PIPE Workshop: Leticia Arroyo Abad & Noel Maurer
What Have the Americans Ever Done for Us? Lessons from the United States in Latin America, 1895-1929 The United States spent 20 years in Afghanistan attempting to achieve two interrelated aims: reduce the level of political instability and build Afghan state capacity. It partially succeeded in the first: the Afghan Read more…
Book Picks for March 2021
Announcing our March book picks: Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson and Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianismby Anne Applebaum.
“N*gga Theory”
Spectrum News 1 featured Jody Armour of the USC Gould School on his new book and the history of racist language deployed against Black people. “What makes so many people who aren’t Black feel like they have a license to use the word is because Blacks use the word in Read more…
September 2020 Bookclub Pick!
Six months in the COVID-19 pandemic, we thought it would be good to see how past pandemics have shaped our lives … and continue to do so. Steven Johnson’s The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World looks at Read more…
July 2020 Bookclub Pick
The July 2020 Bookclub pick is N.K. Jemisons The City We Became.
protests in downtown la
NBC News Los Angeles affiliate KNBC-TV featured Jody Armour on the protests in response to the murder of George Floyd. “There are some grievances here that are legitimate; the Floyd tape tore a scab off some festering wounds that haven’t completely healed.” Jody Armour Tweet Read the full article
The History Of Protests In Los Angeles: What Has Changed Since The Rodney King Riots
NPR featured Jody Armour of the USC Gould School on the history of protests in Los Angeles amid the response to the murder of George Floyd. He was also quoted in The New York Times (via The Associated Press) and interviewed on NBC News Los Angeles affiliate KNBC-TV and KCRW-FM. Read more…
Be thankful and deconstruct the myth
by Chrysa Perakis
While we attempt to recreate a Thanksgiving feast that united the Pilgrims and Native Americans we must ask ourselves: do we really know the history of this favorite national holiday? Is the focus on food masking the real story behind Thanksgiving?
Watchmen (HBO Series)
Host Erroll Southers is joined by Ange-Marie Hancock Alfaro, Alex Ago, and Aubrey Hicks to discuss the first episode of the new HBO series Watchmen.
Starring Regina King, Tim Blake Nelson, and an enormously talented ensemble cast, the series picks up beyond the first film and original DC comic series written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons. We are in an alternate version of the world, one in which the war in Vietnam was won and Vietnam annexed as a state. A world in which reparations of some sort were paid. A world in which the police wear masks and the great masked vigilantes of the past are now legends of a different kind.
We discuss the ability of pop culture to delved into deep societal issues, and what the responsibility of the creators is to historical content in a fictional setting.
Twitter: @BedrosianCenter @AubreyHi, @AngeMarieH, @esouthersHVE
Email: reel.review@usc.edu
Bedrosian Director wins journal award for analysis of American West settlers
By Matthew Kredell
In the early history of the United States, settlers moved west into unsurveyed land and built homes and farms without regard to land title.
As the country expanded, one of the federal government’s chief means of acquiring revenue was the sale of public land. When the government put land up for auction, frontier settlers were at risk of losing their homes or farms.
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (dir. David Yates)
2016 brought us back to the wizarding world of Harry Potter in the prequel to the beloved books and movies: Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them. 6 fictional months and two real life years later, we return to in Yates’ Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. Reviews have been Read more…
We Are Birds
From the left: Aubrey Hicks, Chris Finley, Frankie Morreo, Derek Duro, Jonathan Schwartz, Joanelle Romero, and Albert Chacon “Ay, every generation, every man is a part of his past. He cannot escape it, but he may reform the old materials, make something new –” – Rudolfo Anaya For many indigenous Read more…
Colette
Does the biopic about a 19th century French writer Colette bring her to life? This episode features a conversation on a film which seems to be of the moment. Gender dynamics, intellectual property, relationships … history. Host Jonathan Schwartz is joined by podcast favorites Ange-Marie Hancock Alfaro, Anita Dashiell-Sparks, and Alex Ago. @BedrosianCenter, @AubreyHi, @AngeMarieH, @esouthersHVE, @jonHLYP, @USCPrice, @AlessandroAgo To listen Read more…
The End: Death, Cemeteries, and Remembering
by Anthony Orlando Though we are sad to bid farewell to “Our American Discourse,” we welcome the opportunity to talk about farewells—indeed, the hardest farewells of all: those that happen after death. How do we say goodbye to the past? And what does our farewell mean for the lives gone before Read more…