Memory and Imagination: A Polymathic Inquiry

Event
  • Add to Calendar 2022-10-06 17:00:00 2022-10-06 18:00:00 Memory and Imagination: A Polymathic Inquiry In conversation with scholars far-a-field from one another, this special TFW session explores what happens in our brain and heart when we remember the past and imagine the future. 05:00 pm 06:00 pm America/Los_Angeles public
October 6, 2022 - October 6, 2022
5pm
Sidney Center (previously known as the Harman Academy); Doheny Memorial Library, room 241

RSVP Required

In conversation with scholars far-a-field from one another, this special TFW session explores what happens in our brain and heart when we remember the past and imagine the future.

Andrew Hires, Biology  

Jennifer West, Roski  

Viet Thanh Nguyen, English 

  • Profile Photo

    Andrew Hires

    Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences

    Samuel Andrew Hires first studied Brain and Cognitive Sciences as an undergrad at MIT. In 2007, he received his Ph.D. in Neurosciences in the lab of Roger Tsien at UCSD where he developed genetically encoded indicators of glutamate and synaptic release. This was followed by a brief post-doc with Loren Looger at Janelia Farm where he developed the popular genetically-encoded calcium indicator G-CaMP3 with Lin Tian. He finished his post-doctoral training with Karel Svoboda studying cortical circuits governing tactile sensory processing in the mouse. In 2014, the Hires Lab opened at the University of Southern California.

  • Jennifer West

    Associate Professor of Practice, Art / Director, MFA Art

    Jennifer West​ is an artist who has explored materialism in film for over ten years. Born in Topanga, California, West lives and works in Los Angeles. She received an MFA from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, and a BA with film and video emphasis from the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. She has lectured widely on her ideas of the “Analogital” and is an Associate Professor of the Practice of Fine Arts at USC’s Roski School of Art and Design. Her writing has appeared in Artforum, Frieze and Mousse Magazine. West has produced eleven Zine artist books which were recently acquired by the Getty Museum. Her work is in museum and public collections such as and the Yuz Museum, Shanghai, China; Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Kadist Foundation (San Francisco/Paris), Zabludowicz Collection (London); Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Depart Foundation (Rome); Museum of Old and New Art, Tasmania; Henry Art Gallery (Seattle); Rubell Collection (Florida); Saatchi Collection (London), among others. Significant commissions include Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, 2016-2017; Institute of Contemporary Arts, Art Night, London, 2016; High Line Art, New York, 2012; Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, 2010; and Turbine Hall at TATE Modern, London, 2009. Her solo exhibitions include: “ Future Forgetting", JOAN Los Angeles (2020); Emoji Piss Film, Contemporary Art Museum, St Louis, 2018; “ Is Film Over?, Yuz Museum, Shanghai, China (2017); Film is Dead…, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, 2017; Action Movies, Painted Films and History Collage, Museo d’Arte Provincia di Nuoro, Nuoro, 2017; Flashlights Filmstrips Projections, Tramway, Glasgow, 2016; Aloe Vera and Butter, S1 Artspace, Sheffield, UK (2012); Paintballs and Pickle Juice, Kunstverein Nürnberg, Nuremberg, (2010); Perspectives 171: Jennifer West, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, (2010); Lemon Juice and Lithium, Transmission Gallery, Glasgow (2008); White Room: Jennifer West, White Columns, New York, (2007).

  • Profile Photo

    Viet Nguyen

    University Professor, Aerol Arnold Chair of English and Professor of English, American Studies and Ethnicity and Comparative Literature

    Viet Thanh Nguyen’s novel The Sympathizer is a New York Times best seller and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Other honors include the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the Edgar Award for Best First Novel from the Mystery Writers of America, the First Novel Prize from the Center for Fiction, the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Literary Excellence from the American Library Association, a California Book Award, and the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature in Fiction from the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association. A finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction, the PEN Faulkner Award, and an LA Times Book Prize in the Mystery/Thriller category, The Sympathizer made it to over thirty best of the year lists, including those of the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, Amazon.com, Public Books, Kirkus Reviews, The Guardian, Library Journal, Flavorwire, and BuzzFeed, among other venues. The foreign rights have been sold to twenty-eight countries. Its sequel, The Committed, is now available.

    Nguyen is University Professor, Aerol Arnold Chair of English, and Professor of English, Comparative Literature, and American Studies and Ethnicity, as well as a member of the steering committee for the Center for Transpacific Studies. His articles have appeared in numerous journals and books, including PMLA, American Literary History, Western American Literature, positions: east asia cultures critique, The New Centennial Review, Postmodern Culture, the Japanese Journal of American Studies, and Asian American Studies After Critical Mass. Many of his articles can be downloaded here.