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Douglas Adams
Creator of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Parrots, The Universe and Everything
Thursday, April 5 / 8 p.m. / Campbell Hall
Best-selling British author and satirist Douglas Adams shares hilarious accounts of some of the apparently absurd lifestyles of the world’s creatures, and gleans from them extraordinary perceptions about the future of humanity.
General public: $6, Students: $5
 
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Hanan Ashrawi
Palestine: The Dual Challenge of Nation Building and Making Peace
Sunday, April 8 / 2 p.m. / Campbell Hall
One of the world’s most visible advocates for Palestinian rights, Hanan Ashrawi promotes global dialogue and democracy through articulate public appearances, diplomacy and her new organization, the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy. The Inaugural Lecture of the UCSB Center for Middle East Studies.
General public: $6, Students: $5
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Special Event
John Cleese with Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life
Friday, April 13 / 7:30 p.m. / Campbell Hall
Co-creator of Monty Python’s Flying Circus and star of numerous films including A Fish Called Wanda, John Cleese is a uniquely gifted actor and comedian who will be featured in the upcoming Harry Potter film as Nearly Headless Nick. He’ll introduce the side-splitting fourth Monty Python film and answer questions following the screening.
(Terry Jones, 1983, 103 min.)
General public: $20, Students: $10
Reception with John Cleese following the screening
$50, Limited availability / UCSB Visitor Center
A benefit for The Arts Fund and UCSB Department of Film Studies
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Anchee Min
An Evening with the Author
Tuesday, April 24 / 8 p.m. / Victoria Hall, 33 W. Victoria Street
Born in Shanghai, Anchee Min wrote the best-selling memoir Red Azalea recounting her experiences in Chinese labor camps. She’ll read from Becoming Madame Mao, her brilliant new novel about the controversial wife of Mao Tse-tung.
General public: $6, Students: $5
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Pico Iyer
The Global Soul: Searching for Home and Self in a Fast-Moving World
Wednesday, April 25 / 8 p.m. / Victoria Hall, 33 W. Victoria Street
With keen perception and wit, Pico Iyer makes travel writing a philosophical adventure. In his new book, Global Soul: Jet Lag, Shopping Malls and the Search for Home, he reflects on the meaning of constancy in a dizzyingly mobile global village.
General public: $6, Students: $5
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Jane Smiley
An Evening with the Author
Friday, April 27 / 8 p.m. / Victoria Hall, 33 W. Victoria Street
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres and the comic novel Moo, Jane Smiley explores the world of horse racing, and the universal human desire to connect, in her recent, spirited novel Horse Heaven. She is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow in the College of Creative Studies.
General public: $6, Students: $5
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Special Event
Philip Glass with Koyaanisqatsi
Monday, April 30 / 7:30 p.m. / Campbell Hall
Composer Philip Glass introduces the classic film featuring his dramatic score and accelerated imagery evoking the Hopi concept of “life out of balance.”
(Godfrey Reggio, 1983, 87 min.)
General public: $6, Students: $5
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Dana Gioia
An Afternoon with the Poet
Wednesday, May 9 / 4 p.m. / MultiCultural Center Theater / Free
Corporate VP-turned-writer, Dana Gioia sparked heated national debate with his Atlantic essay and follow-up book titled Can Poetry Matter?: Essays on Poetry and American Culture. His third volume of poetry, Interrogations at Noon, and his libretto, Nosferatu, are out this year.
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Anne Waldman and Eleni Sikelianos
An Evening of Poetry and Performance
Friday, May 11 / 8 p.m. / Victoria Hall, 33 W. Victoria Street
Anne Waldman, internationally renowned poet/performer, co-founder of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University and author of two new books, Vow to Poetry and Marriage: A Sentence, is joined by innovative writer Eleni Sikelianos, whose first major volume of poetry, a two-book collection called Earliest Worlds, comes out this spring. Presented with the Santa Barbara Poetry Festival.
General public: $6, Students: $5
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Special Event
Filmmaker Jeff Spitz with The Return of Navajo Boy and Navajo Boy: The Monument Valley Story
with guests John Wayne Cly and Corby Bennett Fleming
Monday, May 14 / 7:30 p.m. / MultiCultural Center Theater
In Jeff Spitz’ moving documentary The Return of Navajo Boy, a 1950s silent film titled Navajo Boy containing images of family elders when they were children, is presented to the Cly family of Monument Valley, Utah. What follows is a revealing portrait of Navajo life and an unexpected, emotional family reunion.
(Return: 2000, 52 min.; Navajo Boy: Robert Kennedy, 1952, 26 min.)
General public: $6, Students: $5
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Peter R. Grant and Rosemary Grant
Evolution in Action: Darwin’s Finches of the Galápagos Islands
Monday, May 21 / 4 p.m. / Corwin Pavilion / Free
Subjects of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Beak of the Finch, Peter and Rosemary Grant will discuss their 20 years of research into evolution, ecology and behavior among Darwin’s Finches of the Galápagos Islands. Distinguished Visiting Fellows in the College of Creative Studies, the Grants are professors at Princeton University.
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Walter Mosley
An Evening with the Author
Monday, May 21 / 8 p.m. / UCSB Campbell Hall / Free
Famed crime fiction writer and the author of the acclaimed best-selling “Easy Rawlins” series of mysteries, including Devil in a Blue Dress and Black Betty. In his most recent noir thriller, Fearless Jones, set in 1950s Los Angeles, Mosley introduces an engaging new hero.
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Special Event
Jeff Greenfield, William Safire & Richard Rodriguez:
A Dialogue Moderated by Kathleen Hall Jamieson
The Impact of the Media on American Life
Sunday, June 3 / 3 p.m. / Campbell Hall
A senior analyst for CNN, Emmy Award-winner Jeff Greenfield reports extensively on political affairs and was host of CNN’s heralded town hall meetings. Pulitzer Prize-winning commentator William Safire has been writing for The New York Times since 1973. Richard Rodriguez is an author, editor at Pacific News Service and a Peabody Award-winning broadcast essayist for The Newshour with Jim Lehrer. Jamieson is dean of the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication; her numerous books address politics, the press and public policy. The Arthur N. Rupe Distinguished Dialogue Series’ Inaugural Event.
All tickets: $3
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Courtesy of the UCSB Bookstore, books by the presenter will be available for purchase and/or signing at the event.
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