Activism

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Poet, Painter, Social Activist, Co-Founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers
Lawrence Ferlinghetti gave a Visiting Writer Reading at the Arts Research Center on Feburary 8, 2017.

Poet, playwright, publisher, and activist Lawrence Ferlinghetti was born Lawrence Monsanto Ferling on March 24, 1919 in Yonkers, New York. His father, an Italian immigrant, had shortened the family name upon arrival in America. When Ferlinghetti discovered the lengthier name as an adult, he took it as his own. He had a tumultuous youth, parts of which were spent in France, an orphanage in Chappaqua, New York, and in the mansion of the wealthy Bisland family in Bronxville,...

Jen de los Reyes

Artist, Educator Community Arts Organizer
Jen de los Reyes was a Visiting Lecturer Panel Participant at the Questioning Aesthetics Symposium at the Arts Research Center on March 13, 2015.

Jen de los Reyes was born in the city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, and educated first in its local music scene of the mid-90’s infused with the energy of Riot grrrl and DIY, and then in its university. [1] How she works today is rooted in what she learned in her formative years as a show organizer, listener, creator of zines, and band member. Graduate work at the University of Regina made the space possible for her to see her...

C. Greig Crysler

2014 ARC Fellow
C. Greig Crysler was an ARC Fellow in Spring 2014 – he was chosen in the Faculty Fellow category.

C. Greig Crysler completed his professional training in architecture at the University of Waterloo, Canada and the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, UK. He teaches courses in the History, Theory and Society of Architecture. Through his leadership as Arcus Chair (2012-2022) and his role as Program Director of the CED’s Arcus Endowment, Crysler has translated his commitment to equity and social justice in design education into frameworks for student and...

Mel Y. Chen

ARC Fellow and Professor of Gender & Women's Studies and Director for the Center for the Study of Sexual Culture at UC Berkeley
Mel Y. Chen was an ARC Fellow in Spring 2013 – they were chosen in the Faculty Fellow category.

Mel Y. Chen (they/them+) is Professor of Gender & Women's Studies and Director for the Center for the Study of Sexual Culture at the University of California, Berkeley as well as Director of the Disability Studies Minor. Mel is also an affiliate of the Center for Race and Gender, the Institute for Cognitive and Behavioral Science, the Center for Science, Technology, Medicine, and Society, and the Haas Disability Studies and LGBTQ Citizenship Research Clusters. Previously,...

Jeff Chang

Writer and Cultural Organizer
Jeff Chang gave a Visiting Writer Lecture at the Arts Research Center on October 17, 2016.

Jeff Chang is a writer and cultural organizer who has worked in and written extensively on culture, politics, the arts, and music.

He is finishing a cultural biography of Bruce Lee called Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America (Mariner/HarperCollins). He is the host of the Edge of Reason, a podcast of...

Tania Bruguera

Artist, Activist
Tania Bruguera was a Visiting Artist Panel Participant at the Spiraling Time Symposium at the Arts Research Center on March 15, 2013.

Tania Bruguera was born in 1968 in Havana, Cuba. Bruguera, a politically motivated performance artist, explores the relationship between art, activism, and social change in works that examine the social effects of political and economic power. By creating proposals and aesthetic models for others to use and adapt, she defines herself as an initiator rather than an author, and often collaborates with multiple institutions as well as...

Kevin Bott

Community-Based Theater Artist, Scholar
Kevin Bott was a Visiting Lecturer Panel Participant at the Cross Sector Conference on April 28, 2016.

Kevin Bott is a community-based theater artist and scholar whose interests lie at the intersection of healing, freedom, justice, and movement-building, as well as in the mutually supportive relationship between individual excellence and collective creation. Bott is the founder and artistic director of Ritual4Return, which he began developing in 2008. His 2010 doctoral dissertation is entitled “A Ritual for Return: Investigating the Process of Creating an Original Rite of...

Lisa Blackmore

Researcher, Curator, and Educator
Lisa Blackmore gave a Visiting Lecturer Lecture at the Arts Research Center on November 14, 2024.

Lisa Blackmore is a researcher, curator and educator, working with art and water cultures in Latin America. Since 2018, she has been directing entre—ríos, a platform whose collaborative methodologies (re)connect diverse communities to bodies of water through curatorial, editorial and pedagogical projects. She is a Visiting Scholar at the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at UC Berkeley and Senior Lecturer in Art History and Interdisciplinary Studies...

Evan Bissell

ARC Fellow, Artist, Researcher, Facilitator, and Administrator
Evan Bissell was an ARC Fellow in 2015 – he was chosen in the graduate and faculty category.

Evan Bissell (he/him, white) facilitates participatory art and research projects that support equitable systems and liberatory processes. With groups around the country, he has supported the development of curriculum, public art, laws, books, and convenings that build imagination, power and capacity around the just transition, anti-prison and police efforts, housing justice, and health equity, among others. Most recently Evan created the Arts & Cultural Strategy program at the...

John Perry Barlow

Poet, Essayist, Cattle Rancher, Cyberlibertarian Political Activist, and Former Lyricist for the Grateful Dead
John Perry Barlow gave a Visiting Writer Lecture at the Arts Research Center on September 8, 2014. In 1990, John Perry Barlow co-founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a nonprofit based in the U.S. that provides legal aid to defend individuals and new technologies from what it considers to be misdirected legal threats. His writing about the impact of the Internet has influenced people’s thinking since the network’s earliest days. His essays for Wired, The New York Times, Communications of the ACM and other publications have been vital to the public...