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The Division of Arts & Humanities has a number of esteemed faculty who have participated in the LMU-UCB program for humanities research. In this series, we interview faculty who have had enriching experiences as part of a visiting professorship or fellow. In 2007, the University of California, Berkeley Division of Arts & Humanities and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU Munich) established a joint program to pursue innovative, collaborative research in the Humanities.

It’s no surprise that seats in Poulomi Saha’s course, Cults in Popular Culture, fill up fast. Cults have long fascinated Americans, who had no shortage of docu-series about them to binge-watch while isolated during the pandemic. Popular ones include “Wild Wild Country,” on the Rajneeshpuram community in Wasco County, Oregon; “The Vow,” about the Nxivm “self-improvement” group, and “Heaven’s Gate: The Cult of Cults.”

On July 1, 2022, the Division of the Arts & Humanities welcomed new chairs and directors for 10 departments and centers: 

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2020 was a fruitful year for conspiracy theories: QAnon gained followers, COVID-19 misinformation proliferated in viral YouTube videos, and in November, President Trump helped proliferate the entirely false narrative that the election he’d lost was, in fact, stolen.