Arts & Humanities

Executive actions aim to reshape America’s cultural institutions. UC Berkeley scholars react

April 17, 2025

On March 27, President Trump signed “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” a directive mandating that the Smithsonian Institution and the Department of the Interior, which oversees national monuments, memorials and statues, rectify “divisive narratives that distort our shared history.” This is just one of several actions aimed at changing how arts and humanities organizations tell the story of the country’s past and present. For instance, the...

Roxana Wang Named Berkeley’s Twentieth Schwarzman Scholar

January 29, 2025

Roxana (Qinhong) Wang, a recent graduate of the UC Berkeley class of 2024, has been awarded a 2025-26 Schwarzman Scholarship. Wang, who studied Comparative Literature and Ancient Greek and Roman Studies in the College of Letters & Science, was selected as one of 150 scholars from a pool of nearly 5,000 candidates. She is Berkeley’s twentieth recipient of the award since its inception in 2013.

“Many highly qualified Berkeley students apply for the Schwarzman Scholarship every year, so it is impossible to predict who will be offered a place...

UC Berkeley Letters & Science announces recipients of 2025 L&S Faculty Awards

April 8, 2025

UC Berkeley's College of Letters & Science is proud to announce the recipients of the 2025 L&S Faculty Awards. This distinguished award recognizes each awardee's exceptional scholarship, service to the College and community, and transformational teaching. These extraordinary individuals not only embody the excellence of the College of Letters & Science, but they also serve as an inspiration to the entire campus community. The recipients will be honored at a private ceremony on Wednesday, May 14....

UC Berkeley graduate programs soar to elite status in latest US News rankings

April 8, 2025

UC Berkeley’s graduate programs maintained their premier-level rankings in a 2025 surveyreleased today (Tuesday, April 8) by US News & World Report, with elite scores achieved in disciplines ranging from the social sciences and engineering to computer science and business.

A remarkably diverse set of Berkeley schools and programs achieved top rankings in the magazine’s annual assessment of graduate programs nationwide.

The College of Letters & Sciences scored No. 1 rankings for...

Between theory and practice: A Re-Entry Student's Experience with Film and Media

April 9, 2025

This article originally appeared on April 1, 2025 at Division of Arts & Humanities.

Person stands in front of university building with arms crossed, smiling, wearing a Cal sweatshirtOrestes Sophocleous is a re-entry undergraduate student at UC Berkeley. He is majoring in Film and Media with a minor in Rhetoric. He is currently a teaching assistant for Film 155, under professor Nicole...

Do vowels have colors? According to some with synesthesia, yes.

April 7, 2025

It’s hard to pinpoint when synesthesia, the rare neurological condition where a stimulus that affects one sense prompts a response in a different sense, was first documented. Scientific literature marks its beginning in 1812, when it appeared as an aside in a Bavarian medical student’s dissertation. Toward the end, there’s a small section where he detailed how he associated musical tones and letters with colors.

“He enumerates the colors he sees in connection with the letters of the alphabet. A and E: vermilion, I: white, O:orange and so forth,” says UC Berkeley French...

Ahead of ‘The White Lotus’ finale, Berkeley professor unpacks show’s Freudian themes and fantasies

April 7, 2025

the Ratliff family of two parents and three adult children walk in the sun

There’s a part in season three of the HBO series The White Lotus that viewers won’t easily forget. Frank, a newly sober American expat living in Thailand, where the show takes place, begins to explain to his old friend Rick why he’s gone sober. In detailing his descent into partying and sex addiction, he describes what he sees as a kind of Buddhist...

‘Tremendously effective teachers’: Five UC Berkeley instructors receive Distinguished Teaching Award

March 27, 2025

The campus's highest honor for teaching excellence, the Distinguished Teaching Award underscores the profound impact instructors have on their students’ learning experiences and future careers.

Five UC Berkeley instructors have received the 2025 Distinguished Teaching Award, the campus’s highest honor for teaching excellence. The Academic Senate’s Committee on Teaching announced the selection on March 10, highlighting that this year’s recipients are “tremendously effective...

Extraordinary Stories and People: New program highlights the breadth of Palestinian and Arab studies

April 2, 2025
New Palestinian and Arab studies program to explore a wide array of topics including poetry, legal studies, ecology, and much more.

In Fall 2024, the Division of Social Sciences announced that it was forming a new program in Palestinian and Arab Studies. The program, led by the holder of the new May Ziadeh Chair Ussama Makdisi, a professor of History, was created to deepen understanding of Palestinian and Arab history, politics, and culture. Makdisi says the program is one of the first of its kind in the United States.

“The program is a long overdue step in...