Mike Davis, professor of history, University of California, Irvine
Founded in 1995 through the generosity of Phyllis Wattis, this lecture series brings innovative thinkers to SFMOMA. Historian, activist, and urban theorist Davis is the author of City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles (1990), the groundbreaking study of that city’s loaded social reality set against its imagined and often hyperbolic promises. A MacArthur fellow whose political activism dates back to the 1960s, Davis is the author of The Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster, The Monster at Our Door: The Global Threat of Avian Flu, Planet of Slums, and most recently, Buda’s Wagon: A Brief History of the Car Bomb. Tonight he joins us for an intelligent discussion of public politics and social activism.
We regret to announce that the April 10 Phyllis Wattis Distinguished Lecture with Mike Davis has been cancelled due to a family illness. Tickets to the Wattis Lecture will be honored for the April 12, 3:00 p.m. Bay Area Conversation, Landscape is Destiny, with Michael Light, Trevor Paglen, and Rebecca Solnit. Refunds are available by calling 415.357.4154 or in-person at the Museum box offices and membership desk.