Berkeley Book Chats

The Townsend Center presents a lunchtime series celebrating the intellectual and artistic endeavors of the UC Berkeley faculty. Each Berkeley Book Chat features a faculty member engaged in conversation about a recently completed publication, performance, or recording. The series highlights the extraordinary breadth and depth of Berkeley’s academic community.

On the Colors of Vowels: Thinking Through Synesthesia

Liesl Yamaguchi
Berkeley Book Chats
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| Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall

Exploring the ways in which visual conceptions of vowels have inflected the arts and sciences of modernity, Liesl Yamaguchi asks how discourses of the 19th and 20th centuries crafted the enigma we now readily recognize as “synesthesia.”

Orphan Bachelors: A Memoir

Fae Myenne Ng
Berkeley Book Chats
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| Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall

Winner of the American Book Award and other major prizes, Fae Myenne Ng's memoir tells the story of the author's family in San Francisco’s Chinatown and her father’s struggles to secure citizenship.

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| Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall

In The Entanglement, Alva Noë explores the inseparability of life, art, and philosophy, arguing that we have greatly underestimated what this entangled reality means for understanding human nature.

Past Events

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| Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall

Professor of French Debarati Sanyal’s forthcoming book examines the ways in which literature and film from the French-speaking world have repeatedly sought not to singularize the Holocaust as the paradigm of historical trauma, but rather to connect its memory with other memories of atrocity.

A General Theory of Visual Culture

Whitney Davis
Berkeley Book Chats
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| Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall

Professor of History of Art Whitney Davis’ book presents a new and original framework for understanding visual culture.

Polartide

Greg Niemeyer, Chris Chafe, Perrin Meyer and Rama Gottfried
Berkeley Book Chats
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| Sather Tower and Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall

Created for the Maldives Pavilion at the 2013 Venice Biennale, “Polartide” turns the fluctuating data sets of sea levels and oil company stock valuations into digitized tones, inviting participants to reflect on the growing threat of global climate change in a new way. Join us for an interactive performance of “Polartide” at the Sather Tower carillon, followed by discussion in the Geballe Room.

Political Beethoven

Nicholas Mathew
Berkeley Book Chats
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| Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall

Professor of Music Nicholas Mathew’s recent book explores Beethoven's music as an active participant in political life from the Napoleonic Wars to the present day.

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| Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall

Professor of Slavic Language and Literatures David Frick’s recent book details how Poles, Lithuanians, Germans, Ruthenians, Jews, and Tatars navigated and negotiated cultural and religious differences in mid-seventeenth century Wilno.