Arts & Humanities
New Alumni Publications in Art History
Check out these new publications by U.C. Berkeley Art History Alumni, available through UC Library Search.
The Death of Myth on Roman Sarcophagi: Allegory and Visual Narrative in the Late Empire, by Mont Allen.
Rethinking the Public Fetus: Historical Perspectives on the Visual Culture of Pregnancy, by Jessica M. Dandona.
Toshiko Takaezu; Worlds Within, essay by Diana Greenwold.
Smithsonian Asian Pacific American History Art and Culture in 101 Objects, essay by Diana Greenwold.
Female Cultural Production in Modern Italy. Literature, Art and Intellectual History, by Sharon Hecker (ed.).
Collective Body: Aleksandr Deineka at the Limit of Socialist Realism, by Christina Kiaer.
Henry van de Velde: Designing Modernism, by Katherine Kuenzli.
Henry van de Velde: Selected Essays 1889-1914, by Katherine Kuenzli.
Exquisite Dreams: The Art and Life of Dorothea Tanning, by Amy Lyford.
Albrecht Durer and the Depiction of Cultural Differences in Renaissance Europe, by Heather Madar.
Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction, essay by Bibiana Obler.
Expressionists: Kandinsky, Munter and the Blue Rider, essay by Bibiana Obler.
Art for the Asking: Check-Out Art From The Graphic Arts Loan Collection At The Morrison Library August 26 & 27
The Graphic Arts Loan Collection (GALC) at the Morrison Library has been checking out art to UC Berkeley students, staff, and faculty since 1958 and it is back again this year!
The purpose of the GALC since its inception has been to put art in the hands of UC Berkeley students (and the best way to appreciate art is to live with it!), so on August 26 and 27, from 10am to 4pm, UC Berkeley students can come to the Morrison Library (101 Doe Library) and check-out up to two pieces of art from the GALC’s collection to take home and hang on their walls for the academic year. The prints will be available to students on a first come, first served basis.
If you would like to see what we have before you come to the Morrison Library, all the prints are available to browse online at the Graphic Arts Loan Collection website. Not everything in the collection will be available at the Morrison Library these days, but much of the collection will. Please note that the Graphic Arts Loan Collection will not be available to staff and faculty members during this time, but only available to UC Berkeley students. Starting August 29th students can reserve prints from the collection through the GALC website, and on September 9th, faculty and staff can begin reserving prints. Any questions about the GALC can be directed to graphicarts-library@berkeley.edu.
Carrie Mae Weems, Untitled: Trees With Mattress Culebra en el Petate, Sergio Sanchez Santamaria Faith Ringgold, Jo Baker’s Birthday
Register to Vote!
It’s an election year. If you haven’t registered to vote yet, there’s still time! In California, you need to be registered at least 15 days before Election Day (this year that’s Tuesday, November 5). You can click on the link to the right to register.
As a quick reminder, there are two criteria to register. First (legal status), you must be a United States citizen and a resident of California. Second (age), you must be 18 years old or older on Election Day. You do not need a California state identification to register.
Once you register, you will be able to either vote by mail or at the polls on election day. Click on the link to the right to find out more information or to watch a video about how the process works.
If you aren’t from this state, be aware that California residents vote on multiple propositions alongside United States president. You can request an Official Voter Information Guide from the State which will contain a short blurb with pros/cons on each item for consideration. You can also choose to take a look at what will (probably) be on the ballot on Ballotpedia. Those propositions will include things like Mental Health Services; the right to marry; involuntary servitude; and more.
If you’re wanting to learn more about voting as a right, consider looking at this ACLU Voting 101 Toolkit:
Speculative Fiction: Hugo Award Winners in 2024!
To my delight, the Hugo winners have been announced. Check out the full list of categories, short lists, and winners on the Hugo Awards website. On my side, I’ve read the short stories (i.e., less than 7,500 words) and now am making my way through the novelettes (i.e., 7,500 to 17,500 words). I am enjoying myself immensely.
This year’s novel (i.e., 40,000 words or more) winner is Emily Tesh’s 2023 Some Desperate Glory (Tor Books pub., UC Library Book Search).
T. Kingfisher’s 2023 A Fairy Tale Transformed: Thornhedge (Tor, Titan UK pub., UC Library Search) won the prize for novella (i.e., 17,500-40,000 words).
In novelettes, we’ve got Naomi Kritzer’s “The Year Without Sunshine” (Uncanny Magazine, November-December 2023, fulltext).
In short stories, there is Naomi Kritzer’s “Better Living Through Algorithms” (Clarkesworld, May 2023, fulltext).
In graphic novels, we’ve got the 11th volume of SAGA by Brian K. Vaughan, art by Fiona Staples (Image, pub., UC Library Search).
Then, in games or interactive works, Baldur’s Gate 3 (Larian Studios, prod., website).
There is more, but this post is long enough. I encourage you to check out the full list linked at the top. And, If you have time, I hope you enjoy.
Signing off,
Bee (Lit/DH Librarian)
Prof. Elizabeth Abel Talks Odd Affinities and Virginia Woolf
Mrs. Dalloway’s Literary and Garden Arts (website) got there first, nonetheless I’m thrilled to share the news that Prof. Elizabeth Abel released Odd Affinities : Virginia Woolf’s Shadow Genealogies with the University of Chicago Press this year.
Prof. Abel (faculty page) teaches with the UC Berkeley English Department. They teach courses on Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group as well as broader overviews of 19th and 20th century English literatures. This fall, they are leading courses “Memoir and Memory” as well as on graduate readings and special study.
In Odd Affinities, Prof. Abel discusses Woolf’s influence beyond a female tradition, looking at echoes of Woolf work in four major writers from diverse cultural contexts: Nella Larsen, James Baldwin, Roland Barthes, and W. G. Sebald. Looking at those “odd affinities,” Abel looks at how “Woolf’s career and the transnational modernist genealogy was constituted by her elusive and shifting presence.”
You can access Abel’s book through the UC Library Search, where you can access it online and download the fulltext.
Correspondance complète de Rousseau ONLINE
In partnership with the Voltaire Foundation, the Correspondance complète de Rousseau ONLINE makes Ralph Leigh’s critical edition in 52 volumes in the original French-language available as an ebook collection for the first time. The digital corpus gathers together all 8,000 letters written to and by one of the most important figures of eighteenth-century intellectual history, as well as the correspondence between third parties relating to the writer and his time. Drafts and copies have been collated against the original manuscripts and all variants reproduced. The extensive annotations identify individuals, events and places, explain the linguistic usages of the eighteenth century, give bibliographical information and clarify obscure allusions.
This library purchase was made possible with the generous support from the Archie & Harriett Maclean Endowed Fund for French Culture.
Booker Prize Longlist!
To my delight, the Booker Prize longlist has been announced! I’m rather looking forward to a couple long weekends reading through these.
For the list, I’ve gone ahead and included the Booker Prizes’ official links for title and authors as well then a UC Search or Berkeley Public Library link in the parenthesis.
- Wild Houses by Colin Barrett (UC Search)
- Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel (UC Search)
- James by Percival Everett (Berkeley Public Library)
- Orbital by Samantha Harvey (UC Search)
- Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner (Berkeley Public Library)
- My Friends by Hisham Matar (UC Search)
- This Strange Eventful History by Claire Messud (UC Search)
- Held by Anne Michaels (UC Search)
- Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange (UC Search)
- Enlightenment by Sarah Perry (UC Search)
- Playground by Richard Powers (UC Search)
- The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden (UC Search)
- Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood (I’ll have to buy this one)
Keep in mind that you can request these books at the Oakland or San Francisco Public Libraries as well.
I hope we all enjoy!
Col·lecció Breus from the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB)
The Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB) makes available the transcripts of debates, lectures, seminars, and symposia given by luminaries from both sides of the Atlantic over the years. Here are a few of these printed lectures, now published as bilingual pamphlets by Editorial Breus, now in the UC Berkeley Library collection:
98. La literatura y la música son parte de mí / Literature and music are part of me – Julieta Venegas
96. El món que necessitem / The World we need – Donna Haraway – Marta Segarra
92. Arrautza, ou, huevo, oeuf, egg / Arrautza, ou, huevo, oeuf, egg – Bernardo Atxaga
91. La revolució avui / Revolution today – Angela Davis
81. El viejo futuro de la democracia / Democracy´s old future – Pedro Olalla
67. L’habitació, la casa, el carrer / Room, House, Street – Marta Segarra
63. La ciutat del dissens. Espai comú i pluralitat / The City of Dissent: Shared Space and Plurality – Xavier Antich
58. L’È́tica de láutoestima i el nou esperit del capitalisme / The Ethics of Self-esteem and the New Spirit of Capitalism – Josep Maria Ruiz Simón
49. De Cartago a Chiapas: crónica intempestiva / From Carthage to Chiapas: An Untimely Chronicle – Juan Villoro
46. Com si Déu no existís / Come se Dio non ci fosse – Paolo Flores d’Arcais
44. Estado de excepción y genealogía del poder / The State of Exception and the Genealogy of Power – Giorgio Agamben
40. Violència d’Estat, guerra, resitència / State Violence, War, Resistance – Judith Butler
35. Artesanos de la belleza de la propia vida / Crafters of the Beauty of Life Itself – Ángel Gabilondo
32. L’ambigüitat de la puresa / The Ambiguity of Purity – Lluís Duch
30. L’amistat / On Friendship – Jordi Llovet
18. Las lógicas del delirio / Logics of Delusion – Remo Bodei
View all publications in the CCC series on the publisher’s website.
2023/24 Art Practice and University Library Printmaking Award Winner: Christine Santos
Christine Santos, recipient of the 2023/24 Art Practice and University Library Printmaking Award, is a 2024 graduate of the Art Practice Department at the University of California Berkeley. Two of Christine’s prints, Rainbow State Fantasies and Urgent Lexicon Pinay, have been added to the Graphic Arts Loan Collection and can be borrowed by students at UC Berkeley starting this fall.
Below is an Artist Statement from Christine about her work:
I work in digital painting and recently photocopy art, printmaking, and installation. Pulling from state digital archives and my digital snapshots, I digitally manipulate and assemble them to address colonial omission, aesthetic failure, and non-imperial formations. Connections to speculative fiction, DIY culture, cyberfeminism, and Pop Art movement can be made from my work. For example, Archival Densities is an installation series using altered state records from the Digital Archive of Hawai’i to stage fictional events of resistance. I received the AY 2023 – 2024 Center of Race and Gender Student Research Grant to conduct photographic research at Hawai’i’s Bishop Museum to advance my screen print work in Archival Densities. This includes Rainbow State Fantasies, which is now a part of the Graphics Arts Loan Collection.
Rainbow State Fantasies is a screen print monoprint that complicates the popular romanized colonial idea of the “South Seas Island Paradise”. The failed aesthetic of the American curio postcard image of Diamond Head, Hawai’i and suggestive tropical plant silhouettes articulate a visual resistance to this colonial imagination that lingers in Hawai’i’s socioeconomic material culture related to tourism media. Resistance pedagogy and history informs this work as well as Urgent Lexicon: Pinay, the accompanying screen print to this award. Urgent Lexicon: Pinay is inspired by the process of reading Pinay Power by Melinda de Jesus. In this print, I made a handwritten account of the times “pinay” is mentioned and layered it to the point of abstraction.
You can find more about my work here: csantos.xyz
The Art Practice & University Library Printmaking Award is given to the undergraduate student in the Department of Art Practice who has demonstrated an astute understanding of printmaking techniques, as well as an advanced ability to express themselves through the medium of printmaking. This award was established in 2018 by the Department of Art Practice and the University Library, and is given to one or two students each academic year.
Pride Month 2024
Celebrate Pride Month with our handpicked selection of books by LGBTQ+ authors and characters! Discover powerful stories that shine a light on diverse identities and experiences in the LGBTQ+ community and check out more at our Overdrive.
Dr. William Lipsky
Manuel Betancourt
Geena Rocero
K. Ancrum
Ruth Madievsky
Julia Armfield