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Tag: intangible cultural heritage

May 9, 2024
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Season 4, Episode 10

Posted in Episodes, and Season 4

Beyond the Stage: Uncovering Drag Culture in Los Angeles

Drag performances have long been a draw for audiences in L.A., though often held “underground” because of threats of persecution. In addition to its entertainment history, drag has had a role in affirming and protecting gender identity. Architect and recent graduate Jesús (Chuy) Barba Bonilla researched this history for his master’s thesis, Drag Culture of Los Angeles: Intangible Heritage through Ephemeral Places. In this episode, Willa Seidenberg chats with Chuy about how he chose this topic and why it matters within and beyond the LGBTQ+ community. He delves into the challenges of researching drag’s hidden and erased heritage and the vital need to uncover, document, and share these stories.

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March 30, 2023
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Season 3, Episode 10

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[Encore] After the War: Using Heritage to Rebuild

In case you missed it, we are re-releasing an episode from our first season.

The decade-long civil war in Syria has decimated the country’s infrastructure, killed more than 400,000 Syrians, and created the world’s largest displaced population of around 13 million. Heritage sites play a big role in war as targets of destruction and are typically an early focus of rebuilding efforts.

With an optimistic take on a devastating situation, alumna Dalia Mokayed talks about the effects of war on heritage and identity, and how heritage conservation can help cities and communities rebuild. The Aleppo native specifically addresses the Old City of Aleppo, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the case study in her thesis, Heritage Conservation to Rebuild Cities After Crisis.

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March 9, 2023
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Season 3, Episode 9

Posted in Episodes, and Season 3

Legacy Businesses in Immigrant Neighborhoods

Small businesses provide much more than goods and services. Over time, they become neighborhood anchors and a key source of culture and community—especially for new Americans.

Heritage conservationists are increasingly turning to legacy business programs as economic development strategies to combat rising rents, gentrification, and the erosion of community character, particularly in ethnic and immigrant neighborhoods. In this episode, producer Willa Seidenberg talks with recent USC graduate Xiaoling Fang about her thesis, Legacy Business Program Implementation in American Urban Immigrant Neighborhoods. 

Xiaoling explored some of the longstanding small businesses in L.A.’s Chinatown and Little Tokyo neighborhoods, and how legacy business programs, like the ones recently adopted in Los Angeles, can be used as a tool to help culturally significant and beloved businesses survive.

Listen below, and click here for the transcript.

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February 10, 2023
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Season 3, Episode 8

Posted in Episodes, and Season 3

Reinvesting in a Rosenwald School

What happens when a community takes its educational future into its own hands? Funded by local advocates and a generous grant from the Rosenwald Fund, the Allen-White School served the African American community in Whiteville, Tennessee from 1920 until 1974. With thousands of graduates, the school helped shape the lives of multiple generations.

Now, despite a 2012 arson attack, the alumni are working to restore the school buildings to once again serve the community. USC alumna and Tennessee native Brannon Smithwick dug into the stories of this influential school and the efforts to conserve it in her recent thesis Educating Generations: The Legacy and Future of the Allen-White School Campus, A Rosenwald School in Whiteville, Tennessee. Through copious archival research and oral history interviews, Brannon learned firsthand the impact that one place can make.

 

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January 27, 2023
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Season 3, Episode 7

Posted in Episodes, and Season 3

Bearing Witness:  World War II “Comfort Women” Stations

Warning: This episode features the difficult topic of sexual slavery during World War II.

Producer Willa Seidenberg talks with recent graduate Hanyu Chen about her thesis, “Our Bodies, Their Battlegrounds”: The Conservation of Comfort Stations in China. Before and during World War II, the Japanese Imperial Army forced women and girls into sexual slavery for the military in its occupied territories. Their captors called them “comfort women” and their prisons “comfort stations.” Two of the few remaining former comfort stations are in Hanyu’s hometown.

In this episode, Hanyu discusses how the “comfort women” system developed, why these crimes took so long to reach the public eye, and why conserving the few former stations is critical to reclaiming these women’s stories.

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October 20, 2022
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Season 3, Episode 2

Posted in Episodes, and Season 3

Feng Shui as Cultural Heritage

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.

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University of Southern California