We Were Here: The Untold History of Black Africans in Renaissance Europe
2025-11-10 15:30 - 16:45 (America/Los_Angeles) | 147 Dodd Hall, 390 Portola Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
We Were Here: The Untold History of Black Africans in Renaissance Europe sheds light on the overlooked presence of African and Black individuals in Renaissance Europe, highlighting their depiction in masterpieces by some of the era’s most celebrated artists.
Directed by award-winning filmmaker Fred Kudjo Kuwornu and produced by Do The Right Films, this multilingual documentary takes viewers on an expansive journey through the UK, Italy, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and France, offering a compelling reexamination of European art history and its cultural legacy. Featuring insights from leading scholars in Art History, Black Studies, and History, alongside Black activists and curators, the film provides a rich, layered perspective on a neglected chapter of European history.
To learn more, please view the trailer here.

The screening is free to attend with advance registration.
It will be held in-person at UCLA Dodd Hall, Room 147.
Seating is limited; walk-in registrants are welcome as space permits.

Archaeological Perspectives on the Economic Transformation of China during the First Millennium BCE
2025-11-14 16:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | 306 Royce Hall, 340 Royce Drive, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Starting about the middle of the first millennium BCE, continental East Asia experienced an unprecedented economic florescence as the Bronze Age redistributive economy gave way to a full-fledged market economy. In this new economy, metallic currency was beginning to play an important role. Technological innovations and intensification in the rural sector enabled significant demographic growth: the number of cities multiplied, and as their function morphed from elite ceremonial centers to densely populated hubs of mass-production and trade, a new urban culture came into being. Rather than depending on an individual’s descent and kinship, social divisions were now mainly wealth-based, and the pervasive use of writing enabled new intellectual breakthroughs. Drawn from a forthcoming major monograph, this lecture surveys some of the currently available archaeological evidence of this transformation, tracing its preliminary stages back to the beginning of the first millennium BCE and following its development down to the onset of China’s imperial age. In keeping with the spirit of “Global Antiquity,” possible connections with other parts of Eurasia will be touched upon.
About the Speaker
Lothar von Falkenhausen is Distinguished Professor of Chinese Archaeology and Art History at UCLA, where he has taught since 1993. He is also on the faculty of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA, of which he served as Associate Director from 2004 to 2014, and he holds a concurrent part-time appointment as Visiting Professor at Xibei University in Xi’an, China. Falkenhausen was educated at Bonn University, Peking University, Kyoto University, and Harvard University, receiving his PhD in anthropology from Harvard in 1988. His research mainly concerns the archaeology of Bronze Age China, focusing on large interdisciplinary and historical issues on which archaeological materials can provide significant new information. His major books are Suspended Music: Chime Bells in the Culture of Bronze Age China (1993) and the award-winning Chinese Society in the Age of Confucius (1000-250 BC): The Archaeological Evidence (2006). The current lecture coincides with the release of his new monograph, Economic Trends in China During the Age of Confucius: The Archaeological Evidence, to be published with the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press. Falkenhausen has served as co-Principal Investigator and Instructor of Record for archaeological projects and field schools and received numerous honorary professorships and fellowships.

Between the Minoans and the Mycenaeans: Craft Technologies in the Second Millennium BCE Aegean
2025-11-15 14:00 - 16:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Royce Hall, 314, 314 Royce Hall, 10745 Dickson Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Between the Minoans and the Mycenaeans: Craft Technologies in the Second Millennium BCE Aegean
Lecture by Nikolas Papadimitriou (Director, Paul and Alexandra Canellopoulos Museum, Athens) and Eleni Konstantinidi-Syvridi (Curator, Department of Prehistoric, Egyptian, Cypriot and Near Eastern Collections of Antiquities, at the Hellenic National Archaeological Museum, Athens)
Demonstration by Akis Goumas (contemporary jewelry maker and researcher of ancient crafting technologies)
Hosted by the
UCLA SNF Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture
in collaboration with
The J. Paul Getty Museum
and held in conjunction with the exhibition
The Kingdom of Pylos: Warrior-Princes of Mycenaean Greece
Saturday, November 15, 2025
2:00 P.M.
314 Royce Hall, UCLA Campus
RSVP Here
The Kingdom of Pylos: Warrior-Princes of Mycenaean Greece exhibition at the Getty Villa brings together some of the most exquisite artistic creations of the second millennium BCE Aegean. Many of these objects were the products of cultural fusion and combined elements from different artistic traditions originating in Minoan Crete, Mycenaean Greece, and areas far beyond. This presentation will examine the highly demanding techniques goldsmiths and seal-engravers used to create many of the objects in this exhibition. Following the lecture, Akis Goumas will demonstrate the main steps of the technical processes involved in Mycenaean gold-working (sheet metal, wire, granulation, etc.) and Minoan seal-engraving (soft materials and hard stones).

Demonstration by Akis Goumas
The artist and researcher of ancient technologies Akis Goumas will demonstrate the main steps of the technical processes involved in:
– Mycenaean gold-working (sheet metal, wire, granulation etc.)
– Minoan seal-engraving (soft materials and hard stones).
The demonstration is based on the results of studies conducted in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, the Herakleion Archaeological Museum, other museums in Greece, and the Coprus of Minoan and Mycenaean Seals at Heidelberg, Germany, which involved microscopic examination of artefacts, archaeometric analyses and experimental reconstructions.
The studies have been conducted in collaboration with Dr Eleni Konstantinidi-Syvridi, of the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, and Dr Nikolas Papadimitirou, of the Paul and Alexandra Canellopoulos Museum, Athens. Participants will have the opportunity to discuss with Mr Goumas and try some of the tools and materials used in the experiments.
Bios:
Nikolas Papadimitriou is the Director of the Paul and Alexandra Canellopoulos Museum, Athens, Greece (www.camu.gr). He specializes in the Aegean Bronze Age, with an emphasis on Mycenaean burial practices, cultural interaction in the Mediterranean in the 2nd millennium BCE, the prehistory of Athens and Attica, and the study of craft technologies. Previously, he worked as a Lecturer at the Institute of Classical Archaeology, Heidelberg University, Germany, the Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens and the Cyprus Department of Antiquities. Currently, he is co-directing research projects at the archaeological sites of Marathon, Thorikos (Attica) and Kato Samikon (Elis). He has a rich publication record and has received research fellowships from the Centers of Hellenic Studies at Princeton and Harvard (2011, 2017).
Eleni Konstantinidi-Syvridi is Curator at the Department of Prehistoric, Egyptian, Cypriot and Near Eastern Collections of Antiquities at the National Archaeological Museum, Athens (https://www.namuseum.gr/en/). She graduated from the University of Ioannina, Greece, and received her PhD at the University of Birmingham, UK. Her research focuses on the Late Bronze Age Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean, with special interest in Mycenaean jewelry and dress. She has given seminars and lectures on the history and technology of Mycenaean jewelry in Greece and abroad and has written articles and book chapters on various Late Bronze Age issues. For the past decade, she has been co-directing a multi-disciplinary project for the reconstruction of ancient gold-working techniques, while she is currently studying the corpus of metal signet rings housed in the Mycenaean Collection of the National Archaeological Museum.
Akis Goumas is a contemporary jewelry maker and researcher of ancient crafting technologies. After receiving a Diploma in Economics (1978), he was trained as a jeweler and silversmith. From 1982 to 1986 he studied gemology and seal engraving in Greece and Germany. Between 1990 and 2006 he was the head designer in the jewelry company ONAR. Since 2000, he has been teaching creative jewelry at the Chalkis School of Art, and since 2017 at the ANAMMA Jewelry School in Athens, and the ALCHIMIA Contemporary Jewelry School in Florence. Since 2006, he is member of an interdisciplinary group of researchers, who study ancient gold-working and seal-engraving techniques. In 2021 he was a Visiting Artist at the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies. Ιn 2023-24, he was the holder of a Homo Faber fellowship, established by Jaeger LeCoultre and Michelangelo Foundation for Creativity and Craftsmanship. In 2024-25 he participated in the organization of the exhibition “Art in Gold. Jewelry in Hellenistic Times” at the Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece.
This event is organized by Professor David Schneller (UCLA) and Dr. Claire Lyons (Getty) and is made possible thanks to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).
Co-Sponsored by:
UCLA College, Division of Humanities
The Peter J. and Caroline B. Caloyeras Endowment for the Arts
The George P. Kolovos Family Centennial Term Chair in Hellenic Studies
Gefyra
UCLA Global Antiquity
The Joan Palevsky Chair of Classics at UCLA
UCLA Department of Art History
UCLA Department of Classics
UCLA Department of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures
UCLA David C. Copley Center for the Study of Costume Design
Don’t miss our other upcoming programs in collaboration with the J. Paul Getty Museum here:
Saturday, November 22, 2025Pylos and Minoan Crete
Saturday, December 6, 2025
Messenia to Mesopotamia: New Directions in the Art and Archaeology of the Second Millennium BCE Symposium

La Xirgu: la pelicula
2025-11-15 17:00 - 19:00 UTC | Rolfe Hall 4302, Lydeen Library, Rolfe Hall 4302, Lydeen Library
Barcelona, 1927. Only a few hours remain before Margarita Xirgu is set to premiere “Mariana Pineda” written by then-unknown Federico Garcia Lorca. The authorities threaten her with prison or exile if she dares to stage this libertarian play. Yet nothing seems to shake her determination, Until her friend and mentor, Valle-Inclán, also turns against her.

Chamber Music at the Clark presents: Modigliani Quartet
2025-11-16 14:00 - 16:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 2520 Cimarron Street, Los Angeles, CA, 90018, United States
Founded in 2003, the Modigliani Quartet is recognized as one of today’s most sought-after quartets, featuring regularly in prominent international series and on the world’s most prestigious stages.
In addition to annual tours in the United States and in Asia, the quartet’s numerous European tours have brought them to Wigmore Hall, the Paris Philharmonie, the Théâtre des Champs- Elysées, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Saint-Petersburg Philharmonia, and the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg.
The Modigliani Quartet has been recording for the Mirare label since 2008 and has released 13 award-winning albums. In January 2024, the quartet’s latest album with string quartets by Grieg and Smetana was released and received enthusiastically by the international press. Since 2024, the quartet has dedicated itself to the greatest challenge in the life of a string quartet: recording all 16 string quartets by Beethoven.
For further details and a the full program, please visit our website.

Saving our Survivors: How American Jews Learned about the Holocaust – Rachel Deblinger
2025-11-18 14:00 - 15:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Royce Hall, 314, 314 Royce Hall, 10745 Dickson Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Drawing on previously unexamined archives and postwar cultural materials, Saving Our Survivors explores how American Jews constructed meaning out of devastation—and how humanitarian aid became intertwined with public memory. The book uncovers how American Jewish communities first came to learn about and respond to the Holocaust through communal campaigns, radio broadcasts, speeches, short films, and urgent calls to action. Rachel Deblinger highlights the messy, diffuse, and contested nature of memory construction in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust and raises larger questions about how historical tragedies are narrated in moments of crisis.
Rachel Deblinger is the author of Saving Our Survivors: How American Jews learned about the Holocaust (2025, Indiana University Press). Her research focuses on Holocaust memory in America, media technology, and the intersection of philanthropy and representation. Deblinger is also the Director of the Modern Endangered Archives Program (MEAP) at the UCLA Library, a granting program that funds the digitization and preservation of at-risk cultural heritage materials from around the world. MEAP grants facilitate archival documentation and open access to diverse global collections.

Tuesday, November 18, 2025 • 314 Royce Hall • 2 PM
Saving our Survivors: How American Jews Learned about the Holocaust
Rachel Deblinger (UCLA)
The 1939 Society Program in Holocaust Studies
The Alan D. Leve Program for Public History
RSVP

Fiebre de carnaval: una conversación con Yuliana Ortiz Ruano
2025-11-18 16:00 UTC | Rolfe Hall 4302, Lydeen Library, Rolfe Hall 4302, Lydeen Library
Yuliana Ortiz Ruano is an Afro-Ecuadorian writer, poet, and teacher, as well as a DJ of Afro-Caribbean music. She has published several books of poetry and prose, including the multi award-winning Fiebre de carnaval (Carnaval Fever), which was chosen as one of the 50 best books of 2022 by El País. She is also the author of the poetry books Sovoz, Canciones del fin del mundo, y Cuaderno del imposible retorno a Pangea, and the book of short stories Litorales. She was selected by the International Writers in Residence program in Granada, Spain in 2023, and was chosen for the Translator Choice II award at the LATINALE Latin America Literature Festival in Berlin. Her first novel, Carnaval Fever, won the Joaquín Gallegos Lara Award (Ecuador), the Primo Romanzo Latinoamericano Award (Italy), and the PEN Translation Award (UK).

Scotland’s Gutenberg: William Ged and the Invention of Stereotype Printing, 1725–49
2025-11-19 16:00 - 17:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 2520 Cimarron Street, Los Angeles, CA, 90018, United States
Twentieth Kenneth Karmiole Lecture on the History of the Book Trade
Lecture by William Zachs, Director of the Blackie House Library and Museum
In this lecture, William Zachs outlines the origins of stereotype printing (print production from metal plates rather than moveable type), then turns his focus to the “non-moveable type” productions of Edinburgh goldsmith William Ged (c. 1683–1749). Taking a forensic look at Ged’s few known works, Zachs hypothesizes the existence of a group of previously unknown stereotyped books, thus offering a revised history of alternative methods of book production in Britain in the first half of the 18th century.
Dr. William Zachs is the Director of the Blackie House Library and Museum, a registered Scottish charity with a mission to bring Scottish culture to a wider audience. He is the author of numerous books and articles on book history and book collecting. In 2013, the University of Edinburgh awarded him an honorary Doctor of Letters for his contributions to book historical studies and book curation. He is a Fellow of the National Library of Scotland and an Honorary Fellow at the universities of Edinburgh and Stirling.

This event is free to attend with advance registration and will be held in person at the Clark Library.
Registration will close on Monday, November 17 at 5:00 p.m.
Capacity is limited at the Clark Library; walk-in registrants are welcome as space permits.
This lecture will also be livestreamed on the Center’s YouTube Channel.

Can Comedia Help Us Understand California’s Past?
2025-11-20 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes, 501 N. Main Street, Los Angeles, 90012
Co-presented by Zócalo Public Square, Playwrights’ Arena, UCLA Diversifying the Classics, and LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes, with generous support from Snap Foundation, Karsh Family Foundation, Broad Foundation, and Olga Garay-English
During the artistic and literary boom of Spain’s Golden Age, theater known as comedia helped audiences on both sides of the Atlantic understand their past and present. Today, contemporary playwrights have adapted these 17th-century classics to shed light on L.A.’s history, touching on issues including power and sexuality, gentrification, and Black, Korean, and Latino identity.
Join us under the stars at LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes for readings of three adaptations from the 2024 anthology Golden Tongues: Adapting Hispanic Classical Theater in Los Angeles. Barbara Fuchs, director of UCLA’s Diversifying the Classics initiative, will introduce central themes of the plays. Playwrights Diana Burbano, June Carryl, and Luis Alfaro will offer brief pre-performance remarks and will sign copies of Golden Tongues, available for purchase from Tía Chucha’s, during a post-reading reception.
Admission is free, but registration in advance is advised. Visit this page to reserve seats.
About the plays:
In Diana Burbano’s Flickers, a director in early 20th-century Los Angeles becomes embroiled in the perils of Hollywood: ambition and treachery, prejudice and plagiarism. In her version of Juan Ruiz de Alarcón’s La cueva de Salamanca (The Cave of Salamanca), Burbano recreates the magic of the first days of film while exploring its racism.
June Carryl’s Florence and Normandie adapts Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s Amar después de la muerte (To Love Beyond Death) and sets the action against the backdrop of the Rodney King uprising. As tensions boil, two families entwined by location and love find themselves living the American racial nightmare.
Painting in Red is Luis Alfaro‘s “whitewash” of Calderón de la Barca’s El pintor de su deshonra (The Painter of His Own Dishonor), exploring a Chicano painter’s relationship to a real and imagined Spain and an endlessly gentrifying Los Angeles.
This program is part of California 175 — What Connects California?, a suite of free Zócalo events and essays, bringing together leaders and thinkers from all walks of life to envision California’s next 175 years.

Pylos and Minoan Crete
2025-11-22 15:00 - 17:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Royce Hall, 314, 314 Royce Hall, 10745 Dickson Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
The “Ring of Nestor”, c. 1500 BC, Oxford, Ashmolean Museum.
Pylos and Minoan Crete
Lecture by Professor Andreas Vlachopoulos, University of Ioannina
Hosted by the
UCLA SNF Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture
in collaboration with
The J. Paul Getty Museum
and held in conjunction with the exhibition
The Kingdom of Pylos: Warrior-Princes of Mycenaean Greece
(June 27, 2025 – January 12, 2026 at The Getty Villa)
Saturday, November 22, 2025
4:00 p.m.
314 Royce Hall, UCLA Campus
Reception to follow
RSVP Here
Description:
Pylos is a sunny, fertile coastal area of Messinia (Southwestern Peloponnese), with many features of the land and its natural resources resembling those of the palatial Knossos. In the heyday of the New Palace period of Crete (c. 1600-1500 BC) the area of Pylos gradually became the seat of powerful rulers of the Mycenaean elite, whose way of life reflected not only a strong influence from the art and aesthetics of the Minoans, but also a high degree of ideological and religious osmosis of the two societies. The lecture entitled Pylos and Minoan Crete will follow the historical course of the two Aegean cultures and will try to interpret the broad Minoan influence on Pylos and the other Helladic regions where the palatial Mycenaean world of early Greece will gradually emerge.
Bio:
Andreas G. Vlachopoulos is Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology at the University of Ioannina. He completed undergraduate and postgraduate studies in Archaeology at the University of Athens, specializing in Aegean Prehistory. His 1995 dissertation on the Post-Palatial period on Naxos and the Aegean received the Michael Ventris Award. He has been a Research Fellow at Princeton University (1998-99) and at the New York University Institute of Fine Arts (2001-02). Currently, Andreas directs the Vathy, Astypalaia Archaeological Project and the Kokkino Vouno Project at Akrotiri, Thera. Among his main research interests are the Mycenaean Cyclades, the Mycenaean period in Pylos, the Thera frescoes, and the Aegean Early Bronze Age. He is the author of monographs on Mycenaean Naxos and Astypalaia and the editor of two volumes on Aegean Prehistory (Argonautes and Paintbrushes) and seven volumes on Greek archaeology. He is a Fellow of the Archaeological Society at Athens and a Corresponding Member of the German Archaeological Institute.
This event is organized by Professor David Schneller (UCLA) and Dr. Claire Lyons (Getty) and is made possible thanks to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).
Co-Sponsored by:
UCLA College Division of Humanities
The Peter J. and Caroline B. Caloyeras Endowment for the Arts
The George P. Kolovos Family Centennial Term Chair in Hellenic Studies
Gefyra
UCLA Global Antiquity
The Joan Palevsky Chair of Classics at UCLA
UCLA Department of Art History
UCLA Department of Classics
UCLA Department of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures
UCLA David C. Copley Center for the Study of Costume Design
Don’t miss our other upcoming programs in collaboration with the J. Paul Getty Museum here:
Saturday, November 15, 2025Between the Minoans and the Mycenaeans: Craft Technologies in the Second Millennium BCE Aegean
Saturday, December 6, 2025
Messenia to Mesopotamia: New Directions in the Art and Archaeology of the Second Millennium BCE Symposium

EVENT POSTPONED: Black Lives Under Nazism: Making History Visible in Literature and Art – Sarah Phillips Casteel
2025-12-02 14:00 - 15:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Royce Hall, 314, 314 Royce Hall, 10745 Dickson Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
The event, Black Lives under Nazism: Making History Visible in Literature and Art with Sarah Phillips Casteel (Carleton University), has been postponed. A new date will be announced once it is finalized.
We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your understanding. Please stay tuned for further updates.

In a little-known chapter of World War II, Black people living in Nazi Germany and occupied Europe were subjected to ostracization, forced sterilization, and incarceration in internment and concentration camps. In the absence of public commemoration, Black writers and visual artists have preserved the stories of these forgotten victims of the Third Reich. Their works of memoir, poetry, fiction, painting and photomontage illuminate both the relationship between creativity and wartime survival and the role of art in the formation of collective memory. Probing the boundaries of Holocaust memory and representation, this talk draws attention to a largely unrecognized artistic corpus that challenges the erasure of Black wartime history.
Sarah Phillips Casteel is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and Professor of English at Carleton University. She has written and co-edited five books, the most recent of which is Black Lives Under Nazism: Making History Visible in Literature and Art (Columbia University Press, 2024). She has held visiting professorships at the Universities of Vienna and Potsdam and visiting fellowships at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Zentrum Jüdische Studien Berlin-Brandenburg. The recipient of a Canadian Jewish Literary Award and a Polanyi Prize, she is a member of the Academic Council of the Holocaust Educational Foundation of Northwestern University.

Black Lives Under Nazism: Making History Visible in Literature and Art
Sarah Phillips Casteel (Carleton University)
In conversation with Ben Ratskoff (Occidental College)
Introduction by/Moderated by Todd Presner (UCLA)
Michael and Irene Ross Program in Yiddish Studies

Embracing Exile: The Case for Jewish Diaspora – David Kraemer
2025-12-04 14:00 - 15:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Royce Hall, 314, 314 Royce Hall, 10745 Dickson Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Jewish people have always wandered. From the time of the Babylonian Exile in the early 6th century BCE, diaspora became the Jews’ normal condition, and though they may have hoped for a return to their “Promised Land” at the “End of Days,” they made sense of their many homes, defending diaspora as the realm where Jewish life could grow, and they could fulfil their obligations to God.
Embracing Exile analyzes biblical and rabbinic texts, philosophical treatises, works of Kabbalah, Hasidism, and a multiplicity of modern expressions, to show that diaspora Jews through the ages insisted that God joined them in their exiles, that “Zion” was found in Babylon, Ottoman Turkey, and Eastern Europe, and that, as citizens of the world, Jews could only live throughout the world. The result is an assertion that lament has not been the most common Jewish response to “exile” and that Zionism is not the natural outcome of either Jewish ideology or history.
David Kraemer is Joseph J. and Dora Abbell Librarian at The Jewish Theological Seminary, where he has also served as Professor of Talmud and Rabbinics for many years. As Librarian, Prof. Kraemer is at the helm of the most extensive collection of Judaica—rare and contemporary—in the Western hemisphere. On account of the size and importance of the collection, Prof. Kraemer is instrumental in setting policy and establishing vision for projects of international importance.
Prof. Kraemer is a prolific author and commentator. His books include The Mind of the Talmud (1990), Responses to Suffering in Classical Rabbinic Literature (1995), The Meanings of Death in Rabbinic Judaism (2000), Jewish Eating and Identity Through the Ages (Routledge, 2007, 2009), and A History of the Talmud (Cambridge U. Press, 2019), among others. His most recent book is Embracing Exile: The Case for Jewish Diaspora, (Oxford U. Press, 2025).

Thursday, December 4 2025 • 314 Royce Hall • 2 PM
Embracing Exile: The Case for Jewish Diaspora
David Kraemer (Jewish Theological Seminary)
Moderator: David N. Myers (UCLA)
Alan D. Leve Center Book Talk Series
RSVP

Strange Synchronicities and Familiar Parallels in Asia, 1600–1800: Joseph Fletcher’s Plane Ride Revisited Conference 1: Empires of Thought
2025-12-05 09:00 - 17:15 (America/Los_Angeles) | William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 2520 Cimarron Street, Los Angeles, CA, 90018, United States
Conference organized by Choon Hwee Koh (History, UCLA), Meng Zhang (History, UCLA), Abhishek Kaicker (History, UC Berkeley)
Co-sponsored by the UCLA Program on Central Asia, Center for Near Eastern Studies, and Center for Chinese Studies
In this year’s Core Program, historians of the Ottoman, Qing, and Mughal empires revisit the problem of comparison by considering synchronicities and structural parallels across Asia.
This first conference, Empires of Thought, looks at imperial ideology, challenging and broadening the default understanding of empire as a large territorial state by focusing on how each empire upheld a normative universe within which particular kinds of political authority and legitimacy were articulated. How did early modern Eurasian empires conceive of and construct power and legitimacy? What were the bases of imperial ideologies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and who were their audiences? More fundamentally, what do we mean when we talk about Eurasian “empires”? Rather than assuming a commonality in the aims of historical empires, we seek to understand how varying traditions of thought about power patterned the practices of rule. Papers addressing these questions will be presented in four thematically organized panels: “Rulers and Plebeians,” “Testing Sovereignty,” “Temporal and Genealogical Order,” and “Scholars and Bureaucrats.”
The list of speakers, the conference schedule, and the registration form, is available on our website.

This event is free to attend with advance registration and will be held in person at the Clark Library.
Registration will close on Monday, December 1 at 5:00 p.m.
Capacity is limited at the Clark Library; walk-in registrants are welcome as space permits.

Messenia to Mesopotamia: New Directions in the Art and Archaeology of the Second Millennium BCE Symposium
2025-12-06 09:00 - 16:15 (America/Los_Angeles) | Royce Hall, 314, 314 Royce Hall, 10745 Dickson Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Messenia to Mesopotamia: New Directions in the Art and Archaeology of the Second Millennium BCE
Hosted by the
UCLA SNF Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture
in collaboration with
The J. Paul Getty Museum
and held in conjunction with the exhibition
The Kingdom of Pylos: Warrior-Princes of Mycenaean Greece
Saturday, December 6, 2025
9:00 A.M. – 4:15 P.M.
314 Royce Hall, UCLA Campus
Reception to follow
RSVP Here
Symposium Description: TBD
Bios:
Emily Catherine Egan is Assistant Professor of Ancient Eastern Mediterranean Art and Archaeology in the Department of Art History & Archaeology at the University of Maryland. She holds a dual B.A. in Classics and Old World Archaeology and Art from Brown University, an M.Phil. in Archaeology from the University of Cambridge, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Classics from the University of Cincinnati. Her research focuses on artistic practice in the Bronze Age Aegean, and particularly on the production, consumption, and iconography of Mycenaean painted surface decoration. She has undertaken archaeological fieldwork in Italy, Turkey, Jordan, Armenia, Cyprus, and most recently in Greece, where she is engaged in the study of wall and floor paintings from the Palace of Nestor at Pylos, and Petsas House, Mycenae.
Joanne Murphy is a professor of Ancient Mediterranean Studies and Archaeology at the University of North Carolina Greensboro, where she has worked since 2008 and serves as Department Head. She is also the current Director of the Irish Institute of Hellenic Studies, President of The American Friends of the Irish Institute of Hellenic Studies (a 501c non-profit), and an Academic Trustee at the Archaeological Institute of America. She received her BA and first MA from University College Dublin, Ireland, and an MA and PhD from University of Cincinnati. Her research focuses primarily on religion and death and how they connect with identity, community, and political economies. As well as giving tens of lectures both nationally and internationally, she has published over 30 papers and five edited volumes on these and related topics and has one monograph in press and two other volumes underway. She has led two major research projects: one, a legacy study, on the tombs around Pylos in southwestern Greece and one, an archaeological survey on the Greek island of Kea. She has received awards for her research and for initiatives at UNCG and non-profits from various foundations including INSTAP, the Mellon Foundation, the Onassis Foundation, the NEH, and the Loeb Foundation. She has also been recognized for her teaching and was awarded the Archaeological Institute of America’s Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award and UNCG College of Arts and Sciences Teaching Excellence Award. She has a great love of sharing the past and has led tours in Greece, Ireland, France, England, Italy, and Turkey, as well as running an annual archaeological field school in Greece.
Efthymia Tsiolaki is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Classics at the University of Toronto. She is an archaeologist specializing in the Bronze Age Aegean, with a focus on the social and economic organization of the Greek mainland. Her current research project explores the long-term history of settlement and land use in Messenia from the bottom-up, integrating surface survey and excavation data with GIS-based analysis to highlight the dynamic character of peripheral communities before and during the rise of the Mycenaean palace at Pylos (ca. 3000 – 1100 BC). She also studies the technology and function of ground stone tools across several archaeological projects, examining their roles in domestic and craft activities.
This event is organized by Professor David Schneller (UCLA) and Dr. Claire Lyons (Getty) and is made possible thanks to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).
Co-Sponsored by:
UCLA College Division of Humanities
Peter J. and Caroline B. Caloyeras Endowment for the Arts
George P. Kolovos Family Centennial Term Chair in Hellenic Studies
Gefyra
UCLA Global Antiquity
The Joan Palevsky Chair of Classics at UCLA
UCLA Department of Art History
UCLA Department of Classics
UCLA Department of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures
UCLA David C. Copley Center for the Study of Costume Design
Don’t miss our other upcoming programs in collaboration with the J. Paul Getty Museum here:
Saturday, November 22, 2025Pylos and Minoan Crete
Saturday, December 6, 2025
Messenia to Mesopotamia: New Directions in the Art and Archaeology of the Second Millennium BCE Symposium

Unpacking my Father’s Book Store – Laurence Roth
2025-12-09 14:00 - 15:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Royce Hall, 314, 314 Royce Hall, 10745 Dickson Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
During its nearly thirty years in business, J. Roth / Bookseller of Fine & Scholarly Judaica was a microcosm of the Los Angeles Jewish community and one of the premier Jewish bookstores in the United States. It thrived in the glow of the Jewish ethnic pride movements of the sixties and seventies but was unable to market its uniquely broad definition and collection of Jewish literature after the resurgence of Orthodox Judaism and the assimilation of Jewish writing into the corporate book superstores during the late eighties and early nineties. Through a combination of memoir and critical analysis, and by connecting both to larger forces that helped shape Jewish and American book retailing in the twentieth-century, Laurence Roth not only illustrates the importance of one American Jewish bookstore to its customers and to the family that helped run it. He explores, too, the role of Jewish bookstores in the assembly and transformation of Jewish cultures and how independent bookstores like J. Roth Bookseller, which mostly disappear from history, often had outsized effects on their communities. Breaking with conventional modes of scholarship, Roth tells a unique and troubled story that rarely gets told, one that is both personal and analytical, theoretical but rooted in the everyday.
Laurence Roth is the Charles B. Degenstein Professor of English and director of the Jewish & Israel Studies Program and The Build Collaborative (a project-based center for liberal arts, business, and creativity) at Susquehanna University, Pennsylvania. He is the author of Inspecting Jews: American Jewish Detective Stories; coeditor, with Nadia Valman, of The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Jewish Cultures; and editor of Modern Language Studies, the scholarly journal of the Northeast Modern Language Association.

Tuesday, December 9, 2025 • 314 Royce Hall • 2 PM
Unpacking my Father’s Book Store: The Life and Times of J. Roth Bookseller in Los Angeles, 1966-1994
Laurence Roth (Susquehanna University)
Moderator: David N. Myers (UCLA)
Arnold Band Distinguished Lecture in Jewish Studies
RSVP

FLOW: Philosophy and Jiu-Jitsu Workshop
2025-12-11 - 2025-12-13 | John Wooden Center (Blue Room) & Dodd Hall
December 11-13, 2025
John Wooden Center (Blue Room) & Dodd Hall 399
RSVP HERE

Please join us December 11-13, 2025 for FLOW: Philosophy Workshop.

FLOW is a pre-read workshop in which leading philosophers working in a range of areas in philosophy will present work in progress and receive comments from other leading philosophers in their respective fields. In addition to the usual academic discussions, FLOW will have a distinctive community-building component– the workshop will include sessions at the Blue Room in the John Wooden Center in which workshop participants will be able to participate in sport jiu-jitsu together. We will be offering seminars by Dominyka Obelenyte, Michael Schweiger, and Christian Barry, as well as open-mat sessions. These sessions will take place in the mornings of Dec 11-13.

In the afternoons, we will shift over to the philosophy position of the workshop. The format here is pre-read. Talks will be made available either as a paper or a recorded video. If you need access to view the papers, please reach out to Ashna Madni at ashnamadni@humnet.ucla.edu.

Seminars
Dominyka Obelenyte, Frogtown Jiu-Jitsu
Christian Barry, Australian National University
Michael Schweiger, Alliance Lucas Lepri

Pre-Read Talks

Christian Barry, ANU / Comments by Josh Armstrong, UCLA
Daniel Greco, Yale / Comments by Rush Stewart, Rochester
Caroline Wall, Boston University / Comments by Thomas Lambert, Pitzer
Adam Elga, Princeton / Comments by Isaiah Lin, Providence Christian College

Workshop Program

***Update on 12/10/25 at 2:30 PM PST***: Adam Elga’s session has moved to Friday and Daniel Greco’s session has moved to Saturday. Isaiah Lin, Providence Christian College, will comment on Adam Elga’s paper.

Thursday, December 11
1:00 PM – 3:00 PM – Gi Seminar with Michael Schweiger and Open Mat (Wooden Center Blue Room)
4:00 PM – 4:30 PM – Welcome and introductions (Dodd Hall 399)
4:30 PM – 5:30 PM – Talk by Dominyka Obelenyte on Philosophy of Jiu-Jitsu (Dodd Hall 399)
5:30 PM – 7:30 PM – Pre-Read Talk: Christian Barry, “Regulated Responsibilities.” Comments by Josh Armstrong (Dodd Hall 399)

Friday, December 12
10:00 AM – 12:00 PM – Open Mat (Wooden Center Blue Room)
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM – Lunch provided for participants
1:00 PM – 3:00 PM – Pre-Read Talk: Adam Elga, “A money pump argument against imprecise credences.” Comments by Isaiah Lin (Dodd Hall 399)
5:00 PM – 7:00 PM – Gi Seminar with Dominyka Obelenyte (Wooden Center Blue Room)

Saturday, December 13
10:00 AM – 12:00 PM – No-Gi Seminar with Christian Barry (Wooden Center Blue Room)
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM – Lunch provided for participants
1:00 PM – 3:00 PM – Pre-Read Talk: Caroline Wall, “No Scars Left Behind: A Hegelian Account of Apologies and Forgiveness.” Comments by Thomas Lambert (Dodd Hall 399)
3:30 PM – 5:30 PM – Pre-Read Talk: Daniel Greco, “Can the Fragmentationist Accept a Formal Account of Irrationality?” Comments by Rush Stewart (Dodd Hall 399)

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Chamber Music at the Clark presents: Escher Quartet
2026-01-11 14:00 - 16:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 2520 Cimarron Street, Los Angeles, CA, 90018, United States
Within months of its inception in 2005, the Escher Quartet came to the attention of key musical figures worldwide. Championed by the Emerson Quartet, the Escher Quartet was invited by both Pinchas Zukerman and Itzhak Perlman to be Quartet-in-Residence at each artist’s summer festival: the Young Artists Program at Canada’s National Arts Centre, and the Perlman Chamber Music Program on Shelter Island, NY.
The Escher Quartet has received acclaim for its profound musical insight and rare tonal beauty. A former BBC New Generation Artist and recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant, the quartet has performed at the BBC Proms at Cadogan Hall and is a regular guest at Wigmore Hall. In its home town of New York, the ensemble serves as season artists of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
The 2023–2024 season found the Escher Quartet embarking upon a major project: performances of the complete cycle of quartets by Bela Bartók, culminating in a single concert performance of all six at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
The Escher Quartet takes its name from the Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher, inspired by Escher’s method of interplay between individual components working together to form a whole.
Further details and the full program are on our website.

Tickets for the Escher Quartet concert will go on sale at 12 noon on Tuesday, December 9, 2025.

Bilingual Lecture Series: Panel on Afghan Refugees in Iran
2026-01-12 11:00 - 13:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Online Via Zoom
Panel on Afghan Refugees in Iran
January 12, 2026
11:00am Pacific Time
Online via Zoom
In Persian and English
Registration Required
Registration Link: https://ucla.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_hcYEa8i_QB6EIvQRBb9YEw
Munazza Ebtikar
PANEL MODERATOR
Dr. Munazza Ebtikar recently completed her PhD (2025) in Politics, History, and Anthropology at the University of Oxford. She was a 2024-2025 Peace Fellow at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs and currently serves as Co-Principal Investigator of Stanford’s Sonic Resistance Archive, documenting Afghan cultural production. She holds an MPhil in Modern Middle Eastern Studies from Oxford and completed her undergraduate studies at UC Berkeley with degrees in Peace and Conflict, Middle Eastern Politics, and Near Eastern Languages and Literatures. Dr. Ebtikar is co-editing “Civil Resistance in Afghanistan” and brings multilingual research capabilities in Persian, Arabic, and Pashto to her work on Afghanistan’s contemporary political and cultural transformations.

Ashraf Haidari
Afghan Refugees in Iran: Precarious Protection, Forced Returns, and Pathways Forward
Ambassador Ashraf Haidari is a distinguished diplomat and humanitarian leader, serving as the Founder and President of Displaced International (DI). From 2018 to 2022, he was Afghanistan’s Ambassador to Sri Lanka and Director-General of the South Asia Cooperative Environment Program (SACEP), leading initiatives on regional security, economic cooperation, climate resilience, and sustainable development. At Afghanistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he held key roles, including Director-General of Policy and Strategy and Deputy Chief of Mission and Chargé d’Affaires at the Afghan Embassies in Delhi and Washington, D.C. His leadership is deeply shaped by his personal journey as a former refugee. He earned a B.A. in Political Science and International Relations from Wabash College, followed by a Master’s in Security Studies at Georgetown University and a graduate certificate in Refugees, Migration, and Humanitarian Emergencies.

Mejgan Massoumi
Lives in Transit: Afghan Cultural Producers Navigating Precarity and Policing in Iran
Mejgan Massoumi is an Assistant Professor of History at Carnegie Mellon University. Her current book project examines the history of radio in Afghanistan, revealing how music and sound shaped politics, culture, and everyday life at the crossroads of Asia and the Middle East. Her research has been supported by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), and the American Institute of Afghanistan Studies (AIAS), and her dissertation received the World History Association’s 2023–24 Best Dissertation Prize. Dr. Massoumi earned her PhD in History from Stanford University in 2021. She also holds degrees in Architecture (B.A.) and City Planning (M.C.P.) from the University of California, Berkeley, grounding her scholarship in a cross-cultural and interdisciplinary perspective.

Mitra Naseh
Increasingly Restrictive Migration Policies for Afghans in Iran
Mitra Naseh is a forced migration scholar, currently serving as an Assistant Professor and the Founding Director of the Forced Migration Initiative (FMI) at the Brown School, Washington University in St. Louis. Her research focuses on the multidimensional social and economic integration of forcibly displaced populations, shaped by her interdisciplinary academic training, lived experience as an immigrant, and extensive fieldwork with non-governmental organizations and United Nations agencies, particularly in the Middle East and South Asia. She is the co-author of the widely recognized book Best Practices in Social Work with Refugees and Immigrants, published by Columbia University Press in 2019.

Zuzanna Olszewska
Beyond Dorr-e Dari: The Global Literary Ripples of a Pioneering Refugee Cultural Institution in Iran
Zuzanna Olszewska is Associate Professor in the Social Anthropology of the Middle East at the University of Oxford and a fellow of St. John’s College, Oxford. She is an anthropologist with a particular interest in the literary and cultural production among the Afghan diaspora. She is author of award-winning monograph The Pearl of Dari: Poetry and Personhood among Young Afghans in Iran (Indiana University Press, 2015) and numerous articles. She is also a translator of Persian-language poetry from Afghanistan.

Screening of award-winning short documentary “Dukakis: Recipe for Democracy” directed by Erin Trahan and Jeff Schmidt
2026-01-13 16:00 - 18:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Royce Hall, 314, 314 Royce Hall, 10745 Dickson Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Screening of award-winning short documentary
Dukakis: Recipe for Democracy
directed by Erin Trahan and Jeff Schmidt
Panel discussion to follow with:
Rusty Bailey (former Mayor of Riverside, California); Daniel J.B. Mitchell (Professor Emeritus, UCLA Anderson School of Management and Luskin School of Public Affairs); Erin Trahan (Co-Director); and Kelly Vlahakis-Hanks (President & CEO of ECOS)
Presented by the UCLA SNF Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture
and the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs
Sponsored by the Aris Anagnos Family Chair in Hellenic Studies
January 13, 2026
4:00 P.M.
314 Royce Hall, UCLA Campus
Reception immediately after the panel
[Film length is 28 minutes]
We are at capacity. Click here to join the waitlist and be notified when space becomes available.
Upon accepting the Democratic nomination for president in 1988, Michael Dukakis tells his fellow citizens that when they see an image of the White House, he wants them to feel pride. He pledges to serve in a White House that “sets high standards not just for the American people, but high standards for itself.” “Dukakis” catches up with the unflappable three-term Massachusetts governor three decades later. On a snowy afternoon, in the same Brookline, Massachusetts duplex he bought with his wife Kitty more than 50 years ago, he pulls a frozen turkey carcass from the freezer and starts chopping onions.
While soup broth simmers, “Dukakis” takes viewers on a journey along his long arc of leadership, reflecting on his formative years as the son of Greek immigrants up to the present. At age 85, he mentors budding public servants as a college professor. He also chairs a commission to connect Boston’s North and South rail stations – a project he has backed since the 1970s. Meanwhile a crop of new leaders – including Northeastern University undergraduate Juan Gallego, also a son of immigrants – carries Dukakis’ legacy forward all the way to the governor’s office.
“Democracy is a work in progress,” says Dukakis as he fills a bowl with steaming soup. “A precious gift that needs constant nurturing.” Amidst unprecedented uncertainty in American politics, “Dukakis” offers a reason to pause, take stock in the past, and look forward with renewed faith in what’s possible when people believe in democracy, and each other.
VIEW FILM WEBSITE
PLAY TRAILER
Parking for Royce Hall is available in Parking Structure 5 located at: 302 Charles E Young Dr N, Westwood, Los Angeles, CA 90095. Parking Structure 5 is accessible from Royce Drive, south of Sunset Boulevard, and west of Hilgard Ave. (in the northeast section of the campus).
No parking attendants will be on-site at the parking structure, and Pay-By-Space/Visitor Parking is extremely limited in this lot, so we highly encourage you to purchase a parking permit in advance:

To save time, you may purchase your parking permit for $17 in advance using Bruin ePermit: https://bruinepermit.t2hosted.com/pnw2/selectevent.aspx. Select “UCLA Royce Hall,” then “Dukakis Film Screening” With the advanced parking permit, you can park anywhere in Parking Structure 5 EXCEPT in the Pay-by-Space section. For instructions on how to use this portal, please click here.
To purchase a permit when you arrive at Parking Structure 5, please park ONLY in the Pay-By-Space/Visitor Parking area on the rooftop of this structure, and proceed to the Self-Service Pay Station machine to pay by credit card (the parking on this level is very limited).
Guest drop/Ride-share drop off is closest at the turnaround at the front of Royce Hall located at: 10745 Dickson Court, Los Angeles, CA 90095.
Accessible parking: If you have accessibility needs, you may park in the Pay-By-Space/Visitor Parking area on the rooftop (level 6) of this structure, and proceed to the Self-Service Pay Station machine to pay by credit card. Please visit our Campus Accessibility Map to view related information.

For inquiries, please contact hellenic@humnet.ucla.edu

West Coast Hellenic Book Club: Hecuba by Euripides
2026-01-17 10:00 - 11:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | by Zoom
John Gibson, RAUlysses Forcing Polyxena from Hecuba to be SacrificedPhoto courtesy of the Royal Academy of Arts, London
West Coast Hellenic Book Club:
Hecuba by Euripides
Discussion led by Professor Kathryn Morgan, Joan Palevsky Professor of Classics at UCLA, Professor Sharon Gerstel, Director, UCLA SNF Hellenic Center and Dr. Eirini Kotsovili, Senior Lecturer, Global Humanities at Simon Fraser University
Saturday, January 17, 2026
10:00 A.M. Los Angeles / 8:00 P.M. Greece
Via Zoom
RSVP Here
Hecuba takes place after the Trojan War and centers on the former queen of Troy, Hecuba, who is a prisoner. First, Hecuba is devastated by the sacrifice of her daughter Polyxena to honor Achilles. Then she learns that her son Polydoros has been murdered by King Polymestor, who was supposed to protect him. In response, Hecuba takes matters into her own hands, blinding Polymestor and killing his sons. The play is a powerful look at grief, revenge, and how war strips people of their humanity.
This program is made possible thanks to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).
Links to purchase book:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/hecuba-euripides/1136993799
https://www.vitalsource.com/products/hecuba-euripides-v9781585104345?duration=perpetual&srsltid=AfmBOoo17vpDTJoW5rheNJ_VvzWMFQ1K5Q8-F792_HdNeZQRnQnPtQuuNR4&gQT=1
Find out more about the West Coast Consortium of Hellenic Studies Programs

World Languages Day 2026
2026-01-21 10:00 - 14:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Wilson Plaza
World Languages Day, a cherished UCLA tradition, returns to spotlight the university’s diverse language programs.
Open to all UCLA students, World Languages Day offers opportunities to explore UCLA’s language offerings, engage with faculty and peers and learn about the academic and professional benefits of multilingualism.
Whether you’re curious about studying a new language or deepening your existing knowledge, World Languages Day invites you to discover the many ways languages shape our understanding of the world.
Join us on January 21 to enjoy interactive activities, cultural experiences, performances and opportunities to win prizes!

A Tattered Leaf Covers the Torn: Class Dynamics of Buddhist Charity in Vietnam
2026-01-21 16:00 - 17:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Royce 243
Professor Sara Ann Swenson (Dartmouth College) presents new research on how global trends in humanitarianism are enacted at the local level through the everyday ethics and informal practices of low-income and middle-class Buddhist volunteers in Vietnam.
Studies of humanitarianism tend to focus on the large-scale. They analyze disaster relief, international diplomacy, development politics, and privatized welfare. These studies highlight trends and policies that suggest generosity is becoming homogenized into “industrialized philanthropy.” Yet when global trends actualize in local communities, diverse ethics and interpretations of care reemerge. Differences flourish and conflicts arise over how to best care for others.
Sara Ann Swenson’s research examines the point at which national trends toward philanthropy are enacted on the ground by focusing on the role of low-income and middle-class Buddhist volunteers in Vietnam. Informal giving and “random acts of kindness” are difficult to quantify, meaning they are often overlooked among large-scale studies of humanitarianism. Yet these everyday ethics of care are also a major way that citizens—particularly low-income earners and middle-class workers—transform ethics of care into civic engagement and moral citizenship. Moreover, as volunteers draw on Buddhist teachings and practices to explain care in Vietnam, their religious ethics permeate secular and public institutions such as hospitals, universities, and social service programs. Close qualitative research shows how—even as processes of giving are increasingly globalized—the motivations, experiences, and relationships that arise from giving can vary greatly by context, depending on intersectional dynamics between donors and recipients. Researchers must always attend to questions of who is giving to whom and why for a comprehensive understanding of how social service needs are being met amid high-speed development and privatization in late socialist countries like Vietnam.
Register here.
Sara Ann Swenson is an Assistant Professor in Religion at Dartmouth College. She researches contemporary Buddhism in Vietnam. She holds a PhD and MPhil in Religion from Syracuse University, an MA in Comparative Religion from Iliff School of Theology, and a BA in English from the University of Minnesota Duluth. Her book Near Light We Shine: Buddhist Charity in Urban Vietnam is forthcoming with Oxford University Press.
Sponsor(s): Center for Buddhist Studies, Center for the Study of Religion, Center for Southeast Asian Studies

Bilingual Lecture Series: Ali Gheissari
2026-01-25 16:00 - 18:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | 314 Royce Hall, 10745 Dickson Ct, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Hasan Pirnia and Constitutional Experience: Articulation of Public Law and the Prospects of Modern State in Iran, 1905-1925
Ali Gheissari
University of San Diego
Sunday, January 25, 2026
Lecture in Persian
Royce Hall 314, 4:00pm
Zoom link for hybrid online viewing both days: https://ucla.zoom.us/j/92182697630
The topic of this presentation will be an assessment of the role of Hasan Pirnia (Moshir al-Dowleh) in the Iranian Constitutional Revolution and his contribution to articulating a theory of public law and the institutional requisites of the modern state in Iran. Given the limitations of time—and setting aside biographical details and the extensive accounts of the political events of the period—we shall focus specifically on two interrelated topics concerning the theoretical aspects of Pirnia’s political thought that also reflect the experience of the Constitutional Revolution in Iran. First, the question of public law; and second, the institutions necessary for the creation of a modern state. The Constitutional Revolution in Iran was not merely a political event but a transformation in the political mindset of Iranian society. A society that had lived for centuries under the notion of autocratic monarchy was, at the beginning of the twentieth century, attempting to experience the idea of a state governed by law and accountable to the nation. In this process, there were a few statesmen—such as Hasan Pirnia—who, under Iran’s circumstances at the time, sought to open a challenging path between traditional structures and the creation of a modern state in Iran.

Ali Gheissari studied law and political science at Tehran University and history at Oxford and later taught at the University of San Diego. He has held visiting appointments at St. Antony’s College, Oxford, Brown University, and the University of California, Irvine, and has written extensively in Persian and English on the intellectual history and politics of modern Iran and on modern philosophy and social theory. More recent publications include Iranian Studies: Selected Writings (Brill, 2026); “Lost and found in translation: Kant in Persian Philosophical Prose” (Sophia Perennis, Iranian Institute of Philosophy, 2025); “Fruits of the Gardens: Ethics, Metaphysics, and Textual Pleasures in late Qajar Iran” (Journal of Persianate Studies, 2024); and “Unequal Treaties and the Question of Sovereignty in Qajar and early Pahlavi Iran” (Ann Lambton Memorial Lecture, 2023). Professor Gheissari has been the Editor-in-Chief of Iranian Studies; is on the Editorial Board of Iran Studies book series (published by Brill); and serves on the Board of Trustees of the Persian Heritage Foundation. His current research is on aspects of legal and constitutional history of modern Iran.

Bilingual Lecture Series: Ali Gheissari
2026-01-26 11:00 - 13:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | 10383 Bunche Hall, 11282 Portola Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Hasan Pirnia and Constitutional Experience: Articulation of Public Law and the Prospects of Modern State in Iran, 1905-1925
Ali Gheissari
University of San Diego
Monday, January 26, 2026
Lecture in English
Bunche Hall 10383, 11:00am
Zoom link for hybrid online viewing both days: https://ucla.zoom.us/j/92182697630
The topic of this presentation will be an assessment of the role of Hasan Pirnia (Moshir al-Dowleh) in the Iranian Constitutional Revolution and his contribution to articulating a theory of public law and the institutional requisites of the modern state in Iran. Given the limitations of time—and setting aside biographical details and the extensive accounts of the political events of the period—we shall focus specifically on two interrelated topics concerning the theoretical aspects of Pirnia’s political thought that also reflect the experience of the Constitutional Revolution in Iran. First, the question of public law; and second, the institutions necessary for the creation of a modern state. The Constitutional Revolution in Iran was not merely a political event but a transformation in the political mindset of Iranian society. A society that had lived for centuries under the notion of autocratic monarchy was, at the beginning of the twentieth century, attempting to experience the idea of a state governed by law and accountable to the nation. In this process, there were a few statesmen—such as Hasan Pirnia—who, under Iran’s circumstances at the time, sought to open a challenging path between traditional structures and the creation of a modern state in Iran.

Ali Gheissari studied law and political science at Tehran University and history at Oxford and later taught at the University of San Diego. He has held visiting appointments at St. Antony’s College, Oxford, Brown University, and the University of California, Irvine, and has written extensively in Persian and English on the intellectual history and politics of modern Iran and on modern philosophy and social theory. More recent publications include Iranian Studies: Selected Writings (Brill, 2026); “Lost and found in translation: Kant in Persian Philosophical Prose” (Sophia Perennis, Iranian Institute of Philosophy, 2025); “Fruits of the Gardens: Ethics, Metaphysics, and Textual Pleasures in late Qajar Iran” (Journal of Persianate Studies, 2024); and “Unequal Treaties and the Question of Sovereignty in Qajar and early Pahlavi Iran” (Ann Lambton Memorial Lecture, 2023). Professor Gheissari has been the Editor-in-Chief of Iranian Studies; is on the Editorial Board of Iran Studies book series (published by Brill); and serves on the Board of Trustees of the Persian Heritage Foundation. His current research is on aspects of legal and constitutional history of modern Iran.

Prelude to the Holocaust: The Anti-Jewish Pogroms of Summer 1941 – Jeffrey Kopstein
2026-01-27 14:00 - 15:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Royce Hall, 314, 314 Royce Hall, 10745 Dickson Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
This lecture examines a particularly brutal wave a violence that occurred across hundreds of predominantly Polish and Ukrainian communities in the aftermath of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. The dominant explanations for pogrom violence center around three most frequently cited causes: endemic antisemitism in Eastern European societies, a desire for revenge for alleged Jewish involvement in Soviet crimes during the occupation of 1939–1941, and opportunistic appropriation of Jewish property. But a difficult question needs to be posed: why did pogroms occur in some places and not in others? Situating pogroms within the long history of local intercommunal relations sheds light on the sources of mass ethnic violence and the ways in which such gruesome acts might be avoided.
Jeffrey Kopstein is Dean’s Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Irvine. In his research, Professor Kopstein focuses on interethnic violence, voting patterns of minority groups, antisemitism, and anti-liberal tendencies in civil society. These interests are central topics in his latest books, Intimate Violence: Anti-Jewish Pogroms on the Eve of the Holocaust (Cornell University Press, 2018), Politics, Memory, Violence: The New Social Science of the Holocaust (Cornell University Press, 2023), and The Assault on the State: How the Global Attack on Modern Government Endangers our Future (Polity, 2024). Professor Kopstein’s writings also appear in outlets like The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Globe and Mail, and The Washington Post.

Tuesday, January 27, 2026 • 314 Royce Hall • 2 PM
Prelude to the Holocaust: The Anti-Jewish Pogroms of Summer 1941
Jeffrey Kopstein (UCI)
Moderator: Jared McBride (UCLA)
The 1939 Society Program in Holocaust Studies
RSVP

Satellite Ministries: The Rise of Christian Television in the Middle East
2026-01-27 14:30 - 16:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Bunche Hall 10383
In this book talk, Febe Armanios (Middlebury College) will present on her recently-published monograph Satellite Ministries, which explores how modern expressions of faith, technology, and political power intersected and clashed across the Global South and beyond through the analysis of sixteen Christian television channels in the Middle East. In 1981, a satellite television station called Star of Hope began broadcasting from Israeli-occupied South Lebanon. Later renamed Middle East Television (METV), its programming included American soap operas, sports, and evangelical content alongside innovative Arabic Christian televangelism. METV spurred the growth of competing Christian broadcasters and reshaped the Middle East’s media and religious landscape over the next four decades. Through extensive fieldwork and archival research, Febe Armanios explores how Western evangelicals and indigenous Christians harnessed terrestrial and satellite technologies to promote Christian television in the Middle East.
This is a hybrid event
In- person RSVP – click here.
Register here to attend online.
Co-sponsor: Center for Near Eastern Studies

After the Catastrophe: Ezra-Nehemiah and the Rebuilding of Community and Identity – Tamara Cohn Eskenazi
2026-01-29 16:00 - 17:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Royce Hall, 306, 306 Royce Hall, 10745 Dickson Plaza, Los Angeles, 90095, United States
The deaths and deportations that accompanied the destruction of the Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 587 BCE mark the turning point in the arc of biblical narrative. The book of Ezra-Nehemiah describes the reconstruction of life in Judah in the aftermath that catastrophe. It is the only book in the Hebrew Bible to depict this period. For over a century, scholars neglected Ezra-Nehemiah and the period it describes. But the pendulum swung at last, and in recent decades the book became a focal point for several reasons; among them is the growing consensus that the Pentateuch received its decisive shape during this period. Additionally, as a story about a return from exile to an ancient homeland, Ezra-Nehemiah has been embroiled in current political discourse linked with the return to Israel in the 20th century. Detractors and admirers alike concur that its messages had an enduring significance in the past and important messages for the present. This session will explore the book’s contribution to its own time as well as its relevance to today’s challenges.
Tamara Cohn Eskenazi, Ph.D. is the Effie Wise Ochs Professor Emerita of Biblical Literature and History at Hebrew Union College. She is an award-winning scholar who specializes in writings from the Persian Period (538-333 BCE), with special focus on Ezra-Nehemiah. Her book, In an age of Prose: A Literary Approach to Ezra-Nehemiah (1988) set the study of Ezra-Nehemiah on a new foundation. See also her recent Ezra: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Yale Bible Series (2023). Prof. Eskenazi is the first woman professor appointed to the Rabbinical School at Hebrew Union College and a major contributor to Women’s Studies. Her publications include, The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, a 1400 page volume (2007) which won “The Book of the Year Award” granted by The Jewish Book Council, and her JPS Bible Commentary: Ruth (2012, authored with the late Tikva Frymer-Kensky) which won the award for Women’s Studies.
Moderator: Catherine Bonesho (UCLA)
RSVP

California Medieval Seminar (Winter 2026)
2026-01-31 09:30 - 16:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Royce 306
Participation in the Seminar consists of group discussion of pre-circulated papers, typically drafts of articles, book chapters, or dissertation chapters (with complete apparatus). Two of the papers are ordinarily by emerging scholars (including PhD students) and the other two are by established scholars. We allocate one hour per paper and presenters should anticipate substantial, and substantive, feedback. Calls for presenters are circulated via e-mail from the Center approximately two months prior to each meeting and papers are accepted on a first-come basis.
Faculty, postdocs, and grad students from across California are welcome to participate. Register to attend in person or on Zoom by January 20 to receive the papers.
Register to attend in Royce 306
Register to attend via ZOOM
Email Events Manager Thi Nguyen (tnguyen@humnet.ucla.edu) if you are registering after January 20.
The papers will be discussed at the seminar in the following order:

“When is a Document Lost? Interrogating Archival Silence in Early Medieval Italy,” Maya Maskarinec (University of Southern California)
“Homo legum: The Making and Classification of Legal Experts in Montpellier, 1200-1380,” Shahrouz Khalifian (Mount Saint Mary’s University)
“How Medieval Judaism Became a System: Dogma and Principles of Faith in Fifteenth-Century Sepharad,” Bénédicte Sère (Institut Universitaire de France / University of Paris-Nanterre / EHESS-Paris)
“The Politics of Failure in late medieval Iceland,” Basil Arnould Price (State University of New York, Oneonta)

More information can be found here.

California Medieval Seminar (Winter 2026)
2026-01-31 09:30 - 16:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Royce 306
Participation in the Seminar consists of group discussion of pre-circulated papers, typically drafts of articles, book chapters, or dissertation chapters (with complete apparatus). Two of the papers are ordinarily by emerging scholars (including PhD students) and the other two are by established scholars. We allocate one hour per paper and presenters should anticipate substantial, and substantive, feedback. Calls for presenters are circulated via e-mail from the Center approximately two months prior to each meeting and papers are accepted on a first-come basis.
Register to attend in Royce 306
Register to attend via ZOOM
More information can be found here.

From Pitch to Publish in the Public Humanities
2026-02-02 - 2026-02-03 | 314 Royce Hall, 10745 Dickson Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Join award-winning writers and journalists Lauren Markham and Chris Feliciano Arnold for two days of panels and workshops.

When: February 2–3, 2026 Location: Royce 314 Free and open to the public.

Click here to RSVP.

Today, it is vital that scholars’ work is made widely available and accessible to the public. Is your research part of the public discourse? Do you have stories the public at large would benefit from knowing? Do you want to reach a broader audience, an audience beyond the peer-reviewed academic outlets? Do you want to learn how to pitch your specific story and research to non-academic publications? We have invited two writers and journalists, Lauren Markham and Chris Feliciano Arnold, to offer insights on the public humanities writing, pitching, and publication process in a series of panels, workshops, and individual feedback sessions.

Public Events

Monday, February 2, 10:30AM–12:00 PM (Royce 314) Workshop: “Enliven Your Prose with Research Details: Public Workshop with Chris Feliciano Arnold and Lauren Markham.”

Discover how vivid storytelling and well-chosen details can transform scholarly work into engaging, resonant prose. This hands-on workshop explores how to integrate research into narrative writing—making complex ideas accessible without sacrificing depth or rigor. Through interactive exercises, close reading, and discussion, participants will learn strategies for bringing their data, fieldwork, and analysis to life on the page.

Monday, February 2, 4:00–5:00 PM (Royce 314) Conversation: “Pitching and Working with Opinion Editors with Chris Feliciano Arnold and New York Times Opinion Staff Editor Isvett Verde.”

Explore strategies and best practices for effectively pitching and collaborating with newspaper editors on op-eds and opinion pieces. Gain insight into the editorial process, from crafting compelling and concise pitches that capture an editor’s attention to understanding the nuances of tone, timing, and topic relevance. This session will cover how to balance academic rigor with public accessibility, navigate editorial feedback, and establish long-term relationships with editors to amplify scholarly perspectives in the media.

Tuesday February 3, 4:00–6:00 PM (Royce 314) Panel: “Writing for the Public in Times of Peril, a panel with Chris Feliciano Arnold, Lauren Markham, The Atlantic Senior Editor Honor Jones and VQR Editor Paul Reyes.”

This panel of authors and editors will address the crucial role of academics in bridging the gap between scholarly research and public discourse during times of crisis, uncertainty, and societal upheaval, including the ethical, intellectual, and practical challenges that scholars face when translating complex ideas into accessible language for broader audiences. Refreshments will be provided.

Panelist & Writer Bios

Chris Feliciano Arnold is the author of The Third Bank of the River: Power and Survival in the Twenty-First-Century Amazon (Picador 2018). He directs the MFA in Creative Writing program at Saint Mary’s College of California.

Lauren Markham is an award-winning writer and journalist based in California whose work regularly appears in outlets such as Harper’s, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine and VQR, where she is a contributing editor. She is the author of the award-winning The Far Away Brothers: Two Young Migrants and the Making of an American Life, the California Book Award shortlisted A Map of Future Ruins: On Borders and Belonging (2024) and the recently-released Immemorial.

Isvett Verde is a staff editor in the Opinion section of The New York Times, where she helps shape conversations on immigration, culture and identity. She is also an adjunct professor of Latinx Media studies at The City College of New York. She earned a B.A. in French from Florida International University, and an M.A. in Spanish-language Journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. Her writing has been featured in the anthology titled, “Home in Florida: Latinx Writers and the Literature of Uprootedness.”

Honor Jones is a senior editor at The Atlantic, and previously at The New York Times Opinion section, where she edited cover stories and special issues for the Sunday Review. She is also the author of a novel, Sleep.

Paul Reyes is the editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review, where he develops a variety of content, including investigative reporting, essays, photography portfolios, poetry, criticism, and fiction. Before joining VQR, he was a senior editor with The Oxford American. His work as an editor has led to two National Magazine Awards (as well as several nominations), the Overseas Press Club Award, inclusion in the Pushcart Prize anthology along with regular appearances in the Best American anthologies. His book, Exiles in Eden, an investigative narrative of the 2008 housing crisis, was praised as “a wrenching chronicle of our new hard times” (Publishers Weekly) and “an engrossing memoir of American dreaming and financial devastation” (Mother Jones). His essays and reporting have appeared in VQR, The Oxford American, Harper’s, The New York Times, Literary Hub, Mother Jones, and elsewhere. His writing has earned him a Literature Fellowship in Nonfiction from the National Endowment for the Arts, a nomination for the Harry Chapin Media Award, and a nomination for the National Magazine Award in Feature Writing.

Cosponsored by:

Center for the Study of Women|Streisand Center, Division of Social Sciences, Division of Humanities, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Creative Activities, School of Music, School of Arts and Architecture, and School of Theater, Film, and Television.
