The members of the English Department are delighted to welcome their newest colleague, Professor Joshua Gang. Here’s a short bio from Prof. Gang, in his own words. I’m an east coast kid originally: I grew up in Manhattan and Connecticut and did my undergrad at Brown. Originally I thought I would be a musician but literature and philosophy won me over. I...
READ MORE Hello from New Faculty Member Professor Joshua Gang
Earlier this year, B.A. and Ph.D alumnus Viet Thanh Nguyen* published his first novel, The Sympathizer, to great critical esteem. The novel, heralded by Maxine Hong Kingston as “(a) book that will go down in history as an important novel of the war in Vietnam,” has appeared on numerous best novels lists, including The New York Times and The Guardian. Recently, Viet...
The following article was written by Steven Czifra, an English Undergraduate transfer student. The piece is a reflection on reconciling his “past as a formerly incarcerated person,” with his “new life as a Berkeley English undergrad” upon transferring into the Department. Steven has won multiple campus awards, including a 2014-2015 Hass Scholars Humanities Fellowship for his work titled, “Emerging Discourses in California’s Solitary Confinement Debate.” He...
READ MORE Undergraduate Voices: Steven Czifra reflects on the pull of activism and academia
“Every thing must have a beginning … and that beginning must be linked to something that went before” – Mary Shelley To kick off Fall 2015, we thought we would return to the end of Spring 2015 with Michael Shaw’s commencement elegy, delivered May 23rd, 2015 at the Greek Theater in Berkeley. If you’d like a bit more theatrical experience, you...
Berkeley Connect, a mentoring program connecting graduate-student mentors with small groups of undergraduates, began in the English Department in 2010 with a gift from Peter Chernin (’73). This year will mark the fifth anniversary of the program, which has recently expanded to other departments. To celebrate, we will be publishing a series of reflections by mentors in the coming weeks. Throughout...
In “On the Scene,” a series on theater, we ask current graduate students to review select local plays. For those of you in the Bay, this will be an excellent way to keep track of nearby theatrical offerings. For those of you elsewhere, perhaps these reviews can re-create a little slice of Bay Area theater for you. This is a review...
READ MORE Review of Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s Life is a Dream at CalShakes
In “On the Scene,” a series on theater, we ask current graduate students to review select local plays. For those of you in the Bay, this will be an excellent way to keep track of nearby theatrical offerings. For those of you elsewhere, perhaps these reviews can re-create a little slice of Berkeley theater for you. This is a review...
READ MORE Review of Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls at the Ashby Stage
Each year, the Department Citation is awarded to one outstanding graduating senior who is recognized by faculty nomination as having produced exceptionally high caliber work as an English Major. The winner is honored at the department’s May graduation ceremony. Here is the speech delivered by Andrew King, recipient of this year’s distinction. Good afternoon, faculty, my fellow graduands, relatives, mentors, speakers, staff, and friends: It is an honor...
In Spring 2015, department alumnus Steven Isenberg taught a Special Topics course titled “Fathers and Sons” in Berkeley. Here is his account of the course and his experience of returning to Cal.
READ MORE Return of the Native: Steven Isenberg on teaching in the English Department
The following speech was given by Michael Dirda to the graduates of the English Department of the University of California, Berkeley, at their Commencement, on Saturday, May 23, 2015. Michael Dirda is a Pulitzer Prize-winning book columnist for The Washington Post and the author, most recently, of On Conan Doyle, which received a 2012 Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America. He holds a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Cornell University and contributes regularly to The New York Review of Books and The Times Literary Supplement. His latest collection of essays, Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting and Living with Books, will be published in July.
Berkeley Connect, a mentoring program connecting graduate-student mentors with small groups of undergraduates, began in the English Department in 2010 with a gift from Peter Chernin (’73). This year will mark the fifth anniversary of the program, which has recently expanded to other departments.
Amy Clark is a graduating senior, and was recently awarded the Charlene Conrad Liebau Library Prize for her English honors thesis, “More than Meets the Eye: Cultural Color Resonances in Old English Literature.”
Samuel Diener is a senior finishing an Honors thesis this year on the General History of the Pyrates and the early seafaring novels of Daniel Defoe. He will go on to a Ph.D. program in English at Harvard this fall, where he hopes to continue to study the novel, the eighteenth century, and voyage narratives in Spanish, Portuguese, and English.
This is a review by Samia Rahimtoola of the Shotgun Players’ production of Anne Carson’s Antigonick, co-directed by Mark Jackson and Hope Mohr. It has been extended until April 26.
READ MORE Review of Anne Carson’s Antigonick at the Ashby Stage
In “On the Scene,” a series on theater, we ask current graduate students to review select local plays. For those of you in the Bay, this will be an excellent way to keep track of nearby theatrical offerings. The sixth piece in the series is a review by C.F.S. Creasy of the Berkeley Rep’s production of Molière’s Tartuffe, directed by Dominique Serrand. It is playing until April 12.
