Spring 2010
2010 Shirley Kennedy Lecture
From Watts to Dakar: A View of African American Culture in Los Angeles and in the
African Diaspora • Jayne Cortez
Tuesday, April 6, 4 pm
Lecture / MCC Theater
Jayne Cortez, poet, activist, and founder of the Black Arts Movement in Los Angeles
in the 1960s will share her reflections on African American Los Angeles and her
travels through the African Diaspora. Her voice is celebrated for its political,
surrealistic, dynamic innovations in lyricism, Jazz, Blues, and visceral sound.
One of the founders of the spoken word movement, she has produced four albums, two
films, and her ten books have been translated into 27 languages. She is also the
president of the Organization of Women Writers of Africa.
Sponsored by the Center for Black Studies Research.
Town Hall
Thursday, April 8, 6 pm
Discussion/Corwin Pavilion
On March 9th, several Student Affairs departments, concerned students, faculty,
and community members came together to discuss recent racial incidents in college
campuses across the country. At informal small group discussions, attendees shared
their feelings and how they have been impacted by recent events. The group also
agreed on the need to follow up with a campus-wide meeting to discuss these issues
in a larger setting. This Town Hall will focus on the need to instill positive change
by brainstorming on how to create safer forums for discussion, to enhance learning
through exposure to different perspectives, and to create a safe and respectful
climate at UCSB.
Co-sponsored by Associated Students, Educational Opportunity Program,
KCSB, Orientation, Office of Student Life, Resource Center for Sexual and Gender
Diversity, and the Women’s Center.
Tomorrow is Now!
Afro-Asian Music and the Revolutionary Imagination • Fred Ho
Monday, April 12, 4 pm
Lecture-Demo/MCC Theater
Composer, baritone saxophonist, author, scholar, revolutionary matriarchal socialist
and aspiring luddite activist Fred Ho will give a unique talk and solo baritone
sax recital inter-connecting music and activism for social-political and cultural
transformation to combat the plasticity and toxicity of industrial capitalist existence
and to replace it with a new social life that is ecological and matriarchal. Fred
Ho is the 16th Harvard Arts Medalist in the nearly 400 years of Harvard University.
Co-sponsored by Asian American Studies, Center for Black Studies Research, and the Department of Black Studies.
Art Exhibit
Double Vision: A Celebration of Hybridity • Shizue Seigel
Tuesday, April 13 - Friday, June 11 – Exhibition/MCC Lounge
Tuesday, April 13, 5 pm – Opening Reception
Japanese American artist Shizue Seigel blurs the boundaries between photography,
painting, found objects, and poetry to explore the shifting planes of multicultural
identity. In today's evolving world, where minorities are the majority, the complexity
of our stories is our American story. Seigel is also a poet and the author of In
Good Conscience: Supporting Japanese Americans during the Interment (AACP, Inc.
2006).
“Buscando a Frida”: Transnational Media Images in the Creation of Relational
White Sexualities through the Consumption of Women of Color
Aída Hurtado
Wednesday, April 14, 4 pm
Lecture/MCC Lounge
Professor Aída Hurtado, new Chair of the department of Chicana and Chicano Studies,
will present her recent work analyzing the transnational images of women of Color
in fashion magazines. The focus of her work is the relational construction of white
femininities in comparison to femininities of Color as part of maintaining the current
racial order. She concludes by applying her analysis to the current political climate
as it reacts to perceived threats to white privilege.
Student Series
Cup of Culture – Meet the Filmmaker
Two Spirits
Wednesday, April 14, 6 pm
Film Screening/MCC Theater
Fred Martinez was a Navajo youth slain at the age of 16 by a man who bragged to
his friends that he 'bug-smashed a fag.' But Fred was part of an honored Navajo
tradition – the 'nadleeh', or 'two-spirit,' who possesses a balance of masculine
and feminine traits—a special gift according to his traditional Navajo culture.
Through telling Fred's story, Nibley reminds us of the values that America's indigenous
peoples have long embraced. Discussion with producer Russell Martin following the
screening. Lydia Nibely, 65 min., English/Navajo, 2009, USA.
Presented by the American Indian Cultural Resource Center, the American Indian Graduate
Student Alliance, the American Indian Science and Engineering Society, the American
Indian Student Association, and the Resource Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity.
Stacks of Obits: A Choreopoem • Stephanie Batiste
Thursday, April 15, 7:30 pm
Performance/MCC Theater
Stephanie L. Batiste’s one-woman show is a rhythmic performative contemplation of
the street murders of young people of color in Los Angeles. Batiste processes the
obituaries, contained in a young woman’s scrapbook, of young black people killed
with guns. The show acts as an intellectual and emotional intervention in a flood
of unchecked violence. Directed by Brian Granger, graduate student in the Department
of Theater and Dance. Krump performances by UCSB students.
Co-sponsored by the Center for Black Studies Research, the Department of Black Studies,
the Chicano Studies Institute, the Hemispheric Souths Research Initiative, the Interdisciplinary
Humanities Center, and the Office of Equal Opportunity & Sexual Harassment/Title
IX Compliance.
An Evening of Gospel with B. McCargo and Kingdom Worship
Saturday, April 17, 8 pm
Music Performance/MCC Theater
Music blazing, hands waving, feet jumping, and pulse racing, this is going to be
an exciting night of gospel music that you will never forget. B. McCargo, with his
high energy directing and Kingdom Worship with their soulful melodic tones will
have you on your feet dancing, praising, and worshipping. This will be an explosive
night! Tickets $5 students / $15 general. Contact the A.S. Ticket Office at 805-893-2064.
Limited seating.
Race Matters Series
Understanding, Resisting, and Transcending On-Campus Racism
Marc-Tizoc González
Tuesday, April 20, 6:30 pm
Discussion/MCC Lounge
Recent media reports have spotlighted on-campus racism and creative student resistance
to it. Deploying concepts from Critical Race and LatCrit (Latina & Latino Critical
Legal) theory, Marc-Tizoc González, a staff attorney at the Alameda County Homeless
Action Center and lecturer in the UC Berkeley Ethnic Studies Department, will facilitate
a discussion about building critical coalitions for justice across race and the
other salient dimensions of power, identity, and possibility that so often divide
people in US society, relating stories of student organizing at the UC Berkeley
Law School and in The United People of Color Caucus of the National Lawyers Guild.
Cup of Culture – Meet the Filmmaker
A Village Called Versailles
Wednesday, April 21, 6 pm
Film Screening/MCC Theater
This powerful documentary chronicles the New Orleans Vietnamese American community’s
struggles and political awakening after Hurricane Katrina. It follows the epic story
of the community from their arrival in New Orleans as an isolated group of refugees
in the ‘70s to their successful fight for environmental justice and their transformation
into a politically engaged community. Discussion with the director and UCSB alumnus
Leo Chiang following the screening. S. Leo Chiang, 68 min., English, 2008, USA.
Co-sponsored by Asian American Studies, Asian American Studies Davidson Library,
Political Science, and Residential Life.
Art and Social Policy: A Conversation with Blair Underwood
Thursday, April 22, 5 pm
Discussion/MCC Theater
Blair Underwood, motion picture actor, Harvard guest lecturer, and book producer,
will be interviewed by Visiting Black Studies Professor Derrick Gilbert in connection
with the Black Studies course The Urban Dilemma. This conversation will explore
ways in which art and popular culture can give us a unique perspective on our most
pressing social problems.
Co-sponsored by the department of Black Studies; the Office
of the Associate Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity and Academic Policy; the
Office of Equal Opportunity & Sexual Harassment/Title IX Compliance; and the Office
of the Executive Vice Chancellor.
Race Matters Series
Race and Hiphop • Dawn-Elissa Fischer
Monday, April 26, 6:30 pm
Discussion/MCC Lounge
In this dialogue, Dawn-Elissa Fischer, professor in the Department of Africana Studies
at San Francisco State University, explores the analytic relationship between race
and Hiphop. That is, how does race operate as a referent within Hiphop culture?
How does Hiphop become racially imbued? In this discussion, Hiphop is a point of
entry, a site of inquiry for understanding how race, gender, sexuality, class, and
citizenship intersect and affect our everyday lived experiences.
Cup of Culture – Meet the Filmmaker
White Boy Brown
Wednesday, April 28, 6 pm
Film Screening/MCC Theater
Armed with only a very important letter, Curtis Brown, a black man embarks on the
most difficult journey of his life. A journey that will force him to confront his
own demons of hatred and prejudice, while discovering a love, long lost, for his
adopted “White” brother Johnny. Discussion with director Sean Sawyer and producers
Eren Moore and Christopher Johnson following the screening. Sean Sawyer, 90 min.,
English, 2009, United States.
Diversity Lecture
Looking Back to Look Forward: Cross-Cultural Diversity and Today's American Theater • Harry Elam
Thursday, April 29, 5 pm
Lecture/MCC Theater
In this talk, Professor Harry Elam will discuss cross-racial diversity in contemporary
American theater. Is the current American theater a place where ethnic groups--African
Americans, Latinos, Asians--reach across ethnic borders of difference? Do we see
new trends in co-ethnic communication? Does or can theater function as a microcosm
of the racial dynamics that are playing out in the American social order? Harry
Elam is the Olive H. Palmer Professor in the Humanities, the Robert and Ruth Halperin
University Fellow for Undergraduate Education, Director of the Institute for Diversity
in the Arts, as well as the Senior Associate Vice- Provost for Undergraduate Education
at Stanford University.
Co-sponsored by Black Studies; the Center for Black Studies
Research; the Office of the Associate Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity and
Academic Policy; the Office of Equal Opportunity & Sexual Harassment/Title IX Compliance;
the Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor; and Theater and Dance.
An Evening of Latin Music with Rupa and the April Fishes
Friday, April 30, 8 pm
Music Performance/MCC Theater
Rupa & the April Fishes blend an alternative pop attitude with international spices,
mixing in elements of Gypsy swing, Colombian cumbia, French chanson, and Indian
ragas. Beneath their infectious and captivating melodies are thought-provoking themes
that address life, love, art, death, and the real and artificial divisions that
keep us apart. The San Francisco-based musical agitators are specialists in crossing
borders and building bridges, blurring the boundaries of genre and geography to
create a sound Time Out has called global agit-pop. Tickets $5 students / $15 general.
Contact the A.S. Ticket Office at 805-893-2064. Limited seating.
Central American Forced Migration: Conversations for Change
Monday, May 3, 12 Noon
Discussion/MCC Lounge
The mainstream media largely frames the topic of migration by utilizing terms such
as illegal and undocumented, which have an immediate impact in shaping public perceptions
of criminal behavior. The media also focuses much attention on the arrival of migrants
from Mexico, the need for more security on the U.S./Mexico border, and accelerated
deportation hearings. Unfortunately, such coverage ignores the ongoing influx of
Central Americans, the increased security south of the Mexican border, and strategies
for survival once in the U.S. Dr. Cecilia Menjivar, Professor of Sociology at Arizona
State University, Eric Popkin, Dean of Summer Programs and Associate Professor of
Sociology at Colorado College, and Horacio Roque-Ramírez, Professor of Chicana and
Chicano Studies at UC Santa Barbara, will discuss these issues and their relevance
to promoting immigration reform.
Co-sponsored by the Chicano Studies Institute; Feminist Studies; the Institute
for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research; the Interdisciplinary Humanities
Center; and Sociology.
Art Exhibit
Public Lives of Posters in San Francisco’s Chinatown, Manilatown, and Japantown,
1970s and 1980s. The Kearny Street Workshop Archives Poster Collection.
Tuesday, May 4 - Friday, June 11 – Art Exhibit/MCC Meeting Rooms
Tuesday, May 4, 5 pm - Opening Reception
This exhibition is a special compendium which encapsulates visual cultures, global
ethnopoles, and urban public spaces of that time. On street poles, storefront windows,
and community centers— historic Asian Pacific American graphic art posters publicly
announced and affirmed counter-narratives. Curated by Julianne P. Gavino, Ph.D.
Candidate, Department of History of Art and Architecture.
Co-Sponsored by Asian
American Studies, the California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives—UCSB Library,
Instructional Development, and the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center.
Cup of Culture - Meet the Filmmaker
On These Shoulders We Stand
Wednesday, May 5, 6 pm
Film Screening/MCC Theater
This film shows postwar Los Angeles as a city of startling contrasts; a city with
a substantial, vibrant gay community, yet a city obsessed with rendering that community
invisible, kept in the closet, or locked in its jails. This is an illuminating historical
account told by eleven elders of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender community
from the 1950s into the early 1980s. Discussion with the director following the
screening. Glenne McElhinney, 75 min., English,2009,USA.
Co-sponsored by the Resource
Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity.
"Selenidad": How Latinos Remember Selena • Deborah Paredez
Thursday, May 6, 5 pm
Discussion/MCC Lounge
An outpouring of memorial tributes and public expressions of grief followed the
death of the Tejana recording artist Selena Quintanilla Perez in 1995. The Latina
superstar was remembered and mourned in documentaries, magazines, websites, monuments,
biographies, murals, look-alike contests, musicals, drag shows, and more. Deborah
Paredez explores the significance and broader meanings of this posthumous celebration
of Selena, which she labels "Selenidad."
Co-sponsored by the Department of Chicana
and Chicano Studies.
Race Matters Series
“The Compton Cookout” and More: Race in the College Party Scene
Tuesday, May 11, 7:30 pm
Discussion/Embarcadero Hall
Racially charged theme parties are a growing trend on college campuses. But the
parties have garnered national attention from those who question whether they are
just clean fun, or symptomatic of more serious race- related issues in our community.
Clyde Woods, professor in Black Studies and UCSB graduate student Reginald Archer
will facilitate this discussion.
Cup of Culture
Papers
Wednesday, May 12, 6 pm
Film Screening/MCC Theater
Papers is the story of undocumented youth and the challenges they face as they turn
18 without legal status. There are approximately 2 million undocumented children
who were born outside the U.S. and raised in this country. These are young people
who were educated in American schools, hold American values, know only the U.S.
as home and yet risk deportation to countries they may not even remember.
Anne Galisky,
90 min., English, 2009, USA. Co-sponsored by the Educational Opportunity Program,
Chicana/o Latino/a Cultural Resource Center.
Open Mic
Thursday, May 13, 7:30 pm
Open Mic/MCC Theater
Whether you’ve got some art to share, a song to sing, poetry or a performance reflecting
your identity, you are invited to this open forum for self-expression. Anyone and
everyone are welcome to grace the stage in a supportive space
Student Series
Teens’ Event
Coming Out in High School
Tuesday, May 18, 6:30 pm
Discussion/MCC Lounge
Coming out can be very freeing. You no longer have to hide who you are, censor what
you say, and watch what you do. Yet because homophobia is so pervasive in high schools,
a big part of coming out is being prepared to deal with anti-gay reactions. In this
conversation, we will look at coming out in high school as a process, share stories,
and learn how to strengthen Gay-Straight Alliances in high schools. We welcome all
parents, families, friends, and anyone interested in an educational experience and
in learning how to make a difference for gay and questioning youth and young adults.
Presented by A.S. Queer Commission and the Queer Student Union.
Cup of Culture – Meet the Filmmaker
Mountains that Take Wing
Wednesday, May 19, 6 pm
Film Screening/MCC Theater
This film features conversations that span thirteen years between two formidable
women whose lives and political work remain at the epicenter of the most important
civil rights struggles in the US. Through the intimacy and depth of conversations,
we learn about Davis, an internationally renowned scholar-activist and 88-year-old
Kochiyama, a revered grassroots community activist and 2005 Nobel Peace Prize nominee's
shared experiences as political prisoners and their profound passion for justice.
Discussion with the directors following the screening. C. A. Griffith & H. L. T.
Quan, 97 min., English, 2009, USA.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1538867/
MCC in I.V.
Boots Riley and The Coup
Thursday, May 20, 7:30 pm
Corner of Ocean Road and 6500 block of Del Playa
Co-founder of the world-renowned hip hop group The Coup, Boots Riley is a hip hop
artist, “raptivist” for social justice, and integral in the struggle for radical
change through culture. As righteous revolutionaries, The Coup continues to effect
social change by speaking against the bombing of Afghanistan, the war in Iraq, and
a variety of other topics from music, to grassroots organizing, to US imperialism
and racism.
Cup of Culture – Meet the Filmmaker
New Muslim Cool
Wednesday, May 26, 6 pm
Film Screening/MCC Theater
New Muslim Cool takes viewers on Puerto Rican American rapper Hamza Perez's ride
through the streets, projects, and jail cells of urban America, following his spiritual
journey to some surprising places - where we can all see ourselves reflected in
a world that never stops changing. Discussion with the director and Su'ad Abdul
Khabeer, Senior Project Advisor for the film, following the screening. Jennifer
Maytorena, 86 min., English, 2009, USA. Co-sponsored by the Center for Black Studies
Research; the Center for New Racial Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara;
and the Muslim Student Association.
Elements of Hip Hop: Graffiti Workshop • Osiris Castaneda
Thursday, May 27, 7:30 pm
Workshop/MCC Lounge
From the walls at Venice beach to neighborhoods in Brazil... Nationally recognized
local artist Osiris Castaneda takes you on a creative journey of graffiti art. Experience
this artistic expression through slide shows, then pop open a spray can and Castaneda
will demonstrate the keys to making your own graffiti masterpiece. Bring a t-shirt,
your skate board or anything you want to leave your prints on.
An Evening of North Indian Classical Music with Amjad Ali Khan, Master of the Sarod and Amaan Ali Khan and Ayaan Ali Khan
Saturday, May 29, 8 pm
Music Performance/Lotte Lehmann Concert Hall
Ustad Amjad Ali Khan is one of the 20th century’s greatest masters of the Indian
sarod and the sixth generation sarod player in an illustrious family of musicians.
He has performed at Carnegie Hall, Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Kennedy
Center, St. James Palace’s, and the Opera House in Australia, to name a few. Amjad
Ali Khan will be accompanied by his two sons Amaan Ali Khan and Ayaan Ali Khan,
the seventh generation of musicians in the family and “coming masters” as the New
York Times calls them. Tickets $10 UCSB students / $20 general. Contact the A.S.
Ticket Office at 805-893-2064.