Upcoming Events › Scripps Presents

“I was not supposed to be a dancer,” writes choreographer Alice Sheppard in the New York Times. But when disabled dancer Homer Avila dared her to take a dance class, she accepted his challenge. Now, the former medieval scholar is a preeminent voice at the intersection of disability, gender, and race. Her latest performance, Where Good Souls Fear, is an investigation of excess and minimalism, provoking questions about who or what is “too much.” Ranging from lyrical floorwork to an…

The National Book Foundation, Scripps Presents, and the Los Angeles Library Foundation jointly celebrate 2019 National Book Award winner Sarah M. Broom (The Yellow House) and former U.S. Poet Laureate and National Book Award longlister Natasha Trethewey (Monument) on their documentation of the stories, pain, and resilience of families in the American South. Moderated by Lisa Lucas, executive director of the National Book Foundation.Presented in partnership with: the National Book Foundation’s national event series, NBF Presents, the Los Angeles Public…

Guatemala-born singer-songwriter-producer and Grammy Award-winner Gaby Moreno brings her not-to-be missed, genre-defying “Spanish folk-soul” to Scripps.This program is presented in partnership with Claremont Graduate University’s LatinX Graduate Student Union and helps to commemorate the 50th anniversary of The Claremont College’s Chicano Latino Student Affairs. 

Novelist R.O. Kwon, author of the Los Angeles Times First Book Prize finalist The Incendiaries and 2020 Mary Routt Chair in Creative Writing, joins Fresh Air’s book critic Maureen Corrigan for a conversation about dual literary loves: reading and writing.Presented in partnership with: the Mary Routt Chair in Creative Writing and Scripps Office of Parent Engagement and Philanthropy and supported by the Alexa Fullerton Hampton ’42 Fund

“During my junior year abroad in Paris, I took my first class in stained glass . . . and was certain that my future lay in that art form,” said Ariana Makau. An art conservator for over 20 years, with a resume that includes the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Makau returns to Scripps to offer a window into her career as founder of Nzilani Glass Conservation, the role of…

When she was appointed editor of the Paris Review, Emily Nemens stepped into one of the most luminous positions in American letters, editing today’s most talented writers. What the public may not have known is the wildly original literary voice she is in her own right. Join Nemens and Scripps Associate Professor of English Aaron Matz for a conversation about her highly anticipated new novel, The Cactus League, and the balance between the life of a writer and the demands…

Indigenous Canadian poet Billy-Ray Belcourt reads from his award-winning debut work, This Wound Is a World, and his forthcoming work, NDN Coping Mechanisms: Notes from the Field. A member of the Driftpile Cree Nation, Belcourt grapples with the political demands of queerness, mainstream portrayals of Indigenous life, love and its discontents, and the limits and uses of poetry as a vehicle for Indigenous liberation.Presented in partnership with the Scripps College Humanities Institute

Acclaimed as “the best young essayist at work in the U.S.,” it seems that there is no topic Jia Tolentino can’t cover. The New Yorker staffer tackles vaping, Shen Yun, the economy of marriage, and other vexing questions in her acclaimed essay collection Trick Mirror. Mary Routt Chair in Creative Writing R.O. Kwon joins her for a conversation. Presented in partnership with the Mary Routt Chair in Creative Writing and supported by the Alexa Fullerton Hampton ’42 Fund