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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.
mon, feb 13, 7 PM
John Hope Franklin and
Tavis Smiley
Top: John Hope Franklin
Photo © Duke University Photography
Bottom: Tavis Smiley
Photo © Kevin Foley
John Hope Franklin was born in Rentiesville, Oklahoma, in 1915, graduated from Fisk University in 1935, received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1941, and taught at a number of institutions, including Howard University, before going in 1956 to Brooklyn College as chairman of the Department of History, the first such appointment of an African American in the country. In 1964, he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago, serving as chairman of the Department of History from 1967 to 1970. He completed his academic career at Duke University as the James B. Duke Professor of History and, for seven years, a professor of legal history at the school of law.

Through the years, Professor Franklin has served on many national commissions and delegations, including the National Council on the Humanities, from which he resigned in 1979, when President Carter appointed him to the Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. Another appointment was his membership on the President's Advisory Commission on Ambassadorial Appointments. In September and October of 1980, he was a United States delegate to the 21st General Conference of UNESCO. His many other foreign positions have included Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions at Cambridge University, Consultant on American Education in the Soviet Union, Fulbright Professor in Australia, and Lecturer in American History in the People's Republic of China. In 1997, President Clinton appointed Professor Franklin chair of the President's Initiative on Race, one of the most sustained and controversial attempts to improve the national dialogue on race relations.

For his academic achievements, his interventions with American racism-most notably in helping Thurgood Marshall and the Legal Defense Fund prepare to successfully reargue Brown v. Board of Education-and his numerous acts of public service, Professor Franklin has been the recipient of many honors. Selected in 1978 by Who's Who in America as one of eight Americans who have made significant contributions to society, he has also received: the Jefferson Medal for 1984, awarded by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education; the first Cleanth Brooks Medal of the Fellowship of Southern Writers in 1989; the 1993 Charles Frankel Prize for contributions to the humanities; in 1995, the first W.E.B. Du Bois Award from the Fisk University Alumni Association; the Organization of American Historians' Award for Outstanding Achievement; the Alpha Phi Alpha Award of Merit; the NAACP's Spingarn Medal; and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Aside from the many awards, Professor Franklin has received honorary degrees from more than 130 colleges and universities.

He is the author and editor of seventeen books, including the bestselling From Slavery to Freedom; has been the subject of a PBS documentary, "First Person Singular: John Hope Franklin"; and co-hosted another PBS special with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, "Tutu and Franklin: A Journey Towards Peace." He maintains a greenhouse containing more than two hundred orchids, one, the "Phalaeonopsis John Hope Franklin," named for him.

With his late night television talk show, Tavis Smiley on PBS, and his radio show The Tavis Smiley Show from NPR, Tavis Smiley was the first American ever to simultaneously host signature talk shows on both PBS and National Public Radio. Smiley’s television show continues now in its second season, and The Tavis Smiley Show on public radio is distributed by Public Radio International, PRI.

Time selected Smiley as one of America’s 50 most promising young leaders. Newsweek profiled him as one of the “20 people changing how Americans get their news” and dubbed him one of the nation’s “captains of the airwaves.”

Smiley, who started his career as an aide to the late Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley, also offers political commentary twice weekly on the Tom Joyner Morning Show. In addition, he has authored eight books and has his own imprint (Smiley Books) with Hay House.

Texas Southern University recently honored Smiley with the opening of The Tavis Smiley School of Communications and The Tavis Smiley Center for Professional Media Studies, making Smiley the youngest African American to ever have a professional school and center named after him on a college or university campus. Smiley cemented his commitment to TSU with a $1million gift to the Center.

The mission of his nonprofit organization—Tavis Smiley Foundation—is to enlighten, encourage and empower Black youth. Tavis Smiley Presents, a subsidiary of The Smiley Group, Inc., brings ideas and people together through symposiums, seminars, forums and town hall meetings.

Smiley has received numerous honorary doctorate degrees including one from his alma mater, Indiana University.

www.tavistalks.com