Berkeley Talks
Episodes
Scholars on Roman Vishniac's photos of Jewish life before the Holocaust
20 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Berkeley Talks episode 141, a panel of scholars discuss the work of Roman Vishniac, a renowned Russian American photographer who took thousands of ...
An update on Public Service Loan Forgiveness
06 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In episode 140 of Berkeley Talks, a panel of student loan experts discuss the Public Service Loan Forgiveness waiver, the recently extended COVID paym...
Damilola Ogunbiyi on driving an equitable energy transition
22 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In episode 139 of Berkeley Talks, Damilola Ogunbiyi, CEO and Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary General for Sustainable Energy for All, give...
Sociologist Harry Edwards on sport in society
08 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Berkeley Talks episode 138, Harry Edwards, a renowned sports activist and UC Berkeley professor emeritus of sociology, discusses the intersections ...
A Poetry for the People conversation
25 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Department of African American Studies at UC Berkeley’s 2021-22 Critical Conversations speaker series is a celebration of the life and legacy of...
Mapping the brain to understand health, aging and disease
11 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
UC Berkeley psychology professor Jack Gallant discusses functional brain mapping for understanding health, aging and disease. The lecture, given on Ja...
UC Berkeley experts on the invasion of Ukraine
28 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In episode 135 of Berkeley Talks, UC Berkeley political scientist George Breslauer and economics professor Yuriy Gorodnichenko discuss Russian Pr...
The performance of labor
25 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Black feminist artists and cultural workers communally explore the questions of how the forms and methods of opera, surrealism, free jazz, poetry and ...
How archaeology is used in comics
11 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Paulina Przystupa, a Ph.D. student at the University of New Mexico, discusses how archaeology inspires comic books and proposes ways archeologists can...
The EU in crisis
28 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The co-editors of The Palgrave Handbook of EU Crises discuss their research that explores the European Union's institutional and policy responses to c...
'Can we change nature — this time, to save it?'
14 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer Elizabeth Kolbert in conversation with David Ackerly, dean of UC Berkeley's Rausser College of Natural Resources...
Eva Paterson on transforming the nation's consciousness on race
17 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In episode 130 of Berkeley Talks, Eva Paterson, president and co-founder of the Equal Justice Society, talks in 2017 with Savala Nolan (then Savala Tr...
Why do leaves change color in the fall?
03 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Lewis Feldman, UC Berkeley professor of plant biology and executive director of the UC Botanical Garden, explores why some leaves appear to change col...
Scholars reflect on new book, 'Atmospheres of Violence'
19 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A panel of artists, organizers and academics discuss UC Berkeley professor Eric Stanley's 2021 book that interrogates why, in a time when we're told L...
How technology is transforming religion
05 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A panel of scholars explore how technology is changing how and when we practice religion, as well as our notions of religious community, religious doc...
Finding hope for biodiversity conservation
22 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In episode 126 of Berkeley Talks, evolutionary biologist Erica Bree Rosenblum, a professor in UC Berkeley's Department of Environmental Science, Polic...
Berkeley experts on how to fight disinformation
08 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A panel of leading Berkeley experts describe the harms of disinformation and potential solutions to its spread, from measures to strengthen old-school...
Scholars discuss 'New Time: Art and Feminisms in the 21st Century'
24 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Judith Butler, a professor in the Department of Comparative Literature and the Program of Critical Theory at UC Berkeley, and Mel Y. Chen, an associat...
Should we strive for unity? Or something else?
10 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In his inaugural address, President Biden called for Americans to unite more than any other U.S. president. But UC Berkeley experts say unity is unrea...
Emiliana Simon-Thomas on where happiness comes from
27 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Emiliana Simon-Thomas, science director of UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center, discusses happiness — what it means, where it comes from and h...
'Indigenous United' student podcast hosts on being Native at Berkeley
13 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In episode 121 of Berkeley Talks, graduate students Sierra Edd (Diné) and Ataya Cesspooch talk about their experiences at UC Berkeley as Na...
Roger McNamee on his quest to stop Facebook
30 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Longtime venture capitalist Roger McNamee discusses how he, an early Facebook investor and former adviser to Mark Zuckerberg, came to realize the dama...
Poet Shane McCrae reads 'The Mind of Hell' and other new works
16 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In episode 119 of Berkeley Talks, Shane McCrae, a poet born in Portland, Oregon, who was kidnapped by his maternal grandparents at age 3, reads new wo...
Linda Rugg on Native American repatriation at UC Berkeley
02 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Berkeley's associate vice chancellor for research discusses the measures being taken to repatriate Native American ancestral remains and sacred artifa...
Rucker Johnson on why school integration works (revisiting)
18 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Today, we're sharing an episode from 2019:Brown v. Board of Education was hailed as a landmark decision for civil rights. But decades later, many cons...
Labor lawyer reviews the American Rescue Plan Act
04 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Berkeley Talks, Bay Area labor lawyer Bill Sokol discusses the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act, signed into law by Pres...
Journalists on reporting in China and U.S.-China relations
21 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Berkeley Talks, Berkeley Journalism Dean Geeta Anand and New York Times reporter and UC Berkeley alumnus Edward Wong discuss intern...
Wally Adeyemo to Berkeley graduates: You are prepared to shape the world
19 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Berkeley Talks, Adewale "Wally" Adeyemo, the deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury and UC Berkeley alumnus, ...
Filmmaker Steve McQueen to Berkeley students: 'Take a chance'
08 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Berkeley Talks, British filmmaker and video artist Steven McQueen, best known for his Academy Award-winning film 12 Years a Slave,&...
State lawmakers on the future of California
23 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
California state legislators share their visions of California and the policies needed to achieve that future. The panel discussion, sponsored by UC B...
Franklin Zimring on the tragedy of U.S. police killings
09 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Berkeley Talks, Berkeley Law professor Franklin Zimring, author of the 2017 book When Police Kill, discusses why police kill far mo...
Bess Williamson on the history of disability and design
26 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Berkeley Talks, Bess Williamson, associate professor of art history theory and criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chic...
Novelist Alice Walker: 'Dance when you feel like dancing'
12 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"I think that part of why we are lost is that we've forgotten we have to study where we've come from and what we're doing," said novelist Alice Walker...
'Social Dilemma' star on fighting the disinformation machine
26 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Berkeley Talks, Tristan Harris, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, former Google design ethicist and star of...
Charles Henry on the case for reparations
12 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Berkeley Talks, Charles Henry, professor emeritus of African American studies at UC Berkeley and author of Long Overdue: The Politi...
Will the post-pandemic era be the next 'roaring '20s'?
29 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Berkeley Talks, Martha Olney, a teaching professor of economics at UC Berkeley, discusses the economic forecast — how the post-pa...
Late filmmaker Marlon Riggs on making ‘Tongues Untied’
15 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Berkeley Talks, late filmmaker Marlon Riggs, a former Berkeley Journalism professor and alumnus, discusses his 1989 documentary, To...
Revisiting: Comedian Maz Jobrani on noticing the good in his life
01 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this Berkeley Talks episode, we revisit an interview that we first shared in 2019:Growing up in an immigrant family, comedian Maz Jobrani knew...
Poet Aria Aber reads from her 2019 book 'Hard Damage'
19 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Berkeley Talks, Aria Aber, a poet born to Afghan refugees and raised in Germany, who now lives in Oakland, California, re...
U.S. elections 2020 and implications for the Americas
04 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Berkeley Talks, experts discuss the forces that shaped the outcome of the U.S. elections in November and the implications of t...
Threats to abortion rights and how people are resisting
22 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Berkeley Talks, a panel of scholars — Berkeley Law professor Khiara Bridges; Carol Joffe, a professor of obstetrics and gynecolog...
How Native women challenged a 1900s Bay Area assimilation program
07 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This episode of Berkeley Talks is a 2019 interview on KALX's The Graduates with Katie Keliiaa, a graduate student in UC Berkeley's Department of ...
How Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein' took on a life of its own
27 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this special Halloween-inspired episode of Berkeley Talks, UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ joins Manual Cinema's co-artistic director Drew Dir ...
The violent underworlds of El Salvador and their ties to the U.S.
23 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this Berkeley Talks episode, Salvadoran American journalist and activist Roberto Lovato, discusses his new book Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, M...
Portraits of power: Women of the 116th Congress
09 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
"I would say the loudest, boldest, most powerful voices coming out of Washington have been the voices of women," said U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood (IL-1...
Berkeley scholars on the legal legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
28 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Sept. 18, 2020, Berkeley Law professors — Amanda Tyler, Catherine Fisk, Orin Kerr, Bertrall Ro...
How plantation museum tours distort the reality of slavery
25 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this Berkeley Talks episode, Stephen Small, a professor in UC Berkeley's Department of African American Studies, and interim director for the Insti...
How to use sleep and circadian science to get better rest
11 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As the global pandemic stretches on and massive wildfires rage along the West Coast, many people are finding it hard — if not impossible — to get ...
Why the 1960s song 'Little Boxes' still strikes a chord today
28 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
"Little boxes on the hillside. Little boxes made of ticky tacky. Little boxes on the hillside. Little boxes all the same. There’s a pink one, and a ...
The power of mentorship, sisterhood in politics
14 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
"I don't know anybody who can honestly say there hasn't been somebody in their life that helped them along," said Louise Renne, a lawyer who served as...
Joyce Carol Oates on her dystopian novel 'Hazards of Time Travel'
07 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Joyce Carol Oates, author of more than 70 works of fiction, nonfiction and poetry, joined Poet Laureate and Berkeley English professor Robert Hass in ...
Why racial equity belongs in the study of economics
24 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
"Economists begin with this notion of the free market invisible hand, and we need to be clear that the hand has a color — it's a white hand, let me ...
Thelton Henderson on the bravery to do what's right
17 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
“I’ve seen a huge capacity for redemption from people… if given a chance.” That’s Thelton Henderson, a renowned civil rights lawyer who...
Can you imagine a future without police?
10 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This Berkeley Talks episode features an interview on Who Belongs?, a podcast by UC Berkeley’s Othering and Belonging Institute. ...
How higher ed is transforming during the pandemic
03 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The switch to remote learning, triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, is realigning several education fundamentals. In this talk, top leaders at UC Be...
Fighting racism: How to restructure society so it's open to all
26 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
"Now, some would like us to believe that racism can be cured pharmacologically," said Amani Allen, executive associate dean at UC Berkeley's School of...
Journalist Nahal Toosi on national security reporting under Trump
19 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
"One myth I think that increasingly people are realizing, and I think Trump has accelerated this, is that national security is really about military a...
Using peer pressure to fight climate change
12 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In adopting a different diet or driving less, a person has an effect on the planet, says Robert Frank, an economics professor at Cornell University. B...
America wants gun control. Why doesn't it have it?
05 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
"If having a gun really made you safer, then America would be one of the safest countries in the world. It’s not," said Gary Younge, a professor of ...
Thirty-six questions to help us connect when we're apart
29 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
For the first week of quarantine during the global COVID-19 pandemic, Rebecca Vitali-DeCola's 82-year-old dad, Joe DeCola, seemed upbeat."He was like,...
The global politics of waste
22 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
"All waste is global," said Kate O'Neill, a professor in the the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at UC Berkeley, at a campu...
Poet Laureate Robert Hass reads new collection ‘Summer Snow’
08 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Robert Hass, a professor in UC Berkeley's Department of English and U.S. Poet Laureate from 1995 to 1997, read from Summer Snow — his first poetry c...
Art Cullen on journalism and politics in the Corn Belt
24 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Art Cullen, editor of the Storm Lake Times, a family-run newspaper in Storm Lake, Iowa, joined Berkeley Journalism professor and author Michael Pollan...
How the real estate industry undermined black homeownership
10 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In 1968, following a wave of urban uprisings, politicians worked to end the practice of redlining by passing the Housing and Urban Development Act. Wh...
Naomi Klein on eco-facism and the Green New Deal
27 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
"...At this very moment in our history, the men rising to the highest office in country after country... are full-fledged planetary arsonists," said N...
Deirdre Cooper Owens on gynecology’s brutal roots in slavery
13 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
On Feb. 21, 2020, Deirdre Cooper Owens, a professor of the history of medicine at the University of Nebraska, was on campus to discuss her work tracin...
Poetry and the Senses: 'Emergency is not separate from us'
28 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
"During global climate crisis, we need more writing in and through water," read poet Indira Allegra at UC Berkeley earlier this month. "This is the pe...
Journalist Jemele Hill on the intersection of sports and race
15 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
On Jan. 23, 2020, Jemele Hill, a staff writer for the Atlantic and host of the podcast Jemele Hill is Unbothered, spoke at UC Berkeley's Cal Performan...
Denise Herd and Waldo Martin on Berkeley's '400 Years' initiative
07 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Who Belongs?, a podcast by UC Berkeley's Othering and Belonging Institute, Berkeley professors Denise Herd and Waldo Martin discuss...
Film historian Harry Chotiner on the state of American cinema
31 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Harry Chotiner, a film historian and an adjunct assistant professor at New York University, gave a lecture on Jan. 22, 2019, about film in the past ye...
Chilean novelist Isabel Allende on war, loss and healing
25 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
"People say, 'Oh no, the institutions in the United States can support anything. We are safe.' No, beware. Nothing is safe. Nothing is forever. Everyt...
Paul Butler on how prison abolition would make us all safer
17 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The United States now locks up more people than almost any country in the history of the world, and by virtually any measure, prisons have not worked,...
Consciousness guide on using psychedelics as medicine
10 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
"The purpose of medicine is to create a bigger, deeper, more thorough experience of our inner functioning, our physical functioning, our emotional fun...
Artist Paul Chan on the 'Bather's Dilemma'
03 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
On Oct. 29, artist Paul Chan delivered the 2019-20 Una's Lecture, a series sponsored by the Townsend Center for the Humanities since 1987. In his talk...
Professor Emerita Beverly Crawford on lies about migrants
27 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
"If rights aren't enforced, do they really exist?" asks Beverly Crawford, a professor emerita of political science and international and area studies ...
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on overcoming the odds
14 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
At 13, Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote an article in her school paper about the importance of the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Ind...
Berkeley scholars on the politics and law of impeachment
07 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
With the 2020 general elections looming, the nominee for the Democratic Party undetermined and a defiant and volatile president at the helm, the impea...
Comedian Maz Jobrani on noticing the good in his life
27 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Growing up in an immigrant family, comedian Maz Jobrani knew his parents wanted him to be a lawyer or doctor, maybe an engineer. When he became a come...
Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky on defending DACA
22 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
An important case of the current U.S. Supreme Court term is about Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA — a program that some 700,000 undo...
California Surgeon General Nadine Burke Harris on the health impacts of childhood stress
15 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Nadine Burke Harris, named the first surgeon general of California in January, has seen how childhood stress and trauma leads to declining health in a...
Berkeley Law's Ian Haney López on defeating racial fearmongering
08 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
People across the country, from presidential hopefuls and engaged voters to journalists and activists, are grappling with how to think and talk about ...
Author Andrew Marantz on the hijacking of the American conversation
01 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
To write his new book, ANTISOCIAL: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians and the Hijacking of the American Conversation, New Yorker reporter An...
Biologist E.O. Wilson on how to save the natural world
25 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In this talk, renowned biologist and naturalist E.O. Wilson joins former U.S. secretary of the interior and interim CEO of the Nature Conservancy Sall...
Journalist Maggie Haberman on reporting on the Trump White House
18 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The unrivaled political insight of reporter Maggie Haberman makes her one of today’s most influential voices in national affairs journalism. In this...
Barbara Simons on election hacking and how to avoid it in 2020
11 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
"There are a number of myths about elections that we've been hearing, saying that they are secure. And I want to shoot down two of those key myths," s...
Nobel laureate Randy Schekman on new Parkison's research
04 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
On Sept. 17, UC Berkeley hosted the second annual Aging, Research, and Technology Innovation Summit, a daylong event that brought together researchers...
Justice Elena Kagan on taking risks, finding common ground
27 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
"Law students are too risk-averse. There's too much planning and too little jumping in. You should experiment." That's U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elen...
Admissions director Femi Ogundele on what makes a Berkeley student
20 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
“If you’re looking for an opportunity to make a real change in this society, you need to go and work at a public school,” said Associate Vice Ch...
john powell on rejecting white supremacy, embracing belonging
05 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
On Friday, Aug. 30, UC Berkeley held a symposium that marked the start of a yearlong initiative, "400 Years of Resistance to Slavery and Oppression," ...
We need a digital infrastructure that serves humanity, says techno-sociologist Zeynep Tufekci
26 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Since the launch of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, reports of hate speech targeting various minority groups have risen dramatically. Although...
Take an intoxicating plants tour at UC Botanical Garden
16 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Sal Levinson, who works on native propagation at the UC Botanical Garden, led a tour on July 9, 2019, about the plants people have used to heal pain, ...
How an 'awe walk' helped one musician reconnect with her home
09 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In the "Science of Happiness" podcast episode, "Finding awe in every step," musician and activist Diana Gameros talks about how she moved to the U.S. ...
Economist Samuel Bowles on why good incentives are no substitute for good citizens
05 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
It is widely held today on grounds of prudence — if not realism — that in designing public policy and legal systems, we should assume that people ...
Music historian David James on cinema's dance with popular music
26 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In his book Rock ’n’ Film: Cinema’s Dance with Popular Music, music historian David James explores how rock’s capacity for cultural empowermen...
Joel Moskowitz on the health risks of cell phone radiation
19 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
As of 2017, there were more than 273 million smartphones in use in the country and 5 billion subscriber connections worldwide.“This is a big, big bu...
What can be done to protect pollinators
12 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
California's agriculture has been impacted by dwindling bee populations. In this episode of Just Food, a podcast from the Berkeley Food Institute at U...
#SandraBlandMystery: Aaminah Norris on the transmedia story of police brutality
06 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Aaminah Norris is an assistant professor at Sacramento State in the College of Education. She has more than 20 years of experience supporting schools ...
Virgie Tovar on ending fat phobia
29 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Writer, speaker and activist Virgie Tovar speaks with Savala Trepczynski, director of Berkeley Law's Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justi...
Berkeley artist Mildred Howard on the impact of gentrification in the Bay Area
24 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
On Wednesday, June 19, the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) celebrated Juneteenth — a national commemoration of the end of s...
'New York Times' editor on the future of fact-based journalism
13 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Dean Baquet is the executive editor of the New York Times and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. In February 2019, he sat down with Edward Wasserman...