Comp Lit Sophomore, Lucille Lorenz ('26) has been awareded a full scholarship to the Yeats Society International Summer School Programme in Ireland. During her fully funded week, Lucille will attend lectures and cultural events as well as a week-long seminar of her choosing. Lectures are offered by leading Yeats scholars including Dr. Eric Falci of UC Berkeley.
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.
Dani Offline is a singer and producer as well as a Comparative Literature graduate student! You can listen to the interview and hear her incredible song "I Believe You" here.
Professor Kronfeld (Ph.D., 2020)... also discusses her Berkeley background and, of course, Jazz! Read the article.
The Modern Language Association of America awarded its eleventh Fenia and Yaakov Leviant Memorial Prize in Yiddish Studies for an outstanding translation of a Yiddish literary work to UC Berkeley alumna, Allison Schachter (and co-author, Jordan Finkin). Established in 2000 by the family of Fenia and Yaakov Leviant, the award honors writers who have published an English translation of Yiddish literary works and scholars who have written a cultural study or critical biography in the field of Yiddish or edited a work on Yiddish folklore or linguistics.
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.
Selby Wynn Schwartz's debut novel... After Sappho has been longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize! The judges write: "A poetic patchwork of fragments of literary history that together take shape as an intergenerational tale of the Lesbian family. An ancestry eruditely, playfully recovered."
“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!
We have a farewell jam in Ishi ... Courtyard with Professor Tom McEnaney, Comp Lit/French adviser Tony Soyka, and Professor Rick Kern.
Professor Beth Piatote is a featured playwright in the 12th Annual Short Play Festival by Native Voices at the Autry. The festival includes two readings of Piatote's play, Tricksters, Unite! (March 20 at The Autry Museum and March 27 at La Jolla Playhouse).
Plays selected for this year's festival examine "Tricksters in their traditional form, but also in the modern roles they play today."
Here is a sample of the current ... work our graduate students are publishing. Congratulations to the authors!
A note on Juneteenth from Acting ... Chair Judith Butler: 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.
Although we are not able to ... celebrate in person, we hope you will join us in congratulating a phenomenal group of new graduates!
Department of Comparative Literature 2020 Commencement Program
Below is a congratulatory video from Chair Sophie Volpp.
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.
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.
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!
Saul Schwartz (PhD Princeton, 2015) is the 2018-2019 postdoctoral fellow for the department’s Sawyer Seminar in Linguistic Anthropology and Literary and Cultural Studies.
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
News archive and events happening in the Department of Comparative Literature.