About the College
HArCS
Faculty Notes
If you are a faculty member in the Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies division and would like to have your award, grant, book or creative work listed on this page, please follow the link below.
To submit a faculty honor you will be prompted for a UC Davis username and password
Design professors are on staff at the California Lighting Technology Center, which produces more energy-efficient lighting and design.
HArCS faculty guide students in their exploration of new avenues of study. Their works and research are published internationally, and each have something unique to offer to the division and all UC Davis students and community. Here is a glimpse of some of those faculty and recent news.
Lucy Puls, a professor of art, was named a finalist for the Artadia Award. The exceptional range of artists living and working in San Francisco was evident as three internationally prominent jurors selected the 15 Finalists for the seventh cycle of Artadia Awards 2009 San Francisco. This year marks the ten-year anniversary of the first awards in San Francisco, where Artadia was founded in 1997 as ArtCouncil, Inc. Jurors Glen Helfand, curator and critic, San Francisco; Doryun Chong, Associate Curator, Department of Painting and Sculpture, Museum of Modern Art, New York; and Lauren Ross, Donald R. Mullen, Jr. Curator & Director of Arts Programs, Friends of the High Line, named the finalists out of a record-breaking 680 applications.
Lucy Puls, a professor of art, was given a four-week residency of time and space at Yaddo, located in Saratoga Springs, New York. Residents are provided a studio, private room, and all meals, and a supportive environment. Five admissions panels consider the following applications to Yaddo: 1. Literature, including fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama, translation, and librettos 2. Visual Art, including painting, drawing, sculpture, printmaking, photography, mixed media and installation art 3. Music Composition 4. Performance & Media, including choreography, performance art, sound art and multi-media installations 5. Film & Video, including narrative, documentary and experimental films, animation, and screenplays
Jack D. Forbes (Powhatan-Delaware) is the 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award winner from the Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas. Forbes is a professor emeritus and former chair of Native American Studies, a historian, essayist, novelist, and poet, the author of more than forty books and monographs. Professor Forbes will be honored, along with the winners of the Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas’ First Book Awards for Poetry and Prose, during the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers Festival at the University of Science and Art in Oklahoma, in Chickasha, Oklahoma, in February of 2010. Specific places and times for all accompanying events--book signings, readings, banquet, etc.--will be announced at a later date.
Douglas Kahn, professor of Technocultural Studies, was awarded a five-week national speaking tour in Australia by the Australian Network for Artwork and Technology. More information can be found at www.anat.org.au/projects/93.
Jessie Ann Owens, professor of music and dean of the UC Davis Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies, has been elected an honorary member of the American Musicological Society. Owens is the 58th member to be elected to the prestigious society in its 74-year history. In announcing her election, the society heralded Owens as "a leading scholar of Renaissance music" who has made outstanding contributions to musicology, the scholarly study of music.
Sam Armistead, professor of Spanish, has been appointed as a new member of the Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Espanola (Northamerican Academy of the Spanish Language). It is a prestigious association in Spain.
Margherita Heyer-Caput, professor of Italian, received an Honorable Mention at the Plenary Session of the 2009 conference of the American Association for Italian Studies in recognition of her book Grazia Deledda's Dance of Modernity (Toronto University Press 2008). The conference is the major North American professional society in her field.
Margherita Heyer-Caput, professor of Italian, received the 2009 Ennio Flaiano International Prize for Italian Studies for her book Grazia Deledda’s Dance of Modernity (University of Toronto Press 2008). The prestigious Flaiano International Prizes are co-funded by the Associazione Culturale Ennio Flaiano, Pescara, Italy, and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and encompass Literature (Fiction, Poetry, and Italian Studies), Cinema, Theater, and Television. While the Fiction and Poetry awards have recognized internationally renowned writers such as L. Ferlinghetti, D. Maraini, and D. Pennac, the “Italianistica Award” goes to Italian Studies books published outside of Italy in a language other than Italian. The Italian Cultural Institutes in the world submit nominations, and a jury may assign only one prize to a work in English. Past recipients include distinguished fellow Italianists such as T. Barolini (Columbia U.), M. Marcus (Yale U.), L. Re (UCLA).
Miroslava Chavez-Garcia, an associate professor of Chicana/Chicano Studies, was awarded a $45,000 grant by Stanford University for ayear-long fellowship. She will use the year to complete a book project on youth, race, and science in California's early juvenile justice system, from 1850 to 1940.
Michael Siminovitch, professor of design and director of the California Lighting Technologies Center, received a $3.2 M grant from the California Energy Commission for energy efficient lighting design.