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AEPGThemeHA44SemesterFaculty Coordinator(s)DateEventProject DescriptionEvent Calendar DraftCalendar ListingLocationEmailDeptCollaborative PartnershipsProposed educational impactImage
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Fall 2025 Events, Workshops & Programming
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Fall 2025Dr. Erica BuurmanThursday, September 4, 12pm-1pm Beethoven Center Noontime Concert: Gretchen Hull (piano) Program:
Chopin: Étude Op. 25, No. 7 in C-Sharp Minor and Berceuse, Op. 57
Corigliano: Fantasia on an Ostinato
Beethoven: Piano Sonata in A-flat Major, op. 110)		All concerts take place at 12:00 and are followed by an informal coffee reception and open-house. These concerts are free to attend.

The series is made possible by generous support from the Davis Family Foundation.		Upcoming Events | Beethoven Center
https://events.sjsu.edu/event/noontime-concerts-at-the-beethoven-center-series?utm_campaign=widget&utm_medium=widget&utm_source=SJSU+Events+Calendar
Beethoven Center, 5th Floor, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library, San Jose CA 95112Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven StudiesThe series is made possible by generous support from the Davis Family Foundation.
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AEPGHomeFall 2025Apryl BerneyThursday, September 18, 1:30pm-2:45pm Exhibit: Blasian Bay Digital Archive & Interactive MapThis project brings together students from San JosĂ© State University (SJSU), Spelman College, and the University of South Carolina—each a Minority-Serving Institution—to explore what makes the Bay Area a unique site of AfroAsian cultural exchange. Through a series of workshops, students will examine how Black and Asian artistic and political collaborations have flourished in the region, particularly in relation to queerness, gender, and place. Since many call the Bay Area their home, SJSU students, as those most familiar with the region, will help introduce Spelman and University of South Carolina students to the region’s distinct social, geographic, and cultural dynamics.

The series will launch with a public event featuring Rebecca Kumar and Seulghee Lee, editors of Queer and Femme: AfroAsian American Visual Culture (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024) at the Hammer4 Theatre. This interactive discussion will introduce key themes of AfroAsian aesthetics and belonging. SJSU students will actively plan the event, curate materials, and lead breakout discussions with Kumar and Lee, laying the groundwork for collaboration between institutions.

Building on this foundation, students will participate in a virtual workshop over Zoom at the King Library’s Digital Humanities Center on the Bay Area’s role in Afro-Asian cultural production. SJSU students will introduce Spelman and University of South Carolina students to the region’s history of migration, activism, and radical artistic movements. These discussions will deepen students' understanding of how geography and politics shape Afro-Asian solidarity and help identify key geographical sites for the final project.

The series will culminate in a collaborative digital mapping and archival project using the Omeka A platform, allowing students from the three campuses to document the Bay Area’s Afro-Asian cultural history. Through oral histories, visual culture, music, and performance analysis, students will co-create an interactive archive that captures the spaces, sounds, and movements defining Afro-Asian belonging in the Bay. The final workshop will be held at the Digital Humanities Center, where students will share their contributions, reflect on their findings, and consider the ongoing impact of Black and Asian cultural exchange in the region.
Join us for the launch of the Blasian Bay Digital Archive & Interactive Map, a student-driven project exploring Black and Asian histories in the Bay Area. A collaboration between San José State University, Spelman College, and the University of South Carolina, this initiative brings together archival materials, oral histories, and digital mapping. The editors of Queer & Femme AfroAsian American Visual Culture will visit campus to help shape the project's intellectual foundations, offering insights into race, gender, and visual storytelling. Be part of this exciting effort to preserve and share AfroAsian histories in an accessible, interactive format.
https://events.sjsu.edu/event/blasian-bay-digital-archive-a-collaboration-with-the-editors-of-queer-femme-gazes-in-afroasian-american-culture
Hammer4apryl.berney@sjsu.edu Film, Theatre & DanceBuilding on the success of the SJ Story Maps project (funded by the California Humanities Council), Rhonda Holberton, chair of the Art Department, will serve as a consultant on this initiative.

The digital AfroAsian archive and interactive map will be created through a collaboration between my Asian Americans in U.S. History II and Media & Culture classes (Fall 2025) and the classes of Rebecca Kumar (Department of English, Spelman College) and Seulghee Lee (Departments of African American Studies and English, University of South Carolina). This cross-institutional effort will allow students to contribute research, oral histories, and multimedia materials, fostering dialogue on AfroAsian histories and cultural intersections. Through this exchange, students will critically engage with historical narratives and contribute to a growing body of scholarship that highlights AfroAsian connections.

The Asian American Studies Department at SJSU will co-sponsor the September event. Additionally, Chesa Caparas from De Anza Community College’s Asian American and Asian Studies Department will incorporate the recorded discussion from the Hammer4 launch event—featuring the editors of Queer & Femme AfroAsian American Visual Culture—into her Fall 2025 curriculum. Her students will also contribute to the archive by collecting oral histories from Black beauty supply store owners in the Bay Area.

As of this writing, I have reached out via email to Bonnie Sugiyama at the Pride Center, as well as Travis D. Boyce and Wendy Thompson in the African American Studies Department, to explore further collaboration.
Students and attendees of this event will engage with AfroAsian cultural production as a living archive of resistance, creativity, and solidarity. The project is designed to cultivate critical conversations around belonging, convergence, and cultural hybridity, through the lens of queer and femme AfroAsian artistic expression.

Students will actively document and analyze the Blasian Bay Area, becoming co-creators of an interactive, evolving archive. For both students and attendees, the September event will showcase how Black and Asian artistic collaborations have not only shaped cultural landscapes but have also challenged dominant narratives about race, gender, and creative labor. The interactive map and discussions will encourage participants to recognize and understand the historical and contemporary forces influencing AfroAsian identities, particularly in the Bay Area, a site of migration, labor, and artistic innovation.

Ultimately, this project will foster a deeper understanding of intersectional solidarity—how Black and Asian communities have collaborated artistically and politically and how these relationships continue to inform contemporary cultural production. Rather than seeing AfroAsian cultural expression as a series of isolated moments, students and attendees will leave with a broader awareness of how these histories, aesthetics, and solidarities are woven into everyday spaces, practices, and artistic traditions.
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AEPGHomeFall 2025David MalinowskiThursday, September 25, 2pm-3:30pmWorkshop: Translate San JosĂ©Translate San JosĂ© will support SJSU students, faculty, and community members in re-imagining the city through the lens of linguistic landscape—that is, the presence and use of diverse languages in San José’s public places. Over the 2025-2026 academic year, this project will convene a year-long learning community of SJSU classes across disciplines including Linguistics, World Languages, Teacher Education, Communication, Information Studies, and Urban Studies, with the goal of fostering student-led projects in dialogue with campus partners, community organizations, and local government offices. At the same time, it will invite student groups, guest speakers, and faculty to lead a series of five workshops and presentations over two semesters. In April 2026, the Translate San JosĂ© project will culminate in a month-long on-campus exhibition of student work and a final event for students and faculty to showcase their achievements, with the aim of imagining possible futures for language representation in the neighborhoods, cities, and the region we call home.


As evidenced in the first word of the project’s title, Translate San JosĂ© aims to cultivate a rich community of learning, discussion, and practice within a paradigm of translation. Although translation is often assumed to refer to a mechanical substitution of one linguistic form for another—and in a world where AI translation tools automate and hide the work of navigating differences in thought and expression—Translate San JosĂ© offers another possibility. Participants in this project will engage in translation as:
--- a tool for discovery of the uniqueness of every expression in time, place, and purpose, as students document, discuss, and attempt to translate instances of English displayed in public places into other languages, while doing the same for Spanish, Vietnamese, Tamil, Mandarin, and other languages of San José;
--- a metaphor for building new historical, cultural, and other knowledges about relationships with other people, the world, and its texts, as students investigate our region’s histories of migration, growth, conflict, and change, as a way to deepen and contextualize their translations;
--- an active engagement with the politics of visibility, audibility, and other forms of presence in shared spaces, as translation both defamiliarizes the familiar, and calls attention to the unseen scripts and unheard voices in our midst.

As project coordinator, I will collaborate with SJSU faculty (beginning with those who are named below) in an online learning community to diversify and develop a corpus of relevant lessons and activities, while exchanging practices and approaches for learning in our different contexts. Meanwhile, the students themselves will have access to a shared learning space across classrooms, where they will be able to dialogue and learn from one another over the course of the two semesters. To the practical concern of realizing these pedagogical aims, the course that I developed and taught in Fall 2024, LLD 230 “Linguistic Landscape: Multilingualism and Education in Public Space” provides a substantial foundation.
What would the city of San JosĂ© look like if you didn’t see or hear any English? What stories do the street names, restaurant signs, school murals, and street art tell about our city’s histories of migration, development, and change? What futures could you imagine if you saw San JosĂ© through the lens of Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Hindi and any of the other 100+ languages of Santa Clara County? Come see visions of our city translated by SJSU students in Linguistics, World Languages, Teacher Education, Communication, Information Studies, and Urban Studies, together with community partners
[to be continued; I wanted to lead with the hook]
https://events.sjsu.edu/event/translate-san-jose-reimagining-our-citys-multilingual-future
Digial Humanities Center, MLK Librarydavid.malinowski@sjsu.eduLinguistics & Language DevelopmentInvitations have been sent to a small number of student groups, cultural centers (including the MOSAIC Cross Cultural Center, learning support centers, and academic institutes on campus to facilitate one or more of the planned workshops for the project. At the time of submission of this application, I have heard confirmation of interest from those named below.

SJSU Responsible Computing Club: I heard back positively from Shannon Lo, Vice President of External Affairs, regarding an invitation to facilitate a workshop “exploring the possibilities and limitations of using AI for translating place names and other features of our local San JosĂ© environment that are historically and culturally unique”. VP Lo’s reply highlighted that the RCC “would love to provide a diverse group of students—spanning different backgrounds, majors, and technical expertise—to help tackle this project from multiple angles.”

SJSU Writing Center: I heard back positively from Michelle Hager, Director, and Amy Russo, Coordinator of Multilingual Writing Support Services, with an invitation to lead a workshop on translation and writing, aimed especially at the needs and strengths of SJSU’s multilingual student writers.

Institute for Metropolitan Studies: I heard back positively from Gordon Douglas, Director, regarding an invitation to collaborate on hosting workshops, as well as developing resources for place-based learning activities and geospatial representation technologies to support Translate San José programming. Prof. Douglas indicated that the IMS would be willing to support and/or co-sponsor any of the events for the project.


The following SJSU faculty have expressed interest in co-designing or developing activities that address their classes’ curricular needs, while embracing the theme of translation in the San JosĂ© linguistic landscape; and/or facilitating student participation in the project with activities developed by others.

Department of Linguistics and Language Development

Richard Abend, Lecturer Faculty
Effie Chiu, Lecturer Faculty
Stefan Frazier, Professor and Chair
Reiko Kataoka, Lecturer Faculty
Scott Phillabaum, Associate Professor
Clare Sandy, Lecturer Faculty
Julia Swan, Associate Professor

Department of Urban and Regional Planning

Gordon Douglas, Associate Professor and Director, Institute for Metropolitan Studies

Department of World Languages and Literatures

Romey Sabalius, Professor in German and Chair
Damian Bacich, Professor in Spanish (teaches courses for the Translation and Interpretation Certificate)
Françoise Herrmann, Lecturer in French
Michiko Uryu, Assistant Professor (teaches courses for the Translation and Interpretation Certificate)
Cheyla Samuelson, Associate Professor of Spanish

Lurie College of Education

Eduardo Muñoz-Muñoz, Associate Professor in Teacher Education, Critical Bilingual Authorization Program

School of Information

Souvick Ghosh, Assistant Professor and Co-PI, Cross-Campus Interdisciplinary Responsible Computing Learning Experience (CIRCLE) Project

Additional invitations to several other faculty in other colleges and department are pending; I would highlight in particular one sent to Professor Anne Marie Todd (Dean of College of Social Sciences & Professor in Communication Studies), who gave a guest lecture in my Fall 2024 LLD 230 “Linguistic Landscape” course, and has expressed interest in ongoing collaboration on the topic.. Prof. Todd is away until early March.

In addition to the confirmed partnerships I have mentioned above, I have had substantive exchanges with the following individuals or offices in the City of San José and County of Santa Clara. Pending successful funding of the project, I will follow up with each.
Office of Betty Duong, Santa Clara County Supervisor, District 2 - Supervisor Duong is, among other things, responsible for the creation and development of the County’s Language Access Unit, which promotes linguistic equity and justice in the county through a variety of measures. She had agreed in principle to visit with my LLD 230 “Linguistic Landscape” course in Fall 2024, but the November General Election precluded this from taking place.
Leila Doty, Privacy & AI Analyst, City of San José
As symbolized in the imperative (“Translate!”) in this project’s title, Translate San JosĂ© proposes to engage students, faculty, and other participants in collaborative processes of thought, imagination, dialogue and action across a range of differences (e.g., language, culture, and identity), all while grounding their individual experiences at SJSU in larger understandings of the places they call “home.” Resonating with the first SJSU University Learning Outcome, Social and Global Responsibilities (see below), this project is at its core about “responsibility” in the sense of cultivating a visceral, nuanced, and critical sense that our words have histories and tangible effects on others; they are materially present in our bodies and in the world; they have power to bring people together or to alienate, and it is up to us to use them well.


Through dialog with students in other disciplines, faculty, and community stakeholders, students will gain an appreciation for the importance of context, history, and the power of representation as they interpret and design messages meant for varied audiences in public places—that is, the linguistic landscape. Through the series of 5 workshops, students and other SJSU participants will gain hands-on experience with the cultural, emotional, and political relevance of translation and all language work in their future vocations. And through reflection on the diversity of expression of their schools, neighborhoods, workplaces, and other familiar places, it is hoped that students will develop a richer, more nuanced perspectives on the notion of “home.”


Notes
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University Learning Outcome #1: “Social and Global Responsibilities. An ability to consider the purpose and function of one’s degree program training within various local and/or global social contexts and to act intentionally, conscientiously, and ethically with attention to diversity and inclusion”. https://www.sjsu.edu/admissions/about-us/learning-outcomes.php


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Fall 2025Dr. Erica BuurmanThursday, October 2, 12pm-1pm Beethoven Center Noontime Concert:
Verve Trio
Program: Beethoven, Piano Trio in B-flat, op. 97 (“Archduke”)		All concerts take place at 12:00 and are followed by an informal coffee reception and open-house. These concerts are free to attend.

The series is made possible by generous support from the Davis Family Foundation.		https://www.sjsu.edu/beethoven/events/upcoming-events.php
https://events.sjsu.edu/event/noontime-concerts-at-the-beethoven-center-series-1246
Beethoven Center, 5th Floor, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library, San Jose CA 95112Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven StudiesThe series is made possible by generous support from the Davis Family Foundation.
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AEPGAuthenticityFall 2025Dana Ragouzeos and Joshua NelsonFriday, October 3, 8:30am-5:00pmSymposium: Design in Process: Evolving with AI and BeyondThe Design Department will be hosting a symposium called “Design in Process: Evolving with AI and beyond” at Adobe’s world headquarters in San Jose on Friday October 3 or November 7, 2025. (Currently confirming date with Adobe.) This will be an interdisciplinary design symposium where we host speakers from Graphic Design, Interaction Design, Animation, Interior Design, Architecture, and Engineering to speak on the following AI and Design-related topics:
1. How has AI impacted our design processes through augmentation and replication?
2. How will AI tools continue to augment our future design processes?
3. How will collaboration evolve alongside technology, and what can we do now to ensure our success as designers in collaboration with other roles?
4. How do we define ethics when it comes to design authenticity, copyright, and privacy?
5. How do we embrace transparency and accountability to best avoid bias as certain aspects of our processes become more automated?
6. What needs to happen now in design education to prepare for an evolving future?
7. What can we learn from the past? How have design processes evolved throughout history to integrate new technologies throughout the twentieth & twenty-first centuries?

This symposium will be a full day of programming including speakers, panels, and networking opportunities, including a showcase of Design Master’s students’ work. Speakers will include industry experts from throughout the United States and SJSU, as well as from our student body. Students will take central roles in discussions on evolving design processes, tools, and ethics with professionals and researchers within and outside of SJSU.
Invited (but not yet confirmed) speakers include:
Catherine Roy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roycatherine/
Ovetta Sampson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ovettasampson/
Kevin Bethune: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbethune/
Nathan Shedroff: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanshedroff/
Brooke Hopper: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brookehopper/
Jonathan Thai: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanethai/
Joy Mountford: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joymountford/

In 2023, in conjunction with the launch of the Design Department’s new MDes program, we hosted a similar symposium called “Experiential Horizons” with generous funding from an AEPG grant. For that event, we hosted speakers on general Experience Design topics at the Adobe Headquarters. We have chosen to create this AI-focused event, building off our previous successful partnership with Adobe, for three key reasons:
1. Our faculty, staff, and students are hungry for concrete conversations about how AI is, can, and will impact our creative processes and what skills we need to adapt and adopt.
2. Based on the success of our past event, we are ready to host a different type of symposium with both a more defined topic, more cross-disciplinary inclusion, and more participants.
3. We see an opportunity to position the SJSU Design Department, in partnership with Adobe, as both a leader and a facilitator of difficult discussions regarding authenticity, bias, craft, and collaboration with an eye to the future, while learning from the past.

Regarding this event’s connection to the themes of Home and Authenticity, we are centering Authenticity in the following ways:
1. Speakers and panels will address questions of what it means when designs are authentically and ethically produced with the increasing use of AI.
2. Participants, including students, will be part of facilitated conversations on how to bring their full selves to the table as designers and how doing so will make them valuable team members as authenticity becomes something people crave and chase after.
3. Authenticity in design has always required some level of vulnerability in sharing work and being open to feedback and critique, and we will explore how vulnerability can still be part of the design process as it evolves to integrate new technologies.
4. Issues of ethics, transparency, and copyright are central to this event. How AI in visual design gets generated, produced, and shared are all in constant flux and there are few shared definitions. We will explore ways to collectively define these concepts as a profession- from the perspectives of professionals, educators, and students.
All are welcome to the Department of Design’s symposium on AI and Design, titled Design in Process: Evolving with AI and Beyond at Adobe’s world headquarters in San Jose on (Friday October 3 or November 7, 2025). This in an interactive symposium where experts from Graphic Design, Interaction Design, Animation, Interior Design, Architecture, and Engineering will share their insights on the following topics:
1. How has AI impacted our design processes through augmentation and replication?
2. How will AI tools continue to augment our future design processes?
3. How will AI impact collaboration and roles within teams?
4. How do we define ethics when it comes to design authenticity, copyright, and privacy?
5. How do we embrace transparency and accountability to best avoid bias?
6. What needs to happen now in design education to prepare for an evolving future?
7. What can we learn from the past? How have design processes evolved throughout history to integrate new technologies throughout the twentieth & twenty-first centuries?

This symposium will be an action-packed Friday full of speakers, panels, and networking opportunities for Students, Faculty, Staff, and Industry Professionals. SJSU Students, Faculty, and Staff attend for free. Professionals and students outside of SJSU pay a small registration fee.
https://events.sjsu.edu/event/in-process-evolving-design-with-ai-and-beyond
Adobe World Headquarters, 345 Park Ave, San Jose, CA 95110dana.ragouzeos@sjsu.eduDesignAdobe: Experience design, Fresco, Photoshop, and Education teams
All SJSU Design Concentrations: MDes Experience Design & Animation, Industrial Design, Graphic Design, Interaction Design, Interior Design
SJSU Art Department
SJSU Libraries: Christine Mune (Associate Dean of Innovation & Resource Mgmt), Raymond Lam (Adobe Trainer), Sharesly Rodriguez (AI Librarian)
SJSU Engineering: Human Factors Ergonomics Graduate Program
SJSU Computer Science Department
SJSU Art & Design Society
Industrial Design Society of America SJSU Student Chapter
SJSU AR/VR Club
The primary purpose of this event is to facilitate live conversation on how Design processes are changing and evolving with the integration of AI and other new technologies. Participants will come away with tangible ways to adapt the ways they work, teach, and communicate, based on the speakers, panels, and conversations they are a part of. For students, in particular, they will:
1. Gain exposure to professionals working across design disciplines and hear first-hand how they are addressing AI, Authenticity, and Ethics
2. Feel included in conversations about how AI is changing and influencing their design processes.
3. Feel empowered to lead conversations regarding AI, Ethics, and Authenticity in Design.
4. Create personal connections with industry professionals for future internship and employment opportunities.
5. Experience a professional setting at Adobe where some of the products they use every day are developed.
6. Share their progress and their work with other students outside of their discipline, alongside professionals.
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AEPGAuthenticityFall 2025Teresa VeramendiMonday, October 6, 5:30-7pmShadow Lines Playshop: Dancing with IdentityIn Shadow Lines, we engage students and community members in a series of workshops leading to a performance that examines borders and authenticity in multitudinous forms — physical and mental, visible and invisible, fluid and rigid. Such borders might be tangible, like the wires of a cage, or the cartographic lines between countries. We will primarily focus on the abstract and intangible aspects of how ethnicity and gender come to define us. We will hold three workshops featuring group dialogues facilitated by AEPG leaders and student assistants starting in Fall 2025. Here participants will be encouraged to bring their personal narratives of borders and authenticity into dialogue with philosophical texts and artistic practices related to embodiment, sound, and light. These workshops will take place in theatres, communal areas of University housing, and outdoor environments around SJSU’s campus and San JosĂ©.

The workshops will culminate in a single performance in March 2026. An ensemble of students and community members who choose to continue developing their stories of borders and authenticity will rehearse and train for performance. Training will consist of expansive vocal and movement practices from guest artists during a two-day intensive visit. The performance will likewise make use of a variety of spaces; beginning in a theater, attendees will be guided by AEPG collaborators to other unique spaces indoors and outdoors in small groups to witness individual performances. For the sake of equity, we will have 32 bluetooth headphones on hand so that attendees may download and play pre-recorded sound and thereby fully engage with both recorded and live sound during the performance. All will return to the theater after a thorough investigation of being inside, outside, passing through, and overshadowing the borders of home and ourselves.

While many borders feel constraining and oppressive, others create a sense of safety and comfort – of home. When those borders shift, that sense of home shifts too. This may be destabilizing or freeing, or both. Furthermore, borders can both obscure and illuminate our authentic selves. Examining the concepts of borders and authenticity through a variety of media and spaces will accommodate a macroscopic view on them – the kind of view that Frye, cited below, suggests is essential to deepening our understanding of their impacts on our lives.

“Consider a birdcage,” the philosopher Marilyn Frye (1983) writes. “There is no physical property of any one wire, nothing that the closest scrutiny could discover, that will reveal how a bird could be inhibited or harmed by it except in the most accidental way. It is only when you step back, stop looking at the wires one by one, microscopically, and take a macroscopic view of the whole cage that you can see why the bird does not go anywhere
”

Frye’s image of the birdcage illuminates oppressive structures that create borders, bolster them, and also make them recede into shadows. These borders thereby become invisible — unquestioned facets of our everyday lives, the status quo that shapes our relations with ourselves and those around us. 		Join our playshops where participants explore their identities through storytelling, movement, music, and light! Get inspired by fantastic artists and playful guides to tell your story through words, games, and creative explorations in multiple mediums. Come dance with your identity, question your edges, and break free of the old ideas that are holding you back.

No experience necessary, snacks provided!

All identities and abilities are welcome to participate in this workshop series which will include free writing, story sharing, movement games, and exploratory activities playing with sound and light.

Become a part of this intercultural and interdisciplinary exchange! Material generated in this workshop series will culminate in an experimental, devised performance in Spring 2026 that will explore the invisible boundaries shaping our identities, homes, and relationships. If you desire, you may become a part of our performance ensemble next semester, gaining expansive movement and vocal training by accomplished guest artists.

WHERE: Monday, October 6 is at the Campus Village B, Resident Activity Center
Tuesday, November 4 is in Spartan Village (SVP) Room 216
Tuesday, November 18 is in Washington Square Hall Room 106

WHEN: All events are 5:30-7pm.

WHO: All students and community members are invited.

All events are free.

Email Teresa Veramendi for any questions: teresa.veramendi@sju.edu

Registration, full series information, and artist bios HERE.

Sponsored in part by a College of Humanities and the Arts' Artistic Excellence Programming Grant.
https://events.sjsu.edu/event/shadow-lines
Campus Village B RACteresa.veramendi@sjsu.eduFilm, Theatre & DanceRiana Betzler is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy. This project dovetails closely with her research and teaching, which focuses on empathy and how we can come to understand one another across lines of difference. She will participate in the project by selecting texts — from a wide variety of philosophical traditions, broadly construed — that explore issues of borders, home, and authenticity. As part of the workshops, she will facilitate Socratic-style discussions that help participants to deepen their thinking about these themes and connect them with their personal narratives. These expanded narratives will then be used as the basis for creative exploration using media of sound, movement, and light.

An assistant professor in the Department of Film, Theatre, and Dance, Raha Shojaei, explores the interplay of sound and image in shaping cultural narratives. Her expertise in sound studies and audio-visual aesthetics and production informs the project, examining how cultural experiences influence our understanding of the suggested theme and how to use the audio-visual elements to shape the narratives. Collaborating within this project, RTVF students bring their expertise in audio-visual media and learn how to merge their skills with philosophical insights to deepen storytelling, and theatrical performance to enhance the expression of narratives — creating meaningful representations of identity and belonging.

As a scholar and artist, Sukanya Chakrabarti, Associate Professor of Theatre in the Department of Film, Theatre, and Dance, is interested in transcultural spaces and their contribution to meaning-making, placemaking, and storytelling. Her current and ongoing research project is on performances of the South Asian diaspora across generations of immigration in California. She imagines this project as part of a continuing exploration of themes of home and immigration. She will be working on facilitating workshops with students and community-based artists, ideating and devising the final performance in Spring 2026.		1. Recognize the cultural, national, and gender-related boundaries that constrain the personal experiences of members of the SJSU and San José community.
2. Empathize viscerally with the cultural, national, and gender-related constraints placed on others and on ourselves due to historical and social pressures.
3. Harness the power of philosophical examination, storytelling and community-based performances to address and destabilize the danger of monolithic narratives around borders and border-crossings.
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AEPGHomeFall 2025Daniel Rivers and Maite UrcareguiTuesday, October 7, 12pm-2pmSpotlight Series: Public Humanities Salons: Making Queer & Trans World: YA and Speculative Fiction in Chaotic Times (Banned Books Week Events: Public Humanities Salons)This panel will feature writers and scholars discussing the importance of young adult and speculative fiction for queer and trans folks, and their allies. In addition to professors Maite Urcaregui and Daniel Rivers, this panel will feature Mara Olivas, an MFA graduate from SJSU and the author of Sundown in San Ojuela (Lanternfish Press, 2024). The panel will feature discussions of the history of queer/trans YA and speculative fiction, as well as personal experiences coming into the genres, and reflections on the ways speculative genres connect to social movements, subcultural worlds, and queer and trans futures.This cluster of events builds on the legacy of literary salons, collective spaces where people come together and dialogue over a shared interest in literature. In applying for support from the AEPG program, our AEPG group (including representatives from the Department of English & Comparative Literature, the Department of Humanities, the SJSU and SJPL Libraries, the Pride Center, and the Steinbeck Center) is looking to support a series of public humanities partnerships that foster community dialogue about “home” and “un/belonging” through public engagement with the literary arts and humanities. These salons will consider how literature and the humanities can enrich our understanding of the pressing questions of belonging, identity, erasure, and intellectual exchange in our contemporary moment.

These events include two Banned Books Week events co-hosted with both the SJSU and SJPL branches of the MLK Library, two or more events from the Humanities department’s new Spotlight in the Humanities series, and, potentially, other collaborative events on campus. These collaborative, public-facing events in the arts and humanities (including panels of scholars, talks by writers, and workshops with educators and artists) will allow students, public attendees, faculty, and librarians to discuss the power of literature in our lives and our world, with a particular focus on how these conversations are happening in our region. To emphasize this focus on our home region, speakers on the library panels and humanities department events will be composed of folks who live in the Bay Area.

Collaborators on these salons will facilitate dialogue and encourage attendees to engage socially with one another via the frame of home and un/belonging in literature and the public arts. AEPG funds for this event will support marketing and book giveaways aimed at supporting more robust in-person attendance and engagement. As a sponsor, the Steinbeck Center will contribute funds toward catering, as well as honorariums for presenters.

Authors and artists under consideration will vary by event, but the salons hope to support the following events:
Two events as part of the SJSU Library’sBanned Books Week in fall 2025: A panel on LGBTQIA+ Popular Fiction (including comics, YA novels, and science fiction and fantasy). Daniel has already confirmed interest from queer horror author M.M. Olivas, and can draw on relationships with Lambda fellows, including local award-winning science fiction author Charlie Jane Anders. A workshop hosted with the SJPL geared toward engaging youth in literary dialogue and making.
Two or more Humanities Spotlight events, which feature local artists, writers, and thinkers in the humanities. These events are planned by committee in the Humanities Department, and Daniel is part of this committee
A panel exploring careers in the public humanities, composed of alumni and community partners from the Bay Area. Daniel has already confirmed interest from employees at POST Bay Area Land Trust, the Center for Biological Diversity, Lambda Literary, and PLOS One (the academic publisher) who live and work in the Bay. The group will also solicit participation from SJSU alumni in Humanities, English, etc.
The Public Humanities Salon event series is a set of collaborative programming partnerships that aim to engage SJSU students, faculty, and staff–as well as residents of the South Bay– in public in discussions of home, belonging, and identity through the arts and humanities. Along with featuring premiere artists, writers, and public intellectuals, this series is focused on drawing in-person attendees for conversations about presenters’ work and its impact on the broader world. When possible, these events will include food and a book and sticker giveaway for attendees.
https://events.sjsu.edu/event/in-process-evolving-design-with-ai-and-beyond
King Library, 2nd Floor Room 225 and Online (Zoom) Register Heredaniel.rivers@sjsu.eduHumanitesThis event is being coordinated by Daniel Rivers, the Director of the SJSU Steinbeck Center (and faculty member in English and Humanities) in partnership with Maite Urcaregui, Assistant Professor of English and Comp Lit, Todd Ormsbee, Chair of the Humanities department, Estella Inda of the MLK Library, and Bonnie Sugiyama (Pride Center and Gender Equity Center)

Partnering events include Banned Books Week, the Humanities Department Spotlight Series, and potentially other events		Events in this series will expose students, faculty, staff, and the SJSU public to significant publications, timely topics, and scholarly insights related to the themes of belonging/unbelonging, home, and expression in the literary arts and humanities. We see these events as leveraging and extending the impact of existing event series (Humanities Department Spotlight and Banned Books Week), while also drawing new audiences using book and sticker giveaways, free food, and direct solicitations to faculty members teaching courses connected to these topics. By bringing together a range of speculative fiction authors, comics scholars, and public humanities workers, these events aim to help SJSU’s students see potential pathways to career success, intellectual growth, and meaning-making in the humanities. We also hope to expose them to ways of making a home in the humanities–as an audience member, as a reader, and as a knowledge-worker.
10
AEPGHomeFall 2025Eleanor Pries & Virginia San FratelloThursday, October 9, 5pm - 6pmPublic Lecture: Waste to Wonder: Home Goods with Elise McMahon from Like Minded ObjectsWaste to Wonder: Home Goods
Sustainable Luxury in Home Goods from Recycled and Thrifted Resources
AEPG Project Leads: Virginia San Fratello, Eleanor Pries

Summary:
AEPG Waste to Wonder unites sustainability, creativity, and business acumen into student entrepreneurship for home decor. In this series, students creatively and collaboratively repurpose found objects and recycled materials into fun and fashionable home goods. Participants prepare strategic business plans for their home goods, to be exhibited, auctioned, and sold at a regional-scale Bay Area public craft event.

Event Total: 7
Total Participant Estimate: 500
Experts: Fletta Design Group, Simon Zsolt Jozsef, Virginia San Fratello
Integrated Courses: H&A 80, DSGN 127, DSIT 107/108/ 110, ART 132/134, BUS 182/183

1. Project Description:

From Waste to Wonder: Home Goods focuses on circular design and craftsmanship, transforming everyday discarded materials into unique, high-value products for the home. Our approach to this process is playful, yet critical of pressing issues around consumption and waste, while embracing the potential of new viable economies in reuse and upcycled goods. We will host three workshops with professional designers who bring expertise to our students to help them create products from local recycled materials that can then be sold in local retail and craft fairs and online. The products and objects will be meaningful, expressive, and delightful and are intended to bring increased functionality and joy into the home. The workshops will include SJSU design and art students, faculty, and staff as well as students and faculty in the Lurie College of Business. During the workshops, Business students will team with design students. Together, the teams will strategize and brand the home goods to produce beautiful, functional, and commercially-viable products, aligned with real customer needs.

2. Waste to Wonder: Detailed Events Program:

Events: 3 Student Workshops, 2 Public Lectures, 1 SJSU Gallery Exhibition, 1 Final Exhibition: Renegade Craft Fair, San Francisco

Student Workshop 1: Fall of 2025: Designing and fabricating domestic objects out of waste materials that can be found in common thrift stores. Examples of such discarded items include denim jeans, trophies, furniture, books, etc... These preloved materials will be transformed into new home goods by approximately 50 students in Design and Art courses. Our workshop guests will be Birta Brynjólfsdóttir and Hrefna Sigurðardóttir from Flétta Studio, award winning product designers in Iceland who use recycled material in their work. Collaboration includes ~150 students in BUS 182 (Dr. Quan).

Public Design Dialogues Lecture #1. Flétta Studio. Moderated by SJSU Design and Business students

Student Workshop 2: Spring 2026: 24 design and art students will learn from Simon Zsolt JĂłzsef, award-winning Hungarian ceramicist. Students develop custom molds for creating domestic objects out of recycled clay. This workshop may be coordinated with Art 132/134. Collaboration includes ~75 students in BUS 182 (Dr. Quan).

Public Design Dialogues Lecture #2. Zsolt. Moderated by SJSU Design and Business students

Student Workshop 3: Spring 2026: 24 students in DSIT 108 will work with Instructor Eleanor Pries and expert Virginia San Fratello, to create 3D printed light fixtures using recycled bioplastics. Collaboration includes ~75 students in BUS 182 (Dr. Quan).

Collaboration and Integration with Business: Detail

During all workshops, Design / Art students will be teamed with Business students from SJSU’s entrepreneurship program (BUS 182/183) to conduct market research, prepare feasibility study, pricing strategies, branding, and develop a plan to share with industry professionals. Typical enrollment in BUS 182/183 is 150 students per semester, teamed with approximately 50 Design students per semester. Select motivated student teams will apply for the SJSU ZinnStarter startup program in January 2027, to compete for start-up funding for their home good product and brand.

Public Final Event and Exhibition:

The final event is a craft fair experience with regional scale. Students will show and sell their Waste to Wonder pieces at the Renegade Craft Fair at Fort Mason in San Francisco. With a mission to grow creative marketplaces, Renegade Craft Fair is a curated fair, operating since 2003, with venues in Chicago, Brooklyn, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and Seattle. The fair experience is robust and lively, artists, designers, and buyers show off their work, discuss their process, and negotiate sales. The fair sees almost 300,000 visitors each year and will be a great opportunity for our students to test the marketability of their designs, and showcase SJSU in a regional, public venue. The SF fair is November 1-2, 2026. Students will collaborate with Marjan Khatibi for custom graphic design and branding for their products. At SJSU, students will showcase their creations at the SJSU Design Gallery. Additionally, through coordination with SJSU’s University House, several pieces may be auctioned off or exhibited in University House. Post fair, the Design x Business student teams will assess the performance of their Wonders and tweak their product proposals before applying for the ZinnStarter startup program the following semester.

Active Engagement:

Our Waste to Wonder: Home Goods event series contains several levels of active engagement for students. The three creative workshops are multi-day events with developed creative work, detailed design, hands-on fabrication, and collaborative business planning among the students and the guest experts. Students will prepare for the public lectures, introduce the speakers, and moderate the discussion. The exhibition of the Wonders at the Design Gallery and University House will involve student set up and preparation. The final exhibition at the Renegade Craft Fair is a dynamic event where the creators (students) and the public will connect, discuss, admire, and negotiate.

ON VIEW and FOR SALE: Waste to Wonders!
Calling all you Thrifters, Home Decorators, Art Lovers, DIY mavens, Scavengers, Garbage Bandits, and Trash Pandas! Come shop for chic, up-cycled home goods. SJSU students are showing and selling their custom-designed and sustainably-sourced home wares at the annual Renegade Craft Fair at San Francisco’s Fort Mason Center, November 1-2, 2026.

Supported by the College of Humanities & the Arts’ Artistic Excellence Programming Grant
https://events.sjsu.edu/event/lecture-by-elise-mcmahon-likemindedobjects
ART 133eleanor.pries@sjsu.eduDesignWaste to Wonder is a collaboration between Interior Design and Business Entrepreneurship, coordinated through Project Leads Virginia San Fratello, Eleanor Pries, Iris Quan and Nancy Da Silva. Multiple additional faculty from Design and Art have agreed to participate:

Dr. "Iris" Xiaohong Quan, Ph.D., Business
Nancy Da Silva, Business
SJSU University House
Leila Ensaniat, Design
Marjan Khatibi, Design
Marta Elliott, Design
Adam Shiverdecker, Art
Alena Sauzade, Art		Student learning and audience engagement impacts will center on either sustainable materials and upcycled crafts, or business innovation and entrepreneurship.

From Waste to Wonder: Home Goods will focus on circular design and craftsmanship, transforming everyday discarded materials into unique, high-value products for the home. By using and adapting waste and recycled content, we aim to suggest new modes of home goods consumption and build entrepreneurial spirit. Together, the teams will strategize and brand the home good Wonders to produce beautiful, functional, and commercially-viable products, aligned with real customer needs. This collaboration will help students bridge the gap between creativity and practical application within innovative upcycled product development.

Sustainability
Waste to Wonder: Home Goods is a creative and collaborative series to address consumption, waste stream, and environmental concerns. By reimagining and giving new use to discarded items and recycled materials, students and the public learn and see how to proactively reduce the need for new raw materials and the demand on natural resources. This practice not only minimizes waste that would otherwise end up in landfills, but also encourages a more conscious and viable approach to both product design and consumption. Transforming waste into functional and aesthetic objects infuses a home with unique, personalized decor while reducing the carbon footprint associated with mass-produced goods. Moreover, it fosters a culture of mindful design, where utility and beauty come together to create innovative solutions for everyday living.
11
AEPGHomeFall 2025J. Michael MartinezThursday, October 9 @ 6:30pm-9:30pmCLA Reading Series 2025-26: GennaRose NethercottThe Center for Literary Arts respectfully requests an Artistic Excellence Programming Grant from the College of Humanities and the Arts of $12,000 to underwrite the costs of venues to present and promote our award-winning reading series.

We are requesting this increased amount to support a larger production as our reading series has a long history of drawing large audiences to the Hammer Theatre. The Hammer Theatre’s near campus/downtown location has long been established as the place CLA audiences can trust to present a quality event, accessible to all, and with convenient parking.

CLA is the South Bay’s premiere literary reading series through which it fulfills its mission to spread the influence of, and interest in, literature and to facilitate cross-cultural understanding through the appreciation of contemporary literature. Over the years, support from the AEPG has enabled us to present some of the country’s most decorated writers including Jonathan Franzen, Jhumpa Lahiri, Claudia Rankine, and Percival Everett. CLA was recently named a winner of a METRO Best of Sillicon Valley Award and has garnered praise from Mercury News. We pleased to have hosted back to back seasons of sold out or nearly sold out shows, giving audience near and far a vital arts experience. As our recent speaker author Carvell Wallace puts it: "The vibes are impeccable."

In the upcoming year, we are pleased to present a diverse cast of literary stars whose acclaimed works embolden us to re-imagine who we are and what we value and incite us to reconceptualize our contemporary lives in a way that is restorative and invigorating.

Louise Erdrich, Maxine Hong Kingston, Isabelle Allende, and Bernadette Evaristo—all best-selling and critically acclaimed authors whose work has been honored with the Booker Prize, the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Pulitzer Prize among other distinctions.

Each book speaks directly to the college’s themes of Home as in memoir and fiction characters consider how their idea of home contributes to their sense of identity and belonging, if not their place in the world. In each, the concept of home is by turns elusive, tenuous, dynamic, self-curated, and remarkably imaginative.

Louise Erdrich’s The Mighty Red is a tender hearted sweeping epic about natural forces, spiritual yearnings, and the tragic impact of uncontrollable circumstances on ordinary people’s lives.

Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Warrior Woman, is a classic in its innovative blend of autobiography and mythology and it portrays multiple and intersecting identities and the jarring clash of world and self.

In Isabelle Allenge’s The Wind Knows My Name, the lives of a Jewish boy escaping Nazi-occupied Europe and a mother and daughter fleeing twenty-first-century El Salvador intersect in this ambitious, intricate novel about war and immigration.

Bernadette Evaristo’s Girl Woman Other is a magnificent portrayal of the intersections of identity and a moving and hopeful story of an interconnected group of Black British women that paints a vivid portrait of the state of contemporary Britain and looks back to the legacy of Britain’s colonial history in Africa and the Caribbean.

The speakers we have the privelege to present represent everything we do at SJSU. CLA authors are diverse in terms of experience and artistic vision and their subjects are important both this period in our nation's history and to our students' educational development.

CLA programming has a powerful impact on the educational life of students from college freshman trying out their first creative writing course to graduate students revising their master’s theses. Students have the opportunity to meet and interview their literary heroes, write conference style essays, poetry busk, blog post, facilitate book discussions, learn to analyze a text creatively and critically, and become responsible literary citizens.

Through our many partnerships—both on campus and in the community—CLA embraces the collaborative spirit of the AEPG award. In the upcoming year we look forward to working with new collaborators including MOSAIC and Spartan Speaker Series to offer a more vibrant and robust presentation.

CLA is very grateful for the longtime support of the College of Humanities and the Art and would be honored to continue this partnership in the future. Thank you for your kind consideration of this proposal.		The Center for Literary Arts is pleased to present GennaRose Nethercott reading from, and performing shadow puppetry of, her debut novel, THISTLEFOOT. This event takes place on Thursday, October 09, 2025 at Hammer Theatre at 6:30 PM. In the novel, the Yaga siblings—Bellatine, a young woodworker, and Isaac, a wayfaring street performer and con artist—have been estranged since childhood, separated both by resentment and by wide miles of American highway. But when they learn that they are to receive an inheritance, the siblings agree to meet—only to discover that their bequest isn’t land or money, but something far stranger: a sentient house on chicken legs. Thistlefoot, as the house is called, has arrived from the Yagas’ ancestral home outside Kyiv—but not alone. A sinister figure known only as the Longshadow Man has tracked it to American shores, bearing with him violent secrets from the past: fiery memories that have hidden in Isaac and Bellatine’s blood for generations. As the Yaga siblings embark with Thistlefoot on a final cross-country tour of their family’s traveling theater show, the Longshadow Man follows in relentless pursuit, seeding destruction in his wake. Ultimately, time, magic, and legacy must collide—erupting in a powerful conflagration to determine who gets to remember the past and craft a new future. Thistlefoot is a sweeping epic rich in Eastern European folklore: a powerful and poignant exploration of healing from multi-generational trauma told by a bold new talent. GENNAROSE NETHERCOTT is the author of a novel, THISTLEFOOT, a Vermont Book Award winning short story collection, FIFTY BEASTS TO BREAK YOUR HEART, and a book-length poem, THE LUMBERJACK’S DOVE, which was selected by Louise GlĂŒck as a winner of the National Poetry Series. A writer and folklorist alike, she helps create the podcast LORE, and she tours nationally and internationally performing strange tales (sometimes with puppets in tow). She lives in the woodlands of Vermont, beside an old cemetery.
https://events.sjsu.edu/event/center-for-literary-arts-presents-gennarose-nethercott
Hammer4 Theatrejmichael.martinez@sjsu.eduEnglish & Comparative Literature
12
AEPGHomeFall 2025Eleanor Pries & Virginia San FratelloFriday, October 10, 9am-2pm Like Minded Objects: Workshop with Elise McMahon: Waste to Wonder: Home GoodsWaste to Wonder: Home Goods
Sustainable Luxury in Home Goods from Recycled and Thrifted Resources
AEPG Project Leads: Virginia San Fratello, Eleanor Pries

Summary:
AEPG Waste to Wonder unites sustainability, creativity, and business acumen into student entrepreneurship for home decor. In this series, students creatively and collaboratively repurpose found objects and recycled materials into fun and fashionable home goods. Participants prepare strategic business plans for their home goods, to be exhibited, auctioned, and sold at a regional-scale Bay Area public craft event.

Event Total: 7
Total Participant Estimate: 500
Experts: Fletta Design Group, Simon Zsolt Jozsef, Virginia San Fratello
Integrated Courses: H&A 80, DSGN 127, DSIT 107/108/ 110, ART 132/134, BUS 182/183

1. Project Description:

From Waste to Wonder: Home Goods focuses on circular design and craftsmanship, transforming everyday discarded materials into unique, high-value products for the home. Our approach to this process is playful, yet critical of pressing issues around consumption and waste, while embracing the potential of new viable economies in reuse and upcycled goods. We will host three workshops with professional designers who bring expertise to our students to help them create products from local recycled materials that can then be sold in local retail and craft fairs and online. The products and objects will be meaningful, expressive, and delightful and are intended to bring increased functionality and joy into the home. The workshops will include SJSU design and art students, faculty, and staff as well as students and faculty in the Lurie College of Business. During the workshops, Business students will team with design students. Together, the teams will strategize and brand the home goods to produce beautiful, functional, and commercially-viable products, aligned with real customer needs.

2. Waste to Wonder: Detailed Events Program:

Events: 3 Student Workshops, 2 Public Lectures, 1 SJSU Gallery Exhibition, 1 Final Exhibition: Renegade Craft Fair, San Francisco

Student Workshop 1: Fall of 2025: Designing and fabricating domestic objects out of waste materials that can be found in common thrift stores. Examples of such discarded items include denim jeans, trophies, furniture, books, etc... These preloved materials will be transformed into new home goods by approximately 50 students in Design and Art courses. Our workshop guests will be Birta Brynjólfsdóttir and Hrefna Sigurðardóttir from Flétta Studio, award winning product designers in Iceland who use recycled material in their work. Collaboration includes ~150 students in BUS 182 (Dr. Quan).

Public Design Dialogues Lecture #1. Flétta Studio. Moderated by SJSU Design and Business students

Student Workshop 2: Spring 2026: 24 design and art students will learn from Simon Zsolt JĂłzsef, award-winning Hungarian ceramicist. Students develop custom molds for creating domestic objects out of recycled clay. This workshop may be coordinated with Art 132/134. Collaboration includes ~75 students in BUS 182 (Dr. Quan).

Public Design Dialogues Lecture #2. Zsolt. Moderated by SJSU Design and Business students

Student Workshop 3: Spring 2026: 24 students in DSIT 108 will work with Instructor Eleanor Pries and expert Virginia San Fratello, to create 3D printed light fixtures using recycled bioplastics. Collaboration includes ~75 students in BUS 182 (Dr. Quan).

Collaboration and Integration with Business: Detail

During all workshops, Design / Art students will be teamed with Business students from SJSU’s entrepreneurship program (BUS 182/183) to conduct market research, prepare feasibility study, pricing strategies, branding, and develop a plan to share with industry professionals. Typical enrollment in BUS 182/183 is 150 students per semester, teamed with approximately 50 Design students per semester. Select motivated student teams will apply for the SJSU ZinnStarter startup program in January 2027, to compete for start-up funding for their home good product and brand.

Public Final Event and Exhibition:

The final event is a craft fair experience with regional scale. Students will show and sell their Waste to Wonder pieces at the Renegade Craft Fair at Fort Mason in San Francisco. With a mission to grow creative marketplaces, Renegade Craft Fair is a curated fair, operating since 2003, with venues in Chicago, Brooklyn, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and Seattle. The fair experience is robust and lively, artists, designers, and buyers show off their work, discuss their process, and negotiate sales. The fair sees almost 300,000 visitors each year and will be a great opportunity for our students to test the marketability of their designs, and showcase SJSU in a regional, public venue. The SF fair is November 1-2, 2026. Students will collaborate with Marjan Khatibi for custom graphic design and branding for their products. At SJSU, students will showcase their creations at the SJSU Design Gallery. Additionally, through coordination with SJSU’s University House, several pieces may be auctioned off or exhibited in University House. Post fair, the Design x Business student teams will assess the performance of their Wonders and tweak their product proposals before applying for the ZinnStarter startup program the following semester.

Active Engagement:

Our Waste to Wonder: Home Goods event series contains several levels of active engagement for students. The three creative workshops are multi-day events with developed creative work, detailed design, hands-on fabrication, and collaborative business planning among the students and the guest experts. Students will prepare for the public lectures, introduce the speakers, and moderate the discussion. The exhibition of the Wonders at the Design Gallery and University House will involve student set up and preparation. The final exhibition at the Renegade Craft Fair is a dynamic event where the creators (students) and the public will connect, discuss, admire, and negotiate.

ON VIEW and FOR SALE: Waste to Wonders!
Calling all you Thrifters, Home Decorators, Art Lovers, DIY mavens, Scavengers, Garbage Bandits, and Trash Pandas! Come shop for chic, up-cycled home goods. SJSU students are showing and selling their custom-designed and sustainably-sourced home wares at the annual Renegade Craft Fair at San Francisco’s Fort Mason Center, November 1-2, 2026.

Supported by the College of Humanities & the Arts’ Artistic Excellence Programming Grant
FULL - Registration Closed IS233 MakerSpace Industrial Studies Building, Room 233eleanor.pries@sjsu.eduDesignWaste to Wonder is a collaboration between Interior Design and Business Entrepreneurship, coordinated through Project Leads Virginia San Fratello, Eleanor Pries, Iris Quan and Nancy Da Silva. Multiple additional faculty from Design and Art have agreed to participate:

Dr. "Iris" Xiaohong Quan, Ph.D., Business
Nancy Da Silva, Business
SJSU University House
Leila Ensaniat, Design
Marjan Khatibi, Design
Marta Elliott, Design
Adam Shiverdecker, Art
Alena Sauzade, Art		Student learning and audience engagement impacts will center on either sustainable materials and upcycled crafts, or business innovation and entrepreneurship.

From Waste to Wonder: Home Goods will focus on circular design and craftsmanship, transforming everyday discarded materials into unique, high-value products for the home. By using and adapting waste and recycled content, we aim to suggest new modes of home goods consumption and build entrepreneurial spirit. Together, the teams will strategize and brand the home good Wonders to produce beautiful, functional, and commercially-viable products, aligned with real customer needs. This collaboration will help students bridge the gap between creativity and practical application within innovative upcycled product development.

Sustainability
Waste to Wonder: Home Goods is a creative and collaborative series to address consumption, waste stream, and environmental concerns. By reimagining and giving new use to discarded items and recycled materials, students and the public learn and see how to proactively reduce the need for new raw materials and the demand on natural resources. This practice not only minimizes waste that would otherwise end up in landfills, but also encourages a more conscious and viable approach to both product design and consumption. Transforming waste into functional and aesthetic objects infuses a home with unique, personalized decor while reducing the carbon footprint associated with mass-produced goods. Moreover, it fosters a culture of mindful design, where utility and beauty come together to create innovative solutions for everyday living.
13
AEPGAuthenticityFall 2025Elise KnudsonFriday, October 10, 3:30pm-5:30pmWorkshop: Nex2NOWThis project is a series of three improvisation-in-performance events co-facilitated by dance department students in which they will perform improvisation alongside students from other departments, SJSU faculty improvisers and high caliber regional guest artists. Edited video of the culminating event will be incorporated into the curriculum of collaborating faculty during the Spring ‘26 semester and be made available to the participants for their portfolios.

Dance students will participate in recruiting students from other disciplines/departments for these events, host and receive mentorship from guest artists, and help to design promotion, lighting and event formats.

All participating students, faculty and community members will benefit from connecting across genres through creating art. The connections forged in a process of ‘doing’ build community in a way that lectures can not. Practices of connection are important for survival in a climate that seeks to isolate and commodify.

I hope this project sparks a monthly series of Nex2NOW hosted by the dance department that runs itself as a student club that connects the plethora of SJSU student performing arts clubs. The dance department would support by offering its theater and guidance in facilitating public events.

Insofar as “authentic” means “genuine,” this project supports authentic creative communication because it provokes communication in real-time without the interventions of choreography, ableism, or curation. It invites time-based artists of any discipline to “opt-in” with a “come as you are” approach.

The title is derived from the word ‘nexus,’ which means: a connection between things or people. It is based on a similar series that I facilitated in NYC. It explicitly invites ‘cross-over,’ meaning, for example, that dancers can also make sound and musicians can also move. Videographer Jonah David is an essential guest artist who dances with his camera on stage in multiple roles as performer, instigator and documentarian.

This project values listening, witnessing and communicating across different grammars of expression.

EVENTS:

Event #1: Workshop: Friday, September 24th, 2025
Led by Justin Morrison, the purpose of this workshop is to familiarize participants with consent practices, ways of engaging diverse media, and considering compositional elements.

Event #2: Practice: Friday, October 24th, 2025
Dance students participate in guiding a warm-up and designing chance processes that determine casting. Guest improvisers from San Francisco and San Diego join.

Event #3: Performance: Friday November 21st, 2025
This event is similar to #2 with a higher production value. Performance slots are first come first serve with preference for those who attended all three events. Guest improvisers join. Lighting for this performance is improvised by dance faculty Kevin Lo with Dance Production students.

HARVESTING:
Video is edited and distributed to participants for their use and may be used by collaborating departments to demonstrate that arts are live at SJSU on social media.

SP2026: Embedding of Nex2NOW in curriculum of collaborating faculty through participant visits, demonstrations and video of Nex2NOW events.

*All events take place in the Dance Theater in SPX, are free and open to students, faculty, and the greater SJ community.

*Participants = Performers
Interdisciplinary free improvisation workshop based on his work with Katie Duck in Amsterdam. Justin is primarily a mover but is also a musician and often uses text.
https://events.sjsu.edu/event/nex2now-interdisciplinary-improv-workshop
Dance Theater in SPX, Rm 219elise.knudson@sjsu.eduFilm, Theatre & DanceCollaborators:
1.) Mulitple regional guests artists in multiple media
2.) Prof Carmen Seylah, Department of African-American Studies Role: Liaison between SJSU spoken word alumni artists, student recruitment
3.) Prof Sarah Mills, Assistant Professor of Art History (committed) Role: Student recruitment
4.) Andrew Blanton: Assistant Professor and Graduate Coordinator, CADRE (committed) Role: Participant in electronic music, student recruitment
5.) Kevin Lo, Lecturer in Dance Department (committed) Role: Participant in the media of dance and music, lighting design and student recruitment
6.) Jenni Hong, Lecturer in Dance Department (committed) Role: student recruitment and participant in dance
7.) Kara Davis, Production, Lecturer in Dance Department (pending) Participant in dance and recruitment
8.) Ye Feng, Lecturer in Dance Department (pending) Role: student recruitment and participant in dance

I am developing connections in the Music Department and hope to have at least one collaborator from Music.
The big idea is that the messy beauty of humans braving the unknown together is valuable, if not a survival skill. It points to a possibility of inventing our way out of chaos. We CAN communicate artfully if we pay attention, especially when we don’t speak the same language.

Performing improvisation is a crucible that fosters a sense of empowerment. Participants walk away knowing that they were seen and heard while expressing something true about themselves.

Dance students will learn the ins and outs of self-production. They will be involved in tech, scheduling, hosting guest artists, performing and promotion. These are all skills that are invaluable for a young artist who is creating their own work. They will also benefit from bridging the apparently insurmountable distance to San Francisco through meeting and dancing with SF and regional dance artists.

All participants and audience benefit from building community beyond departmental walls. Participants develop skills in responding across difference in real-time. Audience members will gain appreciation of these skills.
14
AEPGHomeFall 2025Brook McClurgThursday, October 16, 12pm-2pmPop-up Event: Long Story Short: A Community-Activated Exploration of Home through Abbreviated FormsThe VISION
Long Story Short aims to activate, spotlight and articulate experiences of home through the creation of short-form works of art. Collaborating across four creative disciplines–literature, theater, visual art, and film–this project seeks to engage a wide range of participants in a multidisciplinary conversation on the power of brevity.

WHY SHORT FORMS?
For novices, the brief approach can often present a casual entry into arts that they otherwise might not be used to practicing. By foregrounding this low-barrier to entry, our project hopes to make art creation accessible to all. This will promote enrollment in creative classes and teach students artistic practices. Though short forms have a long history (in literature alone, dating back to Aphorisms of Hericlitus, or the works of Sei Shonagun), they have proliferated in recent years due at least in part to changes in technology.

Why Home?
By using this year’s theme of home as the basis of our prompts for these events, we will offer a tangible way for a broad audience to participate. In my creative writing classes, I often use a broad thematic prompt as a way in to the specific craft challenge that I am asking them to undertake. In this case, we would use brief directed prompts that ask participants to interpret home through the abbreviated forms. Additionally, our Haiku Review activity will enable students to send a dispatch home in a fun, no-cost-to-them way.

The Events:
Workshop 1: In Literature – Short Prose Forms
From prose poems and brief essays to the latest Flash craze, the short form has a long and vibrant legacy.

Workshop 2: On the Stage – The Two-Minute Play
Codified by The Neo-Futurists, the two-minute play structure ascribes to “tenets of honesty, brevity, and transformation.”

Workshop 3 : In Visual Arts – Envisioning the Mini Zine
The zine’s simplest form is rooted in amateur publishing and artist’s books of the early 20th century; the mini zine is made of a single sheet of folded paper.

Workshop 4 : In Film – The Short Film
From the earliest works, to the boom of the nineties, short films continue to be a prized form.

Culminating event: 2026 Long Story Short Festival
Celebrating work made by students, faculty, and community members at the various workshops. Part exhibit, part performance, this event will also feature a keynote speaker (Dinty Moore, Lydia Davis or Sarah Manguso, all known for brief work, would be our preferred speakers.)


This proposal also includes:

-Four events on 7th Paseo Plaza in conjunction with Reed Magazine (as lead up to the workshop) in which anyone can make a short form project.
-Our Haiku Review project provides our lowest barrier of entry. A pre-stamped postcard that asks students to send a Haiku home, via prompt on the card.
-Experimentation in our classrooms: Students enrolled in Engl 71,133, 135, and 242, Art 181 and 15 already discuss short forms. This should be equally applicable to courses in Film, Theatre, and Communication, which we can better speak to as we solidify their participation.
Come to Long Story Short, a series of four hands-on, interactive workshops in short-form art making! Today’s theme is Short Prose. From short stories to prose poems and brief essays, to the latest Flash craze, the short form is here to stay, likely caused as much by our increased lack of free time as to our tendencies to read more on digital devices, where shorter works are a necessity. You will craft your own short prose in this workshop that can be shared in our spring short works festival.
https://events.sjsu.edu/event/long-story-short-table-event-an-exploration-of-home-through-abbreviated-forms
7th Street Paseo Plazabrook.mcclurg@sjsu.eduEnglish & Comparative LiteratureVisual Arts - Carla Fisher Schwartz, Assistant Professor
English -Noelle GM Gibbs (Graduate student in English with professional background in theater)
Shrunkenmanhead Club - Henry Long (Club President, Animation Illustration Student)
Visual Art Student - TBD (Carla has asked that we hold one student partner spot for one of her art students. She has several in mind and will choose one if this project is funded.)

Though we already have a commitment from our partners in short form animation, Shrunkenheadman Club (500 members strong!), we’re still seeking partners for short films (non-animated) and potentially Communications (which overlaps with theatre and film here). In pursuit of this we have also reached out to Matthew Spangler in Theatre and Communications.		Educational
This proposal is purposefully prepared in a fashion so that it might best reach a large number of students, be approachable for the community, and instill our student collaborators with career-building and leadership skills necessary to explore their next professional steps. Each of these workshops are designed to be experiential and inclusive with a low barrier to participation. The theme of that actual work, Home, easily applies to all who’d want to be involved.

The diversity of disciplines involved in our proposal, combined with its experiential approach, encourages many different learning styles in a variety of modes of artistic expression. We further hope to educate students and our community members on the ways in which meaningful artistic experiences and creation can be fit into their daily lives.
Further, our hope here is to educate students and the community about the artistic pleasure and value that can be found in short forms. There was a time not too long ago, when short films were not recognized as their own genre. Now everybody knows what they are and some seek out these small pleasures where they can find them. By showcasing these constraints within different mediums we will demonstrate to students that powerful art can be made in small packages.

Finally, this project will help both of our student facilitators who will gain practical work experience in helping to put on these events. For one of our students from the Art Department (yet to be named by Carla, though she has a few students in mind), they will gain valuable experience learning how to support and promote artistic events. While for Noelle Gibbs, our graduate student in English who also has professional experience in producing stageplays, she will gain experience doing so within a university setting and with university parameters. Since she hopes to eventually teach both Theatre and Creative Writing at the college level–and indeed, she sees her particular specialty as the intersection of these two disciplines– the ability to lead her own workshop for our proposed theater event will be meaningful. I believe having this student lead one of the workshops as well as help with the others, will be meaningful to both their experience as a graduate student and their professional life after.

ARTISTIC
One of the things that short forms engender—regardless of the discipline—is an easier point of entry for those who might not typically be interested in art or stage plays, or literature. I offer anecdotally that I’ve had many students who felt intimidated by book-length works who are ignited by the possibilities of literature after being moved by short form works.

Since each of these workshops and lectures is envisioned as participatory, where the audience is encouraged to engage and take their hand in creating the art object in discussion, they will have a more embodied experience of the creation project.

COMMUNITY
While most of our efforts thus far have been toward defining the parameters of this project and making the necessary cross-disciplinary connections, we do intend to make efforts to involve the local community as well. As an educator that has routinely engaged in community-based workshops, both at SJSU and my prior institutions, I believe these events will be bettered with community involvement and will work toward those ends.

This grant proposal is premised on the ideas of artistic creation being important and valuable experiences for all. This year’s theme, combined with our use of approachable artistic practices and experiential learning, can hopefully combine to make a successful year of artistic creation. By reclaiming brevity as depth, we hope to unlock short-form antidotes to loneliness and a way to share our sense of home through art.
15
AEPGHomeFall 2025Brook McClurgThursday, October 16, 5pm-6pmWorkshop - Long Story Short: A Community-Activated Exploration of Home through Abbreviated FormsThe VISION
Long Story Short aims to activate, spotlight and articulate experiences of home through the creation of short-form works of art. Collaborating across four creative disciplines–literature, theater, visual art, and film–this project seeks to engage a wide range of participants in a multidisciplinary conversation on the power of brevity.

WHY SHORT FORMS?
For novices, the brief approach can often present a casual entry into arts that they otherwise might not be used to practicing. By foregrounding this low-barrier to entry, our project hopes to make art creation accessible to all. This will promote enrollment in creative classes and teach students artistic practices. Though short forms have a long history (in literature alone, dating back to Aphorisms of Hericlitus, or the works of Sei Shonagun), they have proliferated in recent years due at least in part to changes in technology.

Why Home?
By using this year’s theme of home as the basis of our prompts for these events, we will offer a tangible way for a broad audience to participate. In my creative writing classes, I often use a broad thematic prompt as a way in to the specific craft challenge that I am asking them to undertake. In this case, we would use brief directed prompts that ask participants to interpret home through the abbreviated forms. Additionally, our Haiku Review activity will enable students to send a dispatch home in a fun, no-cost-to-them way.

The Events:
Workshop 1: In Literature – Short Prose Forms
From prose poems and brief essays to the latest Flash craze, the short form has a long and vibrant legacy.

Workshop 2: On the Stage – The Two-Minute Play
Codified by The Neo-Futurists, the two-minute play structure ascribes to “tenets of honesty, brevity, and transformation.”

Workshop 3 : In Visual Arts – Envisioning the Mini Zine
The zine’s simplest form is rooted in amateur publishing and artist’s books of the early 20th century; the mini zine is made of a single sheet of folded paper.

Workshop 4 : In Film – The Short Film
From the earliest works, to the boom of the nineties, short films continue to be a prized form.

Culminating event: 2026 Long Story Short Festival
Celebrating work made by students, faculty, and community members at the various workshops. Part exhibit, part performance, this event will also feature a keynote speaker (Dinty Moore, Lydia Davis or Sarah Manguso, all known for brief work, would be our preferred speakers.)


This proposal also includes:

-Four events on 7th Paseo Plaza in conjunction with Reed Magazine (as lead up to the workshop) in which anyone can make a short form project.
-Our Haiku Review project provides our lowest barrier of entry. A pre-stamped postcard that asks students to send a Haiku home, via prompt on the card.
-Experimentation in our classrooms: Students enrolled in Engl 71,133, 135, and 242, Art 181 and 15 already discuss short forms. This should be equally applicable to courses in Film, Theatre, and Communication, which we can better speak to as we solidify their participation.
Come to Long Story Short, a series of four hands-on, interactive workshops in short-form art making! Today’s theme is Short Prose. From short stories to prose poems and brief essays, to the latest Flash craze, the short form is here to stay, likely caused as much by our increased lack of free time as to our tendencies to read more on digital devices, where shorter works are a necessity. You will craft your own short prose in this workshop that can be shared in our spring short works festival.
https://events.sjsu.edu/event/long-story-short-table-event-an-exploration-of-home-through-abbreviated-forms
MLK 213brook.mcclurg@sjsu.eduEnglish & Comparative LiteratureVisual Arts - Carla Fisher Schwartz, Assistant Professor
English -Noelle GM Gibbs (Graduate student in English with professional background in theater)
Shrunkenmanhead Club - Henry Long (Club President, Animation Illustration Student)
Visual Art Student - TBD (Carla has asked that we hold one student partner spot for one of her art students. She has several in mind and will choose one if this project is funded.)

Though we already have a commitment from our partners in short form animation, Shrunkenheadman Club (500 members strong!), we’re still seeking partners for short films (non-animated) and potentially Communications (which overlaps with theatre and film here). In pursuit of this we have also reached out to Matthew Spangler in Theatre and Communications.		Educational
This proposal is purposefully prepared in a fashion so that it might best reach a large number of students, be approachable for the community, and instill our student collaborators with career-building and leadership skills necessary to explore their next professional steps. Each of these workshops are designed to be experiential and inclusive with a low barrier to participation. The theme of that actual work, Home, easily applies to all who’d want to be involved.

The diversity of disciplines involved in our proposal, combined with its experiential approach, encourages many different learning styles in a variety of modes of artistic expression. We further hope to educate students and our community members on the ways in which meaningful artistic experiences and creation can be fit into their daily lives.
Further, our hope here is to educate students and the community about the artistic pleasure and value that can be found in short forms. There was a time not too long ago, when short films were not recognized as their own genre. Now everybody knows what they are and some seek out these small pleasures where they can find them. By showcasing these constraints within different mediums we will demonstrate to students that powerful art can be made in small packages.

Finally, this project will help both of our student facilitators who will gain practical work experience in helping to put on these events. For one of our students from the Art Department (yet to be named by Carla, though she has a few students in mind), they will gain valuable experience learning how to support and promote artistic events. While for Noelle Gibbs, our graduate student in English who also has professional experience in producing stageplays, she will gain experience doing so within a university setting and with university parameters. Since she hopes to eventually teach both Theatre and Creative Writing at the college level–and indeed, she sees her particular specialty as the intersection of these two disciplines– the ability to lead her own workshop for our proposed theater event will be meaningful. I believe having this student lead one of the workshops as well as help with the others, will be meaningful to both their experience as a graduate student and their professional life after.

ARTISTIC
One of the things that short forms engender—regardless of the discipline—is an easier point of entry for those who might not typically be interested in art or stage plays, or literature. I offer anecdotally that I’ve had many students who felt intimidated by book-length works who are ignited by the possibilities of literature after being moved by short form works.

Since each of these workshops and lectures is envisioned as participatory, where the audience is encouraged to engage and take their hand in creating the art object in discussion, they will have a more embodied experience of the creation project.

COMMUNITY
While most of our efforts thus far have been toward defining the parameters of this project and making the necessary cross-disciplinary connections, we do intend to make efforts to involve the local community as well. As an educator that has routinely engaged in community-based workshops, both at SJSU and my prior institutions, I believe these events will be bettered with community involvement and will work toward those ends.

This grant proposal is premised on the ideas of artistic creation being important and valuable experiences for all. This year’s theme, combined with our use of approachable artistic practices and experiential learning, can hopefully combine to make a successful year of artistic creation. By reclaiming brevity as depth, we hope to unlock short-form antidotes to loneliness and a way to share our sense of home through art.
16
AEPGAuthenticityFall 2025Elise KnudsonFriday, October 17, 1pm-3pmPerformance: Nex2NOWThis project is a series of three improvisation-in-performance events co-facilitated by dance department students in which they will perform improvisation alongside students from other departments, SJSU faculty improvisers and high caliber regional guest artists. Edited video of the culminating event will be incorporated into the curriculum of collaborating faculty during the Spring ‘26 semester and be made available to the participants for their portfolios.

Dance students will participate in recruiting students from other disciplines/departments for these events, host and receive mentorship from guest artists, and help to design promotion, lighting and event formats.

All participating students, faculty and community members will benefit from connecting across genres through creating art. The connections forged in a process of ‘doing’ build community in a way that lectures can not. Practices of connection are important for survival in a climate that seeks to isolate and commodify.

I hope this project sparks a monthly series of Nex2NOW hosted by the dance department that runs itself as a student club that connects the plethora of SJSU student performing arts clubs. The dance department would support by offering its theater and guidance in facilitating public events.

Insofar as “authentic” means “genuine,” this project supports authentic creative communication because it provokes communication in real-time without the interventions of choreography, ableism, or curation. It invites time-based artists of any discipline to “opt-in” with a “come as you are” approach.

The title is derived from the word ‘nexus,’ which means: a connection between things or people. It is based on a similar series that I facilitated in NYC. It explicitly invites ‘cross-over,’ meaning, for example, that dancers can also make sound and musicians can also move. Videographer Jonah David is an essential guest artist who dances with his camera on stage in multiple roles as performer, instigator and documentarian.

This project values listening, witnessing and communicating across different grammars of expression.

EVENTS:

Event #1: Workshop: Friday, September 24th, 2025
Led by Justin Morrison, the purpose of this workshop is to familiarize participants with consent practices, ways of engaging diverse media, and considering compositional elements.

Event #2: Practice: Friday, October 24th, 2025
Dance students participate in guiding a warm-up and designing chance processes that determine casting. Guest improvisers from San Francisco and San Diego join.

Event #3: Performance: Friday November 21st, 2025
This event is similar to #2 with a higher production value. Performance slots are first come first serve with preference for those who attended all three events. Guest improvisers join. Lighting for this performance is improvised by dance faculty Kevin Lo with Dance Production students.

HARVESTING:
Video is edited and distributed to participants for their use and may be used by collaborating departments to demonstrate that arts are live at SJSU on social media.

SP2026: Embedding of Nex2NOW in curriculum of collaborating faculty through participant visits, demonstrations and video of Nex2NOW events.

*All events take place in the Dance Theater in SPX, are free and open to students, faculty, and the greater SJ community.

*Participants = Performers
These two sound artists practice 'downbeat' as developed by Bobby McFerrin. It is primarily voice based but involves some movement.
https://events.sjsu.edu/event/nex2now-free-vocal-improvisation-workshop
Dance Theater in SPX 216elise.knudson@sjsu.eduFilm, Theatre & DanceCollaborators:
1.) Mulitple regional guests artists in multiple media
2.) Prof Carmen Seylah, Department of African-American Studies Role: Liaison between SJSU spoken word alumni artists, student recruitment
3.) Prof Sarah Mills, Assistant Professor of Art History (committed) Role: Student recruitment
4.) Andrew Blanton: Assistant Professor and Graduate Coordinator, CADRE (committed) Role: Participant in electronic music, student recruitment
5.) Kevin Lo, Lecturer in Dance Department (committed) Role: Participant in the media of dance and music, lighting design and student recruitment
6.) Jenni Hong, Lecturer in Dance Department (committed) Role: student recruitment and participant in dance
7.) Kara Davis, Production, Lecturer in Dance Department (pending) Participant in dance and recruitment
8.) Ye Feng, Lecturer in Dance Department (pending) Role: student recruitment and participant in dance

I am developing connections in the Music Department and hope to have at least one collaborator from Music.
The big idea is that the messy beauty of humans braving the unknown together is valuable, if not a survival skill. It points to a possibility of inventing our way out of chaos. We CAN communicate artfully if we pay attention, especially when we don’t speak the same language.

Performing improvisation is a crucible that fosters a sense of empowerment. Participants walk away knowing that they were seen and heard while expressing something true about themselves.

Dance students will learn the ins and outs of self-production. They will be involved in tech, scheduling, hosting guest artists, performing and promotion. These are all skills that are invaluable for a young artist who is creating their own work. They will also benefit from bridging the apparently insurmountable distance to San Francisco through meeting and dancing with SF and regional dance artists.

All participants and audience benefit from building community beyond departmental walls. Participants develop skills in responding across difference in real-time. Audience members will gain appreciation of these skills.
17
AEPGAuthenticityFall 2025Jeffrey Benson and David VickermanWednesday, October 21-22 Residency: A World Premiere & Guest Artist Residency by Jake RunestadThe SJSU Concert Choir, Choraliers, and Wind Ensemble plan to commission a new work for combined choirs and bands from Minneapolis-based composer Jake Runestad and perform the world premiere of this work at a concert featuring music by Runestad. This collaboration would involve bringing the composer to campus for a multi-day residency to work with all of the various student ensembles and their conductors (Corie Brown, David Vickerman, Jeffrey Benson).

Mr. Runestad has already agreed to compose the new, somewhat extended work (approximately 10-15 minutes in duration). SJSU will be the lead commissioner of a larger consortium, involving approximately 10 other universities across the country. The SJSU performance will be the world premiere of this new work.

While the piece has not yet been written, Mr. Runestad is taking inspiration from Walt Whitman's "Miracles." The themes of the work (and the rest of the programming for the concert) will revolve around humanity's greater need to be present with one another and our natural world. This residency, commissioned work, and entire concert will focus on the wonder to behold in all things through an authentic lens, foregrounding our human experiences with each other. The composer writes, "if we can live in this way of awe and gratitude, our lives will be so much richer and we’ll be more deeply connected."

In addition, Mr. Runestad has already written a piece (set to Wendell Berry's poetry) that sets the tone for much of this project, "The Peace of Wild Things." That work will be another thematic connection to the commission and to the overarching focus on the authentic human experience for performers and audience members.

THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS
by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night [at the least sound]
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Explore the beauty that awaits you in this concert celebrating peace and hope in our troubled times. The SJSU School of Music presents a concert celebrating the music of beloved composer Jake Runestad featuring the SJSU Wind Ensemble, Concert Choir, and the Choraliers. The choirs and band will share music that tells our human stories, connecting each of us to our authentic selves and each other. Plus, you’ll hear the world premiere of a work by Mr. Runestad, newly commissioned by the SJSU Choirs and Bands. This concert will inspire and uplift as we celebrate our shared humanity!Invitation only - Students and Faculty School of Musicjeffrey.benson@sjsu.eduSchool of MusicThis project involves collaborations between the SJSU Bands and the SJSU Choirs. The SJSU Wind Ensemble and the SJSU Choraliers and Concert Choir are working together with an outside composer to bring this new work to life. In addition, Mr. Runestad will be in residence for several days. He will work with composition students, speak for a composer's forum, and interact with School of Music students.
Corie Brown
Jeffrey Benson
David Vickerman
Composition Area (Pablo Furman, Chris Luna-Mega)
Video/Art/Visuals TBD		This project involves 130+ SJSU students, and many additional community members, in the performance, and outreach to & with students and faculty and all areas of campus. Student engagement/learning includes participation from performers and composers throughout the process. Many of our composition students idolize Mr. Runestad and his musical compositions. Our students have the chance to work with one of the top musical artists in the classical composition field. Additionally, the focus on Whitman and Berry's poetry allows engagement on a level focusing on connection to each other and the world around us.
18
AEPGAuthenticityFall 2025Jeffrey Benson and David VickermanWednesday, October 22Concert: Vincent's SkyThe SJSU Concert Choir, Choraliers, and Wind Ensemble plan to commission a new work for combined choirs and bands from Minneapolis-based composer Jake Runestad and perform the world premiere of this work at a concert featuring music by Runestad. This collaboration would involve bringing the composer to campus for a multi-day residency to work with all of the various student ensembles and their conductors (Corie Brown, David Vickerman, Jeffrey Benson).

Mr. Runestad has already agreed to compose the new, somewhat extended work (approximately 10-15 minutes in duration). SJSU will be the lead commissioner of a larger consortium, involving approximately 10 other universities across the country. The SJSU performance will be the world premiere of this new work.

While the piece has not yet been written, Mr. Runestad is taking inspiration from Walt Whitman's "Miracles." The themes of the work (and the rest of the programming for the concert) will revolve around humanity's greater need to be present with one another and our natural world. This residency, commissioned work, and entire concert will focus on the wonder to behold in all things through an authentic lens, foregrounding our human experiences with each other. The composer writes, "if we can live in this way of awe and gratitude, our lives will be so much richer and we’ll be more deeply connected."

In addition, Mr. Runestad has already written a piece (set to Wendell Berry's poetry) that sets the tone for much of this project, "The Peace of Wild Things." That work will be another thematic connection to the commission and to the overarching focus on the authentic human experience for performers and audience members.

THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS
by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night [at the least sound]
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Explore the beauty that awaits you in this concert celebrating peace and hope in our troubled times. The SJSU School of Music presents a concert celebrating the music of beloved composer Jake Runestad featuring the SJSU Wind Ensemble, Concert Choir, and the Choraliers. The choirs and band will share music that tells our human stories, connecting each of us to our authentic selves and each other. Plus, you’ll hear the world premiere of a work by Mr. Runestad, newly commissioned by the SJSU Choirs and Bands. This concert will inspire and uplift as we celebrate our shared humanity!
https://events.sjsu.edu/event/sjsu-music-presents-vincents-sky-the-music-of-jake-runestad
Hammer Theatrejeffrey.benson@sjsu.eduSchool of MusicThis project involves collaborations between the SJSU Bands and the SJSU Choirs. The SJSU Wind Ensemble and the SJSU Choraliers and Concert Choir are working together with an outside composer to bring this new work to life. In addition, Mr. Runestad will be in residence for several days. He will work with composition students, speak for a composer's forum, and interact with School of Music students.
Corie Brown
Jeffrey Benson
David Vickerman
Composition Area (Pablo Furman, Chris Luna-Mega)
Video/Art/Visuals TBD		This project involves 130+ SJSU students, and many additional community members, in the performance, and outreach to & with students and faculty and all areas of campus. Student engagement/learning includes participation from performers and composers throughout the process. Many of our composition students idolize Mr. Runestad and his musical compositions. Our students have the chance to work with one of the top musical artists in the classical composition field. Additionally, the focus on Whitman and Berry's poetry allows engagement on a level focusing on connection to each other and the world around us.
19
AEPGAuthenticityFall 2025Elise KnudsonFriday, October 24, 3:30pm-5:30pmPerformance: Nex2NOWThis project is a series of three improvisation-in-performance events co-facilitated by dance department students in which they will perform improvisation alongside students from other departments, SJSU faculty improvisers and high caliber regional guest artists. Edited video of the culminating event will be incorporated into the curriculum of collaborating faculty during the Spring ‘26 semester and be made available to the participants for their portfolios.

Dance students will participate in recruiting students from other disciplines/departments for these events, host and receive mentorship from guest artists, and help to design promotion, lighting and event formats.

All participating students, faculty and community members will benefit from connecting across genres through creating art. The connections forged in a process of ‘doing’ build community in a way that lectures can not. Practices of connection are important for survival in a climate that seeks to isolate and commodify.

I hope this project sparks a monthly series of Nex2NOW hosted by the dance department that runs itself as a student club that connects the plethora of SJSU student performing arts clubs. The dance department would support by offering its theater and guidance in facilitating public events.

Insofar as “authentic” means “genuine,” this project supports authentic creative communication because it provokes communication in real-time without the interventions of choreography, ableism, or curation. It invites time-based artists of any discipline to “opt-in” with a “come as you are” approach.

The title is derived from the word ‘nexus,’ which means: a connection between things or people. It is based on a similar series that I facilitated in NYC. It explicitly invites ‘cross-over,’ meaning, for example, that dancers can also make sound and musicians can also move. Videographer Jonah David is an essential guest artist who dances with his camera on stage in multiple roles as performer, instigator and documentarian.

This project values listening, witnessing and communicating across different grammars of expression.

EVENTS:

Event #1: Workshop: Friday, September 24th, 2025
Led by Justin Morrison, the purpose of this workshop is to familiarize participants with consent practices, ways of engaging diverse media, and considering compositional elements.

Event #2: Practice: Friday, October 24th, 2025
Dance students participate in guiding a warm-up and designing chance processes that determine casting. Guest improvisers from San Francisco and San Diego join.

Event #3: Performance: Friday November 21st, 2025
This event is similar to #2 with a higher production value. Performance slots are first come first serve with preference for those who attended all three events. Guest improvisers join. Lighting for this performance is improvised by dance faculty Kevin Lo with Dance Production students.

HARVESTING:
Video is edited and distributed to participants for their use and may be used by collaborating departments to demonstrate that arts are live at SJSU on social media.

SP2026: Embedding of Nex2NOW in curriculum of collaborating faculty through participant visits, demonstrations and video of Nex2NOW events.

*All events take place in the Dance Theater in SPX, are free and open to students, faculty, and the greater SJ community.

*Participants = Performers
Marcos Duran and Risa Jaroslow (San Diego/NYC/East Bay) Both artists use humanist practices in their art making.Dance Theater in SPXelise.knudson@sjsu.eduFilm, Theatre & DanceCollaborators:
1.) Mulitple regional guests artists in multiple media
2.) Prof Carmen Seylah, Department of African-American Studies Role: Liaison between SJSU spoken word alumni artists, student recruitment
3.) Prof Sarah Mills, Assistant Professor of Art History (committed) Role: Student recruitment
4.) Andrew Blanton: Assistant Professor and Graduate Coordinator, CADRE (committed) Role: Participant in electronic music, student recruitment
5.) Kevin Lo, Lecturer in Dance Department (committed) Role: Participant in the media of dance and music, lighting design and student recruitment
6.) Jenni Hong, Lecturer in Dance Department (committed) Role: student recruitment and participant in dance
7.) Kara Davis, Production, Lecturer in Dance Department (pending) Participant in dance and recruitment
8.) Ye Feng, Lecturer in Dance Department (pending) Role: student recruitment and participant in dance

I am developing connections in the Music Department and hope to have at least one collaborator from Music.
The big idea is that the messy beauty of humans braving the unknown together is valuable, if not a survival skill. It points to a possibility of inventing our way out of chaos. We CAN communicate artfully if we pay attention, especially when we don’t speak the same language.

Performing improvisation is a crucible that fosters a sense of empowerment. Participants walk away knowing that they were seen and heard while expressing something true about themselves.

Dance students will learn the ins and outs of self-production. They will be involved in tech, scheduling, hosting guest artists, performing and promotion. These are all skills that are invaluable for a young artist who is creating their own work. They will also benefit from bridging the apparently insurmountable distance to San Francisco through meeting and dancing with SF and regional dance artists.

All participants and audience benefit from building community beyond departmental walls. Participants develop skills in responding across difference in real-time. Audience members will gain appreciation of these skills.
20
AEPGAuthenticityFall 2025Alena Sauzade and Irene Carvajal
Tuesday, October 28, 2025, 5pm-6pm
Artist Presentation: Essential Adaptations: Printmaking from Costa RicaThis project proposes an exhibition of printmaking from renowned Costa Rican artists to take place at the Natalie and James Thompson Art Gallery as well as a series of public events, including a speaker series, curatorial walk through, student workshops and community art projects. Taken together this project will creatively consider the history of “Macgyvering,” or making do with the materials at hand in Costa Rican printmaking, as a methodology for a more sustainable and authentic art making process. Developed in collaboration with Irene Carvajal, Senior Lecturer in Pictorial Art and leader of a faculty led program to Costa Rica, this project will explore how Costa Rican artists arrive at authentic materials for printmaking through processes of creative reuse, recycling, and individual materials development.

Building on connections and collaborations established by Irene Cravajal and her students over the course of seven years of faculty led programs there, the exhibition and related programs will deepen SJSU’s growing connection with Costa Rican artists, the Costa Rican Museum of Fine Arts and the University of Costa Rica, while engaging with campus community with the question of authenticity, sustainability and a creative approach to art making.

To complement the exhibition, the Thompson Gallery will host a series of public programs, including:
1. A community art making event in the Art Quad inspired by the work in the exhibition.

2. Artist led workshops:

Alberto Murillo, Professor of Art at the University of Costa Rica, artist and expert in non toxic printmaking, watercolor xylographie, lithography, bookbinding and hand papermaking will give a workshop on environmental lithography.

Artist Carolina Cordoba will give a talk on the history of printmaking in Costa Rica from a feminist perspective and will lead an advanced printmaking workshop.

Artist Alejandro Villalobos will give a workshop and talk on the process of making his own press and DIY printmaking.

3. Curator walk though of the exhibition

4. Students in Art 174 Museum and Gallery Techniques will write wall and label text for the exhibtiion

5. Students who attend the artist workshops will have their work featured in an exhibition in one of the student galleries, which will be curated and installed by students in Art 174.
The university community is invited to attend a free, drop-in art workshop inspired by exhibition Contemporary Printmaking from Costa Rica. Referencing the artwork on view at the Natalie and James Thompson Gallery, participants are invited to create a small format print using non-traditional materials

This event is supported by the College of Humanities & the Arts’ Artistic Excellence Programming Grant.
https://events.sjsu.edu/event/natalie-and-james-thompson-gallery-essential-adaptations-printmaking-from-costa-rica-opening-reception
Art Building Rm 133alena.sauzade@sjsu.eduArt & Art HistoryUniversity of Costa Rica Department of Fine Arts
Museo de Arte Costarricense (Fine Arts Museum of Costa Rica)		This project aims at deepening the connections and collaborations between SJSU and Costa Rican artists and arts institutions that have been established by Irene Carvajal over seven years of faculty-led programs. Professor Carvajal’s popular program introduces SJSU students to sustainability and creative materials use through the lens of Costa Rican printmaking and exposes students to the spirit of “Macgyvering” which is common in Costa Rican art- artists use the materials available creatively and choose to focus on sustainable materials and creating their own inks, paper, solvents etc to create authentically, without unnecessary interventions and potentially hazardous materials.

The exhibition will focus on the history of Costa Rican printmaking and will include objects loaned by the Museo de Arte Costarricense (Costa Rica Museum of Fine Arts) . The exhibition will also introduce the public to the works of key contemporary Costa Rican artists working in the field of printmaking. The related lectures and workshops will allow for deeper engagement and exploration into the innovative ways in which Costa Rican printmakers engage with their craft- from making their own paper, to exploring sustainable non-toxic materials, to making their own presses. These programs will allow students to have exposure to the necessity of “Macgyvering” and making do in developing economies, but also, importantly, will allow them to practice making their own materials and learn to utilize the resources available to them in their own homes and communities.

In addition, the entire campus community and the public will be invited to a free hands on community art making event to take place on the Art Quad. In this event, the project assistants will guide community members to learn more about Costa Rican printmaking and make their own small scale prints using non-traditional materials. Student art work made in the artist workshops and the community art making event will be featured in an exhibition in the Jo Farb Hernandez student art gallery, which will be curated and installed by students in Art 174, Museum and Gallery Operations.

21
AEPGAuthenticityFall 2025Alena Sauzade and Irene CarvajalTuesday, October 28, 2025 - February 13, 2026Exhibition: Essential Adaptations: Printmaking from Costa RicaThis project proposes an exhibition of printmaking from renowned Costa Rican artists to take place at the Natalie and James Thompson Art Gallery as well as a series of public events, including a speaker series, curatorial walk through, student workshops and community art projects. Taken together this project will creatively consider the history of “Macgyvering,” or making do with the materials at hand in Costa Rican printmaking, as a methodology for a more sustainable and authentic art making process. Developed in collaboration with Irene Carvajal, Senior Lecturer in Pictorial Art and leader of a faculty led program to Costa Rica, this project will explore how Costa Rican artists arrive at authentic materials for printmaking through processes of creative reuse, recycling, and individual materials development.

Building on connections and collaborations established by Irene Cravajal and her students over the course of seven years of faculty led programs there, the exhibition and related programs will deepen SJSU’s growing connection with Costa Rican artists, the Costa Rican Museum of Fine Arts and the University of Costa Rica, while engaging with campus community with the question of authenticity, sustainability and a creative approach to art making.

To complement the exhibition, the Thompson Gallery will host a series of public programs, including:
1. A community art making event in the Art Quad inspired by the work in the exhibition.

2. Artist led workshops:

Alberto Murillo, Professor of Art at the University of Costa Rica, artist and expert in non toxic printmaking, watercolor xylographie, lithography, bookbinding and hand papermaking will give a workshop on environmental lithography.

Artist Carolina Cordoba will give a talk on the history of printmaking in Costa Rica from a feminist perspective and will lead an advanced printmaking workshop.

Artist Alejandro Villalobos will give a workshop and talk on the process of making his own press and DIY printmaking.

3. Curator walk though of the exhibition

4. Students in Art 174 Museum and Gallery Techniques will write wall and label text for the exhibtiion

5. Students who attend the artist workshops will have their work featured in an exhibition in one of the student galleries, which will be curated and installed by students in Art 174.
The university community is invited to attend a free, drop-in art workshop inspired by exhibition Contemporary Printmaking from Costa Rica. Referencing the artwork on view at the Natalie and James Thompson Gallery, participants are invited to create a small format print using non-traditional materials

This event is supported by the College of Humanities & the Arts’ Artistic Excellence Programming Grant.
https://events.sjsu.edu/event/natalie-and-james-thompson-gallery-essential-adaptations-printmaking-from-costa-rica-opening-reception
Natalie and James Thompson Galleryalena.sauzade@sjsu.eduArt & Art HistoryUniversity of Costa Rica Department of Fine Arts
Museo de Arte Costarricense (Fine Arts Museum of Costa Rica)		This project aims at deepening the connections and collaborations between SJSU and Costa Rican artists and arts institutions that have been established by Irene Carvajal over seven years of faculty-led programs. Professor Carvajal’s popular program introduces SJSU students to sustainability and creative materials use through the lens of Costa Rican printmaking and exposes students to the spirit of “Macgyvering” which is common in Costa Rican art- artists use the materials available creatively and choose to focus on sustainable materials and creating their own inks, paper, solvents etc to create authentically, without unnecessary interventions and potentially hazardous materials.

The exhibition will focus on the history of Costa Rican printmaking and will include objects loaned by the Museo de Arte Costarricense (Costa Rica Museum of Fine Arts) . The exhibition will also introduce the public to the works of key contemporary Costa Rican artists working in the field of printmaking. The related lectures and workshops will allow for deeper engagement and exploration into the innovative ways in which Costa Rican printmakers engage with their craft- from making their own paper, to exploring sustainable non-toxic materials, to making their own presses. These programs will allow students to have exposure to the necessity of “Macgyvering” and making do in developing economies, but also, importantly, will allow them to practice making their own materials and learn to utilize the resources available to them in their own homes and communities.

In addition, the entire campus community and the public will be invited to a free hands on community art making event to take place on the Art Quad. In this event, the project assistants will guide community members to learn more about Costa Rican printmaking and make their own small scale prints using non-traditional materials. Student art work made in the artist workshops and the community art making event will be featured in an exhibition in the Jo Farb Hernandez student art gallery, which will be curated and installed by students in Art 174, Museum and Gallery Operations.

22
AEPGHomeFall 2025David Malinowski
Wednesday, October 29, 3pm-4:30pm
Workshop: Translate San JosĂ©Translate San JosĂ© will support SJSU students, faculty, and community members in re-imagining the city through the lens of linguistic landscape—that is, the presence and use of diverse languages in San José’s public places. Over the 2025-2026 academic year, this project will convene a year-long learning community of SJSU classes across disciplines including Linguistics, World Languages, Teacher Education, Communication, Information Studies, and Urban Studies, with the goal of fostering student-led projects in dialogue with campus partners, community organizations, and local government offices. At the same time, it will invite student groups, guest speakers, and faculty to lead a series of five workshops and presentations over two semesters. In April 2026, the Translate San JosĂ© project will culminate in a month-long on-campus exhibition of student work and a final event for students and faculty to showcase their achievements, with the aim of imagining possible futures for language representation in the neighborhoods, cities, and the region we call home.


As evidenced in the first word of the project’s title, Translate San JosĂ© aims to cultivate a rich community of learning, discussion, and practice within a paradigm of translation. Although translation is often assumed to refer to a mechanical substitution of one linguistic form for another—and in a world where AI translation tools automate and hide the work of navigating differences in thought and expression—Translate San JosĂ© offers another possibility. Participants in this project will engage in translation as:
--- a tool for discovery of the uniqueness of every expression in time, place, and purpose, as students document, discuss, and attempt to translate instances of English displayed in public places into other languages, while doing the same for Spanish, Vietnamese, Tamil, Mandarin, and other languages of San José;
--- a metaphor for building new historical, cultural, and other knowledges about relationships with other people, the world, and its texts, as students investigate our region’s histories of migration, growth, conflict, and change, as a way to deepen and contextualize their translations;
--- an active engagement with the politics of visibility, audibility, and other forms of presence in shared spaces, as translation both defamiliarizes the familiar, and calls attention to the unseen scripts and unheard voices in our midst.

As project coordinator, I will collaborate with SJSU faculty (beginning with those who are named below) in an online learning community to diversify and develop a corpus of relevant lessons and activities, while exchanging practices and approaches for learning in our different contexts. Meanwhile, the students themselves will have access to a shared learning space across classrooms, where they will be able to dialogue and learn from one another over the course of the two semesters. To the practical concern of realizing these pedagogical aims, the course that I developed and taught in Fall 2024, LLD 230 “Linguistic Landscape: Multilingualism and Education in Public Space” provides a substantial foundation.
What would the city of San JosĂ© look like if you didn’t see or hear any English? What stories do the street names, restaurant signs, school murals, and street art tell about our city’s histories of migration, development, and change? What futures could you imagine if you saw San JosĂ© through the lens of Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Hindi and any of the other 100+ languages of Santa Clara County? Come see visions of our city translated by SJSU students in Linguistics, World Languages, Teacher Education, Communication, Information Studies, and Urban Studies, together with community partners
[to be continued; I wanted to lead with the hook]
Digital Humanities Center and the Institute for Metropolitan Studiesdavid.malinowski@sjsu.eduLinguistics & Language DevelopmentInvitations have been sent to a small number of student groups, cultural centers (including the MOSAIC Cross Cultural Center, learning support centers, and academic institutes on campus to facilitate one or more of the planned workshops for the project. At the time of submission of this application, I have heard confirmation of interest from those named below.

SJSU Responsible Computing Club: I heard back positively from Shannon Lo, Vice President of External Affairs, regarding an invitation to facilitate a workshop “exploring the possibilities and limitations of using AI for translating place names and other features of our local San JosĂ© environment that are historically and culturally unique”. VP Lo’s reply highlighted that the RCC “would love to provide a diverse group of students—spanning different backgrounds, majors, and technical expertise—to help tackle this project from multiple angles.”

SJSU Writing Center: I heard back positively from Michelle Hager, Director, and Amy Russo, Coordinator of Multilingual Writing Support Services, with an invitation to lead a workshop on translation and writing, aimed especially at the needs and strengths of SJSU’s multilingual student writers.

Institute for Metropolitan Studies: I heard back positively from Gordon Douglas, Director, regarding an invitation to collaborate on hosting workshops, as well as developing resources for place-based learning activities and geospatial representation technologies to support Translate San José programming. Prof. Douglas indicated that the IMS would be willing to support and/or co-sponsor any of the events for the project.


The following SJSU faculty have expressed interest in co-designing or developing activities that address their classes’ curricular needs, while embracing the theme of translation in the San JosĂ© linguistic landscape; and/or facilitating student participation in the project with activities developed by others.

Department of Linguistics and Language Development

Richard Abend, Lecturer Faculty
Effie Chiu, Lecturer Faculty
Stefan Frazier, Professor and Chair
Reiko Kataoka, Lecturer Faculty
Scott Phillabaum, Associate Professor
Clare Sandy, Lecturer Faculty
Julia Swan, Associate Professor

Department of Urban and Regional Planning

Gordon Douglas, Associate Professor and Director, Institute for Metropolitan Studies

Department of World Languages and Literatures

Romey Sabalius, Professor in German and Chair
Damian Bacich, Professor in Spanish (teaches courses for the Translation and Interpretation Certificate)
Françoise Herrmann, Lecturer in French
Michiko Uryu, Assistant Professor (teaches courses for the Translation and Interpretation Certificate)
Cheyla Samuelson, Associate Professor of Spanish

Lurie College of Education

Eduardo Muñoz-Muñoz, Associate Professor in Teacher Education, Critical Bilingual Authorization Program

School of Information

Souvick Ghosh, Assistant Professor and Co-PI, Cross-Campus Interdisciplinary Responsible Computing Learning Experience (CIRCLE) Project

Additional invitations to several other faculty in other colleges and department are pending; I would highlight in particular one sent to Professor Anne Marie Todd (Dean of College of Social Sciences & Professor in Communication Studies), who gave a guest lecture in my Fall 2024 LLD 230 “Linguistic Landscape” course, and has expressed interest in ongoing collaboration on the topic.. Prof. Todd is away until early March.

In addition to the confirmed partnerships I have mentioned above, I have had substantive exchanges with the following individuals or offices in the City of San José and County of Santa Clara. Pending successful funding of the project, I will follow up with each.
Office of Betty Duong, Santa Clara County Supervisor, District 2 - Supervisor Duong is, among other things, responsible for the creation and development of the County’s Language Access Unit, which promotes linguistic equity and justice in the county through a variety of measures. She had agreed in principle to visit with my LLD 230 “Linguistic Landscape” course in Fall 2024, but the November General Election precluded this from taking place.
Leila Doty, Privacy & AI Analyst, City of San José
As symbolized in the imperative (“Translate!”) in this project’s title, Translate San JosĂ© proposes to engage students, faculty, and other participants in collaborative processes of thought, imagination, dialogue and action across a range of differences (e.g., language, culture, and identity), all while grounding their individual experiences at SJSU in larger understandings of the places they call “home.” Resonating with the first SJSU University Learning Outcome, Social and Global Responsibilities (see below), this project is at its core about “responsibility” in the sense of cultivating a visceral, nuanced, and critical sense that our words have histories and tangible effects on others; they are materially present in our bodies and in the world; they have power to bring people together or to alienate, and it is up to us to use them well.


Through dialog with students in other disciplines, faculty, and community stakeholders, students will gain an appreciation for the importance of context, history, and the power of representation as they interpret and design messages meant for varied audiences in public places—that is, the linguistic landscape. Through the series of 5 workshops, students and other SJSU participants will gain hands-on experience with the cultural, emotional, and political relevance of translation and all language work in their future vocations. And through reflection on the diversity of expression of their schools, neighborhoods, workplaces, and other familiar places, it is hoped that students will develop a richer, more nuanced perspectives on the notion of “home.”


Notes
—------
University Learning Outcome #1: “Social and Global Responsibilities. An ability to consider the purpose and function of one’s degree program training within various local and/or global social contexts and to act intentionally, conscientiously, and ethically with attention to diversity and inclusion”. https://www.sjsu.edu/admissions/about-us/learning-outcomes.php


23
Fall 2025Dr. Erica BuurmanThursday, October 30, 12pm-1pmBeethoven Center Noontime Concert: Performers Performers: Christine Brandes and Nicholas Mathew, with musicologist Birgit LodesAll concerts take place at 12:00 and are followed by an informal coffee reception and open-house. These concerts are free to attend.

The series is made possible by generous support from the Davis Family Foundation.		Noontime Concerts at the Beethoven Center Series - SJSU Events Calendar
https://events.sjsu.edu/event/noontime-concerts-at-the-beethoven-center-series-2033
Beethoven Center, 5th Floor, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library, San Jose CA 95112Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven StudiesThe series is made possible by generous support from the Davis Family Foundation.
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AEPGHomeFall 2025J. Michael MartinezThursday, October 30 @ 6:30pm-9:30pmCLA Reading Series 2025-26: Natalie DiazThe Center for Literary Arts respectfully requests an Artistic Excellence Programming Grant from the College of Humanities and the Arts of $12,000 to underwrite the costs of venues to present and promote our award-winning reading series.

We are requesting this increased amount to support a larger production as our reading series has a long history of drawing large audiences to the Hammer Theatre. The Hammer Theatre’s near campus/downtown location has long been established as the place CLA audiences can trust to present a quality event, accessible to all, and with convenient parking.

CLA is the South Bay’s premiere literary reading series through which it fulfills its mission to spread the influence of, and interest in, literature and to facilitate cross-cultural understanding through the appreciation of contemporary literature. Over the years, support from the AEPG has enabled us to present some of the country’s most decorated writers including Jonathan Franzen, Jhumpa Lahiri, Claudia Rankine, and Percival Everett. CLA was recently named a winner of a METRO Best of Sillicon Valley Award and has garnered praise from Mercury News. We pleased to have hosted back to back seasons of sold out or nearly sold out shows, giving audience near and far a vital arts experience. As our recent speaker author Carvell Wallace puts it: "The vibes are impeccable."

In the upcoming year, we are pleased to present a diverse cast of literary stars whose acclaimed works embolden us to re-imagine who we are and what we value and incite us to reconceptualize our contemporary lives in a way that is restorative and invigorating.

Louise Erdrich, Maxine Hong Kingston, Isabelle Allende, and Bernadette Evaristo—all best-selling and critically acclaimed authors whose work has been honored with the Booker Prize, the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Pulitzer Prize among other distinctions.

Each book speaks directly to the college’s themes of Home as in memoir and fiction characters consider how their idea of home contributes to their sense of identity and belonging, if not their place in the world. In each, the concept of home is by turns elusive, tenuous, dynamic, self-curated, and remarkably imaginative.

Louise Erdrich’s The Mighty Red is a tender hearted sweeping epic about natural forces, spiritual yearnings, and the tragic impact of uncontrollable circumstances on ordinary people’s lives.

Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Warrior Woman, is a classic in its innovative blend of autobiography and mythology and it portrays multiple and intersecting identities and the jarring clash of world and self.

In Isabelle Allenge’s The Wind Knows My Name, the lives of a Jewish boy escaping Nazi-occupied Europe and a mother and daughter fleeing twenty-first-century El Salvador intersect in this ambitious, intricate novel about war and immigration.

Bernadette Evaristo’s Girl Woman Other is a magnificent portrayal of the intersections of identity and a moving and hopeful story of an interconnected group of Black British women that paints a vivid portrait of the state of contemporary Britain and looks back to the legacy of Britain’s colonial history in Africa and the Caribbean.

The speakers we have the privelege to present represent everything we do at SJSU. CLA authors are diverse in terms of experience and artistic vision and their subjects are important both this period in our nation's history and to our students' educational development.

CLA programming has a powerful impact on the educational life of students from college freshman trying out their first creative writing course to graduate students revising their master’s theses. Students have the opportunity to meet and interview their literary heroes, write conference style essays, poetry busk, blog post, facilitate book discussions, learn to analyze a text creatively and critically, and become responsible literary citizens.

Through our many partnerships—both on campus and in the community—CLA embraces the collaborative spirit of the AEPG award. In the upcoming year we look forward to working with new collaborators including MOSAIC and Spartan Speaker Series to offer a more vibrant and robust presentation.

CLA is very grateful for the longtime support of the College of Humanities and the Art and would be honored to continue this partnership in the future. Thank you for your kind consideration of this proposal.
The Center for Literary Arts is pleased to present Natalie Diaz, MacArthur "Genius" Fellow and winner of the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for Postcolonial Love Poem. This event takes place on Thursday, October 30, 2025 at Hammer Theatre at 7:00 PM.

Postcolonial Love Poem is an anthem of desire against erasure. Natalie Diaz’s brilliant second collection demands that every body carried in its pages—bodies of language, land, rivers, suffering brothers, enemies, and lovers—be touched and held as beloveds. Through these poems, the wounds inflicted by America onto an indigenous people are allowed to bloom pleasure and tenderness. In this new lyrical landscape, the bodies of indigenous, Latinx, black, and brown women are simultaneously the body politic and the body ecstatic. In claiming this autonomy of desire, language is pushed to its dark edges, the astonishing dunefields and forests where pleasure and love are both grief and joy, violence and sensuality. Postcolonial Love Poem unravels notions of American goodness and creates something more powerful than hope—a future is built, future being a matrix of the choices we make now, and in these poems, Diaz chooses love.

Natalie Diaz is the author of Postcolonial Love Poem and When My Brother Was an Aztec, winner of an American Book Award. She has received many honors, including a MacArthur Fellowship, a USA fellowship, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, and a Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Artist Fellowship. She is Mojave and an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian Tribe. Diaz is the Maxine and Jonathan Marshall Chair in Modern and Contemporary Poetry at Arizona State University.
https://events.sjsu.edu/event/cla-presents-natalie-diaz
Hammer4 Theatrejmichael.martinez@sjsu.eduEnglish & Comparative Literature
25
AEPGAuthenticityFall 2025Teresa VeramendiTuesday, November 4, 5:30-7pmShadow Lines Playshop: Dancing with IdentityIn Shadow Lines, we engage students and community members in a series of workshops leading to a performance that examines borders and authenticity in multitudinous forms — physical and mental, visible and invisible, fluid and rigid. Such borders might be tangible, like the wires of a cage, or the cartographic lines between countries. We will primarily focus on the abstract and intangible aspects of how ethnicity and gender come to define us. We will hold three workshops featuring group dialogues facilitated by AEPG leaders and student assistants starting in Fall 2025. Here participants will be encouraged to bring their personal narratives of borders and authenticity into dialogue with philosophical texts and artistic practices related to embodiment, sound, and light. These workshops will take place in theatres, communal areas of University housing, and outdoor environments around SJSU’s campus and San JosĂ©.

The workshops will culminate in a single performance in March 2026. An ensemble of students and community members who choose to continue developing their stories of borders and authenticity will rehearse and train for performance. Training will consist of expansive vocal and movement practices from guest artists during a two-day intensive visit. The performance will likewise make use of a variety of spaces; beginning in a theater, attendees will be guided by AEPG collaborators to other unique spaces indoors and outdoors in small groups to witness individual performances. For the sake of equity, we will have 32 bluetooth headphones on hand so that attendees may download and play pre-recorded sound and thereby fully engage with both recorded and live sound during the performance. All will return to the theater after a thorough investigation of being inside, outside, passing through, and overshadowing the borders of home and ourselves.

While many borders feel constraining and oppressive, others create a sense of safety and comfort – of home. When those borders shift, that sense of home shifts too. This may be destabilizing or freeing, or both. Furthermore, borders can both obscure and illuminate our authentic selves. Examining the concepts of borders and authenticity through a variety of media and spaces will accommodate a macroscopic view on them – the kind of view that Frye, cited below, suggests is essential to deepening our understanding of their impacts on our lives.

“Consider a birdcage,” the philosopher Marilyn Frye (1983) writes. “There is no physical property of any one wire, nothing that the closest scrutiny could discover, that will reveal how a bird could be inhibited or harmed by it except in the most accidental way. It is only when you step back, stop looking at the wires one by one, microscopically, and take a macroscopic view of the whole cage that you can see why the bird does not go anywhere
”

Frye’s image of the birdcage illuminates oppressive structures that create borders, bolster them, and also make them recede into shadows. These borders thereby become invisible — unquestioned facets of our everyday lives, the status quo that shapes our relations with ourselves and those around us. 		Join our playshops where participants explore their identities through storytelling, movement, music, and light! Get inspired by fantastic artists and playful guides to tell your story through words, games, and creative explorations in multiple mediums. Come dance with your identity, question your edges, and break free of the old ideas that are holding you back.

No experience necessary, snacks provided!

All identities and abilities are welcome to participate in this workshop series which will include free writing, story sharing, movement games, and exploratory activities playing with sound and light.

Become a part of this intercultural and interdisciplinary exchange! Material generated in this workshop series will culminate in an experimental, devised performance in Spring 2026 that will explore the invisible boundaries shaping our identities, homes, and relationships. If you desire, you may become a part of our performance ensemble next semester, gaining expansive movement and vocal training by accomplished guest artists.

WHERE: Monday, October 6 is at the Campus Village B, Resident Activity Center
Tuesday, November 4 is in Spartan Village (SVP) Room 216
Tuesday, November 18 is in Washington Square Hall Room 106

WHEN: All events are 5:30-7pm.

WHO: All students and community members are invited.

All events are free.

Email Teresa Veramendi for any questions: teresa.veramendi@sju.edu

Registration, full series information, and artist bios HERE.

Sponsored in part by a College of Humanities and the Arts' Artistic Excellence Programming Grant.		Spartan Village Rm 2016teresa.veramendi@sjsu.eduFilm, Theatre & DanceRiana Betzler is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy. This project dovetails closely with her research and teaching, which focuses on empathy and how we can come to understand one another across lines of difference. She will participate in the project by selecting texts — from a wide variety of philosophical traditions, broadly construed — that explore issues of borders, home, and authenticity. As part of the workshops, she will facilitate Socratic-style discussions that help participants to deepen their thinking about these themes and connect them with their personal narratives. These expanded narratives will then be used as the basis for creative exploration using media of sound, movement, and light.

An assistant professor in the Department of Film, Theatre, and Dance, Raha Shojaei, explores the interplay of sound and image in shaping cultural narratives. Her expertise in sound studies and audio-visual aesthetics and production informs the project, examining how cultural experiences influence our understanding of the suggested theme and how to use the audio-visual elements to shape the narratives. Collaborating within this project, RTVF students bring their expertise in audio-visual media and learn how to merge their skills with philosophical insights to deepen storytelling, and theatrical performance to enhance the expression of narratives — creating meaningful representations of identity and belonging.

As a scholar and artist, Sukanya Chakrabarti, Associate Professor of Theatre in the Department of Film, Theatre, and Dance, is interested in transcultural spaces and their contribution to meaning-making, placemaking, and storytelling. Her current and ongoing research project is on performances of the South Asian diaspora across generations of immigration in California. She imagines this project as part of a continuing exploration of themes of home and immigration. She will be working on facilitating workshops with students and community-based artists, ideating and devising the final performance in Spring 2026.		1. Recognize the cultural, national, and gender-related boundaries that constrain the personal experiences of members of the SJSU and San José community.
2. Empathize viscerally with the cultural, national, and gender-related constraints placed on others and on ourselves due to historical and social pressures.
3. Harness the power of philosophical examination, storytelling and community-based performances to address and destabilize the danger of monolithic narratives around borders and border-crossings.
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AEPGHomeFall 2025David MalinowskiWednesday, November 12, 3pm-4:30pmWorkshop: Translate San JosĂ©The Seraph Brass Quintet is the nation’s only all-women professional brass quintet. The proposed residency will include a full concert recital in the School of Music’s Concert Hall, coaching sessions for SJSU trumpet, horn, trombone, and tuba students, as well as those additional high school and college students who are invited as part of our ever-expanding recruiting process. The quintet will also provide a class visit entitled “Women in Business”, open to all SJSU students. Finally, they will teach a group masterclass with our SJSU brass students.

This AEPG application seeks to satisfy the theme of “authenticity”. For centuries, the classical music world has been dominated by straight, white men. This imbalance is especially true amongst musicians who play brass instruments (trumpet, horn, trombone, euphonium, and tuba). The imbalance of women who are professional brass players starts with discrimination at the very top of our industry and continues all the way down to elementary school gender bias of instrument selection. World famous orchestra conductors Sergiu Celibidache, Zubin Mehta, and Ricardo Muti, among many others, have all made disparaging comments about women in orchestras, particularly women playing brass instruments. It’s not just the comments that are harmful, but discriminatory hiring practices are well documented. At the grade school level, studies show that children identify brass instruments as more masculine and woodwind instruments as more feminine. Children are not arriving at this preconception on their own, it is clearly taught, either explicitly or implicitly by family and society.

The very existence and success of Seraph Brass flies in the face of these prejudices. In a world where our musical role models are still too often type-cast by gender, it is essential that our students (and society in general) are provided with in-person evidence to refute these stereotypes. Seraph Brass presents a mission to showcase the excellence of women brass players and highlight musicians from marginalized groups, both in personnel and in programming. Winners of the American Prize in Chamber Music, the group has been praised for its “beautiful sounds" (American Record Guide), "fine playing” (Gramophone), and “staggeringly high caliber of performance” (Textura). Their residencies not only present excellent performances, but also educational outreach to the communities where they perform.

Many SJSU music students arrive on campus with little to no exposure to the professional classical music world. They are unaware of who the major musicians, ensembles and conductors are. The curriculum we offer broadens their understanding, but still only within the confines of our campus. By bringing in internationally recognized artists, we enrich our students experience by providing real role models who accurately represent an authentic perspective on what the classical music world can become. Our students are the next generation of music teachers who will, in part, be tasked with breaking down stereotypes in music. It is our responsibility to help them develop their tools so they can succeed.

Finally, hosting Seraph Brass will draw attention to the SJSU School of Music. Attention that will benefit our recruiting efforts to bring talented aspiring new students to our campus.
What would the city of San JosĂ© look like if you didn’t see or hear any English? What stories do the street names, restaurant signs, school murals, and street art tell about our city’s histories of migration, development, and change? What futures could you imagine if you saw San JosĂ© through the lens of Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Hindi and any of the other 100+ languages of Santa Clara County? Come see visions of our city translated by SJSU students in Linguistics, World Languages, Teacher Education, Communication, Information Studies, and Urban Studies, together with community partners
[to be continued; I wanted to lead with the hook]
Digial Humanities Centerdavid.malinowski@sjsu.eduLinguistics & Language DevelopmentInvitations have been sent to a small number of student groups, cultural centers (including the MOSAIC Cross Cultural Center, learning support centers, and academic institutes on campus to facilitate one or more of the planned workshops for the project. At the time of submission of this application, I have heard confirmation of interest from those named below.

SJSU Responsible Computing Club: I heard back positively from Shannon Lo, Vice President of External Affairs, regarding an invitation to facilitate a workshop “exploring the possibilities and limitations of using AI for translating place names and other features of our local San JosĂ© environment that are historically and culturally unique”. VP Lo’s reply highlighted that the RCC “would love to provide a diverse group of students—spanning different backgrounds, majors, and technical expertise—to help tackle this project from multiple angles.”

SJSU Writing Center: I heard back positively from Michelle Hager, Director, and Amy Russo, Coordinator of Multilingual Writing Support Services, with an invitation to lead a workshop on translation and writing, aimed especially at the needs and strengths of SJSU’s multilingual student writers.

Institute for Metropolitan Studies: I heard back positively from Gordon Douglas, Director, regarding an invitation to collaborate on hosting workshops, as well as developing resources for place-based learning activities and geospatial representation technologies to support Translate San José programming. Prof. Douglas indicated that the IMS would be willing to support and/or co-sponsor any of the events for the project.


The following SJSU faculty have expressed interest in co-designing or developing activities that address their classes’ curricular needs, while embracing the theme of translation in the San JosĂ© linguistic landscape; and/or facilitating student participation in the project with activities developed by others.

Department of Linguistics and Language Development

Richard Abend, Lecturer Faculty
Effie Chiu, Lecturer Faculty
Stefan Frazier, Professor and Chair
Reiko Kataoka, Lecturer Faculty
Scott Phillabaum, Associate Professor
Clare Sandy, Lecturer Faculty
Julia Swan, Associate Professor

Department of Urban and Regional Planning

Gordon Douglas, Associate Professor and Director, Institute for Metropolitan Studies

Department of World Languages and Literatures

Romey Sabalius, Professor in German and Chair
Damian Bacich, Professor in Spanish (teaches courses for the Translation and Interpretation Certificate)
Françoise Herrmann, Lecturer in French
Michiko Uryu, Assistant Professor (teaches courses for the Translation and Interpretation Certificate)
Cheyla Samuelson, Associate Professor of Spanish

Lurie College of Education

Eduardo Muñoz-Muñoz, Associate Professor in Teacher Education, Critical Bilingual Authorization Program

School of Information

Souvick Ghosh, Assistant Professor and Co-PI, Cross-Campus Interdisciplinary Responsible Computing Learning Experience (CIRCLE) Project

Additional invitations to several other faculty in other colleges and department are pending; I would highlight in particular one sent to Professor Anne Marie Todd (Dean of College of Social Sciences & Professor in Communication Studies), who gave a guest lecture in my Fall 2024 LLD 230 “Linguistic Landscape” course, and has expressed interest in ongoing collaboration on the topic.. Prof. Todd is away until early March.

In addition to the confirmed partnerships I have mentioned above, I have had substantive exchanges with the following individuals or offices in the City of San José and County of Santa Clara. Pending successful funding of the project, I will follow up with each.
Office of Betty Duong, Santa Clara County Supervisor, District 2 - Supervisor Duong is, among other things, responsible for the creation and development of the County’s Language Access Unit, which promotes linguistic equity and justice in the county through a variety of measures. She had agreed in principle to visit with my LLD 230 “Linguistic Landscape” course in Fall 2024, but the November General Election precluded this from taking place.
Leila Doty, Privacy & AI Analyst, City of San José
As symbolized in the imperative (“Translate!”) in this project’s title, Translate San JosĂ© proposes to engage students, faculty, and other participants in collaborative processes of thought, imagination, dialogue and action across a range of differences (e.g., language, culture, and identity), all while grounding their individual experiences at SJSU in larger understandings of the places they call “home.” Resonating with the first SJSU University Learning Outcome, Social and Global Responsibilities (see below), this project is at its core about “responsibility” in the sense of cultivating a visceral, nuanced, and critical sense that our words have histories and tangible effects on others; they are materially present in our bodies and in the world; they have power to bring people together or to alienate, and it is up to us to use them well.


Through dialog with students in other disciplines, faculty, and community stakeholders, students will gain an appreciation for the importance of context, history, and the power of representation as they interpret and design messages meant for varied audiences in public places—that is, the linguistic landscape. Through the series of 5 workshops, students and other SJSU participants will gain hands-on experience with the cultural, emotional, and political relevance of translation and all language work in their future vocations. And through reflection on the diversity of expression of their schools, neighborhoods, workplaces, and other familiar places, it is hoped that students will develop a richer, more nuanced perspectives on the notion of “home.”


Notes
—------
University Learning Outcome #1: “Social and Global Responsibilities. An ability to consider the purpose and function of one’s degree program training within various local and/or global social contexts and to act intentionally, conscientiously, and ethically with attention to diversity and inclusion”. https://www.sjsu.edu/admissions/about-us/learning-outcomes.php


27
AEPGHomeFall 2025Brook McClurgThursday, November 13, 12pm-2pmLong Short ShortThe VISION
Long Story Short aims to activate, spotlight and articulate experiences of home through the creation of short-form works of art. Collaborating across four creative disciplines–literature, theater, visual art, and film–this project seeks to engage a wide range of participants in a multidisciplinary conversation on the power of brevity.

WHY SHORT FORMS?
For novices, the brief approach can often present a casual entry into arts that they otherwise might not be used to practicing. By foregrounding this low-barrier to entry, our project hopes to make art creation accessible to all. This will promote enrollment in creative classes and teach students artistic practices. Though short forms have a long history (in literature alone, dating back to Aphorisms of Hericlitus, or the works of Sei Shonagun), they have proliferated in recent years due at least in part to changes in technology.

Why Home?
By using this year’s theme of home as the basis of our prompts for these events, we will offer a tangible way for a broad audience to participate. In my creative writing classes, I often use a broad thematic prompt as a way in to the specific craft challenge that I am asking them to undertake. In this case, we would use brief directed prompts that ask participants to interpret home through the abbreviated forms. Additionally, our Haiku Review activity will enable students to send a dispatch home in a fun, no-cost-to-them way.

The Events:
Workshop 1: In Literature – Short Prose Forms
From prose poems and brief essays to the latest Flash craze, the short form has a long and vibrant legacy.

Workshop 2: On the Stage – The Two-Minute Play
Codified by The Neo-Futurists, the two-minute play structure ascribes to “tenets of honesty, brevity, and transformation.”

Workshop 3 : In Visual Arts – Envisioning the Mini Zine
The zine’s simplest form is rooted in amateur publishing and artist’s books of the early 20th century; the mini zine is made of a single sheet of folded paper.

Workshop 4 : In Film – The Short Film
From the earliest works, to the boom of the nineties, short films continue to be a prized form.

Culminating event: 2026 Long Story Short Festival
Celebrating work made by students, faculty, and community members at the various workshops. Part exhibit, part performance, this event will also feature a keynote speaker (Dinty Moore, Lydia Davis or Sarah Manguso, all known for brief work, would be our preferred speakers.)


This proposal also includes:

-Four events on 7th Paseo Plaza in conjunction with Reed Magazine (as lead up to the workshop) in which anyone can make a short form project.
-Our Haiku Review project provides our lowest barrier of entry. A pre-stamped postcard that asks students to send a Haiku home, via prompt on the card.
-Experimentation in our classrooms: Students enrolled in Engl 71,133, 135, and 242, Art 181 and 15 already discuss short forms. This should be equally applicable to courses in Film, Theatre, and Communication, which we can better speak to as we solidify their participation.
Come to Long Story Short, a series of four hands-on, interactive workshops in short-form art making! Today’s theme is Short Prose. From short stories to prose poems and brief essays, to the latest Flash craze, the short form is here to stay, likely caused as much by our increased lack of free time as to our tendencies to read more on digital devices, where shorter works are a necessity. You will craft your own short prose in this workshop that can be shared in our spring short works festival.7th Street Paseo Plaza
28
AEPGHomeFall 2025Brook McClurgThursday, November 13, 5pm-6pmLong Short ShortThe VISION
Long Story Short aims to activate, spotlight and articulate experiences of home through the creation of short-form works of art. Collaborating across four creative disciplines–literature, theater, visual art, and film–this project seeks to engage a wide range of participants in a multidisciplinary conversation on the power of brevity.

WHY SHORT FORMS?
For novices, the brief approach can often present a casual entry into arts that they otherwise might not be used to practicing. By foregrounding this low-barrier to entry, our project hopes to make art creation accessible to all. This will promote enrollment in creative classes and teach students artistic practices. Though short forms have a long history (in literature alone, dating back to Aphorisms of Hericlitus, or the works of Sei Shonagun), they have proliferated in recent years due at least in part to changes in technology.

Why Home?
By using this year’s theme of home as the basis of our prompts for these events, we will offer a tangible way for a broad audience to participate. In my creative writing classes, I often use a broad thematic prompt as a way in to the specific craft challenge that I am asking them to undertake. In this case, we would use brief directed prompts that ask participants to interpret home through the abbreviated forms. Additionally, our Haiku Review activity will enable students to send a dispatch home in a fun, no-cost-to-them way.

The Events:
Workshop 1: In Literature – Short Prose Forms
From prose poems and brief essays to the latest Flash craze, the short form has a long and vibrant legacy.

Workshop 2: On the Stage – The Two-Minute Play
Codified by The Neo-Futurists, the two-minute play structure ascribes to “tenets of honesty, brevity, and transformation.”

Workshop 3 : In Visual Arts – Envisioning the Mini Zine
The zine’s simplest form is rooted in amateur publishing and artist’s books of the early 20th century; the mini zine is made of a single sheet of folded paper.

Workshop 4 : In Film – The Short Film
From the earliest works, to the boom of the nineties, short films continue to be a prized form.

Culminating event: 2026 Long Story Short Festival
Celebrating work made by students, faculty, and community members at the various workshops. Part exhibit, part performance, this event will also feature a keynote speaker (Dinty Moore, Lydia Davis or Sarah Manguso, all known for brief work, would be our preferred speakers.)


This proposal also includes:

-Four events on 7th Paseo Plaza in conjunction with Reed Magazine (as lead up to the workshop) in which anyone can make a short form project.
-Our Haiku Review project provides our lowest barrier of entry. A pre-stamped postcard that asks students to send a Haiku home, via prompt on the card.
-Experimentation in our classrooms: Students enrolled in Engl 71,133, 135, and 242, Art 181 and 15 already discuss short forms. This should be equally applicable to courses in Film, Theatre, and Communication, which we can better speak to as we solidify their participation.
Come to Long Story Short, a series of four hands-on, interactive workshops in short-form art making! Today’s theme is Short Prose. From short stories to prose poems and brief essays, to the latest Flash craze, the short form is here to stay, likely caused as much by our increased lack of free time as to our tendencies to read more on digital devices, where shorter works are a necessity. You will craft your own short prose in this workshop that can be shared in our spring short works festival.ART 309
29
AEPGAuthenticityFall 2025Elise KnudsonFriday, November 14, 3:30pm-5:30pmPerformance: Nex2NOWThis project is a series of three improvisation-in-performance events co-facilitated by dance department students in which they will perform improvisation alongside students from other departments, SJSU faculty improvisers and high caliber regional guest artists. Edited video of the culminating event will be incorporated into the curriculum of collaborating faculty during the Spring ‘26 semester and be made available to the participants for their portfolios.

Dance students will participate in recruiting students from other disciplines/departments for these events, host and receive mentorship from guest artists, and help to design promotion, lighting and event formats.

All participating students, faculty and community members will benefit from connecting across genres through creating art. The connections forged in a process of ‘doing’ build community in a way that lectures can not. Practices of connection are important for survival in a climate that seeks to isolate and commodify.

I hope this project sparks a monthly series of Nex2NOW hosted by the dance department that runs itself as a student club that connects the plethora of SJSU student performing arts clubs. The dance department would support by offering its theater and guidance in facilitating public events.

Insofar as “authentic” means “genuine,” this project supports authentic creative communication because it provokes communication in real-time without the interventions of choreography, ableism, or curation. It invites time-based artists of any discipline to “opt-in” with a “come as you are” approach.

The title is derived from the word ‘nexus,’ which means: a connection between things or people. It is based on a similar series that I facilitated in NYC. It explicitly invites ‘cross-over,’ meaning, for example, that dancers can also make sound and musicians can also move. Videographer Jonah David is an essential guest artist who dances with his camera on stage in multiple roles as performer, instigator and documentarian.

This project values listening, witnessing and communicating across different grammars of expression.

EVENTS:

Event #1: Workshop: Friday, September 24th, 2025
Led by Justin Morrison, the purpose of this workshop is to familiarize participants with consent practices, ways of engaging diverse media, and considering compositional elements.

Event #2: Practice: Friday, October 24th, 2025
Dance students participate in guiding a warm-up and designing chance processes that determine casting. Guest improvisers from San Francisco and San Diego join.

Event #3: Performance: Friday November 21st, 2025
This event is similar to #2 with a higher production value. Performance slots are first come first serve with preference for those who attended all three events. Guest improvisers join. Lighting for this performance is improvised by dance faculty Kevin Lo with Dance Production students.

HARVESTING:
Video is edited and distributed to participants for their use and may be used by collaborating departments to demonstrate that arts are live at SJSU on social media.

SP2026: Embedding of Nex2NOW in curriculum of collaborating faculty through participant visits, demonstrations and video of Nex2NOW events.

*All events take place in the Dance Theater in SPX, are free and open to students, faculty, and the greater SJ community.

*Participants = Performers
This will be the culminating event, and consists of a series of improvised 'sets' of random length with guest artists. Dance Theater in SPXelise.knudson@sjsu.eduFilm, Theatre & DanceCollaborators:
1.) Mulitple regional guests artists in multiple media
2.) Prof Carmen Seylah, Department of African-American Studies Role: Liaison between SJSU spoken word alumni artists, student recruitment
3.) Prof Sarah Mills, Assistant Professor of Art History (committed) Role: Student recruitment
4.) Andrew Blanton: Assistant Professor and Graduate Coordinator, CADRE (committed) Role: Participant in electronic music, student recruitment
5.) Kevin Lo, Lecturer in Dance Department (committed) Role: Participant in the media of dance and music, lighting design and student recruitment
6.) Jenni Hong, Lecturer in Dance Department (committed) Role: student recruitment and participant in dance
7.) Kara Davis, Production, Lecturer in Dance Department (pending) Participant in dance and recruitment
8.) Ye Feng, Lecturer in Dance Department (pending) Role: student recruitment and participant in dance

I am developing connections in the Music Department and hope to have at least one collaborator from Music.
The big idea is that the messy beauty of humans braving the unknown together is valuable, if not a survival skill. It points to a possibility of inventing our way out of chaos. We CAN communicate artfully if we pay attention, especially when we don’t speak the same language.

Performing improvisation is a crucible that fosters a sense of empowerment. Participants walk away knowing that they were seen and heard while expressing something true about themselves.

Dance students will learn the ins and outs of self-production. They will be involved in tech, scheduling, hosting guest artists, performing and promotion. These are all skills that are invaluable for a young artist who is creating their own work. They will also benefit from bridging the apparently insurmountable distance to San Francisco through meeting and dancing with SF and regional dance artists.

All participants and audience benefit from building community beyond departmental walls. Participants develop skills in responding across difference in real-time. Audience members will gain appreciation of these skills.
30
AEPGHomeFall 2025Barnaby Dallas and Fred CohenFriday, November 14 @ 7:30pm
Musical: Company Stephen Sondheim’s Company has long interrogated the tensions between societal expectations and personal fulfillment, but its recent iterations—including the gender-swapped revival and upcoming productions like Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends reinvigorate its exploration of “home” and “authenticity” for the digital age. The musical’s protagonist, Bobbie, navigates a world where the concept of home extends beyond physical spaces to encompass emotional belonging and self-acceptance. Meanwhile, the pressure to conform to curated identities in an era dominated by social media amplifies the stakes of authenticity. Through this collaboration between the School of Music and the Theater Department —to include revised staging, diverse casting, and thematic focus on isolation amid connectivity— Company critiques the illusions of modern life while probing what it means to build a genuine sense of self and place.
The notion of “home” in Company is rendered as both a literal and metaphorical battleground. Our proposed set design, a series of modular cubicles outlined by LED lights, transforms Bobbie’s apartment into a claustrophobic maze where privacy is nonexistent. These confined spaces mirror their fractured sense of belonging: though surrounded by friends who crowd their apartment for birthday celebrations, Bobbie remains emotionally adrift, their loneliness underscored by the stark contrast between the vibrant, Instagram-like LED frames and the sterile, monochromatic interiors, reflecting the paradox of urban life in 2025, where hyperconnectivity often exacerbates isolation. As Bobbie’s friends project their anxieties about marriage and stability onto them, the question of where—or with whom—they might find “home” becomes a haunting refrain, exemplified in their desperate plea during “Being Alive”: “Someone, hold me too close / Someone, hurt me too deep.” Our proposed production’s emphasis on transient, impersonal settings amplifies the existential search for a sanctuary in a world that equates domesticity with legitimacy.
Authenticity, meanwhile, emerges as a central struggle in a society increasingly mediated by digital performance. Our plan to incorporate smartphones, selfies, and social media aesthetics—such as characters snapping photos with blinding flashes—critiques the performative nature of modern relationships. Bobbie’s friends, ensconced in marriages rife with contradictions, embody the dissonance between public facades and private realities. For instance, the gay couple Jamie and Paul, potentially reimagined to reflect contemporary queer narratives, grapple with the pressure to legitimize their relationship through marriage amid shifting legal landscapes. Their storyline underscores the tension between societal validation and personal truth, a theme Sondheim’s score accentuates through ironic juxtapositions, such as the buoyant “You Could Drive a Person Crazy” masking profound insecurity. Even Bobbie’s journey—from performative independence to raw vulnerability in “Being Alive”—highlights the cost of maintaining appearances.
Company resonates as a mirror held to the contradictions of contemporary existence. The digital age’s erosion of privacy and rise of curated identities magnify the musical’s interrogation of authenticity, while the redefined “home” reflects broader cultural anxieties about connection in an atomized world. Company reaffirms Sondheim’s genius: his ability to dissect the human condition with wit, warmth, and unflinching honesty, even as the world transforms around his characters.		Step into the vibrant, witty, and deeply human world of Stephen Sondheim’s Company! This groundbreaking musical comedy invites audiences to join Bobbie, a charming but commitment-averse bachelor, as they celebrate their 35th birthday surrounded by his lively and opinionated married friends. Through a series of hilarious and poignant vignettes, Bobbie navigates the ups and downs of relationships, exploring what it means to love, connect, and truly live.
Set against the backdrop of bustling New York City, Company blends sharp humor with heartfelt introspection. With iconic songs like “Being Alive,” “The Ladies Who Lunch,” and “Side by Side by Side,” Sondheim’s masterful score captures the complexities of modern relationships in ways that are both timeless and deeply relatable. Whether it’s the chaos of a wedding day meltdown or the quiet moments of self-reflection, Company is a celebration of life’s messy, beautiful contradictions.
Directed by a visionary creative team, this production brings fresh energy to a show that has captivated audiences for decades. Perfect for both seasoned theatergoers and newcomers alike, Company is an unforgettable evening filled with laughter, tears, and dazzling performances.
Don’t miss your chance to experience this sophisticated and hilarious exploration of love, friendship, and the search for meaning. Let’s all drink to that!
Hammer Theatrebarnaby.dallas@sjsu.eduFilm, Theatre & DanceCompany is a collaboration between the Department of Film, Theatre & Dance and School of Music. In the Department of Film, Theatre & Dance, Associate Professor Andrea Bechert will be the Scenic Designer, lecturer Steve Mannshardt will be the lighting designer, and lecturer Courtney Flores will be the costume designer. The School of Music will provide faculty to serve as conductor and vocal director of the production. The staff of Film, Theatre & Dance will be directly involved in the physical creation of the production. This includes: John York (scenic construction), Debbie Weber (costume construction), and Lucas Ward (sound tech). Co-producers Barnaby Dallas and Fred Cohen will oversee all aspects of the production in collaboration with Professor of Dance, Dr. Luis Orozco , who has agreed to the role of Stage Director for this production. Prof.Orozco will teach TA 117; he will help create a pathway to the industry for our students and help to raise the profile of the program. Lecturer Michael Mohammed will be the Assistant Director. Both Dr. Orozco and Dr. Mohammed are highly recognized professionals as well as distinguished pedagogues.

The cast, crew, and orchestra will be comprised of enrolled students of SJSU, this includes student assistant directors & choreographers, stage managers, assistant designers, dramaturgs, and production crew (deck, wardrobe, board operators). Over 120 SJSU students are directly involved in the production as part of their major and progress toward graduation in both Music and Theatre. Faculty from the Department of Film, Theater & Dance will work with students to create a robust study guide for our audiences and for distribution to our theatre courses, specifically, TA 5: Introduction to Acting and TA 10 Theatre Appreciation. The guide is available to all faculty members for their classes across H&A. All faculty have classes that are involved in the production, specifically TA 117, TA 191 (three sections), TA 51A, TA 51B, TA51C as well as MUSC 152. The Department and School will work with H&A Marketing, and Dwight, Bentel & Hall Communications to create a marketing campaign which includes social media.

The following student organizations will also be collaborative partners:
Phi Mu Alpha
Kappa Kappa Psi
NAfME (National Association for Music Education)
SJSU Symphony Orchestra
SJSU Opera Theater
SJSU Wind Ensemble
As begun with our previous productions we will be providing a study guide for the production. The study guide will enhance students' learning as well as deepen the theatre going experience for all participants by providing them insights into the themes and creation of the musical. The high schools attending and the faculty teaching TA 10 and TA5, found the study guide to be instrumental to the students' understanding and enjoyment of the production. The guides feature interactive learning ideas based on thematic ideas presented in the show.
31
AEPGHomeFall 2025Barnaby Dallas and Fred CohenSaturday, November 15 @ 7:30pmMusical: Company Stephen Sondheim’s Company has long interrogated the tensions between societal expectations and personal fulfillment, but its recent iterations—including the gender-swapped revival and upcoming productions like Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends reinvigorate its exploration of “home” and “authenticity” for the digital age. The musical’s protagonist, Bobbie, navigates a world where the concept of home extends beyond physical spaces to encompass emotional belonging and self-acceptance. Meanwhile, the pressure to conform to curated identities in an era dominated by social media amplifies the stakes of authenticity. Through this collaboration between the School of Music and the Theater Department —to include revised staging, diverse casting, and thematic focus on isolation amid connectivity— Company critiques the illusions of modern life while probing what it means to build a genuine sense of self and place.
The notion of “home” in Company is rendered as both a literal and metaphorical battleground. Our proposed set design, a series of modular cubicles outlined by LED lights, transforms Bobbie’s apartment into a claustrophobic maze where privacy is nonexistent. These confined spaces mirror their fractured sense of belonging: though surrounded by friends who crowd their apartment for birthday celebrations, Bobbie remains emotionally adrift, their loneliness underscored by the stark contrast between the vibrant, Instagram-like LED frames and the sterile, monochromatic interiors, reflecting the paradox of urban life in 2025, where hyperconnectivity often exacerbates isolation. As Bobbie’s friends project their anxieties about marriage and stability onto them, the question of where—or with whom—they might find “home” becomes a haunting refrain, exemplified in their desperate plea during “Being Alive”: “Someone, hold me too close / Someone, hurt me too deep.” Our proposed production’s emphasis on transient, impersonal settings amplifies the existential search for a sanctuary in a world that equates domesticity with legitimacy.
Authenticity, meanwhile, emerges as a central struggle in a society increasingly mediated by digital performance. Our plan to incorporate smartphones, selfies, and social media aesthetics—such as characters snapping photos with blinding flashes—critiques the performative nature of modern relationships. Bobbie’s friends, ensconced in marriages rife with contradictions, embody the dissonance between public facades and private realities. For instance, the gay couple Jamie and Paul, potentially reimagined to reflect contemporary queer narratives, grapple with the pressure to legitimize their relationship through marriage amid shifting legal landscapes. Their storyline underscores the tension between societal validation and personal truth, a theme Sondheim’s score accentuates through ironic juxtapositions, such as the buoyant “You Could Drive a Person Crazy” masking profound insecurity. Even Bobbie’s journey—from performative independence to raw vulnerability in “Being Alive”—highlights the cost of maintaining appearances.
Company resonates as a mirror held to the contradictions of contemporary existence. The digital age’s erosion of privacy and rise of curated identities magnify the musical’s interrogation of authenticity, while the redefined “home” reflects broader cultural anxieties about connection in an atomized world. Company reaffirms Sondheim’s genius: his ability to dissect the human condition with wit, warmth, and unflinching honesty, even as the world transforms around his characters.		Step into the vibrant, witty, and deeply human world of Stephen Sondheim’s Company! This groundbreaking musical comedy invites audiences to join Bobbie, a charming but commitment-averse bachelor, as they celebrate their 35th birthday surrounded by his lively and opinionated married friends. Through a series of hilarious and poignant vignettes, Bobbie navigates the ups and downs of relationships, exploring what it means to love, connect, and truly live.
Set against the backdrop of bustling New York City, Company blends sharp humor with heartfelt introspection. With iconic songs like “Being Alive,” “The Ladies Who Lunch,” and “Side by Side by Side,” Sondheim’s masterful score captures the complexities of modern relationships in ways that are both timeless and deeply relatable. Whether it’s the chaos of a wedding day meltdown or the quiet moments of self-reflection, Company is a celebration of life’s messy, beautiful contradictions.
Directed by a visionary creative team, this production brings fresh energy to a show that has captivated audiences for decades. Perfect for both seasoned theatergoers and newcomers alike, Company is an unforgettable evening filled with laughter, tears, and dazzling performances.
Don’t miss your chance to experience this sophisticated and hilarious exploration of love, friendship, and the search for meaning. Let’s all drink to that!
Hammer Theatrebarnaby.dallas@sjsu.eduFilm, Theatre & DanceCompany is a collaboration between the Department of Film, Theatre & Dance and School of Music. In the Department of Film, Theatre & Dance, Associate Professor Andrea Bechert will be the Scenic Designer, lecturer Steve Mannshardt will be the lighting designer, and lecturer Courtney Flores will be the costume designer. The School of Music will provide faculty to serve as conductor and vocal director of the production. The staff of Film, Theatre & Dance will be directly involved in the physical creation of the production. This includes: John York (scenic construction), Debbie Weber (costume construction), and Lucas Ward (sound tech). Co-producers Barnaby Dallas and Fred Cohen will oversee all aspects of the production in collaboration with Professor of Dance, Dr. Luis Orozco , who has agreed to the role of Stage Director for this production. Prof.Orozco will teach TA 117; he will help create a pathway to the industry for our students and help to raise the profile of the program. Lecturer Michael Mohammed will be the Assistant Director. Both Dr. Orozco and Dr. Mohammed are highly recognized professionals as well as distinguished pedagogues.

The cast, crew, and orchestra will be comprised of enrolled students of SJSU, this includes student assistant directors & choreographers, stage managers, assistant designers, dramaturgs, and production crew (deck, wardrobe, board operators). Over 120 SJSU students are directly involved in the production as part of their major and progress toward graduation in both Music and Theatre. Faculty from the Department of Film, Theater & Dance will work with students to create a robust study guide for our audiences and for distribution to our theatre courses, specifically, TA 5: Introduction to Acting and TA 10 Theatre Appreciation. The guide is available to all faculty members for their classes across H&A. All faculty have classes that are involved in the production, specifically TA 117, TA 191 (three sections), TA 51A, TA 51B, TA51C as well as MUSC 152. The Department and School will work with H&A Marketing, and Dwight, Bentel & Hall Communications to create a marketing campaign which includes social media.

The following student organizations will also be collaborative partners:
Phi Mu Alpha
Kappa Kappa Psi
NAfME (National Association for Music Education)
SJSU Symphony Orchestra
SJSU Opera Theater
SJSU Wind Ensemble
As begun with our previous productions we will be providing a study guide for the production. The study guide will enhance students' learning as well as deepen the theatre going experience for all participants by providing them insights into the themes and creation of the musical. The high schools attending and the faculty teaching TA 10 and TA5, found the study guide to be instrumental to the students' understanding and enjoyment of the production. The guides feature interactive learning ideas based on thematic ideas presented in the show.
32
AEPGAuthenticityFall 2025Teresa VeramendiTuesday, November 18, 5:30-7pmShadow Lines Playshop: Dancing with IdentityIn Shadow Lines, we engage students and community members in a series of workshops leading to a performance that examines borders and authenticity in multitudinous forms — physical and mental, visible and invisible, fluid and rigid. Such borders might be tangible, like the wires of a cage, or the cartographic lines between countries. We will primarily focus on the abstract and intangible aspects of how ethnicity and gender come to define us. We will hold three workshops featuring group dialogues facilitated by AEPG leaders and student assistants starting in Fall 2025. Here participants will be encouraged to bring their personal narratives of borders and authenticity into dialogue with philosophical texts and artistic practices related to embodiment, sound, and light. These workshops will take place in theatres, communal areas of University housing, and outdoor environments around SJSU’s campus and San JosĂ©.

The workshops will culminate in a single performance in March 2026. An ensemble of students and community members who choose to continue developing their stories of borders and authenticity will rehearse and train for performance. Training will consist of expansive vocal and movement practices from guest artists during a two-day intensive visit. The performance will likewise make use of a variety of spaces; beginning in a theater, attendees will be guided by AEPG collaborators to other unique spaces indoors and outdoors in small groups to witness individual performances. For the sake of equity, we will have 32 bluetooth headphones on hand so that attendees may download and play pre-recorded sound and thereby fully engage with both recorded and live sound during the performance. All will return to the theater after a thorough investigation of being inside, outside, passing through, and overshadowing the borders of home and ourselves.

While many borders feel constraining and oppressive, others create a sense of safety and comfort – of home. When those borders shift, that sense of home shifts too. This may be destabilizing or freeing, or both. Furthermore, borders can both obscure and illuminate our authentic selves. Examining the concepts of borders and authenticity through a variety of media and spaces will accommodate a macroscopic view on them – the kind of view that Frye, cited below, suggests is essential to deepening our understanding of their impacts on our lives.

“Consider a birdcage,” the philosopher Marilyn Frye (1983) writes. “There is no physical property of any one wire, nothing that the closest scrutiny could discover, that will reveal how a bird could be inhibited or harmed by it except in the most accidental way. It is only when you step back, stop looking at the wires one by one, microscopically, and take a macroscopic view of the whole cage that you can see why the bird does not go anywhere
”

Frye’s image of the birdcage illuminates oppressive structures that create borders, bolster them, and also make them recede into shadows. These borders thereby become invisible — unquestioned facets of our everyday lives, the status quo that shapes our relations with ourselves and those around us. 		Join our playshops where participants explore their identities through storytelling, movement, music, and light! Get inspired by fantastic artists and playful guides to tell your story through words, games, and creative explorations in multiple mediums. Come dance with your identity, question your edges, and break free of the old ideas that are holding you back.

No experience necessary, snacks provided!

All identities and abilities are welcome to participate in this workshop series which will include free writing, story sharing, movement games, and exploratory activities playing with sound and light.

Become a part of this intercultural and interdisciplinary exchange! Material generated in this workshop series will culminate in an experimental, devised performance in Spring 2026 that will explore the invisible boundaries shaping our identities, homes, and relationships. If you desire, you may become a part of our performance ensemble next semester, gaining expansive movement and vocal training by accomplished guest artists.

WHERE: Monday, October 6 is at the Campus Village B, Resident Activity Center
Tuesday, November 4 is in Spartan Village (SVP) Room 216
Tuesday, November 18 is in Washington Square Hall Room 106

WHEN: All events are 5:30-7pm.

WHO: All students and community members are invited.

All events are free.

Email Teresa Veramendi for any questions: teresa.veramendi@sju.edu

Registration, full series information, and artist bios HERE.

Sponsored in part by a College of Humanities and the Arts' Artistic Excellence Programming Grant.		Washington Square Hall Rm 106teresa.veramendi@sjsu.eduFilm, Theatre & DanceRiana Betzler is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy. This project dovetails closely with her research and teaching, which focuses on empathy and how we can come to understand one another across lines of difference. She will participate in the project by selecting texts — from a wide variety of philosophical traditions, broadly construed — that explore issues of borders, home, and authenticity. As part of the workshops, she will facilitate Socratic-style discussions that help participants to deepen their thinking about these themes and connect them with their personal narratives. These expanded narratives will then be used as the basis for creative exploration using media of sound, movement, and light.

An assistant professor in the Department of Film, Theatre, and Dance, Raha Shojaei, explores the interplay of sound and image in shaping cultural narratives. Her expertise in sound studies and audio-visual aesthetics and production informs the project, examining how cultural experiences influence our understanding of the suggested theme and how to use the audio-visual elements to shape the narratives. Collaborating within this project, RTVF students bring their expertise in audio-visual media and learn how to merge their skills with philosophical insights to deepen storytelling, and theatrical performance to enhance the expression of narratives — creating meaningful representations of identity and belonging.

As a scholar and artist, Sukanya Chakrabarti, Associate Professor of Theatre in the Department of Film, Theatre, and Dance, is interested in transcultural spaces and their contribution to meaning-making, placemaking, and storytelling. Her current and ongoing research project is on performances of the South Asian diaspora across generations of immigration in California. She imagines this project as part of a continuing exploration of themes of home and immigration. She will be working on facilitating workshops with students and community-based artists, ideating and devising the final performance in Spring 2026.		1. Recognize the cultural, national, and gender-related boundaries that constrain the personal experiences of members of the SJSU and San José community.
2. Empathize viscerally with the cultural, national, and gender-related constraints placed on others and on ourselves due to historical and social pressures.
3. Harness the power of philosophical examination, storytelling and community-based performances to address and destabilize the danger of monolithic narratives around borders and border-crossings.
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Fall 2025John DelacruzWednesday, November 19, 11am-1pm2025 William Randolph Hearst Award CeremonyThe School of Journalism and Mass Communications invites you to the 2025 William Randolph Hearst Award Ceremony. This year, we honor Ann Telnaes, one of the most influential editorial cartoonists working today and a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner (2021 and 2025). Known for her sharp visual storytelling and unflinching political critique, Telnaes has built a career that pushes the boundaries of the editorial cartoon, working across animation, visual essays, live sketching and traditional print. Her work doesn’t just reflect the headlines. It challenges power, calls out injustice and gives shape to ideas that demand attention. Telnaes brings an unmatched voice and vision to the world of journalism, one that is as bold as it is necessary. This event offers a rare opportunity to hear from a trailblazer whose work has helped define the tone of modern editorial cartooning. Join us in the Student Union Theater on November 19, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. to commemorate Telnaes' legacy in real time. The ceremony is free and open to students, staff, faculty, alumni, professionals and anyone passionate about truth, creativity and the power of a cartoon. The School of Journalism and Mass Communications invites you to the 2025 William Randolph Hearst Award Ceremony. This year, we honor Ann Telnaes, one of the most influential editorial cartoonists working today and a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner (2021 and 2025). Known for her sharp visual storytelling and unflinching political critique, Telnaes has built a career that pushes the boundaries of the editorial cartoon, working across animation, visual essays, live sketching and traditional print. Her work doesn’t just reflect the headlines. It challenges power, calls out injustice and gives shape to ideas that demand attention. Telnaes brings an unmatched voice and vision to the world of journalism, one that is as bold as it is necessary. This event offers a rare opportunity to hear from a trailblazer whose work has helped define the tone of modern editorial cartooning. Join us in the Student Union Theater on November 19, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. to commemorate Telnaes' legacy in real time. The ceremony is free and open to students, staff, faculty, alumni, professionals and anyone passionate about truth, creativity and the power of a cartoon. https://events.sjsu.edu/event/2025-william-randolph-hearst-award-ceremonyStudent Union TheaterJohn DelacruzCollege of Humanities and the Arts, Future of Humanity and Civic Engagement, School of Journalism and Mass CommunicationsThis event gives students and the campus community a chance to hear directly from Ann Telnaes, one of the boldest voices in editorial cartooning. It will show how cartoons and visual storytelling can challenge power, spark conversations and expand what journalism looks like today. Students will walk away with a better sense of how creativity and critique go hand in hand in journalism and beyond and hopefully be inspired to push boundaries in their own work.
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AEPGAuthenticityFall 2025Midori Ishida and Kaoru HollinThursday, November 20th, 5pm-7:15pmDiscussion: Hibakusha Stories on Nuclear Weapons and Messages for Peace Destruction of humanity with nuclear weapons has never been as imminent as the current situation. On August 6th and 9th in 1945, atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and more than 200,000 people died by the end of the year just because of those two bombs. In the present, the power of nuclear arsenals has gone up to 3,300 more of the one dropped on Hiroshima, and there are about 1,200 nuclear arsenals that exist in the world. What would happen if even one of them is used? The threat of nuclear war is right before our eyes.

At this talk event moderated by an SJSU student, participants can gain deeper knowledge of the backgrounds, the reality, and the future trajectory of the threat of nuclear weapons in the world, and consider what should be done in the present time. We will invite a hibakusha (survivor of the atomic bomb) to talk about their experience. Because their story is based on their down-to-earth experience, it carries an authentic message that will give a strong impact on the minds of the audience.

The hibakusha’s story will be contextualized by students’ presentations. The presentation by students in JPN25A (Intermediate Japanese) will explain the background of the peace memorial parks in Hiroshima, where the statues of a girl with a paper crane stands, and one in Nagasaki. Students in Asia 145/POLIS 145 will talk about the historical and political background of the atomic bomb drops and the current state of nuclear arsenals in the world. Students in JPN102A (Japanese Culture) will also talk about two opposing perspectives in the U.S. on the drop of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, how their views have been changed throughout the years, what impact the testimonies of hibakushas have had on people’s awareness, and how their storytelling actions are now carried on by the younger generations. The panel of the guest speaker and the student presenters will then answer questions from the audience.

The event will then turn the focus on the concrete actions we can take in the present time in the U.S. First, Ms. Jenny Taira will share her story of producing a children’s musical show, “Peace on Your Wings,” based on a girl named Sadako, who died of leukemia due to the radiation from the atomic bomb and is the model of the aforementioned statue. A chorus group in the School of Music will sing songs with the theme of paper cranes as the symbol of hope for peace, and the whole audience will be invited to sing along to the title song of the musical. After the main program, led by a student group, JSS (Japanese Student Society), everybody in the audience is invited to write messages for peace on paper cranes as Sadako did (folding paper cranes/message writing), which will be put together into a collage.		You might have heard of the devastation caused by the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Can you imagine what would happen if one of the currently existing 1,200 nuclear arsenals, which can be 3,300 times as powerful as the ones used 80 years ago, is ever used? The award of the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize given to Nihon Hidankyo ("Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organisations") is sounding a loud alarm for the world about this perilous situation. We now have a precious opportunity to hear a personal story of a survivor (hibakusha, in Japanese) and consider what we can do!

The hibakusha’s testimony will be contextualized by SJSU students’ presentations on what they learned about the historical background of the drop of atomic bombs, the devastating effects of nuclear weapons, the present situations with nuclear arsenals, and younger generations’ actions of passing down hibakusha stories and messages for world peace. After Ms. Taira’s talk on the musical production of “Peace on Your Wings,” we will sing its title song together, led by students in the School of Music. You will also have an opportunity to write messages for peace on paper cranes.
https://events.sjsu.edu/event/hopewithhiroshima
Student Union Theater midori.ishida@sjsu.eduWorld Languages and LiteraturesSJSU students in JPN102A (Japanese Culture) taught by Midori Ishida
SJSU students in JPN25A (Intermediate Japanese) taught by Kaoru Hollin
SJSU students in Asia 145/ POLIS 145 taught by Karthika Sasikumar in Political Science
SJSU students in the Music Department collected by Corie Brown, School of Music and Choir Director
SJSU students in HA 80 taught by Elenor Marsh in WLL
Xiaojia Hou and her students in History
Students in JSS (Japanese Student Society)
Japanese American Museum of San Jose (to be approached)		Students in JPN25A, Asia 145/POLIS 145, and JPN102A will give presentations based on the research they do in their respective classes. They will not only learn about the contents but also develop skills on how to synthesize information and present the message effectively for those who may not have been familiar with the topic.
- JPN25A: Through their research on the history of the Peace Memorial Parks in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the story behind the statue of Sadako, students will have a deep understanding of the sheer power of the nuclear arsenal and its long-lasting effects on ordinary people and actions of the next generations taken to spread the messages for peace.
- Asia 145/POLIS 145: Through their research on the historical and political background of the war and the drops of the atomic bombs in particular, and the current state of nuclear arsenals in the world, students will realize the perilous situation of the world in which we currently live.
- JPN102A: Through research, they will learn perspectives of people in the U.S. on the drops of atomic bombs and the changes of their views, the social and political impacts of hibakusha’s storytelling actions, and the next generations’ activities that carry on the legacy of hibakusha’s actions. Through COIL (Collaborative Online Interactional Learning) with students at Kagoshima University in Japan, they will also understand the perspectives of Japanese youth in the same generation.

Students in the School of Music, who will sing songs with the theme of writing messages for peace on the wings of folded paper cranes (“A Blessing of Cranes” and “Peace on Your Wings”) will learn the background story of Sadako, who is only one of the tens of thousands of victims of atomic bombs. The understanding of the deep meaning behind the lyrics will make their singing have more expressive depth.

Finally, students in JSS (Japanese Student Society) will be in charge of the message writing activity. They will learn the background story of Sadako and folding of paper cranes, organize the activity, and help the audience fold paper cranes and write messages for peace. They will develop organization and leadership skills through this engagement.
35
AEPGHomeFall 2025Barnaby Dallas and Fred CohenThursday, November 20 @ 11am (Student Matinee) and @ 7:30pm
Musical: Company Stephen Sondheim’s Company has long interrogated the tensions between societal expectations and personal fulfillment, but its recent iterations—including the gender-swapped revival and upcoming productions like Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends reinvigorate its exploration of “home” and “authenticity” for the digital age. The musical’s protagonist, Bobbie, navigates a world where the concept of home extends beyond physical spaces to encompass emotional belonging and self-acceptance. Meanwhile, the pressure to conform to curated identities in an era dominated by social media amplifies the stakes of authenticity. Through this collaboration between the School of Music and the Theater Department —to include revised staging, diverse casting, and thematic focus on isolation amid connectivity— Company critiques the illusions of modern life while probing what it means to build a genuine sense of self and place.
The notion of “home” in Company is rendered as both a literal and metaphorical battleground. Our proposed set design, a series of modular cubicles outlined by LED lights, transforms Bobbie’s apartment into a claustrophobic maze where privacy is nonexistent. These confined spaces mirror their fractured sense of belonging: though surrounded by friends who crowd their apartment for birthday celebrations, Bobbie remains emotionally adrift, their loneliness underscored by the stark contrast between the vibrant, Instagram-like LED frames and the sterile, monochromatic interiors, reflecting the paradox of urban life in 2025, where hyperconnectivity often exacerbates isolation. As Bobbie’s friends project their anxieties about marriage and stability onto them, the question of where—or with whom—they might find “home” becomes a haunting refrain, exemplified in their desperate plea during “Being Alive”: “Someone, hold me too close / Someone, hurt me too deep.” Our proposed production’s emphasis on transient, impersonal settings amplifies the existential search for a sanctuary in a world that equates domesticity with legitimacy.
Authenticity, meanwhile, emerges as a central struggle in a society increasingly mediated by digital performance. Our plan to incorporate smartphones, selfies, and social media aesthetics—such as characters snapping photos with blinding flashes—critiques the performative nature of modern relationships. Bobbie’s friends, ensconced in marriages rife with contradictions, embody the dissonance between public facades and private realities. For instance, the gay couple Jamie and Paul, potentially reimagined to reflect contemporary queer narratives, grapple with the pressure to legitimize their relationship through marriage amid shifting legal landscapes. Their storyline underscores the tension between societal validation and personal truth, a theme Sondheim’s score accentuates through ironic juxtapositions, such as the buoyant “You Could Drive a Person Crazy” masking profound insecurity. Even Bobbie’s journey—from performative independence to raw vulnerability in “Being Alive”—highlights the cost of maintaining appearances.
Company resonates as a mirror held to the contradictions of contemporary existence. The digital age’s erosion of privacy and rise of curated identities magnify the musical’s interrogation of authenticity, while the redefined “home” reflects broader cultural anxieties about connection in an atomized world. Company reaffirms Sondheim’s genius: his ability to dissect the human condition with wit, warmth, and unflinching honesty, even as the world transforms around his characters.		Step into the vibrant, witty, and deeply human world of Stephen Sondheim’s Company! This groundbreaking musical comedy invites audiences to join Bobbie, a charming but commitment-averse bachelor, as they celebrate their 35th birthday surrounded by his lively and opinionated married friends. Through a series of hilarious and poignant vignettes, Bobbie navigates the ups and downs of relationships, exploring what it means to love, connect, and truly live.
Set against the backdrop of bustling New York City, Company blends sharp humor with heartfelt introspection. With iconic songs like “Being Alive,” “The Ladies Who Lunch,” and “Side by Side by Side,” Sondheim’s masterful score captures the complexities of modern relationships in ways that are both timeless and deeply relatable. Whether it’s the chaos of a wedding day meltdown or the quiet moments of self-reflection, Company is a celebration of life’s messy, beautiful contradictions.
Directed by a visionary creative team, this production brings fresh energy to a show that has captivated audiences for decades. Perfect for both seasoned theatergoers and newcomers alike, Company is an unforgettable evening filled with laughter, tears, and dazzling performances.
Don’t miss your chance to experience this sophisticated and hilarious exploration of love, friendship, and the search for meaning. Let’s all drink to that!
https://events.sjsu.edu/event/company
Hammer Theatrebarnaby.dallas@sjsu.eduFilm, Theatre & DanceCompany is a collaboration between the Department of Film, Theatre & Dance and School of Music. In the Department of Film, Theatre & Dance, Associate Professor Andrea Bechert will be the Scenic Designer, lecturer Steve Mannshardt will be the lighting designer, and lecturer Courtney Flores will be the costume designer. The School of Music will provide faculty to serve as conductor and vocal director of the production. The staff of Film, Theatre & Dance will be directly involved in the physical creation of the production. This includes: John York (scenic construction), Debbie Weber (costume construction), and Lucas Ward (sound tech). Co-producers Barnaby Dallas and Fred Cohen will oversee all aspects of the production in collaboration with Professor of Dance, Dr. Luis Orozco , who has agreed to the role of Stage Director for this production. Prof.Orozco will teach TA 117; he will help create a pathway to the industry for our students and help to raise the profile of the program. Lecturer Michael Mohammed will be the Assistant Director. Both Dr. Orozco and Dr. Mohammed are highly recognized professionals as well as distinguished pedagogues.

The cast, crew, and orchestra will be comprised of enrolled students of SJSU, this includes student assistant directors & choreographers, stage managers, assistant designers, dramaturgs, and production crew (deck, wardrobe, board operators). Over 120 SJSU students are directly involved in the production as part of their major and progress toward graduation in both Music and Theatre. Faculty from the Department of Film, Theater & Dance will work with students to create a robust study guide for our audiences and for distribution to our theatre courses, specifically, TA 5: Introduction to Acting and TA 10 Theatre Appreciation. The guide is available to all faculty members for their classes across H&A. All faculty have classes that are involved in the production, specifically TA 117, TA 191 (three sections), TA 51A, TA 51B, TA51C as well as MUSC 152. The Department and School will work with H&A Marketing, and Dwight, Bentel & Hall Communications to create a marketing campaign which includes social media.

The following student organizations will also be collaborative partners:
Phi Mu Alpha
Kappa Kappa Psi
NAfME (National Association for Music Education)
SJSU Symphony Orchestra
SJSU Opera Theater
SJSU Wind Ensemble
As begun with our previous productions we will be providing a study guide for the production. The study guide will enhance students' learning as well as deepen the theatre going experience for all participants by providing them insights into the themes and creation of the musical. The high schools attending and the faculty teaching TA 10 and TA5, found the study guide to be instrumental to the students' understanding and enjoyment of the production. The guides feature interactive learning ideas based on thematic ideas presented in the show.
36
AEPGAuthenticityFall 2025Elise KnudsonFriday, November 21Performance: Nex2NOWThis project is a series of three improvisation-in-performance events co-facilitated by dance department students in which they will perform improvisation alongside students from other departments, SJSU faculty improvisers and high caliber regional guest artists. Edited video of the culminating event will be incorporated into the curriculum of collaborating faculty during the Spring ‘26 semester and be made available to the participants for their portfolios.

Dance students will participate in recruiting students from other disciplines/departments for these events, host and receive mentorship from guest artists, and help to design promotion, lighting and event formats.

All participating students, faculty and community members will benefit from connecting across genres through creating art. The connections forged in a process of ‘doing’ build community in a way that lectures can not. Practices of connection are important for survival in a climate that seeks to isolate and commodify.

I hope this project sparks a monthly series of Nex2NOW hosted by the dance department that runs itself as a student club that connects the plethora of SJSU student performing arts clubs. The dance department would support by offering its theater and guidance in facilitating public events.

Insofar as “authentic” means “genuine,” this project supports authentic creative communication because it provokes communication in real-time without the interventions of choreography, ableism, or curation. It invites time-based artists of any discipline to “opt-in” with a “come as you are” approach.

The title is derived from the word ‘nexus,’ which means: a connection between things or people. It is based on a similar series that I facilitated in NYC. It explicitly invites ‘cross-over,’ meaning, for example, that dancers can also make sound and musicians can also move. Videographer Jonah David is an essential guest artist who dances with his camera on stage in multiple roles as performer, instigator and documentarian.

This project values listening, witnessing and communicating across different grammars of expression.

EVENTS:

Event #1: Workshop: Friday, September 24th, 2025
Led by Justin Morrison, the purpose of this workshop is to familiarize participants with consent practices, ways of engaging diverse media, and considering compositional elements.

Event #2: Practice: Friday, October 24th, 2025
Dance students participate in guiding a warm-up and designing chance processes that determine casting. Guest improvisers from San Francisco and San Diego join.

Event #3: Performance: Friday November 21st, 2025
This event is similar to #2 with a higher production value. Performance slots are first come first serve with preference for those who attended all three events. Guest improvisers join. Lighting for this performance is improvised by dance faculty Kevin Lo with Dance Production students.

HARVESTING:
Video is edited and distributed to participants for their use and may be used by collaborating departments to demonstrate that arts are live at SJSU on social media.

SP2026: Embedding of Nex2NOW in curriculum of collaborating faculty through participant visits, demonstrations and video of Nex2NOW events.

*All events take place in the Dance Theater in SPX, are free and open to students, faculty, and the greater SJ community.

*Participants = Performers
OPEN CALL: Nex2NOW Improvisation-in-Performance

All students, faculty and community members who dabble in time-based media (music, dance, spoken word, live drawing, theater etc.) are invited to join (the dance department?) in three Interdisciplinary Improvisation-in-Performance events led by nationally recognized guest artists: Justin Morrison, Marcos Duran and SJSU faculty. This is a chance to step outside of your role, your department, or your major and be in community with others who desire to create a new language together in a low pressure setting. This project has three parts and culminates in a minimally produced performance that is professionally videotaped. Performers will receive access to the edited video.

The goal of this project is to develop a crossroads for the creative population of SJSU and the greater community. Participation is a-la-carte, however, for casting the final performance, preference will be given to artists who joined all events. Witnesses are welcome to any of these three events. Performing is not required. Professional experience is not required. What IS required is a willingness to listen.

Participation is first come first served and registration is appreciated but not required. (link)

WORKSHOP
Friday, September 24th 5-7pm @ Dance Theater, 2nd floor of SPX: WORKSHOP with Justin Morrison
Justin Morrison has studied and performed with world renown improviser Katie Duck (NE). He will guide us into interdisciplinary collaboration, facilitate conversations around consent and set the stage for performing improvisation.

PRACTICE
Friday, October 24th 5-7:30pm @ Dance Theater, 2nd floor of SPX
Join dance artist Marcos Duran and SJSU faculty Elise Knudson, Jenni Hong, Kevin Lo and Andrew Blanton for an evening of practicing Improvisation in Performance. This event blurs the lines between performer and spectator. All are invited but not required to perform. Casting and set length will be facilitated by dance students and SJSU faculty Elise Knudson using chance procedures. A warm-up and meet and greet session will be followed by practice sets of improvised performance. The environment is casual, like open mic.


PERFORMANCE
Friday, November 21st 5-7pm @ Dance Theater, 2nd floor of SPX
Join dance artists Justin Morrison, Marcos Duran, SJSU faculty and community members in a produced Improvisation-in-Performance with lighting, sound and professional videography. Casting and set length will be facilitated by SJSU faculty Elise Knudson using chance procedures. Professionally edited video will be made available to participants at no cost.

Dance Theater in SPXelise.knudson@sjsu.eduFilm, Theatre & DanceCollaborators:
1.) Mulitple regional guests artists in multiple media
2.) Prof Carmen Seylah, Department of African-American Studies Role: Liaison between SJSU spoken word alumni artists, student recruitment
3.) Prof Sarah Mills, Assistant Professor of Art History (committed) Role: Student recruitment
4.) Andrew Blanton: Assistant Professor and Graduate Coordinator, CADRE (committed) Role: Participant in electronic music, student recruitment
5.) Kevin Lo, Lecturer in Dance Department (committed) Role: Participant in the media of dance and music, lighting design and student recruitment
6.) Jenni Hong, Lecturer in Dance Department (committed) Role: student recruitment and participant in dance
7.) Kara Davis, Production, Lecturer in Dance Department (pending) Participant in dance and recruitment
8.) Ye Feng, Lecturer in Dance Department (pending) Role: student recruitment and participant in dance

I am developing connections in the Music Department and hope to have at least one collaborator from Music.
The big idea is that the messy beauty of humans braving the unknown together is valuable, if not a survival skill. It points to a possibility of inventing our way out of chaos. We CAN communicate artfully if we pay attention, especially when we don’t speak the same language.

Performing improvisation is a crucible that fosters a sense of empowerment. Participants walk away knowing that they were seen and heard while expressing something true about themselves.

Dance students will learn the ins and outs of self-production. They will be involved in tech, scheduling, hosting guest artists, performing and promotion. These are all skills that are invaluable for a young artist who is creating their own work. They will also benefit from bridging the apparently insurmountable distance to San Francisco through meeting and dancing with SF and regional dance artists.

All participants and audience benefit from building community beyond departmental walls. Participants develop skills in responding across difference in real-time. Audience members will gain appreciation of these skills.
37
AEPGHomeFall 2025Barnaby Dallas and Fred CohenFriday, November 21 @7:30pmMusical: Company Stephen Sondheim’s Company has long interrogated the tensions between societal expectations and personal fulfillment, but its recent iterations—including the gender-swapped revival and upcoming productions like Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends reinvigorate its exploration of “home” and “authenticity” for the digital age. The musical’s protagonist, Bobbie, navigates a world where the concept of home extends beyond physical spaces to encompass emotional belonging and self-acceptance. Meanwhile, the pressure to conform to curated identities in an era dominated by social media amplifies the stakes of authenticity. Through this collaboration between the School of Music and the Theater Department —to include revised staging, diverse casting, and thematic focus on isolation amid connectivity— Company critiques the illusions of modern life while probing what it means to build a genuine sense of self and place.
The notion of “home” in Company is rendered as both a literal and metaphorical battleground. Our proposed set design, a series of modular cubicles outlined by LED lights, transforms Bobbie’s apartment into a claustrophobic maze where privacy is nonexistent. These confined spaces mirror their fractured sense of belonging: though surrounded by friends who crowd their apartment for birthday celebrations, Bobbie remains emotionally adrift, their loneliness underscored by the stark contrast between the vibrant, Instagram-like LED frames and the sterile, monochromatic interiors, reflecting the paradox of urban life in 2025, where hyperconnectivity often exacerbates isolation. As Bobbie’s friends project their anxieties about marriage and stability onto them, the question of where—or with whom—they might find “home” becomes a haunting refrain, exemplified in their desperate plea during “Being Alive”: “Someone, hold me too close / Someone, hurt me too deep.” Our proposed production’s emphasis on transient, impersonal settings amplifies the existential search for a sanctuary in a world that equates domesticity with legitimacy.
Authenticity, meanwhile, emerges as a central struggle in a society increasingly mediated by digital performance. Our plan to incorporate smartphones, selfies, and social media aesthetics—such as characters snapping photos with blinding flashes—critiques the performative nature of modern relationships. Bobbie’s friends, ensconced in marriages rife with contradictions, embody the dissonance between public facades and private realities. For instance, the gay couple Jamie and Paul, potentially reimagined to reflect contemporary queer narratives, grapple with the pressure to legitimize their relationship through marriage amid shifting legal landscapes. Their storyline underscores the tension between societal validation and personal truth, a theme Sondheim’s score accentuates through ironic juxtapositions, such as the buoyant “You Could Drive a Person Crazy” masking profound insecurity. Even Bobbie’s journey—from performative independence to raw vulnerability in “Being Alive”—highlights the cost of maintaining appearances.
Company resonates as a mirror held to the contradictions of contemporary existence. The digital age’s erosion of privacy and rise of curated identities magnify the musical’s interrogation of authenticity, while the redefined “home” reflects broader cultural anxieties about connection in an atomized world. Company reaffirms Sondheim’s genius: his ability to dissect the human condition with wit, warmth, and unflinching honesty, even as the world transforms around his characters.		Step into the vibrant, witty, and deeply human world of Stephen Sondheim’s Company! This groundbreaking musical comedy invites audiences to join Bobbie, a charming but commitment-averse bachelor, as they celebrate their 35th birthday surrounded by his lively and opinionated married friends. Through a series of hilarious and poignant vignettes, Bobbie navigates the ups and downs of relationships, exploring what it means to love, connect, and truly live.
Set against the backdrop of bustling New York City, Company blends sharp humor with heartfelt introspection. With iconic songs like “Being Alive,” “The Ladies Who Lunch,” and “Side by Side by Side,” Sondheim’s masterful score captures the complexities of modern relationships in ways that are both timeless and deeply relatable. Whether it’s the chaos of a wedding day meltdown or the quiet moments of self-reflection, Company is a celebration of life’s messy, beautiful contradictions.
Directed by a visionary creative team, this production brings fresh energy to a show that has captivated audiences for decades. Perfect for both seasoned theatergoers and newcomers alike, Company is an unforgettable evening filled with laughter, tears, and dazzling performances.
Don’t miss your chance to experience this sophisticated and hilarious exploration of love, friendship, and the search for meaning. Let’s all drink to that!
https://events.sjsu.edu/event/company
Hammer Theatrebarnaby.dallas@sjsu.eduFilm, Theatre & DanceCompany is a collaboration between the Department of Film, Theatre & Dance and School of Music. In the Department of Film, Theatre & Dance, Associate Professor Andrea Bechert will be the Scenic Designer, lecturer Steve Mannshardt will be the lighting designer, and lecturer Courtney Flores will be the costume designer. The School of Music will provide faculty to serve as conductor and vocal director of the production. The staff of Film, Theatre & Dance will be directly involved in the physical creation of the production. This includes: John York (scenic construction), Debbie Weber (costume construction), and Lucas Ward (sound tech). Co-producers Barnaby Dallas and Fred Cohen will oversee all aspects of the production in collaboration with Professor of Dance, Dr. Luis Orozco , who has agreed to the role of Stage Director for this production. Prof.Orozco will teach TA 117; he will help create a pathway to the industry for our students and help to raise the profile of the program. Lecturer Michael Mohammed will be the Assistant Director. Both Dr. Orozco and Dr. Mohammed are highly recognized professionals as well as distinguished pedagogues.

The cast, crew, and orchestra will be comprised of enrolled students of SJSU, this includes student assistant directors & choreographers, stage managers, assistant designers, dramaturgs, and production crew (deck, wardrobe, board operators). Over 120 SJSU students are directly involved in the production as part of their major and progress toward graduation in both Music and Theatre. Faculty from the Department of Film, Theater & Dance will work with students to create a robust study guide for our audiences and for distribution to our theatre courses, specifically, TA 5: Introduction to Acting and TA 10 Theatre Appreciation. The guide is available to all faculty members for their classes across H&A. All faculty have classes that are involved in the production, specifically TA 117, TA 191 (three sections), TA 51A, TA 51B, TA51C as well as MUSC 152. The Department and School will work with H&A Marketing, and Dwight, Bentel & Hall Communications to create a marketing campaign which includes social media.

The following student organizations will also be collaborative partners:
Phi Mu Alpha
Kappa Kappa Psi
NAfME (National Association for Music Education)
SJSU Symphony Orchestra
SJSU Opera Theater
SJSU Wind Ensemble
As begun with our previous productions we will be providing a study guide for the production. The study guide will enhance students' learning as well as deepen the theatre going experience for all participants by providing them insights into the themes and creation of the musical. The high schools attending and the faculty teaching TA 10 and TA5, found the study guide to be instrumental to the students' understanding and enjoyment of the production. The guides feature interactive learning ideas based on thematic ideas presented in the show.
38
AEPGHomeFall 2025Barnaby Dallas and Fred CohenSaturday, November 22 @ 7:30pm
Musical: Company Stephen Sondheim’s Company has long interrogated the tensions between societal expectations and personal fulfillment, but its recent iterations—including the gender-swapped revival and upcoming productions like Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends reinvigorate its exploration of “home” and “authenticity” for the digital age. The musical’s protagonist, Bobbie, navigates a world where the concept of home extends beyond physical spaces to encompass emotional belonging and self-acceptance. Meanwhile, the pressure to conform to curated identities in an era dominated by social media amplifies the stakes of authenticity. Through this collaboration between the School of Music and the Theater Department —to include revised staging, diverse casting, and thematic focus on isolation amid connectivity— Company critiques the illusions of modern life while probing what it means to build a genuine sense of self and place.
The notion of “home” in Company is rendered as both a literal and metaphorical battleground. Our proposed set design, a series of modular cubicles outlined by LED lights, transforms Bobbie’s apartment into a claustrophobic maze where privacy is nonexistent. These confined spaces mirror their fractured sense of belonging: though surrounded by friends who crowd their apartment for birthday celebrations, Bobbie remains emotionally adrift, their loneliness underscored by the stark contrast between the vibrant, Instagram-like LED frames and the sterile, monochromatic interiors, reflecting the paradox of urban life in 2025, where hyperconnectivity often exacerbates isolation. As Bobbie’s friends project their anxieties about marriage and stability onto them, the question of where—or with whom—they might find “home” becomes a haunting refrain, exemplified in their desperate plea during “Being Alive”: “Someone, hold me too close / Someone, hurt me too deep.” Our proposed production’s emphasis on transient, impersonal settings amplifies the existential search for a sanctuary in a world that equates domesticity with legitimacy.
Authenticity, meanwhile, emerges as a central struggle in a society increasingly mediated by digital performance. Our plan to incorporate smartphones, selfies, and social media aesthetics—such as characters snapping photos with blinding flashes—critiques the performative nature of modern relationships. Bobbie’s friends, ensconced in marriages rife with contradictions, embody the dissonance between public facades and private realities. For instance, the gay couple Jamie and Paul, potentially reimagined to reflect contemporary queer narratives, grapple with the pressure to legitimize their relationship through marriage amid shifting legal landscapes. Their storyline underscores the tension between societal validation and personal truth, a theme Sondheim’s score accentuates through ironic juxtapositions, such as the buoyant “You Could Drive a Person Crazy” masking profound insecurity. Even Bobbie’s journey—from performative independence to raw vulnerability in “Being Alive”—highlights the cost of maintaining appearances.
Company resonates as a mirror held to the contradictions of contemporary existence. The digital age’s erosion of privacy and rise of curated identities magnify the musical’s interrogation of authenticity, while the redefined “home” reflects broader cultural anxieties about connection in an atomized world. Company reaffirms Sondheim’s genius: his ability to dissect the human condition with wit, warmth, and unflinching honesty, even as the world transforms around his characters.		Step into the vibrant, witty, and deeply human world of Stephen Sondheim’s Company! This groundbreaking musical comedy invites audiences to join Bobbie, a charming but commitment-averse bachelor, as they celebrate their 35th birthday surrounded by his lively and opinionated married friends. Through a series of hilarious and poignant vignettes, Bobbie navigates the ups and downs of relationships, exploring what it means to love, connect, and truly live.
Set against the backdrop of bustling New York City, Company blends sharp humor with heartfelt introspection. With iconic songs like “Being Alive,” “The Ladies Who Lunch,” and “Side by Side by Side,” Sondheim’s masterful score captures the complexities of modern relationships in ways that are both timeless and deeply relatable. Whether it’s the chaos of a wedding day meltdown or the quiet moments of self-reflection, Company is a celebration of life’s messy, beautiful contradictions.
Directed by a visionary creative team, this production brings fresh energy to a show that has captivated audiences for decades. Perfect for both seasoned theatergoers and newcomers alike, Company is an unforgettable evening filled with laughter, tears, and dazzling performances.
Don’t miss your chance to experience this sophisticated and hilarious exploration of love, friendship, and the search for meaning. Let’s all drink to that!
https://events.sjsu.edu/event/company
Hammer Theatrebarnaby.dallas@sjsu.eduFilm, Theatre & DanceCompany is a collaboration between the Department of Film, Theatre & Dance and School of Music. In the Department of Film, Theatre & Dance, Associate Professor Andrea Bechert will be the Scenic Designer, lecturer Steve Mannshardt will be the lighting designer, and lecturer Courtney Flores will be the costume designer. The School of Music will provide faculty to serve as conductor and vocal director of the production. The staff of Film, Theatre & Dance will be directly involved in the physical creation of the production. This includes: John York (scenic construction), Debbie Weber (costume construction), and Lucas Ward (sound tech). Co-producers Barnaby Dallas and Fred Cohen will oversee all aspects of the production in collaboration with Professor of Dance, Dr. Luis Orozco , who has agreed to the role of Stage Director for this production. Prof.Orozco will teach TA 117; he will help create a pathway to the industry for our students and help to raise the profile of the program. Lecturer Michael Mohammed will be the Assistant Director. Both Dr. Orozco and Dr. Mohammed are highly recognized professionals as well as distinguished pedagogues.

The cast, crew, and orchestra will be comprised of enrolled students of SJSU, this includes student assistant directors & choreographers, stage managers, assistant designers, dramaturgs, and production crew (deck, wardrobe, board operators). Over 120 SJSU students are directly involved in the production as part of their major and progress toward graduation in both Music and Theatre. Faculty from the Department of Film, Theater & Dance will work with students to create a robust study guide for our audiences and for distribution to our theatre courses, specifically, TA 5: Introduction to Acting and TA 10 Theatre Appreciation. The guide is available to all faculty members for their classes across H&A. All faculty have classes that are involved in the production, specifically TA 117, TA 191 (three sections), TA 51A, TA 51B, TA51C as well as MUSC 152. The Department and School will work with H&A Marketing, and Dwight, Bentel & Hall Communications to create a marketing campaign which includes social media.

The following student organizations will also be collaborative partners:
Phi Mu Alpha
Kappa Kappa Psi
NAfME (National Association for Music Education)
SJSU Symphony Orchestra
SJSU Opera Theater
SJSU Wind Ensemble
As begun with our previous productions we will be providing a study guide for the production. The study guide will enhance students' learning as well as deepen the theatre going experience for all participants by providing them insights into the themes and creation of the musical. The high schools attending and the faculty teaching TA 10 and TA5, found the study guide to be instrumental to the students' understanding and enjoyment of the production. The guides feature interactive learning ideas based on thematic ideas presented in the show.
39
AEPGHomeFall 2025Barnaby Dallas and Fred CohenMonday, Matinee, November 24 @ 2pmMusical: Company Stephen Sondheim’s Company has long interrogated the tensions between societal expectations and personal fulfillment, but its recent iterations—including the gender-swapped revival and upcoming productions like Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends reinvigorate its exploration of “home” and “authenticity” for the digital age. The musical’s protagonist, Bobbie, navigates a world where the concept of home extends beyond physical spaces to encompass emotional belonging and self-acceptance. Meanwhile, the pressure to conform to curated identities in an era dominated by social media amplifies the stakes of authenticity. Through this collaboration between the School of Music and the Theater Department —to include revised staging, diverse casting, and thematic focus on isolation amid connectivity— Company critiques the illusions of modern life while probing what it means to build a genuine sense of self and place.
The notion of “home” in Company is rendered as both a literal and metaphorical battleground. Our proposed set design, a series of modular cubicles outlined by LED lights, transforms Bobbie’s apartment into a claustrophobic maze where privacy is nonexistent. These confined spaces mirror their fractured sense of belonging: though surrounded by friends who crowd their apartment for birthday celebrations, Bobbie remains emotionally adrift, their loneliness underscored by the stark contrast between the vibrant, Instagram-like LED frames and the sterile, monochromatic interiors, reflecting the paradox of urban life in 2025, where hyperconnectivity often exacerbates isolation. As Bobbie’s friends project their anxieties about marriage and stability onto them, the question of where—or with whom—they might find “home” becomes a haunting refrain, exemplified in their desperate plea during “Being Alive”: “Someone, hold me too close / Someone, hurt me too deep.” Our proposed production’s emphasis on transient, impersonal settings amplifies the existential search for a sanctuary in a world that equates domesticity with legitimacy.
Authenticity, meanwhile, emerges as a central struggle in a society increasingly mediated by digital performance. Our plan to incorporate smartphones, selfies, and social media aesthetics—such as characters snapping photos with blinding flashes—critiques the performative nature of modern relationships. Bobbie’s friends, ensconced in marriages rife with contradictions, embody the dissonance between public facades and private realities. For instance, the gay couple Jamie and Paul, potentially reimagined to reflect contemporary queer narratives, grapple with the pressure to legitimize their relationship through marriage amid shifting legal landscapes. Their storyline underscores the tension between societal validation and personal truth, a theme Sondheim’s score accentuates through ironic juxtapositions, such as the buoyant “You Could Drive a Person Crazy” masking profound insecurity. Even Bobbie’s journey—from performative independence to raw vulnerability in “Being Alive”—highlights the cost of maintaining appearances.
Company resonates as a mirror held to the contradictions of contemporary existence. The digital age’s erosion of privacy and rise of curated identities magnify the musical’s interrogation of authenticity, while the redefined “home” reflects broader cultural anxieties about connection in an atomized world. Company reaffirms Sondheim’s genius: his ability to dissect the human condition with wit, warmth, and unflinching honesty, even as the world transforms around his characters.		Step into the vibrant, witty, and deeply human world of Stephen Sondheim’s Company! This groundbreaking musical comedy invites audiences to join Bobbie, a charming but commitment-averse bachelor, as they celebrate their 35th birthday surrounded by his lively and opinionated married friends. Through a series of hilarious and poignant vignettes, Bobbie navigates the ups and downs of relationships, exploring what it means to love, connect, and truly live.
Set against the backdrop of bustling New York City, Company blends sharp humor with heartfelt introspection. With iconic songs like “Being Alive,” “The Ladies Who Lunch,” and “Side by Side by Side,” Sondheim’s masterful score captures the complexities of modern relationships in ways that are both timeless and deeply relatable. Whether it’s the chaos of a wedding day meltdown or the quiet moments of self-reflection, Company is a celebration of life’s messy, beautiful contradictions.
Directed by a visionary creative team, this production brings fresh energy to a show that has captivated audiences for decades. Perfect for both seasoned theatergoers and newcomers alike, Company is an unforgettable evening filled with laughter, tears, and dazzling performances.
Don’t miss your chance to experience this sophisticated and hilarious exploration of love, friendship, and the search for meaning. Let’s all drink to that!
https://events.sjsu.edu/event/company
Hammer Theatrebarnaby.dallas@sjsu.eduFilm, Theatre & DanceCompany is a collaboration between the Department of Film, Theatre & Dance and School of Music. In the Department of Film, Theatre & Dance, Associate Professor Andrea Bechert will be the Scenic Designer, lecturer Steve Mannshardt will be the lighting designer, and lecturer Courtney Flores will be the costume designer. The School of Music will provide faculty to serve as conductor and vocal director of the production. The staff of Film, Theatre & Dance will be directly involved in the physical creation of the production. This includes: John York (scenic construction), Debbie Weber (costume construction), and Lucas Ward (sound tech). Co-producers Barnaby Dallas and Fred Cohen will oversee all aspects of the production in collaboration with Professor of Dance, Dr. Luis Orozco , who has agreed to the role of Stage Director for this production. Prof.Orozco will teach TA 117; he will help create a pathway to the industry for our students and help to raise the profile of the program. Lecturer Michael Mohammed will be the Assistant Director. Both Dr. Orozco and Dr. Mohammed are highly recognized professionals as well as distinguished pedagogues.

The cast, crew, and orchestra will be comprised of enrolled students of SJSU, this includes student assistant directors & choreographers, stage managers, assistant designers, dramaturgs, and production crew (deck, wardrobe, board operators). Over 120 SJSU students are directly involved in the production as part of their major and progress toward graduation in both Music and Theatre. Faculty from the Department of Film, Theater & Dance will work with students to create a robust study guide for our audiences and for distribution to our theatre courses, specifically, TA 5: Introduction to Acting and TA 10 Theatre Appreciation. The guide is available to all faculty members for their classes across H&A. All faculty have classes that are involved in the production, specifically TA 117, TA 191 (three sections), TA 51A, TA 51B, TA51C as well as MUSC 152. The Department and School will work with H&A Marketing, and Dwight, Bentel & Hall Communications to create a marketing campaign which includes social media.

The following student organizations will also be collaborative partners:
Phi Mu Alpha
Kappa Kappa Psi
NAfME (National Association for Music Education)
SJSU Symphony Orchestra
SJSU Opera Theater
SJSU Wind Ensemble
As begun with our previous productions we will be providing a study guide for the production. The study guide will enhance students' learning as well as deepen the theatre going experience for all participants by providing them insights into the themes and creation of the musical. The high schools attending and the faculty teaching TA 10 and TA5, found the study guide to be instrumental to the students' understanding and enjoyment of the production. The guides feature interactive learning ideas based on thematic ideas presented in the show.
40
AEPGHomeFall 2025Apryl BerneyNovember Virtual Workshop: Bla-sian Bay Digital Archive & Interactive MapThis project brings together students from San JosĂ© State University (SJSU), Spelman College, and the University of South Carolina—each a Minority-Serving Institution—to explore what makes the Bay Area a unique site of AfroAsian cultural exchange. Through a series of workshops, students will examine how Black and Asian artistic and political collaborations have flourished in the region, particularly in relation to queerness, gender, and place. Since many call the Bay Area their home, SJSU students, as those most familiar with the region, will help introduce Spelman and University of South Carolina students to the region’s distinct social, geographic, and cultural dynamics.

The series will launch with a public event featuring Rebecca Kumar and Seulghee Lee, editors of Queer and Femme: AfroAsian American Visual Culture (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024) at the Hammer4 Theatre. This interactive discussion will introduce key themes of AfroAsian aesthetics and belonging. SJSU students will actively plan the event, curate materials, and lead breakout discussions with Kumar and Lee, laying the groundwork for collaboration between institutions.

Building on this foundation, students will participate in a virtual workshop over Zoom at the King Library’s Digital Humanities Center on the Bay Area’s role in Afro-Asian cultural production. SJSU students will introduce Spelman and University of South Carolina students to the region’s history of migration, activism, and radical artistic movements. These discussions will deepen students' understanding of how geography and politics shape Afro-Asian solidarity and help identify key geographical sites for the final project.

The series will culminate in a collaborative digital mapping and archival project using the Omeka A platform, allowing students from the three campuses to document the Bay Area’s Afro-Asian cultural history. Through oral histories, visual culture, music, and performance analysis, students will co-create an interactive archive that captures the spaces, sounds, and movements defining Afro-Asian belonging in the Bay. The final workshop will be held at the Digital Humanities Center, where students will share their contributions, reflect on their findings, and consider the ongoing impact of Black and Asian cultural exchange in the region.
Join us for the launch of the Blasian Bay Digital Archive & Interactive Map, a student-driven project exploring Black and Asian histories in the Bay Area. A collaboration between San José State University, Spelman College, and the University of South Carolina, this initiative brings together archival materials, oral histories, and digital mapping. The editors of Queer & Femme AfroAsian American Visual Culture will visit campus to help shape the project's intellectual foundations, offering insights into race, gender, and visual storytelling. Be part of this exciting effort to preserve and share AfroAsian histories in an accessible, interactive format.Virtualapryl.berney@sjsu.edu Film, Theatre & DanceBuilding on the success of the SJ Story Maps project (funded by the California Humanities Council), Rhonda Holberton, chair of the Art Department, will serve as a consultant on this initiative.

The digital AfroAsian archive and interactive map will be created through a collaboration between my Asian Americans in U.S. History II and Media & Culture classes (Fall 2025) and the classes of Rebecca Kumar (Department of English, Spelman College) and Seulghee Lee (Departments of African American Studies and English, University of South Carolina). This cross-institutional effort will allow students to contribute research, oral histories, and multimedia materials, fostering dialogue on AfroAsian histories and cultural intersections. Through this exchange, students will critically engage with historical narratives and contribute to a growing body of scholarship that highlights AfroAsian connections.

The Asian American Studies Department at SJSU will co-sponsor the September event. Additionally, Chesa Caparas from De Anza Community College’s Asian American and Asian Studies Department will incorporate the recorded discussion from the Hammer4 launch event—featuring the editors of Queer & Femme AfroAsian American Visual Culture—into her Fall 2025 curriculum. Her students will also contribute to the archive by collecting oral histories from Black beauty supply store owners in the Bay Area.

As of this writing, I have reached out via email to Bonnie Sugiyama at the Pride Center, as well as Travis D. Boyce and Wendy Thompson in the African American Studies Department, to explore further collaboration.
Students and attendees of this event will engage with AfroAsian cultural production as a living archive of resistance, creativity, and solidarity. The project is designed to cultivate critical conversations around belonging, convergence, and cultural hybridity, through the lens of queer and femme AfroAsian artistic expression.

Students will actively document and analyze the Blasian Bay Area, becoming co-creators of an interactive, evolving archive. For both students and attendees, the September event will showcase how Black and Asian artistic collaborations have not only shaped cultural landscapes but have also challenged dominant narratives about race, gender, and creative labor. The interactive map and discussions will encourage participants to recognize and understand the historical and contemporary forces influencing AfroAsian identities, particularly in the Bay Area, a site of migration, labor, and artistic innovation.

Ultimately, this project will foster a deeper understanding of intersectional solidarity—how Black and Asian communities have collaborated artistically and politically and how these relationships continue to inform contemporary cultural production. Rather than seeing AfroAsian cultural expression as a series of isolated moments, students and attendees will leave with a broader awareness of how these histories, aesthetics, and solidarities are woven into everyday spaces, practices, and artistic traditions.
41
AEPGHomeFall 2025Brook McClurgNovember Pop-up Event: Long Story Short: A Community-Activated Exploration of Home through Abbreviated FormsThe VISION
Long Story Short aims to activate, spotlight and articulate experiences of home through the creation of short-form works of art. Collaborating across four creative disciplines–literature, theater, visual art, and film–this project seeks to engage a wide range of participants in a multidisciplinary conversation on the power of brevity.

WHY SHORT FORMS?
For novices, the brief approach can often present a casual entry into arts that they otherwise might not be used to practicing. By foregrounding this low-barrier to entry, our project hopes to make art creation accessible to all. This will promote enrollment in creative classes and teach students artistic practices. Though short forms have a long history (in literature alone, dating back to Aphorisms of Hericlitus, or the works of Sei Shonagun), they have proliferated in recent years due at least in part to changes in technology.

Why Home?
By using this year’s theme of home as the basis of our prompts for these events, we will offer a tangible way for a broad audience to participate. In my creative writing classes, I often use a broad thematic prompt as a way in to the specific craft challenge that I am asking them to undertake. In this case, we would use brief directed prompts that ask participants to interpret home through the abbreviated forms. Additionally, our Haiku Review activity will enable students to send a dispatch home in a fun, no-cost-to-them way.

The Events:
Workshop 1: In Literature – Short Prose Forms
From prose poems and brief essays to the latest Flash craze, the short form has a long and vibrant legacy.

Workshop 2: On the Stage – The Two-Minute Play
Codified by The Neo-Futurists, the two-minute play structure ascribes to “tenets of honesty, brevity, and transformation.”

Workshop 3 : In Visual Arts – Envisioning the Mini Zine
The zine’s simplest form is rooted in amateur publishing and artist’s books of the early 20th century; the mini zine is made of a single sheet of folded paper.

Workshop 4 : In Film – The Short Film
From the earliest works, to the boom of the nineties, short films continue to be a prized form.

Culminating event: 2026 Long Story Short Festival
Celebrating work made by students, faculty, and community members at the various workshops. Part exhibit, part performance, this event will also feature a keynote speaker (Dinty Moore, Lydia Davis or Sarah Manguso, all known for brief work, would be our preferred speakers.)


This proposal also includes:

-Four events on 7th Paseo Plaza in conjunction with Reed Magazine (as lead up to the workshop) in which anyone can make a short form project.
-Our Haiku Review project provides our lowest barrier of entry. A pre-stamped postcard that asks students to send a Haiku home, via prompt on the card.
-Experimentation in our classrooms: Students enrolled in Engl 71,133, 135, and 242, Art 181 and 15 already discuss short forms. This should be equally applicable to courses in Film, Theatre, and Communication, which we can better speak to as we solidify their participation.
Come to Long Story Short, a series of four hands-on, interactive workshops in short-form art making! Today’s theme is Short Prose. From short stories to prose poems and brief essays, to the latest Flash craze, the short form is here to stay, likely caused as much by our increased lack of free time as to our tendencies to read more on digital devices, where shorter works are a necessity. You will craft your own short prose in this workshop that can be shared in our spring short works festival.7th Street Paseo Plazabrook.mcclurg@sjsu.eduEnglish & Comparative LiteratureVisual Arts - Carla Fisher Schwartz, Assistant Professor
English -Noelle GM Gibbs (Graduate student in English with professional background in theater)
Shrunkenmanhead Club - Henry Long (Club President, Animation Illustration Student)
Visual Art Student - TBD (Carla has asked that we hold one student partner spot for one of her art students. She has several in mind and will choose one if this project is funded.)

Though we already have a commitment from our partners in short form animation, Shrunkenheadman Club (500 members strong!), we’re still seeking partners for short films (non-animated) and potentially Communications (which overlaps with theatre and film here). In pursuit of this we have also reached out to Matthew Spangler in Theatre and Communications.		Educational
This proposal is purposefully prepared in a fashion so that it might best reach a large number of students, be approachable for the community, and instill our student collaborators with career-building and leadership skills necessary to explore their next professional steps. Each of these workshops are designed to be experiential and inclusive with a low barrier to participation. The theme of that actual work, Home, easily applies to all who’d want to be involved.

The diversity of disciplines involved in our proposal, combined with its experiential approach, encourages many different learning styles in a variety of modes of artistic expression. We further hope to educate students and our community members on the ways in which meaningful artistic experiences and creation can be fit into their daily lives.
Further, our hope here is to educate students and the community about the artistic pleasure and value that can be found in short forms. There was a time not too long ago, when short films were not recognized as their own genre. Now everybody knows what they are and some seek out these small pleasures where they can find them. By showcasing these constraints within different mediums we will demonstrate to students that powerful art can be made in small packages.

Finally, this project will help both of our student facilitators who will gain practical work experience in helping to put on these events. For one of our students from the Art Department (yet to be named by Carla, though she has a few students in mind), they will gain valuable experience learning how to support and promote artistic events. While for Noelle Gibbs, our graduate student in English who also has professional experience in producing stageplays, she will gain experience doing so within a university setting and with university parameters. Since she hopes to eventually teach both Theatre and Creative Writing at the college level–and indeed, she sees her particular specialty as the intersection of these two disciplines– the ability to lead her own workshop for our proposed theater event will be meaningful. I believe having this student lead one of the workshops as well as help with the others, will be meaningful to both their experience as a graduate student and their professional life after.

ARTISTIC
One of the things that short forms engender—regardless of the discipline—is an easier point of entry for those who might not typically be interested in art or stage plays, or literature. I offer anecdotally that I’ve had many students who felt intimidated by book-length works who are ignited by the possibilities of literature after being moved by short form works.

Since each of these workshops and lectures is envisioned as participatory, where the audience is encouraged to engage and take their hand in creating the art object in discussion, they will have a more embodied experience of the creation project.

COMMUNITY
While most of our efforts thus far have been toward defining the parameters of this project and making the necessary cross-disciplinary connections, we do intend to make efforts to involve the local community as well. As an educator that has routinely engaged in community-based workshops, both at SJSU and my prior institutions, I believe these events will be bettered with community involvement and will work toward those ends.

This grant proposal is premised on the ideas of artistic creation being important and valuable experiences for all. This year’s theme, combined with our use of approachable artistic practices and experiential learning, can hopefully combine to make a successful year of artistic creation. By reclaiming brevity as depth, we hope to unlock short-form antidotes to loneliness and a way to share our sense of home through art.
42
AEPGHomeFall 2025Brook McClurgNovember Workshop: Long Story Short: A Community-Activated Exploration of Home through Abbreviated FormsThe VISION
Long Story Short aims to activate, spotlight and articulate experiences of home through the creation of short-form works of art. Collaborating across four creative disciplines–literature, theater, visual art, and film–this project seeks to engage a wide range of participants in a multidisciplinary conversation on the power of brevity.

WHY SHORT FORMS?
For novices, the brief approach can often present a casual entry into arts that they otherwise might not be used to practicing. By foregrounding this low-barrier to entry, our project hopes to make art creation accessible to all. This will promote enrollment in creative classes and teach students artistic practices. Though short forms have a long history (in literature alone, dating back to Aphorisms of Hericlitus, or the works of Sei Shonagun), they have proliferated in recent years due at least in part to changes in technology.

Why Home?
By using this year’s theme of home as the basis of our prompts for these events, we will offer a tangible way for a broad audience to participate. In my creative writing classes, I often use a broad thematic prompt as a way in to the specific craft challenge that I am asking them to undertake. In this case, we would use brief directed prompts that ask participants to interpret home through the abbreviated forms. Additionally, our Haiku Review activity will enable students to send a dispatch home in a fun, no-cost-to-them way.

The Events:
Workshop 1: In Literature – Short Prose Forms
From prose poems and brief essays to the latest Flash craze, the short form has a long and vibrant legacy.

Workshop 2: On the Stage – The Two-Minute Play
Codified by The Neo-Futurists, the two-minute play structure ascribes to “tenets of honesty, brevity, and transformation.”

Workshop 3 : In Visual Arts – Envisioning the Mini Zine
The zine’s simplest form is rooted in amateur publishing and artist’s books of the early 20th century; the mini zine is made of a single sheet of folded paper.

Workshop 4 : In Film – The Short Film
From the earliest works, to the boom of the nineties, short films continue to be a prized form.

Culminating event: 2026 Long Story Short Festival
Celebrating work made by students, faculty, and community members at the various workshops. Part exhibit, part performance, this event will also feature a keynote speaker (Dinty Moore, Lydia Davis or Sarah Manguso, all known for brief work, would be our preferred speakers.)


This proposal also includes:

-Four events on 7th Paseo Plaza in conjunction with Reed Magazine (as lead up to the workshop) in which anyone can make a short form project.
-Our Haiku Review project provides our lowest barrier of entry. A pre-stamped postcard that asks students to send a Haiku home, via prompt on the card.
-Experimentation in our classrooms: Students enrolled in Engl 71,133, 135, and 242, Art 181 and 15 already discuss short forms. This should be equally applicable to courses in Film, Theatre, and Communication, which we can better speak to as we solidify their participation.
Come to Long Story Short, a series of four hands-on, interactive workshops in short-form art making! Today’s theme is the Two-Minute Play. Codified by the Neo-Futurists, the two-minute play structure ascribes to “tenets of honesty, brevity, and transformation.” These quick theatrical pieces are unique and non-illusory, aiming to contain a nugget of human experience in brief. In this workshop, participants will be given a prompt to create a short play that can be easily performed as a pop-up theatrical moment. You will craft your own short prose in this workshop that can be shared in our spring short works festival. MLK 225brook.mcclurg@sjsu.eduEnglish & Comparative LiteratureVisual Arts - Carla Fisher Schwartz, Assistant Professor
English -Noelle GM Gibbs (Graduate student in English with professional background in theater)
Shrunkenmanhead Club - Henry Long (Club President, Animation Illustration Student)
Visual Art Student - TBD (Carla has asked that we hold one student partner spot for one of her art students. She has several in mind and will choose one if this project is funded.)

Though we already have a commitment from our partners in short form animation, Shrunkenheadman Club (500 members strong!), we’re still seeking partners for short films (non-animated) and potentially Communications (which overlaps with theatre and film here). In pursuit of this we have also reached out to Matthew Spangler in Theatre and Communications.		Educational
This proposal is purposefully prepared in a fashion so that it might best reach a large number of students, be approachable for the community, and instill our student collaborators with career-building and leadership skills necessary to explore their next professional steps. Each of these workshops are designed to be experiential and inclusive with a low barrier to participation. The theme of that actual work, Home, easily applies to all who’d want to be involved.

The diversity of disciplines involved in our proposal, combined with its experiential approach, encourages many different learning styles in a variety of modes of artistic expression. We further hope to educate students and our community members on the ways in which meaningful artistic experiences and creation can be fit into their daily lives.
Further, our hope here is to educate students and the community about the artistic pleasure and value that can be found in short forms. There was a time not too long ago, when short films were not recognized as their own genre. Now everybody knows what they are and some seek out these small pleasures where they can find them. By showcasing these constraints within different mediums we will demonstrate to students that powerful art can be made in small packages.

Finally, this project will help both of our student facilitators who will gain practical work experience in helping to put on these events. For one of our students from the Art Department (yet to be named by Carla, though she has a few students in mind), they will gain valuable experience learning how to support and promote artistic events. While for Noelle Gibbs, our graduate student in English who also has professional experience in producing stageplays, she will gain experience doing so within a university setting and with university parameters. Since she hopes to eventually teach both Theatre and Creative Writing at the college level–and indeed, she sees her particular specialty as the intersection of these two disciplines– the ability to lead her own workshop for our proposed theater event will be meaningful. I believe having this student lead one of the workshops as well as help with the others, will be meaningful to both their experience as a graduate student and their professional life after.

ARTISTIC
One of the things that short forms engender—regardless of the discipline—is an easier point of entry for those who might not typically be interested in art or stage plays, or literature. I offer anecdotally that I’ve had many students who felt intimidated by book-length works who are ignited by the possibilities of literature after being moved by short form works.

Since each of these workshops and lectures is envisioned as participatory, where the audience is encouraged to engage and take their hand in creating the art object in discussion, they will have a more embodied experience of the creation project.

COMMUNITY
While most of our efforts thus far have been toward defining the parameters of this project and making the necessary cross-disciplinary connections, we do intend to make efforts to involve the local community as well. As an educator that has routinely engaged in community-based workshops, both at SJSU and my prior institutions, I believe these events will be bettered with community involvement and will work toward those ends.

This grant proposal is premised on the ideas of artistic creation being important and valuable experiences for all. This year’s theme, combined with our use of approachable artistic practices and experiential learning, can hopefully combine to make a successful year of artistic creation. By reclaiming brevity as depth, we hope to unlock short-form antidotes to loneliness and a way to share our sense of home through art.
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AEPGAuthenticityFall 2025Thomas Hornig November (Two Days)Performance: Seraph Brass ResidencyThe Seraph Brass Quintet is the nation’s only all-women professional brass quintet. The proposed residency will include a full concert recital in the School of Music’s Concert Hall, coaching sessions for SJSU trumpet, horn, trombone, and tuba students, as well as those additional high school and college students who are invited as part of our ever-expanding recruiting process. The quintet will also provide a class visit entitled “Women in Business”, open to all SJSU students. Finally, they will teach a group masterclass with our SJSU brass students.

This AEPG application seeks to satisfy the theme of “authenticity”. For centuries, the classical music world has been dominated by straight, white men. This imbalance is especially true amongst musicians who play brass instruments (trumpet, horn, trombone, euphonium, and tuba). The imbalance of women who are professional brass players starts with discrimination at the very top of our industry and continues all the way down to elementary school gender bias of instrument selection. World famous orchestra conductors Sergiu Celibidache, Zubin Mehta, and Ricardo Muti, among many others, have all made disparaging comments about women in orchestras, particularly women playing brass instruments. It’s not just the comments that are harmful, but discriminatory hiring practices are well documented. At the grade school level, studies show that children identify brass instruments as more masculine and woodwind instruments as more feminine. Children are not arriving at this preconception on their own, it is clearly taught, either explicitly or implicitly by family and society.

The very existence and success of Seraph Brass flies in the face of these prejudices. In a world where our musical role models are still too often type-cast by gender, it is essential that our students (and society in general) are provided with in-person evidence to refute these stereotypes. Seraph Brass presents a mission to showcase the excellence of women brass players and highlight musicians from marginalized groups, both in personnel and in programming. Winners of the American Prize in Chamber Music, the group has been praised for its “beautiful sounds" (American Record Guide), "fine playing” (Gramophone), and “staggeringly high caliber of performance” (Textura). Their residencies not only present excellent performances, but also educational outreach to the communities where they perform.

Many SJSU music students arrive on campus with little to no exposure to the professional classical music world. They are unaware of who the major musicians, ensembles and conductors are. The curriculum we offer broadens their understanding, but still only within the confines of our campus. By bringing in internationally recognized artists, we enrich our students experience by providing real role models who accurately represent an authentic perspective on what the classical music world can become. Our students are the next generation of music teachers who will, in part, be tasked with breaking down stereotypes in music. It is our responsibility to help them develop their tools so they can succeed.

Finally, hosting Seraph Brass will draw attention to the SJSU School of Music. Attention that will benefit our recruiting efforts to bring talented aspiring new students to our campus.
The SJSU School of Music proudly presents the Seraph Brass Quintet, winners of the American Prize in Chamber Music. The group has been praised for its “beautiful sounds" (American Record Guide), "fine playing” (Gramophone), and “staggeringly high caliber of performance” (Textura). Seraph Brass is our nation’s only all-women professional brass quintet. Each member of the ensemble is highly trained and dedicates themselves to excellence in performance, broader accessibility of music education, and promoting new compositions by female and BIPOC composers. Members of Seraph Brass are passionate about music education, and hold teaching positions at the University of North Texas, Shenandoah Conservatory, Texas State University, and Texas Lutheran University. In each of their tours, the group works to provide educational outreach to local schools, and they also offer a variety of entrepreneurship and career development workshops, in addition to traditional brass pedagogy and technique classes.
Seraph’s residency highlights of the season include Yale School of Music,
University of Miami, University of Memphis, University of Missouri, Mary Baldwin University, and the Pear Arts Residency in Fort Wayne. Seraph will be releasing a new album in March of 2025 through Tower Grove Records, showcasing new works for brass quintet and featuring compositions by Jeff Scott, Reena Esmail, Kevin Day, and Kevin McKee. Seraph Brass was founded by trumpet soloist Mary Elizabeth Bowden with a mission to showcase the excellence of women brass players and highlight musicians from marginalized groups, both in personnel and in programming.
SJSU Concert Hall & 4 School of Music classroomsthomas.hornig@sjsu.eduSchool of MusicN/AThe Seraph Brass residency will present an expanded “real world” example of what is possible for dedicated and talented young musicians. Students will experience artistic expression and performance of the highest caliber from a non-stereotypic source. They will gain an understanding of genuine perseverance that leads to success. In short they will be excited and inspired by their Seraph Brass experience.
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AEPGAuthenticityFall 2025Alena Sauzade and Irene CarvajalDecemberStudent Exhibition: Modern Macgyvers: Printmaking from Costa RicaThis project proposes an exhibition of printmaking from renowned Costa Rican artists to take place at the Natalie and James Thompson Art Gallery as well as a series of public events, including a speaker series, curatorial walk through, student workshops and community art projects. Taken together this project will creatively consider the history of “Macgyvering,” or making do with the materials at hand in Costa Rican printmaking, as a methodology for a more sustainable and authentic art making process. Developed in collaboration with Irene Carvajal, Senior Lecturer in Pictorial Art and leader of a faculty led program to Costa Rica, this project will explore how Costa Rican artists arrive at authentic materials for printmaking through processes of creative reuse, recycling, and individual materials development.

Building on connections and collaborations established by Irene Cravajal and her students over the course of seven years of faculty led programs there, the exhibition and related programs will deepen SJSU’s growing connection with Costa Rican artists, the Costa Rican Museum of Fine Arts and the University of Costa Rica, while engaging with campus community with the question of authenticity, sustainability and a creative approach to art making.

To complement the exhibition, the Thompson Gallery will host a series of public programs, including:
1. A community art making event in the Art Quad inspired by the work in the exhibition.

2. Artist led workshops:

Alberto Murillo, Professor of Art at the University of Costa Rica, artist and expert in non toxic printmaking, watercolor xylographie, lithography, bookbinding and hand papermaking will give a workshop on environmental lithography.

Artist Carolina Cordoba will give a talk on the history of printmaking in Costa Rica from a feminist perspective and will lead an advanced printmaking workshop.

Artist Alejandro Villalobos will give a workshop and talk on the process of making his own press and DIY printmaking.

3. Curator walk though of the exhibition

4. Students in Art 174 Museum and Gallery Techniques will write wall and label text for the exhibtiion

5. Students who attend the artist workshops will have their work featured in an exhibition in one of the student galleries, which will be curated and installed by students in Art 174.
The university community is invited to attend a free, drop-in art workshop inspired by exhibition Contemporary Printmaking from Costa Rica. Referencing the artwork on view at the Natalie and James Thompson Gallery, participants are invited to create a small format print using non-traditional materials

This event is supported by the College of Humanities & the Arts’ Artistic Excellence Programming Grant.
Jo Farb Hernandez Student Galleryalena.sauzade@sjsu.eduArt & Art HistoryUniversity of Costa Rica Department of Fine Arts
Museo de Arte Costarricense (Fine Arts Museum of Costa Rica)		This project aims at deepening the connections and collaborations between SJSU and Costa Rican artists and arts institutions that have been established by Irene Carvajal over seven years of faculty-led programs. Professor Carvajal’s popular program introduces SJSU students to sustainability and creative materials use through the lens of Costa Rican printmaking and exposes students to the spirit of “Macgyvering” which is common in Costa Rican art- artists use the materials available creatively and choose to focus on sustainable materials and creating their own inks, paper, solvents etc to create authentically, without unnecessary interventions and potentially hazardous materials.

The exhibition will focus on the history of Costa Rican printmaking and will include objects loaned by the Museo de Arte Costarricense (Costa Rica Museum of Fine Arts) . The exhibition will also introduce the public to the works of key contemporary Costa Rican artists working in the field of printmaking. The related lectures and workshops will allow for deeper engagement and exploration into the innovative ways in which Costa Rican printmakers engage with their craft- from making their own paper, to exploring sustainable non-toxic materials, to making their own presses. These programs will allow students to have exposure to the necessity of “Macgyvering” and making do in developing economies, but also, importantly, will allow them to practice making their own materials and learn to utilize the resources available to them in their own homes and communities.

In addition, the entire campus community and the public will be invited to a free hands on community art making event to take place on the Art Quad. In this event, the project assistants will guide community members to learn more about Costa Rican printmaking and make their own small scale prints using non-traditional materials. Student art work made in the artist workshops and the community art making event will be featured in an exhibition in the Jo Farb Hernandez student art gallery, which will be curated and installed by students in Art 174, Museum and Gallery Operations.

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AEPGHomeFall 2025Apryl BerneyDecemberWorkshop: Bla-sian Bay Digital Archive & Interactive MapThis project brings together students from San JosĂ© State University (SJSU), Spelman College, and the University of South Carolina—each a Minority-Serving Institution—to explore what makes the Bay Area a unique site of AfroAsian cultural exchange. Through a series of workshops, students will examine how Black and Asian artistic and political collaborations have flourished in the region, particularly in relation to queerness, gender, and place. Since many call the Bay Area their home, SJSU students, as those most familiar with the region, will help introduce Spelman and University of South Carolina students to the region’s distinct social, geographic, and cultural dynamics.

The series will launch with a public event featuring Rebecca Kumar and Seulghee Lee, editors of Queer and Femme: AfroAsian American Visual Culture (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024) at the Hammer4 Theatre. This interactive discussion will introduce key themes of AfroAsian aesthetics and belonging. SJSU students will actively plan the event, curate materials, and lead breakout discussions with Kumar and Lee, laying the groundwork for collaboration between institutions.

Building on this foundation, students will participate in a virtual workshop over Zoom at the King Library’s Digital Humanities Center on the Bay Area’s role in Afro-Asian cultural production. SJSU students will introduce Spelman and University of South Carolina students to the region’s history of migration, activism, and radical artistic movements. These discussions will deepen students' understanding of how geography and politics shape Afro-Asian solidarity and help identify key geographical sites for the final project.

The series will culminate in a collaborative digital mapping and archival project using the Omeka A platform, allowing students from the three campuses to document the Bay Area’s Afro-Asian cultural history. Through oral histories, visual culture, music, and performance analysis, students will co-create an interactive archive that captures the spaces, sounds, and movements defining Afro-Asian belonging in the Bay. The final workshop will be held at the Digital Humanities Center, where students will share their contributions, reflect on their findings, and consider the ongoing impact of Black and Asian cultural exchange in the region.
Join us for the launch of the Blasian Bay Digital Archive & Interactive Map, a student-driven project exploring Black and Asian histories in the Bay Area. A collaboration between San José State University, Spelman College, and the University of South Carolina, this initiative brings together archival materials, oral histories, and digital mapping. The editors of Queer & Femme AfroAsian American Visual Culture will visit campus to help shape the project's intellectual foundations, offering insights into race, gender, and visual storytelling. Be part of this exciting effort to preserve and share AfroAsian histories in an accessible, interactive format.Digital Humanities Centerapryl.berney@sjsu.edu Film, Theatre & DanceBuilding on the success of the SJ Story Maps project (funded by the California Humanities Council), Rhonda Holberton, chair of the Art Department, will serve as a consultant on this initiative.

The digital AfroAsian archive and interactive map will be created through a collaboration between my Asian Americans in U.S. History II and Media & Culture classes (Fall 2025) and the classes of Rebecca Kumar (Department of English, Spelman College) and Seulghee Lee (Departments of African American Studies and English, University of South Carolina). This cross-institutional effort will allow students to contribute research, oral histories, and multimedia materials, fostering dialogue on AfroAsian histories and cultural intersections. Through this exchange, students will critically engage with historical narratives and contribute to a growing body of scholarship that highlights AfroAsian connections.

The Asian American Studies Department at SJSU will co-sponsor the September event. Additionally, Chesa Caparas from De Anza Community College’s Asian American and Asian Studies Department will incorporate the recorded discussion from the Hammer4 launch event—featuring the editors of Queer & Femme AfroAsian American Visual Culture—into her Fall 2025 curriculum. Her students will also contribute to the archive by collecting oral histories from Black beauty supply store owners in the Bay Area.

As of this writing, I have reached out via email to Bonnie Sugiyama at the Pride Center, as well as Travis D. Boyce and Wendy Thompson in the African American Studies Department, to explore further collaboration.
Students and attendees of this event will engage with AfroAsian cultural production as a living archive of resistance, creativity, and solidarity. The project is designed to cultivate critical conversations around belonging, convergence, and cultural hybridity, through the lens of queer and femme AfroAsian artistic expression.

Students will actively document and analyze the Blasian Bay Area, becoming co-creators of an interactive, evolving archive. For both students and attendees, the September event will showcase how Black and Asian artistic collaborations have not only shaped cultural landscapes but have also challenged dominant narratives about race, gender, and creative labor. The interactive map and discussions will encourage participants to recognize and understand the historical and contemporary forces influencing AfroAsian identities, particularly in the Bay Area, a site of migration, labor, and artistic innovation.

Ultimately, this project will foster a deeper understanding of intersectional solidarity—how Black and Asian communities have collaborated artistically and politically and how these relationships continue to inform contemporary cultural production. Rather than seeing AfroAsian cultural expression as a series of isolated moments, students and attendees will leave with a broader awareness of how these histories, aesthetics, and solidarities are woven into everyday spaces, practices, and artistic traditions.
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Spring 2026Dr. Erica BuurmanThursday, December 4, 12pm-1pmBeethoven Center Noontime Concert: Performers: Josephine Lee (soprano) and Grace Lee (piano)
Program: Beethoven's Lieder and his Poets
A program featuring Beethoven's settings of poems by Matthisson, Goethe, Gellert, Rousseau, and others		All concerts take place at 12:00 and are followed by an informal coffee reception and open-house. These concerts are free to attend.

The series is made possible by generous support from the Davis Family Foundation.		https://events.sjsu.edu/event/noontime-concerts-at-the-beethoven-center-series-1221
https://events.sjsu.edu/event/noontime-concerts-at-the-beethoven-center-series-1221
580 Beethoven Center, 5th Floor, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library, San Jose CA 95112Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven StudiesThe series is made possible by generous support from the Davis Family Foundation.
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 Spring 2026 Events, Workshops & Programming
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AEPGHome and AuthenticitySpring 2026Fred Cohen and Luis OrozcoPerformance: Spring '26 Opera Double BillByron Au Yong’s opera Stuck Elevator transforms the true ordeal of Ming Kuang Chen—an undocumented Chinese immigrant trapped in a Bronx elevator for 81 hours—into a resonant exploration of home and authenticity. Through its hybrid operatic form and narrative structure, the work interrogates the fractured realities of displacement, weaving physical entrapment with the psychological limbo of undocumented life.
The opera’s protagonist, Guang, exists in a suspended state between two worlds. His physical confinement in the elevator mirrors his social and legal limbo as an undocumented worker, perpetually caught between the home he left in China and the tenuous American dream he cannot fully claim. Flashbacks to his wife Ming and son Wang Yue in Fujian Province punctuate the narrative, juxtaposing familial warmth with his isolated present. These memories, rendered through lyrical Chinese folk motifs, evoke a homeland idealized yet distant—a contrast to the metallic claustrophobia of the elevator, where his labor as a deliveryman reduces him to invisibility. The elevator itself becomes a metaphor for the immigrant condition: a transitional space that promises upward mobility but delivers only stasis, reflecting systemic barriers that deny Guang—and millions like him—a stable sense of home.
Stuck Elevator’s authenticity arises from its polyphonic approach to storytelling. The libretto, by Aaron Jafferis, integrates English, Mandarin, and Spanish—languages reflecting the multicultural realities of immigrant communities—while supertitles ensure accessibility without diluting linguistic fidelity. This multilingualism resists cultural homogenization, honoring the specificity of Guang’s Fujianese heritage and the diversity of New York’s working class. Au Yong’s score furthers this authenticity, merging Chinese traditional melodies with rap, Latin rhythms, and scrap-metal percussion. Such stylistic hybridity mirrors the fragmented identities of immigrants navigating assimilation, rejecting operatic elitism to embrace a soundscape as diasporic as its subjects.
The opera’s developmental process deepened its authentic grounding. Collaborations with Fujianese restaurant workers, immigration lawyers, and scholars ensured that Guang’s story transcended individual tragedy to emblemize systemic exploitation. Even the comic absurdity of sequences like the “Fortune Cookie Monster” rap battle underscores harsh truths: cultural commodification and the absurdity of survival in a capitalist maze.
Ultimately, Stuck Elevator confronts the paradox of home as both anchor and illusion. Guang’s confinement literalizes the undocumented experience: fearing deportation, he endures silence, his body commodified yet his humanity erased. The opera’s authenticity lies not in tidy resolutions but in its refusal to romanticize. By blending opera with hip-hop, tragedy with dark humor, and personal memory with collective struggle, Stuck Elevator is a work where form and content alike testify to the fragmented realities of those caught between nations, languages, and dreams. In Guang’s final, unresolved escape—a metaphorical rather than literal freedom—the opera challenges audiences to confront the systems that render such entrapment inevitable, making home not a place, but a relentless quest for visibility and dignity.

Francis Poulenc's La Voix Humaine (1958) is a one-act opera for soprano and orchestra, based on Jean Cocteau's 1928 play. Subtitled a “lyric tragedy,” it portrays a woman, Elle, in her final phone call with a lover who has abandoned her for another. Over 40 minutes, the monologue explores her emotional unraveling, moving from tenderness to despair, anger, and resignation. The fragmented vocal lines mimic natural speech, while the orchestra underscores her psychological state and symbolizes the absent lover. This intimate work captures raw vulnerability and heartbreak, blending Poulenc's lyrical music with Cocteau's poignant text to create a timeless masterpiece.

Experience an Unforgettable Evening of Opera: “Stuck Elevator” and “La Voix Humaine”
Prepare for a night of gripping storytelling and emotional depth as two extraordinary one-act operas take the stage in a compelling double bill. This unique pairing presents a journey through the struggles of human connection, resilience, and heartbreak, brought to life through powerful music and evocative performances.
“Stuck Elevator”
Inspired by the true story of a Chinese immigrant trapped in a Bronx elevator for 81 hours, “Stuck Elevator” is a groundbreaking opera-musical hybrid by Byron Au Yong and Aaron Jafferis. This innovative work blends rap, humor, and poignant drama to explore the life of Guang, an undocumented food deliveryman burdened by debt and isolation. As he confronts his fears and memories during his confinement, the opera unfolds as a kaleidoscope of fantastical dreams and harsh realities. With its inventive staging and deeply human themes, “Stuck Elevator” offers an eye-opening look at the immigrant experience in America.

La Voix Humaine”
Francis Poulenc’s “La Voix Humaine” (The Human Voice) is an intimate and devastating monodrama based on Jean Cocteau’s play. This one-woman opera follows Elle, a woman on the brink of despair during her final phone call with her ex-lover. Over 40 minutes, Elle’s emotions swing from hope to heartbreak as she grapples with the pain of abandonment and her unraveling sense of self. Poulenc’s haunting score perfectly captures the raw vulnerability of this universal tale of love and loss.

Together, these two operas create a riveting evening that moves from the claustrophobic confines of an elevator to the emotional isolation of a phone call. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to witness two distinct yet thematically intertwined works that explore survival, identity, and the complexities of human relationships.
Hammer Theatre, Sobrato Auditoriumfred.cohen@sjsu.eduSchool of MusicOpera San Jose
Center for Asian Pacific Islander Student Empowerment (CAPISE)
Phi Mu Alpha
Kappa Kappa Psi
NAfME (National Association for Music Education)
SJSU Symphony Orchestra
SJSU Opera Theater
...other academic units to be determined, pending full funding of the project
Byron Au Yong’s Stuck Elevator and Francis Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine offer far more than just captivating performances: they provide profound opportunities for student learning and audience engagement by addressing universal themes that resonate deeply with contemporary societal and personal issues. These two operas, though distinct in style and subject matter, share a common thread of exploring human vulnerability, isolation, and resilience, encouraging audiences to reflect on their own lives and the world around them.

Stuck Elevator tells the story of Guang, an undocumented Chinese immigrant trapped in an elevator, a situation that becomes a powerful metaphor for his broader entrapment within societal systems of marginalization. Through its innovative blend of musical styles—hip-hop, Chinese folk music, and opera—the work delves into themes of immigration, labor exploitation, cultural displacement, and the psychological toll of living in fear. It challenges audiences to critically examine issues like economic inequality and immigration policies while fostering empathy for those who are often unseen or unheard.

In contrast, * La Voix Humaine focuses on a single woman, Elle, as she engages in a one-sided phone conversation with her lover who is leaving her. The opera’s minimalist yet emotionally charged music mirrors Elle’s unraveling psyche as she grapples with abandonment and the fragility of human connection. Her isolation is palpable, offering a raw exploration of emotional vulnerability and the complexities of relationships in an increasingly mediated world.

Together, these operas present audiences with significant “big ideas” to ponder. They highlight how external systems—whether immigration laws or societal expectations—can confine individuals physically or emotionally. They also underscore the fragility of human connection, reminding us of the importance of empathy and understanding in both personal relationships and broader societal contexts. This operatic double bill not only entertains but also inspires reflection on alienation, resilience, and the shared human condition.
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AEPGHomeSpring 2026Daniel Rivers and Maite UrcareguiThursday, February 5, 12pm-1pmSpotlight Series: Public Humanities SalonsThis cluster of events builds on the legacy of literary salons, collective spaces where people come together and dialogue over a shared interest in literature. In applying for support from the AEPG program, our AEPG group (including representatives from the Department of English & Comparative Literature, the Department of Humanities, the SJSU and SJPL Libraries, the Pride Center, and the Steinbeck Center) is looking to support a series of public humanities partnerships that foster community dialogue about “home” and “un/belonging” through public engagement with the literary arts and humanities. These salons will consider how literature and the humanities can enrich our understanding of the pressing questions of belonging, identity, erasure, and intellectual exchange in our contemporary moment.

These events include two Banned Books Week events co-hosted with both the SJSU and SJPL branches of the MLK Library, two or more events from the Humanities department’s new Spotlight in the Humanities series, and, potentially, other collaborative events on campus. These collaborative, public-facing events in the arts and humanities (including panels of scholars, talks by writers, and workshops with educators and artists) will allow students, public attendees, faculty, and librarians to discuss the power of literature in our lives and our world, with a particular focus on how these conversations are happening in our region. To emphasize this focus on our home region, speakers on the library panels and humanities department events will be composed of folks who live in the Bay Area.

Collaborators on these salons will facilitate dialogue and encourage attendees to engage socially with one another via the frame of home and un/belonging in literature and the public arts. AEPG funds for this event will support marketing and book giveaways aimed at supporting more robust in-person attendance and engagement. As a sponsor, the Steinbeck Center will contribute funds toward catering, as well as honorariums for presenters.

Authors and artists under consideration will vary by event, but the salons hope to support the following events:
Two events as part of the SJSU Library’sBanned Books Week in fall 2025: A panel on LGBTQIA+ Popular Fiction (including comics, YA novels, and science fiction and fantasy). Daniel has already confirmed interest from queer horror author M.M. Olivas, and can draw on relationships with Lambda fellows, including local award-winning science fiction author Charlie Jane Anders. A workshop hosted with the SJPL geared toward engaging youth in literary dialogue and making.
Two or more Humanities Spotlight events, which feature local artists, writers, and thinkers in the humanities. These events are planned by committee in the Humanities Department, and Daniel is part of this committee
A panel exploring careers in the public humanities, composed of alumni and community partners from the Bay Area. Daniel has already confirmed interest from employees at POST Bay Area Land Trust, the Center for Biological Diversity, Lambda Literary, and PLOS One (the academic publisher) who live and work in the Bay. The group will also solicit participation from SJSU alumni in Humanities, English, etc.
The Public Humanities Salon event series is a set of collaborative programming partnerships that aim to engage SJSU students, faculty, and staff–as well as residents of the South Bay– in public in discussions of home, belonging, and identity through the arts and humanities. Along with featuring premiere artists, writers, and public intellectuals, this series is focused on drawing in-person attendees for conversations about presenters’ work and its impact on the broader world. When possible, these events will include food and a book and sticker giveaway for attendees. SJSU Library Second Floor and the MHC Steinbeck Centerdaniel.rivers@sjsu.eduHumanitesThis event is being coordinated by Daniel Rivers, the Director of the SJSU Steinbeck Center (and faculty member in English and Humanities) in partnership with Maite Urcaregui, Assistant Professor of English and Comp Lit, Todd Ormsbee, Chair of the Humanities department, Estella Inda of the MLK Library, and Bonnie Sugiyama (Pride Center and Gender Equity Center)

Partnering events include Banned Books Week, the Humanities Department Spotlight Series, and potentially other events		Events in this series will expose students, faculty, staff, and the SJSU public to significant publications, timely topics, and scholarly insights related to the themes of belonging/unbelonging, home, and expression in the literary arts and humanities. We see these events as leveraging and extending the impact of existing event series (Humanities Department Spotlight and Banned Books Week), while also drawing new audiences using book and sticker giveaways, free food, and direct solicitations to faculty members teaching courses connected to these topics. By bringing together a range of speculative fiction authors, comics scholars, and public humanities workers, these events aim to help SJSU’s students see potential pathways to career success, intellectual growth, and meaning-making in the humanities. We also hope to expose them to ways of making a home in the humanities–as an audience member, as a reader, and as a knowledge-worker.
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AEPGHomeSpring 2026J. Michael MartinezThursday, February 5 @ 6:30 PMCLA Reading Series 2025-26: Danzy SennaThe Center for Literary Arts respectfully requests an Artistic Excellence Programming Grant from the College of Humanities and the Arts of $12,000 to underwrite the costs of venues to present and promote our award-winning reading series.

We are requesting this increased amount to support a larger production as our reading series has a long history of drawing large audiences to the Hammer Theatre. The Hammer Theatre’s near campus/downtown location has long been established as the place CLA audiences can trust to present a quality event, accessible to all, and with convenient parking.

CLA is the South Bay’s premiere literary reading series through which it fulfills its mission to spread the influence of, and interest in, literature and to facilitate cross-cultural understanding through the appreciation of contemporary literature. Over the years, support from the AEPG has enabled us to present some of the country’s most decorated writers including Jonathan Franzen, Jhumpa Lahiri, Claudia Rankine, and Percival Everett. CLA was recently named a winner of a METRO Best of Sillicon Valley Award and has garnered praise from Mercury News. We pleased to have hosted back to back seasons of sold out or nearly sold out shows, giving audience near and far a vital arts experience. As our recent speaker author Carvell Wallace puts it: "The vibes are impeccable."

In the upcoming year, we are pleased to present a diverse cast of literary stars whose acclaimed works embolden us to re-imagine who we are and what we value and incite us to reconceptualize our contemporary lives in a way that is restorative and invigorating.

Louise Erdrich, Maxine Hong Kingston, Isabelle Allende, and Bernadette Evaristo—all best-selling and critically acclaimed authors whose work has been honored with the Booker Prize, the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Pulitzer Prize among other distinctions.

Each book speaks directly to the college’s themes of Home as in memoir and fiction characters consider how their idea of home contributes to their sense of identity and belonging, if not their place in the world. In each, the concept of home is by turns elusive, tenuous, dynamic, self-curated, and remarkably imaginative.

Louise Erdrich’s The Mighty Red is a tender hearted sweeping epic about natural forces, spiritual yearnings, and the tragic impact of uncontrollable circumstances on ordinary people’s lives.

Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Warrior Woman, is a classic in its innovative blend of autobiography and mythology and it portrays multiple and intersecting identities and the jarring clash of world and self.

In Isabelle Allenge’s The Wind Knows My Name, the lives of a Jewish boy escaping Nazi-occupied Europe and a mother and daughter fleeing twenty-first-century El Salvador intersect in this ambitious, intricate novel about war and immigration.

Bernadette Evaristo’s Girl Woman Other is a magnificent portrayal of the intersections of identity and a moving and hopeful story of an interconnected group of Black British women that paints a vivid portrait of the state of contemporary Britain and looks back to the legacy of Britain’s colonial history in Africa and the Caribbean.

The speakers we have the privelege to present represent everything we do at SJSU. CLA authors are diverse in terms of experience and artistic vision and their subjects are important both this period in our nation's history and to our students' educational development.

CLA programming has a powerful impact on the educational life of students from college freshman trying out their first creative writing course to graduate students revising their master’s theses. Students have the opportunity to meet and interview their literary heroes, write conference style essays, poetry busk, blog post, facilitate book discussions, learn to analyze a text creatively and critically, and become responsible literary citizens.

Through our many partnerships—both on campus and in the community—CLA embraces the collaborative spirit of the AEPG award. In the upcoming year we look forward to working with new collaborators including MOSAIC and Spartan Speaker Series to offer a more vibrant and robust presentation.

CLA is very grateful for the longtime support of the College of Humanities and the Art and would be honored to continue this partnership in the future. Thank you for your kind consideration of this proposal.		Hammer4 Theatrejmichael.martinez@sjsu.eduEnglish & Comparative Literature
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AEPGHomeSpring 2026J. Michael MartinezThursday, February 19 @ 6:30 PMCLA Reading Series 2025-26: Venita BlackburnThe Center for Literary Arts respectfully requests an Artistic Excellence Programming Grant from the College of Humanities and the Arts of $12,000 to underwrite the costs of venues to present and promote our award-winning reading series.

We are requesting this increased amount to support a larger production as our reading series has a long history of drawing large audiences to the Hammer Theatre. The Hammer Theatre’s near campus/downtown location has long been established as the place CLA audiences can trust to present a quality event, accessible to all, and with convenient parking.

CLA is the South Bay’s premiere literary reading series through which it fulfills its mission to spread the influence of, and interest in, literature and to facilitate cross-cultural understanding through the appreciation of contemporary literature. Over the years, support from the AEPG has enabled us to present some of the country’s most decorated writers including Jonathan Franzen, Jhumpa Lahiri, Claudia Rankine, and Percival Everett. CLA was recently named a winner of a METRO Best of Sillicon Valley Award and has garnered praise from Mercury News. We pleased to have hosted back to back seasons of sold out or nearly sold out shows, giving audience near and far a vital arts experience. As our recent speaker author Carvell Wallace puts it: "The vibes are impeccable."

In the upcoming year, we are pleased to present a diverse cast of literary stars whose acclaimed works embolden us to re-imagine who we are and what we value and incite us to reconceptualize our contemporary lives in a way that is restorative and invigorating.

Louise Erdrich, Maxine Hong Kingston, Isabelle Allende, and Bernadette Evaristo—all best-selling and critically acclaimed authors whose work has been honored with the Booker Prize, the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Pulitzer Prize among other distinctions.

Each book speaks directly to the college’s themes of Home as in memoir and fiction characters consider how their idea of home contributes to their sense of identity and belonging, if not their place in the world. In each, the concept of home is by turns elusive, tenuous, dynamic, self-curated, and remarkably imaginative.

Louise Erdrich’s The Mighty Red is a tender hearted sweeping epic about natural forces, spiritual yearnings, and the tragic impact of uncontrollable circumstances on ordinary people’s lives.

Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Warrior Woman, is a classic in its innovative blend of autobiography and mythology and it portrays multiple and intersecting identities and the jarring clash of world and self.

In Isabelle Allenge’s The Wind Knows My Name, the lives of a Jewish boy escaping Nazi-occupied Europe and a mother and daughter fleeing twenty-first-century El Salvador intersect in this ambitious, intricate novel about war and immigration.

Bernadette Evaristo’s Girl Woman Other is a magnificent portrayal of the intersections of identity and a moving and hopeful story of an interconnected group of Black British women that paints a vivid portrait of the state of contemporary Britain and looks back to the legacy of Britain’s colonial history in Africa and the Caribbean.

The speakers we have the privelege to present represent everything we do at SJSU. CLA authors are diverse in terms of experience and artistic vision and their subjects are important both this period in our nation's history and to our students' educational development.

CLA programming has a powerful impact on the educational life of students from college freshman trying out their first creative writing course to graduate students revising their master’s theses. Students have the opportunity to meet and interview their literary heroes, write conference style essays, poetry busk, blog post, facilitate book discussions, learn to analyze a text creatively and critically, and become responsible literary citizens.

Through our many partnerships—both on campus and in the community—CLA embraces the collaborative spirit of the AEPG award. In the upcoming year we look forward to working with new collaborators including MOSAIC and Spartan Speaker Series to offer a more vibrant and robust presentation.

CLA is very grateful for the longtime support of the College of Humanities and the Art and would be honored to continue this partnership in the future. Thank you for your kind consideration of this proposal.		Hammer4 Theatrejmichael.martinez@sjsu.eduEnglish & Comparative Literature
52
AEPGHomeSpring 2026Brook McClurgFeburary, 12-2pmPop-up Event: Long Story Short: A Community-Activated Exploration of Home through Abbreviated FormsThe VISION
Long Story Short aims to activate, spotlight and articulate experiences of home through the creation of short-form works of art. Collaborating across four creative disciplines–literature, theater, visual art, and film–this project seeks to engage a wide range of participants in a multidisciplinary conversation on the power of brevity.

WHY SHORT FORMS?
For novices, the brief approach can often present a casual entry into arts that they otherwise might not be used to practicing. By foregrounding this low-barrier to entry, our project hopes to make art creation accessible to all. This will promote enrollment in creative classes and teach students artistic practices. Though short forms have a long history (in literature alone, dating back to Aphorisms of Hericlitus, or the works of Sei Shonagun), they have proliferated in recent years due at least in part to changes in technology.

Why Home?
By using this year’s theme of home as the basis of our prompts for these events, we will offer a tangible way for a broad audience to participate. In my creative writing classes, I often use a broad thematic prompt as a way in to the specific craft challenge that I am asking them to undertake. In this case, we would use brief directed prompts that ask participants to interpret home through the abbreviated forms. Additionally, our Haiku Review activity will enable students to send a dispatch home in a fun, no-cost-to-them way.

The Events:
Workshop 1: In Literature – Short Prose Forms
From prose poems and brief essays to the latest Flash craze, the short form has a long and vibrant legacy.

Workshop 2: On the Stage – The Two-Minute Play
Codified by The Neo-Futurists, the two-minute play structure ascribes to “tenets of honesty, brevity, and transformation.”

Workshop 3 : In Visual Arts – Envisioning the Mini Zine
The zine’s simplest form is rooted in amateur publishing and artist’s books of the early 20th century; the mini zine is made of a single sheet of folded paper.

Workshop 4 : In Film – The Short Film
From the earliest works, to the boom of the nineties, short films continue to be a prized form.

Culminating event: 2026 Long Story Short Festival
Celebrating work made by students, faculty, and community members at the various workshops. Part exhibit, part performance, this event will also feature a keynote speaker (Dinty Moore, Lydia Davis or Sarah Manguso, all known for brief work, would be our preferred speakers.)


This proposal also includes:

-Four events on 7th Paseo Plaza in conjunction with Reed Magazine (as lead up to the workshop) in which anyone can make a short form project.
-Our Haiku Review project provides our lowest barrier of entry. A pre-stamped postcard that asks students to send a Haiku home, via prompt on the card.
-Experimentation in our classrooms: Students enrolled in Engl 71,133, 135, and 242, Art 181 and 15 already discuss short forms. This should be equally applicable to courses in Film, Theatre, and Communication, which we can better speak to as we solidify their participation.
Come to Long Story Short, a series of four hands-on, interactive workshops in short-form art making! Today’s theme is Short Prose. From short stories to prose poems and brief essays, to the latest Flash craze, the short form is here to stay, likely caused as much by our increased lack of free time as to our tendencies to read more on digital devices, where shorter works are a necessity. You will craft your own short prose in this workshop that can be shared in our spring short works festival.7th Street Paseo Plazabrook.mcclurg@sjsu.eduEnglish & Comparative LiteratureVisual Arts - Carla Fisher Schwartz, Assistant Professor
English -Noelle GM Gibbs (Graduate student in English with professional background in theater)
Shrunkenmanhead Club - Henry Long (Club President, Animation Illustration Student)
Visual Art Student - TBD (Carla has asked that we hold one student partner spot for one of her art students. She has several in mind and will choose one if this project is funded.)

Though we already have a commitment from our partners in short form animation, Shrunkenheadman Club (500 members strong!), we’re still seeking partners for short films (non-animated) and potentially Communications (which overlaps with theatre and film here). In pursuit of this we have also reached out to Matthew Spangler in Theatre and Communications.		Educational
This proposal is purposefully prepared in a fashion so that it might best reach a large number of students, be approachable for the community, and instill our student collaborators with career-building and leadership skills necessary to explore their next professional steps. Each of these workshops are designed to be experiential and inclusive with a low barrier to participation. The theme of that actual work, Home, easily applies to all who’d want to be involved.

The diversity of disciplines involved in our proposal, combined with its experiential approach, encourages many different learning styles in a variety of modes of artistic expression. We further hope to educate students and our community members on the ways in which meaningful artistic experiences and creation can be fit into their daily lives.
Further, our hope here is to educate students and the community about the artistic pleasure and value that can be found in short forms. There was a time not too long ago, when short films were not recognized as their own genre. Now everybody knows what they are and some seek out these small pleasures where they can find them. By showcasing these constraints within different mediums we will demonstrate to students that powerful art can be made in small packages.

Finally, this project will help both of our student facilitators who will gain practical work experience in helping to put on these events. For one of our students from the Art Department (yet to be named by Carla, though she has a few students in mind), they will gain valuable experience learning how to support and promote artistic events. While for Noelle Gibbs, our graduate student in English who also has professional experience in producing stageplays, she will gain experience doing so within a university setting and with university parameters. Since she hopes to eventually teach both Theatre and Creative Writing at the college level–and indeed, she sees her particular specialty as the intersection of these two disciplines– the ability to lead her own workshop for our proposed theater event will be meaningful. I believe having this student lead one of the workshops as well as help with the others, will be meaningful to both their experience as a graduate student and their professional life after.

ARTISTIC
One of the things that short forms engender—regardless of the discipline—is an easier point of entry for those who might not typically be interested in art or stage plays, or literature. I offer anecdotally that I’ve had many students who felt intimidated by book-length works who are ignited by the possibilities of literature after being moved by short form works.

Since each of these workshops and lectures is envisioned as participatory, where the audience is encouraged to engage and take their hand in creating the art object in discussion, they will have a more embodied experience of the creation project.

COMMUNITY
While most of our efforts thus far have been toward defining the parameters of this project and making the necessary cross-disciplinary connections, we do intend to make efforts to involve the local community as well. As an educator that has routinely engaged in community-based workshops, both at SJSU and my prior institutions, I believe these events will be bettered with community involvement and will work toward those ends.

This grant proposal is premised on the ideas of artistic creation being important and valuable experiences for all. This year’s theme, combined with our use of approachable artistic practices and experiential learning, can hopefully combine to make a successful year of artistic creation. By reclaiming brevity as depth, we hope to unlock short-form antidotes to loneliness and a way to share our sense of home through art.
53
AEPGHomeSpring 2026Brook McClurgFeburary, 5-6pmWorkshop: Long Story Short: A Community-Activated Exploration of Home through Abbreviated FormsThe VISION
Long Story Short aims to activate, spotlight and articulate experiences of home through the creation of short-form works of art. Collaborating across four creative disciplines–literature, theater, visual art, and film–this project seeks to engage a wide range of participants in a multidisciplinary conversation on the power of brevity.

WHY SHORT FORMS?
For novices, the brief approach can often present a casual entry into arts that they otherwise might not be used to practicing. By foregrounding this low-barrier to entry, our project hopes to make art creation accessible to all. This will promote enrollment in creative classes and teach students artistic practices. Though short forms have a long history (in literature alone, dating back to Aphorisms of Hericlitus, or the works of Sei Shonagun), they have proliferated in recent years due at least in part to changes in technology.

Why Home?
By using this year’s theme of home as the basis of our prompts for these events, we will offer a tangible way for a broad audience to participate. In my creative writing classes, I often use a broad thematic prompt as a way in to the specific craft challenge that I am asking them to undertake. In this case, we would use brief directed prompts that ask participants to interpret home through the abbreviated forms. Additionally, our Haiku Review activity will enable students to send a dispatch home in a fun, no-cost-to-them way.

The Events:
Workshop 1: In Literature – Short Prose Forms
From prose poems and brief essays to the latest Flash craze, the short form has a long and vibrant legacy.

Workshop 2: On the Stage – The Two-Minute Play
Codified by The Neo-Futurists, the two-minute play structure ascribes to “tenets of honesty, brevity, and transformation.”

Workshop 3 : In Visual Arts – Envisioning the Mini Zine
The zine’s simplest form is rooted in amateur publishing and artist’s books of the early 20th century; the mini zine is made of a single sheet of folded paper.

Workshop 4 : In Film – The Short Film
From the earliest works, to the boom of the nineties, short films continue to be a prized form.

Culminating event: 2026 Long Story Short Festival
Celebrating work made by students, faculty, and community members at the various workshops. Part exhibit, part performance, this event will also feature a keynote speaker (Dinty Moore, Lydia Davis or Sarah Manguso, all known for brief work, would be our preferred speakers.)


This proposal also includes:

-Four events on 7th Paseo Plaza in conjunction with Reed Magazine (as lead up to the workshop) in which anyone can make a short form project.
-Our Haiku Review project provides our lowest barrier of entry. A pre-stamped postcard that asks students to send a Haiku home, via prompt on the card.
-Experimentation in our classrooms: Students enrolled in Engl 71,133, 135, and 242, Art 181 and 15 already discuss short forms. This should be equally applicable to courses in Film, Theatre, and Communication, which we can better speak to as we solidify their participation.
Come to Long Story Short, a series of four hands-on, interactive workshops in short-form art making! Today’s theme is the Mini Zine. Rooted in the amateur publishing and artist’s books of the early 20th century, the zine (short for fan magazine) emerged in the 1930s as a means to share fandom across genres like science fiction and music. Made of a single sheet of folded paper, the minizine is the zine’s simplest form, while still allowing for endless expressive and experimental variations. In this workshop, we will use the Risograph printer, the latest technological addition to the world of self-publishing, to create mini zines based on (flash fiction / personal interests / local issues). You will craft your own short prose in this workshop that can be shared in our spring short works festival.MLK 225brook.mcclurg@sjsu.eduEnglish & Comparative LiteratureVisual Arts - Carla Fisher Schwartz, Assistant Professor
English -Noelle GM Gibbs (Graduate student in English with professional background in theater)
Shrunkenmanhead Club - Henry Long (Club President, Animation Illustration Student)
Visual Art Student - TBD (Carla has asked that we hold one student partner spot for one of her art students. She has several in mind and will choose one if this project is funded.)

Though we already have a commitment from our partners in short form animation, Shrunkenheadman Club (500 members strong!), we’re still seeking partners for short films (non-animated) and potentially Communications (which overlaps with theatre and film here). In pursuit of this we have also reached out to Matthew Spangler in Theatre and Communications.		Educational
This proposal is purposefully prepared in a fashion so that it might best reach a large number of students, be approachable for the community, and instill our student collaborators with career-building and leadership skills necessary to explore their next professional steps. Each of these workshops are designed to be experiential and inclusive with a low barrier to participation. The theme of that actual work, Home, easily applies to all who’d want to be involved.

The diversity of disciplines involved in our proposal, combined with its experiential approach, encourages many different learning styles in a variety of modes of artistic expression. We further hope to educate students and our community members on the ways in which meaningful artistic experiences and creation can be fit into their daily lives.
Further, our hope here is to educate students and the community about the artistic pleasure and value that can be found in short forms. There was a time not too long ago, when short films were not recognized as their own genre. Now everybody knows what they are and some seek out these small pleasures where they can find them. By showcasing these constraints within different mediums we will demonstrate to students that powerful art can be made in small packages.

Finally, this project will help both of our student facilitators who will gain practical work experience in helping to put on these events. For one of our students from the Art Department (yet to be named by Carla, though she has a few students in mind), they will gain valuable experience learning how to support and promote artistic events. While for Noelle Gibbs, our graduate student in English who also has professional experience in producing stageplays, she will gain experience doing so within a university setting and with university parameters. Since she hopes to eventually teach both Theatre and Creative Writing at the college level–and indeed, she sees her particular specialty as the intersection of these two disciplines– the ability to lead her own workshop for our proposed theater event will be meaningful. I believe having this student lead one of the workshops as well as help with the others, will be meaningful to both their experience as a graduate student and their professional life after.

ARTISTIC
One of the things that short forms engender—regardless of the discipline—is an easier point of entry for those who might not typically be interested in art or stage plays, or literature. I offer anecdotally that I’ve had many students who felt intimidated by book-length works who are ignited by the possibilities of literature after being moved by short form works.

Since each of these workshops and lectures is envisioned as participatory, where the audience is encouraged to engage and take their hand in creating the art object in discussion, they will have a more embodied experience of the creation project.

COMMUNITY
While most of our efforts thus far have been toward defining the parameters of this project and making the necessary cross-disciplinary connections, we do intend to make efforts to involve the local community as well. As an educator that has routinely engaged in community-based workshops, both at SJSU and my prior institutions, I believe these events will be bettered with community involvement and will work toward those ends.

This grant proposal is premised on the ideas of artistic creation being important and valuable experiences for all. This year’s theme, combined with our use of approachable artistic practices and experiential learning, can hopefully combine to make a successful year of artistic creation. By reclaiming brevity as depth, we hope to unlock short-form antidotes to loneliness and a way to share our sense of home through art.
54
AEPGHomeSpring 2026David MalinowskiFeburaryWorkshop: Translate San JosĂ©Translate San JosĂ© will support SJSU students, faculty, and community members in re-imagining the city through the lens of linguistic landscape—that is, the presence and use of diverse languages in San José’s public places. Over the 2025-2026 academic year, this project will convene a year-long learning community of SJSU classes across disciplines including Linguistics, World Languages, Teacher Education, Communication, Information Studies, and Urban Studies, with the goal of fostering student-led projects in dialogue with campus partners, community organizations, and local government offices. At the same time, it will invite student groups, guest speakers, and faculty to lead a series of five workshops and presentations over two semesters. In April 2026, the Translate San JosĂ© project will culminate in a month-long on-campus exhibition of student work and a final event for students and faculty to showcase their achievements, with the aim of imagining possible futures for language representation in the neighborhoods, cities, and the region we call home.


As evidenced in the first word of the project’s title, Translate San JosĂ© aims to cultivate a rich community of learning, discussion, and practice within a paradigm of translation. Although translation is often assumed to refer to a mechanical substitution of one linguistic form for another—and in a world where AI translation tools automate and hide the work of navigating differences in thought and expression—Translate San JosĂ© offers another possibility. Participants in this project will engage in translation as:
--- a tool for discovery of the uniqueness of every expression in time, place, and purpose, as students document, discuss, and attempt to translate instances of English displayed in public places into other languages, while doing the same for Spanish, Vietnamese, Tamil, Mandarin, and other languages of San José;
--- a metaphor for building new historical, cultural, and other knowledges about relationships with other people, the world, and its texts, as students investigate our region’s histories of migration, growth, conflict, and change, as a way to deepen and contextualize their translations;
--- an active engagement with the politics of visibility, audibility, and other forms of presence in shared spaces, as translation both defamiliarizes the familiar, and calls attention to the unseen scripts and unheard voices in our midst.

As project coordinator, I will collaborate with SJSU faculty (beginning with those who are named below) in an online learning community to diversify and develop a corpus of relevant lessons and activities, while exchanging practices and approaches for learning in our different contexts. Meanwhile, the students themselves will have access to a shared learning space across classrooms, where they will be able to dialogue and learn from one another over the course of the two semesters. To the practical concern of realizing these pedagogical aims, the course that I developed and taught in Fall 2024, LLD 230 “Linguistic Landscape: Multilingualism and Education in Public Space” provides a substantial foundation.
What would the city of San JosĂ© look like if you didn’t see or hear any English? What stories do the street names, restaurant signs, school murals, and street art tell about our city’s histories of migration, development, and change? What futures could you imagine if you saw San JosĂ© through the lens of Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Hindi and any of the other 100+ languages of Santa Clara County? Come see visions of our city translated by SJSU students in Linguistics, World Languages, Teacher Education, Communication, Information Studies, and Urban Studies, together with community partners
[to be continued; I wanted to lead with the hook]
Digial Humanities Center and the Institute for Metropolitan Studiesdavid.malinowski@sjsu.eduLinguistics & Language DevelopmentInvitations have been sent to a small number of student groups, cultural centers (including the MOSAIC Cross Cultural Center, learning support centers, and academic institutes on campus to facilitate one or more of the planned workshops for the project. At the time of submission of this application, I have heard confirmation of interest from those named below.

SJSU Responsible Computing Club: I heard back positively from Shannon Lo, Vice President of External Affairs, regarding an invitation to facilitate a workshop “exploring the possibilities and limitations of using AI for translating place names and other features of our local San JosĂ© environment that are historically and culturally unique”. VP Lo’s reply highlighted that the RCC “would love to provide a diverse group of students—spanning different backgrounds, majors, and technical expertise—to help tackle this project from multiple angles.”

SJSU Writing Center: I heard back positively from Michelle Hager, Director, and Amy Russo, Coordinator of Multilingual Writing Support Services, with an invitation to lead a workshop on translation and writing, aimed especially at the needs and strengths of SJSU’s multilingual student writers.

Institute for Metropolitan Studies: I heard back positively from Gordon Douglas, Director, regarding an invitation to collaborate on hosting workshops, as well as developing resources for place-based learning activities and geospatial representation technologies to support Translate San José programming. Prof. Douglas indicated that the IMS would be willing to support and/or co-sponsor any of the events for the project.


The following SJSU faculty have expressed interest in co-designing or developing activities that address their classes’ curricular needs, while embracing the theme of translation in the San JosĂ© linguistic landscape; and/or facilitating student participation in the project with activities developed by others.

Department of Linguistics and Language Development

Richard Abend, Lecturer Faculty
Effie Chiu, Lecturer Faculty
Stefan Frazier, Professor and Chair
Reiko Kataoka, Lecturer Faculty
Scott Phillabaum, Associate Professor
Clare Sandy, Lecturer Faculty
Julia Swan, Associate Professor

Department of Urban and Regional Planning

Gordon Douglas, Associate Professor and Director, Institute for Metropolitan Studies

Department of World Languages and Literatures

Romey Sabalius, Professor in German and Chair
Damian Bacich, Professor in Spanish (teaches courses for the Translation and Interpretation Certificate)
Françoise Herrmann, Lecturer in French
Michiko Uryu, Assistant Professor (teaches courses for the Translation and Interpretation Certificate)
Cheyla Samuelson, Associate Professor of Spanish

Lurie College of Education

Eduardo Muñoz-Muñoz, Associate Professor in Teacher Education, Critical Bilingual Authorization Program

School of Information

Souvick Ghosh, Assistant Professor and Co-PI, Cross-Campus Interdisciplinary Responsible Computing Learning Experience (CIRCLE) Project

Additional invitations to several other faculty in other colleges and department are pending; I would highlight in particular one sent to Professor Anne Marie Todd (Dean of College of Social Sciences & Professor in Communication Studies), who gave a guest lecture in my Fall 2024 LLD 230 “Linguistic Landscape” course, and has expressed interest in ongoing collaboration on the topic.. Prof. Todd is away until early March.

In addition to the confirmed partnerships I have mentioned above, I have had substantive exchanges with the following individuals or offices in the City of San José and County of Santa Clara. Pending successful funding of the project, I will follow up with each.
Office of Betty Duong, Santa Clara County Supervisor, District 2 - Supervisor Duong is, among other things, responsible for the creation and development of the County’s Language Access Unit, which promotes linguistic equity and justice in the county through a variety of measures. She had agreed in principle to visit with my LLD 230 “Linguistic Landscape” course in Fall 2024, but the November General Election precluded this from taking place.
Leila Doty, Privacy & AI Analyst, City of San José
As symbolized in the imperative (“Translate!”) in this project’s title, Translate San JosĂ© proposes to engage students, faculty, and other participants in collaborative processes of thought, imagination, dialogue and action across a range of differences (e.g., language, culture, and identity), all while grounding their individual experiences at SJSU in larger understandings of the places they call “home.” Resonating with the first SJSU University Learning Outcome, Social and Global Responsibilities (see below), this project is at its core about “responsibility” in the sense of cultivating a visceral, nuanced, and critical sense that our words have histories and tangible effects on others; they are materially present in our bodies and in the world; they have power to bring people together or to alienate, and it is up to us to use them well.


Through dialog with students in other disciplines, faculty, and community stakeholders, students will gain an appreciation for the importance of context, history, and the power of representation as they interpret and design messages meant for varied audiences in public places—that is, the linguistic landscape. Through the series of 5 workshops, students and other SJSU participants will gain hands-on experience with the cultural, emotional, and political relevance of translation and all language work in their future vocations. And through reflection on the diversity of expression of their schools, neighborhoods, workplaces, and other familiar places, it is hoped that students will develop a richer, more nuanced perspectives on the notion of “home.”


Notes
—------
University Learning Outcome #1: “Social and Global Responsibilities. An ability to consider the purpose and function of one’s degree program training within various local and/or global social contexts and to act intentionally, conscientiously, and ethically with attention to diversity and inclusion”. https://www.sjsu.edu/admissions/about-us/learning-outcomes.php


55
AEPGHomeSpring 2026Eleanor Pries & Virginia San FratelloFeburaryWorkshop: Waste to Wonder: Home GoodsWaste to Wonder: Home Goods
Sustainable Luxury in Home Goods from Recycled and Thrifted Resources
AEPG Project Leads: Virginia San Fratello, Eleanor Pries

Summary:
AEPG Waste to Wonder unites sustainability, creativity, and business acumen into student entrepreneurship for home decor. In this series, students creatively and collaboratively repurpose found objects and recycled materials into fun and fashionable home goods. Participants prepare strategic business plans for their home goods, to be exhibited, auctioned, and sold at a regional-scale Bay Area public craft event.

Event Total: 7
Total Participant Estimate: 500
Experts: Fletta Design Group, Simon Zsolt Jozsef, Virginia San Fratello
Integrated Courses: H&A 80, DSGN 127, DSIT 107/108/ 110, ART 132/134, BUS 182/183

1. Project Description:

From Waste to Wonder: Home Goods focuses on circular design and craftsmanship, transforming everyday discarded materials into unique, high-value products for the home. Our approach to this process is playful, yet critical of pressing issues around consumption and waste, while embracing the potential of new viable economies in reuse and upcycled goods. We will host three workshops with professional designers who bring expertise to our students to help them create products from local recycled materials that can then be sold in local retail and craft fairs and online. The products and objects will be meaningful, expressive, and delightful and are intended to bring increased functionality and joy into the home. The workshops will include SJSU design and art students, faculty, and staff as well as students and faculty in the Lurie College of Business. During the workshops, Business students will team with design students. Together, the teams will strategize and brand the home goods to produce beautiful, functional, and commercially-viable products, aligned with real customer needs.

2. Waste to Wonder: Detailed Events Program:

Events: 3 Student Workshops, 2 Public Lectures, 1 SJSU Gallery Exhibition, 1 Final Exhibition: Renegade Craft Fair, San Francisco

Student Workshop 1: Fall of 2025: Designing and fabricating domestic objects out of waste materials that can be found in common thrift stores. Examples of such discarded items include denim jeans, trophies, furniture, books, etc... These preloved materials will be transformed into new home goods by approximately 50 students in Design and Art courses. Our workshop guests will be Birta Brynjólfsdóttir and Hrefna Sigurðardóttir from Flétta Studio, award winning product designers in Iceland who use recycled material in their work. Collaboration includes ~150 students in BUS 182 (Dr. Quan).

Public Design Dialogues Lecture #1. Flétta Studio. Moderated by SJSU Design and Business students

Student Workshop 2: Spring 2026: 24 design and art students will learn from Simon Zsolt JĂłzsef, award-winning Hungarian ceramicist. Students develop custom molds for creating domestic objects out of recycled clay. This workshop may be coordinated with Art 132/134. Collaboration includes ~75 students in BUS 182 (Dr. Quan).

Public Design Dialogues Lecture #2. Zsolt. Moderated by SJSU Design and Business students

Student Workshop 3: Spring 2026: 24 students in DSIT 108 will work with Instructor Eleanor Pries and expert Virginia San Fratello, to create 3D printed light fixtures using recycled bioplastics. Collaboration includes ~75 students in BUS 182 (Dr. Quan).

Collaboration and Integration with Business: Detail

During all workshops, Design / Art students will be teamed with Business students from SJSU’s entrepreneurship program (BUS 182/183) to conduct market research, prepare feasibility study, pricing strategies, branding, and develop a plan to share with industry professionals. Typical enrollment in BUS 182/183 is 150 students per semester, teamed with approximately 50 Design students per semester. Select motivated student teams will apply for the SJSU ZinnStarter startup program in January 2027, to compete for start-up funding for their home good product and brand.

Public Final Event and Exhibition:

The final event is a craft fair experience with regional scale. Students will show and sell their Waste to Wonder pieces at the Renegade Craft Fair at Fort Mason in San Francisco. With a mission to grow creative marketplaces, Renegade Craft Fair is a curated fair, operating since 2003, with venues in Chicago, Brooklyn, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and Seattle. The fair experience is robust and lively, artists, designers, and buyers show off their work, discuss their process, and negotiate sales. The fair sees almost 300,000 visitors each year and will be a great opportunity for our students to test the marketability of their designs, and showcase SJSU in a regional, public venue. The SF fair is November 1-2, 2026. Students will collaborate with Marjan Khatibi for custom graphic design and branding for their products. At SJSU, students will showcase their creations at the SJSU Design Gallery. Additionally, through coordination with SJSU’s University House, several pieces may be auctioned off or exhibited in University House. Post fair, the Design x Business student teams will assess the performance of their Wonders and tweak their product proposals before applying for the ZinnStarter startup program the following semester.

Active Engagement:

Our Waste to Wonder: Home Goods event series contains several levels of active engagement for students. The three creative workshops are multi-day events with developed creative work, detailed design, hands-on fabrication, and collaborative business planning among the students and the guest experts. Students will prepare for the public lectures, introduce the speakers, and moderate the discussion. The exhibition of the Wonders at the Design Gallery and University House will involve student set up and preparation. The final exhibition at the Renegade Craft Fair is a dynamic event where the creators (students) and the public will connect, discuss, admire, and negotiate.

ON VIEW and FOR SALE: Waste to Wonders!
Calling all you Thrifters, Home Decorators, Art Lovers, DIY mavens, Scavengers, Garbage Bandits, and Trash Pandas! Come shop for chic, up-cycled home goods. SJSU students are showing and selling their custom-designed and sustainably-sourced home wares at the annual Renegade Craft Fair at San Francisco’s Fort Mason Center, November 1-2, 2026.

Supported by the College of Humanities & the Arts’ Artistic Excellence Programming Grant
eleanor.pries@sjsu.eduDesignWaste to Wonder is a collaboration between Interior Design and Business Entrepreneurship, coordinated through Project Leads Virginia San Fratello, Eleanor Pries, Iris Quan and Nancy Da Silva. Multiple additional faculty from Design and Art have agreed to participate:

Dr. "Iris" Xiaohong Quan, Ph.D., Business
Nancy Da Silva, Business
SJSU University House
Leila Ensaniat, Design
Marjan Khatibi, Design
Marta Elliott, Design
Adam Shiverdecker, Art
Alena Sauzade, Art		Student learning and audience engagement impacts will center on either sustainable materials and upcycled crafts, or business innovation and entrepreneurship.

From Waste to Wonder: Home Goods will focus on circular design and craftsmanship, transforming everyday discarded materials into unique, high-value products for the home. By using and adapting waste and recycled content, we aim to suggest new modes of home goods consumption and build entrepreneurial spirit. Together, the teams will strategize and brand the home good Wonders to produce beautiful, functional, and commercially-viable products, aligned with real customer needs. This collaboration will help students bridge the gap between creativity and practical application within innovative upcycled product development.

Sustainability
Waste to Wonder: Home Goods is a creative and collaborative series to address consumption, waste stream, and environmental concerns. By reimagining and giving new use to discarded items and recycled materials, students and the public learn and see how to proactively reduce the need for new raw materials and the demand on natural resources. This practice not only minimizes waste that would otherwise end up in landfills, but also encourages a more conscious and viable approach to both product design and consumption. Transforming waste into functional and aesthetic objects infuses a home with unique, personalized decor while reducing the carbon footprint associated with mass-produced goods. Moreover, it fosters a culture of mindful design, where utility and beauty come together to create innovative solutions for everyday living.
56
AEPGHomeSpring 2026Eleanor Pries & Virginia San FratelloFeburary/MarchPublic Lecture: Waste to Wonder: Home GoodsWaste to Wonder: Home Goods
Sustainable Luxury in Home Goods from Recycled and Thrifted Resources
AEPG Project Leads: Virginia San Fratello, Eleanor Pries

Summary:
AEPG Waste to Wonder unites sustainability, creativity, and business acumen into student entrepreneurship for home decor. In this series, students creatively and collaboratively repurpose found objects and recycled materials into fun and fashionable home goods. Participants prepare strategic business plans for their home goods, to be exhibited, auctioned, and sold at a regional-scale Bay Area public craft event.

Event Total: 7
Total Participant Estimate: 500
Experts: Fletta Design Group, Simon Zsolt Jozsef, Virginia San Fratello
Integrated Courses: H&A 80, DSGN 127, DSIT 107/108/ 110, ART 132/134, BUS 182/183

1. Project Description:

From Waste to Wonder: Home Goods focuses on circular design and craftsmanship, transforming everyday discarded materials into unique, high-value products for the home. Our approach to this process is playful, yet critical of pressing issues around consumption and waste, while embracing the potential of new viable economies in reuse and upcycled goods. We will host three workshops with professional designers who bring expertise to our students to help them create products from local recycled materials that can then be sold in local retail and craft fairs and online. The products and objects will be meaningful, expressive, and delightful and are intended to bring increased functionality and joy into the home. The workshops will include SJSU design and art students, faculty, and staff as well as students and faculty in the Lurie College of Business. During the workshops, Business students will team with design students. Together, the teams will strategize and brand the home goods to produce beautiful, functional, and commercially-viable products, aligned with real customer needs.

2. Waste to Wonder: Detailed Events Program:

Events: 3 Student Workshops, 2 Public Lectures, 1 SJSU Gallery Exhibition, 1 Final Exhibition: Renegade Craft Fair, San Francisco

Student Workshop 1: Fall of 2025: Designing and fabricating domestic objects out of waste materials that can be found in common thrift stores. Examples of such discarded items include denim jeans, trophies, furniture, books, etc... These preloved materials will be transformed into new home goods by approximately 50 students in Design and Art courses. Our workshop guests will be Birta Brynjólfsdóttir and Hrefna Sigurðardóttir from Flétta Studio, award winning product designers in Iceland who use recycled material in their work. Collaboration includes ~150 students in BUS 182 (Dr. Quan).

Public Design Dialogues Lecture #1. Flétta Studio. Moderated by SJSU Design and Business students

Student Workshop 2: Spring 2026: 24 design and art students will learn from Simon Zsolt JĂłzsef, award-winning Hungarian ceramicist. Students develop custom molds for creating domestic objects out of recycled clay. This workshop may be coordinated with Art 132/134. Collaboration includes ~75 students in BUS 182 (Dr. Quan).

Public Design Dialogues Lecture #2. Zsolt. Moderated by SJSU Design and Business students

Student Workshop 3: Spring 2026: 24 students in DSIT 108 will work with Instructor Eleanor Pries and expert Virginia San Fratello, to create 3D printed light fixtures using recycled bioplastics. Collaboration includes ~75 students in BUS 182 (Dr. Quan).

Collaboration and Integration with Business: Detail

During all workshops, Design / Art students will be teamed with Business students from SJSU’s entrepreneurship program (BUS 182/183) to conduct market research, prepare feasibility study, pricing strategies, branding, and develop a plan to share with industry professionals. Typical enrollment in BUS 182/183 is 150 students per semester, teamed with approximately 50 Design students per semester. Select motivated student teams will apply for the SJSU ZinnStarter startup program in January 2027, to compete for start-up funding for their home good product and brand.

Public Final Event and Exhibition:

The final event is a craft fair experience with regional scale. Students will show and sell their Waste to Wonder pieces at the Renegade Craft Fair at Fort Mason in San Francisco. With a mission to grow creative marketplaces, Renegade Craft Fair is a curated fair, operating since 2003, with venues in Chicago, Brooklyn, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and Seattle. The fair experience is robust and lively, artists, designers, and buyers show off their work, discuss their process, and negotiate sales. The fair sees almost 300,000 visitors each year and will be a great opportunity for our students to test the marketability of their designs, and showcase SJSU in a regional, public venue. The SF fair is November 1-2, 2026. Students will collaborate with Marjan Khatibi for custom graphic design and branding for their products. At SJSU, students will showcase their creations at the SJSU Design Gallery. Additionally, through coordination with SJSU’s University House, several pieces may be auctioned off or exhibited in University House. Post fair, the Design x Business student teams will assess the performance of their Wonders and tweak their product proposals before applying for the ZinnStarter startup program the following semester.

Active Engagement:

Our Waste to Wonder: Home Goods event series contains several levels of active engagement for students. The three creative workshops are multi-day events with developed creative work, detailed design, hands-on fabrication, and collaborative business planning among the students and the guest experts. Students will prepare for the public lectures, introduce the speakers, and moderate the discussion. The exhibition of the Wonders at the Design Gallery and University House will involve student set up and preparation. The final exhibition at the Renegade Craft Fair is a dynamic event where the creators (students) and the public will connect, discuss, admire, and negotiate.

ON VIEW and FOR SALE: Waste to Wonders!
Calling all you Thrifters, Home Decorators, Art Lovers, DIY mavens, Scavengers, Garbage Bandits, and Trash Pandas! Come shop for chic, up-cycled home goods. SJSU students are showing and selling their custom-designed and sustainably-sourced home wares at the annual Renegade Craft Fair at San Francisco’s Fort Mason Center, November 1-2, 2026.

Supported by the College of Humanities & the Arts’ Artistic Excellence Programming Grant
eleanor.pries@sjsu.eduDesignWaste to Wonder is a collaboration between Interior Design and Business Entrepreneurship, coordinated through Project Leads Virginia San Fratello, Eleanor Pries, Iris Quan and Nancy Da Silva. Multiple additional faculty from Design and Art have agreed to participate:

Dr. "Iris" Xiaohong Quan, Ph.D., Business
Nancy Da Silva, Business
SJSU University House
Leila Ensaniat, Design
Marjan Khatibi, Design
Marta Elliott, Design
Adam Shiverdecker, Art
Alena Sauzade, Art		Student learning and audience engagement impacts will center on either sustainable materials and upcycled crafts, or business innovation and entrepreneurship.

From Waste to Wonder: Home Goods will focus on circular design and craftsmanship, transforming everyday discarded materials into unique, high-value products for the home. By using and adapting waste and recycled content, we aim to suggest new modes of home goods consumption and build entrepreneurial spirit. Together, the teams will strategize and brand the home good Wonders to produce beautiful, functional, and commercially-viable products, aligned with real customer needs. This collaboration will help students bridge the gap between creativity and practical application within innovative upcycled product development.

Sustainability
Waste to Wonder: Home Goods is a creative and collaborative series to address consumption, waste stream, and environmental concerns. By reimagining and giving new use to discarded items and recycled materials, students and the public learn and see how to proactively reduce the need for new raw materials and the demand on natural resources. This practice not only minimizes waste that would otherwise end up in landfills, but also encourages a more conscious and viable approach to both product design and consumption. Transforming waste into functional and aesthetic objects infuses a home with unique, personalized decor while reducing the carbon footprint associated with mass-produced goods. Moreover, it fosters a culture of mindful design, where utility and beauty come together to create innovative solutions for everyday living.
57
AEPGN/ASpring 2026Fred CohenPerformance: Kaleidoscope 2026First performed in 2016 and featuring over 300 music students, Kaleidoscope’s non-stop, 75-minute format provides a rapid-fire musical extravaganza running the gamut from classical to tango, from the Spartan Marching Band to improvisational jazz. “Kaleidoscope"means ‘to present the appearance of a brightly colored and constantly changing pattern; to cause to come together or coalesce with pleasing results,’ and this is precisely what the audience experiences.The short durations of each selection, non-stop nature of the program and contrasting styles of music all combine to make an exciting and enjoyable event at the Hammer Theatre.Get ready for a dazzling musical journey! đ™†đ™–đ™Ąđ™šđ™žđ™™đ™€đ™šđ™˜đ™€đ™„đ™š 2026 is set to explode onto the stage, bringing you an unforgettable night of non-stop entertainment!
A Spectacular Showcase
Immerse yourself in a whirlwind of talent as over 250 extraordinary students and faculty from the School of Music unleash their passion and creativity. This annual extravaganza promises to be a feast for the senses, captivating audiences of all ages.
Something for Everyone
Prepare to be amazed by:
‱ The smooth sounds of the Jazz Orchestra
‱ Angelic harmonies from the Concert Choir
‱ Heart-pounding rhythms of the Percussion Ensemble
‱ Show-stopping numbers from Musical Theater
And that’s just the beginning! đ™†đ™–đ™Ąđ™šđ™žđ™™đ™€đ™šđ™˜đ™€đ™„đ™š 2026 offers a diverse array of musical genres and performances that will leave you spellbound.
Don’t Miss Out!
Mark your calendars and secure your tickets now for this must-see event. Experience the magic of đ™†đ™–đ™Ąđ™šđ™žđ™™đ™€đ™šđ™˜đ™€đ™„đ™š 2026 – where music comes alive and memories are made!
For tickets and more information:
‱ Visit: www.hammertheatre.com
‱ Call: (408) 924-8501
This extraordinary event is made possible by the College of Humanities & the Arts’ Artistic Excellence Programming Grant. Don’t wait – book your tickets today and be part of this incredible musical celebration!		Hammer Theatrefred.cohen@sjsu.eduSchool of MusicKaleidoscope is a School of Music production. We are working with the Office of Advancement on making it a major University fundraising event. We are also working with SJSU's AlumniAssociation, Residential Programming, Emeritus and Retired Faulty Association, and others.Attendees gain insight into the School of Music's on-going educational effectiveness; participating students gain similar insights, appreciation for the quality work achieved throughout the School, and experience in a professional theatrical production.
58
AEPGHomeSpring 2026Matthew SpanglerThursday, March 19 (Two Showings)Performance: "Wolf Play" by Hansol Jung "Wolf Play" by Hansol Jung
Obie Award, 2024
Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play, 2022
Produced in 2022 at Soho Rep and in 2023 at MCC, Off Broadway, New York

A five-year-old Korean boy (“the wolf”) is adopted from the Internet by two married American women. The boy is delivered to his new home by his current adoptive American father, who proceeds to "un-adopt" the boy by signing a paper that transfers “ownership” to the two women. The boy is difficult for the ex-father to care for because the boy literally thinks he is a wolf. The boy attacks people by jumping on them and trying to bite and claw them, as a wolf would do. The boy is played by an actor manipulating a simple wooden puppet, who also narrates the play to the audience, thus, the story is told from the point of view of a boy who thinks he is a wolf. When the boy’s American ex-father discovers that the new parents, to whom he has “re-homed” his ex-son, are a lesbian couple, the ex-father spends the rest of the play trying to get the boy back.

90 min no intermission.

Casting Notes: Cast should be racially diverse. But the WOLF should be of East Asian descent.
ASH – Non-Binary, Late 20s.
ROBIN – Female, 30s. Ash’s wife.
RYAN – Male, Early to mid 30s. Robin’s brother.
PETER – Male, Late 30s. A father.
WOLF – A mix of the familiar with the terribly unexpected.
A five-year-old Korean boy -- who literally thinks he is a wolf -- is adopted off the Internet by two married American women. The boy is delivered to his new home by his current adoptive American father, glad to be rid of his wolfish son, but when the father discovers the new parents are a lesbian couple, he will do anything to get his son back. Winner of a 2024 Obie Award and a 2022 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play, this major new theatrical story explores home, identify, and what it means to be a member of a family.
HGH 103 Hal Todd Theatrematthew.spangler@sjsu.eduFilm, Theatre & Dance"Wolf Play" is a production of the Department of Film, Theatre, and Dance. Associate Professor Andrea Bechert will be the scenic designer, Lucas Ward will be the lighting designer, and lecturer Courtney Flores will be the costume designer. The staff of Film, Theatre, and Dance will be directly involved in the physical creation of the production. This includes: John York (scenic construction), Debbie Weber (costume construction), and Lucas Ward (sound tech). Producer Barnaby Dallas will oversee all aspects of the production.

The cast and crew will be enrolled students of SJSU – this includes student assistant directors & choreographers, stage managers, assistant designers, dramaturgs, and production crew (deck, wardrobe, board operators). Faculty from the Department of Film, Theater, and Dance will work with students to create a robust study guide for our audiences and for distribution to our theatre courses, specifically, TA 5: Introduction to Acting and TA 10 Theatre Appreciation. The guide is available to all faculty members for their classes across H&A. All faculty have classes that are involved in the production, specifically TA 117, TA 191 (three sections), TA 51A, TA 51B, TA51C. The Department will work with H&A Marketing, and Dwight, Bentel & Hall Communications to create a marketing campaign which includes social media.
"Wolf Play," a dramatic comedy, explores questions of home, diaspora, family, authenticity, point-of-view in storytelling, and identity.
59
AEPGHomeSpring 2026Matthew SpanglerFriday, March 20 (Two Showings)Performance: "Wolf Play" by Hansol Jung "Wolf Play" by Hansol Jung
Obie Award, 2024
Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play, 2022
Produced in 2022 at Soho Rep and in 2023 at MCC, Off Broadway, New York

A five-year-old Korean boy (“the wolf”) is adopted from the Internet by two married American women. The boy is delivered to his new home by his current adoptive American father, who proceeds to "un-adopt" the boy by signing a paper that transfers “ownership” to the two women. The boy is difficult for the ex-father to care for because the boy literally thinks he is a wolf. The boy attacks people by jumping on them and trying to bite and claw them, as a wolf would do. The boy is played by an actor manipulating a simple wooden puppet, who also narrates the play to the audience, thus, the story is told from the point of view of a boy who thinks he is a wolf. When the boy’s American ex-father discovers that the new parents, to whom he has “re-homed” his ex-son, are a lesbian couple, the ex-father spends the rest of the play trying to get the boy back.

90 min no intermission.

Casting Notes: Cast should be racially diverse. But the WOLF should be of East Asian descent.
ASH – Non-Binary, Late 20s.
ROBIN – Female, 30s. Ash’s wife.
RYAN – Male, Early to mid 30s. Robin’s brother.
PETER – Male, Late 30s. A father.
WOLF – A mix of the familiar with the terribly unexpected.
A five-year-old Korean boy -- who literally thinks he is a wolf -- is adopted off the Internet by two married American women. The boy is delivered to his new home by his current adoptive American father, glad to be rid of his wolfish son, but when the father discovers the new parents are a lesbian couple, he will do anything to get his son back. Winner of a 2024 Obie Award and a 2022 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play, this major new theatrical story explores home, identify, and what it means to be a member of a family.
HGH 103 Hal Todd Theatrematthew.spangler@sjsu.eduFilm, Theatre & Dance"Wolf Play" is a production of the Department of Film, Theatre, and Dance. Associate Professor Andrea Bechert will be the scenic designer, Lucas Ward will be the lighting designer, and lecturer Courtney Flores will be the costume designer. The staff of Film, Theatre, and Dance will be directly involved in the physical creation of the production. This includes: John York (scenic construction), Debbie Weber (costume construction), and Lucas Ward (sound tech). Producer Barnaby Dallas will oversee all aspects of the production.

The cast and crew will be enrolled students of SJSU – this includes student assistant directors & choreographers, stage managers, assistant designers, dramaturgs, and production crew (deck, wardrobe, board operators). Faculty from the Department of Film, Theater, and Dance will work with students to create a robust study guide for our audiences and for distribution to our theatre courses, specifically, TA 5: Introduction to Acting and TA 10 Theatre Appreciation. The guide is available to all faculty members for their classes across H&A. All faculty have classes that are involved in the production, specifically TA 117, TA 191 (three sections), TA 51A, TA 51B, TA51C. The Department will work with H&A Marketing, and Dwight, Bentel & Hall Communications to create a marketing campaign which includes social media.
"Wolf Play," a dramatic comedy, explores questions of home, diaspora, family, authenticity, point-of-view in storytelling, and identity.
60
AEPGHomeSpring 2026Matthew SpanglerFriday, March 21st, Performance: "Wolf Play" by Hansol Jung "Wolf Play" by Hansol Jung
Obie Award, 2024
Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play, 2022
Produced in 2022 at Soho Rep and in 2023 at MCC, Off Broadway, New York

A five-year-old Korean boy (“the wolf”) is adopted from the Internet by two married American women. The boy is delivered to his new home by his current adoptive American father, who proceeds to "un-adopt" the boy by signing a paper that transfers “ownership” to the two women. The boy is difficult for the ex-father to care for because the boy literally thinks he is a wolf. The boy attacks people by jumping on them and trying to bite and claw them, as a wolf would do. The boy is played by an actor manipulating a simple wooden puppet, who also narrates the play to the audience, thus, the story is told from the point of view of a boy who thinks he is a wolf. When the boy’s American ex-father discovers that the new parents, to whom he has “re-homed” his ex-son, are a lesbian couple, the ex-father spends the rest of the play trying to get the boy back.

90 min no intermission.

Casting Notes: Cast should be racially diverse. But the WOLF should be of East Asian descent.
ASH – Non-Binary, Late 20s.
ROBIN – Female, 30s. Ash’s wife.
RYAN – Male, Early to mid 30s. Robin’s brother.
PETER – Male, Late 30s. A father.
WOLF – A mix of the familiar with the terribly unexpected.
A five-year-old Korean boy -- who literally thinks he is a wolf -- is adopted off the Internet by two married American women. The boy is delivered to his new home by his current adoptive American father, glad to be rid of his wolfish son, but when the father discovers the new parents are a lesbian couple, he will do anything to get his son back. Winner of a 2024 Obie Award and a 2022 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play, this major new theatrical story explores home, identify, and what it means to be a member of a family.
HGH 103 Hal Todd Theatrematthew.spangler@sjsu.eduFilm, Theatre & Dance"Wolf Play" is a production of the Department of Film, Theatre, and Dance. Associate Professor Andrea Bechert will be the scenic designer, Lucas Ward will be the lighting designer, and lecturer Courtney Flores will be the costume designer. The staff of Film, Theatre, and Dance will be directly involved in the physical creation of the production. This includes: John York (scenic construction), Debbie Weber (costume construction), and Lucas Ward (sound tech). Producer Barnaby Dallas will oversee all aspects of the production.

The cast and crew will be enrolled students of SJSU – this includes student assistant directors & choreographers, stage managers, assistant designers, dramaturgs, and production crew (deck, wardrobe, board operators). Faculty from the Department of Film, Theater, and Dance will work with students to create a robust study guide for our audiences and for distribution to our theatre courses, specifically, TA 5: Introduction to Acting and TA 10 Theatre Appreciation. The guide is available to all faculty members for their classes across H&A. All faculty have classes that are involved in the production, specifically TA 117, TA 191 (three sections), TA 51A, TA 51B, TA51C. The Department will work with H&A Marketing, and Dwight, Bentel & Hall Communications to create a marketing campaign which includes social media.
"Wolf Play," a dramatic comedy, explores questions of home, diaspora, family, authenticity, point-of-view in storytelling, and identity.
61
AEPGHomeSpring 2026Brook McClurgMarch, 12-2pmPop-up Event: Long Story Short: A Community-Activated Exploration of Home through Abbreviated FormsThe VISION
Long Story Short aims to activate, spotlight and articulate experiences of home through the creation of short-form works of art. Collaborating across four creative disciplines–literature, theater, visual art, and film–this project seeks to engage a wide range of participants in a multidisciplinary conversation on the power of brevity.

WHY SHORT FORMS?
For novices, the brief approach can often present a casual entry into arts that they otherwise might not be used to practicing. By foregrounding this low-barrier to entry, our project hopes to make art creation accessible to all. This will promote enrollment in creative classes and teach students artistic practices. Though short forms have a long history (in literature alone, dating back to Aphorisms of Hericlitus, or the works of Sei Shonagun), they have proliferated in recent years due at least in part to changes in technology.

Why Home?
By using this year’s theme of home as the basis of our prompts for these events, we will offer a tangible way for a broad audience to participate. In my creative writing classes, I often use a broad thematic prompt as a way in to the specific craft challenge that I am asking them to undertake. In this case, we would use brief directed prompts that ask participants to interpret home through the abbreviated forms. Additionally, our Haiku Review activity will enable students to send a dispatch home in a fun, no-cost-to-them way.

The Events:
Workshop 1: In Literature – Short Prose Forms
From prose poems and brief essays to the latest Flash craze, the short form has a long and vibrant legacy.

Workshop 2: On the Stage – The Two-Minute Play
Codified by The Neo-Futurists, the two-minute play structure ascribes to “tenets of honesty, brevity, and transformation.”

Workshop 3 : In Visual Arts – Envisioning the Mini Zine
The zine’s simplest form is rooted in amateur publishing and artist’s books of the early 20th century; the mini zine is made of a single sheet of folded paper.

Workshop 4 : In Film – The Short Film
From the earliest works, to the boom of the nineties, short films continue to be a prized form.

Culminating event: 2026 Long Story Short Festival
Celebrating work made by students, faculty, and community members at the various workshops. Part exhibit, part performance, this event will also feature a keynote speaker (Dinty Moore, Lydia Davis or Sarah Manguso, all known for brief work, would be our preferred speakers.)


This proposal also includes:

-Four events on 7th Paseo Plaza in conjunction with Reed Magazine (as lead up to the workshop) in which anyone can make a short form project.
-Our Haiku Review project provides our lowest barrier of entry. A pre-stamped postcard that asks students to send a Haiku home, via prompt on the card.
-Experimentation in our classrooms: Students enrolled in Engl 71,133, 135, and 242, Art 181 and 15 already discuss short forms. This should be equally applicable to courses in Film, Theatre, and Communication, which we can better speak to as we solidify their participation.
Come to Long Story Short, a series of four hands-on, interactive workshops in short-form art making! Today’s theme is Short Prose. From short stories to prose poems and brief essays, to the latest Flash craze, the short form is here to stay, likely caused as much by our increased lack of free time as to our tendencies to read more on digital devices, where shorter works are a necessity. You will craft your own short prose in this workshop that can be shared in our spring short works festival.7th Street Paseo Plazabrook.mcclurg@sjsu.eduEnglish & Comparative LiteratureVisual Arts - Carla Fisher Schwartz, Assistant Professor
English -Noelle GM Gibbs (Graduate student in English with professional background in theater)
Shrunkenmanhead Club - Henry Long (Club President, Animation Illustration Student)
Visual Art Student - TBD (Carla has asked that we hold one student partner spot for one of her art students. She has several in mind and will choose one if this project is funded.)

Though we already have a commitment from our partners in short form animation, Shrunkenheadman Club (500 members strong!), we’re still seeking partners for short films (non-animated) and potentially Communications (which overlaps with theatre and film here). In pursuit of this we have also reached out to Matthew Spangler in Theatre and Communications.		Educational
This proposal is purposefully prepared in a fashion so that it might best reach a large number of students, be approachable for the community, and instill our student collaborators with career-building and leadership skills necessary to explore their next professional steps. Each of these workshops are designed to be experiential and inclusive with a low barrier to participation. The theme of that actual work, Home, easily applies to all who’d want to be involved.

The diversity of disciplines involved in our proposal, combined with its experiential approach, encourages many different learning styles in a variety of modes of artistic expression. We further hope to educate students and our community members on the ways in which meaningful artistic experiences and creation can be fit into their daily lives.
Further, our hope here is to educate students and the community about the artistic pleasure and value that can be found in short forms. There was a time not too long ago, when short films were not recognized as their own genre. Now everybody knows what they are and some seek out these small pleasures where they can find them. By showcasing these constraints within different mediums we will demonstrate to students that powerful art can be made in small packages.

Finally, this project will help both of our student facilitators who will gain practical work experience in helping to put on these events. For one of our students from the Art Department (yet to be named by Carla, though she has a few students in mind), they will gain valuable experience learning how to support and promote artistic events. While for Noelle Gibbs, our graduate student in English who also has professional experience in producing stageplays, she will gain experience doing so within a university setting and with university parameters. Since she hopes to eventually teach both Theatre and Creative Writing at the college level–and indeed, she sees her particular specialty as the intersection of these two disciplines– the ability to lead her own workshop for our proposed theater event will be meaningful. I believe having this student lead one of the workshops as well as help with the others, will be meaningful to both their experience as a graduate student and their professional life after.

ARTISTIC
One of the things that short forms engender—regardless of the discipline—is an easier point of entry for those who might not typically be interested in art or stage plays, or literature. I offer anecdotally that I’ve had many students who felt intimidated by book-length works who are ignited by the possibilities of literature after being moved by short form works.

Since each of these workshops and lectures is envisioned as participatory, where the audience is encouraged to engage and take their hand in creating the art object in discussion, they will have a more embodied experience of the creation project.

COMMUNITY
While most of our efforts thus far have been toward defining the parameters of this project and making the necessary cross-disciplinary connections, we do intend to make efforts to involve the local community as well. As an educator that has routinely engaged in community-based workshops, both at SJSU and my prior institutions, I believe these events will be bettered with community involvement and will work toward those ends.

This grant proposal is premised on the ideas of artistic creation being important and valuable experiences for all. This year’s theme, combined with our use of approachable artistic practices and experiential learning, can hopefully combine to make a successful year of artistic creation. By reclaiming brevity as depth, we hope to unlock short-form antidotes to loneliness and a way to share our sense of home through art.
62
AEPGHomeSpring 2026Brook McClurgMarch, 5-6pmWorkshop: Long Story Short: A Community-Activated Exploration of Home through Abbreviated FormsThe VISION
Long Story Short aims to activate, spotlight and articulate experiences of home through the creation of short-form works of art. Collaborating across four creative disciplines–literature, theater, visual art, and film–this project seeks to engage a wide range of participants in a multidisciplinary conversation on the power of brevity.

WHY SHORT FORMS?
For novices, the brief approach can often present a casual entry into arts that they otherwise might not be used to practicing. By foregrounding this low-barrier to entry, our project hopes to make art creation accessible to all. This will promote enrollment in creative classes and teach students artistic practices. Though short forms have a long history (in literature alone, dating back to Aphorisms of Hericlitus, or the works of Sei Shonagun), they have proliferated in recent years due at least in part to changes in technology.

Why Home?
By using this year’s theme of home as the basis of our prompts for these events, we will offer a tangible way for a broad audience to participate. In my creative writing classes, I often use a broad thematic prompt as a way in to the specific craft challenge that I am asking them to undertake. In this case, we would use brief directed prompts that ask participants to interpret home through the abbreviated forms. Additionally, our Haiku Review activity will enable students to send a dispatch home in a fun, no-cost-to-them way.

The Events:
Workshop 1: In Literature – Short Prose Forms
From prose poems and brief essays to the latest Flash craze, the short form has a long and vibrant legacy.

Workshop 2: On the Stage – The Two-Minute Play
Codified by The Neo-Futurists, the two-minute play structure ascribes to “tenets of honesty, brevity, and transformation.”

Workshop 3 : In Visual Arts – Envisioning the Mini Zine
The zine’s simplest form is rooted in amateur publishing and artist’s books of the early 20th century; the mini zine is made of a single sheet of folded paper.

Workshop 4 : In Film – The Short Film
From the earliest works, to the boom of the nineties, short films continue to be a prized form.

Culminating event: 2026 Long Story Short Festival
Celebrating work made by students, faculty, and community members at the various workshops. Part exhibit, part performance, this event will also feature a keynote speaker (Dinty Moore, Lydia Davis or Sarah Manguso, all known for brief work, would be our preferred speakers.)


This proposal also includes:

-Four events on 7th Paseo Plaza in conjunction with Reed Magazine (as lead up to the workshop) in which anyone can make a short form project.
-Our Haiku Review project provides our lowest barrier of entry. A pre-stamped postcard that asks students to send a Haiku home, via prompt on the card.
-Experimentation in our classrooms: Students enrolled in Engl 71,133, 135, and 242, Art 181 and 15 already discuss short forms. This should be equally applicable to courses in Film, Theatre, and Communication, which we can better speak to as we solidify their participation.
Come to Long Story Short, a series of four hands-on, interactive workshops in short-form art making! Today’s theme is the Short Film and Short Animation. Join us for an exploration of the rise of short forms in films and work with a prompt to create your own zoomed-in movie experience. You will craft your own short prose in this workshop that can be shared in our spring short works festival.MLK 225brook.mcclurg@sjsu.eduEnglish & Comparative LiteratureVisual Arts - Carla Fisher Schwartz, Assistant Professor
English -Noelle GM Gibbs (Graduate student in English with professional background in theater)
Shrunkenmanhead Club - Henry Long (Club President, Animation Illustration Student)
Visual Art Student - TBD (Carla has asked that we hold one student partner spot for one of her art students. She has several in mind and will choose one if this project is funded.)

Though we already have a commitment from our partners in short form animation, Shrunkenheadman Club (500 members strong!), we’re still seeking partners for short films (non-animated) and potentially Communications (which overlaps with theatre and film here). In pursuit of this we have also reached out to Matthew Spangler in Theatre and Communications.		Educational
This proposal is purposefully prepared in a fashion so that it might best reach a large number of students, be approachable for the community, and instill our student collaborators with career-building and leadership skills necessary to explore their next professional steps. Each of these workshops are designed to be experiential and inclusive with a low barrier to participation. The theme of that actual work, Home, easily applies to all who’d want to be involved.

The diversity of disciplines involved in our proposal, combined with its experiential approach, encourages many different learning styles in a variety of modes of artistic expression. We further hope to educate students and our community members on the ways in which meaningful artistic experiences and creation can be fit into their daily lives.
Further, our hope here is to educate students and the community about the artistic pleasure and value that can be found in short forms. There was a time not too long ago, when short films were not recognized as their own genre. Now everybody knows what they are and some seek out these small pleasures where they can find them. By showcasing these constraints within different mediums we will demonstrate to students that powerful art can be made in small packages.

Finally, this project will help both of our student facilitators who will gain practical work experience in helping to put on these events. For one of our students from the Art Department (yet to be named by Carla, though she has a few students in mind), they will gain valuable experience learning how to support and promote artistic events. While for Noelle Gibbs, our graduate student in English who also has professional experience in producing stageplays, she will gain experience doing so within a university setting and with university parameters. Since she hopes to eventually teach both Theatre and Creative Writing at the college level–and indeed, she sees her particular specialty as the intersection of these two disciplines– the ability to lead her own workshop for our proposed theater event will be meaningful. I believe having this student lead one of the workshops as well as help with the others, will be meaningful to both their experience as a graduate student and their professional life after.

ARTISTIC
One of the things that short forms engender—regardless of the discipline—is an easier point of entry for those who might not typically be interested in art or stage plays, or literature. I offer anecdotally that I’ve had many students who felt intimidated by book-length works who are ignited by the possibilities of literature after being moved by short form works.

Since each of these workshops and lectures is envisioned as participatory, where the audience is encouraged to engage and take their hand in creating the art object in discussion, they will have a more embodied experience of the creation project.

COMMUNITY
While most of our efforts thus far have been toward defining the parameters of this project and making the necessary cross-disciplinary connections, we do intend to make efforts to involve the local community as well. As an educator that has routinely engaged in community-based workshops, both at SJSU and my prior institutions, I believe these events will be bettered with community involvement and will work toward those ends.

This grant proposal is premised on the ideas of artistic creation being important and valuable experiences for all. This year’s theme, combined with our use of approachable artistic practices and experiential learning, can hopefully combine to make a successful year of artistic creation. By reclaiming brevity as depth, we hope to unlock short-form antidotes to loneliness and a way to share our sense of home through art.
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AEPGHomeSpring 2026Eleanor Pries & Virginia San FratelloMarchWorkshop: Waste to Wonder: Home GoodsWaste to Wonder: Home Goods
Sustainable Luxury in Home Goods from Recycled and Thrifted Resources
AEPG Project Leads: Virginia San Fratello, Eleanor Pries

Summary:
AEPG Waste to Wonder unites sustainability, creativity, and business acumen into student entrepreneurship for home decor. In this series, students creatively and collaboratively repurpose found objects and recycled materials into fun and fashionable home goods. Participants prepare strategic business plans for their home goods, to be exhibited, auctioned, and sold at a regional-scale Bay Area public craft event.

Event Total: 7
Total Participant Estimate: 500
Experts: Fletta Design Group, Simon Zsolt Jozsef, Virginia San Fratello
Integrated Courses: H&A 80, DSGN 127, DSIT 107/108/ 110, ART 132/134, BUS 182/183

1. Project Description:

From Waste to Wonder: Home Goods focuses on circular design and craftsmanship, transforming everyday discarded materials into unique, high-value products for the home. Our approach to this process is playful, yet critical of pressing issues around consumption and waste, while embracing the potential of new viable economies in reuse and upcycled goods. We will host three workshops with professional designers who bring expertise to our students to help them create products from local recycled materials that can then be sold in local retail and craft fairs and online. The products and objects will be meaningful, expressive, and delightful and are intended to bring increased functionality and joy into the home. The workshops will include SJSU design and art students, faculty, and staff as well as students and faculty in the Lurie College of Business. During the workshops, Business students will team with design students. Together, the teams will strategize and brand the home goods to produce beautiful, functional, and commercially-viable products, aligned with real customer needs.

2. Waste to Wonder: Detailed Events Program:

Events: 3 Student Workshops, 2 Public Lectures, 1 SJSU Gallery Exhibition, 1 Final Exhibition: Renegade Craft Fair, San Francisco

Student Workshop 1: Fall of 2025: Designing and fabricating domestic objects out of waste materials that can be found in common thrift stores. Examples of such discarded items include denim jeans, trophies, furniture, books, etc... These preloved materials will be transformed into new home goods by approximately 50 students in Design and Art courses. Our workshop guests will be Birta Brynjólfsdóttir and Hrefna Sigurðardóttir from Flétta Studio, award winning product designers in Iceland who use recycled material in their work. Collaboration includes ~150 students in BUS 182 (Dr. Quan).

Public Design Dialogues Lecture #1. Flétta Studio. Moderated by SJSU Design and Business students

Student Workshop 2: Spring 2026: 24 design and art students will learn from Simon Zsolt JĂłzsef, award-winning Hungarian ceramicist. Students develop custom molds for creating domestic objects out of recycled clay. This workshop may be coordinated with Art 132/134. Collaboration includes ~75 students in BUS 182 (Dr. Quan).

Public Design Dialogues Lecture #2. Zsolt. Moderated by SJSU Design and Business students

Student Workshop 3: Spring 2026: 24 students in DSIT 108 will work with Instructor Eleanor Pries and expert Virginia San Fratello, to create 3D printed light fixtures using recycled bioplastics. Collaboration includes ~75 students in BUS 182 (Dr. Quan).

Collaboration and Integration with Business: Detail

During all workshops, Design / Art students will be teamed with Business students from SJSU’s entrepreneurship program (BUS 182/183) to conduct market research, prepare feasibility study, pricing strategies, branding, and develop a plan to share with industry professionals. Typical enrollment in BUS 182/183 is 150 students per semester, teamed with approximately 50 Design students per semester. Select motivated student teams will apply for the SJSU ZinnStarter startup program in January 2027, to compete for start-up funding for their home good product and brand.

Public Final Event and Exhibition:

The final event is a craft fair experience with regional scale. Students will show and sell their Waste to Wonder pieces at the Renegade Craft Fair at Fort Mason in San Francisco. With a mission to grow creative marketplaces, Renegade Craft Fair is a curated fair, operating since 2003, with venues in Chicago, Brooklyn, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and Seattle. The fair experience is robust and lively, artists, designers, and buyers show off their work, discuss their process, and negotiate sales. The fair sees almost 300,000 visitors each year and will be a great opportunity for our students to test the marketability of their designs, and showcase SJSU in a regional, public venue. The SF fair is November 1-2, 2026. Students will collaborate with Marjan Khatibi for custom graphic design and branding for their products. At SJSU, students will showcase their creations at the SJSU Design Gallery. Additionally, through coordination with SJSU’s University House, several pieces may be auctioned off or exhibited in University House. Post fair, the Design x Business student teams will assess the performance of their Wonders and tweak their product proposals before applying for the ZinnStarter startup program the following semester.

Active Engagement:

Our Waste to Wonder: Home Goods event series contains several levels of active engagement for students. The three creative workshops are multi-day events with developed creative work, detailed design, hands-on fabrication, and collaborative business planning among the students and the guest experts. Students will prepare for the public lectures, introduce the speakers, and moderate the discussion. The exhibition of the Wonders at the Design Gallery and University House will involve student set up and preparation. The final exhibition at the Renegade Craft Fair is a dynamic event where the creators (students) and the public will connect, discuss, admire, and negotiate.

ON VIEW and FOR SALE: Waste to Wonders!
Calling all you Thrifters, Home Decorators, Art Lovers, DIY mavens, Scavengers, Garbage Bandits, and Trash Pandas! Come shop for chic, up-cycled home goods. SJSU students are showing and selling their custom-designed and sustainably-sourced home wares at the annual Renegade Craft Fair at San Francisco’s Fort Mason Center, November 1-2, 2026.

Supported by the College of Humanities & the Arts’ Artistic Excellence Programming Grant
eleanor.pries@sjsu.eduDesignWaste to Wonder is a collaboration between Interior Design and Business Entrepreneurship, coordinated through Project Leads Virginia San Fratello, Eleanor Pries, Iris Quan and Nancy Da Silva. Multiple additional faculty from Design and Art have agreed to participate:

Dr. "Iris" Xiaohong Quan, Ph.D., Business
Nancy Da Silva, Business
SJSU University House
Leila Ensaniat, Design
Marjan Khatibi, Design
Marta Elliott, Design
Adam Shiverdecker, Art
Alena Sauzade, Art		Student learning and audience engagement impacts will center on either sustainable materials and upcycled crafts, or business innovation and entrepreneurship.

From Waste to Wonder: Home Goods will focus on circular design and craftsmanship, transforming everyday discarded materials into unique, high-value products for the home. By using and adapting waste and recycled content, we aim to suggest new modes of home goods consumption and build entrepreneurial spirit. Together, the teams will strategize and brand the home good Wonders to produce beautiful, functional, and commercially-viable products, aligned with real customer needs. This collaboration will help students bridge the gap between creativity and practical application within innovative upcycled product development.

Sustainability
Waste to Wonder: Home Goods is a creative and collaborative series to address consumption, waste stream, and environmental concerns. By reimagining and giving new use to discarded items and recycled materials, students and the public learn and see how to proactively reduce the need for new raw materials and the demand on natural resources. This practice not only minimizes waste that would otherwise end up in landfills, but also encourages a more conscious and viable approach to both product design and consumption. Transforming waste into functional and aesthetic objects infuses a home with unique, personalized decor while reducing the carbon footprint associated with mass-produced goods. Moreover, it fosters a culture of mindful design, where utility and beauty come together to create innovative solutions for everyday living.
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AEPGHomeSpring 2026David MalinowskiMarchWorkshop: Translate San JosĂ©Translate San JosĂ© will support SJSU students, faculty, and community members in re-imagining the city through the lens of linguistic landscape—that is, the presence and use of diverse languages in San José’s public places. Over the 2025-2026 academic year, this project will convene a year-long learning community of SJSU classes across disciplines including Linguistics, World Languages, Teacher Education, Communication, Information Studies, and Urban Studies, with the goal of fostering student-led projects in dialogue with campus partners, community organizations, and local government offices. At the same time, it will invite student groups, guest speakers, and faculty to lead a series of five workshops and presentations over two semesters. In April 2026, the Translate San JosĂ© project will culminate in a month-long on-campus exhibition of student work and a final event for students and faculty to showcase their achievements, with the aim of imagining possible futures for language representation in the neighborhoods, cities, and the region we call home.


As evidenced in the first word of the project’s title, Translate San JosĂ© aims to cultivate a rich community of learning, discussion, and practice within a paradigm of translation. Although translation is often assumed to refer to a mechanical substitution of one linguistic form for another—and in a world where AI translation tools automate and hide the work of navigating differences in thought and expression—Translate San JosĂ© offers another possibility. Participants in this project will engage in translation as:
--- a tool for discovery of the uniqueness of every expression in time, place, and purpose, as students document, discuss, and attempt to translate instances of English displayed in public places into other languages, while doing the same for Spanish, Vietnamese, Tamil, Mandarin, and other languages of San José;
--- a metaphor for building new historical, cultural, and other knowledges about relationships with other people, the world, and its texts, as students investigate our region’s histories of migration, growth, conflict, and change, as a way to deepen and contextualize their translations;
--- an active engagement with the politics of visibility, audibility, and other forms of presence in shared spaces, as translation both defamiliarizes the familiar, and calls attention to the unseen scripts and unheard voices in our midst.

As project coordinator, I will collaborate with SJSU faculty (beginning with those who are named below) in an online learning community to diversify and develop a corpus of relevant lessons and activities, while exchanging practices and approaches for learning in our different contexts. Meanwhile, the students themselves will have access to a shared learning space across classrooms, where they will be able to dialogue and learn from one another over the course of the two semesters. To the practical concern of realizing these pedagogical aims, the course that I developed and taught in Fall 2024, LLD 230 “Linguistic Landscape: Multilingualism and Education in Public Space” provides a substantial foundation.
What would the city of San JosĂ© look like if you didn’t see or hear any English? What stories do the street names, restaurant signs, school murals, and street art tell about our city’s histories of migration, development, and change? What futures could you imagine if you saw San JosĂ© through the lens of Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Hindi and any of the other 100+ languages of Santa Clara County? Come see visions of our city translated by SJSU students in Linguistics, World Languages, Teacher Education, Communication, Information Studies, and Urban Studies, together with community partners
[to be continued; I wanted to lead with the hook]
Digial Humanities Center and the Institute for Metropolitan Studiesdavid.malinowski@sjsu.eduLinguistics & Language DevelopmentInvitations have been sent to a small number of student groups, cultural centers (including the MOSAIC Cross Cultural Center, learning support centers, and academic institutes on campus to facilitate one or more of the planned workshops for the project. At the time of submission of this application, I have heard confirmation of interest from those named below.

SJSU Responsible Computing Club: I heard back positively from Shannon Lo, Vice President of External Affairs, regarding an invitation to facilitate a workshop “exploring the possibilities and limitations of using AI for translating place names and other features of our local San JosĂ© environment that are historically and culturally unique”. VP Lo’s reply highlighted that the RCC “would love to provide a diverse group of students—spanning different backgrounds, majors, and technical expertise—to help tackle this project from multiple angles.”

SJSU Writing Center: I heard back positively from Michelle Hager, Director, and Amy Russo, Coordinator of Multilingual Writing Support Services, with an invitation to lead a workshop on translation and writing, aimed especially at the needs and strengths of SJSU’s multilingual student writers.

Institute for Metropolitan Studies: I heard back positively from Gordon Douglas, Director, regarding an invitation to collaborate on hosting workshops, as well as developing resources for place-based learning activities and geospatial representation technologies to support Translate San José programming. Prof. Douglas indicated that the IMS would be willing to support and/or co-sponsor any of the events for the project.


The following SJSU faculty have expressed interest in co-designing or developing activities that address their classes’ curricular needs, while embracing the theme of translation in the San JosĂ© linguistic landscape; and/or facilitating student participation in the project with activities developed by others.

Department of Linguistics and Language Development

Richard Abend, Lecturer Faculty
Effie Chiu, Lecturer Faculty
Stefan Frazier, Professor and Chair
Reiko Kataoka, Lecturer Faculty
Scott Phillabaum, Associate Professor
Clare Sandy, Lecturer Faculty
Julia Swan, Associate Professor

Department of Urban and Regional Planning

Gordon Douglas, Associate Professor and Director, Institute for Metropolitan Studies

Department of World Languages and Literatures

Romey Sabalius, Professor in German and Chair
Damian Bacich, Professor in Spanish (teaches courses for the Translation and Interpretation Certificate)
Françoise Herrmann, Lecturer in French
Michiko Uryu, Assistant Professor (teaches courses for the Translation and Interpretation Certificate)
Cheyla Samuelson, Associate Professor of Spanish

Lurie College of Education

Eduardo Muñoz-Muñoz, Associate Professor in Teacher Education, Critical Bilingual Authorization Program

School of Information

Souvick Ghosh, Assistant Professor and Co-PI, Cross-Campus Interdisciplinary Responsible Computing Learning Experience (CIRCLE) Project

Additional invitations to several other faculty in other colleges and department are pending; I would highlight in particular one sent to Professor Anne Marie Todd (Dean of College of Social Sciences & Professor in Communication Studies), who gave a guest lecture in my Fall 2024 LLD 230 “Linguistic Landscape” course, and has expressed interest in ongoing collaboration on the topic.. Prof. Todd is away until early March.

In addition to the confirmed partnerships I have mentioned above, I have had substantive exchanges with the following individuals or offices in the City of San José and County of Santa Clara. Pending successful funding of the project, I will follow up with each.
Office of Betty Duong, Santa Clara County Supervisor, District 2 - Supervisor Duong is, among other things, responsible for the creation and development of the County’s Language Access Unit, which promotes linguistic equity and justice in the county through a variety of measures. She had agreed in principle to visit with my LLD 230 “Linguistic Landscape” course in Fall 2024, but the November General Election precluded this from taking place.
Leila Doty, Privacy & AI Analyst, City of San José
As symbolized in the imperative (“Translate!”) in this project’s title, Translate San JosĂ© proposes to engage students, faculty, and other participants in collaborative processes of thought, imagination, dialogue and action across a range of differences (e.g., language, culture, and identity), all while grounding their individual experiences at SJSU in larger understandings of the places they call “home.” Resonating with the first SJSU University Learning Outcome, Social and Global Responsibilities (see below), this project is at its core about “responsibility” in the sense of cultivating a visceral, nuanced, and critical sense that our words have histories and tangible effects on others; they are materially present in our bodies and in the world; they have power to bring people together or to alienate, and it is up to us to use them well.


Through dialog with students in other disciplines, faculty, and community stakeholders, students will gain an appreciation for the importance of context, history, and the power of representation as they interpret and design messages meant for varied audiences in public places—that is, the linguistic landscape. Through the series of 5 workshops, students and other SJSU participants will gain hands-on experience with the cultural, emotional, and political relevance of translation and all language work in their future vocations. And through reflection on the diversity of expression of their schools, neighborhoods, workplaces, and other familiar places, it is hoped that students will develop a richer, more nuanced perspectives on the notion of “home.”


Notes
—------
University Learning Outcome #1: “Social and Global Responsibilities. An ability to consider the purpose and function of one’s degree program training within various local and/or global social contexts and to act intentionally, conscientiously, and ethically with attention to diversity and inclusion”. https://www.sjsu.edu/admissions/about-us/learning-outcomes.php


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AEPGHomeSpring 2026Selena Anderson / J. Michael MartinezCLA Reading Series 2025-26: Kim AddonizioThe Center for Literary Arts respectfully requests an Artistic Excellence Programming Grant from the College of Humanities and the Arts of $12,000 to underwrite the costs of venues to present and promote our award-winning reading series.

We are requesting this increased amount to support a larger production as our reading series has a long history of drawing large audiences to the Hammer Theatre. The Hammer Theatre’s near campus/downtown location has long been established as the place CLA audiences can trust to present a quality event, accessible to all, and with convenient parking.

CLA is the South Bay’s premiere literary reading series through which it fulfills its mission to spread the influence of, and interest in, literature and to facilitate cross-cultural understanding through the appreciation of contemporary literature. Over the years, support from the AEPG has enabled us to present some of the country’s most decorated writers including Jonathan Franzen, Jhumpa Lahiri, Claudia Rankine, and Percival Everett. CLA was recently named a winner of a METRO Best of Sillicon Valley Award and has garnered praise from Mercury News. We pleased to have hosted back to back seasons of sold out or nearly sold out shows, giving audience near and far a vital arts experience. As our recent speaker author Carvell Wallace puts it: "The vibes are impeccable."

In the upcoming year, we are pleased to present a diverse cast of literary stars whose acclaimed works embolden us to re-imagine who we are and what we value and incite us to reconceptualize our contemporary lives in a way that is restorative and invigorating.

Louise Erdrich, Maxine Hong Kingston, Isabelle Allende, and Bernadette Evaristo—all best-selling and critically acclaimed authors whose work has been honored with the Booker Prize, the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Pulitzer Prize among other distinctions.

Each book speaks directly to the college’s themes of Home as in memoir and fiction characters consider how their idea of home contributes to their sense of identity and belonging, if not their place in the world. In each, the concept of home is by turns elusive, tenuous, dynamic, self-curated, and remarkably imaginative.

Louise Erdrich’s The Mighty Red is a tender hearted sweeping epic about natural forces, spiritual yearnings, and the tragic impact of uncontrollable circumstances on ordinary people’s lives.

Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Warrior Woman, is a classic in its innovative blend of autobiography and mythology and it portrays multiple and intersecting identities and the jarring clash of world and self.

In Isabelle Allenge’s The Wind Knows My Name, the lives of a Jewish boy escaping Nazi-occupied Europe and a mother and daughter fleeing twenty-first-century El Salvador intersect in this ambitious, intricate novel about war and immigration.

Bernadette Evaristo’s Girl Woman Other is a magnificent portrayal of the intersections of identity and a moving and hopeful story of an interconnected group of Black British women that paints a vivid portrait of the state of contemporary Britain and looks back to the legacy of Britain’s colonial history in Africa and the Caribbean.

The speakers we have the privelege to present represent everything we do at SJSU. CLA authors are diverse in terms of experience and artistic vision and their subjects are important both this period in our nation's history and to our students' educational development.

CLA programming has a powerful impact on the educational life of students from college freshman trying out their first creative writing course to graduate students revising their master’s theses. Students have the opportunity to meet and interview their literary heroes, write conference style essays, poetry busk, blog post, facilitate book discussions, learn to analyze a text creatively and critically, and become responsible literary citizens.

Through our many partnerships—both on campus and in the community—CLA embraces the collaborative spirit of the AEPG award. In the upcoming year we look forward to working with new collaborators including MOSAIC and Spartan Speaker Series to offer a more vibrant and robust presentation.

CLA is very grateful for the longtime support of the College of Humanities and the Art and would be honored to continue this partnership in the future. Thank you for your kind consideration of this proposal.		Hammer4 Theatrejmichael.martinez@sjsu.eduEnglish & Comparative Literature
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AEPGAuthenticitySpring 2026Teresa VeramendiThursday, March 27Shadow Lines PerformanceIn Shadow Lines, we engage students and community members in a series of workshops leading to a performance that examines borders and authenticity in multitudinous forms — physical and mental, visible and invisible, fluid and rigid. Such borders might be tangible, like the wires of a cage, or the cartographic lines between countries. We will primarily focus on the abstract and intangible aspects of how ethnicity and gender come to define us. We will hold three workshops featuring group dialogues facilitated by AEPG leaders and student assistants starting in Fall 2026. Here participants will be encouraged to bring their personal narratives of borders and authenticity into dialogue with philosophical texts and artistic practices related to embodiment, sound, and light. These workshops will take place in theatres, communal areas of University housing, and outdoor environments around SJSU’s campus and San JosĂ©.

The workshops will culminate in a single performance in March 2026. An ensemble of students and community members who choose to continue developing their stories of borders and authenticity will rehearse and train for performance. Training will consist of expansive vocal and movement practices from guest artists during a two-day intensive visit. The performance will likewise make use of a variety of spaces; beginning in a theater, attendees will be guided by AEPG collaborators to other unique spaces indoors and outdoors in small groups to witness individual performances. For the sake of equity, we will have 32 bluetooth headphones on hand so that attendees may download and play pre-recorded sound and thereby fully engage with both recorded and live sound during the performance. All will return to the theater after a thorough investigation of being inside, outside, passing through, and overshadowing the borders of home and ourselves.

While many borders feel constraining and oppressive, others create a sense of safety and comfort – of home. When those borders shift, that sense of home shifts too. This may be destabilizing or freeing, or both. Furthermore, borders can both obscure and illuminate our authentic selves. Examining the concepts of borders and authenticity through a variety of media and spaces will accommodate a macroscopic view on them – the kind of view that Frye, cited below, suggests is essential to deepening our understanding of their impacts on our lives.

“Consider a birdcage,” the philosopher Marilyn Frye (1983) writes. “There is no physical property of any one wire, nothing that the closest scrutiny could discover, that will reveal how a bird could be inhibited or harmed by it except in the most accidental way. It is only when you step back, stop looking at the wires one by one, microscopically, and take a macroscopic view of the whole cage that you can see why the bird does not go anywhere
”

Frye’s image of the birdcage illuminates oppressive structures that create borders, bolster them, and also make them recede into shadows. These borders thereby become invisible — unquestioned facets of our everyday lives, the status quo that shapes our relations with ourselves and those around us. 		Join us for Shadow Lines, a transformative, site-responsive performance that explores the intricate, invisible boundaries shaping our identities, homes, and relationships. This culminating event marks the final stage of an interdisciplinary workshop series where students and community members have critically examined the concept of borders—physical and metaphorical—through movement, sound, and light.
The performance unfolds as a journey, guiding attendees through different spaces to witness a collection of deeply personal narratives brought to life. As the performance progresses, audience members will be led in small groups to intimate, immersive performances in diverse indoor and outdoor locations. Each of these site-specific performances invites attendees to experience the shifting nature of borders—being inside, outside, passing through, and challenging limitations.
Through a fusion of movement, voice, and sensory-rich storytelling, performers share their lived experiences of borders, home, and authenticity. They have worked closely with guest artists in an intensive, two-day training, refining their expressive skills to communicate beyond the words. The performance seamlessly integrates light and sound, shadow and echo, further immersing the audience in the dynamic interplay between confinement and freedom, identity and transformation.
As the journey comes to an end, all groups will reconvene in the theater space for a final, collective moment of reflection—blurring the lines between performer and spectator, personal and collective experience. Shadow Lines is an invitation to witness, question, and engage with the invisible structures that shape our being, offering a shared space for dialogue and discovery.
Don't miss this event that brings communities together to challenge boundaries, redefine home, and celebrate the power of storytelling through movement, sound, and space.		Hal Todd Theatreteresa.veramendi@sjsu.eduFilm, Theatre & DanceRiana Betzler is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy. This project dovetails closely with her research and teaching, which focuses on empathy and how we can come to understand one another across lines of difference. She will participate in the project by selecting texts — from a wide variety of philosophical traditions, broadly construed — that explore issues of borders, home, and authenticity. As part of the workshops, she will facilitate Socratic-style discussions that help participants to deepen their thinking about these themes and connect them with their personal narratives. These expanded narratives will then be used as the basis for creative exploration using media of sound, movement, and light.

An assistant professor in the Department of Film, Theatre, and Dance, Raha Shojaei, explores the interplay of sound and image in shaping cultural narratives. Her expertise in sound studies and audio-visual aesthetics and production informs the project, examining how cultural experiences influence our understanding of the suggested theme and how to use the audio-visual elements to shape the narratives. Collaborating within this project, RTVF students bring their expertise in audio-visual media and learn how to merge their skills with philosophical insights to deepen storytelling, and theatrical performance to enhance the expression of narratives — creating meaningful representations of identity and belonging.

As a scholar and artist, Sukanya Chakrabarti, Associate Professor of Theatre in the Department of Film, Theatre, and Dance, is interested in transcultural spaces and their contribution to meaning-making, placemaking, and storytelling. Her current and ongoing research project is on performances of the South Asian diaspora across generations of immigration in California. She imagines this project as part of a continuing exploration of themes of home and immigration. She will be working on facilitating workshops with students and community-based artists, ideating and devising the final performance in Spring 2026.		1. Recognize the cultural, national, and gender-related boundaries that constrain the personal experiences of members of the SJSU and San José community.
2. Empathize viscerally with the cultural, national, and gender-related constraints placed on others and on ourselves due to historical and social pressures.
3. Harness the power of philosophical examination, storytelling and community-based performances to address and destabilize the danger of monolithic narratives around borders and border-crossings.
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AEPGN/ASpring 2026Catalina BarrazaAprilExhibit & Performance: Sonic Canvas: A Journey Through Sound and ArtThis collaborative project between the San JosĂ© Museum of Art, SJSU music faculty, guest artists, and SJSU music major students presents a dynamic exploration of contemporary music and visual art, creating an immersive, interactive experience for all participants. The involvement of SJSU students is a central element of the project, providing valuable performance opportunities and facilitating a deeper connection between the academic community and the museum. The project focuses on performance, interaction, and engagement, offering audiences a unique opportunity to connect with both underrepresented composers and the museum's new permanent collection, "Tending and Dreaming: Stories from the Collection." Opening in early March, this exhibition presents the work of diverse artists from the Bay Area and beyond, many of whom come from historically underrepresented backgrounds. This collaboration highlights the museum’s dedication to showcasing underrepresented voices and perspectives in the art world.

The central component of the project is a performance featuring works by underrepresented and female composers. Faculty members from SJSU's School of Music, along with guest artists from the Bay Area, will perform a range of contemporary music pieces that resonate with the themes of the Tending and Dreaming: Stories from the Collection exhibition. The performance will take place within the museum’s gallery space, creating a direct connection between sound, sight, and the stories the art conveys.

A unique aspect of the project is its interactive component. Audience members will be invited to engage with both the music and the artwork in the exhibition, by writing a story about what they are hearing and seeing or by posing a question to a specific piece of artwork. These contributions will be displayed on a rope for others to read and respond to, encouraging an ongoing dialogue between participants. Questions and stories can be developed or answered by other attendees, fostering a sense of community and exchange. This format invites everyone to actively participate, dissolving the boundary between artist and audience.

Before the interactive portion of the event, SJSU music major students will perform chamber music in the museum’s gallery space. The museum will be open to the general public during the performances, allowing visitors to experience live music performances alongside the dynamic exhibition. The students will also remain for the interactive portion of the event, participating in the exchange of ideas and experiencing the performance/exhibition in a new way. This component of the program not only benefits the students but also strengthens the collaboration between SJSU and the greater community.

The interactive portion of the event is open to everyone—both SJSU students and the general public. Audience members are encouraged to move freely through the gallery, exploring the visual art on display while listening to the live music performance. As stories and questions are added to the rope, the space becomes a living document of the shared experience, blending art and music into a dynamic, evolving experience.

This project represents a unique opportunity for creative collaboration, celebrating underrepresented voices and fostering a deeper connection between music, visual art, and community engagement. By combining contemporary music with the museum’s visual art exhibition and encouraging audience interaction, the performance offers an enriching experience that highlights diversity, creativity, and the power of collective expression.		Get ready for "Sonic Canvas: A Journey Through Sound and Art," an unforgettable and interactive experience at the San JosĂ© Museum of Art! This free and public event brings together San JosĂ© State University faculty, guest artists, and students to perform a dynamic range of music, all in conversation with the museum’s new permanent collection, "Tending and Dreaming: Stories from the Collection." The collection showcases an array of diverse and thought-provoking works by artists from the Bay Area and beyond, many from underrepresented backgrounds.

This isn’t just a performance: it’s a chance for you to become part of the creative process! As you enjoy the live music in the gallery, you’re invited to write stories or pose questions inspired by the art around you. These contributions will be displayed for everyone to read, sparking conversations and connections between visitors. You can even respond to others’ ideas, creating a dynamic exchange between artists, performers, and audience members.
Before the interactive experience, SJSU music students will perform chamber music in the museum’s gallery, offering a beautiful prelude to the interactive performance. The museum will be open to the public, allowing everyone to explore the exhibitions and participate in this exciting fusion of art, music, and community.

Don’t miss out on this unique chance to immerse yourself in a vibrant, creative environment, where art and music come alive, and you’re a part of the experience!
San José Museum of Art catalina.barraza@sjsu.eduSchool of Music-San José Museum of Art (manager of special projects, staff, education department, staff photographer).
-SJSU faculty: Michael Hernandez, Fred Cohen, Adelle Kearns
-Guest artists musicians: Ihang Lin (pianist), Katie Young (cellist) - two more artists to be confirmed
-SJSU music major students: string major students, piano major students, saxophone major students. 		The "big idea" that attendees and students will take away from Sonic Canvas: A Journey Through Sound and Art, is the profound intersection between music, visual art, and audience engagement as a collaborative, dynamic experience. Beyond simply enjoying a performance, participants will gain a deeper understanding of how art forms can coexist and enhance one another. The interactive nature of the event allows attendees to actively engage with the artwork, reflect on the music they hear, and become part of the creative process. By writing stories or posing questions inspired by the music and art, participants not only contribute to the artistic dialogue but also gain insight into how multiple perspectives—be they personal, cultural, or interpretive—can shape and enrich the experience of art and music.

For students from SJSU, this event provides an opportunity to perform in a setting that challenges them to think beyond traditional concert halls, embracing an environment that fosters interaction between audience and performer. The opportunity to be part of an event where the audience actively participates in shaping the narrative encourages students to consider how their performances can engage and resonate with diverse audiences, enriching and broadening their conception of performance.

Ultimately, this event fosters a sense of community through shared creative expression, encouraging both students and attendees to explore how art can be a vehicle for deeper conversation and connection. It highlights the power of inclusivity and diversity in both the creation and reception of art, offering a meaningful, multifaceted, and participatory experience that goes beyond passive consumption of culture.
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AEPGHomeSpring 2026Eleanor Pries & Virginia San FratelloAprilSJSU Design Art Gallery Exhibition: Workshop: Waste to Wonder: Home GoodsWaste to Wonder: Home Goods
Sustainable Luxury in Home Goods from Recycled and Thrifted Resources
AEPG Project Leads: Virginia San Fratello, Eleanor Pries

Summary:
AEPG Waste to Wonder unites sustainability, creativity, and business acumen into student entrepreneurship for home decor. In this series, students creatively and collaboratively repurpose found objects and recycled materials into fun and fashionable home goods. Participants prepare strategic business plans for their home goods, to be exhibited, auctioned, and sold at a regional-scale Bay Area public craft event.

Event Total: 7
Total Participant Estimate: 500
Experts: Fletta Design Group, Simon Zsolt Jozsef, Virginia San Fratello
Integrated Courses: H&A 80, DSGN 127, DSIT 107/108/ 110, ART 132/134, BUS 182/183

1. Project Description:

From Waste to Wonder: Home Goods focuses on circular design and craftsmanship, transforming everyday discarded materials into unique, high-value products for the home. Our approach to this process is playful, yet critical of pressing issues around consumption and waste, while embracing the potential of new viable economies in reuse and upcycled goods. We will host three workshops with professional designers who bring expertise to our students to help them create products from local recycled materials that can then be sold in local retail and craft fairs and online. The products and objects will be meaningful, expressive, and delightful and are intended to bring increased functionality and joy into the home. The workshops will include SJSU design and art students, faculty, and staff as well as students and faculty in the Lurie College of Business. During the workshops, Business students will team with design students. Together, the teams will strategize and brand the home goods to produce beautiful, functional, and commercially-viable products, aligned with real customer needs.

2. Waste to Wonder: Detailed Events Program:

Events: 3 Student Workshops, 2 Public Lectures, 1 SJSU Gallery Exhibition, 1 Final Exhibition: Renegade Craft Fair, San Francisco

Student Workshop 1: Fall of 2025: Designing and fabricating domestic objects out of waste materials that can be found in common thrift stores. Examples of such discarded items include denim jeans, trophies, furniture, books, etc... These preloved materials will be transformed into new home goods by approximately 50 students in Design and Art courses. Our workshop guests will be Birta Brynjólfsdóttir and Hrefna Sigurðardóttir from Flétta Studio, award winning product designers in Iceland who use recycled material in their work. Collaboration includes ~150 students in BUS 182 (Dr. Quan).

Public Design Dialogues Lecture #1. Flétta Studio. Moderated by SJSU Design and Business students

Student Workshop 2: Spring 2026: 24 design and art students will learn from Simon Zsolt JĂłzsef, award-winning Hungarian ceramicist. Students develop custom molds for creating domestic objects out of recycled clay. This workshop may be coordinated with Art 132/134. Collaboration includes ~75 students in BUS 182 (Dr. Quan).

Public Design Dialogues Lecture #2. Zsolt. Moderated by SJSU Design and Business students

Student Workshop 3: Spring 2026: 24 students in DSIT 108 will work with Instructor Eleanor Pries and expert Virginia San Fratello, to create 3D printed light fixtures using recycled bioplastics. Collaboration includes ~75 students in BUS 182 (Dr. Quan).

Collaboration and Integration with Business: Detail

During all workshops, Design / Art students will be teamed with Business students from SJSU’s entrepreneurship program (BUS 182/183) to conduct market research, prepare feasibility study, pricing strategies, branding, and develop a plan to share with industry professionals. Typical enrollment in BUS 182/183 is 150 students per semester, teamed with approximately 50 Design students per semester. Select motivated student teams will apply for the SJSU ZinnStarter startup program in January 2027, to compete for start-up funding for their home good product and brand.

Public Final Event and Exhibition:

The final event is a craft fair experience with regional scale. Students will show and sell their Waste to Wonder pieces at the Renegade Craft Fair at Fort Mason in San Francisco. With a mission to grow creative marketplaces, Renegade Craft Fair is a curated fair, operating since 2003, with venues in Chicago, Brooklyn, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and Seattle. The fair experience is robust and lively, artists, designers, and buyers show off their work, discuss their process, and negotiate sales. The fair sees almost 300,000 visitors each year and will be a great opportunity for our students to test the marketability of their designs, and showcase SJSU in a regional, public venue. The SF fair is November 1-2, 2026. Students will collaborate with Marjan Khatibi for custom graphic design and branding for their products. At SJSU, students will showcase their creations at the SJSU Design Gallery. Additionally, through coordination with SJSU’s University House, several pieces may be auctioned off or exhibited in University House. Post fair, the Design x Business student teams will assess the performance of their Wonders and tweak their product proposals before applying for the ZinnStarter startup program the following semester.

Active Engagement:

Our Waste to Wonder: Home Goods event series contains several levels of active engagement for students. The three creative workshops are multi-day events with developed creative work, detailed design, hands-on fabrication, and collaborative business planning among the students and the guest experts. Students will prepare for the public lectures, introduce the speakers, and moderate the discussion. The exhibition of the Wonders at the Design Gallery and University House will involve student set up and preparation. The final exhibition at the Renegade Craft Fair is a dynamic event where the creators (students) and the public will connect, discuss, admire, and negotiate.

ON VIEW and FOR SALE: Waste to Wonders!
Calling all you Thrifters, Home Decorators, Art Lovers, DIY mavens, Scavengers, Garbage Bandits, and Trash Pandas! Come shop for chic, up-cycled home goods. SJSU students are showing and selling their custom-designed and sustainably-sourced home wares at the annual Renegade Craft Fair at San Francisco’s Fort Mason Center, November 1-2, 2026.

Supported by the College of Humanities & the Arts’ Artistic Excellence Programming Grant
eleanor.pries@sjsu.eduDesignWaste to Wonder is a collaboration between Interior Design and Business Entrepreneurship, coordinated through Project Leads Virginia San Fratello, Eleanor Pries, Iris Quan and Nancy Da Silva. Multiple additional faculty from Design and Art have agreed to participate:

Dr. "Iris" Xiaohong Quan, Ph.D., Business
Nancy Da Silva, Business
SJSU University House
Leila Ensaniat, Design
Marjan Khatibi, Design
Marta Elliott, Design
Adam Shiverdecker, Art
Alena Sauzade, Art		Student learning and audience engagement impacts will center on either sustainable materials and upcycled crafts, or business innovation and entrepreneurship.

From Waste to Wonder: Home Goods will focus on circular design and craftsmanship, transforming everyday discarded materials into unique, high-value products for the home. By using and adapting waste and recycled content, we aim to suggest new modes of home goods consumption and build entrepreneurial spirit. Together, the teams will strategize and brand the home good Wonders to produce beautiful, functional, and commercially-viable products, aligned with real customer needs. This collaboration will help students bridge the gap between creativity and practical application within innovative upcycled product development.

Sustainability
Waste to Wonder: Home Goods is a creative and collaborative series to address consumption, waste stream, and environmental concerns. By reimagining and giving new use to discarded items and recycled materials, students and the public learn and see how to proactively reduce the need for new raw materials and the demand on natural resources. This practice not only minimizes waste that would otherwise end up in landfills, but also encourages a more conscious and viable approach to both product design and consumption. Transforming waste into functional and aesthetic objects infuses a home with unique, personalized decor while reducing the carbon footprint associated with mass-produced goods. Moreover, it fosters a culture of mindful design, where utility and beauty come together to create innovative solutions for everyday living.
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AuthenticitySpring 2026Saturday, April 25, 7pm-10pm
Beethoven Ball 2026		The Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies and American Beethoven Society invite you to attend the third Beethoven Ball.

Come and dance the waltzes, LĂ€ndler and contradances of the early nineteenth century Viennese ballroom to the music of Beethoven and his contemporaries. Featuring live orchestra and professional dance performances. Prof. Joan Walton (SJSU) will call the dances.

Previous dance experience is not necessary. Period costume (Regency) admired but not required.		https://events.sjsu.edu/event/beethoven-ball-2026
https://events.sjsu.edu/event/beethoven-ball-2026
San Jose Woman's Club 75 South 11th Street, San Jose, CA 95112The Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven StudiesThe Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies and American Beethoven Society
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AEPGHomeSpring 2026Brook McClurgMonday, April 14th, Short Works Festival: Long Story Short: A Community-Activated Exploration of Home through Abbreviated FormsThe VISION
Long Story Short aims to activate, spotlight and articulate experiences of home through the creation of short-form works of art. Collaborating across four creative disciplines–literature, theater, visual art, and film–this project seeks to engage a wide range of participants in a multidisciplinary conversation on the power of brevity.

WHY SHORT FORMS?
For novices, the brief approach can often present a casual entry into arts that they otherwise might not be used to practicing. By foregrounding this low-barrier to entry, our project hopes to make art creation accessible to all. This will promote enrollment in creative classes and teach students artistic practices. Though short forms have a long history (in literature alone, dating back to Aphorisms of Hericlitus, or the works of Sei Shonagun), they have proliferated in recent years due at least in part to changes in technology.

Why Home?
By using this year’s theme of home as the basis of our prompts for these events, we will offer a tangible way for a broad audience to participate. In my creative writing classes, I often use a broad thematic prompt as a way in to the specific craft challenge that I am asking them to undertake. In this case, we would use brief directed prompts that ask participants to interpret home through the abbreviated forms. Additionally, our Haiku Review activity will enable students to send a dispatch home in a fun, no-cost-to-them way.

The Events:
Workshop 1: In Literature – Short Prose Forms
From prose poems and brief essays to the latest Flash craze, the short form has a long and vibrant legacy.

Workshop 2: On the Stage – The Two-Minute Play
Codified by The Neo-Futurists, the two-minute play structure ascribes to “tenets of honesty, brevity, and transformation.”

Workshop 3 : In Visual Arts – Envisioning the Mini Zine
The zine’s simplest form is rooted in amateur publishing and artist’s books of the early 20th century; the mini zine is made of a single sheet of folded paper.

Workshop 4 : In Film – The Short Film
From the earliest works, to the boom of the nineties, short films continue to be a prized form.

Culminating event: 2026 Long Story Short Festival
Celebrating work made by students, faculty, and community members at the various workshops. Part exhibit, part performance, this event will also feature a keynote speaker (Dinty Moore, Lydia Davis or Sarah Manguso, all known for brief work, would be our preferred speakers.)


This proposal also includes:

-Four events on 7th Paseo Plaza in conjunction with Reed Magazine (as lead up to the workshop) in which anyone can make a short form project.
-Our Haiku Review project provides our lowest barrier of entry. A pre-stamped postcard that asks students to send a Haiku home, via prompt on the card.
-Experimentation in our classrooms: Students enrolled in Engl 71,133, 135, and 242, Art 181 and 15 already discuss short forms. This should be equally applicable to courses in Film, Theatre, and Communication, which we can better speak to as we solidify their participation.
Come to SJSU’s Festival of Short-Form Artworks! The festival–part gallery, part performance–celebrates short-works by students, faculty, and community members across literature, theatre, film, and visual arts. Learn from our keynote speaker about the power of brief art and engage in your own short form art making.Art RM 135 and Jo Farb Gallerybrook.mcclurg@sjsu.eduEnglish & Comparative LiteratureVisual Arts - Carla Fisher Schwartz, Assistant Professor
English -Noelle GM Gibbs (Graduate student in English with professional background in theater)
Shrunkenmanhead Club - Henry Long (Club President, Animation Illustration Student)
Visual Art Student - TBD (Carla has asked that we hold one student partner spot for one of her art students. She has several in mind and will choose one if this project is funded.)

Though we already have a commitment from our partners in short form animation, Shrunkenheadman Club (500 members strong!), we’re still seeking partners for short films (non-animated) and potentially Communications (which overlaps with theatre and film here). In pursuit of this we have also reached out to Matthew Spangler in Theatre and Communications.		Educational
This proposal is purposefully prepared in a fashion so that it might best reach a large number of students, be approachable for the community, and instill our student collaborators with career-building and leadership skills necessary to explore their next professional steps. Each of these workshops are designed to be experiential and inclusive with a low barrier to participation. The theme of that actual work, Home, easily applies to all who’d want to be involved.

The diversity of disciplines involved in our proposal, combined with its experiential approach, encourages many different learning styles in a variety of modes of artistic expression. We further hope to educate students and our community members on the ways in which meaningful artistic experiences and creation can be fit into their daily lives.
Further, our hope here is to educate students and the community about the artistic pleasure and value that can be found in short forms. There was a time not too long ago, when short films were not recognized as their own genre. Now everybody knows what they are and some seek out these small pleasures where they can find them. By showcasing these constraints within different mediums we will demonstrate to students that powerful art can be made in small packages.

Finally, this project will help both of our student facilitators who will gain practical work experience in helping to put on these events. For one of our students from the Art Department (yet to be named by Carla, though she has a few students in mind), they will gain valuable experience learning how to support and promote artistic events. While for Noelle Gibbs, our graduate student in English who also has professional experience in producing stageplays, she will gain experience doing so within a university setting and with university parameters. Since she hopes to eventually teach both Theatre and Creative Writing at the college level–and indeed, she sees her particular specialty as the intersection of these two disciplines– the ability to lead her own workshop for our proposed theater event will be meaningful. I believe having this student lead one of the workshops as well as help with the others, will be meaningful to both their experience as a graduate student and their professional life after.

ARTISTIC
One of the things that short forms engender—regardless of the discipline—is an easier point of entry for those who might not typically be interested in art or stage plays, or literature. I offer anecdotally that I’ve had many students who felt intimidated by book-length works who are ignited by the possibilities of literature after being moved by short form works.

Since each of these workshops and lectures is envisioned as participatory, where the audience is encouraged to engage and take their hand in creating the art object in discussion, they will have a more embodied experience of the creation project.

COMMUNITY
While most of our efforts thus far have been toward defining the parameters of this project and making the necessary cross-disciplinary connections, we do intend to make efforts to involve the local community as well. As an educator that has routinely engaged in community-based workshops, both at SJSU and my prior institutions, I believe these events will be bettered with community involvement and will work toward those ends.

This grant proposal is premised on the ideas of artistic creation being important and valuable experiences for all. This year’s theme, combined with our use of approachable artistic practices and experiential learning, can hopefully combine to make a successful year of artistic creation. By reclaiming brevity as depth, we hope to unlock short-form antidotes to loneliness and a way to share our sense of home through art.
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AEPGHomeSpring 2026David MalinowskiAprilStudent Exhibition: Translate San JosĂ©Translate San JosĂ© will support SJSU students, faculty, and community members in re-imagining the city through the lens of linguistic landscape—that is, the presence and use of diverse languages in San José’s public places. Over the 2025-2026 academic year, this project will convene a year-long learning community of SJSU classes across disciplines including Linguistics, World Languages, Teacher Education, Communication, Information Studies, and Urban Studies, with the goal of fostering student-led projects in dialogue with campus partners, community organizations, and local government offices. At the same time, it will invite student groups, guest speakers, and faculty to lead a series of five workshops and presentations over two semesters. In April 2026, the Translate San JosĂ© project will culminate in a month-long on-campus exhibition of student work and a final event for students and faculty to showcase their achievements, with the aim of imagining possible futures for language representation in the neighborhoods, cities, and the region we call home.


As evidenced in the first word of the project’s title, Translate San JosĂ© aims to cultivate a rich community of learning, discussion, and practice within a paradigm of translation. Although translation is often assumed to refer to a mechanical substitution of one linguistic form for another—and in a world where AI translation tools automate and hide the work of navigating differences in thought and expression—Translate San JosĂ© offers another possibility. Participants in this project will engage in translation as:
--- a tool for discovery of the uniqueness of every expression in time, place, and purpose, as students document, discuss, and attempt to translate instances of English displayed in public places into other languages, while doing the same for Spanish, Vietnamese, Tamil, Mandarin, and other languages of San José;
--- a metaphor for building new historical, cultural, and other knowledges about relationships with other people, the world, and its texts, as students investigate our region’s histories of migration, growth, conflict, and change, as a way to deepen and contextualize their translations;
--- an active engagement with the politics of visibility, audibility, and other forms of presence in shared spaces, as translation both defamiliarizes the familiar, and calls attention to the unseen scripts and unheard voices in our midst.

As project coordinator, I will collaborate with SJSU faculty (beginning with those who are named below) in an online learning community to diversify and develop a corpus of relevant lessons and activities, while exchanging practices and approaches for learning in our different contexts. Meanwhile, the students themselves will have access to a shared learning space across classrooms, where they will be able to dialogue and learn from one another over the course of the two semesters. To the practical concern of realizing these pedagogical aims, the course that I developed and taught in Fall 2024, LLD 230 “Linguistic Landscape: Multilingualism and Education in Public Space” provides a substantial foundation.
What would the city of San JosĂ© look like if you didn’t see or hear any English? What stories do the street names, restaurant signs, school murals, and street art tell about our city’s histories of migration, development, and change? What futures could you imagine if you saw San JosĂ© through the lens of Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Hindi and any of the other 100+ languages of Santa Clara County? Come see visions of our city translated by SJSU students in Linguistics, World Languages, Teacher Education, Communication, Information Studies, and Urban Studies, together with community partners
[to be continued; I wanted to lead with the hook]
Digital Humanities Center and/or the Institute for Metropolitan Studies. david.malinowski@sjsu.eduLinguistics & Language DevelopmentInvitations have been sent to a small number of student groups, cultural centers (including the MOSAIC Cross Cultural Center, learning support centers, and academic institutes on campus to facilitate one or more of the planned workshops for the project. At the time of submission of this application, I have heard confirmation of interest from those named below.

SJSU Responsible Computing Club: I heard back positively from Shannon Lo, Vice President of External Affairs, regarding an invitation to facilitate a workshop “exploring the possibilities and limitations of using AI for translating place names and other features of our local San JosĂ© environment that are historically and culturally unique”. VP Lo’s reply highlighted that the RCC “would love to provide a diverse group of students—spanning different backgrounds, majors, and technical expertise—to help tackle this project from multiple angles.”

SJSU Writing Center: I heard back positively from Michelle Hager, Director, and Amy Russo, Coordinator of Multilingual Writing Support Services, with an invitation to lead a workshop on translation and writing, aimed especially at the needs and strengths of SJSU’s multilingual student writers.

Institute for Metropolitan Studies: I heard back positively from Gordon Douglas, Director, regarding an invitation to collaborate on hosting workshops, as well as developing resources for place-based learning activities and geospatial representation technologies to support Translate San José programming. Prof. Douglas indicated that the IMS would be willing to support and/or co-sponsor any of the events for the project.


The following SJSU faculty have expressed interest in co-designing or developing activities that address their classes’ curricular needs, while embracing the theme of translation in the San JosĂ© linguistic landscape; and/or facilitating student participation in the project with activities developed by others.

Department of Linguistics and Language Development

Richard Abend, Lecturer Faculty
Effie Chiu, Lecturer Faculty
Stefan Frazier, Professor and Chair
Reiko Kataoka, Lecturer Faculty
Scott Phillabaum, Associate Professor
Clare Sandy, Lecturer Faculty
Julia Swan, Associate Professor

Department of Urban and Regional Planning

Gordon Douglas, Associate Professor and Director, Institute for Metropolitan Studies

Department of World Languages and Literatures

Romey Sabalius, Professor in German and Chair
Damian Bacich, Professor in Spanish (teaches courses for the Translation and Interpretation Certificate)
Françoise Herrmann, Lecturer in French
Michiko Uryu, Assistant Professor (teaches courses for the Translation and Interpretation Certificate)
Cheyla Samuelson, Associate Professor of Spanish

Lurie College of Education

Eduardo Muñoz-Muñoz, Associate Professor in Teacher Education, Critical Bilingual Authorization Program

School of Information

Souvick Ghosh, Assistant Professor and Co-PI, Cross-Campus Interdisciplinary Responsible Computing Learning Experience (CIRCLE) Project

Additional invitations to several other faculty in other colleges and department are pending; I would highlight in particular one sent to Professor Anne Marie Todd (Dean of College of Social Sciences & Professor in Communication Studies), who gave a guest lecture in my Fall 2024 LLD 230 “Linguistic Landscape” course, and has expressed interest in ongoing collaboration on the topic.. Prof. Todd is away until early March.

In addition to the confirmed partnerships I have mentioned above, I have had substantive exchanges with the following individuals or offices in the City of San José and County of Santa Clara. Pending successful funding of the project, I will follow up with each.
Office of Betty Duong, Santa Clara County Supervisor, District 2 - Supervisor Duong is, among other things, responsible for the creation and development of the County’s Language Access Unit, which promotes linguistic equity and justice in the county through a variety of measures. She had agreed in principle to visit with my LLD 230 “Linguistic Landscape” course in Fall 2024, but the November General Election precluded this from taking place.
Leila Doty, Privacy & AI Analyst, City of San José
As symbolized in the imperative (“Translate!”) in this project’s title, Translate San JosĂ© proposes to engage students, faculty, and other participants in collaborative processes of thought, imagination, dialogue and action across a range of differences (e.g., language, culture, and identity), all while grounding their individual experiences at SJSU in larger understandings of the places they call “home.” Resonating with the first SJSU University Learning Outcome, Social and Global Responsibilities (see below), this project is at its core about “responsibility” in the sense of cultivating a visceral, nuanced, and critical sense that our words have histories and tangible effects on others; they are materially present in our bodies and in the world; they have power to bring people together or to alienate, and it is up to us to use them well.


Through dialog with students in other disciplines, faculty, and community stakeholders, students will gain an appreciation for the importance of context, history, and the power of representation as they interpret and design messages meant for varied audiences in public places—that is, the linguistic landscape. Through the series of 5 workshops, students and other SJSU participants will gain hands-on experience with the cultural, emotional, and political relevance of translation and all language work in their future vocations. And through reflection on the diversity of expression of their schools, neighborhoods, workplaces, and other familiar places, it is hoped that students will develop a richer, more nuanced perspectives on the notion of “home.”


Notes
—------
University Learning Outcome #1: “Social and Global Responsibilities. An ability to consider the purpose and function of one’s degree program training within various local and/or global social contexts and to act intentionally, conscientiously, and ethically with attention to diversity and inclusion”. https://www.sjsu.edu/admissions/about-us/learning-outcomes.php


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AEPGAuthenticitySpring 2026Sukanya ChakrabartiFriday, May 1 at 7:30pmPerformance: Kingdom of CardsKingdom of Cards is an allegorical satire written by Rabindranath Tagore, exploring themes of power, uncontrolled autocratic ambition, and the futility of expansionist and capitalistic materialism. Tagore, Asia’s first Nobel laureate in literature, wrote the play in 1939, on the eve of World War II, as Hitler was gaining increasing control over Germany, while India was also fighting for their independence under colonial British rule. While Tagore has openly been a critic of fascism and the brutality of colonialism, he uses several literary devices such as satire, humor, and magic realism in this play to elucidate the dangers of an autocratic government. The play presents a world where a kingdom is entirely constructed out of playing cards, which serve as both the physical and symbolic foundation of an orthodox and fragile society, maintained by strict oppressive laws.
The central plot of the play revolves around a prince and a merchant, who arrive at a faraway fantastical land after being shipwrecked. The inhabitants of the land are all two-dimensional cards, leading strictly regimented lives, who have lost any sense of autonomy, critical thinking, or capacity for any human emotional responses. Challenging the tyrannical and stagnant laws of the land, the prince advocates for newness and progress, and also the need for aliveness through laughter, desire, queerness, mirth and even mischief.
The play serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of unchecked materialistic and capitalistic greed and urges the audience to reflect on what it means to be human at a time of extreme despotism.
My AEPG project will involve working with the original Bengali script that Tagore wrote in 1939. I will thereby translate and adapt it for our contemporary audience. The adaption will be done in collaboration with Dr. Matthew Spangler. I will be teaching TA 112 in the Fall semester, developing the script, and working with students to explore in depth Tagore’s extensive body of work, his philosophy and politics, which are reflected in most of his writings. We will critically analyse other plays, poems, and novels by Tagore, which have already been translated into English. We will have a staged reading at the end of Fall 2025, where students in my class, TA 112, will actively participate.
I will, thereafter, work on further developing and directing the play for the Hammer theater production in Spring 2026. I am collaborating with the South Asians in the Silicon Valley Initiative led by Dr. Mantra Roy at the MLK library, to include and encourage community participation. We will include artists who are trained in Rabindrasangeet, the genre of music that Tagore popularized. We will also have professional artists and trainers working with our students, thereby ensuring a rigorous training and rehearsal process for our participating students.
A prince and a merchant get shipwrecked. They arrive at faraway fantastical land, where the inhabitants are all two-dimensional cards, leading strictly regimented lives, who have lost any sense of autonomy, critical thinking, or capacity for any human emotional responses. Challenging the oppressive and stagnant laws of the land, the prince advocates for newness and progress, and also the need for aliveness through laughter, desire, queerness, mirth and even mischief.

This play, Kingdom of Cards, serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of unchecked materialistic and capitalistic greed and urges the audience to reflect on what it means to be human at a time of extreme despotism.
Hammer Theatresukanya.chakrabarti@sjsu.eduFilm, Theatre & DanceKingdom of Cards is a collaboration between the Department of Film, Theatre & Dance and the South Asians in Silicon Valley Initiative spearheaded by Dr. Mantra Roy at the MLK Library. In the Department of Film, Theatre & Dance, Associate Professor Andrea Bechert will be the Scenic Designer, lecturer Steve Mannshardt will be the lighting designer, and lecturer Courtney Flores will be the costume designer. The staff of Film, Theatre & Dance will be directly involved in the physical creation of the production. This includes: John York (scenic construction), Debbie Weber (costume construction), and Lucas Ward (sound tech). And producer Barnaby Dallas will oversee all aspects of the production

The cast and crew will be enrolled students of SJSU - this includes student assistant directors & choreographers, stage managers, assistant designers, dramaturgs, and production crew (deck, wardrobe, board operators). Over 120 SJSU students are directly involved in the production as part of their major and progress toward graduation. Faculty from the Department of Film, Theater & Dance will work with students to create a robust study guide for our audiences and for distribution to our theatre courses, specifically, TA 5: Introduction to Acting and TA 10 Theatre Appreciation. The guide is available to all faculty members for their classes across H&A. All faculty have classes that are involved in the production, specifically TA 117, TA 191 (three sections), TA 51A, TA 51B, TA51C. Besides the production in Spring 2026, there will be a class assigned (TA 112) in Fall 2025 for the development of the script, which will culminate in a staged reading at the end of the semester. The Department will work with H&A Marketing, and Dwight, Bentel & Hall Communications to create a marketing campaign which includes social media.

Students will get exposure to the work of an international literary figure, Rabindranath Tagore, whose work has not been sufficiently celebrated or produced on the American stage.
The students will participate in the developmental process of a Bengali play translated and adapted by their professors. There will be class discussions and critical thinking around questions of translation, adaption, and transnational work.
The play itself is timely and topical for its content, and being engaged in the development of the play would allow students to reflect on our own current socio-political climate.
Students will be able to work with professional artists from the Bay Area.
73
AEPGAuthenticitySpring 2026Sukanya ChakrabartiSaturday, May 2 at 7:30 pm (Student Matinee)Performance: Kingdom of CardsKingdom of Cards is an allegorical satire written by Rabindranath Tagore, exploring themes of power, uncontrolled autocratic ambition, and the futility of expansionist and capitalistic materialism. Tagore, Asia’s first Nobel laureate in literature, wrote the play in 1939, on the eve of World War II, as Hitler was gaining increasing control over Germany, while India was also fighting for their independence under colonial British rule. While Tagore has openly been a critic of fascism and the brutality of colonialism, he uses several literary devices such as satire, humor, and magic realism in this play to elucidate the dangers of an autocratic government. The play presents a world where a kingdom is entirely constructed out of playing cards, which serve as both the physical and symbolic foundation of an orthodox and fragile society, maintained by strict oppressive laws.
The central plot of the play revolves around a prince and a merchant, who arrive at a faraway fantastical land after being shipwrecked. The inhabitants of the land are all two-dimensional cards, leading strictly regimented lives, who have lost any sense of autonomy, critical thinking, or capacity for any human emotional responses. Challenging the tyrannical and stagnant laws of the land, the prince advocates for newness and progress, and also the need for aliveness through laughter, desire, queerness, mirth and even mischief.
The play serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of unchecked materialistic and capitalistic greed and urges the audience to reflect on what it means to be human at a time of extreme despotism.
My AEPG project will involve working with the original Bengali script that Tagore wrote in 1939. I will thereby translate and adapt it for our contemporary audience. The adaption will be done in collaboration with Dr. Matthew Spangler. I will be teaching TA 112 in the Fall semester, developing the script, and working with students to explore in depth Tagore’s extensive body of work, his philosophy and politics, which are reflected in most of his writings. We will critically analyse other plays, poems, and novels by Tagore, which have already been translated into English. We will have a staged reading at the end of Fall 2025, where students in my class, TA 112, will actively participate.
I will, thereafter, work on further developing and directing the play for the Hammer theater production in Spring 2026. I am collaborating with the South Asians in the Silicon Valley Initiative led by Dr. Mantra Roy at the MLK library, to include and encourage community participation. We will include artists who are trained in Rabindrasangeet, the genre of music that Tagore popularized. We will also have professional artists and trainers working with our students, thereby ensuring a rigorous training and rehearsal process for our participating students.
A prince and a merchant get shipwrecked. They arrive at faraway fantastical land, where the inhabitants are all two-dimensional cards, leading strictly regimented lives, who have lost any sense of autonomy, critical thinking, or capacity for any human emotional responses. Challenging the oppressive and stagnant laws of the land, the prince advocates for newness and progress, and also the need for aliveness through laughter, desire, queerness, mirth and even mischief.

This play, Kingdom of Cards, serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of unchecked materialistic and capitalistic greed and urges the audience to reflect on what it means to be human at a time of extreme despotism.
Hammer Theatresukanya.chakrabarti@sjsu.eduFilm, Theatre & DanceKingdom of Cards is a collaboration between the Department of Film, Theatre & Dance and the South Asians in Silicon Valley Initiative spearheaded by Dr. Mantra Roy at the MLK Library. In the Department of Film, Theatre & Dance, Associate Professor Andrea Bechert will be the Scenic Designer, lecturer Steve Mannshardt will be the lighting designer, and lecturer Courtney Flores will be the costume designer. The staff of Film, Theatre & Dance will be directly involved in the physical creation of the production. This includes: John York (scenic construction), Debbie Weber (costume construction), and Lucas Ward (sound tech). And producer Barnaby Dallas will oversee all aspects of the production

The cast and crew will be enrolled students of SJSU - this includes student assistant directors & choreographers, stage managers, assistant designers, dramaturgs, and production crew (deck, wardrobe, board operators). Over 120 SJSU students are directly involved in the production as part of their major and progress toward graduation. Faculty from the Department of Film, Theater & Dance will work with students to create a robust study guide for our audiences and for distribution to our theatre courses, specifically, TA 5: Introduction to Acting and TA 10 Theatre Appreciation. The guide is available to all faculty members for their classes across H&A. All faculty have classes that are involved in the production, specifically TA 117, TA 191 (three sections), TA 51A, TA 51B, TA51C. Besides the production in Spring 2026, there will be a class assigned (TA 112) in Fall 2025 for the development of the script, which will culminate in a staged reading at the end of the semester. The Department will work with H&A Marketing, and Dwight, Bentel & Hall Communications to create a marketing campaign which includes social media.

Students will get exposure to the work of an international literary figure, Rabindranath Tagore, whose work has not been sufficiently celebrated or produced on the American stage.
The students will participate in the developmental process of a Bengali play translated and adapted by their professors. There will be class discussions and critical thinking around questions of translation, adaption, and transnational work.
The play itself is timely and topical for its content, and being engaged in the development of the play would allow students to reflect on our own current socio-political climate.
Students will be able to work with professional artists from the Bay Area.
74
AEPGAuthenticitySpring 2026Sukanya ChakrabartiThursday, May 7 at 7:30 pm (Student Matinee)Performance: Kingdom of CardsKingdom of Cards is an allegorical satire written by Rabindranath Tagore, exploring themes of power, uncontrolled autocratic ambition, and the futility of expansionist and capitalistic materialism. Tagore, Asia’s first Nobel laureate in literature, wrote the play in 1939, on the eve of World War II, as Hitler was gaining increasing control over Germany, while India was also fighting for their independence under colonial British rule. While Tagore has openly been a critic of fascism and the brutality of colonialism, he uses several literary devices such as satire, humor, and magic realism in this play to elucidate the dangers of an autocratic government. The play presents a world where a kingdom is entirely constructed out of playing cards, which serve as both the physical and symbolic foundation of an orthodox and fragile society, maintained by strict oppressive laws.
The central plot of the play revolves around a prince and a merchant, who arrive at a faraway fantastical land after being shipwrecked. The inhabitants of the land are all two-dimensional cards, leading strictly regimented lives, who have lost any sense of autonomy, critical thinking, or capacity for any human emotional responses. Challenging the tyrannical and stagnant laws of the land, the prince advocates for newness and progress, and also the need for aliveness through laughter, desire, queerness, mirth and even mischief.
The play serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of unchecked materialistic and capitalistic greed and urges the audience to reflect on what it means to be human at a time of extreme despotism.
My AEPG project will involve working with the original Bengali script that Tagore wrote in 1939. I will thereby translate and adapt it for our contemporary audience. The adaption will be done in collaboration with Dr. Matthew Spangler. I will be teaching TA 112 in the Fall semester, developing the script, and working with students to explore in depth Tagore’s extensive body of work, his philosophy and politics, which are reflected in most of his writings. We will critically analyse other plays, poems, and novels by Tagore, which have already been translated into English. We will have a staged reading at the end of Fall 2025, where students in my class, TA 112, will actively participate.
I will, thereafter, work on further developing and directing the play for the Hammer theater production in Spring 2026. I am collaborating with the South Asians in the Silicon Valley Initiative led by Dr. Mantra Roy at the MLK library, to include and encourage community participation. We will include artists who are trained in Rabindrasangeet, the genre of music that Tagore popularized. We will also have professional artists and trainers working with our students, thereby ensuring a rigorous training and rehearsal process for our participating students.
A prince and a merchant get shipwrecked. They arrive at faraway fantastical land, where the inhabitants are all two-dimensional cards, leading strictly regimented lives, who have lost any sense of autonomy, critical thinking, or capacity for any human emotional responses. Challenging the oppressive and stagnant laws of the land, the prince advocates for newness and progress, and also the need for aliveness through laughter, desire, queerness, mirth and even mischief.

This play, Kingdom of Cards, serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of unchecked materialistic and capitalistic greed and urges the audience to reflect on what it means to be human at a time of extreme despotism.
Hammer Theatresukanya.chakrabarti@sjsu.eduFilm, Theatre & DanceKingdom of Cards is a collaboration between the Department of Film, Theatre & Dance and the South Asians in Silicon Valley Initiative spearheaded by Dr. Mantra Roy at the MLK Library. In the Department of Film, Theatre & Dance, Associate Professor Andrea Bechert will be the Scenic Designer, lecturer Steve Mannshardt will be the lighting designer, and lecturer Courtney Flores will be the costume designer. The staff of Film, Theatre & Dance will be directly involved in the physical creation of the production. This includes: John York (scenic construction), Debbie Weber (costume construction), and Lucas Ward (sound tech). And producer Barnaby Dallas will oversee all aspects of the production

The cast and crew will be enrolled students of SJSU - this includes student assistant directors & choreographers, stage managers, assistant designers, dramaturgs, and production crew (deck, wardrobe, board operators). Over 120 SJSU students are directly involved in the production as part of their major and progress toward graduation. Faculty from the Department of Film, Theater & Dance will work with students to create a robust study guide for our audiences and for distribution to our theatre courses, specifically, TA 5: Introduction to Acting and TA 10 Theatre Appreciation. The guide is available to all faculty members for their classes across H&A. All faculty have classes that are involved in the production, specifically TA 117, TA 191 (three sections), TA 51A, TA 51B, TA51C. Besides the production in Spring 2026, there will be a class assigned (TA 112) in Fall 2025 for the development of the script, which will culminate in a staged reading at the end of the semester. The Department will work with H&A Marketing, and Dwight, Bentel & Hall Communications to create a marketing campaign which includes social media.

Students will get exposure to the work of an international literary figure, Rabindranath Tagore, whose work has not been sufficiently celebrated or produced on the American stage.
The students will participate in the developmental process of a Bengali play translated and adapted by their professors. There will be class discussions and critical thinking around questions of translation, adaption, and transnational work.
The play itself is timely and topical for its content, and being engaged in the development of the play would allow students to reflect on our own current socio-political climate.
Students will be able to work with professional artists from the Bay Area.
75
Spring 2026Dr. Erica BuurmanThursday, May 7, 2026 12:00pm to 1:00pm Beethoven Center Noontime Concert: Performers: Yeonglee Kim (violin) and Akira Kaku (piano)

Program:
Beethoven: Romance for Violin and Orchestra No. 2 in F Major, Op. 50 (piano reduction)
Rachmaninoff: Romance in A minor for Violin and Piano
Beethoven: Violin Sonata No. 8 in G Major, Op. 30 No. 3		All concerts take place at 12:00 and are followed by an informal coffee reception and open-house. These concerts are free to attend.

The series is made possible by generous support from the Davis Family Foundation.		https://events.sjsu.edu/event/noontime-concerts-at-the-beethoven-center-series-4791
https://events.sjsu.edu/event/noontime-concerts-at-the-beethoven-center-series-4791
580 Beethoven Center, 5th Floor, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library, San Jose CA 95112Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven StudiesThe series is made possible by generous support from the Davis Family Foundation.
76
AEPGAuthenticitySpring 2026Sukanya ChakrabartiFriday, May 8 at 11am and 7:30pm (Student Matinee)Performance: Kingdom of CardsKingdom of Cards is an allegorical satire written by Rabindranath Tagore, exploring themes of power, uncontrolled autocratic ambition, and the futility of expansionist and capitalistic materialism. Tagore, Asia’s first Nobel laureate in literature, wrote the play in 1939, on the eve of World War II, as Hitler was gaining increasing control over Germany, while India was also fighting for their independence under colonial British rule. While Tagore has openly been a critic of fascism and the brutality of colonialism, he uses several literary devices such as satire, humor, and magic realism in this play to elucidate the dangers of an autocratic government. The play presents a world where a kingdom is entirely constructed out of playing cards, which serve as both the physical and symbolic foundation of an orthodox and fragile society, maintained by strict oppressive laws.
The central plot of the play revolves around a prince and a merchant, who arrive at a faraway fantastical land after being shipwrecked. The inhabitants of the land are all two-dimensional cards, leading strictly regimented lives, who have lost any sense of autonomy, critical thinking, or capacity for any human emotional responses. Challenging the tyrannical and stagnant laws of the land, the prince advocates for newness and progress, and also the need for aliveness through laughter, desire, queerness, mirth and even mischief.
The play serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of unchecked materialistic and capitalistic greed and urges the audience to reflect on what it means to be human at a time of extreme despotism.
My AEPG project will involve working with the original Bengali script that Tagore wrote in 1939. I will thereby translate and adapt it for our contemporary audience. The adaption will be done in collaboration with Dr. Matthew Spangler. I will be teaching TA 112 in the Fall semester, developing the script, and working with students to explore in depth Tagore’s extensive body of work, his philosophy and politics, which are reflected in most of his writings. We will critically analyse other plays, poems, and novels by Tagore, which have already been translated into English. We will have a staged reading at the end of Fall 2025, where students in my class, TA 112, will actively participate.
I will, thereafter, work on further developing and directing the play for the Hammer theater production in Spring 2026. I am collaborating with the South Asians in the Silicon Valley Initiative led by Dr. Mantra Roy at the MLK library, to include and encourage community participation. We will include artists who are trained in Rabindrasangeet, the genre of music that Tagore popularized. We will also have professional artists and trainers working with our students, thereby ensuring a rigorous training and rehearsal process for our participating students.
A prince and a merchant get shipwrecked. They arrive at faraway fantastical land, where the inhabitants are all two-dimensional cards, leading strictly regimented lives, who have lost any sense of autonomy, critical thinking, or capacity for any human emotional responses. Challenging the oppressive and stagnant laws of the land, the prince advocates for newness and progress, and also the need for aliveness through laughter, desire, queerness, mirth and even mischief.

This play, Kingdom of Cards, serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of unchecked materialistic and capitalistic greed and urges the audience to reflect on what it means to be human at a time of extreme despotism.
Hammer Theatresukanya.chakrabarti@sjsu.eduFilm, Theatre & DanceKingdom of Cards is a collaboration between the Department of Film, Theatre & Dance and the South Asians in Silicon Valley Initiative spearheaded by Dr. Mantra Roy at the MLK Library. In the Department of Film, Theatre & Dance, Associate Professor Andrea Bechert will be the Scenic Designer, lecturer Steve Mannshardt will be the lighting designer, and lecturer Courtney Flores will be the costume designer. The staff of Film, Theatre & Dance will be directly involved in the physical creation of the production. This includes: John York (scenic construction), Debbie Weber (costume construction), and Lucas Ward (sound tech). And producer Barnaby Dallas will oversee all aspects of the production

The cast and crew will be enrolled students of SJSU - this includes student assistant directors & choreographers, stage managers, assistant designers, dramaturgs, and production crew (deck, wardrobe, board operators). Over 120 SJSU students are directly involved in the production as part of their major and progress toward graduation. Faculty from the Department of Film, Theater & Dance will work with students to create a robust study guide for our audiences and for distribution to our theatre courses, specifically, TA 5: Introduction to Acting and TA 10 Theatre Appreciation. The guide is available to all faculty members for their classes across H&A. All faculty have classes that are involved in the production, specifically TA 117, TA 191 (three sections), TA 51A, TA 51B, TA51C. Besides the production in Spring 2026, there will be a class assigned (TA 112) in Fall 2025 for the development of the script, which will culminate in a staged reading at the end of the semester. The Department will work with H&A Marketing, and Dwight, Bentel & Hall Communications to create a marketing campaign which includes social media.

Students will get exposure to the work of an international literary figure, Rabindranath Tagore, whose work has not been sufficiently celebrated or produced on the American stage.
The students will participate in the developmental process of a Bengali play translated and adapted by their professors. There will be class discussions and critical thinking around questions of translation, adaption, and transnational work.
The play itself is timely and topical for its content, and being engaged in the development of the play would allow students to reflect on our own current socio-political climate.
Students will be able to work with professional artists from the Bay Area.
77
AEPGAuthenticitySpring 2026Sukanya ChakrabartiSaturday, May 9 at 7:30 (Student Matinee)Performance: Kingdom of CardsKingdom of Cards is an allegorical satire written by Rabindranath Tagore, exploring themes of power, uncontrolled autocratic ambition, and the futility of expansionist and capitalistic materialism. Tagore, Asia’s first Nobel laureate in literature, wrote the play in 1939, on the eve of World War II, as Hitler was gaining increasing control over Germany, while India was also fighting for their independence under colonial British rule. While Tagore has openly been a critic of fascism and the brutality of colonialism, he uses several literary devices such as satire, humor, and magic realism in this play to elucidate the dangers of an autocratic government. The play presents a world where a kingdom is entirely constructed out of playing cards, which serve as both the physical and symbolic foundation of an orthodox and fragile society, maintained by strict oppressive laws.
The central plot of the play revolves around a prince and a merchant, who arrive at a faraway fantastical land after being shipwrecked. The inhabitants of the land are all two-dimensional cards, leading strictly regimented lives, who have lost any sense of autonomy, critical thinking, or capacity for any human emotional responses. Challenging the tyrannical and stagnant laws of the land, the prince advocates for newness and progress, and also the need for aliveness through laughter, desire, queerness, mirth and even mischief.
The play serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of unchecked materialistic and capitalistic greed and urges the audience to reflect on what it means to be human at a time of extreme despotism.
My AEPG project will involve working with the original Bengali script that Tagore wrote in 1939. I will thereby translate and adapt it for our contemporary audience. The adaption will be done in collaboration with Dr. Matthew Spangler. I will be teaching TA 112 in the Fall semester, developing the script, and working with students to explore in depth Tagore’s extensive body of work, his philosophy and politics, which are reflected in most of his writings. We will critically analyse other plays, poems, and novels by Tagore, which have already been translated into English. We will have a staged reading at the end of Fall 2025, where students in my class, TA 112, will actively participate.
I will, thereafter, work on further developing and directing the play for the Hammer theater production in Spring 2026. I am collaborating with the South Asians in the Silicon Valley Initiative led by Dr. Mantra Roy at the MLK library, to include and encourage community participation. We will include artists who are trained in Rabindrasangeet, the genre of music that Tagore popularized. We will also have professional artists and trainers working with our students, thereby ensuring a rigorous training and rehearsal process for our participating students.
A prince and a merchant get shipwrecked. They arrive at faraway fantastical land, where the inhabitants are all two-dimensional cards, leading strictly regimented lives, who have lost any sense of autonomy, critical thinking, or capacity for any human emotional responses. Challenging the oppressive and stagnant laws of the land, the prince advocates for newness and progress, and also the need for aliveness through laughter, desire, queerness, mirth and even mischief.

This play, Kingdom of Cards, serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of unchecked materialistic and capitalistic greed and urges the audience to reflect on what it means to be human at a time of extreme despotism.
Hammer Theatresukanya.chakrabarti@sjsu.eduFilm, Theatre & DanceKingdom of Cards is a collaboration between the Department of Film, Theatre & Dance and the South Asians in Silicon Valley Initiative spearheaded by Dr. Mantra Roy at the MLK Library. In the Department of Film, Theatre & Dance, Associate Professor Andrea Bechert will be the Scenic Designer, lecturer Steve Mannshardt will be the lighting designer, and lecturer Courtney Flores will be the costume designer. The staff of Film, Theatre & Dance will be directly involved in the physical creation of the production. This includes: John York (scenic construction), Debbie Weber (costume construction), and Lucas Ward (sound tech). And producer Barnaby Dallas will oversee all aspects of the production

The cast and crew will be enrolled students of SJSU - this includes student assistant directors & choreographers, stage managers, assistant designers, dramaturgs, and production crew (deck, wardrobe, board operators). Over 120 SJSU students are directly involved in the production as part of their major and progress toward graduation. Faculty from the Department of Film, Theater & Dance will work with students to create a robust study guide for our audiences and for distribution to our theatre courses, specifically, TA 5: Introduction to Acting and TA 10 Theatre Appreciation. The guide is available to all faculty members for their classes across H&A. All faculty have classes that are involved in the production, specifically TA 117, TA 191 (three sections), TA 51A, TA 51B, TA51C. Besides the production in Spring 2026, there will be a class assigned (TA 112) in Fall 2025 for the development of the script, which will culminate in a staged reading at the end of the semester. The Department will work with H&A Marketing, and Dwight, Bentel & Hall Communications to create a marketing campaign which includes social media.

Students will get exposure to the work of an international literary figure, Rabindranath Tagore, whose work has not been sufficiently celebrated or produced on the American stage.
The students will participate in the developmental process of a Bengali play translated and adapted by their professors. There will be class discussions and critical thinking around questions of translation, adaption, and transnational work.
The play itself is timely and topical for its content, and being engaged in the development of the play would allow students to reflect on our own current socio-political climate.
Students will be able to work with professional artists from the Bay Area.
78
AEPGAuthenticitySpring 2026Corie BrownMay Performance: Hildegard Festival featuring Andrea Ramsey's Suffrage CantataThe SJSU Choirs and voice area in collaboration with the wider San Jose community plan to hold a Hildegard Festival that will include featuring works by women-identified composers, as well as Treble Choirs from around the Bay Area. The primary featured work will be Andrea Ramsey’s Suffrage Cantata, which will have its Bay Area premier performance. Suffrage Cantata is a moving five-movement work written in 2021 that centers the voices of African American suffragettes and the journey of the seventy-two years of struggle that led up to the ratification of the 19th Amendment. The composer conducted over a year of research that brings to light the important contributions of so many underrepresented voices. The composer and her research colleague wrote in the program notes;

“This work is about a distinct moment in history, but it was also composed during a critical moment in history. The music and texts capture the struggle for suffrage among women who were separated by the color line, but united in an understanding of the importance of women having the capacity to participate as full and equal citizens. Just as the women involved in suffrage raised their voices, artists must also make their desires for a better world clear, and that is why we implore you to involve singers who embody the women characterized in this work as authentically as possible, so that audiences can connect to the conflicts and triumphs of the road to suffrage.”

The choral performance would involve Treble choirs from around the Bay Area, the SJSU Concert Choir and Choraliers sopranos and altos, SJSU Treble Choir, and staging by Mx. Lofin Young, who has already agreed to collaborate with the project. The Cantata features also a narrator, as well as soloists, and string quartet who would be hired from our talented pool of artists in the Bay.

The beginning portion of the program would include arrangements of chant by Hildegard herself sung in the lobby as patrons arrive, as well as the choirs process to their places. Following, Randall Thompson’s Testament of Freedom would feature a brass choir, and the tenors and basses of SJSU Concert Choir and Choraliers. Testament is a perfect companion piece to Ramsey’s poignant Cantata as it is set to words by Thomas Jefferson and would give a chronological preclusion to the later-composed piece by Ramsey that is based on texts by African American suffragettes. The final piece in the program would be a combined SATB work that is written by a women-identified composer of color and is representative of our contemporary struggle and contemplation of freedom.

The other element to this concert would be the community engagement within San Jose. Together, the singers and conductors would elect an organization that is fighting for women’s health and rights to be part of the evening, and to receive donations directly from community patrons at the concert. For example, we might choose to partner with a women’s shelter. They would also speak briefly during the introduction to the concert to contextualize their involvement in the Hildegard Festival.

The authenticity of this piece is connected to the current struggle of women’s rights, nationally and internationally. The “Cantata” addresses concerns of a century ago, that are still of import in various countries around the world, as women’s rights are threatened as well in the US. This important work opens up opportunity for dialogue and action around the subject of women and women-composed works that will resonate with students, faculty, and community of San Jose.		Join us for the Bay Area premier of the poignant and powerful Suffrage Cantata by Andrea Ramsey and a celebration of women-identified composers in the SJSU School of Music’s first-ever Hildegard Festival. The SJSU School of Music presents an evening celebrating the fight for American voices to be heard, in collaboration with the SJSU Concert Choir and Choraliers, area high school Treble Choirs, in an exciting evening of music that tells our nation’s authentic story of struggle and resilience. Our performance will feature video projection and narration by renowned actress (TBD), and leave the audience motivated to join in the celebration of our stories, and the building of a better world, together.Hammer Theatrecorie.brown@sjsu.eduSchool of MusicJeffrey Benson
Lofin Young
Fred Cohen
Voice Area (Jacque Scharlach)
Visual Art/Video projection partnership TBD		This project involves 150+ SJSU students, and various additional community members, in the performance, and outreach to & with students and faculty and all areas of campus. It also includes the collaboration with the area women's shelter, as decided collaboratively with students/faculty. Student engagement includes participation from performers and composers as well as zooms with the composer throughout the process.
79
 Fall 2026 Events, Workshops & Programming
80
AEPGHomeFall 2026Eleanor Pries & Virginia San FratelloNovember 1-2Exhibit: Renegade Craft Fair: Waste to Wonder: Home GoodsWaste to Wonder: Home Goods
Sustainable Luxury in Home Goods from Recycled and Thrifted Resources
AEPG Project Leads: Virginia San Fratello, Eleanor Pries

Summary:
AEPG Waste to Wonder unites sustainability, creativity, and business acumen into student entrepreneurship for home decor. In this series, students creatively and collaboratively repurpose found objects and recycled materials into fun and fashionable home goods. Participants prepare strategic business plans for their home goods, to be exhibited, auctioned, and sold at a regional-scale Bay Area public craft event.

Event Total: 7
Total Participant Estimate: 500
Experts: Fletta Design Group, Simon Zsolt Jozsef, Virginia San Fratello
Integrated Courses: H&A 80, DSGN 127, DSIT 107/108/ 110, ART 132/134, BUS 182/183

1. Project Description:

From Waste to Wonder: Home Goods focuses on circular design and craftsmanship, transforming everyday discarded materials into unique, high-value products for the home. Our approach to this process is playful, yet critical of pressing issues around consumption and waste, while embracing the potential of new viable economies in reuse and upcycled goods. We will host three workshops with professional designers who bring expertise to our students to help them create products from local recycled materials that can then be sold in local retail and craft fairs and online. The products and objects will be meaningful, expressive, and delightful and are intended to bring increased functionality and joy into the home. The workshops will include SJSU design and art students, faculty, and staff as well as students and faculty in the Lurie College of Business. During the workshops, Business students will team with design students. Together, the teams will strategize and brand the home goods to produce beautiful, functional, and commercially-viable products, aligned with real customer needs.

2. Waste to Wonder: Detailed Events Program:

Events: 3 Student Workshops, 2 Public Lectures, 1 SJSU Gallery Exhibition, 1 Final Exhibition: Renegade Craft Fair, San Francisco

Student Workshop 1: Fall of 2025: Designing and fabricating domestic objects out of waste materials that can be found in common thrift stores. Examples of such discarded items include denim jeans, trophies, furniture, books, etc... These preloved materials will be transformed into new home goods by approximately 50 students in Design and Art courses. Our workshop guests will be Birta Brynjólfsdóttir and Hrefna Sigurðardóttir from Flétta Studio, award winning product designers in Iceland who use recycled material in their work. Collaboration includes ~150 students in BUS 182 (Dr. Quan).

Public Design Dialogues Lecture #1. Flétta Studio. Moderated by SJSU Design and Business students

Student Workshop 2: Spring 2026: 24 design and art students will learn from Simon Zsolt JĂłzsef, award-winning Hungarian ceramicist. Students develop custom molds for creating domestic objects out of recycled clay. This workshop may be coordinated with Art 132/134. Collaboration includes ~75 students in BUS 182 (Dr. Quan).

Public Design Dialogues Lecture #2. Zsolt. Moderated by SJSU Design and Business students

Student Workshop 3: Spring 2026: 24 students in DSIT 108 will work with Instructor Eleanor Pries and expert Virginia San Fratello, to create 3D printed light fixtures using recycled bioplastics. Collaboration includes ~75 students in BUS 182 (Dr. Quan).

Collaboration and Integration with Business: Detail

During all workshops, Design / Art students will be teamed with Business students from SJSU’s entrepreneurship program (BUS 182/183) to conduct market research, prepare feasibility study, pricing strategies, branding, and develop a plan to share with industry professionals. Typical enrollment in BUS 182/183 is 150 students per semester, teamed with approximately 50 Design students per semester. Select motivated student teams will apply for the SJSU ZinnStarter startup program in January 2027, to compete for start-up funding for their home good product and brand.

Public Final Event and Exhibition:

The final event is a craft fair experience with regional scale. Students will show and sell their Waste to Wonder pieces at the Renegade Craft Fair at Fort Mason in San Francisco. With a mission to grow creative marketplaces, Renegade Craft Fair is a curated fair, operating since 2003, with venues in Chicago, Brooklyn, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and Seattle. The fair experience is robust and lively, artists, designers, and buyers show off their work, discuss their process, and negotiate sales. The fair sees almost 300,000 visitors each year and will be a great opportunity for our students to test the marketability of their designs, and showcase SJSU in a regional, public venue. The SF fair is November 1-2, 2026. Students will collaborate with Marjan Khatibi for custom graphic design and branding for their products. At SJSU, students will showcase their creations at the SJSU Design Gallery. Additionally, through coordination with SJSU’s University House, several pieces may be auctioned off or exhibited in University House. Post fair, the Design x Business student teams will assess the performance of their Wonders and tweak their product proposals before applying for the ZinnStarter startup program the following semester.

Active Engagement:

Our Waste to Wonder: Home Goods event series contains several levels of active engagement for students. The three creative workshops are multi-day events with developed creative work, detailed design, hands-on fabrication, and collaborative business planning among the students and the guest experts. Students will prepare for the public lectures, introduce the speakers, and moderate the discussion. The exhibition of the Wonders at the Design Gallery and University House will involve student set up and preparation. The final exhibition at the Renegade Craft Fair is a dynamic event where the creators (students) and the public will connect, discuss, admire, and negotiate.

ON VIEW and FOR SALE: Waste to Wonders!
Calling all you Thrifters, Home Decorators, Art Lovers, DIY mavens, Scavengers, Garbage Bandits, and Trash Pandas! Come shop for chic, up-cycled home goods. SJSU students are showing and selling their custom-designed and sustainably-sourced home wares at the annual Renegade Craft Fair at San Francisco’s Fort Mason Center, November 1-2, 2026.

Supported by the College of Humanities & the Arts’ Artistic Excellence Programming Grant
Renegade Craft Fair, Fort Mason, San Francisco, CAeleanor.pries@sjsu.eduDesignWaste to Wonder is a collaboration between Interior Design and Business Entrepreneurship, coordinated through Project Leads Virginia San Fratello, Eleanor Pries, Iris Quan and Nancy Da Silva. Multiple additional faculty from Design and Art have agreed to participate:

Dr. "Iris" Xiaohong Quan, Ph.D., Business
Nancy Da Silva, Business
SJSU University House
Leila Ensaniat, Design
Marjan Khatibi, Design
Marta Elliott, Design
Adam Shiverdecker, Art
Alena Sauzade, Art		Student learning and audience engagement impacts will center on either sustainable materials and upcycled crafts, or business innovation and entrepreneurship.

From Waste to Wonder: Home Goods will focus on circular design and craftsmanship, transforming everyday discarded materials into unique, high-value products for the home. By using and adapting waste and recycled content, we aim to suggest new modes of home goods consumption and build entrepreneurial spirit. Together, the teams will strategize and brand the home good Wonders to produce beautiful, functional, and commercially-viable products, aligned with real customer needs. This collaboration will help students bridge the gap between creativity and practical application within innovative upcycled product development.

Sustainability
Waste to Wonder: Home Goods is a creative and collaborative series to address consumption, waste stream, and environmental concerns. By reimagining and giving new use to discarded items and recycled materials, students and the public learn and see how to proactively reduce the need for new raw materials and the demand on natural resources. This practice not only minimizes waste that would otherwise end up in landfills, but also encourages a more conscious and viable approach to both product design and consumption. Transforming waste into functional and aesthetic objects infuses a home with unique, personalized decor while reducing the carbon footprint associated with mass-produced goods. Moreover, it fosters a culture of mindful design, where utility and beauty come together to create innovative solutions for everyday living.