Virtual Events
Virtual Events
Wherever you live, connect with UC Santa Cruz by joining us for virtual events. Engage in meaningful conversations, gain professional insights, or network with fellow Slugs, gain professional insights, or simply catch up with fellow Slugs—all from the comfort of your own home.
Slugs & Steins
Slugs & Steins is a monthly series of informal discussions highlighting UC Santa Cruz’s amazing faculty members. Talks are held on the 2nd Monday of each month with topics ranging from organic artichokes to endangered zebras, self-driving cars to Shakespeare.
All are welcome, and audience participation is encouraged. We encourage you to share the link far and wide as slugs and friends from around the world may join us.
Career development webinars
Whether you’re exploring your next move or sharpening the skills you already have, our virtual career development programs are here to help you grow. Join live, online workshops and webinars led by industry professionals and career experts.
Kraw Lecture Series
The Kraw Lecture Series in Silicon Valley is made possible by a generous gift from UC Santa Cruz alumnus George Kraw (Cowell ‘71, history and Russian literature) and Raphael Shannon Kraw. The lecture series features acclaimed UC Santa Cruz scientists and technologists who are grappling with some of the biggest questions of our time.
These talks are hybrid, free, and open to the public. Attend in person at UC Santa Cruz Silicon Valley extension or via livestream.
June 2025
You Can Imagine Dragons… But Not That Female Infanticide Is Good? — The Puzzling Limits of Imagination
Virtual Event
Professor Emine Hande Tuna
Monday, June 9
6:30pm to 8:00pm
You can imagine flying on the back of a dragon. You can picture a talking rabbit solving crimes, or a world where time runs backward. So why is it so hard to imagine that slavery is morally good, or that killing your baby girl is the right thing to do?
This talk explores a weird and wonderful puzzle in the philosophy of imagination known as imaginative resistance—the experience of hitting a mental wall when a story asks us to imagine not just impossible things, but morally alien things. Why do our moral beliefs seem to stick, even in fiction? If imagining is “just pretending,” why do some make-believe scenarios feel off-limits or even offensive? Through examples from literature and film, we’ll explore what this resistance reveals about how imagination works, and how deeply our values shape what we’re able or willing to imagine.
No background in philosophy is required. Just bring your imagination and maybe a little skepticism.
Speaker
Emine Hande Tuna is a philosopher who spends her time thinking seriously about things that don’t exist—like square circles, guilt-free villains, and moral worlds where injustice is good. She’s an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at UC Santa Cruz, where she writes and teaches about imagination, aesthetics, and why some stories just won’t sit right with us. Her book on Kantian Art Criticism is forthcoming from Cambridge University Press. She’s also at work on a second book, Imaginative Resistance (under contract with Oxford University Press), which she’ll be developing next year as a Quinn Fellow at the National Humanities Center (a rare kind of fellowship—one that didn’t mysteriously disappear).
Questions? Please contact University Events at specialevents@ucsc.edu.