Sean Brenner

Reimagining the scope and approach of the UCLA Center for Early Global Studies

Journalists, businesspeople and politicians working in foreign countries often depend on fixers — resourceful, problem-solving guides with a sophisticated grasp of local languages, cultures and customs. Zrinka Stahuljak has long considered herself a fixer, both literally — she was a wartime interpreter in her native Croatia during the 1990s wars in the former Yugoslavia — and metaphorically, in her role at UCLA. “I’m fascinated and inspired by the transcultural work of fixers, who ultimately help people make transformative connections,” she says. It’s in that spirit that Stahuljak has overseen the thoughtful transformation of the UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance…

From fiction to action on climate change: Kim Stanley Robinson delivers Possible Worlds lecture

For the third installment of the Possible Worlds lecture series, Kim Stanley Robinson —recognized as one of the greatest living science fiction writers — joined students, faculty and UCLA community members Nov. 30 to discuss climate change advocacy and the incredibly high stakes facing our planet. “[We] are standing on the edge of creating a mass extinction event that would hammer humanity,” said Robinson in his talk, “Optopia: From Fiction to Action on Climate Change.” A collaborative effort between the Division of Humanities at UCLA and the Los Angeles-based Berggruen Institute, Possible Worlds invites today’s most imaginative intellectual leaders and…

Poet Rhiannon McGavin ’20 Awarded Mitchell Scholarship

Rhiannon McGavin ’20 was watching the 1984 cult classic Repo Man at the Los Feliz 3 theater when she got the call. “They have such a strict no-phone policy,” she laughs, “so I tore outside the theater as soon as I felt that ring.” The news was worth missing a movie for — McGavin discovered she earned a slot as one of the 12 members of the George J. Mitchell Scholar Class of 2023, one of Ireland’s most prestigious scholarship programs. The 2016 Youth Poet Laureate of Los Angeles, author of Grocery List Poems and only the third UCLA grad to win the honor in the past 20 years, McGavin will spend her scholarship year studying creative…

UCLA professor receives award for promoting Spanish language and culture

Barbara Fuchs is the first recipient of the Ñ Prize, an award created to honor individuals who have promoted Spanish language and culture internationally. The Ñ Prize was created by the Instituto Cervantes, a Spanish public institution created in 1991 with the intent to promote the Spanish language through education and use of the language and to encourage the spread of Hispanic cultures globally. The Instituto Cervantes is also currently planning to open a branch in LA. The introduction of the Ñ Prize also aligns with the 30th anniversary of the institution. Fuchs, a professor of Spanish and English, said…

What gets remembered

There has never been one definitive Los Angeles. Spanning hundreds of years and countless cultures, the city represents something different for everyone. It belongs to us all, as young participants in the Summer Writers’ Workshop discovered in July. An annual offering by creative writing nonprofit 826LA, the program featured something new this year: a collaboration between 826LA, UCLA and Professor of English and Chicana/o Studies Marissa López’s Picturing Mexican America project. The weeklong workshop brought middle and high school students together to examine—and imagine—both the future history of L.A. and their roles in that history, focusing on the questions, “Who makes decisions about what gets remembered?” and “How can we bring unseen or ignored things to light?” López and her graduate students Efren Lopez (no relation), Robert Mendoza and Gabriela…

CMRS Is Now CMRS-CEGS

Dear faculty, staff, and friends, I am pleased to share exciting news regarding UCLA’s world-class hub for scholars working in periods from the 3rd to the 17th century CE across the world. More than a half-century after its founding, the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (CMRS) will now be known as CMRS Center for Early Global Studies (CMRS–CEGS). Under the leadership of director Zrinka Stahuljak, CMRS–CEGS exemplifies the breadth of forward-thinking research and scholarship happening across fields. The updated name represents UCLA’s diverse faculty and graduate student body across a wide spectrum of disciplines, and reflects the Center’s new mission to promote and sustain transdisciplinary studies of the period from late antiquity to the early modern era across the globe. …

Gift to UCLA’s Clark Library establishes fellowship to support research on Oscar Wilde

UCLA has received a generous gift from William Zachs and Martin Adam to establish the endowed Wilde-Holland Fellowship in the UCLA Center for 17th- and 18th-Century Studies & William Andrews Clark Memorial Library. The gift qualified for matching funds from the Kaplan-Panzer Humanities Endowment. The fellowship is open to postdoctoral scholars, graduate students and visiting scholars engaged in research using materials from the Clark’s unparalleled collection of Wilde materials. At the culmination of the two-month fellowship, the Wilde-Holland Fellow will deliver a presentation of their research. Wilde (1854-1900) was an iconic and controversial 19th-century playwright, poet, novelist and editor. The…

Emergency Support for Afghan Scholars at Risk

With the support of campus leadership, the UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies launched an emergency effort to respond to the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan and help Scholars at Risk. The central campus administration has committed funding, but to bring several scholars from Afghanistan, we need your help. We would now like to give the campus community at large the opportunity to contribute to this effort. Our goal is to raise $100,000 by September 30 to enable emergency travel and placement of fellow Afghan scholars at UCLA. Our priorities are to support faculty members at acute risk and desperately trying to…

Spanish Government to honor UCLA professor for promoting language and culture

The Cervantes Institute, a Spanish government agency dedicated to promoting Spanish around the world, has chosen Barbara Fuchs, UCLA professor of Spanish and English, to receive its inaugural Ñ Prize, honoring her work disseminating Spanish language and culture through theater and literature. The president of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, will join Fuchs on July 22 at UCLA as part of an event to announce the first Instituto Cervantes branch in Los Angeles, which will be the seventh such center in the United States. In October, Spain’s King Felipe VI will present the bronze Ñ Prize to Fuchs in person in Madrid. Read the…

COVID 19 Fiat Lux Seminars: Shedding Light on the Pandemic (Part 1)

With many of us now living under government-issued stay-at-home or shelter-in-place orders, Raymond Knapp is taking a musical approach towards how people are coping. Knapp is the Academic Associate Dean at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music and a distinguished musicology professor. He also serves as the Director of the UCLA Center for Musical Humanities, and is among the many UCLA faculty members teaching a Spring 2020 COVID-19 Fiat Lux seminar. Knapp’s Fiat Lux seminar, titled “COVID-19: Inspirational Songs from Musicals in a Time of Crisis,” focuses on how many turn to songs from musicals during difficult times, oftentimes…