• History of Science Lecture with Jennifer Derr

    Music Center Recital Hall 400 McHenry Road, Santa Cruz, CA
    Hybrid Event

    The damming of the Nile River transformed agriculture and human health in 20th-century Egypt. While dams enabled year-round irrigation and provided hydroelectricity, the prevalence of parasitic disease also skyrocketed. Professor Derr explores the effects of damming the Nile on the health of Egyptians and the impact of large-scale environmental transformation on the knowledge and practice that made medicine during the 20th century.

    FREE and open to the public
  • Emeriti Faculty Lecture, Spring 2026

    Music Center Recital Hall 400 McHenry Road, Santa Cruz, CA
    Hybrid Event

    As the West Coast exploded with the Summer of Love and Vietnam War protests, the Center for World Music’s concept of “bimusicality” brought Asian performance masters and American avant-gardists to train American students. Join Distinguished Research Professor Emerita Kathy Foley for the Spring Emeriti Lecture.

    FREE and open to the public
  • Landesman Lecture

    Music Center Recital Hall 400 McHenry Road, Santa Cruz, CA
    Hybrid Event

    This evening blends science, poetry, and storytelling to explore our deepest origins and shared humanity. Tracing the cosmic formation of the elements that make our bodies, we reflect on an ancestry older than nations, borders, and labels. Through verse and story, we connect stellar history with lived experience, inviting us to see how our many identities arise from the same ancestral matter. Together, we explore how storytelling can soften divisions, cross boundaries, and remind us that we are forged from one common origin.

    FREE and open to the public