Past Events

South African artist William Kentridge is the 2022-23 UC Berkeley artist-in-residence. In this visually illustrated lecture, he reflects on the creation of his chamber opera Waiting for the Sibyl, and on his multifaceted artistic practice.

Asad Ahmed offers an intervention in current discussions about the fate of philosophy in postclassical Islamic intellectual history.

In her history of the idea of "relevance" since the 19th century, Elisa Tamarkin explores the term as a means to grasp how something once disregarded, unvalued, or lost becomes interesting and important.

Sophie Volpp considers fictional objects of the late Ming and Qing that defy being read as illustrative of historical things, and are instead often signs of fictionality itself.

Loubna El-Amine and Haiyan Lee contrast visions of the good life in communities in Early China and in today's PRC, using them as vantage points from which to explore the moral imagination.

Exploring sources from travel diaries to legal casebooks, panelists address the complexities and contradictions surrounding the notion of the traditional family in mid- and late-imperial China.

In contemporary China, the concept of cultural heritage encompasses a range of political and economic considerations. Panelists ask who benefits from the policies and politics of heritage.

The identity of Homer is shrouded in mystery, including doubts that he was an actual person. James Porter explores Homer’s mystique, approaching the poet not as a man, but as a cultural invention.

Kate Heslop approaches Viking Age poetry through an innovative interpretive framework that considers the texts as pieces in a premodern multimedia landscape. 

Matthew Specter offers a revisionist interpretation of the "realist" worldview, which shaped US foreign policy, public discourse, and international relations theory after World War II and throughout the Cold War.