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2019 Fall

The Book All Freshmen Are Reading

Finding identity in a new place In the early 1930s, Gertrude Stein, Oakland-raised oracle of the Lost Generation, revisited her hometown. It was the trip that inspired her infamous and oft-contested line: “There is no there there.” Stein reportedly gazed upon the site where her house had once been, razed to make way for new […]

Jenny Odell Wants You to Put Down Your Phone and Smell the Roses

Jenny Odell first started doing nothing in 2016. Despondent over the presidential election results, she took refuge in the Morcom Rose Garden near downtown Oakland.

A Cube with No View

Photographer Chauncey Hare trained his lens on the modern corporate hellscape. “Chauncey hardly ever cracked a smile,” said the Bancroft Library’s pictorial curator, Jack von Euw, of photographer Chauncey Hare. And yet, there is humor in his work—albeit dark humor. His photographs of dreary office scenes recall the old joke about a man who goes […]

Whose Fault?

Early earthquake warning app works on people’s need-to-know When a series of earthquakes rolled through the Mojave Desert over Independence Day weekend, the 500,000 Angelenos who’d downloaded the mobile app ShakeAlertLA thought they’d receive advance warning. Notification never came. Left to their own (silent) devices, many expressed frustration: Had the United States’ new earthquake early […]

The Periodic Table Is Turning 150. Please Clap.

A dummy’s guide to Mendeleev’s masterpiece In 1669, Hennig Brand, a German merchant and alchemist, tried a novel experiment he hoped would yield the mythical “philosopher’s stone,” a way to spin base metals into gold. His exact formula is lost to history, but we know he heated urine in a retort, or glass chamber, until […]

The Element Named After Berkeley

Hint: It’s not stanfordium, oxfordium, or caltechium. Glenn Seaborg was born too late to have spawned Cal’s spirit cry. It’s coincidence, surely, that his name is an anagram for “Go Bears!” And, although he was definitely a Bears fan and was Chancellor when Cal last made it to the Rose Bowl in 1959, he was […]

Elite Athletes and the Pregnancy Penalty

Track star Alysia Montaño takes on the Man.

Warning! AI Is Heading for a Cliff

Stuart Russell wants to harness AI before it’s too late. Asked if the race to achieve superhuman artificial intelligence (AI) was inevitable, Stuart Russell, UC Berkeley professor of computer science and leading expert on AI, says yes. “The idea of intelligent machines is kind of irresistible,” he says, and the desire to make intelligent machines […]

Living with Delusions: Navigating Mental Illness at Cal

A student’s account of psychosis, isolation, and love I am susceptible to believing, with complete conviction, things that aren’t true. All my adult life I have resided on the psychotic spectrum, a set of serious mental disorders that interfere with properly interpreting stimuli, resulting in social, emotional, and cognitive difficulties—what I call my “thought problems.” […]

Chancellor’s Letter: The Year of Implementation

Budget balanced and plans aplenty as the new school year begins As you read this, a new academic year is getting underway on the Berkeley campus. It’s a wonderful time of renewal and excitement; an excellent opportunity to reflect on the road we have recently traveled as well as the one that lies ahead. Cal’s […]

Editor’s Note

The world of UC Berkeley and Berkeley in the world I like to say this magazine is about two things: It’s about the world of UC Berkeley, and it’s about Berkeley in the world. Which is to say, it’s about Cal and its outsize influence on our culture, human knowledge, and global affairs. Our mission, […]