Arts & Culture

Oh, you know you want to buy this album. Glee: The Music, Vol. 4 includes songs performed on the first few episodes of the show's second season, and there are some real standouts.

Inception, The Social Network, Black Swan, Toy Story 3 - even if you've only seen a couple of the films nominated at this Sunday's Academy Awards, you have to admit 2010 was a pretty kick-ass year for cinema. Take it from the cinephile who saw all 10 Best Picture nominees (and no, I will never get tired of bragging about it).

Language, ideas and lasting stories have the power to manifest into something greater than loose pages bound by mere thread and staples. Once in a while, a piece of literature comes along and changes everything - even history.

Despite writing a preview for Body of Knowledge a week prior, I had no idea what to expect when I walked into the Mondavi Center on a rainy Friday night. I was greeted by the ushers with a program and the vague description that the performance piece was "experimental theatre." And experimental it most definitely was.

For the very first time, Aggies can enjoy a night at the opera at the Mondavi Center.

If you wandered by Wright Hall's Main Theater last Thursday night, you would hear an eclectic combination of high noted operas, soulful gospels and many, many scales of arpeggios. Was the choir practicing into all hours of the night?

Eight UC Davis undergraduate students have moved one step closer to being the next great American writer. On Feb. 10, the winners of the 27th annual Pamela Maus Contest in Creative Writing, which honors both fiction and poetry written by UC Davis undergraduates, were announced in a ceremony at Voorhies Hall.

The Doggfather of rap stepped onto Aggie soil for the first time Monday night and delivered an unforgettable performance.

The most notorious person in film studies right now is a guy named Mike Lacher.

THIS WEEK IN DAVIS: Author talk: Elena Mauli Shapiro; La Rondine; Daphne Loves Derby

A collective gasp of surprise could be heard at the 53rd Grammy Awards on Sunday night when the winner of the "Best New Artist" award was announced to be not emerging stars Florence + the Machine, Mumford & Sons, or Drake, or even every pre-teen girl's fantasy, Justin Bieber, but a woman by the name of Esperanza Spalding.

In a sure to be inspiring evening, the critically-acclaimed playwright, author, and poet Ntozake Shange will be featured in the Leslie Campbell Legacy Speaker Series presented by UC Davis Campus Unions and African Continuum in honor of February's Black History Month. The presentation will take place this Tuesday at 7 p.m. at Freeborn Hall.

When you see actors on stage reciting their lines under the glamorous limelight, did you ever think about the design, aesthetics and planning that goes on behind scenes?

While a number of Davis students were dancing the night away at Monday's Snoop Dogg concert, something a little different was happening at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts.

On Tuesday night in 1100 Social Sciences, something that has never been done before in the history of UC Davis occurred: a talent show. The Campus Union Center for Student Involvement has officially succeeded where others have failed.