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(Feb. 4) Luis Leal Award Ceremony with bestselling author Julissa Arce
The Walter H. Capps Center is pleased to co-sponsor the 2026 Luis Leal Award Ceremony for Distinction in Chicano/Latino Literature with Julissa Arce, bestselling author of My (Underground) American Dream: My True Story as an Undocumented Immigrant Who Became a Wall Street Executive (2016); Someone Like Me: How One Undocumented Girl Fought for Her American Dream (2018); and You Sound Like a White Girl: The Case for Rejecting Assimilation (2022). Arce is an author, producer, public speaker, and former Goldman Sachs vice president.
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(Jan. 21) Healing Together: Refugees, Immigrants, and Mental Health
The Center for Empowering Refugees and Immigrants (CERI) is a humanist, feminist, trauma-informed community mental health center devoted to supporting refugees and immigrants as they rebuild their lives with dignity, strength, and renewed possibility. In this talk, Mona Afary will discuss how healing unfolds in community through connection and shared humanity. CERI provides spaces where refugees and immigrants can speak their truth, mourn what has been lost, witness their own resilience reflected in others, and celebrate the empowerment that comes from being seen and valued.
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(Jan. 12) A Legal Sanctuary: Religious Freedom Laws and Immigration Enforcement
This talk will discuss how organizations and individuals have relied on religious freedom protections to assist immigrants. The landscape around legal protections for religious exercise has changed significantly since the Sanctuary Movement of the 1980s. This talk examines recent and ongoing litigation at the intersection of religious freedom, humanitarian assistance, immigration raids, and protests.
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Allan Grapard - In Memoriam
Allan Grapard, professor emeritus of Japanese religions at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he was the inaugural holder of the International Shinto Foundation Chair in Shinto Studies, passed away on December 8 in his beloved Hawai‘i. He was among the most influential scholars of Japanese religious history over the last half century.
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Elizabeth Pérez Finalist for Literary Prizes
We're happy to announce the exciting news that Elizabeth Pérez was named a finalist in two different literary competitions last week. Her fiction story,
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Department's Former PhD Student Authors NYT Op-Ed
The department's former Ph.D. student, Steven Barrie-Anthony (Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara, 2016), contributed an Op-Ed, "I’m a Psychoanalyst. This Is What Technology Is Doing to Us" to the New York Times. His editorial can be read on the New York Times webpage. We congratulate Dr. Barrie-Anthony for this important contribution to public-facing scholarship.
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Join us for Henna Night (11/18)
You are invited to join the Henna & Culture Celebration organized by the Department of Religious Studies' Arabic Program, in collaboration with the UCSB Arab Group and the UCSB MSA.
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Public Lecture (10/24): Katharine Gerbner
Please join us for Associate Professor Katharine Gerbner's public lecture "Constructing Religion and Defining Crime: Obeah, Rebellion, and the Criminalization of Africana Religions" on Friday, October 24th from 1:00-2:30 PM in HSSB 1174.
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