Spring 2023 Calendar of Events

The American Communities Program at California State University, Los Angeles promotes humanities-based inquiry into the formation of individual and communal identities in American society.

All events are in-person unless otherwise noted. Covid protocols will be followed to ensure safety.

 

TIME AND TEMPORALITY

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2 & THURSDAY, MARCH 2

 

ACP READING GROUP: RINALDO WALCOTT’S THE LONG EMANCIPATION

12 PM ● Engineering and Technology Building, A631

Join us as we continue to discuss Rinaldo Walcott’s The Long Emancipation: Moving Toward Black Freedom (Duke University Press, 2021). We will have a limited number of copies of the book available free to reading group participants, on a first-come, first served basis. Contact Dr. Ezekiel Joubert for a copy of the book at [email protected].

 

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 21

The Garden of Forking Paths: Los Angeles Landscapes Through Time

3 PM ● Rosser Hall, ASCB 132

Join us as Dr. Barry Hibbs, Dr. Mandy Hillstrom, Dr. Alexandra Wright, and Dr. Choi Chatterjee discuss the development and uses of the urban food garden at California State University, Los Angeles from the perspectives of water resources, nutrition, polyculture, and climate change.

 

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 21

Time, Memory, and the Holocaust

6 PM ● Engineering and Technology Building, A631

Join us for a book discussion about Susan Neiman’s Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil. A limited number of free books are available. Please contact Dr. Sarah Minslow at [email protected] to request a copy.

 

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 22

Historical Timelines in Cuba and the US: José Martí’s Visions of America

5 PM ● Music Hall – Theater Arts Building 116

This event is in Spanish. Writer Néstor Díaz de Villegas will discuss his new book, José Martí: Estados Unidos en la Prosa de un Inmigrante, an examination of writings about America written in America by the Cuban iconic poet and revolutionary José Martí. 

 

TUESDAY, MARCH 7

JEAN BURDEN POETRY READING: AN EVENING WITH CAROLYN FORCHÉ

6 PM ● Music Hall - Theater Arts Building 116

Join us as award-winning poet, professor, translator, and human rights activist Carolyn Forché reads from her work. Forché has been selected for a Guggenheim Fellow, a Los Angeles Times Book Award, and an Academy of American Poets award, among many other honors.

 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 22

CONTESTABLE TIMES: A CONVERSATION WITH A PHYSICIST, A PHILOSOPHER AND A BUDDHIST TEACHER

2PM ● This event is virtual.

Registration link: https://calstatela.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_z8LjWXrXTyulO-JPhzh0cQ

Join us for a conversation on the nature of time from a variety of perspectives. Scheduled to appear: Dr. Julian Barbour, physicist specializing in quantum gravity and the history of science; Dr. John McCumber, Distinguished Professor and Chair of the UCLA Department of Germanic Languages; and the Venerable Thubten Chodron, Buddhist teacher, founder of Sravasti Abbey, and coauthor with His Holiness the Dalai Lama on The Library of Wisdom and Compassion book series.

 

SATURDAY, MARCH 25

MÁS ATRÁS DEL BIEN Y DEL MAL

1 PM ● Los Angeles Public Library, Meeting Room A, 630 W. 5th Street, Los Angeles

This event will be in Spanish. Latin-American writers Pablo Baler (Argentina) and Néstor Díaz de Villegas (Cuba) meet to present their most recent works. El lejano desoriente (Rialta) by Baler and Poemas inmorales (Pretextos) by Díaz de Villegas.

 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12

PERU, CHILE, AND THE PACIFIC: TOWARD COLLABORATIVE AND PARALLEL HISTORIES

1:40 PM ● Library Community Room, Library North B131 

Dr. Joshua Savala (History, Rollins College) will discuss his recent book, Beyond Patriotic Phobias. Connections, Cooperation, and Solidarity in the Peruvian-Chilean Pacific World (UC Press, 2022), which narrates the stories of the many encounters, exchanges, and solidarities that defined the lives of Chileans and Peruvians working and moving across transnational waters and spaces during the War of the Pacific. Savala’s work invites us to rethink traditional historical periodization and theorize dis/continuity in humanities-based research. 

 

TUESDAY, APRIL 18

ACP FACULTY FELLOWS: NEW RESEARCH ON TIME AND TEMPORALITY

1:40 PM ● Library Community Room, Library North B131

Join us as the 2022-23 ACP fellows discuss their current research on time and temporality. Presenters: Dr. Katie Dingeman (Sociology), Dr. Sarah Minslow (English), Dr. Oona Fontanella-Nothom (Charter College of Education).