Humanities (Audio)

Some 350 to 400,000 years ago when our ancestors gained control of fire, the day was extended to provide many hours for social interaction, undisturbed by economic activities. How were those hours spent in societies that only had firelight after nightfall? In most preindustrial societies, music, dance, healing and storytelling fill the darkness. Myths and legends create common understandings on such matters as the origins of humans, social groups, rituals or features of the landscape. Hilarious trickster traditions explore the successes and failures of those who have the pluck to break with social norms. Stories about the adventures of real people add other dimensions, a topic Polly Wiessner addresses here. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 38998]

Why are humans a compulsively storytelling species? Why especially do we invent stories, why do we tell one another stories that both teller and audience know to be untrue? Why do many of us come to believe some invented stories? What difference has our compulsion to tell stories made to us as individuals, societies, and a species? How do we understand stories so seemingly effortlessly? Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 38995]

For more than a century, folklorists have indexed a vast number of the world’s folkloric narratives according to varying structures (i.e. tale types) and to discrete elements (i.e. motifs) that commonly appear across cultures. This talk will introduce and analyze several examples of motifs indexed in folklorist Stith Thompson’s system. Ultimately, I ask whether stories about origins (human origins or otherwise) might constitute a genuine cultural universal? And if so, what might the folkloric representations of human origins say about a contemporary science of anthropogeny? Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 38996]

Among the most striking exhibits at the Auschwitz museum are undoubtedly the mountains of loot stolen from Jews murdered upon arrival. Shoes, suitcases, spectacles, and more fill entire rooms in the former barracks of the main camp. Surviving the Shoah when their owners did not, they constitute a potent proof of the Nazis’ abiding concern with material gain. In this talk, author and historian Peter Hayes traces the ways by which the German corporate world became deeply implicated in—and in many respects indispensable to—the Nazi regime’s persecution, exploitation, and murder of Europe’s Jews. He argues that these developments stemmed inexorably from decisions made and actions taken by the nation’s leading corporate executives in 1933, at the very outset of Nazi rule.

Hayes is author or editor of 13 books, including the best-selling “Das Amt und die Vergangenheit” and “Why? Explaining the Holocaust,” which has been translated into several foreign languages including German, Slovak, Spanish, and Chinese. He is currently completing (with Stephan Lindner of Munich) “Profits and Persecution: German Big Business, the Nazi Economy, and the Holocaust.” Series: "Library Channel" [Humanities] [Show ID: 38423]

In this program, scholars Philippe Descola, Adom Getachew, Timothy LeCain and David Wengrow discuss how views of humans verses non-humans shaped the modern world. Series: "Tanner Lectures on Human Values" [Humanities] [Show ID: 38618]

Roman Koropeckyj, Professor in the Department of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Languages & Cultures at UCLA, joins moderator Sasha Razor for a discussion of Sergei Parajanov’s film Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, sharing insight into Ukrainian culture and history. Koropeckyj discusses the making of the film and details the complexities of Ukrainian culture and history, including the Hutsul ethnic group around which the film revolves. They contextualize the political volatility during the film’s production and broaden discussion to a longer history of Ukrainian oppression, all the way to contemporary struggles. Series: "Carsey-Wolf Center" [Humanities] [Show ID: 38876]

In this enlightening conversation, Ray Santisteban, director and producer of the documentary "Time of the Phoenix: The First Rainbow Coalition," shares his insights on activism, coalition politics, and social change. Santisteban delves into his journey of making the documentary and how it marked the beginning of his filmmaking career. He highlights the unique power of documentary filmmaking which enables him to address important social issues that Hollywood often overlooks. Exploring the historical context of revolutionary movements, including the influential role of the Black Panthers, Santisteban emphasizes the significance of building diverse and uncomfortable coalitions to achieve transformative progress. Don't miss this inspiring dialogue on realizing revolutionary possibilities and the untapped potential of documentary filmmaking. Series: "Carsey-Wolf Center" [Humanities] [Show ID: 38821]

Production designer Akin McKenzie joined moderator Mireille Miller-Young (Feminist Studies, UCSB) for a post-screening discussion of his work in visualizing the world of The Woman King. The discussion revolved around McKenzie’s extensive research from out-of-print books, photos, and other archival materials to disentangle complex historical events from colonial revisionism. McKenzie also detailed his collaboration process with director Gina Prince-Bythewood and shared thoughts on Black representation in Hollywood and the future of Black cinema. Series: "Carsey-Wolf Center" [Humanities] [Show ID: 38875]

French anthropologist Philippe Descola examines the evolution of modern thinking about societies. He argues that the rooting of the descriptive tools of the social sciences in Enlightenment philosophy has blinded us to the fact that what are loosely called ‘societies’ are in fact, for extra-moderns, assemblages that, unlike ours, contain and associate much more than just humans, either because their institutions are able to integrate other-than-humans into collectives, or because other-than-humans are seen as political subjects acting within their own collectives. In other words, the kinds of beings that result from these assemblages are not those to which philosophy or the social sciences usually pay attention: they are associations of humans and other-than-humans that take very diverse forms and, in this sense, can also offer food for thought about the much-needed transformation of the political and social institutions proper to the Moderns. We could call these assemblages cosmopolities in that they bring under the same regime of cosmic sociability a vast set of components that the ontology of the Moderns has tended to dissociate. Series: "Tanner Lectures on Human Values" [Humanities] [Show ID: 38616]

Olympic champion Erin Jackson, director of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Laurie Leshin, and professor of American Studies and Ethnicity at USC and author Natalia Molina sit down with Lynn Sherr for a wide-ranging discussion of women and society, personal journeys and hopes for the future. Series: "Education Channel" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 37973]