This spring 2017 semester at UC Berkeley featured an engaging and informative lecture series Thinking Through the Arts and Design at Berkeley: California Countercultures, organized by Big Ideas Courses and the Arts + Design Initiative. The course and embedded lecture series, which will occur again in Fall 2017, is open to the public each Wednesday at noon in BAMPFA’s Theater. California Countercultures is co-taught by Natasha Boas, independent curator, art historian and critic, and Michael Cohen, Associate Teaching Professor in the African American Studies Department, including a Wednesday public lecture series organized by Boas. The spring course engaged the BAMPFA exhibition Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia, the Cal Performances season, the Environmental Design Archives, and other campus and Bay Area resources. It asked, “What is a counterculture? What kind of culture does a counterculture counter? Can culture be a space of political opposition? Can culture be revolutionary?”
Thinking Through the Arts and Design at Berkeley: California Countercultures lectures are available to the public. You can watch each lecture below or visit the Arts + Design Initiative’s YouTube channel.
Beat Notes: From the Rat Bastards to the Mission School
Natasha Boas, curator, art historian and critic
Wed., Jan. 25, 12-1:30 pm
On the Left Edge: California’s Renegade Tradition
Ian Boal, independent scholar, University of California and Birkbeck College, London
Wed., Feb. 1, 12-1:30 pm
North Beach Beat Generation
Jack Hirschman, poet and organizer, San Francisco International Poetry Festival
Wed., Feb. 8, 12-1:30 pm
Civil Rights Movement Photography and Its Legacies
Leigh Raiford, Professor of African American Studies
Wed., Feb. 15, 12-1:30 pm
Hippie Modernism
Greg Castillo, Professor of Architecture
Wed., Feb. 22, 12-1:30 pm
Pynchon’s Paranoid California
Michael Cohen, Professor of African American Studies
Wed., March 1, 12-1:30 pm
Experimental Art and Subjectile Space
Dena Beard, Executive Director, The Lab
Featuring a performance by Brontex Purnell
Wed., March 8, 12-1:30 pm
Poetry and Protest
Ishmael Reed, author and activist
Wed., March 15, 12-1:30 pm
Ana Mendieta: Decolonialized Feminist and Artist
Laura E. Pérez, Professor of Ethnic Studies
Wed., March 22, 12-1:30 pm
Arts/Politics/Aesthetics
Stephanie Syjuco, Professor of Art Practice
Wed., April 5, 12-1:30pm
Diggers, Communes and Counterculture and the Death of Hope
Peter Coyote, actor and author
Wed., April 12, 12-1:30 pm
San Francisco Punk
V. Vale, writer and independent publisher
Wed., April 19, 12-1:30 pm
Over the Top: when too much is never enough
Mark Pauline, founder, Survival Research Labs
Amy Critchett, founder, Art+Audience
Moderated by Natasha Boas, curator, art historian and critic
Wed., April 26, 12-1:30 pm
Thinking Through the Arts and Design at Berkeley: California Countercultures is co-taught by Natasha Boas, independent curator, art historian and critic, and Michael Cohen, Associate Teaching Professor in the African American Studies Department. The Wednesday public lecture series is organized by Natasha Boas. California Countercultures is sponsored by UC Berkeley’s Big Ideas program and the Arts + Design Initiative, with additional support from Cal Performances and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.