News (Always tag)

General news

Ava Ratcliff '26 Awarded Critical Language Scholarship

November 24, 2024

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. Ava is driven by a passion for reading and sharing literature with others...

Senior Angeli Lohner Speaks at Light the Way

November 24, 2024

Senior Angeli Lohner Speaks at Light the Way

New Book from Ph.D. Alum Emily Drumsta

November 24, 2024

In Ways of Seeking: The Arabic Novel and the Poetics of Investigation (University of California Press, 2024), Emily Drumsta traces the influence of detective fiction on the twentieth-century Arabic novel. Theorizing a “poetics of investigation,” she shows how these novels, far from staging awe-inspiring feats of logical deduction, mock the truth-seeking practices on which modern exercises of colonial and national power are often premised. Their narratives return to the archives of Arabic folklore, Islamic piety, and mysticism to explore less coercive ways of knowing, seeing, and...

Ph.D. Student Featured on KQED's All Things Considered

November 24, 2024

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(link is external).

Alum Maya Kronfeld (now at Duke) on Her Latest Book Project

November 24, 2024

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

Alum Allison Schachter Wins MLA Prize

November 24, 2024

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. The prize is presented under the...

Home News Ph.D. Candidate Laila Riazi Wins Inaugural LARB + Yefe Nof Residency Competition

November 24, 2024

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.

During her two-week stay at Yefe Nof in Lake Arrowhead, California, this December, Laila Riazi will...

Alumni News: Ph.D. Selby Wynn Schwartz Longlisted for Booker Prize

November 24, 2024

Selby Wynn Schwartz's debut novel... After Sappho has been longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize(link is external)! 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."

Schwartz received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature in 2005, and currently teaches writing at Stanford University. She was awarded the...

New Podcast Series Hosted by Recent Comp Lit PhD!

November 24, 2024

“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(link is external) to give it a listen!

Grad Students Named Chancellor’s Doctoral Incentive Program Fellows

November 24, 2024

Congratulations to...

Comparative Literature graduate students Tessa Wood and Christián González Reyes, who have been selected as a Chancellor’s Doctoral Incentive Program (CDIP) Fellows through the California State University system. CDIP(link is external) prepares gifted doctoral students for an academic career through professional development, mentorship, and grants. Fellows are selected in a competitive process based on their...