Past Events:
Join us for a discussion on citizen journalism featuring Javier Cabral, the editor in chief of L.A. TACO! Javier will be joined by Karen Tongson to explore the role of citizen reporting, which is taught in Javier’s class at Annenberg and practiced at L.A. TACO. They will also discuss moving between food and culture coverage and political reporting, and ways those topics overlap.
An evening of lightning talks, film screenings, and performances exploring the entanglements of queer desire, erotic labor, and radical care. Assembling artists, scholars, and organizers who work at the intersections of performance, visual culture, gender, sexuality, race, and labor, this event reimagines what it means to think, feel, and create together after dark. Our evening will include a mixture of presentations and performances that explore kink (bondage, shibari), sex work, labor, disability advocacy, sensuality, and cruising.
Podcasts and Audio Storytelling
Join USC alum Paola Mardo, from Proximity Media and Long Distance Radio, for a workshop and conversation with Consortium director Karen Tongson. They will explore the elements of good audio storytelling, provide an inside’s takes on the podcast industry, and discuss entry points for scholars and students interested in podcasting.
Join Elaine Hsieh Chou in conversation with Dr. Dorinne Kondo, celebrating her recently published short story collection Where Are You Really From (Penguin Random House, 2025).
Elaine Hsieh Chou is a Taiwanese American author and screenwriter from California. Her debut novel Disorientation (Penguin Press / Picador) was a New York Times Editors’ Choice Book, NYPL Young Lions Finalist and Thurber Prize for American Humor Finalist. The novel was optioned by AppleTV+ with Elaine set to adapt.
RESCHEDULED to April 1st: Tarot for the Apocalypse: Collective Care in Times of Unwellness (i.e. All the Fucking Time)
What do we need in times of unwellness? What kinds of care can we imagine and build for ourselves if we engage our unwellness in new ways? Facilitated by Dr. Mimi Khúc, this interactive workshop will use the Asian American Tarot to explore mental health and the social, cultural, and structural forces that shape it, engaging critical arts approaches that provide new vocabularies for both what hurts and how we might care for what hurts, together.
RESCHEDULED to March 31st: Touring the Abyss with dear elia: Unwellness and Care in the University
Join Dr. Mimi Khúc as she shares her work on unwellness and the university from her new book, dear elia: Letters from the Asian American Abyss. Applying her framework of a “pedagogy of unwellness,” Dr. Khúc explores the contours of student and faculty unwellness and locates it within the racialized ableism of meritocracy that undergirds university life (and beyond).
Queering Science Communication with Dr. Alice Motion
To thrive as students, researchers and STEMM professionals, the LGBTQIA+ community needs greater representation in science and more inclusive environments in which to work. Similarly, efforts to communicate science need to be more representative and inclusive of queer people and embrace opportunities to challenge traditional formats for sharing science.
Live From The Lab: Sharing Science Through Music and Sound with Dr. Alice Motion
Sound and music are powerful forces for human connection, emotional exploration, communication and artistic expression. Over the past five years, our interdisciplinary team has investigated some of the ways in which sound and music can be used in public contexts to build connection with, and understanding of, science.