Berkeley Talks

Judith Butler, a professor in the Department of Comparative Literature and the Program of Critical Theory at UC Berkeley, and Mel Y. Chen, an associate professor in Berkeley's Department of Gender and Women’s Studies and director of the Center for the Study of Sexual Culture, joined in conversation about Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive's expansive exhibition, New Time: Art and Feminisms in the 21st Century.  "There's never been anything mild about feminisms, in the plural," said Butler at the Sept. 20 event. "It has always been a life and death struggle from the start." Listen to the episode and read the transcript on Berkeley News. (Artwork: "Stigmata" by Linda Stark, 2011) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In his inaugural address, President Biden called for Americans to unite more than any other U.S. president. But UC Berkeley experts say unity is unrealistic — at least, right now — and offer other ways to create a more just society. "Where we are today is a result of decades upon decades of systemic and structural race, class and gender-based injustice," said Sandra Bass, associate dean of students and director of the Public Service Center, during an April 9, 2021, panel discussion sponsored by UC Berkeley's Osher Lifelong Learning Center (OLLI). "To think that we can just jump over all of that and leave it unexamined and unresolved and go straight to unity is not just unrealistic. It ignores the genuine harm these systems have and continue to perpetuate, and suggests we all just need to move on without addressing them. We can't leapfrog over the damage that has been done. We have to go through it, not around it. Given our history, any hope of moving towards some understanding of our shared humanity, and our shared destinies, requires us to go through the painstaking process of truth telling, and reparation in all its dimensions." Listen to the episode and read the transcript on Berkeley News. (Art by Tim Mossholder via Unsplash) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Emiliana Simon-Thomas, science director of UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center, discusses happiness — what it means, where it comes from and how we can enhance it in each of our lives — during a Science at Cal lecture on July 28, 2021. Listen to the episode and read the transcript on Berkeley News. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In episode 121 of Berkeley Talks, graduate students Sierra Edd (Diné) and Ataya Cesspooch talk about their experiences at UC Berkeley as Native American students and reflect on the history and future of the Hearst Museum and Berkeley’s relationships with Indigenous communities. Edd and Cesspooch are co-hosts of Indigenous United, a podcast from Native American Student Development at Berkeley that explores Indigenous issues through interviews with Native artists, scholars and activists. Listen to the episode and read the transcript on Berkeley News. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Longtime venture capitalist Roger McNamee discusses how he, an early Facebook investor and former adviser to Mark Zuckerberg, came to realize the damage caused by the social media giant and others like it, and how he's committed to try to stop them. Listen to the episode and read the transcript on Berkeley News. (Photo by Alessio Jacona via Flickr) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In episode 119 of Berkeley Talks, Shane McCrae, a poet born in Portland, Oregon, who was kidnapped by his maternal grandparents at age 3, reads new works about his experience as a child growing up with his captors. The April 1 reading was part of the UC Berkeley Library’s monthly event, Lunch Poems. Listen to the episode and read the transcript on Berkeley News. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Berkeley's associate vice chancellor for research discusses the measures being taken to repatriate Native American ancestral remains and sacred artifacts held by the campus.Listen to the episode and read the transcript on Berkeley News. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today, we're sharing an episode from 2019:Brown v. Board of Education was hailed as a landmark decision for civil rights. But decades later, many consider school integration a failure. UC Berkeley professor Rucker Johnson's 2019 book, Children of the Dream: Why School Integration Works, shows the exact opposite is true. The book looks at decades of studies to show that students of all races who attended integrated schools fared better than those who did not. In this January 2019 interview with Goldman School of Public Policy Dean Henry Brady, Johnson explains how he and his team analyzed the impact of not just integration, but school funding policies and the Head Start program.Listen to the episode and read the transcript on Berkeley News. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Berkeley Talks, Bay Area labor lawyer Bill Sokol discusses the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act, signed into law by President Biden on March 11, 2021."What I want to talk about," began Sokol, "is what I think is an incredibly spectacular piece of legislation, perhaps the largest, deepest, broadest piece of social legislation since the New Deal. And certainly, since the LBJ Great Society more than half a century ago."During his May 12 talk, sponsored by UC Berkeley's Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI), Sokol outlined the ways the act builds a bridge towards economic recovery, invests in racial justice and addresses intergenerational inequities that have worsened in the wake of COVID-19.Listen to the episode and read a transcript on Berkeley News. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Berkeley Talks, Berkeley Journalism Dean Geeta Anand and New York Times reporter and UC Berkeley alumnus Edward Wong discuss international reporting on China and the interplay among journalism, public opinion and government policy.Listen to the episode and read a transcript on Berkeley News. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.