Global comics exhibit draws on librarian’s diverse background

Story by Damaris Moore, Library Communications
Video by Campus News Services; see story by Public Affairs

In 1991, Liladhar Pendse was working in food services at UCLA Catering after a move from the Soviet Union in search of a fresh start. A polyglot fluent in seven languages and familiar with an additional 13, Pendse frequently visited the library to borrow books from Russia and India. There, he encountered a librarian who ended up changing the course of his life.

Eudora Loh encouraged Pendse to attend classes and to consider librarianship as a career. “I was intimidated by librarians and computers,” Pendse recounts, “but she was so kind, showing me how to locate a book and walking me to the stacks. We started talking, became friends, and in time she encouraged me to attend classes at a local community college.”

Twenty five years and four degrees later, Pendse combines his passion for diversity, his love of language and his quest to share knowledge and information as a scholar librarian at UC Berkeley. This month, Pendse’s rich understanding of global materials is on display in an exhibit of comics and graphic novels from a dizzying array of cultures, including Egypt, Poland, South Africa, Israel, the Czech Republic, Colombia, and Japan.

“Beyond Tintin and Superman: The Diversity of Global Comics” can be viewed in Doe Library’s Bernice Layne Brown Gallery through March 2017. Pendse hopes that the exhibit will inspire viewers to reflect on issues treated in the materials — around censorship, race relations, political agendas and gender biases.

“The world has always been a violent place,” says Pendse. “And so my question as a professional is how can I contribute to peace? Through building our uniquely rich collections, and making information available, I believe I am contributing to increased understanding in the world and in cultures at large.”

Liladhar Pendse curated the Doe Library exhibit “Beyond Tintin and Superman: The Diversity of Global Comics.” (Photo by Alejandro Serrano for the University Library)
UC Berkeley Librarian Liladhar Pendse curated the “Beyond Tintin and Superman: The Diversity of Global Comics” exhibit, which can be viewed in the Doe Library through March 2017. Pendse collaborated with a number of skilled Library colleagues on the exhibit.  (Photo by Alejandro Serrano for the University Library)

From India to Belarus and the U.S.

Pendse grew up primarily in Mumbai, but spent parts of his youth in several regions of the then-Soviet Union due to the tumultuous political climate of the time. Although he had earned an M.D. in Internal Medicine in Belarus, Pendse realized he had to start over when he moved to the United States. He worked a variety of jobs while living in Los Angeles, and eventually found that education was his path to success.

He earned his BA in History and Arabic/Islamic Studies with honors from UCLA in 2004. After working in the UCLA library, he earned his MLIS and an MA in Latin American Studies. Following positions at UCLA’s Library and at Princeton, he came to Berkeley’s University Library in 2012. In 2013, he defended his Ph.D. at UCLA.

Growing up in three very different cultures inspired Pendse to focus his work on inclusion and acceptance of different types of people. He hopes that the materials in the “Beyond Tintin and Superman: The Diversity of Global Comics” exhibit help break down cultural barriers by offering authentic, personal accounts of social and political issues around the world.

The comics on display were curated by Pendse and include comics from his own personal collection. There is a copy of the DC Comics 1987 classic, Watchmen, as well as graphic novels and comics covering atomic bomb survivors, young Yemeni women forced into marriage, a collection created in response to the January 2015 terrorist attack on the French satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo, love in a Japanese boys’ boarding school, and a translation of a two-volume work of a French professor of Middle Eastern studies/historian and an award-winning artist that tells the complicated stories of the United States involvement in the Middle East.

Librarian Liladhar Pendse enjoys the energy and diversity of Berkeley's Sproul Plaza. (Photo by Alejandro Serrano for the University Library)
Librarian Liladhar Pendse appreciates the energy and diversity of Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza. (Photo by Alejandro Serrano for the University Library)

“One person, one tongue”

At UC Berkeley, Pendse’s title is as long as an arm — Librarian for East European, Armenian, Caucasus, Central Asian, Balkan, Baltic, and Mongolian Studies, and Acting Librarian for African Studies.

His knowledge of many different languages has empowered him to work effectively across a diverse group of faculty, students and visiting scholars. Along with fluency in Marathi and Hindi/Urdu, Russian, Gujarati, Portuguese, Spanish, and English, he is at an intermediate level in Azerbaijani, Sanskrit, Arabic, and Turkish; and basic in Armenian, Romanian, French, Italian, Swahili, Polish, Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian, Slovak, and Turkmen.

Previous exhibits Pendse has helped curate include displays of posters and printed works from Cuba and Soviet Union during the Cold war, and on the 1867 purchase of Alaska, highlighting the Library’s Russian-American collections. He is involved in planning several future exhibits, one on popular literature in Brazil, and another on Bollywood and Africa.

Asked about his extraordinary gift for languages, Pendse ties it to an abiding interest in understanding between cultures. A few years ago, an elderly woman in Istanbul repeated a saying to him: “one person one tongue (Bir lisan bir insan).” Pendse comments that “the more languages, the better you can reach out to other people.”

Pendse’s varied life path has fostered in him a deep personal appreciation of diversity. “The world of Berkeley is very meaningful to me,” he notes, especially “the spirit of flexibility and seeing things from others’ perspectives. Maybe you don’t agree, but you listen and you learn. Passing through Sproul Plaza on my way home from work, I feel invigorated and enriched by all the different people and activities. The vibrancy and the diversity of our community always inspires me!”

Exhibit opening reception
Date: Friday, October 14
Time: 5-7pm
Place: Morrison Library

Brown Gallery Viewing 5-5:30pm
Welcome & Introduction at 5:30pm with Liladhar Pendse, Exhibit Curator
with special guest speakers Ron Turner & Ivy Mills, Ph.D.
Enjoy the Exhibit 6:30-7pm

Ron Turner is the founder of the Last Gasp, a book and underground comics publisher and distributor based in San Francisco.
UC Berkeley Lecturer Ivy Mills, Ph.D. specializes in the visual and literary cultures of Africa and the African diaspora.

The Library attempts to offer programs in accessible, barrier-free settings. If you think you may require disability-related accommodations, please contact the event sponsor prior to the event. The event sponsor is Ashley Bacchi, 510-664-7737.


UC Berkeley Commemorates the 80th Anniversary of the Spanish Civil War

D.W. Parker, John Robinson, and Langston Hughes (Aragon), September 1967. Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade photograph collection. The Bancroft Library, BANC PIC 1988.047, folder 39
BANC PIC 1988.047, folder 39

The Spanish Civil War began 80 years ago this past July. UC Berkeley marks the important anniversary with a series of cultural events, including poetry readings, films, exhibits, performances, book talks, and public discussions. Visit www.spanishcivilwar80.berkeley.edu to learn about all upcoming events as well as the two library installations in The Bancroft Library and the Townsend Center.


The Gift to Sing: Exhibit in The Bancroft Library Gallery

The Gift to Sing: Highlights of the Leon F. Litwack & Bancroft Library African American Collections

When: September 23, 2016 – February 17, 2017
Where: The Bancroft Library Gallery, 10am-4pm, Monday-Friday (excluding holidays)

The Gift to Sing - Exhibit in The Bancroft Library Gallery
Home to Harlem. By Claude McKay, 1965. From the collection of Leon F. Litwack. Digitally altered from the original for the exhibition texts.

For decades professor emeritus of history Leon F. Litwack has been accumulating what is arguably the world’s finest private collection of books on African American history and culture. This exhibition displays highlights of the collection that will be coming to The Bancroft Library as a bequest. The Litwack collection is particularly noteworthy for its Harlem Renaissance first editions in strikingly illustrated dust jackets. The exhibition includes books with distinguished provenance such as a copy of Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave with an inscription by the famous abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. Complementing the Litwack books are treasures from Bancroft’s significant African American holdings, including the first book by an African American, Phyllis Wheatley’s Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, published in 1773.

Post submitted by:
David Faulds, Curator of Rare Books and Literary Manuscripts, The Bancroft Library


Trio of fall exhibits offer diverse pleasures

Fall 2016 Exhibits at the UC Berkeley Library

Three fall exhibits at the Library—on global comics, the Spanish Civil War, and African-American history and culture—testify to the extraordinary richness of our collections. We invite you to come tour the exhibits at your leisure.

“Beyond Tintin and Superman: The Diversity of Global Comics” showcases comics and graphic novels from a dizzying array of countries, including Egypt, Poland, South Africa, Israel, the Czech Republic, South Africa, Colombia, and Japan. While treating societal issues generated by censorship, race relations, political agendas and gender biases, the comics also provide great enjoyment through their striking imagery and cultural diversity.  See a video about the exhibit. (Doe Library – Bernice Layne Brown Gallery; opens Sept 19).
Exhibit opening reception:
Date: Friday, October 14
Time: 5-7pm
Place: Morrison Library

Brown Gallery Viewing 5-5:30pm
Welcome & Introduction at 5:30pm with Liladhar Pendse, Exhibit Curator
with special guest speakers Ron Turner & Ivy Mills, Ph.D.
Enjoy the Exhibit 6:30-7pm

Ron Turner is the founder of the Last Gasp, a book and underground comics publisher and distributor based in San Francisco.
UC Berkeley Lecturer Ivy Mills, Ph.D. specializes in the visual and literary cultures of Africa and the African diaspora.

The Library attempts to offer programs in accessible, barrier-free settings. If you think you may require disability-related accommodations, please contact the event sponsor prior to the event. The event sponsor is Ashley Bacchi.

“The Gift to Sing: Highlights of the Leon F. Litwack and the Bancroft Library African American Collections” includes treasures such as Harlem Renaissance first editions with strikingly illustrated dust jackets, and a 1845 copy of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave with an inscription by the famous abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. One of UC Berkeley’s iconic professors and a noted scholar, Leon Litwack retired from a storied career in 2007. His collection—arguably the world’s finest private collection of books on African American history and culture—will be coming to the Bancroft as a bequest. (The Bancroft Library Gallery, opens Sept. 23)

Guerra Civil at 80” marks the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). A visual and textual display of the struggle to defend the Second Spanish Republic, the exhibition documents the role of the Republicans and the Nationalists; the impact on civilians and on American volunteers; and the intense creative response from within and outside Spain. (Bancroft Library, 2nd floor corridor, between Bancroft and Doe, through June 2017)

A companion exhibit, “Incite the Spirit: Poster Art of the Spanish Civil War” will be on exhibit through December 16 at the Townsend Center for the Humanities, 220 Stephens Hall. Please visit spanishcivilwar80.berkeley.edu to learn more about the UC Berkeley events commemorating the 80th Anniversary of the Spanish Civil War.

Post submitted by:
Damaris Moore, Library Communications Office


Russian America or Russkaia America

Russian America or Russkaia America
An exhibition that is dedicated to the 150th Anniversary of purchase of Alaska by the United States.

Russian America exhibit in Moffitt Library through December 2016

Where: Moffitt Library Gallery
When: September 2016 through December 2016

The discovery of Alaska by Vitus Bering in 1741 marked a new era in the expansion of Russian Empire eastwards. The “Russian America” was born in 1784, when on Kodiak Island, Grigory Shelikhov, a Russian fur trader, founded the Three Saints Bay, the first permanent Russian settlement in Alaska. In 1808, under the charter from the Czar, the Russian-American company established a permanent settlement near today’s Sitka that was called “Novo-Arkhangel’sk”.  The Company, chartered in 1799, managed Russian America for the Imperial Government from that time until 1867 when the United States purchased what is now known as Alaska. The Company also established posts or conducted business in other Pacific Rim areas such as Siberia, Hawaii, and California; and attempted, unsuccessfully, to initiate trade with Japan.

The Sitka settlement was followed soon after by the foundation of the first Russian settlement in California in 1812, when the Fort Ross was founded as the southern-most outpost of the Russian-American company.  The term “Russkaia Kaliforniia or Russian California” is used to indicate Russian presence in California until the sale of the Fort Ross holdings in 1841 to Captain Sutter. Russian America continued to exist until the sale of the Alaska to the United States in 1867.

The exhibition highlights early Russian efforts to colonize North America using the trade and Russian Orthodoxy along with the Imperial expansion into California and finally ends with the purchase of Alaska by the United States. Several rare books on Aleuts, Russian trade in the region, Russian California along with the facsimile of the first Russian language newspaper in California-the Alaska Herald are exhibited.

Post submitted by:
Liladhar R. Pendse, PhD
Librarian for East European, Armenian, Caucasus, Central Asian, Balkan, Baltic,and Mongolian Studies


Oakland Asian Branch Library exhibit at the Ethnic Studies Library

Oakland Asian Branch Library image exhibit at Ethnic Studies Library, UC Berkeley

The first of its kind in the United States, the Asian Branch Library was founded in 1975 to serve the Asian community in Oakland. Today, this branch in Oakland Chinatown is one of the busiest in the Oakland Public Library system. It houses materials in 8 different languages including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Khmer, Lao, Tagalog, and Thai. The Oakland Chinatown Oral History Project documents this living history through interviews of long-time branch advocates, librarians, and patrons spanning four decades. The exhibit was curated by Lora Chan & Roy Chan of the Oakland Chinatown Oral History Project.

The exhibit will be on display through October 2016
Ethnic Studies Library
30 Stephens Hall
University of California, Berkeley

See a short documentary on the history of the Oakland Asian Branch Library.


Guerra Civil @ 80

September 1, 2016 – July 1, 2017
2nd floor corridor between The Bancroft Library and Doe Library

Image citation: Josep Renau. Hoy más que nunca / Victoria, 1938. [Victory: Now more than ever.] Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, Bay Area Post Records. The Bancroft Library, BANC MSS 71/105z, folder 40
Image citation: Josep Renau. Hoy más que nunca / Victoria, 1938. [Victory: Now more than ever.] Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, Bay Area Post Records. The Bancroft Library, BANC MSS 71/105z, folder 40
Marking the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, the exhibition Guerra Civil @ 80 features selections from The Bancroft Library’s Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, Bay Area Post records and photographic collections, along with posters, books, pamphlets, and other ephemera. A visual and textual display of the struggle to defend the Second Spanish Republic, the exhibition documents the role of both the Republicans, who were defending the democratically elected government, and the Nationalists, the right-wing rebel forces led by General Francisco Franco. The exhibition also addresses how the war, which unfolded from 1936 to 1939, affected the lives of the people of Spain and American volunteers fighting on the front lines or assisting in the war effort, as well as how the conflict precipitated an intense creative response from within and outside Spain.

INCITE THE SPIRIT: POSTER ART OF THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR will be on exhibit from September 6 – December 16, 2016 at the Townsend Center for the Humanities, 220 Stephens Hall

Please visit http://spanishcivilwar80.berkeley.edu to learn more about the UC Berkeley events commemorating the 80th Anniversary of the Spanish Civil War.

Post submitted by Theresa Salazar, Curator for Western Americana, The Bancroft Library and Claude Potts, Librarian for Romance Languages, The University Library


Student-designed exhibit in Doe Library explores history and social justice

Library Prize winner Andrea Ikeda

Visit the library’s new exhibit, Cowboys, Indians, and Aliens: White Supremacy in the Klamath Basin, 1826-1946. The exhibit was designed by Andrea Ikeda, a recipient of the 2015 Charlene Conrad Liebau Library Prize for Undergraduate Research. It is also based on her prize-winning research paper, which you can read on eScholarship here: Cowboys, Indians, and Aliens: White Supremacy in the Klamath Basin, 1826-1946.

Andrea’s paper examines the relationalities between two historical phenomena happening in the Klamath Basin: the dispossession and violence against Modoc Indians in the nineteenth century and the internment of Japanese Americans at the Tule Lake Segregation Center during World War II. Her research not only led her to the archives to understand and explore the past, but also has deep implications for contemporary struggles for social justice. To find out more about the exhibit, including links to Andrea’s sources and information on the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust and the fight to preserve the Tule Lake site, visit the accompanying LibGuide.

The exhibit is on the second floor of Doe Library, just outside of the Heyns Reading Room. It will be up through September 30th and can be viewed during Doe Library’s open hours. We encourage the campus community to find out more about the Charlene Conrad Liebau Library Prize for Undergraduate Research and read more about the recipients of the 2016 Library Prize.

We would like to thank Andrea for curating the exhibit and for sharing her research. We would also like to thank Aisha Hamilton for her design and installation work.


Post contributed by Sine Hwang Jensen and Shannon K. Supple

Image courtesy of Kathy Ikeda


The Papyrus in the Crocodile: 150 Years of Exploration, Excavation, Collection, and Stewardship at Berkeley

The Papyrus in the Crocodile, The Bancroft Library Gallery, May 5 - July 29

The collections assembled by Berkeley’s patrons and collectors over the last 150 years form the foundation of many of the university’s academic disciplines. This unprecedented exhibition, sponsored by the Mellon Foundation and co-curated by graduate students from the History of Art Department, brings together materials from The Bancroft Library, the Hearst Museum of Anthropology, the Environmental Design Archives, the C. V. Starr East Asian Library, the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, and the Berkeley Art Museum. Read the Berkeley News article for more information.

Date: May 5 to July 29, 2016

Place: The Bancroft Library Gallery

The Bancroft Library Gallery is open Monday-Friday, 10am-4pm, excluding holidays.


Post contributed by Alison Wannamaker, Library Graphics Office

Image courtesy of the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley.