Since graduating from UC Berkeley in 2012 with a dual major in dance & Performance Studies and Psychology, Megan Lowe has performed with esteemed San Francisco Bay Area dance companies like Flyaway Productions, Lenora Lee Dance, Dance Brigade, Scott Wells and Dancers, Lizz Roman and Dancers, and Epiphany Productions, all while choreographing her own works presented both live and on film.
Megan is also the Program Manager for Berkeley's Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies!
A week before Halloween, University of North Carolina English professor Florence Dore released a new single, “Signs of Life,” on music streaming services.
Clara Olivares, who received her PhD in Music Composition from UC Berkeley in May 2021, will debut her second opera, Les Sentinelles, at the Opéra National de Bordeaux in November 2024, followed by performances at the Opéra de Limoges in January 2025 and the Opéra-Comique in Paris in April 2025. This opera is a joint commission from the three co-producing opera houses and has received support from the French Ministry of Culture's grant for original musical works, as well as the Beaumarchais - SACD Lyric Award.
Alejandra Colon, a proud Latina and 2018 graduate of UC Berkeley, has continued to honor her heritage through her work and community involvement. She remains an active member of the UC Berkeley Chicanx Latinx Alumni Association, and has served on the executive boards of both the Orange County and Los Angeles chapters.
The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) is organizing an exhibition of more than one hundred quilts by approximately eighty artists, the most expansive presentation to date of a transformative bequest of African American quilts that the museum received in 2019. Opening in Berkeley next year, Routed West: Twentieth-Century African American Quilts in California is a groundbreaking historical survey of the relationship between quiltmaking traditions and the history of Black migration to California from the Southern United States.
In community college, Jason Bircea came across UC Berkeley’s English department website and was blown away by a student’s honors thesis on Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go.
“I decided I wanted to go to a school that would teach me how to write like that,” Bircea recalls.
Bircea transferred to UC Berkeley in 2015. Several years later, he chose Berkeley again to start his Ph.D. in English literature.
Folger Shakespeare Library director Michael Witmore (Rhetoric Ph. D. '97) calls the Folio — a collection of 36 of Shakespeare's plays, published by his friends in 1623, seven years after his death — "the ultimate message in a bottle." A new expansion to the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. makes that message more accessible.
"One day I woke up and decided I wanted to learn every language on the planet." David J Peterson has created fictional languages for "Game of Thrones," "The "Witcher," "Dune" and other major works. He talks about his gift and love of language, as well as how going to Cal played a role in his career.
Listen to the full interview:
Michelle Robertson (English ‘16) describes the path that led to her current role as BART storyteller and explains why an English major will give you an edge in the workplace.
Seven alums of the Division of Arts & Humanities were among the 188 Guggenheim Fellows whose names were announced on April 11, 2024.
(B.A. English ‘03)
English Poet & Assistant Professor, Department of English, California State University, Fresno
When Nathanael Stephen Payne ’23 was developing Wrestle with Jimmy for UC Berkeley’s “Introduction to Playwriting” class, he had no idea where the project would take him. His answer came several years later, when he crossed the stage at graduation as one of two students to receive the Larry Belling Promising Writers’ Award.
One of the most anticipated movies of the Holiday Season is due to hit cinemas on Christmas Day. The Boys in the Boat, directed by George Clooney, finally brings to the big screen Cal alum Daniel James Brown's mega-bestselling book about the American crew team that triumphed in the so-called Nazi Olympics of 1936.
Adrian Tomine earned a B.A. in English in 1996.
Ana de Alba holds multiple degrees from UC Berkeley. She graduated in 2002 with a dual major in Spanish & Portuguese and Political Economy of Industrial Societies and earned her J.D. at Berkeley Law in 2007.
A first-generation Mexican American who worked in the fields with her farmworker parents has been elevated to the largest federal appeals court.
Mona Simpson made her mark on the literary world with her very first major work, the critically praised novel Anywhere But Here (1986), which was later adapted into the 1999 film by the same name starring Susan Sarandon and Natalie Portman. Since then, the Berkeley alum ('79) has added five more books to her name and garnered high-profile awards including a Whiting Prize, a Guggenheim, and a Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
