News & Events

Angel's passion towards her major, Comparative Literature, lies in how she embraces the intersection of literature, history, and philosophy. Her Filipino background and culture cultivated her interests in Slavic classics, postcolonial theory, theology, and the revolutionary past. 

Comp Lit Sophomore, Ava Ratcliff, (’26, also AGRS/Greek & Latin) won the Department of State Critical Language Scholarship to dive into the study of the Russian language. Ava looks forward to deepening her understanding of Russian this summer in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Ava began studying Russian, alongside Ancient Greek and Latin, as a freshman at Berkeley. She plans to use the skills she develops this summer to read nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russian literature in its original language.

Professor Kronfeld (Ph.D., 2020)... also discusses her Berkeley background and, of course, Jazz! Read the article. 

Earlier this year the Los Angeles... Review of Books (LARB) and Yefe Nof were thrilled to launch a new residency program dedicated to supporting emerging literary translators of exceptional promise. The inaugural crop of applications was a revelation, bringing us a dazzling variety of brilliant work, all of it deserving of support. After careful consideration, LARB and Yefe Nof are proud to name Laila Riazi as the first winner of the LARB + Yefe Nof Translation Residency competition.

“Tomorrow is the Problem” is a... fascinating new podcast from the Knight Foundation Art + Research Center at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami. In each episode, Dr. Donna Honarpisheh (Ph.D., 2022) explores the hidden meanings behind everyday phenomena in an effort to better understand the most urgent cultural issues of our time. Click here to give it a listen! 

Dear students, staff, ... lecturers, and faculty colleagues,

It has been a strange summer. I hope that everyone has made the most of their extended time at home, and that it was at least a little productive and also somewhat restful in spite of all the challenges.

I would like to offer a remote, but very warm, welcome to our new graduate students, Cole Carvour, Landon Kramer, Madeleine Kresin, Tom Maude-Griffin, and Madeline Zimring.

Comp Lit's outstanding GSIs are ...

Berkeley Professor Niklaus Largier... of German and Comparative Literature—joins forces with Professors Mayanthi Fernando and Michael Warner—of UC Santa Cruz and Yale, respectively—for one of a series of Sawyer Seminars orbiting “religious objects, rituals, and encounters" in a presentation on February 6th, 2019.  From the podium, Largier discusses Mechthild of Magdeburg’s 13th century, The Flowing Light of the Godhead—a text widely received as (and perhaps reduced to) a testament to religious experience.