From the waves to the redwoods, it's all happening here.

The Dickens Universe is a unique cultural event that brings together scholars, teachers, students, and members of the general public for a week of stimulating discussion and festive social activity on the beautiful Santa Cruz campus of the University of California—all focused on one or two Victorian novels, usually (but not always) one by Charles Dickens. In 2026, the Dickens Universe will feature Bleak House by Charles Dickens. Dickens’s ninth novel, published between 1852-1853, shines a light on social injustice and the devastating effects of a corrupt legal system, following the entangled lives of those caught in the never-ending Jarndyce and Jarndyce case. Told in alternating narrative voices, this rich literary experiment plays with a variety of genres from detective fiction and social realism to melodrama and satire. As characters move from city to suburb, from mansions to slums, we discover unexpected connections among classes, plots, and characters. Now in its 46th year of operation, the Dickens Universe combines features of a scholarly conference, a festival, a book club, and a summer camp. Participants include people of all ages and walks of life—distinguished scholars, graduate students, undergraduates, retirees, young professionals, high school teachers, and anyone who loves reading and enjoys long Victorian novels. Here are some things that make the Universe such a special experience. The college lifestyle: participants live on campus, eat together in the student dining hall, and have time to meet and come to know each other in different ways. Everyone is reading the same book. We all have this one important thing in common. The activities include formal lectures, small discussion groups, films, daily Victorian teas, performances, and Victorian dancing. The Universe offers a week of total immersion in the world of Victorian fiction with friendly, like-minded colleagues in a beautiful setting. Whether we’re returning to a Dickens novel that everyone know

Changes to the “duration of status” for F and J visa holders are now in effect. Immigration rules are complex, and Global Engagement wants to make sure you have accurate information. We invite you to join us for a comprehensive update and a Q&A session for F and J visa-holding students and scholars. Four sessions will be held during the following date/times in Pacific Time: Undergraduate Students (F/J) Town Hall: Friday, July 31 @ 9:00-10:30 Graduate Students (F/J) Town Hall: Thursday, July 30 @ 13:30-15:00 New Graduate Students (F/J) Starting Fall 2026 Town Hall: Thursday, July 30 @ 10:30-12:00 J Scholars Town Hall: Monday, July 27 @ 14:30-16:00 Click here to register for the Zoom link Can’t make it? This update and future guidance will be posted on the Global Engagement Immigration Updates and Guidance Webpage . We recommend bookmarking this page. Questions? Please visit our advising webpage to schedule an appointment with an international advisor or email us at [email protected] or [email protected].

Visit the IAS, UCSC’s premier art galleries, for our spring exhibitions. On view April 10–August 16, 2026 are three diverse and interdisciplinary shows: Libia Posada: Everything is Going Right , the first US solo exhibition by the Colombia-based artist and medical doctor; Gina Athena Ulysse: A Redwoods Rasanblaj , a site-specific and immersive exploration of the Haitian kreyol conception of rasanblaj; and Ronaldo V. Wilson: There Are No Words, But Melodies , a mixed-media exhibition emerging at the intersections of Black poetics, performance, and visual art. The IAS Galleries are open Wednesday-Sunday, 12 pm – 5 pm. Admission is free to the public. Libia Posada: Everything is Going Right Libia Posada’s first solo exhibition in the United States features installations, sculptures, and drawings meticulously constructed from surgical instruments, gauze bandages, crutches, used books, and domestic picture frames. The new and existing works in the exhibition powerfully stitch together the personal, social, and political disorders and afflictions that currently trouble the world, from the wars that resonate across the globe to the violences of aging in US prisons. Gina Athena Ulysse: A Redwoods Rasanblaj: Origins & Disentanglements The internationally-lauded work of humanities professor Gina Athena Ulysse is on view as a premier Faculty Spotlight Exhibition. The site-specific installation, produced in community from things collected, found, purchased and donated, centers on the Haitian concept of rasanblaj, a form of assembly and collage that transcends the formal use of materials to draw together people, spirits, and ideas. Ronaldo V. Wilson: There Are No Words, But Melodies Collage is both a material practice and a structural interrogation in the Faculty Spotlight Exhibition artworks by literature professor Ronaldo V. Wilson. In video, painting, and installation, layers and folds conceal and reveal, delving into the experience, both bodily and emotive, of living in time

Join us Wednesday, May 21st from 12:00 PM- 1:00 PM at California Coffee for an informative and uplifting workshop you won't want tfor suo miss! Our featured guest speaker, Manas S. Kshirsagar, AD, MS a NAMA Board Certified Ayurvedic Doctor with years of experience in holistic wellness and healing, will be presenting "Tools for Stress and Anxiety". With today's fast-paced world and the stress levels many of us are unduring, this workshop will offer valuable insight, practical tools and wellness strategies to help bring more balance, peace and calm into our daily lives. Lunch Special Available: Half Sandwich + Chips just $9.99 California Coffee, 9105 Soquel Dr., Aptos, CA 95003 cacoffeeaptos.com Thank you from myself Sylvia Reyes, and my amazing team for supporting our small business and community events!

This exhibition brings together a range of analog games – including board, card, role-playing, and other participatory works – that engage social and political realities in different ways. The works span widely circulated commercial games to independently produced projects, one-of-a-kind artworks by artists, faculty, alumni, and students, and materials drawn from UC Santa Cruz Special Collections and Archives. In part, the exhibition challenges the persistent assumption that games and play are detached from social and political life. On the contrary, game designers and artists across diverse perspectives and positions have long used play to engage questions of social systems, lived experience, and how power operates. This exhibition does not attempt to represent that full spectrum. Instead, it brings together a particular set of works that foreground how games can make systems visible, intervene in them, and imagine alternatives. All games embody values, whether intentional or not. – Mary Flanagan , game designer and scholar Across all of these works, games are not only forms of entertainment, though they may be that as well. They are encountered in multiple ways: as objects, as systems, as artworks, and as experiences that unfold unpredictably through interaction. In each case, rules and constraints shape what participants can do. In these different forms, the works stage systems – such as housing and land ownership, capitalism, race and identity, civil rights and protest, fascism, and colonialism – in ways that are simplified and easy to see, opening space to recognize similar structures beyond the game. In this sense, the works suggest that rules are not neutral – they organize experience, distribute power, and produce meaning. Games are the art of agency. – C. Thi Nguyen , philosopher The exhibition is intentionally dense. This abundance reflects the breadth of ways games operate across contexts, from activism and education to art and everyday life. While it cel

Changes to the “duration of status” for F and J visa holders are now in effect. Immigration rules are complex, and Global Engagement wants to make sure you have accurate information. We invite you to join us for a comprehensive update and a Q&A session for F and J visa-holding students and scholars. Four sessions will be held during the following date/times in Pacific Time: Undergraduate Students (F/J) Town Hall: Friday, July 31 @ 9:00-10:30 Graduate Students (F/J) Town Hall: Thursday, July 30 @ 13:30-15:00 New Graduate Students (F/J) Starting Fall 2026 Town Hall: Thursday, July 30 @ 10:30-12:00 J Scholars Town Hall: Monday, July 27 @ 14:30-16:00 Click here to register for the Zoom link Can’t make it? This update and future guidance will be posted on the Global Engagement Immigration Updates and Guidance Webpage . We recommend bookmarking this page. Questions? Please visit our advising webpage to schedule an appointment with an international advisor or email us at [email protected] or [email protected].