All Events
Creative Writing Workshop
Open in Emergency: Tarot Cards & Mental Health
MCC Lounge
Mimi Khúc is a PhD in Religious Studies from UCSB and a Vietnamese American scholar, teacher, and writer on race and religion, queer of color politics, mental health, and Asian American motherhood. She has edited a special issue of the Asian American Literary Review called Open in Emergency: A Special Issue on Asian American Health which approaches mental health issues in the Asian American community using art and literature. The issue re-imagines wellness practices, including tarot cards remade by Asian American artists and writers into anti-racist and immigration-centric themes, and letters by daughters to their mothers. Inspired by these elements, participants will be invited to read their own futures and name the forces shaping their lives, as well as write letters to their mothers that they have always needed to write.
Register online: bit.ly/mcc-tarotcards
Race Matters Series
Hacking the DSM: An Asian American Mental Health Intervention (Mimi Khúc)
MCC Lounge
Mimi Khúc, assistant professor of Asian American Studies at University of Maryland, will present research that has culminated in her editing of a special issue of the Asian American Literary Review. The issue explores new ways of discussing mental health: not merely as an individual pathology or condition, but as a topic contextualized within structures of violence such as rape, misogyny, and colonialism. Her talk will be preceded by readings of original work and short pieces from the issue by students from Playsia.
Co-presented by the Department of Asian American Studies
Children of All Ages
Dances from the Middle East with Cris! Basimah
MCC Lounge
Come learn dances from the Middle East featuring line dances and Egyptian Folk steps in this fun and interactive workshop with Cris! Basimah. Children will be encouraged to forge connections with their own bodies as they engage in this cross-cultural exchange. Cris is the director of the UCSB Middle Eastern Ensemble Dance Company.
Resilient Love in a Time of Hate Series
HeART Work: Poetically Political / An Evening of Spoken Word with Nikkita Oliver
MCC Theater
James Baldwin says, “The poet or the revolutionary is there to articulate the necessity, but until the people themselves apprehend it, nothing can happen.” HeART work is a transformational act of love that challenges and changes the world through poetry. The power of the artist is to creatively speak truths in ways that people can hear and engage in a transformational and meaningful way that does not always happen through lectures or even everyday conversations. Storytelling is one of the oldest and most powerful forms of medicine. Spoken-word artist, community organizer, and current candidate for Seattle’s mayoral race with the People’s Party, Nikkita Oliver shows us how by telling our stories we can heal hearts, change the world, and inspire creative revolution.
