Seeta Chaganti, an associate professor in the English Department, has been appointed Interim Director of the UC Davis Humanities Institute (DHI), effective January 1 through June 30, 2013.

Chaganti will be responsible for fostering interdisciplinary collaboration between departments and scholars in the humanities and humanistic social sciences and advocating for the work of campus humanists in the larger campus community. The interim director also oversees the Institute's programming and serves as a liaison to the UC Humanities Network, a consortium of humanities centers and institutes across the UC's ten campuses.

Chaganti takes over for former director Carolyn de la Peña, who moves into a new position as Interim Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education.

On the Navajo Nation in Arizona, looking in any direction from her ancestral home, D.Y. Begay sees cliff formations "outlined in stepped patterns painted in bundles of red streaks, subtle shades of pinks, clusters of dusty-ochre, and flickering sand-tone colors."

"At dawn, shoots of pale baby blue awaken the sky, and I sometimes see deep dark indigo, pinks and shades of soft yellows."

It is images like these that the fourth-generation weaver turns into lasting treasures of natural beauty - she calls them tapestries, created in a blend of traditional weaving techniques and contemporary design. Eighteen of them comprise the C.N. Gorman Museum's winter exhibition, The Weavings of D.Y. Begay, opening Tuesday (Jan. 8).

This is the first show of the museum's 40th anniversary year, a celebration that focuses on Navajo art - honoring the Navajo artist for whom the museum is named, Carl Nelson Gorman, a founding member of the Native American studies faculty.

The university is honoring that legacy today by tapping three innovative architect-contractor teams to compete in the creation of a design for the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art - a planned museum whose vision is as bold as Thiebaud's pop imagery or Arneson's irreverent ceramics.

Read more about the competition and the teams chosen to compete here.  

Religious Studies has successfully managed the transition from program to department status. The new designation, which became effective as of July 1, 2012, recognizes the program's autonomy and cohesion as an intellectual community.

Begun in 1976 as an interdepartmental program, Religious Studies expanded significantly over the course of the last ten years. Since 2001, when the program had only three FTE, eight new faculty have been hired. In addition to traditional strengths in Christianity, these scholars have contributed depth in studies of Islam, South Asian religions, Judaism, secularism, and ethics. Should the current recruitments prove successful, the department will number nine FTE.

D. Kern Holoman, The Orchestra: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2012).

In this book, distinguished professor of music and conductor emeritus of the UC Davis Symphony Orchestra D. Kern Holoman considers the structure, roots, and day-to-day functioning of the modern philharmonic society. He explores topics ranging from the life of a musician in a modern orchestra, the recent wave of new hall construction from Berlin to Birmingham, threats of bankruptcies and strikes, and the eyebrow-raising salaries of conductors and general managers... [more]

Elizabeth Miller, Slow Print: Literary Radicalism and Late Victorian Print Culture. (Stanford University Press, 2012).

In Slow Print, assistant professor of English Liz Miller explores the literary culture of Britain's radical press from 1880 to 1910, a time that saw a flourishing of radical political activity as well as the emergence of a mass print industry. While Enlightenment radicals and their heirs had seen free print as an agent of revolutionary transformation, socialist, anarchist and other radicals of this later period suspected that a mass public could not exist outside the capitalist system. In response, they purposely reduced the scale of print by appealing to a small, counter-cultural audience.... [more] 

James J. Murphy, Ed, A Short History of Writing Instruction, 3rd Edition (Routledge, 2012). 

Edited by James Jerome Murphy, professor emeritus of English and communication, A Short History of Writing Instruction preserves the legacy of writing instruction from antiquity to contemporary times with a unique focus on the material, educational, and institutional context of the Western rhetorical tradition. In this edition, additions include increased attention to orthography, or the physical aspects of the writing process, new material on high school instruction, sections on writing in the electronic age, and increased coverage of women rhetoricians and writing instruction of women.... [more]

Halifu Osumare, The Hiplife in Ghana: West African Indigenization of Hip Hop (Palgrave McMillan, 2012).

David Simpson, Romanticism and the Question of the Stranger (University of Chicago Press, 2012).

Christopher Thaiss et al. Writing Programs Worldwide: Profiles of Academic Writing in Many Places (WAC Clearinghouse/Parlor Press 2012). 

Chris Thaiss, Clark Kerr Presidential Chair and professor in the University Writing Program, is lead co-editor of this first-of-its-kind publishing project, which profiles more than 40 writing programs in 28 countries on 6 continents. The international team of co-editors also includes Aparna Sinha, PhD candidate in the School of Education at UC Davis. Published both in print (Parlor Press) and as an open access online book (WAC Clearinghouse), the new work derives from survey results of the International WAC/WID Mapping Project, begun by Thaiss in 2006.... [more]