USC STAGE
TUES/4/20 :: 6:00p
Making History: Media, Stories, History, and Memory
Presented by USC
A lively panel of celebrated USC authors will come together to discuss their work and the fascinating connections between stories, media, history, and memory. Panelists include Viet Thanh Nguyen, USC English professor and the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sympathizer and The Committed; USC cinematic arts professor Howard Rodman, author of the inventive literary adventure novel, The Great Eastern; USC history professor William Deverell, author of Kathy Fiscus: A Tragedy that Transfixed the Nation, about the first live, breaking-news TV spectacle in American history; and moderator Priya Jaikumar, USC cinematic arts professor and author of Where Histories Reside: India as Filmed Space.
MODERATOR

Priya Jaikumar
Priya Jaikumar is Professor of Cinematic Arts in the Division of Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Southern California. She is the author of two books, CINEMA AT THE END OF EMPIRE (Duke, 2006); WHERE HISTORIES RESIDE: INDIA AS FILMED SPACE (Duke, 2019), and a co-edited dossier on “Teaching Cinema and Media Studies Against the Contemporary Global Right” (2018), among several other articles and book chapters, all of the non-fiction and academic variety. Prior to her University career, Priya was a journalist and television reporter, with the briefest of stints in advertising.
PARTICIPANTS

BOOKSELLER

LA Times Bookshop
Please support the LA Times Book Shop to purchase books for this panel. Click here to purchase.

Viet Thanh Nguyen
Viet Thanh Nguyen’s novel The Sympathizer won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and numerous other awards. His most recent publication is the sequel to The Sympathizer, The Committed. His other books are a short story collection, The Refugees; Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War (a finalist for the National Book Award in nonfiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award in General Nonfiction); and Race and Resistance: Literature and Politics in Asian America. He has also published Chicken of the Sea, a children’s book written in collaboration with his six-year-old son, Ellison.

Howard Rodman
Howard A. Rodman is the author of the novels The Great Eastern, a sprawling literary 19th-century anticolonial adventure, and Destiny Express, described by Thomas Pynchon as "daringly imagined, darkly romantic—a moral thriller." As a screenwriter, Rodman wrote Savage Grace, with Julianne Moore and Eddie Redmayne; August, starring Josh Hartnett and David Bowie; and Joe Gould’s Secret. He is the past president of the Writers Guild of America West; professor of screenwriting at USC's School of Cinematic Arts; a member of the National Film Preservation Board; an artistic director of the Sundance Screenwriting Labs, and a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.


Festival of Books Kickoff
10:00a
Presented with USC
Join us for the kick off the 26th Annual Virtual Festival of Books featuring the President of USC, Dr. Carol L. Folt along with surprise appearances by favorite L.A. Times writers, as well as a performance by the USC Trojan Marching Band. Please join in this prelude to the week-long celebration of books with stimulating conversations, panels, children’s and poetry readings and more!


Selfies for Social Change: Claiming Space in Social Media
2:00p
Presented by USC
Creators and influencers who use digital outlets to claim space and empower communities discuss how social media can be used for social good.


Music, Money, and Mindfulness
4:00p
Presented by USC
Authors and experts explore the art and impact of music from multiple angles, including the relationship between music and mindfulness and how to succeed in the industry.


Making History: Media, Stories, History, and Memory
6:00p
Presented by USC
A lively panel of celebrated USC authors discuss their work and the fascinating connections between stories, media, history, and memory.

