Livestreamed Events

April 3 & 10

Thursday, April 3

11:50 AM

Spanning three generations of Chinese and Chinese-American women, Wendy Chen’s debut novel, Their Divine Fires, is both passionate and spell-binding. When a marriage is violently destroyed in 1917 at the dawn of the Chinese Revolution, a woman’s grief and secrets are passed down to her daughters, and in turn, to her granddaughter, haunting each woman through the Cultural Revolution and beyond. The characters’ love affairs and secrets are interwoven with folktale and myth, in a novel author Ruth Madievsky calls, “utterly hypnotic—the kind of novel only a poet could write. Never before have I read a debut that captures so perfectly the ache of what is left unsaid between generations.” Sponsored by Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.

Location: Online via Zoom. 

Thursday, April 10

2:15 PM

Mommie Dearest, by Christina Crawford, daughter of iconic actress Joan Crawford, chronicled the child abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother and became a blockbuster sensation. But the film by the same name remains one of the most legendary critical bombs in film history. Despite this, the movie was a commercial success and four decades later is still wildly popular. In With Love, Mommie Dearest, Hollywood historian, A. Ashley Hoff, details the drama surrounding the publication of the book as well as the filming of the movie, all while exploring the phenomenon, the camp, and the infrequently addressed social issues in both. Author Alonso Duralde calls the book,“Dishy and thoroughly researched, [a] page-turner [that] takes us deep inside a movie that wrecked careers and reputations while launching a thousand midnight screenings.” Sponsored by Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.

Location: Online, via Zoom

Thank you to the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute for Presenting these Events

Scroll to Top