The 26th annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, which began on April 17 and will conclude on April 23, features more than 30 panels, readings and conversations. UCLA’s Kelly Lytle Hernández and Marcus Hunter are among the list of notable authors, entertainers and academics participating at this year’s virtual event.
A professor of history, African American studies and urban planning, Lytle Hernández, who was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship in 2019, will participate in a MacArthur fellows panel on April 23. The panel will also feature USC professor Natalia Molino, who was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship in 2020, and L.A. Times columnist Gustavo Arellano, who will moderate the discussion on immigration policy and its historical roots as well as the origins and evolution of incarceration and immigrant detention practices in the United States.
Lytle Hernández, the Thomas E. Lifka Chair in History at UCLA, has written two books: “Migra: A History of the U.S. Border Patrol” (2010) and “City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles, 1771–1965” (2017). She is currently working on a new book about the magonista movement.
Hunter, professor of sociology and chair of the African American studies department, moderated a panel about the Black experience across literary genres on April 18, with authors S.A. Cosby, Danielle Evans, Nikky Finney and Robert Jones Jr. They discussed how their literary works — which span fiction, crime fiction, short stories and poetry — address the Black experience and issues of race, culture and history.
Hunter, the Scott Waugh Professor in the Division of the Social Sciences, is the author of “Black Citymakers: How the Philadelphia Negro Changed Urban America” (2013) and the co-author of “Chocolate Cities: The Black Map of American Life” (2018). He also edited “The New Black Sociologists: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives” (2018).