News

The Division of Arts & Humanities is thrilled to welcome the following 19 new faculty to the UC Berkeley campus: 

The Division of Arts and Humanities is thrilled to announce that Assistant Professors Ezra Rubenstein and Verónica Gomez Sanchez (Both of the Philosophy Department), have been awarded the 2026 Prize in Metaphysics by the

In 2021, when Sara Guyer became dean of arts and humanities for the College of Letters and Science, it was a time of profound uncertainty nationwide for higher education — and for the humanities, in particular. To this day, university leaders across the nation continue to grapple with financial pressures, declining enrollment, and post-pandemic disruption by cutting costs, eliminating programs, and adopting other austerity measures. 

We are thrilled to announce that Assistant Professor Mohamed Wajdi Ben Hammed has been awarded the 2026 Claremont Publication Prize by Columbia University’s Institute for

The Division of Arts & Humanities at UC Berkeley is pleased to announce Fumi Okiji as the new Director of the Arts Research Center (ARC), starting July 1, 2026. 

UC Berkeley Professor Oliver Arnold explores the 16th‑century playwright’s enduring appeal and the way ‘Hamnet’ imagines a small‑town son of a glovemaker becoming a global icon.

For centuries, scholars and artists alike have wondered: What makes Shakespeare Shakespeare? What gives his work its strange durability, its emotional force, its endless capacity for reinvention?

As the ballet begins its April 17-19 run at Cal Performances, UC Berkeley scholar Linda Rugg unpacks the surreal Scandinavian rituals and rural history featured in the production.

Production designer Nina Ruscio and casting director Cathy Sandrich Gelfond dish on designing “triggering” hospital sets, casting for raw authenticity and how their time at Berkeley taught them to watch life closely, turning every detail into material for an immersive narrative. 

Ask people what they love most about The Pitt, the HBO Max medical drama that debuted in 2025 and went on to sweep the Emmys, and the answer is almost always the same: It feels so real.