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THU, Feb 2, 7 PM
Reza Aslan
and Jack Miles
“The Coming Reformation of Islam:
A Conversation”
Who has the authority to define the faith and practice of over a billion people: the individual or the institution? Join two brilliant scholars of religion for a fascinating discussion on the internal conflict within Islam over the scope and outcome of the Islamic Reformation.

SAT, Feb 4, 2-4 PM
A Seminar with
Reza Aslan
“The Origins, Evolution, and History of Islam”
What is the essence of this ancient faith? Is it a religion of peace or war? Can an Islamic State be founded on democratic values such as pluralism and human rights? Join Reza Aslan, scholar of comparative religions and author of No God but God to learn more about a religion shrouded in the West by ignorance and fear.
Advance Registration Requested.
TUE, FEB 7, 7 pm
ZÓCALO
“Do Books have
a Future in
the Digital Age?”
Steve Wasserman, former Editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review, will argue that books will survive as long as the human species is defined by its opposable thumb and its obsessive need to tell each other stories.
THU, FEB 9, 7 pm
Bernard Cooper
The Bill from My Father:
A Memoir
In conversation with
Kit Rachlis, editor-in-chief,
Los Angeles Magazine
Cooper, an award-winning writer, makes hilarious and exquisite sense of his father, a cantankerous octogenarian in a khaki polyester jumpsuit. “A glorious cornucopia of love and pain.”—Alice Sebold
MON, FEB 13, 7 pm
John Hope Franklin
and Tavis Smiley
“Mirror to America:
A Conversation about
History, Race, Politics,
and the Future of
America”
Franklin, one of the country’s great historians, has dedicated his life to the pursuit of equality. He discusses that odyssey with Smiley, one of America’s premier journalists.

THU, FEB 16, 7 pm
Nick Kotz
and Karl Fleming
“Good Bad Days
in America:
A Conversation about
How the Nation
Redeemed Lincoln’s
Legacy”
Two distinguished journalists who were on the front lines during the civil rights movement discuss the events that changed America in the 1960s, the unlikely partnership of black and white leaders who led that change, and how that crucial epoch continues to affect all of our lives.

WED, FEB 22, 7 pm
Geraldine Brooks
March: A Novel
In conversation with
Carla Kaplan,
Professor of English, USC
Brooks’ luminous second novel (after 2001’s acclaimed Year of Wonders) imagines the Civil War experiences of Mr. March, the absent father in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women.

THU, Feb 23, 7 pm
Mark Salzman
and Joe Loya
“Dark Thoughts:
A Conversation”
It’s often assumed that getting someone to write is helpful, because it gets them to communicate. What if getting someone to write is a traumatizing event? Salzman (True Notebooks) and Loya (The Man Who Outgrew His Prison Cell : Confessions of a Bank Robber) explore the darker aspects of writing.
WED, feb 22, 7 PM
Geraldine Brooks
Photo © Darleen Bungey
Geraldine Brooks, Australian author and journalist, grew up in the Western suburbs of Sydney, and after being educated by the nuns of her convent secondary school attended Sydney University and worked as a reporter for the city's major newspaper, The Sydney Morning Herald.

She completed a Master’s Degree in journalism at Columbia University in New York City in 1983, and worked for the Wall Street Journal, where she covered crises in the the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans.

Brooks is married to author Tony Horwitz. They divide their time between homes in Virginia, United States and Sydney, Australia.

www.geraldinebrooks.com

Carla Kaplan is Professor of English, Gender Studies, and American & Ethnic Studies at the University of Southern California, where she teaches a wide range of courses in twentieth century literature and culture. Among her previous books are The Erotics of Talk: Women’s Writing and Feminist Paradigms (Oxford), and two edited editions: Dark Symphony and Other Works by Elizabeth Laura Adams (Macmillan) and Zora Neale Hurston’s Every Tongue Got to Confess: Negro Folk-Tales from the Gulf States (HarperCollins). Her most recent book, Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters (Doubleday) has been reviewed in over four dozen newspapers and magazines across the country and featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. It was a New York Times “Notable Book,” a featured selection of the Book of the Month Club, was chosen as a top-five pick by New York magazine, and was a finalist for the 2002 NAACP Image Award. The New York Times wrote that “Kaplan has made the letters remarkably accessible.” Booklist described Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in letters as “not merely a collection of letters but a comprehensive introduction to an important American writer.” “Captures the myriad facets of Hurston’s genius,” wrote the Washington Post.Upscale described the book as “sublime and intimate…An intriguing installment in the study of Hurston’s work and life.” Kaplan is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including a USC Excellence Grant and an NEH grant for work at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Her current book, Miss Anne in Harlem: The White Women of the Black Renaissance, a group biography of 7 white women who attempted to become “voluntary Negroes in the volatile 1920’s, will be published by HarperCollins.