All Events
Dreaming of Selena Twenty Years Later Deborah Paredez
MCC LOUNGE
2015 marks the 20th anniversary of the passing of Selena Quintanilla Perez. How and where does Selena's legacy persist? What does her continued afterlife--or cultural amnesia about her--tell us about current struggles and triumphs faced by Latinas/os in the US? Deborah Paredez is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Texas-Austin.
Cup of Culture
Let the Fire Burn
MCC THEATER
Using only archival news coverage and interviews, filmmaker Jason Osder has brought to life one of the most tumultuous clashes between government and citizens in modern American history in Let the Fire Burn. On May 13, 1985, a feud between the city of Philadelphia and radical urban group MOVE came to a deadly climax. By order of local authorities, police dropped military-grade explosives onto a MOVE-occupied rowhouse. TV cameras captured the conflagration which quickly escalated—resulting in the tragic deaths of eleven people (including five children. It was later discovered that authorities decided to “...let the fire burn.” Discussion with Dr. Diane Fujino following the screening. 95 min., English, 2013, US.
DIVERSITY LECTURE
Revenge of the Bad Girls: Sor Juana, las Maqui-Locas, the Salem Witches, and Alma López Alicia Gaspar de Alba
MCC THEATER
Alicia Gaspar de Alba analyzes how specific brown/female bodies have been framed by racial, social, cultural, sexual, national/regional, historical, and religious discourses of identity—as well as how Chicanas can be liberated from these frames. Employing interdisciplinary methodologies of activist scholarship that draw from art, literature, history, politics, popular culture, and feminist theory, she shows how 'bad women' are transgressive bodies that refuse to cooperate with patriarchal dictates about what constitutes a 'good woman' and that queer/alter the male-centric and heteronormative history, politics, and consciousness of Chicano/Mexicano culture. Prof. Gaspar de Alba is a founding faculty member of the Chicana/o Studies Department at UCLA.
Cup of Culture
3 ½ Minutes
MCC THEATER
In 2012, four African-American teenagers stopped at a gas station to buy gum and cigarettes. One, Jordan Davis, got into an argument with Michael Dunn, a white man parked beside them, over the volume of music playing in their car. The altercation turned to tragedy when Dunn fired 10 bullets at the unarmed boys, killing Davis almost instantly. This riveting documentary film presents the danger and subjectivity of Florida’s Stand Your Ground self-defense laws through the trial of Michael Dunn. Discussion with Dr. Gaye Theresa Johnson following the screening. 98 min., English, 2015, US.
