Reading a provocative post entitled The Abortion Amendment by fellow FITizen Prof. Robin Lakoff on the newly started Berkeley Blog, I was reminded of an event that rattled me a few weeks ago on campus. Berkeley Students for Life (BSL) apparently invited the more→

Last night I had the privilege of joining Usree for a visit to a language-learning event and screening of Najib Joe Hakim’s film that chronicles the successes of children in bilingual programs in San Francisco schools, Speaking in Tongues.

Held at Beverly Cleary Hall across the street from the Unit 3 residence hall, and [...]

Foreign language programs, and language studies in general (including English) stand to be severely cut in the latest round of budget cuts announced by the California state government. For those not on the UCB mailing lists, I’ll reproduce below the entire letter sent out by Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau and Exec. Chancellor and Vice Provost [...]

Now, looking back and looking forward at the end of my third semester in Language and Power, I’m struck by how much the syllabus feels like it tells the story of a journey of survival. But, I have to admit, it’s a funny kind of journey, and one I wouldn’t have every hoped for, since [...]

Check out the results of the 13th Annual Webby Awards. And the best piece of news: Mission Loc@l (Mission Local/UC Berkeley Journalism School) won the student Webby! CONGRATULATIONS to the good folks at Mission Loc@l! Inspiring stuff!

In case you haven’t seen it, the German Department has a Poetry Corner on its website, featuring poems by Heiko Michael Hartmann, Zafer Senocak, Heinrich Heine and others. The site reads,

An epiphany, a bolt of spiritual lightning, an astonishing conceit, a fleeting insight, a lasting memory–great poetry is all this and more. A [...]

So “Janet Jackson”, a UC Berkeley graduate student, three other graduate students, and I had just wrapped up our presentations at the Expanding Literacy Studies International, Interdisciplinary Conference for Graduate Students at “the” Ohio State University in Columbus. It was a glorious day, bright and sunny, and we were thrilled that we were all [...]

Word is just in that a minor in Applied Language Studies is going to be a reality as of this fall!! This is a welcome victory in a long-fought battle, spearheaded by Professors Claire Kramsch (German, Education) and Rick Kern (French) in a time of shrinking budgets and ongoing struggles to define why in the [...]

Perusing the FIT calendar and checking my own schedule I notice a rarity in the language-at-Berkeley universe: two great-looking events going on at the same time:

1. BLC Spring 2009 Lecture Series — Alice Gaby, Professor, Department of Linguistics, UC Berkeley
Talk title: “When is West? Talking and Thinking about Time and Space”
When: Fri, February 27, [...]

The Berkeley Language Center has announced its Spring 2009 Lecture Series. The lineup is as follows:

Feb. 27: Alice Gaby (UCB): “When is West? Talking and Thinking about Time and Space”
Mar. 4: José del Valle (CUNY): “Everybody’s Usage: The Politics of Grammar in the Hispanofonia”
Mar. 19: James Coleman (Open Univ., UK): “New Perspectives on Study Abroad: [...]

A point of consensus that emerged from Friday’s first session of the UCCLLT colloquium “World Language Proficiency in a California Context” was the need for greater public and political will to support foreign and native and heritage language education in California. The main question of the day seemed to be how to cultivate [...]

Today, as I step back into the non-place of the SFO departure lounge on the way to the workshop on linguistic landscape in Siena, I’m also taking a detour from the path to Livermore. By now I suppose I’ve passed the Berkeley library, the Southside lineup of more→