Science and the Humanities: a Meeting of Minds Continues

Conversations in Place 2016/October 16

Page 1 of 3

NEWS RELEASEMedia Contacts

September 12, 2016Claudia Jurmain

562.431.3541

“Science and the Humanities: A Meeting of Minds” Continues

The Conversations in Place 2016Serieson October 16

The second of threesalons at Rancho Los Alamitosis Sunday, October 16. The conversation includes speakers Lori Bettison-Varga andMichael Dickinson with moderator William Deverell, and panelists Ursula Heise, Hannah Landecker and D .J. Waldie.

Long Beach, Calif. –“Theintersection of science, technology andthe humanities is the meeting place of creative,collaborative thinking from diverseperspectives that leads the imagination to new worlds to explore andverify and yet still leads to an idea of home,”notes Conversations in Place founder Claudia Jurmain. On Sunday, October 16 at 1:30 p.m., scientists, scholars, and humanists will gather at Rancho Los Alamitos to consider the impacts of science and technology – at once beneficial, annoying, and even dangerous – as they intersect with human intuition,values and intent, aesthetics, emotions, andchoice to re-direct our moralcompass toward neighborhood priorities,cultural identity, environment, and equitablewell-being.

The Octoberconversation beginswith speakers Lori Bettison-Varga and Michael Dickinson.Lori Bettison-Vargais the newly named President and Director of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.Michael Dickinsonis Zarem Professor of Biology and Bioengineering at the California Institute of Technology and head of the Dickinson Lab.

Bettison-Varga and Dickinson will then join in a conversation with Ursula Heise, Marcia H. Howard Chair in Literary Studies at the Department of Englishand the Institute of the Environment & Sustainability at UCLA; Hannah Landecker, Director of The UCLA Institute for Society and Genetics (which considers the ethical, legal, and societal implications of the biological sciences and genetics) and D. J. Waldie, memoirist and cultural critic.

Moderator of the discussion is William Deverell, Chairman of the History Department at USC, Director of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West and author of several books about the social and cultural history of Southern California.

Now in its fifthyear, Conversations in Place 2016at Rancho Los Alamitos will present anotherilluminating explorationof the nature of place on Sunday, November 6 at 1:30 p.m. “The Sonic Landscape: Moving Messages” includes a special appearance by the Grammy Award winning band Quetzal.

Tickets for the Sunday, October 16Conversations in Placeare $25 each. Reservations are required. Tickets may be purchased at by calling Rancho Los Alamitos at 562.431.3541.

The Conversations in Place2106 series is supported by Metabolic Studio, IMPRINT Culture Lab, Studio 111, Mike Sfregola & Sue Shanley, Marjorie & Robert Rivera and Gelson’s.

# # #

Attachments:

Presenters and Speakers Biographies

For More Information:

Photographs and opportunities for special interviews are available upon request.

About Rancho Los Alamitos:

Rancho Los Alamitos (the Ranch of the Little Cottonwoods) is owned by the City and people of Long Beach and operated by Rancho Los Alamitos Foundation as a public/private cooperative venture. Pamela Seager is the award-winning Executive Director of the Foundation. Twice listed on the National Register, Rancho Los Alamitos is the ancestral village site of Povuu’ngna. The 7.5-acre site was once part of the largest Spanish land grant awarded in California. The site is twice listed on the National Register of Historic Places – for its significance as Povuu’ngna and for the cultural and natural evolution of its landscape.

Rancho Los Alamitos includes four acres of historic gardens primarily designed by the Olmsted Brothers from the 1920s through the 1930s, the core of an adobe rancho house from about 1800, and an early 20th century barns area. The award-winning Rancho Center, with permanent exhibition space and the restored barns area, features the blending of regional culture and the natural environment through time, including the Native American, Spanish and Mexican periods, the ranching and farming era, and mid-20th-century life. A place for all time, today Rancho Los Alamitos speaks to Southern California, yesterday and tomorrow.

Founder, Conversations in Place:

Claudia Jurmain, founder of Conversations in Place and the series director, is the Director of Special Projects and Publications at Rancho Los Alamitos in Long Beach, California. She began her work as a research historian at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery, and since has produced award-winning projects for museums, sites, and educational institutions across the country, including the concept design and content for the new Rancho Center at Rancho Los Alamitos. She is co-editor of California - A Place, A People, A Dream (1986), author of Planting Perspectives: The Landscape at Rancho Los Alamitos (2000), and co-author of Rancho Los Alamitos – Ever Changing and Always the Same and O, My Ancestor: Recognition and Renewal for the Gabrielino-Tongva People of the Los Angeles Area, which both received national awards from the American Association for State and Local History.

# # #