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Writer-in-Residence Mark Arax Chronicles California's Lifeblood: Water

September 18, 2025
UC Merced has debuted a writer-in-residence program with one of California’s premier chroniclers of its history, especially the titanic power plays for land and water that have shaped the state’s growth and loom over its future. Mark Arax, a Fresno native, author and former Los Angeles Times...

Humanities Grad Student Advocates for Student Parents

July 24, 2025
When Nicolette Lecy began her graduate studies at UC Merced, life was anything but typical. It was August 2020, in the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic. Lecy’s classes were held remotely, and she had limited access to campus. Another challenge that could have hindered Lecy’s academic goals — she...

Documentary Folds Soundscapes into the Search for How to Heal ‘After the War’

April 16, 2025
UC Merced graduate students and their professor have collaborated on a sound-based documentary that meditates on the wars that traumatize everyday lives and how we can push back with determination, compassion and love. “After the War: an Ultrasonic Meditation” was made in...

Into the Woods: Nature Works its Magic in Shakespeare in Yosemite

April 15, 2025
If Arden, the sprawling, wild forest in William Shakespeare’s “As You Like It,” were in the United States instead of the Bard’s imagination, it would certainly be a national park. Like Yosemite. That is why this light comedy is an ideal fit for the annual UC Merced theater project that weaves...

Central Valley Stories Seminar Connects Students to Community

March 18, 2025
Among the UC Merced students’ impressive creations in the dimly lighted room — dioramas, poems, photo collages, paintings in bold colors — Derek Miller’s creation attracted attention. Because it gurgled. It was a tall box open on one side. Balanced on top was a miniature footbridge made of red...

UC Merced Doubles Down on Huntington Distinguished Fellowships

March 12, 2025
The Huntington Library in San Marino is one of the world’s greatest sources for independent research in the humanities, with documents and artifacts that span 11 centuries. Scholars from more than 30 nations visit its reading rooms or tap into its digital services. Each year, the library awards 15...

Center Engages Campus, Community with Africa and its Diaspora

February 27, 2025
This story is part of a series for Black History Month. Read more stories highlighting Black excellence at UC Merced. The brutal deaths of African Americans George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and others at the hands of police officers five years ago catalyzed for Black communities to unite globally and...

New Hmong School Curriculum in Spotlight at UC Merced Conference

February 26, 2025
Educators from across California will gather at UC Merced for an up-close look at a curriculum that teaches schoolchildren about Hmong Americans — their history in Southeast Asia, their cultural traditions, and their journeys to the United States to escape war and deadly oppression. The collection...

Todo Cambia Festival Takes New Artistic Directions

February 24, 2025
Todo Cambia, UC Merced’s annual Human Rights Film Festival, is about more than film this year. The seven-day festival kicks off Saturday, March 1 with a talk and readings by a former Texas state poet laureate. Days later, a UC Santa Barbara professor emeritus will discuss his book about the scourge...

5 Questions for Indigenous Author of Acclaimed Memoir Coming to UC Merced

February 11, 2025
Deborah Taffa, an Indigenous author and educator whose book about growing up in a mixed-race home and struggling with social acceptance was hailed as one the best memoirs of 2024, will make a special visit to Merced this month. Taffa will make two appearances Tuesday, Feb. 18 to read from her book...

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