From Auld Lang Syne to Henei Ma Tov, from Sanskrit devotionals to gospel spirituals, join us for an evening of songs new and old drawn from various faith and folk traditions, with perhaps some surprising new lyrics set to familiar tunes. No singing experience necessary, a willingness to participate is the only requirement. Appropriate for all ages. Let us Sing!
Dec 16, 2010•59 min
Harvey, a poetic and passionate mystic and writer, suggests that what unites all religions \"is a truth that the service of God is putting love into action.\" He discusses his dramatic life conversion from mysticism to mystic activism with the Rector of Pasadena's All Saint's Church-known for its focus on social justice initiatives.
Dec 08, 2010•1 hr 8 min
Filmmakers Jessum and Joseph explore the meaning and value of inter-faith dialogue with selected representatives of the more than 40 devotional communities in Los Angeles profiled in their award-winning new documentary.
Dec 03, 2010•1 hr 8 min
In his new Novel, Luka and the Fire of Life, written for his youngest son, Rushdie explores the relationships between fathers and sons, life and death, the real and the imagined, freedom and authority. Join us for an evening with one of the world's most celebrated authors.
Dec 01, 2010•1 hr 22 min
In a groundbreaking new account, Rowley describes the remarkable courage and lack of convention-private and public-that kept FDR and Eleanor together.
Nov 30, 2010•1 hr 13 min
Balakian's new collection of poems explore the aftermath of 9/11 through layered perspectives of myth, history, and personal memory; a panoramic work of contemporary witness in a new age of American uncertainty.
Nov 23, 2010•1 hr 20 min
Turner's poems reflect his experiences as a soldier--seven years in the US Army, including a year as infantry team leader in Iraq--with penetrating lyric power and compassion.
Nov 19, 2010•1 hr 15 min
A Pulitzer-Prize willing biographer boldly separates fact from fiction to rescue the queen from her own hazy legend, subtly and originally probing classical sources to yield a fresh, thrilling account of a remarkable woman.
Nov 17, 2010•1 hr 4 min
This long-awaited work, assembled by Reza Aslan, features literature from countries as diverse as Morocco and Iran, Turkey and Pakistan, many presented in English for the first time. Celebrate this landmark publication with a stellar cast who will read from a diverse selection of authors- from Khalil Gibran to Naguib Mahfouz, from Orhan Pamuk to the grand dame of Urdu fiction, Ismat Chughtai.
Nov 10, 2010•1 hr 14 min
The acclaimed historian offers a love story, an intimate account of the life of a major artist, and an exercise in self-revelation, based on thirty-three years of marriage.
Nov 09, 2010•1 hr 10 min
The author of the bestseller The History of Love offers a soaring novel about a stolen desk that contains the secrets, and becomes the obsession of the lives it passes through.
Nov 03, 2010•59 min
A land of palm trees and movie stars, sunshine and glamour, Los Angeles inhabits a place of the mind as much as it does a physical geographic space. Often imagined of as a kind of paradise, the actual reality of the city is far more complex. Join us for cartographic history of the City of Angels from the colonial era to the present, with Creason, author and LAPL map librarian and Waldie, cultural critic and author of Holy Land.
Oct 29, 2010•1 hr 16 min
Danticat, the acclaimed Haitian-American novelist, tells the stories of artists who create despite, or because of, the horrors that drove them from their homelands and that continue to haunt them.
Oct 27, 2010•1 hr 12 min
What is Latino literature? Who writes it? Who reads it? Explore a rich literary tradition of five centuries of writing from two continents and 10 countries, from letters to the Spanish crown, to U.S. urbanites who grow up speaking Spanglish. Join this national conversation about the contribution of Latino writing to American culture.
Oct 22, 2010•1 hr 13 min
One of the most gifted and best known Native American writers today offers this highly original self-portrait, steeped in Native American storytelling traditions, that weaves together family/personal memoir with an accounting of the creatures and landscapes that inform her vision of the world.
Oct 21, 2010•1 hr 20 min
The New Yorker music critic leads an audio tour of several hundred years of music history, from Renaissance lute songs to Led Zeppelin, showing how certain motifs of celebration and lament recur in many different contexts and cultures.
Oct 20, 2010•1 hr 20 min
O'Neill, a former barrister and PEN/Faulkner award-winning author of the novel Netherland has written a brilliant inquiry propelled by the unexplained incarcerations of both his grandfathers (one Irish, one Turkish) during the Second World War.
Oct 15, 2010•59 min
Set among the mid-forties denizens of Manhattan's SoHo-the new novel by the Pulitzer-Prize winning author of The Hours takes a deep look at the meaning of beauty and the place of love in our lives.
Oct 13, 2010•1 hr 3 min
Appiah, a leading philosopher (\"America's Socrates\") and a professor at Princeton University, demonstrates that honor is the driving force in the struggle against man's inhumanity to man.
Oct 08, 2010•1 hr 17 min
What causes a child to grow up gay or straight or bisexual? Neuroscientist LeVay summarizes where the quest for a biological explanation of sexual orientation stands today, taking us on a tour of laboratories that specialize in genetics, endocrinology, neuroscience, cognitive psychology, evolutionary psychology and more.
Oct 06, 2010•1 hr 15 min
Join us for a mind-boggling multi-media tour through the early days of an institution whose alumni left their fingerprints all over popular culture: Animal House, Caddyshack, Saturday Night Live, Ghostbusters, SCTV, Spinal Tap, In Living Color, Ren & Stimpy, and The Simpsons. Long before there was The Onion and Comedy Central, there was the National Lampoon.
Oct 05, 2010•1 hr 28 min
More than half of the worlds' 1.3 billion Muslims live along the tenth parallel, as do roughly sixty percent of the world's 2 billion Christians. Griswold, award-winning poet and investigative journalist, traveled for seven years on the tenth parallel, examining the complex relationship of religion, land, oil; local conflicts and global ideology; politics and contemporary martyrdom, both Islamic and Christian.
Oct 01, 2010•1 hr 17 min
Join us for an illuminating journey through history, geopolitics, and religion to investigate whether Islam is indeed the cause of some of today's most important international crises and how we might move conversations beyond religious and ideological divides.
Sep 29, 2010•1 hr 24 min
Hyde--MacArthur Fellow and author of the ground breaking study of art and commerce The Gift--offers a stirring defense of our cultural commons, that vast store of art and ideas we inherited from the past which continues to enrich the present.
Sep 24, 2010•1 hr 6 min
A Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter chronicles a watershed event in American history-- the decades-long migration of African Americans from the South to the North and West--through the stories of three individuals and their families.
Sep 23, 2010•1 hr 18 min
The new novel by the celebrated author of Anywhere But Here tells the story of two women whose lives entwine and unfold behind the glittery surface of Hollywood.
Sep 22, 2010•1 hr 4 min
In Freedom, his first novel since The Corrections Franzen comically and tragically captures the thrills of teenage lust, the shaken compromises of middle age, the wages of suburban sprawl, the temptations and burdens of liberty, and the heavy weight of empire.
Sep 17, 2010•1 hr 20 min
Fascinating stories of key Supreme Court decisions, told from a unique perspective, illuminate this original and accessible theory of the United States Supreme Court's responsibility and integrity.
Sep 16, 2010•1 hr 20 min
Trombley, the preeminent Twain scholar at work today (and the president of Pitzer College), cracks open the enduring mystery of Mark Twain's final decade to reveal the true story of Isabel Lyon, the \"forgotten woman\" who haunts the official Twain narrative.
Jul 28, 2010•1 hr 11 min
A panel discussion and conversation about a public art theater project that chronicles the emergence of a permanent community and culture in what has been perceived as a transient Skid Row. Join the social and artistic visionaries who have contributed to reweaving the social fabric of Skid Row.
Jul 23, 2010•1 hr 31 min