Arts & Humanities

Berkeley Talks: The transformative potential of AI in academia

December 15, 2023

In Berkeley Talks episode 186, a panel of UC Berkeley scholars from the College of Letters and Science discusses the transformative potential of artificial intelligence in academia — and the questions and challenges it requires universities and other social institutions to confront.

"When it comes to human-specific problems, we often want fair, equitable, unbiased answers," said Keanan Joyner, an assistant professor of psychology. "But the data that we feed into the training set often is not that. And so, we are asking AI to produce something that it was never trained on, and that...

https://news.berkeley.edu/2023/12/15/berkeley-talks-ai-in-academia

22 L&S News Highlights from 2022

December 15, 2022
Collage of images from 2022 News Highlights Looking back on another outstanding year, Berkeley College of Letters & Science has compiled “22 News Highlights of 2022”—a recap of accomplishments from the L&S community this year. Here are just a few stories demonstrating the extraordinary work and generosity of L&S students, faculty, staff, and alumni, as well as some highlighted videos from around the College. Enjoy!...

Student exhibition highlights art, science and new pathways

December 15, 2023
by Alexander Rony

It’s almost unheard of for a first-year college student to curate an exhibition at a prestigious art institution. Yet, on a recent December afternoon, three new undergraduates at UC Berkeley — Raena Chan, Emma Cusimano and Caitlyn Liao — guided visitors around Five Tables of Art & Climate Change, a one-day pop-up show they helped curate at the campus’s Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA).

In a section of the museum normally reserved for archival research, the...

The Morgans on becoming Builders: “Leave something behind that’s more than you can be”

December 14, 2023
by Alexander Rony

Brad Morgan and Julie Shin Morgan found their people at UC Berkeley. Julie’s best friend for life, Stella Sebastiani. Brad’s mentor, Paul Bartlett, and his first labmate, Yumi Nakagawa. And, at a party filled with chemistry students and church youth counselors, they fell for one another — “a small town Midwestern boy and a big city girl from LA,” as Brad said.

Moving to Berkeley had been a culture clash for both...

Podcast: Why Cults Fascinate Us With UC Berkeley Professor Poulomi Saha

December 4, 2023
Alexis Madrigal

In the last several years, a cult industrial complex has emerged to capitalize on Americans’ fascination with groups such as Jonestown, the Manson Family, the Branch Davidians, and the Rajneeshpuram community in Wasco County, Ore., argues UC Berkeley professor Poulomi Saha. But in her highly sought-after class called Cults in Popular Culture, they emphasize that it’s important to look beyond the sensational examples and recognize how cult-like behavior shows up in many facets of our lives and society. We’ll talk with Saha about why some groups are labeled as cults, why people are...

https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101895177/why-cults-fascinate-us-with-uc-berkeley…

Damon Young: "The self is everywhere, but also threatened with obsolescence by the rise of AI"

November 29, 2023
Lucille Lorenz
Firstly, I would love to hear more about you and your work. How did you first come to film and media, and French? What does your research or work currently focus on?

In Australia, where I grew up, I studied philosophy, English literature, theater studies, cultural studies (which is big there), but I was always involved in the arts—doing theater productions, and hen I did a degree in film-making as well. But I was also really interested in humanities-based academic research—reading and writing, thinking critically in a critical-theory way, and I was taking courses about radical...

https://artshumanities.berkeley.edu/news/damon-young-self-everywhere-also-threat…

“Why are we so obsessed with cults?” Professor Poulomi Saha’s Homecoming lecture explores a pop culture phenomenon

November 29, 2023
Jennifer Monahan

Dozens of documentaries about cults are currently available on Netflix, Hulu, and Max, along with countless podcasts on Spotify, Apple, and other platforms. What's driving this trend? What's behind our collective fascination with communities and spiritualities that offer total belonging and total enthrallment?

Poulomi Saha(link is external) — who is Associate Professor of English & co-Director of the Program in Critical Theory — teaches a...

In Memoriam, John L. Heilbron, 1934-2023

November 29, 2023
Cathryn Carson

Dear friends,

It is with deep sadness that I share news of the death of John L. Heilbron, Professor Emeritus of History of Science and former Vice Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley. John passed away in Padua, Italy, on Sunday morning, November 5, 2023, at the age of 89.

A prolific scholar of prodigious range, John Heilbron was born in San Francisco on March 17, 1934, and attended Lowell High School. He was educated at the University of California, Berkeley, receiving the Bachelor of Arts (1955) and Master of Arts (1958) in...

https://history.berkeley.edu/news/memoriam-john-l-heilbron-1934-2023

A Call for Community on Campus

October 12, 2023

Chancellor Carol Christ sent to the following message to the Berkeley campus community Thursday afternoon.

We are increasingly concerned by the growing prevalence of online threats, doxxing and harassment connected to the conflict between Israel and Hamas. We decry any calls for violence in any form or support for terrorism as we continue to mourn the loss of innocent life. We understand this rhetoric is creating deep fear and concern among many members of our campus community. With that in mind, we want to share an extraordinary message, written by two of our faculty, one who is...
https://news.berkeley.edu/2023/10/12/a-call-for-community-on-campus

New banners celebrate 150+ years of Berkeley's prominence in teaching world languages

October 25, 2023
Gretchen Kell

Sidewalk on campus with colorful language banners on the posts above

At least 60 languages — from Mongolian and Old Norse to Polish, Catalan, Ancient Egyptian, Arabic and Biblical Hebrew — are taught at UC Berkeley, one of the nation’s top institutions for the breadth and depth of its world languages program. A growing emphasis also is being placed at Berkeley on revitalizing and preserving endangered languages, most of them spoken by...

https://news.berkeley.edu/2023/10/24/new-banners-celebrate-150+-years-of-berkele…