Humanities

Campus news

Watch: an archaeologist’s guide to Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’

The film's trailer offers glimpses of the ancient world that UC Berkeley Professor Kim Shelton digs up in Nemea, Greece.

two images set side by side to show the contrast between different housing in Bangkok, Thailand. On the left is rundown housing on stilts in the water; on the right is a new upgraded neighborhood made possible by the government's

Humanities

The U.S. housing crisis looms large. Could a Thai model help solve it?

A group of faculty sit around a table in a wood-paneled room, looking at a screen

Campus & community

Despite budget threats, UC Berkeley invests in six new tenure-track Asian American and Pacific Islands specialists

four small unfired clay figures depicting European merchants sit side by side in a line. You can see enormous attention to detail in the details on their coats, hands, hair and eyes.

Arts & culture

In 18th‑century China, these artists made Europeans’ portraits. Only now are their identities emerging.

Ramzi Fawaz

Berkeley Talks: Ramzi Fawaz on the psychedelic power of the humanities

person stands at a fork in a wooded hiking path

Berkeley Talks: How do we make better decisions? (revisiting)

someone raises a Cola-branded soda to their lips

‘Nudges’ aren’t always good for society, UC Berkeley economics study finds

A photo collage that includes images of Taylor Swift, Bob Dylan, David Bowie and Ice Cube.

From Bob Dylan to Ice Cube: Mapping 60 years of storytelling in pop lyrics

Professor Juana María Rodríguez and student Mia Aguilar talk and laugh in Juana's office surrounded by a bright red wall and red desk

Wikipedia as resistance: This UC Berkeley class makes queer contributions visible

people sitting in an open-floor-plan workspace looking at computer monitors

Is work the new religion in Silicon Valley? This UC Berkeley professor thinks so

two images side by side: Hannah Zeavin portrait next to the book cover of

Berkeley Talks: The complicated role of media in motherhood

Tyler Lee-Wynant stands among shelves lined with boxes of archival materials in the California Language Archive

For 50 years, she recorded her Pomo language. Her voice is helping this student reclaim his culture.

Carla Shapreau holds up and discusses an antique violin from the Salz Collection to a group of middle school students on a field trip

The secret lives of violins — and the Berkeley scholar who uncovers them

a woman looks at enlarged mounted photos on a gallery wall

Berkeley Talks: How art allows us to see everyday things anew

A collage of 15 book covers, including The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston (on a burgundy background with a large face), A Gesture Life (black-and-white cover), Tripmaster Monkey by Maxine Hong Kingston (image of a bridge), Comfort Woman (a woman's face), Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan (dragons in a style associate with Asian scroll art), Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee (on a blue background), east goes west (a globe on top of a cubist body, accompanies by Chinese characters), Native Speaker by Chang-Rae Lee (a back-and-white image of an Asian man's face with a childhood photo superimposed), Fifth Chinese Daughter (a fairytale draying on top of a red background), China Men by Maxine Hong Kingston (red text and a dragon), America is in the Heart, No-No Boy (a body, fists covering his face, behind two strands of crossed red barbed wire, Dictee (a black-and-white landscape image), Obasan by Joy Kogawa (an Asian girl with a bowl cut looking through the window), and Dogeaters by Jessica Hagedorn (a romaneqseque sculpture of a woman)

What counts as ‘Asian American literature,’ anyway?

A close-up of a child’s hand touching a white robotic hand.

Do chatbots have a moral compass? Researchers turn to Reddit to find out.