Lucille Lorenz, Arts & Humanities writer-in-residence
Niklaus Largier is Chair in the department of Comparative Literature, is a professor in the departments of German and Comparative Literature, and is affiliated with the Programs in Medieval Studies, Religious Studies, and the Designated Emphasis in Critical Theory.
His scholarship covers an extensive range of interests, including the intersections of literature, philosophy, theology, and other fields of knowledge within medieval and early modern German literature. Professor Largier’s work delves into topics such as ascetic practices, eroticism, and the literary imagination, as well...
The Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities will boost its fellowship and Art of Writing programs thanks to a generous gift from Matt and Margaret Jacobson. The couple pledged $750,000 to create the Paul Alpers Memorial Fund, honoring the founding director of UC Berkeley’s renowned nexus of humanities research and events.
“We feel so loved,” said Stephen Best, the center’s current faculty director, about the Jacobsons’ support. “I don't have a better way of expressing how deeply appreciative we are to have two people who get what we do and want to see us...
The burial rites at the heart of Sophocles’s famous tragedy Antigonecan seem arcane to many contemporary Western audiences. But a new adaptation at Los Angeles’s Native Voices, Beth Piatote’s Antíkoni, reimagines the play as a complicated, humanizing tragedy about a Nez Perce family living in our nation’s capital, and caught between the pressures of the outside world and a nationalist party that threatens to silence their history. Merging Nez Perce storytelling with the struggle over ancestors...
Lucille Lorenz, Arts & Humanities writer-in-residence
Saagar Asnani is a graduate student in Musicology and Medieval Studies. He focuses particularly on the regions of France, Italy, Occitania, and Catalonia. He works mainly with the relationship between language and music, as his research bridges sociohistorical linguistics with musicology. Saagar earned his MA from UC Berkeley in 2022, and BA in Music, French and Biology from University of Pennsylvania.
How did you decide to pursue a graduate degree in Berkeley’s Department of Music? Is there any advice that you have for undergraduates, who are interested in pursuing graduate...
On Wednesday, October 9, the College of Letters & Science Administrative Advisory Committee (AAC) hosted its inaugural L&S Brown Bag Lunch and Learn. One of several new initiatives by the recently revamped AAC, the Lunch and Learn provides L&S staff members an opportunity to connect with their colleagues and...
What role do the humanities play in a world challenged by climate change, rising authoritarianism, censorship, racism, wars and collapsed economies?
The humanities and their forms of historical, visual and cultural literacy are critical to understanding and addressing the human experience and the planet’s survival, says Sara Guyer, dean of the Division of Arts and Humanities in UC Berkeley’s College of Letters and Science.
UC Berkeley’s Department of Music unveiled the new Helen and Thomas Wu Performance Hall in September, following an extensive renovation that was years in the making. The reopened space includes a larger stage, new seats, and state-of-the-art sound, lighting, and digital technology upgrades.
From the U.S.’s first Black theater in New York to today's Broadway stages, there’s been “a kind of de facto censorship” of diverse stories throughout the country's history, says Professor Shannon Steen.
In 1821, two free Black men from the West Indies — playwright William Alexander Brown and actor James Hewlett — opened what’s considered the United...
Dana Swensen, Department of English Communications
Tadiwa Madenga is a scholar of African and Black diasporic literature, gender and sexuality, and print cultures. Her research is concerned with the relationship between literature and sexuality which she traces through 20th and 21st century African book fairs and their subgenres: keynotes, book stalls, magazines, poetry. Across her academic and creative projects, her reading practice centers archival work...
At first glance, Amissa Anima: A Book of the Dead looks like a traditional hardback volume. Open the cover, however, and you find something unexpected: a kit for contacting the dead.
Nested within the unique artist’s book are an album of unsettling photographs, from which the user can select a spirit to summon; a set of bottled emotions that evoke the strong feelings said to link a person to the spirit world; and a Ouija board to facilitate the conversation. The bewitching work, from artist and bookbinder Stephanie Gibbs, invites “readers” to interact with its contents and...
In 1821, two free Black men from the West Indies — playwright William Alexander Brown and actor James Hewlett — opened what’s considered the United...
