Videos

About Videos

A collection of the video recordings of our Center's events and films produced by the American Cultures Center staff, students, and faculty available for your streaming convenience!

Teaching in Summer Workshop Series

Every year we host workshops that focus on some of the best approaches to teaching an intensive six- or ten-week summer course at UC Berkeley. Among the topics discussed include strategies for managing extended summer class time, what to expect from summer student enrollment, the specifics of the American Cultures curriculum requirement, and teaching to issues of racial and economic justice in diverse classrooms.

Long Arc of Freedom Struggles

Event Description

On March 8, 2023 the American Cultures Center and the Multicultural Community Center at UC Berkeley hosted the first event in the Staff as Students of Social Justice (SSSJ) public discussion series, “Aspirations of Material Anti-Racism: What’s Next?”

The Long Arc of Freedom Struggles is a discussion of Dan Berger’s latest publication,...

The University, Abolition, and Decolonial Theory and Praxis

Event Description

On March 13, 2023, the American Cultures Center and the Multicultural Community Center at UC Berkeley hosted this discussion focusing on the University as a site of contestation and contradiction. Starting from its settler colonial origins and logics, the speakers engage what it means to participate in decolonial and abolitionist work at the site of the university. What are its repressive logics and histories? How might we find cracks in its structure to organize?

The event was part of the Staff as Students of Social...

ACES

The Problem(s) with Grading: Making a Case for Contract Grading

Event Description

Building on the groundwork of the Antiracism Winter Institute, the CDF Program co-sponsored and co-facilitated a follow-up seminar in late April centered on contract grading. The two-day workshop, The Problem(s) with Grading: Making a Case for Contract Grading, invited participants to explore two models of contract grading, Specifications Grading and Labor-based Contract Grading. On the first day, participants engaged in current research that explores how traditional grading methods structure...

Summer 2021 SSSJ Final Projects

About the Program

The 'Staff as Students of Social Justice' (SSSJ) Program is an opportunity for up to 25 staff per semester (from the Division of Undergraduate Education and beyond) to audit an American Cultures course and participate in discussions about timely and important topics. Piloted in Fall 2020, the SSSJ Program is a unique opportunity to learn first-hand from leading scholars and American Cultures instructors about the intersections of race, ethnicity, and gender; dig into subjects of personal interests;...

Video Library

The American Cultures Center aims to strengthen the development of the curriculum through its support of course development workshops, community dialogue events and engagement with the rich diversity of students embarking on projects of social justice.

This video library aims to provide broad access to this work and foster our community of social justice practice at UC Berkeley and nationally.

AC Anniversaries

About

The American Cultures Center celebrates its milestones by recognizing its accomplishments. Please click on the images below to learn more about the origins of the American Cultures curriculum, our leaders, achievements, and lessons learned that can be applied to higher education. Please review the videos of our different filmed anniversary events.

College Writing

'Researching Water in the West,' cross-listed as College Writing 50AC and 150AC Instructor: Pat Steenland Semester: Spring 2015 - Present In College Writing (CW) 50/150AC, students learn of a history that is absent from the popular narrative of California 'water wars,' — the Paiute Native Americans who for hundreds of years developed a sophisticated system of irrigation canals that made the valley bloom. Their history was erased from the site's history by people who waged economic and land wars to control water rights. A primary goal in this class is to...

Curriculum Snapshot