Every year, the committee invites a UC Berkeley faculty member to be a keynote speaker at the symposium. The Keynote Speech provides an opportunity for undergraduates to get a glimpse of what comparative literary scholarship can look like at a high academic level. Through the symposium, the committee aims to provide a forum for undergraduates to discuss humanities research amongst other peers, graduate students, professors, and the public.
2024 Keynote Speaker
This year we are honored to have Professor Emma Fraser as the keynote speaker for our event. Emma Fraser is an Assistant Teaching Professor in Media Studies and the Berkeley Center for New Media at UC Berkeley. Emma’s work examines the relation between ruin and contemporary experience, particularly in post-War Western Europe and post-industrial America. Emma has also researched the ways in which cities decline and fall apart; the relations between digital media and fragmentation, and contemporary visions of the end of the world. Walter Benjamin’s work on rubble and history is central to these investigations, informing her approach to both critical media analysis, and urban field work. She is currently working on a book about ruins and digitality, with a focus on space, image, experience, and catastrophe. If you wish to know more about Emma’s work, please refer to her website.
Comparative Literature Undergraduate Research Symposium 