Zócalo Public Square

Comedian Max Amini, comedian and performance artist Kristina Wong, and Skidmore College scholar and author of All Joking Aside: American Humor and Its Discontents Beck Krefting talked with writer Carina Chocano about their thoughts on political correctness and humor at a Zócalo/UCLA event. They didn't always agree on where to draw the line and how to decide whether to make a joke, but they did agree that humor that bullies individuals or targets certain groups is decidedly unfunny.

At a Zócalo/UCLA event moderated by Reuters editor Lisa Girion, Sam Quinones, author of Dreamland: True Tales of America’s Opiate Epidemic, UCLA legal scholar and health policy expert Jill Horwitz, Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Benjamin Barron, and Larissa Mooney, Director of the UCLA Addiction Medicine Clinic, discussed a public health crisis that has killed more than 200,000 Americans in the past decade and affects 20 million people today: opioid addiction. They offered their experiences, research, and thoughts on what is driving this problem and how we can combat it.

At a Zócalo/Democracy Internationa event moderated by Zócalo executive editor Andrés Martinez, German lawyer and journalist Max Steinbeis of the Reef; International IDEA senior manager Annette Fath-Lihic and Swissinfo deputy editor-in-chief Reto Gysi von Wartburg discussed the challenges that digital media pose for journalists and for democracy. They talked extensively about the perils of social media and the need for media organizations to build trust, and they warned against overregulating media in response to media abuses.

What challenges are struggling Los Angeles communities facing, and what are individuals, organizations, and government doing to improve these neighborhoods? These were some of the questions tackled at a Zócalo/The California Wellness Foundation event at MOCA Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles. Los Angeles City Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson, UC Irvine criminologist Charis E. Kubrin, St. John’s Well Child and Family Center/Harbor-UCLA Medical Center pediatrician Chris Mink, and GRYD Foundation president Adrienne Newsom spoke about their work and their hopes for the future at a panel moderated by Zócalo editorial director Sara Catania.

At a Zócalo/MOCA event moderated by Artillery editor Tulsa Kinney, Rhodes College art historian David McCarthy, ceramicist and Gulf War veteran Ehren Tool, and writer, curator, and professor of visual studies at the California College of the Arts Karen Fiss discussed the intersection of art, war, politics, and commerce. The wide-ranging conversation touched on the work of contemporary Swiss installation artist Thomas Hirschhorn as well as Picasso's Guernica and even Jeff Koons as the panelists tackled the questions of whether artists are obligated to address war in a time of war, and whether art creates unique safe spaces to consider hot-button issues.

Residents of California’s fast-growing Inland Empire—Riverside and San Bernardino counties—endure some of the nation’s dirtiest air and longest commutes. They earn lower wages and work longer hours than others in the state, and many find it’s harder to create time for family and neighbors. Despite these stresses, Inland Empire residents participating in the California Wellness Foundation’s Advancing Wellness poll revealed a community that embraces its diversity and perceives itself optimistically—powerful signs that point to a bright future. Greer Sullivan, director of UC Riverside’s Center for Healthy Communities, Rev. Samuel J. Casey, executive director of Congregations Organized for Prophetic Engagement, Luz Gallegos, community programs director at TODEC Legal Center, and research economist John Husing visited Zócalo at the Riverside Art Museum to examine what it will take to build the healthy community of the future in the Inland Empire.

At a Zócalo /The California Wellness Foundation event at Frank’s Place at Warnors Center in downtown Fresno, moderated by Valley Public Radio director of program content Joe Moore, Foodlink of Tulare County executive director Sarah Ramirez, Fresno State and University of Helsinki social work researcher Kris Clarke, and San Joaquin Valley Latino Environmental Advancement and Policy Project (Valley LEAP) founder and executive director Rey Leon talked about how Central Valley communities are creating their own solutions to stubborn problems neglected by county, state, and federal government. The discussion was framed by findings of the Advancing Wellness Poll, which found that people in the Valley were more likely than other Californians to give their communities poor ratings on neighborhood health.

At a Zócalo/NPR Berlin event moderated by Sylke Tempel, Editor-in-Chief of the Berlin Policy Journal, three panelists offered differing views on the potential of populist parties and movements to renew democracy. Harvard University political theorist Yascha Mounk, Die Welt columnist Alan Posener, and Timo Lochocki, a Transatlantic Fellow with the German Marshall Fund, engaged in a wide-ranging conversation, focused on the growing importance of new political parties and populist movements in Europe and North America.

As Asia continues its rapid advance in the global economy, the resources of Hawaii—as well as its strategic geography—uniquely position it as a portal into the future of relations between the U.S., Asia, and the world. Irene Hirano Inouye, president of the U.S.-Japan Council, moderated a Smithsonian/Zócalo “What It Means to Be American” panel supported by the Daniel K. Inouye Institute that explored how Hawaii is fulfilling its role on the global stage and what it could be doing better. She was joined by Admiral Harry B. Harris Jr., Commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, Kurt W. Tong, U.S. Consul General to Hong Kong and Macau, and Roy’s Restaurant chef and founder Roy Yamaguchi.

At the Zócalo/WeHo Reads event “Do Libraries Have a Future?” on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the opening of the West Hollywood Library on September 30, 2016, three librarians were challenged by Zócalo Public Square publisher and moderator Gregory Rodriguez to shake off stereotypes and misconceptions about their professions—and predict what’s next for their places of work. Susan Hildreth, former director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services and Professor of Practice at University of Washington Information School, Miguel Figueroa, Director of the Center for the Future of Libraries at the American Library Association, and Susan Parker, UCLA Deputy Librarian, explained how libraries build community and fulfill a broad, important mission at the West Hollywood City Council Chambers.

Religious experiences are deeply personal, yet for millennia people who have had spiritual visions or encounters have attempted to convey what they saw—and artists have rendered these details in word and image. At a Zócalo Public Square/”Open Art” event at the Getty Center moderated by documentarian Jody Hassett Sanchez, three panelists discussed—and questioned—how humans have depicted the supernatural: Lisa Bitel, University of Southern California medieval historian and author of Our Lady of the Rock, Leonard Norman Primiano, religious studies scholar at Cabrini University, and Michael Tolkin, writer and director of The Rapture.

A panel that included a scholar, a community organizer, a youth mentor and a former city official tackled the question of South LA's progress during a Zócalo/California Wellness Foundation event held at Mercado La Paloma, a former garment sweatshop turned community hub. Moderated by KCRW president Jennifer Ferro, the lively discussion covered the evolution of South Los Angeles into a place that is both far more hopeful and far more complex than stereotypes would suggest.

Zócalo Public Square and the Getty Villa convened a panel of historians and classicists at the Villa in Malibu to discuss what lessons today's democracies can draw from ancient Greece and Rome. Los Angeles Times political writer Seema Mehta moderated the lively "Open Art" event, which focused heavily on one particular American demagogue—presumptive Republican party presidential nominee Donald Trump, but also touched on the demagogue value of presumptive Democratic party presidential nominee Hillary Clinton (low, but not for lack of trying) and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders (high). Eric Robinson, a historian of ancient Greece and Rome, reminded the audience of one of history's most famous demagogues, Cleon, who stirred up Athens by breaking the rules of decorum to deliver fiery speeches. University of Florida classicist Victoria Emma Pagán reminded the audience that while Trump may seem shocking, his insults were nothing compared to what the Roman Cicero would hurl at his political opponents. Jennifer Merciec

At an event exploring the legacy of Robert Mapplethorpe's legacy hosted by Zócalo Public Square/Getty “Open Art” at the West Hollywood Council Chambers, panelist Jonathan Weinberg argued that the photographer "mainstreamed and made slick a certain kind of presentation of the homoerotic." Weinberg, a painter, art historian, and author of Male Desire: The Homoerotic in American Art, was joined on the panel by an author, two curators and a photography collector. Though the controversy that began in 1989 over a traveling solo exhibit with homoerotic and sadomasochistic themes gained Mapplethorpe significant fame, the panelists agreed that the ongoing interest in his work demonstrates a provocation far deeper than shock.

Time magazine Washington correspondent and author of Broad Influence Jay Newton-Small details how women in power can pave the way for other women at the Zocalo Public Square event "Are Women Changing the Way Institutions Are Run?" At the lecture held at Los Angeles' Goethe-Institut, Newton-Small said that a relatively low percentage of women could achieve "critical mass," an inflection point at an organization, as long as several of those women are in leadership positions.

At a Zocalo Public Square event at the Skirball Cultural Center, Arizona State University President Michael Crow and Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee—author of the new book The Gene: An Intimate History and the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer—explored how what it means to be a human being is changing, both biologically and culturally. They wrestled with questions about how our increasing knowledge of genetics and our ability to manipulate our genes are altering notions of who we are, and posing new questions that require new language and new regulations to answer.

At the sixth annual Zócalo Public Square Book Prize event at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, 2016 winner Sherry Turkle, author of Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age, talked with Zócalo Publisher Gregory Rodriguez about how digital connection is undermining our capacity to be alone, our sense of self, our empathy, and even our ability to love. The Zócalo Book Prize is awarded to the nonfiction book that best enhances our understanding of community and the forces that strengthen or undermine human connectedness.

A college degree used to be a "golden ticket" to employment. This is no longer the case. Why are millennials struggling to launch their careers? At a Zócalo Public Square event at the Goethe-Institut Los Angeles, Jeffrey J. Selingo, author of There Is Life After College and former editor of The Chronicle of Higher Education, explained why college students aren't getting the skills they need for today's economy.

The color black is associated with a host of contradictory and controversial associations, including luxury, death, sin, style, and race. At a Zócalo/Getty “Open Art” event moderated by Peter Tokofsky, a Getty education specialist and adjunct member of UCLA’s German faculty, Harvard art historian Sarah E. Lewis, paint manufacturer Katrin Trautwein, and The Story of Black’s author John Harvey took on the ways that black is more than just a color.

The 1990s was a rough decade for Los Angeles, from the L.A. riots and the O.J. Simpson trial to the Northridge Earthquake, the recession, and the departures of two NFL teams. But it was also a time of unique vitality, with the birth of a political coalition involving Latino and labor groups, a growing contemporary art scene, and a sense of a place bouncing back from its travails. At an event moderated by Zócalo Public Square publisher Gregory Rodriguez at the Museum of Contemporary Art in downtown Los Angeles, the challenges and successes of the decade were tackled by: MOCA chief curator Helen Molesworth, American Prospect executive editor Harold Meyerson, University of Southern California race and pop culture scholar Todd Boyd, and Fernando Guerra, director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University.