Historian Gregory Downs explains the complicated history of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, including subsequent laws that undermined equal protections it guaranteed, as well as the court case affirming the definition of birthright citizenship we take for granted today.
As historian Traci Parker writes a new biography, she is learning just how much Coretta Scott King contributed to her husband’s ideas and actions, and how his story is also very much her own.
Traci Parker, an associate professor of history, is working to fill out what we know about the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements in the U.S., and in the process is building deeper connections to the past.
Our February 2025 "Books of the Month" selections honor Black History Month. Get familiar with some lesser known aspects of American history, celebrate song and dance, or immerse yourself in someone else’s story. This month’s reads include cultural and historical analyses as well as two memoirs, a biography and a novel.
Edmond Dédé's four-act opera, “Morgiane," written in 1888, is the oldest known opera composed by an African American.
Sally McKee, now a retired history professor at UC Davis, helped unearth his story in a biography on Dédé in 2017. Now, in 2025, the work is finally being performed in full.
The Kumbh Mela pulls together multiple strands of India’s deep cultural past with its status today as the second-most populous nation in the world with international influence and ambition to reach for the stars. Over 400 million are expected across the duration of this year’s festival, which runs from January 13 through February 26, 2025.
With the start of the new year and upcoming presidential inauguration, we’ve chosen to focus on politics, advocacy and community organizing. At the College of Letters and Science, we’re thinking deeply about these topics and the work of our faculty and lecturers demonstrates just that.
With flavor and flair, a community of academics, chefs and food justice advocates are sparking conversation at UC Davis and beyond through the new seminar Thinking Food at the Intersections: Justice and Critical Food Studies. The seminar series is supported by a $225,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation received earlier this year.
In a new book, historian Stacy Fahrenthold unravels the history of Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian immigrants’ activism in the global textile industry and labor strikes. Her book reveals how women garment workers, child laborers and union activists struggled against white and even Arab American bosses, as well as why their impact has gone ignored.
The University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI) has recently funded two projects led by faculty in the UC Davis College of Letters and Science that document the lives of marginalized people, both in the past and present.
