Videos and Recorded Programs

The Huntington, which holds Octavia E. Butler’s archive, hosted a special conversation on March 26, 2025, about Butler’s novels “Parable of the Sower” and “Parable of the Talents,” which focus on themes of resilience, community, and social change. Moderator Monique Thomas and panelists Nikki High, Tamisha A. Tyler, and John Williams explored Butler’s call to community building, her influence on writers and activists, and how her fiction does—and doesn’t—speak to the present moment.

Learn how 17th-century portraits illuminate the experiences and identities of London’s growing African population, particularly enslaved children, in this presentation by Research Fellow Susan D. Amussen, distinguished professor of history and the UC Merced Presidential Chair in the Humanities.

Kelly Lytle Hernández, the Thomas E. Lifka Endowed Chair in History at UCLA, gives a lecture that tracks the rise of the whites-only immigration regime and how federal authorities have yet to abolish it.