Accomplishments in the arts and humanities were celebrated as Janet Broughton, dean of the division of Arts and Humanities, hosted the first annual gathering to honor faculty on November 6.

According to Broughton, there are many reasons to consider Berkeley “unmatched nationwide” in the arts and humanities. She told the crowd of approximately 100 in the Morrison Library, “I’ve been feeling in the past few weeks that my divisional colleagues are ubiquitous: here’s the New York Times Sunday book review celebrating Bob Hass’s poetry; there’s The New Yorker praising Bob Alter’s translation and commentary for the Book of Psalms; at the BBC Proms, Davitt Moroney’s conducting a Striggio mass that his scholarship had rescued from oblivion; yonder is Richard Taruskin setting off a magnificent music bomb in The New Republic. There’s Vikram Chandra’s most recent novel garlanded with superlatives from around the world; Niklaus Largier’s book being celebrated in the New York Review of Books; and John Ferrari’s in the Times Literary Supplement — I’m sure I could go on and on.”

The faculty’s accomplishments were available for all to see during the event. In the room were displays of dozens of their scholarly books, stations at which guests could listen to compositions and performances by members of the Music Department, art work from each member of the department of Art Practice, and a laptop running DVDs of theatrical and dance performances.

Broughton also used the occasion to recognize the faculty who had been named the first winners of awards for significant contributions to teaching and service in the Arts and Humanities Division. As announced last spring, these new awards went to history of art Professor Whitney Davis, honored for his distinguished service; Kristen Whissel of film studies, recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award for Senate Faculty Members; and Nellie Timmons, presented with the Distinguished Teaching Award for Lecturers.

In addition, the celebration provided the opportunity to welcome the newest members of Arts and Humanities. They include five new faculty in the English Department: poets Cecil Giscombe and Geoffrey O’Brien; non-fiction writer Georgina Kleege; scholar of early American literature Kathleen Donegan; and scholar of 18th century British literature Janet Sorensen. The Department of German has three new faculty scholars: Karen Feldman, German philosophy and intellectual history; Jeroen Dewulf, Dutch studies; and Chengxi Tang, German Romanticism. Also joining departments in the Division of Arts and Humanities this year are: in the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies, Catherine Cole, scholar of African performance; in the Department of Music, scholar of 19th century music James Davies; in the Department of Comparative Literature, Rob Kaufman, scholar of American and Engish poetry; in the Classics Department, Nikolaos Papazarkadas, whose focus is Greek epigraphy; in the Department of Art Practice, sculptor Brody Reiman; and in the Department of Near Eastern Studies, Chessie Rochberg, who studies ancient Mesopotamia. All are expected to add further distinction to the ranks of Berkeley’s arts and humanities faculty.