Podcast: Berkeley Talks

Berkeley Talks is a Berkeley News podcast that features lectures and conversations at UC Berkeley. It's managed by the Office of Communications and Public Affairs. A new episode is released every other Friday. Follow Berkeley Talks.

To suggest a UC Berkeley talk to be featured on the podcast, email Anne Brice at [email protected].

Also, check out Berkeley Voices, an award-winning Berkeley News podcast about the people who make UC Berkeley the world-changing place that it is. And see our guide to starting your own podcast at Berkeley.

john powell, ashley gallegos and stephen menendian sit at the front of a room in front of an audience

Campus & community

Berkeley Talks: A blueprint for creating a world where everyone belongs

john a. powell and Stephen Menendian, director and assistant director of UC Berkeley’s Othering and Belonging Institute, discuss their 2024 book, Belonging Without Othering: How We Save Ourselves and the World.

Ocean Vuong and Cathy Park Hong

Arts & culture

Berkeley Talks: Poet Ocean Vuong on disobedience and the power of language

a panel of four Berkeley professors sit in front of an audience

Campus & community

Berkeley Talks: How do we make better decisions?

From left: Marty Baron and Dean Baquet speak to an audience

Campus & community

Berkeley Talks: Veteran news editors on how the media covered the election

Timothy Tangherlini

Berkeley Talks: Computational folklorist on how storytelling becomes belief

four headshots of Robert Reich, Maria Echaveste, Janet Napolitano and Angela Glover Blackwell

Berkeley Talks: The future of American democracy

J.D. Vance and Charlie Kirk giving a talk on stage at an event with

Berkeley Talks: A return to monarchy? Bradley Onishi on Project 2025

About a dozen volunteer rescue workers wearing GoPro cameras on their white helmets, carry a person on a stretcher out of rubble in Syria

Berkeley Talks: With white helmets and GoPros, these volunteers risk it all in Syria’s civil war

Two students hold an Israeli flag and two students hold up a Palestinian flag standing next to one another on the Berkeley campus with at least one hundred students on Sproul Plaza in the background

Berkeley Talks: Legal scholars on free speech challenges facing universities today

Aileen Liu, Hernan Garcia, Christian Paiz and Arianne Eason sit in chairs on a dark stage and talk

Berkeley Talks: What is understanding? Berkeley scholars discuss

Michael Pollan and Mina Kim sit on stage in conversation

Berkeley Talks: It’s not just psychedelics that change minds, says Michael Pollan. Storytelling does, too.

a colorful gradient background with four headshots of Dacher Keltner, Lisa Damour, Allison Briscoe-Smith and Maurissa Horwitz

Berkeley Talks: The science behind the emotions in ‘Inside Out 2’

Portrait of Jemele Hill smiling

Berkeley Talks: Journalist Jemele Hill on the intersection of sports and race (revisiting)

Michael Waldman and Maria Echeveste talk on stage in front of an audience

Berkeley Talks: How the Supreme Court divided America

Close up of Alisha Gaines

Berkeley Talks: Reconsidering Black America’s relationship to the plantation

two photos side of side: on the left, the cover of the book, A Thousand Small Sanities; and on the right, a portrait of Adam Gopnik.

Berkeley Talks: Adam Gopnik on what it takes to keep liberal democracies alive

All Berkeley Talks