Politics & Society

Exploring sources of historical narratives can take you to places where walls seem to move and truth feels fluid and interchangeable. Ma Vang’s research has focused on how people narrate their histories, tracking the lived experiences of people pigeonholed or marginalized by dominant narratives that privilege the record and written text.

It is impossible to avoid — the real-life event that frames the play “26 Pebbles” is disturbing. Heartbreaking.

Which makes all the more remarkable the play’s uplifting message of human resilience and the ability to come together after an unspeakable tragedy — the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

An online workshop this week aims to deconstruct one of humanity’s most destructive traits: genocide.

UC Merced’s Department of Cognitive and Information Sciences is bringing together an interdisciplinary panel of scholars for “Understanding Genocide: Neural, Psychological and Political Science Perspectives.” The workshop will be shown live on YouTube from 9 a.m. to noon Friday, May 17.

Editor's note: In honor of Black History Month, the UC Merced newsroom is highlighting some of the organizations, services and people who serve or represent the Black community on campus.

We all need heroes.

Perhaps that was on Roy Wilkins’ mind as he faced the sea of humanity – 250,000 strong – on a warm August afternoon in 1963. At the podium on the Lincoln Memorial, the executive secretary of the NAACP stood to inspire the throng gathered for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

A new state law will make a difference in accessing education for the dependents of disabled veterans in California, thanks to the initiative of UC Merced Interdisciplinary Humanities graduate student Karla Seijas.

One of the major challenges of this century is democratically engaging institutions and large numbers of people with strategies to mitigate global warming by minimizing greenhouse gas emissions.

Compelling storytelling is vital to ensuring the action needed to secure a habitable planet for future generations, according to an increasing amount of research.

UC Merced is recruiting students now to become the next environmental storytellers.

Students who are interested in creatively conveying the urgency of environmental issues can make that mission the focus of their studies when the new environmental humanities (EH) major begins at UC Merced in fall 2024.

After taking part in the UC Merced Center for Analytic Political Engagement 's inaugural legislative boot camp, students say they are better prepared to take on the first internships of their careers.

The week-long session in Sacramento was led by former Assemblymember Adam Gray and political science Professor Nate Monroe and gave a cohort of nine students a look behind the curtain at how policymaking happens at the state Capitol.

Global Arts Studies Professor Yehuda Sharim has published a new photo essay, “A Map of Light,” on the University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI)’s digital platform Foundry.

New students or those who have not yet chosen their majors will have an array of options before them.

Five new majors and several new emphases, ranging across all three schools, are all coming online in 2024 and are recruiting students now.

New bachelor’s of science degrees:

• chemical engineering
• data science and computing
• public health

New bachelor’s of arts degrees:

• data science and analytics
• environmental humanities

New emphases:

In the mechanical engineering major: