hollowell’s solo show “Hollowell Heaven,” on view at Harhawik in New York to June 6, was just reviewed in the New York Times. “Hollowell Heaven” features paintings and drawings made between 1985 and 2005, most of which have not been exhibited publicly in the years since.

Congratulations to Professor Beatriz Cortez, recipient of an ICA San Diego Star Award! Professor Cortez, along with artist Ashish Subedy, was recognized at the Institute of Contemporary Art San Diego’s Future Forward Gala as an artist whose work and vision shape the cultural and creative landscape in meaningful ways.

Professor Emeritus Hearne Pardee is featured in a group show at Prince Street Gallery exploring new perspectives on collage.

The results of the 16th annual Luminaire Design Competition are officially in, featuring a partnership with Maltani Lighting and the work of Professor Jae Yong Suk’s students. After three rounds of deliberation by the jury—comprising the Maltani design team, Neha Sivaprasad of Sol Light Studio, and Karen Park from UC Davis—the winners are Olivia McCutcheon, Mara Alagon, and Gian Ayson. Link to Article

Each year, UC Davis undergraduates in all academic fields are invited to submit an abstract and participate in the Undergraduate Research, Scholarship and Creative Activities Conference. This year, art history was well represented with six majors presenting research papers in Oral Session 2 on Saturday, April 25.

Professors Talinn Grigor and co-author Houri Berberian are the 2026 recipients of the Western Association of Women Historians’ Barbara “Penny” Kanner Award for excellence in the use of primary sources. The award acknowledges the achievements of scholars whose books, book chapters, articles, or published electronic media illustrate the effective and impressive use of a specific set of primary documents such as diaries, letters and oral histories. Grigor and Berberian’s

Professor Katharine Burnett recently attended the Global Tea Conference at the University of Virginia where she participated in the Tea and Material/Visual Culture session to discuss “Teapots Shaped by Cultural Forces: 17th-Century Art Theory and Innovative Yixing Teapot Design.”

Professor John Lopez’s new book The Aquatic Metropolis: Urban Design and Environmental Change in Tenochtitlan-Mexico City (Penn State University Press) is a nuanced account of Mexico City’s urban development and Aztec and Spanish attempts to control its most iconic feature–water.

Telematic’s new show “Diagenesis” features the work of two artists, Brian Bartz and alum Kelley O’Leary (M.F.A. ‘22) who examine the impact of extractive technology on the environment and landscape. “Diagenesis” presents a landscape made alien by technology that nonetheless can be reconstituted and invested with newfound wonder.

Opening Reception:  Saturday, April 18th, 6 – 9 pm
Closing Reception: Saturday, June 13th, 2 – 4 pm

Alum Seongmin Yoo’s (MFA ‘ 24) newest exhibition show “Seongmin Yoo: Pulses of Experience” explores the intense physiological moment of attentive immobility, a reaction that premeditates a fight or flight response. Pulses of Experience functions as a metaphor for contemporary life. Many people exist in an attentive immobility state and the consistent tensions between movement and the absolute stillness that is emblematic of this physiological state.

Professor Beatriz Cortez is participating in the group show Heavy Metal at the Los Angeles Municipal Gallery.

“New Humans: Memories of the Future” inaugurates the New Museum’s expanded building with an exploration of artists’ enduring preoccupation with what it means to be human in the face of sweeping technological changes. New Humans traces a diagonal history of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries through the work of more than 150 international artists, writers, scientists, architects, and filmmakers, highlighting key moments when dramatic techno