Silicon Valley Requiem is a composition based on the requiem mass but replacing the liturgical environment with the public theater of Tech CEOs. A trio of synthesized male voices singing Gregorian chant melodies is paired with two live female performers singing statements regarding their actions on earth to a monolithic adjudicating soprano projected above. The application of contemporary technology on medieval plainchant creates a plethora of complex philosophical questions. What does it mean for non-humans ...

The election of Donald Trump and the eventual J6th attempted insurrection left many people wondering how we got to this point. The answer to that question is multidimensional, complex, and nuanced, and this talk focuses on several pieces that helped generate the current moment. A broad constellation of far-right extremism highly adept at marketing ideas and emotions and far more sophisticated than often understood played a key role in rebranding white supremacy to ensure wider ...

Join via Zoom here This talk will be an examination of the llanto (wail/scream) as political performance praxis through reflecting on the collective work of Cherríe Moraga, Celia Herrera Rodríguez and approximately twenty-five artists to stage a “PerformaProtesta,” Un llanto colectivo, at San Diego immigrant detention centers following the separation of migrant families during the summer of 2018. It discusses this “llanto space” as an alternative to the politics of recognition and representation, and the ...

Luis J. Rodríguez is an award-winning author and activist whose memoir about life in a gang, Always Running, is as popular as ever in 2023, its 30th anniversary. The UCSB Library Special Research Collections recently acquired Rodríguez’s personal papers, giving scholars and students an opportunity to see the personal and social context behind Always Running and Rodríguez’s other prose, poetry, and non-fiction, as well as his involvement in gubernatorial races, revolutionary organizations, and the prisoners’ ...