Commencement 2011: The Speeches
Even if you didn’t graduate, that doesn’t mean you don’t need some inspiration. Here’s a roundup of some of the best commencement speeches of the season.
YARN Wins Innovations in Reading Prize from National Book Foundation
Congratulations to the Young Adult Review Network (YARN), which has recently been awarded an Innovations in Reading Prize from the National Book Foundation. YARN was founded in 2010 as an independent online journal to publish fiction, poetry, and essays by teen-aged writers alongside the work of established and emerging adult contributors. Read full post…
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Alumnus Takes Over California Beat
Berkeley English alumnus Ashley Dunn has been named California editor for the Los Angeles Times. Dunn is a veteran reporter and editor, having worked at the New York Times, the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, the Danbury News-Times in Connecticut, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Most recently, he has worked as Washington editor for the Times.
Announcing “Chapter and Verse: Structures of Reading” — A Call for Papers
Chapter and Verse: Structures of Reading
University of California at Berkeley
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Keynote Speaker: Associate Professor Nicholas Dames, Departments of Comparative Literature and English, Columbia University
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Remembering Flo Gibson
Audiobook pioneer and Berkeley alumna Flo Gibson died in January at the age of 86. Gibson founded Audio Book Contractors in 1983 and personally recorded over one-thousand titles, including works by Jane Austen, George Eliot, Henry James, and Leo Tolstoy. Born in San Francisco in 1924, Gibson studied dramatic literature at Berkeley, going on to New York’s Neighborhood Playhouse and a successful acting career, before beginning to record books for the Library of Congress in the 1970s. Her full obituary is available on-line at The New York Times.
Memorial for Charles Muscatine
A memorial service for Charles Muscatine, late Professor Emeritus of English, will be held at 11 a.m., Sunday, February 13, 2011, in the Pauley Ballroom of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Student Union. A distinguished scholar of medieval literature, Muscatine was also well known as an advocate for educational reform and for his refusal to sign a state loyalty oath...
Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot
The English Department wishes everyone a safe and happy holiday. As the students depart for winter break, the department blog is also taking a short hiatus. We will be back online with our weekly posts when the new semester begins in mid-January.
Until then, we leave with you a classic holiday poem: Robert Burns’ “Auld Lang Syne.” Read full post…
UC Berkeley Graduate Student and Faculty Make National Headlines
Two members of the UC Berkeley English Department have recently made big splashes in the national news scene.
Professor Ishmael Reed published an oped in the Dec 11, 2010 New York Times on “What Progressives Don’t Understand About Obama.” Professor Reed has a recent book, Barack Obama and the Jim Crow Media, out on the same subject from Baraka Books.
Aaron Bady, an advanced graduate student who studies African literature in the department, made waves in the national conversation surrounding the recent WikiLeaks case. The virtuoso close reading of Julian Assange’s personal philosophy that Aaron posted on his blog, http://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/, became a viral phenomenon, drawing more than ten thousand readers and links from some of the most prominent news media outlets in the country. His influence prompted The Atlantic to call him “The Unknown Blogger Who Changed the WikiLeaks Conversation.” The University has also published an account here.
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Chernin Program “Reads the Campus”
Over this past semester, the Chernin Mentoring Program has organized a wide array of activities designed to enrich and support the English major experience at Berkeley. One particularly interesting activity was a new twist on the “campus tour,” an exercise in which the graduate student mentors showed the undergraduates how they can put the readings skills they learn in their English classes to work by reading the physical environment of the Berkeley campus. 
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Professor Elizabeth Abel Remembers Janet Adelman
In what follows, Professor Elizabeth Abel remembers Janet Adelman, a long-time fixture in the English Department, who died last spring. Professor Abel gave these remarks at a memorial service that the English Department held for Janet earlier this fall. Read full post…
Update: Berkeley Alum’s Play Performed at Kennedy Center
In March 2010, we wrote about the return to Berkeley of the wildly successful play The Domestic Crusaders, by Wajahat Ali. Ali’s play was recently performed at the premiere theater venue of the nation’s capital, the Kennedy Center — and to quite a response. This video from the production shows both the first act and Wajahat’s narration of the play’s Berkeley origin. Additionally, the script of the play will be published by McSweeny’s next month; copies can be ordered here.
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Recent Grad Describes Writing Life After Berkeley
In what follows, Margaret Boehme, who graduated from Berkeley in 2005 and now writes for the NPR program The Writer’s Alamanc, reassures her parents about her writing career. Read full post…
Anne-Lise François wins 2010 René Wellek Award
The English Department congratulates Professor Anne-Lise François, whose Open Secrets: The Literature of Uncounted Experience (Stanford University Press, 2007) was recently named the winner of the 2010 René Wellek Prize. Read full post…
Recent Alumna wins National Poetry Series
This past September, Berkeley alumna Laura Wetherington (Class of ‘04) was notified that her manuscript A Map Predetermined and Chance was one of the five winners of the National Poetry Series’ Open Competition. Read full post…
Alumna Makes a Therapeutic Career out of Literary Study
Licensed marriage and family therapist Ilene Wolf is now the Director of the Bay Area’s Drama Therapy Institute, but she got her start as an undergraduate English major at Berkeley.Read full post…
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