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Matthew Rowe wasn’t considering a degree in the humanities when he joined UC Berkeley in fall 2022. Instead, he chose to major in political science, with the goal of preparing for a career addressing the global problem of climate change.
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.
Set in the remote San Luis Valley of Colorado, Mud Frontier: Architecture at the Borderlands is a feature-length documentary film that follows design studio Rael San Fratello’s experimentation with 3D-printing technology and traditional adobe architecture, presented by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.
Ishmael Reed has written over 30 books of poetry, prose, essays, and plays. He is also an editor of anthologies and magazines, a publisher, television producer, public media commentator, cartoonist, teacher and lecturer. Reed has penned lyrics for musicians ranging from Taj Mahal to Macy Gray. Reed has been the recipient of a MacArthur Grant, has been a Pulitzer finalist, and he has been nominated twice for the National Book Award.
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.”
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.
A tradition that began in 1944 of Dutch royalty visiting UC Berkeley continued today with a visit to campus by Her Majesty Queen Máxima of the Netherlands. She was accompanied by Robbert Dijkgraaf, the Dutch minister of education, culture and science, who announced the launch of the Dutch Network for Academics in the United States (DNA-US).
On a sunny afternoon in November 2020, in front of Sweet Adeline Bakery in south Berkeley, Susan Moffat came upon a string quartet.
“Their playing was spectacular,” said Moffat, creative director of Future Histories Lab at UC Berkeley.
Selby Wynn Schwartz's debut novel... After Sappho has been longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize! The judges write: "A poetic patchwork of fragments of literary history that together take shape as an intergenerational tale of the Lesbian family. An ancestry eruditely, playfully recovered."
Linda Kinstler's (Rhetoric PhD Candidate) new book Come to This Court and Cry: How the Holocaust Ends, published by Public Affairs, has received national and international praise since it's publication in the US this August. Read select reviews below:
The Guardian: Come to This Court and Cry by Linda Kinstler review – when Holocaust memories fade
Art Practice professor Stephanie Syjuco's current exhibition Stephanie Syjuco: Double Vision reconsiders mythologies of the American West and reveals how these works and their presentation within a museum can perpetuate colonial lore. Double Vision creates an expansive multimedia installation that transforms images of renowned works from the Carter’s collection and investigates narratives of national identity. Using digital editing, staged photography, and archival excavation to reframe works by Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Remington, and others.
