The Cerritos College Visual and Cultural Studies Program is a first-of-its-kind interdisciplinary AA degree unique in the California Community College system. Building upon such traditional programs as Art History, Film Studies, Ethnic Studies, and Gender Studies, students are free to mix and match across a broad range of areas of specialization. The eight papers assembled in this seventh volume of the self-published journal, VIEWS, present just a sampling of the many papers and independent research projects pursued by students enrolled in courses within the program this year.

The past and the present are rarely as far apart as they may seem and the essays collected here make this quite clear, either by examining the historical context of contemporary practices or by looking at the past through a contemporary lens. For example, Andrea Aguilar explores the contemporary artists using their work to raise awareness about recent and ongoing injustices against the indigenous Mayan peoples of Guatemala. A number of the student scholars focus on issues of gender and sexuality, with Natalie Belger creating a curatorial project around keys works in the oeuvre of the 17th-century painter Artemisia Gentileschi, Elizabeth Lieb tracing the evolution of second- and third-wave feminist artists incorporating their experience as mothers into their art practices, and Suraya Martinez looking at how women artists have channeled anger in their work to challenge gender inequity and sexual violence. Jason Busego looks to queer artists that have attempted to subvert the traditional male gaze and Hailey Aquino does a deep dive into the history of gay and lesbian graphic novels in Japan. Victoria Moran uncovers issues of class division in the Mexican director Lila Avilés 2018 film The Chambermaid and Delvin Sauw examines the anti-Palestinian prejustices in the 1949 novel Khirbet Khizeh written by Israeli author S. Yizhar.