Although treatments for depression exist, sometimes these treatments don’t work for many who use them. Furthermore, women experience higher rates of depression than men, yet the cause for this difference is unknown, making their illnesses, at times, more complicated to treat. UC Davis researchers teamed up with scientists from Mount Sinai Hospital, Princeton University, and Laval University, Quebec, to try to understand how a specific part of the brain, the nucleus accumbens, is affected during depression.
Unfold, a UC Davis podcast, recently launched its third season with College of Letters and Science researchers talking about “Why Is That Song Stuck in My Head?” The episode examines music, memory and what "earworms" — those songs that get stuck in your head — can teach us about how the brain works.
Calling her an “institutional cornerstone,” the Middle East Studies Association of North America recently presented its annual Jere L. Bacharach Service Award to Distinguished Professor Suad Joseph. The award recognizes outstanding service to the association and the profession, and is named after the University of Washington historian who received the honor in 2004.
UC Davis historian Howard Chiang’s book on gender and sexuality in modern China has won the Humanities Book Prize from the International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS).
Ellen Hartigan-O’Connor and Lisa Materson, collaborators in research and teaching of women’s and gender history at UC Davis for 10 years, were keenly aware of many fascinating stories about women in history, as uncovered by female historians. But getting those stories into the big narratives of history was more than one or two people could accomplish. Then Oxford University Press asked the scholars, both associate professors of history in the College of Letters and Science, to create a women’s history handbook.
Frances Dolan spent much of last year in the company of Hester Pulter, a little-known 17th-century British writer. Dolan, distinguished professor of English in the UC Davis College of Letters and Science, has done extensive research and writing for The Pulter Project: Poet in the Making, a “digital collaboration” launched in November.
Hand-written notes on a teenager’s calendar. Remembered whispered confidences. Letters of support signed by wealthy acquaintances. Letters of non-support signed by wealthy lawyers. Therapist records. Rate My Professor scores. The recent Kavanaugh hearings, and the broader #MeToo movement in which it unfolded, were less a contest of he-said/she-said and more a battle over evidence.
Beverly Bossler, professor of history, talks about her book, Gender and Chinese History: Transformative Encounters (University of Washington Press, 2015), in a recent interview on New Books Network.
A UC Davis study of the self-esteem gender gap around the world might surprise you found that the confidence gap between men and women is smallest in developing nations that rank low in gender equality.
