All Events
Music Performance
CHAHAR BAGH: Fourfold Garden Indo-Persian Musical Collaboration
Ehsan Matoori & Rajib Karmakar
MCC Theater
Please note that our Winter 2024 in-person events will require masks due to the rise in COVID-19 and flu activity within the region. The MCC will provide masks to attendees on site, as needed.
Join us in the MCC Theater for a unique musical performance developed by Ehsan Matoori, an Iranian santoor player and composer, in partnership with Rajib Karmakar, an accomplished sitar player from India and based in California. This project celebrates the shared musical heritage of Iran and India while drawing inspiration from the symbolic Chahar Bagh concept, which emphasizes balance and harmony. This performance will feature Ehsan Matoori on the santoor, Rajib Karmakar on the sitar, Randy Gloss on percussion, Aidin Ahmadinejad on cello. Maliheh Moradi is their guest artist and vocalist.
Ehsan Matoori: Composer, Santoor
Rajib Karmakar: Composer, Sitar
Randy Gloss: Percussions
Aidin Ahmadinejad: Cello
Guest Artist and Voice: Maliheh Moradi
*POSTPONED* Freedom in Fantasy: Reclaiming Your Representation - Dine and Discuss!
Aiden Thomas
MCC Theater (discussion) and MCC Lounge (community dinner)
Due to a flight cancelation we have postponed the "Freedom in Fantasy: Reclaiming Your Representation" with Aiden Thomas, Dine & Discuss tonight. It has been rescheduled for April 25 during Trans Week of Visibility! We apologize for this inconvenience.
*** Please note adjusted start time of 5:45pm ***
Please note that our Winter 2024 in-person events will require masks due to the rise in COVID-19 and flu activity within the region. The MCC will provide masks to attendees on site, as needed.
Curious about worldbuilding? Wondering how to bring your unique experiences into your creative world? Interested in learning more about publishing and the fantasy genre? Join the RCSGD and Aiden Thomas, New York Times bestselling author of Cemetery Boys and The Sunbearer Trials, for a moderated discussion and Q&A on authenticity, fantasy, and the power of sharing your story. Afterwards, join us for a book signing and community dinner hosted in the MCC Lounge!
Speaker Bio:
Aiden Thomas is a trans, Latinx, New York Times bestselling author of young adult novels. They received an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College. Originally from Oakland, California, they now make their home in Portland, OR. Aiden is notorious for not being able to guess the endings of books and movies, and organizes their bookshelves by color.
Co- Sponsors: RCSGD, TQCOMM, MCC, the Women's Center.
Cup of Culture
Sueno en Otro Idioma/I Dream in Another Language
MCC Theater
Please note that our Winter 2024 in-person events will require masks due to the rise in COVID-19 and flu activity within the region. The MCC will provide masks to attendees on site, as needed.
When a language dies, a unique vision of the world is lost forever. An indigenous language is in peril as its last two speakers, Evaristo and Isauro, had a quarrel in the past and haven't spoken to each other in over 50 years. Martín, a young linguist, will undertake the challenge to bring the old friends back together and convince them to once again talk to each other so he can obtain a recorded registration of the language and study it. However, hidden in the past, in the heart of the jungle, lies a secret concealed by the language that makes it difficult to believe that the heart of Zikril will beat once again. (Runtime: 101 min)
Co- Sponsor: Collective of Pueblos Originarios in Diaspora (CPOD)
Race Matters Series
“Sometimes Rugged, Sometimes Nice, and Sometimes Just Plain Mean”: Black Children and Racialized Gender Identity
Dr. Denise Isom
MCC Theater
Please note that our Winter 2024 in-person events will require masks due to the rise in COVID-19 and flu activity within the region. The MCC will provide masks to attendees on site, as needed.
This presentation and discussion draws from two qualitative studies of African American Children and their racialized gender identity. We will discuss the meaning making world of African American children, particularly how they expressed their ideas of gender and racial constructions (“Blackness”) and the intersections of race and gender- racialized gender identity. Their words and lives revealed an externally “earned” maleness, centered on performance, as well as an ideal maleness oriented around caring and relationship. Femaleness was seen as strong and complex, yet sexualized by a male gaze and silent in the face of it. The children displayed a strong sense of the racial projects which surround them and their resistance to them. The idea of Blackness centered around the body, lack, and deviance, functioned alongside their contrasting definition of Black as triumphant in the face of struggle, and as a testimony to overcoming.
Speaker Bio:
Dr. Denise Isom received her doctorate in Socio-Cultural Anthropology of Education from Loyola University, Chicago and is currently serving as Interim Vice President for Diversity and Equity & CDO at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Her Master’s in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis in Multicultural Education along with a B.S. in Engineering and B.A. in African American Studies were earned at the University of California at Davis. Dr. Isom’s areas of expertise include- racialized gender identity, ethnic studies, sociology/anthropology of education and whiteness.
