This fall, incoming assistant professor of ethnomusicology Chris Batterman Cháirez is teaching the course Music, Movement and Migration in Latin America.
As a young kid growing up in Mexico City, UC Berkeley Professor Chris Batterman Cháirez would always hear music — it seemed to be playing everywhere he went, a kind of soundtrack...
Now available to all students, faculty, staff and alumni, the class features lectures and discussions with top UC Berkeley scholars and offers suggestions on navigating especially challenging conversations during polarized times.
Amir Rafiei has long known that some topics can be divisive. But he hadn’t realized how his own actions may have caused divides in his seemingly neutral hobby of filmmaking.
Sometimes he’d feel “locked in” with his own thoughts and ideas. He’d stop listening to what his collaborators were saying about shot techniques or narrative structures...
"Present Tense (Roll Call)" covers BAMPFA's Art Wall in a collage of text unearthed from UC Berkeley's long history of radical education and protest.
In the Bay Area’s vibrant contemporary art scene, few artists are more accomplished than Stephanie Syjuco, who has been widely celebrated for her multidisciplinary practice for more than two decades. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, among other prestigious awards, Syjuco has exhibited her work to great acclaim at some of the world’s leading art museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York’s Museum of...
Andrea Antoni didn’t take a traditional path to graduate school — if one exists for computational astrophysicists. On her last day of high school, she gave birth and became a single, working mother.
While volunteering at her child’s school, she met other mothers who worked in computer science and electrical engineering. She felt those careers represented practical ways to get an education and earn money. So, in her 30s...
Noah Whiteman is a lot of things. He’s a naturalist — he grew up in rural Minnesota, where his dad taught him to hunt with a bow and arrow and make a fire in the rain. He’s an evolutionary biologist at UC Berkeley, the first in his family to go to college. He’s a 2020 Guggenheim Fellow, author...
Lucille Lorenz, Arts & Humanities writer-in-residence
Roni Masel is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature, and holds the Norma and Sam Dabby Professor of Jewish Studies. Professor Masel’s main research interests include Hebrew literature, Yiddish literature, Jewish history, queer theory, and postcolonial theory. Masel is currently completing a book for which the...
On Sundays, I used to stand in front of my Mormon congregation and declare that it all was true.
I’d climb the stairs to the pulpit and smooth my long skirt. I’d smile and share my “testimony,” as the church calls it. I’d say I knew God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, prayer, spirits and miracles were all real. I’d express gratitude for my family and for my ancestors who had left lives in Britain, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Norway to pull wagons across America and build a Zion on the plains. When I had finished, I’d bask in the affirmation of the congregation’s “amen.”
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...
Alianza at UC Berkeley, a Chicanx/Latinx staff organization, recently announced the winners of the 2025 UC Berkeley Alianza Latinx Staff Award. This award is designed to "recognize and honor the remarkable achievements, contributions, and talents of our Latinx-identifying staff members." Congratulations to all of this year's recipients, which include the following L...
On Tuesday, March 18, the College of Letters & Science Administrative Advisory Committee (AAC) hosted a conversation between Professors David Nadler and Shannon Steen on the topic “What is Creativity?” at its second L&S Lunch and Learn convening. Moderated by Aileen Liu, Director of Curricular Engagement Initiatives, this discussion afforded L&S staff the opportunity to thoughtfully engage with the scholarship of the College and connect with their colleagues....
Roni Masel is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature, and holds the Norma and Sam Dabby Professor of Jewish Studies. Professor Masel’s main research interests include Hebrew literature, Yiddish literature, Jewish history, queer theory, and postcolonial theory. Masel is currently completing a book for which the...
