INSPIRED
INTER-
SECTIONS

Welcome to the inaugural issue of Link, an e-newsletter from UC San Diego’s Division of Arts and Humanities, designed to connect alumni and friends with news of our endeavors and accomplishments.

At all great universities the arts and humanities are essential, but only at UCSD can we benefit from unique “inspired intersections” – engaging the creativity and imagination of scholars and artists in this division with scientists, engineers and social scientists in other campus divisions and schools focused on discovery and application. By the passionate pursuit of traditional scholarly agendas as well as by use of dramatic advances in science and technology, our artists and humanists are reshaping their fields and moving them in exciting directions.

You can read more about our strategic vision for the division as a whole in a recent news article. Meanwhile, enjoy the stories below and please stay in touch.

 

Michael Bernstein, Dean

 

The Hall That Music Built

Dean Michael Bernstein and Rand Steiger, chair of the Department of Music, discuss plans for a new building that will feature a concert space with state-of-the-art acoustics.

Global Warning

Science historian Naomi Oreskes has been at the forefront of public discussion on climate change since her 2004 study in the journal Science documented a scholarly consensus on two points: the Earth is warming and humans are the cause.

Urban Planning,
Urban Playing

Visual Arts professor Sheldon Brown demonstrates the possibilities (and limits) of auto-designing urban landscapes for video games and the real world in his “Scalable City,” on yearlong exhibition at Ars Electronica in Vienna.

Leaving Lebanon

Michael Provence, a scholar of the history of the Middle East, witnessed first-hand the early days of this summer's conflict between Hezbollah and Israel while teaching in Beirut, Lebanon. He recounts his experience on KPBS-FM.

Sound Takes Center Stage

The newest addition to the division's graduate offerings is an MFA program in sound design from the Department of Theatre and Dance that combines high-tech training with age-old stagecraft.

Following a visit by Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, the Center for the Humanities' lecture season continues with the Making of the Modern World Series.

Concerts from the Music Department feature such renowned faculty as pianist Cecil Lytle, violinist János Négyesy and percussionist Steven Schick.

The top-ranked Department of Theatre and Dance presents its 2006-07 performance season, beginning with The Love of the Nightingale in November.