College of Humanities Fall 2025 Academic Programing Fund Sponsored Events
In the Spring of 2025, the College of Humanities once again provided support for a variety of events through the Academic Programing Fund (APF). These special events are designed by faculty from across the Humanities to augment course curriculum, expand interest, and deepen understanding in a wide range of subjects. This semester’s slate of exciting and diverse APF offerings include guest speakers, workshops, panel discussions, film screenings, art exhibitions, and more. All events are free of charge and most are open to the entire CSUN community. Please check the Humanities Events Calendar online for additional information on all upcoming events in the college.
Wednesday, February 5, 2025, at 4:00pm
English 455, Literacy, Rhetoric, and Culture will host a guest lecture with Enrique Solis
Enrique Solis, who earned a Master of Arts degree from the English Department here at CSUN, was a student in English 455 several years ago and is now a teacher at the Triumph Charter Academy. His talk is presented in class and also accessible via Zoom to all interested CSUN students.
Monday, February 17, 2025, from 10:00am to 11:15am and 11:30am to 12:45pm
A presentation by author and artist cooklin (Caitlin “CC” Cook)
CC speaks via Zoom to two class sections of ENG 333, Comics and Graphic Novels, and additional invited CSUN students. A CSUN graduate, CC did her MA thesis in comics form in Spring 2022. Since then, her thesis project, Anhecomics, has continued online. A webcomic series about the experience of clinical depression, Anhecomics draws from interviews with anonymized informants who, like CC, know depression firsthand.
Tuesday, February 18, 2025, at noon in the Colleagues Room
Gender and Women’s Studies Spring Welcome Open House.
The GWS Open House was a great success with over 60 students in attendance. It provided a networking opportunity for faculty and students. Faculty shared some of their research and teaching interests while Directors from the Institute for Feminist Studies and Social Action (IFFSA), Queer Studies and the Women’s Research and Resource Center (WRRC) spoke about their exciting events and initiatives. There was a moving discussion about the profound impact Gender and Women’s Studies has in students’ lives and its relevance for creating community when students are dealing with troubling current events and issues (like immigration threats and transphobic policies).
Monday, February 24, 2025, from 2:30pm to 3:45pm
Guest Speaker J. Andrew Deman, X-Men expert and author of The Claremont Run
Dr. Deman (University of Waterloo) speaks via Zoom to ENG 421XM, Selected Topics in Popular Culture: Marvel’s X-Men. He discusses the history of the X-Men in the late 1970s and the 1980s, with focus on its innovative long-form storytelling and progressive treatment of gender. His talk helps students understand why the 1980s X-Men are among the most acclaimed and influential superhero comics ever. This Zoom presentation is open to the entire CSUN community.
Thursday, February 27, 2025, from 1:00pm to 2:15:00pm
Amplifying Maya Mam Voices Through Social Media Activism
In this webinar, Maya-Mam activist Glendy Paola Agustín Jiguan explores how community media and social media have become powerful tools for cultural revitalization. She shares how Maya-Mam communities use communication strategies to address issues like racism, gender equality, and human rights, amplifying the voices of marginalized groups. This event is open to the entire CSUN community.
Tuesday, March 4, 2025, at 2:30pm in the Pride Center
Queer/Cuir Art Sin Fronteras: Joteando Por Vida
Transdisciplinary artist and activist Coyol Mar presents a talk showcasing the theoretical and historical context behind his work. In particular, the reclamation of the racialized Mexican slur “Prieto,” now a term of empowerment for racialized natives and blacks in Mexico. Following the talk, students, faculty, staff, and community members have time to work on their own art pieces with materials provided by Queer Studies. In addition, participating student artists have the option to enter their work in a contest to win gift cards and/or the opportunity to have their art displayed permanently in Queer Studies. This event is presented in collaboration with the CSUN Pride Center, Queer Studies, Chicana and Chicano Studies, and the CSUN Dream Center. Attendees are welcome both in-person and via Zoom.
Tuesday, March 4, 2025, from 4:00pm to 6:00pm in the Whitsett Room – SH-451
Presentation and Q&A with Dr. Chase Joynt
QS 304, Queering the Screen, Queering the Spectator, hosts Dr. Chase Joynt who discusses his documentary Framing Agnes.Joynt, an alumnus of UCLA, is well versed in the queer community of Los Angeles and blends his film making with archival research work in the transgender and queer studies field. This event will be a first for the Queer Studies Program by combining efforts with the Department of Cinema and Television Arts. This event is open to the entire CSUN community.
Sunday, March 9, 2025, at 2:00pm at the CSUN Art Galleries
Performance Art Pachucxs Revisited
Pachucas were the transgressive and resilient young Chicanas of the 1940s who defied the norms of mainstream American and Mexican immigrant feminine propriety. This performance complements the Pachucxs Revisited exhibition in the CSUN Art Galleries that runs from January 27 through March 13. The event is a collaboration between CSUN’s Teatro Aztlán, led by alum and staff member Diana Cabral, and Maria Elena Fernandez representing the Chicana/o Studies department. Along with students and staff, performers include visual and performance artist Melba Martinez (whose self-portrait is featured in the Pachucxs Revisited exhibition), as well as guest artist, actor Lupe Montiel. This event is free of charge and open to the public.
Tuesday, March 11, 2025, from 11:00am to 3:00pm at La Casita
Reclaiming Culture & Identity: The Garifuna Museum of Los Angeles
This workshop and presentation explore the history of the Garifuna people and the current issues faced by Garifuna across Central America and its global diaspora. Their presentation includes a lecture, a “mobile museum” representative of the region and culture, as well as a drum and dance performance. The event is led by The Garifuna Museum Director William Flores and Museum Curator Calvin Williams. All CSUN students, staff, and faculty are welcome.
Tuesday, March 11, at 4:30pm in Maple Hall 219.
Film screening of Baby You Are My Religion and talkback with the film’s director, Kimberly Esslinger.
Pre-Stonewall bars were more than just meeting spots; they were lifelines. This film delves into these makeshift sanctuaries, the brave women who sought solace and freedom within them, and the unspoken solidarity that bound them. There’s a lot you haven’t heard. Let’s change that.
Wednesday, March 12, from 4:00pm to 7:00pm in Maple Hall 100 and via ZOOM.
Encore!: Discussion and Workshop with Miles Burks
This panel discussion features author Miles Burks, CSUN professor Sean Pessin, and CSUN student Hanna Davis. The presentation is followed by a workshop on how members of the CSUN community can submit their own work for publication. This discussion emphasizes Mr. Burks’ experience of having had his work purchased at auction by HarperAlley, a division under HarperCollins Children’s Books, which is due to be published in 2026. This event is free of charge and open to all CSUN students, staff, and faculty.
Wednesday, March 12, from 5:30pm to 6:45pm
Spatial and Discursive Violence in the US Southwest
In this webinar, Dr. Rosaura Sánchez and Professor Beatrice Pita discuss their book Spatial and Discursive Violence in the US Southwest (Duke University Press, 2021), which examines literary representations of settler colonial land enclosure and dispossession in the history of New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma. Sánchez and Pita analyze a range of Chicano/a and Native American novels, films, short stories, and other cultural artifacts from the eighteenth century to the present, showing how Chicano/a works often celebrate an idealized colonial Spanish past as a way to counter stereotypes of Mexican and Indigenous racial and ethnic inferiority. This webinar is open to all CSUN students, faculty, and staff.
Tuesday, March 15, 5:00pm to 6:30pm, via Zoom
Guest Speaker Iván A. Sanchís Pedregosa.
Dr. Iván A. Sanchís Pedregosa shares a presentation entitled “Border Culture Identity” exploring how language, identity, and migration shape communication within border communities. Dr. Sanchís Pedregosa’s expertise in second language teaching and linguistic immersion provides an interdisciplinary perspective, enriching students’ academic experience by offering real-world applications of theoretical concepts related to sociolinguistics and heritage language preservation. This Zoom event is open to all CSUN students, faculty, and staff.
Thursday, March 20, 2025 in the Armer Screening Room, Manzanita Hall
Noris En France with Alain Mabanckou
A special screening of the 2002 film Noirs En France (Black in France). The screening will be held on Thursday, March 20th, 2025, coinciding with International Francophonie Day. Following the screening, there will be a conversation featuring writer, academic, and the film’s narrator, Alain Mabanckou. This documentary explores the French Black experience, posing the question, “What unites Black individuals in France?” The answer is not much—perhaps only their skin color and the racism they encounter. For the first time, Noirs En France amplifies the voices of Black French people from diverse backgrounds and ages, many of whom are not widely known to the public. This event is open to all CSUN students, staff, and faculty.
Wednesday, March 26, 2025, from 10:00am to 5:00pm in La Casita
The Bridge consists of 30 canvases which together create a pictorial description of the cultural and social history of the Salvadoran community. When displayed as a series, each piece connects with the previous in a continuous narrative arc. In this way, the exhibit serves as a metaphor for the progressive development of the Salvadoran culture beginning with the conquest and process of enslavement and moving through mestizaje, customs, mythology, social problems, immigration, and the struggle for a better future. This installation aims to inspire hope for a better future by offering an artistic interpretation of historical events alongside representations of this community’s current situation. Accompanying the exhibit will be a lecture presented by Salvadoran artist Francisco Mejía. This event is open to all CSUN students, faculty, and staff.
Thursday, March 27, 4:00pm to 5:30pm via Zoom
By Writing We Live: Syrian Women Speak Out, a Virtual Talk by Dr. Najat Abed Alsamad
Acclaimed Syrian author, gynecologist, and Russian-Arabic translator has published 8 books, six novels and two books in translation from Russian. Her work addresses the realities of contemporary Syrian life, often focused on female characters. Her novel, No Water Quenches Her Thirst, won the 2018 Katara Prize, an Arabic literary prize. Zoom Access: Meeting ID 838 7670 8548, Password 705648.
Wednesday, April 2, at 3:00pm, in Jerome Richfield 319
Dr. Kimberly Mack will discuss her book Living Colour’s Time’s Up (33 1/3). Dr. Mack is currently an associate professor of Englishwith a specialization in African American literature at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She also wrote Fiction Blues: Narrative Self-Invention from Bessie Smith to Jack White, which won the College English Association of Ohio Nancy Dasher Book Award and was afinalist for the 2022 IASPM-US Woody Guthrie First Book Award. This event is open to all CSUN students, faculty, and staff.
Thursday, April 10, Noon to 1:30pm, in JR 319, and Wednesday April 23, 1:30pm to 3:00pm, in JR 319
Open Houses for the Department of Linguistics and TESL for Undergraduate and Master’s Programs.
The department of Linguistics and TESL will hold two open house recruitment events. The first will be on April 10 to introduce students to the major and minors. The second event, scheduled for April 23, will be geared toward promoting the graduate programs. Both events will feature informational videos followed by question and answer sessions with current students, the Department Chair, and faculty.
Thursday, April 10, from 11:30am to 12:45pm, via Zoom
From the US, Europe, to the Middle East, the anti-gender backlash is a global phenomenon. Dr. Zahra Ali centers Iraq and Iraqi feminists’ struggles to make sense of some of the main challenges of our times. She explores the ways in which feminist struggles in Iraq can inspire the global fight for justice and equality, and expand our political and theoretical imagination. Zoom Access: Meeting ID 835 5387 6725, Password 830308.
Thursday, April 10, and Thursday, April 17, 2025, from noon to 2:00pm
Visual Storytelling Workshops with Mexico-US documentary photographer James Rodriguez
This two-day workshop will explore methodologies that showcase the complexity of the Chicana/o/x identity, and creative strategies for students to express contested topics and issues. Photography as storytelling permits students to critically examine art as cultural text and advocacy tool. The workshop will allow students to produce a story that is rooted in their community and that illustrates community struggles as well as spaces of survival and resilience. For additional information, please contact Jose Amaro.
Monday, April 14, 1:00pm to 2:15pm, via Zoom
Central American Film in the 21st Century.
Dr. Mauricio Espinoza, Associate Professor at the University of Cincinnati, will offer a lecture on how film has evolved over the last few decades in Central America. He will detail some of the most critical visual creators and how their work has contributed to understanding the complexities of Central American societies and the establishment of Central American communities in the United States. This Zoom event is open to all students, faculty, and staff.
Thursday, April 17, from 1:00pm to 2:15pm, in Extended University Commons 132
“Evolutionary Spaces: Octavia E. Butler’s Planetary Arguments for the Human,” a Faculty Brown Bag talk with Dr. Alyssa Collins, CSUN Gender/Women’s Studies
Dr. Collins will explore the connections between Octavia E. Butler’s novelistic re-makings of humanity (and its definitions), with her science fictional imaginings of evolution and her arguments for remaking sustainable human relationships with the Earth.
Sunday, April 20
A Discussion with “Freeway” Rick Ross: The Effort to Destroy Community.
Ross will discuss the documentary Freeway: Crack in the System, a film intended to shed light on the connection of the crack epidemic to the CIA and Iran-Contra effort to fund illegal wars in Central America. He will also share his own story, and explore the connections between the intentional prevalence of drugs and the resulting addiction issues in communities of people of color. Bringing Mr. Ross to campus has been an inter-departmental and cross collaborative event. Keith Rice from the University Library and Renee Moreno from Chicana/o Studies have been working on this project for about a year. In addition, a CSUN student and McNair Fellow, Roger Arias, did research on Mr. Ross and the connections to the Rampart scandal some years later. His argument was that all of it was related. Arias was later invited to present his research at the prestigious Poster on the Hill event in Washington DC where he met with elected officials and talked about the importance of undergraduate research. This event is free and open to the public and campus communities.
Monday, April 21, from 11:30am to 12:15pm, via Zoom
Dr. Salas-SantaCruz examines trans* as a co-formation of knowledge that resists the rigidities of colonial borders—both geographic and epistemic. They analyze how transness is lived in movement: through migration, through institutional constraints, and through everyday practices of care and survival. Zoom Access: Meeting ID 890 9028 3178, Passcode: 262705.
Monday, April 23, 2:30pm to 3:45pm, in Maple Hall 209
Guest Speaker: X-Men scholar and “Sequential Scholars” project lead Anna Peppard.
Anna F. Peppard, PhD will speak via Zoom to English 421XM (Selected Topics in Popular Culture: Marvel’s X-Men). Dr. Peppard will address sexuality and gender in the X-Men and in superhero comics generally. This Zoom webinar is also open to the greater CSUN community. To register for the webinar, or for additional information, contact Dr. Charles Hatfield.
Thursday, April 24, 1:00pm to 2:15pm, via Zoom
Reproductive Justice and Black Women’s Maternal Health.
Gender and Women’s Studies will host representatives from the Kindred Space LA Birthing Center. The center was founded by Kimberly Durdin and Allegra Hill in response to the black maternity health crisis effecting black birthing people in this country. These guest speakers will enliven the subject of reproductive justice for students and encourage them to think about their capacity to create services for their communities. Students who would like to attend, or faculty members who would like to extend the invitation to their classes, please reach out to Elizabeth Philipose for Zoom access information.
Thursday, April 24, at 1:00pm, in Jerome Richfield 319
A Reading with David Trinidad & Amy Gerstler.
As part of the Teach Living Poets initiative, this reading and talk will feature poets David Trinidad and Amy Gerstler. Trinidad is an alum of CSUN’s English Department who went on to publish widely and teach at Columbia College Chicago. Trinidad also founded Sherwood Press which first published co-reader Amy Gertler’s poetry. This reading will provide students with an opportunity to engage with the richness of Trinidad’s various reclamations as well as reconnecting them with one of the literary lineages of CSUN’s Department of English. This event is open to all CSUN students, faculty, and staff.
Monday, April 30, 2:30pm to 3:45pm, in Maple Hall 209
A conversation with scholar andré carrington.
andré carrington, PhD, Associate Professor of English at the University of California, Riverside, will speak via Zoom to English 421XM (Selected Topics in Popular Culture: Marvel’s X-Men). Dr. carrington will address questions of queer and Black representation in Marvel’s X-Men franchise, and in superhero comic books generally. His visit will be the culmination to class discussions of the social and political dimensions of superhero narratives. This Zoom webinar is also open to the greater CSUN community. To register for the webinar, or for additional information, contact Dr. Charles Hatfield.
Friday, May 2, 11:30am, in Maple Hall 130
The Philosophy department will host a colloquium event together with the Chicano/a Studies Department, with guest speaker Professor Manuel Vargas from the University of California, San Diego. Professor Vargas is author of Mexican Philosophy (OUP) and co-director of the Mexican Philosophy Lab at UCSD. Professor Vargas will lecture on “What are Latin[a/o/x/e]s Anyway?” This event is free and open to the public.
Monday, May 5, 1:00pm to 3:00pm, in the University Library’s Jack and Florence Ferman Presentation Room
This language celebration day will showcase the results of CSUN students’ work as part of their service-learning project at Van Nuys High School. This event will bring together CSUN faculty and students with high school students, teachers, and administrators to present and reflect on their learning regarding sociocultural aspects of language use, such as language variation, race, power, and identity. The primary goal of this project is to encourage all students involved to examine their own language practices and linguistic knowledge, to explore misconceptions about language, and to reflect on dominant beliefs about language and how they interact with systems of power. This event is open to the CSUN community.
Wednesday, May 14, 6:00pm, in Jerome Richfield 218
Genre Analysis in Focus: A Poster Showcase.
This poster presentation session, titled Genre Analysis in Focus: A Poster Showcase, will provide an excellent platform for students to present their research in a professional setting, engage in discussions about genre variation across different contexts, and receive valuable feedback from attendees. It will also foster a collaborative academic environment where students can refine their analytical and presentation skills. The session will be open to all members of the CSUN community, including Linguistics and TESL faculty, students, and others interested in language, discourse, and writing.
Saturday, May 24, from 9:00am to 3:00pm, at the Audubon Center at Debs Park in Los Angeles, CA.
After the Fire: A Retreat on Environment and Regeneration
This one-day event will provide a public forum for community members to engage with one another over the fallout of the 2025 wildfires in Los Angeles County. The purpose of this event is to create a call to action by producing a pamphlet for what Dean Spade calls upon us to learn from “this crisis and the next.” Activities will include two sessions. The first will build a report back about what strategies did we learn from this ecological crisis involving survivors, day laborers and the politics regarding debris relocation. The second session will focus on regenerative ecological knowledge where we will include seed collection libraries and community gardeners. The retreat will include meditation spaces, including art workshops and music. Food, book and plant vendors will be invited. We welcome all community members who are committed to a just transition.