Beth Shapiro, Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at UC Santa Cruz, explains her work on using ancient DNA to infer evolutionary history and processes. She is the MacArthur Award-winning author of "How to Clone a Mammoth: The Science of De-Extinction," which considers the feasibility and desirability of bringing back passenger pigeons, steppe bison, mammoth and other currently extinct species. This program is presented by the Institute for Practical Ethics in the Division of Arts and Humanities at UC San Diego.

San Diego-raised novelist and UC San Diego alumnus, Luis Alberto Urrea '77 is the featured speaker at the UC San Diego Library annual gala. Urrea, a 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist, has written about the border and has knitted together stories in a way that makes them familiar and impactful for everyone. Recorded on 09/21/2018.

More recently known for her Black Panther and Wakanda Forever Marvel Comics, Nnedi Okorafor is an international award-winning novelist of African-based science fiction, fantasy and magical realism for both children and adults. Born in the United States to two Nigerian immigrant parents, Nnedi is known for weaving African culture into creative evocative settings and memorable characters. In a profile of Nnedi's work titled, "Weapons of Mass Creation," The New York Times called Nnedi's imagination "stunning."Game of Thrones author, George R.R. Martin and HBO are currently developing a show based on her World Fantasy Award Winning novel, Who Fears Death. Ta-Nehisi Coates has passed the torch on writing the Black Panther comics to Nnedi, and the women warriors from the mega-hit movie were such fan favorites that Marvel has tasked Nnedi to create a new spinoff comic, Wakanda Forever.

Lester Friedman, Professor of Media and Society at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, joins moderator Patrice Petro in a Q&A discussion of Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein (1974). They cover the production, style, and influences at work in Brooks' adaptation. Part of the Frankenstein: Afterlives series, this Q&A emphasizes the ways Brook's film references James Whale's Frankenstein (1931) and Mary Shelley's original novel. Young Frankenstein is faithful to the form and production technology of Whale's version, while seeking to return more closely to the themes developed by Shelly's original work. Friedman discusses the way Brooks' adaptation, through comedy, returns to questions of science, ethics, and sexuality in ways that reference Shelly but update them for 1970s audiences speaking to the politics of marginality and social change. Recorded on 11/13/2018.

Undermining widely held beliefs about the black-Jewish alliance, Marc Dollinger, Professor of Jewish Studies at San Francisco State University, describes a new political consensus, based on identity politics, that drew blacks and Jews together and altered the course of American liberalism. Dollinger's most recent book takes a new and different look at Jewish involvement in the Civil Rights Movement, showing how American Jews leveraged the Black Power movement to increase Jewish ethnic and religious identity in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Recorded on 01/14/2019.

"I use art to start conversations about something that is serious and complex." Shaney jo Darden, Founder and Global Creative Chief of The Keep A Breast Foundation, shares her journey in the world of art and activism. As someone who has carved out a career path focused on community and compassion, she stresses the importance discovering your unique talents and finding a place for them in your everyday work. Recorded on 03/12/2019.

Rachel Kadish is an American writer of fiction and non-fiction, author of several novels and a novella. Her fiction work has won the National Jewish Book Award and the Julia Ward Howe Prize, the John Gardner Fiction Prize, and the Association of Jewish Libraries Fiction Award. She discusses her latest book, "The Weight of Ink," a work of historical fiction set in London of the 1660s and of the early twenty-first century. Recorded on 02/04/2019.