Online Exclusives Archives - Cal Alumni Association

Read, Watch, Listen

By Editorial Staff

This month’s picks of Berkeley-connected books, films, and podcasts

Dancers perform beneath a grand, glowing chandelier framed by deep red velvet curtains

_{“Red Carpet” at Zellerbach Hall.
Photo by Chris Hardy.}

How Cal Performances Rolled Out the “Red Carpet”

By Leah Worthington

The Paris Opera Ballet’s latest production made just two stops in the US, opening at Berkeley.

Four people conduct burn inspection in a forest

_{Photo by Marcus Hanschen}

Managing Wildfire for All It’s Worth

By Coby McDonald

Q&A with Lenya Quinn-Davidson

_{Courtesy Colin Allred}

Q&A: Colin Allred Isn’t Worried About Ideology

By Grace Benninghoff

The Berkeley Law grad talks about his second run for the Senate.

_{U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement/Public domain}

Q&A: Professor David Hausman on Tracking Mass Deportations

By Margie Cullen

Trump promised to deport the “worst of the worst.” Here’s what the data actually shows.

_{Doe Library. Courtesy UC Regents}

Your Reading List for This Month

Editors’ picks of recent works by Berkeley authors

Odell and Shoptaw sitting at a table in a bookstore

_{Courtesy of John Shoptaw and Jenny Odell}

The Poetry of Impurity

By Geoff Koch

A conversation with John Shoptaw and Jenny Odell

Man filming with a camera on top of a van in a desert landscape

_{McLeod films an exposed pile of radioactive uranium tailings in Tuba City, Arizona, on the Navajo Reservation. (Photo by Randy Hayes)}

Lessons in Humility and Persistence

By Andrea Lampros

Filmmaker Toby McLeod has spent four decades amplifying Indigenous voices—while wrestling with how to tell stories not his own.

Recent Works by Berkeley Authors and Artists

By Editorial Staff

Editors’ picks for books, documentaries, and exhibits to check this month

Superman stands in the Fortress of Solitude.

_{David Corenswet as Superman in DC Studios. Courtesy of Warner Bros © Warner Bros.}

It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s a … Conlang?

By Alexander Rony

David J. Peterson created languages for Superman, Dune, and Game of Thrones. It all started with courses at Berkeley.

A young white toddler hides behind her sign showing an image of a black fist that symbolizes Black Lives Matter along with the words

_{Edward Nachtrieb/Alamy}

Please Don’t Call Me a Liberal

By Leah Worthington

Q&A with historian Kevin Schultz, author of Why Everyone Hates White Liberals (Including White Liberals)

Kim Ricardo

Kim D. Ricardo ‘99, was awarded Inaugural Lucy Sprague Professorship In Public Interest last month. Ricardo’s personal and professional commitment to deepening society’s collective understanding of how group-based differences such as race, gender, and class impact the unequal distribution of resources, paralleled with her mission to advance social justice causes and uplift the voices of […]

_{May 15, 2025. Protesters outside the U.S. Supreme Court during oral arguments in CASA v. Trump. Photo: SOPA Images Limited/Alamy Live News}

Erwin Chemerinsky on Testing the Limits of Presidential Power

By Nathalia Alcantara

The UC Berkeley Law dean breaks down the Supreme Court's game-changing ruling on birthright citizenship.

Black and white photo of Georgian-Colonial style house

_{Undated photograph of the UC Masonic Clubhouse. Courtesy Ian Stewart}

The Other Fraternity House

By Ian A. Stewart

For nearly 50 years, the Freemasons had an outsized presence on campus. Today, a new group is trying to revive that fraternal legacy.

10 Books to Read This Summer

Deep Cuts Holly Brickley ’02 This debut novel from Cal alum Holly Brickley opens at a Berkeley bar, just “blocks from campus” (Triple Rock? Kip’s? Larry Blake’s? It’s fun to guess) sometime in the early aughts. Protagonist Percy Marks and fellow student Joey Murrow bond over beers and banter about the fine points of whatever’s […]

Clayton Cone

Clay Cone ’82 writes: Ode to Ned and Jack Against Stanford University, even the Guanos (Cal’s third and fourth rugby teams) had an important part to play: to begin a three-game same-day Big Game sweep with a victory in the first game of the day . . . in 1982, played at the old California […]

Jose Hernandez Diaz

Jose Hernandez Diaz ’11 has published a new poetry book, Portrait of the Artist as a Brown Man, winner of the Benjamin Saltman Award, with Red Hen Press.