Institute of European Studies, UC Berkeley

🇫🇷 Center of Excellence in French and Francophone Studies Fall Lecture Series Marie Curie (1867-1934): The Making of a Myth by Camilla Maiani (Musée Curie, Paris) 🗓️Oct 28 🕛 12pm-1pm 🌐 Zoom only Environmental Diplomacy: Where do we Stand? Challenges and Sources of Hope by Paul Salvaire (Deputy Consul General of France in San Francisco) 🗓️ Nov 10 🕛 11am-12pm 📍Library of French Thought (Dwinelle 4229) French Eyes on the Gold Rush: Artists and Chroniclers Witness Early California’s Astonishing Transformation” by Claudine Chalmers 🗓️ Dec 02 🕛 11am-12pm 📍Library of French Thought (Dwinelle 4229)

All remains in the Family: A History of Inheritance in the US and Europe Since 1800 🗓️ October 20 🕛 5 p.m. 📍223 Philosophy Hall In his lecture, Jürgen Dinkel traces the history of inheritance in the US and Europe since 1800. He demonstrates how governments, families, and individuals repeatedly negotiated the transfer and distribution of estates, thereby also renegotiating kinship relations, the bonds between the individual, the family, and the state, as well as the legitimization of wealth inequalities within their societies. Ultimately, this lecture contributes to the new histories of capitalism, the family, and the state, arguing that Euro-American societies from the 19th to the 21st century are fundamentally structured around inheritance and the family. 🔗 Register for this event on our website: https://lnkd.in/g5H_xF3p

Poems on the London Underground (and Beyond) 🗓️ October 6 🕛 3 p.m.📍201 Philosophy Hall Since 1986, Poems in the Underground has enabled commuters on London to randomly encounter poetry – classic and contemporary, British and international – while traveling on the tube, via poster cards slotted in the carriage advertising spaces. In conversation with Professor Eric Falci, Lily Beckett’s talk will explore the history, development, and impact of Poems on the Underground as a public poetry project. Founded by Judith Chaiken (a native New Yorker), the idea for the project arose in the middle of Thatcher’s premiership, a political moment characterised by an ideological turn away from the public and towards the private. Since its founding, the project has continued, uninterrupted, for 40 years, and has inspired multiple spin-off schemes abroad, with poetry being installed on transit systems in cities like Dublin, Paris, and New York. Adopting a socio-poetic angle, this talk offers Poems on the Underground as a prompt for further considering the value of poetry in public spaces. What does poetry do for the ‘travelling public’ of modern cities – whether in the 1980s in Britain under Thatcher, or today, anywhere in the world, in the age of AI? 🔗 Register for this event on our website https://lnkd.in/g4FcEi9G

***ROOM CHANGE*** Owing to high volumes of registrations received this event will now take place in 223 Philosophy Hall. ******************************************************************************** Nordic Capitalism: Lessons for Realizing Sustainable Capitalism 🗓️ September 29 🕛 Noon 📍201 Philosophy Hall Why do the Nordics consistently rank among the world’s happiest, most prosperous, and most trusted societies? What lessons might the Nordics offer the United States at a moment when many people feel growing frustration and anxiety about the direction of American capitalism? Nordic Capitalism: Lessons for Realizing Sustainable Capitalism (2026, Cambridge University Press; open access:https://bit.ly/3MSvrOp) by Robert G. Strand explores a simple but urgent idea: capitalism must be rooted in democracy if it is to support freedom, shared prosperity, and sustainability. Drawing on research, lived experience, and comparative analysis between the Nordics and the United States, Strand argues that the Nordic countries offer practical inspiration for reimagining capitalism in the twenty-first century. 🔗 Register for this event on our website: https://lnkd.in/g3cTRMCW

The Greek Alphabet in America 🗓️ September 25 🕛 Noon 📍201 Philosophy Hall The history of Greek assimilation in America can be traced in the slow erasure of Greek as a symbol of difference and indecipherability, the most recognizably unrecognizable alphabet – “It’s all Greek to me!” However, by the 1970s and 1980s, Greek’s indecipherability became the grounds for literary experimentation and, particularly for women writers, a “politics of transliteration.” The idea that Ancient Greek and English were superior to Modern Greek was replaced by a multilingual understanding that more than one language and alphabet could creatively coexist. 🔗 Register for this event on our website https://lnkd.in/e7-zrkt4

Translation as Rediscovery: Introducing Fausta Cialente 🗓️ September 24 🕛 5 p.m. 📍201 Philosophy Hall Fausta Cialente (1898-1994) was one of Italy’s most significant twentieth-century authors. Though she won critical acclaim—albeit late in her career—Cialente remained overlooked for decades until the recent rerelease of her literary works in Italian. A Very Cold Winter (Transit Books, 2026) is the first of Cialente’s novels to be rediscovered in translation by Julia Nelsen. In conversation with Professor Mairi McLaughlin, Nelsen will discuss her translation of A Very Cold Winter, situate Cialente within the broader landscape of modern Italian and international literature, and explore the role translators play in recovering unsung voices. 🔗 Register for this event on our website: https://lnkd.in/gEs3mdnf

Scripting Silence: Animals Political and Unpolitical in Charlotte Beradt’s Dreamscape 🗓️ September 22 🕛 5 p.m. 📍223 Philosophy Hall This talk features the implicit dialogue between the German-Jewish journalist Charlotte Beradt (1907-1986) and her fellow émigré, Hannah Arendt, regarding the boundaries between humans and animals, as well as the ethical limits of anthropocentrism during political crises. Beradt’s Third Reich of Dreams, a catalogue of dreams compiled between 1933 and 1939 on the basis of dreams retold by more than fifty Germans living under totalitarian rule, prompts her readers to re-evaluate the unique traits of physiological activities such as dreaming—as opposed to discursive reasoning—in safeguarding the humane promise of politics. Register for this event on our website. 🔗 https://lnkd.in/gktUqdBa

The Power of Ideas and Discourse in Political Analysis—and its applications to Europe 🗓️ September 21 🕛 Noon 📍 201 Philosophy Hall In this lecture, Vivien Schmidt will discuss her new book, The Power of Ideas and Discourse in Political Analysis: A Discursive Institutionalist Perspective, which provides a sweeping appraisal of how ideas and discourse are used by policymakers and everyday citizens to understand the world, communicate with one another, and mobilize for collective action. At a time of major political upheaval, with populism and authoritarianism on the rise, understanding agents’ ideas and discourse is even more essential today than ever. The talk will illustrate with examples from the European Union and Europe more generally, both in terms of substantive issues and methodological approaches. 🔗 Regsiter for this event on our website: https://lnkd.in/gDADTfDU

2026 Snapper Lecture in Dutch Studies Reading the City: Language and Poetry in Dutch Public Spaces 🗓️ September 19 🕛 4 p.m. 📍 Alumni House n this lecture, we explore the linguistic landscape of the Netherlands by walking through its streets, alleys, and squares and examining the languages that surround us. Which languages do we encounter, where do we find them, in what forms do they appear, and what meanings do they convey? We will see how written language in public spaces can inform us, warn us, instruct us, and even seduce us. A special part of this linguistic landscape is poetry in public places. We will look at several poems in public spaces and discover how they can transform a city from a neutral space into a familiar friend. 🔗 Register for this event on our website: https://lnkd.in/gMTG7gtE

The Work and Life of José Rentes de Carvalho: A Portuguese Author straddling two Countries, Portugal and the Netherlands 🗓️ September 18 🕛 4 p.m. 📍201 Philosophy Hall José Rentes de Carvalho (born in 1930) is one of Portugal’s leading contemporary authors and journalists. Early on, he moved to Amsterdam and has ever since been writing about both Portugal and the Netherlands. This lecture will highlight the importance of his literary and journalist work, straddling two countries. 🔗 Register for this event on our website: https://lnkd.in/gVXNs99z