Scholars on Latin American Literature, Languages and Cultures Gather for Colloquium

About 30 scholars, including many UC Davis graduate and undergraduate students, will present research at a two-day Department of Spanish and Portuguese colloquium titled “Digital Landscapes: Paths to Reparative Justice in a Technological World.” The 16th annual Samuel G. Armistead Colloquium in Latin American and Peninsular Languages, Literature and Cultures will delve into the relationship among the humanities, technological resources and social justice. The hybrid event, mostly in Spanish, takes place April 6 and 7 in person with virtual options.

A Writer Goes West

Tom Lin, who came to UC Davis in 2019 to study literature, joined Chancellor Gary S. May on this month’s installment of "Face to Face With Chancellor May" to talk about his debut novel, "The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu."

Dean Spiller to Lead Academic Affairs at Nebraska

Elizabeth Spiller, who as dean led the successful reorganization and financial restructuring of the UC Davis College of Letters and Science, has been tapped as the next executive vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

Faculty in History and English Named Guggenheim Fellows

Two UC Davis College of Letters and Science faculty members have been awarded 2019 Guggenheim Fellowships. History professor Ari Kelman and English professor Elizbeth Carolyn Miller will receive the prestigious awards. They are among 173 winners in the U.S. and Canada selected from 3,000 applicants.

Novelist John Crowley to Give Lunn Lecture on History in Fiction

John Crowley, award-winning author of Little, Big, the four-book Aegypt series and other novels, will give a talk on Thursday, April 11, at UC Davis on “Transformations of History in Fiction.” Crowley will deliver this year’s Department of History Lunn Lecture at 4:10 p.m. in the Buehler Alumni Center’s AGR Hall.

Book about Mining’s Effect on Literature Garners Support from NEH

The National Endowment for the Humanities awarded a fellowship this week to English professor Liz Miller to support her work on a book about industrial mining and its effects on 19th- and early 20th-century literature. The $60,000 award, announced Dec. 12, will enable Miller to spend the 2019 calendar year writing Extraction Ecologies and the Literature of the Long Exhaustion, 1830s-1930s.

What Sets African Sci-Fi Apart

In recent years, Africa has developed a rich culture of science fiction, fantasy, and other speculative fiction with several internationally prominent writers, online journals, blogs, and even creation of the African Speculative Fiction Society. Moradewun Adejunmobi, a UC Davis professor in the College of Letters and Science’s Department of African and African American Studies, will speak on the topic at the International House.