Archive of Past Events
2012-2013
May 3 - Janice Littlejohn, “Women Horn Players and Jazz: Blowin' the Roof of the Boys' Club"(241 Doheny Library)
April 26 - Noé Montes, “Mr. Brown Los Angeles” (241 Doheny Library)
March 29 - Jon Boorstin, “Inventing the Movies: Why I Love Mabel Normand” (241 Doheny Library)
March 15 – Attica Locke, “Touring Tara: The Magic and Menace of Historical Tourism” (241 Doheny Library)
March 1 – Wim de Wit, “The Making of Overdrive: L.A. Constructs the Future, 1940-1990” (Getty Research Center)
February 15 – John Romano, “Dissent on Lolita: Can a Work of Art Be Immoral?” (241 Doheny Library)
February 1 – Don Franzen, “Digital Revolution in the Music Industry” (241 Doheny Library)
January 25 – Visions & Voices panel and film festival – “Music Festivals: Creating New Communities for a New Generation” at Norris Cinema Theatre
Panel: Ann Davidman, Dede Flemming, Jason Bentley, Simon Rust Lamb. Moderator: Josh Kun
Film Q &A with Kevin Kerslake and Simon Rust Lamb
January 18 – Mia Lehrer at the River Center, “Landscaping the Los Angeles River”, The Los Angeles River Center
December 7 – Carol Wells, “Can Art Stop a War?” (241 Doheny Library)
November 16 – Jorja Leap, “Getting Schooled by the Gangs of L.A.” (241 Doheny Library)
November 2 – Marty Kaplan, “Election 2012 Town Hall” (241 Doheny Library)
October 19 – Miles Corwin, “Today’s Downtown Los Angeles as a Setting for Noir Fiction” (at The Last Book Store, 453 S. Spring St., LA 90013. Lunch choices afterwards include venerable restaurants from Raymond Chandler’s days – Cole’s, Clifton’s, Far East Café.)
October 5 – Stephanie Barron, “Curating the Ken Price Sculpture Retrospective” (at LACMA, 5905 Wilshire Blvd., LA 90036. Lunch choices afterwards at the 3rd and Fairfax Farmer’s Market eateries.)
September 21 – Jon Wiener, “How We Forgot the Cold War” (241 Doheny Library)
2011-2012
5/18/12 Dana Gioia on “The Art of Poetry” and a poetry reading
5/4/12 Tom Lutz on “Book Talk & The Organization of Knowledge"
4/20/12 Clifford Johnson on "Graphic Adventures in Science Outreach"
4/6/12 Rick Wartzman on "The End of Loyalty: How the Social Contract Between Employer and Employee in America Has Changed Since the End of WWII"
3/29/12 Jim Leach on "The Relevance of the Humanities to the Challenges of Democracy"
3/1612 Off site Getty Center lunch: Marcia Reed, chief curator at the Getty Research Institute, on its collections of more than 5,000 artists’ books
3/2/12 Howard Rodman on “The Fantômas Centennial: My Obsession with a 100-Year-Old Fictional Archfiend”
2/17/12 Allison Engel on "Bringing Molly Ivins to the Stage"
2/3/12 Aaron Paley on “CicLAvia and the Transformation of LA’s Public Spaces”
1/20/12 M.G. Lord on “The Accidental Feminist: How Liz Taylor Raised Our Consciousness and We Were Too Distracted by Her Beauty to Notice”
12/2/11 Amir Hussain on “Islam and the Building of America”
11/18/11 Vanessa Schwartz on “France: Still Relevant in the 21st Century?”
11/4/11 Mark Allen and Sara Roberts on “Doing Stuff with Humans: Some New Ideas for Art Museums,” a short presentation and non-awkward participatory sound project
10/21/11 Bill Deverell on “The Kathy Fiscus Story: Tragedy and Community in Post-War America”
10/14/11 Off site lunch at Libros Schmibros with a talk by owner David Kipen on “Anti-Occident: Hammer-ing Away at LA’s Mutual East-West Incomprehension”
9/30/11 Brenda Levin on “Revitalizing Los Angeles: Reinvention Without Amnesia”
2010-2011
5/20/11 Debora Silverman on "Art and Violence: The Case of Damien Hirst"
5/6/11 Amy Parish on "Science, Sex and Politics"
4/15/11 Aimee Bender on "Fiction and the Writing Process"
4/1/11 Special Event: Getty Center visit with Andrew Perchuk on Pacific Standard Time
3/18/11 Leo Braudy on/under The Hollywood Sign
3/4/11 Laura Trombley on Mark Twain
2/18/11 Sean Carroll "From Particles to People: The Laws of Nature and the Meaning of Life"
2/4/11 Robert Scheer on "The Great American Stickup: How Reagan Republicans & Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street While Mugging Main Street"
1/21/11 Bram Dijkstra on "Nude in American Art"
1/14/11 Zev Yaroslavsky on "The Arts and Culture in Los Angeles"
12/03/10 Jack Miles on “An American Christian’s Prayer for Israel”
11/19/10 Kate Burton on life as an actress
11/5/10 Kevin Starr on “It’s Not Easy Being Square”
10/29/10 Marty Kaplan leads a Town Hall on the fall election [at USC’s Doheny Library]
10/8/10 Vanessa Place talks about representing sex offenders
9/24/10 Lewis Hyde on “The History of Owning Ideas” [at USC’s Doheny Library]
2009-2010
5/7/10 Robin Swicord on "Reviving Cleopatra"
4/16/10 Sara Lippincott on "The Two Cultures: From C.P. Snow to John Brockman"
4/2/10 Joyce Appleby on “Why does Capitalism begin with a puzzle?"
3/29/10 Visions and Voices panel "Joystick Nation: Theater, Film and Interactive Gaming in 2020"
3/19/10 Jonathan Kirsch on “Harlots, Holy Books and History”
3/5/10 Special Event Getty Center visit with Michael Brand on revisiting 15th century Mandu, India
2/19/10 Eric Lax on Wrestling with Faith
2/5/10 Gov. Michael Dukakis on The Uninsured: 50 Million and counting
1/15/10 Michael Hackett on LA Opera’s first Ring Cycle
12/11/09 DJ Hall on Who, Why and How She Paints
12/4/09 Dana Goodyear on literature coming to the internet
11/20/09 John Walsh on "Gardens for Sculpture: A Success Story (Partly)
11/6/09 Tom Lutz on “The End of the Road”
10/16/09 Josh Kun "Angels and Migrants: Mexican Music in Los Angeles"
10/2/09 Bill Boyarsky "Inventing Los Angeles: The Chandlers and their Time"
9/18/09 Reza Aslan "On the Future of US/Iran Relations"
2008-2009
5/1/09 Warren Bennis "On Leadership"
4/17/09 Neil Peter Jampolis "An Artist of Occasion: Life as a Stage Designer"
4/3/09 Gina Nahai "The Enigma of Iran: Reconciling Opposite Truths"
3/30/09 Visions & Voices: The USC Arts and Humanities Initiative, Seeing Los Angeles: Exploring the InVisible City
3/20/09 D.J. Waldie "Inventing Romantic Los Angeles: Shadows and Substance"
3/6/09 Special Event: Getty Center visit with Architectural Historian Wim de Witt
2/20/09 Louise Steinman "The Crooked Mirror: A Conversation with Poland"
2/12/09 Special Event: Walk-Through of "Art of Two Germanys " with Stephanie Barron at LACMA
2/6/09 Marc Cooper "The End of Journalism? Just Dead Trees or a Dead Profession?"
1/23/09 Barbara Isenberg "Inspiration to Building: The Journey of Frank Gehry"
1/9/09 Robert Winter "Between Digital Hell and Digital Hope: Creating from the New World"
12/19/08 Qingyun Ma "The USC American Academy in China"
12/5/08 Johanna Blakley "Creativity and Copyright: The Surprising Tale of the Fashion Industry"
11/21/08 Jon Boorstin "Lying with Fiction: Teddy Roosevelt, Emma Goldman and the Charismatic Leader"
11/7/08 Richard Schickel "The Trouble with Movies"
10/17/08 Town Hall Meeting Moderated by Marty Kaplan "The 2008 Presidential Election"
10/3/08 Barbara Tversky "Visual Communication"
9/19/08 Robert Scheer "The Pornography of Power"
2007-2008
5/2/08 Pico Iyer "The Dalai Lama and our Divided World"
4/18/08 Vanessa Schwartz "It's So French! Hollywood, the Cannes Film Festival and Global Film Culture"
4/4/08 Howard Fox, Rita Gonzalez and Chon Noriega "Phantom Sightings: Art after the Chicano Movement"
3/31/2008 Visions & Voices: The USC Arts and Humanities Initiative, "Does the Modern World Still Work? (And if not, Is Religion the Answer)
3/7/08 Carol Muske-Dukes "Prison and the Writerly Imagination"
2/15/08 David Bomford, Associate Director of Collections, J. Paul Getty Museum "Art in the Making: Another View of Art History"
2/1/08 Town Hall Meeting Moderated by Marty Kaplan
1/18/08 Barry Glassner "The Gospel of Food"
12/14/07 Robin Kelley "Thelonious Monk: Writing Against Myth"
12/7/07 Manuel Castells "Communication Power"
11/16/07 Michael Henry Heim "The Grass Affair: Grass's Past in His Memoir "Peeling the Onion"
10/26/07 Alex Ross "Music in the Century of Death"
10/19/07 Gregory Rodriguez "Mexican Immigration and the Future of Race in America"
10/8/2007 Visions & Voices, Hip Hop America
10/5/07 KC Cole "Frank Oppenheimer, The Other Brother: Lessons for Living a Fruitful Life from the Uncle of the Atomic Bomb"
9/21/07 John Rechy "Real People as Fictional Characters: Some Comic, Sad and Dangerous Encounters"
2006 - 2007
5/18/07 Yvonne Rainer "Feelings Are Facts: A Life"
5/2/07 Steven Bach on Leni Rienfenstahl
4/20/07 Lorraine Wild "Book Design: The Art of Collaboration"
4/6/07 Phil Ethington "Mapping the Haunted Spaces of Los Angeles"
3/7/2007 Visions & Voices, The Moral Morass of Contemporary Life
3/16/07 Margaret Wertheim "The Intersection of Science and Aesthetics"
2/16/07 Steve Ross "Hollywood Left and Right: How Movie Stars Shaped American Politics"
2/2/07 Richard Reeves "The Art of the (Presidential) Biography"
1/19/07 Michael Govan "Transforming LACMA"
12/15/06 Gore Vidal in conversation with Jon Wiener
12/4/06 Special Event: Walk-Through of "Magritte and Contemporary Art: The Treachery of Images" with Stephanie Barron at LACMA
12/1/06 Judith Freeman "The Romantic Life of Raymond Chandler"
11/17/06 Jonathan Aronson "Searching for Meaning in the New Networked Age"
11/1/2006 Visions & Voices, Pop, Politics, and Propoganda
11/3/06 Seth Faison "China: Global Superpower or Basket Case?"
10/20/06 Debra Greenfield "Everything You Never Heard About the Stem Cell Debate"
10/6/06 Robert Greenwald "Making Movies, Making Movements 'Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers'"
9/22/06 Joyce Appleby on "The Politics of Memory"
2005 - 2006
6/9/06 David L. Ulin on the Relevance of Book Reviewing.
5/5/06 Douglas Greenberg “The Shoah Foundation Archive: A Tour of the 20th Century”
4/21/06 Connie Bruck Reports on Iranian Expatriates and on writing for the New Yorker.
4/7/06 Kit Rachlis "A Secret History of L.A."
3/22/06 DIALOGUES "Have Blogs Replaced Newspapers and Should We Care?" Panelists: Ana Marie Cox, Kevin Drum, Keven Roderick. Moderator: Marty Kaplan
3/17/06 Anne Taylor Fleming "The Writing Life"
3/6/06 Artist Alexis Smith in conversation with Barbara Isenberg at The Getty Center.
2/17/06 John Romano "The Crisis in the Great Books Tradition"
2/3/06 L.A. City Council President Eric Garcetti "A View from the President's Chair"
1/20/06 Vanessa Place "Harmonize the Strain: Cultural Resistance and Experimental Literature"
1/12/06 Special Event: Walk-through of "Ecstasy: In and About Altered States" with curator Paul Schimmel at the MOCA Geffen Contemporary.
12/2/05 Rabbi Leonard Beerman and Rev. Dr. George Regas "A Priest and a Rabbi: A 40 Year Friendship in Pursuit of Justice and Peace"
11/18/05 Robert Winter "Reconfiguring Mozart"
11/4/05 Joan Didion "The Year of Magical Thinking"
10/21/05 Richard Schickel "Realities: Elia Kazan's America"
9/30/05 Douglas McLennan, founder of ArtsJournal.com, "The Myth that was Mass Culture... (so now what?)"
9/23/05 Steve Wasserman "Reluctant Farewell: Six Theses on Los Angeles"
2004 - 2005
5/20/05 Michael Kinsley in conversation with Steve Wasserman
5/6/05 Joseph Horowitz, “Classical Music in America: A History of Its Rise and Fall”
4/15/05 Robert Alter, “Five Books of Moses: a Translation with Commentary,” and guided visit of Doheny Library’s exhibition of Jewish ritual objects with Ruth Weisberg.
4/2/05 Conference: “The Big Lie? News, Media, and the Fiction of Non-Fiction”
3/18/05 William Deverell, “Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of Its Mexican Past”
3/4/05 Robert Brustein
2/18/05 Carolyn See, “Writing Violence”
2/04/05 Thomas Crow, “Artists and the Modern Museum”
1/21/05 John Wiener, “Historians in Trouble: Plagiarism, Fraud and Politics in the Ivory tower.”
9/24/04 Lawrence Weschler, “The Fiction of Non-Fiction”
12/16/04 Stephanie Barron, LACMA Tour, “Renoir to Matisse: The Eye of Duncan Phillips.”
12/3/04 Eric Lax, “The Mold in Dr. Florey’s Coat.”
11/19/04 Amy Wilentz, “The Walled Country: Yasir Arafat, Ariel Sharon, and the Future of Two States.”
11/5/04 Marty Kaplan, “A Post-Election Town Hall Meeting.”
10/22/04 Peter Bogdanovitch, “Who the Hell’s in it.”
10/15/04 Peter Sellars, Opera and Stage Director
2003 - 2004
5/21/04 Jack Miles, “Tea and Sympathy: Reflections on Homosexuality and Religion.”
5/7/04 Sarah Pillsbury
4/16/04 David Freeman, “Its All True.”
4/2 - 4/3/04 Conference: “Writing Los Angeles”
3/12/04 Peter Singer
3/5/04 Giuliana Bruno, “Atlas of Emotion: Journeys in Art, Architecture and Film.”
2/20/04 Michael Heim, “The Pros and Cons of Retranslation: Chekhov and Mann.”
2/6/04 Robbie Conal, “Guerilla Art as Politics.”
1/16/04 Richard Schickel, “Do Movies Really Matter?”
12/19/03 M.G. Lord
12/12/03 Alan Wolfe, "The Transformation of American Religion”
12/5/03 Mark Salzman
11/21/03 Gil Garcetti, “Iron: Erecting the Walt Disney Concert Hall.”
11/7/03 K.C. Cole, “Mind Over Matter”
10/17/03 Bruce Wagner
10/3/03 Lou Cannon
9/18/03 Joan Didion
9/9/03 Jack Miles, “Tea and Sympathy: Reflections on Homosexuality and Religion.”
2002 - 2003
5/23/03 Pico Iyer, “California’s Cultural Dance with Islam.”
5/2/03 Leo Braudy, “'Unfortunately Very Timely,’ Writing in the Shadow of 9/11.”
4/28 - 4/29/03 Conference, “From Sunset Boulevard to Mulholland Drive: Los Angeles and the Cinematic Imagination.”
4/26/03 Tom Crow, “Gordon Matta-Clark: Drawing a Life Story.”
4/18/03 Gordon Davidson, “Nothing of Any Significance Exists West of the Hudson River.”
4/4/03 Neal Gabler and Marty Kaplan, “The State of the Media in LA and the World.”
3/21/03 Lynda Obst, “Zen and the Art of Hollywood.”
3/15/03 “Debate American Power and the Crisis Over Iraq”
3/7/03 Antonio Damasio, “Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow and the Feeling Brain.”
2/24/03 Norman Mailer, “The Lion in Winter: Norman Mailer at 80.”
2/21/03 Norman Klein and Rosmary Comella, “Bleeding Through: Layers of Los Angeles 1920-1986”
2/7/03 Joseph Horowitz, “Why Intellectuals are Estranged from Classical Music”
1/17/03 Joyce Appleby, “Coming to Terms with Thomas Jefferson”
12/6/02 Louis Banner, “Margaret Mead.”
11/15/02 John Walsh, “The Passions: New Work by video artist Bill Viola”
11/1/02 Doug Greenberg “Between Memory and History: The Shoah Foundation.”
10/25/02 Carol Muske Dukes, “A Poet in Hollywood.”
10/4/02 James Q. Wilson “Religion and Freedom: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.”
9/20/02 German/American Dialogue co-sponsored by Villa Aurora
2001 - 2002
5/17/02 T.C. Boyle, “Solo Performance.”
4/5 - 4/6/02 Conference “Los Angeles at the Millenium: The Quest for Identity and Community”
3/22/02 Richard Meyer, “Spirals of Censorship.”
3/1/02 Hunt and Jacobs, “Why Did Theory Die?”
2/15/02 Peter Nosco, “Are you a Confucian?”
2/11/02 David Rieff, “A Bed for the Night: A Crisis in Humanitarianism.”
2/1/02 Louise Steinman, “Discovering My Father’s War: A Posthumous Collaboration.”
1/18/02 Steven Sample, “The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership.”
12/7/01 Sandra Tsing Loh, “Talibans in the Home.”
11/16/01 Debora Silverman, “Van Gogh and Gauguin: Modernism and Religion.”
11/4/01 Thomas Hines, “The Other Hollywood: Modernist Design and the Los Angeles Film Community.”
11/2/01 Micheal Dear, “LA as Twenty-first Century Megacity”
10/19/01 Allen Kurzweil, “In Search of Los Time: Intrigue, Invention and the Hunt for a Stolen Pocket Watch”
10/5/01 Jared Diamond “Collapses of Ancient Civilizations and Their Lessons for Our Time”
2000-2001
5/18/01 Don Franzen “The Constitutional Crisis in Public Support of the Arts”
4/30/01 John Felstiner, “Still Songs to Sing.”
4/20/01 Margaret Wertheim, “Outside Science.”
3/16/01 Yxta Maya Murray, “The Conquest.”
3/2/01 Carla Kaplan, “Editing an Icon.”
2/16/01 Marc Cooper, “ The Pinochet Principle: The Globalization of Human Rights.”
2/2/01 Joan Abrahamson, “Creativity and Change.”
1/19/01 Jon Boorstin, “Becoming William James”
12/15/00 Kevin Starr, “Why do we do what we do?: The Role of the Public Intellectual in Southern California.”
12/1/00 Todd Boyd, “Basketball Jones: America Above the Rim.”
11/20 - 11/21/00 Frederick Wiseman, “Documenting America”
11/17/00 “Election Post-Mortem: Fellows’ free-for-all Discussion.”
11/3/00 Carol Wells, “O’er the Ramparts We Watched: 35 Years of LAPD Protest Posters.”
10/20/00 Steve Ross
10/6/00 D.J. Waldie, “A Wanderer in an Imperfect City”
9/22/00 Stephanie Barron, “The Making of ‘Made in California: Art, Image and Identity, 1900-2000”
1999 - 2000
5/19/00 Mona Simpson, “ Excerpt from My Hollywood, a Novel.”
5/5/00 Don Franzen, "The Constitutional Crisis in Public Support for the Arts”
5/1/00 Susan Sontag, “The Art of Fiction.”
4/21/00 Stephen Toulmin, “Blenheim vs. Versailles: Rival Dreams of Reason.”
4/7/00 Robert Winter, “Locating the Arts in a Digital World”
3/17/00 Eugen Weber, “Criminal Pursuits”
3/3/00 Richard Weinstein, “Los Angeles: The First American City”
2/18/00 Fred Dewey, “Cyberia: The New Totalism and Its Concept for the World”
2/4/00 Virginia postrel, “On the Verge: Exploring the Frontiers of Creative Encounter”
1/21/00 Steve Wasserman, "Is Serious Criticism Possible?”
12/3/99 Carol Muske-Dukes, "Paradise Lost: Fighting the Poetry Wars"
11/19/99 Nathan Gardels, "From Containment to Entertainment: Rise of the Media Industrial Complex"
11/5/99 Robert J. Lifton, "Destroying the World to Save It: Aum Shinrikyo, Apocalyptic Violence and the New Global Terrorism"
10/15/99 Susan Kent, "Do Libraries Have a Future?"
10/1/99 Robert Sheer, "Life in the Lower Depths of Journalism: A Success Story"
9/17/99 Susan Faludi, "Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man"
1998 - 1999
5/21/99 Saul Friedländer, “Some New Directions in Historiography of the Holocaust.”
5/1/99 Peter Novik, “From History to Memory: The Holocaust in American Consciousness.”
4/2/99 Peter Alexander introduces Dave Hickey, “What Art Does.”
3/19/99 Michael Silverblatt, “The Looking Glass: Fantasies about Interviewing.”
3/5/99 Elizabeth Kaye, “Rudolf Nureyev: The Influence of Personality on Art.”
2/5/99 Benjamin Schwarz, “Why America Thinks It Has to Run the World.”
1/15/99 Arianna Huffington, “American Politics Today: Through the Looking Glass.”
12/18/98 Robert Israel, “Designing Paradise.”
12/4/98 Russ Rymer, “American Beach: A Saga of Race, Wealth, and Memory."
11/20/98 Leo Braudy, “Eros and Mars: War and Masculinity.”
11/6/98 Russell Jacoby, “The End of Utopia.”
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