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.
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
Dennis Velasquez (‘15) was given the opportunity to pursue independent research through the McNair Scholars Program and the Haas Scholars Program (the only student awarded both research fellowships for 2014-15). His project is a comparative study of strategies of literary defiance of English Linguistic Imperialism across disparate temporal and geocultural locations.
READ MORE From the Western U.S. to Western Europe: Running the Archive Gauntlet
Charlotte Hull is a fourth year, double major in English Literature and History. Her academic interests include community building in Colonial New England, the impact of space and environment on society, and the ways in which stories shape and reflect our own histories.
In Spring 2014, Rebecca Solnit taught a course in prose nonfiction at Berkeley. This is her account of some of the joys and difficulties encountered in teaching the course.
