Tag Archives: Big Picture Lecture Series

Big Picture Lecture Series: David Wilson

Don’t miss today’s Big Picture Lecture Series featuring David Wilson, who will speak on Nikolai Federov, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and the Roots of the Russian Space Program.

Wilson is the founding director of the Museum of Jurassic Technology (MJT), which he opened in 1988 in Culver City. MJT has exhibited internationally and Wilson has lectured throughout North America and Europe.

He has produced eight independent films, most recently under the auspices of MJT in conjunction with Kabinet, an arts and science-based cultural institution located in St. Petersburg, Russia. The latest of their collaborative efforts is titled Bol’shoe Sovietskia Zatmenie (The Great Soviet Eclipse).

In 2001, the MacArthur Foundation granted Wilson a fellowship in recognition of his accomplishments at the museum.

And don’t forget—podcasts of the lectures are up at Art Center’s iTunes U site.

Big Picture Lecture Series: David Wilson
Monday, November 15, 1 pm
Ahmanson Auditorium

The Zen Master’s Search for the Wild West

On Monday, Occidental College professor Dale Wright was on campus as part of the Big Picture lecture series to talk about Buddhism, Buddhist wisdom and creativity.

The most entertaining part of the talk, however, was the story of the Zen Master who came looking for the Wild West—and how he found it.

Wright met the Zen Master at a conference in New Mexico. The Master had traveled from Japan in large part because of his love for all things Western—especially Western movies. The first night of the conference, the Master talked Wright into walking into town in search of a “saloon.”

Wright tried to talk him out of it, explaining that things had changed, and that today’s cowboys rode pick-up trucks instead of horses. Not to mention, he doubted that there was a saloon in the small town, anyway.

The Master was not deterred, so he and Wright set out for town on foot—the Zen Master in his robe, wooden sandals and shaved head.

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Big Picture Lecture Series: Dale S. Wright

Don’t miss today’s Big Picture Lecture Series featuring Dale S. Wright, who will speak on Buddhist Wisdom and the Foundations of Ironic Humor is Zen.

Wright is the David and Mary Gamble Professor of Religious Studies and Asian Studies at Occidental College. His areas of expertise are Buddhist thought, particularly Chinese and Japanese, and modern continental European philosophy. Among his publications are Philosophical Meditations on Zen Buddhism, The Six Perfections: Buddhism and the Cultivation of Character and a series of Oxford University Press books on the history of Zen Buddhism.

And don’t forget—podcasts of the lectures are up at Art Center’s iTunes U site.

Big Picture Lecture Series: Dale S. Wright
Monday, November 8, 1 pm
Ahmanson Auditorium

Big Picture Lecture Series: Sandra Ball-Rokeach

Don’t miss today’s Big Picture Lecture Series featuring Sandra Ball-Rokeach, who will speak on The Seeds of Civic Engagement in Contemporary Urban Communities.

Ball-Rokeach is a communication and sociology professor at USC and principal investigator of the decade-long research program, Metamorphosis: Transforming the Ties that Bind.

The author and editor of six books, her latest, Understanding Ethnic Media: Produces, Consumers and Societies, will be published this year. She served as co-editor of Communication Research from 1992 to 1997, currently is a fellow of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues and the International Communication Association.

And don’t forget—podcasts of the lectures are up at Art Center’s iTunes U site.

Big Picture Lecture Series: Sandra Ball-Rokeach
Monday, November 1, 1 pm
Ahmanson Auditorium

Magonelli: The Long, Strange Trip from Gas Pump to Tank

“You are going to spend your entire career in a wind tunnel.”

Magonelli

This was Lisa Magonelli’s words of advice for those in attendance of her talk for Monday’s Big Picture Lecture Series. Magonelli was referring to the accelerating pace of change in the world, and how we are will have to innovate at a pace about three times the speed of the industrial revolution just to keep up. She noted that things are going to change so rapidly that “it will be powerfully disorienting.”

Margonelli directs the energy policy initiative at the New America Foundation, a non-partisan think tank based in Washington, D.C. She spent four years following the oil supply chain to write Oil on the Brain: Petroleum’s Long, Strange Trip to Your Tank, published in 2008. Recognized as one of the 25 Notable Books of 2007 by the American Library Association, Oil On the Brain also won a 2008 Northern California Book Award for general nonfiction.

Her talk Monday was a cautionary tale. She spoke about America’s dependence on oil, and how that shapes our communities and lives—as well as the challenges we will face as we move away from oil dependence.

Margonelli on gas pump design: “Gas pumps are now designed to look and feel like ATM machines because studies have shown that we feel warmly towards them. As consumers, we want to feel better about buying gasoline.”

On our dependence on oil: “We are creating this very lasting and complicated relationship with the Middle East.”

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Big Picture Lecture Series: Lisa Margonelli

Don’t miss today’s Big Picture Lecture Series featuring Lisa Margonelli.

Margonelli directs the energy policy initiative at the New America Foundation, a non-partisan think tank based in Washington, D.C. She spent four years following the oil supply chain to write Oil on the Brain: Petroleum’s Long, Strange Trip to Your Tank , published in 2008. Recognized as one of the 25 Notable Books of 2007 by the American Library Association, Oil On the Brain also won a 2008 Northern California Book Award for general nonfiction.

And don’t forget—podcasts of the lectures are up at Art Center’s iTunes U site.

Big Picture Lecture Series: Lisa Margonelli
Monday, October 25, 1 pm
Ahmanson Auditorium

Big Picture Lecture Series: Hershel Parker

Don’t miss Monday’s Big Picture Lecture Series featuring Hershel Parker.

Parker is the author of Herman Melville, A Biography; Flawed Texts and Verbal Icons and Reading Billy Budd, among others.

Professor emeritus of English at the University of Delaware, Parker co-edited the Norton Critical Edition of Moby Dick and served as editor of the Norton Critical Edition of The Confidence Man. He is associate general editor of the Northwestern-Newberry edition of The Writings of Herman Melville.

And don’t forget—podcasts of the lectures are up at Art Center’s iTunes U site.

Big Picture Lecture Series: Hershel Parker
Monday, October 4, 1 pm
Ahmanson Auditorium

Big Picture Lecture Series Kicks Off Today

It’s the start of the term and that means one thing: a new Big Picture Lecture series. The Toyota Motor Corporation Endowed Lecture Series brings visionary thinkers from around the world to campus to discuss the cultural and political currents shaping art and design.

The series kicks off today at 1 pm in the Ahmanson Auditorium at Hillside Campus. All lectures are free and open to the public. Coming up for Fall Term:

September 27: Joann Kuchera-Morin, Composing in N-Dimensions
Joann Kuchera-Morin is a composer, professor and researcher in multi-modal media systems, content and facilities design. The culmination of Kuchera-Morin’s research efforts is the one-of-a-kind Allosphere Research Facility—of which Kuchera-Morin serves as director—at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her years of experience in digital media research led to the creation of the University of California’s multi-million dollar sponsored research program, the Digital Media Innovation Program, of which Kuchera-Morin served as chief scientist from 1998 to 2003.

October 4: Hershel Parker, My 50 Years with the Confidence-Man
Hershel Parker is the author of Herman Melville, A Biography; Flawed Texts and Verbal Icons and Reading Billy Budd, among others. Professor emeritus of English at the University of Delaware, Parker co-edited the Norton Critical Edition of Moby Dick and served as editor of the Norton Critical Edition of The Confidence Man. He is associate general editor of the Northwestern-Newberry edition of The Writings of Herman Melville.

October 25: Lisa Margonelli, Designing for Cognitive Dissonance: The Weird Relationship Between Gas Pumps and US Energy Policy
Lisa Margonelli directs the energy policy initiative at the New America Foundation, a non-partisan think tank based in Washington, D.C. She spent four years following the oil supply chain to write Oil on the Brain: Petroleum’s Long, Strange Trip to Your Tank , published in 2008. Recognized as one of the 25 Notable Books of 2007 by the American Library Association, Oil On the Brain also won a 2008 Northern California Book Award for general nonfiction.

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Big Picture Lecture Series: Paul Vangelisti

Don’t miss today’s Big Picture Lecture Series featuring Paul Vangelisti.

Vangelisti is a poet and broadcaster who has written more than 20 books of poetry. A noted Italian translator, he helped create the graduate writing program at Otis.

Have there been any lectures that you missed? You’re in luck—podcasts of the lectures are up at Art Center’s iTunes U site.

Big Picture Lecture Series: Paul Vangelisti
Monday, July 26, 1 pm
Los Angeles Time Media Center

Big Picture Lecture Series: Jean-Pierre Hebert

Don’t miss Monday’s Big Picture Lecture Series featuring Jean-Pierre Hebert, who will present the lecture, Art and Science.

Artist-in-residence at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Hebert’s 40-year interest in mathematics, physics, music and computer science has resulted in the production of a large body of work at the intersection of art and science.

Big Picture Lecture Series: Jean-Pierre Hebert
Art and Science
Monday, July 19, 1 pm
Los Angeles Time Media Center