So many talks, so little time. This week saw the launch of two interdisciplinary lecture series that provide an impressive list of reasons to make your way to Southern California (as if the frigid temperatures here on the East Coast weren't incentive enough). On Monday, the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena kicked off its "Big Picture" lecture series with a talk by Kurt Andersen, the school's own "Visionary-In-Residence." Ensuing Monday afternoons through March will feature talks by the likes of writer and outside.in founder Steven Johnson and art historian Karen Lang. Over at the University of Southern California, the Master of Public Art Studies: Art in the Public Sphere program began its spring lecture forum with a presentation by artist Andrea Fraser. Future speakers will include cultural critic and historian Norman Klein, artist Paul Ramirez Jonas, and Rudolf Frieling, curator of media arts at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

In New York City? You're in luck, too. American Craft editor-in-chief Andrew Wagner has just let us know about a discussion that he'll be taking part in this Thursday evening at the Museum of Arts and Design. The Venn diagram-worthy topic? "Where Craft and Design Intersect." Wagner will investigate the overlap with MAD chief curator David Revere McFadden, designer Suzanne Tick, and (be still our hearts!) artist Michelle Oka Doner. Click here for more info on the Thursday event and click "continued..." for the full lecture line-ups at the Art Center and USC.

Art Center College of Design | Big Picture Lecture Series
The following lectures will be presented in the College's Ahmanson Auditorium and are free and open to the public. All lectures are from 1:00pm to 2:00pm. More information about the speakers is available here.

February 2: Steven Johnson

February 9: Alison Renteln

February 16: Jonah Lehrer

March 2: Arden Reed

March 9: Karen Lang

March 16: Toby Miller

March 23: Kara Keeling

USC Master of Public Art Studies | Spring 2009 Lecture Forum
Lectures are on Mondays from 6:00pm to 8:50pm (unless otherwise indicated) at the USC Graduate Fine Arts Building, 3001 South Flower Street, in Los Angeles. More information is available here.

February 9: Norman Klein (Los Angeles-based cultural critic and historian of mass culture; Professor in the School of Critical Studies, California Institute of the Arts)

February 23: Mark Dion (New York-based artist)

February 26: Patricia Phillips (critic; Chair and Professor in the Department of Art, Cornell University) and Gregory Sholette (artist and writer, founding member of Political Art Documentation/Distribution and REPOhistory; Assistant Professor of Sculpture at Queens College).

February 27: Ute Meta Bauer (curator; Associate Professor and Director of the Visual Arts Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology).
(Special time, 11:00 AM to 1:30 PM)

March 9: Paul Ramirez Jonas (New York-based artist; Assistant Professor in the Department of Art, Hunter College)

March 23: Rudolf Frieling (Curator of Media Arts, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art)

April 13: Steve Dietz (new media curator; Artistic Director of the 01SJBiennial in San Jose, California; Executive Director of Northern Lights)