uc santa cruz creative writing phd

Literature (M.A., Ph.D.)

The Literature program offers a Master of Arts degree, and a Doctoral degree. 

Important: Transcripts and Letters of Recommendation are required of all applicants. 

Read the  application instructions ​ page for full details., see the test score requirements for this program., below are specific requirements also needed for this program:.

Curriculum Vitae

Writing Sample:

Please provide a writing sample between 10-20 pages in length. Though the sample need not be in Literature, it should demonstrate relevant skills in writing, critical thinking, and textual analysis. In addition, applicants whose proposed primary area of emphasis is in a language other than English should normally provide a sample that demonstrates an ability to work in that language.  Please include your name in the footer of each page of your writing sample.

Additional Writing Sample for Applicants to the Creative/Critical Writing Concentration: 20-25 pages of prose (at least one complete piece and an additional sample preferred), or 10-12 pages of poetry. The writing can be poetry, prose fiction, creative non-fiction or hybrid/cross genre.

A Statement of purpose is required: 

Please describe your plans for graduate study or research and for your future occupation or profession. Include any information that may aid the selection committee in evaluating your preparation and qualifications for graduate study at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Recommended length is a concise 2-4 pages.

A Personal History Statement is also required:

Required of all applicants. This statement will be used in conjunction with your application for graduate admission and financial support. Note that the Personal History Statement should not duplicate the Statement of Purpose. Recommended length is a concise 1-3 pages.

UC Santa Cruz is interested in a diverse and inclusive graduate student population. In an essay, discuss how your personal background informs your decision to pursue a graduate degree. Include any educational, familial, cultural, economic, or social experiences, challenges, or opportunities relevant to your academic journey; how you might contribute to social or cultural diversity within your chosen field; and/or how you might serve educationally underrepresented segments of society with your degree.

See the application deadline

Contact the program

Read more about this program:

https://literature.ucsc.edu/graduate/index.html

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Hours:  Monday–Thursday from 10–8 and Friday from 10–6 by appointment.

Locations (Online only until further notice) : 

• Online at ucsc.mywconline.com
• Oakes Academic Room 111 
• The Crown College Writing Center (2nd Floor)
• The Stevenson Writing Center (under the Stevenson Library)

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Mural detail from “La Promesa de Loma Prieta: Que no se repita la historia” by artist Juana Alicia .

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Critical Race & Ethnic Studies

• Undergraduate

Home / Faculty / Principal Faculty

• Principal Faculty

• Professor Emerita
• Division Humanities Division
• Literature Department
• Creative Writing Program
• Critical Race and Ethnic Studies
• Affiliations Latin American & Latino Studies, East Asian Studies, Critical Race and Ethnic Studies
• Phone 831 459-8994
• [email protected]
• Humanities Building 1, 231#
• Mail Stop Humanities Academic Services
• Humanities 1, Rm 231/1156 High Street
• Santa Cruz California 95064
• Faculty Areas of Expertise Asian American Pacific Islander History, Creativity

Research Interests

History and anthropology of Japanese immigration to Brazil; Asian American literature; modern fiction; playwriting

Biography, Education and Training

Karen Tei Yamashita  is the author of eight books, including  I Hotel ,   finalist for the National Book Award, and most recently, Sansei & Sensibility,  all published by Coffee House Press.  Recipient of the National Book Foundation 2021 Medal for Distinguished Contributions to Literature and a US Artists Ford Foundation Fellowship, she is currently Dickson Emeriti Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at the University of California, Santa Cruz.  

Honors, Awards and Grants

2021 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters

2021 Edward A. Dickson Emeritus Professorship

2018 John dos Passos Award for Literature

2012 - 15 UC Presidential Chair, Feminist Critical Race & Ethnic Studies, co-holder with Professor Bettina Aptheker, Feminist Studies

2012 Association for Asian American Studies Prose Book Award for I Hotel 2011 - 12 United States Artists Ford Fellowship 2011 American Book Award for I Hotel, Before Columbus Foundation 2011 Asian American Literary Award, First Finalist in Fiction, I Hotel, Asian American Writers' Workshop, NY 2011 Asian American Members' Choice Award, I Hotel, Asian American Writers' Workshop, NY 2010 National Book Award Finalist in Fiction for I Hotel 2010 California Book Award, Gold Medal in Fiction for I Hotel, Commonwealth Club, San Francisco 2010 Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association Award in Fiction for I Hotel 2009 Chancellor's Achievement Award for Diversity, UCSC 2001 Excellence in Teaching Award, UCSC 2000 College Commendations for outstanding service to the Kresge College community, UCSC 1998 Finalist, Paterson Fiction Prize for Tropic of Orange, by the Poetry Center, Paterson, NJ 1998 Alumni Award for Distinguished Achievement, Carleton College 1992 Janet Heidinger Kafka Award for Through the Arc of the Rain Forest 1991 American Book Award for Through the Arc of the Rain Forest 1979 First Place, James Clavell American-Japanese Short Story Contest, for "Asaka-no-Miya" 1975 First Place, Amerasia Journal Short Story Contest, for "The Bath" 1975 First Place, Rafu Shimpo Short Story Contest, for "Tucano" 1975 First Place, Gremio Literario: Colonia Short Story Contest, for Portuguese translation of "Tucano"

Selected Publications

• Sansei & Sensibility, Coffee House Press, 2020
• Letters to Memory, Coffee Houses Press, 2017
• Anime Wong: Fictions of Performance, Coffee House Press, 2014
• I Hotel, Coffee House Press, 2010
• Circle K Cycles, Coffee House Press, 2001
• Tropic of Orange, Coffee House Press 1997
• Brazil-Maru, Coffee House Press, 1992
• Through the Arc of the Rain Forest, Coffee House Press, 1990

Teaching Interests

Creative Writing Fiction, Asian American Literature

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Last modified: January 22, 2024 128.114.113.82

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Suggested search, ph.d. requirements, creative writing ph.d. requirements.

The English department encourages its graduate students to design individual programs of study, choosing from among a range of courses in English and in other departments. To this end, the structure of the Ph.D. emphasizes  faculty guidance  rather than formal requirements. Upon enrollment in the graduate program, each student is assigned a  faculty mentor ; as the student’s interests take shape, they may choose another adviser at any time. The following sections outline the stages of the typical graduate student progress.

In their first semester, all students take  English 501: Introduction to Graduate Study: Critical Methods and Practice I , a seminar which introduces them to theories and methods of criticism, as well as to major issues and debates in the profession. Thereafter they may select from the graduate seminars offered each year in English, as well as seminars offered by programs such as Comparative Literature, History, Gender Studies, Critical Studies and American Studies and Ethnicity.  [ View current and typical graduate seminar offerings.]

• A normal course load consists of 12 units (three 4-unit seminars) per semester.
• Students may transfer no more than 12 units of graduate coursework from other institutions.
• Two-thirds of the coursework required for the Ph.D. must be taken within the Department of English.

During the first term of the second year, students undergo the departmental Screening Procedure. This is not a formal examination. Rather, the Graduate Studies Committee reviews each student’s performance during the first year and, if necessary, communicates concerns to the student and to the student’s faculty advisor. The Director of Graduate Studies writes a short report on each student, which is made available to the faculty advisor, and is placed in the student’s file.

The Field Examination must be taken in the semester immediately following the completion of coursework; the completed exam must be submitted to the committee chair by no later than December 1 (for fall exams) and May 1 (for spring exams).

• The Field Examinations are designed to help students develop a mastery over three fields of critical inquiry before they begin the process of preparing for the dissertation prospectus and the Qualifying Examination.
• Students will make an appointment with the Graduate Coordinator in their final semester of course-work in order to establish a committee of three examiners who will set and grade the Field Examinations in the following semester. The student will choose the examiners. The Director of Graduate Studies must approve the choice. One committee member will serve as chair. One member of the fields committee may, upon occasion, be from another department.  This request should be made on a case by case basis and will be up to the discretion of the DGS. Once approved by the DGS, the composition of the committee cannot be changed within the semester in which the exam will be taken.
• (a) Medieval or (b) Early Modern
• (a) Long Eighteenth Century or (b) Long Nineteenth Century, Romanticism, Victorian
• (a) Early Twentieth Century or (b) Post-World War II

The third field is a free choice and may be any of the above, including another alternative from the four listed (for example, Medieval in addition to Early Modern) or from one of the areas listed below:

• (a) Critical Theory or (b) Area Studies

Area studies may be any one of the following:

• Literatures of the US-Mexican border and Latin America
• Afro-American Literature and African Diaspora
• Asian-American Literature and the Pacific Rim
• Literatures of the Circum-Atlantic World
• Media, Film and Popular Culture
• Media and Sound Culture
• Genre studies across historical periods (Romance, Memoir, Travel Narrative, Gothic etc.)
• Native American Literatures
• The student will, in consultation with the presiding examiner, develop a bibliography for each of the three fields. The suggested length of each bibliography is 25 to 30 works.
• The student and the presiding examiner will together formulate a question for each field. The question must be comprehensive and applicable to many works, but will invite the student to respond in terms of three to five representative works from each list. The question for each field must be different from those for the other two.
• The student and committee will set a due date for the examination, which again must be no later than December 1 (for fall exams) and May 1 (for spring exams). The student must complete the exam within a 10 day window of time.
• Each question will be answered in an essay of no fewer than 1500 words and no more than 3000 words. The three examiners will read all answers, but each will assign a grade only to the examination over which he or she has presided. The grade may be Pass or Fail. The committee chair will collate the grades and, after consultation with the other examiners, assign an overall grade of Pass or Fail. A student who fails the examination may retake it once only, in the semester immediately following the one in which it was first attempted, with the same committee of examiners (unless an exemption is granted, in exceptional circumstances only, by the Graduate Studies Committee). The examining committee may determine that the student will have to retake one, two or all three fields.
• Each examiner will write a report of approximately one page detailing the strengths and weaknesses of the answer that he or she graded. The Committee Chair will then write a final report summarizing these responses to the student’s performance and suggesting avenues of inquiry that could be pursued in the Ph.D. dissertation. Copies of the final report will be sent to the student and the DGS; these reports are due by that semester’s deadline for grade submission.

The committee chair is responsible for: coordinating the questions with the student and the other examiners; coordinating the scheduling with the student and the other examiners and reporting it to the Director of Graduate Studies; proctoring the examinations electronically; reporting the grade on the provided sheet to the Director of Graduate Studies by the university’s grade submission deadline; writing a final report on the examinations.

Download Field Examination form .

One term before they take the qualifying examination, students should also have fulfilled the foreign language requirement. Demonstration of proficiency in an appropriate foreign language may be met in several ways, such as designated coursework or a translation exam.

Some students will enter the program with sufficient foreign language skills for their course of study (e.g. either compelling evidence of literate knowledge of a language other than English, such as a high school degree from a school in a non-English speaking country, or four or more semesters at the college level of a language other than English with a grade of B or better in the last semester, or its equivalent).  In lieu of sitting for a foreign language exam, these students may present a written petition to the faculty members of the Graduate Committee, who will decide by vote whether to accept the petition or recommend some other course of action for filling the language requirement.  Requirements for having the petition granted could include transferred coursework in the language, though work done more than five years before entering the program cannot be accepted.  Students should also make a case for why and how this particular foreign language will be relevant, or more relevant, to their course of dissertation study than another language they have yet to study. The department reserves the right to require a particular language on the grounds of relevance to future research.

Download the Foreign Language Fluency Petition form .

Students must take the departmental Qualifying Examination in the first or second semester following successful completion of the Field Exams. Students form a committee of at least five tenured or tenure-track faculty members, at least three of whom must be from the Department of English, at least one of whom must be tenured and one of whom must be from outside the department. One faculty member from English will agree to chair the committee. To take the qualifying exam, the student will first sit a three-hour on-campus examination in which he/she will be asked to produce one of the following three documents: a 500-word abstract of the prospectus; a list of three questions the student would ask himself/herself about the prospectus; a syllabus for a class as inspired by the prospectus. No more than two weeks after the completion of the written examination, the student will sit a two-hour oral examination that will be attended by all committee members. The oral exam will encompass  the written exam, the prospectus and the accompanying bibliography. English 700: Theories and Practices of Professional Development I, offered yearly, is an elective 2-unit seminar designed for students preparing to take the qualifying exam. Its goal is to facilitate the writing of the dissertation prospectus and the creation of the reading list.

The last date in the fall semester that written exams will be given in November 15, and the last day of the spring semester is April 10. No exams will be given over the summer.

Download the Appointment or Change of Qualifying or Dissertation Committee forms .

After passing the qualifying examination, the student may reduce the guidance committee to three or four members, who will include the director and the outside reader.Led by the director, this committee will oversee the student’s Ph.D. dissertation.  The dissertation is a book-length manuscript that makes an original and substantial contribution to creative literature: a book of poems, a novel, a book of nonfiction, a collection of short stories or essays. In addition, students must complete a critical component of the dissertation of approximately 60 pages. Its substance, style and format must meet professional standards of research. Upon submission of an acceptable manuscript and a successful oral defense, the student will be awarded the Ph.D.

Ph.D. in Creative Writing & Literature

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20 years of experience 200+ editing projects 2,000 writing students and counting...

Editorial Services

Denise silva, phd professional editor, college writing instructor, & all-around book fiend.

I am a freelance editor based in Santa Cruz, California, where I also teach writing at UC Santa Cruz. I hold an MA and PhD in Literature, and a BA in English / Creative Writing. As an editor, I trained in UC Berkeley Extension's Professional Sequence in Editing certification program, and via 5 years of in-house work for a women's interest book publisher and a multimodal English language acquisition publisher. I also have recent certifications in Graphic Design and Interaction Design. I've worked with publishing houses, magazines, nonprofit organizations, small businesses, and individual clients for the past 15 years, establishing myself as an editor with a sharp eye and a broad scope. Services offered: Developmental Editing Academic Texts Copyediting Proofreading Fact-Checking

Selected Projects

fiction, poetry, drama

As a lifelong student of literature and a fiction writer myself, I have a knack for balancing the practical (are this character’s diction and mannerisms consistent throughout the book?) and the less tangible but equally vital: respecting and maintaining the author’s voice and style above all else.

Click through to see more fiction, drama, and poetry projects.

“Banana Yoshimoto’s novels are like jewel boxes, and Moshi Moshi is no exception.” —Vanity Fair “[Callaghan] push[es] her audience’s buttons with an aggressive treatment of some of the darker corners of the human psyche. — New York Times “[A] gorgeous, engaging collection… [Urrea] captures the song and spirit of people who might otherwise be invisible… As difficult as the subject matter may be, the writing is radiant, showing how the worth of human beings can’t be dimmed by a border fence or hot-button politics.” —Washington Post

food, lifestyle

Two things that all good cookbook editors know: 1) It’s crucial to make the user’s experience as foolproof as possible, editing for absolute clarity and consistency, and 2) it’s impossible to not get distracted with cravings for all of the delicious food you’re reading about. 

Here are sneak previews of some of the many irresistible recipes featured in projects I’ve worked on: Sweet & Salted Chocolate Cookies , the perfect Negroni , Roasted Fall-Vegetable Soup , &  Strawberry Crepes with Brown Sugar-Pecan Streusel and Sour Cream . 

Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.        –Wendell Berry

It’s been an honor to work with the poetry and prose of great environmental writers like Gary Snyder, Wendell Berry, Wolf D. Storl, and others.

A freelance editor is a jack-of-all-trades, developing expertise in a wide range of areas and subjects. From social justice issues and immigrant experiences to health issues to regional histories, I’ve covered a lot of ground. 

Particularly memorable was being introduced to the world of Victorian stick fighting (which you can learn more about here and here )!

Selected fiction titles

“Steele offers an eloquent meditation on patterns of grief, loss, and silence between generations, with the quiet, grounded narration moving fluidly across time and slowly revealing these patterns.” —Publishers Weekly “Bollen’s intricate, humid Lightning People deftly combines paranoia and high drama with the mundane ache of real relationships, real weather, and a very real New York City. He delves into the haunting mythologies we truly can’t escape, while somehow capturing the sweetness of why we came together anyway. ”  —Miranda July, author of The First Bad Man “The title of this collection hints at its contents—delectable stories with touches of the surreal as well as many plot twists and surprises. From short-short story to novella, each narrative demonstrates mastery of the genre. Frank’s style is tightly controlled and lyrical, yet contains a richness of detail that seamlessly integrates fantasy elements and magic realism.” —Booklist “[Piano Tide] is award-winning naturalist, philosopher, and climate activist Moore’s first foray into fiction, and it is not only a remarkably thoughtful and compelling look at the threats to endangered species and the willful destruction of the environment but also a thoroughly engaging tale featuring vividly drawn characters who grab our interest from the very first pages … Moore writes so eloquently and with such passion about the natural world, from tiny tide pool inhabitants to giant grizzlies and towering hemlocks, that she leaves the reader in wonder and awe.”   — Booklist , starred review

“When it happens for me, it is always characterized by this overwhelming feeling that even if I was able to live until I’m a hundred years old, there wouldn’t be enough time to make all of the things I want to make.” –Jessica Bell, in Creative Block: Get Unstuck, Discover New Ideas .

I’ve been into crafting, creating, and home projects/home decor ever since my first after-school job at Michaels. Something about the balance of freedom/creativity with rigor/direction has always appealed to me, and for this reason lifestyle/craft books are some of my favorites to work on.

Click through for some of the home/crafting/lifestyle projects I’ve worked on as a copyeditor or proofreader.

“Looking for a publicity shot of David Bowie on the set of Labyrinth? How about pre-visualization drawings of Big Bird, Doctor Teeth and the Swedish Chef? Imagination Illustrated has got you covered.Essentially a book version of the Jim Henson’s Fantastic World traveling exhibition, this is a welcome reminder that although Henson himself may be gone, his legacy never will stop us searching for the Rainbow Connection in our own lives.” –Geekadelphia, review of Karen Falk, Imagination Illustrated: The Jim Henson Journal  “Yoshitoma Nara lives at the intersection of punk rock, Japanese pop art, and Western cartoon culture filtered through the lens of post-World War II Japan. His drawings, paintings, sculptures, and large installations are populated with adorable-yet-menacing children and animals that whisper to the misfit in all of us. Chronicle Books has just published a long-awaited catalogue raisonné of Nara’s work. Yoshitomo Nara: The Complete Works is a gorgeous, massive two-volume set totaling 800 pages and filled with more than 4,000 lush color reproductions and photographs, and commentary by Banana Yoshimoto, Takashi Murakami, Hiroshi Sugito, and Midori Matsui”. –Boingboing “Beyond demonstratingthe playfulness that made Warhol a household name, these illustrations are a visual treat in their own right.” –Chronicle Books

women’s interest

I’ve written movie reviews and copyedited for Bitch magazine. Related work has included contributing chapters to Feminist Writings from Ancient Times to the Modern World, acquiring and developing titles at Seal Press (and helping to launch an academic series there), and a wide range of copyediting and proofreading projects on women’s interest titles.

Click though for a few examples.

As an avid traveler who is always anticipating and researching my next adventure, I relish the opportunity to discover new places and revisit favorites via the armchair travel of editing travel books/websites/manuals. My work on travel titles benefits from the expertise and experience I’ve gained over the years, whether that be miles logged, languages and subway maps mastered, my academic study of European history and the city of London in particular (the topic of my dissertation), or simply my appreciation for getting lost in the streets of a new city. Click through for a small sample of the travel titles I’ve worked on.

food, pop culture

Whether it’s tempting kids with   Baked Cornmeal Onion Rings  or Luke Skywaffles , or giving adults free rein to play with their food by crafting the perfect cake pop or onigiri , here is a sampling of some fun cookbooks I’ve copyedited or proofread.

memoir, pop culture

Click through for more memoir projects.

graphic design, illustration

“Ostensibly, it is nothing more than a how-to book, illustrated with examples from the designer’s own portfolio. But in reality Thoughts on Design is a manifesto, a call to arms and a ringing definition of what makes good design good. This, perhaps, has never been said better than in the book’s most quoted passage, the graceful free verse that begins Rand’s essay ‘The Beautiful and the Useful.’ Graphic design, he says, no matter what else it achieves, ‘is not good design if it is irrelevant.’” –Design Observer

“The house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.” 

–Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space

Click through to see some of the projects I’ve worked on related to home decor/hosting/nesting. 

food, women’s interest 

From Edible San Francisco Magazine: 

No. This is not a book of success stories from women chefs with their recipes. Neither is it a photo journal of hot girl chefs and their crazy tattoos. Nor is this Bourdain for chicks. Skirt Steak: Women Chefs Standing the Heat and Staying in the Kitchen, is best described as a modern, curated version of Studs Terkel’s Working. Terkel’s iconic book makes its living by quoting from men and women in every field of work, talking about all aspects of their jobs, sans commentary.

Read the full review here.

pop culture

Whether it’s a joke, a song, or a celebrity we all love to hate, popular culture connects us all in a shared narrative that can be profound, simply entertaining, or someplace in between. 

My editing and teaching certainly benefit from my study of history, cultural studies, gender studies, etc., but more often than not they’ll also benefit from my experiences as a fan or my knowledge of celebrity gossip.

Click through for a small sample of pop culture titles I’ve worked on.

Editorial Clients

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Designated Emphasis

UC Santa Cruz graduate students enrolled in doctoral programs may obtain a Designated Emphasis in Film and Digital Media as part of their Ph.D. degree. Students must meet the following requirements in order to obtain the Designated Emphasis:

•       Secure approval from a member of the Film and Digital Media core faculty to serve as the advisor for the Designated Emphasis.

•       Have at least one core faculty member from Film and Digital Media serve on the student’s qualifying examination committee or dissertation committee.

•       Submit a significant piece of writing, or a project that includes both writing and creative practice, that  demonstrates competence in the field of Film and Digital Media. A writing submission could take the form of a seminar paper or dissertation chapter. A writing/creative project may be constituted from a range of possible media such as film, video, web-based or other digital media. The submitted project must meet the approval of the student's Film and Digital Media advisor.

•       Successfully complete four graduate courses (not independent studies) taught by either core or affiliated faculty of the Film and Digital Media PhD Program. The courses must be pre-approved by the student's Designated Emphasis advisor.

Please email our graduate programs coordinator at fdmgradprograms@ucsc .edu if you are interested in pursuing a designated emphasis in Film and Digital Media.

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• Application Procedure

Applications open October 1st and close in early December for matriculation the following fall quarter. Please check the Application Deadlines page for the current program deadline. Applicants will be notified in March.

Useful links, literature department program requirements ( ph.d. , m.a. ), literature department faqs, ucsc graduate division admissions, ucsc graduate division information for international students, a complete application consists of:.

• Curriculum Vitae 
• Writing Sample (double spaced)
• Statement of Purpose (double spaced)
• Personal History Statement (double spaced)
• Three Letters of Recommendation 
• Unofficial Transcripts
• Required Test Scores

You can find information about these materials here . 

Writing Sample:

• A writing sample between 10-20 pages in length, double spaced. Though the sample need not be in Literature, it should demonstrate relevant skills in writing, critical thinking, and textual analysis. In addition, applicants whose proposed primary area of emphasis is in a language other than English should provide a sample that demonstrates an ability to work in that language. Please include your name in the footer of each page of your writing sample.
• For applicants to the Creative/Critical Writing concentration, the department requests the following additional materials: 20-25 pages of prose, double spaced (at least one complete piece and an additional sample preferred), or 10-12 pages of poetry. The writing can be poetry, prose fiction, creative nonfiction or hybrid/cross genre.

No application materials should be sent to the Department of Literature.  All materials are vetted through the Division of Graduate Studies .

Fee Waiver: 

ALL applicants are eligible to apply for a fee waiver. Applicants who do not qualify for a fee waiver through the application portal (including International Students) may apply directly to the Department of Literature. The department has a limited number of waivers available and will evaluate requests on a case by case basis. 

Requirements and Instructions:

• At minimum, have completed, uploaded, and submitted the following items to your application: statement of purpose, personal history statement, statement of financial need, and your resume.
• Have not yet paid for your application to the University.
• Domestic Students: In the application portal, follow the directions for requesting a fee waiver. If you are denied a fee waiver, please contact [email protected] to state why you are requesting a fee waiver and attach your statement of need. If you are granted a fee waiver by the department, we will provide additional directions for how to complete the fee waiver section in the application portal.
• International Students: International students are not eligible to request a fee waiver in the application portal. Instead, contact [email protected] to state why you are requesting a fee waiver and attach your statement of need. If you are granted a fee waiver, we will provide additional directions for how to complete the fee waiver section in the application portal.

NOTE: The Department is unlikely to grant a fee waiver to individuals for more than one application cycle.

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Home / 2024 / April / mellon-multivocal-feature-story

Three University of California, Santa Cruz professors receive Mellon Foundation Affirming Multivocal Humanities grants

April 29, 2024

By Dan White

The Mellon Foundation has awarded three University of California, Santa Cruz, departments grants of $100,000 each for work that champions groundbreaking research in the realms of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality.

Part of Mellon's Affirming Multivocal Humanities initiative, the grants bolster the work of UC Santa Cruz’s Critical Race & Ethnic Studies (CRES), Feminist Studies (FMST), and Latin American and Latino Studies (LALS) Departments. CRES Professor Christine Hong, Associate Professor of FMST Madhavi Murty, and LALS Professor and chair Catherine Ramírez were invited by Mellon to submit proposals for funding.

The term “Affirming Multivocal Humanities” refers to scholarship on the breadth of the human experience through race, ethnic, gender, and sexuality studies. 

“The study of race, gender, and sexuality has become ever more central to work in the humanities over the last thirty years or so,” said Mellon Foundation Director of Higher Learning Phillip Brian Harper, “and it is important that inquiry in these areas—which is of perennial interest to students—continue to enjoy robust support.”

“Affirming Multivocal Humanities is an initiative that champions the insightful scholarship and teaching taking place in these disciplines—those that are too often undervalued and even undermined in American society today,” said Mellon Foundation President Elizabeth Alexander. “We are proud to support colleges and universities in the United States that are advancing deep research and curricular engagement with the stories and histories of our country’s vast diversity and the modes of inquiry that race, gender, and ethnic studies explore and expand.”

Localizing ethnic studies curriculum 

Christine Hong said that the Mellon grant has made it possible to make headway on a community-collaborative research partnership that focuses on localizing ethnic studies in Santa Cruz. 

“ The c ommunity-collaborative research project was launched in response to a series of California laws first recommending and then requiring ethnic studies in high school education throughout the state,” said Hong, who directs the Center for Racial Justice at UC Santa Cruz, co-chairs the UC Ethnic Studies Faculty Council, and co-edits the activist scholarly journal, Critical Ethnic Studies .

UC Santa Cruz’s Center for Racial Justice has worked with campus faculty in Critical Race and Ethnic Studies and Education, local K-12 teachers, and community organizations to begin co-constructing a localized ethnic studies archive that centers the past and present struggles of communities of color in the greater Santa Cruz area for justice. 

“Our goal is to enable local high school students and UC Santa Cruz students to take active part in reimagining Santa Cruz against the implied whiteness of its 'surf, sun, sustainable farming, and redwoods' image by focusing on how race, racism, and racialization have shaped local histories, practices of resistance, and community organizing,” Hong said. 

This past year, she and Professor Jennifer Kelly (FMST/CRES), with the support of the History and Civics Project led by Education Department lecturer Daisy Martin and Mark Gomez as well as a community partner, the Resource Center for Nonviolence, offered a yearlong series of workshops on the foundations of ethnic studies for local K-12 teachers and community organizers. The last workshop, on community archiving and oral histories, will be held in early May.

Public events build on 50 years of impact in feminist studies

Murty said that the grant could not be more timely for the  Feminist Studies department at UC Santa Cruz, which was established 50 years ago, first as a program in Women’s Studies. The program became a department in 1996. As it re-defined its epistemological emphasis through feminist analytics, it became the first in the nation to change its name to Feminist Studies in 2005.

“The Affirming Multivocal Humanities grant from the Mellon Foundation is enabling us to celebrate this occasion through a series of events to discuss the significance of feminist analytics, organizing and pedagogical practices in the contemporary moment in the United States, raise awareness about the field in the communities within which the university and the department resides, and expand our outreach beyond university walls to reach broader audiences in the spirit of democratizing feminism, given the urgency of now,” Murty said. 

On March 1st, Murty, her co-PI, Prof Gina Athena Ulysse and other members of the  department gathered with the authors of Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care, at a public forum on community activism, held at the Resource Center for Nonviolence in Santa Cruz.

The forum featured author activists Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba in conversation with UCSC professors Gina Dent (FMST), Debbie Gould (SOC), and Christine Hong (CRES/LIT). 

“UC Santa Cruz students and representatives from many local non-profit groups attended to participate in a generative discussion on how to address the vital challenge of organizing in our current conjuncture - a moment in historical time that has brought together a range of both violent and hopeful forces creating a terrain for struggle,” Murty said. 

In the spring, the Feminist Studies’ keystone event will be the 2nd Annual FMST Undergraduate Research Symposium. 

“The FMST Symposium debuted in 2023 to great success, and this year, we’re planning a two-day Symposium on May 16 and 17 as part of the 50th anniversary slate of events,” Murty continued. “The Symposium will showcase the wide range of research that our students are engaged with in FMST coursework and include a discussion with faculty across campus who work with feminist epistemologies,” she added.   

New courses and new connections for Latin American and Latino Studies

LALS’s Mellon grant is supporting three initiatives in that department: “Fashioning Latinidades: Latinx Style, Aesthetics, and Consumption,” “Amplifying Latinx Studies,” and  “Placing Justice and Joy in Latinx Studies.” 

“Together, these initiatives are supporting course development, graduate student research, faculty training, the promotion of a clear understanding of the significance of Latinx studies among the general public, networking with colleagues at other institutions in order to amplify the effects of work in our field, and in-person gatherings,” Ramírez said. 

“One of the greatest challenges Latin American and Latino Studies faces is the misperception of our field as limited to a particular region or demographic,” she said. “Our colleagues, students, and I welcome the opportunity not only to support our students and to expand our curriculum—undertakings this grant is supporting—but also to promote a clear understanding of the significance and value of Latinx studies—particularly at an Hispanic-Serving Institution like UC Santa Cruz.”

With the grant's support, LALS faculty and affiliates took part in a public writing workshop led by the editor of The Washington Post’s “Made by History” section last fall, and a delegation of LALS faculty, students, and staff attended the 2024 Latinx Studies Association conference in Tempe, Arizona, in April. Graduate student Edward Salazar Celis is also developing a course, "Fashioning Latinidades," based on his research on Latinx style, aesthetics, and consumption.

“Fashion's politics, materialities, and poetics have been a fundamental site for struggle, meaning-making, creativity, and representation within Latinx communities,” Salazar Celis said. “Fashion also produces and reproduces colonial hierarchies and divisions that have affected humans and nature and must be questioned. Expanding Latinx studies through the lens of fashion opens the space to reflect on these issues, exploring the past, present, and futurity of Latinxness through the dressed body.”

Salazar Celis and LALS graduate student Jennifer Gottlieb will attend the 2024 Crossing Latinidades Summer Institute at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Both are now being considered for 2024-25 Crossing Latinidades Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Pre-Dissertation Fellowships.

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Creative Writing a Gateway to Creative Climate Solutions

How poetry and art are crucial in the climate crisis .

• by Malia Reiss
• May 06, 2024

“Raging Floods.” “Climate Migrants.” “Coral Reefs Gone.” These are the kinds of stories spanning today’s headlines. As temperatures are rising globally, morale is steadily sinking. 

New solutions are needed to combat this crisis, environmentally and emotionally. UC Davis creative writing master’s students and professors say that creative storytelling and art may be the keys to helping the world process these changes, and that collaborations with scientists can give rise to new, innovative solutions.

“Art and poetry are going to play a pivotal role in adapting human behavior to these new circumstances that are vastly different from anything we’ve known,” said poetry master’s student Trevor Bashaw . 

Imagining a better (or worse) future 

Free of limitations, art is a portal to reimagine the world.

In 2020, UC Davis English professor Michael Ziser and geology professor Nicholas Pinter took graduate students on a white water rafting trip down the Colorado River and through the Grand Canyon. They also invited two famous science fiction writers, Paolo Bacigalupi and Kim Stanley Robinson , both of whom write about a climate-apocalyptic world. 

“The advantage science fiction writers have is that they have license to completely reimagine things,” said Ziser. “They can just pose a solution and think about how it may work out. It encourages people to imagine, what world do they prefer to be a part of?” 

The authors and students entered the Grand Canyon on March 10, 2020. They emerged two weeks later to a world shut down amid a global pandemic. The merging of science and science fiction felt all too relevant.

Bacigalupi’s thriller novel, The Water Knife , tells a dark, futuristic story where the Southwestern U.S. is engaged in a violent war for water. Bacigalupi attended the Grand Canyon trip with graduate students studying the same river system he wrote about drying up. 

Robinson's novels also explore what the future may look like under continued corruption and failure to address world crises like climate change. On the trip, students read Robinson's Pacific Edge, part of his series depicting the future of California. 

By inviting these authors, Pinter and Ziser hoped to encourage the merging of art and science and to give graduate student scientists a new way of looking at the future of their study systems. 

“Any channel by which we can get more people from different walks of life to be thinking about these problems, the better,” said Ziser. “These problems require our coordinated response as a civilization.” 

Collaborations between scientists and artists can generate solutions that one party may not have been able to accomplish on its own. 

“Everyone is being asked to hyperspecialize, and I think that age is over,” said Ziser. “We need to keep a multi-pronged approach to understanding the world.” 

To poetry master’s student Bashaw, the divide between art and science isn’t clean cut, and separating the two can limit progress.

“The sciences and the arts have a lot to learn from each other, in terms of knowledge bases and methodologies,” said Bashaw. “The writer’s workshop is a lot more similar to a lab than people may realize; a lot of scientific discoveries were made through creative accidents; and art is pushed forward by technological advances.”  

With collaborations like these, new ways of thinking can emerge. Art can be a limitless tool toward furthering scientific discovery. 

“Everything is trapped by its genre. But when we try to imagine something radically different, we create something bigger,” said Pinter. 

Where processing has a place 

For creative solutions to be acted upon, policymakers, scientists, and the public need to reach common ground. UC Davis creative writing master’s students contend that art and writing not only generate innovative solutions, but also open gateways to these solutions. 

“With climate change, there’s a lot of grieving that we need to do as a community,” said Bashaw. “I don’t think we have even emotionally accepted it’s occurring.” 

Bashaw thinks that only when humanity can process the climate crises can the world come together to carry out solutions. To them, art is where processing has a place.

“In art and poetry, there can be more room for love and feeling and all of these things that make us human,” said Bashaw.

In their own writing, Bashaw draws parallels between processing the queer experience and processing the climate crisis. They describe their writing as “queer eco-poetics,” which focuses on how individuals relate to nature and constructed  environments. 

“Poetry can transform what feels scary into all kinds of different things and bring a sense of peace,” said Bashaw. “I want people to feel seen without shame.  I think of my writing as home-making and finding peace within place.” 

Connie Pearson, a creative nonfiction master’s student at UC Davis, also believes that art can bring to life the human emotional experience within major world crises.

“It’s a real sweet spot: seeing what’s going on, combined with how somebody is processing,” said Pearson. 

Pearson’s work comprises personal essays centered around her experiences being an animal activist. By diving into her vulnerable and personal experience, she hopes to humanize the activism she’s been part of since 1980. 

“Vulnerability is so crucial in writing,” said Pearson. “I connect so much more to pieces written from the personal lens.” 

Processing and healing 

Climate change is a global phenomenon, and will require everyone working together to reach a solution. This is a daunting task, but with solutions posed by both scientists and artists together, and with a shift in mindset, the future could heal. 

“Art allows you to sit with the unknown and ambiguity in a way that’s not paralyzing, but exciting,” said Bashaw. “We need to help people process and confront this looming phenomenon.”

Malia Reiss is a science news intern with UC Davis Strategic Communications. She studies environmental science and management at UC Davis.

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