Giving toG.R.O.U.P.
The Geballe Research Opportunities for Undergraduates Program (G.R.O.U.P.) allows undergraduates to participate in the primary activity of a "research university": research. The funds support humanities faculty interested in involving undergraduates in a current research problem, either in a course, on a project or as summer apprentices.
The G.R.O.U.P. program is made possible through the generous support of Dr. and Mrs. Theodore Geballe.
G.R.O.U.P. Course offerings 2011-2012
The American Forest: Its Ecology, History, and Representation
Margaretta Lovell, History of Art
Joe McBride, Environmental Science, Policy and Management (ESPM)
American Studies C112F
This truly interdisciplinary course evolved out of individual faculty research programs in two very different fields: the history of landscape imagery (in painting, photography, and literature) and the history of forest ecology and forest management in the U. S.
Looking at historical and present-day forests, this course is designed to introduce students to both the scientific dimensions of forest environments and to the ways in which those environments have been seen, analyzed, utilized, and represented in this country since the seventeenth century. It investigates geographic facts, cultural value systems, the operation of forest ecosystems, and the mechanisms by which photographers, artists, and writers have engaged the American forest imaginatively.
The course will incorporate research undertaken by Professor McBride concerning the ways land use in California over the past two centuries has affected patterns of forest succession, and current book project research by Professor Lovell on mid-nineteenth century painter Fitz H. Lane. Starting in the 1840s, Lane periodically painted aspects of the logging industry deforesting New England, including images of saw mills, lumber schooners transporting dimensioned lumber, and the construction of ships from that lumber.
For more detailed information on enrolling in this course, please visit the UC Berkeley Online Schedule of Classes.
G.R.O.U.P. Team 2011-2012
The Allied Arts G.R.O.U.P. Research Team
Led by Shannon Jackson (Theater, Dance, & Performance Studies and the Arts Research Center), four Allied Arts GROUP research teams will provide unique opportunities for undergraduates during the 2011-2012 academic year to develop skills as art researchers, writers, interviewers, documentarians, and archivists.
The Art +TIME Research Team will convene a series of working groups and public programs exploring the blurred boundary between visual and performance art. A second research project, the Art + NEIGHBORHOOD Research Team, will convene a series of working groups and public programs to explore alternatives to the gentrification discourse that currently dominates arguments for the role of the arts in neighborhood vitalization. The Art + UNIVERSITY Research Team will develop plans to organize teaching and research activities around a newly-commissioned opera based on the novel Death With Interruptions by Portuguese Nobel laureate Jose Saramago. The fourth research project, the Art + STEM Research Team, will conduct research on the intersection of art, science, and technology, forming a “Berkeley perspective” on the emerging discussion of “STEM to STEAM.”
G.R.O.U.P. Summer Apprenticeships Summer 2011
Jan Brueghel Wiki
Faculty Mentor: Elizabeth Honig (History of Art)
Student Apprentice: Amina Yee
Apprentice Amina Yee assisted with the development of a scholarly wiki prototype focused on the work of artist Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568-1625). The Jan Brueghel Wiki will be the first project of this type in the field of art history, and could possibly form the basis for web-based research in this discipline.
Painting the Inhabited Landscape: Fitz H. Lane and Antebellum Globalism
Faculty Mentor: Professor Margaretta Lovell (History of Art)
Student Apprentice: Cameron McKee
Apprentice Cameron McKee helped gather materials for a book currently under development entitled “Painting the Inhabited Landscape: Fitz H. Lane and Antebellum Globalism.” This in-progress work focuses on New England landscape artist Fitz H. Lane, who was an active artist during the 1845-65 period.
Global Disability Studies: Yelling Clinic in Vietnam
Faculty Mentor: Professor Katherine Sherwood (Art Practice)
Student Apprentice: Sandy Ngo
Apprentice Sandy Ngo helped research the lingering effects of the chemical Agent Orange on three generations of Vietnamese civilians. Ngo’s work over the summer focused on studying the Vietnamese American War (1959-1973), researching the differing political attitudes towards Agent Orange, and analyzing who should be held accountable for its dissemination in Vietnam.