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Berkeley, CA — UC Berkeley’s Center for Interdisciplinary Critical Inquiry (CICI) and the International Consortium of Critical Theory Programs (ICCTP) have been awarded $2.6 million to support a groundbreaking multi-year initiative titled “A Counter-Imaginary in Authoritarian Times.” Through collaborative workshops, conferences, performances, publications, and a dynamic, open-ended digital platform, this project brings together academics, artists, activists, and other community members to develop concrete strategies, tools, and proposals to create a counter-imaginary

Liesl Yamaguchi, Assistant Professor in the Department of French at UC Berkeley, is a scholar and translator whose work bridges 19th-century French literature, poetics, linguistics, literary theory, and translation. In this interview, Professor Yamaguchi reflects on her path to academia, the interdisciplinary nature of her research, and the creative challenges of translation. She offers a preview of her forthcoming book, On the Colors of Vowels: Thinking Through Synesthesia, which examines the convergence of literary and scientific discourses on synesthesia in the 19th century.

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Kévin Drif is a third-year PhD student in the Department of French, with a designated emphasis in Film and Media Studies. His research largely focuses on cultural representations of children of immigrants in French media, as he explores the ways in which the idea of a French republican identity is confronted to children of immigrants’ cultural hybridity. Kévin received a BA and MA from the University of Tours in English literature, before receiving an MA in French and Francophone literature from CU Boulder. 

Warm congratulations to Liesl Yamaguchi on the publication of her book On the Colors of Vowels: Thinking through Synesthesia!

Please see the release information on the Fordham University Press website for a full description. Here are some excerpts of reviews:

On November 19, over 40 (fabulously dressed!) undergraduates, faculty, and grad students from the French Department joined Nick Paige, Rachel Shuh, Daniel Hoffmann at the SF Opera for its production of Carmen for an evening of exquisite music and delight.

French PhD candidate Kévin Drif recorded a podcast on French Banlieue cinema! You can find it on The French History Podcast and on Spotify

We had the pleasure of discussing French politics on campus with Jonah Levy, Professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley, who gave a talk in French to the Berkeley French Department and the Berkeley Center of Excellence in French and Francophone Studies. The talk was entitled, “Pourquoi la France est-elle si difficile à réformer ? » (« Why is France so hard to reform? »).

We are very sad to learn that our colleague and friend Len Johnson died on September 26. Len was a specialist in Late Medieval and 16th-century literature. Below is an obituary prepared by Len's close friend, the Rev. Thaddeus Bennett, followed by remembrances from Berkeley colleagues.

Leonard Wilkie Johnson

September 1, 1931 – September 26, 2023

We are sad to report that Professor Emeritus Basil Guy died on June 11, 2023 in Albany, California at the age of 97.

The French Department has welcomed many local francophone partners on April, 20th, 2023, to announce the start of its professional paths and hear about the many wonderful opportunities for students to interact and work in French locally, in the Bay Area. We had the pleasure to welcome le Consulat de France à San Francisco, Alliance Française de Berkeley et de San Francisco, le Lycée Français de San Francisco, French Morning. They all organize events in French and most of them would welcome interns from the French Department, for local work in French.

Ben Beitler, a doctoral candidate in the French Ph.D. program and native of Palo Atlo, shares his review and analysis of Malcolm Harris's 720-page text Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World. As a contributor to the Los Angeles Review of Books, Ben brings perspective and historical analysis to envision change around his area of research interest: exploring environmental conflict in film and literature.

Amber Sweat, a doctoral candidate in the French Ph.D. program, shares her take of ‘Black Girl’ (1966) and ‘Cuties’ (2020) where M'Bissine T. Diop is a cautionary figure who warns of colonialism's wounds and afterlives for Black girl belonging in the present day. Take a moment to immerse yourself in Amber's analysis entitled "The colonial wounds of Senegal's child," published through Africa is a Country, a site of opinion, analysis, and new writing on and from the African left.