UC Merced Connect: Humanities bring new perspectives on water

Open any newspaper or news website and you’re likely to see at least one article about California’s water crisis. From climate change to wildfires to groundwater to El Niño, there’s no shortage of water-related conversations.

There’s also no shortage of scientific research on water, and UC Merced has a number of faculty members doing important work to address the state’s crisis. Starting this month, the Center for the Humanities at UC Merced is aiming to prove it has much to add to our understanding of water and all the issues that come with it.

The Center for the Humanities, created in 2008 and bolstered by an anonymous private donation of $2 million in 2012, has chosen water as a central theme for its next two years of interdisciplinary research projects, community outreach and public events. The center’s new director, professor Ignacio López-Calvo, said the humanities have an important but often underappreciated role to play when it comes to water.

“The interdisciplinary study of the social, cultural, symbolic and historical role of water will help us think about the water crisis in the contemporary San Joaquin Valley, California and the world,” López-Calvo said. “We hope to explore the contribution of humanities to an understanding of water’s role in society.”

Over the next two years, the center will host a total of 15 fellows – nine faculty members, four graduate students and two postdoctoral students, each of whom will lead their own research projects – along with visiting speakers, a biweekly seminar and an international conference at the end of the second year.

In approaching its second biennial theme, the center is putting a major emphasis on community outreach and on the inclusion of disciplines outside of the humanities. An interdisciplinary team of faculty members – Aditi Chandra, an art historian; Teamrat A. Ghezzehei, a soil scientist; and Kevin Dawson, who studies Atlantic history and the African diaspora – will work with the center to provide intellectual vision for the water theme.

Two upcoming events have been designed with the community in mind. On Oct. 15, the center will host a film screening of “The Turtle Diaries” and a question-and-answer session with wildlife biologist Maya Khosla at the Merced County Library, an event geared toward families. On Nov. 7, in conjunction with the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society, the center will sponsor the Wild and Scenic Film Festival at the Merced Multicultural Arts Center. Both are free and open to the public.

López-Calvo said he’s looking forward to many of the events planned for the next two years, but in particular to the publication of the many interdisciplinary research projects and the 2017 conference that will showcase that work and attract scholars from across the globe.

“With this conference and the other events, our goal is to increase the national and international visibility of humanities and arts research at UC Merced,” López-Calvo said. “Through cultural events and publications aimed at nonspecialists, we will also foster the community’s awareness of the importance of the humanities in today’s world.”

Campus among most diverse in the U.S.

UC Merced has been identified by BestColleges as one of the country’s top 50 campuses where students have the most opportunity to interact with different ethnicities, ranking No. 12.

More than 1,700 schools were considered based on the following variables: type of institution; enrollment; racial equity index score, based on the Shannon-Wiener biodiversity calculation; and enrollment by race, obtained from the Integrated Post-Secondary Education Data System.

UC Merced is the most ethnically and culturally diverse student body among all University of California campuses.

“Diversity enriches our research and academic missions,” said interim Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Charles Nies. “We have remained committed to creating a campus that welcomes diversity and to increasing educational access for the students in the San Joaquin Valley region and across California.”

This story was originally published September 30, 2015 at 2:32 PM with the headline "UC Merced Connect: Humanities bring new perspectives on water."