News & Events

Undergrads Andrew Kuznetsov ... (shown) and Gilad Barach, along with grad student Yael Eshelovitz, have all won the Anne & Benjamin Goor Prize for Jewish Studies.  Congratulations!  Go here for more information.  

Comp Lit's outstanding GSIs are ...

Robert Alter, Berkeley Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature, chooses his words carefully—in conversation and in writing. Wednesday’s panel at the Magnes Center in Berkeley celebrated Alter’s latest feat—north of 3,500-pages and decades in the making—a decidedly literary translation of the Hebrew Bible into English.  Dean and Comparative Literature professor Anthony Cascardi introduces the august panel consisting of English Professor and poet Robert Hass, Professor of Near Eastern Studies and Hebrew scholar Ronald Hendel, and Professor of History and Religion Jonathan Sheehan.

Comp Lit was well represented ... at the recent disco-themed Excellence in Advising Awards held in the Banatao Auditorium on December 12th, 2018 - instructors Judith Butler (who was not available to attend) and Karina Palau (shown) received the Faculty Advising Awards, while former Comp Lit undergrad adviser Kathy Barrett (now with Engineering) co-won the team Advising Award.  Congratulations Judith, Karina, and Kathy!

James Monroe ... Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature, was honored on Friday September 21st by his former students Michelle Hamilton PhD 2001 (now Director of Medieval Studies and Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Minnesota) and David Wacks, PhD 2003 (now Professor of Spanish and Romance Langua

Students, friends, and faculty attend the dance performance by Sasha Waltz at Zellerbach Auditorium on Saturday October 20th, 2018.  One student said the performance was “incredible.”

From L-R are Albert Castro, Maxwell Klaiman, Hideyasu Kurose, Deniz Göktürk (chair of German), Roger Dillahunty, Kaiyu Xu, Annabel Jankovic, and Sophie Volpp (chair of Comparative Literature).  

Selby Wynn Schwartz (Ph.D., 2005)... was just awarded the prestigious Rome Prize.

Carmela Martinez has won ... a Fulbright Scholarship and she will serve as an English teaching assistant in Hamburg, Germany.  Congratulations Carmela!

Juneteenth marks the end of slavery... and we are asked to look back upon that horrific institution that debased, exploited, and dispensed with black life. Some will say that slavery came to an end and take this chance to congratulate the United States for its emergence from slavery. But what of slavery still remains? We can point to contemporary slave labor in the US and elsewhere which, though illegal, still continues to afflict the lives of many migrants.