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two men in a black and white photo in the desert with one pointing out to the horizon and the other behind a 1950s motion film camera
Photo Credit
Courtesy
Archival photograph on the back cover of “Pipeline Cinema: The Cultural Infrastructure of Oil Extraction in Iran and Iraq” (UC Press, 2025) by Mona Damluji

How oil companies shaped early cinema in Iran and Iraq

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The beauty of thinking differently, reflected in art
blue infinity pool rectangular shape overlooking the hills
Photo Credit
Tycho Saariste
Helena Arahuete, Interior of the Roscoe house ("House above the Morning Clouds"), 2009

Modernists defined organic architecture, Helena Arahuete is making it current 
Napa Ever After publicity photo of a Black woman and man embracing

Hallmark uplifts Black love with historic Mahogany movie premier — lecturer Wendy Eley Jackson wrote the screenplay 
UC Santa Barbara Professor Emeritus Francisco Lomelí
Photo Credit
Paul Meyers
UC Santa Barbara Professor Emeritus Francisco Lomelí at the International Latino Book Awards, October 2023

Compendium on Chicano poet laureate Juan Felipe Herrera strikes gold
Painting of a friend by Lyra Purugganan

Take a friend to an artist’s studio
Two pianists play facing each other on a darkened stage
Photo Credit
Courtesy photo
Vicki Ray and Aron Kallay have been playing together for about a decade.

Two pianists speaking the language of our time
Two actors in 1920s attire sitting on a couch, laughing, in a black and white image
Photo Credit
Jeff Liang
“Hay Fever” will run from Nov. 14-19 in the Performing Arts Theater on campus.

Noel Coward’s comedy of bad manners
Two male dancers perform on a blackened stage
Photo Credit
Jeff Liang
A scene from Santa Barbara Dance Theater's 2023 show, “The Ties that Bind/Los lazos que unen.”

Celebrating diverse voices, identities and perspectives with dance
Graham Feyl and Sylvia Faichney
Photo Credit
Debra Herrick
Graham Feyl and Sylvia Faichney

‘Love and care outside normativity’ — a new art show immerses viewers in queer placemaking
A woman singing in a production still from 'Nashville'
Photo Credit
Courtesy photo

Revisiting ‘Nashville,’ Robert Altman’s poetic — and still relevant — masterpiece
Antonio Cortijo Ocaña dramatically lit in the Santa Barbara Courthouse mural room
Photo Credit
Debra Herrick
Antonio Cortijo Ocaña

What book inventories reveal about shifting cultural identities in New Spain
Writer Cherríe Moraga in 1982
Photo Credit
Barbara Adams
Writer Cherríe Moraga, 1982

Honoring her work to elevate issues of gender, sexuality and race, Cherríe Moraga’s seminal lesbian and Chicana text is expanded and re-released
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