Illustration by Joan Wong English PhD candidate Jane Hu has just published a scintillating reflection on contemporary Asian-Anglophone fiction in The New Yorker‘s “Page Turner” series. In the piece, Hu explores how a clutch of contemporary Asian-Anglophone authors, from Kazuo Ishiguro and Ed Park to Tao Lin and Weike Wang, have favored narrators who project an unusual sense of detachment or impersonality, often associated with the stereotype of Oriental...
Each academic year, The English Department’s Holloway Series in Poetry welcomes several renowned and rising contemporary poets to campus to share and celebrate their work. This week, The Holloway Series and Mixed Blood invite you to join us for a reading and talk by Farid Matuk on Wednesday, November 8. The Mixed Blood talk, “Having Been of the Type: Taking Up Orlando Patterson’s Call...
READ MORE The Holloway Series in Poetry welcomes Farid Matuk and Jessica Laser
Professor Josie Saldaña’s recent book Indian Given: Racial Geographies Across Mexico and the United States received this year’s American Studies Association John Hope Franklin Prize for the most outstanding book published in American Studies. The prize committee’s citation: The committee selected Indian Given: Racial Geographies across Mexico and the United States from well over 100 books that we reviewed. We...
READ MORE Josie Saldaña wins American Studies Association John Hope Franklin Prize
Each academic year, The English Department’s Holloway Series in Poetry welcomes several renowned and rising contemporary poets to campus to share and celebrate their work. This week, the series welcomed Renee Gladman reading with Nicole Trigg. Renee Gladman is the author of ten books of poetry and prose, including her series of fictional works set in the imaginary city-state of Ravicka: Event Factory...
READ MORE The Holloway Series in Poetry welcomes Renee Gladman and Nicole Trigg
The Townsend Book Chat this week will feature Professor Jeffrey Knapp speaking about his new book, Pleasing Everyone: Mass Entertainment in Renaissance London and Golden-Age Hollywood, on Wednesday, September 27th, in the Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall, from noon to 1 p.m. In Pleasing Everyone, Jeffrey Knapp opens our eyes to the uncanny resemblance between Renaissance drama and the incontrovertibly mass...
Each academic year, The English Department’s Holloway Series in Poetry welcomes several renowned and rising contemporary poets to campus to share and celebrate their work. This week, the series welcomes Vancouver poet George Stanley. His books include Vancouver: a Poem, Gentle Northern Summer, Opening Day, The Stick, and You. He is the recipient of the 2006 Shelley Memorial Award for Poetry. Below you will find his poem,...
The following speech was given by Professor Eric Falci to the graduates of the English Department of the University of California, Berkeley, at their Commencement, on Saturday, May 21st, 2016. Professor Falci has published two books, one on contemporary Irish poetry, Continuity and Change in Irish Poetry, 1966-2010 in 2012 (Cambridge University Press,) and The Cambridge Introduction to British Poetry, 1945-2010 in 2015; he is currently working on...
READ MORE The 2016 Commencement Address by Professor Eric Falci
On November 19th, 2015 UC Berkeley’s held it’s annual 24 hour fundraising drive, The Big Give. Thanks to our donors, the Department was able to raise over 350% of last years donations during this fundraiser! If you missed out on participating and want to give, please visit here. In honor of the occasion, English Department faculty and staff shared their favorite “Big Words”...
READ MORE English Department gets “wordy” with 2015 Big Give campaign
“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...
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...
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.
In 2014, Robert Hass won the Wallace Stevens Award, the highest honor given by the Academy of American Poets. This is John Shoptaw’s piece on the occasion of Hass’s award.
Professor Donegan, along this year’s other DTA winners, will be honored at a public ceremony on April 21st at 5pm in the Zellerbach Playhouse. Click here to watch a video about this year’s winners. Kathleen Donegan, Associate Professor and Director of the Berkeley Connect Program in the English Department, has received a Distinguished Teaching Award. This is the 27th Distinguished Teaching Award won...
READ MORE Kathleen Donegan Wins Distinguished Teaching Award
In December 2014, HarperCollins published Professor Scott Saul’s biography Becoming Richard Pryor. The book has been reviewed widely—in publications ranging from TIME and USA Today to The Sunday Times (UK) and The Independent (UK)—but perhaps the most perceptive treatment of the book was Joan Acocella’s review for The New Yorker, posted on the magazine’s website this past week.
READ MORE Scott Saul’s Becoming Richard Pryor Featured in The New Yorker
On October 14, 2014, Rob Loewinsohn, a beloved member of the department, passed away.
