News

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.

The students leaned in to get a closer look at the object on the table: a small terracotta figurine of a woman cradling a baby, her features softened by time.

On the back, pressed into the clay more than 2,000 years ago, was a fingerprint — a trace of the maker’s hand and a link to the worshipper who once carried the statuette as an offering to a goddess. For the students gathered in the quiet classroom that day, the ancient world felt suddenly close.

As Cal Performances brings the 19th-century poet’s explosive verse to Zellerbach Hall with "Emily — No Prisoner Be," Berkeley lecturer John Shoptaw explores why her hymn-like verse is the ultimate prescription for a digital age.

In order to truly experience the poetry of Emily Dickinson, it must be read aloud, says Berkeley English senior continuing lecturer John Shoptaw. You have to hear her irregular metrics, her slant rhymes and signature dashes, in order to glimpse her inner world. 

Berkeley Professor Winnie Wong's new book, "The Many Names of Anonymity," is the first to explore in depth the lives and motivations of the Chinese artists during the Canton trade.

In the 18th and early 19th centuries, a little-known era of global art history was born, sparked by the arrival of European and American merchants to the port city of Canton (known today as Guangzhou). These merchants, from countries like Portugal, the Netherlands, England and Scandinavia, would arrive every fall to trade silver and illegal opium in exchange for tea and porcelain.