News

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. 

How do border policies and technologies reanimate histories of racialized and imperial violence? How are climate and environmental changes affecting borders and their crossing? What are the possibilities and limits of humanitarian and human rights discourses on migration and refugees? 

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.

You don’t hurriedly approach an Apichatpong Weerasethakul film, or watch one thinking you’ll catch up on text messages and voicemails.

To truly appreciate what’s unfolding, you need to slow down and surrender to the sensory, dream-like experience that the unique, award-winning filmmaker forms with such care. Tune out the mad dash of everydayness and commit yourself to Weerasethakul’s static scenes and long, telling takes in which the sights and sounds of nature and even city life sometimes provide more context than the dialogue.

Valeria Luiselli, the Spring 2023 Bedri Distinguished Writer, will deliver a public lecture, “Migration Stories,” on Thursday, April 20th at 5 pm in the Maude Fife Room (315 Wheeler).

On 31 March 1817 the New York legislature decided that enslavement within its borders had to come to an end. Final emancipation would occur on 4 July 1827. Coincidentally, the date of choice was almost exactly two centuries after the Dutch West India Company’s yacht Bruynvisch arrived at Manhattan on 29 August 1627. The ship transported the first group of enslaved Africans to New Amsterdam and thus introduced the institution of enslavement into what is now New York State.

UC Berkeley's Distinguished Teaching Award recognizes individual faculty for sustained excellence in teaching. Beyond an individual exemplary class, such sustained excellence in teaching incites intellectual curiosity in students, inspires colleagues, and makes students aware of significant relationships between the academy and the world at large. Recipients receive a cash award from campus and recognition by the Academic Senate. They are honored at a public ceremony, and are permanently indicated as Distinguished Teachers in the UC Berkeley catalog.

Listen here. 

Living Pictures, written by author and scholar Polina Barskova, combines memoir, history, and fiction in a poignant collection of short pieces about her hometown, St. Petersburg, Russia.