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TWO EVENTS OPEN IAH INAUGURAL YEAR
Oct. 18: Challenging Conversations: Race and State Violence
with UC Santa Barbara's Gaye Theresa Johnson and Brown University's Jordan Camp
Oct. 27: Community, Arts, and Resistance
with Adrian Arancibia, a founder of the Taco Shop Poets
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Dirk Sutro
Arts Communications Manager
UC San Diego
Division of Arts & Humanities
dsutro@ucsd.edu / 858.534.4830
Issues of race, culture and social justice lead the agenda as UC San Diego's Institute of Arts & Humanities (IAH) opens its inaugural year with the lecture series "Challenging Conversations: Race and State Violence" (Oct. 18) along with the community engagement series "Community, Arts, and Resistance" (Oct. 27).
"The IAH is a new hub to unify several existing programs that had operated independently," said UC San Diego Professor of History Luis Alvarez, who was named IAH director in July alongside new Associate Director and Professor of History Mark Hanna.
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IAH Director Luis Alvarez
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"In the upcoming year, we will utilize public events to promote public dialogue in the arts and humanities and to encourage interdisciplinary research and teaching," Alvarez added.
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IAH Associate Director Mark Hanna
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"We bring diverse thinkers and communities together to share insights, produce new findings and address the challenges we all face on our campus and in our world."
The two series are especially timely in light of the frequency of police shootings of unarmed African American men by police in American cities and resulting political mobilization, including the recent local killing of Alfred Olango in El Cajon. Through public engagement, the IAH will open a dialogue to address the urgency of such issues.
The first event, "Challenging Conversations: Race and State Violence" features two prominent authors whose books explore subjects related to aggrieved groups.
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Gaye Theresa Johnson
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Gaye Theresa Johnson of UCLA is the author of "Spaces of Conflict, Sounds of Solidarity: Music, Race and Spatial Entitlement in Los Angeles." Johnson's book is a product of her ongoing research into the historical relationships between Chicana/o and Black communities in Los Angeles. She describes how groups who have been excluded from privileged parts of the city have long created solidarities, antagonsims and "spaces" for action through music, sound and politics against institutional and social repression.
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Jordan Camp
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Brown University's Jordan Camp will also present information from his book, "Incarcerating the Crisis: Freedom Struggles and the Rise of the Neoliberal State." Camp traces the history of how the U.S. has come to have the largest prison population on the planet with a disproportionate number of African American men who are incarcerated. Tracing crucial turning points from the Watts riot of 1965 to post-Katrina New Orleans, he examines how the poetry and culture of social movements reveal alternative possibilities as much as the rise of the neoliberal carceral state.
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Adrian Arancibia
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Exploring parallel ideas and debates, but through the arts, the first event in the community engagement series will feature author, critic, UC San Diego alumnus and San Diego Miramar College Prof. Adrian Arancibia, a founder of the Taco Shop Poets, who will speak about issues of race, immigration, gentrification and culture in San Diego. He will also read his poetry.
The IAH was created late last year with the support of UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep Khosla and Dean of Arts and Humanities Cristina Della Coletta, as well as the participation of several administrators, faculty and programs.
"By supporting the division's diverse independent programs," Della Coletta said, "the IAH elevates the role of arts and humanities on campus through cross-divisional and cross-campus education programs, through centers dedicated to specific regional or cultural studies and through agile lab-style research collaborations and initiatives focused on multidisciplinary themes."
IAH, under the aegis of the Division of Arts and Humanities, unifies a number of programs ranging from Science, Korean and Japanese studies, to African American studies, as well as the CLAH program (Chicana/o Latina/o Arts and Humanities), an interdisciplinary minor that brings students, staff, faculty and the community together in the scholarly examination of Chicana/o and Latina/o life, history and culture.
Below are details about the upcoming events:
Challenging Conversations: Race and State Violence
Gaye Theresa Johnson and Jordan Camp
Oct. 18, 5:30 pm
Dolores Huerta and Philip Vera Cruz Room
UC San Diego Student Center
Light refreshments
Admission FREE
Community, Arts, and Resistance
Adrian Arancibia
Oct. 27, 2:00 pm
UC San Diego
Thurgood Marshall College Room
Price Center West
Speaker Biographies
Gaye Theresa Johnson
An associate professor of African American Studies and Chicana/o Studies at UCLA and associate professor of Black Studies with affiliations in the Departments of History and Chicana/o Studies at UC Santa Barbara, Johnson writes and teaches on race and racism, cultural history and political economy.
Her first book, "Spaces of Conflict, Sounds of Solidarity: Music, Race, and Spatial Entitlement in Los Angeles," published by the University of California Press, is a history of civil rights and spatial struggles among Black and Brown freedom seekers and cultural workers in LA. Johnson's second book, entitled "Women in Hip Hop: A Radical Herstory," is under contract with Haymarket Press.
Johnson has appeared in and consulted on several documentaries, including independent films about music and urban politics, as well as television programs for the BBC and the Biography Channel. She is a blogger for the Huffington Post and a prolific public speaker. She is a former visiting researcher at Stanford University's Center for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity, as well as at the African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg, South Africa. Johnson is active with the Los Angeles Community Action Network's (LACAN) struggle for housing and civil rights on LA's Skid Row, and is the 2013 recipient of the Freedom Now! Award for her efforts. Professor Johnson earned a B.A. in Sociology and Ethnic Studies from the University of California at San Diego, and a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Minnesota.
Jordan Camp
Jordan T. Camp is a postdoctoral fellow in the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America and the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown. He is the author of "Incarcerating the Crisis: Freedom Struggles and the Rise of the Neoliberal State" (University of California Press, 2016), co-editor (with Christina Heatherton) of "Policing the Planet: Why the Policing Crisis Led to Black Lives Matter" (Verso, 2016) and co-editor (with Laura Pulido) of Clyde A. Woods' book, "Development Drowned and Reborn: The Blues and Bourbon Restorations in Post-Katrina New Orleans" (University of Georgia Press, forthcoming). He earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and has previously held teaching appointments, postdoctoral fellowships or visiting positions at Princeton, University of Massachusetts-Lowell, California State University-Long Beach and UCLA.
Adrian Arancibia
Adrián Arancibia is an author and critic based in San Diego, CA. He is a founder of the seminal Chicano/Latino performance poetry collective Taco Shop Poets. Born in Iquique, Chile (1971), Arancibia is the co-editor of the "Taco Shop Poets Anthology: Chorizo Tonguefire." He has authored the collection of poetry titled, "Atacama Poems and The Keeper/El guardador" and is at work on a new collection of poetry. A UC San Diego Literature Ph.D., he currently works as a professor of English at San Diego Miramar College. His creative work depicts and comments on the lives of immigrants, while his critical work focuses on literature and its relation to social space and popular culture.
In its inaugural year of 2016-2017, the IAH encourages interdisciplinary research, teaching and public dialogue in the Arts and Humanities. Encompassing a broad range of methods, approaches and themes--underscoring the centrality of core arts and humanities disciplines--we generate and support projects that help equip students, faculty and the wider public with the creativity, empathy and analysis for imagining and practicing a collaborative and more equitable human experience. Learn more at iah.ucsd.edu.
At the University of California San Diego, we constantly push boundaries and challenge expectations. Established in 1960, UC San Diego has been shaped by exceptional scholars who aren't afraid to take risks and redefine conventional wisdom. Today, as one of the top 15 research universities in the world, we are driving innovation and change to advance society, propel economic growth and make our world a better place. This positive impact extends far beyond the walls of our campus and is made possible with generous private support. Learn more at ucsd.edu.
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