Events

Join the Department of History for this annual gathering of alumni and friends, featuring a faculty panel on a historical theme followed by a catered reception.MORE about History Homecoming - History and Digital Society, or, What Can Berkeley Teach Palo Alto?

Indigenous filmmakers Sueli Maxakali and Isael Maxakali use film to preserve the memories, experiences, rituals, and struggles of their people—confirming an existence denied by the Brazilian government. Long ago, in an act of rebellion and revenge, the Tikmũ’ũn women disappeared into the water, leaving only one girl. These spirit women, the yãmĩyhex, visit Aldeia Verde (Minas Gerais) for several months, returning again and again as they miss their families. In Yãmĩyhex, The Woman-Spirit, villagers enact this history, followed by documentation of the preparations, feasts, and dances that mark the spirits leaving once more. As in their This Land Is Our Land!, screened at BAMPFA last year, the Maxakali are concerned with both the physical and the mythological. It is “a film haunted by a myth, inhabited by the careful construction of rituals and celebration, moved by the force of a spiritual bond with every manifestation of life” (Sheffield DocFest).MORE about Yãmĩyhex, The Woman-Spirit

Join us for a Matrix Distinguished Lecture by Justice Mariano-Florentino (Tino) Cuéllar, the tenth president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The topic of the lecture will be “Reimagining Global Integration.”

A former justice of the Supreme Court of California, Justice Cuéllar served two U.S. presidents at the White House and in federal agencies, and was a faculty member at Stanford University for two decades. While serving in the Obama White House as the president’s special assistant for justice and regulatory policy, he led the Domestic Policy Council teams responsible for civil and criminal justice reform, public health, immigration, transnational regulatory issues, and supporting the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review. He then co-chaired the U.S. Department of Education’s Equity and Excellence Commission, and was a presidential appointee to the Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States. As a California Supreme Court justice, he oversaw reforms of the California court system’s operations to better meet the needs of millions of limited-English speakers.

Born in Matamoros, Mexico, he grew up primarily in communities along the U.S.-Mexico border. He graduated from Harvard College and Yale Law School, and received a Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University. MORE about Reimagining Global Integration - A Matrix Distinguished Lecture by Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar

In his study of the ordinary — and oftentimes unseen — lives of memorials, Andrew Shanken explores the relationship of commemorative monuments to the pulses of daily life.MORE about Townsend Center Book Chat - The Everyday Life of Memorials

This presentation aims to discuss the theory of LiDAR surveying using drones, and a case study of the Tsukuriyama mounded tomb group in Okayama City, Japan, dating from the first half of the fifth century AD during the Kofun period. The group consists of the principal Tsukuriyama tomb, the fourth largest Kofun mound in Japan at 350 m, and six smaller subsidiary mounds. We have been working to reveal a more detailed history of the sites, which are already known to exist, through LiDAR survey. We will examine the theoretical framework of LiDAR survey with reference to spatial archaeology. We will then discuss two approaches to the Tsukuriyama tomb group: a microtopographic analysis, and an analysis focusing on the relationship between LiDAR maps and related things: ancient artifacts and a road.MORE about Weaving history with LiDAR survey - Research on the fifth-century Tsukuriyama mounded tomb group in Japan

Based on his book “Fashion Metropolis Berlin 1836-1939: The Story of the Rise and Destruction of the Jewish Fashion Industry,” Uwe Westphal’s lecture will examine Jewish participation in Berlin’s fashion industry and how Nazi loyalists within the industry contributed to the Holocaust.MORE about Fashion Metropolis Berlin 1836-1939 - The Story of the Rise and Destruction of the Jewish Fashion Industry

Once again, UC Libraries are collaborating on a UC-wide “Love Data Week” series of talks, presentations, and workshops during February 13-17, 2023. All events are free to attend and open to any member of the UC community. With over 20 presentations and workshops, whether you’re working on qualitative or quantitative data, there’s plenty to choose from. Topics include: Data management and sharing for NIH projects, developing your data science portfolio, getting started with qualitative research, using containers for reproducible and scalable computing, introduction to GIS & mapping, joining a Wikipedia edit-a-thon, data visualization
and much more!MORE about Love Data Week

Frank Moore was a well-known disability rights activist, performance artist, shaman, poet, essayist, painter, and musician. Born with cerebral palsy, Moore developed a means to communicate when he was seventeen, using a laser pointer and a board with letters, words, and symbols. Like many members of the disabled community, Frank Moore transcended the physical limitations of his body—allowing his inner self, abounding with ideas, visions, and desires—to explore the possibilities of his life, directing his output and developing into one of the most innovative and unusual artists to come out of the Berkeley art scene. This exhibition, which includes selections from the Frank Moore Papers at The Bancroft Library, complement the Berkeley Art Museum’s Frank Moore / MATRIX 280: Theater of Human Melting, an exhibition which focuses on Moore’s paintings.MORE about Frank Moore Papers - From The Bancroft Library collection

The first Lodestar Speaker Series Event of 2023 will be focused on Addressing Anti-Blackness and Colorism. Panelists include: Nana Adusei-Poku, Assistant Professor, UC Berkeley African Diasporic Art History; Marco T. Lindsey, Associate Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Berkeley Haas; and Chan’Cellore Makanjuola, Multimedia Journalist, Filmmaker/Digital Media Producer, I-House Alum.
MORE about Anti-Blackness and Colorism

You are warmly invited back to campus to attend the Berkeley EECS Annual Research Symposium (BEARS) 2023. BEARS is an opportunity for everyone in the wider UC Berkeley Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences community to come together to hear about some of our latest research and celebrate the year’s Distinguished Alumni. The 2023 lectures will highlight the department's 50th anniversary. The program will highlight the wide-reaching impact of EE+CS at Berkeley in academia and industry over the past five decades.MORE about Berkeley EECS Annual Research Symposium - EECS a 50 Years

The pandemic and the war in Ukraine have reshaped global geopolitics, trade, and security. In this panel discussion, a group of distinguished scholars will address the possible implications for the global multilateral order established in the second half of the 20th century.MORE about Economics and Geopolitics in US International Relations: China, Europe, and the Global South

Whether journalists are reporting from a city, rural America, or the border, this conversation will explore mental health, consent, and cultural competency when covering stories that involve subjects who are undocumented. We will hear from mental health experts working directly with the undocumented community, and from award-winning journalists whose stories have involved the essential narratives of subjects who were undocumented.MORE about Reporting in the Undocumented Community - Consent, Mental Health, and Trauma

Learn to recognize and honor your own intuition, develop assertive body language and powerful verbal skills, and practice simple and effective physical strike techniques! Open to all genders!MORE about EMPOWERMENT 101 (Intro to personal safety)

In what ways can a Center for Latin American Studies contribute to decentering the very notion of Latin America? To what extent can often overlooked sensemaking practices be centered in a Center for Latin American Studies? How much can margins take center stage? Wapichana Indigenous artist Gustavo Caboco welcomes us to experience the Center for Latin American Studies at UC Berkeley as a site of critical inquiry and aesthetic practice, not as an enclosed space to be taken for granted but as a fertile soil for conjuring alternate itineraries, vocabularies, and belongings.

Introducing his exhibition Coma Colonial at CLAS, he urges us to confront the deep comatose that has historically shaped modern Western archives, libraries, museums, and other knowledge repositories. Gustavo Caboco's practice extends across embroidery, film, installations, paintings, and performances. In dialogue with Naine Terena, Natalia Brizuela, and Jamille Pinheiro Dias, he invites the Berkeley community to engage with Coma Colonial.MORE about Coma Colonial - An Exhibition by Gustavo Caboco

Make finger puppets with guest artist Maya Noga Djiji. In this workshop, we will use fabric, yarn, buttons, needles, and thread to create little finger characters that can be simple or intricate depending on the student’s level. Djiji applies exuberant spirit across an array of mediums, including ceramic, painting, installation, stained glass, and fashion.MORE about Finger Puppets with Maya Noga Djiji

Black Life is thrilled to welcome Oakland-born filmmaker Paige Taul back to the East Bay for a screening and conversation about her work. Taul employs experimental cinema to, in her words, “engage with and challenge assumptions of Black cultural expression and notions of belonging.” Her filmmaking practice also “tests the boundaries of identity and self-identification through autoethnography to approach notions of racial authenticity in veins such as religion, style, language, and other Black community-based experiences.” This program includes films that reflect on personal histories, taste, and style, via the exploration and documentation of people, places, architectures, and accessories.

MORE about Black Life - An Evening with Paige Taul

Made six months after the end of the war, this groundbreaking documentary presents a newly independent Algeria facing the immense task of social and economic reconstruction in its urban and rural areas. The film was initially censored in both France and Algeria.MORE about Algeria, Year Zero

DIASPORA Magazine is an art, style & culture magazine made by and for Black students at UC Berkeley. Join the Student Union and DIASPORA for an evening Art Exhibit showcasing Black artists and creatives.MORE about DIASPORA Art Exhibit

What does theoretical computer science have to do with art and the movies? Alvy Ray Smith, who has done it all, tells that story. Born before computers and pixels, he has ridden the Moore’s law supernova wave all the way from the first pixels to the first digital movie, Toy Story, from Pixar, the company he cofounded. But before that, he was an oil painter in New Mexico and then took a decade-long voyage through computation theory for his PhD work and early professorhood. A cover of Scientific American brought him an early fame of sorts and a request to design the cover for the annual proceedings of the Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science. Smith’s talk for the Simons Institute will feature that FOCS cover, used for 38 years in print and three more as the proceedings went digital. He executed it with pre-digital technology but uses it to explain the central dogma that drives much of modern computer graphics. Smith spent the last 10 years writing a book called A Biography of the Pixel. His talk will reference the book, but many parts of his discussion will be UC Berkeley specific, having to do with the computation-theory crowd and its influence.MORE about Theoretically Speaking — What Do the Theory of Computing and the Movies Have in Common?

8 DAYS AT WARE is the result of a multi-year investigation into a juvenile detention center in Louisiana where a series of tragedies have occurred in recent years, including the deaths of Solan Peterson and Jordan Bachman in 2019.

Join David Barstow, the Reva and David Logan Distinguished Chair in Investigative Journalism and Jennifer Redfearn, Director of the Documentary Film Program at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism for a Q&A with filmmakers following the private screening.MORE about 8 Days At Ware