| Resource Theme Guides to selected programs from the Spring 2021 Visions & Voices program were created in partnership with USC Libraries faculty and staff. Image source: Dr. Melissa L. Miller "Palace of Fine Arts pond, San Francisco" |
Behind Bars: Life and Death for Inmates in the Age of COVID-19 (Theme Guide PDF) |
Disclosure - A Screening and Discussion on Trans Lives (On and Off Screen) (Theme Guide PDF)Date: Wednesday, February 3, 2021 at 5 p.m. Location: Virtual Event USC Libraries Contributor: Hannah Schilperoort Please join us for a viewing party and an in-depth conversation about Disclosure, a new documentary offering a look at how transgender people are represented in film and television. Featuring interviews from trans creatives including Laverne Cox (Orange Is the New Black), Lilly Wachowski (The Matrix), Yance Ford (Strong Island), and Mj Rodriguez (Pose), the film traces the history of trans representation on screen and its relationship to the lives of trans people off screen. Related Event Description: Trans Language: Words and Bodies - A Creative Writing WorkshopDate: Friday, February 5, 2021 at 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Explore the ways language shapes us and we shape language in a special writing workshop presented in conjunction with the Visions and Voices screening of Disclosure, a documentary on trans representation in film and television. The workshop for USC students who have seen Disclosure and attended the panel discussion on February 3 will be facilitated by writers and artists, including Disclosure director Sam Feder, Disclosure producer Amy Scholder, and USC English professors MG Lord and Brighde Mullins. |
The Just and the Blind (Theme Guide PDF)Date: Tuesday, February 9, 2021 at 5:30 p.m. Location: Virtual Event USC Libraries Contributor: Christina Snider “A concert of voice, body, and musical and visual scores that collectively draw a map of Black parenthood and American justice.”—New York Times The Just and the Blind also features the work of the award-winning investigative journalist Lisa Armstrong, the provocative images of photographer Brittsense, and illustrations by Xia Gordon, woven together by media designer David Szlasa under the direction of Michael John Garcés. Now adapted to an online event, this skillful illumination of the unseen and under-heard experiences of incarcerated youth and their families in America is as intimate as it is essential. |
A Poetics of Inquiry: A Reading and Conversation with Tjawangwa Dema (Theme Guide PDF)Date: Thursday, February 25, 2021 at 12 pm Location: Virtual Event USC Libraries Contributor: Stacy Williams “Tjawangwa Dema’s poems are as bold, roving, and insistent as they are delicate and incisive.”—Tracy K. Smith, U.S. poet laureate Don’t miss internationally acclaimed Motswana poet Tjawangwa Dema, as she reads from her prize-winning collections The Careless Seamstress and Mandible, and performs spoken word pieces from throughout her career, reflecting on life in Botswana, the United States, and England. By foregrounding inquiry as a poetic practice, Dema invests the mundane with philosophy and ordinary beings with beauty while exploring ecopoetry, gender, race, disobedience, labor, mythology, and empathy. Related Event Description: Eco-Stories: Poetry, Sci-Fi, and Storytelling - Workshops with Tjawangwa Dema and Kirk SidesDate: Friday, February 26, 2021 at 10 a.m. Location: Virtual Event |
Fran Lebowitz: A Visions and Voices Signature Event (Theme Guide PDF)Date: Tuesday, March 2, 2021 at 5 p.m. Location:Virtual Event USC Libraries Contributor: Christy Kane “Fran Lebowitz’s trademark is the sneer; she disapproves of virtually everything except sleep, cigarette smoking, and good furniture. Her essays and topical interviews . . . have come to be regarded as classics of literary humor and social observation.”—The Paris Review |
Inflammatory Literature: The Legacy of American Journalist Ruben Salazar (Theme Guide PDF)Date: Wednesday, March 3, 2021 at 4 p.m. Location: Virtual Event USC Libraries Resource Theme Guide Contributors: Barbara Robinson, Tyson Gaskill USC History Department Resource Theme Guide Contributor: Carlos Parra Join us for an evening of performance and conversation honoring the life and work of Ruben Salazar (1928–1970), a pioneering journalist of Mexican descent who was among the first to cover the burgeoning Chicano movement in the 1960s, opening doors for Latinx journalists, newspapers, and broadcast media in Los Angeles and across the United States. Celebrated actors Chastity Dotson (Young Valiant, Little Book of Battles), Marlene Forte (Knives Out, Fear the Walking Dead, Real Women Have Curves), Matthew Lillard (Good Girls, Bosch), Culture Clash co-founder Herbert Sigüenza (Coco), and David Zayas (Dexter, Gotham, Oz, Rounders) will perform in a short play written by USC professor Oliver Mayer (author of Blade to the Heat) and directed by USC lecturer Edgar Landa. The play is inspired by writings preserved in the Ruben Salazar Papers, donated by his family to the USC Libraries' Special Collections. This event is presented by USC Visions and Voices: The Arts and Humanities Initiative; organized by Oliver Mayer (Dramatic Arts), Barbara Robinson (USC Libraries), Tyson Gaskill (USC Libraries), and Carlos Parra (History); and co-sponsored by the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, USC Dornsife College, the USC Libraries, the USC School of Dramatic Arts, and La CASA. |
Livewire: A Stimulating Night of Neurotechnology (Theme Guide PDF)Date: Friday, March 5, 2021 at 4 p.m. Location: Virtual Event USC Libraries Contributor: Lisa Crow Livewire is a virtual entertainment event that combines neuroscience, neuroethics, and interactive media for participatory technology design. After a series of lightning talks on the technical, clinical, and ethical implications of emerging brain technologies, attendees will break into small groups to experience and reflect on Brainstorm: a social neurotechnology platform for coupling minds across geographic, cultural, and social boundaries. Speakers include Dong Song, co-director of the USC Center for Neural Engineering; Eran Klein, a neurologist at the Oregon Health and Science University and a neuroethicist at the University of Washington’s Center for Neurotechnology; and Judy Illes, a former president of the International Neuroethics Society and director of Neuroethics Canada at the University of British Columbia. |
Infecting Rights: A Lecture by Kate Gilmore (Theme Guide PDF)Date: Thursday, March 11, 2021 at 4 p.m. Location: Virtual Event USC Libraries Contributor: Christy Kane Kate Gilmore has served as the United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights and is a fellow with the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Gilmore’s advocacy for the advancement and application of human rights norms and standards extends over three decades, and she has helped guide policy on a range of human rights issues for the United Nations, governments, and civil society organizations. |
The Power and Pleasure of Podcasting 2: The Return of Radio Fiction (Theme Guide PDF)Date: Thursday, March 18, 2021 - Friday, March 19, 2021 Location: Virtual Event USC Libraries Contributor: Melissa Miller EVENT SCHEDULE: |
i bear down; my body pulls - A Performance by Xandra Ibarra (Theme Guide PDF)Date: Thursday, March 25, 2021 at 5 p.m. Location: Virtual Event USC Libraries Contributor: Stacy Williams Event Description: Join performance artist and sculptor Xandra Ibarra as she explores leather, sex, and vulnerability inspired by the Bob Flanagan and Sheree Rose collections at the ONE Archives at USC. Anchored in an artistic study of Flanagan and Rose’s canonical performances exploring sadism, masochism, pleasure, illness, and disability in Los Angeles in the 1980s and ’90s, Ibarra will construct and fashion BDSM leather restraints and wheelchairs with Mexican leather tooling and upholstery. The original, interactive piece will be followed by an illuminating conversation with UC Riverside professor Jennifer Doyle and postdoctoral fellow at the ONE Archives Jeanne Vaccaro. |
Masters of the Currents: A Conversation with the Creators and Cast (Theme Guide PDF)Date: Wednesday, April 7, 2021 at 5 p.m. Location: Virtual Event USC Libraries Contributor: Lisa Crow Created by TeAda Productions, Masters of the Currents is the first nationally touring play about Micronesians in the U.S. Join us for excerpts from the show followed by a conversation with the creators and the multigenerational voices of Micronesians that played a key role in the play’s development. Inspired by the stories of Micronesians living in Hawai’i, creative partners Leilani Chan and Ova Saopeng used community-based story collection and social justice practices to craft a theatrical journey that takes us from remote island nations to urban cities through ocean water passageways and paved asphalt highways. The play follows the story of three Micronesian youth who have fled their island nations due to environmental and economic pressures, and who must now overcome conflicts of identity to be accepted by their peers in their new home of Hawai'i. In an engaging conversation, show creators Leilani Chan and Ova Saopeng and cast members Innocenta Sound-Kikku, Emeraldrose Hadik, Jayceleen Ifenuk, and Jermine Kaipat will discuss issues facing the Micronesian community, the development of Masters of the Currents, and the impact the play has had on their lives. The panel will be facilitated by Marie-Reine Velez, Visions and Voices production and marketing specialist and co-founder of the Asian American theatre collective Artists at Play. Bios: Leilani Chan (Co-creator, Playwright) is an award-winning performance artist, actor, playwright, director, cultural worker, and founding artistic director of TeAda Productions. Masters of the Currents, which had its continental and inter-island tour premieres in 2018, is her newest collaboration with Ova Saopeng. Chan was awarded the 2019–20 Santa Monica Artist Fellowship and is co-chair of the National Asian American Theater Conference and Festival. Born and raised in Hawai’i, she attended Hampshire College and obtained her MFA from UC Irvine in 2004. |
Eastside Punks—A Screening and Conversation (Theme Guide PDF)Date: Thursday, April 22, 2021 at 7 p.m. Location: Virtual Event USC Libraries Contributor: Andrew Justice Celebrate the release of three documentary shorts produced by Razorcake magazine about first-generation East L.A. punk bands. Excerpts will be screened, followed by an explosive panel featuring Eastside Punks director Jimmy Alvarado and musicians Tracy “Skull” Garcia (Thee Undertakers), Teresa Covarrubias (The Brat), and Jack Rivera (Stains)—who played storied L.A. punk venues such as The Vex and the Hong Kong Café alongside influential bands such as The Plugz, X, and Black Flag. The conversation will be moderated by Dino Everett, archivist for Eastside Punks and the USC School of Cinematic Arts. About the panelists: Jimmy Alvarado has been active in East L.A.’s underground music scene since 1981 as a musician, backyard gig promoter, writer, poet, bouncer, flyer artist, photographer, podcaster, historian, and filmmaker. He has authored numerous interviews, articles, and short films spotlighting the Eastside scene. An episode of his Eastside Punks documentary series, about The Brat, was named Best Documentary Short at the 2020 Highland Park Independent Film festival. He also plays guitar in the bands La Tuya and Our Band Sucks. |