Public Goods

Hubertus Kohle (Professor and Chair, History of Early Modern and Modern Art Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich) Wednesday, May 30, 2012 / 12:00 PM McCune Conference Center, 6020 HSSB Professor Kohle is renewing the time-honored “République des lettres” in a modern guise. Renowned for his work in digital art...

(Mark Achbar & Jennifer Abbott, 2003, 145 min.) Thursday, May 24, 2012 / 4:00 PM McCune Conference Room, 6020 HSSB In this acclaimed documentary, forty corporate insiders and critics -- including Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein and Milton Friedman -- explore the nature and spectacular rise of...

Laurel Beckmen (Art, UCSB) Rita Ferri (Visual Arts Coordinator, Santa Barbara County Arts Commission) Colin Gray (local artist) Harry Reese (Art, UCSB) Thursday, May 10, 2012 / 4:00 PM McCune Conference Room, 6020 HSSB Something happens when art goes public. Cultural interventions in spaces designated as belonging to the public are...

Annie Leonard (The Story of Stuff, Regents' Lecturer in Film and Media Studies ) Thursday, April 12, 2012 / 7:30 PM Pollock Theater When Annie Leonard released The Story of Stuff film, she had no idea that her message would resonate so widely. Since its launch in 2007, the...

(Michael Moore, 2009, 127 min.) Tuesday, February 14, 2012 / 4:00 PM McCune Conference Room, 6020 HSSB The IHC celebrates Valentine’s Day with a screening of Moore’s scathing film, which examines the impact of corporate dominance on the everyday lives of Americans and asks the question:...

Keynote Speakers: Michael Kazin (History, Georgetown University) Tom Hayden (principal author of the Port Huron Statement, political activist) Thursday-Friday, February 2-3, 2012 Corwin Pavilion and McCune Conference Room, 6020 HSSB The 1962 Port Huron Statement was the most important manifesto of the early New Left. This conference brings together...

Mark Hall (director) Peter Alagona (History, UCSB) ann-elise Lewallen ( EALCS, UCSB) Mike McGinnis (Environmental Studies, UCSB) Tuesday, January 24, 2012 / 4:00 PM McCune Conference Room, 6020 HSSB Sushi, a cuisine formerly found only in Japan, has grown exponentially in other nations, and an industry has been created to...

Sharon Farmer (History, UCSB) Eileen Boris (Feminist Studies, UCSB) Alice O'Connor (History, UCSB) Tuesday, January 17, 2012 / 4:00 PM McCune Conference Room, 6020 HSSB Contrary to conventional wisdom, the notion of welfare as a public good has a venerated--if highly contested--history, and has found valence in many different cultures,...

Peter Van Wyck (Media Studies, Concordia University of Montreal) Andrew Lakoff (Anthropology, Sociology & Communications, University of Southern California) Friday, January 13, 2012 / 2:00 PM Catastrophic events produce radical uncertainty. The temporality of such events varies: they could be sudden, unexpected, but ever-possible (e.g. natural...

Rob Nixon (English, University of Wisconsin-Madison) Friday, November 18, 2011 / 2:00 PM McCune Conference Room, 6020 HSSB The violence wrought by climate change, toxic drift, deforestation, oil spills, and the environmental aftermath of war takes place gradually and often invisibly. Using the innovative concept of "slow violence"...

Tara McPherson (USC, School of Cinematic Arts) Wednesday, November 9, 2011 / 3:30 PM McCune Conference Room, 6020 HSSB In a belated recognition of Open Access Week (October 24-30), Tara McPherson, strong  advocate and practitioner of open access publishing and explorer of innovative interdisciplinary digital scholarship, will share...

Rick Perlstein (journalist, author of Nixonland) Saturday, November 5, 2011 / 9:30 AM – 4 PM McCune Conference Room, 6020 HSSB Application deadline: Monday, October 10 As part of its yearlong “Public Goods” series, the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center at UCSB invites interested faculty and other members...

Michael Madsen  (film director, conceptual artist) Tuesday, October 18, 2011 / 5:00 PM McCune Conference Room, 6020 HSSB Michael Madsen will talk about his own film, Into Eternity, and other media projects that engage questions of nuclear energy and security. Sponsored by the Critical Issues in America Series Speculative...

Wolf Kittler (Germanic, Slavic & Semitic Studies, UCSB) Colin Milburn (English,UCD) Friday, October 14, 2011 / 2:00-6:00 pm Wallis Annenberg conference room, SSMS 4315 Serving as an introduction to programs on Speculative Futures (the Critical Issues in America theme for 2011-2), the talks offer both history and post-mortem: the...

Salman Khan (founder of the Khan Academy) Monday, October 10, 2011 /  8:00 PM Campbell Hall Admission: $20 / UCSB Students $10 A hedge-fund manager turned internet superstar, Sal Khan is the founder of the Khan Academy, a free online educational platform and not-for-profit organization that streams educational lessons...