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For years the prevailing narrative about the humanities on college campuses has been that they’re in steep decline, with the number of students electing to major in one of the fields within the humanities falling steadily for more than a decade.

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. The program facilitates academic exchange of faculty members, graduate students and postdocs in the areas of the Humanities.

Liza Wachter (English '81) is president, partner, and director of film and television for Spiegel and Grau, an independent publishing house launched in 2020. Previously, Ms. Wachter co-founded RWSG, a premier book-to-film agency that specialized in the representation of dramatic rights. Ms. Wachter currently serves on the Advisory Board for the College of Letters and Science as well as the boards of The Paris Review and the Human Rights Watch California Committee.

Not long into “Everything Rises,” which opened at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Wednesday night, the bass-baritone Davóne Tines confronts the audience with an uncomfortable declaration.

“I was the moth, lured by your flame,” Tines, who is Black, sings with disdain. “I hated myself for needing you, dear white people: money, access and fame.”

It was fall 2022 and UC Berkeley’s first Black Wednesday of the year. Student Kaiyah Florence, excited to reconnect with the Black community on campus after summer break, wasn’t going to miss it.

A little more than a month after opening to the public on Jan. 28, 2020, UC Berkeley’s Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life’s In Real Times. Arthur Szyk: Art & Human Rights, curated by Francesco Spagnolo and Shir Gal Kochavi, was shut down due to the global pandemic created by Covid-19. 

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.

Read Professor Damon Young‘s piece on Power of the Dog and the Western in Public Books. (Read an excerpt below.)

Now that Hispanic Heritage Month has arrived, I’ve realized that this is my second year at Berkeley (a little late for the realization, I know).

Marine Corps Veteran and Senior Ceramics Mechanician Ehren Tool (MFA’05) is featured in several public events: at the Museum of Northern California Art in Chico on Sept. 17; a Military Insignia Ceramics Workshop on Sunday, Sept.

In 1971, Her Majesty Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands visited the UC Berkeley campus in honor of the founding of the first Dutch Studies program in the United States. She created the Princess Beatrix Chair of Dutch Language, Literature and Culture — later renamed the Queen Beatrix chair — with Professor Johan Snapper as the inaugural chairholder.