Writers (Audio): Recent Episodes
UCTV
Writing can spark the imagination, take you to far away places, and even bring about social change. In this collection, writers speak about their craft and read from selected works.
Jesmyn Ward has been hailed as the standout writer of her generation, proving her “fearless and toughly lyrical” voice in novels, memoir, and nonfiction. She's been called “the new Toni Morrison.” Ward is a MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient and in 2017, she became the first woman and the first person of color to win two National Book Awards for Fiction—joining the ranks of William Faulkner, Saul Bellow, John Cheever, Philip Roth, and John Updike. Her books include "Let Us Descend," "Sing, Unburied, Sing," "Salvage the Bones," and "Navigate Your Stars." The professor of creative writing at Tulane University joins host Dean Nelson for this evocative conversation as part of the 30th anniversary of the Writer's Symposium by the Sea at Point Loma Nazarene University. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Show ID: 40217]
Sandra Cisneros is a Latina American short-story writer and poet regarded as a key figure in Chicano literature. She is best known for her first novel, "The House on Mango Street," and her subsequent short story collection, "Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories." Her work experiments with literary forms that investigate emerging subject positions, which Cisneros herself attributes to growing up in a context of cultural hybridity and economic inequality that endowed her with unique stories to tell. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Ford Foundation Art of Change Fellowship, the USA Literary Award, and a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, As part of the 30th anniversary of the Writer's Symposium by the Sea, Cisneros joins host Dean Nelson for this passionate conversation at Point Loma Nazarene University. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Show ID: 40218]
Author, screenwriter, philanthropist, journalist and broadcaster Mitch Albom is an inspiration around the world. He is the author of numerous books of fiction and nonfiction, which have collectively sold more than 40 million copies in 48 languages worldwide. He has written eight number-one New York Times bestsellers — including "Tuesdays with Morrie," the bestselling memoir of all time. As part of the 30th anniversary of the Writer's Symposium by the Sea, Albom joins host Dean Nelson for this far-reaching conversation at Point Loma Nazarene University. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Show ID: 40219]
New York Times bestselling author Anne Lamott returns to the 2024 Writer's Symposium by the Sea to talk about her new book "Somehow: Thoughts on Love." In a funny and spirited conversation with host Dean Nelson, Lamott talks about grief, addiction, hope, faith and love. Lamott is author of "Bird by Bird," "Grace," "Plan B" and "Hard Laughter." Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Show ID: 39512]
As part of the 2024 Writer's Symposium by the Sea, New York Times bestselling author Amor Towles talks about his new book "Table for Two" with Dean Nelson, director of Point Loma Nazarene University's journalism program. Towles is best known for his novels "Rules of Civility," "The Lincoln Highway" and "A Gentleman in Moscow," which was recently adapted as a television series starring Ewan McGregor as Count Rostov. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Show ID: 39666]
As part of the 2024 Writer's Symposium by the Sea, novelist, poet, and memoirist Paulette Jiles explores her life as a writer, including her newest book, "Chenneville: A Novel of Murder, Loss, and Vengeance." Jiles is known for her books "Enemy Women Stormy Weather," "The Color of Lightning," "Lighthouse Island," and "News of the World," which was a finalist for the 2016 National Book Award. Jiles talks with Ben Cater, director of the Point Loma Nazarene University Honors Program. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Show ID: 39009]
Jason Magabo Perez, San Diego's Poet Laureate, engages with UC San Diego's Erik Mitchell in a revealing conversation about his poetic journey and its impact on community and self-awareness. Perez shares readings from his work, which weaves together narratives of grief, identity, and resilience. His ability to articulate complex emotions and historical contexts through poetry provides a window into the experiences of Filipino-American communities and broader societal issues. He also discusses his initiatives as Poet Laureate, emphasizing his commitment to making poetry accessible and relevant to a wide audience. His projects aim to foster a vibrant literary culture in San Diego, highlighting the power of poetry to build solidarity, empower youth, and give voice to marginalized communities. Series: "Writers" [Humanities] [Show ID: 39322]
UC San Diego Library’s Signature Event Series kicks off with a conversation with filmmaker and author Mason Engel. Engel talks about his current work, “Books Across America,” as well as his past films and his novel “2084.” The discussion is moderated by Audrey Geisel University Librarian Erik T. Mitchell. Series: "Writers" [Humanities] [Show ID: 39321]
What's the future look like with a changing climate? And who will lead the way to help us mitigate the environmental, economic and social impacts? In this program, internationally acclaimed author Kim Stanley Robinson talks about what motivates him to write science fiction that focuses on the environment. Robinson is author of more than 20 books, including "The Ministers for the Future," the "Mars" trilogy and "2312," which was a New York Times bestseller nominated for all seven of the major science fiction awards — a first for any book. He was named a “Hero of the Environment” by Time magazine and asteroid 72432 was named “Kimrobinson” in his honor.The program also features four UC San Diego students who talk about their research on dealing with climate change. Series: "Writers" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 38733]
As part of the 2023 Writer's Symposium by the Sea, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Maria Hinojosa talks with host Dean Nelson about her work, including her experience being the first Latina in many newsroom she worked in. She has written three books: "Once I Was You: A Memoir of Love and Hate in a Torn America," "Raising Raul: Adventures Raising Myself and My Son," and "Crews: Gang Members Talk with Maria Hinojosa." Her career includes reporting for PBS, CBS, WNBC, CNN, NPR, and anchoring the Emmy Award-winning talk show "Maria Hinojosa: One-on-One." She is anchor and executive producer of the Peabody Award-winning show Latino USA. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Show ID: 38121]
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anthony Doerr sits down for a fun and heartfelt conversation about what inspires him with host Dean Nelson as part of the Writer's Symposium By the Sea. Doerr won the Pulitzer Prize and Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction for "All the Light We Cannot See," which was on the New York Times bestseller list for over 200 weeks. His other works include "Cloud Cuckoo Land," "About Grace," "Four Seasons in Rome," and the short story collections "The Shell Collector" and "Memory Wall." Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Show ID: 38119]
Poet, novelist and Native American scholar N. Scott Momaday has spent decades bringing his culture and the landscape alive through his writing. He received a Pulitzer Prize for his first novel, "House Made of Dawn." His books include "The Way to Rainy Mountain," "In the Bear's House," "In the Presence of the Sun: Stories and Poems, 1961-1991," and "The Gourd Dancer." He is also the editor of various anthologies and collections centered on his Kiowa heritage. As part of the Writer's Symposium By the Sea, host Dean Nelson sat down with Momaday at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to talk about his life in literature. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Show ID: 38122]
As part of the UC San Diego Author Talk Series, class of '76 alumnus and two-time Oscar-winning screenwriter and author Rex Pickett talks about his most recent novel, “The Archivist,” a murder mystery that takes a deep dive into the archiving world set in a fictional Geisel Library. Joining Pickett in the discussion are Brian Schottlaender, UCSD University Librarian Emeritus, Caryn Radick, Digital Archivist, Rutgers University, and UCSD's University Librarian Erik Mitchell. Series: "Writers" [Humanities] [Education] [Show ID: 38519]
Cornel West, Ph.D., is a prominent and provocative intellectual. He is Dietrich Bonhoeffer Chair at Union Theological Seminary and has written 20 books and edited 13. He's best known for his classics, "Race Matters and Democracy Matters," and for his memoir, "Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud." His most recent book, "Black Prophetic Fire," offers an unflinching look at nineteenth- and twentieth-century African American leaders and their visionary legacies. As part of the annual Writer's Symposium by the Sea, director of Point Loma Nazarene University's journalism program Dean Nelson has an engaging and inspiring conversation with West about his lifelong work as a theologian, civil rights activist and author. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Show ID: 37097]
David Brooks is an op-ed columnist for the New York Times. He is a commentator on The PBS Newshour, NPR's All Things Considered, and NBC's Meet the Press. His books include "Bobos in Paradise," "The Social Animal," and "The Road to Character." His latest book is "The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life," a New York Times No. 1 bestseller. As part of the annual Writer's Symposium by the Sea, director of Point Loma Nazarene University's journalism program Dean Nelson has a candid, humorous and inspiring conversation with Brooks about his lifelong work as a journalist and writer, how events in his life shaped who he is today and his spiritual journey. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 37096]
Nadia Bolz-Weber is an ordained Lutheran Pastor, founder of House for All Sinners & Saints in Denver, Colorado, and the author of three New York Times bestselling memoirs: "Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith Of A Sinner & Saint," "Accidental Saints: Finding God In All The Wrong People," and "SHAMELESS: A Sexual Reformation." In 2017, Bolz-Weber won the coveted Audience Award at the Nantucket Project. Her latest project is a podcast, "The Confessional with Nadia Bolz-Weber," a partnership with PRX and The Moth. As part of the annual Writer's Symposium by the Sea, director of Point Loma Nazarene University's journalism program Dean Nelson has a witty, probing and spiritual conversation with Bolz-Weber about her evolution from youthful rebellion to her journey of spirituality and compassion. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Show ID: 37095]
Joel Dimsdale discusses his latest book “Dark Persuasion: A History of Brainwashing from Pavlov to Social Media,” which traces the evolution of brainwashing from its beginnings in torture and religious conversion into the age of neuroscience and social media. Dimsdale is distinguished professor emeritus in the Department of Psychiatry at UC San Diego. Series: "Writers" [Health and Medicine] [Humanities] [Show ID: 37324]
Ilan Stavans of Amherst College, discusses The Seventh Heaven: Travels through Jewish Latin America (2020). In this travelogue, Stavans talks to families of the desaparecidos in Buenos Aires, to “Indian Jews,” and to people affiliated with neo-Nazi groups in Patagonia. He also visits Spain to understand the long-term effects of the Inquisition, the American Southwest habitat of “secret Jews,” and Israel, where immigrants from Latin America have reshaped the Jewish state. Series: "Taubman Symposia in Jewish Studies" [Humanities] [Show ID: 37322]
Barry Scott Wimpfheimer specializes in the Talmud and other Rabbinic Literature. His work focuses on the Babylonian Talmud as a work of law and literature. Part scripture and part commentary, it is written in a hybrid of Hebrew and Aramaic and is an unlikely bestseller. The Talmud has remained in print for centuries and is more popular today than ever. Barry Scott Wimpfheimer discusses his book, The Talmud, A Biography, which tells the remarkable story of this ancient book and explains why it has endured for almost two millennia. Series: "Taubman Symposia in Jewish Studies" [Humanities] [Show ID: 35805]
Similarities between Veep and The West Wing, the perils of drawing TV plot lines from real political events, and the connection between the speed metal genre and today’s news cycle all arise in this conversation between writer/executive producer David Mandel, writer Eli Attie, and Carsey-Wolf Director Patrice Petro about Veep and The West Wing. In this video, Attie and Mandel share their admiration for one another’s work, and discuss the changing television landscape. Series: "Carsey-Wolf Center" [Humanities] [Show ID: 35771]
The narrative engine of Hill Street Blues, lessons in brevity from writing for advertising, and structural differences between Law & Order and Law & Order: SVU arise in this conversation between executive producer/writer Dick Wolf and Carsey-Wolf Center director Patrice Petro. In this video, Wolf describes his first experiences in a TV writing room and the foundations of the record-breaking run of Law & Order: SVU. Series: "Carsey-Wolf Center" [Humanities] [Show ID: 35772]
An internationally celebrated American novelist, short story writer, poet, and activist, Walker's work has been translated into more than two dozen languages, and her books have sold more than fifteen million copies. She wrote The Color Purple, for which she won the National Book Award for hardcover fiction, and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Walker's collected work includes poetry, novels, short fiction, essays, critical essays, and children's stories. She was the recipient of a Rosenthal Foundation award and an American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters award for In Love and Trouble. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Show ID: 35143]
In her book, Ecopiety, Sarah McFarland Taylor offers an absorbing examination of the intersections of environmental sensibilities, contemporary expressions of piety and devotion, and American popular culture. Ecopiety evidences the important "work" taking place as mediated popular culture plays an integral role in framing contemporary American environmental moral and ethical sensibilities. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Humanities] [Show ID: 35620]
Pico Iyer was named "arguably the world’s greatest living travel writer," by Outside, and is the author of over a dozen books and countless essays. The New Yorker called Iyer an "intellectual and spiritual adventurer." Iyer explores these two intertwined spheres--the inner and the outer--in his writings and in three recent TED Talks, which have racked up some eight million views. Iyer is the author of two novels and ten works of nonfiction, including such perennial favorites as Video Night in Kathmandu, The Lady and the Monk: Four Seasons in Kyoto, and The Global Soul. His best-selling 2008 book, The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, was drawn from decades of talks and travels with the Tibetan leader. Iyer's newest book, Autumn Light, out in April 2019, is a far-reaching meditation on impermanence, mortality, and grief that draws extensively on his more than 30 years of living in Japan. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Show ID: 35142]
Sonia Nazario is an award-winning journalist whose stories have tackled some of this country's most intractable problems -- hunger, drug addiction, immigration -- and have won some of the most prestigious journalism and book awards. She is best known for "Enrique's Journey," her story of a Honduran boy's struggle to find his mother in the U.S. Published as a series in the Los Angeles Times, "Enrique's Journey" won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing in 2003. It was turned into a book by Random House and became a national bestseller. Her recent humanitarian efforts to get lawyers for unaccompanied migrant children led to her selection as the 2015 Don and Arvonne Fraser Human Rights Award recipient by the Advocates for Human Rights. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 35141]
Writer/Producer David Mandel talked with Pollock Theater Director Matt Ryan about the challenges and successes involved in breaking the mold of Seinfeld and transporting the sitcom to an alternate universe. Series: "Carsey-Wolf Center" [Humanities] [Show ID: 35729]
Ayelet Gundar-Goshen is a writer and Clinical Psychologist from Tel Aviv University. In her talk, she delves into the world of her newest novel, The Liar. Written with propulsive energy, dark humor, and deep insight, The Liar reveals the far-reaching consequences of even our smallest choices, and explores the hidden corners of human nature to reveal the liar, and the truth-teller, in all of us. Series: "Taubman Symposia in Jewish Studies" [Humanities] [Show ID: 35471]
What does it mean to be a Jewish woman in America? Pamela Nadell, American University, talks about her book that looks at the history of Jewish women from colonial times to today. Series: "Taubman Symposia in Jewish Studies" [Humanities] [Show ID: 35472]
This lecture by South African writer, playwright and academic Jane Taylor considers Ludwig Wittgenstein’s paper, “On Certainty” in which the philosopher engages with the taken-for-granted in everyday thought. Taylor notes, “In our contemporary context of the precarious, on one hand, and the political vehemence of conviction, on the other, it seems timely to pay attention to the faltering and tentative mode of regard and thought of one of the twentieth century’s most enigmatic thinkers.” Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Humanities] [Show ID: 35149]
As an increasingly polarized America fights over the legacy of racism, Susan Neiman, author of the contemporary philosophical classic Evil in Modern Thought, asks what we can learn from the Germans about confronting the evils of the past. In the wake of white nationalist attacks, the ongoing debate over reparations, and the controversy surrounding Confederate monuments and the contested memories they evoke, Susan Neiman’s Learning from the Germans delivers an urgently needed perspective on how a country can come to terms with its historical wrongdoings. She combines philosophical reflection, personal stories, and interviews with both Americans and Germans who are grappling with the evils of their own national histories. Series: "Writers" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 35015]
UCSB Script to Screen interviewed this year's Emmy-nominated writers before the 2019 Sublime Primetime panel discussion at the Writers Guild Theater in Los Angeles. Series: "Writers" [Humanities] [Show ID: 35180]
In "Bad Rabbi and Other Strange but True Stories from the Yiddish Press" Eddy Portnoy mines century-old Yiddish newspapers to expose the seamy underbelly of pre-WWII New York and Warsaw, the two major centers of Yiddish culture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Series: "Taubman Symposia in Jewish Studies" [Humanities] [Show ID: 34806]
Rachel Kadish is an American writer of fiction and non-fiction, author of several novels and a novella. Her fiction work has won the National Jewish Book Award and the Julia Ward Howe Prize, the John Gardner Fiction Prize, and the Association of Jewish Libraries Fiction Award. She discusses her latest book, "The Weight of Ink," a work of historical fiction set in London of the 1660s and of the early twenty-first century. Series: "Taubman Symposia in Jewish Studies" [Humanities] [Show ID: 34680]
The former editor of Poetry Magazine, Christian Wiman is both a poet and an essayist who teaches Literature and Religion at Yale Divinity School. In an interview he discussed what he hopes readers might take from his work: I have no illusions about adding to sophisticated theological thinking. But I think there are a ton of people out there who are what you might call unbelieving believers, people whose consciousness is completely modern and yet who have this strong spiritual hunger in them. I would like to say something helpful to those people.
His most recent book is He Held Radical Light: The Art of Faith, the Faith of Art, released in 2018. Other books include My Bright Abyss, Ambition and Survival, Every Riven Thing, Hammer is the Prayer, Hard Night, and The Long Home. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Show ID: 33947]
E.J. Dionne writes about politics in a twice-weekly column for the Washington Post, and is a government professor at Georgetown University, a visiting professor at Harvard University, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution. He is a frequent commentator on politics for National Public Radio.
Before joining The Post in 1990 as a political reporter, Dionne spent 14 years at The New York Times, where he covered politics and reported from Albany, Washington, Paris, Rome and Beirut. His coverage of the Vatican was described by the Los Angeles Times as the best in two decades. In 2014-2015, Dionne was the vice president of the American Political Science Association. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 33946]
More recently known for her Black Panther and Wakanda Forever Marvel Comics, Nnedi Okorafor is an international award-winning novelist of African-based science fiction, fantasy and magical realism for both children and adults. Born in the United States to two Nigerian immigrant parents, Nnedi is known for weaving African culture into creative evocative settings and memorable characters. In a profile of Nnedi’s work titled, “Weapons of Mass Creation,” The New York Times called Nnedi’s imagination “stunning.” Game of Thrones author, George R.R. Martin and HBO are currently developing a show based on her World Fantasy Award Winning novel, Who Fears Death. Ta-Nehisi Coates has passed the torch on writing the Black Panther comics to Nnedi, and the women warriors from the mega-hit movie were such fan favorites that Marvel has tasked Nnedi to create a new spinoff comic, Wakanda Forever. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Show ID: 33945]
In The Lion Seeker and The Mandela Plot, two powerful novels full of raw, vividly-drawn characters, Kenneth Bonert explored the unique and fascinating story of the Jews of South Africa. In this talk he explains why he became a novelist and the inspiration that he drew from growing up in Johannesburg. He talks about the history of his family and of the Jewish community in South Africa and reflect on his literary goals such as capturing the authentic voices of his characters and examining their moral and political struggles. Series: "Taubman Symposia in Jewish Studies" [Humanities] [Show ID: 34564]
Author, Tova Mirvis reads from her memoir, The Book of Separation, which describes a woman who leaves her Orthodox Jewish faith and her marriage and sets out to navigate the terrifying, liberating terrain of a newly mapless world. She is the author of three novels and her essays have appeared in various anthologies and newspapers. Series: "Taubman Symposia in Jewish Studies" [Humanities] [Show ID: 34065]
San Diego-raised novelist and UC San Diego alumnus, Luis Alberto Urrea ‘77 is the featured speaker at the UC San Diego Library annual gala. Urrea, a 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist, has written about the border and has knitted together stories in a way that makes them familiar and impactful for everyone. Series: "Writers" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 33668]
Abigail Pogrebin is the author of the recently published book, My Jewish Year: 18 Holidays, One Wondering Jew. Hear how she spent 12 months researching and observing every holiday in the Jewish calendar. Series: "Taubman Symposia in Jewish Studies" [Humanities] [Show ID: 33750]
Eighteen years ago, Israeli author Ruby Namdar arrived in New York, not knowing that he had just taken the first step of an incredible literary, cultural and personal journey. He discusses the novel The Ruined House, winner of the 2014 Sapir Prize, Israel’s most prestigious literary award, which was an artistic response to Namdar’s wonderful experience of discovering America, American Jewry, and American Jewish literature. Series: "Taubman Symposia in Jewish Studies" [Humanities] [Show ID: 33734]
Steve Clemons of the Atlantic talks with MacArthur Genius Grant recipient and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Katherine Boo. Her bestseller, “Behind the Beautiful Forevers” tells the dramatic and sometimes heartbreaking story of families striving for a better life in a Mumbai slum. Based on three years of uncompromising reporting, she puts a human face on issues of inequality. Series: "Helen Edison Lecture Series" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 33266]
Cosmologist and author of "Losing the Nobel Prize" Brian Keating tells the inside story of BICEP2’s mesmerizing discovery and the scientific drama that ensued in this interview with science fiction author David Brin. Keating describes a journey of revelation and discovery, bringing to life the highly competitive, take-no-prisoners, publish-or-perish world of modern science. Along the way, he provocatively argues that the Nobel Prize, instead of advancing scientific progress, may actually hamper it, encouraging speed and greed while punishing collaboration and bold innovation. In a thoughtful reappraisal of the wishes of Alfred Nobel, Keating offers practical solutions for reforming the prize, providing a vision of a scientific future in which cosmologists may, finally, be able to see all the way back to the very beginning. Series: "Writers" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 33369]
Following his presentation to the 2018 Writer’s Symposium by the Sea at Point Loma Nazarene University, Deepak Chopra, MD talks with host Dean Nelson about breakthroughs in integrative medicine and understanding the mind-body connections that lead to wellness. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Health and Medicine] [Humanities] [Show ID: 32880]
Deepak Chopra, MD, a leading pioneer in integrative medicine, shares insights from his new book, “The Healing Self,” on how to protect your immune system by managing stress and reducing inflammation – two key factors for lifelong wellness. Chopra is presented by the 2018 Writer’s Symposium by the Sea at Point Loma Nazarene University. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 33478]
Author and legendary athlete Kareem Abdul-Jabbar offers sage advice on writing. Abdul-Jabbar has written several best-selling books, along with some basketball on the side." Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Show ID: 33605]
The stars of the documentary, “I’ll Push You,” tell a remarkable story of sacrifice, spiritual awakening and transformation as Patrick Gray and his wheelchair-bound best friend Justin Skeesuck recount the emotional tolls of their 500-mile trek on the Camino de Santiago in Spain in this conversation with Dean Nelson, founder of the Writer’s Symposium by the Sea at Point Loma Nazarene University. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Show ID: 32693]
Novelist and filmmaker David Bezmozgis speaks about his 2014 novel The Betrayers, an intense look at morality and the human conscience, that won the National Jewish Book Award. The book is about a famous Russian Jewish dissident who, after the fall of the Soviet Union, meets the man who denounced him. Series: "Taubman Symposia in Jewish Studies" [Humanities] [Show ID: 33367]
Author and journalist Krista Tippett, host of the NPR program “On Being,” describes wisdom as the “imprint one’s life has on others.” She shares this and other insights from her latest book, “Becoming Wise,” in a compelling interview with Dean Nelson, founder of the Writer’s Symposium by the Sea at Point Loma Nazarene University. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Show ID: 32691]
Author and legendary athlete Kareem Abdul-Jabbar highlights remarkable African-American contributions to American society. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Education] [Show ID: 33606]
Author Jane Smiley captivates the audience as she attributes the success of her Pulitzer-Prize winning novel, “A Thousand Acres” to the lessons she learned from “Uncle Bill,” as in William Shakespeare and his play, King Lear. In this interview with veteran journalist Dean Nelson, Smiley describes her compulsion to write and urges other writers to follow their own passions and not be too hard on themselves, as most early drafts are terrible. “Everyone has a story to tell if they want to tell it,” she says, while offering advice on how to push through the barriers that often limit aspiring novelists. Smiley is presented by the 2018 Writer’s Symposium by the Sea at Point Loma Nazarene University. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Show ID: 32690]
Writer/director/producer Jordan Peele joins UCSB’s Matt Ryan for a Script-to-Screen discussion of Get Out (2017), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Peele explains how the tone of the film was influenced by his background in comedy, the work of Ira Levin (The Stepford Wives, Rosemary’s Baby), and the desire to subvert the tropes of African American characters in the horror genre, as well how he created “the sunken place” through conceptualizing racism in a new way for the screen, and bringing it to life through stand-out performances from the actors. Series: "Carsey-Wolf Center" [Humanities] [Show ID: 33376]
Author and legendary athlete Kareem Abdul-Jabbar describes the cultural and historical influences that led him to write several best-selling books, “along with some basketball on the side,” in this introspective and wide-ranging conversation with veteran journalist Dean Nelson. Abdul-Jabbar shares stories from his most recent book, “Coach Wooden and Me,” about his 50-year friendship with the late UCLA basketball coach, John Wooden, in this event presented by the 2018 Writer’s Symposium by the Sea at Point Loma Nazarene University. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Show ID: 32692]
Luis Urrea is a prolific writer who uses his dual-culture life experiences to explore greater themes of love, loss and triumph. Born in Tijuana to a Mexican father and American mother, Urrea is the critically acclaimed, best-selling author of 16 books. He talks with Steven Schick about his life and work, and their collaboration on a new version of Stravinsky's "L'Histoire du Soldat" with texts from Urrea's writings. Series: "Helen Edison Lecture Series" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 33265]
This evening is inspired by the short postcard stories that magazine editor George Hay encouraged in the 1970’s. He dared such authors as Arthur C. Clarke to send sci-fi stories that easily fit onto a postcard. In that spirit, Geisel Library invited writers to submit fantasy or science fiction pieces of no more than 250 words, to be read aloud. Series: "Writers" [Humanities] [Show ID: 33454]
Author and Boston University law professor Pnina Lahav discusses her forthcoming biography, "Golda Meir: Through the Gender Lens." She explores the first and only woman prime minister of Israel, and her complex relationship with her role as a female leader in a man’s world. During the course of her legal career, Pnina Lahav has published nearly 50 journal articles and three books, including the critically acclaimed 'Judgment in Jerusalem: Chief Justice Simon Agranat and the Zionist Century'. Series: "Taubman Symposia in Jewish Studies" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 33257]
Author, Tova Mirvis, discusses her book, The Book of Separation, which describes a woman who leaves her Orthodox Jewish faith and her marriage and sets out to navigate the terrifying, liberating terrain of a newly mapless world. She is the author of three novels and her essays have appeared in various anthologies and newspapers. Series: "Taubman Symposia in Jewish Studies" [Humanities] [Show ID: 33053]
Mary Karr, one of the most celebrated memoirists, poets and essayists of her generation, talks about her craft and the revelations found along the way. Her most recent publication, The Art of Memoir, features excerpts from her favorite memoirs and anecdotes from fellow writers' experiences. She is the recipient of prizes from PEN and Best American Poetry, and she has won Pushcart Prizes both for poetry and essays. Series: "Voices" [Humanities] [Show ID: 32831]
"Short Tales from the Mothership" celebrates an elegant genre by presenting condensed stories from fellow futurists, time-travelers, inventors, artists, and writers. This evening is inspired by the short postcard stories that magazine editor George Hay encouraged in the 1970’s. He dared such authors as Arthur C. Clarke to send sci-fi stories that easily fit onto a postcard. In that spirit, Geisel Library invited writers to submit fantasy or science fiction pieces of no more than 250 words, to be read aloud. Series: "Writers" [Humanities] [Show ID: 32844]
Celebrated author, literature champion, and bookstore owner Ann Patchett electrifies the audience as she describes her evolving relationships with various books, ranging from classics by Leo Tolstoy and John Updike to more contemporary works by Min Jin Lee (“Pachinko”), Matthew Desmond (“Evicted”) and Ta-Nehisi Coates (”Between the World and Me”), among others. Patchett reads both for pleasure and for business, as the co-owner and buyer for Parnassus Books in Nashville. Why would a best-selling author bother with opening a book store in 2011, when all of the others in her hometown had closed? Because, she says, she couldn’t bear to live in a city without one so she and a partner opened their own! And, as she tells here, Parnassus Books has been a huge success. Patchett is the featured speaker of the 2017 Dinner in the Library event at UC San Diego. Series: "Writers" [Humanities] [Show ID: 32700]
Mary Karr, one of the most celebrated memoirists, poets and essayists of her generation, talks about her process of writing a memoir. Karr is a best-selling memoirist, poet, and essayist. Her most recent publication, The Art of Memoir, features excerpts from her favorite memoirs and anecdotes from fellow writers' experiences. She is the recipient of prizes from PEN and Best American Poetry, and she has won Pushcart Prizes both for poetry and essays. Series: "Voices" [Humanities] [Show ID: 32832]
Hailed as one of Israel's most innovative and extraordinary writers, Etgar Keret is internationally acclaimed for his short stories. Keret has written short stories, graphic novels, and scripts for television and film. He has made the short story into a literary gem that reflects the surge of interest in the short story in Israel and in Modern Hebrew since the 1990s. Series: "Taubman Symposia in Jewish Studies" [Humanities] [Show ID: 32455]
Yusef Komunyakaa, an internationally renowned poet who won the Pulitzer Prize for “Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems," reads and discusses his work while writer-in-residence at UC Santa Barbara. Series: "Voices" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 32148]
The International Tracing Service, one of the world’s largest Holocaust-related archival repositories, holds millions of documents detailing the many forms of persecution that transpired during the Nazi era and their continuing repercussions. Based on her recently published book, "Nazi Persecution and Postwar Repercussions: The International Tracing Service Archive and Holocaust Research," Suzanne Brown-Fleming provides new insights into human decision-making in genocidal settings, the factors that drive it, and its far-reaching consequences. Brown-Fleming is director of the Visiting Scholar Programs of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. She is presented here by the Holocaust Living History Workshop at UC San Diego. Series: "Writers" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 31541]
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder reveals his reporting strengths as he describes how he earned the trust of the people he has featured in books such as "Mountains Beyond Mountains," "House," "A Truck Full of Money," "Old Friends," and "Strength in What Remains." Kidder shares the joys and doubts of a career in writing with veteran journalist and host Dean Nelson, founder and director of the Writer's Symposium By The Sea at Point Loma Nazarene University. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 31161]
Barbara Boxer, the longtime US Senator from California and author of "The Art of Tough: Fearlessly Facing Politics and Life," speaks on her biggest battles in Congress, including support for AIDS research, voting rights, equal rights, reproductive rights, clean air and water, parental leave and her opposition to the Iraq war, and reminds her audience that all of these are at risk given the results of the 2016 election. Boxer delivers the inaugural speech of the Barbara Boxer Lecture Series, presented by the Institute of Governmental Studies and the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. Series: "Institute of Governmental Studies, UC Berkeley (IGS)" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 32092]
Author and anti-racist activist Tim Wise speaks about the importance of being a white ally to communities of color, and how we can all work together to create a healthier community on campuses and in the world beyond. Wise spoke as part of UCSB’s Resilient Love in a Time of Hate series. Series: "Voices" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 31995]
This far-reaching conversation with best-selling author Shauna Niequist offers an honest account of her journey of becoming a writer. She shares her love of storytelling and her goal of living life to the fullest, and offers tips for aspiring writers. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Show ID: 31160]
Former Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky describes himself as a "composer" who considers poetry to be first and foremost a vocal art, and his work seeks to blur the distinctions between language and music by emphasizing the rhythms and innate physicality of recited verse in a jazz context. In this performance for the 22nd Writer's Symposium by the Sea at Point Loma Nazarene University, Pinsky's reading is accompanied by a talented trio of PLNU students. The music - a blend of rehearsed and improvised - employs a variety of jazz styles, sometimes sympathetic and sometimes in playful counterpoint, but always responsive to the poet's distinctive voice. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 30820]
Omer Bartov, the John P. Birkelund Distinguished Professor of European History and German Studies at Brown University, explores the dynamics of the horrifying genocidal violence which took place in the East Galician town of Buczacz— following the German conquest of the region in 1941— and its subsequent erasure from local memory. For centuries, Poles, Ukrainians, and Jews coexisted in the region, but tragically, by the time the town was liberated in 1944, the entire Jewish population had been murdered by the Nazis. They were assisted by local Ukrainians, who then ethnically cleansed the region of the Polish population. Bartov is presented as part of the Holocaust Living History Workshop at UC San Diego. Series: "Writers" [Humanities] [Show ID: 31540]
Christopher Bollas, psychoanalyst and writer, asserts that mental life is innately hazardous. The steps we take through childhood are marked by mentally painful episodes that constitute ordinary breakdowns in the self. Adolescence stands as the most painful such period, during which some of the major disturbances of self arise, including anorexia, schizophrenia, bipolarity, and sociopathy. Rather than approaching mental pain as a condition to be ignored, minimized, or suppressed through medication, Bollas examines it as a constitutive element of human psychic development. Presented by the Townsend Center for the Humanities at UC Berkeley. Series: "Writers" [Health and Medicine] [Humanities] [Show ID: 31943]
Author Zohreh Ghahremani talks with Babak Rahimi, associate professor of Communication, Culture and Religion at UC San Diego about the novel, "Sky of Red Poppies," the 2012 selection for One Book, One San Diego. Series: "Writers" [Humanities] [Show ID: 31539]
In his book, Spitting in the Soup: Inside the Dirty Game of Doping in Sports, UC San Diego alumnus and sports journalist Mark Johnson traces the doping culture in professional sports, from the early days when pills meant progress, to the current day, when athletes are vilified for the use of performance-enhancing drugs. In his book, Johnson, who has covered cycling as a writer and photographer since the 1980s, explores the complex relationships that underlie elite sports culture. Series: "Writers" [Health and Medicine] [Humanities] [Show ID: 31408]
Journalist Ari Shapiro shares how his passion for literature has inspired him to find and report great stories in Washington, Europe and elsewhere around the world in his remarkable rise from radio intern to co-host of NPR’s flagship news program, All Things Considered. Shapiro is the featured speaker at the 2016 Dinner in the Library event at the Geisel Library at UC San Diego. Series: "Writers" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 31184]
In his book, Anatomy of Malice: The Enigma of the Nazi War Criminals, author Joel Dimsdale draws on decades of experience as a psychiatrist and the dramatic advances within psychiatry, psychology and neuroscience since the Nuremberg Trials to take a fresh look at four Nazi war criminals: Robert Ley, Hermann Goring, Julius Streicher and Rudolf Hess. Dimsdale, an emeritus professor of psychiatry at UC San Diego, is presented by the UC San Diego Library. Series: "Writers" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 30898]
David Gerrold, influential contemporary sci-fi writer and creator of genre-defining works such as the enduringly popular Star Trek episode, The Trouble With Tribbles, discusses his career across many media platforms to provide unique and valuable insights into the evolution and changing nature of the genre. Gerrold is interviewed by Word Farm Director Joe Palladino. Series: "Carsey-Wolf Center" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 30866]
Mary Karr, one of the most celebrated memoirists, poets and essayists of her generation, talks about her craft and what it takes to write a memoir. Her most recent publication, The Art of Memoir, features excerpts from her favorite memoirs and anecdotes from fellow writers' experiences. She is the recipient of prizes from PEN and Best American Poetry, and she has won Pushcart Prizes both for poetry and essays. Series: "Voices" [Humanities] [Show ID: 30630]
Poet Nikki Giovanni reads a selection of her poems as part of the 2016 Writer’s Symposium by the Sea at Point Loma Nazarene University. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Show ID: 30819]
Power, money, gold and wine in the making of California. All that, and what it’s like to write best-selling books and operate Berkleyside, the respected local online news site. Award-winning author and journalist Frances Dinkelspiel is in conversation with Deirdre English of Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 30555]
Writer and artist Charlotte Salomon, the daughter of a highly cultivated Jewish family in Berlin, was deported to Auschwitz and murdered at the age of 26. In her final work “Life? or Theatre?” Salomon envisioned the circumstances surrounding the eight suicides in her family, all but one of them women. Darcy C. Buerkle, an Associate Professor of History at Smith College, explores Salomon’s tragic life as she discusses her remarkable book, “Nothing Happened: Charlotte Salomon and an Archive of Suicide,” as part of the Holocaust Living History Workshop sponsored by UC San Diego. Series: "Writers" [Humanities] [Show ID: 30121]
Author, spoken word artist, poet, essayist, professor, Nikki Giovanni has been electrifying audiences for more than 40 years, earning her one of Oprah Winfrey’s Living Legends distinctions. She delivers here as well, with a passionate and engaging performance and interview with host Dean Nelson of Point Loma Nazarene University. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 29674]
Robin Jones Gunn has a gift for writing about relationships that reflect depth, values, and eternal love that appeal to everyone. Her books (including the Christy Miller series, Sierra Jensen series, Katie Weldon series, Sisterchicks series, Glenbrooke series, fiction, nonfiction, and children’s books) have sold 5 million copies. She shares her lessons learned on her path to success with host Dean Nelson of Point Loma Nazarene University. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Show ID: 29673]
If you have listened to sports on the radio or watched it on television anywhere in the world, you have heard Dick Enberg exclaim “Oh My!” His essays on sports are as legendary as his voice. In addition to his autobiography, “Oh My!”, he wrote a play about basketball coach Al McGuire that still travels around the country. Enberg, now with the San Diego Padres, was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2015 for his broadcasting excellence, He joins host Dean Nelson of Point Loma Nazarene University for a heartwarming conversation about his career, his values, and his life. Oh My! Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 29672]
Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Berkeley’s 2016 HarvEst Distinguished Women Lecturer, Frances Dinkelspiel, for a discussion of her work as an author and journalist. Dinkelspiel reflects on the skills and temperament required in journalism and highlights the particular challenges posed by online journalism. She describes the history of Berkeleyside, the online news site she founded to cover the city of Berkeley. The conversation includes a discussion of her book on her great grandfather Isaias Hellman, an important banker in the founding of the California economy. Tangled Vines, her book on the California wine industry is also discussed. Series: "Conversations with History" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 30560]
National Book Award-Winning author and environmentalist Barry Lopez joins UC San Diego’s Steve Schick, a world-renowned percussionist, to explore the intersection of music, words and the natural world. Series: "Helen Edison Lecture Series" [Humanities] [Show ID: 30337]
Investigative journalist Bob Woodward and former White House aide Alex Butterfield join Michael Bernstein for a conversation about Butterfield’s decision to reveal the existence of tape recordings that eventually led to Richard Nixon’s resignation from the presidency. Series: "Helen Edison Lecture Series" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 30187]
Robin Wright, who has reported from 140 countries, shares her insights as a journalist and policy analyst covering wars, revolutions and uprisings with what the Overseas Press Club has called “exceptional courage and initiative.” She outlines here what she believes it takes to get to the truth and understand the complexities of any conflict. Wright has been recognized for “distinguished reporting and analysis of international affairs” by the American Academy of Diplomacy, and is one of the few journalists who has chosen throughout her career not to be embedded with the U.S. military. Wright is presented by the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice at the University of San Diego. Series: "Peace exChange -- Kroc School of Peace Studies, University of San Diego" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 30243]
UCSB Script to Screen hosts director Jay Roach (Austin Powers trilogy) and screenwriter John McNamara for a conversations about Trumbo, a historical piece about a blacklisted screen writer and the screen writing process. Series: "Carsey-Wolf Center" [Humanities] [Show ID: 30277]
Oscar-winning screenwriter Alan Ball, veteran writer/producer, whose credits include Six Feet Under and True Blood, joins host Matt Ryan to discuss the production and legacy of “American Beauty.” Series: "Carsey-Wolf Center" [Humanities] [Show ID: 30159]
Writer-director Scott Frank, talks to UCSB students about getting the crime drama "A Walk Among the Tombstones" made. Frank’s other screenplays include Little Man Tate, Dead Again, Malice, Heaven’s Prisoners, Get Shorty, Out of Sight, Minority Report, The Interpreter and Marley & Me. Frank graduated from UCSB in 1982 with a BA in Film Studies. Since then he has written movies for filmmakers such as Steven Spielberg, Sidney Pollack, Steven Soderbergh, Barry Sonnenfeld, Jodie Foster and Kenneth Brannagh. Series: "Carsey-Wolf Center" [Humanities] [Show ID: 29842]
Joshua Weiner is the author of three books of poetry, most recently, The Figure of a Man Being Swallowed by a Fish (2013). Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Show ID: 29937]
Jane Hirshfield, a frequent presenter at universities and literary festivals both in the US and abroad, reads “My Proteins” from her book of poetry. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Show ID: 29934]
Jane Hirshfield reads from her book of poetry at UC Berkeley. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Show ID: 29935]
Joshua Weiner is the author of three books of poetry, most recently, The Figure of a Man Being Swallowed by a Fish (2013). Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Show ID: 29936]
One of the year’s most lively events, the student reading includes winners of the following prizes: Academy of American Poets, Cook, Rosenberg, and Yang, as well as students nominated by Berkeley’s creative writing faculty, Lunch Poems volunteers, and representatives from student publications. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Show ID: 29740]
Story Hour in the Library celebrates the writers in the UC Berkeley campus community with an annual student reading. The event features short excerpts of work by winners of the year’s biggest prose prizes, Story Hour in the Library interns, and faculty nominees. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Show ID: 29739]
The Neo Noir series examines different aspects of the film noir style. The films showcase the "soul of the city," interpreting the Los Angeles of the past, present, and future. In “Collateral”, director Michael Mann brings noir to a modern-day Los Angeles. Screenwriter Stuart Beattie talks with Anna Brusutti, Film and Media Studies Lecturer at UCSB, and the audience about his writing process. Series: "Carsey-Wolf Center" [Humanities] [Show ID: 29741]
Lydia Davis reads from her latest collection of short stories, “Can’t and Won’t,” and speaks of her writing processes when dealing with her own work and translated work. Series: "Humanitas" [Humanities] [Show ID: 29510]
Joyce Carol Oates has written some of the most enduring fiction of our time, including We Were the Mulvaneys and Blonde. Most recently, she published Carthage and The Sacrifice, and the story collections High-Crime Area and Lovely, Dark, Deep. Among her many honors are the National Book Award, the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, the Prix Femina Étranger, and the President's Medal in the Humanities. She was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978. Oates has taught recently at Berkeley and Stanford, and is on the faculty at Princeton University. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Show ID: 29541]
Jane Hirshfield's eighth poetry book, The Beauty, appears from Knopf in early 2015, along with a new book of essays, Ten Windows. Previous books include Come, Thief (Knopf, 2011) and After (2006), named a best book of the year by The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, and The Financial Times (UK). She has also written a book of essays, Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry and edited and co-translated four books of work by world poets of the past. Her honors include The Poetry Center Book Award, the California Book Award, finalist selection for the National Book Critics Circle Award, England's T. S. Eliot Prize, and fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller foundations, the Academy of American Poets, and the National Endowment for the Arts. A frequent presenter at universities and literary festivals both in the US and abroad, in 2012 she was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Show ID: 29540]
Joshua Weiner is the author of three books of poetry, most recently, The Figure of a Man Being Swallowed by a Fish (2013). He is also the editor of At the Barriers: On the Poetry of Thom Gunn, and the poetry editor at Tikkun magazine. He is the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award, the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a 2014 fellowship from the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, among others. A professor of English at the University of Maryland, he lives with his family in Washington DC. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 29365]
Economist Joseph Stiglitz and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich reminisce about opposing “corporate welfare” during their days in the Clinton Administration and talk here about problematic trade deals, income inequality and Stiglitz’s new book, “The Great Divide: Unequal Societies and What We Can Do About Them.” Reich and Stiglitz are presented by the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley. Series: "Richard and Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley" [Public Affairs] [Business] [Show ID: 29524]
Harmony Holiday is a poet, dancer, and archivist, mythscientist and the author of Negro League Baseball (Fence, 2011), Go Find Your Father/ A Famous Blues (Ricochet, 2014), and “Hollywood Forever” (Fence, 2015). She reads to an audience at UC Berkeley. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 29488]
Maria Hummel is the author of the award-winning poetry collection “House and Fire“ and of two novels, “Motherland” and “Wilderness Run.” Her poetry, fiction, and nonfiction have appeared in Poetry, New England Review, Narrative, The Sun, The New York Times, and the anthology The Open Door: 100 Poems, 100 Years of Poetry Magazine. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 29366]
Joyce Carol Oates, the prolific author and winner of nearly every literary award of note, has maintained a creative dialogue with contemporary American culture for 50 years. She continues the conversation here with veteran journalist Dean Nelson as part of the 2015 Writer’s Symposium by the Sea at Point Loma Nazarene University. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 28394]
Screenwriter Destin Daniel Cretton (Short Term 12, I Am Not a Hipster) returns to his alma mater to share the excitement of his latest project, adapting Jeanette Walls’ best-selling memoir, The Glass Castle, to film. Cretton talks about the joys and frustrations of writing screenplays with Karl Martin of Point Loma Nazarene University as part of the 2015 Writer’s Symposium by the Sea. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Show ID: 28393]
Barney Frank, the 16-term former Congressman from Massachusetts joins Alex Gelber and Henry E. Brady of the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley for a no-holds-barred review of his feats (and colleagues) on Capitol Hill. From being the first Member of Congress to publicly identify himself as gay, to Dodd-Frank, his signature bill addressing the 2008 financial crisis, and on to a thorough assessment of President Obama and the Federal Reserve, Frank displays his famous biting wit and fearless candor in this interview presented by the UC Public Policy Channel on UCTV. Series: "Richard and Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Business] [Show ID: 29425]
Author Lysley Tenorio describes the influences that led to “Monstress,” his popular short story collection that explores the conflicting and coalescing aspects of disparate cultures. Tenorio shares his process of writing funny, sad and beautiful fiction in this revealing interview with veteran journalist Dean Nelson as part of the 2015 Writer’s Symposium by the Sea at Point Loma Nazarene University. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Show ID: 28392]
English professor Scott Saul discusses his new book, Becoming Richard Pryor. The richly researched biography about the comedian is accompanied by a website, “Richard Pryor’s Peoria,” which presents more than 200 photographs and documents from Pryor’s first two decades in Peoria, Ill. Series: "UC Berkeley News" [Humanities] [Show ID: 29310]
Jay Kogen, Writer/ Executive Producer of the "Simpsons" is interviewed by UCSB professor Cheri Steinkellner. In addition to Homer and the gang, Kogen has written and produced for Malcolm in the Middle, Frasier and many others. Series: "Carsey-Wolf Center" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 29141]
Tom Barbash is the author of the new book of stories “Stay Up With Me.” Previous books include award-winning novel “The Last Good Chance” and “On Top of the World: Cantor Fitzgerald, Howard Lutnick, and 9/11,” which was a New York Times bestseller. His stories and articles have been published and performed on National Public Radio. Here he reads to an audience at UC Berkeley. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Show ID: 29110]
Gillian Conoley was born in Austin Texas, where, on its rural outskirts, her father and mother owned and operated a radio station. She is the author of seven collections of poetry. She is Professor and Poet-in-Residence at Sonoma State University. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 29108]
Robin Robertson is from the Northeast coast of Scotland. He has published five collections of poetry—most recently Hill of Doors—and received a number of accolades, including the Petrarch Prize, the E.M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Cholmondeley Award, and all three Forward Prizes. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 29009]
UC Berkeley Executive Director of Visitor and Parent Services La Dawn Duvall reads Maya Angelou’s poem “Phenomenal Woman.” Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 29005]
Joyce Maynard has been a writer of both fiction and nonfiction since the age of 18. Her memoir “At Home in the World” has been translated into fifteen languages. Her eight novels include the newly released “After Her,” as well as “To Die For” and the New York Times bestseller, “Labor Day.” In addition to writing, Maynard performs frequently as a storyteller with The Moth in New York City, and is the founder of the Lake Atitlan (Guatemala) Writers' Workshop. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Show ID: 28890]
Jess Row, the author of “Your Face in Mine” and two short story collections, “The Train to Lo Wu” and “Nobody Ever Gets Lost” reads from his work at UC Berkeley. He has received a Whiting Writers Award, the PEN/O. Henry Award, and two Pushcart Prizes. In 2007 he was named a "Best Young American Novelist" by Granta. He teaches at the College of New Jersey and is an ordained Zen Teacher. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Show ID: 28831]
UC Berkeley Associate Vice Chancellor and Dean of Students Joseph Defraine Greenwell reads Maya Angelou’s poem “Alone.” Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 29006]
UC Berkeley Professor of Environmental History, Philosphy and Ethics Carolyn Merchant reads David Iltis’ poem “The Lesson” Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 29007]
In partnership with City Lights Books, who first published Frank O’Hara’s “Lunch Poems” 50 years ago, this special event features readings from a newly expanded edition that also includes communiqués by O’Hara pulled from the City Lights archive housed at the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. Participants include: Jayne Gregory, Robert Hass, Owen Hill, Elaine Katzenberger, Evan Klavon, Giovanni Singleton, Julianna Spahr, Joseph Bush and Matthew Zapruder. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 28889]
Award-winning historian Wendy Lower discusses the lives and experience of German women in the Nazi killing fields. Her study chillingly debunks the age-old myth of the German woman as mother and breeder, removed from the big world of politics and war. The women Lower labels “furies” humiliated their victims, plundered their goods, and often killed them, and like many of their male counterparts, they got away with murder. Lower is the John K. Roth professor of history at Claremont McKenna College and has published widely on the Shoah in Eastern Europe. She is presented here as part of the Holocaust Living History Workshop at UC San Diego. Series: "Writers" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 28811]
Hosted by Robert Hass and University Librarian Thomas C. Leonard, this event features distinguished faculty and staff from a wide range of disciplines introducing and reading a favorite poem. This year’s participants: La Dawn Duvall (Visitor & Parent Services), Associate Vice Chancellor and Dean of Students Joseph Defraine Greenwell, Steven Finacom (Capital Projects), Alex Mastrangeli (English), Steve Mendoza (University Library), Carolyn Merchant (Environmental Science, Policy, & Management), Associate University Librarian Erik Mitchell, Shannon L. Monroe (University Library), and Kimmen Sjölander (Bioengineering) Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 28830]
UC Berkeley Bioengineering Professor Kimmen Sjölander reads “Keeping Quiet” by Pablo Neruda. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 29008]
Internationally recognized biographer Noel Riley Fitch offers some food for thought in “Sharing Julia Child’s Appetite for Life,” the title of her keynote address to the annual Dinner at the Library at UC San Diego. Fitch gives a revealing look into how Child’s passion for French cuisine made her a culinary icon to generations of Americans. Fitch is the only biographer exclusively authorized by Julia Child; her other subjects include fellow expatriates to Paris Ernest Hemingway, Sylvia Beach and Anais Nin. Series: "Writers" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 28563]
David Kirp, author of the acclaimed “Improbable Scholars: The Rebirth of a Great American School System and a Strategy for American Schools” and professor of public policy at UC Berkeley, argues that the best way to improve education is to avoid trendy reforms and stick with what works: providing support for teachers to make personal connections with their students. Series: "Richard and Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley" [Public Affairs] [Education] [Show ID: 28686]
Story Hour in the Library celebrates the writers in the UC Berkeley campus community with an annual student reading. The event features short excerpts of work by winners of the year’s biggest prose prizes, Story Hour in the Library interns, and faculty nominees. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Show ID: 28342]
Rowan Ricardo Phillips, award-winning poet, literary and art critic, and translator reads to an audience at UC Berkeley. His first collection of poems, “The Ground: Poems” was published in 2013. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 28137]
Writer and Editor Marv Wolfman discusses the art and craft of writing compelling stories with emotionally complex characters and imaginative plots for comics, animation, video games and everything in between. Series: "Writers" [Humanities] [Show ID: 24137]
The annual student reading includes winners of the following prizes: Academy of American Poets, Cook, Rosenberg, and Yang, as well as students nominated by Berkeley’s creative writing faculty, Lunch Poems volunteers, and representatives from student publications. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 28341]
New York Times best-selling author Ayelet Waldman’s new novel, “Love and Treasure,” was called a “treasure trove” by Joyce Carol Oates. Previous books include “Red Hook Road” and “Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities and Occasional Moments of Grace.” Her novel “Love and Other Impossible Pursuits” was made into a film starring Natalie Portman. Waldman’s personal essays, profiles and commentaries have appeared in the New York Times, Vogue, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, "All Things Considered" and "The California Report." She reads to an audience at UC Berkeley. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Show ID: 28224]
Leonore Wilson is Poet Laureate of Napa Valley and author of “Western Solstice” published by Hiraeth Press. She has received fellowships from Villa Montalvo Center of the Arts and University of Utah. Her poems have appeared in Quarterly West, Madison Review, Third Coast, Unruly Catholic Women Writers Poets Against the War, and TRIVIA: Voices of Feminism. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 28051]
Walter Kirn is an author, essayist and critic. The New York Times has commented that “No one mines his own life in the service of understanding the American experience better than Walter Kirn.” His best-selling novels “Up in the Air” and “Thumbsucker” were made into movies. A contributing editor to Time magazine, Kirn’s work has appeared in the New York Times, GQ, Vogue, New York and Esquire. He reads to an audience at UC Berkeley. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Show ID: 28095]
Fred Vogelstein is the author of “Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution” (2013). A contributing editor at Wired magazine, he writes about technology and media. He’s been a staff writer for Fortune, the Wall Street Journal, Newsday and US News and World Report. Vogelstein’s work has also appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Boston Globe. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Show ID: 28050]
Known as "the man who would cure the world," Paul Farmer works to provide first world health care for third world peoples and co-founded the worldwide organization Partners in Health. Author of "To Repair the World" and "Pathologies of Power Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor," Farmer was also the subject of Tracy Kidder's "Mountains Beyond Mountains.” Dr. Farmer talks here with Dean Nelson, founder of the Writer’s Symposium by the Sea at Point Loma Nazarene University. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 25515]
Novelist and memoirist Anne Lamott brings her unique charm to the Writer’s Symposium by the Sea once again as she stresses the importance of finding one’s pure voice in writing about sadness, disappointment or satisfaction with life in this freewheeling conversation with author Donald Miller and veteran journalist Dean Nelson of Point Loma Nazarene University. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Show ID: 25518]
Zubair Ahmed was born and raised in Dhaka, Bangladesh. In 2005, his family won the Diversity Visa Lottery, which granted them the opportunity to immigrate to the US. During the year-and-a-half before moving, he became a professional video gamer and then moved to Duncanville, Texas where he finished high school. Ahmed now studies mechanical engineering and creative writing at Stanford University. He is a member of the Stanford Solar Car Team, president of the Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honors Society, and has recently delved into business and startups. City of Rivers, published by McSweeney’s, is his highly praised debut collection of poems. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 27725]
Jeannette Walls drew from her nomadic childhood with negligent but interesting parents for her memoir “The Glass Castle” and her colorful grandmother for “Half-Broke Horses: A True Life Novel.” Her latest, “The Silver Star,” continues to explore dysfunctional family love and loyalty. She talks here with veteran journalist Dean Nelson as part of the 19th annual Writer’s Symposium by the Sea at Point Loma Nazarene University. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Show ID: 25517]
Cynthia Cruz’s poems have been published in the New Yorker, Paris Review, Boston Review, American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review and others. Her first collection of poems, RUIN, was published by Alice James Book and her second collection, “The Glimmering Room,” was published by Four Way Books in 2012. She has received fellowships from Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony as well as a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University. Her third collection of poems, Wunderkammer, is from Four Way Books in 2014. She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and lives in Brooklyn, New York. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 26024]
Cancer is a lens in which to understand modern society and the acquisition of knowledge, argues Pulitzer-Prize winning author and oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee. In this wide-ranging interview with journalist Dean Nelson, Dr. Mukherjee goes on to describe himself as a “sober optimist” about the future of cancer research as he urges the cancer community to demand more public support for cancer therapies, treatments and prevention. He was presented as part of the Exploring Ethics series convened around his best-selling book, “The Emperor of all Maladies: A Biography of Cancer” by the Center for Ethics in Science and Technology and the Helen Edison Lecture Series at UC San Diego Extension. Series: "Helen Edison Lecture Series" [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 25516]
Author, New York Times columnist and master storyteller Samuel Freedman describes the process of creating powerful narratives about people engaged with race, faith and other cultural issues in this interview with veteran journalist Dean Nelson. Freedman is presented as part of the 19th Annual Writer’s Symposium by the Sea at Point Loma Nazarene University. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 26029]
Linda Gregerson is the author of five books of poetry, most recently The Selvage (2012). Her many honors include awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and Mellon Foundations, the Kingsley Tufts poetry endowment. Her third book, Waterborne, was a finalist for the National Book Award. Gregerson is Caroline Walker Bynum Distinguished University Professor at the University of Michigan. She reads to an audience at UC Berkeley. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 27967]
This reading is a special event celebrating the first anthology of Burmese poetry in English translation in more than fifty years. At a time of political transformation in Myanmar, Zeyar Lynn, poet, essayist, and translator presents his work from “Bones Will Crow: 15 Contemporary Burmese Poets.” Lynn is widely regarded as the most influential living poet in Myanmar and a translator of many Western poets, including Sylvia Plath, John Ashbery, and Charles Bernstein. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 25925]
Hosted by Robert Hass and University Librarian Thomas C. Leonard, this event features distinguished faculty and staff from a wide range of disciplines introducing and reading a favorite poem. This year’s participants: Police Chief Margo Bennett, Chancellor Nicholas B. Dirks, Keith P. Feldman (Ethnic Studies), Dean Keith Gilless (College of Natural Resources), Alexander Givental (Mathematics), Timothy Hampton (Comparative Literature), Associate Director of Administration Dylan Hendricks, Patricia Penn Hilden (Native American History & Comparative Ethnic Studies), Maria Mavroudi (Byzantine History & Classics), Water Quality Program Manager Tim Pine (Office of Environment, Health & Safety), and Financial Analyst Jane Youn (English) Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 25863]
Story Hour in the Library celebrates the writers in Berkeley campus community with an annual student reading. The event features short excerpts of work by winners of the year’s biggest prose prizes, Story Hour in the Library interns, and faculty nominees. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Show ID: 24376]
One of the year’s most lively events, the student reading includes winners of the following prizes: Academy of American Poets, Cook, Rosenberg, and Yang, as well as students nominated by Berkeley’s creative writing faculty, Lunch Poems volunteers, and representatives from student publications. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Show ID: 24352]
David Shields is the author of twelve books, most recently Jeff, One Lonely Guy, which was co-written by Jeff Ragsdale and Michael Logan. He is a winner of multiple PEN awards and the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, two NEA fellowships, an Ingram Merrill Foundation Award, a Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation grant, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. He is the Milliman Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at the University of Washington and a member of the faculty in Warren Wilson College’s low-residency MFA Program for Writers. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Show ID: 24375]
Award winning writer and poet C. S. Giscombe has written many poems, books, and plays. He was the 2010 recipient of the Stephen Henderson Award given by the African American Literature and Culture Society. His poetry book Prairie Style won a 2008 American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. Two of his recent plays (Lycanthropes/ Entre Chien et Loup and Lycanthropes/ Loup-Garou!) have been produced in San Francisco. Back Burner, a collection of essays about poetry, color, transportation, cooking, etc., will be published in 2013. He teaches at the University of California, Berkeley. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 24351]
Cathy Park Hong's first book, Translating Mo'um, was published in 2002 by Hanging Loose Press. Dance Dance Revolution, her second collection, received the Barnard Women Poets Prize. Her third and most recent book of poems, Engine Empire, was published in May, 2012. Hong is also the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. She lives in Brooklyn and is an Associate Professor at Sarah Lawrence College. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 24349]
Namwali Serpell’s nonfiction work has appeared in The Believer and Bidoun; her fiction in Callaloo and Tin House. Her first short story, “Muzungu,” was selected to appear in The Best American Short Stories 2009 and shortlisted for the 2010 Caine Prize for African Literature. In 2011, she was one of six recipients of the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award for women write. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Show ID: 24374]
Joyce Carol Oates has written some of the most enduring fiction of our time. She is a recipient of the National Book Award and many others including the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, the Prix Femina Etranger, the Common Wealth Award for Distinguished Service in Literature, The Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement, and the Chicago Tribune Lifetime Achievement Award. She was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Show ID: 24373]
Lyn Hejinian is the author of numerous books, including most recently The Book of a Thousand Eyes and The Wide Road, written in collaboration with Carla Harryman. In fall 2012, Wesleyan University Press published A Guide to Poetics Journal: Writing in the Expanded Field 1982-1998, an anthology of works on key issues in poetics first published in Poetics Journal, co-edited by Hejinian and Barrett Watten. And in fall 2013 Wesleyan will republish her best-known book, My Life, in an edition that will include her related work, My Life in the Nineties. In addition to literary writing, editing, and translating, she has in recent years been involved in anti-privatization activism at the University of California, Berkeley, where she teaches. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 24350]
American poet Billy Collins reads a selection of humorous poems for appreciative audience in this keynote event of the 2013 Writer’s Symposium by the Sea, sponsored by Point Loma Nazarene University. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 24992]
American Poet Billy Collins reads “The Sandhill Cranes of Nebraska” at the 2013 Writer’s Symposium by the Sea, sponsored by Point Loma Nazarene University. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 24994]
American Poet Billy Collins reads “A Dog on His Master” and “The Revenant” at the 2013 Writer’s Symposium by the Sea, sponsored by Point Loma Nazarene University. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 24995]
American poet Billy Collins reads a selection of humorous poems and then discusses the craft of writing with Dean Nelson and an appreciative audience in this keynote event of the 2013 Writer’s Symposium by the Sea, sponsored by Point Loma Nazarene University. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 24601]
American Poet Billy Collins reads “Divorce” at the 2013 Writer’s Symposium by the Sea, sponsored by Point Loma Nazarene University. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 24996]
Michelle Tea has written memoirs, poetry and the novel “Rose of No Man's Land.“ She is founder and Executive Director of RADAR Productions, a non-profit which oversees monthly readings at the San Francisco Public Library, the Sister Spit international literary performance tours, a poetry contest and the Radar LAB retreat for writers and artists. Tea is Editor at Sister Spit Books, an imprint of City Lights. In 2013 McSweeney's published the first in her series of Young Adult fantasy novels, A Mermaid in Chelsea Creek. Tea's hybrid memoir, Black Wave, will be published on Sister Spit Books in 2014. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Show ID: 24372]
Aaron Shurin is the author of eleven books of poetry and prose, most recently Citizen, a collection of prose poems and King of Shadows, a collection of personal essays. His writing has appeared in over thirty national and international anthologies, and has been translated into seven languages. Shurin’s honors include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the California Arts Council, the San Francisco Arts Commission, and the Gerbode Foundation. He lives in San Francisco. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 24348]
Peter Orner's fiction and non-fiction has appeared in many publications and received numerous awards. He is the editor of two non-fiction books and is a long time permanent faculty member at San Francisco State. He reads before an audience at UC Berkeley. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Show ID: 24371]
Pam Houston’s latest novel is Contents May Have Shifted. Her stories have been selected for The O. Henry Awards, The Pushcart Prize, and Best American Short Stories of the Century. She is the winner of the Western States Book Award, the WILLA award for contemporary fiction, and The Evil Companions Literary Award and multiple teaching awards. She is the Director of Creative Writing at U.C. Davis and teaches in the Pacific University MFA program. She lives on a ranch in Colorado. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Show ID: 24370]
Kathleen Fraser’s newest collection, m o v a b l e TYYPE, foregrounds texts from four recently produced Artist Books. Her collected essays, Translating the Unspeakable: Poetry and the Innovative Necessity, is in its second printing. She edited and co-founded the journal HOW(ever) and in 2001, launched its on-line version, How2. While director of The Poetry Center, Fraser founded The American Poetry Archives at San Francisco State University where she taught in the Graduate Writing Program for 20 years. Her honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship and two NEA fellowships. She has published 16 volumes of poetry and seven collaborative Artist Books, recently collected by the Bienecke Library at Yale. Her work has been translated widely in Italian and French. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 24346]
Hosted by Robert Hass and University Librarian Thomas C. Leonard, this event features distinguished faculty and staff from a wide range of disciplines introducing and reading a favorite poem. This year’s participants: Justin Brasheres (Environmental Science), Associate Chancellor and Chief of Staff Beata Fitzpatrick, Donna V. Jones (English), Vice Provost Catherine Koshland (Teaching, Learning, Academic Planning and Facilities), Director Lawrence Rinder (Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive), Colleen Rovetti (University Relations), Debarati Sanyal (French), Associate Director Sanchita Saxena (Center for South Asia Studies), Director Alix Schwartz (Academic Planning for the College of Letters & Science), David Sklansky (Law), and Andrew Stewart (Classics) Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 24345]
Rebecca Solnit is the author of thirteen books, most recently the best selling “Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas.” She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism, and the Lannan Literary Award. A product of the California public education system from kindergarten to graduate school, she recently received an honorary doctorate from the Rhode Island School of Design. She is a contributing editor to Harper's and regular contributor to the political site Tomdispatch.com. Here she reads to an audience at UC Berkeley. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Show ID: 24369]
Michael L. Ross, Professor of Political Science and and Director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at UCLA, looks at how developing nations are shaped by their mineral wealth -- and how they can turn oil from a curse into a blessing. Series: "Writers" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 24027]
In his new book “Sounds of Capitalism,” UCLA musicologist Timothy D. Taylor tracks the use of music in American advertising for nearly a century, from variety shows to the rise of the jingle, the postwar rise in consumerism and the more complete fusion of popular music and consumption in the 1980s and after. Here he discusses the awkward transition early 20th century advertisers endured as they adjusted to the new medium of radio. Series: "Writers" [Humanities] [Show ID: 24026]
Why is Cinco de Mayo, a holiday commemorating a Mexican victory over the French at Puebla in 1862, so widely celebrated in California and across the United States, when it is scarcely observed in Mexico? David E. Hayes-Bautista, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture at UCLA, explains the holiday is not Mexican at all, but rather an American one, created by Latinos in California during the mid-nineteenth century. Series: "Writers" [Humanities] [Show ID: 24025]
One of the year’s most lively events, the student reading includes winners of the following prizes: Academy of American Poets, Cook, Rosenberg, and Yang, as well as students nominated by Berkeley’s creative writing faculty, Lunch Poems volunteers, and representatives from student publications.
Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Show ID: 22620]
Story Hour in the Library celebrates the writers at UC Berkeley with this annual student reading featuring short excerpts of work by winners of the year’s biggest prose prizes, Story Hour in the Library interns, and faculty nominees. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Show ID: 23988]
Why is Cinco de Mayo, a holiday commemorating a Mexican victory over the French at Puebla in 1862, so widely celebrated in California and across the United States, when it is scarcely observed in Mexico? David E. Hayes-Bautista, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture at UCLA, explains the holiday is not Mexican at all, but rather an American one, created by Latinos in California during the mid-nineteenth century. Series: "Writers" [Humanities] [Show ID: 23821]
Timothy D. Taylor is professor in the department of ethnomusicology and musicology at UCLA. In his new book, “Sounds of Capitalism,” he tracks the use of music in American advertising for nearly a century, from variety shows to the rise of the jingle, the postwar rise in consumerism and the more complete fusion of popular music and consumption in the 1980s and after. Series: "Writers" [Humanities] [Show ID: 23820]
Isabel Allende is one of Latin America's foremost female writers. The author of nineteen books, her works have been adapted for movies, plays, musicals, operas, ballets, radio programs and two international movies. In addition to her career as writer, journalist, and teacher, she has created The Isabel Allende Foundation to empower women and girls worldwide. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Show ID: 23835]
Richard Berengarten (aka Richard Burns) was born in London in 1943. The author of more than twenty books, Berengarten has been something of a maverick in contemporary British poetry. Two of his books are regarded as contemporary classics: “The Manager” and “The Blue Butterfly,” an elegy for victims of a Nazi massacre in former Yugoslavia. A book of essays about his work, “The Salt Companion to Richard Berergarten,” has recently appeared. He is a Bye-Fellow at Downing College, Cambridge. This is his first reading in the Bay Area in almost twenty years. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 22619]
Countries that are rich in petroleum have less democracy, less economic stability, and more frequent civil wars than countries without oil. Michael L. Ross, Professor of Political Science and and Director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at UCLA, looks at how developing nations are shaped by their mineral wealth -- and how they can turn oil from a curse into a blessing. His new book, shows why oil wealth typically creates less economic growth than it should; why it produces jobs for men but not women; and why it creates more problems in poor states than in rich ones. It also warns that the global thirst for petroleum is causing companies to drill in increasingly poor nations, which could further spread the oil curse. Series: "Writers" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 23819]
This reading celebrates the publication of “ascension,” the first book of poems by giovanni singleton, coordinator of Lunch Poems. She has recently been selected by the Poetry Society of America for its biennial New American Poets series. singleton is a recipient of a New Langton Bay Area Award Show for Literature and has been a fellow at Squaw Valley Community of Writers, Cave Canem: A Workshop for African-American Poets, and the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference. She is founding editor of “nocturnes (re)view,” a critically acclaimed journal dedicated to artists and writers of the African Diaspora and other contested spaces. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Show ID: 22617]
Mark Danner has written about foreign affairs and American politics for more than two decades, covering Latin America, Haiti, the Balkans and the Middle East among other stories. He was for many years a staff writer at The New Yorker and contributes frequently to The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine and other publications. He teaches at the University of California and at Bard College and speaks and debates widely about America's role in the world. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 23726]
Blogger and author Rachel Held Evans (”Evolving in Monkey Town” rachelheldevans.com) offers humorous stories about her life as she describes the style differences in writing for the web versus the page. Evans is presented as part of the 2012 Writer’s Symposium by the Sea, sponsored by Point Loma Nazarene University. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 23096]
Author and journalist Christopher Hedges speaks of the despair, destruction, love and truth that he found during his long career of covering wars and social justice throughout the world. Hedges is interviewed by Dean Nelson as part of the 17th annual Writer’s Symposium by the Sea at Point Loma Nazarene University.
Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 22837]
Cristina Garcia is the author of five novels, a collection of poetry, and three works for young readers including her newest release “Dreams of Significant Girls” about three wealthy and adventurous ninth-grade girls from different worlds who converge upon a Swiss boarding school for a summer of discovery. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Show ID: 23646]
Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon was awarded the Cave Canem Poetry Prize for Black Swan, her debut collection of poems that mixes vernacular language with classical mythology, modern struggles with Biblical trials, and gives voice to women past and present. With her second, ]Open Interval[, nominated for the 2009 National Book Award, Van Clief-Stefanon “marries a wildness of vision with a lens-maker’s precision.” She is co-author, with Elizabeth Alexander, of the chapbook Poems in Conversation and a Conversation. She is currently working on a third collection of poetry, The Coal Tar Colors. She lives in Ithaca, New York and teaches at Cornell University. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 22616]
Clayton Eshleman, American poet, translator, and editor, reads from his recently released translation “Solar Throat Slashed,” by Aimé Césaire, co-translated with A. James Arnold. Césaire, a strong anticolonialist, was born in the Caribbean and wrote his poems and plays in French. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 22615]
Ben Bac Sierra’s story is one of transformation. Raised in San Francisco’s Mission District he lived a harsh existence until the United States Marine Corps set him on a path to becoming a Gulf War veteran, professor, and author of Barrio Bushido. After an honorable discharge, he received a BA at UC Berkeley, a teaching credential and an MA. at San Francisco State University, and a JD at UC Hastings College of the Law. He is a professor at City College of San Francisco and he regularly presents at high schools, colleges, conferences, and writing workshops throughout the country. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Show ID: 23311]
Carol Edgarian is an author, editor, and publisher. Her novels include the New York Times bestseller “Three Stages of Amazement” and the international bestseller “Rise the Euphrates.” Edgarian and her husband, editor and writer Tom Jenks, founded the non-profit magazine Narrative which publishes more than three hundred artists each year. She speaks to an audience at UC Berkeley. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Show ID: 23310]
Are America’s civil rights laws a failure? Stanford Law professor and “Rights Gone Wrong” author Richard Thompson Ford argues that while they have been successful in fighting overt discrimination, they’ve fallen short in addressing other social injustices and in some cases, have been hijacked by political extremists for personal advantage. Ford is interviewed by Jennifer Burton, a visiting scholar to UC San Diego. Series: "Revelle Forum" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 22625]
Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes writer Glenn Greenwald for a discussion of his new book, “With Liberty and Justice for Some.” Greenwald traces his intellectual odyssey; analyzes the relationship between principle, power, and law; and describes the erosion of the rule of law in the United States. Highlighting the degree to which the legal system frees the powerful from accountability while harshly treating the powerless, Greenwald describes the origins of the current system, its repudiation of American ideals, and the mechanisms which sustain it. He then analyzes the media’s abdication of its role as watchdog role. He concludes with a survey of the the record of the Obama administration in fulfilling its mandate, argues for an alternative politics, and offers advice for students as they prepare for the future. Series: "Conversations with History" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 23138]
Writer and MacArthur Fellow Mark Danner talks about writing as reportage versus as a creative act, and examines how words are used for differing purposes. Series: "Conversations with History" [Humanities] [Show ID: 8042]
Born in San Francisco, Robert Haas is a California poet but his poetry, translations, and essays reveal an intimacy that transcends the borders of states and nations. With his direct clarity and promotion of literacy in “places where poets don’t go,” he served two years as U. S. Poet Laureate (1995-97). His numerous books include “Sun Under Wood,” “Time and Materials,” and “The Apple Trees at Olema: New and Selected Poems.” Hass’s numerous accolades include the MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship, two National Book Critics' Circle Awards, and the Pulitzer Prize. Hass has translated many of the works of Nobel Prize-winning Polish poet, Czeslaw Milosz. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 22614]
Readings from distinguished Berkeley faculty and staff, who will introduce us to their favorite books and stories. This year’s participants include: Dean Tony Cascardi, Dean Carla Hesse, Lecturer Fae Myenne Ng, Professor Ananya Roy and others.
Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Show ID: 23024]
Hosted by Robert Hass and University Librarian Thomas C. Leonard, distinguished faculty and staff from a wide range of disciplines introduce and read a favorite poem. This year’s participants: Ronelle Alexander (Slavic Languages and Literatures), Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost George Breslauer, Myrtis Cochran (Reference Services), George Jaqua (Physical Plant), Trinh T. Minh-ha (Rhetoric and Gender & Women’s Studies), Michael L. Palmer (Summer Sessions), Kent Puckett (English), Samuel J. Redman (Regional Oral History). Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 22613]
Since the publication of Dashiell Hammett’s “The Maltese Falcon” in 1930, San Francisco has been recognized as the birthplace of modern crime fiction. Join a distinctive panel as they examine the Bay Area as a popular setting for mystery and detective novels. Panelist are Bay Area authors Lucha Corpi, Eddie Muller, and Kelli Stanley and is moderated by Janet Rudolph. This panel was held in conjunction with an exhibit in Doe Library, highlighting the richness of UC Berkeley’s collections for the study of genre fiction. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Show ID: 23054]
Economist Carmen Reinhart, co-author of “This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly,” offers compelling insight into the global economic crisis. Series: "Economics Roundtable" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 22626]
The Atlantic’s Steve Clemons leads a provocative session on energy issues with Pulitzer-Prize winning author Daniel Yergin, Steve Koonin of the US Dept. of Energy, Dan Kammen of the World Bank and biofuels expert Stephen Mayfield of UC San Diego. Alexis Madrigal follows with Amory Lovins, author of “Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era. Series: "The Atlantic Meets The Pacific" [Public Affairs] [Science] [Show ID: 22775]
UC Berkeley's popular noontime poetry series features Suzanne Guerlac discussing her work. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Show ID: 22963]
Zainab Salbi, the founder of the humanitarian organization Women for Women International, tells a rapt audience how she has helped close to 300,000 women rebuild their lives and their communities after surviving devastating wars. Salbi, author of the best-selling memoir “Between Two Worlds: Escape from Tyranny: Growing Up in the Shadow of Saddam,” is presented by the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice at the University of San Diego. Series: "Peace exChange -- Kroc School of Peace Studies, University of San Diego" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 22729]
Story Hour in the Library celebrates the writers in the Berkeley campus community with an annual student reading featuring short excerpts of work by winners of the year’s biggest prose prizes, Story Hour in the Library interns, and faculty nominees. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Show ID: 20630]
UC Berkeley students read original poetry at the close of Lunch Poems for 2011. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 19353]
Eli Pariser, former executive editor of MoveOn.org and author of “The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding From You” provides an eye-opening exposé of personal data-mining on the web. In this chilling account, he explains how powerful business interests control the information the public can see on line, while allowing others access to everything about consumers. Series: "Revelle Forum" [Humanities] [Show ID: 21525]
Geoffrey G. O’Brien is the author of “Green and Gray” and “The Guns and Flags Project,” and co-author of “2A.” His third collection, “Metropole,” is forthcoming from The University of California Press in 2011. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 19352]
Poet, visual artist and teacher Truong Tran, is the author of several publications including, “The Book of Perceptions,” “Placing The Accents,” “dust and conscience,” “within the margin” and “Four Letter Words.” Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Show ID: 19351]
Award winning author and emeritus faculty member at UC Berkeley Maxine Hong Kingston reads and discusses her work, "I Love a Broad Margin to My Life." She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the presidentially conferred National Humanities Medal, and the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Show ID: 20629]
Li is author of “A Thousand Years of Good Prayers” and “The Vagrants.” A Beijing native and graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, she has received numerous awards. She reads and speaks at UC Berkeley. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Show ID: 20628]
Simon Johnson, co-author of “13 Bankers” describes the rise of concentrated financial power and the threat it poses to economic well-being. He explains that over the past three decades, a handful of banks became spectacularly large and profitable and used their power and prestige to reshape the political landscape. He argues that the largest banks have become more powerful and more emphatically “too big to fail,” with no incentive to change their behavior in the future. Is this setting the stage for another financial crisis, another government bailout, and another increase in our national debt? Series: "Writers" [Public Affairs] [Business] [Show ID: 20776]
Author Joyce Carol Oates is a recipient of the National Book Award and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction. She is joined by a panel to discuss her work. Series: "Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities " [Humanities] [Show ID: 20699]
Host Harry Kreisler welcomes Thomas Ricks to discuss his work as a writer and journalist. Ricks discusses his two books on the Iraq War, “Fiasco” and “The Gamble,” offering an analysis of the failures of the first years of the war and the changes in strategy engineered by Generals Odierno and Petraeus. Reviewing the conduct of the Iraq War, he analyzes the weaknesses and strengths of America's political and military leaders, the long term consequences of the conflict for the military, the unanswered questions about the future of Iraq, and the possibilities of a new American strategy for the Middle East under President Obama. Series: "Conversations with History" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 21364]
Singer and songwriter Chris Hillman, formerly of the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers, reflects on his craft with literature professor Karl Martin and then joins guitarist Herb Pedersen for a live concert as part of the 2011 Writer’s Symposium by the Sea at Point Loma Nazarene University. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 20667]
Hosted by Robert Hass and University Librarian Thomas C. Leonard, this event features distinguished faculty and staff from a wide range of disciplines introducing and reading a favorite poem. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Show ID: 19347]
Noted author of “Lit,” “Cherry” and “The Liars’ Club” Mary Karr reveals her approach to writing these sometimes humorous, sometimes blistering and always candid best-selling memoirs in this interview with journalist Dean Nelson as part of the 2011 Writer’s Symposium by the Sea sponsored by Point Loma Nazarene University. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Show ID: 20666]
Charlotte, North Carolina native Indigo Moor has authored two books of poetry. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Show ID: 19349]
in 2010, author Chris Adrian was named to The New Yorker's "20 under 40" list of fiction writers worth watching. He is currently a Fellow in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at the University of California San Francisco. He is also the author of several novels and a collection of short stories. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Show ID: 20627]
Camille Dungy is the author of two poetry collections and teaches creative writing at San Francisco State University. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Show ID: 19350]
Writer and attorney Scott Turow is the author of nine best-selling novels. He reflects on his work as a fiction writer and a practicing attorney with UC Hastings Professor and Associate Dean of Research, Evan Lee. Series: "Legally Speaking" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 20874]
Host Harry Kreisler welcomes author Avner Cohen to discuss his new book “The Worst-Kept Secret: Israel's Bargain with the Bomb.” Tracing the history of Israel's nuclear weapons program, Cohen explicates Israel's nuclear doctrine of amimut (opacity) analyzing its implications for Israel's democracy and for Israel's international engagement. Cohen argues that in the post-911 world, the doctrine conflicts with the norms of the international system and the effort to adapt non-proliferation to the realities of the 21st century. He concludes with an analysis of the threat posed to Israel if Iran succeeds in acquiring nuclear weapons. Series: "Conversations with History" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 20889]
Gene Yang began publishing comic books in 1996. “American Born Chinese” was the first graphic novel nominated for a National Book Award and the first to win the Printz Award. It also won an Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Show ID: 20626]
Laurie King, a third generation Californian with a background in theology, is best known for her detective fiction. Her yearly novels range from police procedurals and stand-alones to a historical series about Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, beginning with “The Beekeeper's Apprentice.” Her books have won the Edgar, Creasey, Wolfe, Lambda, and Macavity awards, and appear regularly on the New York Times bestseller list. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Show ID: 20625]
David Sheff is the author of Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction, a New York Times #1 bestseller. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Show ID: 20624]
In this captivating account of a Bible-based practice that has grown into a multibillion- dollar industry, journalist Sue Fishkoff travels throughout America and to Shanghai, China to find out who eats kosher food, who produces it, who is responsible for its certification, and how this fascinating world continues to evolve. Series: "Taubman Symposia in Jewish Studies" [Humanities] [Agriculture] [Show ID: 20643]
Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes author Gurcharan Das for a discussion of his new book, “The Difficulty of Being Good.” Reflecting on his intellectual odyssey, Gurcharan Das elucidates his purpose in writing an extended commentary on the Indian epic, the Mahabharata. In the conversation, he also discusses the complex nature of the characters in the epic and the dilemmas posed by their failings and the constraints of the human condition. He concludes with a discussion of the lessons he learned for his own spiritual development and for understanding the moral dilemmas confronting modern societies. Series: "Conversations with History" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 20512]
George Packer, staff writer for “The New Yorker,” argues that President Obama’s policy on Afghanistan, and the war itself, show how difficult it is for the U.S. to send troops into combat without trying to change another country’s politics as well. He contends it makes success unlikely. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 20261]
Noted journalist and author James Fallows traces how the role of the Pacific Region has grown in international affairs in this address to the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at UC San Diego in honor of UCSD’s 50th anniversary. Series: "Writers" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 20009]
Rabih Alameddine was born in Jordan to Lebanese parents and has lived in Kuwait, Lebanon, England, and the United States. He began his career as an engineer, then moved to writing and painting. He is the author of two novels as well as a collection of short stories, and is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. He lives in San Francisco and Beirut. He reads from his new novel “The Hakawati,” set in the Middle East. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Show ID: 20017]
Ethan Bronner discusses his perspective, as the Jerusalem Bureau Chief of The New York Times, on the Israel-Palestine Conflict; while insisting that he remains objective in spite of being Jewish and having a son in the Israeli Defense Forces. Series: "Taubman Symposia in Jewish Studies" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 19387]
The student reading includes winners of the following prizes: Academy of American Poets, Cook, Rosenberg, and Yang, as well as students nominated by Berkeley’s creative writing faculty, Lunch Poems volunteers, and representatives from student publications. Series: "Lunch Poems Reading Series" [Humanities] [Show ID: 17127]
New Yorker staff writer Michael Specter argues for a new Enlightenment in his newly-released book “Denialism.” From genetically modified grains to pharmaceuticals, Specter contends that Americans have come to mistrust institutions and to view science as a political constituency that isn’t always looking out for the public’s best interest. He champions a renewed approach to new technologies, while acknowledging their limitations and threats, and an end to the war against progress in this time of mankind’s greatest scientific advances. Series: "Voices" [Humanities] [Show ID: 18570]