Townsend Center for the Humanities

Michael Lucey

Berkeley Book Chats
220 Stephens | Sept 25, 12-1 pm

Imagine trying to tell someone something about yourself and your desires for which there are no words. In Someone, Michael Lucey (Comparative Literature and French) considers characters from 20th-century French literary texts whose sexual forms prove difficult to conceptualize or represent.

Seth Lerer

Epistemology of the Crosshatch: Towards a Creative History of the Early Modern Hand
220 Stephens | Fri Sept 27, Noon

Seth Lerer, Distinguished Professor of Literature (UC San Diego), examines how cross-hatching — the controlled marking of parallel lines — became the great technique through which visual artists of the early modern era discovered the representation of physical and emotional reality.

Public Speaking for Graduate Students

Application Deadline: Sept 27, 2019

Lura Dolas conducts a two-part workshop designed to teach graduate students techniques to help them deliver job talks and professional presentations clearly, confidently, and persuasively.

Paul Chan, Una's Lecturer

The Bather's Dilemma
315 Wheeler | Tues, Oct 29 | 5 pm

Artist Paul Chan, 2019-20 Una’s Lecturer, explores the figure of the bather as an embodiment of pleasure that is linked to the act of renewal.

He also participates in a Conversation with UC Berkeley faculty on Oct 30 at 5 pm in the Geballe Room.

Campus Humanities Events

Mark Morris Dance Group, Sep 20

And Life Goes On..., Sep 20

War and Peace, Part III: The Year 1812, Sep 20

Help (Not) Wanted: Immigration Politics in Japan, Sep 20

Scaling Cybersecurity Support for Civil Society, Sep 20

MENA Salon: The Israeli Elections, Sep 20

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Upcoming Deadlines

Featured Working Groups

Terra Infirma speaks to the fractured and unstable nature of the human relationship with land in urban contexts.

Russian Peripheries considers the Russian Empire, Soviet Union, and Russian Federation alongside Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Siberia, to query the linkages and discontinuities that constitute Russia’s “near abroad.”

The Colloquium in the Studies of Music working group promotes discussion and collaboration in the studies of music.

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Art of Writing teaches UC Berkeley undergraduates to write clearly and eloquently in a variety of nonfiction forms.

For students whose writing level has advanced beyond the Reading & Composition requirement, Art of Writing funds small seminars that foster collaborative writing communities.

Art of Writing also runs a Summer Writing Institute to help graduate students refine their skills as teachers of writing, and presents campus events featuring acclaimed authors and critics.

Art of Writing at the Townsend Center for the Humanities is supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, a private donation, and the Daniel E. Koshland, Jr. Chancellor's Distinguished Chair in Writing.

Visit the Art of Writing website to learn more.

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