Poet, novelist and Native American scholar N. Scott Momaday has spent decades bringing his culture and the landscape alive through his writing.  He received a Pulitzer Prize for his first novel, "House Made of Dawn." His books include "The Way to Rainy Mountain," "In the Bear's House," "In the Presence of the Sun: Stories and Poems, 1961-1991," and "The Gourd Dancer." He is also the editor of various anthologies and collections centered on his Kiowa heritage. As part of the Writer's Symposium By the Sea, host Dean Nelson sat down with Momaday at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to talk about his life in literature. Series: "Writer's Symposium By The Sea" [Humanities] [Show ID: 38122]

A Conversation with N. Scott Momaday - Writer's Symposium by the Sea 2023

On March 4th, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln delivered his Second Inaugural Address. He considered it his “greatest speech” and his “best effort." Join Academy Award-winning actor Richard Dreyfuss and best-selling Lincoln biographer Dr. Ronald C. White for a fascinating look at the Second Inaugural Address. Through a powerful, fascinating voyage of discovery, one comes away with a better understanding of where the country was in 1865 and Lincoln’s feeling towards the Civil War, the defeated Confederacy and, perhaps most importantly, American slavery. A century and a half later, as the U.S. faces a similar struggle over who we are as a people and a nation, Lincoln's speech still resonates. [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 38385]

Lincoln's Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural Address

In this program, Emily Lin, with the UC Merced Library, explains the process of digging into archives, including a look at how archives are created, where to look and what to expect to find, and strategies and possibilities for research.  Series: "Critically Human" [Humanities] [Show ID: 38279]

Digging into Local Archives: Approaches and Methods for Planning Research

The Kumeyaay are native inhabitants of San Diego and Imperial counties and Baja California, Mexico.  For thousands of years, the Kumeyaay people farmed the land and ocean, managed forest fires, manufactured pottery and basketry and engaged in commerce and trade.  Stan Rodriguez, Ed.D., executive director of the Kumeyaay Community College, talks about the deep physical and spiritual connection the Kumeyaay people have to the Earth.  Despite brutal religious, economic, political and social hardships under European rule, Kumeyaay culture and traditions continue in the region to this day. Series: "Triton Talks" [Humanities] [Show ID: 38071]

Triton Talks: The Kumeyaay Nation in San Diego

Joel Dimsdale

Beginning in the 1950s, the United States embarked on an elaborate program to study how LSD might be used to alter the behavior of an enemy. This collaboration between academia and government conducted astonishing studies with little regard for the ethics of experimentation. Joel E. Dimsdale, MD, describes how this research program evolved and shares stark examples of its impact on science and society.  Series: "Osher UC San Diego Distinguished Lecture Series" [Health and Medicine] [Humanities] [Show ID: 37465]

LSD and the War on Memories with Joel Dimsdale

This lecture takes on the question of why we have only two political parties in the United States and how the two party system shapes our politics. Most significantly, this lecture looks at the ways in which the politics of race - Black civil rights in particular - during the Civil War, Reconstruction, the modern Civil Rights Movement and the election of Barack Obama served to shift the two political parties into new realignments. This lecture traces the transformation of the two parties over 150 years, marking the shift of the Democrats from the party of the Confederacy to the party of the New Deal and Civil Rights, and the transformation of the Republicans from the party of Lincoln and Radical Reconstruction to the White Mans Party of Trump.  Series: "UC Public Policy Channel" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 36281]

The Partisan Divide - Election 2020: UC Berkeley Big Ideas

“We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.” As look at the history of American democracy, we begin with the nation’s founding contradiction: the dispossession of Natives, the enslavement of Africans and the exclusion of women in a new nation dedicated to the radical concept of universal human equality. Through a reading of the founding documents of the United States, ranging from the Declaration of Independence to the speeches of Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass and Barack Obama, we consider how race, colonialism and slavery shaped the nation's founding, and how this legacy, this “original sin” of the American founding, continues to shape and distort our democracy. Series: "UC Public Policy Channel" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 36276]

How Democratic is the US Constitution? - Election 2020: UC Berkeley Big Ideas

Waldo Martin

Twentieth-Century African American Freedom Struggles transformed both US and World History. These seminal liberation struggles include the important yet relatively unknown series of early twentieth-century southern African American streetcar boycotts as well as the iconic Civil Rights-Black Power Insurgency (1935-75). First, Waldo Martin examines why and how these foundational freedom struggles proved essential to the making of the modern African American Freedom Movement. Second, he examines the centrality of the modern African American Freedom Movement to both the creation of the modern United States and the development of the modern world. Waldo Martin is the Alexander F. &amp; May T. Morrison Professor of American History &amp; Citizenship at the University of California, Berkeley. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 35148]

Deep Soul: Twentieth-Century African American Freedom Struggles and the Making of the Modern World with Waldo Martin

Victoria Riskin

John Doe

America’s pre-WWII anxieties, Depression-era economic disparity, and the potential for positive social movements arise in this conversation about Frank Capra (director) and Robert Riskin’s (screenwriter) film Meet John Doe (1941) between author Victoria Riskin (Robert Riskin and Fay Wray: A Hollywood Memoir) and film scholar Charles Wolfe. Riskin and Wolfe discuss the multiple endings shot for the film, and Riskin reads passages from her father’s England-based radio broadcasts amidst the Battle of Britain. Series: "Carsey-Wolf Center" [Humanities] [Show ID: 35397]

Meet John Doe Discussion with Victoria Riskin

Brenda Stevenson

UCLA history professor Brenda Stevenson studies slavery and the Antebellum South, some of our country’s most painful moments and eras. Because there is not much in the way of documentary evidence of the lives of women of color, enslaved women and women from the South, Stevenson must work as an investigator to discover their inner lives and experiences. This is often done through stories told through the age, some of which she shares in this UCLA Faculty Lecture. Series: "UCLA Faculty Research Lectures" [Humanities] [Show ID: 35126]

Gifts of the Storyteller with Brenda Stevenson - UCLA Faculty Research Lecture 

UCTV programs take a closer look at the events, people and places that shaped the American experience from the history of early exploration through modern times.

Should your art send you to prison? Rap lyrics are increasingly turning up as evidence in courtrooms across the country. The fictional characters portrayed in violent gansta rap songs are often a far cry from the true personalities of the artists behind them, yet uninitiated audiences easily conflate artist with character and fiction with fact. On a broader scale, using rap lyrics as evidence in criminal cases also raises questions about artistic freedom, freedom of speech and the rights of all citizens to receive a fair trial. UC Irvines Charis E. Kubrin, Ph.D and Adam Dunbar explore these issues.  Series: "Zot Talks" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 31368]

Rap on Trial: Is it a Crime to Rhyme?

Ron Goode, Tribal Chairman of the North Fork Mono Tribe, led UC Davis professor, Beth Rose Middleton Manning's, students through a cultural burn. Students participated in preparing the land and igniting the fire, and contributed to a historic indigenous tradition. Cultural burning practices empower Native American communities, and could possibly be used as a tool to help alleviate devastating wildfires. Series: "UCTV Prime" [Humanities] [Agriculture] [Show ID: 34098]

Fighting Fire With Fire: Using Cultural Burning Practices

American History (Video)

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