Lunch & Learn – 2018 Archive
December 12, 2018
A Hidden History of Addiction
A Conversation with Professor Rebecca Lemon
Rebecca Lemon, a Professor of English at USC, teaches and researches English Renaissance literature, with a particular interest in Shakespeare, law, political philosophy, and the history of medicine. She is the author of Addiction and Devotion in Early Modern England, which offers an understanding of addiction as a form of compulsion or devotion, revealing the phenomenon’s existence at least two hundred years before its medical “discovery.”
Event Recording:
November 28, 2018
Clowns in the Hospital?! That’s Bonkers
Conversations with Professor Zach Steel about Medical Clowning
USC School of Dramatic Arts faculty members and practicing medical clowns Zach Steel and Caitlyn Conlin demonstrated the positive effects clowns can have on patients and their families in the hospital. The practice of Medical Clowning goes beyond being merely an entertainment service. The clowns unique adaptability and environmental sensitivity allows them to receive what they are being given from room to room and use it as inspiration for joyful interaction. Rather than imposing a preconceived idea of fun onto an audience, the clown is constantly relearning what fun is from their audience, empowering the patient to become the author of their own creative and healing experience. This is the source of the clown’s unique ability to transform the hospital environment from a colorless one ridden with pain, anxiety, and boredom into one where there is possibility of joy, hope and companionship.
March 22, 2018
Theatre, Medicine, Healing
Intersections and Accidents
David Bridel is dean of the USC School of Dramatic Arts and the inaugural holder of the Braverman Family Dean’s Chair. An accomplished director, playwright, choreographer, librettist and performer, his work in these disciplines has been seen in theatres, opera houses, and on screen at universities, festivals and theatres throughout the world. Dean Bridel is the founding and artistic director of The Clown School in Los Angeles, the only studio in the city devoted exclusively to the study and practice of clowning. He has received numerous grants and awards for his work, and is the coauthor of Clowns: In Conversation With Modern Masters.
February 14, 2018
War, Memory, and Trauma
A Conversation with Professor Viet Nguyen about The Sympathizer
Professor Viet Nguyen is the author of The Refugees, Race and Resistance: Literature and Politics in Asian America, and Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Sympathizer. He holds the Aerol Arnold Chair of English and Professor of English, American Studies and Ethnicity, and Comparative Literature at the University of Southern California, and was recently awarded prestigious fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur Foundations.