UC Berkeley sponsors a variety of public lectures. The lectureships present eminent scholars, Nobel laureates, and prominent figures to the University and San Francisco Bay Area community. Graduate Council and Graduate Division Lectures are free and no tickets are required.

Iamge of Harriet Mayor Fulbright
Harriet Mayor Fulbright

HarvEst Distinguished Women Lecture Series

Fulbright and the Importance of International Education

Harriet Mayor Fulbright
Co-Founder, Harriet Fulbright College
October 29, 2013 — 4:10 PM
International House Auditorium
2299 Piedmont Avenue, Berkeley

The Fulbright Program, administered by the U.S. Department of State, was founded in 1946 for the purposes of fostering exchange between American and international students. In this lecture Mrs. Fulbright will provide an intimate look into the origins of the program, describing how the idea for international exchange evolved over the course of her husband’s career in Congress. She will trace the program’s history from the passage of Senator Fulbright’s 1945 Bill, and what she sees as the future of his legacy.

Image of Patrick V. Kirch
Patrick V. Kirch

Carl O. Sauer Memorial Lectures

Island Landscapes, Or Sauer Among the Polynesians
Patrick V. Kirch
Class of 1954 Professor of Anthropology and Integrative Biology
University of California, Berkeley

November 05, 2013 — 4:10 PM
Berkeley campus location to be determined

Carl Ortwin Sauer demonstrated through his work and writings that landscapes are the long-term contingent product of interactions between natural processes and cultural forces. In this lecture, Professor Kirch applies the concept of landscape to the islands of Polynesia. Drawing upon recent multi-disciplinary research, Kirch shows how certain natural properties of islands shaped the course of cultural and social evolution of island peoples, at the same time that cumulative effect of human actions irreversibly altered island environments.

Image of Nell Painter
Nell Painter

Jefferson Memorial Lectures

Why White People Are Called ‘Caucasian’ (Illustrated)
Nell Painter — Edwards Professor of American History, Emerita, Princeton University

November 7, 2013 — 4:10 PM
International House Auditorium, 2299 Piedmont Avenue

Nell Painter’s lecture will combine the discursive meanings of scholarship with the visual meaning of painting, to answer, literally, why white people are called ‘Caucasian,’ what that looks like, and how they all relate to our ideas about personal beauty.

Image of Tanya Luhrmann
Tanya Luhrmann

Foerster Lectures on the Immortality of the Soul

The Quest for Heaven is Local: How Spiritual Experience is Shaped by Social Life
Tanya Luhrmann
Watkins University Professor, Department of Anthropology, Stanford University

November 12, 2013 — 4:10 PM
Anna Head Alumnae Hall
2537 Haste Street, Berkeley campus

Drawing on fieldwork in new charismatic evangelicals churches in the Bay are and in Accra, Ghana, this talk explores the way that cultural ideas about mind and person alter prayer practice and the experience of God.

For more information

Enjoy a wide range of past presentations by prominent scholars, scientists, and public intellectuals you can see or hear online, please visit the lectures sites at grad.berkeley.edu/lectures/You can also contact us by phone, at (510) 643.7413, or by e-mail ([email protected]).

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