Arts & Humanities

Production designer Nina Ruscio and casting director Cathy Sandrich Gelfond dish on designing “triggering” hospital sets, casting for raw authenticity and how their time at Berkeley taught them to watch life closely, turning every detail into material for an immersive narrative.

Ask people what they love most about The Pitt, the HBO Max medical drama that debuted in 2025 and went on to sweep the Emmys, and the answer is almost always the same: It feels so real.

The show’s pace appears just like an emergency room — lively and chaotic, always in motion. Its...

Initiated in 1986, the annual Prytanean Alumnae Faculty Enrichment award recognizes a tenure track woman faculty member for outstanding scholarship, teaching, mentoring, leadership, and service to UC Berkeley and the community. Dr. Vasugi Kailasam (2024) and Dr. Youjin Chung (2025) were each chosen from over twenty exceptional applicants representing diverse disciplinary backgrounds. Selection committee members include Prytanean Alumnae Board members; Dr. Sheila Humphreys, inaugural UC Berkeley Electrical Engineering Director of Diversity;...

In this Berkeley Talks episode, Ramzi Fawaz, a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and UC Berkeley alum, explores why the humanities and psychedelics might have more in common than you’d think, and how literature, much like psychedelics, can help open one’s mind to the world.

Fawaz, who spoke at Berkeley in September, argues that the humanities classroom functions as a vital space for shared sense-making, where deep engagement with art and literature can rewire the brain much like a psychedelic experience — helping students heal from the rigid...

A panel of UC Berkeley professors in the College of Letters & Science discuss how they view decision-making from their respective fields, and how we can use these approaches to make more informed choices.

Today we are revisiting a Berkeley Talks episode in which a cross-disciplinary panel of UC Berkeley professors, whose expertise ranges from political science to philosophy, discuss how they view decision-making from their respective fields, and how we can use these approaches to make better, more informed choices.

Panelists include: