Past Avenali Lectures

Author Marilynne Robinson is joined in discussion by UC Berkeley faculty panelists Dorothy Hale (English), Jonathan Sheehan (History), and Robert Hass (English) on the topic of Religion and the Art of the Novel.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marilynne Robinson is a professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her Avenali lecture considers the question of audience in the work of Shakespeare.

Avenali Chair in the Humanities Eelco Runia in discussion with Hayden White (UC Santa Cruz, emeritus), Martin Jay (UC Berkeley), Carol Gluck (Columbia), Harry Harootunian (Columbia), and Ethan Kleinberg (Wesleyan).

In his second Avenali lecture, Lawrence Weschler will consider a spectrum of convergent effects, including apophenia (the tendency of humans to see patterns where none exist), homage, quotation, cryptomnesia (verbatim appropriation without realizing you’re doing so), and even outright plagiarism.

In the first of two Avenali lectures, Weschler will explore the connection between art and science, focusing on the thinking of artists Robert Irwin and David Hockney, and offering a fresh consideration of Rembrandt's Anatomy Lesson.

Avenali Chair in the Humanities Ursula K. Le Guin has published twenty-one novels, eleven volumes of short stories, four collections of essays, twelve books for children, seven volumes of poetry and four of translation, and has received many awards. Her best-known fantasy works, the Earthsea books, have sold millions of copies and have been translated into sixteen languages.

Avenali Chair in the Humanities Wendell Berry in discussion with UC Berkeley faculty panelists Michael Pollan (Graduate School of Journalism), Robert Hass (English), Miguel Altieri (Environmental Science, Policy and Management), and Anne-Lise Francois (English and Comparative Literature).

Literary theorist and critic Fredric Jameson is William A. Lane Professor in the Program in Literature and Romance Studies at Duke University. He has published a wide range of works analyzing literary and cultural texts, while developing his own Marxist theoretical perspectives and offering important critiques of opposing theoretical schools and positions. Professor Jameson’s best-known publications include Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism; The Political Unconscious; and Marxism and Form, and his most recent works are The Hegel Variations and Representing 'Capital.'

Author Joyce Carol Oates is a recipient of the National Book Award and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction. She has written some of the most enduring fiction of our time, including the national bestsellers We Were the Mulvaneys and Blonde (a finalist for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize), and the New York Times bestsellers The Falls and The Gravedigger's Daughter. Oates is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978.

Peter Greenaway, who trained as a painter for four years, started making films in 1966. His first narrative feature film, The Draughtsman’s Contract (1982), earned him international acclaim as an original filmmaker, a reputation consolidated by The Cook, the Thief, his Wife & her Lover (1989), Prospero’s Books (1991), The Pillow Book (1996), The Tulse Luper Suitcases (2003-2004), and more recently, Nightwatching (2007).