Fiftieth Anniversary occasion takes place on February 28, 2025 at The Metropolis Membership of San Francisco
Particular company embody:
ROB BONTA, thirty fourth Lawyer Normal of California
MICHELE ELAM, William Robertson Coe Professor of Humanities within the English Division at Stanford College
DAMON HOROWITZ, thinker and know-how entrepreneur
RACHAEL MYROW, Senior Editor of KQED’s Silicon Valley Information Desk
TANI CANTIL SAKAUYE, President & CEO, Public Coverage Institute of California, former Chief Justice of California, who will obtain the Spirit of Humanities Award
Please go to click on right here for more data
This occasion is free and open to the general public; please click on right here to register
(Los Angeles, CA) Wednesday, January 22, 2025 – California Humanities, a statewide nonprofit devoted to selling the humanities and their important position in our tradition, proudly pronounces its Fiftieth anniversary celebration, which is able to happen on Friday, February 28, 2025, at The Metropolis Membership of San Francisco. For 5 many years, California Humanities has related folks by means of the exploration of concepts, historical past, and various cultural expressions, fostering understanding and dialogue throughout the Golden State and giving voice to voices seldom heard.
Based in 1975, California Humanities is a companion of the Nationwide Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) that promotes the humanities as a related, significant technique to perceive the human situation and join us. The unbiased, nonprofit group produces, funds, creates, and helps humanities-based initiatives and packages and eye-opening cultural experiences and conversations. California Humanities has awarded greater than $44 million in grants throughout each Congressional district within the state since its founding in 1975, has served and supported 2,175 organizations, uplifting voices of greater than 11 million Californians.
“This can be a very particular and well timed milestone for California Humanities, as we have fun 50 years of funding and launching initiatives that showcase the remarkably various cultures and other people which are distinctly Californian,” mentioned Rick Noguchi, President and CEO of California Humanities. “This celebration comes at a time when it’s crucial to embrace essentially the most human a part of the humanities—the ability of storytelling to attach, encourage, and foster understanding throughout our variations whereas advancing equality for all.”
California Humanities’ Fiftieth-anniversary celebration will characteristic a thought-provoking dialog on the impression of Synthetic Intelligence with Damon Horowitz, AI specialist, entrepreneur, thinker, and former California Humanities Board Member (2011-2013) recognized for his work in synthetic intelligence and ethics, and Michele Elam, William Robertson Coe Professor within the Humanities at Stanford College. Rachael Myrow, Senior Editor of KQED’s Silicon Valley Information Desk, will average the dialogue. This dialogue will discover how the humanities can revolutionize synthetic intelligence.
Rob Bonta, thirty fourth Lawyer Normal of California, may even communicate concerning the legacy of California Humanities and the significance of the humanities and synthetic intelligence on authorities and society.
Rick Noguchi will open the night and current the Spirit of the Humanities Award to Tani Cantil-Sakauye, President & CEO of the Public Coverage Institute of California, recognizing her vital contributions to the intersections of the humanities, legal justice, and social coverage.
“Tani Cantil-Sakauye embodies the spirit of management and repair that evokes us all,” mentioned Rachel Hatch, California Humanities Board Chair. “Her profound dedication to justice, fairness, and group has left an indelible mark on California and past. All of us up right here in a extra rural a part of the state akin to Redding recognize that she has made efforts through the years to tune in to what’s taking place in our civic life. We’re honored to have fun her outstanding contributions to the cultural lifetime of our state, with all of its geographic variety.”
Since its founding in 1974, California Humanities has supported 1000’s of initiatives, from oral historical past initiatives and documentaries to cultural festivals and academic packages. These efforts have illuminated the wealthy tapestry of California’s previous and current whereas sparking conversations that bridge divides and have fun variety.
California Humanities Applications and Initiatives
California Humanities present packages and initiatives embody the California Documentary Challenge (CDP), a grant program that helps the creation of documentary movies, audio initiatives, and different media that discover California’s historical past, tradition, and various communities. Since 2003, California Humanities has been the main funder of documentary movies, podcasts, and interactive media initiatives by, for, and about Californians. California Humanities has awarded over $8.5 million by means of the CDP grant program to nonfiction movie, audio, and interactive media initiatives documenting California in all its complexity, incomes Academy Award nominations, Emmys, and Peabody Awards. These works have aired on PBS and NPR, streamed on Netflix and HBO, and premiered at international movie festivals. Extra importantly, CDP initiatives interact Californians in lecture rooms, public libraries, group screenings, and cultural facilities, sparking dialog on vital and provocative matters.
Since 2017, California Humanities Library Innovation Lab (LIL), a nationally acknowledged program, has supported California’s public libraries by means of coaching, assist, and assets for programming librarians. This assist permits them to design and implement new public humanities initiatives that attain and interact underserved immigrant teams in California, who make up 25% of the state’s inhabitants. As of 2024, 84 libraries have participated in this system, providing a whole lot of public humanities packages and experiences, reaching over 100,000 Californians.
Humanities for All is a grant program that helps regionally initiated public humanities initiatives that reply to the wants and pursuits of Californians, encourage better public participation in humanities programming, notably by new and/or underserved audiences, and promotes understanding and empathy amongst all our state’s peoples to domesticate a thriving democracy.
Please go to for extra details about California Humanities’ present and previous packages.
All proceeds from California Humanities’ Fiftieth anniversary celebration will profit packages and initiatives that amplify underrepresented voices, foster cultural understanding, and produce the humanities to communities throughout California.
CALENDAR EDITORS, PLEASE NOTE:
California Humanities Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration
February 28, 2025, at 6:30 pm
The Metropolis Membership of San Francisco
155 Sansome St, tenth ground, San Francisco, CA 94104
With particular company:
Rob Bonta, thirty fourth Lawyer Normal of California
Damon Horowitz, thinker and know-how entrepreneur
Michele Elam, William Robertson Coe Professor within the Humanities at Stanford College
Rachael Myrow, Senior Editor of KQED’s Silicon Valley Information Desk
Tani Cantil Sakauye, President & CEO, Public Coverage Institute of California, Public Humanities Award recipient
This occasion is free and open to the general public. Please click on right here to register and for extra data.
About California Humanities
The mission of California Humanities is to attach Californians to concepts and each other as a way to perceive our shared heritage and various cultures, encourage civic participation, and form our future.
What Are The Humanities Anyway?
About Rob Bonta
Rob Bonta is the thirty fourth Lawyer Normal of the State of California, the primary particular person of Filipino descent and the second AsianAmerican to occupy the place. In elected workplace, he has taken on highly effective pursuits and superior systemic change—pursuing company accountability, standing up for staff, punishing huge polluters, and combating racial injustice. He has served within the State Meeting, and as a Deputy Metropolis Lawyer for the Metropolis and County of San Francisco.
About Michele Elam
Michele Elam is the William Robertson Coe Professor of Humanities within the English Division at Stanford College, Former Affiliate Director and at present a Senior Fellow on the Institute for Human-Centered Synthetic Intelligence and a Race & Expertise Affiliate on the Middle for Comparative Research in Race and Ethnicity. Former Director of African & African American Research, Elam can also be affiliated with the Clayman Institute for Gender Analysis and with the Wu Tsai Neuroscience Institute. Elam’s analysis in interdisciplinary humanities connects literature, social sciences, and STEM as a way to look at altering cultural interpretations of gender and race. Her work is knowledgeable by the understanding that racial notion and identification particularly impacts outcomes for well being, wealth and social justice. Her most up-to-date guide venture, Race Making within the Age of AI, considers how the humanities and humanities operate as key crucibles by means of which to border and deal with pressing social questions on fairness and social justice in socially transformative applied sciences. Her different books embody Race, Work, and Want in American Literature, 1860-1930 (Cambridge College Press, 2003); The Souls of Blended People: Race, Politics, and Aesthetics within the New Millennium (Stanford College Press, 2011); and The Cambridge Companion to James Baldwin (Cambridge College Press, 2015). She is at present on the Advisory Boards of Stanford’s Symbolic Techniques Program; the Program in Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Research; the Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research; the Middle for Comparative Research in Race & Ethnicity; and the Director’s Council for the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (the d.faculty). Devoted to instructing, Elam has been awarded many instructing awards together with the 2018 Walter J. Gores Award, the College’s highest instructing honor.
About Rachel Hatch
Rachel Hatch serves as Chair of the Board for California Humanities. She is writer of Museum 2040: Citizen Artists & the New Economic system (American Alliance for Museums) and a featured speaker for “Forecasting 4 Various Futures for California” hosted by the California Analysis Bureau.
About Damon Horowitz
Dr. Damon Horowitz works on the intersection of know-how and the humanities. As a professor, he has taught programs in philosophy, literature, AI, and cognitive science at Columbia, NYU, Stanford, U Penn, and San Quentin State Jail; and he has served on the Board of a number of arts and humanities non-profits, together with California Humanities. In trade, he constructed a number of startup firms based mostly on his pure language processing analysis, together with Aardvark (acquired by Google), Perspecta (acquired by Excite), Novation Biosciences (acquired by Agilent), and NewsDB (Daylife); and he was the primary “In-Home Thinker” at Google, main a company-wide personalization initiative with a concentrate on knowledge privateness points. He is a well-liked public speaker at venues starting from TED to AAAI to O’Reilly conferences, and his work has been featured in media starting from The New York Instances to The Chronicle of Greater Training to NPR to TechCrunch. He earned his BA from Columbia, his MS in Synthetic Intelligence from the MIT Media Lab, and his PhD in Philosophy from Stanford College.
About Rachel Myrow
Rachael Myrow is Senior Editor of KQED’s Silicon Valley Information Desk. You may hear her work on NPR, The World, WBUR’s Right here & Now and the BBC. She additionally visitor hosts for KQED’s Discussion board. Through the years, she’s talked with Kamau Bell, David Byrne, Kamala Harris, Tony Kushner, Armistead Maupin, Van Dyke Parks, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tommie Smith, amongst others. Earlier than all this, she hosted The California Report for 7+ years. To study extra, please go to
About Tani Cantil-Sakauye
Tani Cantil-Sakauye is president and CEO of the Public Coverage Institute of California, the place she holds the Walter and Esther Hewlett Chair in Understanding California’s Future. From 2011 to 2022, she served because the twenty eighth Chief Justice of California and led the judiciary because the chair of the Judicial Council—the constitutional coverage and rule making physique of the judicial department—the primary particular person of colour and the second lady to take action. Earlier than she was elected statewide because the Chief Justice of California, she served greater than 20 years on California appellate and trial courts and was appointed or elevated to greater workplace by three governors. Earlier in her profession she served as a deputy district lawyer for the Sacramento County District Lawyer’s Workplace and on the senior employees of Governor Deukmejian, first as deputy authorized affairs secretary and later as a deputy legislative secretary. She holds a BA and a JD from the College of California, Davis.
MEDIA CONTACT:
Lisa Bellamore
Crescent Communications
lbellamore@gmail.com
Vanessa Waite
Crescent Communications
vfloreswaite@gmail.com
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