Critical Currents

In this episode of Critical Currents, hosts Dani Taylor and Stella Horns speak with UCLA professor and cultural historian, Eric Avila. He is bridging the gap by documenting the history of Los Angeles’ urban design through people-centered, deeply contextual historiographical methods. Avila paints a portrait of an image-obsessed city where competing visions and versions of history lie just below its...

In this episode of Critical Currents, hosts Stella Horns and Ziyan Xie interview philosopher Susan Neiman, diving into a nuanced discussion of freedom, universalism, and power. Neiman seeks to bridge the gap between academia’s ivory tower and the front lines of political resistance, believing that public engagement and activism is an integral part of the philosopher’s mission. While covering much...

In this episode of Critical Currents, interviewer and cultural curator Paul Holdengräber joins hosts Ziyan Xie and Dani Taylor to explore how words, silence, and misunderstanding shape human experience. Renowned for staging encounters that are as much performance as dialogue, Holdengräber calls himself a “curator of public curiosity.” The conversation drifts through pockets and portals, digression...

In this episode of Critical Currents , Student Council Members Stella Horns and Ziyan Xie speak with space historian and writer Lois Rosson. She is bridging the gap by exploring how art can transport us out of our own atmosphere and into the alien landscapes of foreign planets–and by pointing out how those landscapes aren’t all that alien afterall. The hidden or implicit messages within the visual...

In this spring episode of Critical Currents, best-selling author and journalist Rosecrans Baldwin joins hosts Dani Taylor and Ziyan Xie for a wide-ranging conversation. Baldwin bridges gaps by recording and retelling stories that bind people within an intersubjective urban horizon. Since moving to Los Angeles, he has become entangled with its contradictions, its mythologies, and its shifting textu...

In this first episode of Critical Currents - Season 1: Bridging the Gap , podcast hosts Stella Horns and Dani Taylor speak with the fourth Poet Laureate of Los Angeles, Lynne Thompson. She is bridging the gap by using poetry to close political and experiential divides between people. During the interview, Thompson reflects on the many forces that have shaped her poetic voice–from life transitions,...