News

Titus' Naumachia (Mock Naval Battle) and Mythical Play

When: Tuesday, March 10, 2026 at 12:30 pm

Where: Recreation Center, Pool | View map 

Jenni Sorkin receives Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant

Department chair's book on 1990s textile art honored with prestigious award

Jenni Sorkin was one of only 31 writers selected nationally for the 2025 cycle. The award supports her upcoming book, “Deviant Scale,” which uncovers a parallel art world of the 1990s, revealing how artists outside of major cities used fiber and mixed media to deconstruct race, gender and disability.

Two History of Art and Architecture doctoral students awarded prestigious Wyeth fellowships

Two scholars land coveted spots at the nation’s top art research institute.

Two doctoral candidates from UC Santa Barbara’s Department of History of Art and Architecture, Elizabeth Driscoll Smith and Sylvia Faichney, have been named Wyeth Fellows at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts (CASVA). Housed at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., CASVA is the Gallery’s research institute and offers the most prestigious national-level fellowships in art and architectural history: limited to ten total pre-doctoral fellowships nationally.

Doctoral Candidate Sylvia Faichney Awarded Two Fellowships

This fall, History of Art & Architecture doctoral candidate Sylvia Faichney will begin her fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA) as the predoctoral Wyeth Fellow (2025-2027). During her first year as a Wyeth fellow, she will be in residence at Dumbarton Oaks as a Junior Fellow in Garden and Landscape Studies (2025-2026).

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Appoints Ph.D. Candidate Elizabeth Driscoll Smith as the Joyce Linde Assistant Curator of Folk and Self-Taught Art

Elizabeth Driscoll Smith has accepted a position as the Joyce Linde Assistant Curator of Folk and Self-Taught Art at the MFA Boston. As part of the Art of the Americas department, the position involves integrating the collection of Folk and Self-Taught art into the Americas wing.

Undergraduate Graduation & Awards Celebration

Event Date: June 15, 2025 10:00AM - 12:00PM

Event Location: Engineering Sciences Building Room 1001

RSVP by May 19, 2025: https://forms.gle/HBqKXihVPW4WXFtU6

Swati Chattopadhyay Receives a SAH Book Award

Every year, the Society of Architectural Historians presents awards that recognize the most distinguished publications in architectural history, urban history, landscape history, preservation, and architectural exhibition catalogues. The 2025 Alice Davis Hitchcock Book Award has been given to Swati Chattopadhyay for her book, Small Spaces: Recasting the Architecture of Empire, Bloomsbury Academic, 2023.

Swati Chattopadhyay is Awarded a Senior Fellowship

Professor Swati Chattopadhyay has received a Senior Fellowship from the Paul Mellon Center for Studies in British Art for 2025-26 to write her book The Art of Sovereignty: Making and Unmaking the British Empire.