On Tuesday, May 27, at 9 AM, Fiat Lux Redux celebrates Asian American History Month with poet and novelist Ocean Vuong and UC Berkeley English Professor Cathy Park Hong in conversation. They discuss the importance of genre fluidity and artistic experimentation, the role of disobedience in their writing and the power of language both as a tool of oppression and liberation.
Ocean Vuong is the author of two poetry collections — Night Sky With Exit Wounds and Time Is a Mother — and two novels — On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, and The Emperor of Gladness (released May 13, 2025). He was awarded the UC Berkeley 2023-24 Avenali Chair in the Humanities and is the recipient of numerous awards for his work, including the MacArthur Foundation’s “Genius” Grant in 2019, the T.S. Eliot Prize, the Whiting Award, the Thom Gunn Award and the Forward Prize for Best First Collection.
Cathy Park Hong‘s creative nonfiction book, Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning, was a 2021 Pulitzer Prize finalist, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography, and earned its author recognition on TIME’s 100 Most Influential People of 2021 list. Hong is also the author of poetry collections Engine Empire; Dance Dance Revolution, and Translating Mo’um. She is the recipient of the Windham-Campbell Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.
Fiat Lux Redux presents previously aired lectures, conversations, and podcasts originating on the campus of UC Berkeley every other Tuesday from 9am to 9:30am. These often-lengthy original programs have been edited to a 30-minute format by experienced KALX producers. The show’s name, Latin for “Let there be light”, is a reference to the University of California’s motto, which is also Fiat Lux. The show’s goal is to provide listeners with a window into the intellectual and cultural life of UC Berkeley and to showcase the wide range of subjects and diversity of thought and ideas that are present at UC Berkeley.
The event took place April 4, 2024, and was sponsored by The Townsend Center for the Humanities in partnership with BAMPFA. This episode of Fiat Lux Redux was edited by Lisa Katovich. If you have questions or comments about Fiat Lux Redux, contact lisa.katovich@gmail.com. Photos by Tom Hines.
