Visions of Central Valley Culture: How Local Arts & Films Portray Valley Life
Modesto Junior College has recently been awarded a “Humanities Initiatives Grant” from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) that is bringing together MJC faculty as well as regional scholars, artists and leadership from the University of California at Merced, the University of California at Berkeley, California State University Stanislaus, Fresno State University, The National Steinbeck Center, El Teatro Campesino, the State Theatre and the Modesto Junior College Foundation to study the culture of California’s Central Valley, to develop collegial networks for future scholarly work and to create thematic curricular modules for use in a wide-variety of post-secondary classrooms.
The grant for “The Search for Common Ground: Culture in California’s Central Valley” will provide two years of professional development for dozens of MJC faculty across divisions as well as fund interdisciplinary curricular development. Most importantly, the subject of the grant is our Central Valley itself and the diverse cultural heritages in our community. We believe that when faculty craft classes which reflect the cultural traditions of our own geography that students “see themselves” in their classes and are more engaged and successful; so this grant opportunity also has an important student success component in addition to the plethora of faculty professional development opportunities.
Topic 3: Visions of Central Valley Culture: How Local Arts & Films Portray Valley Life
Description: This discussion centers around the way cultural identity is represented and enhanced through works of art, film, and other expressions. Key Questions: Who has the authority to decide what constitutes a primary work of cultural production that aids in the formation of collective identity? What is the relationship between a need for community identity and the creation of traditions? How does the interaction of multiple ethnic population centers merge, create, and establish historic traditions? In identifying cultural representation in the performing arts, what preconceptions do we incorporate regarding performance space and modes of performance?
Events
LECTURE: September 9, 2015 from 3-5pm at Modesto Junior College, Performing and Media Arts Center (PAC), East Campus, Room 243
Lecture with Jessica Gomula-Kruzic, Professor of Video and Time-based Media at California State University, Stanislaus, works with local filmmakers to produce films about the Central Valley. She will discuss a creative place-making project known as the Building Imagination Center in the contemporary arts gallery, Art Space on Main, an extension of the CSU Art Gallery. Lecture with Jack Souza, Artistic Director, of the Prospect Theater Project, Modesto, received an M.A. in Modern Drama (Honors) from University College, Dublin. He will introduce ways that cultural identity is represented through works of art, film and other expressions, including the valley’s unique and diverse cultural make-up expressed through modes of cultural transmission which thrive outside orthodox Western forms of theater, music and dance.
SEMINAR: September 23rd, 2015 from 3-5pm Modesto Junior College, Performing and Media Arts Center (PAC), East Campus, Room 243
Seminar discussion with required and recommended readings including: “Creative Place-making” by Ann Markusen; A White Paper for The Mayors’ Institute on City Design; Edward Said’s Culture and Imperialism; Franz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth.