Berkeley Writers at Work
The Berkeley Writers at Work series was begun in 1997 as a forum for campus writers of note to discuss their writing process.
Research and teaching are the two primary goals of a large research university like Berkeley. Research is highlighted in many ways on this campus; to a lesser degree, so is teaching. However, writing itself—the primary way that faculty convey the results of their research—is rarely discussed.
The most common kind of writing forum involves writers of fiction and poetry reading selections and talking about the content of their work. Berkeley Writers at Work differs from these in that we focus (although not exclusively) on writers of nonfiction, and then on the process, rather than the content, to the extent that these can be separated.
Most of the campus community (faculty, staff, and students) spend most of their time writing pieces other than poetry and fiction, and we believe that it would be invaluable to make public the discussion of the kind of writing that most people at Berkeley are involved in, one way or another. How does a Pulitzer Prize winner in nonfiction get an idea? How does she start writing about it? How does he organize his work? Does she write in solitude? How does he revise? Edit? Who else reads the work in progress? These are all issues that many writers face, whether they are doing reports for the campus or books for publication.
Beyond developing a sense of community among the people who write on campus, we see this series as also simply highlighting writing on this campus. We have a number of truly gifted, award-winning writers whose work is more hailed elsewhere than here, except for an occasional short article in The Berkeleyan or California Monthly. This series provides a wonderful forum for writers on this campus.
Berkeley Writers at Work is aimed at the general campus community: faculty, staff, and students. College Writing instructors frequently ask their students to attend and assign them reading and writing assignments based on the interviews. Video and audio tapes and transcripts of each interview are available, as well as selected works by the featured writers. For more information, contact Steve Tollefson by email at tollef@berkeley.edu or phone (510) 642-6392.
The Berkeley Writers at Work Forum
Most Recent Forum
Professor Bonnie Wade, Richard and Rhoda Goldman Chair in Interdisciplinary Studies and Chair of the Department of Music
September 27, 2007
12:00-1:30 p.m.
Morrison Library in 101 Doe Library
Professor Wade's interests include ethnomusicology; Asian music with emphasis on India (particularly North India) and East Asia (particularly Japan); focuses on genres, historical perspectives, improvisatory work, contemporary Japanese music, and ethnography.
Among her books are Music in Japan; Thinking Musically: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture; Imaging Sound: An Ethnomusicological Study of Music, Art and Culture in Mughal India; and Tegotomono: Music for the Japanese Koto.
She was interviewed by Melinda Erickson of the College Writing Programs.
For more information on Professor Wade, visit http://ls.berkeley.edu/dept/music/Wade.html
Past and Upcoming Forums
1997
Spring: Professor Ronald Takaki, Ethnic Studies/Asian American Studies
Fall: Professor Robin Tolmach Lakoff, Linguistics
1998
Spring: Professor Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Anthropology
Fall: Professor Frederick Crews, English
1999
Fall: Professor Alan Dundes, Anthropology and Folklore
2000
Spring: Professor Bharati Mukherjee, English
Fall: Dean Orville Schell, Graduate School of Journalism
2001
Spring: Professor Arlie Hochschild, Sociology and Adam Hochschild, Lecturer, Graduate School of Journalism
Fall: Professor Emeritus Timothy Ferris, Graduate School of Journalism
2002
Spring: Professor Leon F. Litwack, History
Fall: Professor Robert Hass, English, Former Poet Laureate of the United States
2003
Spring: Professor Linda Williams, Rhetoric and Film Studies
2004
Spring: Professor David Kirp, Public Policy
2005
Spring: Professor Yuri Slezkine, History
Fall: Professor Michael Pollan, Journalism
2006
Fall: Professor Elaine Kim, Ethnic Studies
2007
Fall: Professor Bonnie Wade, Richard and Rhoda Goldman Chair in Interdisciplinary Studies and Chair of the Department of Music
