Centers & Institutes

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Arts Research Center

The Arts Research Center is a think tank for the arts. It acts as a hub and a meeting place, a space for reflection where artists, scholars, curators, and civic arts leaders from a variety of disciplines can gather and learn from one another. ARC advances, but also challenges, the “cross-disciplinary” ethos in contemporary art practice by bringing innovators in the fields of visual art, creative writing, dance, theatre, music, architecture, film, public art, photography, and social practice into dialogue and debate. 

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Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion

The Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion (BCSR) advances creative and critical scholarship on religion. BCSR’s public programming, faculty research, and graduate training drives new approaches to the study of religion and its intellectual and material contexts. Through our media platforms and engagement with local and global audiences, BCSR fosters critical reflection and public discussion of this innovative work. 

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Berkeley Language Center

Founded in 1994, the Berkeley Language Center (BLC) is a unit in the Division of Arts and Humanities of the College of Letters and Science. The BLC’s mission is to support the learning and teaching of heritage and foreign languages on the Berkeley campus and, where appropriate, in the University of California system. 

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Center for Jewish Studies

The mission of the Center is to gather faculty, students, and visiting academics for research and debate across the wide scholarly landscape of Jewish Studies. The Center for Jewish Studies is committed to educating students and the larger community about the richness, depth, and diversity of Jewish history and culture.

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Center for New Music and Audio Technologies

CNMAT is dedicated to multidisciplinary research and the creative use of sound, linking the concert hall to the laboratory.  We support a dynamic group of educational, performance and research programs focused on the creative interaction between new music and emerging technologies.

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Center for Interdisciplinary Critical Inquiry (CICI)

The Center for Interdisciplinary Critical Inquiry (CICI; formerly the Consortium for Interdisciplinary Research) supports and develops interdisciplinary research and programming on the Berkeley campus and beyond. Established in 2013 by UC Berkeley’s College of Letters and Sciences: Division of Arts and Humanities, CIR produces research and academic activities across disciplinary and departmental lines, leveraging opportunities for exchange, programming, and dissemination within campus and to a global audience.

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The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life

In 2010 the Judah L. Magnes Museum became The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life at the University of California, Berkeley. As one of the preeminent Jewish collections in the world, it provides accessible resources to scholars, students, and visitors. Its remarkably diverse archive, library and museum holdings include art, objects, texts, music, and historical documents about Jews in the Global Diaspora including the American West.

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Townsend Center for the Humanities

Since its establishment in 1987, the Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities has encouraged an interdisciplinary approach to scholarship, fostered innovative research, and promoted intellectual conversation across academic fields. The Townsend Center is committed to enriching the existing wealth of intellectual resources at Berkeley through an array of fellowship and grant programs designed to support research and scholarship at all levels of the university community.