Join us this quarter for our exciting Winter 2026 Programming!

 

Weekly Writing Group: Snacks, coffee, and companionship! Join us to get some writing done, do your readings, or answer annoying emails on Tuesdays from 11-2, in the 6th Floor Phelps Grad Lounge!

Winter Research Roundtable: Present on works-in-progress or short papers to win a $500 travel grant, receive feedback, and enjoy refreshments with friends on March 5th at 5:00 in Room 6206 C, Phelps Hall. See "Roundtables" tab above for more details!

Op-Eds and Public Writing Panel: Casual panel on public writing with experienced peers and faculty! Discuss the role of graduate students in public discourse, art, and politics outside of the institution! Date and time to be announced.

Spanish Language Literature Group: Students across displinces are invited to explore selected readings together in this casual reading group. Reading and discussions in Spanish. Email nadiaescalante@ucsb.edu if you're interested in joining! Last week of every month, flexible scheduling.

Prospectus and Dissertation Workshop: Present on dissertation chapters or your prospectus to celebrate your achievements, receive feedback, and enjoy refreshments with friends on March 12th at 5:00 in Room 6206 C, Phelps Hall. See "Rountables" tab above for more details!

What Graduate Students Are Reading

Anna Lechintan is reading "A Report for an Academy" by Franz Kafka (1917).

This short story rekindled her "long-standing obsession" of Kafka while attending Professor Kittler's lecture course last quarter, providing a little mid-quarter philosophical enrichment. Red Peter, a human ape, speaks at an academic conference of his assimilation from animality into human culture. Much to think on in regards to the culture of academia as students!

"Tender, funny, and devastating"  -Anna

Qirui He is reading Speaking into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication (1999) by John Durham Peters.
 
Peters highlights that media and communication's key traits---their dissemination and fated misconnumication---is rooted in deep cultural conceptions of religion, faith, and connection. His unique approach is beautiful and almost mystic, placing communication into the realm of angels, spirits, and aliens. He welcomes incommunicatibility as a deeply human blessing. 
 
"Opened a completely new world to me" -Qirui

Charlie Squire is reading Masochism by Felix Deleuze and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

Masochism combines both von Sacher-Masoch's Venus in Furs and the Deleuze essay "Coldness and Cruelty." Squire's research concerns the relationship between political economy and eroticism, and Deleuze's essay takes a unique focus solely on masochism, rather than the typical masochism-sadism dualism. 

Metamorphosing Dante explores what authors, artists and thinkers from the XX and XXI century have engaged with Dante's works through rewritings, dialogues, and transpositions. The hypothesis is that Dante has provided a field of tensions in which to explore and question one's own time

"I loved the more intuitive and associative approaches the book takes on the Divine Comedy which has been long explored through a strictly philological lense."  - Martina

Nicole Smirnoff just finished Notes from the Underground, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Dostoyevsky's first-person, confessional novella from the perspective of a isolated, obsessive, contradictorily proud and insecure, man. Both a horribly reassuring and terrifyingly familiar read while trying to complete an exam. Nicole offers you the following quote:

“Gentlemen, do you know, perhaps I consider myself an intelligent man, only because all my life I have been able neither to begin nor to finish anything. Granted I am a babbler, a vexatious babbler, like all of us. But what is to be done if the direct and sole vocation of every intelligent man is babble [...] the intentional pouring of water through a sieve?” -Dostoyevsky

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GCLR Event Proposal 

As we begin working to fill our calendar for the upcoming academic year, students and faculty, please submit your event suggestions for the GCLR by completing this form. All submissions will be reviewed by the GCLR board.