Dates
May 6 | May 12 | May 13 | May 26 | May 27

Speakers / Artists
Peter McLaren | Micha Cardenas | Dee Williams & Ashley Hunt | Cara Baldwin | Hugo Hopping

Thursday, May 06th – 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm

Peter McLaren: Global Capitalism and the Crisis in Education - Peter McLaren is a Professor of Education of Graduate School in the Division of Urban Schooling, the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. Through his writings and lectures, McLaren had given a second interpretation to the notion of critical pedagogy first developed by Paulo Freire (1921-1997). McLaren addresses the crucial role that teachers can play in helping students become critical thinkers. He proposes spaces where students can project alternatives to capitalism, analyzing how revolutionary movements in the past became instrumentalized. McLaren will speak about the effects of global capitalism in the current crisis in education and introduce us to his Revolutionary Critical Pedagogy.

Peter McLaren is a Professor in the Division of Urban Schooling, the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author and editor of forty-five books and hundreds of scholarly articles and chapters. Professor McLaren's writings have been translated into 20 languages. McLaren was the inaugural recipient of the Paulo Freire Social Justice Award presented by Chapman University, California. The charter for La Fundacion McLaren de Pedagogia Critica was signed at the University of Tijuana in July, 2004. La Catedra Peter McLaren was inaugurated in Venezuela on September 15, 2006 as part of a joint effort between El Centro Internacional Miranda and La Universidad Bolivariana de Venezuela. Professor McLaren made international headlines when he was targeted by a right-wing extremist organization in the United States and put at the top of the "Dirty Thirty" list of leftist professors at UCLA. The group offered to pay students a hundred dollars to secretly audiotape McLaren's lectures and those of his fellow leftist professors. Professor McLaren's work has been the subject of two recent books: Teaching Peter McLaren: Paths of Dissent, edited by Marc Pruyn and Luis M. Huerta-Charles (New York: Peter Lang Publications) [translated into Spanish as De La Pedagogia Critica a la pedagogia de la Revolucion: Ensayos Para Comprender a Peter McLaren, Mexico City, Siglo Veintiuno Editores] and Peter McLaren, Education, and the Struggle for Liberation, edited by Mustafa Eryaman (New Jersey: Hampton Press).

 

Thursday, May 12th – 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm

Micha Cardenas: Demand Nothing, Occupy Everything

Demand Nothing, Occupy Everything is a film series examining neoliberalism, one of the roots of the current economic crisis affecting universities around the world, and the strategies that social movements have been using to respond to and push back against neoliberalism. The series considers the possibilities for political action today, as well as its limitations. The films in the series range from documentation of political actions to examinations of political theory and fictional accounts of important moments of political unrest. The topics range from a historical view of student actions in the 60's to an international view considering actions around the world and a selection of recent videos spread virally through social networks online.

The screening will begin with a short talk by Micha Cárdenas that situates the selected films in the context of the current social situation across the University of California, but also at universities around the world. Specific focus will be given to personal experiences with these movements, the effects of neoliberalism on education and to efforts to reimagine what education could be.

 

Thursday, May 13th – 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm

Art/Pedagogy: Dee Williams and Ashley Hunt - In their work both as artists and teachers, Dee Williams and Ashley Hunt explore possibilities of knowledge production, question hierarchical models of education, and reflect on the construction of the subject through her education. This panel juxtaposes the practices of two LA based artists.

Dee Williams’ paper A Partial History of Higher Education examines a chronology of changes in higher education in the United States since the 1960's. Williams investigates to what extent the idea of the individual student receiving education in order to shape a democratic society has been replaced by the idea that the the individual is the sole beneficiary.

Ashley will discuss models of radical pedagogy that he is invested in as an artist. Looking at how they infuse his recent works, he will also discuss his theory that making and teaching are complimentary pedagogical practices.

Dee Williams earned an MFA in Art from Calarts, and was the recipient of a DAAD stipendium in Berlin from 2000-2002. Her work was included in the book We all laughed at Christopher Columbus, published in 2007 by the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center, Istanbul. Her work has been exhibited at The Physics Room, New Zealand, Am Nuden Da in London, at Art2102, DNJ Gallery, ESL and Monte Vista Projects in Los Angeles, Artists Space and Gagosian Gallery in New York, Museo Nacional de los Ferrocarriles Mexicanos in Puebla, Mexico, and The Sweeney Gallery, UC Riverside. She is adjunct faculty at Chapman University.

Ashley Hunt is an artist, activist and writer who engages the ideas of social movements, modes of learning and public discourse. Among his works are the ongoing Corrections Documentary Project (correctionsproject.com), On Movement Thought and Politics, a collaboration with Taisha Paggett, A World Map: In Which We See…, and 9 Scripts From a Nation at War, a collaboration with Andrea Geyer, Sharon Hayes, Katya Sander and David Thorne, commissioned originally for Documenta 12 (9scripts.info). Recent exhibitions include the Nottingham Contemporary, the 18th Street Center for Art in Los Angeles, the Gallery at REDCAT, the Tate Modern, the 3rd Bucharest Biennial, and various community-based venues throughout the United States. Recent publications include, Printed Project (’09), On Knowledge: A Critical Studies Reader (BAK ’08), Radical History Review (’08), Journal of Aesthetics and Protest (’08, ’07, ’05), Art Journal (’07), An Atlas of Radical Cartography (’07) and Rethinking Marxism (’06).

 

Wednesday, May 26th – 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm

“Democracy vs Privatization” – This Semester at UC

On March 4, 2010 thousands of students, workers and faculty across the UC Public School System protested mismanagement of funds and a 32% increase in their annual tuition, reduction in course offerings, massive layoffs of workers, lecturers and full time faculty and a lack of fiscal oversight of the University of California’s budget. In this climate, the move toward privatization of the UC Public School System is seen by those at all levels of California's school system including K-12 as an agenda intended to further line the pockets of a handful of wealthy private business owners acting as Regents, or a closed governing body capable of making policy decisions that will effectively curtail access to public education to low income students in the state of California. This panel invites participants in the growing resistance to this shift to discuss the tension between democracy and privatization and the responsibility of the state regarding access to public education. Previous to this panel there will be a screening of: TO BE DEFINED. This panel is coordinated in collaboration with Cara Baldwin.

Cara Baldwin is a Ph.D. student in Art History, Theory and Practice at University of California, San Diego. A 2001 graduate of CalArts MFA program and recipient of the Soros Foundation Open Society Grant for the establishment of the Los Angeles Independent Media Center, Ms. Baldwin is currently a contributing editor for Version, a journal of contemporary theory and art. Throughout 2000 she acted as a founding member and co-editor of the Journal of Aesthetics & Protest editorial collective whose activities include the print and online publication, Journal Press, a public lecture series, curatorial work, public art projects, and activist organization. Its serial publications are distributed internationally and are available online. With the editorial collective of the Journal, Baldwin has contributed to Civic Matters, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles; Fine Print: Alternative Media, P.S.1, New York; Atlas Project, Pist Prota, Copenhagen, Denmark; and the documenta 12 Magazine Project Archive, Kassel, Germany. She has also presented work in museums, universities, art colleges, and recently in the international Mexico City Book Fair, A Los Angeles Llegaron y por Hollywood se Pasearon. In 2007 she participated in The Performing Archive-Restricted Access, an exhibition by Suzanne Lacy and Leslie Labowitz. Her work was published in the periodicals Bedwetter, InterReview, and MAKE_shift, as well as exhibition catalogues for Transformed, The Contemporary Art Center, Virginia, Poetics of the Handmade and This Is Not to Be Looked At: Highlights from the Permanent Collection, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. 45 years of Art and Feminism, Bilbao Fine Arts Museum. Through her work in MOCA's Curatorial department she contributed to the realization of several exhibitions of contemporary art with explicit political content including: WACK! Art and The Feminist Revolution, Poetics of the Handmade, and Black Panther: The Revolutionary Art of Emory Douglas.

 

Thursday, May 27th – 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm (Speaker to be confirmed)

Hugo Hopping: The Real State of Your Mind: Subjectivity and Capitalism After 1968

A panel exploring questions governing relationships and forms given in movements and situations where issues of identity have now been transformed by social singularity and subjectivity. The panel will underscore this discussion as a lively debate between producers coming from different areas of cultural production.

Hugo Hopping was born in 1974 in Mexico City, he lives and works in Los Angeles and Copenhagen. He is currently a consultant for the Danish Royal Theater of Copenhagen working for TNT, Temporary National Theatre. He has just completed a residency at the University of California at Santa Barbara in the department of 'Black Studies' forming part of an investigation into 1968 and student-driven movements and politics. Recently, his work was included in the exhibitions "On the Shoulders of Davids,"Jaus (2009); "Post-American L.A." 18th Street Arts Center, in Santa Monica (2009); "7 Proposals for a Room in L.A." G727, Los Angeles, (2008); Rainer Ganahl, Mario Garcia Torres, Hugo Hopping, John Menick, Nate Harrison" at Sandroni Rey Gallery in Los Angeles (2007).