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Whether we’re listening to Bach or the blues, our brains are wired to make music-color connections depending on how the melodies make us feel, according to new research from UC Berkeley. For instance, Mozart’s jaunty Flute Concerto No. 1 in G major is most often associated with bright yellow and orange, whereas his somber Requiem in D minor is more likely to be linked to dark, bluish gray.
Arts & humanities archive
Emeritus English professor Paul Alpers dies at age 80
May 22, 2013: Paul Alpers, a UC Berkeley professor of English for 38 years, died May 19 at his home in Northampton, Mass. Alpers was the husband of Smith College President Carol Christ, who served as Berkeley’s executive vice chancellor and provost from 1994 to 2000.
From fascist Europe to Berkeley: Students help uncover a history of intellectual migration
May 6, 2013: Students digging through Magnes Collection archives stored at the Bancroft Library discovered a world unknown to many these days: The lives of 70 professors who fled Nazi-occupied Europe in the 1930s and made their mark on UC Berkeley. “J Weekly” explores their findings, which were made through the Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship program and will be part of an exhibit at the Magnes in 2014.
Two faculty named Guggenheim Fellows for 2013
May 1, 2013: Two UC Berkeley faculty — improvising pianist and composer Myra Melford and English literature scholar Joanna Picciotto — have been named Guggenheim fellows for 2013, an award conferred for both achievement and promise.
Emoticons get more emotional, thanks to Berkeley psychologists
April 26, 2013: Emoticons not expressing the full complexity of your feelings? UC Berkeley psychologist Dacher Keltner and his team at the campus’s Greater Good Science Center can help. They have assisted in creating a nuanced Facebook sticker package based on a character named “Finch,” inspired by scientist Charles Darwin.
Ten Berkeley faculty named to American Academy of Arts and Sciences
April 24, 2013: Ten Berkeley professors have been named members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a prestigious 233-year-old honorary society of national leaders from academia, business, public affairs and the humanities.
Cal Performances kicks off 2013-14 season
April 23, 2013: Next week: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Handel and Haydn Society.
From high school dropout to U.S. Gates Cambridge scholar 
April 16, 2013: Justin Park dropped out of high school, but he never lost his love of literature and learning. After 20 years as a bartender, bike messenger and military man, Park returned to school at UC Berkeley, graduated — and now has been selected as a Gates Cambridge Scholar, a top world honor.
Cal Day open house promises laughs and learning aplenty 
April 12, 2013: With more than 300 free events and activities — shoehorned into one unforgettable day of arts, music, dance, science, games and fun — UC Berkeley’s annual open-house is the place to be April 20.
Contest winners shine new light on Fiat Lux
April 9, 2013: The Fiat Lux Remix contest invited students, faculty and staff members to revisit images of UC campuses commissioned in the mid-1960s by then-President Clark Kerr and taken by legendary photographer Ansel Adams – and published in the book Fiat Lux – and give them their own spin.
Biblical scholar on his latest translation, Ancient Israel 
April 8, 2013: Biblical scholar Robert Alter considers himself a “literary archaeologist.” He discusses his latest Hebrew Bible translation, an award-winning work on the ancient Biblical books Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings, on KQED radio’s “Forum with Michael Krasny.”
#GlobalPOV: Art, videos and Twitter take poverty curriculum to the world
April 8, 2013: Three Cal alumni and teachers — a live-action sketch artist, a social-media proselytizer and a brilliant professor who is also an unapologetic Bono fan — have teamed up to create artful, provocative videos and brought Twitter into the classroom. The goal: to extend the teachings of Berkeley’s biggest minor, Global Poverty and Practice, online. The project could be a model for a new kind of public scholarship and online education.
From ‘Beat Street’ to Berkeley
March 19, 2013: A visiting assistant professor in the music department, J. Griffith “Griff” Rollefson has carved out a unique specialty for himself in the world of musicology. He’s not just a go-to guy when it comes to the study of hip hop and its cultural impact. He’s the go-to guy in the field of European hip hop.
Early phases of construction begin for BAM/PFA
February 12, 2013: Work is underway on the future home of BAM/PFA in downtown Berkeley, marking a milestone for the new visual arts center.
Scientists create automated ‘time machine’ to reconstruct ancient languages
February 11, 2013: Ancient languages hold a treasure trove of information about the culture, politics and commerce of millennia past. Yet, reconstructing them to reveal clues into human history can require decades of painstaking work. Now, UC Berkeley scientists have created an automated “time machine,” of sorts, that will greatly accelerate and improve the process of reconstructing hundreds of ancestral languages.
Exploring the world of silence, charted or not
February 5, 2013: Drawing its inspiration from John Cage, a six-week OLLI course delves into art, music, film, neuroscience, bliss, edginess, paradox and more in what Susan Hoffman, OLLI’s director, calls “an experiment” in experiential learning.
Townsend Center: incubating inspiration in the humanities, for 25 years
February 4, 2013: Celebrating its 25-year annniversary, UC Berkeley’s Townsend Center for the Humanities is igniting free-ranging conversations among faculty and students, across multiple disciplines, that open new dimensions in academia, new ways to solve social problems, or simply serve to reinvigorate, to stretch human minds in new directions, says the center’s new director, Alan Tansman.
Playwright/alum Stan Lai to discuss creativity, theater
January 25, 2013: The prolific director/playwright Stan Lai comes home to the Berkeley campus to talk about contemporary theater, culture and creativity in Asia and the United States — and what the world would be like without theater.
Berkeley 2012 – the year in pictures
December 19, 2012: New faces, new vitality, reflection and celebration — 2012 brought all that, and more, to UC Berkeley. Here’s a glance back at the year, in pictures.
It’s time to submit apps for library’s undergrad-research prize
December 14, 2012: Applications are now being accepted for the 2013 Library Prize for Undergraduate Research. The annual award comes with bragging rights as well as green: $750 for lower-division winners, $1,000 awards for upper-division students.
In downtown Berkeley, new crop of utility-box artworks
December 12, 2012: Streets Alive!, a downtown Berkeley beautification project, showed off 11 new pieces of utility-box art during a tour Friday. Among them, a new work at Oxford and University, sponsored by the Chancellor’s Community Partnership Fund.
L&S ‘Big Ideas Courses’ aim to inspire faculty, students alike
November 30, 2012: According to Executive Dean Mark Richards, the concept for the program grew out of long-range plans in L&S to enhance the undergraduate curriculum. Big Ideas Courses allow undergrads not only to delve into important issues from multiple viewpoints, but also to fulfill their requirements in new and interesting ways.
Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor and composer, moves in for the weekend
November 14, 2012: Conductor and composer Esa-Pekka Salonen, considered one of the world’s most brilliant musicians, spent four days at UC Berkeley in a Cal Performances Orchestral Residency that became a whirlwind of concerts and appearances featuring some of his own compositions, with performances by the Philharmonia Orchestra and student musicians.
This weekend, Cal Performances has something for everyone
November 2, 2012: Early music to new music, Dan Savage to Dell ‘Arte.
Media Advisory: UC Berkeley presents Art & Science Gala at local gallery
November 2, 2012:
An Art & Science Gallery Gala, hosted by UC Berkeley, as part of this year’s Bay Area Science Festival t AT&T Park.
Archivist tracks down Rocky Mountain fur trade’s untold story
October 29, 2012: By vocation an archivist at Berkeley Law, by avocation an independent historical scholar, William Benemann is the author of a new book, Men in Eden, on a 19th-century Scottish nobleman who pursued adventure and sexual freedom in the freewheeling milieu of the American West.
Grave matters
October 10, 2012: For most of his scholarly career, Berkeley historian Thomas Laqueur has looked at the ways that political and ecclesiastical powers have regarded our living bodies. Over the past decade, reports California Magazine, Laqueur’s interests have shifted to new terrain: burial grounds on four continents, and their role in civilization.
Classics launches open-access digital publication platform
October 9, 2012: The classics department is launching a peer-reviewed open-access publishing series, for disseminating scholarly research in the field. The three-year startup of California Classical Studies is supported by a $99,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
New oral history online: Warren Hellman talks about Hardly Strictly Bluegrass
October 5, 2012: Catch the late Warren Hellman talking about his Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in this video clip from The Bancroft Library’s Regional Oral History Office.
Cal Performances’ Fall Free for All is Sunday, and you’re invited
September 28, 2012: Cal Performances hosts its third Fall Free for All, an open house for the community, on Sunday, Sept. 30. Fill your day with free music and dance, offered on multiple campus stages and out-of-doors, no tickets required.
