Skip to Main Content

Adam Bradley co-curates Grammy exhibit celebrating 50 years of hip hop

“Hip-Hop America: The Mixtape Exhibit” at the Grammy Museum, which runs through Sept. 4, 2024, celebrates the genre’s 50th anniversary. It is co-curated by Adam Bradley, a UCLA professor of English and African American studies and founding director of the Laboratory for Race and Popular Culture (RAP Lab) at UCLA. The immersive exhibit explores music, fashion, activism and more to allow visitors to make hands-on connections with the past, present and future of hip-hop culture. Artifacts on display will include the Notorious B.I.G.’s iconic red leather jacket, Chuck D’s handwritten and illustrated lyrics and more, while a “Sonic Playground” will…

Q&A: Justin Torres on creating ‘sustained and deep engagement’ with literature

Justin Torres was just 31 years old when his first novel, “We the Animals,” caused a literary sensation. Narrated by a young boy of mixed heritage who is finding his way amid family struggles and a budding queer identity, the novel received the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award and became a bestseller as well as an award-winning film. Since its publication more than a decade ago, Torres has experienced the kind of broad, enduring recognition that eludes many authors. The literary landscape has also changed significantly in the last decade; today, literature by and about Latinos continues to gain ground. Torres, a…

Art is their adventure: Graduate students will benefit from Peter and Sheri Weller’s beautiful vision

When he was working on his master’s degree at the highly selective program at Syracuse University’s campus in Florence, Italy, Peter Weller experienced firsthand the challenges of graduate work in art history: hours of archival research, hours in front of the art itself, fluency in multiple languages and, of course, the expenses of travel, school and life. “It was extraordinarily arduous, and I wanted to quit after a month,” he said with a laugh. An Oscar-nominated filmmaker and acclaimed actor of stage and screen, Peter persevered and even went on to earn his doctorate in art history from UCLA in 2014. However,…

New UCLA College webpage highlights books by Bruin authors

A new page on the UCLA College website celebrates the wide range of authors and expertise among College faculty, students, alumni and staff. The Bruin Bookshelf catalogs books published by scholars affiliated with the College, and all are invited to bookmark the site and use it as a resource. Through a link on the site, College-affiliated authors can submit information about books they wish to be included, and the page will be updated regularly.

Gefyra documents weaving traditions in Geraki, Laconia

From June 24 to July 14, 2023, graduate students from UCLA, Simon Fraser University, and the University of British Columbia explored the artistry of weaving in Geraki, a Lakonian village where generations of women have preserved and passed down their craft. This comprehensive project, which forms part of Gefyra, a partnership between the SNF Hellenic Centers at UCLA and SFU, was generously funded by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation. The project was held in collaboration with the Cultural Society of Geraki and was further supported by the Municipality of Evrotas. The Ephorate of Antiquities of Laconia and The Geraki Project, affiliated…

Q&A: Harryette Mullen’s newest poetry brings us closer to nature

Harryette Mullen has a singular way of connecting readers with the world around them. This spring, her work was included in a public art installation as part of New York City’s Park Poems initiative, a collaboration with the Poetry Society of America. Previously, and closer to home, Mullen wrote an original poem for UCLA Magazine that celebrated the small pleasures of everyday life, even amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The celebrated poet, literary scholar and UCLA English professor was elected in April to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The same month, her collection “Open Leaves / poems from earth” was published by the independent Black Sunflowers Poetry…

Zrinka Stahuljak and Shannon Speed receive Mellon grant

Professors Zrinka Stahuljak and Shannon Speed received a $1 million grant from the Mellon Foundation to support a project called Race in the Global Past through Native Lenses. Its goals include elevating Native American, Pacific Islander and other Indigenous scholarship on historical articulations of “race” and “Indigeneity” across the globe, and supporting efforts to recruit and retain Indigenous faculty at UCLA. In addition to creating a pipeline to study history more inclusively through these and other perspectives, the project will bring together community scholars-in-residence and deliver programming and outreach efforts led by Stahuljak, Speed and the respective interdisciplinary research centers they direct:…

Climate emergency and the future of democracy

The final Possible Worlds lecture — the sixth in the series — was delivered by Robyn Eckersley, Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor in Political Science at the University of Melbourne and a fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. Eckersley joined the UCLA community on May 24 to present a lecture, “Climate Emergency and the Future of Democracy,” which attracted attendees both online and in person. “The Possible Worlds lectures bring big thinkers who are going to challenge us to think about the state of the world and the challenges we face in regards to climate change,” said…

Dean delivers 2023 Humanities Division commencement address

Alexandra Minna Stern, dean of humanities at the UCLA College, served as the commencement speaker for the 2023 humanities commencement ceremony.  Stern said she was honored to be the speaker for the ceremony. She added that she hoped her speech would uplift students and families and thank them for all their hard work.  “This has been quite a tumultuous time, especially since these graduates were by the pandemic, and their educational experience was disrupted,” Stern said. “I believe this generation has acquired an important skills for their future: How does one live with uncertainty? How does one recalibrate all the…

Professor emeritus receives Association for Asian American Studies lifetime achievement award

King-Kok Cheung, professor emeritus of English and Asian American studies at UCLA, received the Association for Asian American Studies lifetime achievement award late April for her contributions to the fields of Asian American and Pacific Islander studies. Cheung was born and raised in Hong Kong before coming to UC Berkeley to earn her Ph.D. in English. In 1984, Cheung was the first woman of color in the humanities division and the first faculty member of Asian descent to join the English department at UCLA. She is the author of “Articulate Silences” and “Chinese American Literature without Borders.” “I feel that…