Join the Institute of the Arts and Sciences for live, online LASER Talks with UC Santa Cruz Dean of the Humanities Jasmine Alinder, historian of photography, and Dean of the Social Sciences Katharyne Mitchell, geographer and migration specialist. Touching on far-reaching subjects including the role of imagery in anti-Asian racism in the United States and the mobilization of church congregations responding to the migration crisis in Europe, the event will begin with presentations by the scholars, followed by a Q&A .

Jasmine Alinder: “Representing Japanese American Incarceration”
Katharyne Mitchell: “Sanctuary Space and Insurgent Memory”

LASER Talks (Leonardo Art & Science Evening Rendezvous) is an international program bringing together artists, scientists, and scholars for presentations and conversations.

Jasmine Alinder is Dean of the Humanities and Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Alinder is an interdisciplinary, community-engaged scholar and teacher of public history, the history of photography, and the history of Japanese-Americans during World War II. As a historian of photography, her research investigates what she characterizes as “the presumptive right to the camera.” She earned her doctorate in the history of art at the University of Michigan, with an emphasis on the history of photography, her M.A. in art history at the University of New Mexico, and an A.B. in art history from Princeton University. She joined UC Santa Cruz from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she was a professor of history and associate dean of the humanities in the College of Letters and Science.

Katharyne Mitchell is Dean of the Social Sciences and Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her current research focuses on the ethics, practices, and politics of church sanctuary in the protection of refugees in Europe. Her recent books include Making Workers: Radical Geographies of Education (2018), and the co-edited Handbook on Critical Geographies of Migration (2019). She is working on a monograph entitled Sanctuary Space: Memories of Insurgency, and an edited volume on philanthropy and humanitarianism. Mitchell is the author of over 100 articles and book chapters, as well as the recipient of grants from the MacArthur Foundation, Spencer Foundation, Fulbright Foundation, and National Science Foundation. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2016.