Past Events

Joy Harjo, the 2020-21 Avenali Chair in the Humanities, discusses her signature project as US Poet Laureate, which maps and documents the work of contemporary Native poets.

Joy Harjo is the 23rd US Poet Laureate, and the first Native American to hold the position. She is joined in conversation by poet Craig Santos Perez to discuss her literary antecedents and pathbreaking editorial work.

A panel of musicians and cultural critics considers the work of revolutionary jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker.

In their introduction to the English translation of Jean Daive’s memoir, Robert Kaufman and Philip Gerard provide critical, historical, and cultural context for Daive's account of his friendship with the German-language poet Paul Celan.

Hannah Ginsborg, Ken Goldberg, and David Marno explore how the technological and social shifts of the COVID era have changed the ways in which we pay attention.

A generation of contemporary Anglo-American novelists has championed the ethical value of literature. Dorothy Hale explores the modernist roots of this “new” emphasis on the novel’s ethical significance.

UC Press editors offer insight into the academic book publishing process, including how to choose the right publisher, prepare a book proposal, and revise your manuscript for publication.

Bringing an innovative synthesis of postmodern theories to bear on his reading of ancient Greek tragedy, Mario Telò offers a new way of understanding tragic aesthetics.

Anthony Cascardi and Catherine Gallagher ask how narrative gives sense to events, and whether narrative forms that have served in times of past crisis (the novel, the epic, history writing) might provide meaning in the pandemic era.

At a time when public monuments are the objects of political contestation, Stephen Best, Debarati Sanyal, and Andrew Shanken discuss the complexities of memory and memorialization.