UCI to host forum about America’s identity at home and abroad

EVENT:  The United States is facing a peculiar time in which it’s unusually difficult to take stock of ourselves. If we had to say what underpins America today, if we were forced to choose our core beliefs or values as a nation, it’s not clear that we could readily do so.

Keynote speaker Jill Lepore, author of The Secret History of Wonder Woman, and panels comprising thinkers and visionaries from America and all over the world, will focus on the many complicated ways to address and to answer this pressing and crucial question: Who Do We Think We Are?

WHEN/WHERE:   Friday, Feb. 9, and Saturday, Feb. 10, in the Crystal Cove Auditorium at the Student Center (bldg. 113, grid E8 on campus map: https://communications.uci.edu/documents/pdf/UCI_16_map_campus_core.pdf) and in the EDU 1111 classroom at the School of Law (bldg. 3, grid F11 on campus map)

INFORMATION:  All events are free and open to the public. Parking is available in the Student Center Parking Structure (grid D9 on campus map) and in the Social Sciences Parking Structure (grid F10 on campus map) for $10 per day or $2 per hour. Media planning to attend should contact Annabel Adams at 949-824-8925 or amadams@uci.edu. Parking is complimentary for media who RSVP in advance.

HIGHLIGHTS:
Friday, Feb. 9 – Student Center

4:30 p.m.   Keynote address: Jill Lepore, Harvard professor of American history, New Yorker staff writer and author of The Secret History of Wonder Woman

5:30 p.m.   Panel: “These Truths: Identity & the Founding Documents,” featuring Jill  Lepore; Princeton historian Sean Wilentz; writer Mark Danner; and Harvard historian and law professor Annette Gordon-Reed. Moderated by Jon Wiener, UCI professor emeritus of history

Saturday, Feb. 10 – School of Law

10 a.m.  Panel: “Imagining Another America,” featuring poet and performer Douglas Kearney; author Cristina Garcia; New Yorker staff writer Hua Hsu; and author Laila Lalami. Moderated by Hector Tobar, UCI associate professor of English and Chicano/Latino studies

1:30 p.m.  Panel: “They’re Looking at Us,” featuring Xiao Qiang, founder and editor-in-chief of China Digital Times; journalist Junko Terao; writer Dmitry Bykov; and journalist Carlos Rajo. Moderated by Jeffrey Wasserstrom, UCI Chancellor’s Professor of history

3:15 p.m.  Panel: “Democracy & Technology,” featuring Paul Dourish, UCI Chancellor’s Professor of informatics; Jonathan Taplin, director emeritus of the Annenberg Innovation Lab at USC; Craig Calhoun, president of the Berggruen Institute; and Debra Chachra, professor at Olin College of Engineering. Moderated by Olufunmilayo “Funmi” Arewa, UCI professor of law

BACKGROUND:   The “Who Do We Think We Are?” conference is presented by UCI’s Forum for the Academy & the Public and organized by Amy Wilentz, UCI professor of English. It’s co-sponsored by the School of Humanities, the School of Law, the literary journalism program, Illuminations and the Los Angeles Review of Books. For a full schedule of events and speakers, visit http://bit.ly/AmericanIdentity.