Arts & Humanities

On Nov. 20, 1969, a group of Indigenous Americans that called itself Indians of All Tribes, many of whom were UC Berkeley students, took boats in the early morning hours to Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay. They bypassed a Coast Guard blockade and took control of the island. The 19-month occupation that followed would be regarded as one of the greatest acts of political resistance in American Indian history.

Everardo Reyes is a Ph.D. student in ethnomusicology at Berkeley. After taking several classes with John-Carlos Perea, who last year was a visiting associate professor in...

Varsha Sarveshwar '20, a UC Berkeley College of Letters & Science alumna, has received one of the world's most prestigious honors for academic excellence—the Rhodes Scholarship. The Scholarship is awarded “on the basis not only of intellect, but also of character, leadership and commitment to service,” and Sarveshwar was among 32 American students...

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.

But Rowe has now switched his major to philosophy, in the campus’s Division of Arts and Humanities, realizing, he said, that to approach such a multi-faceted issue would require “going beyond politics and legislation in order to address the apathy people experience when discussing climate change.”

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In Berkeley Talks episode 151, novelist Ilija Trojanow discusses why we need to embrace the idea of utopia in order to imagine a better future.

“It’s important to not confuse what does exist with what is impossible, which is how most people use the word “utopian” in everyday parlance,” Trojanow says. “Progress has, at times, been utopia come true. By envisaging differing realities, we are imagining alternatives into existence.

“Truly utopian narratives challenge existing preconceptions by opening windows of thought and fantasy that give life to a multitude of...