For a beloved maestro, a very grand finale
Cal Performances’ 2008-09 season will be an extended sendoff for its longtime director, Robert Cole, featuring a wealth of celebrated performers, promising emerging artists, and newly created works in 10 series: Classical and Modern Dance, Theater, Recital, Opera, Chamber Music and Orchestra, Music Before 1850, World Stage, Jazz, 20th-Century Music and Beyond, and Strictly Speaking.
(30 April)

A snapshot of student reading habits over two decades
What do UC Berkeley students read? From Why do Men Have Nipples? to the novels of J.K. Rowling and Jane Austen, three large surveys of freshman reading habits, each conducted a decade apart, identify ephemeral — and enduring — undergraduate reading choices.
(21 April)

Sights, sounds, and stories from around the world
Springtime signals the arrival of the San Francisco International Film Festival, which has served up a banquet of global film for 51 years. Among the festival’s venues is the campus’s Pacific Film Archive, whose senior film curator, Susan Oxtoby, personally chooses the works that will screen there — 36 of the festival’s 100-plus invited films this year.
(16 April)

Shades of gray . . . with a touch of black-and-blue
In her first novel, English lecturer Melanie Abrams takes a literary yet erotic approach to dominant/submissive sex.
(09 April)

English Professor Robert Hass wins Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
Robert Hass, an award-winning University of California, Berkeley, professor of English and former U.S. poet laureate, has won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his latest book, “Time and Materials.”
(09 April)

Six professors win prestigious Guggenheim fellowships
Six UC Berkeley faculty members, all from the College of Letters & Science, have won prestigious Guggenheim fellowships. They are among 190 artists, scientists and scholars across the nation who were awarded the 2008 fellowships this week.
(08 April)

Robert Hass wins Pulitzer Prize for poetry
Robert Hass, an award-winning UC Berkeley professor of English and former U.S. poet laureate, has won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for poetry for his latest book, "Time and Materials."
(07 April)

Scandinavian language smorgasbord
Want to learn how to say "I love Cal Day" in Swedish? How about in Norwegian, Danish or Finnish? On Cal Day in Room 33 of Dwinelle Hall, the Scandinavian Department will offer free, 30-minute lessons starting at 11 a.m. that essentially offer highlights of the first day of UC Berkeley classes in beginning Finnish, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian.
(03 April)

All keyed up: 25 students vie for an 80-year-old Steinway
Generosity and serendipity both play a part in the first Berkeley Piano Competition.
(02 April)

Anniversary of a rebellion
An exhibit of photos by Serge Hambourg at the Berkeley Art Museum captures the spirit of the 1968 Paris student revolt that nearly brought down the government of Charles De Gaulle. It's complemented at the Pacific Film Archive by "The Clash of '68," a series of films based on the theme of rebellion that infused the '60s generally.
(19 March)

UC Regents review preliminary conceptual design for new BAM/PFA
The University of California Regents Committee on Grounds and Buildings today (Tuesday, March 18) got its first peek at Toyo Ito & Associates, Architects' preliminary conceptual design for a new Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA) near the main western entrance to the UC Berkeley campus.
(18 March)

A century of Cal student fashion to be displayed
Battered hats and dirt-encrusted brown corduroy pants might scream 1990s grunge. But these shabby fashion statements were all the rage at UC Berkeley in the late 1890s and early 1900s. "The more disgusting they were, the higher status they held," said William Benemann, curator of a new campus exhibit "From Plugs to Bling: A Century of Cal Student Fashion."
(03 March)

Bancroft Library archiving works of pioneering artist Gus Arriola
The "Gordo" comic strips, which beginning in 1941 introduced millions of people in the United States to life south of the border, is part of the rich archive of cartoonist Gus Arriola's work now residing at the University of California, Berkeley's Bancroft Library.
(29 February)

Faculty Nightstand
For this edition of Faculty Nightstand, Vicky Kahn, of the department of English and comparative literature, describes a novel by a modern writer whose works are likely to become part of the literary canon: South African novelist J.M. Coetzee, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2003.
(27 February)

Music student adds kudos to his CV — a Grammy
As a musician and a scholar, "I'm very much about saying 'we're here,' " says American Indian singer and composer John-Carlos Perea. Over the weekend that message of Native survival got a worldwide stage, when the Paul Winter Consort CD Crestone — featuring contributions from the UC Berkeley doctoral student — won a Grammy for Best New Age Album.
(15 February)

State Ballet of Georgia launches first-ever U.S. tour at UC Berkeley
The State Ballet of Georgia launches its first-ever U.S. tour at UC Berkeley Feb. 14, presented by Cal Performances at Zellerbach Hall in shows that run through Sunday. The ballet's American visit highlights the once-struggling troupe’s resurgence after an era of political repression and economic deprivation
(14 February)

National Academy of Sciences hosting Katherine Sherwood's 'Golgi's Door' show
Some 11 paintings and prints by UC Berkeley art professor Katherine D. Sherwood on display through Feb. 22 in the National Academy of Sciences' Rotunda Gallery in Washington, D.C. contrast historic and contemporary medical imaging with ancient symbols of magic, mystery and healing from around the globe.
(08 February)

Rewriting history and poking fun at the powers that be
“Enrique Chagoya: Borderlandia,” a 25-year survey of the artist’s work that showcases his wide-ranging palette, will open at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive on February 13.
(06 February)

Jorge Liderman, award-winning composer and music professor, dies at age 50
Jorge Mario Liderman, a distinguished composer and a University of California, Berkeley, music professor, died suddenly Sunday (Feb. 3). He was 50.
(06 February)

New fund to help recruit top graduate students in the humanities
A $6 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation that will help the University of California, Berkeley, recruit top graduate students in the humanities was announced today (Monday, Jan. 28) by Janet Broughton, UC Berkeley's dean of arts and humanities.
(28 January)

Fiction readers get their moment in the campus spotlight
The campus’s popular Lunch Poems series will gain a prose companion when Story Hour in the Library debuts next Thursday, Jan. 24, at 5 p.m. in Doe Library’s Morrison Library.
(16 January)

Professor wins Mellon prize for influential unconventional research
University of California, Berkeley, professor Thomas W. Laqueur has been selected as a Mellon Foundation Distinguished Achievement Award recipient for his influential study of such unconventional topics as the history of sexuality, death and dying, and the body and gender. He and the campus will receive approximately $1.5 million.
(03 January)

Andrew Imbrie, music professor and renowned composer, dies at age 86
Andrew Walsh Imbrie, a University of California, Berkeley, professor emeritus of music and a renowned composer, died Wednesday, Dec. 5, at his Berkeley home following a long illness. He was 86.
(14 December)

Scholars say Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" still rings true
Charles Dickens' Victorian morality tale, "A Christmas Carol," remains a strong influence on contemporary appreciation of the holiday season and, thanks to its many incarnations, has become "one of those stories you know before you remember reading it," says a University of California, Berkeley, English professor.
(13 December)

Ralph Rader, English professor and theorist on the novel, dies at age 77
Ralph W. Rader, a professor emeritus of English at the University of California, Berkeley, and a major theorist on the novel as a genre, died of heart failure on Nov.23 at Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley. He was 77.He is recognized for his essays on James Boswell's "Life of Johnson" and James Joyce's "Portrait of the Artist" and "Ulysses," as well as for a series of essays in which he developed an original and influential interpretation of the emergence and development of the English novel as a form.
(28 November)

Lost 16th-century mass discovered by Berkeley music scholar
More than 400 years after Italian composer Alessandro Striggio wrote his extravagant 40-part Missa sopra Ecco sì beato giorno, it has been rediscovered by Berkeley music scholar Davitt Moroney, who identified the work and rescued it from obscurity.
(28 November)

Digital project to boost Irish studies with "virtual Ireland" Web site
digital collaboration between the University of California, Berkeley, and the Queen's University of Belfast, Northern Ireland, aims to better connect Irish studies materials and to make them easily accessible 24/7 from anywhere with a quick click of the computer mouse.
(15 November)

Robert Hass wins 2007 National Book Award for his latest poetry
Robert Hass, a UC Berkeley professor of English and former U.S. poet laureate, is the 2007 winner of the National Book Award in poetry, for "Time and Materials." The prize was announced Nov. 14 in New York City.
(15 November)

Chocolate drinks - probably fermented ones - popular long before previously thought, says anthropologist
Mesoamerican menus featured cacao beverages - probably fermented ones - at least as early as 1100 B.C., some 500 years earlier than previously documented anywhere, according to new research published in the latest issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
(13 November)

Robert Hass: Eight years of activism, writing, and reflection
A finalist for poetry in next week's National Book Awards, Professor of English Robert Hass, in this issue's Q&A, ruminates on all manner of things. (Our favorite exchange involves snow, covered bridges, and Dick and Jane.) Two of his poems are also featured: "Ezra Pound's Proposition" and a contemporary ode in the manner of Horace that's 100 percent Hass.
(08 November)

Bunnies, boring objects, and the guilt-free zone
Artist Squeak Carnwath decodes the symbols in and the process behind her inimitable paintings.
(31 October)

Thoroughly modern — and steps ahead of her time
There was once a time when the boundaries between ballet and modern dance seemed clear ... but that was before Twyla Tharp set the dance world on its ear. Cal Performances highlights her career with upcoming performances by the Joffrey, Miami City Ballet, and the American Ballet Theatre, supported by a full campus program of lectures, conversations, and films.
(03 October)

Next assignment: Lincoln at Gettysburg
“On the Same Page,” a signature program of the College of Letters and Science, is highlighting its second year by exploring the most famous speech in American history with Garry Wills, author of Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America.
(19 September)

Coming attractions for fall 2007 find inspiration in East Asia
Conferences and a bloom of events inspired by the dedication of the new C.V. Starr East Asian Library and Chang-Lin Tien Center for East Asian Studies highlight the fall calendar at UC Berkeley. Scholars, dance and opera enthusiasts are in for a rare treat
(04 September)

"On the Same Page" program features opera about Lincoln's assassination
A free campus performance Thursday (Aug. 23) of a wrenching but humorous opera about President Abraham Lincoln's assassination highlights this semester's "On the Same Page" program hosted by the College of Letters & Science.
(22 August)

Faculty Nightstand: For Erin Murphy, summer offers the time to immerse in long reads
Erin Murphy, assistant professor of law, calls herself "a pretty voracious reader." Summer's relaxed schedule only exacerbates her bookworm tendencies. This summer, she's discovered a new favorite and managed to delve outside of the fictive realm.
(02 August)

William K. Pritchett, emeritus professor of Greek, dies at age 98
William Kendrick Pritchett, emeritus professor of Greek at the University of California, Berkeley, died on Tuesday, May 29, at his Berkeley home a day after taking a bad fall. He was 98. Pritchett, who joined the UC Berkeley faculty in 1948, was one of the most highly regarded authorities in the fields of Greek topography, military science and practice, and the intricacies of the Athenian calendar and time-reckoning systems.
(05 June)

An artist honors U.S. fatalities in Iraq
Included in this year's Venice Biennale is a memorial to American troops who have died in the Iraq War, by UC Berkeley art-practice graduate student Emily Prince.
(04 June)

Survival theme for freshman summer reading
Students navigating their freshman year at UC Berkeley this fall may find the 2007 unofficial summer reading list especially helpful. The theme is "Survival!"
(04 June)

Leon Litwack's last stand
The renowned historian Leon Litwack gave the final lecture of his 34-year teaching career at Berkeley to an energetic crowd of well-wishers on May 7.
(08 May)

What does it mean to be present?
A cross-disciplinary performance uses dance and technology to explore this provocative question.
(18 April)

Contemporary world cinema, right on Bancroft Way
Pacific Film Archive curator Susan Oxtoby shares her picks from the 2007 San Francisco International Film Festival.
(12 April)

Scholars to receive William Sloane Coffin Awards for moral leadership
The first Berkeley William Sloane Coffin Jr. Awards recognizing moral leadership tied to the University of California, Berkeley, community will be bestowed on UC Berkeley scholars Robert N. Bellah and Nancy Scheper-Hughes in a ceremony on Monday, April 12.
(05 April)

"Stories in the Time of Cholera" wins top anthropology prize
Charles L. Briggs and Dr. Clara Mantini-Briggs of UC Berkeley, win top anthropology book prize for "Stories in the Time of Cholera"
(02 April)

Botero's Abu Ghraib exhibit closes after 15,000 visitors view his images of torture and humiliation
The paintings and sketches by Colombian artist Fernando Botero of the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq may have been hard for many viewers to stomach but, nevertheless, nearly 15,000 visitors flocked to see them during their seven-week exhibit at UC Berkeley's Doe Library.
(27 March)

John Thow, internationally acclaimed composer, dies at age 57
John Holland Thow, a University of California, Berkeley, professor of music and an internationally acclaimed composer, died on Sunday (March 4) at Alta Bates Medical Center in Berkeley. He was 57. Thow, who joined the UC Berkeley faculty in 1981, produced an extensive and diverse repertoire of solo, chamber, vocal, choral, operatic and orchestral music.
(12 March)

Faculty Nightstand: A buffet of books from writing guru Steve Tollefson
Not surprisingly, UC Berkeley writing and grammar guru Steve Tollefson has a tower of tomes sitting next to his bed at all times. Reluctant to pick just a current favorite, he's offered a veritable buffet of recommendations for Faculty Nightstand.
(12 March)

St. Patrick was ahead of his time, says Celtic Studies professor
It's commonly known that St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, was a fifth century Christian missionary who led Ireland's conversion to Christianity but also, legend has it, drove the snakes from the Emerald Isle. And while the exact dates of his life have never been certain, commonly-accepted estimates are between A.D. 390-460 or 490. But a UC Berkeley professor's research on the matter is challenging those dates, placing Patrick's birth approximately 50 years earlier.
(08 March)

Keeping Native tongues out of the pickling jar
For linguist Leanne Hinton, the path to becoming a champion of California's vanishing Indian languages began with a love of music, a suggestion from Alan Dundes, a summer field trip to Arizona's Havasu Canyon — and an unwavering belief in immersion.
(07 March)

Faculty Research Lecturer Martin Jay to speak Feb. 28
When, if ever, is it defensible to lie in the political arena? In the first of two 2007 Faculty Research Lectures, historian Martin Jay will canvass the arguments that have been made since Plato's defense of the "noble lie," and provide a fresh way to consider the functions of mendacity.
(21 February)

Faculty Nightstand: Louise Fortmann recommends some 'elementary' reading
UC Berkeley professor of natural resource sociology Louise Fortmann discusses a novel by Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk and a nonfiction account by Indian activists.
(21 February)

Conference on Feb. 16-17 to explore "What's Left of Life?"
A group of scholars, artists, social scientists, biologists and public intellectuals will gather at the University of California, Berkeley, Feb. 16-17 to explore connections between their own work and a world beset on one hand by ongoing wars, genocides, and epidemics and on the other by life-extending technologies, the promises of stem cell research and potent new pharmaceuticals.
(08 February)

Poetry's 'inherited and inexhaustible mystery'
In his appearance at last week's inaugural event of the Townsend Center's "Forum on the Humanities and the Public World" series, former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky made a persuasive case for the necessity of poetry in American life.
(08 February)

Journalism student wins Lange award
Color photos of farm workers in the fields, orchards and labor camps of California’s Central Valley have won Jeremy Rue, a student at the University of California, Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, the 2007 Dorothea Lange Fellowship.
(07 February)

Bog bodies in art and literature
Karin Sanders, a University of California, Berkeley, associate professor and chair of the Department of Scandinavian, was just an infant when two well-preserved bodies from the Iron Age surfaced in peat bogs in her native Denmark. She was a teen when “The Bog People,” a scientific detective story by P.V. Glob about the discoveries, became a European best-seller. So it may be little wonder that her fascination with the likes of Tollund Man, found in 1950 and one of the most famous of all “bog bodies,” led her to extensively research displays of them in museums around the world and depictions of the mysterious mummified or skeletal remains of people believed to have been sacrificed or murdered.
(05 February)

Making the case for the humanities
Anthony Cascardi, the Townsend Center's new director, thinks it's time for humanists to move from the wings of academia to center stage — and he's doing something about it
(25 January)

Botero exhibit joined by talk with artist, panels on violence, art, human rights
UC Berkeley's exhibit of Colombian artist Fernando Botero's depictions of Abu Ghraib prison abuses is stimulating a series of public conversations on campus on related issues such as art and violence, torture, human rights and terrorism. The Botero exhibit, sponsored by UC Berkeley's Center for Latin American Studies with the support of UC Berkeley's School of Law (Boalt Hall) and the University Library, opens at 6 p.m. Monday, Jan. 29, in Room 190 of Doe Library and closes March 23. It and all related programs are free and open to the public. Funds for the events have been privately raised.
(24 January)

Hearst Museum to open "Land of the Rajas" exhibit
"From the Land of the Rajas: Creativity in Rajasthan," a new exhibition that opens Feb. 2 at the Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, explores a northwestern Indian state famed for its princely rulers’ enthusiasm for a wide range of colorful and distinctive art styles.
(22 January)

Robert Pinsky launches new humanities forum
In the first program of a new "Humanities and the Public World" forum being launched Feb. 1 by UC Berkeley's Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities, Robert Pinsky, a U.S. poet laureate and public ambassador for poetry, will talk about the national Favorite Poem Project he initiated.
(22 January)