Faculty/Department

Dominic Thomas wins international Gutenberg Research Chair honor

Last November, Dominic Thomas, Madeleine L. Letessier Professor of French and Francophone Studies in the UCLA Department of European Languages and Transcultural Studies, won the Gutenberg Research Chair. As part of his prize, he will serve as lead investigator on a project, “Ecology and Propaganda.” “This honor is a testament to the remarkable timeliness, power and scope of Dominic Thomas’ work,” said Alexandra Minna Stern, dean of the UCLA Division of Humanities. “We are proud to have him representing our division, university and field on a global scale as he innovates new approaches to critically studying pressing environmental and ecological…

Four faculty members receive NEH grants

Among the 204 projects nationwide funded by $28.1 million in grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities this year are initiatives by UCLA faculty members Meredith Cohen, Willeke Wendrich, Li Min and Ellen Pearlstein. Cohen, an associate professor of art history, received an NEH-Mellon Fellowship for Digital Publication, which includes an outright grant of $60,000 to work on “The Lady Chapel as a Model for Visualizations of Digital 3-D Historical Reconstructions.” The project will involve researching, writing and using data visualization to create a website to explore 3-D architectural reconstructions of the Lady Chapel of Saint-German-des-Prés. Wendrich, the Joan…

UCLA Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture to premiere chamber opera

On Saturday, January 21, at 7 p.m., the UCLA Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture will proudly present the premiere of the experimental chamber opera Polymnia, the story of a young woman whose family was tragically expelled from its village by the Ottoman Turks. The performance will take place at UCLA’s Little Theatre. A second performance will be held on January 22 at 2 p.m. Written and composed by emerging artist Theodosia Roussos, the opera presents the story of Roussos’ own great-grandmother Polymnia Athanasiades Pappas and draws from fragments of Sappho’s poetry, Kassiane’s hymns, as well…

In memoriam: Herbert Morris, 94, landmark figure in law and philosophy

Professor emeritus Herbert Morris, a globally renowned scholar and teacher of law and philosophy and a foundational member of UCLA School of Law’s faculty, died on Dec. 14. He was 94. An instrumental leader at UCLA for seven decades, Morris earned his bachelor’s degree at UCLA, law degree from Yale Law School and doctorate in philosophy from Oxford University. He joined the faculty of UCLA’s philosophy department in 1956 and the law school in 1962. During his uncommonly distinguished career, Morris served as dean of humanities of in the UCLA College from 1983 to 1992 and interim provost of the…

‘The New Treaties of Globalization’: Gabriel Zucman delivers Possible Worlds lecture

In the latest installment of the “Possible Worlds” lecture series, French economist Gabriel Zucman joined UCLA students, faculty and community members on October 11 to discuss the link between globalization, taxation and inequality. The event was held in person at Royce Hall, with a livestream reaching additional audience members virtually. In his talk, “The New Treaties of Globalization,” Zucman discussed a range of topics, including the concept of implementing a progressive wealth tax to better reflect modern society. The lecture was followed by a Q&A session moderated by Juliana Londoño-Vélez, an assistant professor of economics at UCLA and a faculty…

Professor Elizabeth DeLoughrey discusses Guggenheim Fellowship

Elizabeth DeLoughrey, a UCLA professor of English who also holds an appointment in the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, received a 2021 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship in the category of literary criticism in recognition of her existing work and future potential. DeLoughrey teaches postcolonial literature courses on the environment, globalization, and the Anthropocene with a focus on the Caribbean and Pacific Islands. She has published several books, including her latest, “Allegories of the Anthropocene” (Duke University Press, 2019), and co-founded the UCLA Postcolonial Literature and Theory Colloquium. In addition to being honored with a Guggenheim, DeLoughrey has…

Students make remarkable finds in ‘Encountering Arabic Manuscripts’ course

If there was any question that UCLA Library Special Collections’ vast array of handwritten medieval manuscripts in Arabic, Persian and early Ottoman Turkish contained undiscovered historical gems and unique avenues for groundbreaking research, just ask doctoral student Brooke Baker. While studying an untitled text as part of UCLA’s “Encountering Arabic Manuscripts” course, Baker found that it contained a work by Abd al-Wahhab al-Sha’rani, the 16th-century mystic and scholar who founded an Egyptian order of Sufism, a mystical branch of Islam. Thinking she might have stumbled onto something rare, she showed it to Associate Professor Luke Yarbrough, who teaches the course. “On a…

Grant supports Hellenic studies pilot program at UCLA, Simon Fraser University

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation has awarded more than $1.2 million to the UCLA SNF Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture and the SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies at Simon Fraser University. This grant will support a collaborative, three-year pilot program to enhance academic mobility for faculty, staff, and students traveling between the two institutions and to bridge the geographical gap that divides academics and cultural producers in Greece and the West Coast of North America. The grant will also help both institutions expand on highly successful programming initiated in the last two years. The pilot program offers opportunities for…

Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture announces SNF & Ioannis P. and Eirini Caloyeras Lectureship

The UCLA Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture announces the establishment of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation & Ioannis P. and Eirini Caloyeras Lectureship in Modern Greek. The endowment, jointly funded by the SNF and Peter J. Caloyeras, creates a permanent, full-time lecturer position in Modern Greek Language and Culture, ensuring that courses in these subjects will be permanently offered at UCLA. The courses will be housed in UCLA’s Department of Classics, which has recently added a Minor in Greek Language and Culture. Dr. Simos Zenios, Associate Director of the Center, will become the inaugural holder of…

Commencement speaker Robert Buswell reflects on the past, looks toward the future

UCLA Buddhist studies scholar Robert Buswell will be the keynote speaker for the Division of Humanities commencement ceremony on Saturday, June 11 at Royce Hall. Buswell, a distinguished professor who holds the Irving and Jean Stone Endowed Chair in Humanities, will retire this year after more than three decades at UCLA, where he founded the Center for Buddhist Studies and Center for Korean Studies. He and his wife, Christina Buswell, also recently made gift commitments to establish both an endowed chair and a graduate fellowship in Buddhist studies at UCLA. Buswell said that he was fortunate to have joined UCLA…