In 2004, Sonali Deraniyagala was on vacation with her family on the coast of Sri Lanka when a tsunami struck the South Asian island. It killed her husband, their two sons and her parents, leaving Deraniyagala alone in a reality she couldn’t comprehend.

In Berkeley Talks episode 201, Deraniyagala discusses her all-consuming grief in the aftermath of the tragedy and the process of writing about it in her 2013 memoir, Wave.

“Wave was the wave was the wave,” said Deraniyagala, who spoke in April 2024 at an event for Art of Writing, a program of UC Berkeley’s Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities. “What mattered was the loss. It could have been a tree. It just happened to be the wave. I wasn't that interested in how it happened. It was more this otherworldly situation where I had a life, I didn't have a life, and it took 10 minutes between the two.

“So that I was trying to figure out, and I think the whole book Wave was trying to. Everything you know vanishes in an instant, literally in an instant, with no warning. … I experienced something that I didn't have words for. I didn't know what was happening when it was happening, which is why I was sure I was dreaming.”

Deraniyagala, an economist who teaches at the University of London and Columbia University, described herself as "an accidental writer.” She said her initial goal, at the urging of her therapist, was to write for herself in attempt to make sense of a loss that "one can't write easily or put into sentences or find words for," she told Ramona Naddaff, Berkeley associate professor of rhetoric and founding director of Art of Writing, whom Deraniyagala joined in conversation for the event.

But in the painstaking process of writing and rewriting, Deraniyagala found her voice. And after eight years, Wave was published. It became a New York Times bestseller and won the PEN Ackerley Prize in 2013.

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts).

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Photo by Emily Thompson.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In Berkeley Talks episode 200, Gigi Sohn, one of the nation’s leading public advocates for equal access to the internet, delivers the keynote address at the UC Berkeley School of Information’s 2024 commencement ceremony.

“I'd like to share with you some of the twists and turns of my professional journey as a public advocate in the world of communications and technology policy,” Sohn began at the May 18 event. … “I'm hoping that by sharing my story, you'll be inspired to keep choosing the path that you know is right for you and for society, even if it sometimes comes at a cost.”

Sohn began her story in the late 1980s, when she started a career in communications law. It was through this work, she said, that she learned the importance of media to a healthy democracy.

“Those with access to the [communications] networks influenced the debates that shaped public policy and decided elections,” Sohn said. “Those without were simply perilous. The internet promised to change all of that. … The world that advocates like me envisioned was one where everyone would have a voice and where the marketplace of ideas, and ultimately democracy, would flourish.

“But that ideal wouldn't happen by itself.”

In her speech, Sohn detailed her lifelong career as a public interest advocate, her fraught White House nominations to serve on the Federal Communications Commission and the importance of staying true to herself.

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts).

Photo by Noah Berger for UC Berkeley's School of Information.

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In Berkeley Talks episode 199, Harry Edwards, a renowned sports activist and UC Berkeley professor emeritus of sociology, gives the keynote address at the Department of Sociology’s 2024 commencement ceremony.

“As I stand here before you, in the twilight of my life's time of long shadows,” said Edwards at the May 13 event, “from a perspective informed by my 81 years of experience, and by a retrospective assessment of the lessons learned over my 60 years of activism, what is my advice and message to you young people today? What emerges as most critically germane and relevant in today's climate?

“First: Even in turbulent times, in the midst of all of the challenges, contradictions and confusion to be faced, never cease to believe in yourself and your capacities to realize your dreams.

“From time to time, you might have to take a different path than you had anticipated and planned, but you can still get there. Achievement of your dreams always begins with a belief in yourself. Never allow anyone to dissuade you of this imperative disposition. And if someone so much as even tries, you tell them that the good doctor said you need to go and get a second opinion.”

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts).

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

UC Berkeley photo by Allena Cayce.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.