College of Humanities
Low and Slow at CSUN: Lowrider Culture on Display at the University Library
Lowriding is not just about the lovingly and extravagantly painted and restored cars that cruise slowly down the boulevards of Los Angeles. It's a way of life in Southern California and around the country. That culture is the focus of "The Politics of Low and Slow," an art show featured now in the Story continues: csunshinetoday.csun.edu Read more
Xóchitl M. Flores-Marcial Awarded Ford Postdoctoral Fellowship
Xóchitl M. Flores-Marcial (Chicana/o Studies) has been awarded the highly prestigious Ford Postdoctoral Fellowship for 2022-2023 to complete her book project Zapotec Gift: Mesoamerican Social Networks 1330-2020.
The testimony included a detailed description of a then centuries-old tradition in which members of the community shared their goods or skills, knowing that sometime in the future the recipients would pay it back.
“The testimony provided hard evidence,” Flores-Marcial said, “that the indigenous people of the Americas for centuries before colonization had a system of collaboration, exchange and sharing, which researchers now refer to as social networks and shared economics.” Read more.
Beatriz Cortez is a 2022–2024 Borderlands Fellow
Beatriz Cortez (Central American and Transborder Studies) is a 2022–2024 Borderlands Fellow as part of the Vera List Center’s Focus Theme cycle Correction*.
Cortez’s fellowship project considers the Tierra Blanca Joven, the layer of ash deposited by the fifth century C.E. eruption of the Ilopango Volcano in what is now El Salvador. The resulting Tierra Blanca Joven is land with spiritual meaning to people who subsequently migrated and today continue to migrate from the Central American region to other territories. Crossing present and future borders and temporalities, the Tierra Blanca Joven makes visible and sacred the movement of matter and people. Read more
Brandy Underwood Named 2022-23 College of Humanities Research Fellow
Brandy Underwood (English) has been selected as the College of Humanities Research Fellow 2022/2023 for her project titled, The Black Crowd, Leadership, Affect, and Racial Uplift in African American Literature. The Academic Affairs Research Fellows Program is a collaboration between the University Library, the Office of the Provost, and the colleges. The program’s goal is to foster research and mentor new scholars. Along with the honor of recognition, the fellowship provides twelve units of reassigned time for continuing work on a specific project.
Upcoming Events
The 10th Annual Maurice Amado Foundation Lecture in Jewish Ethics: Cultivating Complex Resilience and Engaging Vulnerability in Today's Troubling Times
Wednesday, February 8, 2023 - 7:00pm

Dr. Bell will use Jewish texts and experiences to show how we can go beyond a return to normalcy by cultivating “complex resilience,” which allows us to learn and grow through disruption. Read more
The Birth of Socially Conscious Rap Music with Grandmaster Melle Mel
Thursday, February 9, 2023 - 6:00pm

CSUN and the Center for Interdisciplinary Pursuit of Hip-Hop Elevation and Research (CIPHER) is pleased to present The Birth of Socially Conscious Rap Music, a night with Grandmaster Melle Mel and Hip-Hop Historian, Author, Lecturer Jayquan. Get more information and RSVP for this event.
Nikole Hannah-Jones: A Conversation About The 1619 Project
Friday, February 10, 2023 - 3:00pm to 4:30pm

Join Pulitzer-Prize winner and The New York Times staff writer, Nikole Hannah-Jones, as she discusses her book, The 1619 Project, and how the legacy of slavery did not end with emancipation. Get more information about this event.
Property in the Promised Land: Debt, Murder, and the Modernization of Los Angeles
Tuesday, February 21, 2023 - 2:00pm to 3:15pm

We are pleased to welcome Dr. Marques Vestal, Assistant Professor of Critical Black Urbanism at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. Dr. Vestel will talk about the modernization of Los Angeles' and the early 20th Century political and cultural economy. His talk frames the discussion around the deaths of two Los Angeles sheriff's deputies sent to evict a Black homeowner, George Farley. We will learn about the central role of racialized debt and eviction in Los Angeles' drive for growth in the dawning decades of the Twentieth Century. Get more information about this event.