Arts & Culture

Old Friends and Bold Art Inspire UC Merced Professor’s Latest Film

October 30, 2025

They are longtime friends, united by a passion for art and a stubborn determination not to compromise their unconventional styles. Their brushes paint scenes of fieldhands and crops coalescing in blues and reds, of a rural street splashed in watercolor or of shark fins cutting through a beach as a...

Research Week Offers Both Virtual and In-person Events This Year

Research Week, the annual showcase of UC Merced’s important explorations into some of the world's most pressing challenges, kicks off Monday with the Sierra Nevada Research Institute’...

Three people featured in the film walk together

'Letters2Maybe' Explores Struggle for Stability and Happiness Among Immigrants

“Letters2Maybe,” the latest film by Professor Yehuda Sharim with UC Merced’s Department of Global Arts Studies, premiers next week at the New Jersey International Film...

Over 19,000 Central Valley Children Take Part in the UC Merced Children’s Opera

In its 11th year, a year marked by COVID19, the UC Merced Children’s Opera “Save the Dragons” met the challenge of performing with a show-must-go-on attitude. Embracing a virtual...

UC Merced Teams Up with Globe Theatre for Shakespeare and Climate Emergency Conference

A major international conference looking at the relationships between William Shakespeare's works and the current climate crisis will soon get underway. UC Merced is co-hosting the virtual event...

UC Merced Reaches Out with an All-Virtual Research Week

The question: What happens when UC Merced holds Research Week in the middle of a pandemic? The hypothesis: An annual, weeklong presentation of ground-breaking work reaches a big, new virtual audience...

Prestigious Biennial Grant Program Includes Funding for Ag-labor and Wildfire Research

Two new projects designed and led by UC Merced researchers will address challenges facing many Californians — wildfire recovery and agricultural labor — but will also have global reach...

Founding UC Merced Faculty Member Appointed to the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery

The Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery has announced that UC Merced Art History Professor ShiPu Wang has joined the museum’s Board of Commissioners for a four-year term. His appointment...

Modesto-based Valley Wolf's performance will go online on Aug. 8

Central Valley Musicians to Perform Online in the Levitt AMP Virtual Music Series

UC Merced and the City of Merced, through the Levitt Foundation, are hosting a virtual concert in August as part of the current Levitt AMP Virtual Music Series. The series was moved online in...

Professor’s Documentary Film about Refugee Family Honored at Vienna International Festival

“Songs that Never End,” Professor Yehuda Sharim’s intimate film about a family transitioning from Iran to life in Texas, is a finalist contender in the International Documentary...

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