ALOUD @ Los Angeles Public Library

Bassem Youssef, a satirist who rose to international fame in the middle of the Egyptian Revolution with his incendiary brand of comedy and his knack for unabashedly mocking dictators, has been dubbed “the Jon Stewart of the Arabic world.” In his new book, Revolution for Dummies: Laughing Through the Arab Spring, Youssef chronicles his transformation from a heart surgeon who filmed YouTube skits in the laundry room of his home to the host and creator of the popular Egyptian television show, AlBernameg (“The Program”). Youssef’s provocative political commentary quickly incensed the authoritarian government, who accused him of insulting the Egyptian presidency and Islam, and he was arrested and interrogated by the police. While his case was eventually dismissed, his television show was terminated, and Youssef, fearful for his safety, fled his homeland. Now living in exile in Los Angeles, Youssef will take the ALOUD stage to discusses his tumultuous—and hilarious—journey through a revolution that illuminates how jokes are often mightier than the sword.

Because of its similar celebration of the beauty of the natural world and focus on compactness, contemporary Zapotec-language poetry shares much in common with the Japanese haiku. Poet Víctor Terán—who’s performed his work from Oaxaca to London—will share some of his translations of the Japanese masters of the form alongside his own original Zapotec haiku, and American poet Jane Hirshfield will discuss both the haiku form and the way that the natural world informs her own work. The program will culminate with the presentation of Terán’s new translation into Zapotec of a poem by Hirshfield and a conversation between the two poets, moderated by David Shook—translator, poet, and publisher of Phoneme Media. Bilingual program Spanish/English with simultaneous interpretation by Antena Los Ángeles.This program is produced as part of the Getty's initiative Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA.

Winner of a 2017 Pulitzer Prize, historian Heather Ann Thompson sheds new light on the infamous 1971 Attica Prison riot as one of the most important civil rights stories of the last century. Chronicling the horrific conditions that led to 1,300 prisoners taking over the upstate New York correctional facility and how the state violently retook the prison—killing thirty-nine men and severely wounding more than a hundred others—Blood in the Water also confronts the gruesome aftermath. From brutal retaliation against the prisoners, to corrupt investigations and cover-ups, and civil and criminal lawsuits, Thompson meticulously follows the ensuing forty-five-year fight for justice. In a conversation with Kelly Lytle Hernandez, a professor and director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA, Thompson discusses the impact of what this tragic historic moment can teach us about racial conflict, failures in mass incarceration, and police brutality in America today.

Last fall’s presidential election brought a range of impassioned voices to the national stage, but one of the most captivating speakers rose above petty politics with a deeply personal and very different view of what it means to be American. You may recall the Muslim parent Khizr Khan from the DNC when he spoke about his son, a U.S. Army Captain who was killed while protecting his base camp in Iraq. In Khan’s inspiring new book, An American Family: A Memoir of Hope and Sacrifice, he reflects on his grief for his son as well as his family history of pursuing the American dream during these tumultuous times. From humble beginnings on a poultry farm in Pakistan to obtaining a degree from Harvard Law School and raising a family in America—Khan shows what it means to leave the limitations of one’s country behind for the best values and promises of another. Khan will now take the ALOUD stage to discuss the realities of life in a nation of immigrants and the daily struggles of living up to our ideals.

What lies at the heart of humanity’s ability―and drive―to create? New York Times bestselling author and neuroscientist David Eagleman teams up with internationally acclaimed composer and Associate Professor at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music Anthony Brandt in a wide-ranging exploration of human creativity. In their new book, The Runaway Species: How Human Creativity Remakes the World, the pair studies hundreds of examples of human creativity from landing on the moon to paintings by Picasso to connect what creative acts have in common. By uncovering the essential elements of human innovation and examining them through the lens of cutting-edge neuroscience, Eagleman and Brandt consider how we can harness creativity to better our lives, schools, businesses, and institutions. Join us for an inspiring look at humanity’s unique ability to use the powerful tools of arts, technology, science, and more to improve our future.

Why has our society become so punitive? In recent years, critics have assailed the rise of mass incarceration, emphasizing its disproportionate impact on people of color. However, many African American leaders in the nation’s urban centers supported the war on crime that began in the 1970s. James Forman, Jr., a professor of law at Yale Law School and former D.C. public defender, wrestles with the complexities of race and the criminal justice system in his new book, Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America. Chronicling riveting stories of politicians, community activists, police officers, defendants, and crime victims, Forman illustrates with great compassion how racism plagues our current system of tough-on-crime measures. In an eye-opening conversation with Gary B. Nash Professor of American History at UCLA Robin D.G. Kelley, Forman shines a light on the urgent debate over the future of America’s criminal justice system.

L.A.’s own Janet Fitch, the mega-bestselling author of White Oleander and Paint It Black, returns to ALOUD with her newest work, a sweeping historical saga of the Russian Revolution. Beginning on New Year’s Eve in 1916 St. Petersburg, The Revolution of Marina M. follows the mesmerizing coming-of-age story of a young woman of privilege who aches to break free of the constraints of her genteel life, a life about to be violently upended by the vast forces of history. Joining Fitch to discuss this epic journey through some of the most dramatic events of the last century is Boris Dralyuk, a Russian literature scholar and executive editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books, who helped Fitch with the Russian translations for her book.

The program is conducted in both Spanish and English. Anthropologists have traced the Meso-American acceptance of people of mixed gender back to pre-Columbian Mexico accounts of Aztec priests and Mayan gods who cross-dressed and were considered both male and female. In the shifting landscape of gender identity, what might we learn from the indigenous Zapotec people of Oaxaca’s isthmus region, who embrace a third gender—the muxe—within their communities? Zackary Drucker, transgender multimedia artist and producer of the Amazon series Transparent , moderates a conversation with Victor Cata, Zapotec historian, writer, and linguist; Bamby Salcedo, founder of the Los Angeles-based TransLatin@Coalition, and Maritza Sanchez, Embajadora de los muxes en el exterior (Ambassador of Muxes in the Exterior.) Simultaneous interpretation was provided by Antena Los Ángeles. This program was produced as part of The Getty's Pacific Standard Time: LA/LAinitiative.

Join us for an evening celebrating indigenous poetry from the United States and Mexico with three major poets—Natalie Diaz (member of the Mojave and Pima Indian tribes, winner of the Nimrod/Hardman Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, language activist, and educator), Layli Long Soldier (an Oglala Lakota poet, writer, and artist whose debut poetry collection Whereas is short-listed for the National Book Award), and Natalia Toledo (a Mexican poet and translator who writes in Spanish and Zapotec and won the Nezhualcóyotl Prize, Mexico’s highest honor for indigenous-language literature). Each poet will read from their distinctive work that moves across many languages and lands, exploring what it means to be an indigenous woman writer in today’s world. This special program will also feature a performance by Cahuilla Bird singing master Michael Mirelez and company, who are part of a long, inter-generational tradition of culture bearers within the local California Indian community. Simultaneous interpretation was provided by Antena Los Ángeles. This program was conducted in both Spanish and English.This program was produced as part of The Getty's Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA initiative.

Caitlin Doughty, a mortician, best-selling author, blogger, YouTube personality, and director of the nonprofit funeral home, Undertaking LA, has long been fascinated by death, what it means to treat the dead with dignity, and why we are so afraid of dead bodies. Her new book, From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death, sets out on a global journey to discover how other cultures care for their dead. With curiosity and morbid humor, Doughty encounters a range of rituals from a grandpa’s mummy being cared for in a family home in rural Indonesia to a Japanese practice of using chopsticks to pick bones from cremation ashes. As many cultures around the world celebrate their ancestors this time of year, join us for a refreshing look at death practices, mourning rituals, and how we might bring life to the way we think about death.