Cal Humanities Events

Community Stories Grant Applications Due August 1

2013-06-12T21:17:23+00:00

Interested in applying for one of our Community Stories grants?

Information about the grants program, new application materials and guidelines, sample grant proposals, and descriptions of past funded projects are now available HERE on our website. We will begin accepting applications for Community Stories grants on July 1.The deadline to apply is August 1, 2013 at 5 p.m.

Community Stories (previously the California Story Fund) is an ongoing, competitive grants program designed to support projects that document and share compelling stories from and about California’s diverse communities. Grant awards range up to $10,000 and a cash or in-kind match is required. For more information, visit our website or contact Senior Program Officer Felicia Kelley.

Film Screening: Big Joy

2013-06-07T18:35:50+00:00

The luminous life and work of James Broughton is coming to the screen. Big Joy: the Adventures of James Broughton provides a humorous antidote to the cynicism and materialism of our age, and is being screened in Frameline 37 of the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival. Directors Stephen Silha and Eric Slade are expected to attend.

Film notes, by Steven Jenkins: “James Broughton was a trickster. He had a way of getting at the serious by focusing on the silly, and that’s very seductive.” So opines Armistead Maupin at the start of this wonderfully entertaining, enriching documentary that traces the artistic explorations and romantic romps of the great gay Renaissance man—poet, filmmaker, and sexual liberator—of San Francisco counterculture.

Broughton’s inexhaustible creativity and polysexual escapades made for an action-packed and rewarding life, though not one without its challenges (young Jimmy’s cold-hearted mother deducted 25 cents from his allowance every time he acted effeminate). Hailing from Modesto, Broughton escaped into the City’s underground scene, kicked off poetry festivals, directed award-winning films, shacked up with Pauline Kael, taught at the San Francisco Art Institute, joined the Radical Faeries, and became a charter member of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. “I believe in ecstasy for everyone,” he exclaimed with glee.

At age sixty, Broughton met Joel Singer, a student some forty years younger than his perennially dashing mentor. Following a three-day tryst at the infamous Beck’s Motor Lodge, the pair became a devoted couple for the next 25 years, right up until the bard of eroticism’s death in 1999.

Co-directors Eric Slade, Stephen Silha, and Dawn Logsdon have made a joyous film that does full poetic justice to their bountiful subject, an ebullient artist whose spirit of adventure continues to galvanize queer culture.

Castro Theatre
429 Castro Street, San Francisco, CA 94114

Saturday, June 22, 2013, 4 p.m.

To purchase tickets, click here. For more information, go to http://www.bigjoy.org/ or contact Director Stephen Silha at ssilha@comcast.net.

3rd on Third Arts Celebration

2013-05-13T18:30:47+00:00

3rd on Third, a reference to the third Thursday of the month and the event location, Third Street, will feature a myriad of activities for the whole family, including an unveiling of six new StreetSmARTS murals by local artists, pop up galleries, outdoor performances, a special children’s zone with free art-making activities, and food vendors. Through creative partnerships with neighborhood-based organizations, 3rd on Third shines a spotlight on the Bayview’s cultural offerings and helps identify the Third Street Corridor as a lively destination for great food and art.

3rd on Third is presented by the San Francisco Arts Commission with funding support from San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which recently announced a two-year commitment to bring a robust suite of arts investment activities to the Bayview neighborhood. Other partners include the Bayview Merchants Association, and the Bayview Opera House Ruth Williams Memorial Theatre, Infin8Sync, and other community-based artists.

Third Street between McKinnon and Quesada Streets

Thursday, June 20, 2013, 5:30-8:00 p.m.

Free and open to the public.

For more information, go to http://www.sfartscommission.org/CAE/about-cae/cae-press-media/2013/04/25/3rd-on-third-arts-celebration/ or contact Tyra Fennell, tyra.fennell@sfgov.org.

Tour: Joaquin Miller’s Squaw Valley

2013-05-02T23:09:57+00:00

Squaw Valley was the place where Joaquin Miller fictionalized his beloved “Now-aw-wa” Valley. It was here that he built a cabin, where he lived with a Wintu woman, and was the point of departure for many an elk hunt, oftentimes accompanied by Wintu warriors. This tour visits the presumed locations of these events in Miller’s young life: the recently created Joaquin Miller book sculpture at Hoo-Hoo Park, created by resident artist Mark Oliver; Soda Springs; and Elk Flat. Forest Service archaeologist, Julie Cassidy, will guide the tour to these little-known places.Some easy walking required at the sites. A Man and the Mountain – Messages From Joaquin Miller’s Shasta Years is a Community Stories-funded film.

The tour will begin at the Mt. Shasta Sisson Museum:
1 North Old Stage Road, Mt. Shasta, CA 96067

August 24, 2013, 10 am-4 pm

Visit the museum’s website to purchase tickets ($10 each): mtshastamuseum.com. For more information contact Jean Nels, Executive Director, Mt. Shasta Sisson Museum, 530-926-5508, museum@mtshastamuseum.com.

Wherever There’s a Fight Exhibition

2013-04-05T22:53:04+00:00

Learn about the hidden stories of unsung heroes and heroines throughout California who stood up for their rights in the face of social hostility, physical violence, economic hardship, and political stonewalling. This travelling banner exhibition on civil liberties, produced in partnership with Exhibit Envoy and based on the book by Elaine Elinson and Stan Yogi, spans from the Gold Rush to the post-9/11 era.

Monterey County Free Libraries

For additional details check http://exhibitenvoy.org/.

Sunday, January 26 - Sunday, March 23, 2014

Wherever There’s a Fight Exhibition

2013-04-05T22:49:41+00:00

Fremont Public Library, 2400 Stevenson Blvd, Fremont, CA 94538

Sunday, September 8 - Sunday, November 3, 2013

Exhibit: Dondequiera que haya una lucha

2013-04-05T22:06:29+00:00

"Dondequiera que haya una lucha: una historia de las libertades civiles en California"

Monterey County Free Libraries

For additional details check http://exhibitenvoy.org/.

Sunday, January 26 - Sunday, March 23, 2014

Symposium: A Man and the Mountain: Joaquin Miller’s Shasta Years

2013-04-05T21:30:16+00:00

True stories of love, war, and conflict occurred near Mount Shasta in the 1850s that rival any Shakespearean play or Greek tragedy. Joaquin Miller, the Poet of the Sierras, frontier adventurer and prolific writer first crossed over the Siskiyou Mountains from his Oregon homeland in 1853 as a mere boy, and was immediately plunged into a smoldering cauldron of immigrant settlers, miners, and Native American tribes. In the ensuing years he would cook in a mining camp, take an arrow through the neck at the Battle of Castle Crags, marry the Wintu chief Worotitot’s daughter Sutatot and become the father to their daughter Cali-Shasta, fight for a protected, Native American republic on the mountain, make a dramatic jailbreak from Old Shasta, and stage a desperate gun battle with a sheriff’s deputy that forced his exodus back to Oregon. His writings of this era describe the beauty of the region and the harsh realities of life when gold mining fouled the water and killed the fish, leading to starvation, massacres, and ultimately, a war of extermination on the native tribes.

The project will begin in spring 2013 at the Mount Shasta Sisson Museum with the premier of a new three-year exhibit that displays collected stories from Joaquin Miller’s life juxtaposed with current community members’ stories…addressing topics ranging from human rights, to the environment, to the important role of storytelling within a culture or society. The project’s reach will extend into the region’s communities with hands-on programs of storytelling, re-enactments, music, films, and guided tours, followed by an academic conference and community celebration October 10 through October 13, 2013.

Mount Shasta Sisson Museum
1 North Old Stage Road
Mount Shasta, CA 96067

For more information and to view the call for presentations, visit the Joaquin Miller Project.

Wherever There’s a Fight Exhibition

2013-04-05T19:24:00+00:00

Thousand Oaks Library, 1401 E Janss Rd, Thousand Oaks, CA 91362

Sunday, January 26 - March 23, 2014

Symposium: The Neighborhoods of Baseball

2013-04-05T18:24:55+00:00

“The Neigborhoods of Baseball” Symposium will consist of three panel discussions, a wrap-up roundtable discussion, and a book signing. The panels will explore the themes of “Community & Identity Building,” “The Players’ Perspective,” and “Labor Relations.” The roundtable discussion will look at “Future Possibilities for Research.” Panel/discussion moderators will be Jorge Iber, Associate Professor of History, Texas Tech University; Samuel O. Regalado, Professor of History, California State University, Stanislaus; Mark Ocegueda, Ph.D. student in History, University of California, Irvine; and Richard Santillan, Professor Emeritus, Ethnic and Women’s Studies Department, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. Samuel O. Regalado will deliver the keynote address. The Neighborhoods of Baseball is a Community Stories-funded project.

Margo Albert Theater at Plaza de la Raza
3540 N. Mission Road, Los Angeles, CA 90031

Saturday, June 22, 2013, 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Free of charge and open to the public. A box lunch will be available at nominal cost.

For more information, go to http://www.baseballreliquary.org or contact Terry Cannon, Executive Director, The Baseball Reliquary, (626) 791-7647, terymar@earthlink.net.