Linda Kinstler always knew growing up that her Latvian grandfather had mysteriously disappeared after World War II. But she didn’t think much about it.
“That was a very common fate from this part of the world,” says Kinstler, a Ph.D. candidate in rhetoric at UC Berkeley. “It didn’t strike me as totally unusual. It was only later when I began looking into it more that I realized there was probably more to the story.”
What she discovered was too big for her to walk away.
The Institute for Citizens & Scholars has named 21 Fellows to the 2023 class of the Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship.
Each year, nine seniors in the Department of Art Practice are selected to receive an honors studio for their final semester. Each student receives their own studio space with 24/7 access. The studio space allows students to work on longer-term projects and explore new mediums alongside their cohort. Arts & Humanities had the opportunity to interview three of the nine students in this year's honors studios as they completed their final projects for Professor Stephanie Syjuco's Art + Archive class.
Benjamin Coleman has always loved being on a team.
Each year, nine seniors in the Department of Art Practice are selected to receive an honors studio for their final semester. Each student receives their own studio space with 24/7 access. The studio space allows students to work on longer-term projects and explore new mediums alongside their cohort. Arts & Humanities had the opportunity to interview three of the nine students in this year's honors studios as they completed their final projects for Professor Stephanie Syjuco's Art + Archive class.
Most members of the University of California, Berkeley’s Class of 2023 will always remember a stressful and disappointing two-year stretch, when the pandemic forced classes online at the end of their first year on campus.
But for graduating senior Catherine “Catey” Vera, those online classes instead were a refuge during the slow death of her father from ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, the illness that afflicted physicist Stephen Hawking. Someone who had been a stable rock in her life was suddenly weak and vulnerable.
Each year, nine seniors in the Department of Art Practice are selected to receive an honors studio for their final semester. Each student receives their own studio space with 24/7 access. The studio space allows students to work on longer-term projects and explore new mediums alongside their cohort. Arts & Humanities had the opportunity to interview three of the nine students in this year's honors studios as they completed their final projects for Professor Stephanie Syjuco's Art + Archive class. Jacob Li Rosenberg is a multi-media artist who is graduating this spring.
It’s a Tuesday morning at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), and Samuel Wildman is covering the wall of an art gallery with night-lights. At a glance, these objects could be mistaken for mass-produced lights from the local hardware store, the sort you might find installed in a child’s bedroom to ward off bedtime anxiety.
The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) has announced its inaugural cohort of 2023 Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellows, funded by the Mellon Foundation. Alan Yeh, UC Berkeley doctoral candidate in the Department of French, is one of the 45 fellowship recipients.
When Alice Xie moved from China to California as a teenager, she experienced major culture shock. She understood the words people spoke, but conversations were still hard to follow. She often felt isolated and underestimated.
Through art, Xie found a way to explore and communicate about this period in her life. So it was no surprise when she came to UC Berkeley and became an art history major. What caught her off-guard was that her other major – statistics – helped her understand herself, too.
Umair Khan’s mission in life, it seems, is to help budding entrepreneurs. “At Folio3 Software, I help entrepreneurs build out their products. At Mentors Fund, I invest in entrepreneurs. At Berkeley, I teach entrepreneurs. And at Zareen's(link is external), the restaurant which my wife established, I feed entrepreneurs.”
The Division of Arts & Humanities at UC Berkeley is pleased to welcome professor Zamansele Nsele as of Jan. 1, 2023. Nsele is an assistant professor in the History of Art Department, where she specializes in modern and contemporary African & African diasporic art, and holds a faculty position at the Center for African Studies.
A few years ago, when Heesoo Kwon was visiting South Korea during a summer break from her MFA program at Berkeley, she found old home videos of her family. Watching the decades-old interactions among her family members and the Catholic rituals they practiced fascinated her. But in one video, her mother stood by the table while others ate, waiting to serve them. It made Kwon angry.
A new student-curated exhibition in Doe Library’s Brown Gallery showcases artists from the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia and their artworks that reflect the complexity of what it means to inherit language.
In Fall 2021, Bryce Wallace (’23, English & Linguistics) was still stunned that he had gotten into Cal as a transfer student from Irvine Valley College, when more UC-related honors started pouring in. He has since received the merit-based Sharer and Gilman Scholarships and was granted a College Corps Fellowship for his strong commitment to community service, especially in the areas of literacy and DEI work on campus. He has participated in URAP and was recently named a Haas Scholar.
The Division of Arts and Humanities and the College of Letters & Science are delighted to announce that Les Gorske has accepted our offer to become the next Assistant Dean for Finance and Administration for the Division of Arts & Humanities (A&H). Les has been a crucial and valued member of the Dean’s office staff for the last four years.
Matt Jacobson’s loyalty to UC Berkeley began at a young age.
His father, Norman, was a beloved professor who taught political theory at Berkeley for 56 years. Professors and students would drop by their house constantly. Matt recalls his father practicing his lectures on the family at the dinner table. Though there were times when Matt did not appreciate the in-house lessons, he now feels fortunate to have received a college-level experience at that age.
Ed Roberts (B.A. '64, M.A. '66) is known as the father of the disability rights movement. “But if he’s the father, Zona is the grandmother. She’s the wheel behind his wheelchair,” says Donna Mitroff, founder of the Kidvocate Group media consultancy, who is filming a documentary about Zona’s life.
Read more about Zona Roberts (B.A. English '69) and her tireless advocacy for Ed Roberts and his legacy.
Rhetoric Department PhD candidate Linda Kinstler has been announced as one of 10 Whitting Award winners on March 29. The prizes are designed to recognize excellence and promise in a spectrum of emerging talent, giving most winners their first chance to devote themselves full time to their own writing, or to take bold new risks in their work.