by Robert J. Sawyer
Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, is generally considered the first work of science fiction. It explores, in scientific terms, the notion of synthetic life: Dr. Victor Frankenstein studies the chemical breakdown that occurs after death so he can reverse it to animate nonliving matter…
by Ron Carlson
Uncertainty roams the city freely, unchecked by traffic rules or time of day, making itself at home everywhere, even in the big houses and the small houses and the places of commerce and trade, and it can winnow into the smallest places, the left ventricle and the right ventricle, any ventricle it chooses, all of them really, and it can perch heavily on me, god knows, and has become my sidekick and steady partner, like a little guy in a red suit on my shoulder with a pitchfork or trident, some wicked tool, whispering his pernicious questions all the livelong day, and until I met you, I thought he was here to stay.
Columbia professor Mae Ngai is the author of several books. Her most recent work, The Lucky Ones: One Family and the Extraordinary Invention of Chinese America, explores the saga of the Tape family and three generations of Chinese American immigration brokers. “Everyone needed them, but nobody trusted them,” Ngai said of the family. She visited the Zócalo office to explain the emergence of the Chinese-American middle class in the 19th century and what it meant for future generations of their descendants.
Charles Rappleye is an award-winning investigative journalist, editor and author. Before taking the stage to lecture on the life of Robert Morris and the creation of public credit during the American Revolution, Rappleye sat down for our “In The Green Room” Q&A.
–by Deanna Neil
The title posed by Charles Rappleye’s lecture was “How Much Public Debt Can We Endure?” With President Obama’s words about taxes and a spending freeze still echoing off the walls in an adjacent room (it was the night of the president’s State of Union address), the question couldn’t be more relevant. In order to extract an answer, Rappleye delved deep into American history and into the life of a financier named Robert Morris.
ArticlesFeuilletonFriday, December 3, 2010 How One Family Created Chinese America
PoetryThis week in L.A.From the green room
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