The phenomenon of “Godfearing”—adoption by gentiles, usually supposed to have been pagan—of Jewish practices including support for local Jewish communities and attendance in synagogues—has loomed larger in scholarship than it does in the sources. But the phenomenon surely existed. Some ancient writers suggest that in the first century most diaspora jewish communities had a “fringe” of gentile sympathizers who functioned for Jewish communities as protectors and mediators with local governments. Godfearing comes to the fore again in major texts of the early fifth century CE. How much of the traditional picture can be salvaged? (Spoiler: some) How continuous was fifth-century…
A dominant trend in scholarship about Jews in the Roman Imperial diaspora emphasizes the Jews’ achievement of a successful balance between integration and separation, and regards this happy equilibrium as essentially stable for centuries. I will argue that this view rests on a fundamental misreading of the sources. Asia Minor (modern Turkey) provided the richest evidence for the dominant view but when disentangled tells a story of conflict, instability and, above all, poverty. This rather gloomy picture changed for the better only in the fourth century CE, before a steady decline starting in the fifth. Seth Schwartz is the Lucius…
In this talk, I examine how Indigenous peoples in Abya Yala (Latin America) mobilize collaborative filmmaking to resist mining dispossession, even as the technologies of film and video remain entangled in extractive systems. I argue that Indigenous cosmopolitics plays a central role in contemporary audiovisual narratives that contest hegemonic representations of mining, contributing to the decolonization of extractivist perspectives and to the defense of Indigenous territorial, visual, and cultural sovereignty in Abya Yala. Drawing on selected films from Peru and Brazil and the work of Indigenous thinkers such as Ailton Krenak and Davi Kopenawa, I introduce the concept of “orphanization”…
In celebration of the 200th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the United States and Peru, on Wednesday, May 20th, the Fowler Museum, in collaboration with the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, Waystation Initiative, CMRS Center for Early Global Studies, Andean Laboratory at UCLA, and the Consulate General of Peru in Los Angeles, will host “Fowler Talks: Across Borders, Across Time,” an in-person public program spanning the afternoon and evening. The event will feature Carlos Wester La Torre and remarks by Christopher Donnan, director emeritus of the Fowler Museum and Cotsen Institute at UCLA, Silvia Forni, Shirley & Ralph Shapiro Director of the…
May 13, 2026 Moore Hall 3340 RSVP HERE Please join us on Wednesday, May 13, 2026 in Moore Hall, Room 3340, for a workshop on Richard Wollheim’s Moral Psychology. Speakers Lucy O’Brien, University College London Elisabeth Camp, Rutgers University Paolo Babbiotti, University of Turin Jürgen Lipps, UCLA Workshop Program 9:00 – 9:30 AM: Introductions and opening remarks, Vida Yao, UCLA And an introduction to Wollheim’s life and philosophy, Paolo Babbioti, University of Turin 9:30 – 11:00 AM: Paolo Babbioti (University of Turin), “Psychoanalysis and Value in Richard Wollheim” 11:00 – 11:15 AM: Break 11:15 AM – 12:45 PM:…
In its fourteenth consecutive year, the ucLADINO conference supports and celebrates the growing preservation of Ladino language and culture in the Judeo-Spanish diaspora. The theme for this year’s ucLADINO conference centers around Ladino and community resilience, exploring the ways that Ladino language preserves cultural memory yet continually adapts and reacts to change. What is the role of language transmission amidst migration and cultural ruptures? How has Ladino practice adapted to a range of spaces, from the domestic sphere and local community centers to towns, cities, nations, archives, and digital networks? CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR UCLADINO CONFERENCE 14th Annual ucLADINO…
Please join us for a screening of the film Palestine 36 on Thursday, May 7. Doors will open at 4 PM.
Please join us for a Department of Art History Colloquium with featured speaker Susan Dackerman on Wednesday, May 6 at 1 PM in Dodd 275 for her talk, The Paleontology of Print: Lithographic Limestone and the Nature of Reproducibility. Summary: When in 1796, the Munich playwright Alois Senefelder developed a method of printing from the surface of the local Bavarian limestone, he was utilizing a material that had been reproducing indexical images for millions of years. The Jurassic-era limestone slabs were riddled with fossilized flora and fauna. The same year as Senefelder’s invention, from study of the same Bavarian limestone, the French naturalist…
