School of Social Sciences Humanities and Arts

Depression Due to Politics: the Quiet Danger to Democracy

July 7, 2025

UC Merced Professor Christopher Ojeda and his book "The Sad Citizen"

On laptop screens, televisions and social media feeds across the nation, images and words fueled by a fractured political landscape spout anger, frustration and resentment. Clashing ideologies burst forth in public demonstrations, family gatherings and digital echo chambers. Red-hot rhetoric and...

Grad Finds Purpose, Plans Academic Career

Before he ever set foot in a classroom, graduating senior Orisa Santiago Morrice learned at the feet of a great teacher. His grandmother cared for him during his preschool years in Santa Cruz. “She...

History Student Fulfills Speaking Promise at Commencement

Dulcemaria Anaya once vowed to represent her UC Merced class as the student speaker at commencement. Anaya, a world history major from Merced, was an incoming freshman when she made the...

Research Week to Celebrate Work of Faculty, Students

Research Week, the annual celebration of faculty and student research at the University of California, Merced, returns this month with a student research poster competition and a number of lectures...

Professor Studies Early Childhood Development

UC Merced Professor Rose Scott studies how young children begin to understand the social world and all its complexities. It happens sooner than most would think. Babies who are three months old can...

Political Science Professors Lead System in Publication Rate

Political science professors at UC Merced, on average publish papers in leading journals and books with top university presses at the fastest rate in the system. According to a study produced last...

Book Analyzes Chicano, Latino Film and Fiction in Los Angeles

UC Merced Professor Ignacio López-Calvo’s “Latino Los Angeles in Film and Fiction: The Cultural Production of Social Anxiety” will be published on Feb. 1 by the University of Arizona Press. López-...

Professors Launch Campus' First Journal of Literary and Cultural Criticism

Two UC Merced literature professors have launched the campus' first online literary journal through University of California's eScholarship. Professors Ignacio López-Calvoand Cristián H....

Alumnus Continues Connecting, Learning as Congressional Staffer in DC

Josh Franco ('07) is exactly where he planned to be. Every step leading to his current job as a senior legislative assistant for U.S. Congressman John Garamendi has been carefully taken by Franco...

Digital Archaeologist Reconstructs Ancient Turkey in 3-D

Using cutting-edge scanners and computers, UC Merced archaeology Professor Maurizio Forteis able to reconstruct the past in 3-D. Forte, along with graduate and undergraduate researchers, spent...