ALOUD @ Los Angeles Public Library

There’s one major aspect of the popular Gold Rush lore that few Californians today know about: during that period, California’s Indian population plunged from perhaps 150,000 to 30,000, much of the decline from state-sponsored slaughter. Addressing the aftermath of colonization and historical trauma, a leading scholar explores the miraculous legacy of California Indians, including their extensive contributions to our culture today. Join us for a conversation with UCLA historian Benjamin Madley, author of the groundbreaking study: An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873. This program was produced as part of The Getty's Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA initiative.  

Stephen Greenblatt—the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award–winning author of The Swerve and Will in the World—investigates the life of one of humankind’s greatest stories. His newest book, The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve, explores the enduring narrative of humanity’s first parents. Tracking the tale into the deep past, Greenblatt uncovers the tremendous theological, artistic, and cultural investment over centuries that made these fictional figures so profoundly resonant in the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim worlds and also so very “real” to millions of people even in the present. In a conversation with Jack Miles, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of God: A Biography, Greenblatt will demystify how—for better or worse—the biblical origin story permeates our lives today.

In Danielle Allen’s elegiac family memoir, Cuz: On the Life and Times of Michael A., she tries to make sense of a young African American man’s tragic coming-of-age in Los Angeles. Allen, a Harvard professor and author of Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality, became the “cousin-on-duty” when her younger cousin Michael was released from prison. Arrested at fifteen, tried as an adult—three years after his release, Michael was shot and killed. Why? Allen’s deeply personal and poignant story is an unwavering look at a world transformed by the sudden availability of narcotics and the rise of street gangs, drugs, and the failures of mass incarceration. Rallying an urgent call for system-wide reform, Allen discusses her new work with Franklin Leonard, a film executive who founded The Black List, a yearly publication featuring Hollywood’s most popular unproduced screenplays.

The program was conducted in both Spanish and English.  With the likes of Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, Mexico has a long tradition of politically engaged public art which has often depicted—with varying degrees of accuracy—the country’s indigenous population. Two gifted young artists from the collective Tlacolulokos have been commissioned to create a new artwork in the Central Library’s Rotunda in juxtaposition to the 1933 historic Cornwell murals. They will discuss their new work as well as their street-level actions in their hometown of Tlacolula, Oaxaca, with the godfather of Cholo writing, Chaz Bojórquez and project curator Amanda De La Garza. What is the role of clandestine art actions as a form of political dissent? How effective is it? What are the parallels and differences between how street art is used in Mexico and the United States? Simultaneous translation was provided by Antena Los Ángeles. This program was produced as part of The Getty's Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA initiative. 

Two generations of African writers—Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, an elder statesman from Kenya, and Richard Ali A Mutu, a young novelist from the Democratic Republic of the Congo—discuss the politics of writing in African languages, the vibrancy of the continent’s cultural output, and exciting new trends in East, West, and Central African writing. Thiong’o and Mutu will be joined for a rare look at groundbreaking indigenous voices by David Shook, the founding editor of Phoneme Media and publisher of Mutu’s debut novel, Mr. Fix-It, the first novel written in Lingala to be translated into English.

Ali Noorani, the executive director of the National Immigration Forum in Washington, D.C., an advocacy organization promoting the value of immigrants and immigration, sheds new light on our nation’s brewing immigration debate in his timely book, There Goes the Neighborhood: How Communities Overcome Prejudice and Meet the Challenge of American Immigration. Although U.S. politics are more polarizing than ever, Noorani argues that our issues of immigration are more about culture and values than politics and policy. In his book, Noorani follows the personal stories of Americans from across the political spectrum, including conservative faith, business, and law enforcement leaders, who are grappling with the question: “Do we, as Americans, value immigrants and immigration anymore?” Exploring how immigration is affecting the changing nature of American identity, Noorani talks with Pilar Marrero, a journalist and author of Killing the American Dream, a chronicle of U.S. immigration policy mishaps.

Join us for an electrifying evening of poetry as four bold writers from diverse backgrounds come together on the stage to explore their common experiences of loss through time and history. Navigating losses of home, of life, and of identity—from a family displaced by war to an examination of videos capturing police killing civilians—these local poets will read from their uncompromising work that perseveres despite loss by searching for ways to rise up and recover.

An award-winning writer of short stories, children’s books, and literary novels, Maile Meloy’s new novel Do Not Become Alarmed is a masterfully executed emotional thriller about what happens when two American families go on a tropical vacation and the children go missing. New York Times bestselling author Marisa Silver’s latest novel, Little Nothing, follows an electrifying story of a girl, scorned for her physical deformity, whose passion and salvation lie in her otherworldly ability to transform herself and the world around her. Join us as Meloy and Silver share the stage to discuss their gripping work that entrances with literary precision while subverting expectations with every turn of the page.

Twenty years after her Booker Prize-winning novel The God of Small Things, internationally celebrated author Arundhati Roy returns to fiction with a dazzling new novel. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness journeys across the Indian subcontinent—from the cramped neighborhoods of Old Delhi and the roads of the new city to the mountains and valleys of Kashmir and beyond, where war is peace and peace is war. Braiding together a cast of characters who have been broken by the world they live in and then rescued, and patched together by acts of love and hope, Roy reinvents what a novel can be and reminds readers of her remarkable storytelling talents. Reading from this new novel and discussing her impressive body of work that includes recent nonfiction books such as Field Notes on Democracy and most recently Things That Can and Cannot Be Said, Roy joins prize-winning novelist and former L.A. Times columnist, Héctor Tobar for a very special evening of storytelling.Co-presented with JACCC and Scripps Presents

From growing up as a devout woman from a modest family in Saudia Arabia to becoming an unexpected leader of a courageous movement to support women’s right to drive, Manal al-Sharif recounts her life’s journey in her ferociously intimate new memoir Daring to Drive: A Saudi Woman’s Awakening. When working in the male-dominated field of computer security engineering in her twenties, al-Sharif was labeled a slut for chatting with male colleagues. Her teenage brother chaperoned her on business trips, and while she kept a car in her garage, she was forbidden from driving down city streets behind the wheel. No longer able to tolerate the Saudi kingdom’s contradictions, al-Sharif stood up to a kingdom of men—and won. Discussing her powerful story of resilience with Kelly McEvers, co-host of NPR’s All Things Considered, al-Sharif explores the difficulties, absurdities, and joys of making your voice heard.

Alan Alda, the award-winning actor and bestselling author, discusses his decades-long quest to understand the intricacies of communication. With his trademark humor and candor, Alda’s new book, If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face?: My Adventures in the Art and Science of Relating and Communicating, chronicles communication breakdowns in his own life from a life-changing misunderstanding with a dentist to learning how to make science relatable to the masses as host of PBS’s Scientific American Frontiers. Drawing on improvisation training, theater, and storytelling techniques from a life of acting, and with insights from recent scientific studies, Alda equips himself with a range of tools to relate to others more effectively. Sharing with audiences his strategies to build empathy and improve the way we communicate, Alda will demonstrate the art of conversation as he talks with Lisa Wolpe—a master communicator in her own right as an actress, director, teacher, and the Artistic Director and Founder of the Los Angeles Women’s Shakespeare Company.

Ever since J. Edgar Hoover died, six weeks before the Watergate break-in, the FBI has had to confront presidents. FBI investigations led to President Nixon’s resignation, indictments of President Reagan’s national-security team, and the impeachment of President Clinton. Now the current administration faces a major counterintelligence case. When the FBI confronts the power of the presidency, America must navigate uncharted waters. Tim Weiner, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for his work on American intelligence and national security, addresses these looming confrontations and the challenges they pose for American democracy.

Why do we do the things we do? Author and MacArthur recipient Robert Sapolsky’s game-changing new book Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst attempts to answer this very question, one of the deepest questions of the human species. Moving between neurobiological factors, to the sensory world of our environment and endocrinology, to tracing individual’s childhoods and their genetic makeup, to encompassing larger categories of culture, ecology, and evolution, Sapolsky considers millions of years of science to wrestle with why we ultimately do the things we do…for good and for ill. Discussing his staggering work with evolutionary biologist Amy Parish, Sapolsky takes us on an engrossing tour of the science of human behavior.For photos from the program, click here. 

 From searing stories of suspense to literary novels, historical fiction, and film and television scripts, no other writer today has such a wide-ranging body of work like Dennis Lehane. The international bestselling author and screenwriter is best known for his edgy, morally complex, and effortlessly masterful stories that often take place in his hometown of Boston. Now a resident of Los Angeles, many of Lehane’s novels have been adapted into award-winning films, including Mystic River, Shutter Island, Gone, Baby, Gone, and the recently released prohibition-era drama Live by Night. His new book, Since We Fell, follows the psychological drama of Rachel Childs, a former journalist who after an on-air mental breakdown, must reckon with the truths of her new reality. Join us for a special evening with Lehane as he discusses his latest work, his dynamic storytelling, and genre-breaking career with fellow book and screen writer Attica Locke.For photos from the program, click here. 

 Since 1916 when Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves—the powerful aftermath occurring when black holes collide—scientists have been trying to provide evidence of this profusion of energy. However, a telescope cannot record this event—the only evidence is the sound of spacetime ringing. Janna Levin, one of today’s most eminent theoretical astrophysicists and an award-winning writer, recounts the fascinating story of the surprises, disappointments, achievements, and risks of the scientists who embarked on an epic endeavor to capture the first sounds from space in her latest book, Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space. Join us as Levin explores this radical scientific campaign to record the soundtrack of our universe with cosmologist Sean Carroll.For photos from the program, click here.