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Humanities

Saving our Survivors: How American Jews Learned about the Holocaust – Rachel Deblinger

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…

Webs of Life: Domestic Jewish Worlds in Early Modern Venice – Federica Francesconi

This lecture explores domestic life in the Venetian ghetto as both a site of physical segregation, housing scarcity, and oppression, and a space of cultural negotiation and transformation. Drawing on unpublished archival sources, surviving material culture, and the built environment, it traces how Venetian Jews actively shaped their living spaces through engagement with objects, furnishings, and architectural features. From the central portego (the central space in Venetian houses) to repurposed Islamic carpets and gilt leather panels, the home emerged as a site of transculturation where Jewish, Islamic, and Renaissance aesthetics intersected. These material choices reveal not only practical adaptation but…

Practice and Theory: Next Steps in Kantian Practical Philosophy

October 24 – 25, 2025 Hershey Hall Salon (Room 158) RSVP HERE   Please join us for Practice and Theory: Next Steps in Kantian Practical Philosophy, a workshop at UCLA from Friday & Saturday, October 24-25, 2025.   Workshop Program Friday, October 24th 12:00 – 1:00 PM: Lunch 1:00 – 3:00 PM: Nataliya Palatnik (Milwaukee) “‘Not So Completely an Animal’: Kant on Moral Sensibility and Moral Constraint” 3:00 – 3:30 PM: Break 3:30 – 5:30 PM: Thomas Pendlebury (Chicago) “The Will and the Good” 5:30 PM: Reception in Hershey Hall Salon   Saturday, October 25th 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM:…

Messenia to Mesopotamia: New Directions in the Art and Archaeology of the Second Millennium BCE Symposium

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…

Pylos and Minoan Crete

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…

Between the Minoans and the Mycenaeans: Craft Technologies in the Second Millennium BCE Aegean

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…

The Scapegoat by Sophia Nikolaidou

Design by: Christopher King Gefyra Book Club: The Scapegoat by Sophia Nikolaidou, trans. Karen Emmerich (Melville House, 2015) Discussion led by Professor Sharon Gerstel, Director, UCLA SNF Hellenic Center and Dr. Eirini Kotsovili, Senior Lecturer, Global Humanities at Simon Fraser University Saturday, October 18, 2025 10 A.M. Los Angeles / 8 P.M. Greece Via Zoom RSVP Here From the Publisher: In 1948, the body of an American journalist is found floating in the bay off Thessaloniki. A small-time Greek journalist is tried and convicted for the murder… but when he’s released twelve years later, he claims his confession was the…

Celebrating 40 Years with the Greek Heritage Society: Exploring and Preserving Our Hellenic Identity

Celebrating 40 Years with the Greek Heritage Society: Exploring and Preserving Our Hellenic Identity October 11, 2025 9:30 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. – Main Event 3:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. – Genealogy Workshop (Special Event – Optional) 314 Royce Hall, UCLA campus Register Here: https://forms.gle/QrzdvXYGyMi3R9oT6 Become a Sponsor: https://forms.gle/eA8Maddp4dWuqN11A Join the Greek Heritage Society (GHS) of Southern California for a very special celebration of their 40th Anniversary with a unique informational, interactive, and invigorating multigenerational event filled with presentations, exhibits, and inspirational discussions, as well as the opportunity to explore genealogy through a personalized expert workshop. The event will explore…

2025-26 Philosophy Department Open House

Wednesday, September 24, 2025 12:00 – 2:00 PM Hershey Hall Salon (Room 158) & Courtyard RSVP HERE   Please join us on Wednesday, September 24, 2025 from 12:00 – 2:00 PM for the Philosophy Department’s Annual Open House. It will take place at the Hershey Hall Salon (Room 158) & Courtyard. This event is open to current and incoming students.   Enjoy pizza and refreshments as you meet philosophy faculty, staff, and graduate students and learn more about the philosophy department in an informal setting. Students interested in learning more about the philosophy major/minor, philosophy student clubs/organizations, and philosophy courses in general…

Philosophy First-Gen Welcome Party

Monday, September 29, 2025 5:30 – 7:00 PM Royce Hall 306 RSVP HERE   Come and meet other first-generation Philosophy students, faculty, and staff! Food and beverages will be served.     Join our mailing list! Sign up for our mailing list to stay up-to-date with future UCLA Philosophy events, conferences, and colloquia! SIGN UP HERE