Introducing Ordinaire

Bradford Taylor, a graduate student in the department, recently opened a wine shop and bar in Oakland called Ordinaire. To celebrate the occasion, we asked him to write a piece for us about his interest in wine and the experience of opening the shop.

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Teaching and Writing at Berkeley: An Interview with Joyce Carol Oates

In 2012-13, the English Department hosted Joyce Carol Oates, whose usual home is Princeton, as a visiting professor. While here, she taught a creative writing workshop on “short fiction” to a very lucky group of undergraduates. Our own Donald McQuade recently had the opportunity to interview Oates about her experience teaching and writing at Berkeley.

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The English Major, Secretly Resilient: The Case of UC-Berkeley

Professor Scott Saul’s recent New York Times op-ed (“The Humanities in Decline? Not at Most Schools”) actually began as a post written for our humble blog. When the New York Times expressed interest in Saul’s piece, the editors of the blog happily ceded our claim on it to the Times op-ed page. We now see the value in publishing what didn’t make it into the version published by the Times, and so are sharing Saul’s original post.

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This is Not a Writing Blog Post

We had the chance to catch up with Kerri Majors (’98) recently about her new book for young adult writers. The conversation ended up meandering across a number of different topics, including the current boom in college writing and MFA programs, why writers should buy planners, and Majors’s own writerly biography. It contains a lot of advice for young writers, and plenty to interest writers and readers of all ages.

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Why Milton?: Reflections from the Winners of the Bertrand H. Bronson Prize

At the end of every spring semester, the English Department awards the Bronson Prize to the graduating senior, whose thesis is deemed the best that year. In 2013, it looks like we couldn’t choose: both Stephanie Ranks and Lily Rosenthal received the prize. Remarkably, both wrote on 17th-century poet John Milton. In separate reflections, Stephanie and Lily discuss the pleasures and difficulties of reading and writing about Milton.

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The Lure of the Archive (VI): Christian Durán chases after the elusive author of “the first Chicano novel”

Sixth in the series is Christian Durán (’13), whose senior honors thesis — “Reconciling Daniel Venegas: Las Aventuras de Don Chipote in the Balance of History” — was recently recognized with an honorable mention from the Undergraduate Library Prize, one of Berkeley’s most distinguished awards for undergraduate research.

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