For her innovative research in Indigenous studies and on the politics of knowledge, de la Cadena was recently elected as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honorary societies.
Monique Borgerhoff Mulder has been recognized again with the 2026 Constantine Panunzio Distinguished Emeriti Award, which exemplifies tremendous contributions of emeriti to the continued excellence of the University of California system.
An author blending fact and fiction in her second novel, an anthropologist studying the origins of rituals and pilgrimages, and a mathematician investigating the complexity of large datasets have been named the 2026 Dean’s Faculty Fellows for the College of Letters and Science at UC Davis.
From narratives of modernist ambition and political violence to tragic romance and urbanite translators and their rural interlocutors, Shelter for the Night looks at the challenges of articulating the unspeakable to make a bold claim for the importance of thinking about the contemporary world starting from Afghanistan.
From deep archival research and interviews with cultural curators and government officials to studying tea art and learning brewing techniques from tea masters, anthropology Ph.D. candidate Thiago Braga, through his research, is unraveling the geopolitical history underlying the traditional tea revival across China and Taiwan.
Suad Joseph, a leading scholar of women and gender in the Middle East, has established the Suad Joseph Graduate Student Research Award in Lebanon and Palestine Studies. The award will support graduate students conducting research on Lebanon, Palestine and/or their diasporas.
In her book Father Time, Sarah Blaffer Hrdy explores the role males play in parental care and its evolutionary basis. Now, the book has inspired a 52-minute documentary called Father Time: Why Men Are Born to Nurture.
This year’s annual Global Tea Institute Colloquium honors the legacy of tea with its theme: Art of Tea in Culture and Science, Society and Health. It will feature tea scholars from across UC Davis.
Welcome to Books of the Month, where once a month, we select works from our Bookshelf of authors within the College of Letters and Science at UC Davis. January is often a time for self-reflection and goal setting, so this month’s list features books that touch on both.
This month, explore how connections are formed, maintained and shared with letters and science authors. In this collection of books, our authors and scholars mine their own families as their inspiration for memoirs, poetry, fiction and analyses.
