2017 Events

Deanne Stillman is a widely published, critically acclaimed writer. Her books include the just-published Blood Brothers (recipient of starred review in Kirkus, and Doug Brinkley calls it “a landmark achievement”), Desert Reckoning (winner of the Spur and LA Press Club Awards for nonfiction), and Mustang, a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year. In addition, she wrote the cult classic, Twentynine Palms, a Los Angeles Times bestseller that Hunter Thompson called, “A strange and brilliant story by an important American writer.” She writes the “Letter from the West” column for the Los Angeles Review of Books and is a member of the core faculty at the UC Riverside-Palm Desert MFA Low Residency Creative Writing Program.

Rosina Lozano is a historian of United States history with a research and teaching focus on Latino/a/x history, the American West, migration and immigration, and comparative studies in race and ethnicity.

Lozano’s first book, An American Language: The History of Spanish in the United States (University of California Press, 2018), is a political history of the Spanish language in the United States from the incorporation of the Mexican cession in 1848 through World War II, with some discussion of the following decades and present-day concerns. The nation has always been multilingual, and Spanish-language rights, in particular, have remained an important political issue into the present. The book is organized in two parts. The first five chapters argue that Spanish was a language of politics in the U.S. Southwest following the U.S. takeover. The second half of the book transitions to exploring the multifaceted use of Spanish in the twentieth century as it became a political language that instigated local and national political debates related to immigration and Americanization and aided the hemispheric interests of the nation.

An American Language received the PROSE award in Language and Linguistics (2019) and the First Book Prize from the Immigration and Ethnic History Society. Lozano was featured on Al Punto with Jorge Ramos and has given numerous academic and public talks about her book.

David G. Gutiérrez was educated at the University of California, Santa Barbara and Stanford University. His main research interests center on the history of citizenship and civil rights, comparative immigration and ethnic history, and the history of Mexican America. He is a winner of the UCSD Academic Senate Distinguished Teaching Award and has also taught at the University of Utah, Stanford, and the California Institute of Technology. His publications include Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity (University of California Press); (as editor), Between Two Worlds: Mexican Immigrants in the United States (Scholarly Resources Publishers); The Columbia History of Latinos in the United States since 1960 (Columbia University Press); Nation and Migration: Past and Future, (co-edited with Pierette Hondagneu-Sotelo, Johns Hopkins University Press), and more than 20 research articles and book chapters. He is also a senior editor for The Oxford Research Encyclopedia in American History, (Oxford University Press, in progress).

Professor Gutiérrez has served on the executive boards of the Organization of American Historians, the Immigration and Ethnic History Society, the Western History Association, and the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association, and on the editorial boards of the Western Historical Quarterly, Latino Studies, The Journal of American Ethnic History, The Americas Review, Aztlan: A Journal of Chicano Studies, and the Pacific Historical Review.

Steven J. Ross is the son of two Holo­caust sur­vivors and the first per­son in his fam­i­ly to go to col­lege. Ross is an emi­nent his­to­ri­an of film and Amer­i­can his­to­ry. He is recip­i­ent of the Acad­e­my of Motion Pic­ture Arts and Sci­ences’ Film Schol­ars Award and author of the prize-win­ning book ​Hol­ly­wood Left and Right: How Movie Stars Shaped Amer­i­can Pol­i­tics. He teach­es at the Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia where he also directs the Cas­den Insti­tute for the Study of Amer­i­can Jew­ish Life

Alice Echols is Professor of History and the Barbra Streisand Chair of Contemporary Gender Studies at the University of Southern California. She has written four books that explore the culture and politics of the “long Sixties,” including Scars of Sweet Paradise: The Life and Times of Janis Joplin and Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture. Shortfall: Family Secrets, Financial Collapse, and a Hidden History of American Banking explores an earlier period of U.S. history, concerning a devastating Depression-era banking scandal and its connection to the cratering of the country’s building and loan industry. At the center of her narrative is her maternal grandfather, an ambitious building and loan operator in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Shortfall chronicles the fall-out from the industry’s failure, examines how its history came to be forgotten, and the consequences that followed from that cultural forgetting. It stands as a cautionary tale about the seductions and dangers of unfettered capitalism. She lives in Los Angeles.

Alice Echols is Professor of History and the Barbra Streisand Chair of Contemporary Gender Studies at the University of Southern California. She has written four books that explore the culture and politics of the “long Sixties,” including Scars of Sweet Paradise: The Life and Times of Janis Joplin and Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture. Shortfall: Family Secrets, Financial Collapse, and a Hidden History of American Banking explores an earlier period of U.S. history, concerning a devastating Depression-era banking scandal and its connection to the cratering of the country’s building and loan industry. At the center of her narrative is her maternal grandfather, an ambitious building and loan operator in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Shortfall chronicles the fall-out from the industry’s failure, examines how its history came to be forgotten, and the consequences that followed from that cultural forgetting. It stands as a cautionary tale about the seductions and dangers of unfettered capitalism. She lives in Los Angeles.

Steven J. Ross is the son of two Holo­caust sur­vivors and the first per­son in his fam­i­ly to go to col­lege. Ross is an emi­nent his­to­ri­an of film and Amer­i­can his­to­ry. He is recip­i­ent of the Acad­e­my of Motion Pic­ture Arts and Sci­ences’ Film Schol­ars Award and author of the prize-win­ning book ​Hol­ly­wood Left and Right: How Movie Stars Shaped Amer­i­can Pol­i­tics. He teach­es at the Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia where he also directs the Cas­den Insti­tute for the Study of Amer­i­can Jew­ish Life

Chad Alligood, art historian and curator, oversees American art from the 17th century to the present at The Huntington. Born and raised in Perry, GA, Alligood earned his AB in the History of Art and Architecture from Harvard, his MA in Art History from the University of Georgia, and completed his PhD coursework in Art History at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY).

Tyler Green is an award-winning critic and historian. He is the producer and host of The Modern Art Notes Podcast, America’s most popular audio program on art. Green is also writing a book about 19th-century artist Carleton Watkins. Tentatively titled “Making the West American: How Carleton Watkins Wielded Beauty to Complete a Nation,” the book will be published by University of California Press in 2018.

“Tijuana Abortions: Border Crossing and Abortion Decriminalization in California”

Alicia Gutierrez-Romine is a U.S. historian with an emphasis on California and the west and the history of medicine. Dr. Gutierrez-Romine’s current research explores the life and activism of Dr. Edna Griffin, the first Black woman physician in Pasadena, and her role in the Civil Rights Movement in Southern California in the 1930s and 1940s. Her manuscript, From Back Alley to the Border: Criminal Abortion in California, 1920-1969 (University of Nebraska Press, 2020) traces the history of a medical procedure from the proverbial “back alley” to the U.S.-Mexico border. This innovative work describes in detail what happened in California when medicine became subject to atypical legislation.

“The Pacific Slope Megaflood of 1861-62”

Will Cowan studies history at the University of Southern California. His dissertation, “Flood Meridians: the Pacific Slope Superstorms of 1861-62” recovers the lost histories of one of the most incredible and devastating meteorological events in the Pacific West’s past. It also historicizes atmospheric rivers, a meteorological phenomenon fundamental to the region’s precipitation, drought, and wildfire regimes. These rivers in the sky recharge the rivers on the land and are key to understanding water in the West. Will’s work blends environmental history, Indigenous studies, and critical disaster studies.

“Testing the Waters: Emergent Modes of Environmental Activism at the Tijuana River, 1970s-2010s”

Carolyn Schutten is conducting research for “Flow and Obstruction: Tijuana River and Environmental Activism at the U.S.-Mexico Border, 1970s-2010s,” an environmental history of the Tijuana River at the San Diego-Tijuana border area. She holds a master’s degree in urban and regional planning with an emphasis in environmental planning and a master’s degree in public history with an emphasis in museum curatorship. Carolyn is interested in architectural history, landscapes, and historic preservation and recently published research on Spanish Colonial Architecture for Getty Foundation Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA. She is an active public historian and has curated exhibitions, such as Flow I Obstruction: process.dialogue.inquiry, There is a River Here, Tlahualiles: The Glorious Masks of Sahuayo, and Self Help Graphics: Aztlán, the Permanent Collection, and Beyond. Carolyn is interested in digital humanities, has produced short films, and has managed GIS projects, including “Mapping Riverside’s Latinx Cultural Landscape.” She is a seasoned non-profit professional and grant writer with experience in audience development, strategic planning, brand management, engagement, project management, program evaluation, and fund development. Carolyn recently presented research at The Getty Center, American Society of Environmental Historians Conference, National Council on Public History Conference, California Preservation Conference, and the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West. Carolyn is a dedicated educator, receiving two UCR Graduate Teaching Assistant Awards and completing the University Teaching Certificate Program. Carolyn has received: UC MEXUS Grant for Dissertation Research, Blum Initiative Collaborative Research Grant, UC California Studies Consortium Grant, UC Humanities Research Institute, UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Chancellor’s Distinguished Fellowship, and UCR Center for Ideas and Society Research Grant, among others. Carolyn was a UCMEXUS Resident Scholar, was selected as a Visiting Fellow at the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, and she is currently a National Science Foundation IGERT Water SENSE Fellow.

Alex Hall is Professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and Director of the Center for Climate Science at UCLA. His research is focused on reducing climate change uncertainty at both regional and global scales. At the regional scale, he has been active in the development of downscaling techniques to create neighborhood-scale projections of future climate, and he recently completed downscaling studies over the Los Angeles region and the Sierra Nevada. Dr. Hall was a Lead Author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 5th Assessment Report’s chapter on regional climate change and a Contributing Author to its chapter on climate model evaluation. In 2016, Dr. Hall received the American Geophysical Union’s Atmospheric Sciences Ascent Award.

Louise Pubols finished her PhD in History and then worked as a historian at the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles (1999-2007), helping to transform it into a recognized scholarly institution. She then moved to the Museum of California in Oakland (2008-2016), where, as Senior Curator of History, she helped raise its profile and prestige. During this time, she also published The Father of All: The de la Guerra Family, Power, and Patriarchy in Mexican California (Huntington Library/University of California Press, 2010), which won the Ray Allen Billington Prize for the best book in frontier and borderlands history from the Organization of American Historians (2011), and she served on the Council of the Western History Association.

Denise Lawrence-Zúñiga is Professor of Architecture and a sociocultural anthropologist at the College of Environmental Design, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. Her recent book Protecting Suburban America explores the dynamics and conflicts inherent in preserving historic twentieth-century suburban landscapes in America. Bridging architecture, anthropology, planning, and urban studies, its unique approach combines a study of historic preservation with multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork, to shed fascinating light on issues of heritage, preservation, gentrification, class, ethnicity, and contested values in suburbia.