This episode delves into global heritage conservation, as producer Willa Seidenberg talks with recent grad Haowen Yu about his thesis, Examining Feng Shui as Tangible and Intangible Cultural Heritage. Many Americans consider Feng Shui primarily an approach to arranging space. Yet it’s a far more complex system of knowledge, practice, and tradition that has spanned more than a millennium. Feng Shui underlies virtually the entire built environment of China, but it hasn’t (yet) been designated as a form of cultural heritage. Haowen discusses why he’s not so sure it should be, and how Feng Shui has been viewed in China and around the world.

Surf, Sand, and Self-Determination: Jim Crow-Era Leisure for Black Angelenos

We said “so long” to summer with a trip to the Santa Monica beach with historian Alison Rose Jefferson, whose work at USC launched a deep dive into African American recreation areas in the Golden State. Her master’s thesis on Lake Elsinore led to her widely acclaimed book, Living the California Dream: African American Leisure Sites in the Jim Crow Era.

Alison shares some of the struggles, successes, and legacies of Black leisure spaces in early twentieth-century SoCal. We also hear from an oral history with the late Verna (Deckard Lewis) Williams, who experienced fun in the sun—and racism from white beachgoers—firsthand.

Category: Season 3

Season 3, Episode 2

Feng Shui as Cultural Heritage

Category: Season 3

Season 3, Episode 2

Feng Shui as Cultural Heritage

Season 3, Episode 1

Surf, Sand, and Self-Determination: Jim Crow-Era Leisure for Black Angelenos