EAHI News with Applications for Course and Event Support | Center for Interdisciplinary Critical Inquiry

June 23, 2026

ENTANGLING: Looking Back, Looking Ahead

With this end-of-year note, I offer my thanks to the entire EAHI community for their collaboration this year while announcing new opportunities for 2026/27. Herewith you will find a short re-cap of our activities, the announcement of new philanthropic support, and a new small grant program to support your events and courses in the coming year.

LOOKING BACK

Throughout last year, we supported our new campus-wide Entanglement Series, assembling exciting cross-disciplinary events hosted by departments and centers across campus. The program demonstrated how robust the environmental arts and humanities are at Berkeley, with lectures, workshops, exhibitions, and performances. We are excited to announce the continuation of this program along with applications for small grant support in 2026/27. See below.

In Fall of 2025, we started the year with a robust, exploratory symposium on the ambitious environmental justice platform, Our Life is Here, a project sponsored by the Waverly Street Foundation and Cape Farewell that produced over thirty art works, films, community rituals, and research projects focused on the eco-nuclear-colonial politics of the Marshall Islands. Participating artists and faculty luminaries offered potent reflections on the significance of this project and on the importance of bringing it to Berkeley. We are thrilled to announce that Our Life is Here will indeed be coming to Berkeley! It will unfold in two phases, starting with an array of small-scale exhibitions in Fall of 2026 and culminating with a full-scale exhibition at the David Brower Center in Fall of 2027. This arc of activity will be amplified by a grants program to support faculty and student engagement in courses, scholarly writing, and public programs. See below.

LOOKING AHEAD

It gives me great pleasure to announce that EAHI has received a special gift from the Kramlich Art Foundation, one focused on the support of research, education, and public programming on ecologically engaged time-based media art. Pamela Kramlich and her late husband Dick are legendary collectors and benefactors in the field of video and media art, including the capacity of these forms to address ecological themes. Their generosity allows us to further fortify the following grant programs.

1. Entanglement Series Event Grants
Applications due July 23rd

With this program, we renew our Entanglement Series with infusions of funding and in-kind publicity support for campus events that explore how the arts and humanities activate ecological engagement. This series demonstrates the entanglement of ecological themes with key scientific and social issues around race, gender, indigenous rights, disability, and more, emphasizing the interconnected nature of ecological inquiry across disciplines and our campus. You and your team can request support of $250 to $500 for co-sponsored programming in 2026/27 here.

2. Our Life is Here Event Grants and Course Grants
Applications due July 23rd

With this program, we are offering support for courses and public programming that engage with Our Life is Here and its themes throughout the year. As part of Phase 1 of this project, faculty and students will have the chance to encounter a first round of interventions and screenings, including Doe Library, Giannini Hall, Memorial Glade, and a Teaching Wall at BAMPFA. (Mark your calendars now for a public launch and reception on September 23rd at the Morrison Library.) With our Fall 2026 grant program, we seek to support 1) more allied public programs as well as 2) allied courses that incentivize students to contribute their own scholarly thinking and art-making to this project.

For inspiration, peruse these links to understand the context, themes, and array of artworks coming to Berkeley:

Our Life is Here at UC Berkeley
Our Life is Here website
“Artists set sail for Marshall Islands on climate crisis expedition,” Article in The Art Newspaper, by Garreth Harris.

A special note: A selection of works by students and faculty may be included in the Fall 2027 exhibition at the David Brower Center, appearing in its second-floor exhibition space and/or included in a chapbook catalogue created to accompany the exhibition.

Apply for a course or programming grant here. The same unit or faculty member can apply for both grant programs. Please explore the links above, get your applications in by July 23rd. We will turn around decisions quickly by August 7th, to that all of our colleagues know they have EAHI funds to support their ambitions. Send clarifying queries about any of the above to info.eahi@berkeley.edu.

RETANGLING

Having seeded so much this past year, it is incredibly exciting to see how much is growing for the year ahead. Along with all the above, EAHI will continue to feature relevant courses, events, and connections.

Indeed, as long as I have your attention, let me encourage you to share news of my own graduate seminar on Ecological Aesthetics in Times of Authoritarianism. The seminar promises to connect the themes of EAHI to “A Counter-Imaginary in Authoritarian Times," our joint Mellon grant with the Center for Interdisciplinary and Critical Inquiry and the International Consortium of Critical Theory Programs.

If I still have your attention, let me also say that our ability to be a campus connector across environmental arts and humanities is about to get an upgrade. Yes, we will start the new academic year with our own new website! Stay tuned for its roll-out in August.

With your vision and collaboration, we will assemble a bracing and brilliant year of programming together, one that underscores the entangled relations of the planet, one that never forgets that intimate and implicated connection between life “over there” and our fragile lives here.

Warmly as ever,
Shannon Jackson
and the EAHI Team