Berkeley Talks

By UC BerkeleySociety & Culture Education

Berkeley Talks episodes

January 14, 2022 'Can we change nature — this time, to save it?'
Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer Elizabeth Kolbert in conversation with David Ackerly, dean of UC Berkeley's Rausser College of Natural Resources, and Geeta Anand, dean of Berkeley Journalism, as part of the 2021 Horace Albright Lecture in Conservation.
Elizabeth Kolbert is the author of The Sixth Extinction, for which she won a Pulitzer Prize in 2015, and Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change. For her work at The New Yorker, where she’s a staff writer, she has received two National Magazine Awards and the Blake-Dodd Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In her 2021 book, Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future, Kolbert asks the question: “After doing so much damage, can we change nature — this time, to save it?”
Listen to the episode and read the transcript on Berkeley News.
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1 hr 3 min
December 17, 2021 Eva Paterson on transforming the nation's consciousness on race
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 Trepczynski), director of Berkeley Law's Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice, about when Paterson first realized the need for social justice, litigating implicit bias and why she loves — and hates — America. This conversation first appeared on Nolan's 2017 summer podcast series, Be the Change.
Berkeley Talks is going on winter break. We'll be back with new episodes on Jan. 14, 2022.
Listen to the episode and read a transcript on Berkeley News.
(The Atlantic photo by Edwin Tse)
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43 min
December 03, 2021 Why do leaves change color in the fall?
Lewis Feldman, UC Berkeley professor of plant biology and executive director of the UC Botanical Garden, explores why some leaves appear to change color in the fall season — exhibiting reds, oranges and yellows — and the environmental influences that affect the brilliance of these colors. He also explains the evolutionary benefits of a tree losing its leaves.
Listen to the episode and read a transcript on Berkeley News.
(UC Berkeley photo by Keegan Houser)
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59 min
November 19, 2021Scholars reflect on new book, 'Atmospheres of Violence'
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 LGBT rights are advancing in the U.S., anti-trans violence continues to rise.
Panelists include:
Angela Y. Davis, professor emerita, UC Santa Cruz
Dean Spade, professor, Seattle University School of Law
Eric A. Stanley, associate professor, UC Berkeley
Jules Gill-Peterson, associate professor, Johns Hopkins University
LaVelle Ridley, Ph.D. candidate, University of Michigan
Moderated by Courtney Desiree Morris, artist and assistant professor, UC Berkeley
This Nov. 2, 2021 talk was co-sponsored by Berkeley's Othering & Belonging Institute, the Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies, the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies, the Center for Research on Social Change, the Center for Race and Gender and the American Cultures Center.
Listen to the episode and read a transcript on Berkeley News.
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1 hr 34 min
November 05, 2021How technology is transforming religion
A panel of scholars explore how technology is changing how and when we practice religion, as well as our notions of religious community, religious doctrine and what it means to be religious.
Panelists at the Nov 2. event included:
Steven Barrie-Anthony, research associate at the Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion Kelsy Burke
Associate professor of sociology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Erika Gault, assistant professor of Africana Studies from the University of Arizona
Heather Mellquist Lehto, postdoctoral fellow with Arizona State University’s Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict
Moderated by Carolyn Chen, associate professor of ethnic studies at UC Berkeley
Listen to the talk and read a transcript on Berkeley News.
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(Photo by Ashkan Forouzani via Unsplash)
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1 hr 29 min
October 22, 2021 Finding hope for biodiversity conservation
In episode 126 of Berkeley Talks, evolutionary biologist Erica Bree Rosenblum, a professor in UC Berkeley's Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, tells a story about when she held a little frog — the last known member of its species — in her hand as it died. "I am a scientist who studies extinction," says Rosenblum. "I am a scientist who thinks about biodiversity and interconnectedness every single day ... but the difference between thinking about it and feeling a life slipping away in my hand and knowing that it was the last of an entire branch of the biodiversity on our planet was emotionally impactful in a way that I never could have expected." In that moment, she says, she woke up to how hard it is to feel interconnectedness for students in society, even if we know it to be true. In this talk, Rosenblum explores why we keep this feeling of connection at arm's length and how we can begin to build it back into our lives. This talk was given on Oct. 8 and was sponsored by UC Berkeley's Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI). Listen to the episode and read a transcript on Berkeley News. (Photo by Eric Sonstroem via Flickr)
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1 hr 1 min
October 08, 2021 Berkeley experts on how to fight disinformation
A panel of leading Berkeley experts describe the harms of disinformation and potential solutions to its spread, from measures to strengthen old-school local news media to government regulation of tech titans like Facebook and Twitter. But there’s a critical obstacle: Efforts to directly block disinformation could challenge core American values, such as free speech and freedom of the press. Scholars in the panel: Geeta Anand, dean of Berkeley Journalism; Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of Berkeley Law; Hany Farid, associate dean and head of the School of Information; Susan D. Hyde, chair of the Department of Political Science; john powell, director of the Othering & Belonging Institute; and moderator Henry Brady, former dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy. Listen to the episode and read a transcript on Berkeley News. (Photo: Joe Flood via Flickr; Music: "Silver Lanyard" by Blue Dot Sessions)
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1 hr 33 min
September 24, 2021 Scholars discuss 'New Time: Art and Feminisms in the 21st Century'
Judith Butler, a professor in the Department of Comparative Literature and the Program of Critical Theory at UC Berkeley, and Mel Y. Chen, an associate professor in Berkeley's Department of Gender and Women’s Studies and director of the Center for the Study of Sexual Culture, joined in conversation about Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive's expansive exhibition, New Time: Art and Feminisms in the 21st Century. "There's never been anything mild about feminisms, in the plural," said Butler at the Sept. 20 event. "It has always been a life and death struggle from the start." Listen to the episode and read the transcript on Berkeley News. (Artwork: "Stigmata" by Linda Stark, 2011)
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1 hr 30 min
September 10, 2021 Should we strive for unity? Or something else?
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 unrealistic — at least, right now — and offer other ways to create a more just society. "Where we are today is a result of decades upon decades of systemic and structural race, class and gender-based injustice," said Sandra Bass, associate dean of students and director of the Public Service Center, during an April 9, 2021, panel discussion sponsored by UC Berkeley's Osher Lifelong Learning Center (OLLI). "To think that we can just jump over all of that and leave it unexamined and unresolved and go straight to unity is not just unrealistic. It ignores the genuine harm these systems have and continue to perpetuate, and suggests we all just need to move on without addressing them. We can't leapfrog over the damage that has been done. We have to go through it, not around it. Given our history, any hope of moving towards some understanding of our shared humanity, and our shared destinies, requires us to go through the painstaking process of truth telling, and reparation in all its dimensions." Listen to the episode and read the transcript on Berkeley News. (Art by Tim Mossholder via Unsplash)
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1 hr 4 min
August 27, 2021 Emiliana Simon-Thomas on where happiness comes from
Emiliana Simon-Thomas, science director of UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center, discusses happiness — what it means, where it comes from and how we can enhance it in each of our lives — during a Science at Cal lecture on July 28, 2021. Listen to the episode and read the transcript on Berkeley News.
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1 hr 26 min