BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//CalDiscovery//caldiscovery//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH DESCRIPTION:Discovered and maintained by CalDiscovery (https://caldiscover y.com). Event details belong to their publishers. Contains information fro m CalDiscovery\, which is made available under the ODbL 1.0. SOURCE:https://caldiscovery.com/los-angeles-ca/literary.ics X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H X-WR-CALDESC:Discovered and maintained by CalDiscovery (https://caldiscove ry.com). Event details belong to their publishers. Contains information fr om CalDiscovery\, which is made available under the ODbL 1.0. X-WR-CALNAME:CalDiscovery - los-angeles-ca (literary) BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Writers Room Mic @ Fourth Wall Comedy Cafe (in LA) DTSTART:20260905T180000Z DTEND:20260905T190000Z DTSTAMP:20260904T062140Z UID:10023108-1788606000-1788609600@thecomedybureau.com CATEGORIES:comedy,literary DESCRIPTION:Write from stage!! Interactive\, high Engagment\, Excellerates joke writting process highly effective!!\nSign-up in advance at fourthwal lcomedy.com\nStarts 11AM PT\nEnds 12PM PT\n5 min.\nComic must be on time a nd stay for whole mic\nVenmo @fourth-wall or Cash LAST-MODIFIED:20260904T062140Z LOCATION:Fourth Wall Comedy Cafe\, 5220 Hollywood Boulevard\, Los Angeles\ , CA\, 90027\, United States URL:https://thecomedybureau.com/show/improv-mic-fourth-wall-comedy-cafe-in -la-186-2-3-2/2026-09-05/ X-SOURCE-NAME:The Comedy Bureau X-SOURCE-URL:https://thecomedybureau.com/shows/category/los-angeles-open-m ics END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Writers Room Mic @ Fourth Wall Comedy Cafe (in LA) DTSTART:20260905T230000Z DTEND:20260906T000000Z DTSTAMP:20260905T002133Z UID:10031716-1788624000-1788627600@thecomedybureau.com CATEGORIES:comedy,literary DESCRIPTION:Write from stage!! Interactive\, high Engagment\, Excellerates joke writting process highly effective!!\nSign-up in advance at fourthwal lcomedy.com\nStarts 4PM PT\nEnds 5PM PT\n5 min.\nComic must be on time and stay for whole mic\nVenmo @fourth-wall or Cash LAST-MODIFIED:20260905T002133Z LOCATION:Fourth Wall Comedy Cafe\, 5220 Hollywood Boulevard\, Los Angeles\ , CA\, 90027\, United States URL:https://thecomedybureau.com/show/writers-room-mic-fourth-wall-comedy-c afe-in-la-3-2-2/2026-09-05/ X-SOURCE-NAME:The Comedy Bureau X-SOURCE-URL:https://thecomedybureau.com/shows/category/los-angeles-open-m ics END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Writers Room Mic @ Fourth Wall Comedy Cafe (in LA) DTSTART:20260906T180000Z DTEND:20260906T190000Z DTSTAMP:20260905T062131Z UID:10023109-1788692400-1788696000@thecomedybureau.com CATEGORIES:comedy,literary DESCRIPTION:Write from stage!! Interactive\, high Engagment\, Excellerates joke writting process highly effective!!\nSign-up in advance at fourthwal lcomedy.com\nStarts 11AM PT\nEnds 12PM PT\n5 min.\nComic must be on time a nd stay for whole mic\nVenmo @fourth-wall or Cash LAST-MODIFIED:20260905T062131Z LOCATION:Fourth Wall Comedy Cafe\, 5220 Hollywood Boulevard\, Los Angeles\ , CA\, 90027\, United States URL:https://thecomedybureau.com/show/improv-mic-fourth-wall-comedy-cafe-in -la-186-2-3-2/2026-09-06/ X-SOURCE-NAME:The Comedy Bureau X-SOURCE-URL:https://thecomedybureau.com/shows/category/los-angeles-open-m ics END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Writers Room Mic @ Fourth Wall Comedy Cafe (in LA) DTSTART:20260906T230000Z DTEND:20260907T000000Z DTSTAMP:20260905T062131Z UID:10031717-1788710400-1788714000@thecomedybureau.com CATEGORIES:comedy,literary DESCRIPTION:Write from stage!! Interactive\, high Engagment\, Excellerates joke writting process highly effective!!\nSign-up in advance at fourthwal lcomedy.com\nStarts 4PM PT\nEnds 5PM PT\n5 min.\nComic must be on time and stay for whole mic\nVenmo @fourth-wall or Cash LAST-MODIFIED:20260905T062131Z LOCATION:Fourth Wall Comedy Cafe\, 5220 Hollywood Boulevard\, Los Angeles\ , CA\, 90027\, United States URL:https://thecomedybureau.com/show/writers-room-mic-fourth-wall-comedy-c afe-in-la-3-2-2/2026-09-06/ X-SOURCE-NAME:The Comedy Bureau X-SOURCE-URL:https://thecomedybureau.com/shows/category/los-angeles-open-m ics END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Funding the Future: Grant Writing Workshop for CTE & K14 Pathways DTSTART:20260908T160000Z DTEND:20260908T180000Z DTSTAMP:20260827T010632Z UID:10001686-1788858000-1788865200@losangelesrc.org CATEGORIES:education,literary DESCRIPTION:Please register for this Zoom here. LAST-MODIFIED:20260827T010632Z LOCATION:Zoom URL:https://losangelesrc.org/event/k12-swp-round-9-grant-writing-workshop/ X-SOURCE-NAME:Los Angeles Regional Consortium (LARC) X-SOURCE-URL:https://losangelesrc.org/calendar END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:South Bay Book Club - September DTSTART:20260909T020000Z DTEND:20260909T040000Z DTSTAMP:20260824T001240Z UID:10000257-1788894000-1788894000@alumni.ucla.edu CATEGORIES:literary DESCRIPTION:Come join Bruin Alumni and Friends for a fun and relaxing disc ussion of books. We try to curate a wide variety of genres (all recommende d by our own members) to accommodate all tastes and to encourage each othe r to read something we wouldn’t on our own. We would love to have you jo in us. All are welcome! September Book: TBD \n\n\n\n\n\nPlease email bkron beck@social.rr.com to be added to the waitlist for the South Bay Book Club LAST-MODIFIED:20260824T001240Z URL:https://alumni.ucla.edu/event/south-bay-book-club-september-2/ X-SOURCE-NAME:UCLA Alumni X-SOURCE-URL:https://alumni.ucla.edu/event/coffee-social-santa-cruz-ca-2 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Discovery in the Pacific: In Conversation with David Igler DTSTART:20260910T190000Z DTEND:20260910T200000Z DTSTAMP:20260729T054545Z UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_53357238089965 CATEGORIES:literary DESCRIPTION:ICW presents historian David Igler in conversation with Bill D everell\, to discuss his new book\, All Species of Knowledge: A Voyage of Discovery\, Failure\, and Natural History in the Pacific Ocean. The conver sation will dive into the history of this remarkable scientific expedition and its visual documentation by the artist Ludwig Choris. The journey tra nsformed our understanding of the Pacific while revealing the challenges\, ambitions\, and human costs of discovery. Join us for a lively conversati on about exploration\, environmental history\, visual imagery\, and the en during legacy of natural history in shaping how we understand the world. LAST-MODIFIED:20260729T054545Z URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/discovery-in-the-pacific-in-conversatio n-with-david-igler X-SOURCE-NAME:Event Calendar Calendar X-SOURCE-URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/kiyo-gutierrez-bocas-indomable suntamable-mouths-mfa-solo-thesis-exhibtion END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Silent Reading Club Monthly MeetUp at California Botanic Garden DTSTART:20260913T170000Z DTEND:20260913T183000Z DTSTAMP:20260829T061932Z UID:10019363-1789293600-1789299000@discoverclaremont.com CATEGORIES:community,literary DESCRIPTION:Calling all book lovers! Come read with fellow friends of natu re in the Garden. No assigned books\, no forced chit-chat: each Meetup wil l feature c. 20 mins for optional informal discussion of current book choi ces and recommendations\, followed by silent reading in community. Reading location will change each month (indoor spaces provided in case of rain). CalBG will provide folding chairs\, but we highly recommended that reader s bring their own comfy camp chair if possible. \nThe Silent Reading Club Meetup is free with garden admission. We welcome walk-ins\, but you can he lp us plan by RSVPing ahead of time. \nRegister: https://www.calbg.org/ev ents-programs/events  \n If you need to purchase a garden admission tick et\, click here. \nContact: California Botanic GardenEmail: info@calbg.org Phone: 909.625.8767 \nVisit https://www.calbg.org/events-programs/events  for tickets and more information. LAST-MODIFIED:20260829T061932Z LOCATION:California Botanic Garden\, 1500 N College Ave\, Claremont\, CA 9 1711\, USA URL:https://discoverclaremont.com/event/silent-reading-club-monthly-meetup -at-california-botanic-garden-16/ X-SOURCE-NAME:Discover Claremont X-SOURCE-URL:https://discoverclaremont.com/event/claremont-chamber-of-comm erce-annual-village-venture-arts-crafts-faire/2028-10-28 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Paul Christensen Book Talk - "Fraught Futures: Hope\, Connection\, and the Unhoused across Tokyo" DTSTART:20260914T230000Z DTEND:20260915T003000Z DTSTAMP:20260825T001816Z UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_53515868514825 CATEGORIES:literary DESCRIPTION:What future are we asked to anticipate? How do such acts of co llective waiting shape expectations of the contemporary? Who is erased in future renderings as a means of status quo preservation? Fraught Futures c onsiders how officially disseminated programs concerning the direction of Japan’s future\, promoted by the national government and aligned organiz ations\, are antagonistic to the work of advocacy groups aiding Tokyo’s unhoused and hungry populations. In doing so\, these programs sustain a pe rsistent occlusion by official forces of any emancipatory or dignity-affir ming transformation to the social order.\n\n \n\nAs a nation often framed through assertions of superficial contradiction\, highly technical yet ste eped in historical reverence\, Japan offers an ideal site for examining ho w challenges to the prevailing market-based order are stifled. By offering increasingly elaborate and improbable techno-utopian depictions of the To kyo\, Japan\, and the world to come\, official entities thwart sustained e fforts at even limited forms of social transformation. Ultimately\, Fraugh t Futures argues that officially promulgated visions of the future should be approached critically\, as deceptive efforts to undermine attempts to a ctualize a collective future freed from the oppressive strictures of marke t-driven isolation and authoritarian austerity.\n\n \n\nRSVP\n\n \n\nAutho r biography:\nPaul Christensen is an Associate Professor of Anthropology a t Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in the United States. His current wo rk examines the struggles of unhoused individuals and people confronting d esignations of addiction\, particularly in Tokyo. This research forms part of a broader theoretical and ethnographic orientation\, grounded in Japan \, that seeks to illuminate how the absurdities of austerity-driven capita lism\, and its numerous harmful manifestations\, shape daily life. The res ult of this work is his second book\, Fraught Futures: Hope\, Connection\, and the Unhoused across Tokyo\, under contract with Cornell University Pr ess and scheduled for publication in March 2027. LAST-MODIFIED:20260825T001816Z LOCATION:Doheny Memorial Library (DML)\, Herklotz Room (G28) URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/paul-christensen-book-talk-fraught-futu res-hope-connection-and-the-unhoused-across-tokyo X-SOURCE-NAME:Event Calendar Calendar X-SOURCE-URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/kiyo-gutierrez-bocas-indomable suntamable-mouths-mfa-solo-thesis-exhibtion END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Levan Book Chat—William Handley\, Horizons of Catastrophe in the American West DTSTART:20260918T200000Z DTEND:20260918T210000Z DTSTAMP:20260825T001816Z UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_53631113806359 CATEGORIES:literary DESCRIPTION:A discussion of William Handley's new book\, Horizons of Catas trophe in the American West (University of Nebraska Press\, 2026). The aut hor will be joined in conversation by Audrey Goodman (Georgia State Univer sity) and Hsuan L. Hsu (UC Davis)\, moderated by William Deverell (USC). O rganized in partnership with the Department of English and the Institute f or California and the West. Registration is required. REGISTER HERE\n\n \n \nAbout the Book: Horizons of Catastrophe in the American West contributes to discussions in the environmental humanities and western U.S. studies a bout how we read past cultural history in the light of our determined yet unknown future under climate catastrophe. Examining an eclectic but interr elated and interdisciplinary range of photographs\, films\, and novels of the West\; Western historiography\; geological science\; Tony Kushner’s Angels in America\; the Los Angeles freeway system and the city’s layere d temporalities\; and the long poem form among contemporary Indigenous poe ts\, William R. Handley argues that artists within mostly twentieth-centur y settler cultures saw on past horizons of the West premonitions of catast rophe—without\, of course\, knowing what their civilization was doing to the atmosphere and what that portended for the planet’s future. The pos sibilities and limits of their artistic forms\, Handley shows us\, offer a way for us to find hope in the wreckage of the past and to forge a future grounded in environmental realism.\n\n \n\nAbout the Author: William R. H andley is Associate Professor of English at the University of Southern Cal ifornia. He is the author of Marriage\, Violence\, and Nation in the Ameri can Literary West\, coeditor of True West: Authenticity and the American W est (Bison Books\, 2007)\, and editor of The Brokeback Book: From Story to Cultural Phenomenon (Bison Books\, 2011).\n\n \n\nOpen to attendants outs ide of USC. An excerpt of the book will be made available to registered at tendants. Registration before the event is required. \n\n \n\nThis event i s part of the Levan Institute for the Humanities' “Book Chats” series\ , conversations about new books published by USC scholars in the humanitie s and humanistic social sciences. To see more events in this series\, incl uding recordings of past events\, visit https://dornsife.usc.edu/levan-ins titute/book-chats/. LAST-MODIFIED:20260825T001816Z URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/levan-book-chatwilliam-handley-horizons -of-catastrophe-in-the-american-west X-SOURCE-NAME:Event Calendar Calendar X-SOURCE-URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/kiyo-gutierrez-bocas-indomable suntamable-mouths-mfa-solo-thesis-exhibtion END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Makiko Motoi - Floating Buddhas\, Invisible Buddhas: Setsuwa Trad itions of the "Shakadō Engi" DTSTART:20260918T200000Z DTEND:20260918T213000Z DTSTAMP:20260828T002338Z UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_53789927695236 CATEGORIES:arts,literary DESCRIPTION:This lecture will be presented in Japanese. \n\n \n\nThe Shaka dō engi\, held by Seiryō Temple in the Sagano region of Kyoto\, is an il lustrated narrative in six scrolls that depicts the origins and miraculous powers of the temple’s beloved main image\, the Sendan Shaka Zuizō ( “Auspicious Sandalwood Statue of Śākyamuni Buddha”). The image has l ong been venerated as the first of the sandalwood images of the Buddha cre ated by King Udayana while Śākyamuni was still alive. The Shakadō engi was produced around 1515 and is famed for its exquisite illustrations\, pa inted by Kanō Motonobu (1476-1559).\n\n \n\nRepresenting the culmination of legends about the Auspicious Image (Sendan Shaka Zuizō)\, the Shakadō engi established itself as the orthodox account of the origins of Seiryō Temple and its main image. Although its narratives about the Auspicious I mage were grounded in Buddhist scriptures and Chinese texts\, they were de veloped in a unique way. The Shakadō engi emphasizes two key characteris tics that symbolize the Auspicious Image’s nature as a physically alive: first\, the image hovers in mid-air (it is a “floating Buddha”)\; and secondly\, some people are unable to see the image\, even when standing r ight before it (it is an “invisible Buddha”). In my talk I will trace the origins of these legends found in Shakadō engi and will also consider how they developed in the broader East Asian context.\n\n \n\n \n\nAbout the Speaker\n\n \n\nProf. Motoi earned her Ph.D. from the Department of Ja panese Language and Literature of Kyoto University. She currently holds an appointment of full professor in the Department of Japanese and Chinese C ultures of Kyoto Prefectural University. Prof. Motoi's specialization is r eligious literary arts\, in particular Buddhism-related setsuwa. \n\n \n\n This event is presented as part of the Ito Center's New Approaches to the Study of Premodern Japan Project\, which supports innovative scholarship a nd new perspectives on Premodern Japan history\, literature\, religion\, a nd culture. \n\n \n\nRSVP is requested LAST-MODIFIED:20260828T002338Z LOCATION:Doheny Memorial Library (DML)\, East Asian Seminar Room\, 110C URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/makiko-motoi X-SOURCE-NAME:Event Calendar Calendar X-SOURCE-URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/kiyo-gutierrez-bocas-indomable suntamable-mouths-mfa-solo-thesis-exhibtion END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Levan Institute Series: “On Writing”—Voice DTSTART:20260921T190000Z DTEND:20260921T200000Z DTSTAMP:20260818T181800Z UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_53639237473819 CATEGORIES:literary DESCRIPTION:This event is part of the Levan Institute for the Humanities' “On Writing” series\, conversations aiming to answer questions about h ow writing matters\, now. This conversation will feature Nik De Dominic (U SC) and Jonathan Leal (USC)\, hosted by Sarah Mesle (USC). Organized in pa rtnership with the Consortium for Gender\, Sexuality\, Race and Public Cul ture. Registration is required. REGISTER\n\n \n\nDescription: What counts as a writer’s “voice”? Voice is one of the slipperiest concepts in w riting. We all know it matters — it shapes how it feels to read\, as wel l as how it feels to write — but it’s hard to harness\, hard to descri be\, and definitely hard to teach. Is voice a personal inner quality that a person has — or that a person finds\, somehow\, within herself? What i f “our” voice is social\, or collective — a manifestation of the art we encounter and the communities we inhabit? This “On Writing” event will sort through our theories\, practices\, and histories of coming into voice. \n\n \n\nNik De Dominic is Professor (Teaching) and Director of the Writing Program at the University of Southern California. He is the autho r of Goodbye Wolf (The Operating System\, 2020) and Your Daily Horoscope ( New Michigan Press\, 2015). Writing has appeared in Guernica\, Los Angeles Review\, DIAGRAM\, The Conversation\, and elsewhere. He is a founding edi tor of The Offending Adam and Poetry Editor of New Orleans Review. De Domi nic co-founded and co-directs the USC Dornsife Prison Education Project\, which develops educational opportunities for incarcerated and systems-impa cted people. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) from the Univers ity of Alabama\, where he was an Alabama Prison Arts + Education Fellow\, and a Doctor of Social Work from the University of Southern California. \n \nJonathan Leal is Associate Professor of English and Affiliated Faculty i n the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California. B orn and raised in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas\, Leal’s transdis ciplinary work spans books\, editorial projects\, albums\, and interdiscip linary arts initiatives exploring cultural geography\, creative resistance \, and conceptual possibility. His books include Wild Tongue: A Borderland s Mixtape (Duke UP 2026)\, Dreams in Double Time: On Race\, Freedom\, and Bebop (Duke UP 2023)\, and a co-edited volume\, Cybermedia: Explorations i n Science\, Sound\, and Vision (Bloomsbury 2021). Also an independent musi c producer and award-winning drummer\, his recent musical collaborations h ave included releases featured in Pitchfork\, Latino USA\, Democracy Now\, and elsewhere. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Natio nal Book Critics Circle\, where he is Co-Chair of Criticism. \n\n \n\nOpen to attendants outside of USC. Registration before the event is required. To see more events in this series\, including recordings of past events\, visit https://dornsife.usc.edu/levan-institute/programs/on-writing/. LAST-MODIFIED:20260818T181800Z URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/levan-institute-series-on-writingvoice X-SOURCE-NAME:Event Calendar Calendar X-SOURCE-URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/kiyo-gutierrez-bocas-indomable suntamable-mouths-mfa-solo-thesis-exhibtion END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Vroman's Presents: Leigh Bardugo in Conversation with Rebecca Roan horse DTSTART:20260922T020000Z DTEND:20260922T033000Z DTSTAMP:20260901T004026Z UID:2768@colburnschool.edu CATEGORIES:literary DESCRIPTION:The highly anticipated\, explosive conclusion to the Ninth Hou se trilogy from #1 New York Times bestselling author Leigh Bardugo.\nHell is empty and all the devils are here…\n\nAlex Stern made it to hell and back more than once\, but this time she left the door open behind her. Dem ons are creeping through the streets of New Haven and the Yale campus\, fe eding on the souls of the living\, terrifying the dead. Alex and her allie s can hunt them\, but it’s only a matter of time before the gates to the underworld open and they face a war they cannot win. To stop it\, they’ ll have to reach deep into the secrets of Yale and its societies\, and dis cover the truth hidden in Alex’s own blood.\nTickets include one entry a nd one signed copy of Dead Beat to be handed out at check-in. LAST-MODIFIED:20260901T004026Z LOCATION:Zipper Hall\, 200 S Grand Ave\, Los Angeles\, CA\, 90031\, United States URL:https://colburnschool.edu/calendar/events/vromans-presents-leigh-bardu go-in-conversation-with-rebecca-roanhorse/ X-SOURCE-NAME:Summer Dance Camps Los Angeles X-SOURCE-URL:https://colburnschool.edu/calendar END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:In Conversation with Kevin Waite & Marne Campbell: From Slavery to Freedom - The Boundless Biddy Mason DTSTART:20260924T190000Z DTEND:20260925T080000Z DTSTAMP:20260729T054545Z UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_53064951210038 CATEGORIES:literary DESCRIPTION:Join Kevin Waite and Marne Campbell\, in conversation with Bil l Deverell\, for a compelling dialogue about Waite’s new book The Boundl ess Biddy Mason: An Odyssey from Slavery to Freedom Across the American We st. In this groundbreaking biography\, Waite traces the remarkable life of Biddy Mason\, who endured a 3\,000-mile forced journey from slavery in Ge orgia to California\, secured her freedom through a landmark court case\, and went on to become a healer\, philanthropist\, entrepreneur\, and one o f the most influential founders of Black Los Angeles. This conversation wi ll explore the legacy of a woman whose life illuminates both the possibili ties and limits of freedom in the American West. LAST-MODIFIED:20260729T054545Z URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/in-conversation-with-kevin-waite-marne- campbell-from-slavery-to-freedom-the-boundless-biddy-mason X-SOURCE-NAME:Event Calendar Calendar X-SOURCE-URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/kiyo-gutierrez-bocas-indomable suntamable-mouths-mfa-solo-thesis-exhibtion END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Book Talk & Signing: Jason Bell\, \\"Operation Sparrow\\" DTSTART:20260924T190000Z DTEND:20260924T200000Z DTSTAMP:20260903T183254Z UID:calendar.54355.field_date_range.0@site CATEGORIES:literary DESCRIPTION:Intro copy \n\nThe John Parke Young Initiative on the Global P olitical Economy\, The\nOffice of the President\, as well as Media Arts an d Culture\, History\nand DWA departments welcome historian Jason Bell for a talk and\nsigning of his new book\, Operation Sparrow: The Incredible Tr ue Story\nof the Spies Who Tricked Hitler and Won the War (Hanover Square Press\,\n2026). LAST-MODIFIED:20260903T183254Z URL:https://www.oxy.edu/events/2026/09/book-talk-signing-jason-bell-operat ion-sparrow X-SOURCE-NAME:iCal Events Feed X-SOURCE-URL:https://www.oxy.edu END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Levan Book Chat—Ciruce Movahedi-Lankarani\, Accelerant DTSTART:20261002T190000Z DTEND:20261002T200000Z DTSTAMP:20260828T002338Z UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_53242995201280 CATEGORIES:education,literary DESCRIPTION:A discussion of Ciruce Movahedi-Lankarani's new book\, Acceler ant: Energy Infrastructures and the Natural World in Making Modern Iran (S tanford University Press\, 2026). The author will be joined in conversatio n by Arang Keshavarzian (NYU) and Victor Seow (Harvard University)\, moder ated by Joanne Nucho (USC). Organized in partnership with the USC Departme nt of Middle East Studies\, USC Environmental Studies Program\, and Farhan g Foundation. Registration is required. REGISTER HERE\n\n \n\nAbout the Bo ok: Between the late 1940s and the end of the twentieth century\, natural gas became Iran's bedrock energy source. Billed as a futuristic fuel for a future world power\, gas became an avenue for the country's developmental ist ambitions. The ability to build technologically sophisticated infrastr uctures served as a powerful tool of state legitimation\, both before and after the 1979 Revolution\, and tied top-down politics of modernization to bottom-up feelings of national belonging.\n\n \n\nAccelerant analyzes the interwoven histories of energy\, development\, and the environment in Ira n. Following the movement of natural gas from underground deposits\, throu gh infrastructures of refining and distribution\, and into everyday life\, Ciruce Movahedi-Lankarani explores the roles of development planners\, oi l firms\, industrialists\, engineers\, and consumers—as well as the moun tain ranges\, sedimentary rock\, and natural gas itself—to show how natu ral gas emerged as a crucial enabler of industrialization and a strong imp etus for resource nationalism. Tracing the transformation of gas from a wa ste product into a vital resource\, this book offers a history of anticolo nial developmentalism in Iran—revealing a key driver toward intensified energy use that suggests why and how societies in the Global South became voracious consumers of fossil fuel energy.\n\n \n\nAbout the Author: Ciruc e Movahedi-Lankarani is the Farhang Foundation Early Career Chair in Irani an Studies and Assistant Professor of Middle East Studies and Environmenta l Studies at the University of Southern California.\n\n \n\nOpen to attend ants outside of USC. An excerpt of the book will be made available to regi stered attendants. Registration before the event is required. \n\n \n\nThi s event is part of the Levan Institute for the Humanities' “Book Chats ” series\, conversations about new books published by USC scholars in th e humanities and humanistic social sciences. To see more events in this se ries\, including recordings of past events\, visit https://dornsife.usc.ed u/levan-institute/book-chats/. LAST-MODIFIED:20260828T002338Z URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/levan-book-chatciruce-movahedi-lankaran i-accelerant X-SOURCE-NAME:Event Calendar Calendar X-SOURCE-URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/kiyo-gutierrez-bocas-indomable suntamable-mouths-mfa-solo-thesis-exhibtion END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Yu-Chien (Benny) Tseng and Orion Weiss: The Poetry of Brahms DTSTART:20261003T020000Z DTEND:20261003T040000Z DTSTAMP:20260822T004258Z UID:2573@colburnschool.edu CATEGORIES:literary,music DESCRIPTION:Acclaimed violinist Yu-Chien (Benny) Tseng takes the stage wit h sought-after piano soloist Orion Weiss to perform all three Brahms violi n sonatas. Experience music of lyrical beauty\, warmth\, and passion perfo rmed by two exceptional musicians whose artistry brings depth\, intimacy\, and brilliance to this unforgettable recital. LAST-MODIFIED:20260822T004258Z LOCATION:Thayer Hall\, 200 S Grand Ave\, Los Angeles\, CA\, 90012\, United States URL:https://colburnschool.edu/calendar/events/yu-chien-benny-tseng-and-ori on-weiss-the-poetry-of-brahms/ X-SOURCE-NAME:Summer Dance Camps Los Angeles X-SOURCE-URL:https://colburnschool.edu/calendar END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:West Coast Hellenic Book Club: Diary of a Soldier in the Asia Mino r Campaign\, 1919-1921 by Pantelis C. Karatasakis DTSTART:20261003T170000Z DTEND:20261003T180000Z DTSTAMP:20260729T181135Z UID:7032-1791021600-1791025200@hellenic.ucla.edu CATEGORIES:literary DESCRIPTION:West Coast Hellenic Book Club \nDiary of a Soldier in the Asia Minor Campaign\, 1919-1921 by Pantelis C. Karatasakis\n(Published by Alec P. Karys\, 2023) \nThis discussion will feature book editors Alec P. Kary s and Gregory Kontos. \nThe conversation will be facilitated by Professor Sharon Gerstel\, Director of the UCLA SNF Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture\, and Dr. Eirini Kotsovili\, Senior Lecturer in Global Humanities at Simon Fraser University. \nThis discussion will be held in English. \n Saturday\, October 3\, 2026\n10 A.M. Los Angeles / 8 P.M. Greece\nVia Zoom \nClick here to RSVP for this book club \nForeword by Gonda Van Steen\, K oraes Chair\, King’s College London: \nThis short\, poignant account of an ordinary soldier’s experiences at the front during the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-1921 is well worth reading. Pantelis Karatasakis manages to ev oke both the valiant spirit of the Greek troops and the awful hardships th ey were forced to endure. Even though this lively account ends a year befo re Greece’s defeat\, the conditions the author witnessed were an omen of what was to come: hunger and freezing cold\, haphazard military operation s\, scorched earth tactics by both sides. The heroism of Pantelis Karatasa kis and his comrades would not be enough for the Greeks to prevail\, and t he Asia Minor Disaster of 1922 ensued. Alexander Kitroeff When empires dis solve and new nation-states emerge\, it is easy for the voices of ordinary people to get lost in the turmoil. This publication of the diary of Pante lis C. Karatasakis brings not only the voice\, but also the tears\, sweat\ , and blood\, of the foot soldiers of history back to the forefront. Pante lis moves us with Xenophon-like descriptions of places and distances\, whi ch he interspersed with lyrical notes and the markers of a growing awarene ss of the sufferings of war -any war. He leaves a record of facts\, emotio ns\, hardships\, but ultimately survival and wisdom gained. Kudos to his s on and to Gregory Kontos of Greek Ancestry to realize the value of this un ique testimony. \nThis program is made possible thanks to the Stavros Niar chos Foundation (SNF). \nClick here to purchase this book on Amazon. LAST-MODIFIED:20260729T181135Z LOCATION:by Zoom URL:https://hellenic.ucla.edu/event/diaryofasoldier/ X-SOURCE-NAME:Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture X-SOURCE-URL:https://hellenic.ucla.edu/event/19th-los-angeles-greek-film-f estival-screening END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Levan Book Chat—Hector Amaya\, The Economy of Anonymity DTSTART:20261009T190000Z DTEND:20261009T200000Z DTSTAMP:20260902T001745Z UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_53250055057618 CATEGORIES:literary DESCRIPTION:A discussion of Hector Amaya's new book\, The Economy of Anony mity: Power in the Age of Identification (Stanford University Press\, 2026 ). The author will be joined in conversation by Kelly Gates (UC San Diego) and Ulises Mejias (SUNY Oswego)\, moderated by Tara McPherson (USC). Orga nized in partnership with the Annenberg School for Communication and Journ alism\, the Department of American Studies and Ethnicity\, and the Divisio n of Cinema and Media Studies. Registration is required. REGISTER HERE\n\n \n\nAbout the Book: We use avatars to play videogames. We use pseudonyms on social media. We use VPNs to mask our identities and activities. In the digital realm\, anonymity is everywhere\, a persistent option for those w ho wish to hide\, experiment\, and deceive. But we are anonymous in more c ontexts than the digital. In urban settings\, we routinely experience the anonymity of the crowd\, and routinely use anonymity to participate in pol itical life and social protests. Anonymity matters. This book is a wager t hat we can learn much about society\, humanity\, and power by analyzing th e structural tensions and possibilities of anonymity\, and by analyzing ho w the economy of anonymity is changing in a modernity defined by computati on.\n\n \n\nWhile many have explored the connections between surveillance\ , datafication\, and privacy\, relatively little has been done to theorize anonymity and its critical role in our lives. This book rebalances our in tellectual investments by expanding our understandings of anonymity. Putti ng the work of Gloria Anzaldúa and Bernhard Siegert into conversation\, H ector Amaya examines the contours of anonymity in different social domains —in relationship to individuals\, institutions\, and contexts\; to epist emology and ontology\; and to history and society. As the book shows\, ano nymity entails paradoxical possibilities—sometimes anonymity is experien ced as freedom and other times as powerlessness\, or subjugation.\n\n \n\n About the Author: Hector Amaya is Professor of Communication at USC Annenb erg and the author most recently of Trafficking: Narcoculture in Mexico an d the United States (2020)\, among other titles.\n\n \n\nOpen to attendant s outside of USC. An excerpt of the book will be made available to registe red attendants. Registration before the event is required. \n\n \n\nThis e vent is part of the Levan Institute for the Humanities' “Book Chats” s eries\, conversations about new books published by USC scholars in the hum anities and humanistic social sciences. To see more events in this series\ , including recordings of past events\, visit https://dornsife.usc.edu/lev an-institute/book-chats/. LAST-MODIFIED:20260902T001745Z URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/levan-book-chathector-amaya-the-economy -of-anonymity X-SOURCE-NAME:Event Calendar Calendar X-SOURCE-URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/kiyo-gutierrez-bocas-indomable suntamable-mouths-mfa-solo-thesis-exhibtion END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:The Ethnography Studio: A Book Talk with Timothy Neale DTSTART:20261012T190000Z DTEND:20261012T203000Z DTSTAMP:20260902T181945Z UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_52877202282685 CATEGORIES:literary DESCRIPTION:The Ethnography Studio invites you to a book talk with Timothy Neale (Deakin University) on Monday October 12th from 12-1:30pm at USC in Michelson Hall\, Room 102. Neale will be presenting his new book “How t o Control Fire on a Burning Continent” (Duke University Press\, 2026). U SC Professor of Planning\, Policy and Design\, Santina Contreras\, will se rve as a discussant. To join us\, please RSVP using this Google Form by Oc tober 1st (lunch will be served). In preparation for our conversation\, pa rticipants will read a section of Neale’s book in advance. We will send reading materials a week prior to the event. \n\n \n\nHow to Control Fire on a Burning Continent\n\nThis past summer\, wildfires again washed across southeast Australian landscapes\, affecting over 500\,000 hectares. Many of the forests that have carried these combustive tides are regrowth of na tive forests industrially cleared for mining and then recleared for timber . Many of the grasslands that were blackened with ash are littered with gr asses and weedy grains intentionally refined and released by government ag encies in the name of productivism. This is territory or "Country" that ha s been comprehensively reshaped by projects of resource control\, reterrit orialised by almost two centuries of settler colonial and postcolonial dis possession and resource extraction\, nourished by a climate itself derange d by fossil capital endeavours of resource capture and exploitation. In th ese conditions\, even La Niña patterns historically associated with quiet summers can underpin a landmark bushfire season. Meanwhile\, another syst em of control now intervenes in these increasingly flammable terrains\, te lling us on emergency broadcasts that the fires are “out of control.” We are all told to watch and act. “The incident is escalating. Take acti on immediately to protect your life.” Between the warnings and health ad visory messages about smoke pollution\, media commentators suggest that we might be safer if only our multibillion-dollar technoscientific systems o f control were better equipped. In this presentation\, I will think with L andecker’s (2025) prompt to attend to modernity’s “aftermath\,” co nsidering how the impossible dreams of control persist both within and wit hout the institutions of Australian fire management.\n\n \n\nAbout the aut hor\n\nTimothy Neale is a pakeha (non-indigenous) anthropologist and STS s cholar\, originally from Aotearoa New Zealand\, whose work addresses envir onmental hazards and disasters through the social life of their technical infrastructures. Timothy lives and works on the lands of Wurundjeri people s in Naarm Melbourne\, where he is Associate Professor in Anthropology at Deakin University\, co-convenor of Deakin's Cultures of Technoscience (CoT ) network\, and Editor of the STS journal Science\, Technology\, & Human V alues. He is the author of two monographs\, Wild Articulations: Environmen talism and Indigeneity in Northern Australia (University of Hawaii Press\, 2017) and How to Control Fire on a Burning Continent (Duke University Pre ss\, 2026)\, and the editor (with Courtney Addison and Thao Phan) of An An thropogenic Table of Elements: Experiments in the Fundamental (University of Toronto Press\, 2022).\n\n \n\nFor any questions\, please contact the E thnography Studio at ethnographystudio@gmail.com LAST-MODIFIED:20260902T181945Z LOCATION:Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience (MCB)\, 102 URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/the-ethnography-studio-presents-a-book- talk-with-tim-neale X-SOURCE-NAME:Event Calendar Calendar X-SOURCE-URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/kiyo-gutierrez-bocas-indomable suntamable-mouths-mfa-solo-thesis-exhibtion END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:EASC Guest Speaker Series: Writing Against Erasure: Courtesans\, P erformance\, and the Making of Late Ming Drama - Talk by Prof. Peng Xu DTSTART:20261012T210000Z DTEND:20261012T222000Z DTSTAMP:20260730T182347Z UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_53428846554014 CATEGORIES:literary,theater DESCRIPTION:Writing Against Erasure: Courtesans\, Performance\, and the Ma king of Late Ming Drama\nMonday\, October 12 | 2:00PM-3:20PM | DML 240 | R SVP\n\nEASC Guest Speaker Series: Talk by Prof. Peng Xu (Associate Profess or\, ShanghaiTech University) with Faculty Moderator Prof. Mengxiao Wang ( EALC 145: Introduction to Chinese Culture Art and Literature)\n\nPeng Xu ’s The Courtesan’s Memory\, Voice\, and Late Ming Drama (University of Michigan Press\, 2025) reinterprets late Ming drama by foregrounding cour tesan performance culture as a generative force in theatrical production. Drawing on a wide range of sources—including scripts\, city guides\, bio graphies\, diaries\, letters\, and visual materials—the book argues that courtesans were not merely subjects of representation but active agents w ho reshaped theatrical form\, performance conditions\, and literary style. In doing so\, it challenges male-centered historiography and offers a new framework for understanding gender\, media\, and creativity in early mode rn Chinese theater.\n\nThis event is co-sponsored by the USC East Asian Li brary. LAST-MODIFIED:20260730T182347Z LOCATION:Doheny Memorial Library (DML)\, 240 URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/easc-guest-speaker-series-writing-again st-erasure-courtesans-performance-and-the-making-of-late-ming-drama-talk-b y-peng-xu X-SOURCE-NAME:Event Calendar Calendar X-SOURCE-URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/kiyo-gutierrez-bocas-indomable suntamable-mouths-mfa-solo-thesis-exhibtion END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Poetry as Medium: Hŏ Nansŏhŏn\, a Ming Palace-Examination Scand al\, and the Problem of Women’s Poetry DTSTART:20261013T193000Z DTEND:20261013T205000Z DTSTAMP:20260814T181632Z UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_53700902245854 CATEGORIES:literary DESCRIPTION:Professor Peng Xu of Shanghai Tech University will give a talk on how poetry anthology by Chosŏn woman poet Hŏ Nansŏrhŏn (1563–158 9)\, published by Shen Yaohua in Ming China\, became mediating object prod uced at the intersection of postwar diplomacy\, Jiangnan private print cul ture\, maritime circulation\, and factional politics at the Wanli court. I n this context\, a Korean woman’s poems did more than cross the sea: the y supplied literary evidence for Sino-Korean cultural affinity and exposed the literary problem of gendered authorship in the sinographic world. RSV P Link Here\n\n \n\nThe event is co-sponsored by the USC East Asian Studie s Center. LAST-MODIFIED:20260814T181632Z LOCATION:Doheny Memorial Library (DML)\, 240 URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/poetry-as-medium-ho-nansohon-a-ming-pal ace-examination-scandal-and-the-problem-of-womens-poetry X-SOURCE-NAME:Event Calendar Calendar X-SOURCE-URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/kiyo-gutierrez-bocas-indomable suntamable-mouths-mfa-solo-thesis-exhibtion END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Levan Institute Series: “On Writing”—About Beauty DTSTART:20261019T190000Z DTEND:20261019T200000Z DTSTAMP:20260818T181800Z UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_53693800681127 CATEGORIES:literary DESCRIPTION:This event is part of the Levan Institute for the Humanities' “On Writing” series\, conversations aiming to answer questions about h ow writing matters\, now. This conversation will feature Mitra Parineh (US C) and Arabelle Sicardi (author of The House of Beauty: Lesson from the Im age Industry)\, hosted by Sarah Mesle (USC). Organized in partnership with the Consortium for Gender\, Sexuality\, Race and Public Culture. Registra tion is required. REGISTER\n\n \n\nDescription: Philosophers have long con sidered “beauty” to be one of our most significant aesthetic experienc es. Some regard its power as inspiring or even ennobling\; others treat be auty’s allure with suspicion. But beauty isn’t just philosophical. It also interests sociologists\, biologists\, and marketing execs. Most of us experience beauty as deeply personal\, even while we know that our most v isceral responses to beauty are shaped by the largest structures in which we exist. So\, then\, what does beauty mean to the writer? How do we think about writing about beauty\, or with beauty? Beauty matters to our sense of writerly voice and also to our beliefs about evidence\, persuasiveness\ , and analysis. This event brings together Arabelle Siccardi\, a journalis t and cultural historian of the beauty industry\, with Mitra Parineh\, a c reative writer herself and a frequent professor of USC’s “Issues in Ae sthetics” freshman seminar. Together\, we’ll discuss how beauty shapes what writers do and what readers feel. \n\n \n\nMitra Parineh writes abou t\, and teaches writers how to approach the subjects of beauty\, art\, and culture on the page. Her work has appeared in the New Orleans Review\, Hy perallergic\, 7x7\, and Frenshe. She is an Assistant Professor in the Writ ing Program at USC.\n\nArabelle Sicardi is a Taiwanese American writer exp loring beauty\, care\, and crisis. They’ve written for Allure\, Teen Vog ue\, Harper’s Bazaar\, and the Cut\; run the scent collective Perfumed P ages\; and founded the Museum of Nails Foundation. They split their time b etween New York City and Portugal. \n\n \n\nOpen to attendants outside of USC. Registration before the event is required. To see more events in this series\, including recordings of past events\, visit https://dornsife.usc .edu/levan-institute/programs/on-writing/. LAST-MODIFIED:20260818T181800Z URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/levan-institute-series-on-writingabout- beauty X-SOURCE-NAME:Event Calendar Calendar X-SOURCE-URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/kiyo-gutierrez-bocas-indomable suntamable-mouths-mfa-solo-thesis-exhibtion END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Community Book: A Conversation with Henry Hoke DTSTART:20261021T202000Z DTEND:20261021T211500Z DTSTAMP:20260806T181521Z UID:calendar.54133.field_date_range.0@site CATEGORIES:literary DESCRIPTION:Intro copy \n\nA conversation with author Henry Hoke about _Op en Throat_\,\nOccidental's 2026 Community Book LAST-MODIFIED:20260806T181521Z LOCATION:Location \n Thorne Hall [/locations/thorne-hall] URL:https://www.oxy.edu/events/2026/10/community-book-conversation-henry-h oke X-SOURCE-NAME:iCal Events Feed X-SOURCE-URL:https://www.oxy.edu END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Sharing Your Scholarship: Writing for The Conversation DTSTART:20261105T010000Z DTEND:20261105T030000Z DTSTAMP:20260808T002240Z UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_53641195433685 CATEGORIES:literary DESCRIPTION:Wednesday\, November 4\, 2026 | 5:30-7:00PM | DML 240 + Zoom | Register - More information soon\n\n5:00PM - Check In/Dinner | 5:30-7:00P M - Programming\n\n \n\nMore details TBA\n\n \n\n \n\n \n\nBonus for Dorns ife Ph.D. students only: Attending this event counts toward the 4-event mi nimum to apply for the PhD Academy Scholarship and Research Fund (up to $5 00). LAST-MODIFIED:20260808T002240Z LOCATION:Doheny Memorial Library (DML)\, 240 URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/sharing-your-scholarship-writing-for-th e-conversation X-SOURCE-NAME:Event Calendar Calendar X-SOURCE-URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/kiyo-gutierrez-bocas-indomable suntamable-mouths-mfa-solo-thesis-exhibtion END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Λέσχη Ανάγνωσης Ελληνικών Βιβλίων τ ης Δυτικής Ακτής: Αιολική Γη του Ηλία Βε νέζη DTSTART:20261107T180000Z DTEND:20261107T190000Z DTSTAMP:20260729T181135Z UID:7041-1794045600-1794049200@hellenic.ucla.edu CATEGORIES:literary DESCRIPTION:Λέσχη Ανάγνωσης Ελληνικών Βιβλίω ν της Δυτικής Ακτής \nΑιολική Γη του Ηλία Βενέζη \nΤη συζήτηση θα συντονίσουν η Δρ. Σάρον Γκερστέλ\, διευθύντρια του Κέντρου Μελέτης Ελληνικού Πολιτισμού Ίδρυμα Στ αύρος Νιάρχος στο UCLA\, και η Δρ. Ειρήνη Κω τσοβίλη\, λέκτορας Παγκόσμιων Ανθρωπιστ ικών Σπουδών του Πανεπιστημίου Simon Fraser. \n Η διάλεξη θα γίνει στα Ελληνικά. \nΣάββατ ο\, 7 Νοεμβρίου 2026\n10:00 π.μ. Λος Άντζελες / 8:0 0 μ.μ. Ελλάδα\nΜέσω Zoom \nΠατήστε εδώ για να δηλώσετε συμμετοχή στη συνάντηση της Λέ σχης Ανάγνωσης. \nΤο πρόγραμμα αυτό πραγμ ατοποιείται χάρη στη γενναιόδωρη υποστή ριξη του Ιδρύματος Σταύρος Νιάρχος (ΙΣΝ). LAST-MODIFIED:20260729T181135Z LOCATION:by Zoom URL:https://hellenic.ucla.edu/event/landofaeolia/ X-SOURCE-NAME:Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture X-SOURCE-URL:https://hellenic.ucla.edu/event/19th-los-angeles-greek-film-f estival-screening END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Levan Book Chat—Mengxiao Wang\, Performing Enlightenment DTSTART:20261110T190000Z DTEND:20261110T200000Z DTSTAMP:20260826T002311Z UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_53250122593823 CATEGORIES:literary DESCRIPTION:A discussion of Mengxiao Wang's new book\, Performing Enlighte nment: Buddhism and Theater in Early Modern China (Harvard University Pres s\, 2026). The author will be joined in conversation by Shih-shan Susan Hu ang (Rice University) and Wilt L. Idema (Harvard University)\, moderated b y Lori Meeks (USC). Organized in partnership with the Department of East A sian Languages and Cultures and the East Asian Studies Center. Registratio n is required. REGISTER HERE\n\n \n\nAbout the Book: In early modern China \, a major revival of Buddhism coincided with a surging fascination with t heater. Buddhist monastics and laypeople increasingly participated in view ing\, discussing\, and writing plays. Far from merely serving as a medium for conveying religious teachings and practices\, drama became a source of deep concern for Buddhists due to the perceived tension between spiritual discipline and worldly entertainment.\n\n \n\nIn Performing Enlightenment \, Mengxiao Wang examines how Buddhist clerics and laity engaged with and drove innovations in theater during the late Ming and early Qing dynasties . Drawing on an extensive range of sources—including clerical sermons\, scriptural commentaries\, temple gazetteers\, morality books\, literati pr ose\, and dramatic texts and paratexts—Wang argues that Ming-Qing Buddhi sts resolved the conflict between religion and entertainment by transformi ng theater into a creative mode of devotional practice. Consequently\, pla ywriting\, stage performance\, and theatergoing all emerged as legitimate pathways to spiritual enlightenment. This interdisciplinary work provides fresh insights into Chinese studies\, Buddhist studies\, and theater studi es while offering a comparative perspective on the complex interplay betwe en religion\, literature\, and performance across cultures.\n\n \n\nAbout the Author: Mengxiao Wang is Assistant Professor of Chinese Literature at the University of Southern California.\n\n \n\nOpen to attendants outside of USC. An excerpt of the book will be made available to registered attend ants. Registration before the event is required. \n\n \n\nThis event is pa rt of the Levan Institute for the Humanities' “Book Chats” series\, co nversations about new books published by USC scholars in the humanities an d humanistic social sciences. To see more events in this series\, includin g recordings of past events\, visit https://dornsife.usc.edu/levan-institu te/book-chats/. LAST-MODIFIED:20260826T002311Z URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/levan-book-chatmengxiao-wang-performing -enlightenment X-SOURCE-NAME:Event Calendar Calendar X-SOURCE-URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/kiyo-gutierrez-bocas-indomable suntamable-mouths-mfa-solo-thesis-exhibtion END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:In Pursuit of Ecstatic Truth: a Conversation with Werner Herzog DTSTART:20261112T020000Z DTEND:20261112T033000Z DTSTAMP:20260902T001745Z UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_53789672811966 CATEGORIES:education,literary DESCRIPTION:Filmmaker Werner Herzog will give a wide-ranging talk related to his recent book\, The Future of Truth (2025)\, in conversation with Aro Velmet (Associate Professor of History). Organized by the USC Society of Fellows in the Humanities in partnership with the School of Cinematic Arts and the Visual Studies Research Institute. More details forthcoming.\n\n \n\nDescription: “I have always vigorously opposed the foolish belief th at equates truth with facts.” In his recent book titled The Future of Tr uth\, Werner Herzog unfolds his thoughts on the perils of truth-making as the central issue of both his documentaries and feature films. At this eve nt hosted by the Society of Fellows for the Humanities\, Herzog discusses his work and preoccupations with truth in a wide-ranging conversation with Prof. Aro Velmet. Herzog’s work is indicative of a multifaceted filmmak er. By mobilizing his fascination with liminal experiences and places\, wi th the unusual\, the outrageous\, the absurd\, he unearths the profound or dinariness of being human. His notion of ‘ecstatic truth’ inhabits a s imilar tension: through stylization\, poetry\, and imagination he strives to tell “a deeper layer of truth\, one that can access a distant echo of something that can illuminate us\, far beyond the reach of fact.” As hi s films take audiences from the deepest woods of Alaska through Vietnam’ s rainforests and into outer space\, his book takes readers on a journey f rom ancient text to ChatGPT generated poetry\, from Michelangelo’s sculp ture to “Peace Village” in Korea’s DMZ\, from alien abductions to Ha rry Houdini. In our conversation we follow Herzog along some of these wind ing paths toward truth\, a destination that remains perpetually out of rea ch.\n\n \n\nWerner Herzog was born in Munich on September 5\, 1942. He gre w up in a remote mountain village in Bavaria and studied History and Germa n Literature in Munich and Pittsburgh. He made his first film in 1961 at t he age of 19. Since then he has produced\, written\, and directed more tha n sixty feature- and documentary films\, such as Aguirre der Zorn Gottes ( Aguirre\, The Wrath of God\, 1972)\, Nosferatu Phantom der Nacht (Nosferat u\, 1978)\, Fitzcarraldo (1982)\, Lektionen in Finsternis (Lessons of Dark ness\, 1992)\, Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997)\, Mein liebster Feind (My Best Fiend\, 1999)\, Invincible (2000)\, Grizzly Man (2005)\, Encounters at the End of the World (2007)\, Die Höhle der vergessenen Träume (Cave of Forgotten Dreams\, 2010). Werner Herzog has published more than a dozen books of prose\, and directed as many operas. Werner Herzog lives in Muni ch and Los Angeles.\n\n \n\nAro Velmet is Associate Professor of History a t USC. He is a historian of modern Europe\, colonialism\, science\, techno logy\, and medicine. His first book\, Pasteur's Empire (OUP\, 2020)\, look s at how microbiology became a tool of colonial governance in French West Africa\, North Africa\, and Indochina\, and how African politicians\, Viet namese doctors\, French administrators\, international regulators and many others shaped the development of vaccination programs\, industrial agricu lture\, urban policing\, education\, and many other fields of social life. He is currently working on a history of state data processing in the Sovi et Union and post-Soviet Europe\, primarily in Estonia and Ukraine. LAST-MODIFIED:20260902T001745Z URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/society-of-fellows-guest-lecturewerner- herzog-on-the-future-of-truth X-SOURCE-NAME:Event Calendar Calendar X-SOURCE-URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/kiyo-gutierrez-bocas-indomable suntamable-mouths-mfa-solo-thesis-exhibtion END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Memory Rehearsal presentation by Eleni Sikelianos\, Poet and Autho r DTSTART:20261115T000000Z DTEND:20261115T020000Z DTSTAMP:20260825T001244Z UID:7136-1794672000-1794679200@hellenic.ucla.edu CATEGORIES:literary DESCRIPTION:Memory Rehearsal\npresentation by Eleni Sikelianos\, Poet and Author \nNovember 14\, 2026\n4:00 P.M.\n314 Royce Hall\, UCLA Campus\nRece ption to follow \nRSVP at this link to attend \nIn 1901\, Eva Palmer aband oned her life as a privileged New York socialite\, moving to Paris with he r lover\, the writer and salonist\, Natalie Barney. The two Americans beca me the center of a wild tangle of lesbian love affairs and backyard perfor mances based on intentional reimaginings of Sappho’s work and life. A ch ance encounter led Eva to Greece\, where she married Angelos Sikelianos\, a visionary poet who would become a Greek national hero. Celebrated Americ an poet Eleni Sikelianos grew up knowing little of these illustrious ances tors\, her great grandparents\, who\, in the early 20th century staged a r evival of the ancient Delphic festivals\, convinced that it would open a p ath to world peace. It was not until the age of 20\, on her first trip to Greece\, that she encountered the breadth of their legacy. In her new book \, Memory Rehearsal (City Lights\, 2026)\, Sikelianos unearths the story o f her search for these pioneering ancestors\, in a text that shifts betwee n prose\, poetry\, imaginary performance texts\, fiction\, and nonfiction\ , with archival and family photographs. \nEleni will read from and discuss Memory Rehearsal\, which Kirkus calls a “moving family memoir and a tri umph of cultural archaeology.” \nEleni Sikelianos was born into a family of tree workers\, bohemians\, poets\, ne’er-do-wells\, visionaries\, an d smalltime sort-of hustlers. She is a poet\, writer\, collaborator\, and “master of mixing genres.” As a student of the poets of Naropa\, she i s a lineage-holder in the Outrider poetics family tree. Deeply engaged wit h ecopoetics\, her work takes up urgent concerns of environmental precarit y and ancestral work. She has published ten books of poetry (most recently \, Your Kingdom\, 2023) and a trilogy of unclassifiable hybrid works\, som etimes called nonfiction\, sometimes memoirs\, sometimes fiction: The Book of Jon and You Animal Machine\, and\, most recently\, Memory Rehearsal  (City Lights\, 2026). Memory Rehearsal\, called “a triumph of cultural a rchaeology” in a starred Kirkus review and named One of Publishers Weekl y’s Most Anticipated Books for 2026\, is a genre-busting encounter betwe en a poet and her ancestral past documenting a startling intersection of q ueer history\, ancient theater\, utopian visions\, and modern poetry. \nAm ong other honors\, she has been awarded two National Endowment for the Art s fellowships\, a Fulbright Artists fellowship\, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Award in nonfiction. She grew up in earshot of the ocean\, i n small coastal towns near Santa Barbara\, and has since lived in San Fran cisco\, New York\, Paris\, Athens (Greece)\, Boulder (Colorado)\, and Prov idence. \nThe book Memory Rehearsal will be available for purchase at the event! All major credit cards\, Apple Pay\, and Google Pay are accepted. C ash is also accepted with exact change only. \nThis program is made possib le thanks to the generous support of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation. LAST-MODIFIED:20260825T001244Z LOCATION:Royce Hall\, 314\, 10745 Dickson Ct.\, Los Angeles\, CA\, 90095\, United States URL:https://hellenic.ucla.edu/event/eleni_sikelianos/ X-SOURCE-NAME:Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture X-SOURCE-URL:https://hellenic.ucla.edu/event/19th-los-angeles-greek-film-f estival-screening END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Levan Institute Series: “On Writing”—Paragraphs DTSTART:20261120T200000Z DTEND:20261120T210000Z DTSTAMP:20260828T002338Z UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_53764151749643 CATEGORIES:literary DESCRIPTION:This event is part of the Levan Institute for the Humanities' “On Writing” series\, conversations aiming to answer questions about h ow writing matters\, now. This conversation will feature Angelica Jade Bas tién (writer\, essayist\, and film critic) and Anahid Nersessian (UCLA)\, hosted by Sarah Mesle (USC). Organized in partnership with the Consortium for Gender\, Sexuality\, Race and Public Culture. Registration is require d. REGISTER\n\n \n\nDescription: Prose comes in sentences\, and these sent ences — almost always — come clustered together into that mysterious u nit: “the paragraph.” In elementary school\, most of us use a simple s pell that can turn a sequence of sentences into a cohesive idea: start wit h a topic sentence\, follow it with a piece of evidence\, and wave the mag ic wand of analysis. Sometimes\, the magic works\, and the reader finds th emselves with a fascinating\, cohesive\, idea. But for many of us\, paragr aph magic is more elusive. How much evidence? What counts as analysis? How might the magic of a paragraph be altered by the size of a font\, piece o f paper\, or iPhone screen? What makes a good paragraph in a magazine\, an essay\, a substack\, or an article? In this event\, journalist Angelica J ade Bastien will compare paragraph notes with Anahid Nersessian\, author a nd professor of English at UCLA.\n\n \n\nAngelica Jade Bastién is a write r\, film critic\, and essayist. She has been on staff at New York Magazine since 2017. She has previously written for The Atlantic\, The New York Ti mes\, Harper’s Bazaar\, The Village Voice\, the Criterion Collection and many other publications. She has appeared on podcasts including Blank Che ck\, New York Times’s Cannonball\, KCRW’s the Sam Sanders Show\, and W e Hate Movies. In 2022\, she was nominated for a National Magazine Award. She can be found on her Substack newsletter\, Madwomen & Muses. Her websit e is angelicabastien.com. Originally from the South\, Bastién now lives i n Chicago.\n\nAnahid Nersessian was born and raised in New York City. She is the author of three books—Keats's Odes: A Lover's Discourse (Verso\, 2022\; U of Chicago P\, 2021)\, The Calamity Form: On Poetry and Social Li fe (Chicago\, 2020)\, and Utopia\, Limited: Romanticism and Adjustment (Ha rvard UP\, 2015). Her fourth book\, How to Have Sex in a Poem\, will be pu blished in 2027 by FSG. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker\, The New York Review of Books\, The London Review of Books\, New Left Review\, n+1\ , The Los Angeles Review of Books\, The Paris Review\, Bidoun\, Poetry Mag azine\, Mousse\, e-flux\, and elsewhere. She lives in Los Angeles\, where she is a professor in the Department of English at UCLA. \n\n \n\nOpen to attendants outside of USC. Registration before the event is required. To s ee more events in this series\, including recordings of past events\, visi t https://dornsife.usc.edu/levan-institute/programs/on-writing/. LAST-MODIFIED:20260828T002338Z URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/levan-institute-series-on-writingparagr aphs X-SOURCE-NAME:Event Calendar Calendar X-SOURCE-URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/kiyo-gutierrez-bocas-indomable suntamable-mouths-mfa-solo-thesis-exhibtion END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Levan Book Chat—Youngmin Choe\, Hanyo (The Housemaid) DTSTART:20261203T210000Z DTEND:20261203T220000Z DTSTAMP:20260729T054545Z UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_53250221115954 CATEGORIES:literary DESCRIPTION:A discussion of Youngmin Choe's new book\, Hanyo (The Housemai d) (Bloomsbury\, 2025). The author will be joined in conversation by Steve Choe (University of Hong Kong) and Hye Seung Chung (Colorado State Univer sity)\, moderated by Akira Lippitt (USC). Registration is required. REGIST ER HERE\n\n \n\nAbout the Book: The upwardly mobile Kim family employs a y oung woman to help manage their new house. Mr. Kim begins an affair with t he nameless 'housemaid'\, who soon drags the entire family into a terrible tragedy… The director Kim Ko-young played a formative part in South Kor ean cinema's “Golden Age” of the 1960s and 1970s\; his 1960 masterpiec e\, Hanyo (The Housemaid)\, rescued and restored after almost being lost\, is today widely regarded as one of the greatest South Korean films of all time. Directors such as Park Chan-wook\, Im Sang-soo\, Kim Ki-duk\, Ryu S eung-wan and Kim Jee-woon have all praised the film\, and Bong Joon-ho has referred to Hanyo as “the Citizen Kane of Korean cinema\,” citing it as an inspiration for his film\, Parasite (2019).\n\nIn this book\, Youngm in Choe argues that Hanyo encapsulates the mood of social change in postwa r South Korea during the period of tremendous upheaval and rapid transform ation that followed the devastating war\, which divided families across th e newly formed Cold War boundaries. The housemaid – a figure that Kim Ki -young would explore repeatedly throughout his career – was a young woma n driven by greed and envy\, a femme-fatale set loose on the middle-class home. A monstrous embodiment of the destructive desires of capitalism\, wh ich recklessly eroded the foundations of tradition\, this housemaid served as the conscience of a period that otherwise leaned heavily into economic transformation\, pointing to the anxiety that undergirded what might be o therwise regarded as a time of 'progress'. Going beyond the traditionalist approaches that resist feminist readings of Hanyo\, Youngmin Choe insists that the enduring legacy of Hanyo is both due to its uncanny aesthetics a nd - though it certainly was not intended to be an explicitly feminist fil m - in the questions it raises about class mobility\, gender oppression an d women's work.\n\n \n\nAbout the Author: Youngmin Choe is Associate Profe ssor of Korean Cinema and Visual Culture at the University of Southern Cal ifornia\, USA. Her previous publications include Tourist Distractions: Tra velling and Feeling in Transnational Hallyu Cinema (2016) and the co-edite d volume The Korean Popular Culture Reader (2014).\n\n \n\nOpen to attenda nts outside of USC. An excerpt of the book will be made available to regis tered attendants. Registration before the event is required. \n\n \n\nThis event is part of the Levan Institute for the Humanities' “Book Chats” series\, conversations about new books published by USC scholars in the h umanities and humanistic social sciences. To see more events in this serie s\, including recordings of past events\, visit https://dornsife.usc.edu/l evan-institute/book-chats/. LAST-MODIFIED:20260729T054545Z URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/levan-book-chatyoungmin-choe-hanyo-the- housemaid X-SOURCE-NAME:Event Calendar Calendar X-SOURCE-URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/kiyo-gutierrez-bocas-indomable suntamable-mouths-mfa-solo-thesis-exhibtion END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Levan Book Chat—Steven J. Ross\, The Secret War Against Hate DTSTART:20270201T200000Z DTEND:20270201T210000Z DTSTAMP:20260822T121920Z UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_53764247523471 CATEGORIES:literary DESCRIPTION:A discussion of Steven J. Ross's new book\, The Secret War Aga inst Hate: American Resistance to Antisemitism and White Supremacy (Blooms bury\, 2026). The author will be joined in conversation by Steven Hahn (NY U) and Michael Kazin (Georgetown University)\, moderated by Alaina Morgan (USC). Registration is required. REGISTER HERE\n\n \n\nAbout the Book: Ame ricans today like to believe that the end of World War II brought a new er a of tolerance in the United States. But antisemitism and racism went up-n ot down-after the war's end. Violence broke out in cities across the count ry\, and the number of organized hate groups more than doubled from 1940 t o 1946. In this shocking account of a resurgence of White Supremacy in Ame rica\, celebrated historian Steven J. Ross reveals how four key leaders-Em ory Burke\, J. B. Stoner\, James Madole\, and George Lincoln Rockwell-work ed together to “finish the job Hitler had begun\,” launching deadly at tacks on Jews and African Americans and building a network of terrorists a cross the U.S. In response to this “war of hate\,” three men-Arnold Fo rster of the Anti-­Defamation League\, George Mintzer of the American Jew ish Committee\, and James Sheldon of the Non-­Sectarian Anti­-Nazi Leagu e-along with dozens of men and women\, launched a multipronged effort: The y infiltrated\, monitored\, and undermined these hate groups\, putting the ir own safety on the line and scoring important victories that\, today\, h ave been all but forgotten.\n\nTracing the extraordinary work of these uns ung heroes\, The Secret War Against Hate provides a groundbreaking reconsi deration of the legacy of the “Good War\,” and essential reading on ho w America today can beat hate once again and build a just and united natio n.\n\n \n\nAbout the Author: Steven J. Ross is Distinguished Professor of History\, Dean’s Professor of History\, and Marion and Myron Casden Dire ctor of the Casden Institute for the Study of the Jewish Role in American Life. He has written extensively in the areas of working-class history\, s ocial history\, film history\, and political history. He is the author of Workers On the Edge: Work\, Leisure\, and Politics in Industrializing Cinc innati\, 1788-1890 (1985)\, Working-Class Hollywood: Silent Film and the S haping of Class in America (1998)\, Hollywood Left and Right: How Movie St ars Shaped American Politics (2011)\, and Hitler in Los Angeles: How Jews Foiled Nazi Plots Against Hollywoodand America (2018).\n\n \n\nOpen to att endants outside of USC. An excerpt of the book will be made available to r egistered attendants. Registration before the event is required. \n\n \n\n This event is part of the Levan Institute for the Humanities' “Book Chat s” series\, conversations about new books published by USC scholars in t he humanities and humanistic social sciences. To see more events in this s eries\, including recordings of past events\, visit https://dornsife.usc.e du/levan-institute/book-chats/. LAST-MODIFIED:20260822T121920Z URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/levan-book-chatsteven-j-ross-the-secret -war-against-hate X-SOURCE-NAME:Event Calendar Calendar X-SOURCE-URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/kiyo-gutierrez-bocas-indomable suntamable-mouths-mfa-solo-thesis-exhibtion END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Faculty Pub Night: Holli Levitsky on "A Life Cut Short: Hyam Plutz ik and the Mosaic of Time" DTSTART:20270217T020000Z DTEND:20270217T033000Z DTSTAMP:20260817T063500Z UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_53723291205522 CATEGORIES:literary DESCRIPTION:Note: If you are interested in attending this event\, please R SVP here or select the "Register" button on this page.\n\nThe sixth Facult y Pub Night of the 2026-27 season features Holli Levitsky\, professor of E nglish and director of Jewish Studies (Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts) . She will discuss her recent publication\, "Hyam Plutzik and the Mosaic o f Time: Essays and Selected Poems."\n\nAbout Faculty Pub Night\n\nStudents \, staff\, faculty\, alumni\, and members of the public are all invited to the 2026-27 series of Faculty Pub Night at the William H. Hannon Library. Eight LMU professors are selected annually to discuss their latest public ation or project in a comfortable setting and format that welcomes diverse perspectives for an inclusive conversation aimed to educate the entire co mmunity. All Faculty Pub Nights are free and open to the public.\n\nAbout the Author's Work\n\nIn this carefully edited collection of essays and pub lished and unpublished poetry\, preeminent poetry scholars and fellow poet s explore American poet Hyam Plutzik’s life and work. The son of Russian Jewish immigrants\, Plutzik was versed in Yiddish\, Russian\, Hebrew\, an d English. His poetry is inflected with the richly figured linguistic mosa ic of his cultural inheritance\, “a memory that knows no walls.” Surfa cing at a time of cultural change globally\, and set against the historica l rupture of the Holocaust and World War II\, his impressively crafted poe try is preoccupied with themes of Jewish ancestry and history as a fragile and impermanent record\, and Jewish liturgy and midrash against the hybri dity of Jewish American identity.\n\nWhile his poetry was among the emergi ng American literary voices of his time\, his untimely death came at the c usp of national and international acclaim. The essays in this collection a pproach Plutzik’s contribution to American poetry as it intersects with and is informed by his Jewish identity. We examine Plutzik as a Jewish Ame rican writer\, one for whom the tensions and dualities of identity for Jew ish writers at his time and place surface throughout his body of work.\n\n About the Author\n\nHolli Levitsky is founder and director of the Jewish S tudies Program and professor of English at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Among other publications\, she is editor or co-editor of five books\, "Summer Haven: The Catskills\, the Holocaust and the Literary Ima gination"\; "The Literature of Exile and Displacement: American Identity i n a Time of Crisis"\; "Jewish American and Holocaust Literatures: Reading and Teaching"\; "Communist Poland: A Jewish Woman’s Experience"\; and "H yam Plutzik and the Mosaic of Time". Her current research focuses on impos sible metaphors of the Holocaust\, the basis for her current project\, "Ex cremental Aesthetics: Human Waste and the Geography of the Holocaust". Amo ng other honors\, awards\, and fellowships\, she held the 2001-2002 Fulbri ght Distinguished Chair in American Literature at the University of Warsaw . She is an affiliated professor at University of Haifa in Israel.\n\nAbou t the William H. Hannon Library\n\nThe William H. Hannon Library fosters e xcellence in academic achievement through an array of distinctive services that enable learners to feed their curiosity\, experience new worlds\, de velop their ideas\, inform their decision-making\, and inspire others. Mor e information can be found at http://library.lmu.edu\n\nFor more informati on about this event\, contact the Outreach and Engagement team at the Will iam H. Hannon library via email at library.outreach@lmu.edu or call 310-33 8-5234. LAST-MODIFIED:20260817T063500Z LOCATION:William H. Hannon Library\, Von der Ahe Suite (Level 3) URL:https://cal.lmu.edu/event/faculty-pub-night-holli-levitsky-on-a-life-c ut-short-hyam-plutzikand-the-mosaic-of-time X-SOURCE-NAME:Loyola Marymount University Calendar X-SOURCE-URL:https://cal.lmu.edu END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Book Talk - "Safe Passage: The Untold Story of Diplomatic Intrigue \, Betrayal\, and the Exchange of American and Japanese Civilians by Sea D uring World War II" DTSTART:20270223T200000Z DTEND:20270223T220000Z DTSTAMP:20260827T001734Z UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_53295955927970 CATEGORIES:literary DESCRIPTION:Join the USC Shinso Ito Center for Japanese Religions and Cult ure for a conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author E velyn Iritani as she discusses her new book\, Safe Passage: The Untold Sto ry of Diplomatic Intrigue\, Betrayal\, and the Exchange of American and Ja panese Civilians by Sea During World War II. The book is an immensely movi ng untold story of idealism\, deception and behind-the-scenes diplomacy be tween the US and Japan. \n\n \n\nRSVP\n\n \n\nAbout the book\nIn the fall of 1943\, despite fighting some of the Pacific's bloodiest battles\, the U nited States and Japan pulled off a diplomatic coup—the exchange of civi lians caught on the wrong side of the battlefield after Pearl Harbor. Near ly fifteen hundred Allied civilians trapped in Asia\, mostly Americans\, s ailed through dangerous waters to an Indian port city where they were trad ed for an equivalent number of Japanese immigrants and their families sent from the Americas.\n\n \n\nPulitzer Prize-winning journalist Evelyn Irita ni has spent over ten years researching and interviewing family members an d survivors of the exchange. On the ships were Emily Hahn\, the sharp-tong ued New Yorker writer and her illegitimate daughter by lover Charles Boxer \, now imprisoned as a British spy\; Don Hasuike\, a Japanese American tee nager who loved baseball and the Green Hornet radio show\, being shipped t o a country he'd never seen\; and Daniel Brooke McKinnon\, an American mis sionary and teacher with a deep love of Japan and a wife he was forced to leave behind.\n\n \n\nFor so many\, the battle lines of their hearts did n ot align with their passports as government officials made judgment calls that reverberated across time. Faced with too few bodies to trade and desp erate to free Americans from perilous conditions\, the United States uproo ted and traded Japanese immigrants from Latin America\, often against thei r will\, while Japanese imprisoned in camps —many of them American citiz ens—were forced to choose between expulsion to a war zone or an uncertai n future behind barbed wire.\n\n \n\nSafe Passage tells us important thing s about belonging\, migration\, and the hurdles to pursuing humanitarian a ction in wartime.\n\n \n\nAbout the Author\n\nEvelyn Iritani is the author of An Ocean Between Us: The Changing Relationship of Japan and the United States Told in Four Stories from the Life of an American Town. A former r eporter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Los Angeles Times\, her reporting garnered numerous awards\, including the 2004 Pulitzer Prize fo r National Reporting on global economic issues and the George Polk Award. LAST-MODIFIED:20260827T001734Z LOCATION:Doheny Memorial Library (DML)\, East Asian Studies Seminar Room ( 110C) URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/book-talk-safe-passage-the-untold-story -of-diplomatic-intrigue-betrayal-and-the-exchange-of-american-and-japanese -civilians-by-sea-during-world-war-ii X-SOURCE-NAME:Event Calendar Calendar X-SOURCE-URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/kiyo-gutierrez-bocas-indomable suntamable-mouths-mfa-solo-thesis-exhibtion END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Levan Book Chat—Sarah Kessler\, Out of Sync DTSTART:20270301T200000Z DTEND:20270301T210000Z DTSTAMP:20260822T121920Z UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_53764310415721 CATEGORIES:literary DESCRIPTION:A discussion of Sarah Kessler's new book\, Out of Sync: Ventri loquism in Popular Media from Vinyl to TikTok (Duke University Press\, 202 6). The author will be joined in conversation by Roshanak Kheshti (Univers ity of California\, Berkeley) and Dominic Pettman (New School)\, moderated by Kara Keeling (USC). Registration is required. REGISTER HERE\n\n \n\nAb out the Book: Ventriloquism\, or the art of “throwing the voice\,” has outdated and even unsettling connotations to many\, associated with vaude ville and the nefarious talking dolls of so many horror movies. Despite th is\, ventriloquism remains a popular performance art\, filling theaters an d concert venues with audiences eager to hear puppets voice what humans\, in an increasingly polarized present\, want to say but feel they can’t. In Out of Sync\, Sarah Rebecca Kessler explores ventriloquism’s persiste nce in\, and relevance to\, the contemporary moment\, examining performanc es by recent and current practitioners such as Richard Sandfield\, Nina Co nti\, Jeff Dunham\, and Terry Fator while also tracing ventriloquism’s t ravels across media including vinyl records\, documentary films\, music vi deos\, and social media platforms such as TikTok. Kessler argues that vent riloquism and its many remediations amplify a cultural politics of synchro nization that positions not just sounds and images\, but voices and bodies \, as more and less out of sync along the lines of race\, gender\, and sex uality. Looking closely at the art and its outgrowths\, Out of Sync gives insight into the operations of race\, gender\, and sexuality as distinctly audiovisual processes.\n\n \n\nAbout the Author: Sarah Kessler is Assista nt Professor of English at the University of Southern California. Her inte rdisciplinary research spans the fields of comparative media studies\, cri tical race theory\, queer and gender studies\, voice and sound studies\, a nd television studies. Her articles and essays have appeared in Camera Obs cura\, Film Quarterly\, In These Times\, Public Books\, Theory & Event\, T riple Canopy\, Women’s Studies Quarterly\, and elsewhere. She is the TV section editor at Public Books.\n\n \n\nOpen to attendants outside of USC. An excerpt of the book will be made available to registered attendants. R egistration before the event is required. \n\n \n\nThis event is part of t he Levan Institute for the Humanities' “Book Chats” series\, conversat ions about new books published by USC scholars in the humanities and human istic social sciences. To see more events in this series\, including recor dings of past events\, visit https://dornsife.usc.edu/levan-institute/book -chats/. LAST-MODIFIED:20260822T121920Z URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/levan-book-chatsarah-kessler-out-of-syn c X-SOURCE-NAME:Event Calendar Calendar X-SOURCE-URL:https://calendar.usc.edu/event/kiyo-gutierrez-bocas-indomable suntamable-mouths-mfa-solo-thesis-exhibtion END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR