Category: Interviews

An interview with Colleen Lye on After Marx

Published date September 12, 2022

An interview with Colleen Lye, co-editor of After Marx Here Lindsay Choi — English graduate student and co-coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Marxist Working Group at Cal — interviews Professor Colleen Lye about After Marx: Literature, Theory, and Value in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge University Press, 2022), a collection of essays which she co-edited with Christopher Nealon. In the resulting interview,...

Namwali Serpell in the News

Published date April 5, 2019

Namwali Serpell has been getting international attention for her recently released novel, The Old Drift. Here is a small sample of reviews: The New York Times Again The New York Times, this review by Salman Rushdie The Times of London Mwebantu The Los Angeles Times The Boston Globe The Guardian You can read an excerpt on Literary Hub. Interest in...

Catherine Gallagher Interviewed by UC Berkeley Emeriti Association

Published date February 28, 2019

Catherine Gallagher has been interviewed by the University of California Berkeley Emeriti Association (UCBEA) as part of a pilot for a new program, the Legacy Project. The project involves video recording of emeriti faculty for the purpose of preserving the history and accomplishments of its distinguished faculty. More specifically, the Legacy Project has the purpose of producing video interviews with faculty who are entering...

To Tell the Truth … To Be Seen: Poet Javier Zamora (’12) on Unaccompanied

Published date November 29, 2018

UC Berkeley alumnus Javier Zamora (’12) published his first book of poetry, Unaccompanied, in 2017. Fleeing a civil war and gang violence in El Salvador, Zamora’s parents immigrated to the United States when he was two, leaving him with his grandparents until his own migration, alone, at age nine. The poems of Unaccompanied explore that family history, its larger contexts,...

Robert Hass receives 2018 Truman Capote Award

Published date October 12, 2018

The Truman Capote Award Ceremony will take place at 4 p.m. Oct. 17 in the Old Capitol Senate Chamber. The event will feature remarks by Robert Hass and a reception in the Old Capitol Museum. Both events are open to the public. Former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Hass won the 2018 Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism in Memory of Newton Arvin...

Viet Thanh Nguyen: Going Public

Published date April 6, 2018

The author, scholar, and MLA member Viet Thanh Nguyen spoke with the MLA’s executive director, Paula Krebs, in October 2017, after he had been awarded a MacArthur Foundation fellowship. His debut novel, The Sympathizer, won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in fiction. PAULA KREBS: Congratulations on winning a MacArthur. Do you have plans? VIET THANH NGUYEN: I run a blog called...

A Way of Reaching Back: Mai Der Vang (’03) on the poetry of Afterland

Published date December 11, 2017

In 2017, UC Berkeley English alumna Mai Der Vang (’03) published her first book of poetry, Afterland, which recounts the Hmong exodus from Laos after U.S. forces abandoned their Secret War, and subsequent refugee experiences of Hmong exiles and their descendants in the United States. The book was selected by Carolyn Forché as the winner of the 2016 Walt Whitman...

Robert Hass and Amanda Su interview author Shawna Yang Ryan

Published date January 3, 2017

Earlier last year, alumni and author Shawna Yang Ryan (’98) published her second novel, Green Island, an exploration of immigration and 1940’s authoritarian rule in China through the narrative of one girl force to flee with her family to California after the The February 28 Incident in Taiwan. Recently, Professor Robert Hass and graduate student Amanda Su sat down with Ryan to discuss her writing process, her time at...

John Shoptaw wins 2016 Northern California Book Award; discusses winning book, Times Beach

Published date July 13, 2016

This academic year has proven itself to be an exciting one for Professor John Shoptaw; after publishing his book of poetry Times Beach in late 2015, he received both the Notre Dame Book Review Prize, as well as the 2016 Northern California Book Award for Poetry for his work. Earlier last month, English Alum (’13) and current English PhD student at...

“Show don’t tell”: The Founding of The Folio

Published date September 20, 2013

Lauren Mueller details the founding of the English department’s first undergraduate academic journal, The Folio.

Teaching and Writing at Berkeley: An Interview with Joyce Carol Oates

Published date August 27, 2013

In 2012-13, the English Department hosted Joyce Carol Oates, whose usual home is Princeton, as a visiting professor. While here, she taught a creative writing workshop on “short fiction” to a very lucky group of undergraduates. Our own Donald McQuade recently had the opportunity to interview Oates about her experience teaching and writing at Berkeley.

Critical Agitations: An Interview with Steven Goldsmith

Published date August 16, 2013

Recently, graduate student Joe Albernaz had the opportunity to talk with Professor Steven Goldsmith about his new book, Blake’s Agitation: Criticism and the Emotions. The result was a lively interview on William Blake, affect theory, and critical “enthusiasm.”

This is Not a Writing Blog Post

Published date July 29, 2013

We had the chance to catch up with Kerri Majors (’98) recently about her new book for young adult writers. The conversation ended up meandering across a number of different topics, including the current boom in college writing and MFA programs, why writers should buy planners, and Majors’s own writerly biography. It contains a lot of advice for young writers, and plenty to interest writers and readers of all ages.