Announcements

Congratulations to Shiben on having his monograph, Lineages of the Global City: Occult Modernism and the Spiritualization of Democracy (University of Texas Press, 2025), shortlisted for the MSA Book Prize for 2026. The judges commended Shiben for his "strikingly original study, [showing] how modernists influenced by esoteric movements planned urban spaces to nurture a new global consciousness." Summarizing the book's principal intervention, the judges noted that Shiben's book revealed how "Designers in Europe and the Americas, Australia and South Asia concei

Other Stories—A Genealogy for the Present opens in New York

Associate Professor Atreyee Gupta serves as Curatorial Advisor for Other Stories—A Genealogy for the Present, the inaugural exhibition at AINA Gallery, Aicon Art’s next chapter, opening in New York on October 1, 2026.

The South Asia Art Initiative at UC Berkeley is pleased to announce the opening of Private Frontiers: Media Legacies of the Cold War, an exhibition at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive bringing together work by Naeem Mohaiemen, Prajakta Potnis, TJ Shin, and Tiffany Sia.

The Department of History of Art is delighted to announce the appointment of Yingxue Wang as Assistant Professor of Japanese Art. Wang will join the department in Fall 2027 after two years at Yale as a Postdoctoral Associate in East Asian Studies and a 2025 PhD in History of Art and Architecture from Harvard. 

Berkeley News published a story on the Etruscan artifacts held at UC Berkeley, which are currently on display in Doe Library. The display will be up until Aug. 31. 

Read the entire job description here: https://aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05462

We are proud to celebrate recent fellowships, awards, and positions won by our accomplished graduate students. Wishing all congratulations!

Fellowships and Awards

Isabella Beroutsos: Center for Race and Gender Student Research Grant

Lily Callender: Outstanding GSI Award

Kiko del Rosario: John L. Simpson Pre-dissertation Research Fellowship in International & Area Studies.

Zamansele has won the prestigious Clark Fellowship in the Society of Hellman Fellows to support her book Nostalgia before and After Apartheid: Archival art and the figuration of the Black Subject. Congratulations!

Greetings to Alumni, Students, Faculty, Staff, Supporters, and Partners,

As we close out another academic year — and as I concluded my three-year term as Chair— I continue to marvel at our department’s ability to remain focused on our mission and responsive to dynamic conditions. 

The South Asian edition of Lineages of the Global City is forthcoming from Sanctum Books. As an imprint of Munshiram Manoharlal (est. 1870), Sanctum Books stands as India's premier publisher for the humanities and social sciences.