Distinguished Visiting Speakers

Melissa Brough (COMS)
Guest Speaker: Alexandra Halkin
The Chiapas Media Project: From the Zapatistas and Beyond

Jose Luis Benavides (JOUR)
Guest Speaker: Todd Miller
Empire Borders, Migration, and Climate Change
Todd Miller will speak about how the border industrial complex has boomed in the United States since the 1990s, it has created a Border Patrol paranoia in the country, and it has been financed and exported to a world where displacement due to economic, physical, and environmental violence has become the norm. Miller will also speak about how people across the world are getting organized to resisting and storming the walls of this new global border order.

Date: April 19, 2019
Time: 2:00 to 4:00 pm
Location: Ferman Presentation Room, Oviatt Library

 Daniela Gerson (JOUR)
Guest Speaker: An Xiao Mina
Memes to Movements: How the World's Most Viral Media is Changing Social Protest and Power
Using social media-driven movements as her guide, technologist and digital media scholar An Xiao Mina will unpack the mechanics of memes. She finds that the "silly" stuff of meme culture--the photo remixes, the selfies, the YouTube songs, and the pun-tastic hashtags--are fundamentally intertwined with how we find and affirm one another, direct attention to human rights and social justice issues, build narratives, and make culture. In an interactive talk, Mina will introduce her new book Memes to Movements, which is a global exploration of internet memes as agents of pop culture, politics, protest, and propaganda.

Date: February 25, 2019 
Time: 11:00am-1pm
Location: TBA

 A.J. McCaffrey (MUSIC)
Guest: HOCKET Piano Duo
HOCKET Piano Duo in residence at CSUN

Pavi Prasad (COMS)
Guest Speaker: Nikki Yeboah
The (M)Others: A Community-based Oral History Workshop and Performance

Jinah Kim (COMS)
Guest Speaker: David Stovall
Justice and the Inevitability of the Fight 
Dr. Stovall will be the opening keynote speaker for an all-day Student Research Conference focused on Social Justice and Student Activism. His talk draws on his scholarship on social justice education and his experience working with community organizations, youth, and schools. It will address how to teach towards justice and how educators can be a force for change.

Date: May 7, 2019
Time: 9pm-5pm
Location: USU

Sakile Camara (COMS)
Guest Speaker: Joshua Oduga
Leveling Up at CSUN: Create Your Own Career

Taehyun Kim (JOUR)
Guest Speaker: David Kang
U.S. Diplomacy toward De-nuclearization of North Korea and U.S. News Media
North Korea expert Dr. David Kang of USC will discuss his assessment on Trump Administration’s NK Policy as well as other intricate interdependent international relationship among Republic of Korea, China, Japan and North Korea.  Furthermore, he will discuss how the U.S. news media portrayal of Kim Jong Un and North Korean society influence U.S. public opinion.

Date: February 7, 2019
Time: 5pm-6:30pm
Location: Oviatt Presentation Room

Allessandro Jacchia (CTVA)
Guest Speaker: Craig Huston
PRO AD SEMINAR

Liviu Marinescu (MUSIC)
Guest: Brightwork New Music Ensemble
Composition Workshop with Brightwork New Music Ensemble
Brightwork newmusic will present a concert of chamber works by contemporary composers. A flexible and fearless group of world-class musicians, Brightwork seeks to draw the audience into the creative process of music making, from both the composers and performers perspectives.

Date: Sunday, March 10, 2019
Time: 7:30pm-9:30pm
Location: Cypress Recital Hall

Mark Farquhar (ART)
Guest Speaker: Josh Epstien
Practical Lighting for Artist and Filmmakers

Wednesday October 25th, 2017
Time to Speak Your Mind

EOP Free Speech Event 2017

The Educational Opportunity Programs (EOP) is proud to host it’s annual Free Speech Event. A celebration of freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment. EOP encourages the entire CSUN community to participate at this event through speech, spoken word, poetry, music art or dance. 

Date: 
Wednesday, October 25th from 11AM-1PM

Venue: 
Matador Square (Near USU) 

Register: 
www.surveymonkey.com/r/eopfse  

Monday November 13, 2017
A Trans Awareness Week Event (Film Screening with Q&A)

Becoming Johanna 

(2016, dir. Jonathan Skurnik) 27 min.

Film screening followed by a Q&A with Jonanna and the filmmaker, Jonathan Skurnik.

When Johanna, a 16-year-old transgender Latina, begins her transition and gets kicked out of her home and school, she finds a foster family who loves her and a supportive school principal who helps her graduate and thrive.

The Pride Center and the Department of Communication Studies present this free screening of BECOMING JOHANNA followed by a special, thought-provoking"create your own superhero" activity celebrating transgender identitities and exploring issues faced within the trans community.

Date: 
Monday, Nov. 13, 2017 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. 
Doors open at 3:30 p.m.

Venue: 
Northridge Center in the University Student Union

Friday November 17, 2017

Stage Managing KA by Cirque du Soleil

Stacey Meyers

Stacey Myers has been a stage manager for one of the world’s largest and most challenging shows, KA by Cirque du Soleil, since it’s creation in 2005. In this presentation she will share insight and advice about working with artists from more than 20 different countries (dancers, acrobats, stunt people, actors, musicians, and technicians), safety and management techniques within a multi-billion dollar arts organization, and give insight and tips into management skills and people skills that extend beyond the theatre world. The session will close with a Q and A portion.

Date: 
Friday, Nov. 17, 2017 from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. 
Doors open at 2:45 p.m.

Venue: 
Little Theatre

Friday Feb. 16, 2018

George Colligan Masterclass

Jazz pianist, composer, multi-instrumentalist, and educator George Colligan will present a performance and masterclass. In addition to some performing with his trio (featuring Dave Robaire and Steve Hass), Colligan will discuss the art of non-verbal conversation within the jazz idiom. Students may also get an opportunity to perform.

Date: 
Friday, February 16, 2018 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. 
Doors open at 1:30 p.m.

Venue: 
Cypress Recital Hall [CY158]

Thursday April 2, 2018

Environmental and Online Activism: Making Independent Documentary Films in Contemporary China

Plastic China

(2016, dir. Jiu-Liang Wang) 86 min.

Screening of the award-winning documentary Plastic China (2016) that looks into the environmental and human casualties of plastic waste recycling industries in relation to global consumerism, followed by a talk from Professor Sheldon Lu (University of California, Davis) discussing the Environmental and Online Activism as presented in Chinese independent documentary films.  

Date: 
Thursday, April 2, 2018 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. 
Doors open at 10:30 a.m.

Venue: 

AS Sustainability Center 104

The Ethics and Techniques of Photographing Sports and Politics

November 16, 2016
4:00-6:00pm
VPAC’s Kurland Lecture Hall, Room LA 181

From the Olympics to the presidential campaign trail, a special presentation by professional photojournalists Mark Terrill and Robert Hanashiro.

Faculty Grant Recipient: David Blumenkrantz 

 Digital Journalism that Reaches the Country and the World

December 1, 2016
3:00-4:30pm
Armer Theater

While journalist are working on new platforms, through social media and under changing expectations, opportunities to reach new and larger audiences are developing constantly. Curtis Brainard will discuss the landscape in the U.S. and abroad. Brainard is the director of digital operations at Scientific American and the current President of the World Federation of Science Journalists.  

Faculty Grant Recipient: Gretchen  Macchiarella

From Sinope to CSUN

Feb. 17-March 3 2016 (Official opening Feb. 17 at 6:00pm)
CSUN Art Galleries West Gallery

"From Sinope to CSUN" is a collaboration between CSUN Professor Owen Doonan and artist Sven Anderson, a leading acoustical artist based in Dublin Ireland.  The exhibition will be a multimedia representation of spaces and experiential abstract narratives relating to Doonan’s excavation site of Sinop kale in Turkey.  The acoustical experience will be based on field recordings made by Doonan and Anderson in collaboration with Sinopale, a local artists collective based in Sinop.  The installation in Northridge will form the basis for a similar installation at the Explorers Club in New York and we foresee comprising the basis of an eventual permanent installation at the archaeological site. 


Faculty Grant Recipient: Owen Doonan

Masterclass with David Russell, Classical Guitarist

February 20, 2017
11:00am- 2:00pm
Cypress Recital Hall

David Russell, the Grammy Award-Winning classical guitarist, will hold a master class on performance. The students performing  will be from the Bachelor of Music and Masters of Music in Classical Guitar Performance programs.

Faculty Grant Recipient: Steven Thachuk

Gender, Migration, Memory, and Human Rights—The Documentary Film Journalism of Marcela Zamora

March 10, 2017 (tentative)
2:00pm (tentative)
Whitsett Room (tentative)

Salvadoran filmmaker and journalist Marcela Zamora will talk about how issues of gender, migration, memory, and human rights are portrayed in her films and are relevant to the contemporary reality of El Salvador. “Zamora does documentary film journalism, long-form visual narratives,” writes Alberto Arce for the New York Times.

Faculty Grant Recipient: José-Luis Benevides 

Christina Fernandez, Artist Lecture 

April 6, 2017 (Thursday)
2pm
AC 300 (Purple Crit Room)

Living & Sustaining a Creative Life: The Artist as Culture Producer 

April 13, 2017 
11:00am-12:30pm
CSUN Art Galleries

The Artist as Culture Producer: Living and Sustaining a Creative Life is a collection of essays by 40 visual artists. The book describes how artists extend their practices outside of their studios. All of these contributors have impactful, artistic activities as change agents in their communities. Their first-hand stories show the general public how contemporary artists of the 21st century add to creative economies through their out-of-the-box thinking while also generously contributing to the well-being of others. Although there is a misconception that artists are invisible and hidden, the truth is that they furnish measurable and innovative outcomes at the front lines of education, the non-profit sector, and corporate environments.

The Art Department is presenting a book signing and panel discussion of The Artist as Culture Producer with it's editor, Sharon Louden and Hrag Vartanian, Co-Founder of Hyperallergic. The book will be available for purchase.

Faculty Grant Recipient:  Samantha Fields

Speculative Futures of Race: A Symposium

Friday, April 14th, 2017
9:00am–9:00pm.
Various venues on CSUN campus.

Speculative Futures of Race is a one-day symposium addressing imaginative futurist approaches to critical issues around race. Drawing from theory and practice, art and activism, this symposium focuses on all that falls under the monikers of Afrofuturism, Arabfuturism, Latinofuturism, Indigenous Futurism, Afrosurrealism and Astroblackness, including radical ontologies of becoming, posthumanism, and performance. Speakers, panelists, and artists come together to explore how speculation about our collective futures affect racial identity, global citizenship, politics, art, and ecological networks. The symposium draws perspectives from critical communication studies and media studies, gender and sexuality studies, critical race theory, postcolonial theory, African-American studies, philosophy, music, art, activism, and literature. 

Faculty Grant Recipient: Pavithra Prasad

The Imitative Real: Recalibrating Drag, Artificial Intelligence, and the Asian American Body

April 19, 2017
Time to be determined
Location to be determined

This talk rereads Alan Turing’s test for artificial intelligence by way of Asian American gendered drag, and introduces my concept of the “imitative real.” As a feminist formulation, "the imitative real" rearticulates how the "artificial" is a space of play that oscillates between binaristic logics into possibilities of digital transgression. 

Faculty Grant Recipient: Ben Attias

Guest Artist Recital: Jonah Sirota, viola

Wednesday, April 19, 2017
7:30-9:00pm
Cypress Recital Hall

Violist Jonah Sirota presents a program of works for solo viola and viola with piano accompaniment commissioned by him, including a world premiere by CSUN faculty member A.J. McCaffrey.

Faculty Grant Recipient: A.J. McCaffrey

• Ben Attias (COMS) – Performance/workshop “DJ Culture in the Mix”
• Frances Gateward (CTVA) – Classroom/department Visit by Dr. Bambi Haggis
• Lesley Krane (Art) – Classroom/department visit by John Humble
• A.J. McCaffrey (MUS) – Workshop/performance by HOCKET
• Liviu Marinescu (MUS) – Workshop/performance by the Nimbus Ensemble
• Hillary Miller (Theatre) – Performance/workshop by Guillermo Gomez-Pena
• Pavithra Prasad (COMS) – Performance/workshop by Dr. Amira de la Garza
• David Sannerud (MUS) – Performance/workshop by Dr. Armen Guzelimian
• Kathryn Sorrells (COMS) – Lecture by Anita Sarkeesian