Fiat Vox

In 1970, when Chancellor Carol Christ joined UC Berkeley's English department as an assistant professor, only 3% of the faculty on campus were women. “I always felt like a pioneer, in part, because I’m of the generation of the feminist revolution,” says Christ.In this Fiat Vox podcast episode, Christ and her longtime friend and colleague Carol Clover, a professor emerita in Scandinavian studies and film studies, discuss what it was like for women in the academy 50 years ago and how it’s changed, what makes a strong leader — and offer advice to the next generation of Berkeley women.See photos and read the transcript on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

When Amy Nostbakken and Nora Sadava started writing Mouthpiece six years ago, they revealed their deepest secrets to each other with the prompt: “Tell me something that you would never want anyone ever to know.” From that, they created a raw, one-hour confessional that reflects what it feels like in one woman’s head after she finds out her mother has died and that she has to deliver the eulogy the next day. Mouthpiece premiered in 2015, and four years later, Amy and Nora, who make up the Toronto-based company Quote Unquote Collective, are performing the play for the last time on March 22-24 in the Zellerbach Playhouse. It’s the last performance of Cal Performances’ 2018-19 Berkeley RADICAL Initiative’s strand “Women’s Work,” which takes a specific look at the extraordinary artistry of women who are expanding the definition of what it is to be an artist in the 21st century.“This continuum of women’s voices and their work — the work that drives them — is important to put a spotlight on,

Malika Imhotep grew up in West Atlanta, rooted in a community that she calls an "Afrocentric bubble," in a family of artisans, entrepreneurs and community organizers. Now, as a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of African American Studies at UC Berkeley, she's studying how black women and femmes make sense of themselves in a society designed, in many ways, to keep them out. "I’m interested in how people create new possibilities for themselves, either inside of mainstream society or outside of it, or underneath it or on top of it.”But she couldn't do it alone. She needed to find and nurture a community of thinkers who could aid in the development of her research and her personal journey of discovery. So, she — along with Miyuki Baker, a Ph.D. candidate in theater, dance and performances — started the Church of Black Feminist Thought.Read the story and see photos on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

When Karen Denton got a job in UC Berkeley's registrar's office at 20, she had one job: to remove incompletes. "I did that all day every day," she says. Her tools of the trade? A fountain pen, an inkwell, an eraser, a razor blade and a marble. At 71, Karen has been the assistant registrar for two decades and has worked in records for 49 years. And she has no plans to retire anytime soon. "Why would I retire?" she asks. "I love working here. I love the students. I love the challenge." But she will leave sometime, and before she does, she wants to have all student records — dating back to the late 1800s — digitized.Read the story and see photos on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In 1849, a man named Abraham Holland packed up his things and left his life on the East Coast for California, in hopes that he’d strike it rich. The year before, gold had been discovered in the Sierra Nevada foothills, and people were coming from across the U.S. — and the world — to seek their fortune. It became known as the California Gold Rush. It marked a new set of opportunities for African American migration to California.On Saturday, Feb. 23, Berkeley staffer Gia White, who volunteers as a docent at Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, will give a tour about notable African Americans — including Holland, and Berkeley alumni Ida Louise Jackson and Walter Gordon — who are buried in the cemetery. “It’s a privilege to talk about their life stories, because when are they going to be heard?" says Gia. "I feel like, you’re just doing them a little honor by talking about them again.”See photos and read the story on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

For Black History Month, we are resharing Fiat Vox episode #23, first published in 2018, about Clothilde Hewlett, the executive director of the Cal Alumni Association:Some people move to San Francisco for its jobs. Or its nightlife. Or its natural beauty.But Clothilde Hewlett moved for Rice-A-Roni. Hewlett was 14 years old waiting at the Canadian border with her mom and two younger sisters. They’d been there for two weeks, but things weren’t looking promising. “And at one point, my mother, out of despair, looked at me and she said, ‘Where do you wanna go?’ says Hewlett. “And all I could think of is I had a seen a commercial called Rice-A-Roni and it didn’t look like people in San Francisco were suffering. So I said, ‘San Francisco.'”Listen to Hewlett’s story — how she pulled herself out of poverty, found salvation as a student at UC Berkeley, climbed the ranks in the government and corporate America and returned to the campus, where she giving back to students who need it most.Read the story and see phot

When Erika Johnson was 7, her Ukrainian mom put her in ballet class. Although Erika didn’t have the body that most principal dancers were known for, she had the work ethic that it took to be successful. "It was never like, ‘I must handpick you and cultivate you like a rose,’ says Erika. "You know it was like, ‘If you work hard, you might get a job.’ And I was like, ‘Okay, well I’m going to work hard.’” Shaped by her ballet career, Erika is now a development associate at Berkeley. Not only has ballet has played a big role in her life — it has helped keep her connected to her Ukrainian culture.Read the story and see photos on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Every morning, Marco Lindsey wakes up in East Oakland, where he was born and raised. He puts on a suit and tie, packs his briefcase, chats with his neighbors and drives to work at Berkeley Haas. It's a typical morning routine, but to Marco, it’s a lot more than that. It’s a way to show boys and young men in his community that they have possibilities. He didn't have that growing up. But his drive — and mentors who helped steer him — propelled him forward, and now he's helping others to succeed. His motto: Live your life as if your 80-year-old self is guiding you.See photos and read the story on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In the summer of 1996, Will Thomas and Dave Deacy were wading in the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington, watching the annual hydroplane races. Will kicked something with his foot, bent down and pulled something up. It was a human skull. Turns out, it was a really old skull — 9,000 years old, one of the oldest human remains found in North America. It’s a discovery that would fuel an ongoing debate between scientists and Native Americans about how ancestral remains should be treated. It also inspired Beth Piatote, an associate professor of Native American studies at UC Berkeley and a member of the Nez Perce tribe, to write the play Antíkoni. It’s a Native American version of the Greek tragedy, Antigone.See photos and read the story on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

When John Patton was in high school, he changed his name to Quamé. When he got to UC Berkeley as a student, "it stuck, instantly," he says. At Berkeley, Quamé's world opened up: "African American studies changed my life." After graduating, getting a master's degree, trying to make it as a DJ, hitting rock bottom, then coming back to his alma mater to teach hip hop, Quamé is still Quamé. And he's an academic counselor, helping students unlock their potential and follow their hearts.See photos and read the story on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In the 1940s and 50s, actors in major American films, like Katharine Hepburn and Jimmy Stewart, spoke with a kind of faux British accent as a way to sound “upper class.” This pronunciation spread across the country as a kind of standard to imitate. The problem was, this way of talking left out nearly all actual American voices, says Tom McEnaney, a UC Berkeley professor who teaches a class called “Sounding American.”While the class talks about the generational differences of sound — no one today really speaks like movie stars of the 40s — they also discuss how today’s filmmakers, like Boots Riley in “Sorry to Bother You,” are pushing back against the racial norms concealed in what we might say sounds American. McEnaney says the film, about a young black telemarketer who uses his “white voice” to be successful at sales, takes the sense that many people have — that whiteness is a kind of invisible standard against which all other cultures are judged in the U.S. — and makes the audience think about how whiteness

Professor Tom McEnaney, who teaches a class called “Sounding American,” says the U.S. has a long history of men criticizing the way women speak. Sound technologies, starting with the gramophone and phonograph, he says, were developed for men's voices — and distort women’s.Read the story on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

After Lux — one of the peregrine falcons born on the Campanile — died last year after striking a window of Evans Hall, the campus community was heartbroken. But Carla Cicero, the staff curator of birds at UC Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, has given the peregrine a new purpose. Lux is now one of 750,000 specimens — birds, amphibians, reptiles and mammals — at the museum used for research at Berkeley and across the world. Lux is the 4,287th specimen that Carla has prepped for the museum in the past 30 years. Although the museum is closed to the public, for one day a year — Cal Day, in April — people are invited in to see special displays.See photos and read the story on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Last week, Berkeley students noticed that one of the Campanile’s four clocks stopped. While the north-facing clock was at a standstill, the other three kept going. How could that happen? Turns out each of the clocks has its own motor and runs independently from one another. But because the bell tower’s clocks are so old — the Campanile was built more than 100 years ago — its parts can’t just be replaced. The campus has to send them away to be repaired or find another way to keep the clocks ticking. A few years ago, I interviewed Art Simmons — an electrician on campus whose job it was to keep the clocks going. Now, a machinist who worked with Art is looking after the clocks. But I thought it’d be a good time to share a story that Art told me about how he saved the day with a light bulb and a little common sense.See photos and read the story on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

As a kid, Makayla Bozeman could not stop dancing. She'd go to bed late because she was dancing. She'd wake up in the middle of the night to dance. When she was 13, she applied to AileyCamp — a six-week summer program run by Cal Performances at UC Berkeley where 11- to 14-year-olds from the East Bay learn dance from professional choreographers. She soon realized that AileyCamp was so much more than a dance camp — it was a chance to discover who she was and learn how to navigate her complex social world.Read the story and see photos on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Canadian author Margaret Atwood doesn't like being called a soothsayer. "Anyone who says they can predict the future is... not telling the truth," she says. But like it or not, it's a label she's been given since the revival of her 33-year-old dystopian novel "The Handmaid's Tale" was made into a popular Hulu TV series that aired just months after the election of Donald Trump as president. The story is set in near-future New England in a totalitarian and theocratic state that has overthrown the U.S. government. Because of low reproduction rates, certain fertile women are forced to become Handmaids to bear children for elite couples.As part of On the Same Page, a program of UC Berkeley's College of Letter and Science, all 8,800 incoming students got a copy of the novel to read over the summer, so when they arrived on campus, they would have something in common to talk about — socially, in classes and at events designed to explore the book's themes.Berkeley News sat down with Margaret Atwood for a few minutes b

After seeing Handspring Puppet Company — the creators of the puppets in Broadway's " War Horse" — at UC Berkeley in 2015, Glynn Bartlett knew he wanted to work with them. So he packed his bags and traveled to South Africa, where he built puppets for an annual parade and play performed on the Day of Reconciliation. Bartlett, a scenic artist for the Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies, says the experience reminded him just how powerful puppets can be in bringing people together.Read the story on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

When Derek Coates was 10, he found out he had a degenerative eye disease and was going to gradually lose his eyesight. Over the next 30 years, his visual world shrunk until he became completely blind at 41. Now, as a disability compliance officer at UC Berkeley, it’s his job to make sure students with disabilities are getting the accommodations they need to be academically successful.Read the transcript, see photos and find more disability resources on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The peregrine falcons that first made a home on UC Berkeley's Campanile last year get a lot of attention every spring when their babies hatch. But it's also amazing to watch the adults in action. At speeds of more than 200 miles per hour, peregrines are the fastest animal in the world — three times faster than a cheetah. Mary Malec, a volunteer raptor nest monitor for the East Bay Regional Park District, describes a time when the mama peregrine chased a pigeon through unknowing crowds on campus.See photos and read the transcript on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Noah Whiteman, an associate professor in the Department of Integrative Biology at UC Berkeley, has always known how to survive. He moved to Sax-Zim, a rural area in Minnesota, when he was 11 and spent the next seven years learning to fish and hunt with his naturalist dad and hiding that he was gay. When a boy he'd been friends with started to bully him at every chance he got, Noah knew it was time to get out.See photos and read a Q&A with Noah Whiteman on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.